They hardly breathed till the crashes grew less and less frequent and a brooding silence settled down over the brulee once more.
Then Hardware, shaking all over, gazed at the great trunk lying recumbent not two yards from them. His eyes filled with tears. He held out a blackened hand to Ralph, who smiled at him through his mask of gray ash.
“I—I—I don’t know how to thank you, Ralph, old man,” he choked out. “If it hadn’t been for you, in my silly temper I’d have gone right on without minding you, and—and——”
He could not go further, but Ralph’s fingers closed on his out-stretched hand.
“That’s all right, old man,” was all he said; but between both boys a thrill ran as their fingers clasped. Hardware had learned a lesson there in the brulee that all the schools in Christendom couldn’t have taught him, and he knew it.
“A mighty near thing,” said Mountain Jim, as the others rode up, “I guess I’ll have a smoke.”
His voice was steady enough, but his hands shook as he filled his old brier. Death had swept by too closely for any of them to recover their nerve for half an hour or more. By that time, as they rode on, the charred trunks were fewer and fewer, and an hour before sundown they came out of that “Valley of Desolation” into a wide canon, carpeted with lush, green grass and watered by a crystal clear stream. On each side towered rocky scraps of cliff clothed with dark pines and balsams.
Boys and men broke into a cheer, and even the dispirited ponies fell into a brisk gait without urging. The travelers forgot their trials as they laved in the fresh, cold water of the mountain stream and watched Jim getting supper, assisted by Jimmie, while the ponies ravenously cropped the fresh, juicy grass. But it was days before the last trace of ashes was removed from their belongings, and one at least of the party was destined never to forget that brulee in the Rockies as long as he might live.