As evening drew on, and the westering sun fell below the ridges, and the shadows deepened in the gorges, making them doubly weird, we began to feel very lonely, and, to add to our misgivings, we were uncertain of our way. The prospect of having to spend a cold night out of doors in a solitary place like this was not very refreshing, I am free to confess, much as one might desire to proclaim himself a brave man. Presently our eyes were gladdened by the sight of a miner's shack just across the hollow, perhaps the one for which we were anxiously looking. A man at Graymont had told us about a miner up this way, saying he was a "nice man" and would no doubt give us accommodation for the night. I crossed the narrow foot-bridge that spanned the booming torrent, and found the miner at home. Would he give two way-worn travellers a place to sleep beneath his roof? We had brought plenty of food and some blankets with us, and all we required was four walls around us and a roof over our heads. Yes, he replied, we were welcome to such accommodation as he had, and he could even give us a bed, though it "wasn't very stylish." Those were among the sweetest and most musical words that ever fell on my ear.
Having tethered our burros in a grassy cove on the mountain side, and cooked our supper in the gloaming among some rocks by the bank of the brawling stream, we turned into the cabin for the night, more than grateful for a shelter from the chill winds scurrying down from the snow-capped mountains. The shack nestled at the foot of Mount Kelso, which we had also mistaken for Gray's Peak. As we sat by the light of a tallow candle, beguiling the evening with conversation, the miner told us that the mountain jays, colloquially called "camp robbers," were common around his cabin, especially in winter; but familiar as they were, he had never been able to find a nest. The one thing about which they insist on the utmost privacy is their nesting places. My friend also told me that a couple of gray squirrels made the woods around his camp their home. The jays would frequently carry morsels of food up to the branches of the pines, and stow them in some crevice for future use, whereupon the squirrels, always on the lookout for their own interests, would scuttle up the tree and steal the hidden provender, eating it with many a chuckle of self-congratulation.