"Pshaw!" returned Calhoun; "If there isn't anybody left on earth to remember me but those disgusting Asiatics, I'd rather not be remembered. But listen here, old fellow, I don't think it is the least bit nice of you to make this holiday disagreeable with your glum talk. Just forget it and stow some food and then let's be on our way. The top of the mountain is still about three thousand feet above us, and if we want to reach it before sunset we had better get a move on."
A few minutes later the adventurers continued with their ascent. Now they began to encounter real difficulties; there were rugged, almost perpendicular crags, offering but the barest hand- and foot-holds. These almost baffled the amateur climbers. Here and there were narrow shelves where they could stop to get their breath.
The Blue Crystals
It was during one of these rests that Pelton noticed crystals of a bluish, semi-opaque mineral clinging to the rocks about him. These crystals appeared to become more and more plentiful as they neared the summit of the volcano. Pelton knew something of mineralogy, but never in his considerable experience had he encountered such a substance. Curious to know its nature, he thrust several pieces into his pack; hoping that some day, if luck was with him, he might analyze them.
Just as the two Americans were starting on the last hundred feet of climbing that lay between them and their goal a large cloud came over the declining sun and an ominous gloom settled over the world.
And now the youths peered eagerly over the rim of the crater into "The Devil's Nest." Five minutes later they had descended fifty feet to its floor.
They found themselves in a small, circular valley about a thousand feet across. Everywhere, topping the walls of multi-colored stone that surrounded it, were pinnacles of the strange blue mineral, pointing toward the sky like the thin minarets of a city of goblins. On the summit of the rocky barrier at the western side of the crater was a huge mass of the crystal that gleamed darkly under the shadow of the obscuring cloud which hung persistently before the sun.
"This place has more weird beauty than 'The Island of Death'," said Calhoun. "It would make a fine painting. Somehow, there's something about it that gives me a creepy feeling."
There were a few patches of hardy grass and several bushes scattered here and there over the floor of the crater. Suddenly Pelton's searching eyes fell upon a circular spot of bleached earth, not more than ten feet across, lying thirty paces away at the center of the valley. For a moment he scrutinized it intently and then he grasped his companion violently by the arm. "Look, George!" he cried.