The sleek, greenish
current ate at the roots of lofty bluffs, striped by bands of umber and
orange, and topped with out-croppings of rock as though a vanished race
had crowned them with now crumbling fortresses. At their feet, sucking
life from the stream, a fringe of alder and willows decked the sallow
landscape with a trimming of green.
Here the doctor's party camped for the night, rising in the morning to
find a new defection in their ranks. Leff had gone. Nailed to the mess
chest was a slip of paper on which he had traced a few words announcing
his happiness to be rid of them, his general dislike of one and all, and
his intention to catch up the departed train and go to the Oregon
country. This was just what they wanted, the desired had been
accomplished without their intervention. But when they discovered that,
beside his own saddle horse, he had taken David's, their gladness
suffered a check. It was a bad situation, for it left the young man with
but one horse, the faithful Ben. There was nothing for it but to abandon
the wagon, and give David the doctor's extra mount for a pack animal.
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