CHAPTER XIV
Only those persons who have made solitary trips over snow-cappedmountain ridges can appreciate the overwhelming feeling of solitude thatI felt on looking about me. To whatever point of view I turned my eyeswere greeted with a tumbled sea composed of stupendous petrifiedbillows.
The occasional fields of snow were the white froth of the stony wavesand the turquoise colored glacial lakes between the crags rather addedto the effect of an angry ocean than detracted from it.
On a closer examination, some of the rocks appeared to be rough bits ofunfinished worlds still retaining the form they had when poured from themighty blast furnaces of the Creator. It was God's workshop strewn withhuge fragments, still bearing the marks of His mallet and chisel; yetthese cold barren wastes were the pasture lands of the shaggy-coatedwhite goats and the lithe-limbed bighorned sheep.
Suddenly a shrill whistle pierced the air and with a jump Iinstinctively looked for a vision of the Wild Hunter, but a moment laterrealized that the sound I heard was but the warning cry of a whistlingmarmot. Again the silence was broken, this time by a low rumbling soundwhich increased in volume until it roared like a broadside from an oldforty-four-gun man-of-war, each crag and peak taking up the sound andhurling it against its neighbor, until the reverberating noise seemed tocome from all points of the compass.
Away in the distance I could see a white stream pouring from theprecipitous edge of an elevated glacier; this seeming mountain torrent Iknew was not water, but ice, thousands of tons of which having crackedand broken from the edge of the glacier, were now being dashed over thehard face of the rock into minute fragments.
The white stream could be seen to decrease perceptibly in size, from abroad sheet to a wide band, a narrow ribbon, a line, a hair and thendisappear altogether. While the distant mountains were still growling,mumbling and playing shuttlecock with the echoes a timid chief hare wenthopping across a green half-acre of grass at the damp edge of a meltingsnow patch in my path. Overhead a golden eagle sailed with a smallmammal in its talons; strange reddish-colored bumblebees busiedthemselves in a bunch of flowers growing in a crevice in the rocks at myfeet.
But my eye could discern no larger creatures in this Alpine pastureland; not only could I see no sheep or goats, but not a sign of myfriend. He had vanished from the face of the picture as completely as ifthe master artist had erased him with one mighty sweep of his paintbrush.
When I viewed the lonely landscape with no human being in sight, Iconfess to experiencing a creepy sensation and a strong inclination toflee, but I knew not in what direction to run. I was in a roughbasin-shaped depression among the mountain peaks, and I sat on a largerock with my back to a black chasm. From my elevated position I couldsee a long distance. Strange fancies creep into one's head on suchoccasions and play havoc with previous well-founded beliefs. To me, poorfool of a tenderfoot, Big Pete had melted into the thinnest of thin air,such as is only found in high altitudes, and somehow I wondered whetherthe 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 notgood to have tumbling around in my brain. I figuratively pulled myselfback to earth, and to steady my nerves reached into my pack and broughtout several hard bits of bannock that I had stored there. I wasdreadfully hungry and I munched these with enthusiasm, meanwhilekeeping a sharp eye out for Big Pete, and between times making theacquaintance of the little chief hare who, as he scuttled about amongthe rocks, looked me over curiously.
A short distance to my left was a huge obsidian cliff, the glassy wallsof which rose in a precipice to a considerable height. On account of itspeculiar formation, this crag of natural glass had several timesattracted my attention, and on any other occasion I would have beencurious enough to give it closer inspection. Once, as I turned my headin that direction, I thought I heard a wild laugh and later concludedthat it was only imagination on my part, but now, as I again faced thecliff, I unmistakably heard a shout and was considerably relieved to seesilhouetted against the sky the figure of Big Pete.
"Hello, Le-loo," he shouted. "Through chasin' that 'ere spook Indian kidbe you? It's about time. Gosh-all-hemlocks! I been breakin' my necktryin' to keep up with you, doggone yore hide," shouted the big guide ashe started to climb down toward me.
"Hello, Pete! You bet I'm through and I'm blamed near all in. Where arewe, do you know?" I called to him.
"Top o' the world, my boy. Top o' the world, that's whar we be," he saidwith a grin.
I had seen no game since I had lost the bighorn, and the sunball was nowhung low in the heavens. It appeared to me that there was every prospectfor a supperless night, too. But Big Pete evidently had no such idea,and he "'lowed" that he would "mosey" 'round a bit and kill somevarmints for grub.
There seemed to be plenty of mountain lion signs, and I was surprisedthat they should frequent such high altitudes, but Pete told me thatthey were up here after marmots, and were all sleek and fat on thatdiet. I would not have been surprised if my wild comrade had proposed afeast on these cats. But it was not long before Pete's revolvers couldbe heard barking and in a short time he returned with two braces ofwhite ptarmigan, each with its head shattered by a pistol ball, and Iconfess these birds were more to my liking than cat meat. Up there 'midthe snow fields the ptarmigan apparently kept their winter plumage allyear round, and their natural camouflage made them utterly invisible tome, but to Pete, a white ptarmigan on a white snowfield seemed to be aseasy to detect as if the same bird had been perched on a heap of coal. Ihad not seen one of these grouse since we had been in the mountains andwas not aware of their presence until my companion returned with thefour dead birds.
Without wasting time, Pete began to prepare them for cooking. He soonbuilt a fire of some sticks which he gleaned from one or two twisted andgnarled evergreens that had wandered above timber line and cooked thebirds over the embers. He gave a brace to me, and sitting on a boulderwith our feet hanging over the edge we ate our evening meal without saltor pepper, and then each of us curled up like a grey wolf under theshelter of a stone and slept as safely as if we were in our bed rollsdown in the genial atmosphere of the park in place of being in thebitingly cold air of the bleak mountain tops.
I, at least, slept soundly, and, thanks to the clothes Pete had sokindly made for me, I do not remember feeling cold. When I awoke againit was daylight and I could scarcely believe that I had been asleep morethan five minutes since my friend bade me good-night. Big Pete was upbefore me, of course, and when I opened my eyes I found him cookingbreakfast and making tea in a tin cup over those economical fires he soloved to build even when we were in the park where there was fuel enoughfor a roaring bonfire. It's queer how difficult it is to make water boilon a mountain top.
"Well, now fer the witch-b'ar track agin," said Big Pete, wiping hismouth.
"Witch-bear!" I exclaimed. "Oh--yes--you don't mean to tell me you keptfollowing the track of that two-legged bear this far, Pete?" Iexclaimed, suddenly recalling that we had started out following amysterious moccasin trail that had later turned into bear tracks.
"Sartin' sure. Didn't you figger out that that tha' b'ar war the Injunor tha' Wild Hunter who put on moccasins made o' b'ar feet when hethought we'd foller him?" asked Pete.
"Yes, I did, but I forgot--maybe that ram was the Wild Hunterhimself--blame it. Nothing will astonish me in this country."
"Yes, you fergot everything, even yore head when you started to follerthat tha' ram yesterday. But I didn't. I jest kept peggin' away at themtha' 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 werefollowing for it could climb over green glacier ice like a Swiss guideand over rocks like a goat. It led us a wild, wild chase over crevasses,friable and treacherous stones cover
ed with "verglass," over dangerouscouloirs and all the other things talked of in the Alps but forgotten inthe Rockies, to high elevations, where frozen snow combed over thebeetling crags, and the avalanches roared and thundered down the rocks,dashing the fragments of stone over the lower ice fields. We were notroped together like mountain climbers in the Swiss or Tyrolean Alps; wegot 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 whenthe trail led along the edge of a dizzy height I could look at themiddle of Big Pete's broad back and then my head would not swim. Itrequired quick and good judgment to tell just how much of a slant made aloose stone unsafe to step upon. It was exciting and exhilarating work,and the violent exercise kept me so warm that I carried most of myclothes in a bundle on my back. Presently our path led us into a goattrail, one of those century old paths made by shaggy white Alpineanimals, and used by them as regular highways. There were plenty offresh goat signs, and the broad path led us over a saddle mountain tothe verge of a cliff, beyond which it seemed impossible for anything butbirds to pursue the trail. Here we sat down to rest and to make a cup oftea over a tiny fire, although wood was plentiful at this place, itbeing in the timber line.
Below us lay a valley, into which numerous small glaciers emptied theireverlasting supply of ice and blocks of stone, and horse-tail fallspoured from the melting snow fields. It might have presented enchantingprospects to an iceman or a bighorn, or a Rocky Mountain goat, but fortwo tired men it was a gloomy, dangerous and desolate place and I feltcertain that even a witch-bear would not choose such a dangerous placeas a camping ground. We had finished our tea and I was feeling somewhatrefreshed when I noticed a peculiar stinging sensation about my face; Ifelt as if I had been attacked by some peculiar form of insect. Butthere were none in sight.
Pete, at this time, was some distance away prospecting the "lay of theland." I saw him suddenly pull the cape of his wamus over his face, andreasoned that he also had been attacked by these invisible insects.
To my surprise, the big fellow seemed very much alarmed, and every timeI shouted to him it greatly excited him. As he was hurrying to me asrapidly as possible, I desisted from further inquiry. When Big Petereached my side he pulled a handkerchief from around my neck and put itover my mouth, making signs which I did not comprehend. At last he puthis muffled 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 WHITEDEATH!"