“And we hope to see the old Boat Encampment on the Columbia where the Saskatchewan trail came in,” added Rob, reaching for his map.
“I know it well,” said the old man—“know it like a book, the whole country. Well, good luck to you, and I wish I was going through; but I’ll see ye up in Alasky in a couple of years, when this here railroad gets through. I got to stay here and tend to my garden and farm and my town lots for a while yit.”
The old man now showed them with a great deal of pride his little fields and his system of irrigation, and the rough mill which he had made with no tools but a saw and an ax. “I used to pack in flour from Edmonton, three hundred and fifty miles,” said he, “and it wasn’t any fun, I can tell you. So I said, what’s the use—why not make a mill for myself and grind my own flour?”
“And good flour it is, too, boys,” said Uncle Dick, “for I’ve tasted it often and know.”
“I s’pose we ought to get on a little bit farther this evening,” said John to the leader of the party, after a while.
“No, you don’t,” said the old man; “you’ll stay right here to-night, I tell you. Plenty of trouble on ahead without being in a hurry to get into it, and here you can sleep dry and have plenty to eat. I haven’t got any trout in the house to-day, but there’s a little lake up by Pyramid Mountain where you can ketch plenty, and there’s another one a few miles around the corner of the Miette valley where you can get ’em even better. Oh yes, from now on you’ll have all the fish you want to eat, and all the fun, too, I reckon, that you come for. So you’re all the way from Alasky, eh? Well, I swan! I’ve seen folks here from England and New York and Oregon, but I never did see no one from Alasky before. And you’re just boys! Come in and unroll your blankets.”