A rather serious catastrophe overtook the United States Weather Bureau on the day before the burros were released. Shirttail Henry had installed his rain gauge for the night, and had no more than turned his back on it when the bell burro was attracted by the brightness of its brass. She approached it with mincing steps, and, as is the custom of her kind, began trying to eat it. A burro seems incapable of deciding whether an object is for food by looking at it or smelling of it. He starts in to eat it, assuming that all things are good to eat until proved otherwise. The burro soon decided that in this instance she had made a grave mistake, and forthwith dropped the gauge. But not until the thin cylinder of brass had been dented and pinched in so that, as a recorder of the fall of rain, it was absolutely useless. Mary Temple witnessed the desecration, but shouted too late. Henry wheeled in time, however, to capture the miscreant. He held her by the leather band that encircled her neck, and to which her tinkling bell was fastened, and looked her fiercely in the eye. “Ass,” he said, “ye ain’t my canary, an’ I know ye ain’t got no sense. But if ye _was_ mine, d’ye know what I’d do to ye? I’d hold ye by this here strap here, an’ I’d get me a club, an’ I’d take it an’ I’d knock yer gysh-danged head off. Heh-heh-heh!” Snow covered the greater part of the land where the explorers had loosed the asses. Henry rigged up his drag, and on it stowed the outfit. Henry and Andy took the lead ropes, and Dr. Shonto walked behind to push. By following a zigzag course the leaders were able to keep the sledge running upon snow for the greater part of the time, and when only bare rocks lay before them the party portaged the cargo and the sledge to snowy stretches beyond. Their up-and-down course continued, and many a slope taxed the strength of all to get the laden sledge to the summit. But the general trend was downward, for they were crossing the knees of Dewlap, the only divide which gave access to the country wherein lay the mysterious valley of their quest. Gradually, after days of slow travel, the snow patches grew fewer and fewer, and the air grew noticeably warmer as they worked downward into the Hudsonian Zone once more. Then altogether the snow disappeared; scattering trees greeted them, Alpine hemlocks, silver pines--trees more friendly, it seemed to the awed wanderers, than any they ever had seen before. They saw a wolverine--infrequent animal--a white-tailed jackrabbit, and on one rare day a pure white squirrel, with pink-lidded eyes, quite curious and friendly.