294 Sport and Life. 



I don't quite know why he should have been proud of that fact, 

 out, at any rate, there it is in black and white, and as I found 

 but that that B.B. storekeeper charged the Duke his favourite 

 2dols. 50 cents for something that hadn't cost well, I won't 

 divulge what the cost price of those moccasins was but it wasn't 

 adols. 50 cents this feeling of pride must have been caused, 

 so I have heard it said, by the fact of his succeeding' in getting 

 out of the store with some money left in his purse. 



The St. Maurs the name by which the Duke and Duchess 

 are still pleasantly remembered in Kootenay were that summer 

 our nearest neighbours. Joined by Lady Adele Cochrane and Lord 

 Norbury, they were, camping out about ten miles from us, high 

 up on Finlay Creek, where the last named in partnership with 

 Mr. T. Cochrane owned a gold mine, on which a small force of men 

 were at work. It was a very lonely spot in the middle of a forest 

 wilderness where the party was camped, for the mine was some 

 distance up the creek, and when the two men were away on their 

 frequent hunting expeditions in quest of mountain goat, the two 

 ladies were left alone with no male but a Chinese cook near the spot. 

 As they were to be there some time, a small shack had been 

 erected. The lumber used for it was quite unseasoned, and the 

 most amusing consequences resulted from it. Under the hot 

 Kootenay summer sun the boards shrunk to an extent one could 

 hardly believe. When it rained one had to go to bed with an 

 open umbrella, and so large were the spaces between the roughly 

 nailed together boards forming the outside walls, that windows 

 were superfluous. It was a house made of cracks with occasional 

 boards to mark where each commenced and ended. 



One could not help admiring the courage of the two ladies who, 

 attending themselves to their horses, rode about in the wilderness 

 as if they were at home in quiet English country lanes ! 



Let me conclude these jottings with a snapshot view (the first 

 one ever taken) of a somewhat unique natural curiosity. It is a 

 natural hot bath just as nature formed it, and is situated on the 

 slopes of the Rocky Mountains about 4ooft. over the source of the 



