. Nothing else
remained to mark the historic spot, which had passed from the physical
surface of the earth almost as completely as the old Tete Jaune Cache.
Uncle Dick turned away in disgust.

"Some trappers have camped here lately," said he, "or perhaps some of
the engineers sent out by another railroad. But, at any rate, this is
the old Boat Encampment. Yonder runs the trail, and you can follow
that back clear to Timbasket Lake, if you like, or to the Athabasca
Pass."

"Is this where they came in from the Saskatchewan?" demanded Rob.

"No, the old trail that way really came down the Blaeberry, very far
above. I presume after they got on the west side, in the Columbia
valley, they took to the trail and came down to this point just the
same, for I doubt if any of them ran the Columbia much above here.
Many a time old David Thompson stopped here--the first of the great
map-makers, my young friends, and somewhat ahead of you, John. And Sir
George Simpson, the lord of the fur-traders, came here with his Indian
wife, who became a peeress of Great Britain, but who had to walk like
any voyageur from here out across the Rockies. I don't doubt old
Doctor Laughlin, of Fort Vancouver, was here, as I have told you. In
short, most of the great fur-traders came to this point up to about
1825, or 1826, at which time, as we have learned, they developed the
upper trail, along the Fraser to the Tete Jaune Cache."

"But didn't any one of them ever go up the Wood River yonder?"
demanded Rob. "That looks like an easy stream."

"The engineer Moberly went up there, and crossed the Rockies to the
head of the Whirlpool River on the east side," replied Uncle Dick,
"but that was in modern times--about the same time that Major Rogers
discovered the Rogers Pass through the Selkirks below here, where the
Canadian Pacific road crosses the Rockies. It's a great tumble and
jumble of mountains in here, my young friends, and a man's job for any
chap who picked out any pass in these big mountains here.

"Yonder"--he rose and pointed as he spoke--"east of us, is the head of
the Saskatchewan--the Howse Pass is far to the south of where we stand
here. Northeast of us, and much closer, is the Athabasca Pass, and we
know that by following down the Athabasca we would come to Henry House
and Jasper House, not far from the mouth of the Miette River.

"Now, somewhere north of here, down the west side of the mountains,
came the trail from the Athabasca Pas