CHAPTER XIV

Only those persons who have made solitary trips over snow-capped mountain ridges can appreciate the overwhelming feeling of solitude that I felt on looking about me. To whatever point of view I turned my eyes were greeted with a tumbled sea composed of stupendous petrified billows.

The occasional fields of snow were the white froth of the stony waves and the turquoise colored glacial lakes between the crags rather added to the effect of an angry ocean than detracted from it.

On a closer examination, some of the rocks appeared to be rough bits of unfinished worlds still retaining the form they had when poured from the mighty blast furnaces of the Creator. It was G.o.d's workshop strewn with huge fragments, still bearing the marks of His mallet and chisel; yet these cold barren wastes were the pasture lands of the s.h.a.ggy-coated white goats and the lithe-limbed bighorned sheep.

Suddenly a shrill whistle pierced the air and with a jump I instinctively looked for a vision of the Wild Hunter, but a moment later realized that the sound I heard was but the warning cry of a whistling marmot. Again the silence was broken, this time by a low rumbling sound which increased in volume until it roared like a broadside from an old forty-four-gun man-of-war, each crag and peak taking up the sound and hurling it against its neighbor, until the reverberating noise seemed to come from all points of the compa.s.s.

Away in the distance I could see a white stream pouring from the precipitous edge of an elevated glacier; this seeming mountain torrent I knew was not water, but ice, thousands of tons of which having cracked and broken from the edge of the glacier, were now being dashed over the hard face of the rock into minute fragments.

The white stream could be seen to decrease perceptibly in size, from a broad sheet to a wide band, a narrow ribbon, a line, a hair and then disappear altogether. While the distant mountains were still growling, mumbling and playing shuttlec.o.c.k with the echoes a timid chief hare went hopping across a green half-acre of gra.s.s at the damp edge of a melting snow patch in my path. Overhead a golden eagle sailed with a small mammal in its talons; strange reddish-colored b.u.mblebees busied themselves in a bunch of flowers growing in a crevice in the rocks at my feet.

But my eye could discern no larger creatures in this Alpine pasture land; not only could I see no sheep or goats, but not a sign of my friend. He had vanished from the face of the picture as completely as if the master artist had erased him with one mighty sweep of his paint brush.

When I viewed the lonely landscape with no human being in sight, I confess to experiencing a creepy sensation and a strong inclination to flee, but I knew not in what direction to run. I was in a rough basin-shaped depression among the mountain peaks, and I sat on a large rock with my back to a black chasm. From my elevated position I could see a long distance. Strange fancies creep into one's head on such occasions and play havoc with previous well-founded beliefs. To me, poor fool of a tenderfoot, Big Pete had melted into the thinnest of thin air, such as is only found in high alt.i.tudes, and somehow I wondered whether the Wild Hunter had had anything to do with it.

How could I tell that I myself was not invisible?

I hauled myself up short there for I realized that such folly was not good to have tumbling around in my brain. I figuratively pulled myself back to earth, and to steady my nerves reached into my pack and brought out several hard bits of bannock that I had stored there. I was dreadfully hungry and I munched these with enthusiasm, meanwhile keeping a sharp eye out for Big Pete, and between times making the acquaintance of the little chief hare who, as he scuttled about among the rocks, looked me over curiously.

A short distance to my left was a huge obsidian cliff, the gla.s.sy walls of which rose in a precipice to a considerable height. On account of its peculiar formation, this crag of natural gla.s.s had several times attracted my attention, and on any other occasion I would have been curious enough to give it closer inspection. Once, as I turned my head in that direction, I thought I heard a wild laugh and later concluded that it was only imagination on my part, but now, as I again faced the cliff, I unmistakably heard a shout and was considerably relieved to see silhouetted against the sky the figure of Big Pete.

"h.e.l.lo, Le-loo," he shouted. "Through chasin' that 'ere spook Indian kid be you? It's about time. Gosh-all-hemlocks! I been breakin' my neck tryin' to keep up with you, doggone yore hide," shouted the big guide as he started to climb down toward me.

"h.e.l.lo, Pete! You bet I'm through and I'm blamed near all in. Where are we, do you know?" I called to him.

"Top o' the world, my boy. Top o' the world, that's whar we be," he said with a grin.

I had seen no game since I had lost the bighorn, and the sunball was now hung low in the heavens. It appeared to me that there was every prospect for a supperless night, too. But Big Pete evidently had no such idea, and he "'lowed" that he would "mosey" 'round a bit and kill some varmints for grub.

There seemed to be plenty of mountain lion signs, and I was surprised that they should frequent such high alt.i.tudes, but Pete told me that they were up here after marmots, and were all sleek and fat on that diet. I would not have been surprised if my wild comrade had proposed a feast on these cats. But it was not long before Pete's revolvers could be heard barking and in a short time he returned with two braces of white ptarmigan, each with its head shattered by a pistol ball, and I confess these birds were more to my liking than cat meat. Up there 'mid the snow fields the ptarmigan apparently kept their winter plumage all year round, and their natural camouflage made them utterly invisible to me, but to Pete, a white ptarmigan on a white snowfield seemed to be as easy to detect as if the same bird had been perched on a heap of coal. I had not seen one of these grouse since we had been in the mountains and was not aware of their presence until my companion returned with the four dead birds.

Without wasting time, Pete began to prepare them for cooking. He soon built a fire of some sticks which he gleaned from one or two twisted and gnarled evergreens that had wandered above timber line and cooked the birds over the embers. He gave a brace to me, and sitting on a boulder with our feet hanging over the edge we ate our evening meal without salt or pepper, and then each of us curled up like a grey wolf under the shelter of a stone and slept as safely as if we were in our bed rolls down in the genial atmosphere of the park in place of being in the bitingly cold air of the bleak mountain tops.

I, at least, slept soundly, and, thanks to the clothes Pete had so kindly made for me, I do not remember feeling cold. When I awoke again it was daylight and I could scarcely believe that I had been asleep more than five minutes since my friend bade me good-night. Big Pete was up before me, of course, and when I opened my eyes I found him cooking breakfast and making tea in a tin cup over those economical fires he so loved to build even when we were in the park where there was fuel enough for a roaring bonfire. It's queer how difficult it is to make water boil on a mountain top.

"Well, now fer the witch-b'ar track agin," said Big Pete, wiping his mouth.

"Witch-bear!" I exclaimed. "Oh-yes-you don't mean to tell me you kept following the track of that two-legged bear this far, Pete?" I exclaimed, suddenly recalling that we had started out following a mysterious moccasin trail that had later turned into bear tracks.

"Sartin' sure. Didn't you figger out that that tha' b'ar war the Injun or tha' Wild Hunter who put on moccasins made o' b'ar feet when he thought we'd foller him?" asked Pete.

"Yes, I did, but I forgot-maybe that ram was the Wild Hunter himself-blame it. Nothing will astonish me in this country."

"Yes, you fergot everything, even yore head when you started to foller that tha' ram yesterday. But I didn't. I jest kept peggin' away at them tha' rumswattel b'ar tracks and I followed 'em right up to yonder cliff.

They go on from tha', but I left 'em last night to come over by you.

Come on, we'll pick 'em up agin." And off he started.

It was soon evident that it was an exceedingly active bear which we were following for it could climb over green glacier ice like a Swiss guide and over rocks like a goat. It led us a wild, wild chase over creva.s.ses, friable and treacherous stones covered with "vergla.s.s," over dangerous couloirs and all the other things talked of in the Alps but forgotten in the Rockies, to high elevations, where frozen snow combed over the beetling crags, and the avalanches roared and thundered down the rocks, dashing the fragments of stone over the lower ice fields. We were not roped together like mountain climbers in the Swiss or Tyrolean Alps; we got the real thrills by using our own hands and feet without ice pick, staff or hobnailed shoes.

But Big Pete never hesitated and I followed him without a word, and when the trail led along the edge of a dizzy height I could look at the middle of Big Pete's broad back and then my head would not swim. It required quick and good judgment to tell just how much of a slant made a loose stone unsafe to step upon. It was exciting and exhilarating work, and the violent exercise kept me so warm that I carried most of my clothes in a bundle on my back. Presently our path led us into a goat trail, one of those century old paths made by s.h.a.ggy white Alpine animals, and used by them as regular highways. There were plenty of fresh goat signs, and the broad path led us over a saddle mountain to the verge of a cliff, beyond which it seemed impossible for anything but birds to pursue the trail. Here we sat down to rest and to make a cup of tea over a tiny fire, although wood was plentiful at this place, it being in the timber line.

Below us lay a valley, into which numerous small glaciers emptied their everlasting supply of ice and blocks of stone, and horse-tail falls poured from the melting snow fields. It might have presented enchanting prospects to an iceman or a bighorn, or a Rocky Mountain goat, but for two tired men it was a gloomy, dangerous and desolate place and I felt certain that even a witch-bear would not choose such a dangerous place as a camping ground. We had finished our tea and I was feeling somewhat refreshed when I noticed a peculiar stinging sensation about my face; I felt as if I had been attacked by some peculiar form of insect. But there were none in sight.

Pete, at this time, was some distance away prospecting the "lay of the land." I saw him suddenly pull the cape of his wamus over his face, and reasoned that he also had been attacked by these invisible insects.

To my surprise, the big fellow seemed very much alarmed, and every time I shouted to him it greatly excited him. As he was hurrying to me as rapidly as possible, I desisted from further inquiry. When Big Pete reached my side he pulled a handkerchief from around my neck and put it over my mouth, making signs which I did not comprehend. At last he put his m.u.f.fled mouth to my ear and shouted through the cape of his wamus.

"Shut yer meat-trap or you're food for the coyotes. It is the WHITE DEATH!"

CHAPTER XV

Clothes and stage trappings can neither add nor detract from our respect for death. He is the same grim old gentleman, be his mouldy bones naked, or clothed in robes of the most gaudy or brilliant hues. A blue death, a red death or a yellow death is just as grizzly and awe-inspiring as one of any shade of gray. Even a black death excites no emotions not touched by the first name, for it is the dread messenger himself whom we respect and not his fanciful robes of office.

As far as I am personally concerned, I confess that Big Pete's painful suggestion about the coyotes had more to do with keeping my mouth shut than any terror inspired by the lily-like purity of the garments of the white death; what made my bones ache was the thought of the wolves gnawing them.

Overhead the sun shone with an unusual brilliancy, and the atmosphere had that peculiar crystalline transparency which kills s.p.a.ce and brings distant objects close to one's feet. Where then was the terrible white messenger? Why must my head be m.u.f.fled like a mummy? Why must I keep my mouth shut, while the curiosity mill within me was working overtime grinding out questions I should dearly love to ask?

Again and again I looked around me to see where this ghostly white terror might lurk, and now, as I gazed at the mountains, I was surprised and annoyed to discover that the distant peaks were gradually disappearing, being blotted out of the landscape before my eyes; a ghost-like mantle was creeping over and enshrouding the mountains.

Like Big Pete, the witch-bear, the ptarmigan and the stinging insects, the mountains themselves had joined in the weird game and were donning their fernseed caps of invisibility. Now the air around and about me seemed to be filled with powdered dust of mica that glinted, sparkled and scintillated in the sunshine. The breeze which was tossing about the bright atoms loosened the handkerchief which swathed my nose and mouth, and I was seized with a violent fit of coughing.

It was no gentle hand which Big Pete laid on my shoulder before he again bound the handkerchief around my face and motioned for me to follow him.

Evidently my guide had been making good use of his time while I was engaged in idle speculation, for he led me to a point about fifty yards from the goat trail where there was a possible place to descend the cliff to a ledge fifty feet below. By this time I had become enough of a mountaineer to follow my guide over trails which a few weeks previous would have seemed to me impossible to traverse, and after a hasty and daring descent we reached the ledge, where I discovered the black mouth of a cavern; into this hole Pete thrust me and led me back some twenty yards into the darkness, ordered me to disrobe to the waist, then he began a most vigorous and irritating slapping and rubbing of my chest; so insistent and persevering was he that I really thought my skin would be peeled from shoulders to waist. At last he desisted and ordered me to put on all my clothes.

"Are you mad, Pete? Has the rarefied air of the mountains upset your brain? If not, will you kindly tell me what on earth all this means and why we are hiding in this gloomy hole?" I asked as soon as I got the breath back in my body.

"Le-loo, you be a baby, and need a keeper to prevent you from committing susancide several times a day. Tenderfoot? Well, I should say so. No one but a short-horn from the East would keep his mouth open gulping in the frozen fog, filling his warm lungs with quarts of fine ice. I reckon it would be healthier to breathe pounded gla.s.s, fur it hain't sharper nor half as cold. Why, Le-loo, tha' be a dose of fever and lung inflammation in every mouthful of this frozen fog."

He held my face between his two strong hands so that the faint light that filtered through the murky darkness from the cavern's mouth dimly illuminated my countenance, and as he watched the streams of perspiration falling in drops from the end of my nose his frown relaxed and a broad grin spread over his handsome features.

"You're all right this time," he added "I calculate that I've melted all the ice in your bellows, so just creep up tha' and sweat a bit more to make it slick and sartin that we've beat the White Death this trip." I did as he said, not because I wanted to sweat but because habit made me obey the commands of my guide.

Evidently this cavern had been in constant use by some sort of animals as a sort of stable for many, many years, and I have had sweeter couches, but by this time my rough life had transformed me into something of a wild animal myself, and it was not long before I was comfortably dozing. During the time that I slept I was dimly conscious of being surrounded by a crowd of people; as the absurdity of this forced itself through my sleep-befuddled brain and I opened wide my eyes, what I saw made me open my eyes still wider.

I was about to start to my feet when I felt Big Pete's restraining hand on my shoulder, and not until then did I realize that the cave was crowded with the s.h.a.ggy white Rocky Mountain goats, and not weird, white-bearded old men. Few persons can truly say that they have been within arm's length of a flock of these timid and almost unapproachable animals; but we had invaded their secret place of refuge, and they had not, as yet, taken alarm at our presence in their castle. It may be that the frozen fog had driven the goats to the cavern for shelter, and it is possible that never having been hunted by man, these animals feared the White Death more than they did human beings, and did not realize the dangerous character of their present visitors; whatever the cause of their temerity, the fact remains that men and goats slept that night in the cavern together.

I did not awake next morning until after the departure of the goats and opened my eyes to find myself alone in the cavern.

Having all my clothes on, no time was wasted at my toilet, but I made my way directly to the doorway and was gratified to discover that Big Pete was roasting some kid chops over the hot embers of a fire.