re
merrily trotting homewards. I saw them two miles off an hour ago with
him after them. His wife, who is also after them, goaded to
desperation, said, "He's the most ignorant, careless, good-for-nothing
man I ever saw," upon which I dwelt upon his being well meaning. There
is a sort of well here, but our "afternoon tea" and watering the horses
drained it, so we have had nothing to drink since yesterday, for the
canteen, which started without a cork, lost all its contents when the
mule fell. I have made a monstrous fire, but thirst and impatience are
hard to bear, and preventible misfortunes are always irksome. I have
found the stomach of a bear with fully a pint of cherrystones in it,
and have spent an hour in getting the kernels; and lo! now, at
half-past nine, I see the culprit and his wife coming back with the
animals.

I. L. B.

LOWER CANYON, September 21.

We never reached Estes Park. There is no trail, and horses have never
been across. We started from camp at ten, and spent four hours in
searching for the trail. Chalmers tried gulch after gulch again, his
self-assertion giving way a little after each failure; sometimes going
east when we should have gone west, always being brought up by a
precipice or other impossibility. At last he went off by himself, and
returned rejoicing, saying he had found the trail; and soon, sure
enough, we were on a well-defined old trail, evidently made by
carcasses which have been dragged along it by hunters. Vainly I
pointed out to him that we were going north-east when we should have
gone south-west, and that we were ascending instead of descending.
"Oh, it's all right, and we shall soon come to water," he always
replied. For two hours we ascended slowly through a thicket of aspen,
the cold continually intensifying; but the trail, which had been
growing fainter, died out, and an opening showed the top of Storm Peak
not far off and not much above us, though it is 11,000 feet high. I
could not help laughing. He had deliberately turned his back on Estes
Park. He then confessed that he was lost, and that he could not find
the way back. His wife sat down on the ground and cried bitterly. We
ate some dry bread, and then I said I had had much experience in
traveling, and would take the control of the party, which was agreed
to, and we began the long descent. Soon after his wife was thrown from
her horse, and cried bitterly again fro