anxiety, indeed of
dismay.

"Oh, you people are slow," cried Nora. "What is keeping you? Come along
or we shall be late. Shall we go through the woods straight to the dump,
or shall we go around?"

"Let's go around," cried Kathleen. "Do you know I have not been around
for ever so long?"

"Yes," said Larry, "let's go around by Nora's mine."

"Nora's mine!" exclaimed Ernest. "Do you know I've heard about that mine
a great deal but I have never seen Nora's mine?"

"Come along, then," said Nora, "but there's almost no trail and we shall
have to hurry while we can. There's only a cow track."

"Move along then," said her brother; "show us the way and we will
follow. Go on, Ernest."

But Ernest apparently had difficulty with his broncho so that he was
found at the rear of the line with Kathleen immediately in front of him.
The cow trail led out of the coolee over a shoulder of a wooded hill
and down into a ravine whose sharp sides made the riding even to those
experienced westerners a matter of difficulty, in places of danger. At
the bottom of the ravine a little torrent boiled and foamed on its way
to join Wolf Willow Creek a mile further down. After an hour's struggle
with the brushwood and fallen timber the party was halted by a huge
spruce tree which had fallen fair across the trail.

"Where now, boss?" cried Larry to Nora, who from her superior knowledge
of the ground, had been leading the party.

"This is something new," answered Nora. "I think we should cross the
water and try to break through to the left around the top of the tree."

"No," said Ernest, "the right looks better to me, around the root here.
It is something of a scramble, but it is better than the left."

"Come along," said Nora; "this is the way of the trail, and we can get
through the brush of that top all right."

"I am for the right. Come, let's try it, Kathleen, shall we?" said
Ernest.

Kathleen hesitated. "Come, we'll beat them out. Right turn, march."

The commanding tones of the young man appeared to dominate the girl.
She set her horse to the steep hillside, following her companion to the
right. A steep climb through a tangle of underbrush brought them into
the cleared woods, where they paused to breathe their animals.

"Ah, that was splendidly done. You are a good horsewoman," said Ernest.
"If you only had a horse as good as mine we could go anywhere together.
You deserve a better horse, too. I wonder if you know how fine you
l