rip to be over.

THE FAITHFUL BRONCOS

They go to certain death--to freeze,
To grope their way through blinding snow,
To starve beneath the northern trees--
Their curse on us who made them go!
They trust and we betray the trust;
They humbly look to us for keep.
The rifle crumbles them to dust,
And we--have hardly grace to weep
As they line up to die.

THE WHISTLING MARMOT

On mountains cold and bold and high,
Where only golden eagles fly,
He builds his home against the sky.

Above the clouds he sits and whines,
The morning sun about him shines;
Rivers loop below in shining lines.

No wolf or cat may find him there,
That winged corsair of the air,
The eagle, is his only care.

He sees the pink snows slide away,
He sees his little ones at play,
And peace fills out each summer day.

In winter, safe within his nest,
He eats his winter store with zest,
And takes his young ones to his breast.

CHAPTER XIV

THE GREAT STIKEEN DIVIDE

At about eight o'clock the next morning, as we were about to line up
for our journey, two men came romping down the trail, carrying packs
on their backs and taking long strides. They were "hitting the high
places in the scenery," and seemed to be entirely absorbed in the
work. I hailed them and they turned out to be two young men from
Duluth, Minnesota. They were without hats, very brown, very hairy,
and very much disgusted with the country.

For an hour we discussed the situation. They were the first white men
we had met on the entire journey, almost the only returning
footsteps, and were able to give us a little information of the
trail, but only for a distance of about forty miles; beyond this they
had not ventured.

"We left our outfits back here on a little lake--maybe you saw our
Indian guide--and struck out ahead to see if we could find those
splendid prairies they were telling us about, where the caribou and
the moose were so thick you couldn't miss 'em. We've been forty miles
up the trail. It's all a climb, and the very worst yet. You'll come
finally to a high snowy divide with nothing but mountains on every
side. There _is_ no prairie; it's all a lie, and we're going back to
Hazleton to go around by way of Skagway. Have you any idea where we
are?"

"Why, certainly; we're in British Columbia."

"But where? On what stream?"

"Oh, that is a de