e arrived at the second crossing of the Bulkley about six
o'clock, our young Indian met us with a sorrowful face.

"Stick go in chuck. No canoe. Walk stick."

A big cottonwood log had fallen across the stream and lay
half-submerged and quivering in the rushing river. Over this log a
half-dozen men were passing like ants, wet with sweat, "bucking"
their outfits across. The poor Siwash was out of a job and
exceedingly sorrowful.

"This is the kind of picnic we didn't expect," said one of the young
men, as I rode up to see what progress they were making.

We took our turn at crossing the tree trunk, which was submerged
nearly a foot deep with water running at mill-race speed, and resumed
the trail, following running water most of the way over a very good
path. Once again we had a few hours' positive enjoyment, with no
sense of being in a sub-arctic country. We could hardly convince
ourselves that we were in latitude 54. The only peculiarity which I
never quite forgot was the extreme length of the day. At 10.30 at
night it was still light enough to write. No sooner did it get dark
on one side of the hut than it began to lighten on the other. The
weather was gloriously cool, crisp, and invigorating, and whenever we
had sound soil under our feet we were happy.

The country was getting each hour more superbly mountainous. Great
snowy peaks rose on all sides. The coast range, lofty, roseate, dim,
and far, loomed ever in the west, but on our right a group of other
giants assembled, white and stern. A part of the time we threaded our
way through fire-devastated forests of fir, and then as suddenly
burst out into tracts of wild roses with beautiful open spaces of
waving pea-vine on which our horses fed ravenously.

We were forced to throw up our tent at every meal, so intolerable had
the mosquitoes become. Here for the first time our horses were
severely troubled by myriads of little black flies. They were small,
but resembled our common house flies in shape, and were exceedingly
venomous. They filled the horses' ears, and their sting produced
minute swellings all over the necks and breasts of the poor animals.
Had it not been for our pennyroyal and bacon grease, the bay horse
would have been eaten raw.

We overtook the trampers again at Chock Lake. They were thin, their
legs making sharp creases in their trouser legs--I could see that as
I neared them. They were walking desperately, reeling from side to
side with weaknes