278 Sport and Life. 



one, but the man from the Columbia had them safely stowed 

 away in his neighbour's pocket. If one or more pack-horses 

 broke down, and a sack or two of oats were badly wanted to 

 put a spark of life into shadowy, anatomical specimens of the 

 genus horse, you heard such reassuring words as, " Here, Jack, 

 run down and ' rustle ' a bag or two of them oats from so- 

 and-so's outfit, and mind you don't pick the smallest." The 

 horses are fed, and away, well pleased with himself, went the 

 amateur rustler, for amateur and nothing better was he who 

 did no more than such slight pilfering, and did not " stay with 

 the pile to the end of all things." Of course, now and again 

 excuses for a little amateur rustling were to be made in a 

 country where there were no ranches or other human habitations, 

 and an instance in which I figured as such an amateur carries 

 its own point. Some of my mill machinery had, notwithstanding 

 my best personal efforts, got astray between Golden and Canal 

 Flat, and while looking for it along the banks of the Columbia, I 

 found myself one afternoon alone at one of these dumping places 

 where lay, entirely unguarded, huge piles of many thousand dollars' 

 worth of freight, left there a day or two before by the steamer, which 

 could not get farther up the river on account of the rapidly falling 

 water. I was wet and hungry, for I had been for hours up to my 

 waist in the Columbia, and I had had nothing to eat since 6 a.m. 

 The first thing my eyes lit upon was a loolb. bag of beans, and, not 

 having any grub of my own with me, I " stayed," in local parlance, 

 with a potful of them as only a very hungry man can. My meal 

 finished, and in decidedly better humour with myself than when 

 I commenced, I prepared to proceed on my journey, but before 

 doing so I thought I would examine the bag to see to whom I was 

 really indebted for my free feast, when lo ! on turning over the 

 sack I found my own name in big letters on the back of it ! 



