Off to the Mountains
Busy, indeed, were the succeeding ten days. The outfit that the two boys
were to carry was packed and repacked several times, and each time it was
overhauled something was eliminated from the packs; for both boys knew
well enough that the trip before them would test their endurance even with
the lightest of packs. Finally their outfit was reduced to two
fishing-rods, one hatchet, a first-aid kit, a flash-light, the necessary
food and dishes, one canteen, and one pistol, with the wireless equipment.
This was made as simple as possible. Six new dry cells were to be taken to
provide current. Then there were a spark-gap, a spark-coil, a key, and a
detector, with the receiving set, switch, and aerial. To be sure, the
entire aerial was not packed, but merely the wires and insulators, as
spreaders could be made in the forest. Then there was an additional coil
of wire to be used for lead-in and suspension wires. No tuning instrument
was necessary, because the wireless outfits of all the members of the Camp
Brady Wireless Patrol were exactly alike and so were already in tune with
one another. Without a tuning instrument, to be sure, it might not be
possible for Charley and Lew to talk with anybody except their fellows of
the Wireless Patrol, but in the present circumstances that made no
difference to them. They had no intention of talking to anybody else.
The various instruments were carefully packed so that they could be
carried without injury. The dishes were nested as well as possible. Then
all were stowed away in the pack bags, together with the food supplies.
The two blankets were tightly folded and tied, ready to be slung over the
shoulders. Long before that last session of school, everything was in
readiness. When finally that last session was over, the two lads had only
to strap their packs on their backs, sling their blankets into place, and
pick up their little fishing-rods, unjointed and compactly packed in cloth
cases. Lew buckled the pistol to his belt and suspended the canteen from
his shoulder, while Charley sheathed his little axe and hung it on his
hip. Then, completely ready, the two lads waved farewell to their envious
comrades and hastened away to the train. In less than an hour the train
stopped to let them off at the little flag-station at the foot of Stone
Mountain. In a moment more it had gone whistling around the shoulder of
the hill, leaving the two boys alone on the edge of the wilderness.
Quickly they adjusted their packs and started back along the
railroad-track toward the gap through which they were to pass to Old
Ironsides. Rapidly they made their way along the road-bed.
"We'd better hustle while the going's good," commented Lew, glancing at
the heavy clouds that obscured the sun, "for it will get dark early
to-night. It'll be slow enough going once we leave the track."
"There's one thing sure," replied Charley. "We won't be bothered with wet
ground. I think I never saw the earth so dry at this season of the year.
There was almost no snow last winter and we've hardly had a rain this
spring. Usually it rains every day at this time of year."
Charley's prediction proved true. When the boys at last reached the notch
in the mountains and left the railroad-track, they found the way almost as
dry as a village street. Years before, the timber had been cut from Stone
Mountain, and a logging trail had passed up the very gap through which the
boys were now traveling. But brush and brambles had come in soon after the
lumbermen left and now a thick stand of saplings also helped to choke the
path. The briars tore at the boys' clothing and blankets. The bushy
growths caught in their packs and straps and wrapped themselves about
their feet and legs. Very quickly it became evident that a hard struggle
lay before them.
Back from the trail, in the forest proper, there was little underbrush,
but the stand of young trees was dense and the way underfoot was so rough
and uneven that it was almost impossible to make any headway there. For
Stone Mountain was a stone mountain in very truth. It appeared to be just
one enormous heap of rocks and boulders. In a very little while both boys
were perspiring profusely from their efforts, and both were conscious that
they were tiring fast; for the grade up the notch was steep.
"Gee!" said Lew, at last. "This is tougher than anything I ever saw when I
was in the Maine woods with Dad. We've got to take it easy or we'll be
tuckered out before we get through this gap. Let's rest a bit."
He sat down on a stone and Charley followed his example. As they rested,
they looked sharply about them. They could see for some distance through
the naked forest. The tree trunks stood straight and tall, and seemed to
be crowded as close together as pickets on a fence.
"This sure is a fine stand of poles," remarked Lew, "but it's just as that
lumber dealer said. There isn't a tree in it that would make a board wider
than six inches. But there's some good timber farther back in the
mountains. Do you remember the fine stand of pines in that little valley
we're heading for? When we were there three years ago there hadn't been a
tree cut in that valley. There must be millions and millions of feet of
lumber there."
"And do you remember," replied Charley, "how dark it was under those
pines, and how cold the water in the run was, and what schools of trout
we saw? Gee! I wish it had been trout season then! But we ought to get'em
now. Oh boy! I can hardly wait to get there."
"Then we had better be jogging on. It'll be dark before we know it."
"All right," returned Charley, "but I'm going to get a drink before I go
any farther."
"I want one, too. Guess I'll fill the canteen. Then we won't have to, stop
every time we want a drink."
The two boys scrambled down the slope to the brook. The lumber trail was
near the bottom of the notch and they had only a few yards to go. The
little run was rushing tumultuously down the notch, splashing over rocks,
scurrying over little sandy stretches, ever singing, ever murmuring, in
its downward course. Their packs and blankets made it difficult to stretch
out flat and drink from the stream, so Lew rinsed out the canteen, filled
it, and handed it to his companion. Charley took a good drink and passed
the canteen silently back to his chum.
"If you didn't really know it was the brook," said Lew, "you'd be willing
to swear you could hear somebody talking. You can hear voices just as
plain as can be. And you can almost make out what they say. Many a time
I've caught myself listening hard to try to make out the words, when I
heard a brook talking."
"It's no wonder people get scared and pretty nearly go crazy when they are
lost in the forest," replied Lew. "Without half trying, you can imagine
the forest is full of people or spooks or animals or something, creeping
up behind your back."
Lew bent down and once more filled the canteen. He corked it tight and
dipped it bodily into the run to wet the cloth cover, so that the water
within would be kept cool by evaporation. Then he slung the canteen over
his shoulder.
"I never saw a mountain stream so low at this time of the year," he
remarked, as he followed his companion up the trail. "You might think it
was August. But with no snow to melt and no rainfall this spring, it isn't
to be wondered at."
On they went up the trail. For a long time neither boy spoke. The brambles
still tore at their clothes and the bushes tripped them. In places the
young saplings were so dense that to force a way among them was a
difficult task. Their packs began to grow very heavy. But they had one
advantage. As Charley had suggested, the ground was perfectly dry. There
were no slippery sticks to tread on, nor any moss-covered stones,
treacherous with their soggy coats. So they could give more attention to
the obstacles above ground. But at best it was a hard, difficult climb.
As they mounted higher and higher, the stream in the bottom constantly
dwindled. Long before the crest was reached, the brook had become a very
feeble stream, indeed. It had its source near the top of the pass, in a
great spring that welled up under a large rock. A single hemlock had
sprung up here in years past, and, watered by the spring, had grown to
enormous size. For some reason the lumbermen had passed it by. Now it
reared its giant bulk high above the younger growths around it, casting a
dense shade over the spring basin. Practically nothing grew in this deep
shade, so that the space above the spring was open and free from bushes.
On the trunk of this giant hemlock, where it could be seen by all who came
to the spring, was a white sign that read:
<i>Everybody loses when timber burns.</i>
Pennsylvania Department of Forestry.
"After our fight with the forest fire, when we were in camp at Fort Brady,
they don't need to tell any member of the Wireless Patrol to be careful
with fire," observed Lew. "But there are lots of people who do need to be
warned."
He dipped the canteen in the spring and passed on. "We're almost at the
top," he said, "and I'm not sorry."
"The light is already growing fainter," said Charley, "and it will bother
us to see before so very long. It's going to get dark awful early
to-night. We'd better hustle."
They reached the summit of the pass and started down the other slope. The
trail continued. At first it was choked with briars and bushes. But
suddenly they found the trail open. It had been cleared of all
obstructions and enlarged until it was several feet wide. Even the roots
of the bushes had been grubbed out, so that the path was smooth and clean.
The cut saplings and brush had been burned in the trail itself, but the
work had been done so carefully that never a tree had been scorched. Even
the marks of fire had been obliterated by the subsequent grubbing of the
roots.
"Bully good!" cried Lew, when he saw the path lying smooth and open before
him. "The forest rangers have been making a fire trail of this old path.
We can make great time here."
He pushed on at top speed. Charley hung close at his heels. Neither boy
said a word, each saving his breath for the task in hand; for with the
packs on their backs even a down-hill trail was not easy.
"We can go scout pace here," said Lew over his shoulder, and suiting his
action to his words, he broke into a trot. Fifty steps he went at that
gait, then walked fifty. Then he ran fifty more. So they went down the
mountain in a mere fraction of the time it had taken them to ascend. But
long before they reached the bottom, Lew dropped back to a steady walk.
"We've got to save our wind for the climb up Old Ironsides," he said over
his shoulder.
It was well he did so. Before them a long, high mountain stretched across
their way, like a giant caterpillar. No notch cut through its rugged side,
to give an easy way to the valley beyond. Only by climbing directly over
the rugged monster could the two boys reach the snug little valley on its
far side, where they expected to find the trout teeming tinder the dark
pines. Old Ironsides was the rocky barrier that confronted them. Even
Stone Mountain was not more rugged and rocky. Like Stone Mountain it
seemed to be a mammoth rock pile. Rocks of every size and description
covered its steep slope. Mostly the mountain was shaded by a good stand of
second-growth timber; but in places there were vast areas of rounded
stones, like flattish heaps of potatoes, that for acres covered the soil
of the hill so deeply as to prevent all plant growth. Old Ironsides could
have been called Stone Mountain as appropriately as its neighbor, for
truly it was rock-ribbed. But the stones on its slopes, unlike those of
Stone Mountain, contained a small percentage of iron. Hence its name. The
nearer slope of this hill was as dry as it was stony. Not a spring or the
tiniest trickle of water wet its rocky side for miles. But part way down
the farther slope a splendid stream gushed forth among the rocks. It was
this spring, or the stream issuing from it, that Charley and Lew hoped to
reach before they made their camp for the night.
Thanks to the work of the forest rangers in clearing the fire trail, it
looked as though the two boys would reach their goal before dark. Could
they have gone straight up the slope of Old Ironsides, they would have
come almost directly to the spring itself. But the grade was far too steep
to permit that. They would have to zigzag up the hill and find the stream
after they topped the crest. Because of the peculiar formation of the land
below this spring, the water did not run directly down the hill toward the
bottom, but flowed off to one side and made its way diagonally down the
slope.
At the bottom of the fire trail Lew and Charley sat down and rested for
five minutes. Then they began their difficult climb upward. And difficult
it was. There was no semblance of a path. The way led over jagged masses
of rock, through dense little stands of trees, and among growths that were
hard to penetrate because of their very thinness; for where the stand was
sparse the trees had many low limbs to catch and trip and pull at those
who sought to pass through.
There were great areas of bare stones to be crossed--stones rounded and
weathered by the elements through thousands of years, and finally heaped
together like flattish piles of pumpkins on a barn floor. Acres and acres
were covered by these great deposits of rounded, lichened rocks.
In crossing these rocky areas it was necessary to use the greatest
caution. Many of the stones rested so insecurely that the slightest
pressure would send them rolling downward. If one stone started, others
might follow, and great numbers of rocks might go rushing down the hill as
coal pours down a chute into a cellar. Serious injury was certain to
result if either of the lads got caught in such a slide; for some of the
stones in these piles weighed hundreds of pounds.
Rattlesnakes constituted a second danger. The mountains hereabout were
full of them. One never could tell at what instant a rattler might be
found lying among the stones, or coiled on a flat rock that had been
warmed by the sun. So like the rocks themselves in color were these snakes
that in the dull light it would have been easily possible to step on one
of them without seeing it. So the two boys advanced slowly and cautiously
across these barren stretches, stepping gingerly on stones that looked
insecure and ever keeping a sharp watch for anything that might suggest
snakes.
Up they went and still upward. Across bare rock patches, through brushy
growths and among dense stands of young trees, the two boys forced their
way, ever ascending, ever working upward toward the summit. Now they made
their way to the right, now to the left, and sometimes they climbed
straight upward in their efforts to avoid obstacles.
"Gee!" cried Charley after they had been climbing for some time. "This is
what I call tough going. Let's have a drink."
They sat down on a stone to rest. Perspiration was pouring down their
faces. Both boys were breathing hard. The canteen was uncorked and they
took a good drink.
"Not too much," cautioned Lew, as Charley started to take a second
draught. "You can't climb if you fill up too full."
After a short rest they went on again. The way grew rockier. There were
fewer piles of loose stones, but more outcropping rocks, the bare bones of
the earth. Constantly the light dwindled. Their progress grew slower. From
time to time they paused to drink and rest.
"We're never going to make it before dark," said Charley, again pausing to
get his breath. He took a drink and passed the canteen to his companion.
"Then we'll have to make it after dark," said Lew. "For the canteen is
about empty and we've got to have water. I'm so thirsty I could drink a
gallon."
They said no more, but pushed ahead as fast as their weary legs would
carry them.
"We're not far from the top now," Lew said after a time. "I see our old
landmark over to the left. It isn't more than half a mile from that to the
water. We'll make it all right."
But he had hardly gone fifty yards before he stopped and cried out. Before
him lay a blackened, desolate area that stretched the remainder of the way
to the summit. Fire had swept over the spot. But it was not the fact that
fire had been through the region that made Lew cry out. Fire and
subsequent storms had practically leveled the stand of trees between the
spot where Lew stood and the summit. Here and there a blackened tree
thrust its bare trunk upward, limbless, its top gone, a ragged, spectral,
pitiful remnant of what had been a beautiful tree. But mostly the thick
stand of young poles had been laid low even as a scythe levels a field of
grain. And these fallen poles lay in almost impassable confusion, twisted
and tangled and in places heaped in towering masses. A barbed wire
entanglement would hardly have been a worse obstacle. To penetrate the
mass, even in the light of noon, would have been no easy work; but to
cross the area now, with dusk fast deepening to darkness, was indeed a
difficult task.
"Well," said Lew, after a few searching glances at the burned area, "we've
got to go on, and we might as well plow straight through it. I can't see
that one way looks any easier than another."
They went on, slowly, painfully. Now they were forced to crawl underneath
a fallen tree, now to climb over one. Again and again their way was
completely blocked by high barriers of interlocked trunks and branches.
Sometimes they had to mount the fallen trunks and cautiously walk from one
to another. Darkness came on apace. They could hardly see. The flash-light
was brought forth, the last drop in the canteen swallowed, and they
started forward on their final push.
"It's only a few hundred yards to the top, now," said Lew. "It will be
easier going down the other side."
Painfully slow was their progress. More than once each of them tripped and
fell. The sharp ends of the broken branches tore their clothes and
scratched them badly. But silently, doggedly, they pushed on. At last
there remained but one barrier between them and the summit. It was a
great pile of fallen trunks that had no visible ending. There was nothing
to do but go over it. From one log to another they scrambled up, each
helping the other, advancing a foot at a time, feeling the way with hands
and feet and searching out a path with the little light. So high were the
trees piled that at times the boys walked ten feet in air, making their
way gingerly along the slender trunks. Eventually they got beyond the log
barrier and the remainder of the way to the top was more open. At last
they stood on the very summit.
"I wonder where our landmark is," queried Lew, flashing his light this way
and that. "I understand now why we saw it so plainly from below. There
were no standing trees to hide it. We never saw it from so far away
before."
The landmark was a great, upright rock like a huge chimney. It was not far
distant and presently Lew found it. The boys made their way to it.
"Now," said Lew, with a sigh of relief, "we go straight down. We should
come to the brook flowing from the spring in a few minutes. We'll have to
make it soon or I'll die of thirst."
They started down the slope. The fire had swept over the summit and the
way before them was like the area they had just crossed. But they were now
going down-hill and it was far easier to force their way. A few yards at a
time they advanced, now held back by a fallen log or turned aside by
dense entanglements of prostrate trunks.
Presently Lew gave a cry. "Do you see that big stone like an altar,
Charley?" he called, turning the light on a great rock. "That's the stone
where we made our fire the last time we were here. It stands within
twenty-five feet of the brook."
"Thank goodness!" answered Charley. "My back is about broken. This pack
weighs a ton! And I'll die if I don't get water soon."
Recklessly they pushed forward, almost running in their eager haste.
"Here we are," exulted Lew, a moment later. "Here's the brook."
Before him he could dimly make out the depression in the earth where the
stream ran. He dropped his pack and ran forward, then threw himself flat
in the darkness and felt in the stream bed for a pool deep enough to drink
from. His fingers touched only dry sand and stones.
"The light, Charley," he panted. "Bring the light, quick."
His comrade flung his own pack on the earth and ran forward to the bank of
the stream. He turned his light downward and flashed it right and left
along the bed of the brook. There was no answering sparkle of light. The
bed of the brook was not even moist. The spring had gone dry.