CHAPTER II.
WHAT A WALK LED TO.
It was a strangely accoutered cavalcade that set out from this West Point camp an hour or so later. The Parson, as guide and temporary chief, led the way, having his beloved “Dana’s Geology” under his arms, and bearing in one hand an “astrology” hammer (as Texas termed it), in the other a capacious bag in which he purposed to carry any interesting specimens he chanced to find. The Parson had brought with him to West Point his professional coat, with huge pockets for that purpose, but being a cadet he was not allowed to wear it.
Chauncey and Indian brought up the rear. Chauncey was picking his way delicately along, fearful of spoiling a beautiful new shine he had just had put on. And Indian was in mortal terror lest some of the ghosts, bears, tramps or snakes which the yearlings had assured him filled the woods, should spring out upon his fat, perspiring little self.
The government property at West Point extends for some four miles up the Hudson, and quite a distance into the wild mountains to the rear. The government property is equivalent to “cadet limits,” and so the woods are freely roamed by the venturesome lads on holiday afternoons.
The Parson was never more thoroughly in his element than he was just then. He was a learned professor, escorting a group of patient and willing pupils. The information which he gave out in solid chunks that afternoon would have filled an encyclopædia. A dozen times every hour he would stop and hold forth upon some newly observed object.
But it was when on geology that the Parson was at home. He might dabble in all sciences; in fact, he considered it the duty of a scholar to do so; but geology was his specialty, his own, his pet and paragon. And never did he wax so eloquently as when he was talking of geology, “That science which unravels the mysteries of ages, that reads in the rocks of the present the silent stories of the years that are dead.”
“Behold yon towering precipice,” he cried, “with its crevices torn by the winter’s snows and rains! Gentlemen, I suppose you know that the substances which we call earth and sand are but the result of the ceaseless action of water, which tore it from the mountains and ground it into the ever-moving seas. It was water that carved the mountains from the masses of ancient rock, and water that cut the valleys that lead to the sea below. A wonderful thing is water to the geologist, a strange thing.”
“It’s a strange thing to a Texan, too,” observed the incorrigible cowboy, making a sound like a popping cork.
“This cliff, all covered with vegetation,” continued the Parson, gazing up into the air, “has a story to tell also. See that scar running across its surface? In the glacial era, when this valley was a mass of grinding, sliding ice, some great stone caught in the mass plowed that furrow which you see. And perhaps hundreds of miles below here I might find the stone that would fit that mark. That has been done by many a patient scientist.”