A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



graph Creek. Here we camped and finished up what moose 

 meat we had left, all our other provisions having disappeared 

 some time before. 



At noon the next day we were again in Telegraph Creek. 

 After this we heard from time to time of the various parties 

 of sportsmen who had come to the country on the same steamer, 

 and all reported from seemed to have had fair or very good 

 sport. Howe expected a coast canoe in a few days, which had 

 been engaged to take us and our baggage and two other sports- 

 men down the Stikine to Wrangel. However, listening to Mac's 

 pleadings, I decided to take a short trip for caribou to Dease 

 Lake in spite of the lateness of the season. I spent the next 

 day in preparation for the trip, and at noon of September 21st 

 started north on the Dease Lake trail. Mac and Hungerford 

 went along, and I was outfitted with a saddle-horse and three 

 lightly loaded pack-horses. The Dease trail is a broad, clear 

 path cut through the forests from Telegraph Creek to Dease 

 Lake, a distance of seventy-two miles. It is used by the 

 miners and prospectors of the Cassiar gold-mining region, and 

 by the pack-trains of the Hudson Bay Company and a rival 

 trading concern. At Dease Lake the merchandise of the Hud- 

 son Bay Company is loaded on scows manned by Indians, and 

 rowed down the Dease and Liard Rivers to the two posts in the 

 country operated by the Hudson Bay Company for fur-trading 

 purposes. 



Several miles out from Telegraph Creek we secured a fresh 

 supply of meat from a young bull moose which had been shot 

 beside the trail by a hunter the day before. The squaws from 

 the Indian village a few miles beyond were there loading their 

 numerous pack-dogs with moose meat, and we witnessed some 

 spirited dog-fights in the vicinity of the carcass. The trail fol- 

 lowed the canon of the Stikine River, which was deep and was 

 shut in by precipitous, brilliantly colored cliffs, the formation 

 and scenery resembling that along parts of the Fraser River in 



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