A horse is generally willing to plant his feet where he sees a man do it in advance. But these horses were dragged into the chasm, sometimes dropping on their haunches, and at other times plowing along with the fore feet braced well ahead. Once at the bottom, a fresh cinch was taken with the greatest difficulty, as neither horse could be kept still for a second. A moment afterward the click of the pony's feet was heard, and the sparks thrown off by his shoes were distinct enough as he shot up the trail as though projected from a mortar. The old horse--stiff in the shoulders, and his legs like crowbars--was not a rod behind him.
"No--yes. I saw the outline of a steer going down to drink."
"Nonsense! Do you think these tired horses, refusing first to come into the canyon, would have gone out on the other side as if Satan were after them, if they did not know that that particular steer had claws. If you had seen twenty mules break out of a yard and stampede when the foot of a cinnamon bear was thrown over, you would not blame these horses for blazing the trail with fire as they thundered up the rocks with the fresh scent of a live grizzly in their nostrils.
"Then, if you are willing to take the affidavits of these two horses as to the facts--and the jurat of eight steel-clad hoofs, striking fire on the rocks, was a very solemn one--you can settle the question in favor of the grizzly much more comfortably than he would have settled it for you. It is not necessary that one's scalp should be pulled over his eyes and his face set awry for life, in order to obtain a more convincing demonstration. I can refer you to a settler who has had these things done for him, whereat his satisfaction has in no whit increased."
An hour afterward two horses with drooping heads went into their stalls, and two jaded excursionists had each dropped into hot baths at Harbin's Springs. Nothing externally will neutralize the chill of a night ride among the mountains better than water which spouts from this hillside heated to 110 degrees. It is a notable caprice of Nature that, of three springs within the space of twenty feet, one is cold and has no mineral qualities; the other two are of about the same temperature, the waters of one strongly impregnated with iron and the other with sulphur. The waters of the two mineral springs combined are not only as hot as a strong man can bear, but they dissolve zinc bath-tubs, which was a satisfactory reason for the substitution of ugly wooden bathing-boxes. It is a pleasant nook, grandly encircled with mountains, with the wonderfully blue heavens by day, and lustrous stars by night.