“But what shall we do?” asked Nicky.
“Follow!” stated Tom.
“Not exactly,” Bill corrected. “See—” he pointed toward the saddle-like depression between the peaks,—“he goes that way. We turn right around on our tracks and go back—that way!”
“Give up?” said Cliff, disappointedly.
“Nope! Climb down!”
They stared at him. Was good old Bill growing queer or was he trying to be funny?
“Climb down?” Nicky demanded. “Where? Why? And where is Whackey?”
“You don’t know my mind, and—I’m not going to tell you!” Bill varied his usual formula. “As for Whackey, I let him go in the deep, dark night. We don’t need him any more.”
It was all a puzzle and baffled the young fellows. Mr. Whitley seemed to be deeper in Bill’s confidence, for he smiled at them.
“Bill should not tease, up here in this cold place,” he said. “The truth is, we are in the little cup of what must have been a high mountain lake. It is just low enough in altitude to be below the eternal ice line in summer. At present we are really camped on a vast cake of ice which has frozen over it since the past summer. It will stay this way until next year; then the ice will melt gradually and any snow that turns to water will add to the reservoir.”