76 We Explore Dead Lodge Canyon 



rain fell in sheets, not only drenching us to the 

 skin but filling innumberable ditches with water 

 running like a mill race. These we must cross. 

 I remember we passed through the same patch 

 of weeds repeatedly, so I knew in the darkness 

 we were walking in a circle. Every few feet was 

 a deep and narrow ditch full to the brim with 

 red muddy water. I found these rushing streams 

 by pushing my pick ahead of me, as the only 

 time we saw anything was when the lightning 

 flashed. At last we got sight of the light in Mc- 

 Bride's house a mile up the creek from Gal- 

 yean's. We thus secured the direction and 

 thought we were all right, but without our 

 knowledge, some one moved it from a south to 

 an east window and we got off again, and before 

 we knew it were slipping down into the roaring 

 Coffee Creek full of driftwood. If we had slipped 

 into it, both of us would have been lost. The 

 boy had hold of my coat tails ; I struck the point 

 of my pick into the muddy slope and swung 

 around with John hanging on behind describing 

 the arc of a circle. The pick held while we dug 

 holds with our heals to support us until I could 

 reach upward and take another hold with the 

 faithful pick. Thus we got out on the level flood 

 plain of the creek. I then allowed John to take 

 the lead, and he took me as if by instinct, safely 

 to his father's house where we were soon drying 

 our clothes before the fire-place, heaped high with 

 blazing cottonwood chunks. 



