62 THE CARIBOO TRAIL

Edmonton had withheld their help, the Over-
landers would have perished before they
reached the Rockies. Though the miner did
everything to destroy the fur trade—started
fires which ravaged the hunter’s forest haunts,
put up saloons which demoralized the Indians,
built wagon-roads where aforetime wandered
only the shy creatures of the wilds—though
the miner heralded the doom of the fur trade
—yet with an unvarying courtesy, from Fort |
Garry to the Rockies, the Hudson’s Bay men
helped the Overlanders.

The majority of the travellers now changed
oxen and carts for pack-horses and fravois,
contrivances consisting of two poles, within
which the horses were attached, and a rude
sledge. A few continued with oxen, and these
oxen were to save their lives in the moun-
tains.

The farther the Overlanders now plunged
into the wilderness, the more they were pes-
tered by the husky-dogs that roamed in howl-
ing hordes round the outskirts of the forts.
The story is told of several prospectors of this
time, who slept soundly in their tent after a
day’s exhausting tramp, and awoke to find
that their boots, bacon, rope, and clothes had
been devoured by the ravenous dogs. They

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