It was amid an utter silence, unheralded by even so slight

country, I induced the oxen to move with alacrity, and the wagon and

contents were speedily carried to the summit. The whole trouble was

at once revealed: the oxen had been broken and trained by a man who,

when they were in a pinch, had encouraged them by his frontier

vocabulary, and they could not realize what was expected of them

under extraordinary conditions until they heard familiar and possibly

profanely urgent phrases. I took the wagon to its destination, but

as it was not brought back, even in all the time I was stationed in