Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/194

 Alden broke into laughter.

“You mean a cinnamon bear; yes I have heard they are ugly customers to drive into a corner.”

“’Spose dey dribe you into a corner, eh?”

“That would be worse, but we have a gun apiece and know how to use it.”

“Dat am so, but Mr. Shagbark said as how it sometimes took a dozen shots to bring down one ob dem grizzlies.”

“That must be because the aim was poor. One bullet sent right will drop an elephant.”

“Am we likely to see any elufunts?” asked the amazed Jethro.

“Hardly, unless he is an estray [sic] from some menagerie, and there isn’t any temptation for menageries to visit unsettled countries,” said the amused Alden.

At the time of this conversation the young men were riding through a pass or cañon, which had a varying width of two or three hundred yards to two or more times that space. During the spring thaw, or when there was a cloudburst, it must have been swept by a tumultuous torrent which carried everything before it. Enormous boulders, scattered here and there, had been rolled from considerable