grew from babyhood into boyhood with a love for the furry-coated
wild creatures that prowled along the timber line, and their voices were
to him the voices of friends who had sung him to sleep ever since he
could remember anything.

But the night of his famous ride up the Cariboo Trail where it skirts
the Bonaparte Hills proved to him how wise a thing it was that he had
long ago made friends, instead of foes, of the wolves, for if he had
feared them, it would have been a ride of terror instead of triumph, as
it was his love for them that helped him to do a great, heroic thing
which made the very name "Leloo" beloved by every man, both white and
Indian, in all the Lillooet country.

It was one day early in the autumn that Leloo's father sent him down the
trail some ten or fifteen miles with a message to the "boss" of the
great railway construction camp that the Lillooet Indians would supply
fifty men to work on the Company's roadway. So the boy mounted his pet
cayuse and started off early, swinging down the mountain trails into the
canyons, then climbing again across the summit, with its dense growth of
timber. His little legs were almost too short to grip his horse's middle
as his father could have done, so he went more slowly and carefully over
the dangerous places, marking every one in his mind, in case he was late
in returning. When he reached the camp the "boss" was absent, and,
Indian-like, he would deliver his message to no one else except the man
it was intended for, and when the "boss" returned at supper time from
far down the grade, he insisted upon Leloo sharing his pork and beans
and drinking great quantities of tea.

"Better stay all night, youngster," said the boss kindly; "It's a long
ride back, and it's going to be dark."

"No stay to-night," answered Leloo. "Maybe some time I stay, but no
to-night."

"Well, you know best, kid," replied the boss. "There's one thing--no
harm will ever come to an Indian boy on a mountain trail. But be
careful; the canyons are deep, and the trail is bad in spots."

"Me know, me careful," smiled Leloo, and mounting his cayuse, trotted
off gayly, just as the sun was lost behind a grim, rocky peak in the
west. But the "boss" was right: night comes quickly in the mountains,
and this night was unusually dark. Leloo had to ride very slowly, for
the narrow trail was a mere ledge carved out from the perpendicular
walls of the cliffs, which arose on the left, a sheer precipice