AT THE TOP
'Beat, I think,' said Snap a little later; and, indeed, it looked as
if man could go no higher than the point to which, by infinite toil,
the boys had now attained.
'You two stay here a little,' he added to the two Winthrops, 'and
take care of the grub and the rifle,' for, in spite of the
difficulties of the ascent, Wharton had insisted on bringing one
rifle and his 'six-shooter,' as well as a handkerchief full of bread
per man.
'Dick, you will come with me, won't you?' he asked, and, as the old
trapper nodded his head in assent, he added, 'Very well, then: do you
get a good grip of something so that you could hold my weight up if
necessary, and give me the other end of that lariat round my waist.'
The place to which they had attained was a narrow ledge of granite,
ending in a niche in the rock, with an overhanging roof to it. Above
was a smooth needle of solid rock, broken and ragged at the summit,
but for two hundred feet as smooth and perpendicular as a pillar of
marble. There were no crannies in this into which to insert toes and
fingers, however strong and daring. The storms and snows of ten
thousand years had worn the granite until its face was polished like
the face of a jewel, and it was hard as a diamond.
'I don't think even the Alpine Club could tackle that,' Frank had
said when they first saw the peak.
'I'm not so sure of that,' Snap answered; 'they couldn't from here,
of course, but perhaps there's a way round. Remember, they climbed
the Dru.'
And now, with the dogged pluck which characterised the boy, he was
going to look for what he called a way round. The position was this.
The hollow in which the party lay ended abruptly. Beyond it was the
polished rock, without a blade of grass or a twig upon it. Above was
two hundred feet of the same, bending, if anything, a little towards
the would-be climber, as if the giant spire were about to tumble over
into the gulf of clouds and mist which lay below. If any of our
little party toppled out of their nest they had a clean run for two
or three thousand feet, as old Dick said, and 'nothing of any
consequence to hinder 'em between that and the prairie.'
The lariat was fast round old Dick's waist, and securely fastened,
too, to Snap's leather belt, which he had taken the precaution of
fixing well up under his armpits. A close scrutiny of the rock to
the right of the crevice had shown the boys that, though there was no
cranny big enough for a sparrow to perch upon above, there was just
one narrow, thread-like crack running from the end of their niche
towards the sharp edge of the needle, which, jutting out some fifteen
feet from them, formed a corner round which they could not see
anything.
'That's our chance,' said Snap; 'I can get my fingers in here, and,
as I can see it all the way, I expect it gets larger further on.'
All the party looked white and drawn except Snap; it was a desperate
risk, and all knew it, and old Dick would gladly have persuaded the
boy to rest content with their present quarters. But it was too late
now. As the old foreman knelt with his face inwards, gripping the
rock, ready at any moment to take the strain which Snap's fall would
put upon the rope, the latter was digging his fingers deeply into the
solitary crack. He had taken off his moccasins, and was barefooted
and in his shirt-sleeves. Even his cap was off. He wanted no
encumbrances, however slight, just now. Two or three times he tried
his grip, and then, clinging with his bare feet to the smooth rock,
he let himself go and hung spread-eagled against the granite wall.
[Illustration: ON THE FACE OF THE CLIFF]
As he hung dangling by the first joints of his fingers over the
horrid abyss a cold wind came and struck him. It blew his damp hair
back from his face, it seemed to chill his straining fingers, and to
threaten to tear him from his precarious hold. But not for one
half-second did he hesitate. He had considered the peril and braced
himself to meet it. Slowly, a foot at a time, he worked his way
along. The first foot or two was the difficult part of his journey,
for there, as he shifted his hold, his body hung literally upon four
fingers and no more. But he comforted himself with the thought of
the stout lariat round his waist and the strong arms which held it in
the niche he had left. After the first few feet he was able to get
more of his hands into the rock, and, though his eye had not noticed
them, his bare feet found little inequalities and rough spots to
which they clung like the feet of a fly to the ceiling.
As he drew near the corner his excitement grew, hope and fear
alternating in his breast. At last he could look round it, and he
saw that the proverb was again justified, 'Where there's a will
there's a way.'
'A precious bad way,' thought Snap, 'but still better than this,'
and, so thinking, he crept round the corner, and after what had
seemed an age to him again got his foot on a firm hold. For here
round the corner was a broad ledge, as if made by the falling away
from the cone of some great chip of granite when that convulsion had
taken place which had rent the cone from its very summit to where he
stood. Now too he saw clearly that, though solid on the other side,
a great crack ran down the peak on this side, just big enough for a
man to squeeze into at the bottom, and slowly widening, until at the
top the cone was divided into three distinct peaks, on the largest of
which the balloon was anchored.
Snap had arranged with Dick that three sharp tugs at the lariat meant
'Come along, I can hold you.' First he passed a bit of the lariat
round a jutting corner of the broken rock, and then he gave the three
tugs agreed upon.
With eyes shut and heart beating he clung to the rock, and prayed
that Dick might not slip. It seemed an hour of waiting until he
heard a loud gasp at his side, and Dick's voice panting out:
'Wal, I reckon that's summat of a crawl, but blow me if I think
Natur' ever meant me to do them bluebottle tricks.'
As he spoke it seemed as if a thaw had suddenly set in in Snap's
heart, the relief was so great, and, clinging hard to the rocks, they
both laughed until the boys in the crevice heard them, and wished
that they were there to share in the merriment.
'Wal, now, Snap, what next? You couldn't set us an easier one this
time, now, could you?' asked Dick.
'Yes, Dick, it's not so bad this time, it's only what mountaineers
call a chimney, and then we shall be there.'
'Oh, only a chimney, he says,' muttered Dick; 'fust you turns
bluebottle, then you turns sweep--all quite natural, of course--and
then you're there. And, unless we turn balloonatics when we git
there, there, it seems to me, we'll stick!'
'You follow me, Dick,' said Snap, 'and do as I do; shove your elbows
and knees against the opposite sides of the crack as soon as you have
room to, and wriggle up.'
Dick obeyed, talking away to himself all the while, so that, had the
danger been less, the inclination to laugh would have taken the
strength out of Snap's arms and let him down with a crash.
'Look out for stones, Dick!' cried Snap all at once, as a few great
fragments of granite came rattling down.
'All right, sonny,' cried the voice from below; 'never mind the
"sut," but tell us when the top brick's a-comin'.'
'Now, Dick,' said Snap, after about fifty feet of this work, 'you'll
have to shove your back and hands against one side and your feet
against the other, like this, and shove your way up so.'
'All right, pard, I understand: I've got to sit on about 5,000 feet
of nothing at all and keep going up'ards. Quite simple. Go ahead!'
'Hang it, Dick, do be serious,' replied Snap, laughing.
'Well, so I am, ain't I?' replied the old man; 'you don't suppose I'm
here for enjoyment, do you?'
Snap, looking down between his legs at the cowboy below him, would
have exploded with laughter had he dared to. The old chap was
growling away to himself, and puffing and blowing with the unusual
exercise, but gripping the rock with hands like eagles' claws, and
pushing with his strong legs until, as Snap told him afterwards, he
was in momentary dread of seeing the opposite wall come down.
'Now hold on a bit, Dick,' cried the voice above after a pause, 'and
toss that lariat up my way if you can.'
There was a good deal of grumbling, but at last the lariat lay across
Snap's legs, and, getting hold of it, he made cast after cast at a
little spike of rock some ten feet above him. It was difficult
shooting with a noose at such a mark in such a position, and he
heartily wished old Dick could change places with him. But that was
impossible.
'I reckon my back 'll hold out about three more shies, Snap,' said
the voice from below; 'there ain't much starch left in it.'
'All right, Dick,' replied Snap, 'I've lassoed the rock now, firm and
fast. One minute!'
The old man saw the boy hang on to the rope and scramble by its help
to the point above mentioned.
'Now, Dick!' he cried, and Dick caught the rope and scrambled up
after his companion.
'All easy-going now, like going upstairs,' said Snap; and so indeed
it was, for the two were now on the last torn pinnacle of the summit,
which was so cracked and riven that a child could have climbed it.
'Poor chap! So that's his story!' exclaimed Wharton ten minutes
later, as a great bird, gorged and heavy, rose sullenly from a
cup-like hollow in the top of the main peak and slid on silent wings
into the deep sky beyond.
Where the bird rose, lay what had been a man, and that not many days
ago; but the elements and the fowls of heaven had not left enough of
the poor clay to tell whether he was white or red. On closer
inspection a grey Tyrolese hat with green riband, and tuft of
izzard's hair set in it as a plume, told Snap even his nationality,
and a broken pair of spectacles confirmed his guess and almost
enabled him to re-clothe those poor bones in his mind's eye with the
very flesh of the German professor which once covered them.
The balloon, which was still well inflated, had dragged its anchor
amongst these rocks and at last struck a firm hold amongst them, and
still, as they reached it, tugged and strained at its mooring with a
semblance of life in ghastly contrast to the everlasting peace which
had fallen upon its helmsman and master.
'The jerk when that there thing pulled up sudden chucked him out, I
guess,' said Dick, pointing at the bones; 'and look here, it's broke
his arm in two places, and his thigh. Poor wretch, pity but what he
didn't fall clear over the edge anyway!'
'That's not what he thought, Dick,' said Snap, who had picked up a
log-book which lay by the dead man's side and bore on its cover of
calf-skin more than one mark of the vulture's prying beak. '"Gott
sei Dank," he begins--and it looks as if he had written it in his own
blood, poor fellow--"thank God," he says, "that I shall have time to
write----"'
'Yes, well, never mind that now, pard; I guess we'll have lots of
time to read that by-and-by. There ain't much room up here, and I
guess we'd better go as near giving this foreigner Christian burial
as circumstances will allow; you don't happen to recollect a prayer
as will suit, do you now, Snap?'
'What do you mean, Wharton? you can't dig a grave in this rock.'
'No, lad, I know that,' he replied, 'and I ain't goin' to try. But
we've got to live here, maybe some days, and there's hardly room for
us as are alive, even if dead men's society was as attractive as it
ain't.'
Whilst he spoke the old man had approached the figure, which half
lay, half sat, in the hollow, its limbs broken and its face torn away
by birds of prey. Reverently the old man lifted his hat, saying to
the thing at his feet:
'You'll forgive us, pard, but we're kinder cramped for room up here,
and if so be as you're gone aloft a few thousand feet more or less
between you and these bones of yourn won't make no odds.'
Snap looked at Dick in some horror, but the old man's manner was so
reverent and yet so determined that he did not interfere.
Tearing a rug, which before his strength left him he must have got
somehow or other from the car of the balloon, into fine strips, Dick
spliced them together into a cord. Then he rolled the remains up in
the long cloak in which they lay, wound his cord of strips round and
round it, and then turned again to Snap:
'Snap, my lad, don't take on at what I'm doing,' he said; 'there
ain't no place for the dead among the living, nor can be neither.
You don't believe as these bones is him, do you? Very well, then, I
want you to help me bury them down there,' and the foreman pointed
out over the brink of the precipice.
The afternoon had passed now, and one or two stars were beginning to
show faintly in the sky. Down below, the mists were rising thickly
from the wet bottom-lands and from the bed of the stream, and were
drifting through the gorges of the mountains and up and up, until,
looking over from then: dizzy stand, Dick and Snap saw nothing but
heaving billows of heavy white clouds. It wanted but very little
fancy to imagine that those clouds were white waves breaking round
the base of the cliff on which they stood.
'Take the other end of the pack, Snap,' commanded Wharton; 'now, boy,
have you got a prayer handy?'
'No, Dick,' faltered Snap, 'I don't know what to say.'
'Then just you do as I do,' said the old man, 'just say good-bye to
the poor chap; I remember a mate told me years agone that good-bye
meant "God be with you." I reckon that ain't a bad prayer.'
With his head averted the boy did as he was told.
'Good-bye,' said Dick, 'good-bye, pard!'--and 'good-bye' echoed
Snap--their voices sounding faint and strange as they stood up there
close to the stars, with the white clouds below and the dead man
between them.
[Illustration: GOOD-BYE, PARD]
'Swing it, Snap, and let go,' said Wharton, and the boy's hands let
go as the light burden which they bore flew outwards over the edge.
By some fascination which he could not resist Snap looked down, and
saw the dreadful bale spin round and down with awful velocity, until
as it plunged into the billowy clouds of mist for a moment he fancied
an arm broke loose from its bandages and stretched up towards him as
the body disappeared from view.
And then all was over. No sound came back to tell them that it had
reached its resting-place. The stars stood still in the heavens, and
Snap hated them for their cold, unsympathising stare. The granite
rocks looked cold and hard and terrible, and the sky itself looked as
hard and as merciless as the rocks.
A strong hand gripped Snap's shoulder at that moment, and a kind,
strong voice was in his ear:
'Come out of that, lad; if you look over them rocks any longer
they'll kinder draw you down after him.'