About nine o'clock
The Indians , having packed some of the meat for the next day , cut the rest into thin strips , and with the caribou 's head , hung them to the branches of trees out of reach of bears , to be called for on their return . The riding horses were also turned loose , in a broad meadow to stay until the return , and nothing but the pack animals taken . Their morning journey carried them higher and higher into the foothills of the Kenai range , and the trail became more rugged . About nine o'clock the Indians began to show some eagerness and excitement , and the chief told the guide that they would soon sight the peaks . Finally , the Siwashes ran ahead to the top of a sharp rise and excitedly beckoned . The boys joined them , and as they reached the summit of the ridge a peculiar scene met their gaze . The other side of the ridge sloped sharply for nearly two hundred feet to a valley nearly half a mile wide , paved with gravel and boulders , and as bald of vegetation as a desert .