But the escort was moving, the mules crowding on behind our halted column; so presently we were slipping, sliding, floundering down the hillside, now on steep slopes, which made one a bit nervous to ride along; now waiting for the axemen to clear away the tangle of trees crushed to earth by the burden of some year of excessive snow; now on the horses, now off, through marsh and thicket. I ask myself if I could ride that ride to-day: it seems to me as if I could not. One so fully gets rid of nerves in that clear, dry altitude and wholesome life that the worst perils, with a little repetition, become as trifles, and no one talks about things which at home would make a newspaper paragraph. Yet I believe each of us confessed to some remnant of nervousness, some special dread. Riding an hour or two at night in a dense wood with no trail is an experiment I advise any man to try who thinks he has no nerves. A good steep slope of a thousand feet of loose stones to cross is not much more exhilarating: nobody likes it. The command was far ahead of two or three of us when we had our final sensation at a smart little torrent near the foot of the hill, a tributary of the main river. The horses dive, in a manner, into a cut made dark by overgrowth of trees, then down a slippery bank, scuttle through wild waters surging to the cinche, over vast boulders and up the farther bank, the stirrups striking the rocks to left or right, till horse and man draw long breaths of relief, and we are out on the slightly-rolling valley of the East Yellowstone, and turn our heads away from Specimen Mountain toward Soda Butte. Captain G. and I, who had fallen to the rear, rode leisurely northward athwart the open prairie on a clear trail, which twice crossed the shallow river, and, leaving the main valley, carried us up a narrowing vale on slightly rising ground. On either side and in front rose abrupt mountains some two thousand feet above the plain, and below the remarkable outline of Soda Butte marked the line of the Park boundary. Near by was a little corral where at some time herdsmen had settled to give their cattle the use of the abundant grasses of these well-watered valleys. When there are no Indian scares, the cattle herdsmen make immense marches in summer, gradually concentrating their stock as the autumn comes on and returning to the shelter of some permanent ranche. The very severity and steadiness of the winters are an advantage to cattle, which do not suffer so much from low temperature as from lack of food. Farther south, the frequent thaws rot the dried grasses, which are otherwise admirable fodder, but in Montana the steady cold is rather preservative, and the winds leave large parts of the plains so free from snow that cattle readily provide themselves with food.