144 A SPORTSMAN'S EDEN. 



the party of revenge which pursued him. At 

 the Alison ranch no hunters could be found, so 

 that I had to be content .with my single inter- 

 view with old Ephraim, and determined, if pos- 

 sible, to get to Hope in time to catch the boat 

 for Westminster. That sounds rather homely, 

 does it not ? and brings the embankment and 

 muddy Father Thames vividly before the mind's 

 eye ; but the road from Princetown to Hope is 

 not quite so easy to travel as that from the 

 Temple to Westminster, and I was assured that 

 if I compassed the distance in two days, it would 

 be as much as I could possibly do, even without 

 pack-horses. We camped one night at ' the sum- 

 mit/ i.e., at the top of the ridge which shuts off 

 the Similkameen country from Hope and the 

 Fraser. Here every year Winter sets up his first 

 blockade, and already the first snow had fallen, 

 and the little burn was hard frozen, when at 

 4 a.m. I went to it for my morning tub. At 

 breakfast we had a guest, a white man whom we 

 passed the night before driving a couple of 

 draught oxen slowly over the mountains. He 

 was a strange instance of the waifs and strays 

 you meet out West. Apparently a fairly well- 

 educated man of thirty-five or so, he had gone in 

 to the Similkameen country in the harvest-time 

 with a well-bred American horse, which he had 



