General Dodge had been correct. Within a few miles from camp, in the morning, they were going down hill. The Laramie Plains were cut off, so was much of the plateau itself, but the mountains before, and hazy in the distance, rose more and more, with a flat desert gradually creeping out from their base. After all, the “hump” was a rounded ridge—a sort of welt.
It fell away, with a long slant—and suddenly the party halted short, craning forward, almost speechless, to the pointing arm of General Dodge.
“The unknown land,” he uttered. “The Browne basin, and the Red Desert.”
“Where poor Percy gave up his life,” added Engineer Appleton.
“Yes, and where many another good man has ended his trail,” added Sol Judy.
From the foot of the slant, onward below there extended, now fully revealed, so vast a basin that it might have been the floor of a dry ocean. They were gazing down into it, as if from the side of an amphitheater. Lofty mountains, some of them a hundred miles away, surrounded it with a fringe of cloudlike crests. The clear air rested upon it and gave it a setting of crystal.
There were abrupt little cone-like peaks, patches of white, patches of red, patches of dark brush; and over all a wondrous blue sky without a break, through which the hot sun rode high.
The basin looked enchanted and mysterious.
“The unknown land,” repeated General Dodge, thoughtfully. “The Overland Stage road crosses, for the Bitter Creek country, beyond. But there are no other trails. There may be no streams, either. Those white patches are soda and alkali, of course. The red is granite and sandstone—good ballast stuff for a roadbed. Lacking any streams flowing west, we’ll have to travel by compass, and save our water as much as we can. But we’ll go in; see what Percy found, and maybe find Bates.”
“So that’s where your friend is, is it?” inquired Mr. Duff, of Terry.