How Kootenay Emerged from its Wild State. 237 





inspection of those delusive masses of glittering ore. There being 

 no officer of the law or Gold Commissioner nearer than Wildhorse 

 (240 miles away), the Government asked me to become a Justice of 

 the Peace for the Kootenay District, and as such the first one who 

 ever acted in what is now West Kootenay I returned to the lake. 

 I was accompanied by two commissioners appointed by the 

 Government to look into the details of my reclamation scheme, 

 and to report upon the country generally, and some months later 

 the newly-appointed Gold Commissioner, who was to try the suits, 

 also arrived. Our opponents had secured the best mining lawyer 

 in British Columbia, and as I deemed it wise to take a similar 

 precaution, I had engaged the only other available Victoria lawyer. 

 The latter (a subsequent Premier and then Chief Justice of British 

 Columbia), was at the last moment unable to come, and, as a 

 postponement of the cases for that reason was impossible, I had 

 to undertake the defence myself. Not having had the slightest 

 training in law, and being, until I read up the statutes sent me 

 from Victoria, totally ignorant of the provincial mining laws, it 

 looked indeed a hopeless case. The three men who were now my 

 partners, for I had stipulated that I was to become a part owner in 

 the mines if I won the suits, were keen uncomfortably keen I 

 might almost call it to win their cases, coute que coitte. I soon 

 recognised that however good our case was from the standpoint of 

 prior discovery, there were about it several weak points, as the 

 natural consequence of the remoteness of the spot. The total 

 absence of the means provided by law to register one's title, take 

 out mining licences, and obtain official " leave of absence " from 

 a claim, without thereby imperilling one's title to it, had been most 

 unfortunate for us. The issue would depend, I was convinced, 

 to a great extent, upon the view which the Gold Commissioner would 

 take. If commonsense justice ruled his decision we were all right ; 

 if, on the contrary, he were to insist upon a strict interpretation 

 of the various legal requirements, our case was a bad one. 



Judge Kelly, a genial old timer, whose silvery locks and 

 quaint Irish humour soon gained him the respect of all concerned, 



