Jack embraced Humpy Jull by the fire, and moaned incoherently. No amount of laughter could ease his breast of the weight of mirth that oppressed it. Never was such a joke known in the North.
During the rest of the evening Jack was in momentary expectation of an order to break camp and turn back, but none came. On the contrary, Humpy reported, from the scraps of conversation he had overheard at the dinner-table, that Sir Bryson, being convinced there was gold somewhere in the pass, was determined, with Baldwin Ferrie's assistance to do a little hunting on his own account. Jack smiled indulgently at the news. It was not long, however, before he had to change his superior attitude.
Early on the following morning he was fishing in the backwater below camp, while Baldwin Ferrie sat on a projecting point of the bank above, patiently searching the mountainsides with his glasses.
"I say," Ferrie suddenly called out, "how far is that peak over there, the pointed one?'
"About nine miles in a line from here," said Jack. "Fifteen, up the river and in."
"What's it called?"
"Tetrahedron," said Jack. "A surveyor named it."
"Do you know it at all?" asked Ferrie.
"Pretty well," said Jack, off-hand.
"The slope on this side," asked the geologist, "I suppose there is a stream that drains it? Could you take us to it?"