n a flat-bottomed boat and swirled in and out among the eddies
of the famous bars. A Siwash family lived there by fishing with clumsy
wicker baskets. Higher up could be seen some Chinamen, but whether
they were fishing or washing we could not tell. Two transcontinental
railroads skirted the canyon, one on each side, and the tents of a
thousand construction workers stood where once were the camps of the
gold-seekers banded together for protection. When we came back across
the river an old, old man met us and sat talking to us on the bank. He
had come to the Fraser in that first rush of '58. He had been one of
the leaders against the murderous bands of Indians. Then, he had
pushed on up the river to Cariboo, travelling, as he told us, by {15}
the Indian trails over 'Jacob's ladders'--wicker and pole swings to
serve as bridges across chasms--wherever the 'float' or sign of mineral
might lead him. Both on the Fraser and in Cariboo he had found his
share of luck and ill luck; and he plainly regretted the passing of
that golden age of danger and adventure. 'But,' he said, pointing his
trembling old hands at the two railways, 'if we prospectors hadn't
blazed the trail of the canyon, you wouldn't have your railroads here
to-day. They only followed the trail we first cut and then built. We
followed the "float" up and they followed us.'

What the trapper was to the fur trade, the prospector was to the mining
era that ushered civilization into the wilds with a blare of
dance-halls and wine and wassail and greed. Ragged, poor, roofless,
grubstaked by 'pardner' or outfitter on a basis of half profit, the
prospector stands as the eternal type of the trail-maker for finance.

[1] The same, of course, may be done to-day, with a like result, at
many places along the Fraser and even on the Saskatchewan.

[2] This was the first Legislative Assembly to meet west of Upper
Canada in what is now the Canadian Dominion. It consisted of seven
members, as follows: J. D. Pemberton, James Yates, E. E. Langford, J.
S. Helmcken, Thomas J. Skinner, John Muir, and J. F. Kennedy.
Langford, however, retired almost immediately after the election and J.
W. M'Kay was elected in his stead. The portraits of five of the
members are preserved in the group which appears as the frontispiece to
this volume. The photograph was probably taken at a later period; at
any rate, two of the members, Muir and Kennedy, are missing.

{16}

CHAPT