"Yep! Tallest wart on the face of the continent. There's the creek we go down—see!" Crowley indicated a watercourse which meandered away through cañons and broad reaches. "We foller it to yonder cross valley; then east to there."
To Buck's mind, his gesture included a tinted realm as far-reaching as a state.
Stretched upon the bare schist, commanding the back stretch, they munched slices of raw bacon.
Directly, out toward the mountain's foot two figures crawled.
"There they come!" and Crowley led, stumbling, sliding, into the strange valley.
As this was the south and early side of the range, they found the hills more barren of snow. Water seeped into the gulches till the creek ice was worn and rotted.
"This 'll be fierce," the Irishman remarked. "If she breaks on us we'll be hung up in the hills and starve before the creeks lower enough to get home."
Small streams freeze solidly to the bottom and the spring waters wear downward from the surface. Thus they found the creek awash, and, following farther, it became necessary to wade in many places. They came to a box cañon where the winter snow had packed, forming a dam, and, as there was no way of avoiding it without retreating a mile and climbing the ragged bluff, they floundered through, their packs aloft, the slushy water armpit-deep.
"We'd ought 'a' took the ridges," Buck chattered. Language slips forth phonetically with fatigue.
"No! Feller's apt to get lost. Drop into the wrong creek—come out fifty mile away."