Mil. 



pembrun's story. 187 



The snow accumulates to a tremendous depth in 

 the valleys, and at his first camp in the mountains 

 he set to work to shovel away the snow with a snow- 

 shoe, after the usual manner of making camp in the 

 winter ; but having got down to his own depth with- 

 out coming to the bottom, he sounded with a long 

 pole, when, not finding the ground, he desisted, and 

 built a platform of green logs, upon which the fire 

 and beds were laid. Passing the same place after- 

 wards in the summer, he recognised his old resting- 

 place by the tall stumps of the trees cut off* twenty 

 or thirty feet above the ground, showing the level of 

 the snow at his former visit. 



A party of miners came in from White Mud 

 Creek, about fifty miles further up the Saskatchewan, 

 where a number of them were washing gold. The 

 captain of the band, a Kentuckian, named Love, 

 brought with him a small bag of fine gold-dust as a 

 specimen, and informed us that they had already 

 made £90 a-piece since the beginning of the 

 summer. From what we heard from other sources 

 afterwards, however, there seems little doubt that 

 this statement was greatly exaggerated. Love had 

 been in California and British Columbia, and had 

 reached the Saskatchewan by ascending the Eraser 

 in a boat, and thence crossing the mountains on foot, 

 by the Leather Pass to Jasper House. He was very 

 sanguine of finding rich diggings on the eastern side 

 of the mountains, and three of his company had 

 started on an exploring expedition to the sources 

 of the North Saskatchewan. Nothing had been 



