The Second King's River Outing. 105 



started up Wood's Creek. From this time it was virtually 

 a knapsack trip, for the animals could carry only the 

 commissary, leaving each mountaineer to shoulder his 

 own bedding. It was amusing to note how, as difficulty 

 was added to difficulty, the lesser enthusiasts one by one 

 dropped back into the straggling ranks of those return- 

 ing to camp, until the fourth day saw but sixteen follow- 

 ing the trail to the pass. 



It was not much of a trail, — that was the trouble. 

 The advance sheet of the Geological Survey, the only map 

 of that region yet published, showed the way through, — 

 over the crest near Rixford and down to Lake Charlotte 

 and Bullfrog, — ^but gave no hint of the tangled under- 

 growth, the snowbanks, and the avalanche-furrows 

 through which the plucky mules had to fight their way. 

 Snow bridges over the lusty young river twice saved the 

 day for the mules, and even the pedestrians were com- 

 pelled to resort to unusual methods of crossing the trou- 

 blesome stream, once making use of a great rubbish 

 heap of splintered pine deposited in the stream-bed by 

 avalanche and flood, and again resorting to that undigni- 

 fied but wholly satisfactory form of ferry, riding double 

 on a mule. 



It was a wild, sterile, rockbound place, this canon of 

 Wood's Creek, and our mules found little cheer that night 

 at our camp above Rae Lake. Indeed, there was at first 

 cold comfort for either man or beast, for a heavy thun- 

 derstorm drenched both us and the firewood, and the 

 only available camping-ground was a granite oasis in a 

 waste of snow — a dreary enough outlook, too, over the 

 frozen lake to a wall of cold snow-peaks with a dark 

 canopy of storm-clouds above. But supper and a cheer- 

 fully blazing fire wrought an amazing change in things. 

 The clouds parted at sunset ; westward Fin Dome and the 

 sharp summit of Mt. King rose blackly against the sky, 

 barring the way to the sunset land ; but Rixford and the 

 circle of grim peaks to the south and southwest were 

 softened and glorified in the evening light. And under 



