"The mountains, men! You see the Mexican mountains—the Great Stony Mountains. Three cheers, now, for the Mexican mountains!"
Everybody cheered three times: "Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!" Only the horses stood with heads drooping; they did not care.
"How far, would you think, cap'n?" Sergeant Meek queried.
"We ought to reach their base day after to-morrow."
"Hooray!"
But although they all marched ten more miles to-day, and more than eleven miles the next day, and more than twenty-three miles the next day, from camp on the third evening the big chief mountain and the lesser mountains seemed no nearer than before.
"Sure, they're marchin' faster'n we are," said John Sparks.
"Spirit mountains," Stub decided. "See 'em, no get 'em."
Another horse was about to die. There were fresh Indian signs, again. The Spanish trail had been found—it led onward, toward the mountains. The country was growing more bare, the air thinner and chillier. Through the spy-glass the mountains looked bare.
