19

The trail was quite qood but in the
afternoon, Bill our lead man and quide
missed the trail and led us into a real
junale. While he practically cut a new
trail the rest of us sat on our horses,
hot and being eaten alive by mosquitoes.
We finally realized this just couldn't be
the trail so back-tracked and after consi-
derable checking around Bill found it,
and for the next mile all he heard was
"we knew you were on the wrona trail all
the time!’ which he was to hear quite often
in the next few weeks.

The trail from Middle Creek to Beatty
Creek was aood and the scenery just
beautiful, again following the Tahltan
River. The River here is so clean and
clear compared to below the slide where
it is very muddy lookina, Late that after-
noon we met a black bear on the trail.
This was an encounter we had been dread-
ing as we thought the horses would get
excited but the bear just stood on his
hind leas and looked us over and the
horses stood with their ears up looking
at the bear. After standing long enough
to have his picture taken,the bear then
ran off into the bush, to our relief,
and we carried on.

We arrived at Beatty Creek at 7 pm.
This is a lovely camping spot and was
used as such by the packers in the early
1900's. After camp was set up and supper
finished, we all had an icy cold bath in
the creek.

This was to be our first larqe water
crossing and is quite a wide, swift
creek so after our breath taking baths,
Bill and Tony waded the creek and found
a qood crossing for us. | hardly slept
all night thinkina about it. Also not
being much of a horsewoman the rest beqan
feelina sorry for my aching posterior and
Bill came up with a brilliant idea. He
cut a piece of sponae to fit my saddle
and from that day on no more saddle sores.
The next mornina Bill arose at 5:30 am,
built the camp fire and put the coffee on.
| soon joined him and before the others
were up we had consumed a pot of cof fee
and watched a lovely sunrise. The horses
were arazing quietly around camp except
for Apache who was in a real frisky mood
and put on a real exhibition for us. \le
had breakfast and while everyone attend-
ed to their duties Tracy prepared our
saddle baa lunches of dried fruit,
cheese, a little meat and packaged Tanq.

\le left camp at 11 am and crossed the
creek without incident. \Wle qot lost three
times that day crossing the mountains as
the trail was oblitereated by some swamps
and an old burn. It was a very hot day
and by the time we reached the Little
Tahltan River everyone was extremely tired
dry and in ugly moods, Just as we reached
the river Bill saw a huae grizzly. This
was one advantane he had beina lead man,
he saw all the aame and by the time we
qot there the aame would be aone. Not
knowina exactly were we were, Bill checked
around and found we were across the River
from a place marked on the map as ''The
Cabins'', This is an old fish camp and
there are a lot of old smokina and dryina
sheds still standina. \le had to cross the
river in two places. Goldie did fine the
first time but wouldn't budqe at the
second crossina. | lost patience and
walked and Bill had to come back and re-
trive the horse. We camped in a large
field where the qrazina was excellent for
the horses but the flies were terrible for
both the horses and us. Tracy proceeded
to spray the horses with repellent which
helped considerably. It was so hot we
couldn't bear to think of cooking over a
camp fire so had a cold supper and went
to bed early.

; we
Fish Shed at Saloon.

The next morning Bill was aagain the
first to awaken but it was rainina so
stayed in bed until nine and the shower
had passed, Reina the first one up, Bill
was going to make a camp fire and qet the
coffee brewing, he just stepped out of
the tent when it collapsed on Tracy and
1. Bill was kind enough to set the tent
up temporarily so we could stay in bed
until the coffee was ready. teu *