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 behind it which carries the creek from headwaters in the Broken Horns out to the rolling country through a twisted bore gashed out of the living rock by glacial chisels. Almost due north to south stretches the gorge, twenty-seven miles in extent. In its northernmost reaches it narrows to a chasm less than three hundred yards from lip to lip of the almost perpendicular bounding cliffs, and with the creek foaming down from the cascades marking its drop over the lava dike that heads the cañon. Beyond this chasm the valley grudgingly widens into green meadows through which the stream loafs in meandering course, but the bounding walls continue rugged almost beyond the power of man or beast to scale until at the southern gate they are drawn aside in a wide pass. Heavy timber throws a screen along the lower reaches of Teapot Spout.

Even to-day, when peaceful ranches dot the floor of the Spout and the shuf-shuf of Tin Lizzies sounds where once the yip-yip of Zang Whistler's men rounded stolen cattle into a trail herd for surreptitious markets in another State, there are but two ways into the mountains' treasure box: The road that comes from the east over a high shoulder of one bounding