Part 27 (1/2)
Even before they caught sight of the burdens we bore, the brave sufferers had hailed our approach with heroic cheerfulness. Now, with every mouthful of frozen meat, our leader recovered from his dizziness, and generous strips of steak sizzling on the green-wood spits, the spirits of all rose even to the pitch of merriment. Desperate as was still our situation, it yet seemed like paradise after the anguish of body and mind through which we had pa.s.sed.
No men, I venture to say, ever bore pain and privation and hards.h.i.+p with more heroic fort.i.tude than was shown by these poor fellows. All but three had been compelled to endure the agony of their frozen feet, in addition to the pangs of starvation, and the sad truth that these injuries went beyond a mere frosting was all too evident in the morning, when, upon examining the men, I found that two of them, at the best, would have to give up their packs and hobble along with the aid of crutches. As for Dougherty and Sparks, both were too disabled to march at all.
CHAPTER XIX
BEYOND THE BARRIER
But I will dwell no more in detail upon our sufferings in that terrible valley of frost and famine. Enough said that, after bringing in the remainder of the meat for Sparks and Dougherty, we left them and struggled onward in search of a pa.s.s. To linger in camp with our disabled comrades would have meant certain death to all. But many among us wept at the parting, for few believed we should ever return.
Indeed, having eaten in one scant meal all the meat we had found heart to take from the injured men, we again suffered a famine, this time of three days' duration. It was then, for the first and only time during all our privations, that one of the men murmured openly. So evident was it that his outcry had been wrung from him by anguish and despair that the Lieutenant, instead of shooting him down in his tracks in accordance with the usual rigor of military discipline, chose to pretend that he had not heard the mutinous words. A few hours later we were the second time saved from starvation by a fortunate kill of buffalo, and it was then, after we had feasted to repletion around a roaring camp-fire, that Pike called the mutineer before him and reproved the repentant man for his conduct.
At this camp we left the greater part of the meat of the four buffaloes killed, in the charge of Hugh Menaugh, one of the two men who, aside from Sparks and Dougherty, had suffered the worst from the frost. This time, however, meat being so abundant, we did not fail to take with us on our onward march enough of provisions to last us for several days.
Though recuperated by two days of feasting,--for we had lingered that length of time with Menaugh,--our first march out of his camp proved one of the very hardest we had yet made. We were by now near the top of a high plateau, where the travelling was even more difficult than in the lower valley; yet we could discover no break in the white barrier, which, despite our high alt.i.tude, still towered up many hundred feet above us.
It was almost nightfall, and Pike and I--as usual in the lead breaking a way through the drifts for the others--were beginning to look about for a favorable camp-site, when, topping a knoll, we found ourselves staring down upon a little stream whose course ran to the westward.
”Look!” I shouted. ”A pa.s.s! That brook flows to the mountains--into the mountains!”
”It may twist about again to south and east. We have reached the top of a divide,” cautioned Pike.
”No, no! it cannot be!” I cried, wild with delight. ”I see a cleft in the mountain side! The sun dazzles our eyes, but look beneath, in the shadow.”
”Thank G.o.d!” he sighed. ”It is a cleft! It must be that the stream flows through the mountains. If only we can find a way down its bed!”
”We can--we must!” I wheeled about to the weary men. ”Hurrah, lads!
Stiffen your knees! We've found our pa.s.s! Another day will see us beyond the mountains!”
The brave fellows answered with a ringing cheer. Drooping heads straightened; tottering steps gave place to firm, eager strides. Buoyed up by renewed hope, we hurried down the hillside and along the stream bank until in the gathering twilight we could see with certainty where the stream wound its way into the mountain cleft. a.s.sured of this all-important fact, we made our bivouac in a grove of pines, and settled down to the happiest night we had known in weeks.
Bright and early in the morning we broke camp and trudged along through the snow, down the bank of the creek. Soon we found ourselves within the flanking shoulders of the mountains, descending a gorge that was walled on either side with almost sheer cliffs. I should speak of these precipices as stupendous had I not first seen the terrific chasm of the far narrower and deeper gorge of the Arkansas.
To our vast relief, the bed of the pa.s.s proved to be broad and open throughout, being clear even of blocking snowdrifts. That it was habitually open was evident from the number of trees we found painted with Indian signs, clear proof that this was one of the accustomed paths of the roaming savages of the Far West. What most astonished us was the length of the gorge, which wound and twisted its way through the heart of the White Mountains in seemingly endless extent.
At last, after we had marched downward for twelve or fourteen miles, a sudden turn unmasked to our gaze a view that brought us up short in our tracks, with cries of astonishment and delight. Instead of the narrow mountain valley that we had expected to open before us, there burst upon our vision the panorama of a vast park-like country, dotted with scattered woods and groves, through which meandered numerous branching streams whose main trunk flowed to the southward. It was many miles across to the mountain range which bounded the western side of this beautiful valley.
Pike was the first among us to find his voice. ”Men,” he said simply, ”we have won free. The worst is now behind us. This Western country is far lower than the plateau on the east side. It must be less cold; see the wide stretches of open ground. There must be game--”
”Ay! look!” I said, pointing to a mult.i.tude of black dots drifting across a snowy hillside. ”Deer! a herd!”
”An' more on 'em to yan side, sir!” sang out one of the men.
”No more fear of famine!” exulted Pike. ”We're safe at last!”
”But how as to savages?” I rejoined. ”I see no smoke; yet in a country so abounding in game--”
”Say rather, the Spaniards, John.”
”What! You surely do not think--Yet that main stream runs southward. All the accounts tell how the Rio Grande del Norte flows from the north down through the Province of Nuevo Mexico. Montgomery! can it be--”