With shaded eyes, they looked and did, for the moment, forget their chilled condition. The peaks were now in the full glare of the morning sun, while down in the canyons day had not yet fully dawned, and the dim shadows there were gray with the morning mist.
Another day of hard riding was before them, but before starting out Tom and Hippy announced that they would try to find a trail up the mountain that loomed in the sky some distance beyond. Upon reaching the end of the ridge that formed a natural bridge connecting two mountain ranges, Tom and Hippy came upon a sharp descent that led down into a broad, open valley, beyond which lay the mountain they were to climb.
“This looks promising,” nodded Tom, as they jogged down into the valley.
“It is more than that; it is wonderful,” cried Hippy as the two men found themselves in a field knee-deep with blue lupines that grew there in profusion. The odor of the flowers was almost overpowering. To the right and the left of the two explorers were bunches of tuft-grass, here and there groves of slender lodge-poles, and spindling pines and junipers. Tom and Hippy paused in admiring silence. It was more beautiful than anything that they had thought possible in this rugged country.
While they were hunting for a possible trail that would lead them up the mountain, Tom Gray declared that Nature had used this sweetly scented field for a dumping ground, after having completed the building of the mountain itself.
“Yes, and she protected her work mighty well when she erected that snow-capped peak,” answered Hippy. “I know that there must be a way out of this place to reach that mountain,” he added, getting up from a fall, very red of face, his jaw set stubbornly.
Despite their persistent efforts to find a trail out of the valley of the lupines, it was noon before they did discover a possible way out for their party. After marking it by tying a handkerchief to the bent-over top of a spindling pine, they started back to join their companions. The Overland party had some time since saddled and bridled their ponies and were ready to move when Tom and Hippy returned to them, and all were on their way soon after the arrival of the two men.
“You are going to see something that will gladden your heart, Brown Eyes,” declared Hippy as they started on. It was late in the afternoon when they finally rode into the valley below. The blue lupines, the grass, the pines and the junipers there presented a scene that brought cries of delighted amazement from the Overland girls.
“Oh, look at the pink ice cream!” cried Emma, pointing to the towering mountain which they were to try to climb.
“Why, Tom, we didn’t notice that coloring on the snow up there this morning,” exclaimed Lieutenant Wingate. “It must be a cloud reflection.” Tom Gray nodded and said that the pink shade probably would soon disappear.