When I had almost reached her, a mass of snow, a tiny slide from a shelving rock, plunged down, sweeping the saddle and the bag down into the cañon and nearly smothering me. As it was almost night, I made no attempt to recover them. Without saddle or bridle, I mounted Cricket and went on until dark. We spent the night at the foot of an overhanging cliff, where we were safe from slides. Here we managed to keep warm by a camp-fire. Cricket browsed aspen twigs for supper. I had nothing. A number of slides were heard during the night, but none were near us.
At daylight we again pushed forward. The snow became thinner as we advanced. Near Ophir Loop, we passed over the pathway of a slide where the ground had been swept bare. Having long been vigilant with eyes and ears for slides, while on this slide-swept stretch, I ceased to be alert. Fortunately Cricket's vigilance did not cease. Suddenly she wheeled, and, with a quickness that almost took her from beneath me, she made a frantic retreat, as a slide with thunderous roar shot down into the cañon. So narrowly did it miss us that we were heavily splashed with snow-fragments and almost smothered by the thick, prolonged whirl of snow-dust. Cricket's vigilance had saved my life.
LOOKING EASTWARD FROM LIZARD HEAD
The masses of snow, stones, and broken timber brought down by this slide blockaded the cañon from wall to wall. These walls were too steep to be climbed, and, after trying until dark to make a way through the wreckage, we had to give it up.
We spent a cold night alongside a cliff. Cricket and I each ate a few willow twigs. The night was of refined clearness, and from time to time I moved away from the pungent camp-fire smoke to look at the myriads of stars that pierced with icy points the purple sky.
The clear morning brought no solution of my problem of getting Cricket through. I could not abandon her. While she was trying to find something to eat, I made my way up a side gulch, endeavoring to find a way for her to the summit. From the top we could get down beyond the slide blockade. After a time a way was found that was impossible for her at only one point. This point was a narrow gulch in the summit. I climbed along a narrow ledge, swept bare by the slide, then turned into a rocky gulch which came in from the side. I was within fifteen feet of success. But this was the width of a rocky gulch. Beyond this it would be comparatively easy to descend on the other side of the slide wreckage and land in the road to Telluride.
But how was Cricket to get to the other side of this gorge? Along the right I made my way through great piles of fallen fire-killed timber. In places this wreckage lay several logs deep. I thought to find a way through the four or five hundred feet of timber-wreckage. Careful examination showed that with much lifting and numerous detours there was a way through this except at four places, at which the logs that blocked the way were so heavy that they could not be moved. Without tools the only way to attack this confusion of log-masses was with fire. In a short time the first of these piles was ablaze. As I stepped back to rub my smoke-filled eyes, a neigh came echoing to me from the side cañon below.
Cricket had become lonesome and was trying to follow me. Reared in the mountains, she was accustomed to making her way through extremely rugged places, over rocks and fallen trees. Going to the rim of the cañon, I looked down upon her. There she stood on a smoothly glaciated point, a splendid statue of alertness. When I called to her she responded with a whinny and at once started to climb up toward me. Coaching her up the steep places and along narrow ledges, I got her at last to the burning log obstruction. Here several minutes of wrestling with burning log-ends opened a way for her.
The two or three other masses were more formidable than the first one. The logs were so large that a day or more of burning and heavy lifting would be required to break through them. More than two days and nights of hard work had been passed without food, and I must hold out until a way could be fought through these other heavy timber-heaps. Cricket, apparently not caring to be left behind again, came close to me and eagerly watched my every move. To hasten the fire, armfuls of small limbs were gathered for it. As limbs were plentiful on the other side of the gorge, I went across on a large fallen log for a supply, shuffling the snow off with my feet as I crossed. To my astonishment Cricket came trotting across the slippery log after me! She had been raised with fallen timber and had walked logs before. As she cleared the edge, I threw my arms around her neck and leaped upon her back. Without saddle, bridle, or guiding, she took me merrily down the mountain-side into the wagon-road beyond the snow-slide blockade. At midnight we were in Telluride.