"I think we shall pass the highest point of our journey tomorrow," said Brady, "and then for the descent along the shoulder of the White Dome. Truly the stars have fought for us and I cannot believe that, after having escaped so many perils, we will succumb to others to come."
"O' course we won't," said the Little Giant cheerfully, "an' all the dangers we've passed through will make our gold all the more to us. Things ain't much to you 'less you earn 'em. When I git my million, which is to be my share o' that mine, I'll feel like I earned it."
"A quarter of a million, Tom," laughed Will. "You're getting avaricious as we go on. You raised it to a half million and now you make it a million."
"It does look ez ef my fancy grew more heated the nearer we come to the gold. I do hev big expectations fur a feller that never found a speck of it. How that wind does howl! Do you think, young William, that a glacier is comin' right squar' down on us?"
"No, Tom. Glaciers, like tortoises, move slowly. We'll have time to get out of the way of any glacier. It's easy to outrun the fastest one on the globe."
"I've heard tell that the earth was mostly covered with 'em once. Is that so?"
"They say there was an Ice Age fifty thousand or so years ago, when everything that lived had to huddle along the equator. I don't vouch for it. I'm merely telling what the scholars tell."
"I'll take your word for it, young William, an' all the same I'm glad I didn't live then. Think o' bein' froze to death all your life. Ez it is I'm ez cold ez I keer to be, layin' here right now in this canyon."
"If we were not hunting for gold," said Brady, "I'd try to climb to the top of this mountain. I take it to be close on to fourteen thousand feet in height and I often feel the ambition of the explorer. Perhaps that's why I've been willing to search so long and in vain for the great beaver horde. I find so many interesting things by the way, lakes, rivers, mountains, valleys, game, hot springs, noble forests and many other things that help to make up a splendid world. It's worth while for a man like me, without any ties, just to wander up and down the face of the earth."
"Do you know anything about the country beyond the White Dome?" asked Will.