Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/21

  any other like it; such a country as was pictured in the old imaginative school of painting; a valley, through which winds a mist river flowing intangibly from a mirage through a canyon bridged by a rainbow; travelers' palms, tree-ferns, lianas, dream-trees heavy with strange fruits and brilliant blossoms, in the distance mystic mountains rising as they recede, green yet forbidding, the homes of genii; their summits fantastic—the whole a beautiful, impossible, frightfully fascinating fairyland. This was that place where we went to look for gold.

"My two companions were failures—most gold-seekers are. I was not old enough to be a failure myself. No matter what the faults of these others, one did not deny their virtues. One was a Hollander, Vinckers, an engineer, a brilliant man, but one ready to step over the edge of heaven in sheer restlessness and a desire to see what was held by the abyss; the other was a Scotchman, disagreeable, mo rose, taciturn, harsh of speech and visage.