“Yes, within two hundred miles. It doesn’t look much like it, does it? You see, we’re living in rather a wonderful age. This country which looks so wild will not be wild very much longer. That’s the only reason I’ve allowed you to take so dangerous a journey as this, this spring, with me. Before long all these things will be common. People will come out here on the cars by thousands, and complain about the sleepers and the dining-car, when they are crossing the Rocky Mountains, very likely. One day they’ll have horseback trails through here, as they do around Banff, and I suppose even old Mount Robson will get more or less common one time or another. But at least we’ve seen this country before those things happened.
“This is all there is to the old Cache. It’s mostly a memory, but history has written it down as one of the important places in the Rockies. John, you must bring your map up to date here, at the Tête Jaune Cache. And here your trail bends to the south, for now we’re going to follow the Columbia, and not the Fraser, after this, although my railroad goes on down the Fraser.
“We’ll ride over now to the village and see if we can find Leo,” he concluded, as he turned his horse back and started off in the direction of the tepees.
XVII
LEO THE GRIZZLY-HUNTER
As our party of adventurers approached the Shuswap village, a little bit removed from the bank of the Fraser, they were greeted with a chorus of barking dogs. A number of children who had been playing in the grass fled in fright into the tepees, from the doors of which, none the less, presently appeared many heads alike of young and old.
As the horsemen pulled up in front of the central tepee there came out to meet them a slight but hardy figure, not very tall, but erect and strong, dressed in ordinary western garb, and a wide hat such as is common in that part of the country. His face was dark, and his hair, worn long, was braided, and fell to his shoulders on his neck. Grave and unsmiling like most of his people, none the less his eyes wrinkled a little bit about the corners as now he recognized the leader of the band of horsemen. Advancing, he extended his hand to Uncle Dick and greeted him very pleasantly.
“How-do,” said he.