“Yes,” said the doctor gravely, “there’s the map. But you don’t think this is a likely part of the country?”
“Not down here, sir; but from where we stood to-day after stalking those birds, I could see the mountains opening out in gulch and rift and hollow, beyond which there was peak and point and pass that looked as much like the sort of country as could be.”
“I noted the grand scenery too,” said the doctor.
“And I,” added Wilton. “It’s made me long to begin exploring again, for there was no sign of desert that I could see.”
“It’s a grand country,” said Bourne, “and the wonder to me is that it has not been settled. Why do you laugh, boy?”
“Oh, it was only at something I thought, sir,” said Chris.
“What was it?”
“That the salt plains were enough to keep anybody from coming as far as this.”
“That’s it, my lad,” said Griggs. “Men may have come prospecting in this direction for gold, but I shouldn’t be a bit surprised to find that this is only a patch of good land round and about these mountains, and that if we went far enough in any direction we should come to the salt plains again, shutting it in and keeping people back.”
“It is possible,” said the doctor.