“If the gate be shut,” he resumed, “it will keep out prospectors, tramps and Injuns.” With that he went to smoking his red-willow[1] bark again. [Footnote 1: The trappers and Indians made Kil-i-ki-nic, or Kinnikinick, by mixing tobacco with the inside bark of red willow, which is the common name for the red osier of the dogwood family. EDITOR.] But I could not view the situation so complacently, and when the rain had ceased as suddenly as it began, with some difficulty I caught my horse and made my way to the gate, to discover that my worst fears were realized; a large section of the cliff had split off the Mesa and slid down into the narrow gateway completely filling the space and leaving a wall of over one hundred feet of sheer precipice for us to climb before we could escape from our Eden-like prison. Again a wave of superstitious dread swept over me as I viewed the tightly closed exit, a dread that perhaps after all there was more to Big Pete’s superstitions about the Wild Hunter than I dared to admit, else why should that cliff which had stood for thousands of years take this opportunity to split off and choke up the ancient trail? The longer I questioned myself, the less was my ability to answer. I sat on a stone and for some time was lost in thought. When at length I looked up it was to see Big Pete with folded arms silently gazing at the barricaded exit and the muddy pool of water extending for some distance back of the gateway into the park. “Well, tenderfut, you was dead right in your judication. The gate air shut sure ’nuff. Our horses ain’t likely to take the back trail and leave us, that’s sartin.” “Oh, Pete,” I exclaimed, “how will we ever get out? Must we spend the remainder of our lives here?” “It do look as if we’d stop hyer a right smart bit,” he admitted, “maybe till this hyer holler between the mountains all fills with water agin like it was onct before, I reckon. Don’t you think that we’d better get busy and build a Noah’s Ark?” “Pete, you’d joke if the world came to an end. But seriously I think we might move our camp back to the far end of your park.” CHAPTER VII One day after we had selected our new camp, I took my rod along and wandered into the wonderful forest of ancient trees. There I seated myself on a log to think over my experience. Somehow my own trials and ambitions seemed small, trivial and not worth while when I looked upon those grand trees standing silently on guard as they were standing when Columbus was busy smashing a hard-boiled egg to make it stand on end. Yes, naturalists tell us some of these same trees were standing before the New Testament was written and then as now their branches concealed their lofty tops and formed a screen through which the powerful rays of the noon-day sun are filtered, refined and subdued to a dreamy twilight below, a twilight in which the soft green mosses and lace-like ferns thrive into luxuriant growth.