"Right, Bud," responded Uncle Will; "your thinking apparatus is in perfect order. I trust you got the pack train over safely." "Well," said Bud, slipping his quid into the other cheek, "I don't see no drownded horses anywhere." With this reassuring remark he mounted, and invited David to climb up behind him and clasp him tightly about the body,--a performance which required some agility, owing to the restiveness of the horse. Meanwhile Roly had scrambled upon the other prancing steed behind Phil, and off they started, Mr. Bradford and Uncle Will watching their progress intently. Several side channels not more than a foot in depth were crossed before the main river was reached, but presently the horses stood at the edge of the mighty flood. The stream was not more than two hundred feet wide, but it filled its gravelly banks to the very brim with an impetuous current so impregnated with glacial silt that it looked like a mixture of coffee and milk. It was impossible for the eye to penetrate much more than an inch beneath the surface, and as the horses stepped cautiously over the crumbling bank the boys had no idea how deep they would go. The water proved to be shallow at first, rising only to the knees, but a moment later the bottom shelved abruptly down, the current surging higher and higher on the animals' sides till they began to yield before it, and it became necessary to head them up-stream a little. They stepped slowly and carefully, picking their footing, yet now and then stumbling on some unseen boulder. The nearness of the rushing water made the boys fairly dizzy. But just when it seemed as if they must be overwhelmed, the river grew shallower, and soon, with much scrambling, they mounted the bank. "That wasn't so bad, after all," said Roly, as he slipped to the ground. "No," said David, "it's easy enough on horseback, but no wonder Mr. Green performed gymnastics!" And the nervous tension being now relaxed, they laughed heartily at the recollection. Bud and Phil turned back and brought over Mr. Bradford and Uncle Will. "The worst o' these fords," said Bud, as he landed his second passenger, "is that the river-beds are all the while changing. We may hit on a good place like this, one day, and the next time we try it we'll slump into a hole that'll raise the mischief. The bottom drops out in a single night." In the next few miles the trail crossed the watershed separating the valley of the Klaheena from that of the Salmon River, and near the latter, camp was pitched for the night. On the march thither the horses were almost thrown into a panic by a bear which went crashing off into the bushes near the trail, but so precipitately that no one was able to take a shot.