“Well,” said Hugh, “you may as well let ’em feed and drag their ropes until it gets dark. They are pretty tired, and the feed is fairly good here. They won’t go far, and before it gets dark we’ll tie them up.”
Away to the left they could see a deep valley running up to enormously high mountains. Snow lay everywhere on their crests, and even in the valley, down to within a few hundred feet of the level of the little lake beside which they camped.
At supper Jack asked Hugh’s opinion where they were and whither they were going.
“Well,” said Hugh, “it’s a pretty sure thing that we can’t go any farther up this stream. There’s a wall a thousand feet high in front of us and on both sides, but I guess we can get up here to the left by climbing that point of rocks. When we do that we’ll get into the snow banks right off, and I don’t know that there’s much profit for us in that. However, we can try it. I believe that if we get up there, on or close to the snow, we’ll have the everlasting bulge on the flies, for I don’t think they’ll follow us there.”
There was plenty of wood here, and that night they sat about a good camp fire. The horses had been picketed where they could feed and yet would not interfere with each other. Night had settled down cold and frosty and the mosquitoes had ceased to trouble them.
“To-morrow or next day,” said Hugh, “I’d like to see where that big river comes from that we followed up all to-day. I expect it comes down out of that valley and from the big snow, and I reckon we lost it by keeping away to the right. It’s a good thing that we didn’t have to cross it, for if we had I think we’d have all been swimming. There’s a terrible lot of water coming down from these mountains, and this valley drains a big lot of them.”
“And of course, it all goes into the lakes, doesn’t it, Hugh?” asked Jack.
“Sure,” said Hugh, “that’s the only place it can go.”
“Well,” said Jack, “I’d rather travel through a lot of brush than try to get across a big swift river like that.”
“Yes,” said Hugh, “you’re right about that. It’s mean to be caught in a stream, especially when you’re not fixed for it. I remember, years ago, trying to take some cattle across the Running Water and being carried down. My horse got scared and commenced to flounder and I rolled off to help. It was in winter, and I had an old-fashioned army overcoat on and got kind of rolled up in it, and I reckon I would have drowned if the cape of the coat hadn’t caught on a limb of a dead tree that was sticking out over the water and held me there until some of the boys came along and pulled me out.”