A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



Mud underfoot and the continual rain and mist overhead made 

 the return trip to Telegraph Creek anything but pleasant. 

 Fortunately I was able to borrow a strong saddle-horse from 

 the head packer, w^hich at least made travelling easier. The 

 only bright day was October loth, and after a hard ride of 

 twenty-five miles we reached Telegraph Creek late that after- 

 noon. 



I spent the next day in making preparations for the trip 

 down the Stikine to Wrangel. In the late summer I had pur- 

 chased at Telegraph Creek a coffin-shaped pine scow, about 

 twenty feet in length and four feet in width, for the trip. The 

 crew consisted of Hungerford, a miner, and myself rowing at 

 three long, single oars, and Al Radford, who was a more ex- 

 perienced riverman, steering from the stem with an enormous 

 sweep. Before leaving Telegraph Creek behind I wish to say 

 that during my shooting-trips I have never before received as 

 much consideration from people of a small place as I did from 

 Frank Callbreath, the representative of the Hudson Bay Com- 

 pany, and the local authorities of this frontier post. On the 

 morning of October 12th, after farewells from the inhabitants 

 of the settlements, with the scow loaded down to almost the 

 edge of the water with heads, skins, and dunnage, we started 

 down the Stikine. 



We had engaged an Indian pilot to guide the scow through 

 the dangerous rapids of the first twelve miles, where a number 

 of human lives were lost during the Klondyke gold rush. En 

 route to Glenora we saw a coyote on the river-bank. It was 

 the only sign of the small wolf we had seen in the northwest. 

 At the abandoned village of Glenora we left the Indian pilot 

 on a sand-bar, and rowed down-stream with the current until 

 we camped on the beach above Kloochman Cafion at dark. 

 The next morning we shot through the canon, and immediate- 

 ly ran into the steady rain of the western slope of these moun- 

 tains. In the afternoon the rain changed into sleet, and then 



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