s before it finished its bouncing flight
down the mountain.

After all, it was a great experience, and though it cost me my camera,
some of my hide and most of my clothes, I wouldn't have missed it for
all Kit Carson's priceless furs!

CHAPTER SIX

A LOG CABIN IN THE WILDS--PRIMITIVE LIVING

At last, that long-anticipated day dawned, when my dream cabin became a
reality. High upon a shoulder of Twin Sisters Mountain, a thousand
feet above the floor of the valley, where Parson Lamb's ranch stood,
overlooking the ruins of Kit Carson's own cabin, I built it. Across
the valley, towered Long's Peak and its lofty neighbors. Forty miles
of snowcapped peaks were at my dooryard, and beyond, toward the rising
sun, hazy plains stretched away to the illimitable horizon. Between
its craggy shoulder and the main body of the mountain, lay an
unsuspected, wedge-shaped valley, down which a little brook went
gurgling. There ancient spruce and yellow pine and quaking aspens grew
in sheltered luxuriance.

"Silent valley," I named it, though "Peaceful," or "Hidden," or "Happy"
might have fitted it as well. About eighty years previously, as I
calculated by the age of the new trees since sprung up, fire had burned
over Silent Valley. Many of the fire-killed trees were still standing,
sound to the heart. These solid, seasoned trunks, I cut for the logs
of my cabin walls. The Parson, almost as excitedly happy as I, lent me
a team to drag them to the spot where the house was to stand. They
were far too heavy for me to lift, so I had to roll them into place by
an improvised system of skids. Construction was a toilsome work; I was
not skilled at it, I handled my ax awkwardly, and squandered much
energy in "lost motion." But how I sang and shouted at the task!
Never could Kit Carson nor any other pioneer have exulted at his
building as I did! No wonder the deer paused in the aspen trails and
peered timidly out from their leafy retreat in amazement! No wonder
those sages, the mountain sheep, watched from the cliffs above with
sharp, incredulous eyes. Never before had the ring of an ax echoed in
Silent Valley!

[Illustration: Never before had the ring of an ax echoed in Silent
Valley!]

My cabin grew, as fast as young shoulders and eager hands could build
it. Log walls snugly chinked, and log rafters boarded and sodded; two
windows, "lazy" windows we maligned them, because they lay down instead
of standing, one sash ab