The dogs and sleds have been left behind and now, with Jaquis the half-breed “boy” leading, followed closely by Smith the Silent, we go deeper and deeper each day into the pathless wilderness.

To be sure it is not all bush, all forest.  At times we cross wide reaches of wild prairie lands.  Sometimes great lakes lie immediately in front of us, compelling us to change our course.  Now we come to a wide river and raft our outfit over, swimming our horses.  Weeks go by and we begin to get glimpses of the Rockies rising above the forest, and we push on.  The streams become narrower as we ascend, but swifter and more dangerous.

We do not travel constantly now, as we have been doing.  Sometimes we keep our camp for two or three days.  The climbing is hard, for Smith must get to the top of every peak in sight, and so I find it “good hunting” about the camp.

Jaquis is a fairly good cook, and what he lacks we make up with good appetites, for we live almost constantly out under the sun and stars.

Pathfinders always lay up on Sunday, and sometimes, the day being long, Smith steals out to the river and comes back with a mountain trout as long as a yardstick.

The scenery is beyond description.  Now we pass over the shoulder of a mountain with a river a thousand feet below.  Sometimes we trail for hours along the shore of a limpid lake that seems to run away to the foot of the Rockies.

Far away we get glimpses of the crest of the continent, where the Peace River gashes it as if it had been cleft by the sword of the Almighty; and near the Rockies, on either bank, grand battlements rise that seem to guard the pass as the Sultan’s fortresses frown down on the Dardanelles.

Now we follow a narrow trail that was not a trail until we passed.  A careless pack-horse, carrying our blankets, slips from the path and goes rolling and tumbling down the mountain side.  A thousand feet below lies an arm of the Athabasca.  Down, down, and over and over the pack-horse goes, and finally fetches up on a ledge five hundred feet below the trail.  “By damn,” says Jaquis, “dere is won bronco bust, eh?”

Smith and Jaquis go down to cut the cinches and save the pack, and lo, up jumps our cayuse, and when he is repacked he takes the trail as good as new.  The pack and the low bush save his life.

In any other country, to other men, this would be exciting, but it’s all in the day’s work with Smith and Jaquis.

The pack-pony that had been down the mountain is put in the lead now—­that is, in the lead of the pack animals; for he has learned his lesson, he will be careful.  And yet we are to have other experiences along this same river.

Suddenly, down a side canon, a mountain stream rushes, plunging into the Athabasca, joyfully, like a sea-bather into the surf.  Jaquis calls this side-stream “the mill-tail o’ hell.”  Smith the Silent prepares to cross.  It’s all very simple.  All you need is a stout pole, a steady nerve, and an utter disregard for the hereafter.