The lieutenant mounted again, and the instruments were passed up to him. He took observations; then tying his flag to a ramrod he planted it in a crevice of the rock cap. Backing off, he drew his pistol.
“Ready!” he called; there was quick cocking of pistols and rifles; “fire!”
“Crack-crack! Spat! Crack!” Flat were the reports, cut short without echo; but the Stars and Stripes here unfurled had been saluted.
Lieutenant Frémont and Mr. Preuss were busily figuring out what the barometer and the thermometer records would tell them.
“Thirteen thousand, five hundred and seventy feet,” announced Lieutenant Frémont. “Probably the highest peak of the Rockies—and certainly the highest flag in the world,” and he removed his hat.
They removed theirs, for a moment.
“Ma foi! And the highest bee in the world!” ejaculated Auguste Janisse, pointing to his knee.
A bumble-bee had lighted upon it!
“I declare!” exclaimed the lieutenant. “Who’d think to find a bee up here in the ice—more than two miles high! Well, my little chap, you deserve to live if you can, but this is the best I can do for you, in the way of flowers;” and gently plucking the numbed insect from Auguste’s knee he laid him among the dried botanical specimens between the leaves of a field book.