The trail is narrow—often but the width of the pony's feet, a tiny path that leads on and on. It is always ahead, sometimes bold and wide, as when it leads the way through the forest; often narrow, as when it hugs the sides of the precipice; sometimes even hiding for a time in river bottom or swamp, or covered by the débris of last winter's avalanche. Sometimes it picks its precarious way over snow-fields which hang at dizzy heights, and again it flounders through mountain streams, where the tir

Came at last the day to start west. In spite of warnings, we found that our irreducible minimum of luggage filled five wardrobe-trunks. In vain we went over our lists and cast out such bulky things as extra handkerchiefs and silk socks and fancy neckties and toilet-silver. We started with all five. It was boiling hot; the sun beat in at the windows of the transcontinental train and stifled us. Over the prairies, dust blew in great clouds, covering the window-sills with white. The Big Boy and the

The first night we camped at Bridge Creek on a river-flat. Beside us, the creek rolled and foamed. The horses, in their rope corral, lay down and rolled in sheer ecstasy when their heavy packs were removed. The cook set up his sheet-iron stove beside the creek, built a wood fire, lifted the stove over it, fried meat, boiled potatoes, heated beans, and made coffee while the tents were going up. From a thicket near by came the thud of an axe as branches were cut for bough beds. I have slept on all

After our first view of the lake, the instant decision was to make a permanent camp there for a few days. And this we did. Tents were put up for the luxurious-minded, three of them. Mine was erected over me, when, as I had pre-determined, I had found a place where I could lie comfortably. The men belonging to the outfit, of course, slept under the stars. A packer, a guide, or the cook with an outfit like ours has, outside of such clothing as he wears or carries rolled in his blankets, but one po

We had washed at dawn in the cold lake. The rain had turned to snow in the night, and the mountains were covered with a fresh white coating. And then, at last, we were off, the wagons first, although we were soon to pass them. We had lifted the boats out of the water and put them lovingly in their straw again. And Mike and George formed the crew. The guides were ready with facetious comments. "Put up a sail!" they called. "Never give up the ship!" was another favorite. The Head, who has a secret

It was now approaching time for Bob's great idea to materialize. For this, and to this end, had he brought the boats on their strange land-journey—such a journey as, I fancy, very few boats have ever had before. The project was, as I have said, to run the unknown reaches of the North Fork of the Flathead from the Canadian border to the town of Columbia Falls. "The idea is this," Bob had said: "It's never been done before, do you see? It makes the trip unusual and all that." "Makes it unusually r

In a way, this is a fairy-story. Because a good fairy had been busy during our absence. Days before, at the ranger's cabin, unknown to most of us, an order had gone down to civilization for food. During all those days under Starvation Ridge, food had been on the way by pack-horse—food and an extra cook. So we went up to camp, expecting more canned salmon and fried trout and little else, and beheld— A festive board set with candles—the board, however, in this case is figurative; it was the ground

The next morning we wakened to sunshine, and fried trout and bacon and eggs for breakfast. The cook tossed his flapjacks skillfully. As the only woman in the party, I sometimes found an air of festivity about my breakfast-table. Whereas the others ate from a tarpaulin laid on the ground, I was favored with a small box for a table and a smaller one for a seat. On the table-box was set my graniteware plate, knife, fork, and spoon, a paper napkin, the Prince Albert and the St. Charles. Lest this so

Columbia Falls had heard of our adventure, and was prepared to do us honor. Automobiles awaited us on the river-bank. In a moment we were snatched from the jaws of the river and seated in the lap of luxury. If this is a mixed metaphor, it is due to the excitement of the change. With one of those swift transitions of the Northwest, we were out of the wilderness and surrounded by great yellow fields of wheat. Cleared land or natural prairie, these valleys of the Northwest are marvelously fertile.

How many secrets the mountains hold! They have forgotten things we shall never know. And they are cruel, savagely cruel. What they want, they take. They reach out a thousand clutching hands. They attack with avalanche, starvation, loneliness, precipice. They lure on with green valleys and high flowering meadows where mountain-sheep move sedately, with sunlit peaks and hidden lakes, with silence for tired ears and peace for weary souls. And then—they kill. Because man is a fighting animal, he obe

Now, as to where we were—those long days of fording rivers and beating our way through jungle or of dizzy climbs up to the snow, those short nights, so cold that six blankets hardly kept us warm, while our tired horses wandered far, searching for such bits of grass as grew among the shale. In the north-central part of the State of Washington, Nature has done a curious thing. She has built a great lake in the eastern shoulders of the Cascade Mountains. Lake Chelan, more than fifty miles long and

I think I have said that one of the purposes of our expedition was to hunt. We were to spend a day or two at Lyman Lake, and the sportsmen were busy by the camp-fire that evening, getting rifles and shotguns in order and preparing fishing-tackle. At dawn the next morning, which was at four o'clock, one of the packers roused the Big Boy with the information that there were wild ducks on the lake. He was wakened with extreme difficulty, put on his bedroom slippers, picked up his shotgun, and, stil

It was eleven o'clock the next morning before I led Buddy—I had abandoned "Budweiser" in view of the drought—into a mountain stream and let him drink. He would have rolled in it, too, but I was on his back and I fiercely restrained him. The next day was a comparatively short trip. There was a trapper's cabin at the fork of Bridge Creek in the Stehekin River. There we were to spend the night before starting on our way to Cascade Pass. As it turned out, we spent two days there. There was a little

The first part of that adventurous day was quiet. We moved sedately along on an overgrown trail, mountain walls so close on each side that the valley lay in shadow. I rode next to Dan Devore that day, and on the trail he stopped his horse and showed me the place where Hughie McKeever was found. Dan Devore and Hughie McKeever went out one November to go up to Horseshoe Basin. Dan left before the heaviest snows came, leaving McKeever alone. When McKeever had not appeared by February, Dan went in f

Of all the mountain-climbing I have ever done the switchback up to Doubtful Lake is the worst. We were hours doing it. There were places when it seemed no horse could possibly make the climb. Back and forth, up and up, along that narrow rock-filled trail, which was lost here in a snow-bank, there in a jungle of evergreen that hung out from the mountain-side, we were obliged to go. There was no going back. We could not have turned a horse around, nor could we have reversed the pack-outfit without

To get out of the Doubtful Lake plateau to Cascade Pass it was necessary to climb eight hundred feet up a steep and very slippery cliffside. On the other side lay the pass, but on the level of the lake. It was here that we "went up a hill one day and then went down again" with a vengeance. And on this cliffside it was that the little gray mare went over again, falling straight on to a snow-bank, which saved her, and then rolling over and over shedding parts of our equipment, and landing far belo

It was still raining in the morning. The skies were gray and sodden and the air was moist. We stood round the camp-fire and ate our fried ham, hot coffee, and biscuits. It was then that the Head, prompted by sympathy, fed his horse the rain-soaked biscuit, the apple, the two lumps of sugar, and the raw egg. Yet, in spite of the weather, we were jubilant. The pack-train had come through without the loss of a single horse. Again the impossible had become possible. And that day was to see us out of