ees. But that is out of the question: the snow would be ten feet over
our heads; so our only way is to cross this gulch and go on up as far as
we can along the top of the next ridge, as Peter said."

"Then we shall have to leave the ponies here," I remarked, "and do the
rest on foot: there's no getting them across this place."

Accordingly, we abandoned our ponies at this point, and having with some
difficulty scrambled across the gulch ourselves, we ascended to the
ridge of the next spur and continued our way upward. This spur was
crowned by an outcrop of rock, which being much broken up and the cracks
being filled with snow, made the walking not only difficult but
dangerous. By taking care, however, we avoided any accident, and, after
a pretty stiff climb arrived at the foot of a perpendicular ledge of
rocks which cut across our course at right angles--the little cliff
Peter had told us we should find barring our way.

Here, turning to the left, as directed, we skirted along the base of the
cliff, sometimes on the rocks and sometimes on the edge of the snow
which rested against them, until at last we reached a point whence we
could look right down the steep slope of the slide.

Covered with loose shale, the slope for its whole length appeared to be
smooth and of uniform pitch, except that about three-quarters of the way
down we could see a line of snow hummocks stretching all across its
course, indicating pretty surely that here had grown a strip of trees,
which being most of them broken off short had caught and held a little
snow against the stumps.

"There's where we want to get, Joe!" I cried, eagerly. "Down there to
that row of stumps! This is a limestone country--all this shale, you
see, is composed of limestone chips--but that tree-root in which we
found the chunk of galena held two or three bits of porphyry as well,
you remember, and if it did come from down there, there's a good chance
that that line of stumps indicates the course of a porphyry outcrop, as
Peter guessed, cutting across the limestone formation."

"Well, what of that?" asked Joe. "Is a porphyry outcrop a desirable
thing to find? Is it an 'indication'?"

"It's plain you're no prospector, Joe," said I, laughing; "and though I
don't set up to know much about it myself, I've learned enough from
hearing Tom Connor talk of 'contact veins' to know that if there's a
vein in the neighborhood the most promising place to look for it is
where the lim