From the lone sheiling of the misty 
island 
Mountains divide us and the waste 
of seas; 
Yet still the blood is strong, the 
heart is Highland, 
And we in dreams behold the Heb¬ 
rides.” 
Next morning, I got up early on 
hearing the others stirring below. 
The outlook was unpromising; the 
Camel’s Hump was enveloped in a 
haze, while the trees were laden 
with a heavy, soft snow which had 
been falling steadily all night. The 
good lady helped to harness the 
horses, as she had helped to stable 
them the night before. She saw to 
the bodily comfort of her guid-man 
and we were off again, with Bob, 
his trusty old dog, racing on ahead. 
A further twelve miles, distributing 
the mail as we went along, and we 
leached the Post Office of Cherryville, 
the last outpost in the direction we 
were heading and the nearest settle¬ 
ment to the gold mines at Monashee 
and Cherry-creek. 
I had made arrangements with an¬ 
other settler to meet me at this point. 
The man was waiting for me. I 
climbed beside him into a sort of home¬ 
made manure wagon, on home-made 
bobs, behind two home-made cayuses, 
and we started off. The cayuses were 
really as home-made as they looked, 
FIVE THOUSAND FEET ABOVE THE LEVEL OF THE SEA. IN AN EGG-CUP SHAPED 
SNOW GULCH BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS, AMID THE ETERNAL SNOWS 
for their owner told me that he had 
raised them himself. 
After an hour or so of rough going, 
which got worse every mile we went, 
we stopped off at a wayside homestead 
for lunch. It seemed to be quite all 
right to stop off anywhere when it 
came to eating time. The good lady 
here was a big, buxom, German woman 
with a horde of romping children, who 
were shy at first but soon got more 
than familiar. They tumbled somer¬ 
saults, cut capers and fought one an¬ 
other for my special entertainment 
and, when they thought I was not 
watching, came up close 
to me and felt the out¬ 
side of my coat pockets. 
After a rough meal of 
potatoes and badly 
cured pork we continued 
on our journey. On 
nearing the south end of 
Sugar Lake, the snow 
was so soft and so deep 
that the horses went up 
to their bellies every 
time they broke through 
the crust, while the 
sleigh acted more like a 
snow - scraper than any¬ 
thing else. The beaten path 
was, narrow and hardly 
SHEER ON THE BREASTBONE 
OF A MOUNTAIN, AND THE 
FOOTHOLD PRECARIOUS 
afforded passage way for 
two horses abreast. It was 
amusing to watch the 
horses crowd each other for 
the good footing. 
As we skirted the shore¬ 
line, we noticed some ani¬ 
mals in commotion out on the ice. On 
getting closer, two coyotes scurried 
away, leaving a larger animal flound¬ 
ering helplessly. We stopped the team 
and hurried over. A young deer was 
struggling there in agony, its hind 
flanks paralized, several pounds of 
flesh having been eaten out of them by 
the cowardly brutes that had just left. 
There was a pitiful and hopeless look 
in the deer s eyes. We put a revolver 
bullet through its head and ended its 
misery. 
It was evening before we reached 
George’s ranch at the head of Sugar 
Lake. I received a warm welcome 
from the big, genial trapper, and his 
wife who was a real westerner from 
the word “Go!” She could ride a 
horse, shoot a deer, angle a breakfast 
ti om the lake, tend the cattle, throw 
a lope, pal it among the men; was an 
inveterate smoker and rolled her own 
cigarettes; could cook a meal in her 
spotless kitchen that would charm the 
appetite of the most fastidious and 
was at all times most delightfully 
feminine. 
That night we gathered together all 
we required for our journey. My 
pack, a potato sack tied at each corner 
with rawhide thongs, contained my 
sleeping-bag, camera, and a few odds 
and ends weighing altogether not more 
than twenty-five pounds. George car¬ 
ried the axe and the foodstuffs, com¬ 
prising chiefly of bacon, flour, cheese, 
beans, oatmeal, tea, coffee and sugar. 
His load weighed easily sixty pounds. 
We made an early start next morn¬ 
ing, crossing the Shuswap River on the 
ice and snow and travelling north up 
the Valley. The snow was very soft on 
top and it made the going hard. We 
were unable to do more than a mile and 
a quarter an hour in our snow-shoes, 
which were of the bearpaw variety, 
( Continued, on page 657) 
Page 621 
