“A good big fellow, wasn’t he, son?” said Hugh, and Jack assented.
“That’s the first moose I’ve seen, Hugh, since we came down from the Yellowstone Park. Do you remember we killed one there?”
“Yes,” said Hugh, “I remember, and I remember, too, that we got a bear or two close to him.”
“So we did,” assented Jack.
“There,” said Hugh, as he knotted the lash rope, “let’s go on. The flies make these horses crazy.”
All day long they continued on the rough road, through underbrush, over rocks and around enormous boulders that had fallen from the precipice above. About three o’clock they reached a large stream coming from the right, which evidently joined the river that they had been following a little further down. Here it took some time to find a place where the river was fordable. The current was swift and the water looked deep.
No one wished to have the packs thrown down in the stream, for this would wet everything and might even result in the loss of a horse. By following up the stream a few hundred yards, however, they found a riffle, across which stretched a gravel bar, and here they made a crossing in water no deeper than to the horses’ knees. Not far above this stream was a wide alder swamp, which gave them much trouble. A little farther on they came to a small stream flowing down the valley, along which ran an old game trail, and following this, they emerged just before sunset on a little round meadow, at the head of which was a lake a mile long and a quarter of a mile broad. About this, on every side except the lower, rose vertical walls of rock, now black in the shadow of the high mountains to the west.
“I tell you, Joe,” said Jack, “this is a curious place, isn’t it? Cold and gloomy enough.”
“Yes,” said Joe, “I don’t like this much. You can’t see far. I don’t wonder that my people would rather stay out on the prairie.”
“What shall we do with the horses, Hugh?” asked Jack. “Tie ’em up, or let them loose?”