We built a fire
and huddled round it, and now and then one of us would go to the edge of
the pit which lay below to listen. The summer evening was over and night
had fallen before we heard the horses coming near the top of the cliff.
We cheered them, as, one by one, they stumbled over the edge, dark
figures of horses and men, the animals with their bulging packs. They
had put up a gallant fight.
And we had no food for the horses. The few oats we had been able to
carry were gone, and there was no grass on the little plateau. There was
heather, deceptively green, but nothing else. And here, for the benefit
of those who may follow us along the trail, let me say that oats should
be carried, if two additional horses are required for the
purpose--carried, and kept in reserve for the last hard days of the
trip.
The two horses that had fallen were unpacked first. They were cut, and
on their cuts the Head poured iodine. But that was all we could do for
them. One little gray mare was trembling violently. She went over a
cliff again the next day, but I am glad to say that we took her out
finally, not much the worse except for a badly cut shoulder.
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