Swiftly now the boat neared the "Five Fingers." Only a few miles remained before the huge boulders forming the narrow and tortuous channels called the "Five Fingers" would be reached, and the face of the pilot was stern. It was a most dangerous piece of water and many boats had already been wrecked at this point. Suddenly above the noise of the waters and the steamer's regular breathing there arose on the quiet air a shrill shriek at the stern of the boat. The lady on the upper deck had retired. The captain was sleeping off his too frequent potations, and only the pilot on the lookout knew that the scream came from a woman; but it was not repeated. The pilot's assistant was off watch, and his own duty lay at the wheel; so it happened that a guilty man who had been standing by the deck rail crept silently, unnoticed, and now thoroughly sobered, to his stateroom. His companion was nowhere to be seen. A small steamer following next day in the wake of the first boat, came to Five Finger Rapids. "See the pretty red seaweed on the rocks, mamma," cried a little boy, pointing to the low ledge on the bank of the east channel. Those who looked in the direction indicated by the boy saw, as the steamer crept carefully up to the whirlpool, a woman's white face in the water, above which streamed a mass of long auburn hair, caught firmly on the rocks. Standing by the side of his pilot, the captain's keen eye caught sight of the head and hair. "It's only Dolly Duncan," he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. "No one else has such hair; but it's no great loss anyway; there are many more of such as she, you know." [Illustration: UPPER YUKON STEAMER.] CHAPTER III. DAWSON. By this time we had passed the Hootalingua, Big Salmon, Little Salmon and Lewes rivers, and were nearing the mouth of Pelley River, all flowing into one stream from the east and uniting to form the Upper Yukon. Many smaller rivers and creeks from the west as well as the east empty into this river which gathers momentum and volume constantly until it reaches a swiftness of five miles an hour between Five Finger Rapids and Fort Selkirk.