Our nerves began to go, too, I think, on that last day. We were plainly
frightened, not for ourselves but each for the other. There were many
places where to dislodge a stone was to lose it as down a bottomless
well. There was one frightful spot where it was necessary to go through
a waterfall on a narrow ledge slippery with moss, where the water
dropped straight, uncounted feet to the valley below.
The Little Boy paused blithely, his reins over his arm, and surveyed the
scenery from the center of this death-trap.
"If anybody slipped here," he said, "he'd fall quite a distance." Then
he kicked a stone to see it go.
"_Quit that!_" said the Head, in awful tones.
Midway of the descent, we estimated that we should lose at least ten
horses. The pack was behind us, and there was no way to discover how
they were faring. But as the ledges were never wide enough for a horse
and the one leading him to move side by side, it seemed impossible that
the pack-ponies with their wide burdens could edge their way along.
[Illustration: _Watching the pack-train coming down at Cascade Pass_]
I had mounted Buddy again.
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