And the raft swerved out, the horses swimming, the freed mule plunging along the wooded shore, Wayland thrusting his long pole deep, almost to his hand-grip, to find bottom.

“There’s a nasty under current from the upper river,” he said.

“Let her go, there—! let her go t’ th’ current—­tack her an’ the current wull swerve ye int’ the other side!  More men lose their lives by poling too hard than lettin’ go!  Catch the current and let her go.”

The old man had twisted the halter ropes under his feet.  He seized a pole and swerved the raft to the current, pointing in to the other side.  They could hear the roar of the wild mountain stream pouring a maelstrom down from the glare ice and snow of the upper meadows.  The next plunge of the pole missed bottom.  There was a yielding creak of logs.  The raft poised, and spun round.

“Let her go, man!  We’ll wriggle her in below!”

“Then loose your halter ropes, they’re pulling us round.”

They tossed the ropes free.  Wayland waved his pole to head the bronchos across.  They heard the mule squealing at the head of the lake.

“She can’t sink—­wriggle her round, Wayland!”

The raft spun twice to the under-pull, took an inch or two of water, and swirled into the quiet shadows of the far shore.

“Minds me of that story of Napoleon!  Do you carry bridges in y’r pockets, too, Wayland?” asked the old man, as the Ranger gave a long prod that sent the raft grating ashore.

“What story?” asked Wayland.

“Oh, Boney came to a river too deep for swimming cavalry.  General ordered engineer fellow to get ’em across!  Man began to draw maps.  When he came to Napoleon with his blue print plans, he found a common soldier fellow had pontooned ’em all across!”

“Did the big fellow get a leg up on his job; or did the soldier fellow get the bounce for going outside regulations?”

“That is possible, too.”  The old man was handing off the saddles and camp kit.

“If you’ll wait here, sir, I’ll go along for the horses!  I don’t know the trails along on this side!  It’s outside the N. F!”

There was no moonlight to guide him; but there was the wall of blue sky where the mountains opened; and he followed up the lake shore with a sense of feel more than sight for one of those little indurated game tracks that would lead back over the stones to the trail that the outlaws had seemed to follow.  If you think it an easy thing to walk over a pile of moraine by the obscure light preceding dawn—­try it!  The great moraines flank the mountains in petrified billows stranded on the shores of time from the ice ages, in stones from the size of a spool to a house.  Step on the small stones; and they roll, bringing down the whole bank in a miniature slide under your feet!  Pick your way over the sharp edges of the big rocks; and the glazed moisture is slippery as ice; but he, whose foot hold fumbles, has no business in the mountain world; and the Ranger swung from crest to crest of the pointed rocks, safely shrouded in the lake mist, guided solely by the blank glare of sky between the mountain walls.