Our journey in the afternoon had been pursued in a bison path, and although not in the direction of our proper course, and serving only to prolong our march without advancing us towards the end of our pilgrimage, yet it brought us near to that romantic scenery which for many days we had chiefly contemplated with a distant eye. We entered the secondary range along the margin of a deep ravine, which wound with a serpentine course towards the base of the mountain. Our progress was sometimes impeded by huge rocky masses which had been precipitated from some neighbouring height; and sometimes by a dense forest of very limited extent, or an immense impending wall or oblique buttress of rock, which, by its proximity to the eye, vied with the grandeur of the ascending piles beyond. July 12th. On the morning of the 12th we retraced our path of the preceding day, until a small {207} stream running towards the north-east offered us a change of scenery, and a course more in the direction we wished to pursue.[153] The inequalities of the surface were greater than in the route of the preceding evening. The precipitous character of several of the passes thoroughly tested the confidence we felt in our sure-footed, but now wearied and exhausted Indian horses and mules. Our rude pathway skirted along the base of an elevated ridge, on whose side, far above our heads, projected a narrow ledge of rocks, frowning defiance to all attempts to scale the steep. This ledge declined gradually as we proceeded, until it terminated abruptly on the edge of a profound gulph. Here appeared to be the only spot at which the ridge could be ascended. On the brow of the cliff, a fragment of rock and a small portion of earth were suspended by the binding roots of a solitary pine, offering a frail and precarious foothold. This we chose to ascend, startling and hazardous as the attempt appeared, rather than retrace our steps for several miles, and search for a passage in some other direction. The projecting ledge by which we had ascended, had barely sufficient width to admit the passage of a single individual at a time. When we had gained the summit, we allowed our exhausted animals a moment's rest in the partial shade of some straggling oaks, and contemplated, not without a feeling of terror, the yawning gulph at our feet. This emotion was much enhanced by reflecting, that a single misstep of a horse, or the sliding of a fragment of stone in our narrow path, would have been sufficient to have precipitated us into the abyss. We thus pursued our route, marked out to us by the bisons, who always trace the most direct and best course, until turning the side of a mountain[154] of moderate elevation, the ocean of prairie again spread before us. This monotonous plain, of which we had been hitherto so weary, now burst upon the sight, and for a moment {208} exhibited a cheerful and pleasant contrast to the rude mountain ruins, that we had with such toil and hazard been clambering over.