"He is all right, sir," I replied. "I went down there before breakfast this morning at Mr. Warren's request to inquire. In fact, Tim was so much better apparently that Mrs. Donovan declares that if he ever gets the fever again she intends to apply iced water to his feet and wasp-stings to the rest of his anatomy, as being a sure cure. She is immensely grateful to Dick for having discovered and applied a remedy that has worked so well."
"Then if Tim is wise," remarked the professor, laughing, "he won't get the fever again, for I should think the cure would be worse than the disease. But you want to be off, don't you? Do you understand the working of a Winchester repeater? Well," as I shook my head, "then you had better take the Sharp's and Dick the Winchester. And, Dick, you'd better have an eye on the weather. Romero says there is a change coming, and he is generally pretty reliable. So, now, off you go; and good luck to you."
Leaving the cabin, we went straight on up the narrow valley for about three miles—the pine-clad mountains rising half a mile high on either side of us—going as quickly as we could, or, to be more exact, going as quickly as I could. For the elevation, beginning at nine thousand feet, increased, of course, at every step, and I, being unused to such altitudes, found myself much distressed for breath—a fact which was rather a surprise to me, considering that in our track-meets at school the mile run was my strong point. I did not understand then that to get enough oxygen out of that thin mountain air it was necessary to take two breaths where one would suffice at sea-level.
We had ascended about a thousand feet, I think, when, at the base of the bare ridge for which we had been making, we slackened our pace, and my companion, who knew the country, taking the lead, we went scrambling up over the rocks and snow for an hour or more.
The quantity of snow we found up there was a surprise to me, for, from below the amount seemed trifling. There had been a heavy fall up in the range a month before, and this snow, drifting into the gullies, had settled into compact masses, the surface of which, on this, the southern face of the mountain, being every day slightly softened by the heat of the sun, and every night frozen solid again, made the footing exceedingly treacherous. Whenever, therefore, we found it necessary to cross one of these steep-tilted snow-beds we did so with the greatest caution.
We had been climbing, as I have said, for more than an hour, and were nearing the top of the ridge, when Dick stopped and silently beckoned to me to come up to where he lay, crouching under shelter of a little ledge.
"Smell anything?" he whispered.
I gave a sniff and raised my eyebrows inquiringly.
"Sheep?" said I, softly.
My companion nodded.