Our Rain-Gauge
Was A Pint Cup Under A Tiny Hole In The Tent.
That last night of
storm and rain filled the cup, and there was no way of measuring the
water that spilled over into the blankets.
With the rain-gauge out
of business there was no longer any reason for remaining; so we
broke camp in the wet-gray of dawn, and plunged eastward across the
lava to the Kaupo Gap. East Maui is nothing more or less than the
vast lava stream that flowed long ago through the Kaupo Gap; and
down this stream we picked our way from an altitude of six thousand
five hundred feet to the sea. This was a day's work in itself for
the horses; but never were there such horses. Safe in the bad
places, never rushing, never losing their heads, as soon as they
found a trail wide and smooth enough to run on, they ran. There was
no stopping them until the trail became bad again, and then they
stopped of themselves. Continuously, for days, they had performed
the hardest kind of work, and fed most of the time on grass foraged
by themselves at night while we slept, and yet that day they covered
twenty-eight leg-breaking miles and galloped into Hana like a bunch
of colts. Also, there were several of them, reared in the dry
region on the leeward side of Haleakala, that had never worn shoes
in all their lives. Day after day, and all day long, unshod, they
had travelled over the sharp lava, with the extra weight of a man on
their backs, and their hoofs were in better condition than those of
the shod horses.
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