As the heavy mists lifted at daybreak, the travellers observed that the river was narrowing again and that the wooded banks had begun to fly past very swiftly. There was no mistaking the signs. They were approaching more rapids. But the trick of guiding the craft down rapids had now been learned; so the flotilla rode the furious waters unharmed for fifteen miles. {81} It was almost dark when canoes and rafts swung round a curve in the river and saw a flag waving above the little walled fur-post of Fort George. The tired wanderers were welcomed in by clerks too amazed to speak, while a howling chorus of husky-dogs set up their serenade. A young Englishman, who had joined the Overlanders at St Paul, died from the effects of exposure a few minutes after being carried into the fort. Next morning the body was rolled in blankets, placed in a canoe, and buried under a rude wooden cross, with stones piled above the grave to prevent the ravaging of huskies and wolves. The chief factor was away, but the young clerks in charge sent Indians along to pilot the Overlanders through the rapids below Fort George, known as the most dangerous on the Fraser. These rapids, it will be recalled, had wrecked Alexander Mackenzie and had almost cost Simon Fraser his life. But the treasure-seekers did not have to go as far south as Alexandria, where Mackenzie had turned back. With guides who knew the waters, they ran the rapids below Fort George safely, and moored at Quesnel, the entrance to Cariboo, on the 11th of September--four months after they had left Canada. {82} Quesnel was at this time a rude settlement of perhaps a dozen log shacks--chiefly bunkhouses and provision-stores. North of Yale the Cariboo Road had not yet been opened, and all provisions had been brought in from the lower Fraser by pack-horse and dog-train at enormous cost and risk. Food sold at extortionate prices. A meal cost two dollars and fifty cents, for beans, bacon, and coffee. Salmon, of course, was cheap. Fortunately, there was little whisky; so, though tattered miners were everywhere in the woods, order was maintained without vigilance committees. On one spectacle the far-travelled ragged Overlanders feasted their tired eyes. They saw miners everywhere along the banks of creeks washing gold. But there were more gold-seekers than claims, and those without claims were full of complaints and fears for the winter. They declared the country was over-rated and a humbug. The question was how 'to get out' to Victoria. Overlanders, who had tramped across the breadth of a continent, did not relish the prospect, as one Yankee miner described it, of 'hoofing it five hundred miles farther.' Some of the disappointed Overlanders floated on down to Alexandria, where they sold their rafts and took jobs on the {83} government road which was being constructed along the canyon. This ensured them safety from starvation for the winter at least.