Northward, far out beyond the great shoulders of the mountain, they could see glimpses of the lower hills and valleys. But all nearer the mountain was hidden by the low white cloud beneath their feet. To the northeast and east was nothing but cloud, about a thousand feet below them. The same was true to the south. Southwestward, over the long shoulders of the Crawford Bridle Path, where they had climbed the day before, lay the same great blanket of white wool.
“Say, this peak of Washington looks just like a great rock island in the sea,” cried Lou.
Now the world was almost bright as day. The east was rosy, the upper sky blue, the stars gone. The great white ocean of cloud below them heaved and eddied under the gusts of northwest wind which swept down from the summit, wherever a wave crest rose above the level. The sun, a great red ball, appeared in the east, and the bugler set his bugle to his lips and blew a long blast of welcome.
It was a wonderful, a beautiful spectacle. As they watched, the clouds below them heaved and stirred, and seemed to thin out here and there, and suddenly to the northeast a second rock island, shaped like a pyramid, appeared to rise out of the pink and white sea.
“Hello, there’s Jefferson!” cried one of the men.
Then a second island, also a peak of bare rock, rose beyond Jefferson.
“And there’s Adams,” said Mr. Rogers.
“And there’s Madison,” said the bugler, as a third peak rose up from the cloud sea, beyond Adams.
“What is between those peaks and the shoulder of Washington I see running northeast?” asked Frank.
“The Great Gulf,” one of the men replied. “There must have been a heavy dew in the Gulf last night. It’s packed full of clouds.”