"Not so very long? Do you believe that yourself, Mr. Richardson?" "Certainly I do. Once this valley was a basin of ice. Have you not studied geology, Archibald?" "I have, sir, and I never learned that a glacier could ever thrive in such a d--d hot hole as this. Say, Richardson, were you living in the Glacial Period?" "Which one?" "Was there more than one?" "Yes, sir." "Were you living in the last one?" "Yes, sir." "Hear that, guide, Richardson says he was living in the Glacial Period, which was more than 40,000 years ago, and he does not look to be more than two or three hundred years old. Will you explain, Mr. R.?" "Oh, yes, the Glacial Period is now on at the poles--long ago it was on in this valley and still longer ago it was down in the states. Do you not know that our world is slowly revolving in the direction we call south? That is God's wise plan to give each part of the earth rest. Tropical animals once lived here and in Siberia. "Who told you all that stuff?" "Geology, sir; the same book which you have been studying. By the way, did you ever learn about the Neanderthal man whose skull was found in a cave in the Neanderthal Valley, with the bones of a bear? The man must have lived contemporary with Adam, and it seems that the bear----" "Were the bones of that man and bear found in this place?" "No! No! Do not get excited." "But you said they were found in Mendenthal Valley." "I said Neanderthal, where a prehistoric race once lived, but really where the bones were found closely resembles this place as well as the name, for I have been there. It is in Prussia. Now let me illustrate by our presence here, what may once have occured in the Neanderthal Valley. Suppose one of those ferocious she-bears should come spat upon us now and the guide and I should escape, while she dragged your mangled corpse----" "Bah-aa-aa," roared the guide. "What are you laughing at, you great fool?" said Archibald. "Laughing to see your eyes bulge out." "Please do not speak that way to Mr. Archibald," I said, "he knows we're in no danger, so long as there's plenty of trees to climb." [Illustration: ARTHUR, CHARLIE NEWELL, MRS. OLIVER AND FRIENDS.] "Your business, sir," said Archibald to the guide, "is to take us to the glacier and the quicker the better. Neither Mr. Richardson or myself care to roost in these trees over night." "Twon't be sundown till nigh midnight," grunted the guide, and we all started on. I was following close on the heels of the guide as we entered an opening, when we all stopped and gazed in astonishment at a dead glacier. Two miles or so away stretched across the valley stood a perpendicular wall of glistening ice, about 250 feet high and four miles long, reaching across the entire valley.