warming of the fingers and climbed on.

The country was wonderfully beautiful with the white not yet shaken
from the trees and rock ledges. Also it was wonderfully slippery. The
snow was soft enough to ball under the horses' hoofs, so that most of
the time the poor animals skated and stumbled along on stilts. Thus we
made our way back over ground which, naked of these difficulties, we
had considered bad enough.

Imagine riding along a slant of rock shelving off to a bad tumble, so
steep that your pony has to do more or less expert ankle work to keep
from slipping off sideways. During the passage of that rock you are
apt to sit very light. Now cover it with several inches of snow, stick
a snowball on each hoof of your mount, and try again. When you have
ridden it--or its duplicate--a few score of times, select a steep
mountain side, cover it with round rocks the size of your head, and
over that spread a concealing blanket of the same sticky snow. You are
privileged to vary these to the limits of your imagination.

Once across the divide, we ran into a new sort of trouble. You may
remember that on our journey over we had been forced to travel for some
distance in a narrow stream-bed. During our passage we had scrambled
up some rather steep and rough slopes, and hopped up some fairly high
ledges. Now we found the heretofore dry bed flowing a good eight
inches deep. The steep slopes had become cascades; the ledges,
waterfalls. When we came to them, we had to "shoot the rapids" as best
we could, only to land with a PLUNK in an indeterminately deep pool at
the bottom. Some of the pack horses went down, sousing again our
unfortunate bedding, but by the grace of fortune not a saddle pony lost
his feet.

After a time the gorge widened. We came out into the box canon with
its trees. Here the water spread and shoaled to a depth of only two or
three inches. We splashed along gaily enough, for, with the exception
of an occasional quicksand or boggy spot, our troubles were over.

Jed Parker and I happened to ride side by side, bringing up the rear
and seeing to it that the pack animals did not stray or linger. As we
passed the first of the rustlers' corrals, he called my attention to
them.

"Go take a look," said he. "We only got those fellows out of here two
years ago."

I rode over. At this point the rim-rock broke to admit the ingress of
a ravine into the main canon. Riding a short distance up the ravin