nd was greeted with cries of joy by the
weary drivers. More than one of them could "smell the salt water." In
imagination they saw this bird following the steamer up the Stikeen
to the first south fork, thence to meet us. It seemed only a short
ride down the valley to the city of Glenora and the post-office.

Each day we drove above timber line, and at noon were forced to
rustle the dead dwarf pine for fire. The marshes were green and
filled with exquisite flowers and mosses, little white and purple
bells, some of them the most beautiful turquoise-green rising from
tufts of verdure like mignonette. I observed also a sort of crocus
and some cheery little buttercups. The ride would have been
magnificent had it not been for the spongy, sloppy marsh through
which our horses toiled. As it was, we felt a certain breadth and
grandeur in it surpassing anything we had hitherto seen. Our three
outfits with some score of horses went winding through the wide,
green, treeless valleys with tinkle of bells and sharp cry of
drivers. The trail was difficult to follow, because in the open
ground each man before us had to take his own course, and there were
few signs to mark the line the road-gang had taken.

It was impossible to tell where we were, but I was certain we were
upon the head-waters of some one of the many forks of the great
Stikeen River. Marmots and a sort of little prairie dog continued
plentiful, but there was no other life. The days were bright and
cool, resplendent with sun and rich in grass.

Some of the goldseekers fired a salute with shotted guns when, poised
on the mountain side, they looked down upon a stream flowing to the
northwest. But the joy was short-lived. The descent of this
mountain's side was by all odds the most terrible piece of trail we
had yet found. It led down the north slope, and was oozy and slippery
with the melting snow. It dropped in short zigzags down through a
grove of tangled, gnarled, and savage cedars and pines, whose roots
were like iron and filled with spurs that were sharp as chisels. The
horses, sliding upon their haunches and unable to turn themselves in
the mud, crashed into the tangled pines and were in danger of being
torn to pieces. For more than an hour we slid and slewed through this
horrible jungle of savage trees, and when we came out below we had
two horses badly snagged in the feet, but Ladrone was uninjured.

We now crossed and recrossed the little stream, which dropped