Jack at once declared for the latter course. Mr. Dacre's illness and Sandy's indisposition had not a little to do with Tom's falling in with this plan. He was anxious not to remain away longer than necessary for, as he knew, the river fevers sometimes resulted quite seriously.
Accordingly, the blankets were rolled up, some meat cut from the deer, canteens filled at a nearby spring, and the march back to the river begun. The fog still hung heavy and dense, and the boys strode along through the steamy vapor talking little, but saving their wind and their strength for the rough stony ground they were traveling over.
About noon the mist lifted and rolled away like a drop-curtain in a theater. And it was then that the boys made a disquieting discovery. The general scenery adjacent to the trapping line was familiar to them. But the spot which they now had reached held nothing that struck a reminiscent note.
Instead of being surrounded by noble forests of huge, somber trees, they were in a place that resembled more the scenery found in the "Bad Lands" than anything else the boys could call to mind. Grotesque piles of rocky hills, pinnacled like cathedrals and minsters, with here and there the semblance of some strangely formed animal, surrounded them on every side.
Towering columns and immense, fantastically-shaped masses of clay, suggesting pre-historic monsters of the pre-glacial period, rocky cliffs resembling enchanted castles,—these were only a few of the remarkable features of the section of the country into which they had strayed.
They looked about them with awe. The strata of the various weird formations were brilliantly tinted with blue, red, white, yellow and other colors mingled and mixed like the hues of a kaleidoscope. The utter barrenness of the place suggested a city of the dead, untrodden by man or beast for centuries.
"Where under the sun have we wandered?" asked Jack in an awed tone, gazing about with wonderment not untinged with alarm.
"I've not the slightest idea. We've never even seen a suggestion of such country on our hunting excursions off the trapping line. We must have strayed far off our course."
"But the compass?"
"I followed what should have been our direction," declared Tom. "I cannot understand this at all."