ing their windings
through flower perfumed forests and on up into the granite country where
glacier lakes lay cupped between the peaks to unfathomable cobalt depths.
They had seen deer by the dozen feeding in the brush of the lower
country,--graceful, big-eyed creatures who allowed them to approach to
within a stone's throw before they went bounding to cover. They had
thrown crumbs to the grouse and quail that came hesitatingly to inspect
their camp site, protected at this season by the game laws and so
unaccustomed to human kind that they were all but tame. They had crossed
and recrossed rivers not too deep to ford, and rivers not too swift to
swim. They had scaled cliffs where nothing on hooves save a burro--or a
Rocky Mountain goat--could have followed after.

But always the shaggy gray donkeys had kept at their heels like
dogs,--save when they got temperamental or went on strike,--waggling
their long ears in a steady rhythm, exactly as if these appendages had
been on ball bearings. The burros, five in number, had each his
individuality. There was Pepper, the old prospector's own comrade of many
a mountain trail, who, knowing his superior knowledge of the ways of
slide rock and precipices, insisted always on being in the lead. This
preference on his part he enforced with a pair of the swiftest heels the
boys had ever seen. There was old Lazybones, as Pedro had named the one
who, presenting the greatest girth, had to carry the largest pack. There
was Trilby, of the dainty hooves, who never made a misstep. He--for the
cognomen had been somewhat misplaced--was entrusted with the things they
valued most, their personal kit and the trout rods. The Bird was the one
who did the most singing,--though they all joined in on the chorus when
they thought it was time for the table scraps to be apportioned. And
finally there was Mephistopheles, whose disposition may have been soured
under some previous ownership,--since the blame must be placed somewhere.
Ace had added him to Long Lester's four when a lumberman had offered him
for fifteen dollars. The name came afterwards. But though he sometimes
held up operations on the trail, he was big enough to carry 150 pounds of
"grub," and that meant a lot of good eating.

Despite their hee-hawing, however, the diminutive pack animals did a deal
of talking with their ears. When startled, these prominent members were
laid forward to catch the sound. When displeased, the long ears were
flat