~ To CARIBOO AND BACK }--

only one or two generations would be the wheat
fields of the world.

Jim, riding his buckskin pony which he had
named Jinks, was a happy boy. With a gun of
his own, which the professor kept supplied
with powder and shot, he would gallop ahead or
scour the plain on either side of the caravan,
returning from his expeditions often with a
brace of prairie chickens or rabbits, for the
nightly stew-pot. Even if pemmican was the
base of the dish, the savory game made it
palatable. Moreover, inside their own oxcart
Mary Mulligan guarded a sack of precious
onions, which she reckoned, with good man-
agement, would flavor their stews all the way to
the Rockies.

Hairy and unkempt the travellers looked
now and some were already ragged. All of them
were burnt to a deep, even brown. Jim’s red
shock glistened in the sun as he rode up and
down the line, for he had lost his cap soon
after they set out on their travels and had not
bothered to replace it with the popular toque of
the Northwest. Otherwise his clothing was
like that worn by most of the party. It con-
sisted of cloth leggings and trousers, a shirt

Be

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