SS rine erates

THE PROSPECTOR 27

that the child could not fallin the fire. He set
his traps round the mountains and hunted
till the snow cleared. By the time he could
go prospecting in spring he had seven hundred
dollars’ worth of furs to sell; and he kept
the child with him in the wilds till his wife
danced herself across the boundary. Then
he brought the boy down and sent him to
school. When the Canadian Pacific Railway
crossed the Rockies, that man became one of
the famous guides. He was the first guide I
ever employed in the mountains.

Up-stream, then, headed the prospectors on
the Fraser in that autumn of 58. The miner’s
train of pack-horses is a study in nature.
There is always the wise old bell-mare leading
the way. There is always the lazy packer
that has to be nipped by the horse behind him.
There are always the shanky colts who bolt to
stampede where the trail widens; but even
shanky-legged colts learn to keep in line in the
wilds. At every steep ascent the pack-train
halts, girths are tightened, and sly old horses
blow out their sides to deceive the driver. At
first colts try to rub packs off on every passing
tree, but a few tumbles heels over head down
a bank cure them of that trick.

Always the course in new territory is accord-