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22 ~+CHRONICLES OF THE CARIBOO

“You see!” grinned the savage child of Nature. True, he ate a
whole rib of deer himself - but it was a small deer at that and there
really isn’t much meat on one - but he wouldn’t take anything else.
In fact he seldom tasted the beans and bannock - and that did him
all day-- except for an occasional feed of pine sap when he came to
a likely ‘tree. At-supper he até less meat and more roots and green
stuff. He seldom drank tea either and when he did, he had to have
plenty of sugar in it. In fact it seemed he drank the tea for the sug-
arin it: ig

It was the guide who insisted that they make each day’s journey
in one stage. “Eetter for Kewtin (horse)” explained Baptiste. “Not
so much sore back. Better for man, too. Not so much work an’ lose
tam mak eet pack two tam wan day.” Then, too, the horses could
feed and men rest before the big yellow mosquitoes got to work on
them in the evening.: But they were up and away as early as possible
in the mornings. In a matter of threé or four days they struck Mof-
fitt Creek (afterwards so called) just North of what is now called
McIntosh Lakes. It was‘the largest creek they had come to, and was
booming in high water. Of course the miners wanted to stop and pro-
spect it, but they gave it only one day, then. That being sufficient
spect it, but they gave it only one day, there. That being sufficient
to prove to Crow and Sellers the creek wasn’t a gold bearing stream.
Net the right formation or the right kind of gravel. .

’But Moffit was not convinced. Subsequently he spent many weary
weeks prospecting it to its source without success. He found no gold
worth mentioning except down near its mouth where it emptied into
the Elorsefly River and that proved to be only a spill from the Horse-
fly itself and not from Moffitt Creek. So it seems that the creek der-
ived its name, among the early miners from this persistency of Mcf-
fit’s in following a forelorn hope.

Another two or three days found the party at the end of their trip.
They had fovnd their little river. Bvt it didn’t seem so little, being in
full spring freshette. Baptiste led them to a flat at a bend on the West
shore where there was a little meadow and feed for the horses. The
Indian was dismayed when he saw high water cverflowing the banks.
He had expected to be able to show the miners some gold on the grav-

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