“Yonder, straight in front.”
“So do I!” yelped Billy. “There’s Long’s Peak—that big peak up at the north end. I’ve seen him from the Overland Trail. Look at the snow, will you!”
“Isn’t it wonderful!” breathed the Reverend Mr. Baxter, in awed tone.
And it was. Almost halting, spell-bound, they gazed. As the fog broke and melted away it exposed a mighty barrier, extending in a vast sweep from the right to the left—two hundred miles of mountains, the front range soft and purplish, the back range dazzling white with snow. The rugged plains, brushy and somewhat timbered, and lighter green where meandered Cherry Creek, reached to their very base.
“Where’s Pike’s Peak?” demanded Left-over.
“That lone peak at our end, stranger,” informed an emigrant.
Round and bulky and snow covered, standing out by himself, like an exclamation-point completing the range, Pike’s Peak seemed the biggest peak of all.
“That’s not far. ’Tisn’t more than ten miles!” declared Left-over. “Come on! Let’s go and climb it. Get out your picks, fellows! Don’t you see a kind of yellow patch? That’s gold, I bet you.”
“Keep cool, young man,” warned the emigrant. “You try to walk it before night and you’ll find out how far that peak is. More than fifty miles, I reckon.”
“It looks powerful cold up yon,” quavered a woman. “They do say the snow never melts off.”