n him and fired, aiming just
below his long ears. There was a single plunge in the water; the giant
head went down, and all was quiet. We towed him ashore and cut him up as
he lay stranded like a whale. Directly opposite the camp a huge cone
mountain arose up some eight or nine thousand feet above us, and just
ere evening fell his topmost peak, glowing white in the sunlight, became
mirrored in the clear, quiet river, while the life stream of the moose
flowed out over the tranquil surface, dyeing the nearer waters into
brilliant crimson.

We came to the forks of the Peace River on May 9, took that branch known
as the Ominica, and through perils without number attempted to conquer
in our canoe the passage of the deep black canyon. Again and again we
were beaten back, and even lost our canoe in the rapids, although we
afterwards recovered it by building a raft. We discovered a mining
prospector who had a canoe at the upper end of the canyon, and agreed to
exchange canoes--he taking ours for his voyage down the river, while we
took his, after making a portage to a spot above the canyon, where it had
been cached.

Three days after we entered the great central snowy range of north
British Columbia; and on the night of May 19 camped at last at the mouth
of the Wolverine Creek by quiet water. There we parted with the river,
having climbed up to near the snow-line, and next day reached the mining
camp of Germansen, where I stayed several days and became acquainted
personally or by reputation with the leading "boys" of the northern
mining country. Twelve miles from Germansen there was another mining
camp, the Mansen, and from thence on to May 25 I started, in company
with an express agent, to walk across the Bald Mountains, on the topmost
ridge of which the snow ever dwells. On the other side of the mountains
we packed our goods on horses which we had obtained, and pushed forward,
only to encounter storms of snow and sleet on the summit of the
table-land which divides the Arctic and the Pacific Oceans.

Then followed the trail of the long ascent up Look-Out Mountain, from
which we gazed on 500 snowy peaks along the horizon, while the slopes
immediately beneath us were covered with the Douglas pine, the monarch
of the Columbian forest. It was May 29 when we entered the last post of
the Hudson Bay Company, St. James Fort on the southeast shore of the
beautiful Stuart's Lake, the favourite home of innumerable salmon and
colossal