ant in the mountains, and upon my expressing
an intention of going there immediately, I was given what I thought very
unnecessary advice and then directed to a certain livery stable, where
I was told I could get the right kind of a horse and such equipment as I
stood in need of.

I thought I was equipped all right as it was, but I said nothing and
went on to the livery stable. Here I was shown a horse which I took to
at once and was about to mount, when a pair of leggings was brought to
me.

"You will need these for your journey," said the man.

"Journey!" I repeated. "Fifteen miles!"

The livery stable keeper--a half-breed with a peculiarly pleasant
smile--cocked up his shoulders with the remark:

"Three men as willing but as inexperienced as yourself have attempted
the same journey during the last week and they all came back before they
reached the divide. You will probably come back, too; but I shall give
you as fair a start as if I knew you were going straight through."

"But a woman has done it," said I; "a nurse from the hospital went up
that very road last week."

"Oh, women! they can do anything--women who are nurses. But they don't
start off alone. You are going alone."

"Yes," I remarked grimly. "Newspaper correspondents make their journeys
singly when they can."

"Oh! you are a newspaper correspondent! Why do so many men from the
papers want to see that sick old man? Because he's so rich?"

"Don't you know?" I asked.

He did not seem to.

I wondered at his ignorance but did not enlighten him.

"Follow the trail and ask your way from time to time. All the goatherds
know where the Placide mine is."

Such were his simple instructions as he headed my horse toward the
canyon. But as I drew off, he shouted out:

"If you get stuck, leave it to the horse. He knows more about it than
you do."

With a vague gesture toward the northwest, he turned away, leaving me
in contemplation of the grandest scenery I had yet come upon in all my
travels.

Fifteen miles! but those miles lay through the very heart of the
mountains, ranging anywhere from six to seven thousand feet high. In ten
minutes the city and all signs of city life were out of sight. In five
more I was seemingly as far removed from all civilization as if I had
gone a hundred miles into the wilderness.

As my horse settled down to work, picking his way, now here and now
there, sometimes over the brown earth, hard and baked as in a thousand