y had
left below them to the west. The air was filled with flying frost, the
sun was weak and pale, and the plain was only a pale-blue sea far, far
below to the northeast. The wind blew through the pass with terrible
force, and the cold nipped every limb like a famishing white wolf.

"There is the sulphur spring, sir," said Pierce, pointing towards a
delicate strand of steam which rose from a clump of pines in the second
basin beneath them.

"Quite right, sergeant, and we must make that in an hour. I'd like to
take an observation here, but I reckon we'd better slide down to camp
before the horses freeze."

The dry snow, sculptured by the blast in the pass, made the threadlike
path an exceedingly elusive line to keep, and trailing narrowed to a
process of feeling with the feet; but Curtis set his face resolutely
into the northeast wind and led the way down the gulch. For the first
half-mile the little pack-train crawled slowly and hesitatingly, like a
bewildered worm, turning and twisting, retracing its way, circling huge
bowlders, edging awful cliffs, slipping, stumbling, but ever moving,
ever descending; and, at last, while yet the sun's light glorified the
icy kings behind them, the Captain drew into the shelter of the clump of
pines from which the steam of the warm spring rose like a chimney's
cheery greeting.

"Whoa, boys!" called Curtis, and with a smile at Pierce, added, "Here we
are, home again!"

It was not a cheerful place to spend the night, for even at this level
the undisturbed snow lay full twelve inches deep and the pines were
bowed with the weight of it, and as the sun sank the cold deepened to
zero point; but the sergeant drew off his gloves and began to free the
horses from their packs quite as if these were the usual conditions of
camping.

"Better leave the blankets on," remarked the young officer. "They'll
need 'em for warmth."

The sergeant saluted and continued his work, deft and silent, while
Curtis threw up a little tent on a cleared spot and banked it snugly
with snow. In a very short time a fire was blazing and some coffee
boiling. The two men seemed not to regard the cold or the falling night,
except in so far as the wind threatened the horses.

"It's hard luck on them," remarked Curtis, as they were finishing their
coffee in the tent; "but it is unavoidable. I don't think it safe to try
to go down that slide in the dusk. Do you?"

"It's dangerous at any time, sir, and with our hor