mushrooms, or misshapen heads
on pikes. Banks of snow spread up here against the black rocks, but
half an hour would see us descended to the green and the woods. I looked
down, both of us looked down, but our forerunners were not there.

"They'll be camping somewhere in this basin, though," said the
Virginian, staring at the dark pines. "They have not come this trail by
accident."

A cold little wind blew down between our stone shapes, and upward again,
eddying. And round a corner upward with it came fluttering a leaf of
newspaper, and caught against an edge close to me.

"What's the latest?" inquired the Virginian from his horse. For I had
dismounted, and had picked up the leaf.

"Seems to be interesting," I next heard him say. "Can't you tell a man
what's making your eyes bug out so?"

"Yes," my voice replied to him, and it sounded like some stranger
speaking lightly near by; "oh, yes! Decidedly interesting." My voice
mimicked his pronunciation. "It's quite the latest, I imagine. You had
better read it yourself." And I handed it to him with a smile, watching
his countenance, while my brain felt as if clouds were rushing through
it.

I saw his eyes quietly run the headings over "Well?" he inquired,
after scanning it on both sides. "I don't seem to catch the excitement.
Fremont County is going to hold elections. I see they claim Jake--"

"It's mine," I cut him off. "My own paper. Those are my pencil marks."

I do not think that a microscope could have discerned a change in
his face. "Oh," he commented, holding the paper, and fixing it with a
critical eye. "You mean this is the one you lent Steve, and he wanted
to give me to give back to you. And so them are your own marks." For a
moment more he held it judicially, as I have seen men hold a contract
upon whose terms they were finally passing. "Well, you have got it back
now, anyway." And he handed it to me.

"Only a piece of it!" I exclaimed, always lightly. And as I took it from
him his hand chanced to touch mine. It was cold as ice.

"They ain't through readin' the rest," he explained easily. "Don't you
throw it away! After they've taken such trouble."

"That's true," I answered. "I wonder if it's Pounds or Ounces I'm
indebted to."

Thus we made further merriment as we rode down into the great basin.
Before us, the horse and boot tracks showed plain in the soft slough
where melted snow ran half the day.

"If it's a paper chase," said the Virginian, "th