there's no feed. And as near's I can find out we're in fer hell's own
time fer feed till we reach them prairies they tell about."

After leaving this flat, we had the Kuldo (a swift and powerful
river) to cross, but we found an old Indian and a girl camped on the
opposite side waiting for us. The daughter, a comely child about
sixteen years of age, wore a calico dress and "store" shoes. She was
a self-contained little creature, and clearly in command of the boat,
and very efficient. It was no child's play to put the light canoe
across such a stream, but the old man, with much shouting and under
command of the girl, succeeded in crossing six times, carrying us and
our baggage. As we were being put across for the last time it became
necessary for some one to pull the canoe through the shallow water,
and the little girl, without hesitation, leaped out regardless of new
shoes, and tugged at the rope while the old man poled at the stern,
and so we were landed.

As a recognition of her resolution I presented her with a dollar,
which I tried to make her understand was her own, and not to be given
to her father. Up to that moment she had been very shy and rather
sullen, but my present seemed to change her opinion of us, and she
became more genial at once. She was short and sturdy, and her little
footsteps in the trail were strangely suggestive of civilization.

After leaving the river we rose sharply for about three miles. This
brought us to the first notice on the trail which was signed by the
road-gang, an ambiguous scrawl to the effect that feed was to be very
scarce for a long, long way, and that we should feed our horses
before going forward. The mystery of the sign lay in the fact that no
feed was in sight, and if it referred back to the flat, then it was
in the nature of an Irish bull.

There was a fork in the trail here, and another notice informed us
that the trail to the right ran to the Indian village of Kuldo. Rain
threatened, and as it was late and no feed promised, I determined to
camp. Turning to the right down a tremendously steep path (the horses
sliding on their haunches), we came to an old Indian fishing village
built on a green shelf high above the roaring water of the Skeena.

The people all came rushing out to see us, curious but very
hospitable. Some of the children began plucking grasses for the
horses, but being unaccustomed to animals of any kind, not one would
approach within reach of them. I tr