Up and up and still higher he bore into a range of
beetling crags, and always his gaze was fixed steadfastly and dubiously
on the serrated backbone toward which they ascended with infinite toil
and hourly risk, skirting sheer cliffs on narrow rock ledges, working
foot by foot over declivities where the horses dug their hoofs into a
precarious toe hold, and where a slip meant broken bones on the ragged
stones below. But win to the uppermost height they did, where an early
snowfall lay two inches deep in a thin forest of jack pine.
They broke out of a canon up which they had struggled all day onto a
level plot where the pine stood in somber ranks. A spring creek split
the flat in two. Beside this tiny stream Bill unlashed his packs. It
still lacked two hours of dark. But he made no comment, and Hazel
forbore to trouble him with questions. Once the packs were off and the
horses at liberty. Bill caught up his rifle.
"Come on, Hazel," he said. "Let's take a little hike."
The flat was small, and once clear of it the pines thinned out on a
steep, rocky slope so that westward they could overlook a vast network
of canons and mountain spurs. But ahead of them the mountain rose to
an upstanding backbone of jumbled granite, and on this backbone Bill
Wagstaff bent an anxious eye.
Pages:
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243