ttle easier than logging there.
Still, it would be most of a week's march before I could reach the
railroad, and there's not a ranch anywhere near the trail."

The logger nodded. "Well," he said, "I'd head West instead. There'll
be nothing going on along the railroad just now, and the mines are
running easy, while you ought to fetch the settlement south of Butte
Lake on the third day. Guess you might pick up a dollar or two in that
neighbourhood, and, any way, there's a steamer running down the West
Coast to Victoria. Seems to me quite likely one of those Bush-ranchers
would take you in a while, even if he didn't exactly want a hired man;
but they don't do that kind of thing in the city."

Nasmyth smiled. Experience had already taught him that, as a rule, the
stranger who is welcomed in the cities arrives there with money in his
pockets, and that it is the hard-handed men with the axes from whom
the wanderer in that country is most likely to receive a kindness.
Still, though he was naturally not aware of it, a great deal was to
depend upon the fact that he followed the advice of the logger, who
traced out a diagram on the bench upon which they sat.

"There's an Indian trail up the river for the first four leagues," said
the logger. "Then you strike southwest, across the divide--here--and you
come to the Butte River. She's running in a little canyon, and you can't
get over 'cept where a prospector or somebody has chopped a big fir."

The log span across a stream is an old device, and was probably
primitive man's first attempt at bridge-building, though it is one
frequently adopted on the Pacific slope, where a giant tree grows
conveniently close to an otherwise impassable river. It was, however,
important that Nasmyth should be able to find the tree.

"You know exactly where that fir is?" he asked.

"Southwest of the highest ridge of the divide. Once you're over,
you'll fetch the Butte Lake in a long day's march. When d'you figure
you'll start?"

"To-night," said Nasmyth, "after supper. If there's sickness of any
kind hanging round me--and I feel like it--you don't want me here,
and I dare say they'd take me into the hospital at Victoria. Walking's
easier than logging, anyway, and it seems wiser to try for that fir in
daylight."

The logger nodded as if he concurred in this, and, taking a little
book from his pocket, he turned it over, wrinkling his brows while
Nasmyth watched him with a smile.

"Well," he sai