The view that greeted them from that lofty outlook was so wonderful and far-reaching that for a while they gazed in awed silence. Mount Baker, two hundred miles away, close to the British line, was clearly visible, as were the notable peaks to the southward, even beyond the distant Columbia and over the Oregon border.
"C'est grand! c'est magnifique! c'est terrible!" exclaimed M. Filbert, at length breaking the silence.
As for Alaric! To have achieved that summit was the greatest triumph of his life; but his heart was too full for utterance, and he could only gaze in speechless delight.
The Indian too gazed in silence as, leaning on his ice-axe, he contemplated the outspread empire that but a few years before had belonged solely to the people of his race.
Bonny was as deeply impressed as either of his companions, but found it necessary to express his feelings in words. "This must be the top of the world!" he cried; "and I do believe we can see it all. I tell you what it is, Rick Dale, I've learned something about mountains this day, and now I know that they are the grandest things in all creation."
At their feet the rock wall dropped so sheer and smooth that no man might climb it, and then came the snow, sweeping steeply downward for miles apparently without a break. Far beyond lay the vast sea of forest, seeming to cover the whole earth with its green mantle. The gleaming glaciers, looking like foaming cascades frozen into rigidity, were swallowed by it and hidden. It rolled in billows over the mighty mountain flanks that radiated from where they stood like the spokes of a colossal wheel, and dipped into the intervening valleys. Nowhere was it broken, save by the few bald peaks that struggled above it and by the threadlike waters of Puget Sound. Even on the west there was no ocean, for the volcanic, snow-crowned Olympics, one of which was smoking, as though in eruption, hid it from view.
Our lads could have gazed entranced for hours on the crowding marvels outspread before them had they been warmed and fed and rested and sheltered from the fierce blasts of icy wind that threatened to hurl them from the parapet on which they stood. As it was, night was at hand, they were faint and trembling from weariness, and wellnigh perished with the stinging cold. It was high time to turn from gazing and seek shelter.
Inside the crater's rim numerous steam jets issued from fissures in the rocky wall, and these had carved out caverns from the adjacent ice. Here there were roomy chambers, steam-heated and storm-proof, awaiting occupancy, and to one of these M. Filbert led the way.
In this place of welcome shelter numbed fingers were thawed to further usefulness by the grateful steam, a small fire was lighted, packs were opened, and in less than an hour a bountiful supper of hot tea, venison frizzled over the coals, toasted hard-bread, and prunes was being enjoyed by as hungry and jubilant a party as ever bivouacked at the summit of Mount Rainier.
After supper the Frenchman lighted a cigarette, the Indian puffed with an air of intense satisfaction at an ancient pipe, our lads toasted their stockinged feet before the few remaining embers of the fire, and, in various languages, all four discussed the adventures of the day.