ALONE
Westy was still laughing as he climbed the hill. He was thinking that
these two companions of his were pretty good scouts after all. In his
mood of dissatisfaction with himself and modern scouting, it had not
occurred to him that being a good scout consists not in getting along
with nothing, but in getting along with what you happen to have.
A little way up the hill he looked back and could see Ed sitting on a
rock, one foot cocked up in the air with several strands of worsted
about it. He seemed to be bent on the task of braiding these and there
was something whimsical about the whole appearance of the thing which
amused Westy and made him realize his liking for this comrade who was of
another troop than his own.
Reaching the summit of the hill he saw that the tree he had seen from
below was not as isolated as it had looked to be. It was a great elm and
rose out of a kind of jungle of brush and rock and smaller trees. These
near surroundings had not been discernible from the distant road. A
given point in Nature is so different seen from varying distances and
from different points of view.
But the hill was not disappointing in affording an extensive view
southward. There was no object in that direction which gave any hint of
Yellowstone Park, but probably much of the wild scenery he beheld was
within the park boundaries. It was significant of the vastness of the
Park and of the smallness of Westy’s mental vision that he had expected
to behold it as one may behold some local amusement park. He had thought
that upon approach he might be able to point to it and say with a
thrill, “There it is!” He had not been able to fix it in his mind as a
vast, wild region that just happened to have a tame, civilized
name—_Park_.
There was something very peculiar about this great tree and Westy
wondered if some terrific cyclone of years gone by might have caused it.
Evidently it had once been uprooted, but not blown down. At all events a
great rock was lodged under its exposed root, causing the tree to stand
at an angle. It seemed likely that the same wind-storm which had all but
lain the tree prone had caused the rock to roll down from a slight
eminence into the cavity and lodge there. Great tentacles of root had
embraced the rock which seemed bound by these as by fetters. And under a
network of root was a dark little cave created by the position of the
rock.
Westy poked his head between the network of roots and peered into this
dank little cell. It smelled very damp and earthy. Some tiny creature of
the mountains scampered frantically out and the stir it caused seemed
multiplied into a tumult by the darkness and the smallness of the place.
Westy weakened long enough to wish he had a match so that he might make
a momentary exploration of this freakish little hole.
His first impulse was to throw off his jacket before climbing the tree,
but he did not do this. He was good at climbing and he shinned up the
tree with the agility of a monkey. He rested at the first branch and was
surprised to see how even here the view seemed to expand before him. He
felt that at last he was doing something free from the contamination of
roads and railroad tracks. He was alone in the Rockies. He had once read
a boys’ book of that title, and now he reflected with a thrill that he,
Westy Martin, was, in a sense, alone in the Rockies. Not in the perilous
depths, perhaps, but just the same, in the Rockies. He wondered if there
might be a grizzly within a mile, or two or three miles of him. _The
Rockies!_
He ascended to the next branch, and the next. Slowly he climbed and
wriggled upward to a point beyond which he hesitated to trust the weight
of his body. And here he sat in a fork of the tree and looked southward
and eastward where a vast panorama was open before him.
To the north and west was a near background of towering mountains,
making his airy perch seem low indeed. But to the south and east he saw
the West in all its glory and majesty. Mountains, mountains, mountains!
Magnificent chaos! Distance unlimited! Wildness unparalleled! Such
loneliness that a whisper might startle like a shout. It needed only the
roar of a grizzly to complete this boy’s sense of tragic isolation and
to give the scene a voice.
From where he sat, Westy could look down into the cosy little cleft and
see Ed Carlyle standing clearly outlined in the first gray of twilight;
standing like a statue, hopefully angling with his converted safety-pin
and braided worsted. Warde was gathering sticks for their fire. Westy’s
impulse was to call to them, but then he decided not to. He preferred
not to call, nor even see them. For just a little while he wanted to be
_alone in the Rockies_.
So he did not call. He looked in another direction and as he did so his
heart jumped to his throat and he was conscious of a feeling of
unspeakable gratitude to the saving impulse which had kept him silent.
For approaching up the hill from the direction in which he now looked
were the figures of two men. And one glimpse of them was enough to
strike horror to Westy Martin’s soul.