"I know where we wouldn't have been: inside that blessed cy-nado!""Nor here, where you can catch brook trout in your clothes without the trouble of taking them off, youngster.""And where you'll catch a precious hiding, without you let up harping on that old string; it's way out of tune already, old man,""Tit for tat. Excuse us, please, uncle Phaeton. We're like colts in fresh pasture, this morning," brightly apologised Bruno, for both.
Apparently the professor paid no attention to that bit of sparring between his nephews, staring into the glowing camp-fire with eyes which surely saw more than yellow coals or ruddy flames could picture; eyes which burned and sparkled with all the fires of distant youth.
"The dearest dream of all my life!" he repeated, in half dreamy tones, only to rouse himself, with a a start and shoulder shake, an instant later, forcing a bright smile as he glanced from face to face. "And why not? How better could my last years be employed than in piercing the clouds of mystery, and doubt, and superstition, with which this vast tract has been enveloped for uncounted ages?""Is it really so unknown, then, uncle Phaeton?" hesitatingly asked Bruno, touched, in spite of himself, by that intensely earnest tone and expression. "Of course, I know what the Indians say; they are full of a rude sort of superstitious awe, which--""Which is one of the surest proofs that truth forms a foundation for that very superstition," quickly interjected the professor.
"It is an undisputed fact that there are hundreds upon hundreds of square miles of terra incognita, lying in this corner of Washington Territory. No white man ever fairly penetrated these wilds, even so far as we may have been carried while riding the tornado. Or, if so, he assuredly has never returned, or made known his discoveries.""Provided there was anything beyond the ordinary to see or experience, shouldn't we add, uncle?" suggested Waldo, modestly.
"There is,--there must be! No matter how wildly improbable their traditions may seem in our judgment, it only takes calm investigation to bring a fair foundation to light. In regard to this vast scope of country, go where you will among the natives, question whom you see fit, as to its secrets, and you will meet with the same results: a deep-seated awe, a belief which cannot be shaken, that here strange monsters breed and flourish, matched in magnitude and power by an armed race of human beings, before whose awful might other tribes are but as ants in the pathway of an elephant."Waldo let escape a low, prolonged whistle of mingled wonder and incredulity, but Bruno gave him a covert kick, himself too deeply interested to bear with a careless interruption just then.
"Of course there may be something of exaggeration in all this,"admitted the enthusiastic professor. "Undoubtedly, there is at least a fair spice of that; but, even so, enough remains to both waken and hold our keenest interest. Listen, and take heed, my good lads.
"You have often enough, of late days, noticed these mountains, and if you remark their altitude, the vast scope of country they dominate, the position they fill, you must likewise realise one other fact: that an immense quantity of snow in winter, rain in spring and autumn, surely must fall throughout the Olympics.
Understand?"
"Certainly; why not, uncle Phaeton?"
