only we had brought some junket tablets!"

With the exception of this incident the morning was quiet. Tish and Bill
talked prohibition, which he believed in, and the tin pans on the
pack-horse clattered, and we got higher all the time, and rode through
waterfalls and along the edge of death. By noon I did not much care if
the horses fell over or not. The skin was off me in a number of places,
and my horse did not like me, and showed it by nipping back at my leg
here and there.

At eleven o'clock, riding through a valley on a trail six inches wide,
Bill's horse stepped on a hornets' nest. The insects were probably dazed
at first, but by the time Tish's horse arrived they were prepared, and
the next thing we knew Tish's horse was flying up the mountain-side as
if it had gone crazy, and Bill was shouting to us to stop.

The last we saw of Tish for some time was her horse leaping a mountain
stream, and jumping like a kangaroo, and Bill was following.

"She'll be killed!" Aggie cried. "Oh, Tish, Tish!"

"Don't yell," I said. "You'll start the horses. And for Heaven's sake,
Aggie," I added grimly, "remember that this is a pleasure trip."

It was a half-hour before Tish and Bill returned. Tish was a chastened
woman. She said little or nothing, but borrowed some ointment from me
for her face, where the branches of trees had scraped it, while Bill led
the horses round the fatal spot. I recall, however, that she said she
wished now that we had brought the other guide.

"Because I feel," she observed, "that a little strong language would be
a relief."

We had luncheon at noon in a sylvan glade, and Aggie was pathetic. She
dipped a cracker in a cup of tea, and sat off by herself under a tree.
Tish, however, had recovered her spirits.

"Throw out your chests, and breathe deep of this pure air unsullied by
civilization," she cried. "Aggie, fill yourself with ozone."

"Humph!" said Aggie. "It's about all I will fill myself with."

"Think," Tish observed, "of the fools and dolts who are living under
roofs, struggling, contending, plotting, while all Nature awaits them."

"With stings," Aggie said nastily, "and teeth, and horns, and claws, and
every old thing! Tish, I want to go back. I'm not happy, and I don't
enjoy scenery when I'm not happy. Besides, I can't eat the landscape."

As I look back, I believe it would have been better if we had returned.
I think of that day, some time later, when we made the long descent fro