Page:Lost with Lieutenant Pike (1919).djvu/267

 Near noon, the next day, the lieutenant and the doctor, in the advance as usual, turned and gladly beckoned, and pointed before. They all hastened. The signs were good—the brush had been flattened or cut off, down a long draw, and the trees had been blazed and curiously painted with rude figures. It was an Indian pass.

The lieutenant and the doctor had gone on. When the others arrived at the spot, they saw.

"We're coming out, boys!"

"We'll be out before night!"

A separate, distant range of mountains might be sighted, through the gap made by the blazed trail; and below, nearer, there was glimpse of the low country, bordered on this side by bare sandy foothills of these Great White Mountains themselves.

At sunset they were down and into the open, between the timbered slopes and the rolling sand-hills. On the west, beyond the sand-hills there appeared to be a wide valley; and beyond the valley that other range of mountains.

Camp had to be made soon, here at the base of the Great White Mountains. The lieutenant went out alone, to climb the sand-hills, for a view. They could see him, a small figure, toiling up and standing, to peer through his spy-glass. He came back in the dusk, but his face was aglow.