CHAPTEB XXII 

 OLD MAN REED 



FBOM our camp at the top we worked a strip of 

 country about six miles long north and south by 

 two miles wide. During these runs we covered Yel- 

 low Jacket peak, the highest point on the range, 

 which we found to be over ten thousand feet in 

 altitude. 



While nothing like as disagreeable as the work 

 on the east side, this was as hard cruising as we 

 had encountered. For beside the steep, long climbs, 

 a great part of the forest had been burned over here, 

 and the one time timber was replaced by a thick 

 young growth of pine and fir, mingled in most places 

 with aspen and Mexican locust. In spots this cover, 

 higher than a man's head, was so closely set and 

 interwoven that it proved well nigh impenetrable. 

 When one considers that it grew often on a slope of 

 from sixty to eighty per cent grade, that loose boul- 

 ders and malpais lay hidden in the long grass be- 

 neath the tangled thickets, and that the slippery 

 dead and down trees were piled in spots as thickly 

 as an abattis, some conception of the difficulty of the 

 cruiser's task may be formed. 



I remember one day when it took me three hours 



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