Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/19

 loaves of baker’s bread, four boxes of shredded wheat biscuit, and two roasted chickens. Add to these things three umbrellas, two satchels, a lunch-basket, and a horse-collar, and do you wonder the children giggled? Why that horse-collar was with us remains a dark mystery to this day.

As we left the village, a dense fog prevailed, for which we were rather grateful, as it proved an effective screen for our disreputable exit. We were hoping it might lift later, as we knew there were fine views of Mount Hood, Mount Jefferson, and the Three Sisters en route; but instead of dissipating it gradually thickened, until we were enveloped in a heavy gray vapor, giving us a strange sense of isolation. All landmarks vanished; the world slipped away; we seemed afloat on a “wide, wide sea.” We could see absolutely nothing except our patient toiling horses, and occasionally the dim outlines of an old rail-fence. Upon a fence-post we saw, like a lone sentry, a great brown owl, as motionless and rigid as if cast in bronze. Once from a near-by field came the clear voice of a meadow-lark. Strangely sweet were those divine notes floating up from that misty obscurity.

We had started out in the morning quite hilarious; but as the difficulties and dangers of the road increased, our talk grew desultory, and at last we rode in grim silence. The mud seemed bottomless, and the never-ending hills were so steep as to appear almost