to his captain.
"Only one more steep hill so far as I went. But we'll have to cut
through thickets and logs. From here on the road is all grown over.
About ten miles west we turn off the rim down a ridge."

That about the turning-off place was indeed good news. I thanked
Nielsen. And Doyle appeared immensely relieved. The packing and
carrying had begun to tell on us. Pups ingratiated himself into my
affections. He found out that he could coax meat and biscuit from me.
We had three axes and a hatchet; and these we did not pack in the
wagon. When Doyle finally got the teams started Lee and Nielsen and
R.C. and I went ahead to clear the road. Soon we were halted by
thickets of pines, some of which were six inches in diameter at the
base. The road had ceased to be rocky, and that, no doubt, was the
reason pine thickets had grown up on it, The wagon kept right at our
heels, and many times had to wait. We cut a way through thickets, tore
rotten logs to pieces, threw stumps aside, and moved windfalls. Brawny
Nielsen seemed ten men in one! What a swath he hacked with his big
axe! When I rested, which circumstance grew oftener and oftener, I had
to watch Nielsen with his magnificent swing of the axe, or with his
mighty heave on a log. Time and again he lifted tree trunks out of the
road. He sweat till he was wringing wet. Neither that day nor the next
would we have ever gotten far along that stretch of thicketed and
obstructed road had it not been for Nielsen.

At sunset we found ourselves at the summit of a long slowly ascending
hill, deeply forested. It took all the horses together to pull the
wagon to the top. Thus when we started down a steep curve, horses and
men both were tired. I was ahead riding beside Romer. Nielsen and R.C.
were next, and Lee had fallen in behind the wagon. As I turned the
sharp curve I saw not fifty feet below me a huge log obstructing the
road.

"Look out! Stop!" I yelled, looking back.

But I was too late. The horses could not hold back the heavily
laden wagon, and they broke into a gallop. I saw Doyle's face turn
white--heard him yell. Then I spurred my horse to the side. Romer was
slow or frightened. I screamed at him to get off the road. My heart
sank sick within me! Surely he would be run down. As his pony Rye
jumped out of the way the shoulder of the black horse, on the off
side, struck him a glancing blow. Then the big team hurdled the log,
the tongue struck with a crash, the wagon stoppe