“Try walking,” Mills called back.
Joe saw Bob dismount, and as he was feeling saddle stiff, he got off his horse, too, and led him down by the bridle. The poor packhorses had to tread on the very outside edge of the trail, because if they didn’t, their packs would knock the wall on the inner side, and what kept them from slipping off was hard to see.
The trail down seemed endless. Far below, Joe saw a party coming up, looking about a quarter of a mile away.
“I suppose we’ll meet ’em day after to-morrow,” Bob said.
Trail up Piegan Pass Showing Continental Divide and Mt. Gould
As a matter of fact, it was half an hour before the two parties met. They had to pass on this narrow path, and Mills, the two guides, and Joe held the horses of their party while the ascending riders squeezed past, and then led the packhorses, one by one, to a spot where they could make room for another horse to get by. It seemed ticklish work to Joe, but the horses were as calm about it as if they had been on level ground.
It was long after one o’clock when the nineteen horses of the procession finally stepped off the last of the shale upon the green grass of a little meadow, and then into a level strip of woods. With a yell, Mills hit his horse, and went forward at a smart trot, everybody following, even the weary packhorses. Out of the woods on the other side they trotted into the most beautiful spot Joe had ever seen in all his life, and when Miss Elkins cried, “Oh, is this Heaven?” he felt like saying, “Me too!”—but remembered that, after all, he was only the cook, and kept silent.