RANCHING INCIDENTS. 75 



we securely tied a long bundle of hay, and then 

 hoisted a third bundle on the top of the two, and so 

 led the horses one behind the other by the trail 

 through the forest. As they came lurching along the 

 road which we had made down from the bench, there 

 was very little more of the horses to be seen than 

 their legs and switching tails. 



On one occasion during the course of this work we 

 very nearly had a serious accident. In the course 

 of the journey we had to cross a home-made bridge 

 spanning a deep gully. The bridge was made 

 by flinging two long poles across the ravine, and 

 then laying shorter poles closely side by side at right 

 angles across the first two. On the occasion I am 

 alluding to the leading mare broke one of these 

 transverse poles and put her foot through. She 

 went on as if nothing were amiss. I myself was 

 leading the second mare, and between us, in our 

 efforts to avoid the hole, the mare made a second 

 hole, and her leg dropped through, her load at the 

 same time pulling her over towards the side of the 

 bridge, where there was nothing but a thin handrail 

 to guard against a tumble into the ravine. Had she 

 gone over, it would have been an extremely difficult 

 matter to get her out again, because just at that spot 

 the sides of the ravine were of solid rock, and not 

 only did they go sheer down to a depth of twenty 

 feet, but the water of the torrent had eaten its way 

 into the rock at the bottom, so that there was, as 

 it were, a cave at each side. Luckily, the mare 

 recovered her footing before the hay dragged her 

 over. 



