“Is it named Gory, Gilly, because so many Red Men scalped the early settlers out here?” asked Betty.
“Oh, no,” laughed Mr. Gilroy. “It is named after an Irish nobleman, Sir George Goré, who discovered the canyon while he and a party of friends were hunting big game in the Rockies many years ago, before folks went over the Divide. In those days it was considered a marvelous feat to go into the Rockies.”
“If every one can have a mountain named after them, why can’t I have one called ‘Juliet’s Peak’?” demanded the irrepressible scout.
“You can, if you like. That is the easiest part of all, but how will other tourists know that that particular peak is named for you?” laughed Mr. Gilroy.
“You’d have to advertise the fact by some wild adventure, or great patriotic deed,” added Mr. Vernon.
“Oh, I can advertise, all right!” retorted Julie. “I’ll take a great bucket of whitewash and a calcimine brush; then on every flat-faced rock along the trail, up one side and down the other, I’ll slap a hand-painted sign on every one of them: ‘This is Juliet’s Peak,’ and the finger in ghostly white will point to my peak.”
Her ridiculous explanation caused every one to laugh, but when Jolt turned and opened his jaw wide to emit the grating sound “Hee—haw! Hee—haw!” the riders declared it was screamingly opportune of the mule.
Late in the afternoon, the second day from Flat Top, the scouts had their first battle with a rattlesnake. It is claimed that one never sees a rattler on the east slope of the Rockies,—why, it is not stated. But one certainly encounters many of them on the west side and on other ranges in Colorado.
They were jogging along comfortably when Julie’s horse suddenly leaped aside and climbed a steep bank beside the trail. The other horses trembled, and instantly the warning rattle sounded. Tally hurried back and saw a huge reptile coiled at one side of the trail, half-hidden under a bush.
He jumped from the saddle and snapped a hickory stick from a young sapling nearby. Then he whipped the rattler over the back. He could not break its back as the bush fended the blows. But Omney and Tally could so tire the reptile with blows that kept its head swinging from side to side, that finally they might jump on it.