We imagined that we were making the best of starts. We all started forward in Indian file with that springy gait which marks men having confidence in themselves. The guide, however, led us to his own camp. He did so without explanations or remark. He entered his wigwam and we remained outside. The proceeding was inexplicable until we learned that he had to repair his moccasins before he could start. We halted three quarters of an hour, while the squaw deliberately plied her awl and leather thong, the Indian in the meanwhile sitting motionless, smoking his pipe and looking into the embers of the fire. We could only imitate his patience and await the result. At length in the same silent way he re-appeared, and started without comment on the trail. We submissively followed. The thought crossed my mind that in this case knowledge was power. Our guide took us by a circuitous route round the shore of the “big eddy,” avoiding a mile of exceedingly painful walking, which the Kamloops men had passed over last night. We find our way over ground almost clear of trees. Some years back the country had been ravaged by one of the great forest fires, often extending over immense distances. The trees had not again grown, and we rapidly reach the green wood in the pass, where we take our mid-day meal. We start again, skirting a large marsh. It seemed to us at first to be a beaver meadow. It was full of water holes, skunk cabbage and deep black muck. McLean and his men had waded through this bog up to their middle for the greater part of the way. It was the one part of their return they most dreaded to encounter. Do any of my readers know what it is to wade through a marsh of deep oozy mud, covered with stinking water? It is not an experience they may long for. The path we pass along is the one taken by the Indians for carrying cariboo and game over the mountains. The various wild berries we saw on the route were unusually large. They more resembled small grapes in size than the ordinary berry, and were pleasant to the taste. There was an abundance of black huckleberries and blackberries. Is not this presence of a luxurious growth of wild growing fruit an indication that garden fruits might find their home in these sheltered valleys? We are fast ascending towards the summit. The valley leading to the Eagle pass is about a quarter of a mile wide, walled in by parallel mountains generally wooded to the top. We pass through a vast grove of fine timber, mostly hemlock, fit for purposes of railway construction. We cross several times the stream we are following, and about five o’clock encamp on its eastern side. The site we select is the freest we could find from the formidable devil’s clubs. Cedars, four feet in diameter, rise up around us like the columns of a lofty temple. We counted some forty or fifty in a circle of a radius of a hundred feet, and a striking appearance they presented.