Next morning early we resumed the journey. By two o'clock we had crossed the Long Valley Mountains and were on the margin of a sage-covered plain, still probably twenty miles to Pinto. Several times we were puzzled by forking trails, and were in doubt whether we were on the right one to Eureka.
I judged the valley to be ten miles wide. On we rode, the plucky animals swinging slowly along in that awkward yet amusing hip-movement characteristic of the burro, until I distinguished across the plain what looked to be a house. I decided to head for it. We arrived there at five o'clock, to find the place temporarily deserted, to discover a fine spring and plenty of hay. Here we cooked our evening meal and were enjoying a smoke when two men rode up with an air of conscious proprietorship. They were Mr. Robinson, proprietor of Newark Mines, and his superintendent. Both were very hospitable. Mr. Robinson invited me to help myself to anything I or my party needed, regretted that we had not waited to dine with him, and asked us to spend the evening at his house and breakfast with him.
When I told them the story of our experience with the outlaws, they were greatly interested, and it called forth many tales of adventure from both those frontiersmen. We were treated to a heaping plate of delicious apples, and it was a late hour before we sought our tents. It was a relief to feel myself well beyond the outlaws' domain.
Next day my good host directed his superintendent to guide us over Chihuahua Pass, which would save us a fifteen-mile journey around the extremity of the mountain by way of Pinto.
The climb over the pass was rich with beautiful views. After rising several hundred feet and looking back, the vista between the summits and the plains glistening in the sun was superb. The mines were a mile or two up the canyon, and to this point my kind host accompanied us, after which his man on horseback led us over the roughest and most puzzling part of the trail.
So narrow was the passage through Devil's Gate that two animals could not walk abreast, and their panniers often scraped the rough walls of the winding and rocky gate-way. Having once gained the summit, a great oval of bench-land spotted with buffalo-grass, we rested and grazed the donkeys while we lunched; then we shook hands with the good-hearted guide, and trailed down the long, pine-covered slope to Eureka.
[CHAPTER LI.]
Donk, boy and dried apples
BY MAC A'RONY.
I will feed you to bursting.—The Fair God.