"Sure," he replied.
Riding on I met others beside the trail, and all wore a similar look of almost sullen gravity. They were not disposed to joke with me, and perceiving something to be wrong, I passed on without further remark.
When we came down to the bank of the stream, behold it ran to the right. And I could have sat me down and blasphemed with the rest. I now understood the gloom of the others. We were still in the valley of the inexorable Skeena. It could be nothing else; this tremendous stream running to our right could be no other than the head-waters of that ferocious flood which no surveyor has located. It is immensely larger and longer than any map shows.
We crossed the branch without much trouble, and found some beautiful bluejoint-grass on the opposite bank, into which we joyfully turned our horses. When they had filled their stomachs, we packed up and pushed on about two miles, overtaking the Manchester boys on the side-hill in a tract of dead, burned-out timber, a cheerless spot.
In speaking about the surly answer I had received from the man on the banks of the river, I said: "I wonder why those men are camped there? They must have been there for several days."
Partner replied: "They are all out of grub and are waiting for some one to come by to whack-up with 'em. One of the fellows came out and talked with me and said he had nothing left but beans, and tried to buy some flour of me."
This opened up an entirely new line of thought. I understood now that what I had taken for sullenness was the dejection of despair. The way was growing gloomy and dark to them. They, too, were racing with the wolf.
We had one short moment of relief next day as we entered a lovely little meadow and camped for noon. The sun shone warm, the grass was thick and sweet. It was like late April in the central West—cool, fragrant, silent. Aisles of peaks stretched behind us and before us. We were still high in the mountains, and the country was less wooded and more open. But we left this beautiful spot and entered again on a morass. It was a day of torture to man and beast. The land continued silent. There were no toads, no butterflies, no insects of any kind, except a few mosquitoes, no crickets, no singing thing. I have never seen a land so empty of life. We had left even the whistling marmots entirely behind us.
We travelled now four outfits together, with some twenty-five horses. Part of the time I led with Ladrone, part of the time "The Man from Chihuahua" took the lead, with his fine strong bays. If a horse got down we all swarmed around and lifted him out, and when any question of the trail came up we held "conferences of the powers."
We continued for the most part up a wide mossy and grassy river bottom covered with water. We waded for miles in water to our ankles, crossing hundreds of deep little rivulets. Occasionally a horse went down into a hole and had to be "snailed out," and we were wet and covered with mud all day. It was a new sort of trail and a terror. The mountains on each side were very stately and impressive, but we could pay little attention to views when our horses were miring down at every step.