of saying that all
coins under a dime are fit only for chicken-feed."

We camped that night beside the trail near a little log
store. "What you want to do," said the man in charge, "is to take
your horses down there behind them trees to park 'em for the
night. Good feed down there."

"'To park,'" said Jack, in a low voice. "New and interesting
verb. He mean's turn 'em out to grass. We mustn't appear green."
Then he said to the man:

"Yes, we reckoned we'd park 'em down there to-night."

The next day was the coldest we had experienced, and we were
glad to walk to keep warm. We were getting among the smaller of
the hills, with their tops covered with the peculiarly dark
pine-trees which give the whole range its name. We camped at
night under a high bank which afforded some protection from the
chilly east wind. Now that we were all sleeping in the wagon
there was no room in it to store the sacks of horse-feed which we
had, and we knew that if we put them outside Old Blacky would eat
them up before morning.

"There's nothing to do," said Jack, "but to carry them around
up on that bank and hang them down with ropes. Leave 'em about
twelve feet from the bottom and ten feet from the top, and I
don't think the Pet can get them."

We accordingly did so, and went to bed with the old scoundrel
standing and looking up at the bags wistfully, though he had just
had all that any horse needed for supper. But in the morning we
found that he had clambered up high enough to get hold of the
bottom of one of the sacks and pull it down and devour fully half
of it. He was, as Jack said, "the worst horse that ever looked
through a collar."

[Illustration: The Rattletrap in the Storm]

But the weather in the morning gave us more concern than did
the foraging of the ancient Blacky. It was even colder than the
night before, and the raw east wind was rawer, and with it all
there was a drizzling rain. It was not a hard rain, but one of
the kind that comes down in small clinging drops and blows in
your face in a fine spray. Jack got breakfast in the wagon, and
we ate the hot cakes and warmed-over grouse with a good relish.
Then we loaded in what was left of the horsefeed, and started.

It was impossible to keep warm even by walking, but we
plodded on and made the best of it. The road was hilly and stony;
but by noon we had got beyond the rain, and for the rest of the
way it was dry even if cold. The hills among which w