Clothes and stage trappings can neither add nor detract from our respect
for death. He is the same grim old gentleman, be his mouldy bones naked,
or clothed in robes of the most gaudy or brilliant hues. A blue death, a
red death or a yellow death is just as grizzly and awe-inspiring as one
of any shade of gray. Even a black death excites no emotions not touched
by the first name, for it is the dread messenger himself whom we respect
and not his fanciful robes of office.
As far as I am personally concerned, I confess that Big Pete's painful
suggestion about the coyotes had more to do with keeping my mouth shut
than any terror inspired by the lily-like purity of the garments of the
white death; what made my bones ache was the thought of the wolves
gnawing them.
Overhead the sun shone with an unusual brilliancy, and the atmosphere
had that peculiar crystalline transparency which kills space and brings
distant objects close to one's feet. Where then was the terrible white
messenger? Why must my head be muffled like a mummy? Why must I keep my
mouth shut, while the curiosity mill within me was working overtime
grinding out questions I should dearly love to ask?
Again and again I looked around me to see where this ghostly white
terror might lurk, and now, as I gazed at the mountains, I was surprised
and annoyed to discover that the distant peaks were gradually
disappearing, being blotted out of the landscape before my eyes; a
ghost-like mantle was creeping over and enshrouding the mountains.
Like Big Pete, the witch-bear, the ptarmigan and the stinging insects,
the mountains themselves had joined in the weird game and were donning
their fernseed caps of invisibility. Now the air around and about me
seemed to be filled with powdered dust of mica that glinted, sparkled
and scintillated in the sunshine. The breeze which was tossing about the
bright atoms loosened the handkerchief which swathed my nose and mouth,
and I was seized with a violent fit of coughing.
It was no gentle hand which Big Pete laid on my shoulder before he again
bound the handkerchief around my face and motioned for me to follow him.
Evidently my guide had been making good use of his time while I was
engaged in idle speculation, for he led me to a point about fifty yards
from the goat trail where there was a possible place to descend the
cliff to a ledge fifty feet below. By this time I had become enough of a
mountaineer to follow my guide over trails which a few weeks previous
would have seemed to me impossible to traverse, and after a hasty and
daring descent we reached the ledge, where I discovered the black mouth
of a cavern; into this hole Pete thrust me and led me back some twenty
yards into the darkness, ordered me to disrobe to the waist, then he
began a most vigorous and irritating slapping and rubbing of my chest;
so insistent and persevering was he that I really thought my skin would
be peeled from shoulders to waist. At last he desisted and ordered me to
put on all my clothes.
"Are you mad, Pete? Has the rarefied air of the mountains upset your
brain? If not, will you kindly tell me what on earth all this means and
why we are hiding in this gloomy hole?" I asked as soon as I got the
breath back in my body.
"Le-loo, you be a baby, and need a keeper to prevent you from committing
susancide several times a day. Tenderfoot? Well, I should say so. No one
but a short-horn from the East would keep his mouth open gulping in the
frozen fog, filling his warm lungs with quarts of fine ice. I reckon it
would be healthier to breathe pounded glass, fur it hain't sharper nor
half as cold. Why, Le-loo, tha' be a dose of fever and lung inflammation
in every mouthful of this frozen fog."
He held my face between his two strong hands so that the faint light
that filtered through the murky darkness from the cavern's mouth dimly
illuminated my countenance, and as he watched the streams of
perspiration falling in drops from the end of my nose his frown relaxed
and a broad grin spread over his handsome features.
"You're all right this time," he added "I calculate that I've melted all
the ice in your bellows, so just creep up tha' and sweat a bit more to
make it slick and sartin that we've beat the White Death this trip." I
did as he said, not because I wanted to sweat but because habit made me
obey the commands of my guide.
Evidently this cavern had been in constant use by some sort of animals
as a sort of stable for many, many years, and I have had sweeter
couches, but by this time my rough life had transformed me into
something of a wild animal myself, and it was not long before I was
comfortably dozing. During the time that I slept I was dimly conscious
of being surrounded by a crowd of people; as the absurdity of this
forced itself through my sleep-befuddled brain and I opened wide my
eyes, what I saw made me open my eyes still wider.
I was about to start to my feet when I felt Big Pete's restraining hand
on my shoulder, and not until then did I realize that the cave was
crowded with the shaggy white Rocky Mountain goats, and not weird,
white-bearded old men. Few persons can truly say that they have been
within arm's length of a flock of these timid and almost unapproachable
animals; but we had invaded their secret place of refuge, and they had
not, as yet, taken alarm at our presence in their castle. It may be that
the frozen fog had driven the goats to the cavern for shelter, and it is
possible that never having been hunted by man, these animals feared the
White Death more than they did human beings, and did not realize the
dangerous character of their present visitors; whatever the cause of
their temerity, the fact remains that men and goats slept that night in
the cavern together.
I did not awake next morning until after the departure of the goats and
opened my eyes to find myself alone in the cavern.
Having all my clothes on, no time was wasted at my toilet, but I made my
way directly to the doorway and was gratified to discover that Big Pete
was roasting some kid chops over the hot embers of a fire.
After breakfasting on the remains of the kid, Big Pete arose and scanned
the sky, the horizon and the mountain tops, and turning to me said,
"Now, Le-loo, that Wild Hunter-b'ar-wolf man has fooled us by doubling
on his trail an' as it hain't him we're after now but the trail out of
the mountains, I mean to go by sens-see-ation, but you must keep yer
meat-trap shut and not speak, 'cause soon as I know I'm a man I hain't
got no more sense than a man. I must say to myself, 'Now, Pete, you're a
varmint and varmints know their way even in a new country.' Then I just
sense things and trots along 'til I come out all right."
I had often heard of this wonderful instinct of direction, the homing
instinct of the pigeon, which some Indians, Africans, Australian black
boys and a few white men still possess; I say still possess because it
is evident that it was once our common heritage, a sort of sixth sense
which has been lost by disuse. That Big Pete possessed this sixth sense
I little doubted, and it was with absorbing interest that I watched the
man work himself into the proper state of mind.
For quite a time he stood sniffing the air and looking around him while
his body swayed with a slow motion. Then suddenly, as if he had seen
something or as if answering the call of something, he started off
almost at right angles to our trail, acting very much like a hound on an
old scent, but keeping up a pace that tried my endurance.
It was truly wonderful the way this man, in a trance-like state, was
guided by an invisible power over the most dangerous ground, but no one,
after a careful survey, could have selected a better trail than that
chosen by Big Pete. On and on we went, scrambling over rock-skirting
precipices and crumbling ledges. A dense fog settled around us, making
each step hazardous, but with an instinct as true and apparently
identical with that of our four-footed brothers, my guide kept the same
rapid pace for hours, and then, all of a sudden, came to an abrupt stop.
For several seconds he stood in his tracks, his body keeping the same
swaying motion, but after a short while he crept cautiously forward in
the fog, with me at his heels, and we found ourselves at the edge of a
giant fault, similar to the one in Darlinkel Park, but there was
apparently no pass to let us down the towering precipices to the valley
below.
"Well, that was a wonderful trip," I cried.
"Shut up!" shouted Pete savagely, but I had spoken and the spell was
broken; reason, not instinct, must now lead us.
Vapor and clouds concealed the low grounds from our view; however, we
were determined not to spend another night in the mountains, so while I
rested and regained my breath, Big Pete went on to explore the ledges.
Presently my guide hove in sight and motioned me to follow him; he led
me to a place where another goat trail went over the edge of the
precipice, this time not in ten and fifteen feet jumps, but by a steep
diagonal path. Down the treacherous trail we slipped and slid with a
wall of rocks on one side and death in the form of a bluish white space
on the other side.
As we were clambering carefully around the face of a big rock Pete
suddenly whispered that he smelt a "Painter," and upon peering around
the corner we found ourselves face to face with a large cat; the animal
was crouching upon a flat-topped projecting stone immediately in our
path. That it was not the puma of the low-lands, its reddish-colored
coat and great size proclaimed. It was a so-called mountain lion and a
grand specimen of its kind.
The cat's small head lay between its muscular forepaws, its hair adhered
closely to its body, its long tail was full and round and waved slowly
from side to side, while its eyes gleamed like electric sparks.
We were in a most awkward position; our guns were swung by straps over
our backs, so that we might use our hands, and we were clinging to the
face of the big rock while our toes were seeking foothold in the
treacherous shale of the trail. To loosen our hands was to fall
backwards into the bluish white sea of unknown depths, and to retrace
our steps was out of the question.
Pete often expressed the opinion that no predaceous creature, from a
spider up to a cougar, will attack its prey while the latter is
immovable.
As a corollary to this proposition he said that when a person is
suddenly confronted by a dangerous wild beast, the safest plan to pursue
is to remain perfectly quiet, or, as he quaintly put it, "to peetrify
yourself in the wink of an eye."
Truth to tell, on this occasion I found no difficulty in following his
directions. I was "peetrified" by fear; my feet were cold and numb,
chills in wavelets washed up and down my spine, a sudden rash seemed to
be breaking out all over my body and the skin on my back felt as if it
had been converted into goose-flesh.
Had we been able to travel a few feet further we would have both found a
comparatively safe footing and had our arms free and a fighting chance
with the big catamount in place of hanging suspended to the face of the
rock like two big, helpless, terrified bats.