Part 22 (2/2)
”By thunder!” he exclaimed. ”I believe--it's me for the top.”
He went up the few remaining yards with a haste that left Hazel panting behind. Above her he stood balanced on a bowlder, cut sharp against the sky, and she reached him just as he lowered the field gla.s.ses with a long sigh of relief. His eyes shone with exultation.
”Come on up on the perch,” he invited, and reached forth a long, muscular arm, drawing her up close betide him on the rock.
”Behold the Promised Land,” he breathed, ”and the gateway thereof, lying a couple of miles to the north.”
They were, it seemed to Hazel, roosting precariously on the very summit of the world. On both sides the mountain pitched away sharply in rugged folds. Distance smoothed out the harsh declivities, blurred over the tremendous canons. Looking eastward, she saw an ample basin, which gave promise of level ground on its floor. True, it was ringed about with sky-sc.r.a.ping peaks, save where a small valley opened to the south. Behind them, between them and the far Pacific rolled a sea of mountains, snow-capped, glacier-torn, gigantic.
”Down there,” Roaring Bill waved his hand, ”there's a little meadow, and turf to walk on. Lord, I'll be glad to get out of these rocks!
You'll never catch me coming in this way again. It's sure tough going.
And I've been scared to death for a week, thinking we couldn't get through.”
”But we can?”
”Yes, easy,” he a.s.sured. ”Take the gla.s.ses and look. That flat we left our outfit in runs pretty well to the top, about two miles along.
Then there's a notch in the ridge that you can't get with the naked eye, and a wider canon running down into the basin. It's the only decent break in the divide for fifty miles so far as I can see. This backbone runs to high mountains both north and south of us--like the great wall of China. We're lucky to hit this pa.s.s.”
”Suppose we couldn't get over here?” Hazel asked. ”What if there hadn't been a pa.s.s?”
”That was beginning to keep me awake nights,” he confessed. ”I've been studying this rock wall for a week. It doesn't look good from the east side, but it's worse on the west, and I couldn't seem to locate the gap I spotted from the basin one time. And if we couldn't get through, it meant a hundred miles or more back south around that white peak you see. Over a worse country than we've come through--and no cinch on getting over at that. Do you realize that it's getting late in the year? Winter may come--bing!--inside of ten days. And me caught in a rock pile, with no cabin to shelter my best girl, and no hay up to feed my horses! You bet it bothered me.”
She hugged him sympathetically, and Bill smiled down at her.
”But it's plain sailing now,” he continued. ”I know that basin and all the country beyond it. It's a pretty decent camping place, and there's a fairly easy way out.”
He bestowed a rea.s.suring kiss upon her. They sat on the bowlder for a few minutes, then scrambled downhill to the jack-pine flat, and built their evening fire. And for the first time in many days Roaring Bill whistled and lightly burst into s.n.a.t.c.hes of song in the deep, bellowing voice that had given him his name back in the Cariboo country. His humor was infectious. Hazel felt the G.o.ds of high adventure smiling broadly upon them once more.
Before daybreak they were up and packed. In the dim light of dawn Bill picked his way up through the jack-pine flat. With easy traveling they made such time as enabled them to cross through the narrow gash--cut in the divide by some glacial offshoot when the Klappan Range was young--before the sun, a ball of molten fire, heaved up from behind the far mountain chain.
At noon, two days later, they stepped out of a heavy stand of spruce into a sun-warmed meadow, where ripe, yellow gra.s.ses waved to their horses' knees. Hazel came afoot, a fresh-killed deer lashed across Silk's back.
Bill hesitated, as if taking his bearings, then led to where a rocky spur of a hill jutted into the meadow's edge. A spring bubbled out of a pebbly basin, and he poked about in the gra.s.s beside it with his foot, presently stooping to pick up something which proved to be a short bit of charred stick.
”The remains of my last camp fire,” he smiled reminiscently. ”Packs off, old pal. We're through with the trail for a while.”
CHAPTER XIX
FOUR WALLS AND A ROOF
To such as view with a kindly eye the hushed areas of virgin forest and the bold cliffs and peaks of mountain ranges, it is a joy to tread unknown trails, camping as the spirit moves, journeying leisurely and in decent comfort from charming spot to spots more charming. With no spur of need to drive, such inconsequential wandering gives to each day and incident an added zest. Nature appears to have on her best bib and tucker for the occasion. The alluring finger of the unknown beckons alluringly onward, so that if one should betimes strain to physical exhaustion in pursuit, that is a matter of no moment whatever.
But it is a different thing to face the wilderness for a purpose, to journey in haste toward a set point, with a penalty swift and sure for failure to reach that point in due season. Especially is this so in the high lat.i.tudes. Natural barriers uprear before the traveler, barriers which he must scale with sweat and straining muscles. He must progress by devious ways, seeking always the line of least resistance.
The season of summer is brief, a riot of flowers and vegetation. A certain number of weeks the land smiles and flaunts gay flowers in the shadow of the ancient glaciers. Then the frost and snow come back to their own, and the long nights shut down like a pall.
Brought to it by a kindlier road, Hazel would have found that nook in the Klappan Range a pleasant enough place. She could not deny its beauty. It snuggled in the heart of a wild tangle of hills all turreted and battlemented with ledge and pinnacle of rock, from which ran huge escarpments clothed with spruce and pine, scarred and gashed on every hand with slides and deep-worn watercourses, down which tumultuous streams rioted their foamy way. And nestled amid this, like a precious stone in its ma.s.sive setting, a few hundred acres of level, gra.s.sy turf dotted with trees. Southward opened a narrow valley, as if pointing the road to a less rigorous land. No, she could not deny its beauty. But she was far too trail weary to appreciate the grandeur of the Klappan Range. She desired nothing so much as rest and comfort, and the solemn mountains were neither restful nor soothing. They stood too grim and aloof in a lonely land.
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