"Fer sayin' tenderfeet never has sand. I'll take it all back. You've got sand enough fer anything, you hev! Do you know whut you done? Wa-al, a grizzly is harder ter kill then a hull tribe o' Injuns! I wuz dead lucky ter kill t'other one by a chance shot, an' I'd never done it ef I hedn't been so nigh ther muzzle o' my rifle wuz right up ag'in' ther varmint. You worked an old hunter's trick on him. Thet fust jab you gave ther whelp kinder spruced him up, an' he wuz ready ter crush ther stuffin' outer yer. By holdin' ther knife ez yer did, yer made him kill hisself. Guv us yer hand! I'll swar by you through thick and thin!"
"Ther trail's gittin' derned hot, boy!" said Old Rocks, near sunset. "Ther p'izen varmints can't be fur ahead."
They were passing through one of the wildest sections of the park. Mountains, capped with eternal snow, were on every hand. Their sides were seamed with mighty chasms and strewn with huge bowlders, many of which, it seemed, the weight of a hand would send crashing and thundering into the dark depths below.
Some of the mountains bore traces of vegetation, pine and cedar showing darkly on many a jagged cliff. Some were bleak and barren, but none the less grand, impressive, and awe-inspiring.
Amid these mountains were desolate canyons, which seemed to hold some dreadful secret locked fast in their silent bosoms.
Since the encounter with the grizzlies Old Rocks and Frank had paused to eat a square meal of bear-steak, and it had braced them for the tramp, so they were able to cover ground swiftly without fatigue or discomfort.
They had passed through a region of boiling geysers, where the water shot more than a hundred feet into the air, and came down in a rain, across which a beautiful rainbow formed, the roaring sound which accompanied this exhibition being as loud as the exhaust of a thousand locomotives.
In one marshy valley they had passed pools of water, sulphur yellow, bright green, pink, crimson, and nearly all colors of the rainbow, the pools being from twenty to fifty feet apart.
They had seen other things which were not given a second glance by Old Rocks, but which Frank longed to stop and examine.
But it was no time for sight-seeing, as the boy well knew, and he held close to the heels of the unwearying guide.