On the summit of the peak stood a lofty pine, alone and friendless and torn by the gale. At the base of it the party halted, and as much as possible sheltered themselves from the cutting blast. The pole climber adjusted his spiked leg irons, and, on the lee side of the old pine, began ascending.
“Now watch yerself, Pete!” he was cautioned from below. “By golly, she’s a resky job!”
The man made no reply, but continued to ascend rapidly, evincing confident familiarity with the climbers that he wore. He was a Mangan-Hatton man and was in charge of the electric-lighting system of the camp. Wind and swaying altitudes held no terrors for this old-time electrical man, familiar with all branches of his work.
Before very long he was well-nigh to the top. Settling himself at last on a whipping limb, he roped himself to the trunk of the tree, and then unslung a telescope from his shoulder. At once he deliberately began scouring the surrounding country, swaying back and forth as the tree bent before the wind and recovered its perpendicular stateliness.
A grand sight was revealed to the venturesome climber. To the south and east and west swept a magnificent forest of pines, tossing wildly like waves at sea. Here and there a peak uprose, snowcapped at its summit because of the recent fall. In the background more majestic peaks upreared themselves proudly, the summits of some of them above the line of perpetual snow and always white and glistening. To the west, seven thousand feet below him, swept the beleaguered desert, over which great sand waves rolled in tempestuous billows.
The watcher did not give lengthy attention to the desert nor to the distant peaks, enticing as was the view. Carefully he trained his spyglass here and there over the lower mountain country at his command.
He searched the lush meadows, where red cows braved the wind and grazed and pastured horses stood disconsolately, tail-on toward the tempest. Then suddenly, about three miles distant, as he judged, a man appeared on the top of a gigantic rock that was thrust up above the foliage.
The spyglass steadied. The eye glued to it saw the man stoop and haul up on a rope. Presently he staggered before the wind, then sat down abruptly on his perch and trained a pair of binoculars on the desert.
For some little time the spyglass man watched him. Frequently he saw his lips moving, so powerful were his lenses, and saw him look downward as if speaking to some one at the base of the rocky monument. Then he crawled over the edge and disappeared.
Studiously now the observer located lone trees and other peculiar outcroppings of rock which might serve in finding the eminence on which the wind-blown figure had appeared. Then he took out a pocket compass and lined the tree with The Falcon’s rock. He reslung his glass and descended to solid ground.