J. BAKER, KALISPELL, MONT.
_Where the rock-slides start_ (_Glacier National Park_)]
Only three miles it was, but it was as bad a three miles as I have ever
covered. Then--the naturalist turned and smiled.
"Now we are all right," he said. "_We start to climb soon!_"
XV
DOUBTFUL LAKE
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 losing some of the horses.
As a matter of fact, we dropped two horses on that switchback. With
infinite labor the packers got them back to the trail, rolling,
tumbling, and roping them down to the ledge below, and there salvaging
them. It was heart-breaking, nerve-racking work.
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