A SOLITARY PROSPECTOR. 313 



afterwards met a solitary old prospector float- 

 ing down tlie river in a boat that was built a 

 long way up the Pelly, where he had been 

 unsuccessful in finding payable gold. He told 

 us he had not seen a living thing on his long 

 journey down stream until he met us, neither a 

 white man, nor an Indian, nor a moose, nor a 

 bear. He was well off for provisions of all kinds 

 except meat, of which we were able to give 

 him enough to last him to Selkirk. 



On August 18th I fired the first shot since 

 killing the moose the day after leaving Selkirk, 

 and bagged a lynx, and on the following day 

 we took our first day's rest since leaving 

 Whitehorse. 



On the morning of August 22nd we ate the 

 last of our fresh meat for breakfast, and not 

 long afterwards a moose cow swam across the 

 river about three hundred j^ards ahead of our 

 canoe, which I would certainly have killed had I 

 been able to do so, in order to secure a further 

 supply of good meat. But the stream was very 

 strong just where we were, and we could not 

 get a yard nearer to the moose, which soon got 



