Morning found us half famished with thirst and hunger and bruised by our rocky beds, but we needed no urging to resume our laborious ascent. The view from our lofty mountain side was the grandest I had ever seen. Above us arched the translucent sky in an illimitable dome of purest sapphire, rimmed before our upturned eyes by gaunt, jagged rocks and fields of dazzling snow. Behind and below us the vast desert of prairies stretched away to east and north and south, far beyond the reach of human eye, its tawny surface closely overhung by a sea of billowy white clouds. Far to the south, at least a hundred miles distant, we noted in particular a vast double, or twin, peak, which stood out from and overtopped the heights of the front range even as our Grand Peak dwarfed its neighbors.
But we did not linger long to gaze at this sublime prospect. Though our thermometer here registered well below zero, we struggled on upward through the waist-deep snow to the first of the summits which rose before us. An hour found us close upon what we took to be the goal of our efforts.
At last, panting from our exertions and the rarity of the air, we floundered up the final rise to the crest. In this wild, scrambling rush Brown dropped to the rear, while the Lieutenant, though physically the least robust of the party, forged ahead even of myself, upborne by his zealous spirit. He, the leader of the expedition, should be—must be—the first to set foot upon the summit of the Grand Peak!
With a final rally of his wiry strength, he uttered a shout and dashed up over the thin, hard-crusted snow of the summit to the crest,—only to stop short and stand staring off beyond, in bitter disappointment.
"Look!" he cried. "The Grand Peak!"
"The Grand Peak!" I shouted back, too excited to perceive the import of his tone and bearing. "The Grand Peak! We'll name it for you,—for the first American to sight it; the first to mount its crest; the first—"
