The trail followed along a stream and up a canyon; it kept a getting steeper and steeper, and the old horse begin to breathe harder and harder, till finally, his wide open nostrils couldn't take on enough air to do him no more. He had to slow down or else drop in his tracks, but Cloudy didn't slow down, and not a sign showed on him that he was wanting to. He was the kind of a horse that never quit and would keep right on a going till his heart stopped. The girl, not at all realizing, kept a riding and enjoying the fast pace for all she was worth. She might of rode the old pony to his death that afternoon, only, the trail stopped and she couldn't follow it no further. It had washed out during the spring thaw, and a place ten feet wide and as deep had cut the trail in two. She stopped there, and coming out of the trance the fast ride had put her in, she started looking for a place to cross, but there wasn't any, and the only way left was to go back on the trail she'd come. She put her hand on Cloudy's neck like to tell him how it was "too bad the trail stopped short that way" but she never got to say the words--The feel of the sweat and lather that covered the horse left her dumb, and then she noticed how hard he was breathing. The thrill of the run had turned to sudden worry and fear for what she might of done, and another sort of excitement took a holt of her as she realized and then wondered what to do. She stepped away from the horse and wide eyed looked at him, she'd never seen a horse shake and quiver all over like that one was doing, he seemed like hardly able to stand up, rocked back and forth like he was going to keel over any minute. Cloudy was "jiggered"[7] and his staggering scared her all the more. She must do something, and quick. [Footnote 7: Overrun.] The first thing that came to her was to try and cool him off before, as she figgered, he fainted from being overheated. She tore at the saddle and worked at the latigos till it was loosened, then she pulled it off and with the blanket throwed it to the ground. Steam raised off the pony's back, and at the sight of that the girl got excited all the more. Then she spotted the mountain stream below and just a little ways. She led the horse careful and over to it, and then, thinking steady of quick ways to cool the horse off, she figgered it a good idea to lead him in the water and where it was the deepest. She skipped from boulder to boulder till finally a place was found where the water came up above the pony's knees, and there she let him stand, while with her cupped hands she splashed the cold snow water on his chest, shoulders, and back.