APPOINTED ASSISTANT DIRECTOR 251 



wore on, I went up to the summit and watched the change from 

 bright sunlight to darkness. The evening was unclouded and I 

 could look over the Pacific and, at the same time, turn around and 

 look over the mainland and see the mountains that border the 

 Gulf on that side. There were only a few fires at this time, but 

 I could see almost every fire that was burning on the Island and 

 could detect the slightest fire by its smoke. What I was most 

 interested in was the change from light to darkness. As I stood 

 there, each summit was bathed in sunlight, the mountains on the 

 mainland also shone out, and the mountains to the northward of 

 the Island stood out boldly also. Gradually darkness seemed to 

 walk in the light and put out the light and, as the darkness in- 

 creased and rose on the mountain slopes, we were in twilight and, 

 I decided it was time for me to descend. 



I found a fine fire burning and everything ready for supper. 

 On the night of the 17th of July, 1887, we lay on Mt. Arrowsmith 

 in British Columbia, over a mile above the sea. The next morn- 

 ing, my son took the gun and went up the rocks to see if there 

 were anything to shoot and got on to a snow corridor which was 

 very steep and he called down and I told him to throw up his feet 

 and sit down and come down like a toboggan, and he did that, and 

 held the gun above his head, and came down like a flash of light- 

 ning in perfect safety. After breakfast, he and Tom's son, James, 

 each got a piece of wood and climbed up and spent the whole fore- 

 noon tobogganing down that slope. Later, I was up collecting 

 and found that I would have to walk, a long distance to get down 

 to where I had come from, so I at once did the same and slid down 

 as I had told-my son to do in the morning. I carried a basket of 

 plants and I seated myself and threw up my feet and, in a short 

 time, I reached the bottom but, owing to the heat of the snow, or 

 my putting more pressure on one part of my seat than the other, 

 instead of going down as the boys did, as I reached the bottom, I 

 turned around and gracefully tumbled into the great clump of 

 heather that was underneath the snow. 



After lunch, we started down from the summit in the direction 

 I wished to climb in the morning and came to the brook without 

 difficulty and, after a wearisome walk, we reached the bridge and 



