all things considered, and contributing as they did to
the growth and civilization of this country. For they were among the
first to have the vision of all these great developments which have
come since then."

"They must have had a hard old time," said Rob, "plugging along and
not knowing where they were coming out. But, then, you told us that
everybody who crossed the mountains in those times had native guides."

"And so did they. At Edmonton they met a man who had been west with
the emigrants the year before, who had started for the gold-fields.
This guide had taken the party right up by Cranberry Lake, where we
were a few days ago, over the Albreda Pass, and down the Thompson,
until he showed them what he called the Cariboo country--which none of
them ever reached.

"And when they reached Jasper House they found some of Leo's
people--the Rocky Mountain Shuswaps--living over there. In that way
they got more directions on how to reach the Cache. There an old woman
told them about the country to the west, and a man took them up to the
pass into the Thompson and showed them their way down--if way it could
be called. Then, when they got down toward Kamloops, they met yet
other natives, and if they had not they must have starved to death,
near as they were to the settlements. Left alone, these men perhaps
never would have gotten even to the Yellowhead Pass. I'll warrant it
was some Indian who first ran the rapids on the Columbia. Eh, Leo?"

"Maybe-so," smiled Leo, who had been listening intently to every word
of this. "Injun not always 'fraid of water, some tribes."

"Well," said Uncle Dick, "I don't know whether it was courage or
laziness, Leo, but certainly a great many of your people were the ones
to tell the whites about the rapids on some of these bad rivers."

They all laughed heartily over this at Leo, who joined in.

"But it's true," Uncle Dick went on, "there never has been an original
passage of the Rocky Mountains made by a white man, from the time of
Lewis and Clark and Mackenzie up to the modern engineers, which was
not conducted, in reality, by some native who pointed out the way.

"Now here we are, with Leo and George. I trust them perfectly. Leo's
map, there on the sand at the Boat Encampment, showed me that he was
perfectly accurate, and that he knew the places of all the streams and
rapids. So I feel no fear about our getting down the Big Bend from
here with him as our guide. I'll warrant that Le