refused to pull even enough to take the proverbial
setting hen off the nest.

Up to this time I had felt no need of company on the trail, and for
the most part we had travelled alone. But I now developed a poignant
desire to hear the tinkle of a bell on the back trail, for there is
no "funny business" about losing a packhorse in the midst of a wild
country. His value is not represented by the twenty-five dollars
which you originally paid for him. Sometimes his life is worth all
you can give for him.

After some three hours of toil (the horse getting weaker all the
time), I looked around once more with despairing gaze, and caught
sight of a bunch of horses across the valley flat. In this country
there were no horses except such as the goldseeker owned, and this
bunch of horses meant a camp of trailers. Leaping to my saddle, I
galloped across the spongy marsh to hailing distance.

My cries for help brought two of the men running with spades to help
us. The four of us together lifted the old horse out of the pit more
dead than alive. We fell to and rubbed his legs to restore
circulation. Later we blanketed him and turned him loose upon the
grass. In a short time he was nearly as well as ever.

It was a sorrowful experience, for a fallen horse is a horse in ruins
and makes a most woful appeal upon one's sympathies. I went to bed
tired out, stiff and sore from pulling on the rope, my hands
blistered, my nerves shaken.

As I was sinking off to sleep I heard a wolf howl, as though he
mourned the loss of a feast.

We had been warned that the Bulkley River was a bad stream to
cross,--in fact, the road-gang had cut a new trail in order to avoid
it,--that is to say, they kept to the right around the sharp elbow
which the river makes at this point, whereas the old trail cut
directly across the elbow, making two crossings. At the point where
the new trail led to the right we held a council of war to determine
whether to keep to the old trail, and so save several days' travel,
or to turn to the right and avoid the difficult crossing. The new
trail was reported to be exceedingly miry, and that determined the
matter--we concluded to make the short cut.

We descended to the Bulkley through clouds of mosquitoes and endless
sloughs of mud. The river was out of its banks, and its quicksand
flats were exceedingly dangerous to our pack animals, although the
river itself at this point was a small and sluggish stream.

It took us ex