The mountain chain now rose above them like a huge granite wall, well-nigh perpendicular, and breaking, two or three thousand feet above their heads, into a line of saw-tooth peaks. They were enabled to ride along until under the Snow Peak itself; upon a grassy bench above a trio of mystic green lakes, they turned loose the faithful mules, and proceeded to climb afoot.
“Take it easy,” ordered the lieutenant, as they panted in the thin air.
Each picking what he considered the easiest trail, they gradually strung out. The lieutenant had left his rifle down near the mules, and wore his pistols; but some of the men had no pistols and some refused to lay aside their rifles anyway, for it was against mountain-man rules ever to move from camp without rifle in hand. Oliver carried his Kit Carson rifle; and as he toiled to keep up with Basil and Mr. Preuss, just in front of him, glancing aside he saw that the lieutenant, off by himself, was halting, to change his thick moccasins for a pair of thin ones. Then the lieutenant continued, lightly and rapidly, up a steep bare stretch which he had found.
“En avant, mes braves,” he panted, cheerily—which was French for “Forward, my brave fellows.”
He sprang ahead for another of the many irregular ridges or wrinkles; what an energetic, tireless man he was, thought Oliver; he was almost the equal of Kit Carson—and he was only an army officer and was not a trapper. Up to the top of the next rock ridge scrambled the lieutenant; and abruptly his voice sounded, thin but commanding:
“Look out! Wait where you are! I think this is it!”
He was bracing himself cautiously, as if balanced; and he peered around, examining the horizon. More cautiously he stepped back, and down a few paces.
“Now, one at a time,” he called. “No more. And be careful.”
Mr. Preuss climbed, stood, and in turn backed down; Basil Lajeunesse did the same; and did the same all, Oliver last. Oliver found himself upon a comb of gray granite, only about three feet wide, wind-swept of snow, sloping keenly and breaking, in another step, to an icy precipice—as the eaves of a house break beyond the gutter-pipes. Five hundred feet below, like the roof of a porch, for instance, lay a great snow-field, which sloped off to another precipice; and after this a snow-field which might be called the ground below the porch-eaves spread abroad to a ridge (which might be a buried fence) a mile away.
“Come down,” ordered the lieutenant of Oliver; and as cautiously as anybody Oliver backed off.