Round Timber Line 
Part I. 
With Rifle and Pack Train in the Canadian 
Rockies—The Search for Mountain Sheep 
By R. B. HAMILTON 
T HE sunset glow added to the charm of the 
picture as our dusty, rattling stage swung 
round a turn, and the town of LiUooet 
came into view. On a high bench beside the 
turbid Fraser, and backed up against the moun¬ 
tains which guard throughout so much of its 
long course both sides of the river, the little 
town is a welcome sight after a fifty-mile ride 
in a stage, even though the road, winding its 
way along the valley from Lytton, now high up 
against the face of a cliff, now trestled across a 
great rock slide, or running along the level top 
of a bench, is fine; and the mountain scenery, 
ever changing, with the river in the foreground, 
is magnificent. A long detour to the bridge 
thrown across where the river boils through a 
narrow canon two miles above the town, and we 
pulled up before the hotel, welcomed by two- 
thirds of the human and all of the canine popu¬ 
lation of the village. 
Bill Manson, my guide, a quiet spoken, keen¬ 
eyed man in buckskin shirt ornamented with 
grizzly claws, greeted me, and we began un¬ 
packing and sorting my outfit. Profiting by the 
experience of a good many years’ hunting in 
different parts of the country, the outfit had been 
boiled down to what might be aptly termed the 
residuum, and Bill’s surprise at its lack of size 
was somewhat amusing. He said later that he 
always had to devote one, and frequently two 
or more pack horses to the personal outfit, where¬ 
as mine was no bigger than his own, and the 
two combined made only a light load for one 
horse. 
There is a certain pleasure in traveling with 
a well condensed personal outfit, which yet con¬ 
tains every requirement for comfort which the 
“two-horse man” will never know. Perhaps it 
is somewhat of a hobby, but anyway Bill re¬ 
duced by one the number of pack horses and 
we turned in. 
The first 6 o’clock breakfast comes rather 
hard, though a few days makes it a matter of 
habit; indeed, a week or so later we marveled 
at how easy it had become to rise at 4, until we 
discovered the camp timekeeper to be an hour 
and a half slow. Plowever, by 7:30 we had 
saddled and packed our horses and were headed 
for the mountains. 
Our way lay north along the Fraser to the 
mouth of Bridge River, up which boiling, tumb¬ 
ling stream, packed so full of salmon that their 
heads literally stuck out of the water, we headed 
our pack train. Bill, in the mountain uniform 
of buckskin shirt, overalls, moccasins and som¬ 
brero, led the way on a well built chestnut 
Dick. I, somewhat dressier in riding breeches 
and puttees, followed close on my big black 
horse Senator. After us came the five pack 
horses, the reliable old bell horse Dago in the 
lead, and the procession was brought up by our 
Indian cook, who rejoiced in the cognomen of 
Bonaparte Frank, and who rode a dingy white 
cayuse. 
The trail was a good one, fully two feet wide, 
and later on the memory of it was that of a 
boulevard, but as we climbed higher and higher 
above the river it seemed that first day as if it 
were only by sheer luck that we escaped with 
our lives; indeed, the mountain trails of British 
Columbia are terrifying to the uninitiated. Along 
the face of rock slides, a thousand feet above 
the river, the horses insisting on walking at the 
very outside edge of the trail, over timber tres¬ 
tles swung across the face of otherwise impass¬ 
able cliffs. One soon becomes accustomed to trust¬ 
ing entirely to his horse just as one must to 
avoid the badger and prairie dog holes on the 
plains of the Southwest; and by easy transition 
thereafter the question of a good trail, a bad 
trail, or no trail at all degenerates into a matter 
of speed, and the element of danger is forgot¬ 
ten. Probably the actual danger is slight as it 
takes a lot to make a mountain-bred horse lose 
his footing, and they rarely stumble, but in any 
event “familiarity breeds contempt,” and in a 
very few days one rides across the trailless face 
of a 45 degrees rock slide thousands of feet up, 
with no thought of danger. Bill said in all his 
life in the mountains he had seen only two 
horses fall from a train, and in neither instance 
was the horse or rider—pack in one case—in¬ 
jured. There is far more likelihood of a horse 
toppling over backward when climbing a steep 
place, or the saddle slipping over his head while 
descending. Our horses were all strong animals 
in top-notch condition, sure footed as goals and 
willing workers, so that we were afterward able 
to take our pack train into places where no 
horse had ever before set foot. 
Our two-foot trail climbed steadily along the 
face of the mountains as we followed the Bridge 
to its fork. There we swung to the right along 
the North Fork, and crossing about two miles 
above the deep canon of the latter, climbed to 
a little bench, heavily timbered and with a stream 
roaring past, and there made our first camp 
at an elevation of about 2,500 feet—Lillooet is 
800 feet-—and about twenty-five miles from our 
starting point. 
We had not stopped for a noon meal. We 
never did except when kept in camp by bad 
weather, and in consequence we were all quite 
ready to eat. Bill and I unsaddled and threw 
off the packs, while Bonaparte built his fire and 
demonstrated how deliciously he could serve up 
spring salmon, potatoes and tea, which, with 
bread and butter, bacon and porridge were to 
constitute our menu until we acquired fresh 
meat. While we were enjoying an after-dinner 
pipe, a big mule deer, secure in his distance, ap¬ 
peared on the mountain across the river and 
stood watching our camp-fire. A great horned 
owl in the timber behind raised his solemn 
voice, until, becoming sleepy, we crawled into 
our blankets, disdaining a tent on so fine a night 
and.pulled the tarpaulins over our heads. 
After a 5 o’clock breakfast Bill and Bonaparte 
went horse hunting and succeeded in getting 
them into camp at 6:30. I then took my first 
lesson in the art of throwing the diamond hitch. 
I had a theoretical knowledge of it and could 
throw a hitch which had all the ear marks of 
the diamond except that it was not tight. Bill, 
however, threw it in an entirely different way, 
and it seemed to draw tight almost of itself. 
It is really most interesting to watch a good 
packer at work. Our outfit was of the best, the 
pack saddles were well fitted to the horses, and 
great care was always taken to see that the packs 
were well and evenly balanced; therefore, we 
had no galled horses on our trip. The horses of 
course always objected more-- or less to being 
cinched tight, and it was ludicrous to see one 
puff himself out, only to have the cinch drawn 
tight when he could hold his breath no longer. 
The trail was an Indian hunting trail, unused 
for many years, and it led up through heavy 
timber till we left the big red pines behind us; 
jack pines taking their place. Still higher these 
thin out until at last there is only scrubby 
balsam, small cone-shaped spruces and the like. 
Then even these disappear and the mountain 
stands out in its nakedness, clothed only with 
patches of grass and low bushes. Timber line 
