1 86 The Wilderness Hunter. 



stood half a mile off, in the open ; he travelled to and fro, 

 watching- us. 



As we neared the edge the storm lulled, and pale, 

 watery sunshine gleamed through the rifts in the low- 

 scudding clouds. At last our horses stood on the brink 

 of a bold cliff. Deep down beneath our feet lay the wild 

 and lonely valley of Two-Ocean Pass, walled in on either 

 hand by rugged mountain chains, their flanks scarred and 

 gashed by precipice and chasm. Beyond, in a wilderness 

 of jagged and barren peaks, stretched the Shoshones. At 

 the middle point of the pass, two streams welled down 

 from either side. At first each flowed in but one bed, but 

 soon divided into two ; each of the twin branches then 

 joined the like branch of the brook opposite, and swept one 

 to the east and one to the w^est, on their long journey to 

 the two great oceans. They ran as rapid brooks, through 

 wet meadows and willow-flats, the eastern to the Yellow- 

 stone, the western to the Snake. The dark pine forests 

 swept down from the flanks and lower ridges of the moun- 

 tains to the edges of the marshy valley. Above them jutted 

 gray rock peaks, snow-drifts lying in the rents that seamed 

 their northern faces. Far below us, from a great basin at 

 the foot of the cliff, filled with the pine forest, rose the 

 musical challenge of a bull elk ; and we saw a band of cows 

 and calves looking like mice as they ran among the trees. 



It was eettincr late, and after some search we failed to 

 find any trail leading down ; so at last we plunged over 

 the brink at a venture. It was very rough scrambling, 

 dropping from bench to bench, and in places it was not 

 only difficult but dangerous for the loaded pack-animals. 



