Beyond was an open field where blue and yellow flowers grew in the long, wiry grass, which was wet with the dew. This grass grew up through a thick mat of dead stalks, which was the withered growth of many years. Under the trees and bushes the leaves had rotted in the rain where they had fallen, or in the hollows where they had been tossed by the wandering winds. There was not a sign of a trail, nor a girdled tree, nor a trace of fire, nor any evidence that the foot of man had ever trodden there. The little party seemed to have come into an unknown country, and after crossing the open field they continued climbing up a gentle ascent, winding around rocks and scraggly old chestnut-trees, until they arrived under the ledge which supported the upper plateau. This was found to extend from the boulder face on the Cove side across to a mass of shelving rocks on the Cashiers valley front, and was from thirty to fifty feet in height, of a perpendicular and bulging fold in the smooth granite. After a short exploration a place was found where the ledge was broken by a shelf or platform twenty feet from the ground; and just here, in the leaves and grass below, lay the rotted fragments of a ladder which had doubtless been used by the old man of the mountain himself. CHAPTER IV A DAY OF DISCOVERIES Meanwhile Andy, with the help of the detail, was cutting and notching the timber for ladders, the captain and the three young soldiers of the station made a breakfast, standing, from their haversacks and canteens, and looked about them over the wild country at their feet, and off at the blue peaks which rose above and around the valley of Cashiers, and then at the ridges in the opposite direction, drawn like huge furrows across the western horizon, showing fainter and fainter in color until the blue of the land was lost in the blue of the sky. The men worked with a will, so that by ten o'clock the main ladder, which was just a chestnut stick deeply notched on the outer side, was firmly set in the ground against the face of the cliff. The landing-shelf was found to extend into a natural crevice, so that the short upper ladder was set to face the bridge, and so as to be entirely concealed from the view of any one approaching from below. When everything was in readiness, Lieutenant Coleman was the first to ascend, with the powerful telescope of the station strapped on his shoulders; and the others quickly followed, except the three troopers who remained behind to unpack the mules and bring up the rations and outfit for the camp. [Illustration: "LIEUTENANT COLEMAN WAS THE FIRST TO ASCEND, WITH THE TELESCOPE OF THE STATION STRAPPED ON HIS SHOULDERS."]