"Why," said Mr. James, "that is old mining ground. Many of these gravel bars have been worked over by placer miners; and these piles of stones were left after the soil and fine sand had been washed for the gold which it contained. Many of these bars have been worked over a number of times, and all of them, twice. Along this river it has been just as it has been back in the States. After gold was discovered, the white man first went over the ground and washed the gravel, getting most of the gold; and then, after he got through, the Chinaman, slow, patient, persistent, and able to subsist on little or nothing, went over the ground again and found in the abandoned claims money enough to pay what seemed to him good wages; in other words sufficient to give him a living, and enable him to save up money enough to take him back to his own country, where he lived comfortably for the rest of his life.
"I am no miner," Mr. James continued, "but you must talk with Hunter. He is a civil engineer with a lot of experience, and I saw him on the boat this morning. I understand that he has a mining scheme which is big, though, of course, it is only a speculation as yet."
Mr. James stopped talking and looked about the deck, and then walked over to a tall, thin man who was standing near the rail, smoking. After speaking to him, the two came to where Jack and Hugh were sitting. Introductions followed, and after a little time Mr. Hunter explained what it was that he proposed to do.
"Quesnelle Lake," he said, "lies away north of Yale and east of the river, in a country where some good prospects have been found. From the Lake, Quesnelle River flows into the Fraser. The bed of Quesnelle River is supposed to be very rich in gold. It is said that it is so rich that the Chinamen anchor their boats in the river and dredge the dirt from the bottom, take it ashore and wash it, and in this way make good wages. I have received a Dominion grant to mine this river, or so much of it as I can. Of course, as yet, this is a mere prospect, but I am going up there now to find something definite about it. I shall have to do some dredging to find out what there is in the bottom of the river. If I find that the dirt there is rich enough, I shall build, across the river near Quesnelle Lake, a dam strong enough to hold back for three or six months of the year—during the dry season, in other words—the water of the lake, so that the volume which passes through the river channel will be greatly diminished. This will leave bare a great portion of the river channel, which can then be mined by ordinary hydraulic processes. As I say, there is as yet nothing certain about the matter, but there seems sufficient prospect of profit in it to make it worth while to attempt it."
"That seems a reasonable scheme," said Hugh, "though, of course, as yet there are a number of 'ifs' to it."
"There are a good many," said Mr. Hunter; "but I believe that in the course of the next three months I shall know much more about it than I do now."
"I believe, Mr. Hunter," said Jack, "that you have travelled a great deal over the Province, have you not?"
"Yes," said Mr. Hunter, "a good deal. I have been over the whole length of it and over much of its width, but I know little about its northwest corner. There I never happened to be; but from the Fraser and Kootenay rivers, down to the boundary line and all along the western part of the Province, I have been."
"Is there any place near here," said Jack, "where one could go into the mountains for say a week or ten days, with a prospect of getting a little hunting? I don't mean for deer and goats, because I suppose these are found almost everywhere, but with some prospect of finding sheep, and perhaps elk? I believe that bears exist everywhere, and of course the meeting with them is a matter of luck."