Chapter III: Part III: A Golden Link

What I have just written is but the connecting link between two series of events--the hyphen between two words; and I shall not try to hurry on to the strange drama of a few days to which all that precedes it has been but the inevitable prologue, without which there were no clear understanding of its incidents. I am going, therefore, to dispose of a whole year's events in a few words, though much occurred in that time which might be worth relating, if I were a professional writer, able to make things interesting to all, or if I had the faculty of making word-pictures of places and scenes which stand out clearly before me whenever I reflect, and the full times of the past come up for review.

What Jack Harmer and I did for that year truly would take ten times the space I have allowed myself, and have been allowed, and I shall say but little now if I can only dispose of that twelve months in a way that places my readers in a position to clearly understand what passed in the thirteenth month after I had landed in British Columbia.

Now on our landing we had but £40 between us, and I was the possessor of nearly all that amount, about two hundred dollars in American currency. It is true I had a hundred and fifty pounds in England, which I had sent for, and Harmer had quite coolly asked his father for fifty, which I may state here he did _not_ get in a letter which advised him to return to England, and go in for something worth having before it was too late.

"He means the Civil Service, I know," said Jack, when he read the letter; "and I hate the notion. They are all fossils in it, and if they have brains to start with, they rarely keep them--why should they? They're not half as much use as a friend at court."

Perhaps he was right, yet I advised him to take his father's advice, and he took neither his nor mine, but stuck to me persistently with a devotion that pleased and yet annoyed me. For I desired a free hand, and with him I could not get it. I had some idea of going in for farming when I landed. I would get a farm near Elsie's father, and stay there. But I found I hadn't sufficient money, or anything like sufficient, to buy land near Thomson Forks. So I looked round, and, in looking round, spent money. Finally, I got Harmer something to do in a sawmill on Burrard's Inlet, a position which give him sufficient to live on, but very little more; and yet he had not to work very hard, in fact he tallied the lumber into the ships loading in the Inlet for China and Australia, and wrote to me that he liked his job reasonably well, though he was grieved to be away from me. As for myself, I went up to Thomson Forks, looked round me there, and at the hotel fell in with a man named Mackintosh, an American from Michigan, a great strong fellow, with a long red beard, and an eye like an eagle's, who was going up in the Big Bend gold-hunting, prospecting as they call it. I told him, after we got into conversation, that I wanted to go farming.

He snorted scornfully, and immediately began to dilate on gold-mining and all the chances a man had who possessed the grit to tackle it. And as I knew I really had too little money to farm with, it wasn't long before he persuaded me to be his partner and go with him. For I liked him at once, and was feeling so out in the cold that I was glad to chum with anyone who looked like knowing his way about. We were soon in the thick of planning our campaign, and Mac got very fluent and ornamental in his language as he drank and talked. However, I did not mind that much, although his blasphemy was British Columbian, and rather worse than that in use on board ship. Yet people do not think the sea a mean school of cursing. Presently, as I turned round at the bar, I saw Mr. Fleming, who did not notice me until I spoke.

"Good-morning, Mr. Fleming," I said; "will you drink with me?"

He turned round sharply at the sound of my voice, and then shook my hand, half doubtfully at first, and then more heartily.

"Well, Ticehurst," he said at last, "I am glad to see you, after all. Hang it, I am! for" (here he lowered his voice to a whisper) "I don't care about the style of this place after New South Wales. They nearly all carry revolvers here, damn it! as if they were police; and last time I came in, my man and another fellow fought, and Siwash Jim (that's what they call him) tried to gouge out the other chap's eyes. And when I pulled him off, the other men growled about my spoiling a fight. What do you think of that?"

And the old man stared at me inquiringly, and then laughed.

"Wish I could ask you over to the Creek, but I can't, and you know why. Take my advice and go back to sea. Now, look here, let's speak plain. I know you want Elsie; but it's a mistake, my boy. She didn't care for you; and I know her, she's just like her mother, the obstinatest woman you ever saw when she made up her mind. I wouldn't mind much if she did care for you, though perhaps you aint so rich as you ought to be, Tom. But then my wife had more money than I had by a long sight, so I don't care for that. But seeing that Elsie doesn't want you, what's the use? Take my advice and go to sea again."

Here he stopped and gave me the first chance of speaking I had had since I accosted him.

"Thank you, Mr. Fleming," I said firmly; "but I can't go back yet. I am glad you have no great objection to me yourself, but I believe that Elsie hasn't either, and I'm bound to prove it; and I will."

"Well, you know best," he replied. "But mind your eye, old boy, when your friend the Malay comes out. I shouldn't like to be on the same continent with him, if I were you."

"I don't like being either," I said. "But then it shows how fixed I am on one object. And I shall not go, even if he were to find out where I am. For I might have to kill him. Yet I don't see how he can find out. Nobody knows or will know, except my brother, and he won't tell him."

Fleming shrugged his shoulders and dropped the subject to take up his own affairs.

"Damn this country, my boy! give me a plain where I can see a few miles. On my soul, this place chokes me; I can't look out five hundred yards for some thundering old mountain! At the Creek there are hills at the back, at the front, and on both sides, and nearly all are chokeful of trees, so that riding after the cattle is worse than going after scrub cattle in Australia. I can't get the hang of the place at all, and though I am supposed to own nearly two hundred head of cattle, I can't muster seventy-five on my own place. Some are up at Spullamacheen, some on the Nicola, and others over at the Kettle River on the border, for all I know. And the place is full of cañons, as they call gulches in this place; and thundering holes they are, two hundred feet deep, with a roaring stream at the bottom. The Black Cañon at the back of my place gives me the shivers. I am like a horse bred on the plains; when it gets on the mountains it is all abroad, and shivers at the sight of a sharp slope. I reckon I can ride on the flat, old as I am, but here, if it wasn't for my scoundrel Siwash Jim, who says he knows the country like a book, I shouldn't know where to go or what to do. Here he comes, the vagabond!"

I had learnt by this time that Siwash means Indian, for in that country they say Siwashes instead of Indians, so I thought Jim was one of the natives. However, I saw at once he wasn't, for though he was dark, his features were pure white. He had earned his nickname by living with the Indians for so many years that he was more at home with them than with white people, and he had acquired all their vices as well as a goodly stock of his own, probably inherited. He was a slightly built man of about forty, with a low forehead, a sharp aquiline nose, and no lips to speak of; his mustache was short, and a mere line; his teeth were black with smoking and chewing; his legs bowed with continual riding. He wore mocassins, and kept his hair long. He was more than half intoxicated when he came in, carrying a stock-whip coiled round his neck. He did not speak, but drank stolidly; and when he looked at me, I fancied it was with an air of dislike, as though he had read my thoughts and knew how I regarded him.

I drew Fleming aside.

"I don't like him," said I; "and wouldn't trust him farther than I could swing a bull by the tail. Do the girls like him?"

"Like him!" repeated Fleming, "they hate him, and want me to give him the bounce, as they say here. Elsie says he looks like a murderer, and Fanny that he is uglier than a Murrumbidgee black fellow. But then he knows the country and does his work, and don't want to go. I don't care much either way, for when I can get all the cattle together and put the place in order I shall sell out and go back. Stay in British Columbia--no, sir, I won't! not if they make me Governor. I tell you I like to be where I can see ten miles. Then I can breathe. I can go out at home and see all my station and almost count the sheep and cattle from my door; and here I have to ride up and ride down, and I never know where I am. I'm going back just as soon as I can."

And he went away then without asking where I was going or whether I was doing anything. Next morning I jumped on board the steamer with Mac and started for the head of the Shushwap Lakes. Thence we went into the Big Bend, and though we never made the millions Mac was always prophesying about and hungering for, our summer's work was not wasted. For before the season was over we had struck a rich pocket and made about four thousand dollars a piece.

Of course I wanted to up stick and go back as soon as I had as much as that, but Mac would not hear of it.

"No, Tom--no," said he; "there's more here yet."

And he eyed me so entreatingly that I caved in and promised to remain with him prospecting, at any rate till the first snow.

But a week after making that agreement we both went down to the Columbia for more provisions. Finding none there, we had to make the farther journey to the Landing. There I found a letter waiting for me from Harmer, saying that he was tired of the sawmill on the Inlet, and wanted to join me. I wrote back requesting him to be good enough to stay where he was, but, to console him, promised that if I saw any chance of his doing better with me I would send for him. He asked rather timidly for news of Fanny. How could I give him news when I knew nothing of Elsie? Yet the simple mention of the girl's name again made me anxious to get back to the Forks, and if one of the steamers had come up the lake I think I should have deserted Mac in spite of my promise. Yet we had only brought down half the gold that trip, perhaps because my partner had made a calculation as to what I might do, having it on me, if we got within reach of some kind of civilization, and I thought it best to secure the rest while I could, though I thoroughly trusted Mac. At the same time that I answered Harmer's letter I wrote one to my brother, telling him both what I had done and what I proposed doing later on. And I begged him to be careful, if he should be in San Francisco then, of the Malay when his time was up. For although his chief spite was against me, yet Will was my brother, and I well remembered the look that he had cast on him when he was kicked in the struggle between Will and myself.

The rest of the summer--and a beautiful season it was in the wooded mountains--was spent in very unsuccessful prospecting. For one thing, after our success Mac had taken to prospecting for pockets; and if gold-mining be like gambling as a general rule, that is almost pure chance. Once or twice he was in high spirits at good indications, but on following them up we were invariably disappointed, and we had to start again. August and September passed, and the higher summits above us were already white with snow, which fell on us in the lower valleys as rain. In October there was a cessation of bad weather for a time, and Mac promised himself a long fall season, but at the end of it we woke one morning to find a foot of snow on our very camping ground.

"We shall have to get up and get," said I cheerfully, for I was glad of it.

"Oh, no!" said Mac; "this is nothing. It will all go again by to-morrow; there will be nothing to stop us from another week or two. Besides, yesterday I had a notion that I saw something. I didn't tell you, but I found another bit of quartz--aye, richer than the piece I showed you at the Forks, Tom, and we've got to find out where it comes from."

I groaned, but, in spite of argument, there was no moving him; and though I was angry enough to have gone off by myself, yet knowing neither the trail nor the country well, I had no desire to get lost in the mountains, which would most assuredly have meant death to me. However, I still remonstrated, and at last got him to fix ten days as the very longest time he would remain: I was obliged to be content with that.

But Mac was sorry before the hour appointed for our departure that he had not taken my advice, "tenderfoot" and Englishman though I was. On the evening of the eighth day the temperature, which had up to that time been fairly warm in spite of our altitude and the advanced season, fell suddenly, and it became bitterly cold. Our ponies, who had managed to pick up a fair living on the plateau where our camp stood, and along the creek bottoms, came right up to our tent, and one of them put his head inside. "Dick," as we called him, was a much gentler animal than most British Columbian cayuses, and had made a friend of me, coming once a day at least for me to give him a piece of bread, of which he had grown fond, though at first he was as strange with it as a young foal with oats. I put up my hand and touched his nose, which was soft and silky, while the rest of his coat was long and rough. He whinnied gently, and I found a crust for him, and then gently repulsing him, I fastened the fly of the tent. Mac was fast asleep under his dark blankets, whence there came sudden snorts like those a bear makes in his covert, or low rumblings like thunder from a thick cloud.

But it was he who woke me in the morning, and he did it without ceremony.

"Get up, old man!" he said hurriedly, while he was jamming himself, as it were, into his garments. "The snow's come at last--and, by thunder, it's come to stay! There's no time to be lost!" And he vanished into the white space outside.

When I followed I found him already at work packing the ponies, and without any words I set to, struck the tent, rolled it up, and got together everything I thought should go. When I touched the tools Mac turned round.

"Leave 'em, pard--leave 'em. There's plenty of weight without that. Aye, plenty--and too much!"

The last I only just caught, for it was said to himself. In half an hour we were off, leaving behind us nearly three weeks' provisions, all the tools but two light shovels, and what remained after our working the quartz.

"It's worth a thousand dollars," said Mac, regretfully, "but without a proper crusher it's only tailings."

We moved off camp, Mac first, leading the nameless pony, which was the stronger of the two, and I following with Dick.

The snow was two feet deep in many parts, and in some drifts much more than that. Fortunately, the trail was for its greater length well sheltered, both by overhanging rocks and big trees, spruce, cedar, hemlock, and pine, which helped to keep it clear; but it was evident to me by the way the ponies traveled, and the labor it was for me to get along with no other burden than the shovel, from which I sometimes used to free Dick, that another fall of snow would make traveling almost impossible. Mac walked on in somber silence, reflecting doubtless that it was his obstinacy which had brought us into trouble, a thing I confess I was not so forgiving as to forget, though merciful enough not to remind him of it. It had taken us three days to come up from the Columbia, and it seemed barely possible under the circumstances to retrace our steps in the same time, even although the horses were not so much burdened and there was not so much hard climbing to be done. But I could see Mac was bent on getting out, and he traveled without more rest than we were absolutely compelled to take on account of the animals. As for myself, I confess that though I had traveled that same trail twice, yet so greatly was it altered by the snow that I should have lost my way in the first mile. For mountaineering and the knowledge of locality are things not to be learnt in a hurry, they must come by long custom, or by native instinct.

Sorrowfully--for I am always loth to harm even a noxious animal, as long as it leaves me alone--I suggested to Mac that we should leave the horses. He shook his head.

"Who'll carry the provisions, then?" said he.

"Do you think we can get to the Landing, Mac?" I asked.

"We shall be lucky," he answered, with a significant nod, "if we get to the other side of the Columbia. Tom, I think I have let you in for a winter up here, unless you care about snow-shoeing it over the other pass. I was a fool--say yes to that if you like."

It was late when we camped, but my partner was in better spirits than he had been at noon when we held the above conversation, for we had done, by dint of forced marching, quite as much as we did in fine weather. But the ponies were very tired, and there was nothing for them to eat, or next to nothing, for the grass was deeply buried. I gave Dick a little bread, however, and the poor animal was grateful for it, and stood by me all night, until, at the earliest dawn, we packed them again with a load that was lighter by the day's food of two men, and heavier to them by a day's hard toil and starvation.

Toward the afternoon of that, the second day, we came to the hardest part of the whole trail, for, on crossing a river which was freezing cold, we had to climb the side of an opposing mountain. Mac's pony traveled well, and though he showed evident signs of fatigue, he was in much better case than mine, who every now and again staggered, or sobbed audibly with a long-drawn breath. I drew Mac's attention to it, but he shook his head.

"He must go on, there's no two ways about it." And he marched off. I went behind Dick and pushed him for a while, and though I tired myself, yet I am not sorry for what I did, even that little assistance was such a relief to the poor wretched animal who, from the time he was able to bear a weight, had been used by a packer without rest or peace, as though he were a machine, and whose only hope of release was to die, starved, wounded, saddle and girth galled, of slow starvation at last. Such is the lot of the pack horse, and, though poor Dick's end was more merciful, his fellows have no better fate to expect, while their life is a perpetual round of ill-usage and hard work.

By about four o'clock in the afternoon the sky grew overcast, and the light feathery flakes of snow came at first slowly, and then faster, turning what blue distances we caught sight of to a gray, finally hiding them. Dick by this time was almost at a standstill. I never thought I was a very tender-hearted man, and never set up to be; indeed, if he had been only stubborn, I might have thrashed him in a way some folks would call cruel; and yet, being compelled to urge him, both for his sake and my own, I confess my heart bled to see his suffering and wretchedness. Having scarcely the strength to lift his feet properly, he had struck his fetlocks against many projecting stones and roots until the blood ran down and congealed on his little hoofs, which were growing tender, as I could see by the way he winced on a rockier piece of the trail than common. His rough coat was standing up and staring like that of a broken-haired terrier, in spite of the sweat which ran down his thin sides and heaving flanks; while every now and again he stumbled, and with difficulty recovered himself.

When we came to the divide, just as if he had said that he would do so much for us, he stumbled again, and fell on the level ground, cutting his knees deeply. Mac heard the noise, and, leaving his pony standing, he came back to me.

"He's done up, poor devil!" said he; "he'll go no further. What shall we do?"

I shook my head, for it was not I who arranged or ordered things when Mac was about. He was silent for a while.

"There's nothing for it," he said at last, "but one thing. We must put all the other kieutan can stand on him."

By this time I had got the pack off Dick, and he lay down perfectly flat upon his side, with the blood slowly oozing from his knees, and his flanks still heaving from the exertions which had brought him up the hill to die on the top of it.

"Come on," said Mac, as he moved off with what he meant to put on the other pony.

But at first I could not go. I put my hand in my pocket, took out a piece of bread, and, kneeling down by the poor animal, I put it to his lips. He mumbled it with his teeth and dropped it out. Then in my hat I got some water out of a little pool and offered it to him. He drank some and then fell back again. I took my revolver from my belt, stroked his soft nose once more, and, putting the weapon to his head between his eye and ear, I fired. He shivered all over, stiffened a little, and all was still except for the slow drip of the blood that ran out of his ear from a vein the ball had divided. Then I went on--and I hope no one will think me weak if I confess my sight was not quite so clear as it had been before, and if there was a strange haziness about the cruelly cold trail and mountain side that did not come from the falling snow.

At our camp that night we spoke little more than was absolutely necessary, and turned in as soon as we had eaten supper, drunk a tin of coffee, and smoked a couple of pipes. Fortunately for the remaining horse, in the place we had reached there was a little feed, a few tussocks of withering frost-nipped bunch grass, which he ate greedily to the last roots his sharp teeth could reach. And then he pawed or "rustled" for more, using his hoof to bare what was hidden under the snow. But for that we should have left him on the trail next morning.

The toil and suffering of the third day's march were dreadful, for I grew footsore, and my feet bled at the heels, while the skin rose in blisters on every toe, which rapidly became raw. But Mac was a man of iron, and never faltered or grew tired; and his example, and a feeling of shame at being outdone by another, kept me doggedly behind him at a few paces' distance. How the pony stood that day was a miracle, for he must have been made of iron and not flesh and blood to carry his pack, while climbing up and sliding down the steep ascents and slopes of the hills, while every few yards some wind-felled tree had to be clambered over almost as a dog would do it. He was always clammy with sweat, but he seemed in better condition than on the second day, perhaps on account of the grass he had been able to get during the night. Yet he had had to work all night to get it, while I and Mac had slept in the torpor of great exhaustion.

Late in the evening we came to the banks of the Columbia, across which stretched sandy flats and belts of scrub, until the level ended, and lofty mountains rose once more, covered with snow and fringed with sullen clouds, thousands of feet above where we stood. Mac stopped, and looked anxiously across the broad stream; and when he saw a faint curl of bluish smoke rising a mile away in the sunless air, he pointed to it with a more pleased expression that I had seen on his face since he had roused me so hurriedly on that snowy morning three days ago.

"There is somebody over there, at any rate, old man," he said almost cheerfully, "though I don't know what the thunder they're doing here, unless it's Montana Bill come up trapping. He said he was going to do it, but if so, what's he doing down here?"

"Can't he trap here, then?" I asked.

"Well," replied Mac, "this might be the end of his line; but still, he ought to be farther up in the hills. There isn't much to trap close down on this flat. You see trappers usually have two camps, and they walk the line during the day, and take out what is caught in the night, setting the traps again, and sleeping first at one end and then at the other. However, we shall see when we get across." And he set about lighting a fire.

When we had crossed before there had been a rough kind of boat built out of pine slabs, which was as crazy a craft to go in as a butter-tub. It had been made by some hunters the winter before, and left there when they went west in the early spring, before we came up. I asked Mac what had become of it, for it was not where we had left it, hauled up a little way on a piece of shingle and tied to a stump.

"Somebody took it," he said, "or more likely, when the water rose after we crossed, it was carried away. Perhaps it's in the Pacific by this."

I went down to the stump, and found there the remains of the painter, and as it had been broken violently and not cut, I saw that his last suggestion was probably correct.

We sat down to supper by our fire, which gleamed brightly in the gathering darkness on the surrounding snow and the waters close beneath us, and ate some very vile bacon and a greasy mess of beans which we had cooked the night before we left our mountain camp.

"How are we going to cross, Mac?" said I, when we had lighted our pipes.

"Build a raft," said he.

"And then?"

"When we are over?"

"Yes."

"Why, stay there, I guess, if it snows any more. One more fall of heavy snow will block Eagle Pass as sure as fire's hot!"

I shrugged my shoulders. Though I had been expecting this, it was not pleasant to have the prospect of spending a whole winter mewed up in the mountains, so close before me.

"Does it get very cold here?" I asked at length, when I had reflected for a while.

He nodded sardonically.

"Does it get cold? Is it cold now?"

I drew closer to the fire for an answer.

"Then this is nothin'--nothin' at all. It would freeze the tail off a brass monkey up here. It goes more than forty below zero often and often; and it's a worse kind of cold than the cold back east, for it's damper here, and not so steady. Bah! I wish I was a bear, so as to hole up till spring."

All of which was very encouraging to a man who had mostly sailed in warm latitudes, and hated a frost worse than poison. And it didn't please me to see that so good-tempered a man as Mac was really put out and in a vile humor, for he knew what I could only imagine.

The conversation--if conversation it could be called--flagged very soon, and we got out our blankets, scraping away the snow from a place, where we lay close to each other in order to preserve what warmth we could. We lay in the position commonly called in America "spooning," like two spoons fitting one into another, so that there had to be common consent for changing sides, one of which grew damp while the other grew cold. Just as we were settling down to sleep we heard the sudden crack of a rifle from the other shore, and against the wind came a "halloa" across the water, Mac sat up very unconcernedly; but, as for me, I jumped as if I had been shot, thinking of course at first that the shot had been fired by Indians, though I knew there were no hostile tribes in that part of British Columbia, where, indeed, most of the Indians are very peaceable.

"I told you so," said Mac; "that's Montana Bill's rifle. I sold it him myself. He's the only man up here that carries a Sharp."

He rose, and went down to the water's edge. "Halloa!" he shouted, in his turn, and in the quietness of the windless air I heard it faintly repeated in distant echoes.

"Is that you, Mac?" said the mysterious voice.

"You bet it is!" answered my partner, in a tone that ought to have been heard on the Arrow Lake.

"Bully old boy!" said Bill faintly, as it seemed. "Do you know me?"

"Aye, I reckon I know old Montana's bellow!" roared Mac.

"Then I'll see you in the morning, pard!" came the voice again, after which there was silence, broken only by the faint lap of the water on the shingle, as it slipped past, and the snort of our pony as he blew the snow out of his nostrils, vainly seeking for a tuft of grass.

We rose at earliest dawn, and saw Montana Bill slowly coming over the level. He sat down while Mac and I built a raft, and fashioned a couple of rude paddles with the ax.

"Is the pony coming across, Mac?" I asked.

"We'll try it, but it's his own lookout," said he; "if he won't come easy we shan't drag him, for we shall hev to paddle to do it ourselves."

Fortunately for him he did want to go over, and, having a long lariat round his neck, he actually swam in front of us, and gave us a tow instead of our giving him one.

As we were going over, Mac said to me:

"I never thought I'd be glad to see Montana Bill before. He's got more gas and blow about him than'd set up a town, and he's no more good at bottom--that is, he aint no more grit in him than a clay bank, though to hear him talk you'd think he'd mor'n a forty-two inch grindstone. But I hope he's got a good stock of grub."

In a few minutes we touched bottom, and we shook hands with the subject of Mac's eulogium, who looked as bold as brass, as fierce as a turkeycock, and had the voice of a man-o'-war's bo'son. We took the lariat off the pony, and turned him adrift.

"Did you fellows strike it?" said Bill, the first thing.

"Enough to pay for our winter's board, I reckon," said Mac. "Have you got plenty of grub?"

Bill nodded, using the common American word for yes, which is a kind of cross-breed between "yea" and the German "Ja," pronounced short like "ye."

"You bet I've plenty. Old Hank kem up with me, and then he cleared out again. He and I kind of disagreed first thing, and he just skinned out. Good thing too--for him!"

And Bill looked unutterable things.

"Is there any chance of getting out over the pass?" asked Mac.

"If you can fly," answered Bill. "Drifts is forty foot deep in parts, and soft too. I could hardly get on snow-shoein' it. Better stay and trap with me. Better'n gold-huntin' any time, and more dollars in it."

"Why aint you farther up in the hills?" asked Mac, as we tramped along.

"Dunno," said Bill; "I allers camp here every year. It's kind of clear, and there's a chance for the cayuses to pick a bit to keep bones and hide together. Besides, I feel more freer down here. I see more than 'ull do me of the hills walking the line."

And with that we came to his camp.

Now, if I tell all that happened during that winter, which was, all round, the most uncomfortable and most unhappy one I ever spent, for I had so much time to think of Elsie, and how some other man more to her mind might go to windward of me in courting her--why, I should not write one book, but two, which is not my intention now. Besides, I have been long enough coming to the most serious part of my history to tire other people, as it has tired me; although I could not exactly help it, because all, or at least nearly all, that happened between the time I was on the _Vancouver_ and the time we all met again seems important to me, especially as it might have gone very differently if I had never been gold-hunting in the Selkirks, or even if I had got out of the mountains in the fall instead of the following spring. For things seem linked together in life, and, in writing, one must put everything in unless more particular description becomes tedious, because of its interfering with the story. And though trapping is interesting enough, yet I am not writing here about that or hunting, which is more interesting still; and when a man tells me a yarn he says is about a certain thing, I don't want him to break off in the middle to say something quite different, any more than I like a man to get up in the middle of a job of work, such as a long splice which is wanted, to do something he wasn't ordered to do. It's only a way of doing a literary Tom Cox's traverse, "three times round the deck house, and once to the scuttle-butt"--just putting in time, or making what a literary friend of mine calls "padding."

So folks who read this can understand why I shall say nothing of this long and weary winter, and, if they prefer it, they can think that we "holed up," as Mac said, like the bears, and slept through it all. For in the next part of this yarn it will be spring, with the snow melting fast, and the trail beginning to look like a path again that even a sailor, who was not a mountaineer, could hope to travel on without losing his life, or even his way.