WHERE THE BIGHORN ROAMS. 



ii 



moon, fording the Similkameen river, on 

 and up until we reached the last ranch. I 

 never knew just where or when the frontier 

 was crossed. The cavalcade as we started 

 the next morning was quite imposing; 5 

 saddle horses and 5 pack horses. The lat- 

 ter are not led, and have no bridles. It 

 was interesting to see them instinctively 

 take the zigzag course when we began 'to 

 climb. I wished at one time that they 

 had been led, for one of them got to buck- 

 ing on the side of a mountain and finally 

 rolled until the pack got loose, and my bag 

 never stopped until 

 it reached the bot- 

 tim of a canyon. 



We kept on all 

 that day, and the 

 next morning, turn- 

 ing sharply to the 

 West, we com- 

 menced to climb in 

 earnest. We were 

 going up the Si- 

 milkameen range 

 about 7,000 feet 

 above the valley. 

 and I found that 

 everything up to 

 that time had been 

 child's play. It is 

 risky to camp high 

 up at that time of 

 the year, but if one 

 is going to hunt big- 

 horn he must camp 

 where they live. Of 

 course, one can not 

 hunt on horseback, 

 and if he camps low 

 he will have to 

 climb some hours 

 every morning to 

 get where he may 

 hope to see his 

 quarry. So we kept 

 on and up all day 

 with the 'horses. 



For the first hour or 2, whenever I 

 had doubts about the ability of my 

 animal to connect with the elevation 

 where his forelegs might be placed, 

 I promptly slid off. I soon found, 

 however, that the horse was per- 

 fectly unconcerned, no matter how hard 

 he might be struggling, so thereafter I 

 hung to the pommel of the saddle and 

 looked at the scenery, which was well 

 worth it. Away to the North, over wave 

 after wave of pine covered mountain and 

 valley, was Eagle pass on the Fraser river, 

 through which the Canadian Pacific rarl- 

 road works its way to the ocean. Sharply 

 defined against the Western horizon was 

 the serrated line of the Olympic range on 

 the coast; and more than 150 miles to the 



South the snowy summit of Mt. Tacoma, 

 nearly 15,000 feet above the sea, was a 

 ghostly phantom, seen now and again in the 

 clear sky of that upper region. 



Finally we reached the land of stone 

 slides and ice. There the canyons run 

 themselves up and out of soundings to the 

 humble dimensions of small valleys. The 

 only trees left are dwarfed and twisted into 

 all manner of forms by the violence of the 

 mountain winds, and the weight of snow 

 and ice from which they are free but a 

 short portion of the year. It was late when 



AMATEUR PHOTO BY W. B. L^E. 



THE CLOUDS WERE THICK ABOVE, AROUND AND BELOW US. 



we reached a spot where we could camp, 

 but a cheerful fire relieved our depression, 

 and we felt at home as we sat down to a 

 big supper of venison, potatoes, bacon, 

 beans, stewed prunes and tea. As we ex- 

 pected to move on in the morning, we rolled 

 ourselves in sleeping bags and blankets 

 under some low spruces and pulled the tent 

 over us for a tarpaulin. The weather 

 changed in the night, and we awoke to 

 find ourselves with an additional blanket 

 of 2 inches of snow. The clouds were 

 thick above, around and below us, and it 

 was snowing and blowing a gale. 



That storm lasted 3 days and kept us 

 right there. We got the tents up, kept big 

 fires going and were comfortable in body, 

 but the delay was exasperating. The tern- 



