230 The Black Vulture 
soft carpeting of sweet-smelling fir-needles, or another time urged 
our horses with noisy clatter across the face of some steep, rocky 
slide of débris from the crags far above. From time to time our 
advance would be barred by some natural obstacle which obliged 
us to make a wide detour. Thus the hillsides at places became 
ONE OF THE SIETE PICOS. 
A Summit of the Sierra de Guadarrama. 
so steep as to be unrideable and compelled us to seek a less 
slippery track. At others, fallen pines lay about in wild confusion, 
some prone on the ground, over which our horses could step, 
others supported at various angles by trees still standing, and under 
which we passed. Or, again, we would come to a combination 
of the two obstacles, where an avalanche of loosened rock from 
