What a roar it made! I drank until I could drink no
more. Huge boulders and windfalls, moved by water at flood season,
obstructed the narrow stream-bed. We crossed to start climbing the
north slope, and soon worked up out of the thicket upon a steep, rocky
slope, with isolated pines. We struck a deer-trail hard to follow.
Above me loomed the pine-tipped rim, with its crags, cliffs,
pinnacles, and walls, all gray, seamed and stained, and in some clefts
blazes of deep red and yellow foliage.
When we surmounted the slope, and eventually reached camp, I found
Isbel entertaining strangers, men of rough garb, evidently riders of
the range. That was all right, but I did not like his prodigality with
our swiftly diminishing store of eatables.
To conclude about Isbel--matters pertaining to our commissary
department, during the next few days, went from bad to worse. Doyle
advised me not to take Isbel to task, and was rather evasive of
reasons for so advising me. Of course I listened and attended to my
old guide's advice, but I fretted under the restraint. We had a spell
of bad weather, wind and rain, and hail off and on, and at length, the
third day, a cold drizzling snow. During this spell we did but little
hunting. The weather changed, and the day afterward I rode my mean
horse twenty miles on a deer hunt. We saw one buck. Upon our arrival
at camp, about four o'clock, which hour was too early for dinner, I
was surprised and angered to find Isbel eating an elaborate meal with
three more strange, rough-appearing men.
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