er beat
out the entire string. The Head had H----, and considered him well
indicated. One bronco was called "Bronchitis." The top horse of the
string was Bill Shea's Dynamite, according to Bill Shea. There were
Dusty, Shorty, Sally Goodwin, Buffalo Tom, Chalk-Eye, Comet, and
Swapping Tater--Swapping Tater being a pacer who, when he hit the
ground, swapped feet. Bob had Sister Sarah.

At last, everything was ready. The pack-train got slowly under way. We
leaped into our saddles--"leaped" being a figurative term which grew
more and more figurative as time went on and we grew saddle-weary and
stiff--and, passing the pack-train on a canter, led off for the
wilderness.

All that first day we rode, now in the sun, now in deep forest.
Luncheon-time came, but the pack-train was far behind. We waited, but
we could not hear so much as the tinkle of its bells. So we munched
cakes of chocolate from the pockets of our riding-coats and went grimly
on.

The wagon with the boats had made good time. It was several miles along
the wagon-trail before we caught up with it. It had found a quiet harbor
beside the road, and the boatmen were demanding food. We tossed them
what was left of the chocolate and went on.

The presence of a wagon-trail in that empty land, unvisited and unknown,
requires explanation. In the first place, it was not really a road. It
was a trail, and in places barely that. But, sixteen years before, a
road had been cleared through the forest by some people who believed
there was oil near the Canadian line. They cut down trees and built
corduroy bridges. But in sixteen years it has not been used. No wheels
have worn it smooth. It takes its leisurely way, now through wilderness,
now through burnt country where the trees stand stark and dead, now
through prairie or creek-bottom, now up, now down, always with the
range rising abruptly to the east, and with the Flathead River somewhere
to the west.

It will not take much expenditure to make that old wagon-trail into a
good road. It has its faults. It goes down steep slopes--on the second
day out, the chuck-wagon got away, and, fetching up at the bottom, threw
out Bill the cook and nearly broke his neck. It climbs like a cat after
a young robin. It is rocky or muddy or both. But it is, potentially, a
road.

The Rocky Mountains run northwest and southeast, and in numerous basins,
fed by melting glaciers and snow-fields, are deep and quiet lakes. These
lakes, on the we