While they were at work, Jack said to Hugh, "I want you to understand, Hugh, that I didn't drive the dun onto that horse. The dun came up behind him and stopped, and the bay kicked at him, and lost his footing, and went over the side of the trail."
"I know," said Hugh, "I know; I was watching. It wasn't anybody's fault, but the fool horse that tried to kill himself. You did mighty well to get hold of him as quick as you did, and if it hadn't been for that, if he'd made one more roll, he'd have gone over the rocks, and we'd have lost him, and likely a lot of the load he's carrying.
"We've got to look for things like this when we're travelling with a pack train, and I'm mighty surprised that we've had as little trouble as we have."
It was near sundown when Hugh stopped as they came out on a bench of the hillside, and said: "I reckon we'll have to camp up here to-night, boys. There don't seem to be any place where we can get down to the river. There's good grass here for the horses and a place where we can picket two or three of them, but I don't see any water just here. Jack, you ride up the hill, and see whether you can find anything that looks like a spring. Joe and I'll stop here with the horses."
Jack had not ridden far, when, passing over a little ridge, he found, issuing from a ledge of rock, a good spring, which ran down into a little ravine, and calling to the others, they came up there, unsaddled, and made camp. It was dark when supper was over, and their talk was chiefly of the difficulties of the day, and the narrow escape had by the pack horse.
"A man is bound to lose an animal in the mountains now and then," said Hugh, "not always through his own carelessness, but because there's always some horses and mules that are fools. After all a horse is nothing but a bundle of nerves, and if he gets scared and loses his head, why he doesn't do anything but jump round and kick and make things worse for himself. Now, that's where a good man has the bulge on any dumb beast that ever was. A man, if he's got sense, will stop and think, and reason, and try to find some way out of his difficulty; but a critter doesn't do that. That's the reason horses and mules and cattle stampede, and that's the reason often that human beings stampede too; they lose their senses, and become no better at all than just so many animals. We've always got to keep our wits about us, be ready, and when anything happens do the right thing, and do it right off--like you did to-day, son, when you ran to grab that horse's head, and like you did too, Joe; for I saw that you were both ready. You saved us the horse, and a mighty good job it is.