f we did not
presently escape I would see what might be done toward making a bow and
arrows for use on small game, which we could not afford to purchase at
the cost of precious powder and ball.

I was glad, therefore, when we saw the first timber of the foothills;
still gladder, for many reasons, when I found that we were entering the
winding course of a flattened, broken stream, which presently ran back
into a shingly valley, hedged in by ranks of noble mountains, snow white
on their peaks. Here life should prove easier to us for the time, the
country offering abundant shelter and fuel, perhaps game, and certainly
change from the monotony of the Plains.

Here, I said to myself, our westward journey must end. It would be
bootless to pass beyond Laramie into the mountains, and our next course,
I thought, must be toward the south. I did not know that we were then
perhaps a hundred miles or more northwest of Laramie, deep in a mountain
range far north of the transcontinental trail. For the time, however, it
seemed wise to tarry here for rest and recruiting. I threw down the
pack. "Now," said I to her, "we rest."

"Yes," she replied, turning her face to the south, "Laramie is that way
now. If we stop here my father will come and find us. But then, how
could he find us, little as we are, in this big country? Our trail would
not be different from that of Indians, even if they found it fresh
enough to read. Suppose they _never_ found us!"

"Then," said I, "we should have to live here, forever and ever."

She looked at me curiously. "Could we?" she asked.

"Until I was too old to hunt, you too weak to sew the robes or cook the
food."

"What would happen then?"

"We would die," said I. "The world would end, would have to begin all
over again and wait twice ten million years until man again was evolved
from the amoeba, the reptile, the ape. When we died, this dog here would
be the only hope of the world."

She looked at the eternal hills in their snow, and made no answer.
Presently we turned to our duties about the camp.

It was understood that we should stay here for at least two days, to
mend our clothing and prepare food for the southern journey. I have said
I was not happy at the thought of turning toward that world which I had
missed so little. Could the wild freedom of this life have worked a
similar spell on her? The next day she came to me as I sat by our meager
fireside. Without leading of mine she began a ma