"Yes, by aerial post," Ernest answered. "Don't you see this pigeon that I have brought in its little cage? Do you suppose I brought it only to leave it at Eberfurt? No, we will let it go from the top of the range, and it will bring you news of our expedition."
Everybody applauded this excellent idea, and Hannah vowed in her heart to watch every day for the coming of Ernest's messenger.
Mr. Wolston and the two brothers passed through a narrow outlet contrived between the posts in the defile of Cluse. It was carefully shut behind them, and in a few minutes they disappeared behind a bend in the barrier of rock.
CHAPTER XIII
THE MOUNTAIN RANGE
To go afoot is ideal travelling. Going afoot allows a man to see all that there is to see, gives leave for dallying. Who goes afoot is satisfied with by-paths when the high road is no more. He may proceed as the humour takes him, pass where the lightest vehicle, the best trained steed, could find no way, ascend the shelving steeps, and scale the mountain tops.
Thus, though they might have to endure great fatigue, Mr. Wolston and the two young men had not hesitated to plunge on foot into the heart of the unknown districts of the hinterland, all the more willingly in anticipation of their projected climb to the summit of the range.
This plan only involved a tramp of eighteen or twenty miles, provided they were able to go in a bee line to the foot of the mountains. There was thus no question of any long journey. But it was all through entirely new country, which might hold surprises for the three explorers.
Jack was the most highly excited of the party. With his adventurous temper it was an enormous satisfaction to him to pass beyond the limits of the Promised Land and to travel over these wide plains, of which he as yet knew nothing. It was a fortunate thing that he was not mounted on onager, bull, or ostrich, and that he had brought only one dog, Fawn. Thus, Mr. Wolston would have some chance of restraining his impetuosity.