It was to the valley westward, now that we were upon the ridge, that they directed their attention. Donoghue, his loose jaw hanging, his teeth biting on his lips, posted on ahead of us and suddenly he stopped, stood revealed against the blue peak of the mountain on whose ridge we now travelled, in an attitude that bespoke some discovery. He was on a little eminence of the mountain’s shoulder, a treeless mound where boulders of granite stood about in gigantic ruin, with other granite outposts dotted down the hill into the midst of the trees, which stood there small and regular, just as you see them in a new plantation at home. He shaded his eyes from the light, looked finally satisfied, and then sat down to await our coming. Apache stepped forward more briskly; quick and eager we trotted up the rise where Donoghue merely pointed into the valley that had now for over an hour been so eagerly scanned. There, far off, in the green forest bottom, the leaden grey glint of a lake showed among the wearisome woods. "Ah! We’ll have a smoke up," said Apache, with an air of relief. So we sat down on our blanket-rolls in the sunlight. There was a gleam in my companions’ eyes, a look of expectation on their faces, and after that "smoke up" Apache spoke with a determined voice, dropping his cigarette end and tramping it with his heel. "We camp at that lake to-night," said he. "To-night?" said I, in astonishment, for it seemed to me a monstrous length to go before nightfall; but he merely nodded his head vehemently, and said again: "To-night," and then after a pause: "We lose time," said he, "there may be others:" and we rose to our feet. "We could n’t camp up here, anyhow," said Donoghue, looking round. It was truly a weird sight there, for we could see so many valleys now, hollows, gulches, clefts in the chaos of the mountains; here, white masts of trees all lightening-struck on a blasted knoll; there, a rocky cut in the face of the landscape like a monstrous scar; at another place a long, toothed ridge that must have broken many a storm in its day. Besides, already, though it was but afternoon, a keen, icy-cold wind ran like a draught there and the voice of the wind arose and died in our ears from somewhere in that long, rocky backbone, with a sound like a railway train going by; and so it would arise and cease again, and then cry out elsewhere in a voice of lamentation, low and mournful. Apache Kid was looking round and round, his eyes wide and bright. "I should like to see this in Winter," said he, "when leaves fall and cold winds come." "There ’s no mortal man ever saw this in Winter," said Donoghue, "and no man ever will." I saw Apache Kid linger, and look on that terrible and awesome landscape, with a half-frightened fondness; and then he cast one more glance at the leaden grey of the lake below and another at a peak on our right and, his bearings thus in mind, led the way downward into that dark and forbidding valley.