e luck.

It was pleasant in the cool of night thus to run down through the
blackness, shouting aloud to guide our followers, swinging to the
slope, bathed to the soul in mysteries of which we had no time to take
cognizance.

By and by we saw a little spark far ahead of us like a star. The smell
of fresh wood smoke and stale damp fire came to our nostrils. We
gained the star and found it to be a log smouldering; and up the hill
other stars red as blood. So we knew that we had crossed the zone of
an almost extinct forest fire, and looked on the scattered camp-fires
of an army of destruction.

The moon rose. We knew it by touches of white light on peaks
infinitely far above us; not at all by the relieving of the heavy
velvet blackness in which we moved. After a time, I, running ahead in
my turn, became aware of the deep breathing of animals. I stopped short
and called a warning. Immediately a voice answered me.

"Come on, straight ahead. They're not on the road."

When within five feet I made out the huge freight wagons in which were
lying the teamsters, and very dimly the big freight mules standing
tethered to the wheels.

"It's a dark night, friend, and you're out late."

"A dark night," I agreed, and plunged on. Behind me rattled and banged
the abused buckboard, snorted the half-wild broncos, groaned the
unrepaired brake, softly cursed my companions.

Then at once the abrupt descent ceased. We glided out to the silvered
flat, above which sailed the moon.

The hour was seen to be half past one. We had missed our train.
Nothing was visible of human habitations. The land was frosted with
the moonlight, enchanted by it, etherealized. Behind us, huge and
formidable, loomed the black mass of the range we had descended.
Before us, thin as smoke in the magic lucence that flooded the world,
rose other mountains, very great, lofty as the sky. We could not
understand them. The descent we had just accomplished should have
landed us on a level plain in which lay our town. But here we found
ourselves in a pocket valley entirely surrounded by mountain ranges
through which there seemed to be no pass less than five or six thousand
feet in height.

We reined in the horses to figure it out.

"I don't see how it can be," said I. "We've certainly come far enough.
It would take us four hours at the very least to cross that range, even
if the railroad should happen to be on the other side of it."

"I been throu