CHAPTER XVII

IN THE LAND OF PINK SNOWS

"I--I think I should prefer to sleep downstairs," stammered Stacy.

"If that is the way you feel, you have only to roll over and you will be downstairs for keeps," promised Lieutenant Wingate.

"All right, I'll sleep in the hole in the ground, but don't you dare throw dirt on me," warned Stacy, crawling into the trench and cautiously disposing of himself to see if his bed fitted. "This isn't even half a bed, Tom. How am I going to turn over?"

"Don't," laughed Grace.

"Yes, please do," urged Emma.

"Wow!" muttered Chunky sitting up and peering over the edge of his bed at the cloud-sea rolling slowly along just below the camp. "Wouldn't it be a terrible catastrophe if I were to be transmigrated out of bed?"

"That depends upon the point of view," suggested Emma.

The Overlanders were startled at this juncture by a shout from the Chinaman, accompanied by a series of bangs.

"Somebody knocked over the kitchen table!" cried Chunky.

"Me savvy piecee kettle go 'way," wailed Woo, who, in emptying out some dishes, had let them fall over the side of the ridge so that the utensils were then on their way to the bottom of the canyon, a thousand feet below.

"He has lost the kettle," groaned Nora. "At this rate we shall soon be without anything."

"Except our appetites," finished Chunky.

"What a tragedy," observed Emma.

"Don't wolly till to-mollow," advised the guide. "Hi-lee, hi-lo!" Nothing could disturb the equanimity of Woo Smith for very long, and he immediately resumed his duties. The loss of a few utensils was not a thing to be greatly disturbed about--at least he so reasoned the matter out.

It was late in the evening when the Overlanders finally got into their trenches and dropped off to sleep, but their sleep was brief. First, Stacy had a nightmare and set up such a howling that all hands awakened in alarm. The next disturbance came when a sudden mountain wind-storm sprang up. The Overlanders were aroused just in time to see their campfire lifted into the air and hurled out over the clouds in which the embers and sparks quickly disappeared.

"Oh, this is terrible! We shall surely be blown off the ridge," cried Emma.

"Lie down in your trenches and let the blooming storm blow itself out!" shouted Hippy. "No wind-storm up here can harm you so long as you keep down."

The girls of the party rather reluctantly lay down again, and found that, in that position, the wind barely touched them, and, from that time on, peace reigned in the Overland camp until morning. The morning, however, brought with it fresh troubles. Every member of the party awakened shivering. Stacy declared that his feet were frozen, which Emma asserted was a chronic condition with him.

The Overlanders dragged themselves from the trenches, shoulders hunched forward, hands thrust into their pockets, their faces blue and pinched. The limit of their endurance was reached, however, when the familiar voice of Woo Smith assailed their ears.

"Hi-lee, hi-lo! Don't wolly till to-mollow," sang the guide.

"Smith!" shouted Tom Gray.

"He--he thi--thi--thinks he's a bird," chattered Stacy. "I hope he tries to fly."

"Smith, please cut out the singing and prepare hot coffee as quickly as possible," directed Tom.

"Me savvy coffee. Me savvy nicee piecee day. You savvy nicee day?" bubbled the guide.

"Oh, let him have his way, Tom," urged Grace laughingly. "We should be glad that we have such a cheerful guide."

"Cheerful idiot!" muttered Tom.

"Yes, Woo. We savvy," called Grace, smiling over at the grinning face of the Chinaman. "Please make haste with the breakfast, though. Girls, get up and look out over the wonderful scene before you, and I will guarantee that you will instantly forget your troubles."

With shaded eyes, they looked and did, for the moment, forget their chilled condition. The peaks were now in the full glare of the morning sun, while down in the canyons day had not yet fully dawned, and the dim shadows there were gray with the morning mist.

Another day of hard riding was before them, but before starting out Tom and Hippy announced that they would try to find a trail up the mountain that loomed in the sky some distance beyond. Upon reaching the end of the ridge that formed a natural bridge connecting two mountain ranges, Tom and Hippy came upon a sharp descent that led down into a broad, open valley, beyond which lay the mountain they were to climb.

"This looks promising," nodded Tom, as they jogged down into the valley.

"It is more than that; it is wonderful," cried Hippy as the two men found themselves in a field knee-deep with blue lupines that grew there in profusion. The odor of the flowers was almost overpowering. To the right and the left of the two explorers were bunches of tuft-grass, here and there groves of slender lodge-poles, and spindling pines and junipers. Tom and Hippy paused in admiring silence. It was more beautiful than anything that they had thought possible in this rugged country.

While they were hunting for a possible trail that would lead them up the mountain, Tom Gray declared that Nature had used this sweetly scented field for a dumping ground, after having completed the building of the mountain itself.

"Yes, and she protected her work mighty well when she erected that snow-capped peak," answered Hippy. "I know that there _must_ be a way out of this place to reach that mountain," he added, getting up from a fall, very red of face, his jaw set stubbornly.

Despite their persistent efforts to find a trail out of the valley of the lupines, it was noon before they did discover a possible way out for their party. After marking it by tying a handkerchief to the bent-over top of a spindling pine, they started back to join their companions. The Overland party had some time since saddled and bridled their ponies and were ready to move when Tom and Hippy returned to them, and all were on their way soon after the arrival of the two men.

"You are going to see something that will gladden your heart, Brown Eyes," declared Hippy as they started on. It was late in the afternoon when they finally rode into the valley below. The blue lupines, the grass, the pines and the junipers there presented a scene that brought cries of delighted amazement from the Overland girls.

"Oh, look at the pink ice cream!" cried Emma, pointing to the towering mountain which they were to try to climb.

"Why, Tom, we didn't notice that coloring on the snow up there this morning," exclaimed Lieutenant Wingate. "It must be a cloud reflection." Tom Gray nodded and said that the pink shade probably would soon disappear.

"We must camp in the midst of these flowers," cried Grace Harlowe. "It is finer than any place we have yet seen in these mountains."

"I agree with you," answered Elfreda. "It gives me fresh courage to go on. Why, Grace, I feel as if I could vault a six-foot fence."

"Suppose you try to jump over the white mare," suggested Grace, laughingly. "This high altitude has gone to my head, too."

"No, thank you. I think that it might be best for a person of my years to keep her feet on the ground," laughed Elfreda. "But the effect, as well as the view here, is wonderful. I do not believe there is anything like it anywhere else in the world."

Camp was promptly made amid the flowers. Soon thereafter the clouds on the horizon rolled down behind the mountains as the sun sank out of sight, but as long as light remained on the mountain tops, the wonderful pink tint clung to the everlasting snows on the pinnacles, and the mosquitoes increased in numbers and ferociousness.

"The higher we go the worse they get," complained Stacy Brown. "Isn't it queer how that pink tint hangs on?"

"Say, girls," bubbled Emma Dean, "what if it should prove to be ice cream in reality?"

"In that event I know someone who never would go home," laughed Nora.

"Two someones," reflected Stacy, with a far-away, longing look in his eyes.