Part 15 (2/2)

They all had disappeared within their tents except Miss White, who insisted on cooking something for us, although we protested that the sc.r.a.ps of the banquet were all right for mere guides.

She stood beside us for a few minutes, watching us busy with our delicious dinner.

”You poor fellows,” she said gently. ”You are nearly starved.”

It is agreeable to be sympathized with by a tall, fair, fresh young girl.

We looked up, simpering gratefully.

”This is really a most lovely little lake,” she said, gazing out across the still, crystalline water which was all rose and gold in the sunset, save where the sombre shapes of the towering mountains were mirrored in gla.s.sy depths.

”It's odd,” I said, ”that no trout are jumping. There ought to be lots of them there, and this is their jumping hour.”

We all looked at the quiet, oval bit of water. Not a circle, not the slightest ripple disturbed it.

”It must be deep,” remarked Brown.

We gazed up at the three lofty peaks, the bases of which were the sh.o.r.es of this tiny gem among lakes. Deep, deep, plunging down into dusky profundity, the rocks fell away sheer into limpid depths.

”That little lake may be a thousand feet deep,” I said. ”In 1903 Professor Farrago, of Bronx Park, measured a lake in the Thunder Mountains, which was two thousand seven hundred and sixty-nine feet deep.”

Miss White looked at me curiously.

Into a patch of late suns.h.i.+ne flitted a small b.u.t.terfly--one of the _Grapta_ species. It settled on a chip of wood, uncoiled its delicate proboscis, and spread its fulvous and deeply indented wings.

”_Grapta California_,” remarked Brown to me.

”_Vanessa asteriska_” I corrected him. ”Note the a.n.a.l angle of the secondaries and the argentiferous discal area bordering the subcostal nervule.”

”The characteristic stripes on the primaries are wanting,” he demurred.

”It is double brooded. The summer form lacks the three darker bands.”

A few moments' silence was broken by the voice of Miss White.

”I had no idea,” she remarked, ”that Alaskan guides were so familiar with entomological terms and nomenclature.”

We both turned very red.

Brown mumbled something about having picked up a smattering. I added that Brown had taught me.

Perhaps she believed us; her blue eyes rested on us curiously, musingly.

Also, at moments, I fancied there was the faintest glint of amus.e.m.e.nt in them.

She said:

”Two scientific gentlemen from New York requested permission to join this expedition, but Mrs. Batt refused them.” She gazed thoughtfully upon the waters of Lake Gladys Doolittle Batt. ”I wonder,” she murmured, ”what became of those two gentlemen.”

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