them together and sewing them with sinews, to form the coverings for the lodges.  Men were wandering among the bushes that lined the brook along the margin of the camp, cutting sticks of red willow, or shongsasha, the bark of which, mixed with tobacco, they use for smoking.  Reynal’s squaw was hard at work with her awl and buffalo sinews upon her lodge, while her proprietor, having just finished an enormous breakfast of meat, was smoking a social pipe along with Raymond and myself.  He proposed at length that we should go out on a hunt.  “Go to the Big Crow’s lodge,” said he, “and get your rifle.  I’ll bet the gray Wyandotte pony against your mare that we start an elk or a black-tailed deer, or likely as not, a bighorn, before we are two miles out of camp.  I’ll take my squaw’s old yellow horse; you can’t whip her more than four miles an hour, but she is as good for the mountains as a mule.”

I mounted the black mule which Raymond usually rode.  She was a very fine and powerful animal, gentle and manageable enough by nature; but of late her temper had been soured by misfortune.  About a week before I had chanced to offend some one of the Indians, who out of revenge went secretly into the meadow and gave her a severe stab in the haunch with his knife.  The wound, though partially healed, still galled her extremely, and made her even more perverse and obstinate than the rest of her species.

The morning was a glorious one, and I was in better health than I had been at any time for the last two months.  Though a strong frame and well compacted sinews had borne me through hitherto, it was long since I had been in a condition to feel the exhilaration of the fresh mountain wind and the gay sunshine that brightened the crags and trees.  We left the little valley and ascended a rocky hollow in the mountain.  Very soon we were out of sight of the camp, and of every living thing, man, beast, bird, or insect.  I had never before, except on foot, passed over such execrable ground, and I desire never to repeat the experiment.  The black mule grew indignant, and even the redoubtable yellow horse stumbled every moment, and kept groaning to himself as he cut his feet and legs among the sharp rocks.

It was a scene of silence and desolation.  Little was visible except beetling crags and the bare shingly sides of the mountains, relieved by scarcely a trace of vegetation.  At length, however, we came upon a forest tract, and had no sooner done so than we heartily wished ourselves back among the rocks again; for we were on a steep descent, among trees so thick that we could see scarcely a rod in any direction.