Your letter cam' by the express, Eight shillin's carriage, naethin' less! {97} You maybe like to ken what pay Miners get here for ilka day? Jus' twa poond sterling', sure as death-- It should be four, between us baith-- For gin ye coont the cost o' livin', There's naethin' left to gang an' come on. Sawney, had ye yer taters here And neeps and carrots--dinna speer What price; though I might tell ye weel, Ye'd ainly think me a leein' chiel. The first twa years I spent out here Werena sae ill ava'; But hoo I've lived syne; my freend, There's little need to blaw. Like fitba' knockit back and fore, That's lang in reachin' goal, Or feather blown by ilka wind That whistles 'tween each pole-- E'en sae my mining life has been For mony a weary day. Later, when the dance-hall became the theatre of Barkerville, James Anderson used to sing his rhymes to the stentorious shouting and loud stamping of the shirt-sleeved audience. He thinks his pile is made, An' he's goin' hame this fall, To join his dear auld mither, His faither, freends, and all. His heart e'en jumps wi' joy At the thocht o' bein' there, An' mony a happy minute He's biggin' castles in the air! {98} But hopes that promised high In the springtime o' the year, Like leaves o' autumn fa' When the frost o' winter's near. Sae his biggin' tumbles doon, Wi' ilka blast o' care, Till there's no stane astandin' O' his castles in the air. {99} CHAPTER VIII THE CARIBOO ROAD When the railway first went through the Fraser Canyon, passengers looking out of the windows anywhere from Yale to Ashcroft were amazed to see something like a Jacob's ladder up and down the mountains, appearing in places to hang almost in mid-air. Between Yale and Lytton it hugged the mountain-side on what looked like a shelf of rock directly above the wildest water of the canyon. Crib-work of huge trees, resembling in the distance the woven pattern of a willow basket, projected out over the ledges like a bird's nest hung from some mountain eyrie. The traveller almost expected to see the thing sway and swing to the wind. Then the train would sweep through a tunnel, or swing round a sharp bend, and far up among the summits might be seen a mule-team, or a string of pack-horses winding round the shoulders of the rock. It seemed impossible that any man-made {100} highway could climb such perpendicular walls and drop down precipitous cliffs and follow a trail apparently secure only for a mountain goat. The first impression was that the thing must be an old Indian war-path, along which no enemy could pursue. But when the train paused at a water tank, and the traveller made inquiry, he was told that this was nothing less than the famous Cariboo Road, one of the wonders of the world. [Illustration: The Cariboo Road. From a photograph.]