up and run away with, it was less likely that he would attempt it from an enclosed back yard than if the poles were stored in an open lot. Besides this, a stable rent-free for our mules, and a loft above it rent-free for ourselves to sleep in was a great accommodation.
Returning to the Elkhorn, therefore, we went to work in a new place, a place where some time previously a fire had swept through a strip of the woods, killing the trees, but leaving them standing, stark and bare, but still sound as nuts – just the thing we wanted. Our chief difficulty this time was in getting the felled timbers out from amidst their fellows – for the dead trees were very thick and the mountain-side very steep – but by taking great care we accomplished this without accident. The loading of these big “sticks” would have been an awkward task, too, had we not fortunately found a cut bank alongside of which we ran our wagon, and having snaked the logs into place upon the bank we skidded them across the gap into the wagon without much difficulty.
We had made three loads, and the fine weather still holding, we had gone back for a fourth and last one, when, having got our logs in place on the cut bank all ready to load, Joe and I, after due consultation, decided that we would take a day off and climb up to the saddle which connected the two mountains. We had never been up there before, and we were curious to see what the country was like on the other side.
Knowing that it would be a long and hard climb, we started about sunrise, taking a rifle with us; not that we expected to use it, but because it is not good to be entirely defenseless in those wild, out-of-the-way places. Following at first our little creek, we went on up and up, taking it slowly, until presently the pines began to thin out, the weather-beaten trees, gnarled, twisted and stunted, becoming few and far between, and pretty soon we left even these behind and emerged upon the bare rocks above timber-line. Here, too, we left behind our little creek.
For another thousand feet we scrambled up the rocks, clambering over great boulders, picking our way along the edges of little precipices, until at last we stood upon the summit of the saddle.
To right and left were the two great peaks, still three thousand feet above us, but westward the view was clear. As far as we could see – and that, I expect, was near two hundred miles – were ranges and masses of mountains, some of them already capped with snow, a magnificent sight.
“That is fine!” cried Joe, enthusiastically. “It’s well worth the trouble of the climb. I only wish we had a map so that we could tell which range is which.”
“Yes, it’s a great sight,” said I. “And the view eastward is about as fine, I think. Look! That cloud of smoke, due east about ten miles away, comes from the smelters of San Remo, and that other smoke a little to the left of it is where the coal-mines are. There’s the ranch, too, that green spot in the mesa; you wouldn’t think it was nearly a mile square, would you?”
“That’s Sulphide down there, of course,” remarked Joe, pointing off towards the right. “But what are those other, smaller, clouds of smoke?”
“Those are three other little mining-camps, all tributary to the smelters at San Remo, and all producing refractory ores like the mines of Sulphide. My! Joe!” I exclaimed, as my thoughts reverted to Tom Connor and his late core-boring failure. “What a great thing a good vein of lead ore would be! Better than a gold mine!”
“I expect it would. Poor old Tom! He bears his disappointment pretty well, doesn’t he?”
“He certainly does. He says, now, that he’s going to stick to straightforward mining and leave prospecting alone; but he’s said that every year for the past ten years at least, and if there’s anything certain about Tom it is that when spring comes and he finds himself once more with money in his pocket, he’ll be off again hunting for his lead-mine.”
“Sure to. Well, Phil, let’s sit down somewhere and eat our lunch. We mustn’t stay here too long.”
“All right. Here’s a good place behind this big rock. It will shelter us from the east wind, which has a decided edge to it up here.”
For half an hour we sat comfortably in the sun eating our lunch, all around us space and silence, when Joe, rising to his feet, gave vent to a soft whistle.
“Phil,” said he, “we must be off. No time to waste. Look eastward.”
I jumped up. A wonderful change had taken place. The view of the plains was completely cut off by masses of soft cloud, which, coming from the east, struck the mountain-side about two thousand feet below us and were swiftly and softly drifting up to where we stood.
“Yes, we must be off,” said I. “It won’t do to be caught up here in the clouds: it would be dangerous getting down over the rocks. And besides that, it might turn cold and come on to snow. Let us be off at once.”
It was fortunate we did so, for, though we traveled as fast as we dared, the cloud, coming at first in thin whisps and then in dense masses, enveloped us before we reached timber-line, and the difficulty we experienced in covering the small intervening space showed us how risky it would have been had the cloud caught us while we were still on the summit of the ridge.
As it was, we lost our bearings immediately, for the chilly mist filled all the spaces between the trees, so that we could not see more than twenty yards in any direction. As to our proper course, we could tell nothing about it, so that the only thing left for us to do was to keep on going down hill. We expected every moment to see or hear our little creek, but we must have missed it somehow, for, though we ought to have reached it long before, we had been picking our way over loose rocks and fallen trees for two hours before we came upon a stream – whether the right or the wrong one we could not tell. Right or wrong, however, we were glad to see it, for by following it we should sooner or later reach the foot of the mountain and get below the cloud.
But to follow it was by no means easy: the country was so unexpectedly rough – a fact which convinced us that we had struck the wrong creek. As we progressed, we presently found ourselves upon the edge of a little cañon which, being too steep to descend, obliged us to diverge to the left, and not only so, but compelled us to go up hill to get around it, which did not suit us at all.
After a time, however, we began to go down once more, but though we kept edging to the right we could not find our creek again. The fog, too, had become more dense than ever, and whether our faces were turned north, south or east we had no idea.
We were going on side by side, when suddenly we were astonished to hear a dog bark, somewhere close by; but though we shouted and whistled there was no reply.
“It must be a prospector’s dog,” said Joe, “and the man himself must be underground and can’t hear us.”
“Perhaps that’s it,” I replied. “Well, let’s take the direction of the sound – if we can. It seemed to me to be that way,” pointing with my hand. “I wish the dog would bark again.”
The dog, however, did not bark again, but instead there happened another surprising thing. We were walking near together, carefully picking our way, when suddenly a big raven, coming from we knew not where, flew between us, so close that we felt the flap of his wings and heard their soft fluff-fluff in the moisture-laden air, and disappeared again into the fog before us with a single croak.
It was rather startling, but beyond that we thought nothing of it, and on we went again, until Joe stopped short, exclaiming:
“Phil, I smell smoke!”
I stopped, too, and gave a sniff. “So do I,” I said; “and there’s something queer about it. It isn’t plain wood-smoke. What is it?”
“Sulphur,”
