120 THE GRIBBLE ISLAND BEAR

and then up the North Fork of the Kettle River. We had
gone there ostensibly to prospect, though, if the truth
be told, it was an account I had heard of the prevalence
of bears in that country that had lured me off on the
trip. The number of bears said to be there proved to be
grossly exaggerated, as, apart from an occasional black
one, we saw none at all, though it was the finest place for
mule-deer in the whole of the Province—probably on the
continent. In those days the Kettle Valley Railway had
not even been thought of, so that, apart from one or two
settlers and an occasional prospector, several of whom
had already staked claims in the district, the country
was in its primitive wild state. Mule-deer were in evidence
everywhere, and white-tailed deer swarmed in the bottom
lands. There would be deer of some sort in sight almost
all the time when we were travelling; once I counted
twenty-seven within a hundred yards of me, and others
farther off; moreover, they were so tame that they would
hardly bother to run away. But bear were conspicuous
by their absence. Then came a mining boom and a rush
of prospectors, most of them from the United States.
Amongst them was the sprinkling of the genuine article,
than whom there is no finer class of man, but the majority
were mere amateurs or rough and worthless loafers, the
latter including several professional gamblers and gun-
men. Many of them made no secret that they were just
there to stake any sort of claim, regardless of whether
there was the slightest indication of mineral or not, and
then sell it to some unwary dweller of the cities, many of
whom were badly bitten by the mining fever. Never
before or since in the history of this country has there
been such a magnificent display of revolvers and ‘‘ bowie”
knives. At that time almost every man you met was
armed to the teeth. These weapons were only very
occasionally used on one another, but were more to create
an impression, and though there were several cases of
shooting and stabbing, it was the miserable deer that
furnished the targets. It was a common thing for these
irresponsibles to practise their shooting on the deer as