Waving his hand, away he rode; Ulysses, who could not understand why he should have been tied up all night, running and leaping joyously before him.
For half an hour we stood watching our captain, until we saw him, against the sky-line of a distant hill, turn and wave his hand as he disappeared over the brow. Then, and not till then, Squeaky gave the order to mount.
It was not a very hilarious procession that set out that morning from our late camping-place. First rode the speechless Bates, then came the two mules, who were, after their fashion, as uneasy at the departure of Toby as we were at the departure of Toby’s master, and lastly came Squeaky, who, that we might not from ignorance run any needless risks, had significantly informed us that any attempt on our part to swerve to the right or left would result in a bullet in the back.
For half a day we rode slowly but steadily upwards, until, having passed through the pine-woods, we came out upon a long, bare ridge, connecting two mountain peaks. Ascending to the crest of this stony, wind-swept “hog-back,” upon whose hard surface the hoofs of our animals left no trace whatever, we presently found our further progress barred by a little precipice some thirty or forty feet high which ran the whole length of the ridge from one peak to the other. It was plain we could not jump down there, but unless we had come to the end of our journey we could not see what else we were expected to do.
At this point, whence we could see a long stretch of the Yellowstone Valley behind us, Squeaky ordered us to stop, and taking Jack’s field-glass, which he had appropriated to his own use, he examined the trail by which we had come up and all the country about with the greatest minuteness. Evidently he had a suspicion that Jack might be following. Our hearts were in our mouths while this examination was going on, and great was our relief when at length Squeaky put up the glass, and turning to Bates gruffly ordered him to go on.
Bates swerved to the left, and continued along the ridge until he had come near the foot of one of the peaks,—an unscaleable mass of rocks. In spite of our anxiety, Percy and I could not help feeling interested in the problem as to where we were to go now. With a precipice on the right and an impassable mountain in front of us it seemed as though the only course remaining would be to turn still more to the left and descend again into the valley.
But Bates knew what he was about; he had been here before. He turned down-hill for a short distance, and, threading his way between numbers of great rocks which had rolled down from the mountain, he presently entered a narrow chasm—so narrow that the mules with their loads had barely room to pass—and began to go steeply down-hill.
For ten minutes we scrambled down this dry watercourse, the walls on either side becoming higher and higher as we descended, until presently we heard the splashing of water, and looking ahead we saw a shallow stream rushing madly past the mouth of our gully. Arrived at the edge of this stream we found that immediately on our left it fell foaming in a miniature cascade into a pool a hundred feet below, while from the right it came tearing down its smooth stone bed like a mill-race. Straight before us towered a blank wall of rock.
“Which way now?” I said softly to Percy; for the gully had here widened out, and I had resumed my place beside him.
“Up the bed of the stream, I suppose,” he replied. “There’s no other way.”