"Ho! ho!" laughed Alaric; "that's a good one. Why, Bonny, Filbert is his surname. F-i-l-b-e-r-t—the same as the nut, you know, only the French pronounce things differently from what we do."
"I should say they did if that's a specimen, and I'm glad I'm not expected to talk in any such language. Plain Chinook and every-day North American are good enough for me. I suppose he would say 'Rainy' for Rainier?"
"Something very like it. I see you are catching the accent. We'll make a Frenchman of you yet before this trip is ended."
"Humph!" ejaculated Bonny. "Not if I know it, you won't."
Sunrise of the following morning found the horsemen of the expedition galloping over the brown sward of the park-like prairie toward the forest that for hundreds of miles covers the whole western slope of the Cascade Range like a vast green blanket. The road soon entered the timber and began a gradual ascent, winding among the trunks of stately firs and gigantic cedars that often shot upward for more than one hundred feet before a branch broke their columnlike regularity.
By noon they were at Indian Henry's, twenty miles on their way, and at the end of the wagon-road. That night camp was pitched in the dense timber, and our lads had their first taste of life in the forest. How snugly they were walled in by those close-crowding tree-trunks, and how they revelled in the roaring camp-fire, with its leaping flames, showers of dancing sparks, and perfume of burning cedar! What a delight it was to lie on their blankets just within its circle of light and warmth, listening to its crisp cracklings! Mingled with these was the cheery voice of a tumbling stream that came from the blackness beyond, and the soft murmurings of night winds among the branches far above them.
Another day's journey through the same grand forest, only broken by the verdant length of Succotash Valley, and by the rocky beds of many streams, brought them to Longmire's Springs and the log cabins of the hardy settler who had given them his name. At this point, though they had been steadily ascending ever since leaving Yelm Prairie, they were still less than three thousand feet above the sea, and the real work of climbing was not yet begun. After an evening spent in listening to Longmire's thrilling descriptions of the difficulties and dangers awaiting them, Bonny admitted to Alaric that he had never before entertained even a small idea of what a mountain really was.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
ON THE EDGE OF PARADISE VALLEY.
From the springs a four-mile scramble through the woods and up the rocky beds of ancient waterways brought the party to a place where the Nisqually River must be crossed. Here a single giant tree had been felled so as to span the torrent, and its upper surface roughly hewn to a level. A short distance above the rude bridge rose the frowning front of a glacier. Although its ice was mud-stained and honeycombed by countless rivulets that ponied from its upper surface in tiny cascades, it still formed an inspiring spectacle, and one that filled Bonny with wondering admiration, for it was his first glacier.