I gave the party their stirrup-cup from the Champagne Spring. The waters gurgled adieu. Rich sunrise was upon the purple gates of the pass. We struck a trail through the thicket.
Good bye to the Luggernel Springs and Luggernel Alley! to that scene of tragedy and tragedy escaped!
CHAPTER XXIII.
AN IDYL OF THE ROCKYS.
I shall make short work of our journey to Laramie.
We bent northeastwardly by ways known to our leader,—alas! leader no more. He could guide, but no more gallop in front and beckon on the cavalcade.
It was a grand journey. A wild one, and rough for a lady. But this lady was made of other stuff than the mistresses of lapdogs.
We crossed the backbone of the continent, climbing up the clefts between the ragged vertebræ, and over the top of that meandering spine, fleshed with great grassy mounds; then plunging down again among the rifts and glens.
A brilliant quartette ours would have been, but for my friend’s wound. Four people, all with fresh souls and large and peculiar experience.
Except for my friend’s wound!