THE PROSPECTOR 29

to see the little cleft footprint of the deer round
these springs. To the miners, penetrating the
wilds north of the Fraser, the caribou proved
a godsend during that lean first winter. The
miners spelled it ‘ cariboo,’ and thus gave the
great gold area its name.

The population of Yale that winter con-
sisted of some eight hundred people, housed in
tents and log shacks roofed with canvas. Be-
tween Yale and Hope remained two thousand
miners during the winter. Meals cost a dollar,
served on tin plates to diners standing in long
rows waiting turn at the counter. The regular
menu at all meals was bacon, salmon, bread,
and coffee. Of butter there was little; of
milk, none. Wherever a sand-bar gave signs
of mineral, it was tested with the primitive
frying-pan. If the pan showed a deposit, the
miner rigged up a rocker—a contraption re-
sembling a cradle with rockers below, about
four feet from end to end, two feet across, and
two deep. The sides converged to bottom.
At the head was a perforated sheet-iron bottom
like a housewife’s colander. Into this box the
gravel was shovelled by one miner. The
man’s ‘pardner’ poured in water and rocked
the cradle—cradled the sand. The water ran
through the perforated bottom to a second

a a pe ae