(How it did make Fuzzy’s little black eyes twinkle. For he had not forgotten when Bucky bucked him off.)
Another thing interested him, too. (For there is nothing in all the woods so curious as a bear cub). That was when the Ranger taught the pinto pony to walk a log.
Away off there in the high Sierras, it is often necessary for a man’s horse to make his way up and down steep slopes, over fallen tree trunks and over streams where there is no bridge. Sometimes a horse can swim, but where there is a log across a stream, those mountain-bred ponies are taught to cross the log.
First the Ranger found a log that had fallen on a bit of level ground,—a big log that would have been wide enough for two ponies to walk abreast upon. Over this he led Pinto,—as he had named the pony from the large white patches on his brown coat. That log did not seem alarming.
Next the Ranger laid a log across a shallow arm of the creek where, if Pinto had fallen off, he would not have wetted more than his ankles. That was all right, too, thought Pinto.
As the final stage in his training, the Ranger led him along a log that crossed one end of the old swimming hole, where it was really deep. But Pinto had by this time learned to trust both his master and the logs, and he crossed unafraid.
Now Fuzzy-Wuzz had followed the creek up-stream till he was so high up the mountain side that the stony creek bed was all dry except for a mere trickle, and an occasional pool. He now proceeded to explore down-stream.
Here the rocks were all hollowed out in smooth, round bowls, some of them as big as wash tubs, some only the size of finger bowls, and a few as large around as a dining-table.
When the snows melted in the spring, bringing with them a flood of rushing water and grinding stones, the stones had been swirled around and around till they had ground out these rock basins. The swimming hole was just a huge rock basin.
As Fuzzy came to deeper water, he met every here and there a make-believe waterfall. Sometimes he plunged over it head foremost, and sometimes his feet slipped out from under him before he was ready, and over the falls he went, landing in the pool beneath, and being swirled around in the rushing waters till he was half drowned.