My horse
fell first, rolling over twice, and breaking off a part of the
saddle, in his second roll knocking me over a shelf of three feet
of descent.
Then Mrs. C.'s horse and the mule fell on the top of
each other, and on recovering themselves bit each other savagely.
The ravine became a wild gulch, the dry bed of some awful
torrent; there were huge shelves of rock, great overhanging walls
of rock, great prostrate trees, cedar spikes and cacti to wound
the feet, and then a precipice fully 500 feet deep! The trail
was a trail made by bears in search of bear cherries, which
abounded!
It was getting dusk as we had to struggle up the rough gulch we
had so fatuously descended. The horses fell several times; I
could hardly get mine up at all, though I helped him as much as I
could; I was cut and bruised, scratched and torn. A spine of a
cactus penetrated my foot, and some vicious thing cut the back of
my neck. Poor Mrs. C. was much bruised, and I pitied her, for
she got no fun out of it as I did. It was an awful climb. When
we got out of the gulch, C. was so confused that he took the
wrong direction, and after an hour of vague wandering was only
recalled to the right one by my pertinacious assertions acting on
his weak brain. I was inclined to be angry with the incompetent
braggart, who had boasted that he could take us to Estes Park
"blindfold"; but I was sorry for him too, so said nothing, even
though I had to walk during these meanderings to save my tired
horse.
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