the Selkirks?"
inquired Rob.

"Well, you see," answered O'Brien, "there's quite a bit of gold-mining
up here, and has been more. Those camps at the gold-creeks above here
all needed supplies, and they used to pack them in--the pack-trail's
right back of our barn yonder. But Sam Boyd knew that every pound of
hay and other stuff he raised fifty miles north of Revelstoke was that
much closer to the market. This was his farm, you know--till the river
got him, as she will every one who lives along her, in time.

"Ye see, Sam was the mail-carrier here, between Revelstoke and the
camps above, and, as the trail is a horror, he mostly went by boat.
His partner was Tom Horn, a good riverman too, and the two of them in
their canoe went up and down together manny a trip. 'Twas a careful
man he was, too, Sam, and no coward. But one time, to save them a
little walk, I suppose, they concluded to run the Revelstoke Canyon.
Well, they never got through, and what became of them no one knows,
except that their boat came through in bits. Ye're lucky this fellow
Leo didn't want to run ye all through there, with the fine big boats
ye've got below. But at least Sam and Tom never made it through.

"Well, the old river got them, as she has so manny. Sam's widow lived
on here fer a time, then went to town and died there, and the company
took the farm. They have a Chink to keep Mrs. Boyd's flower-garden
going the way she did before, for the boys all liked it in the mines.
And back in the woods is a whole bunch of Chinks, wood-cutters that
supplies the boats. When my Chink is done his gardenin' I make him hoe
my vegetables fer me.

"So ye're grizzly-hunters, are ye, all of ye?" continued O'Brien. "And
not afraid to take yer own life in your hands? 'Tis well, and anny
man must learn that who goes into the wilds. But manny a tale I could
tell ye of bould and brave men who've not been able to beat this old
river here. Take yon canyon above Revelstoke, fer instance. She'd be
but a graveyard, if the tale was told. One time six men started
through in a big bateau, and all were lost but one, and he never knew
how he got through at all. Once they say a raft full of Chinamen
started down, and all were swept off and drowned but one. He hung to a
rope, and was swept through somehow, but when they found him he was so
bad scared he could not say a word. He hit the ties afoot, goin' west
and shakin' his head, and maybe bound for China. No man could ever get