d a merciful bullet in its brain.
That country is a difficult one, even to the Cayuse horses, which are
used to its forest-choked valleys and perilous defiles.

In front of them a rugged peak rose above the high white ridge of Dead
Pine. They could see the latter cutting against a lowering sky some
twelve hundred feet above, though the peak showed only a ghostly shape
through its wrappings of drifting mist. In altitude alone the ridge
was difficult to reach, but, while that would not have troubled any of
the men greatly, the ascent was made more arduous by the fact that the
unmarked trail followed the slope of an awful gully. The latter fell
almost sheer from close beside their feet, running down into the
creeping obscurity out of which the hoarse thunder of a torrent rose.
Here and there they could catch a glimpse of a ragged pine clinging
far down among the stones, and that seemed only to emphasize the depth
of the gloomy pit. On the other hand, the hillside rose like a
slightly slanted wall, and the sharp stones of the talus lay thinly
covered with snow between it and the gully.

The freighter glanced dubiously up the hollow.

"I've struck places that looked nicer; but we can't stop here and
freeze," he said. "We'll either have to take the back trail and camp
among that last clump of pines or get on a hustle and get up."

"I'm certainly not going back," said Weston. "We have come out to see
in just what time we can make the journey to the railroad over the new
trail. When we have done it, we'll try to spread the information to
everybody likely to find it interesting."

"You're not going to worry about how many horses you leave behind, I
suppose?"

"That," said Devine, with a little laugh, "is one of the facts they
never do mention in a report of the kind. We've lost only one so far,
and two bags of rather high-grade ore."

"If you've one altogether when you fetch the head of this gully you'll
be blame lucky," said the freighter. "Give that beast a whack to start
him. Get up there!"

They went on, with the snow in their faces, and the stones they could
not see slipping beneath their feet; and the light grew dimmer as they
proceeded. A bitter wind swept down the gully and drove their wet
clothing against their chilled bodies, while the hillside, growing
steeper, pushed them nearer the brink of the awful hollow. The slope
of the latter, as far down as they could see, was apparently too steep
to afford a footho