"SIXTY-TWO" IN BRITISH COLUMBIA.* MR. PHILLIPPB-WOLLEY is already known to
some of us as a sportsman, but he may now fairly claim to rank as a writer of knowledge and skill, for be has given us in his descrip- tion of life in the Cariboo Gold-Rush of 1862 one of the most powerful and stirring stories of the " old-timer" we re- member to have seen for some time. Many Westerners, it is said, bitterly resent those charming stories of Bret Harte, as giving an utterly fanciful and inaccurate picture of the life and character of the mining-eamps of 1849; no one will be able to protest against Mr. Pbillipps-Wolley's narrative, and though the Californian miner was a far more truculent character than his Canadian contemporary, we can Bee at a glance that an. artist of Bret Harte's calibre would apparel this obviously probable narrative so as to make the most thorough-going " old-timer " gasp. Yet the adventures recorded in Gold, Gold in Cariboo many of that class will declare to be their own. The story is briefly as follows :—An Englishman and an American leave Victoria for Williams Creek, where they have been persuaded by a Colonel Cruick- shank to buy two claims. He also persuades them to buy a mule-train so as to convey stores for themselves, and for the purpose of turning an honest penny. Cruickshank, always a doubtful character, after conducting them safely over the difficult trail, reveals himself in his true colours, and the narrative then takes a most sombre and vivid interest, from the determined efforts of the Englishman to avenge his countryman's death,—one Roberts, a genuine, rough, tree, and plucky Shropshireman. Again and again the " tender- foot" misses his prey, and it is not till the last that he comes up with him. The finale is unsuspected and exceedingly dramatic; and the doubly-dyed murderer is punished by Nemesis before the very face of his unrelenting hunters, who have jest tossed up for the avenging shot.
The most striking character is the "old-timer" Rampike, * Goa, Gold in Cariboo. By Olive Phillipps-Wolley. London; Blaeltio and Son. the friend of Roberts, a stern, reserved, quick-shooting miner, a terror to " bilks," and a rough guide and philosopher for such as appeal to him. The nerve, the iron resolution, and the relentless pertinacity of the man are finely portrayed. The scene where Corbett and Chance come upon their old friend " washing " on the Frazer, his absorption in his work, and then his surprise and the lightning rapidity with which he covers the strangers with his Winchester, is one of the touches that many of Mr. Pbillipps-Wolley's readers will re- cognise as wonderfully graphic and real. But indeed the whole story is graphic, and full of vigorous touches and happy expressions; and Corbett, Chance, the plucky little New-Yorker, Cruickshank, the " bad man," and Phon, the Chinaman, are characters not less individual than Rampike. The extraordinary intensity with which the gold-fever seizes the gambling Chinese is admirably rendered,—Phon actually remains by a gold-pocket alone in a frozen wilderness. The scenery of his tale is not the least attractive part of Mr. Phillipps-Wolley's writing. The description of the journey to Williams Creek, the contour of the Cariboo country, and particularly the Gorge of the Frazer in winter, will appeal to all; and the author knows how to throw in little unobtrusive natural-history touches, that bring it all before us vividly. Finally, we may add that the dramatic interest of the story steadily rises with the narration of it. Gold, Gold in Cariboo must rank with similar successful efforts to realise in literary form '51 and the bushrangers in Australia, and the "forty- niner " in California.
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