The injured man was a sheep-herder. He had cut his leg with his
wood-axe, and blood-poisoning had set in. I do not know the rest of that
story. The sheep-herder was taken to a hospital the next day, traveling
a very long way. But whether he traveled still farther, to the land of
the Great Shepherd, I do not know. Only this I do know: that this
Western country I love is full of such stories, and of such men as the
hero of this one.
At last we were ready. Some of the horses were sent by boat the day
before, for this strange lake has little or no shore-line. Granite
mountains slope stark and sheer to the water's edge, and drop from there
to frightful depths below. There are, at the upper end, no roads, no
trails or paths that border it. So the horses and all of us went by boat
to the mouth of Railroad Creek,--so called, I suppose, because the
nearest railroad is more than forty miles away,--up which led the trail
to the great unknown. All around and above us were the cliffs, towering
seven thousand feet over the lake. And beyond those cliffs lay
adventure.
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