THE START OF THE TRAIL 11 



do now ? The snow is four feet deep in here." 



One by one the rest of the crew gathered about 

 us rather a rough-looking lot at first glance, 

 with cloth and fur caps pulled down over their ears 

 and the collars of their coats turned up. Icicles 

 hung from the heavy moustaches on some of their 

 faces, while swinging jaws and numerous and in- 

 creasing spots on the snow indicated a heavy con- 

 sumption of tobacco. 



At the first opportunity Fred, in reply to their 

 many questions, told them he was bound for 

 Gordon's camp; that his passenger was going in 

 to see the bear-cub. To my surprise and relief, it 

 seemed to be a magic word, the open sesame to our 

 dilemma. Hard looks at once changed to smiles. 



"Wai," the spokesman announced between 

 puffs from a newly lighted black clay pipe, "we'll 

 see what we can do. Yer won't have much more 

 trouble if yer can get by us. There's only four 

 more teams comin* out." 



Luckily for us, we had stopped at a point where 

 the openings between the timber were quite wide. 

 No trees would have to be cut for the passing; the 

 depth of snow was the only difficulty. It took us 

 half an hour, however, to overcome this obstacle. 

 Briskly the men set to work tramping back and 

 forth by the roadside just ahead of us. Though 

 their feet were not on the ground, the snow was 



