APPOINTED ASSISTANT DIRECTOR 259 



on the steam boat, but I was unable to stand as I had an attack 

 of sciatica, and all that day, when we were on the boat, I was 

 sitting propped up on the deck unable to move. Ainsworth, 

 where there was a hot spring, was the next place where we made 

 a camp and, for the following three days, I had to eat on my 

 knees, as I could neither sit nor stand while eating. I tried the 

 hot spring for a couple of days and sat there for hours in the hot 

 water, but it seemed to give me no ease. We had made this trip 

 with the intention of going on the mountain, up which there was 

 a trail, to a silver mine, and the time had nearly elapsed and I 

 determined that I would walk on a particular day up the moun- 

 tain and, that morning, I had taken my breakfast on my knees. 

 The men said that it would be foolishness for me to attempt to 

 go up the mountain, but I was determined to do it and so I got 

 a staff and started off, ahead of them. They were coming along 

 later with the pack horse and our provisions, and with a blanket 

 or two. I found that, as I walked, my leg began to be less painful 

 and I could use it better, so I succeeded wonderfully well and was 

 far up the mountain when they overtook me at 2 o'clock, when 

 we had something to eat. Shortly after, it began to rain and 

 poured the whole afternoon. I hobbled on and reached the 

 shanty, where the miners were located, and my son, who had been 

 away botanizing, reached there about the same time and he looked 

 more like a drowned rat than a human being; his clothes clung 

 to him and he was nearly exhausted, but had obtained some very 

 rare specimens. That night, fourteen of us lay in that little 

 shanty on the floor and I remember that I lay behind the stove 

 with my legs stretched out underneath it and, when I awoke in 

 the morning, my clothes were dry and the sciatica had left me. 

 We found that the rain of the preceding day had fallen as wet 

 snow on the mountain and we remained throughout the forenoon 

 and descended on the trail to the lake in the afternoon. 



It was now time to go down to Nelson again and there was 

 a gentleman with a small motor (?) boat called the "Mud Lark." 

 We were told that it was a fast boat and found that, with very 

 great exertion, it could not make more than two miles an hour 

 while, later, it may have been better when we reached the Koote- 



