me presently
to the upper end of the slide, and then, by coming down the slide, you
will be able to reach the place where the line of trees used to stand,
which is the place you want to reach."

"Is it at all dangerous?" asked Joe.

"Why, yes," replied Peter, "it is a bit dangerous, especially on the
slide itself now that the trees are gone; though if you are ordinarily
careful you ought to be able to make it all right, there being two of
you. For a man by himself it would be risky--a very small accident might
strand him high and dry on the mountain--but where there are two
together it is reasonably safe."

"Come on, then, Joe," said I. "Let's be off."

"Wait a bit!" cried our guest, holding up his hand. "You talk of staking
a claim for Tom Connor; well, suppose you _should_ find the spot where
the big tree was rooted out, and _should_ find a vein there--do you know
how to write a location-notice?"

"No," said I, blankly. "We don't."

"Well, I'll write you out the form," said Peter. "I've read hundreds of
them and I remember it well enough, and you can just copy the wording
when you set up your stake--if you have occasion to set one up at all."

He sat down and quickly wrote out the form for us, when, pocketing the
paper, we went over to the stable, saddled up, and leaving Peter in
charge, away we rode, armed with a pick, a shovel, an ax and a coil of
rope.

According to the hermit's directions, instead of following up the bed of
the creek which led to his house, we took to the spur on the right, the
top of which being treeless, had been swept bare of snow by the winds
and presented no serious obstacle to our sure-footed ponies. We were
able, therefore, to ride up the mountain so far that we presently found
ourselves looking down upon Peter's house, or, rather, upon the mountain
of snow which covered it. But here the character of the spur changed,
or, to speak more accurately, here the spur ended and another one began.
Between the two, half-filled with well-packed snow, lay a deep crevice,
which, bearing away down hill to our right, was presently lost among the
trees.

"From the lay of the land," said Joe, "I should judge that this is the
head of the creek which runs through Big Reuben's gorge--Peter told us
it started up here, you remember. And from the look of it," he
continued, "I should suppose that the shortest way of getting over to
the slide would be to cut right across here to the left through the
tr