“Do you think we'll catch up with those people?” I asked.
“Not likely. They're travelling about the same gait we are.”
“Ounces ought to be the best walker.”
“Up hill, yes. But Pounds will go down a-foggin'.”
We gained the rim of the basin. It lay below us, a great cup of country,—rocks, woods, opens, and streams. The tall peaks rose like spires around it, magnificent and bare in the last of the sun; and we surveyed this upper world, letting our animals get breath. Our bleak, crumbled rim ran like a rampart between the towering tops, a half circle of five miles or six, very wide in some parts, and in some shrinking to a scanty foothold, as here. Here our trail crossed over it between two eroded and fantastic shapes of stone, like mushrooms, or misshapen heads on pikes. Banks of snow spread up here against the black rocks, but half an hour would see us descended to the green and the woods. I looked down, both of us looked down, but our forerunners were not there.
“They'll be camping somewhere in this basin, though,” said the Virginian, staring at the dark pines. “They have not come this trail by accident.”
A cold little wind blew down between our stone shapes, and upward again, eddying. And round a corner upward with it came fluttering a leaf of newspaper, and caught against an edge close to me.
“What's the latest?” inquired the Virginian from his horse. For I had dismounted, and had picked up the leaf.
“Seems to be interesting,” I next heard him say. “Can't you tell a man what's making your eyes bug out so?”
“Yes,” my voice replied to him, and it sounded like some stranger speaking lightly near by; “oh, yes! Decidedly interesting.” My voice mimicked his pronunciation. “It's quite the latest, I imagine. You had better read it yourself.” And I handed it to him with a smile, watching his countenance, while my brain felt as if clouds were rushing through it.