other
lakes and other valleys as fine, an' this wouldn't look so beautiful,
after all, tomorrow, filled with ragin' Sioux huntin' our ha'r right
whar it grows, squar' on top o' our heads."

Young Clarke laughed and threw off his melancholy.

"You're right," he said briskly. "The lake wouldn't look very beautiful
if a half dozen Sioux were shooting at me. You came through this pass,
now tell us what kind of a place it is."

"We ride along by the creek, an' sometimes the ledge is jest wide enough
fur the horses an' mules. We go on that way four or five miles, provided
we don't fall down the cliff into the creek an' bust ourselves apart.
Then, ag'in, purvided we're still livin', we come out into a valley,
narrow but steep, the water rushin' down it in rapids like somethin'
mad. Then we keep on down the valley with our hosses lookin' ez ef they
wuz walkin' on their heads, an' in four or five miles more, purvided, o'
course, once more that we ain't been busted apart by falls, we come out
into some woods. These woods are cut by gulleys an' ravines an' they
have stony outcrops, but they'll look good by the side o' what you hev
passed through."

"Encouraging, Giant!" laughed Will. "But hard as all this will be for us
to pass over, it will be just as hard for the Sioux, our pursuers."

"Young William," said the Little Giant approvingly, "I like to hear you
talk that way. It shows that you hev all the makin's o' them opty-mists,
the bunch o' people to which I belong. I never heard that word till
three or four years ago, when I wuz listenin' to a preacher in a minin'
camp, an' it kinder appealed to me. So I reckoned I would try to live up
to it an' make o' myself a real opty-mist. I been workin' hard at it
ever sence, an' I think I'm qualifyin'."

"You're right at the head of the class, that's where you are, Giant,"
said Boyd heartily. "You've already earned a thousand dollars out of the
mine that we're going to find, you with your whistling and cheerfulness
bracing us up so that we're ready to meet anything."

"What's the use o' bein' an opty-mist ef you don't optymize?" asked the
Little Giant, coining a word for himself. "Now, ain't this a nice,
narrow pass? You kin see the water in the creek down thar, 'bout two
hundred feet below, a-rushin' an' a-roarin' over the stones, an' then
you look up an' see the cliff risin' five or six hundred feet over your
head, an' here you are betwixt an' between, on a shelf less'n three f