"Yes, I've heard you tell about them before," observed the other.
"Most of the year it's only a dry ravine, with high walls; but once in a while there happens to be a tremendous downpour of rain in the mountains, when a heavy cloud breaks against the wall above. When that comes about, this gully is going to be bank-full of roaring, rushing water; and anything caught by the flood is apt to be battered and bruised and drowned before it's swept out below."
"Whew!" observed Bob, with a shrug of the shoulders. "Let's hope then, that the next cloud-burst will have the kindness to hold off till we get out of this hole. If it caught us here, Frank, I reckon we'd just have to let our nags shift for themselves, and take to climbing the sides. And wouldn't I hate to lose Domino the worst way; even if he does give me a raft of trouble at times?"
Frank patted the satiny flank of Buckskin affectionately, as he said:
"And it would just about break me up if anything happened to this fellow, Bob. I've tried heaps of mounts, seeing that we always have hundreds on the ranch; but I never threw a leg over one I fancied like my Buckskin. Why, there are times, Bob, when the game little fellow seems next door to human to me. We understand each other right well. He knows what I'm saying now; listen to him whinny, soft-like, at me."
Possibly Bob, knowing considerable about horses himself, may have had a strong suspicion that the animal understood the touch of his young master's hand much more readily than he did spoken words; but this was a subject which he never debated with Frank. The latter had a habit of talking confidentially with his horse, and seemed satisfied to believe the animal understood.
Slowly they made their way along. Now and then Frank would dismount to examine the rocks and scanty earth that formed the trail over which they were passing.
"Always plenty of signs to tell that horses have been going along here off'n on, both ways—stacks of 'em," he announced, when perhaps an hour had elapsed since they left the scene of the encounter with the grizzly.
The ravine, or gully, which he called a barranca, had gradually changed its character. It was now more in the nature of a canyon; though there were still places where the walls, instead of towering high above their heads, sloped gradually upwards.
"Smart horses could easy climb out of here up that rise," remarked Frank, thoughtfully eyeing one of these places.