Yes, and devil's-club, too," said Rob. "I stepped on one just a
little while ago, and it flew up and hit me on the knee."

Uncle Dick laughed. "You'll see devil's-club aplenty before you get
done with this trip," said he. "In fact, I will say for all this upper
country, it doesn't seem to have been laid out for comfort in
traveling. The lower Rockies, in our country, say in Wyoming and
Colorado, are the best outdoor countries in the world. It's a little
wet and soft up here sometimes, although, fortunately, we've had
rather good weather.

"From now on," he continued, "you'll see a change in the vegetation.
You can still see the fireweed--it seems a universal plant all the way
from the Saskatchewan to the Peace River and west even to this prairie
here. That and the Indian paint--that red flower which you all
remember--is common over all the north country. Then there is a sort
of black birch which grows far up to the north, and we have had our
friends the willows and the poplars quite a while. Now we'll go
downhill into the land of big trees and devil's-club."

"So that's the last of the Yellowhead Pass for this trip," said Rob,
turning back, as within the hour after they had arisen they were in
saddle once more for the west-bound trail.

"Yes," said Uncle Dick, "one of the most mysterious of all the passes.
I often wonder myself just what time it was that old Jasper Hawse
first came through here."

"Was it really named after him, and who was he?" inquired John.

"Some say he was an Iroquois Indian who had red hair--in which case
he must have been part white, I should say. Others say he was a
Swede. Yet others say that 'Tete Jaune,' or 'Yellowhead,' was an old
Indian chief who had gray hair. Now, I've seen a few white-haired
Indians--for instance, old White Calf, down in the Blackfoot
reservation--and their hair seems rather yellow more than pure white
when they are very old. At any rate, whoever the original Tete Jaune
was, we are bound now for his old bivouac on the Fraser, fifty miles
below, the Tete Jaune Cache.

"Every man who wants to do mountain exploring has heard of the Tete
Jaune Cache on the Fraser River. It has been one of the most
inaccessible places in the Rockies. But now it will be easy to get
there in a year or so, and I am sure on this beautiful Yellowhead Lake
just ahead of us somebody will put up a hotel one day or other, and
they will make trails around in these mountains and kill all these
g