CHAPTER XV
Clothes and stage trappings can neither add nor detract from our respectfor 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, ared death or a yellow death is just as grizzly and awe-inspiring as oneof any shade of gray. Even a black death excites no emotions not touchedby the first name, for it is the dread messenger himself whom we respectand not his fanciful robes of office.
As far as I am personally concerned, I confess that Big Pete's painfulsuggestion about the coyotes had more to do with keeping my mouth shutthan any terror inspired by the lily-like purity of the garments of thewhite death; what made my bones ache was the thought of the wolvesgnawing them.
Overhead the sun shone with an unusual brilliancy, and the atmospherehad that peculiar crystalline transparency which kills space and bringsdistant objects close to one's feet. Where then was the terrible whitemessenger? Why must my head be muffled like a mummy? Why must I keep mymouth shut, while the curiosity mill within me was working overtimegrinding out questions I should dearly love to ask?
Again and again I looked around me to see where this ghostly whiteterror might lurk, and now, as I gazed at the mountains, I was surprisedand annoyed to discover that the distant peaks were graduallydisappearing, being blotted out of the landscape before my eyes; aghost-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 donningtheir fernseed caps of invisibility. Now the air around and about meseemed to be filled with powdered dust of mica that glinted, sparkledand scintillated in the sunshine. The breeze which was tossing about thebright 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 againbound 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 wasengaged in idle speculation, for he led me to a point about fifty yardsfrom the goat trail where there was a possible place to descend thecliff to a ledge fifty feet below. By this time I had become enough of amountaineer to follow my guide over trails which a few weeks previouswould have seemed to me impossible to traverse, and after a hasty anddaring descent we reached the ledge, where I discovered the black mouthof a cavern; into this hole Pete thrust me and led me back some twentyyards into the darkness, ordered me to disrobe to the waist, then hebegan a most vigorous and irritating slapping and rubbing of my chest;so insistent and persevering was he that I really thought my skin wouldbe peeled from shoulders to waist. At last he desisted and ordered me toput on all my clothes.
"Are you mad, Pete? Has the rarefied air of the mountains upset yourbrain? If not, will you kindly tell me what on earth all this means andwhy we are hiding in this gloomy hole?" I asked as soon as I got thebreath back in my body.
"Le-loo, you be a baby, and need a keeper to prevent you from committingsusancide several times a day. Tenderfoot? Well, I should say so. No onebut a short-horn from the East would keep his mouth open gulping in thefrozen fog, filling his warm lungs with quarts of fine ice. I reckon itwould be healthier to breathe pounded glass, fur it hain't sharper norhalf as cold. Why, Le-loo, tha' be a dose of fever and lung inflammationin every mouthful of this frozen fog."
He held my face between his two strong hands so that the faint lightthat filtered through the murky darkness from the cavern's mouth dimlyilluminated my countenance, and as he watched the streams ofperspiration falling in drops from the end of my nose his frown relaxedand a broad grin spread over his handsome features.
"You're all right this time," he added "I calculate that I've melted allthe ice in your bellows, so just creep up tha' and sweat a bit more tomake it slick and sartin that we've beat the White Death this trip." Idid as he said, not because I wanted to sweat but because habit made meobey the commands of my guide.
Evidently this cavern had been in constant use by some sort of animalsas a sort of stable for many, many years, and I have had sweetercouches, but by this time my rough life had transformed me intosomething of a wild animal myself, and it was not long before I wascomfortably dozing. During the time that I slept I was dimly consciousof being surrounded by a crowd of people; as the absurdity of thisforced itself through my sleep-befuddled brain and I opened wide myeyes, 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 handon my shoulder, and not until then did I realize that the cave wascrowded with the shaggy white Rocky Mountain goats, and not weird,white-bearded old men. Few persons can truly say that they have beenwithin arm's length of a flock of these timid and almost unapproachableanimals; but we had invaded their secret place of refuge, and they hadnot, as yet, taken alarm at our presence in their castle. It may be thatthe frozen fog had driven the goats to the cavern for shelter, and it ispossible that never having been hunted by man, these animals feared theWhite Death more than they did human beings, and did not realize thedangerous character of their present visitors; whatever the cause oftheir temerity, the fact remains that men and goats slept that night inthe cavern together.
I did not awake next morning until after the departure of the goats andopened my eyes to find myself alone in the cavern.
Having all my clothes on, no time was wasted at my toilet, but I made myway directly to the doorway and was gratified to discover that Big Petewas roasting some kid chops over the hot embers of a fire.
After breakfasting on the remains of the kid, Big Pete arose and scannedthe sky, the horizon and the mountain tops, and turning to me said,"Now, Le-loo, that Wild Hunter-b'ar-wolf man has fooled us by doublingon his trail an' as it hain't him we're after now but the trail out ofthe mountains, I mean to go by sens-see-ation, but you must keep yermeat-trap shut and not speak, 'cause soon as I know I'm a man I hain'tgot no more sense than a man. I must say to myself, 'Now, Pete, you're avarmint and varmints know their way even in a new country.' Then I justsense things and trots along 'til I come out all right."
I had often heard of this wonderful instinct of direction, the hominginstinct of the pigeon, which some Indians, Africans, Australian blackboys and a few white men still possess; I say still possess because itis evident that it was once our common heritage, a sort of sixth sensewhich has been lost by disuse. That Big Pete possessed this sixth senseI little doubted, and it was with absorbing interest that I watched theman work himself into the proper state of mind.
For quite a time he stood sniffing the air and looking around him whilehis body swayed with a slow motion. Then suddenly, as if he had seensomething or as if answering the call of something, he started offalmost at right angles to our trail, acting very much like a hound on anold scent, but keeping up a pace that tried my endurance.
It was truly wonderful the way this man, in a trance-like state, wasguided by an invisible power over the most dangerous ground, but no one,after a careful survey, could have selected a better trail than thatchosen by Big Pete. On and on we went, scrambling over rock-skirtingprecipices and crumbling ledges. A dense fog settled around us, makingeach step hazardous, but with an instinct as true and apparentlyidentical with that of our four-footed brothers, my guide kept the samerapid pace for hours, and then, all of a sudden, came to an abrupt stop.
For several seconds he stood in his tracks, his body keeping the sameswaying motion, but after a short while he crept cautiously forward inthe fog, with me at his heels, and we found ourselves at the edge of agiant fault, similar to the one in Darlinkel Park, but there wasapparently no pass to let us down the towering precipices to the valleybelow.
"Well, that was a wonderful trip," I cried.
"Shut up!" shouted Pete savagely, but I had spoken and the spell wasbroken; reason, not instinct, must now lead us.
Vapor and clouds concealed the low grounds from ou
r view; however, wewere determined not to spend another night in the mountains, so while Irested and regained my breath, Big Pete went on to explore the ledges.
Presently my guide hove in sight and motioned me to follow him; he ledme to a place where another goat trail went over the edge of theprecipice, this time not in ten and fifteen feet jumps, but by a steepdiagonal path. Down the treacherous trail we slipped and slid with awall of rocks on one side and death in the form of a bluish white spaceon the other side.
As we were clambering carefully around the face of a big rock Petesuddenly whispered that he smelt a "Painter," and upon peering aroundthe corner we found ourselves face to face with a large cat; the animalwas crouching upon a flat-topped projecting stone immediately in ourpath. That it was not the puma of the low-lands, its reddish-coloredcoat and great size proclaimed. It was a so-called mountain lion and agrand specimen of its kind.
The cat's small head lay between its muscular forepaws, its hair adheredclosely to its body, its long tail was full and round and waved slowlyfrom side to side, while its eyes gleamed like electric sparks.
We were in a most awkward position; our guns were swung by straps overour backs, so that we might use our hands, and we were clinging to theface of the big rock while our toes were seeking foothold in thetreacherous shale of the trail. To loosen our hands was to fallbackwards into the bluish white sea of unknown depths, and to retraceour steps was out of the question.
Pete often expressed the opinion that no predaceous creature, from aspider up to a cougar, will attack its prey while the latter isimmovable.
As a corollary to this proposition he said that when a person issuddenly confronted by a dangerous wild beast, the safest plan to pursueis to remain perfectly quiet, or, as he quaintly put it, "to peetrifyyourself in the wink of an eye."
Truth to tell, on this occasion I found no difficulty in following hisdirections. I was "peetrified" by fear; my feet were cold and numb,chills in wavelets washed up and down my spine, a sudden rash seemed tobe breaking out all over my body and the skin on my back felt as if ithad been converted into goose-flesh.
Had we been able to travel a few feet further we would have both found acomparatively safe footing and had our arms free and a fighting chancewith the big catamount in place of hanging suspended to the face of therock like two big, helpless, terrified bats.