* 
For two days we pushed forward, sometimes in the river 
hed, sometimes high up on the walls where our trembling animals 
had to he led along the narrow ledged and treacherous rock-slides. 
In places we would appear to he completely shut in hy walls so 
steep and high that the nimble deer could hardly escape, where 
the river came seething and boiling from some dark chasm utterly 
blocked up by massive rock, and disappeared again in a canon 
which no living being could penetrate and from which came con¬ 
stantly up the smothered roar of pent-up torrents. 
On the evening of the second day we reached the mouth of 
a large creek which it was agreed must drain the high regions about 
the Holy Gross, As yet no one had caught sight of the object of 
our search since the first discovery some sixty miles away, for 
since entering the canon no mountains had been in sight, only the 
rocky walls, the densely timbered slopes and the sky. 
In vain we searched for a trail or'passable route up this 
creek valley. It was pronounced impossible and we essayed to 
climb the ridge to the right, but night was upon us and camp must 
be made. 
By noon the next day we were on the high ridge north of 
the creek, free from the prison-like valley, but not free. A 
broad freshly-beaten game-trail led us on charmingly for a while, 
but presently entered $he timber and we were plunged into such a 
slough of despond as strong hearts only could encounter and pass 
safely through. To the right, to the left, and in front, the 
mountain face bristled like a porcupine. Countless multitudes 
of giant pine-trunks, uprooted by some fierce hurricane, were 
piled up and criscrossed and tangled in such a way that\ an army 
must have stopped as before the walls of an impregnable fortress. 
Up and dovm,advancing and retreating, struggling through the most 
aggravating mazes, to find ourselves returning again to the start¬ 
ing point, we worked on until horses and men were thoroughly 
tired out and disgusted. At night, after nine hours of unre¬ 
mitted exertion, we pitched camp in a little swampy gulch among 
the logs and rank weeds, only two and one half miles in advance 
of the camp of the preceding night. 
On the. following morning we moved in another direction 
and with much better success. By noon we emerged from the timber 
and stood upon a high promontory that overlooked the grand valley. 
What a remarkable sightl Broad and deep and regular, it looked 
like a great pasture, dotted .with a million white-backed sheep. 
In ages past a mighty glacier, rivalling the modern ice rivers 
of the Alps, had swept down this valley smoothing down its rugged 
sides and rounding and polishing the projecting masses of granite. 
So great was the resemblance of these rounded rocks to flocks of 
sheep that we named it, after the manner of the French, Roche 
moutorm.es valley. 
