"May I ask," said Scranton, addressing himself to me, "how you learned that my grandfather had visited the mountain? And _what_ you know?" "When I was a boy, I heard a man--his name was Simpson--tell about it." "Oh," said Scranton, and it was as though some fear or some thing of dread had suddenly left him. "His story, however," I added, "was vague, mysterious. Even at the time I couldn't understand what it was all about." "Of course. For, though Simpson knew of the journey, he knew but little of what had _happened_. And more than once did I hear my grandfather express regret that he had told Simpson even as much as he had. I suppose there was something, perhaps a great deal, of that I-could-tell-a-lot-if-I-wanted-to in Simpson's yarn." "There was," I nodded. "The man, however, knew virtually nothing--in fact, nothing at all about _it_. I have no doubt, though, that he did a lot of guessing. I don't believe that my grandfather, dead these many years now, ever told a single living soul all. And, as for all that he told me--well, I can't tell everything even to you, Mr. Rhodes." A strange look came into the eyes of Milton Rhodes, but he remained silent. Scranton raised the notebook again. "Nor is everything here. Nor do I propose to read everything that is here. Just now the details do not matter. It is the facts, the principal facts, with which we have to do now. This record, if you are interested--and I have no doubt that you will be--I shall leave in your hands until such time as you care to return it to me. "Now for my grandfather's journey. "With three companions, he left the old homestead near what is now Puyallup, on the 16th of August, 1858. At Steilacoom, they got an Indian guide, Sklokoyum by name. The journey was made on horseback to the Sick Moon Prairie.[3] There the animals were left, with one man to guard them, and my grandfather, his two companions and the Indian--this guide, however, had never been higher up the Nisqually River than Copper Creek--set out on foot for the mountain." [Footnote 3: _Sick Moon_: _Old Moon_ in the Chinook jargon.--Darwin Frontenac.] "One moment," Milton Rhodes interrupted. "According to that Simpson, it was something that your grandfather heard from the soldier Hamilton, and not from Kautz himself, that led to his making this journey to Mount Rainier. Is that correct?" "Yes; it is correct." "May I ask, Mr. Scranton, what it was that he learned?" Again that enigmatic smile on Scranton's face. He tapped the old journal. "You will learn that, Mr. Rhodes, when you read this record." "I see. Pray proceed." Chapter 3 THE MYSTERY OF OLD HE "It was about three o'clock in the afternoon of the 24th," said Scranton, "that they reached the foot of the Nisqually Glacier, called Kautz Glacier by my grandfather. As for what followed, I shall give you that in my grandfather's own words."