ide a boulder, climbed painfully into the saddle. To relieve his
depression he addressed the horse:

"It would be easier on both of us if you were two feet narrower in the
beam, old dear," he said.

Nevertheless, he made good time. By six o'clock he knew that he must
have made thirty odd miles, and that he must be near the cabin. Also
that it was going to be bitterly cold that night, under the snow fields,
and that he had brought no wood axe. The deep valley was purple with
twilight by seven, and he could scarcely see the rough-drawn trail map
he had been following. And the trail grew increasingly bad. For the last
mile or two the horse took its own way.

It wandered on, through fords and out of them, under the low-growing
branches of scrub pine, brushing his bruised legs against rocks. He had
definitely decided that he had missed the cabin when the horse turned
off the trail, and he saw it.

It was built of rough logs, the chinks once closed with mud which had
fallen away. The door stood open, and his entrance into its darkness was
followed by the scurrying of many little feet. Bassett unstrapped his
raincoat from the saddle with fingers numb with cold, and flung it to
the ground. He uncinched and removed the heavy saddle, hobbled his horse
and removed the bridle, and turned him loose with a slap on the flank.

"For the love of Mike, don't go far, old man," he besought him. And was
startled by the sound of his own voice.

By the light of his candle lantern the prospects were extremely poor.
The fir branches in the double-berthed bunk were dry and useless, the
floor was crumbling under his feet, and the roof of the lean-to had
fallen in and crushed the rusty stove. In the cabin itself some one had
recently placed a large flat stone in a corner for a fireplace, with two
slabs to back it, and above it had broken out a corner of the roof as
a chimney. Bassett thought he saw the handwork of some enterprising
journalist, and smiled grimly.

He set to work with the resource of a man who had learned to take what
came, threw the dry bedding onto the slab and set a match to it, brought
in portions of the lean-to roof for further supply for the fire, opened
a can of tomatoes and set it on the edge of the hearth to heat, and
sliced bacon into his diminutive frying-pan.

It was too late for any examination that night. He ate his supper from
the rough table, drawing up to it a broken chair, and afterwards brought
in more wo