Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/270

 to pick up remembered guideposts. Finally the glass came to a halt. Into its circular field had suddenly appeared that which the watcher sought.

A tortuous crack in the solid wall of the gorge it was. Here a sheer apron of granite gave it a pitch downward at a church-spire angle; there the fly track was broken by a series of ledges where bushes found precarious lodgment; the whole descent appeared little less vertical than a parachute drop. But Original knew from his past essay that one with a cool hand and a sturdy mount under him could negotiate that Ladder,—at a risk. It was an old game trail, and a mountain-bred horse will go anywhere a blacktail may lead. The foot of the Ladder found rest in a concealing pine wood not more than two miles from the group of ranch houses.

Near noon Original returned to the hidden camp in Bear Hole and rolled himself in his blankets to sleep until sundown. When he awoke his men had stowed all in the outfit wagons and saddled their horses in readiness for the hike. Original called them about him and explained the plan of attack.

"Timberline Todd and Hank Rogers, you