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ONWARD INTO WINTER

"So yez didn't climb the Grand Peak, after all," Tom Dougherty once more queried.

"We climbed far enough. As I told you before, nothin' on two legs or on twice two legs will ever climb that Grand Peak," John Brown answered. "Only an eagle can fly there. We were above the clouds, with naught to eat and little to breathe; and yon was the Grand Peak itself, as high again."

The men were wearied, but not yet wearied of hearing about the try for the Grand Peak.

"You're right. It's beyond the reach o' lungs and legs," said Sergeant Meek. "For the cap'n and the doctor measured it to-day with their instruments, from a good sight of it. Ten thousand, five hundred and eighty-one feet above ground they make it out to be, or a good two miles into the air. And allowing for the fact that we're nigh eight thousand feet up, right where we be, though you might not think it, that peak rises more'n eighteen thousand feet above sea level. The cap'n says it's close to being the highest mountain in the world."