Bessie, who had lingered behind a moment to pick a handful of starry wild flowers, heard his steps and turned to greet him with a bright look of welcome. “I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said, in her frank way. “You see, Randolph has gone ahead with Pet Sibley, and Kittie is with Fred, so I was kind of rear-guard, all alone.”
“What kind of a flower is that?” he asked.
Bess did not know, nor did her companion.
“It seems so strange to find real wild wild-flowers,” she exclaimed. “The little home violets and mayflowers seem as tame as possible, compared.”
“This forest has never been cut into,” observed Rossiter, as they sauntered along the narrow path. The lofty trees, unscarred by axe or fire, towered high above them; beside the path waved tall ferns, starred here and there with boughs of the white blossoms the little Captain had been picking. An unseen stream, hastening downward from far-away rocky heights, called softly through the dim aisles.
After a mile or two of this thick wood, they emerged upon rough, open ground, over which they hurried, crossing a rude bridge which spanned the torrent, and—there was the Great Glacier of the Selkirks!
Bessie caught her breath, in the wonder and grandeur of it.
For in comparison with this mighty stream of ice, the glaciers of Europe are but frozen rivulets. All the Swiss glaciers combined would not reach the bulk of this monster, which covers thirty-eight square miles of mountain-side with a moving mass of ice five hundred feet thick. It is fitly guarded by the solitary peak of “Sir Donald,” whose top is lost in clouds eight thousand feet above the valley.
They moved forward at length, climbing to the edge of the glacier, and even mounting upon its wrinkled back.
The advanced division of the party were already quite at home with the big glacier, and sang their gay songs as merrily as in the cosey “Kamloops.” Fred and Randolph caught tin cupfuls of water from an icy rill, and passed it to the rest.