And Those
Marvellous Mountain Horses Are As Unconcerned As The Trail.
They
fox-trot along it as a matter of course, though the footing is
slippery with rain, and they will gallop with their hind feet
slipping over the edge if you let them.
I advise only those with
steady nerves and cool heads to tackle the Nahiku Ditch trail. One
of our cow-boys was noted as the strongest and bravest on the big
ranch. He had ridden mountain horses all his life on the rugged
western slopes of Haleakala. He was first in the horse-breaking;
and when the others hung back, as a matter of course, he would go in
to meet a wild bull in the cattle-pen. He had a reputation. But he
had never ridden over the Nahiku Ditch. It was there he lost his
reputation. When he faced the first flume, spanning a hair-raising
gorge, narrow, without railings, with a bellowing waterfall above,
another below, and directly beneath a wild cascade, the air filled
with driving spray and rocking to the clamour and rush of sound and
motion - well, that cow-boy dismounted from his horse, explained
briefly that he had a wife and two children, and crossed over on
foot, leading the horse behind him.
The only relief from the flumes was the precipices; and the only
relief from the precipices was the flumes, except where the ditch
was far under ground, in which case we crossed one horse and rider
at a time, on primitive log-bridges that swayed and teetered and
threatened to carry away.
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