26 THE CARIBOO TRAIL

the care-free outdoor life. There was the lure
of hope edging every sunrise. There was the
fresh-washed ozone fragrant with the resinous
exudations of the great trees of the forest.
There was the healing regeneration to body
and soul. Amid the dance-halls and saloons
the miner with money becomes a sot. Out in
the wilds he becomes a child of nature, simple
and clean and elemental as the trees around
him or the stars above him.

I think of one prospector whose range was
at the headwaters of the Athabaska. In the
dance-halls he had married a cheap variety
actress. When the money of his first find
had been dissipated she refused to live with
him, and tried to extort high alimony by claim-
ing their two-year-old son. The penniless pro-
spector knew that he was no equal for law
courts and sheriffs and lawyers; so he made
him a raft, got a local trader to outfit him, and
plunged with his baby boy into the wilderness,
where no sheriff could track him. I asked
him why he did not use pack-horses. He said
dogs could have tracked them, but ‘the water
didn’t leave no smell.’ In the heart of the
wilderness west of Mounts Brown and Hooker
he built him a log cabin with a fireplace. In
that cabin he daily hobbled his little son, so