and he could not swim a
stroke! They say that sixty miners were lost in that rapid in one
year.

"To be sure, maybe these are large tales, for such matters grow, most
like, as the years go by, but ye've seen the river yerselves, and ye
know what the risk is. Take a band of miners, foolhardy men, and
disgust them with tryin' to get out of this country afoot--and 'tis
awful going on foot through here--and a raft is the first thing they
think of--'tis always a tenderfoot's first idea. There's nothing so
hard to handle as a raft. Now here they come, singin' and shoutin',
and swing around the bend before they see the Death Rapids, or the
Priest, we'll say. They run till the first cellar-door wave rolls back
on them and the raft plunges her nose in. Then the raft goes down, and
the men are swept off, and there's no swimming in the Columbia for
most men. There's not annything left then fer anny man to do except
the priest--and belike that's why they call it the Priest Rapids."

"I've often wondered," said Rob, "when we were coming down that
stream, whether some of those Alaska Indians with their big sea-canoes
could not run this river--they're splendid boats for rough water, and
they go out in almost any weather."

"And where'll ye be meanin', my boy?" asked O'Brien.

"Along the upper Alaska coast. You see, we live at Valdez."

"Alaska? Do ye hear that now! And that's the place I've been wanting
to see all me life! They tell me 'tis foine up there, and plenty of
gold, too. But tell me, why do ye come down to this country from so
good a place as Alaska?"

"Well, we were just traveling about, you know," said Rob, "and we
wanted to see some of this country along the Rockies before it got too
common and settled up. You see, this isn't our first trip across the
Rockies; we ran the Peace River from the summit down last summer, and
had a bully time. The fact is, every trip we take seems to us better
than any of the others. You must come up some time and see us in
Alaska."

"It's that same I'll be doin', ye may depend," said O'Brien, "the
first chance I get. 'Tis weary I get here, all by myself, with no one
to talk to, and no sport but swearin' at a lot of pig-tailed Chinks,
and not time to go grizzly-huntin' even--though they do tell me
there's fine grizzly-huntin' twelve miles back, in the Standard Basin.
So 'tis here I sit, and watch that mountain yonder that they've named
for pore Sam Boyd--Boyd's Peak, they call it, and