“He says all he wants is to be let alone,” she said briefly.  “I must say I’m disappointed in him.  He was very agreeable before.”

I pass without comment over the night.  Bill had put up the tent over the root of a large tree, and we disposed ourselves about it as well as we could.  In the course of the night one of the horses broke loose and put its head inside the tent.  Owing to Aggie’s thinking it was a bear, Tish shot at it, fortunately missing it.

But the frightened animal ran away, and Bill was until noon the next day finding it.  We cooked our own breakfast, and Tish made some gems, having brought the pan along.  But the morning dragged, although the scenery was lovely.

At twelve Bill brought the horse back and came over to us.

“If you don’t mind my saying it, Miss Carberry,” he observed, “you’re a bit too ready with that gun.  First thing you know you’ll put a hole through me, and then where will you be?”

“I’ve got along without men most of my life,” Tish said sharply.  “I reckon we’d manage.”

“Well,” he said, “there’s another angle to it.  Where would I be?”

“That’s between you and your Creator,” Tish retorted.

We went on again that afternoon, and climbed another precipice.  We saw no human being except a mountain goat, although Bill claimed to have seen a bear.  Tish was quite calm at all times, and had got so that she could look down into eternity without a shudder.  But Aggie and I were still nervous, and at the steepest places we got off and walked.

The unfortunate part was that the exercise and the mountain air made Aggie hungry, and there was little that she could eat.

“If any one had told me a month ago,” she said, mopping her forehead, “that I would be scaling the peaks of my country on crackers and tea, I wouldn’t have believed it.  I’m done out, Lizzie.  I can’t climb another inch.”

Bill was ahead with the pack horse, and Tish, overhearing her, called back some advice.

“Take your horse’s tail and let him pull you up, Aggie,” she said.  “I’ve read it somewhere.”

Aggie, although frequently complaining, always does as Tish suggests.  So she took the horse’s tail, when a totally unexpected thing happened.  Docile as the creature generally was, it objected at once, and kicked out with both rear feet.  In a moment, it seemed to me, Aggie was gone, and her horse was moving on alone.

“Aggie!” I called in a panic.

Tish stopped, and we both looked about.  Then we saw her, lying on a ledge about ten feet below the trail.  She was flat on her back, and her riding-hat was gone.  But she was uninjured, although shaken, for as we looked she sat up, and an agonized expression came over her face.

“Aggie!” I cried.  “Is anything broken?”

“Damnation!” said Aggie in an awful voice.  “The upper set is gone!”