in this hard ride into a wonderful forest ever thickening
and darkening. But the wild beauty of glade and the spruce slopes and
the deep, bronze-walled canyons left her cold. She saw and felt, but
had no thrill, except now and then a thrill of alarm when Spades slid
to his haunches down some steep, damp, piny declivity.

All the woodland, up and down, appeared to be richer greener as they
traveled farther west. Grass grew thick and heavy. Water ran in all
ravines. The rocks were bronze and copper and russet, and some had
green patches of lichen.

Ellen felt the sun now on her left cheek and knew that the day was
waning and that Colter was swinging farther to the northwest. She had
never before ridden through such heavy forest and down and up such wild
canyons. Toward sunset the deepest and ruggedest canyon halted their
advance. Colter rode to the right, searching for a place to get down
through a spruce thicket that stood on end. Presently he dismounted
and the others followed suit. Ellen found she could not lead Spades
because he slid down upon her heels, so she looped the end of her reins
over the pommel and left him free. She herself managed to descend by
holding to branches and sliding all the way down that slope. She heard
the horses cracking the brush, snorting and heaving. One pack slipped
and had to be removed from the horse, and rolled down. At the bottom
of this deep, green-walled notch roared a stream of water. Shadowed,
cool, mossy, damp, this narrow gulch seemed the wildest place Ellen had
ever seen. She could just see the sunset-flushed, gold-tipped spruces
far above her. The men repacked the horse that had slipped his burden,
and once more resumed their progress ahead, now turning up this canyon.
There was no horse trail, but deer and bear trails were numerous. The
sun sank and the sky darkened, but still the men rode on; and the
farther they traveled the wilder grew the aspect of the canyon.

At length Colter broke a way through a heavy thicket of willows and
entered a side canyon, the mouth of which Ellen had not even descried.
It turned and widened, and at length opened out into a round pocket,
apparently inclosed, and as lonely and isolated a place as even pursued
rustlers could desire. Hidden by jutting wall and thicket of spruce
were two old log cabins joined together by roof and attic floor, the
same as the double cabin at the Jorth ranch.

Ellen smelled wood smoke, and present