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 the stream, to strike westward, on a trail more direct.

Soldier Miller scratched his head, on which the hair was long.

"It's a queer thing, John," he said. "There it is, that peak—and there it's been for more'n a hundred miles, with us a-making for it and never reaching it."

"We'll not reach it this day, that's sure, lad," answered John. "We've covered ten miles, and you'd think we'd been standin' still!"

In two miles more the sun had set. The shadows of the mountains seemed to extend out over the plain and turn it dark and cold. Stub pulled his robe closer around his neck. Now the Grand Peak had changed to deep purple—it had pulled its own robe up, for the night.

The lieutenant and the doctor suddenly veered aside, to a single low cedar, the only tree of the kind, around. There they halted and swung from their saddles.

"We'll make camp, men," the lieutenant ordered. "The base of the mountain evidently is farther than we had figured. But we'll reach it to-morrow morning, easily, and doubtless the top also, before night."

This was a cold camp—very cold with the breath from the mountains. They had dried buffalo-meat to chew on, but no water except that in the canteens,