Far in the east and the southeast the mountains seemed to form a line with every gap stopped.
“Isn’t that our Grand Peak, away yonder?” asked the doctor, pointing. “If so, I judge it’s a hundred miles, as the bird flies.”
“And unreachable from here, except by a bird, sir. We’re shut off from it, completely. Besides, our road does not lie in that direction. Our duty as explorers demand that we do not give up so easily.” And the lieutenant turned his glasses, so as to sweep the north and the northwest.
On the north were lofty hills, pine covered, breaking the nearer view; and snow mountains grouped behind them. The frozen river, marked by willows, stretched onward, in crooked bed, through the valley, now broad, now narrowed, into the northwest, soon to be closed upon by the hills and mountains there.
In all the great expanse nothing moved; even the other exploring parties were out of sight. It was a dead country.
The lieutenant shrugged his shoulders.
“Not very promising, eh?” the doctor queried anxiously.
“It does not promise success. Our course up this river should be abandoned. We are constantly making farther and farther northward, separated from the Red River by the mountains; game is getting less, the trail is unreliable, and we shall depend upon it no longer.”
He gazed southward. The hills rose to mountains here also. He used his spy-glass intently. He handed it to the doctor.
“You’ll see a great white mountain range, appearing through a gap almost directly south.”