noon
If we can make the mouth of Hardisty Creek , we ca n't complain . Besides , talking of adventures , you ca n't think of anything that has more chance in it than finding a new trail down the Athabasca side of this divide -- no telling how many muskegs or hills or creeks we may run into . '' Uncle Dick , however , proved to be a very practical wilderness guide , for he now led the party considerably to the south of the old trail into country broken and covered with down timber , but with little or none of bad muskeg in it . By noon they were well down toward the water-grade of the Athabasca itself , and at night , after a long , hard day 's work , they made their encampment at a point which to the eye seemed almost within touch of the Rocky Mountains themselves . They counted on much better going in the flat valley of the Athabasca than they had had in crossing the country back of them , broken as it had been with many little waterways and by the deep , troughlike valleys of the bolder streams making northward into the Athabasca . By this time their camp work seemed less like a picnic and more like routine work , but on the other hand they were settling down to it in steady and businesslike fashion , so that it did not take them long either to make or to break camp . Nor did their weary bodies leave them time to enjoy the splendid mountain view which now lay about them .