—SS—

MARK CREEK
STORE

Kimberley
Departmental Store
e

We are out to assist the War Effort, to
help the individual, and to beat the Enemy
by advocating a Program of Economy,
Thrift and Saving for the duration.

SELKIRK MOTORS LTD.

HONEST SERVICE
HONEST PRICES
Phone 111]

Headquarters for Tourists
Representatives A.A.A.

Kimberley British Columbia

Muraca’s Grocery

Groceries, Fruits and Vege-
tables, Flour, Feed, Etc.

We Sell the Best for the Least, and Throw in
the Service

@
THE FRIENDLY STORE
@
Kimberley, B. C.

THE HOME INN

Always Your Choice Between—
Something and Something,
Never Between Something and Nothing

Dining Room in Connection with Cafe
KIMBERLEY, B. C.

Phone 216

STAR BAKERY

ANTON FALKUS, Proprietor .

Y papi 11h
‘es y

Bread, Cakes and Pastry
Swedish Rye Bread
Our Specialty

Kimberley, B. C.

Page Eighty-two

place is vacant, the owner is dead, and
there ought to be fruit in the orchard.”

The place lay quite off our intended line
of travel. Where we were we could tie our
boat to the float instead of having to drag
it up the shore above tide level. This would
also aid in getting an early start next
morning. :

There was no freight in the shed, so we
suggested that we might sleep there.

“It’s full of bugs and cooties,” he assured
us hurriedly. But we won an admission
from the surly fellow that the freight shed
did not properly belong here. He and his
brother had moved it from some place along
the coast where the steamers no longer
called.

This bit of news about the float strength
ened our position, and we cheerfully told
the man we did not mind sleeping under
the stars.

The rancher went back to report and
confer with his brother about their unwel-
come visitors. Before long he came back
with a double-bitted axe, for a settler’s
wood pile commonly is near the water’s
edge because the sea offers the easiest means
of bringing the customary big fir wood-log.

He drove the axe into a big block of
wood, heaved axe and block over his head,
deftly twisting the axe so that its descent
drove the other blade into another block.
He heaved them both up and swung the
handle across his shoulder, this being his
means of carrying them to the house. Un-
mindful of this load, he paused and said,
“This is a bad place for cougars.”

Most probably we showed no uneasiness
about cougars, for he promptly told us how
only the previous week his nearest neighbour
had barely saved his goat in a thrilling mid-
night encounter with a huge cougar.

It was a good story. The only thing I
could find wrong with it—and I did not
embarrass him by mentioning it—was that
he had told it word for word to a Vancouver
author at least ten years before.

So far we had made no progress towards
even slightly friendly relations with our un-
willing host, nor had we discovered the
mysterious reason for his surly treatment.

“I see you use those ‘poison pots’,” he
grunted, nodding at our aluminum cooking
utensils.

“You folks must have a lot of sickness,”
he insisted.

We claimed to be a very healthy little
family.

“But those ‘poison pots’ must have stiff
ened up all your joints,” he persisted, and
told us how he and his brother had suffered
thus, and had been cured when they dis-
carded all aluminum ware.

This turn of conversation brought us
round rather naturally to our mountaineer-
ing activities, confirmed by our ice axes,
climbing rope and specially nailed boots,
all of which we had tossed on the float.

My wife and I were just returning from
climbing around Mt. Waddington, better
known as “Mystery Mountain”. We had
picked up our daughter at Read Island
where she had spent the summer with
friends. Incidentally, their gasboat had,
reputedly, been built during the first World

War by two draft evaders at the heac
Bute Inlet.

BROTHERS STILL Wary

With our identity thus established »
or less, the rancher plainly dropped his |
tility, but without becoming friendly,
went back to report again to his brother.

When the ranchers were washed and;
fed, about an hour later, they looked m,
more presentable. They strolled down
the float. They seemed to have things
their minds.

So much so, that when they insisted ¢
we come up to the house it was almost |
a “Won't you walk into my parlor, s
the spider to the fly”, sort of invitati
The house at least proved them to be bett
than-average housekeepers.

In due course they admitted somew
haltingly their previous suspicions of
They did not like police. They first si
us up as provincial police operatives try;
to get ashore without creating suspici
They said a police boat had swung into |
bay just as we had done after going pe
only the police had rushed ashore to sear
for bootleg liquor. Both ranchers claim
that unfriendly neighbours were the s
grounds for the various searches by +
police.

A settler ten or fifteen miles away ti
us next day that our hosts used to ped
goat meat to logging camps, but did 1
suggest that they ever carried liquid car
as well. His disapproval of the pair ar
mainly because he was sometimes a logs:
and a photograph of the brothers in bathi
suits had appeared in an American magazi
as typical of the costume worn by Briti
Columbia loggers.

I cannot say what mixture of cunni
and simplicity lurked in the make-up of t
two stump ranchers. They contrived to te
fairly well the extent of our mountaineeri
experience before leading the conversati
round, much as though by design, to t
first World War.

At last we discovered their chief intere
in talking with us.

They had a long-standing mountain my
tery which they hoped we might clear u
They seemed uncertain how much we wou
believe of what they told us, and. perha
not too sure how much we might infer abo

SAM'S TAXI

STAND AT RITZ CAFE

Our Motto: Your Satisfaction”
Telephone 30
KIMBERLEY, B. C.

KIMBERLEY TRANSFER CO.

COAL -:- WOOD -:- CARTAGE
Agents, Imperial Oil Ltd.
Phone 36 P.O. Box 581

Kimberley, B. C.

THE SHOULDER STRAI