He looked back at Ross already mounted, bringing up the rear of the string of packhorses, standing in front of the company’s store.
"All ready," shouted Ross.
Steele, about to swing himself up, hesitated. He glanced again at Ross. Then, dropping his bridle reins to the ground, he disappeared inside the store, emerging presently with a short rifle and a cartridge belt.
"Ever use a gun?" he asked.
Ross hesitated. "I’ve practiced target shooting a little, and gone hunting a few times; but," candidly, "I don’t amount to shucks with a gun."
Steele grinned, and handed it up. "Take it along," he advised, "and practice some more. It may bring you fresh meat. Sometimes elk and mountain sheep come down to the Creek to drink over there–won’t come amiss, anyhow."
Ross accepted the gun; and Steele, going back to the head of the procession, mounted, and led the way up the cañon, which presently broadened until it formed a snow-flecked valley a few rods wide. Here were a dozen shacks, another eating house, and the store of the Mountain Company. The mouth of its tunnel could be seen high on the side of the mountain above the store.
Immediately beyond this valley the cañon was nearly closed by two great peaks. The one on the left was still Dundee; but on the right Gale’s Ridge gave place to Crosby, behind which lay Meadow Creek Valley.
Zigzagging across the face of this mountain wound a narrow trail gradually ascending. Up and yet up climbed the horses until Ross clung to his saddle involuntarily while looking down. Soon Wood River became a thread, and the shacks became black doll-houses set in patches of snow.
On the trail the snow lay deep in the hollows, but was swept away wherever the east wind could touch it. But, snow-filled or black, the trail ever ascended. The peak of Dundee opposite, which had seemed from the cañon narrow and remote, stretched out now immense and so near that Ross felt he could hurl a stone across and hit it.