Quick as a flash Nielsen was on the spot beside the team.  The bay horse was down.  The black horse was trying to break away.  Nielsen cut and pulled the bay free of the harness, and Lee came tearing down to grasp and hold the black.

Like a fool I ran around trying to help somehow, but I did not know what to do.  I smelled and then saw blood, which fact convinced me of disaster.  Only the black horse that had hurdled the log made any effort to tear away.  The other lay quiet.  When finally it was extricated we found that the horse had a bad cut in the breast made by a snag on the log.  We could find no damage done to the wagon.  The harness Nielsen had cut could be mended quickly.  What a fortunate outcome to what had seemed a very grave accident!  I was thankful indeed.  But not soon would I forget sight of Romer in front of that plunging wagon.

With the horses and a rope we hauled the log to one side of the road, and hitching up again we proceeded on our way.  Once I dropped back and asked Doyle if he was all right.  “Fine as a fiddle,” he shouted.  “This’s play to what we teamsters had in the early days.”  And verily somehow I could see the truth of that.  A mile farther on we made camp; and all of us were hungry, weary, and quiet.

Doyle proved a remarkable example to us younger men.  Next morning he crawled out before any one else, and his call was cheery.  I was scarcely able to get out of my bed, but I was ashamed to lie there an instant after I heard Doyle.  Possibly my eyesight was dulled by exhaustion when it caused me to see myself as a worn, unshaven, wrinkled wretch.  Romer-boy did not hop out with his usual alacrity.  R.C. had to roll over in his bed and get up on all fours.

We had scant rations for three more days.  It behooved us to work and waste not an hour.  All morning, at the pace of a snail it seemed, we chopped and lifted and hauled our way along that old Crook road.  Not since my trip down the Santa Rosa river in Mexico had I labored so strenuously.

At noon we came to the turning-off junction, an old blazed road Doyle had some vague knowledge of.  “It must lead to Jones’ ranch,” Doyle kept saying.  “Anyway, we’ve got to take it.”  North was our direction.  And to our surprise, and exceeding gladness, the road down this ridge proved to be a highway compared to what we had passed.  In the open forest we had to follow it altogether by the blazes on the trees.  But with all our eyes alert that was easy.  The grade was down hill, so that we traveled fast, covering four miles an hour.  Occasionally a log or thicket halted rapid progress.  Toward the end of the afternoon sheep and cattle trails joined the now well-defined road, and we knew we were approaching a ranch.  I walked, or rather limped the last mile, for the very good reason that I could not longer bear the trot of my horse.  The forest grew more open, with smaller pines, and fewer thickets.  At sunset I came out upon the brow of a deep barren-looking canyon, in the middle of which squatted some old ruined log-cabins.  Deserted!  Alas for my visions of a cup of cold milk.  For hours they had haunted me.  When Doyle saw the broken-down cabins and corrals he yelled:  “Boys, it’s Jones’ Ranch.  I’ve been here.  We’re only three miles from Long Valley and the main road!”