AN EXCITING TRIP 311 



however, he couldn't see, and so he was almost contin- 

 ually running into logs which faced us and logs which 

 paralleled our path, and my shin, knee and right leg 

 were soon bruised and scarred. 



The trail wound ever upward, until the peak of the 

 first mountain was reached, and then, without any pre- 

 monition, it started down again at such a pitch that 

 the horses had to slide a little of the way. At the bot- 

 tom there was of a truth a canyon dark, moist and 

 deep. 



The trail led up the side of the next mountain, in 

 places hanging on like a thread. The storms of the 

 few previous days had blown down many trees over 

 our pathway, and it was necessary to chop these into 

 two sections and cast them down the side of the moun- 

 tain before we could pass. 



The government land commissioner at Barkerville, 

 George W. Walker, had with rare courtesy and fore- 

 thought sent a man out over the trail a week before to 

 cut out the dead falls, for our convenience, or else our 

 difficulties would have been much more serious than 

 they were. Before darkness overtook us we counted 

 one hundred and five obstructions that had been cut 

 through with a cross-cut saw and removed. 



A second peak having been scaled, down we went 

 again " Down, down among the dead men," as the 

 old song says and at the bottom of the canyon we 

 struck green timber, and dense darkness enveloped us. 



