The
steers that ranged these ravines were wild as wolves, and in the tangled
thickets of juniper and manzanita and jumbles of weathered cliff they
were exceedingly difficult to catch.
Well it was that Hare had received his initiation and had become inured
to rough, incessant work, for now he came to know the real stuff of which
these Mormons were made. No obstacle barred them. They penetrated the
gullies to the last step; they rode weathered slopes that were difficult
for deer to stick upon; they thrashed the bayonet-guarded manzanita
copses; they climbed into labyrinthine fastnesses, penetrating to every
nook where a steer could hide. Miles of sliding slope and
marble-bottomed streambeds were ascended on foot, for cattle could climb
where a horse could not. Climbing was arduous enough, yet the hardest
and most perilous toil began when a wild steer was cornered. They roped
the animals on moving slopes of weathered stone, and branded them on the
edges of precipices.
The days and weeks passed, how many no one counted or cared. The circle
of the sun daily lowered over the south end of Coconina; and the black
snow-clouds crept down the slopes.
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