We passed, peering, down the trail and out into the gulch. Straight down it we went, finding here and there, in the slow miles, that unusual mark, the mark of a toothpick shoe in a country where all men wore rubber boots or mukluks in the wet and soggy spring. There could have been but one destination for those feet, so, at last, we wasted no more time on signs, but strode hurriedly and angrily away toward Marook. We gained the top of the hill in the pass above the town and looked down. Where last we had seen the ribbon of white, was now open water. The river had broken and cleared itself of ice while we toiled over our dumps. It ran below us, a turgid flood. Down in front of the A. C. Trading Post men were assembled, and they fired guns and shouted, while dogs ran hither and yon, howling a chorus of excitement and salute for the first steamboat of the year. It was coming slowly toward the bank, a tiny, rough affair that had wintered in a slough up the river. We hurried onward toward the water front, and had small need to ask questions, inasmuch as the first one was answered. “Has any one seen Laughing Jim lately?” demanded George of the group in front of the Hang-out. “If you’re looking for him, you’re a trifle late,” jocularly asserted the nearest man. “He pulled out yesterday mornin’ in a boat, goin’ down the river. And he seemed in a hurry; but he stopped to laugh and twiddle his thumb at his nose to the boys who saw him go, and said he was right sorry he hadn’t had a chance to skin the whole blamed camp before he set sail. Ha! Ha! Ha!” He laughed boisterously at his own joke, a laugh in which we did not join, for now we knew, indubitably, that Jim had sufficient reason for haste. It was Bill, slow and cautious, who asked another question, pertinent to our quest. “Any one else gone from the camp?” he asked. “Nope! No one else had any reason to be in a rush,” was the response. “What makes you think Jim was in a hurry?” asked George, frowning at the man. “Because he just dumped himself, and some blankets, and grub into a canoe that belonged to an Injun, and paddled away as if he was out to break records,” asserted our informant. “Somebody asked him what was his rush, and he said he had a new job that he must move fast to grab. Cute of him, wasn’t it? He was a smart son of a gun, all right, and would have his little joke, right up to the last.” Again the man laughed, and then, as the steamboat was about to land, hurriedly left us and started toward the river bank. Bill beckoned us to one side.