d high enough to
command the country for miles up and down the valley.

Only two roads lead from Medicine Bend and the south into the
Frenchman country: one a wagon-road following Smoky Creek and running
through Dale Canyon; the other a pack-road, known as the Gridley
trail, crossing the Topah Topah Hills and making a short cut from the
Dunning ranch on the Crawling Stone to the Frenchman. The entire
valley is, in fact, so difficult of access, save by the long and
roundabout wagon-road, that the sight of a complete outfit of
buildings such as that put up by Sinclair always came as a surprise to
the traveller who, reaching the crest of the hills, looked suddenly
down a thousand feet on his well-ordered sheds and barns and corrals.

The rider who reaches the Topah Topah crest on the Gridley trail now
sees in the valley below only traces of what was so laboriously
planned and perfectly maintained a few years ago. But even the ruins
left on the Frenchman show the herculean labor undertaken by the man
in setting up a comfortable and even an elaborate establishment in so
inaccessible a spot. His defiance of all ordinary means of doing
things was shown in his preference for bringing much of his
building-material over the trail instead of around by the Smoky Creek
road. A good part of the lumber that went into his house was packed
over the Gridley trail. His piano was brought through the canyon on a
wagon, but the mechanical player for the piano and his wagons
themselves were packed over the trail on the backs of mules. A heavy
steel range for the kitchen had been brought over the same way. For
Sinclair no work was hard enough, none went fast enough, and revelry
never rose high enough. During the time of his activity in the
Frenchman Valley Sinclair had the best-appointed place between
Williams Cache and the Crawling Stone, and in the Crawling Stone only
the Dunning ranch would bear comparison with his own. On the Frenchman
Sinclair kept an establishment the fame of which is still foremost in
mountain story. Here his cows ranged the canyons and the hills for
miles, and his horses were known from Medicine Bend to Fort Tracy.
Here he rallied his men, laid snares for his enemies, dispensed a
reckless hospitality, ruled his men with an oath and a blow, and
carried a six-shooter to explain orders and answer questions with.

Over the Gridley trail from the Crawling Stone Marion and Dicksie
Dunning rode early in the morning the day