Perhaps the events of the morning had shaken Mary’s usually steady nerves. Then again the strain of long, exciting days and nights had begun to tell. Be that as it may, as they came closer and closer to those mountains of eternal snow, her apprehension increased.
They came close to the place where they must climb and climb again to make the pass in safety, and she was obliged to confess to herself that she was really frightened.
At that moment she recalled the words of a pilot who had crossed many times. “They call it a pass but it’s only a slightly lower level between two towering peaks.” She looked at the peaks and the narrow depression that lay between them. At the same time she thought she had discovered a change in the peaks that lay far to the left.
“Some of them are gone,” she said.
“Gone? What’s gone?” Sparky asked.
“Mountains.”
“Mountains! They don’t go away. They’re eternal. It says so in the Bible.”
“All the same there are not as many as there were,” Mary insisted.
Sparky gave her a sharp look, then he gazed away to the left.
“By thunder! You’re right!” he exclaimed. “They are vanishing. Know what that means?”