never knew what it was. At daylight we
again climbed up the peak, saw the sun rise, made a breakfast of bread
and sugar as we had no fuel to make a fire, and then started down the
mountain. The little streams and pools coming from the melting snows the
day before were now all frozen up.

By ten o'clock we were down where the vegetation was luxuriant, the
flowers in bloom and the butterflies flitting about them. Along the
stream that we descended to the westward, was a series of beaver dams
continuing for several miles, covering two or three acres each, with
breasts four or five feet high formed of logs and brush. Out in the
middle of the dams were the beavers' houses, partly under water and
rising a few feet above. Many of the logs, cut off by the beavers to
form the dams, and the stumps on the shore where they had gnawed down
the trees, were twelve to fifteen inches through. Further on we saw bear
tracks in the mud along the stream. When we camped at night we made a
bed of pine boughs, and over it a small shelter with branches of trees
cut with the hatchet. We built a fire on the side hill above our
sleeping place beside a fallen tree. In the night it burned through and
a log rolled down the hill over us, and we awoke with a sudden start. I
thought of bears and instantly seized my hatchet and knife for defense,
before realizing the true situation. Old skulls and bones of buffalo
were plentiful, showing that the animals had once occupied these fertile
valleys. On starting back we followed an old animal trail, the general
course of which was headed toward the range, though it wound around the
mountain sides and gulches in all directions. We felt sure it would lead
over the Snowy range at the easiest passage. After following it two
days, often climbing over and creeping under fallen trees, it brought us
through a low pass to the head waters of South Clear creek, whence we
had an easy trail down hill most of the way home.

Though far away from the seat of the civil war we did not escape its
excitements. The Southerners were numerous in the mountains, and of
course all sided with the South. They and the Northerners were very
suspicious of each other, and each party bought up all the guns they
could get in the mountains. During the summer of 1861 much fear was felt
that a rebel force might march up the Arkansas and, with the help of
their friends here, capture the whole settlement. But when the Southern
troops were defeate