“I always wanted to have a boat to fix up,” said Jonas.  “When I was a kid my folks had an old flat-bottom tub, but I never earned enough for a can of paint.  Will you folks be home by twelve for dinner?”

There was a chorus of assent as the crew scattered to its several tasks.  Milton and Enoch started at once up the edge of the brook, hoping that the ascent might be made more easily thus.  But the crevice, out of which the little stream found its way to the Colorado, narrowed rapidly to the point where it became impossible for the two men to work their way into it.  They were obliged, after a half hour’s struggle, to return to the camp and start again.

A very steep slope of bright orange sand led from the shore to a scarcely less oblique terrace of sharp broken rock.  There were several hundred feet of the sand and, as it was dry and loose, it caused a constant slipping and falling that consumed both time and strength.  The rocky terrace was far easier to manage, and they covered that rapidly, although Enoch had a nasty fall, cutting his knee.  They were brought to pause, however, when the broken rock gave way to a sheer hard wall, which offered neither crack nor projection for hand or foot hold.

Milton led the way carefully along its foot for a quarter of a mile until they reached a fissure wide enough for them to enter.  The walls of this were crossed by transverse cracks.  By utilizing these, now pulling, now boosting each other, they finally emerged on a flat, smooth tableland, of which fissures had made a complete island.  At the southern end of the island rose an abrupt black peak.

“If we can get to the top of that,” said Milton, “it ought to bring us to the general desert level.  Is your knee bothering you, Judge?”

“Not enough to stop the parade,” replied Enoch.  “How high do you think that peak is, Milton?”

“Not less than a thousand feet, I would guess.  I bet it’s as easy to climb as a greased pole, too.”

The pinnacle, when they reached it, appeared very little less difficult than Milton had guessed it would be.  The north side offered no hope whatever.  It rose smooth and perpendicular toward the heavens.  But the south side was rough and though a yawning fissure at its base added five hundred feet to its southern height they determined to try their fortunes here.  Ledges and jutting rocks, cracks and depressions finally made the ascent possible.  The top, when they achieved it, was not twenty feet in diameter.  They dropped on it, panting.

The view which met their eyes was superb.  To the south lay the desert, rainbow colored.  Rising abruptly from its level were isolated peaks of bright purple, all of them snow capped, many of them with crevices marked by the brilliant white of snow.  Miles to the south of the isolated peaks lay a long range of mountains, dull black against the blue sky, but with the white of snow caps showing even at this distance.  To the north, the river gorge wound like a snake; the gorge and one huge mountain dominating the entire northern landscape.  Satiated by wonders as Milton was, he exclaimed over the beauty of this giant, sleeping in the desert sun.