jective point for
camp that night, and I think I had gathered that it was to be a
settlement. I expected nothing less than a post-office and perhaps some
miners' cabins. When, at the end of that long, hard day, we reached
Mineral Park at twilight and in a heavy rain, I was doomed to
disappointment.

Mineral Park consists of a deserted shack in a clearing perhaps forty
feet square, on the bank of a mountain stream. All around it is
impenetrable forest. The mountains converge here so that the valley
becomes a canon. So dense was the growth that we put up our tents on the
trail itself.

In the little clearing round the empty shack, the horses were tied in
the cold rain. It was impossible to let them loose, for we could never
have found them again. Our hearts ached that night for the hungry
creatures; the rain had brought a cold wind and they could not even move
about to keep warm.

I was too tired to eat that night. I went to bed and lay in my tent,
listening to the sound of the rain on the canvas. The camp-stove was set
up in the trail, and the others gathered round it, eating in the rain.
But, weary as I was, I did not sleep. For the first time, terror of the
forest gripped me. It menaced; it threatened.

The roar of the river sounded like the rush of flame. I lay there and
wondered what would happen if the forest took fire. For the gentle
summer rain would do little good once a fire started. There would be no
way out. The giant cliffs would offer no refuge. We could not even have
reached them through the jungle had we tried. And forest-fires were
common enough. We had ridden over too many burned areas not to realize
that.

XVII

OUT TO CIVILIZATION

It was still raining in the morning. The skies were gray and sodden and
the air was moist. We stood round the camp-fire and ate our fried ham,
hot coffee, and biscuits. It was then that the Head, prompted by
sympathy, fed his horse the rain-soaked biscuit, the apple, the two
lumps of sugar, and the raw egg.

Yet, in spite of the weather, we were jubilant. The pack-train had come
through without the loss of a single horse. Again the impossible had
become possible. And that day was to see us out of the mountains and in
peaceful green valleys, where the horses could eat their fill.

The sun came out as we started. Had it not been for the horses, we
should have been entirely happy. But sympathy for them had become an
obsession. We rode slowly to save them; w