"The sun is high, brothers," he said. "If Corlaer's pain is gone——"
"Oof!" interrupted the Dutchman, with the distaste of any man of abnormal physique for admitting weakness. "We go to der top now. If der air is thin I hafe fat, eh? Dot's enough. Ja."
To us, then, it seemed as though the summit was at most an hour's climb away, but actually our stiffest effort was ahead of us. All of that weary afternoon we climbed, risking precipice and crevice, pausing at frequent intervals for the rest that was essential, if we were not to become light headed and dizzy. Once we slipped and slid a half-mile toward death, bringing up by driving our staves through the ice and checking gradually the impetus of our descent. That meant an hour's work to do over again. We gritted our teeth and did it. Our moccasins were shredded on knife-edged rocks and ice-chunks. Our faces were blistered by the sun-glare. Our hands were cut and sore from constant contact with the ice. We had spells of nausea. But we went up—and up.
I was leading, head bowed, my eyes on the rocks and ice ahead in search of the safest foot-holds, when Tawannears touched my shoulder.
"See, brother," he exclaimed. "Tamanoas breathes."
I looked up, startled. The rim was several hundred yards away, and above it floated what I took to be a cloud low in the sky. But there were no clouds, and I soon saw that the mist in the air above the rim was constantly disintegrating, constantly being replenished. It was like the steam that exudes from the spout of a boiling kettle.
"We shall soon learn what it means," I said. "There is an opening here. Keep to the snow—the rocks are shifty."
We crossed a ramp of snow, sloping easily, and entered a huge gap in the crest. What a spectacle! No, I speak not of the view spread out around the mountain's base. We did not look at that. Our eyes were on the vast bowl, a mile in breadth, that was carved in the mountain's top. Snow filled it deep in many places, poured over the rim through gaps such as that we stood in to form the sources of the glaciers that twisted downward into the flower-zone like gigantic serpents with silver tails and dingy-gray, scale-covered coils. But here and there over the snowy floor were scattered groups of peculiar, black rocks out of which jetted the steamy clouds that Tawannears had noticed.
"Whose fires?" squeaked Corlaer.
The Seneca looked eagerly in all directions, hungry for—— Who can say what vague form his thoughts were molded in?