as crazy about the Fraser," Jim answered. "All that kep' him from
goin' was the smash-up o' the Kern River rush, which lef' him
dead-broke an' nigh starvin', like I told you. But he never forgot the
Fraser. That's what took us up north, to wind up with.

"It was in '79, when I was twenty years old, that Father comes into
the cabin, an' says, point blank,

"'We're a-goin' to the Kootenay.'

"'Where's that?' I asks.

"'Somewheres up near the Fraser River. There's gold there, so they're
sayin', like there was on the Sacramento in '49. An' thar ain't no
one, hardly, thar! Fust one in gits it all.'

"I tried to reason with him. So did Mother, but it weren't no manner
o' use. A week later, we was gone."

"I shouldn't have thought he'd have found much on the Kootenay," said
Owens reflectively, "it's all vein mining there. That needs heavy
crushing machinery."

"Not all," Jim corrected. "There's some glacial gravel there an' we
washed out enough to pay our way. But Father wanted something bigger.

"We struck out from West Kootenay an' hit the trail for Six Mile
Creek, near Kicking Horse Pass, in Upper East Kootenay. We stayed
there a while, but some one, who had a grudge agin the Mormons, pulled
his gun on Father. A 'forty-niner' ain't apt to be lazy on the shoot,
an' Father's gun spit first. We didn't wait for the funeral, but moved
on, an' lively, at that, strikin' for the Fraser."

"Good thing for you the N. W. M. P. (North West Mounted Police),
didn't strike your trail!" commented Owens.

"It was a straight-enough deal," protested Jim, "an' the N. W.'s ha'
got plenty o' sense. But that wasn't no reason for hangin' around,
lookin' for trouble. We thought the Fraser'd be healthier. As it
turned out, it wasn't.

"The Fraser boom was dead. The shacks in the ol' minin' camps was
rottin' to ruin. The machinery--what little there was of it--was lyin'
there, rustin'. The sluices had all fallen to bits, except on Hop
Rabbit Creek. A couple o' hundred men was there still, workin' over
the tailin's, but they was all Chinamen. Up the creek a ways some o'
them was pannin'.

"Second day we was there, a big Chink comes up to me, an' says, very
quiet like,

"'You plenty sabbee? Run away quick!'

"It didn't look that way to me, for I don't take to orderin'. I was
good an' ready to drop that Chink in his tracks, but I did a little
thinkin' first. Two hundred agin two is big odds. I nodded, an' the
big Chink turns away.