that some of them took horses across the Selwyns over
yonder. As for us, we've got to keep on down this valley. We are
twenty miles west from the Yellowhead Pass, and have thirty miles more
to go yet to the Tete Jaune Cache."

"What are these big mountains over on the right?" inquired Rob.

"That's the Rainbow range. We make our way right along their feet. On
beyond the lake for some distance the river is a little more quiet,
then she drops; that's all. There's a strip of water in here twenty
miles or so that no boat could live in at all. There were two
rattle-headed engineers who did try to take a boat down a part of the
Fraser in here, and in some miraculous way they ran maybe ten or
twelve miles of it, part in and part out of the water. Then their boat
smashed on a rock, and they both were drowned. One body was found, the
other was never heard of."

"Well," said John, "we're complaining a good deal about going along on
horses, but I believe I like that better than taking a boat on that
river."

"When we'll make camp to-day, M'sieu Deek?" asked Moise, pushing up
alongside the leader's horse. They all sat in the rain, dripping like
so many drowned rats.

"Well," said Uncle Dick, "this is pretty bad, isn't it? It seems to me
that we had better use all the daylight we can to-day, for we're wet
as we can get anyway. There are no bad streams now, but the trail is
awful of itself--side-hills and _brule_, and in and out of the water
all along the lake side. But we've got to pass it some time. Suppose
we make the best of a bad bargain, and see if we can get to the lower
end of the lake to-day?"

The boys all agreed to this, and so the party pushed on, but they
found later that the prediction of their leader was quite true, for
none of them had ever seen so fearful a trail as that along the north
shore of Moose Lake. But even as it grew darker in the deep valley at
last they broke through the farther edge of the heaviest timber,
picked their way through a wide strip of _brule_, crossed the last
dangerous face of rock side, and emerged into an open area where some
sort of camp at last was possible. Here they dismounted, all ready to
agree that this was the worst day any of them had ever seen on the
trail.

"Well," said Uncle Dick, chuckling, "I pushed pretty hard to-day, but
I had to make up for that lost day we spent hunting goats. To tell the
truth, I didn't think we could get this far on to-day, and so I just
coun