We had been advised to return to the Athabaska by a direct trail from Jack Lake, but our evil genius prompted us to try the Maligne River route which would bring us out near Jasper. Never did the shortest way round prove more conclusively the longest way home. For nine long hours we toiled down that interminable valley without rest or food, crossing the river back and forth innumerable times, scrambling up banks so steep that we had to go on hands and knees with our faithful little nags struggling up after us, and then finding in disgust that we had to slide down again to the rocky bed of the river, worrying through miles of fallen timber, miles of muskeg, miles of wiry bushes that slapped us viciously in the face as we forced a way through, and ripped our clothing until we looked more like stage tramps than fairly respectable travellers. The expected trail proved to be nothing but a few experimental blazes on the trees; experimental surely, as we found more than once to our cost, following the blazes to a standstill in a blind lead, and turning back in our tracks for perhaps half a mile to where the "trail" branched off to the other side of the valley. That day we became temporary converts to the theory that the pathless wilderness was no place for sane mortals. However, every lane must have its turning, and at last we hailed with shouts of joy the familiar gorge of the Maligne, which we had visited from Jasper some time before. From the gorge over to the Athabaska we had a good trail, a boat ferried us across after our swimming horses, and we were back again at the Hotel Fitzhugh, raiding the neighbouring store for tobacco, our last pipeful having been smoked two days before. Probably this had more than a little to do with our gloomy impressions of the Maligne River trail. [Illustration: JACK LAKE. _H. W. Craver_] [Illustration: MALIGNE LAKE. _H. W. Craver_] [Illustration: BREAKING CAMP IN THE MOUNTAINS. _A. Knechtel_] [Illustration: MAKING A TRAIL THROUGH FALLEN TIMBER. _A. Knechtel_] XIII THE MONARCH OF THE ROCKIES Waving a glad farewell to Jasper, the ugly little outpost of civilisation, we threw our bags on the west-bound train the following morning and were off for Mount Robson. A few miles' easy grade and we were at the summit of Yellowhead Pass, the continental divide. Behind us was Alberta, ahead British Columbia. We had left Jasper Park, and were entering Robson Park.