“No, not a bit of it.”
“But we are; just slowly rising, and by night we shall find that we are in quite a different place, hundreds of feet higher than where we had breakfast this morning.”
“Well, I hope you’re right,” said Chris.
No more was said then, the two boys sometimes riding, sometimes walking, till after some hours Griggs pulled up, to point to the fact that they had reached what seemed to be the summit of an enormous land-wave heaved up and rising for miles either way across the desert, but right in front descending slowly into a vast hollow plain which glistened in its desolation as if frosted with silver.
“Why, it must be silver,” cried Ned enthusiastically.
“Nay, nay, only salt, my lad. Looks like a dried-up lake.”
“Yes; where’s your herd of buffaloes?” cried Chris. “Oh, shouldn’t I like for us to shoot one and have some beef!”
“Yes; buffalo hump isn’t bad,” said Griggs. “It’s rich and tender and gravyish.”
“But where is it?” said Ned.
“Higher up, I suppose, where there’s prairie-land and grass. You don’t expect to see buffler where there’s nothing to graze on, do you? Look at the stones, though. Regular rocky ridges rising up one above the other on the other side of that frosty lake part. Shouldn’t wonder if we found something fresh there.”