LETTER IV. 53 



except for the chatter of a chipmunk, saucily re- 

 garding us from the end of a hollow log, or the 

 call of a crested grouse, flirting its tail in air as 

 it strutted unconcernedly out of our way. Once 

 only we met a man, type of the men who have 

 peopled these wildernesses, a tall, fair-bearded 

 giant, in dark blue flannel shirt and canvas 

 trousers, striding along, rifle in hand. As cap- 

 tain of a lumberers' camp he had saved a little 

 money, and was now returning from a walk of 

 nearly two hundred miles, taken alone without 

 blankets, through mountain and forest, for the 

 purpose of finding a bit of country fit for a ranche 

 for himself and two other Scotchmen, his brothers. 

 Sometimes, of course, he came across Indians or 

 a pack-train ; as often as not he met neither ; 

 and then, putting on the coat he had carried all 

 day, he lit a fire and slept wherever he felt in- 

 clined to rest, sleeping as happily by the roadside 

 as the Londoner in his hotel. Our halting-place 

 the first night was at the ' fourteen-mile ' house, a 

 rough log cabin, kept by a white man of solitary 

 tastes and sanguine temperament. Sanguine he 

 must have been, for he only charged us two shil- 

 lings per head ; except packers he hardly had a 

 dozen guests per annum, and he expected to make 

 his hotel pay ! Down below the cabin was a 

 swamp ; low land untimbered, with a few sal-lal 



