Indians of the Nicola country still cling to their old-time story
that the Tulameen carries the spirit of a young girl enmeshed in the
wonders of its winding course; a spirit that can never free itself
from the canyons, to rise above the heights and follow its fellows
to the Happy Hunting Grounds, but which is contented to entwine its
laughter, its sobs, its lonely whispers, its still lonelier call for
companionship, with the wild music of the waters that sing forever
beneath the western stars.

As your horses plod up and up the almost perpendicular trail that
leads out of the Nicola Valley to the summit, a paradise of beauty
outspreads at your feet; the color is indescribable in words, the
atmosphere thrills you. Youth and the pulse of rioting blood are
yours again, until, as you near the heights, you become strangely
calmed by the voiceless silence of it all--a silence so holy that
it seems the whole world about you is swinging its censer before
an altar in some dim remote cathedral! The choir-voices of the
Tulameen are yet very far away across the summit, but the heights of
the Nicola are the silent prayer that holds the human soul before
the first great chords swell down from the organ-loft. In this
first long climb up miles and miles of trail, even the staccato of
the drivers' long black-snake whip is hushed. He lets his animals
pick their own sure-footed way, but once across the summit he
gathers the reins in his steely fingers, gives a low, quick whistle,
the whiplash curls about the ears of the leaders and the plunge down
the dip of the mountain begins. Every foot of the way is done at
a gallop. The coach rocks and swings as it dashes through a trail
rough-hewn from the heart of the forest; at times the angles are so
abrupt that you cannot see the heads of the leaders as they swing
around the grey crags that almost scrape the tires on the left,