for
an hour or two to-day, and were lost; they went to the right
where we thought the channel ran, but it didn't go there.
Everybody much scared. The last portage is on ahead, six
hundred yards from Summit Lake to Loon Lake. Everybody seems
to forget these other little lakes, which are confusing. We
see signs of old ax-work, so think we must be on the trail.
The Hudson's Bay people have used this in the past as well
as the Klondike outfits. These latter people must have had
an awful time getting over.

"The whole country of the Rat and the country on the summit
in this pass may be called altogether new and unknown to any
one. We had to find it as much as if no one had ever been
there before, except one or two places we saw where men had
been. There is no map of it. Now we have made two short
portages and one long portage in getting to Loon Lake; and
Loon Lake, we are pretty sure, drains into the headwaters of
the Bell River.

"This creek is so shallow we have to drag our boat across
the tundra. Willy had gone on ahead, and says he has found
the Bell River. It is not anywhere near where we thought it
was. I thought the pass lay far off to the right. Opposite
our camp on Loon Lake there is a 'sharp, high peak,' all
right, and this no doubt is the one the traders told us
about. The trouble is when you say 'sharp, high peak' you
may see any one of fifty which you think is the right one,
and it may be wrong.

"Found the new creek, which we think is the Little Bell,
down a deep bank. Plenty of water and plenty of current. It
looks as if it ran back into the mountains fifteen or twenty
miles. No one knows anything about it. No one knows anything
about this country at all. We call ourselves explorers as
much as anybody. I am pretty sure now that this is the right
'sharp, high peak.' There was a trader by name of Charles
Camsell came across here, and he made a sort of map. The
government maps only guess at this as far as they try to
describe it.

"I think it is risky to depend on loose talk of a new
country like this. They told us there were only two portages
and two lakes, but I have counted eleven lakes and ponds on
the summit of the Rockies here. We really crossed five
lakes, counting in Loon Lake, and we made two sh