PEACE RIVER JOE 3

price of furs; the moose, caribou and bear in the vicinity; and the salmon that had come up the river that fall. Then Tommy and my- self took our blankets, climbed the ladder into the loft and went to bed. Mary and Joe slept in the room below.

‘ After all was set for the night and the candle out, I lay in the comfortable bunk and recalled what Tommy had told me of Joe.

“He’s a good sort, is Joe,” he had said; “he came over here from the Peace River country some eight years ago. His father was a trapper who went into the Peace from Ontario with his wife. Joe was born there. His mother died when he was only a small kid. He lived with his father and a Peace River squaw who replaced Joe’s mother. When his father died he came over here with the idea of mining, but the first winter went back to‘trapping. He has three good trap lines, prospects a little in the summer, and acts as a guide in the fall. He is a good hunter and woodsman, and a clever trapper, but cannot read or write. He has a Lillooet klootchman (squaw) living with him whom he picked up in Pittsville a year or two ago. He was brought up by a squaw man and his