bloomed fruit which hung in clusters,
and had won for themselves the name of "Oregon Grapes."

They did not prove to be grapes, though, that we cared to eat, for
Esau's testing of their flavour was quite enough for both. The report
he gave me was "Horrid"; so I contented myself with the little
bilberries and cranberries we came upon from time to time.

It was on the second day after our struggle across the slope, that we
came to a complete change in the scenery. The valley had been
contracting and opening out again and again; but now we seemed to come
at once upon a portion of the river where the sides rose up almost
perpendicularly, forming a wild, jagged, picturesque, but terrible
gorge, down which the river came thundering, reduced to narrow limits,
and roaring through at a terrible speed. The noise, multiplied as it
was by echoes, was deafening, and as we stood gazing at the vast
forbidding chasm, our journey in this direction seemed to have come
suddenly to an end.

I looked up at Gunson, and found he was looking at me, while Esau had
got his hat off scratching his head, and Quong had placed his bundle on
the ground, seated himself, and was calmly resting as if there were no
difficulties before him--nothing troublous in the least.

"Well," said Gunson, looking at Esau, "what do you think of the canon?"

"Don't see that it'll bear thinking about," replied Esau. "Going back
now, ain't we?"

"Going back? I thought you were making for Fort Elk."

"Yes, but that ain't the way," said Esau. "Nobody couldn't go along a
place like that."

"We shall have to climb up the side, and go round somehow, shall we
not?" I said to Gunson.

"That seems to be the most sensible way, my lad," he replied; "but how
are we to get up the side? We might perhaps manage if we were across
the river, but this wall of rock is so nearly perpendicular that it
would puzzle an engineer. We could not scale that without ladders,
ropes, and spikes."

Both Esau and I stared up at the precipice which towered above our
heads, and my companion took off his cap and rubbed his curly hair
again.

"We couldn't get up there?" he said, looking at me. "I'll try if you
do."

"Oh, impossible," I cried. "We shall have to go on along the side just
above the river."

"What? In there!" cried Esau.

"Yes."

"Why, you must be mad," he said. "Isn't he? No man couldn't get along
there. It would want a cat."

"I don't know," said Gunson,