"Before coming out on that sun-baked exposed butte, I had tied the animals—a pack-mule, my riding mare, and the assistant's horse—to the branch of a tree. Suddenly, as it afterwards appeared, the other fellow heard a sound as of a fall and went to see what it was. He was gone so long that I noticed his absence. When he returned I waited for him to volunteer an explanation but apparently he did not want to disturb me, so I said, questioningly:
"'Well?'"
"'Only two of them there now,'" he replied. 'Bella's gone over the edge. Neck's broken, so there's no use doing anything.'
"Now Uncle Sam, you know, is always willing to stand for accidents that can't be helped, but he's got to know all about it, and while I realized that it would really matter little in the long run, I was sure that the department would feel better satisfied if the manner of the accident were set forth. So I put away my pencil, folded up the plane table, and went to investigate. It was as puzzling a thing to decide as I ever saw. The tree was at least twenty yards from the brink of the precipice, although the ground sloped fairly steeply to the edge.
"When I arrived there I found the other two animals tied to the branch, as I had left them, and apparently undisturbed. The ground, however, between the tree and the edge of the chasm, was torn up with hoof marks and the struggles of an animal that evidently had fallen to the ground, and the spoor from the tree to the Canyon's edge was easily traced. Of the animal, I could at first find no evidence, but my assistant touched me on the arm.
"'Here, Mr. Masseth,' he said, 'you can see Bella from here.'
"Sure enough, on rounding the corner of a pinnacle which stood out a little distance from the edge, the body of the mare could be seen about one hundred and seventy-five feet down, lying on a sharply pitching bank of talus—that is, debris of rock and dust, fallen from the overhanging cliff above. It was still a wonder to me how the mare fell, and as she had been wearing a brand-new halter, this in a country where it is easier to get beast than harness, I told my assistant that I was going down to secure the halter and also to find out, if I could, what had been the cause of the accident.
"I think that was about as nasty a piece of climbing as I ever had. It would never come about in the regular course of business, you see, because we don't work that way, but I was going down to get that brute, no matter what labor it cost. At last I managed to make my way down to the point where she was lying. There, after studying the position in which she must have fallen, I gained some idea of the manner in which it had come about. Bella was from the ranches, where, you know, an animal is not muscle-bound like your eastern horses, and in trying to scratch her head—where possibly a fly had settled—with her off fore-leg, the calk of her shoe must have caught in the neck-strap of the halter, and of course, she could not get it out.
"The poor beast probably stood as long as she could on three legs, but the posture must have been cramped and painful after a few moments and she fell heavily, breaking the rope of the halter as she did so. Then, while lying on the ground, floundering about in an effort to free her foot from the thraldom of the halter-strap, she must have slipped nearer and nearer to the edge and then suddenly gone over, with her hind-foot still fast in the strap.
"Since I had got so far, though I did not much relish doing it, I determined to take off the halter, and at least save that out of the wreck. But you can readily see that the halter had been drawn fearfully tight, and I could not get slack enough to unfasten the buckle. At last I gave a hearty wrench, and was just about to be able to slip the prong of the buckle through the hole, when the insecure talus on which I was standing, and on which the animal had been resting, began to slide. Fortunately I am fairly quick on my feet, and in two or three springs I reached a little outjutting terrace. But I had scarcely reached that point of safety when poor Bella went over the edge another seventy-five feet into the chasm.