220 SADDLE AND CAMP 



some two miles beyond the summit of the pass 

 and high up in the mountains, where tired 

 horses are changed for fresh ones by passing 

 stages. This is known as Halfway House, and 

 a stage driver is always in charge. Travelers 

 are not entertained here with beds or food, but 

 one's horses will be cared for if one is prepared 

 to pay three or four times the charge usually 

 made for hay and grain in settled localities. 

 Such excessive charge is justified by the neces- 

 sarily large expense incurred in hauling forage 

 so far. It was at Halfway House that I planned 

 to halt for the night. 



Well up the canon are some abandoned min- 

 ing claims and cabins, though each year the 

 owners visit them for a short period and do 

 the assessment work required by law to hold 

 them. Poor men, most of them are, and for 

 lack of funds they have never been able to de- 

 velop their claims sufficiently to put them on a 

 paying basis. Some time in the hazy, mystic 

 future they believe the holes they have dug 

 will reward them richly. 



Each believes that King Solomon's mines, 

 with their fabulous wealth, were nothing to 

 what his will prove to be some day, for the 

 prospector is an optimist. I never yet met one 

 who was not quite certain he was destined to 



