Drome/Chapter 4
Chapter 4
"Voices!"
Scranton closed the journal on the forefinger of his right hand and looked at Milton Rhodes.
"Well," said he, "what do you think of that?"
Rhodes did not say what he thought of it. I thought I knew—though I had to acknowledge that I wasn't sure just what I thought of this wild yarn myself.
After a little silence, Milton asked: "Is that all?"
"All? Indeed, no!" returned Scranton.
He opened the book and prepared to read from it again.
"This adventure I have just read to you," he said, looking over the top of the journal at Milton Rhodes, "took place in what is now known as Paradise Park—a Paradise where there is sometimes twenty-five feet of snow in the winter."
"Of course," Milton nodded, "for they had climbed the eastern wall of the canyon and camped near the edge."
"And the one that followed," Scranton added, "on the Cowlitz Glacier. I suppose, Mr. Rhodes, that you have visited Rainier?"
"Many times. Few men, I believe, know the great mountain better than I do—and I never followed in the footsteps of a guide, imported or otherwise, either."
"Then you know the Tamahnowis Rocks in the Cowlitz?"
"I have been there a dozen times."
"Did you ever notice anything unusual at that place?"
"Nothing whatever. I found the ascent of the rocks rather difficult and the crevasses there interesting, but nothing more."
"Well," said Scranton, "it was there that what I am going to read to you now took place. Yes, I know that it was there at the Tamahnowis Rocks, though I never could find anything there. And now, after all these long years, once more it is in that spot that——"
He broke off abruptly and dropped his look to the old record.
Milton Rhodes leaned forward.
"Mr. Scranton," he asked, "what were you going to say?"
Scranton tapped the journal with a forefinger.
"This first," he said. "Then that."
"The story begins to take shape," observed Milton Rhodes—and I wondered what on earth he meant. "Pray proceed."
Whereupon the other raised the book, cleared his throat and started to read to us this astonishing record:
"August 25th.—I was right: the very first thing in the morning the Indian left us. Nothing could induce him to go forward, or even to remain at the camp. The demons of Rainier would get us, said he, if we went on—the terrible tamahnowis that dwelt in the fiery lake on the summit and in the caverns in the mountainside—caverns dark and fiery and horrible as the caves in hell. Had we not had warning? One had come down here, even among the trees, and undoubtedly it would have killed us all had it not been for that angel. He, Sklokoyum, would not go forward a single fpot. He was going to klatawah hyak kopa Steilacoom. How the old fellow begged us to turn back, too! It was quite touching, as was his leave-taking when he finally saw that we were determined to go on. Old Sklokoyum acted as though he was taking leave of the dead—as, indeed, he was! And at last he turned and left us, and in a few minutes he had vanished from sight. How I wish to God now that we had gone back with him!"
At this point, Scranton paused and said: "The Indian was never seen or even heard of again."
The account went on thus:
"Fog disappeared during the night. A fairer morning, I believe, never dawned on Rainier. Sky the softest, loveliest of blues. A few fleecy clouds about the summit of the mountain, but not a single wisp of vapor to be seen anywhere else in all the sky.
"Proceeded to get a good survey of things. From the edge of the canyon, got a fine view clear down the glacier and clear up it, too. Ice here covered with dirt and rock fragments, save for a strip in the middle, showing white and bluish. Badly crevassed. It must have been right about here that Kautz left the glacier. He climbed the cliffs on the other side, and then, the next morning, he started for the top. It seemed to us, however, that the ascent could be made more easily on this side. But we were not headed for the summit; we had a mystery to solve, and we immediately set about doing it.
"We started to trail them—the angel and that thing with the eyes that burned with a greenish, hellish fire. Where they had crushed through the flower-meadows, this was not difficult. At other places, however, no more sign than if they had moved on through the air itself. One thing: they had held steadily upward, never swinging far from the edge of that profound canyon in which flows that mighty river of ice.
"The ground became rocky—no sign. Then at last, in a sandy spot, we suddenly came to the plain-prints left by the feet of the angel as she passed there, and, mingled with those prints, there were marks over which we bent in perplexity and then utter amazement.
"These marks were about eight inches in length, and, as I looked at them, I felt a shiver run through me and I thought of a monstrous bird and even of a reptilian horror. But that squatting form we had seen for those few fleeting moments—well, that had not been either a bird or a reptile.
"'One tiling,' said Long, 'is plain: it was leading and the angel was following.'
"White and I looked closely, and saw that this had certainly been so.
"'It appealr,' Long remarked, 'that the fog didn't interfere any with their journey. They seem to have gone along as steadily and surely as if they had been in bright sun-shine.'
"I wonder,' White said, 'if the thing was smelling the way back like a dog.'
"'Back where?' I asked. 'And I see no sign of a down trail.'
"'Lord,' exclaimed Long, looking about uneasily, 'the Siwashes say that queer things go on up here, that the mountain is haunted; and blame me if I ain't beginning to think that they are right! Maybe, before we are done, we'll wish we had turned back with old Sklokoyum.'
"I didn't like to hear him talk like that. He spoke as though he were jesting, but I knew that superstitious dread had laid a hand upon him.
"'Nonsense!' I laughed. "Haunted? That woman and that thing—well, we know that they were real enough, even when we didn't have these footprints to tell us.'
"'Oh, they are real,' said Long. 'But real what?'
"Not long after that, we came to a snowfield, an acre or two in extent, and there we made a strange discovery. The trail led right across it. And it was plain that it had still been leading and the angel had been following. Of a sudden White, who was in advance, exclaimed and pointed.
"'Look at that,' he said. 'Its tracks end here.'
"And that is just what they did! But the tracks of the angel went right on across the snow.
"'Where did it go?' I wondered. "'Perhaps,' suggested Long, 'she picked it up and carried it.'
"But I shook my head.
"'A woman—or a man either, for the matter of that—carrying that thing!' White exclaimed. 'And you can see for yourself: die never even paused here. Had she stopped to pick the thing up—what a queer thought!—we would have the story written here in the snow.'
"'Then,' said Long, 'it must have gone on through the air. '
"'Humph!' White ejaculated.
'Well, Sklokoyum said that the thing has wings—the bat wings of the devil. '
"'But,' I objected, 'Sklokoyum was so badly scared that he didn't know what he saw.'
"'I wonder,' said White.
"Beyond the snowfield, the place
was strewn in all directions with
rock-fragments. It was comparatively
level, however, and the going was
not difficult. A tiny stream off to
the right, a steep rocky mass before us. Were soon (having crossed the
stream) ascending this. It was a
steep climb, but we were not long in
getting up it. At this place we
passed the last shrub. We figured
that we must be near an altitude of
7,000 feet now. Dark clouds forming.
At times, in a cloud shadow, the place
would have a gloomy and wild aspect.
No trail, though at intervals we would
find a disturbed stone or faint marks
in the earth. Our route lay along a
broken ridge of rock. On our left
the land fell away toward Kautz's
Glacier [the Nisqually] while on the
right, coming up close, was another
glacier [the Paradise] white and
beautiful.
"Ere long we reached a point where the ridge had a width of but a few yards, a small glacier on the left, the great beautiful one on the other side. And here we found it—the trail of the thing and Sklokoyum's angel. They had come up along the edge of the ice on our left (to avoid the climb up over the rocks) crossed over the ridge (very low at this point) and held steadily along the glacier, keeping close to the edge. And in that dense fog! And just to the right the ice went sweeping down, like a smooth frozen waterfall. A single false step there, and one would go sliding down, down into yawning crevasses. How had they done it? And where had they been going, in this region of barren rock and eternal snow and ice, through that awful fog and with night drawing on?
"There was but one way to get the answer to that, and that was to follow. And so we followed.
"And how can I set down the weird mystery, the horror that succeeded? I can not. Not that it matters, for it can never, in even the slightest feature, fade from my mind.
"Clouds grew larger, thicker, blacker. The change was a sudden, sinister one; there was something uncanny about it even. Our surroundings became gloomy, indescribably dreary and savage. We halted, there in the tracks of the thing and the angel, and looked about us, and we looked with a growing uneasiness and with an awe that sent a chill to the heart—at any rate, I know that it did to mine.
"White and Long wanted to turn back. Clouds had fallen upon the summit of Rainier and were settling lower and lower. Viewed from a distance, they are clouds, but, when you find yourself in them, they are fog; and to find our way back in fog would be no easy matter. However, so I objected, it would be by no means impossible. There would be no danger if we were careful.
"'There's that pile of rocks,' said I, pointing ahead. 'Let's go on to that at any rate. The trail seems to lead straight toward it. I hate even to think of turning back now, when we are so near.'
"Still the others hesitated, their minds, I suppose, a prey to feelings for which they could not have found a rational explanation. That, however, was not strange, for it was truly a wild and weird place and hour. At length, in an evil moment, we moved forward.
"Yes, soon there could be no doubt about it: the trail led straight toward those rocks. What would we find there? If we had only known that—well, we would never have gone on to find it. But we did not know, and so we moved forward.
"So engrossed were we that we did not see it coming. There was a sudden exclamation, we halted, and there was the fog—the dreaded fog that we had forgotten—drifting about us. The next moment it was gone, but more was drifting after. We resumed our advance. It was not far now. Why couldn't the fog have waited a little longer? But what did it matter? It could affect but little our immediate purpose; and, though I knew that it would be difficult, surely we could find our way back to the camp.
"The fog thinned, and the rocks loomed up before us, dim and ghostly but close at hand. Then the vapor thickened, and they were gone. We were in the midst of crevasses now and had to proceed with great caution.
How it happened none of us knew; but of â sudden we saw that we had lost the trail. But we did not turn back to find it. It didn't matter, really. The demon and the angel had gone to those rocks. Of that we were certain. And the rocks were right before us, though we couldn't see them now.
"We went on. Minutes passed. And still there were no rocks. At length we had to acknowledge it: in the twistings and turnings we had been compelled to make among those cursed crevasses, we had missed our objective, and now we knew not where we were.
"But we knew that we were not far. White and Long cursed and wanted to know how we were ever going to find our way back through this fog, since we had failed to find the rocks when they had been right there in front of us. 'Twas the crevasses, I told them, that had done it. But it was nothing; we would find that rock mass. We started. Of a sudden Long gave a sharp but low exclamation, and his hand clutched at my arm.