"That's so," replied Jack. "People say that we can't count the stars in the sky, and that we can't understand how many miles away from the earth the sun or the moon is, and, of course, that's true, but it's just as hard for us to understand some of the things that are going on right under our noses, as it is to understand time or space."
Up on this mountain peak the wind blew cool, and it was not long before they were ready to turn about and begin the descent.
"We'll go back the way we came," said Hugh, "and we want to go just as carefully over this snow as we did when we were coming up. Only one man must move at a time, and the others must fix themselves firmly, so as to hold him if he slips."
The traverse back across the snow was made in safety, and before very long they found themselves on the low rocky ridge over which they must descend to return over the ice.
Before leaving it they sat down under the lee of the ridge in the warm sun, and while Hugh smoked a pipe the others looked out over the wide white field before them.
Presently Joe called out, "Look at the sheep," and pointed in front of him.
Jack looked, and at first could see nothing, but after Joe had told him where to look, he saw half a dozen tiny dark objects moving swiftly about without order over the ice a couple of miles away. Borrowing the glasses, he looked at them, and could plainly see that they were four-legged animals running to and fro over the ice field, apparently playing with each other.
Hugh looked at them and said that they were indeed sheep, as Joe had said, but confessed that he only called them sheep because he knew that no other animals could be found in such a place.
In the soil of the rocky ridge where they were sitting Jack discovered some beautiful pink flowers, but neither Hugh nor Joe could give them a name. They grew on exceedingly short stems from little round bunches of green leaves shaped like a pincushion and with the general aspect of what Jack remembered in Eastern gardens as phlox.
He would have liked to take some of these flowers back with him to have them identified, but had no way of carrying them.
Still roped together, the three once more descended to the ice, and started toward camp.