grew bluer and colder, and the other mountains darkened.
The lieutenant and the doctor led. They always rode together. Stub and
soldiers Miller and Brown followed close behind. After a while they all
quit the stream, to strike westward, on a trail more direct.
Soldier Miller scratched his head, on which the hair was long.
“It’s a queer thing, John,” he said. “There it is, that peak――and there
it’s been for more’n a hundred miles, with us a-making for it and never
reaching it.”
“We’ll not reach it this day, that’s sure, lad,” answered John. “We’ve
covered ten miles, and you’d think we’d been standin’ still!”
In two miles more the sun had set. The shadows of the mountains seemed
to extend out over the plain and turn it dark and cold. Stub pulled his
robe closer around his neck. Now the Grand Peak had changed to deep
purple――it had pulled its own robe up, for the night.
The lieutenant and the doctor suddenly veered aside, to a single low
cedar, the only tree of the kind, around. There they halted and swung
from their saddles.
“We’ll make camp, men,” the lieutenant ordered. “The base of the
mountain evidently is farther than we had figured. But we’ll reach it
to-morrow morning, easily, and doubtless the top also, before night.”
This was a cold camp――very cold with the breath from the mountains.
They had dried buffalo-meat to chew on, but no water except that in the
canteens, and the lieutenant wished to save on water, for the climb.
He started them out again early, before sunrise. They headed for the
Grand Peak. The horses were stiff, from the night, and thirsty, and
moved slowly at first. Presently the sun rose. The Grand Peak flashed
white in its beams, and assuredly was near. The foothills at its base
were dark green: trees.
And there they stayed, the peak and the foothills, all day! Stub’s eyes
ached with gazing. Soldier Brown grumbled a little.
“It’s a wild-goose chase. I’ve said that no man will ever climb yon
peak. We’ll wear out ourselves and our hosses for nothin’. Even if we
ever reach the foot of it, look what’s ahead of us.”
“You may be sure the cap’n’ll climb it, whether or no,” retorted
soldier Miller. “He’s set out to do it, and do it he will.”
“Oh, well; we’re gettin’ into a more likely country, anyhow,” John
granted. “The sign is better――that’s one comfort.”
This was true. They were entering among low hills, covered with cedars
and pines. Up and down, up and down, and winding over and through,
they hopefully pushed on――and from each rise they might see the long
dark-green slope of the Grand Peak more plainly. What a tremendous
huge fellow he was, as he towered, shadow-flecked, into the floating
clouds! The clouds veiled his top; he pierced them, and thus he sat
gazing above the world.
“Gosh!” murmured John Brown. “He’s a neck-cracker.”
Toward evening the lieutenant and doctor, in advance and just crossing
another of the many rolling hills, shouted back, and waved.
“Almost there, men!”
When the three others toiled up to the same place, they saw. A shallow
valley lay before; at the farther edge the timbered slope of the Grand
Peak commenced.
Hurrah!
Several buffalo were feeding, below. The lieutenant and the doctor made
a dash for them――cleverly headed them off, shot rapidly, and downed two.
“Fresh hump for supper,” cheered Terry. “I could eat a whole one,
myself.”
“Sure, I could drink a river dry, first,” wheezed John. “Do you mind
that we’ve struck no water since mornin’?”
“Water there,” Stub hazarded, pointing at a line of lighter green near
the foot of the mountain.
They arrived below in time to help butcher the buffalo while the
lieutenant and the doctor rode on looking for a good camping place. It
was too late to do anything more this day.
A good camp spot was found on a little creek of ice cold water from
several springs flowing out of the mountain’s base.
“Here we are at last, lads,” the lieutenant welcomed, as they brought
the meat in. “We’ve wood, meat and water, and to-morrow we’ll climb to
the top. Success awaits us.”
“It’s been a long pull, eh?” laughed the doctor. “How about you, Stub?
Are you game? I mean, are you ready to try?”
“I go,” Stub announced.
“With the cap’n’s permission we’ll all go, sir,” added soldier Miller.
“’Twill be a view worth the seeing, up yonder above the clouds.”
“No tellin’ what we’ll find, I reckon,” put in John Brown.
“Whatever happens, we’ll be content in the knowledge that we’re losing
no opportunity,” the lieutenant declared. “When we stand up there, on
what may prove to be the uttermost southwestern border of the United
States, we will have extended the authority of the Flag into a region
doubtless never before penetrated by man.”
“And procured considerable geographic information,” said the doctor.
“Yes, sir. The Government will be enabled to revise its atlases with
accuracy, according to our new data as to the course of certain
rivers, and the National boundary between the United States and the
Mexican territory westward. And we may perceive a route that will take
us directly from the Arkansaw to the head of the Red River and the
Comanche country.”
The long slope of the mountain rose dark and brooding right above them.
They were so close in that from the campfire they could not see the
top, but they felt the snow whitely waiting, up toward the black sky
beyond the million stiffly marshalled, sighing pines.
Yes, cold it was, even here at the base; much colder than last night,
out on the plain. In spite of the fire, their coverings were all too
thin. At breakfast, before sun-up in the morning, the lieutenant’s
instrument by which he read the cold said nine degrees above freezing.
In his moccasins, made from a piece of his buffalo-robe, Stub’s feet
tingled. Several days back John Sparks had given him an old pair of
cotton trousers, cut off at the knees, but these did not seem to amount
to much, here. Still, Terry Miller and John Brown had nothing better,
and their bare toes peeped through the holes in their shoes.
“We’ll leave the camp as it is,” the lieutenant briskly ordered. “We’ll
be back by night, so we’ll not need our blankets or meat. See that the
horses are well staked, Miller, where they’ll be able to drink and
forage during the day.”
Doctor Robinson had gone outside for a minute. They heard his gun. He
came in, packing a partly dressed deer.
“It’s a new kind, lieutenant,” he panted.
“Good. We’ll hang up the hide, to inspect later.”
The new kind of deer――a large deer with ears like mule ears――was
quickly butchered. They hung its hide and the best of the meat upon a
tree, until their return at evening.
“Forward march, to the top, men,” the lieutenant bade. “Take only your
guns and ammunition. Never mind the canteens. We’ll find plenty of
water, I’m sure. All ready, doctor?”
“All ready.”
With the lieutenant in the lead and Stub bringing up the rear, they
attacked the timbered slope. Puff, puff! Wheeze, wheeze! The pine
needles underfoot and the frosty soil were slippery. Clouds veiled the
sky, the timber depths were dark and cold, but presently they all were
sweating. Gulches and draws cut the way, so that by sliding down in
and clambering out, or else making circuits they lost much time. The
mountain fought them with cliffs and canyons, too, and sometimes they
could scarcely make distance on hands and knees. Now and then they had
to halt, to rest and catch breath.
Once or twice they jumped the new species of deer, from sudden coverts;
there were many large birds, that rose with loud whirr. “Pheasants,”
the doctor and lieutenant called them. And twice, in the early morning,
they saw buffalo feeding――a smaller buffalo than those upon the plains.
But they did not stop to hunt any of these.
About mid-morning they paused to rest again, and gaze behind from an
open rocky knoll. The sun had burst forth.
“A fine day after all,” panted the lieutenant.
“Yes, sir, up here. But look below. Ain’t that a snowstorm, sir?”
wheezed Terry Miller. The feet of him and of John Brown, where seen
through their worn-out shoes, were bruised and bleeding. Stub’s
moccasins were shredded and soaked. The feet of the lieutenant and the
doctor were in no better shape.
Now when they gazed backward and down, they looked upon a layer of dull
cloud. With occasional break, the cloud rested over all the country at
the mountain’s base――and through the breaks might be seen the spume of
falling snow!
“We’ve come some way, eh?” remarked the doctor. “Thank fortune, we’re
above the storm. We ought to be near the top.”
But peer as they might, they could not see the top. The timber and the
rocks extended on and on and on.
“A pair o’ stockin’s would feel mighty good, on this kind of a trip,”
muttered John Brown. “’Tain’t what you’d call a barefoot trail, in
winter.”
They rested a minute, the men leaning upon their muskets. Then――――
“Come, boys,” the lieutenant urged impatiently. “One more stint and
we’ll make it. Forget your feet. Think only of the top.”
They climbed, breathing short and fast while they clambered and
slipped. At noon they still had not reached the top; several times the
top seemed at hand, but when they glimpsed it, shining white, it always
was across another ridge, and higher.
Stub’s ears rang, his heart drummed, his feet weighed like lead. The
two soldiers staggered and stumbled. The snowstorm below appeared far.
But the lieutenant and the doctor knew no quitting.
“We’ll not reach it, this day,” gasped John Brown. “’Tis the same old
story. Marchin’, and marchin’, and never gettin’ there.”
“Anyhow, we’ll reach it to-morrow,” Terry replied.
The sun sank; the air grew very cold. Up here there was nothing moving
but themselves; the deer and the pheasants and the squirrels had gone
to bed. The pines were soughing mournfully in an evening breeze.
The lieutenant came to a stop before a reddish cliff which overhung and
formed a shallow cave.
“We’ve done enough for one day,” he panted. Even he looked tired out.
“I think we’ll gain the top shortly in the morning. We’re into snow,
and the trees are thinning; the top cannot be far. We’ll take advantage
of this cave, for the night. It’s a shelter, at least.”
“That’s one piece of luck,” the doctor laughed.
“We’ll bunk together, so as to keep warm,” announced the lieutenant.
“We’ll waive question of rank――we’re all men, serving our Flag.”
He made no mention of the fact that they were tired, hungry and thirsty
after a long day’s climb, and that they did not have blankets or food
or water. He seemed to think that if he could stand it, they should
stand it, too, for the sake of duty. That was his style――that was one
reason the men loved him. He never asked them to do more than he did,
and he never took his ease even when he might, as commander.
But this proved to be a miserable night. The fire at the mouth of the
cave smudged and smouldered. The rock bed was hard and cold. There was
nothing to eat, nothing to drink, nothing to see; all around stretched
the slope of the mountain, black and white and silent and lifeless――and
cold, cold, cold.
Nobody slept much, as they all lay huddled close to each other for
mutual warmth. They only dozed shiveringly, afraid to move for fear of
losing what little warmth they were making.
It seemed to Stub that he had just dropped off, at last, when he was
aroused.
The lieutenant was standing outside the cave. Daylight had come.
“Up, men,” the lieutenant cried. “See this view! Oh, doctor! Be quick.
It’s glorious.”
They piled out, with sundry grunts and groans over muscles stiffened by
yesterday’s work and by the hard bed. The lieutenant had spoken truly.
The sky overhead was flushed rosily with sunrise――a clear day, here;
but the storm still raged down below. The clouds there extended, level,
in a thick layer of drab and white and pink, closing off the plains
world from the mountain world.
“And yonder is the top, boys.” The lieutenant pointed. “It’s nearer
than we thought. Let’s try for it now, and get back to camp and our
supplies before dark.”
He struck out and upward; in single file they followed, trudging
through the brittle snow, and weaving among the pines. The final white
ridge which their eyes had been marking during most of yesterday loomed
large and plain above.
The snow gradually deepened. Its surface bore not a trace of foot or
paw or hoof. Soon it was to their knees, soon thigh high; but they were
out from the trees and upon the bald space which formed the top.
Only a few more steps, now, through snow waist high, with rocks and
gravel underfoot. Whew! Now for it! Hooray! The lieutenant was there
first, to halt, and gaze about.
“Is that it, lieutenant?” puffed the doctor, anxiously.
Terry Miller huskily cheered, stumbled, but forged ahead.
The lieutenant stood, fixedly peering beyond.
“What!” uttered the doctor, arrived.
“It’s the wrong peak, men,” quietly said the lieutenant, his voice flat
in the thin air. “Yes, the wrong peak.”
The others floundered to him and the doctor, to gaze also. They all
leaned heavily upon their guns. Stub’s legs trembled; he had nothing
upon which to lean; but he stared, wide-eyed, his heart thumping.
It was the top. On the other side the mountain fell away, in a long,
long snowy timbered slope, down into a deep, broad valley of dark
pines; and at the farther edge of the valley there arose a mountain
again――a snow-capped, much higher mountain: the Grand Peak itself![C]
[C] They had climbed Cheyenne Mountain, height 9,407 feet, south of
Pike’s Peak, which is 14,109 feet in height.
“And all our climb’s for nothin’, you say, sir?” wheezed John Brown.
“We’re not on the Grand Peak at all?”
“No. But our climb had not been for naught. We’ve done our best, as
soldiers.” The lieutenant’s tone was dull and disappointed.
“I don’t see how we made the mistake,” the doctor proffered. “We
thought that we were at the true base.”
“We had no means of telling otherwise, doctor. This mountain looked to
be a part of that other; but that other is separate, and twice as high.
I judge it’s fully fifteen miles distant, now.”
“Shall we try for it, sir?” Terry Miller asked. “The day’s young, sir.”
The lieutenant shook his head decisively.
“Not this trip, Miller. ’Twould take a whole day to reach its base.
You and Brown have no stockings, we none of us have proper clothing――no
blankets, no provisions, and there’s little prospect of game. We’ve
come so far, and taxed our strength to the limit. Comparing the height
of that mountain with this, I believe that no human being can climb
the Grand Peak and survive. It is a region of eternal snow, barred to
all vestige of life. We’ll go back while we can. We have performed our
duty, and we can see nothing from up here by reason of the cloud bank.”
He looked at his thermometer.
“Four degrees below zero.” Zero was the freezing-point.
He glanced sharply about.
“We must make haste. The storm is rising on us.”
And even as he spoke the air turned raw and cloud wreaths began to
float around them. So they back-tracked as fast as they could, and
guided by a convenient ravine followed it down with such speed that
they reached their camp at the base before dark, but in a snowstorm.
“Well,” sighed John Brown. “The horses are safe, but the birds and
beasts have eaten our deer and everything else.”
The lieutenant shot a pheasant; of their meat there was left only two
deer-ribs; and they drank and ate.
“Rather limited rations, for five hungry persons after a two-days’
fast,” the doctor joked.
“We have our blankets, and we are safe, sir,” the lieutenant answered.
“Such a matter as diet should not enter into the calculations of men
who explore the wilderness. They must expect only what they will get.”
“The little cap’n’s a man o’ iron; he’s not flesh and blood,” Terry
murmured, to John and Stub. “But I reckon he’d not refuse a bit more
rib, himself.”
“With him, when your belt’s at the last hole, why, cut another,” said
John.
However, safe they were, although still very hungry. In the morning
they rode down the creek, constantly getting lower and finding less
snow. Just after noon the men shot two buffalo. That made a full
feast――the first square meal in three days. So to-night they camped
more comfortably under some shelving rock, outside the hills.
The place seemed to be a favorite camp ground for Indians, also. The
valley was strewn with their horse sign, and with broken lodge-poles
and old lodge-pins. The lieutenant thought that these had been Ietan
or Comanche camps, and was much interested.
The next afternoon they sighted the stockade; they were almost home.
“The flag’s still flying. Thank God, the party’s all right,” exclaimed
the lieutenant. “Give them a cheer, boys, when we arrive. We return
disappointed, but not defeated, and far from conquered.”
The hoarse cheer was answered. The soldiers――Sergeant Meek, Corporal
Jerry Jackson, Freegift Stout, Alex Roy, and all――trooped out, to stand
in line and present arms as the lieutenant, leading, rode through the
gate. He saluted them like an officer again, and smiled wanly as if
glad to be back.
X
ONWARD INTO WINTER
“So yez didn’t climb the Grand Peak, after all,” Tom Dougherty once
more queried.
“We climbed far enough. As I told you before, nothin’ on two legs or on
twice two legs will ever climb that Grand Peak,” John Brown answered.
“Only an eagle can fly there. We were above the clouds, with naught to
eat and little to breathe; and yon was the Grand Peak itself, as high
again.”
The men were wearied, but not yet wearied of hearing about the try for
the Grand Peak.
“You’re right. It’s beyond the reach o’ lungs and legs,” said Sergeant
Meek. “For the cap’n and the doctor measured it to-day with their
instruments, from a good sight of it. Ten thousand, five hundred and
eighty-one feet above ground they make it out to be, or a good two
miles into the air. And allowing for the fact that we’re nigh eight
thousand feet up, right where we be, though you might not think it,
that peak rises more’n eighteen thousand feet above sea level. The
cap’n says it’s close to being the highest mountain in the world.”[D]
[D] The Lieutenant’s measurement was wrong only about 1,000 feet. The
height of the plain where they had been camping was some 4,500 feet,
and Pike’s Peak rises 9,600 feet above.
Corporal Jerry Jackson came in, from changing guard, and stood warming
himself by the fire.
“By jiminy, those hosses are being eaten alive,” he said. “I do pity
’em. I’d hate to be a hoss, on a trip like this.”
“Yes; a man can understand an’ grin an’ bear it; but a hoss hasn’t any
sense o’ the why an’ wherefore.”
“Those pesky magpies are still at ’em, are they?” asked the sergeant.
“A man to a hoss couldn’t keep the things off with a club.”
“They even try to take the meat out a fellow’s hands,” quoth Freegift
Stout.
For the hungry magpies――bold birds of black-and-white, with long
tails――hovered over the unsaddled and unpacked horses, lighted and
pecked their raw backs until the blood flowed afresh. The horses, poor
weak, thin creatures, kicked and whinneyed in vain. The magpies stuck
fast and rode upon them, pecking. And as Freegift declared, swooped at
the men also and grabbed for the meat in their hands.
“Have Roy and Gordon come in sight yet?” Sergeant Meek asked.
“We thought we could see ’em away out,” replied Corporal Jerry.
“I don’t wish ’em frozen feet. We’ve got enough of such in camp.”
“Yes, and one pair too many, speaking for myself,” groaned Jake Carter.
This was the fourth day since leaving the stockade, and a bitter cold
day, albeit warmer, according to the lieutenant’s instrument, than
yesterday. The thermometer stood at only three degrees below freezing;
yesterday it had been at seventeen below.
The lieutenant had marched them out of the stockade, in a heavy
snowstorm, on the morning after the return from the climb. The route
was westward, again, up the south side of the Arkansaw. Just why he was
so impatient to go on, snow or no snow, none of the men knew. Maybe he
was in hopes of finding the Ietans or Comanches, yet; but Stub himself
was quite certain that the Ietans wintered farther south. Or if he
wished to discover the head of the Arkansaw and of the Red River, then
the men wondered why he didn’t build warm quarters, and lay in meat,
and make fur clothing, so as to explore safely.
“Sure, sometimes I think that what he’s aimin’ at is to foller this
here Spanish trail cl’ar into New Mexico, an’ fetch up, with all of us,
at Santy Fe, even as prisoners to them Spanish,” John Sparks hazarded.
“We can swear we made a mistake, not knowin’ the country; an’ when we
get back home again we’ll have a nice lot o’ news about them people an’
the trail in, for the Government.”
“That’ll do,” Sergeant Meek rebuked. “’Tis for him to lead and for us
to follow; and he’ll do the thinking.”
They had marched fifteen miles, the first day, through the storm, with
all on foot because the horses were getting unable to carry anything
but the packs. In fact, for some days past it had been more comfortable
to walk than to ride.
All that night it had snowed, and was still snowing in the morning. The
men had slept under one blanket or robe apiece, in the snow. The little
tent for the lieutenant and the doctor and Stub sagged with the weight.
“My gracious, but this is hard on the horses,” Baroney said. “They paw
and paw, to find one mouthful――and on their backs the ravens take many
mouthfuls.”
This day there was no marching. The men had all they could do to keep
the fires going, and not freeze. John Sparks, who was a hunter, went
out, but saw nothing. By evening the snow was a foot deep on the
level――pretty tough for bare feet exposed in gaping shoes, and even for
damp moccasins.
During the bitter night the sky cleared. It was to be the seventeen-below
morning. On the march one old buffalo bull was sighted, across the
river. John Sparks and Hugh Menaugh mounted and went after him. They had
to swim their horses through the ice-covered current, but they got the
bull. Then, only two miles farther, everybody was ordered to cross,
because a steep ridge barred the way.
In wading and breaking the ice, all were drenched waist high, and their
wet clothing froze instantly. The lieutenant was wearing only thin
cotton overalls, like most of the men, but he seemed not to feel the
cold. He sent back help for John and Hugh, and set the other men at
work building a fire. When John and Hugh arrived, with the meat, their
feet had been frozen and they had to be lifted from their horses.
After they had been thawed out by snow and rubbing, and clothes had
been partially dried, the march was continued, over a very rough, hilly
country, up the north side of the swiftly flowing river. Then one of
the pack-horses, driven crazy by the magpies and by hunger, ran off,
back down the trail.
Jake Carter, Terry Miller and Pat Smith had pursued him on foot. By
dusk, when camp was made at the end of thirteen miles, they were not in
sight. The lieutenant grew worried.
“It’s foolhardy for them to try to stay out all night, with no food or
blankets,” he said; and the doctor nodded gravely.
“They’re likely to perish, on that open prairie,” he agreed. “But
what’s to be done? To search for them would be a fruitless risk,
lieutenant.”
The lieutenant sat up late, waiting for word from them. This morning
they had appeared, Jake Carter with his feet, also, frozen. It had been
a terrible night, for them. They had found the horse, but could not
bring him in.
So the lieutenant had directed Alex Roy and William Gordon to ride
and get the horse (which was almost frozen, itself, the other men had
reported); and he and the doctor, with Stub and John Sparks, went out
to scout. The lieutenant and the doctor measured the height of the
Grand Peak, from a distance; they and John killed two buffalo-bulls,
for moccasins for the camp, and took after a cow but didn’t get it.
The gritty John Sparks stayed, to kill a cow if he might; the other
three returned to camp with the bull hides.
Now the men, with numbed fingers, were busy making moccasins, around
the fire, and not envying John the buffalo-hunter.
Alex Roy and Bill Gordon came in, with the strayed horse in tow, but
at dusk John had not appeared.
“He’s still after his cow, and won’t quit till he fetches meat. That’s
him! Well, he has a buffalo-robe and his flint and steel, so we’ll see
him in the morning.”