engineer, nature's obstacles, and taking full advantage of every sloping
hillside and every open stretch of woods. Now and then, however, the
trail must needs burrow through a deep thicket of spruce and jack pine
and scramble up a rocky ridge, where the horses, trained as they were in
mountain climbing, had all they could do to keep their feet.

Ten miles and more they followed the tortuous trail, skirting mountain
peaks and burrowing through underbrush, scrambling up rocky ridges and
sliding down their farther sides, till they came to a park-like country
where from the grassy sward the big Douglas firs, trimmed clear of lower
growth and standing spaced apart, lifted on red and glistening trunks
their lofty crowns of tufted evergreen far above the lesser trees.

As they approached the open country the Superintendent proceeded with
greater caution, pausing now and then to listen.

"There ought to be a big powwow going on somewhere near," he said to his
Sergeant, "but I can hear nothing. Can you?"

The Sergeant leaned over his horse's ears.

"No, sir, not a sound."

"And yet it can't be far away," growled the Superintendent.

The trail led through the big firs and dipped into a little grassy
valley set round with thickets on every side. Into this open glade they
rode. The Superintendent was plainly disturbed and irritated; irritated
because surprised and puzzled. Where he had expected to find a big
Indian powwow he found only a quiet sunny glade in the midst of a silent