bewildered and had lost my course of travel. No visible
object, seen through the almost blinding storm, reassured me, and
there was no alternative but to find the river and take my direction
from its current, Fortunately after a few hours of stumbling and
scrambling among rocks and over crests, I came to the precipitous side
of the canyon through which it ran, and with much labor, both of hands
and feet, descended it to the margin. I drank copiously of its pure
waters, and sat beside it for a long time, waiting for the storm to
abate, so that I could procure fire. The day wore on, without any
prospect of a termination to the storm. Chilled through, my tattered
clothing saturated, I saw before me a night of horrors unless I
returned to my fire. The scramble up the side of the rocky canyon in
many places nearly perpendicular, was the hardest work of my journey.
Often while clinging to the jutting rocks with hands and feet, to
reach a shelving projection, my grasp would unclose and I would slide
many feet down the sharp declivity. It was night when, sore from the
bruises I had received, I reached my fire; the storm, still raging,
had nearly extinguished it. I found a few embers in the ashes, and
with much difficulty kindled a flame. Here on this bleak mountain
side, as well as I now remember, I must have passed two nights beside
the fire in the storm. Many times during each night I crawled to a
little clump of trees to gather wood, and brush, and the broken limbs
of fallen tree-tops. All the sleep I obtained was snatched from the
intervals which divided these labors. It was so harassed with
frightful dreams as to afford little rest. I remember, before I left
this camp, stripping up my sleeves to look at my shrunken arms. Flesh
and blood had apparently left them. The skin clung to the bones like
wet parchment. A child's hand could have clasped them from wrist to
shoulder. "Yet" thought I, "It is death to remain; I cannot perish in
this wilderness."

[Illustration: Descending the Precipice.]

Taking counsel of this early formed resolution, I hobbled on my course
through the snow, which was rapidly disappearing before the rays of
the warm sun. Well knowing that I should find no thistles in the open
country, I had filled my pouches with them before leaving the forest.
My supply was running low, and there was several days of heavy
mountain travel between me and Boteler's ranch. With the most careful
economy, it could last bu