aws and children had hidden among the rocks with all
their robes and earthly possessions. The wild and savage Sioux knew no
fear and were pressing up the narrow trail with war paint and feathers,
their grim visages scowling in the sunlight as they came.

"Red Eagle, with that bravery known only to his tribe, waited until they
had reached the most dangerous precipice. Then with a great lever that
had been prepared years before, he loosened the great rock from its
moorings, and with one crash it sped down the canyon like a cyclone,
tearing the trees from their roots, and starting the rocks, until the
canyon became one great earthquake. The screams of the terrified
Indians, the howling of dogs and the neighing of horses were heard in
one awful roar. The battle was over. The canyon was a mass of blood,
and death was abroad in the valley. Not a living thing was to be seen.

"Red Eagle took a horn made of red cedar, and gave one long quivering
blast which echoed and reechoed through the alps and was carried across
the glaciers to every part of the mountain. Then the women and children
came back and once more took shelter in their comfortable homes."

I arose and gave the old crone the balance of my lunch, and told her I
was going to see that mountain some day and see their houses, but she
held up her hand and said, "Away up mountain long time ago, maybe so, no
tepee now."

And I went and left her sitting alone on the old tree, waiting for the
Great Spirit to come take her to her tribe, over on the happy hunting
ground, where scenes of warfare and savage Sioux would never molest them
again. As I left her alone on the bank of the Big Horn I could not help
feeling a pang of pity for the wild woman of the Rockies, whose life
had been spent among the canyons, and on the streams whose waters had
chiseled great passages through those granite walls centuries ago. She
who was once a belle in her tribe and had lived to see the extermination
of her people, and now wandered alone wishing to die and pass beyond.
The earth was not to her as it had been in her youth.

I shall never forget the spell that came over me as she raised her
palsied arm and showed me where she had lived a hundred years ago.
Something seemed to tell me she was speaking the truth and my trip to
that mountain became a living passion from that day.

CHAPTER III

THE GOLD SEEKER IN THE MOUNTAINS

On the apex of Medicine Mountain, whose rugged cliffs hold