“All ready, girls,” called Roy. “Reckon you can help yourselves. Milt ain't comin' in very fast with the hosses. I'll rustle off to help him. We've got a hard day before us. Yesterday wasn't nowhere to what to-day 'll be.”
“But the sun's going to shine?” implored Bo.
“Wal, you bet,” rejoined Roy, as he strode off.
Helen and Bo ate breakfast and had the camp to themselves for perhaps half an hour; then the horses came thudding down, with Dale and Roy riding bareback.
By the time all was in readiness to start the sun was up, melting the frost and ice, so that a dazzling, bright mist, full of rainbows, shone under the trees.
Dale looked Ranger over, and tried the cinches of Bo's horse.
“What's your choice--a long ride behind the packs with me--or a short cut over the hills with Roy?” he asked.
“I choose the lesser of two rides,” replied Helen, smiling.
“Reckon that 'll be easier, but you'll know you've had a ride,” said Dale, significantly.
“What was that we had yesterday?” asked Bo, archly.
“Only thirty miles, but cold an' wet. To-day will be fine for ridin'.”
“Milt, I'll take a blanket an' some grub in case you don't meet us to-night,” said Roy. “An' I reckon we'll split up here where I'll have to strike out on thet short cut.”
Bo mounted without a helping hand, but Helen's limbs were so stiff that she could not get astride the high Ranger without assistance. The hunter headed up the slope of the canyon, which on that side was not steep. It was brown pine forest, with here and there a clump of dark, silver-pointed evergreens that Roy called spruce. By the time this slope was surmounted Helen's aches were not so bad. The saddle appeared to fit her better, and the gait of the horse was not so unfamiliar. She reflected, however, that she always had done pretty well uphill. Here it was beautiful forest-land, uneven and wilder. They rode for a time along the rim, with the white rushing stream in plain sight far below, with its melodious roar ever thrumming in the ear.
Dale reined in and peered down at the pine-mat.
“Fresh deer sign all along here,” he said, pointing.
“Wal, I seen thet long ago,” rejoined Roy.
Helen's scrutiny was rewarded by descrying several tiny depressions in the pine-needles, dark in color and sharply defined.