ee each other
again.' She would not allow me to go.

"Indeed, when I reflected seriously on this matter I saw that it would
have been useless for me to make the attempt. Even could I have crossed
the Desert in safety, where was the money wherewith to purchase these
animals? I had not enough to buy either ox or ass. The people of New
Mexico would have laughed at me.

"`Let us be patient,' advised my wife. `We are happy where we are.
When the time arrives, and we are ready to go forth, trust that the hand
which brought us here _can_ and _will_ guide us safely back again.'

"With such words of consolation my noble wife always ended our
conversation on that subject.

"I looked upon her words as almost prophetic; and so they proved in this
case, as on many other occasions.

"One day--it was about the fourth year of our sojourn in the valley--we
were talking on this very theme; and Mary, as usual, had just expressed
her firm reliance upon the hand of Providence to deliver us from our
strange captivity, when our conversation was interrupted by Harry, who
came running into the house breathless with haste, and with looks full
of triumph.

"`Papa! mamma!' cried he; `two elks--two young elks--taken in the trap!
Cudjo is bringing them on in the cart,--two beautiful young elks, about
as big as year-old calves.'

"There was nothing very new or strange in this announcement. We had
captured elk in the pit-fall before; and we had several of them in our
park--old ones. It was the fact of their being `young elk,'--a sort we
had not yet taken--which had put Harry into an unusual state of
excitement.

"I thought nothing of it at the moment, but went out along with Mary and
the children to have a look at our new pets.

"While Cudjo and the boys were engaged in putting them into the park,
all at once I remembered what I had read of, but which had hitherto
escaped my memory--that the great American elk is capable of being
trained as a beast either of draught or burden.

"I need hardly tell you, my friends, that this thought at once led to a
series of reflections. Could these elk be trained to draw a wagon?--to
_draw us out of the Desert_?

"I lost no time in communicating my thoughts to my wife. She, too, had
read of this--in fact, in a London menagerie, had seen the elk in
harness. The thing, therefore, was practicable. We resolved to use
every effort to make it so.

"Let me not weary you, my friends, with details.