t rest.

For then the odor of the growing wheat,
The flare of sumach on the hills,
The touch of grasses to my feet
Would cure my brain of all its ills,--
Would fill my heart so full of joy
That no stern lines could fret my face.
There would I be forever boy,
Lit by the sky's unfailing grace.

CHAPTER IV

IN CAMP AT QUESNELLE

We came into Quesnelle about three o'clock of the eleventh day out.
From a high point which overlooked the two rivers, we could see great
ridges rolling in waves of deep blue against the sky to the
northwest. Over these our slender little trail ran. The wind was in
the south, roaring up the river, and green grass was springing on the
slopes.

Quesnelle we found to be a little town on a high, smooth slope above
the Fraser. We overtook many prospectors like ourselves camped on the
river bank waiting to cross.

Here also telegraph bulletins concerning the Spanish war, dated
London, Hong Kong, and Madrid, hung on the walls of the post-office.
They were very brief and left plenty of room for imagination and
discussion.

Here I took a pony and a dog-cart and jogged away toward the
long-famous Caribou Mining district next day, for the purpose of
inspecting a mine belonging to some friends of mine. The ride was
very desolate and lonely, a steady climb all the way, through
fire-devastated forests, toward the great peaks. Snow lay in the
roadside ditches. Butterflies were fluttering about, and in the high
hills I saw many toads crawling over the snowbanks, a singular sight
to me. They were silent, perhaps from cold.

Strange to say, this ride called up in my mind visions of the hot
sands, and the sun-lit buttes and valleys of Arizona and Montana, and
I wrote several verses as I jogged along in the pony-cart.

When I returned to camp two days later, I found Burton ready and
eager to move. The town swarmed with goldseekers pausing here to rest
and fill their parfleches. On the opposite side of the river others
could be seen in camp, or already moving out over the trail, which
left the river and climbed at once into the high ridges dark with
pines in the west.

As I sat with my partner at night talking of the start the next day,
I began to feel not a fear but a certain respect for that narrow
little path which was not an arm's span in width, but which was
nearly eight hundred miles in length. "From this point, Burton, it is
business. Our practice march i