for the
hundredth time through his glasses. "From here it looks like a round
mountain, though it may have another shape, of course, on the other
three sides. It's a fine mountain and as it's the first time I ever saw
it I'm going to call it my peak. The forest is heavy and green clear up
to the snow line, and beyond that I think I see a vast glacier."

Two days later they made another stop in a sheltered valley through
which ran a mountain torrent. The hunter and the Little Giant shot two
mule deer and a mountain sheep, and they considered the addition to
their larder very welcome, as they had been making large inroads on
their stores. The weather, too, had grown so cold that they kept a fire
burning both day and night. Far over their heads they heard a bitter
wind of the mountains blowing, and when Will climbed out of the valley
and turned his glasses toward the White Dome he could not see the peak,
it was wrapped around so thoroughly by mists and vapors and falling
snow.

They built the fire large and high on the second night, and as they sat
around it they held a serious consultation. They feared incessant storms
and blizzards if they rose to still higher levels, and attempted to pass
around on the lofty slopes of the peak. It would, perhaps, be wiser to
follow the torrent, and enter the plains below, braving the dangers of
the Sioux.

"What good will the gold be to us if we're all froze to death under
fifty feet o' snow?" asked the Little Giant.

"None at all," replied the hunter, "and it wouldn't be any good to us,
either, if we was to slip down a precipice a thousand feet and fall on
the rocks below."

Will shivered.

"I believe I'd rather be frozen to death in Tom's way," he said.

"Then I vote that in the morning, if the wind dies, we turn down the
gorge and hunt the plains. What say you, Will?"

"It seems the wise thing to do."

"And you, Giant?"

"Me votin' last, the vote is unany-mous, an' I reckon ef we wuz to put
it to the four hosses an' two mules they'd vote jest ez we're votin'.
Tomorrow mornin', bright an' early, we start on our farewell journey
from the mountings."

They had saved and tanned the skins of three black bears they had slain,
and with big needles and pack thread they had turned them into crude
overcoats with the hair inside. Now when they put them on they found
them serviceable but heavy. At any rate, wrapped in furs they ceased to
shiver, though the wind of the mountains wa