110 IN THE BIG HORN MOUNTAINS. 



eye, but could not see the danger that beset him on his blind 

 side, and as he approached the crag he naturally shied off to 

 dodge it, just as a book agent shies away from a cross dog 

 that is chained up in the front yard. He swerved a little too 

 far from the path of duty, and with a crashing, rattling, 

 smashing racket he went rolling, turning, sliding down the 

 the almost perpendicular wall, a distance of forty feet or 

 more, and landed, butter side down, in the creek at the foot 

 of the wall. 



" There goes our Dutch oven," said Huffman, " smashed 

 all to thunder, I'll bet." 



" Yes, and there goes our flour and sugar, all wet, and 

 turned to dough and molasses," said I. 



" Darn your Dutch oven and grub," said Jack, "there 

 goes Uncle Sam's mule, all ground into sausage meat. If we 

 ever save any of his load, we'll have to walk and carry it 

 ourselves from this on." 



We hurried down to where the wreck lay, as fast as 

 possible, and to our surprise found the poor creature still 

 breathing. We waded in, and unlashed his load as quickly 

 as we could, pulled one of the boxes away from him, so that 

 he could turn over, and with our help he struggled to his 

 feet. We found that, though badly cut and bruised, he had 

 sustained no serious injuries that he was much worse scared 

 than hurt that he was slightly disfigured, but still in the 

 ring. We examined the rocks over which he had fallen, and 

 found that only a small chunk was broken off here and there ; 

 that further than this they, too, were uninjured. 



We next carried the boxes ashore, and unpacked them. 

 The Dutch oven, our dearest treasure of all, was safe. The 

 potatoes and canned beans ditto. The sugar was decidedly 

 damp, and much of its sweetness had been wasted on the 

 desert air. The flour had fortunately been put on one of the 



