d with a lurch, and
Doyle was thrown from his seat.

Quick as a flash Nielsen was on the spot beside the team. The bay
horse was down. The black horse was trying to break away. Nielsen cut
and pulled the bay free of the harness, and Lee came tearing down to
grasp and hold the black.

Like a fool I ran around trying to help somehow, but I did not know
what to do. I smelled and then saw blood, which fact convinced me
of disaster. Only the black horse that had hurdled the log made
any effort to tear away. The other lay quiet. When finally it was
extricated we found that the horse had a bad cut in the breast made
by a snag on the log. We could find no damage done to the wagon. The
harness Nielsen had cut could be mended quickly. What a fortunate
outcome to what had seemed a very grave accident! I was thankful
indeed. But not soon would I forget sight of Romer in front of that
plunging wagon.

With the horses and a rope we hauled the log to one side of the road,
and hitching up again we proceeded on our way. Once I dropped back
and asked Doyle if he was all right. "Fine as a fiddle," he shouted.
"This's play to what we teamsters had in the early days." And verily
somehow I could see the truth of that. A mile farther on we made camp;
and all of us were hungry, weary, and quiet.

Doyle proved a remarkable example to us younger men. Next morning
he crawled out before any one else, and his call was cheery. I was
scarcely able to get out of my bed, but I was ashamed to lie there
an instant after I heard Doyle. Possibly my eyesight was dulled by
exhaustion when it caused me to see myself as a worn, unshaven,
wrinkled wretch. Romer-boy did not hop out with his usual alacrity.
R.C. had to roll over in his bed and get up on all fours.

We had scant rations for three more days. It behooved us to work and
waste not an hour. All morning, at the pace of a snail it seemed, we
chopped and lifted and hauled our way along that old Crook road. Not
since my trip down the Santa Rosa river in Mexico had I labored so
strenuously.

At noon we came to the turning-off junction, an old blazed road Doyle
had some vague knowledge of. "It must lead to Jones' ranch," Doyle
kept saying. "Anyway, we've got to take it." North was our direction.
And to our surprise, and exceeding gladness, the road down this ridge
proved to be a highway compared to what we had passed. In the open
forest we had to follow it altogether by the blazes on the trees. But