The Antelope-Goal of the Pacific Slope. 105 





water, shooting rapids, negotiating whirlpools, and other exciting 

 incidents. If he values his life he will, however, have an 

 experienced man in the bow of his craft, for at most stages of the 

 water it is a decidedly dangerous trip. 



In the year I made the trip in question, the Great Northern had 

 not been thought of, and even the Northern Pacific was still under 

 construction, so it took me four weeks' travel from the Atlantic, 

 including a long horse-back journey to reach Bonner's Ferry. 

 There it became necessary to abandon horses altogether, and to 

 cover the rest of the distance some 160 miles by canoe down 

 the Kootenai river and lake (in British Columbia this name is 

 spelt Kootenay) to the foot of the mountains, which were said to 

 harbour the game I was seeking. 



Bonner's Ferfy, now a prosperous settlement with a newspaper, 

 an important station on the Great Northern line, and the starting 

 point of several steamers, was, in the days I am speaking of, a 

 place that had a name, but only one white inhabitant, by profession 

 a trapper, Indian trader, and miner, and last, but not least, father of 

 an extensive half-breed family, which filled to overflowing the two 

 log shanties of which " Fry's ranch " consisted. 



It was an extremely out-of-the-way spot, the only means of 

 reaching it being a zig-zag Indian trail winding through dense 

 forests for many a weary day's travel. Walla Walla was the nearest 

 "city," and when Fry made his bi-annual trip "to town" to 

 exchange his peltry and gold dust for flour and goods for his Indian 

 trading-post, it meant an eight or ten days' ride each way. 



Near his ranch was a large Indian village of American 

 Kootenais, as they were called, to distinguish them from the 

 Kootenays, another part of the same tribe who lived immediately to 

 the north in the same valley but on Canadian soil. Domiciled on 

 the banks of the Kootenai river, one of the principal head waters of 

 the Columbia, these Indians were more canoe than horse Indians, 

 the surrounding country being much too densely timbered to allow 

 the general use of horses. After the austere and sullen Indians 

 of Wyoming and Eastern Montana, I was much struck with the 



