246 The Wilderness Hunter 



traveling very light, each having but one pack-pony 

 and the saddle animal he bestrode. We were high 

 among the mountains, and followed no regular trail. 

 Hence our course was often one of extreme diffi- 

 culty. Occasionally, we took our animals through 

 the forest near timber line, where the slopes were 

 not too steep; again we threaded our way through 

 a line of glades, or skirted the foothills, in an open, 

 park country; and now and then we had to cross 

 stretches of tangled mountain forest, making but 

 a few miles a day, at the cost of incredible toil, and 

 accomplishing even this solely by virtue of the won- 

 derful docility and sure-footedness of the ponies, 

 and of my companion's skill with the axe and thor- 

 ough knowledge of the woodcraft. 



Late one cold afternoon we came out in a high 

 alpine valley in which there was no sign of any 

 man's having ever been before us. Down its middle 

 ran a clear brook. On each side was a belt of thick 

 spruce forest, covering the lower flanks of the moun- 

 tains. The trees came down in points and isolated 

 clumps to the brook, the banks of which were thus 

 bordered with open glades, rendering the traveling 

 easy and rapid. 



Soon after starting up this valley we entered a 

 beaver meadow of considerable size. It was cov- 

 ered with lush, rank grass, and the stream wound 

 through it rather sluggishly in long curves, which 

 were fringed by a thick growth of dwarfed willows. 



