It was a few minutes past three on the afternoon of the day following when Milton Rhodes and I got into his automobile and started for Mount Rainier. When we arrived at the Park entrance, which we did about half-past six, the speedometer showed a run of one hundred and two miles. "Any firearms, a cat or a dog in that car?" was the question when Milton went over to register. "Nope," said Milton. There was a revolver in one of his pockets, however, and another in one of mine. But there was no weapon in the car: hadn't I got out of the car so that there wouldn't be? A few moments, and we were under way again, the road, which ran through primeval forest, a narrow one now, sinuous and, it must be confessed, hardly as smooth as glass. Soon we crossed Tahoma Creek, where we had a glimpse of the mountain, its snowy, rocky heights aglow with a wonderful golden tint in the rays of the setting sun. Strange, wild, fantastic thoughts and fears came to me again, and upon my mind settled gloomy foreboding--sinister, nameless, foreboding terrible as a pall. We were drawing near the great mountain now, with its unutterable cosmic grandeur and loneliness, near to its unknown, which Milton Rhodes and I were perhaps fated to know soon and perhaps to know to our sorrow. From these gloomy, disturbing thoughts, which yet had a strange fascination too, I was at length aroused by the voice of Rhodes. "Kautz Creek," said he. And the next moment we shot across the stream, which went racing and growling over its boulders, the pale chocolate hue of its water advertising its glacial origin. "Up about two thousand four hundred feet now," Milton added. "Longmire Springs next. I say, Bill, I wonder where we shall be this time tomorrow, eh?" "Goodness knows. Sometimes I find myself wondering if the whole thing isn't pure moonshine, a dream. An angel and a demon on the slopes of Mount Rainier! And they say that this is the Twentieth Century!" Rhodes smiled wanly. "I think that you will find the thing real enough, Billy, me lad," said he. "Too real, maybe. The fact is that I don't know what on earth to think." "The only thing to do is to wait, Bill. And we won't have to wait long, either." When we swung to the grade out of Longmire, I thought that we were at last beginning the real climb to the mountain. But Milton said no. "When we reach the Van Trump auto park, then we'll start up," said he.