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"It wasn't exactly my doin's," replied the miner. "Stark asked me to let Runnion come 'long, bein' as he had grub-staked him, and he seemed so set on it that I ackeressed. You see, it's the first chance I ever had to pay him back for a favor he done me in the Cassiar country. There's plenty of land to go around."
"I find that in the Cassiar Mountains and in the Rocky Mountains they everywhere range above timber line, as they do in the mountains of Stickine, the Cheonees, and the Etsezas. "Directly to the north of the Beaver River, and north of the Liard River below the confluence of the Beaver, we first meet with Ovis dalli."
The river steamer Cassiar was chartered, and we had her all to ourselves, ship and officers at our command to sail and stop where and when we would, and of course everybody felt important and hopeful.
We had been away only three days, but they were so full of novel scenes and impressions the time seemed indefinitely long, and our broken Chilcat excursion, far from being a failure as it seemed to some, was one of the most memorable of my life. The Cassiar Trail
I knew that in the old days the feet of a multitude had worn trails through these ranges as they pressed on toward the treasure of Cassiar and Caribou, and that the bones of many were strewn broadcast across the region into which we were venturing.
They are found throughout the Cassiar Mountains, which extend north to 61 degrees north latitude and west to 134 degrees west longitude. How much further west they may be found I have been unable to determine. Nor could I ascertain whether their range extends from the Cassiar Mountains into the Rocky Mountains to the north of Francis and Liard River.
Throughout all this region from Glenora to Cassiar the grasses grow luxuriantly in openings in the woods and on dry hillsides where the trees seem to have been destroyed by fire, and over all the broad prairies above the timber-line. A kind of bunch-grass in particular is often four or five feet high, and close enough to be mowed for hay. I never anywhere saw finer or more bountiful wild pasture.
"I was in the last of it when Caribou was played out and we struck for the Peace country and Cassiar," and Hector stared past him through the smoke wreaths with vacant eyes that seemed to look far back into bygone years. "There was red gold to be had for the seeking then," he said. "We won it lightly, an' we spent it ill.
His curiosity got the better of him finally, and he fell into talk with Lee, inquiring about the stranger by way of an opening. "That's Ben Stark. I knew him back in the Cassiar country," said Lee. "Is he a mining man?" "Well, summat. He's made and lost a bank-roll that a greyhound couldn't leap over in the mining business, but it ain't his reg'lar graft.
No sooner, however, had Alaska become American soil than thousands of our adventurers were afoot and afloat for the north. They were the men of "the days of gold," the men of California, Fraser, Cassiar, and Cariboo.
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