d,
ugly drab hills in endless monotony.

How full of kinks and hooks was the river! How vicious with snags! How
treacherous with eddies! It was beginning to bulk in my thoughts almost
like an obsession. Then one day Lake Labarge burst on my delighted eyes.
The trail was nearing its end.

Once more with swelling sail we drove before the wind. Once more we were
in a fleet of Argonaut boats, and now, with the goal in sight, each man
redoubled his efforts. Perhaps the rich ground would all be gone ere we
reached the valley. Maddening thought after what we had endured! We must
get on.

There was not a man in all that fleet but imagined that fortune awaited
him with open arms. They talked exultantly. Their eyes shone with the
gold-lust. They strained at sweep and oar. To be beaten at the last! Oh,
it was inconceivable! A tigerish eagerness filled them; a panic of fear
and cupidity spurred them on.

Labarge was a dream lake, mirroring noble mountains in its depths (for
soon after we made it, a dead calm fell). But we had no eyes for its
beauty. The golden magnet was drawing us too strongly now. We cursed
that exquisite serenity that made us sweat at the oars; we cursed the
wind that never would arise; the currents that always were against us.
In that breathless tranquillity myriads of mosquitoes assailed us,
blinded us, covered our food as we ate, made our lives a perfect hell of
misery. Yet the trail was nearing its finish.

What a relief it was when a sudden storm came up! White-caps tossed
around us, and the wind drove us on a precipitous shore, so that we
nearly came to a sorry end. But it was over at last, and we swept on
into the Thirty-mile River.

A furious, hurling stream was this, that matched our mad, impatient
mood; but it was staked with hidden dangers. We gripped our weary oars.
Keenly alert we had to be, steering and watching for rocks that would
have ripped us from bow to stern. There was a famously terrible one, on
which scows smashed like egg-shells under a hammer, and we missed it by
a bare hand's-breadth. I felt sick to think of our bitterness had we
piled up on it. That was an evil, ugly river, full of capricious turns
and eddies, and the bluffs were high and steep.

Hootalinqua, Big Salmon, Little Salmon, these are names to me now. All I
can remember is long days of toil at the oar, fighting the growing
obsession of mosquitoes, ever pressing on to the golden valley. The
ceaseless strain was begin