Page:Lost with Lieutenant Pike (1919).djvu/137

 "Hurrah!" cheered the doctor. "See them?"

Baroney stared. Stub stared. It was the same bluish cloud, only larger and plainer. It jutted sharply—no, it sort of floated, but it did not move. It was fastened to the earth. And north from it there extended a long line of other clouds, lower, as far as one might see; while southward from it were still lower clouds, tapering off.

"One big mountain! A giant! Ma foi, how big!" Baroney gasped.

"All mountains. The Mexican mountains, on the edge of the United States," announced the lieutenant. "Take the glass. Look—you and Stub."

Look they did. The spy-glass worked wonders. It brought the clouds much closer, and broke them. They were no longer clouds—they changed to mountains indeed. In the spy-glass they shimmered whitely. That was snow! Or white rocks! They were medicine mountains. And the big mountain, so high, so mysterious, so proud: a chief mountain.

"You have been there?" asked the doctor, eagerly, of Stub. "With the Utahs?"

"No." And Stub shook his head. "Not there. No remember."

"Pshaw!" the doctor answered.

The column came panting up. The doctor and the lieutenant again waved their hats.