Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 54.djvu/206

192 news of the far interior. But of much greater importance and value is the cargo of furs which are brought out on every trip in exchange for supplies which are taken in. On that day there were fifty-seven mules, each laden with two bales of furs weighing two hundred and fifty pounds, and including beaver, mink, otter, sable, and bear, all destined for the Hudson Bay Company's house in London, there to



be auctioned off in lots to the highest bidder, and then to be distributed to all parts of the civilized world.

Within less than an hour's time the precious furs were aboard, and we bade farewell to Hazelton. The Caledonia drops back, is slowly turned around by the current, and with its steady chug, chug, we began our journey down the river, the power of the boat aided by the swiftly flowing water carrying us along at a rapid rate. If the slow, labored up journey was a revelation with its worries and anxieties, what can be said of the down journey with its kaleidoscopic; panorama of sand bars, Indian villages, far-away snowy mountains, dense forests of mighty cottonwoods, lofty heights which tower above us clad to their very summits with eternal green, mountain streams, and innumerable waterfalls and cascades! And what shall one say