ed instantly, and looking down at me inquiringly,
waited for me to scramble out from beneath his feet and drag the
saddle up to its place.

With heart filled with gratitude, I patted him on the nose, and said,
"Old boy, if you carry me through to Teslin Lake, I will take care of
you for the rest of your days."

At about noon the next day we came down off the high plateau, with
its cold and snow, and camped in a sunny sward near a splendid ranch
where lambs were at play on the green grass. Blackbirds were calling,
and we heard our first crane bugling high in the sky. From the
loneliness and desolation of the high country, with its sparse road
houses, we were now surrounded by sunny fields mellow with thirty
seasons' ploughing.

The ride was very beautiful. Just the sort of thing we had been
hoping for. All day we skirted fine lakes with grassy shores. Cranes,
ducks, and geese filled every pond, the voice of spring in their
brazen throats.

Once a large flight of crane went sweeping by high in the sky, a
royal, swift scythe reaping the clouds. I called to them in their own
tongue, and they answered. I called again and again, and they began
to waver and talk among themselves; and at last, having decided that
this voice from below should be heeded, they broke rank and commenced
sweeping round and round in great circles, seeking the lost one whose
cry rose from afar. Baffled and angered, they rearranged themselves
at last in long regular lines, and swept on into the north.

We camped on this, the sixth day, beside a fine stream which came
from a lake, and here we encountered our first mosquitoes. Big, black
fellows they were, with a lazy, droning sound quite different from
any I had ever heard. However, they froze up early and did not bother
us very much.

At the one hundred and fifty-nine mile house, which was a stage
tavern, we began to hear other bogie stories of the trail. We were
assured that horses were often poisoned by eating a certain plant,
and that the mud and streams were terrible. Flies were a never ending
torment. All these I regarded as the croakings of men who had never
had courage to go over the trail, and who exaggerated the accounts
they had heard from others.

We were jogging along now some fifteen or twenty miles a day,
thoroughly enjoying the trip. The sky was radiant, the aspens were
putting forth transparent yellow leaves. On the grassy slopes some
splendid yellow flowers quite new to me wav