. Vast glaciers came sweeping down from the
dread mystery of the upper heights. Lower still lines of running
water white as silver came leaping down from cliff to cliff--slender,
broken of line, nearly perpendicular--to fall at last into the gray
hell of the sea.

It was a sullen land which menaced as with lowering brows and
clenched fists. A landscape without delicacy of detail or warmth or
variety of color--a land demanding young, cheerful men. It was no
place for the old or for women.

As we neared Wrangell the next afternoon I tackled the purser about
carrying my horse. He had no room, so I left the boat in order to
wait for another with better accommodations for Ladrone.

Almost the first man I met on the wharf was Donald.

"How's the horse?" I queried.

"Gude!--fat and sassy. There's no a fence in a' the town can hold
him. He jumped into Colonel Crittendon's garden patch, and there's a
dollar to pay for the cauliflower he ate, and he broke down a fence
by the church, ye've to fix that up--but he's in gude trim himsel'."

"Tell 'm to send in their bills," I replied with vast relief. "Has he
been much trouble to you?"

"Verra leetle except to drive into the lot at night. I had but to go
down where he was feeding and soon as he heard me comin' he made for
the lot--he knew quite as well as I did what was wanted of him. He's
a canny old boy."

As I walked out to find the horse I discovered his paths everywhere.
He had made himself entirely at home. He owned the village and was
able to walk any sidewalk in town. Everybody knew his habits. He
drank in a certain place, and walked a certain round of daily
feeding. The children all cried out at me: "Goin' to find the horsie?
He's over by the church." A darky woman smiled from the door of a
cabin and said, "You ole hoss lookin' mighty fine dese days."

When I came to him I was delighted and amused. He had taken on some
fat and a great deal of dirt. He had also acquired an aldermanic
paunch which quite destroyed his natural symmetry of body, but he
was well and strong and lively. He seemed to recognize me, and as I
put the rope about his neck and fell to in the effort to make him
clean once more, he seemed glad of my presence.

That day began my attempt to get away. I carted out my feed and
saddles, and when all was ready I sat on the pier and watched the
burnished water of the bay for the dim speck which a steamer makes in
rounding the distant island. At last th