THE MYSTERY OF OLD HE
"It was about three o'clock in the afternoon of the 24th," said
Scranton, "that they reached the foot of the Nisqually Glacier, called
Kautz Glacier by my grandfather. As for what followed, I shall give you
that in my grandfather's own words."
He opened the book, at a place marked with a strip of paper, and read
from it the following:
"August 24th, 10 p.m.--At last we are on the mountain. And how can I
set it down--this thing that has happened? What I write here must be
inadequate indeed, but I shall not worry about that, for a hundred
years could never dim the memory of what I saw. I have often wondered
why the Indians were afraid of Rainier; I know now. And what do I
really know? I know what I saw, I know what happened; but only God in
Heaven knows what it means.
"Got started early. Still following the river. Going very difficult.
Crossed stream a number of times and once had to take to the woods.
Reached the glacier about three o'clock--an enormous wall of dirty ice,
four or five hundred feet in height, with the Nisqually flowing right
out of it. Day had turned dark and threatening. Climbed the eastern
wall of the cañon. Clouds suddenly settled down--a fog cold and thick
and dripping--and we made camp by a tiny stream, near the edge of the
cañon cut by the glacier. Soon had a good fire burning. And it was not
long before it came--the shrouded figure and with it that horrible
shape, 'if,' as old Milton has it in _Paradise Lost_, 'shape it might
be called that shape had none.'
"At times the fog would settle down so thick we could see no farther
than fifty feet. Then suddenly objects could be made out two or
three hundred feet away. At the moment the fog was about us thicker
than ever. We were sitting by the fire, warming ourselves and
talking--White, Long and myself. All at once there was an exclamation.
I looked at Long, and what I saw on his face and in his eyes brought me
to my feet in an instant and whirled my look up in that direction in
which he was staring.
"And there on the top of the bank, not more than thirty feet from us,
stood a tall, white, shrouded figure, a female figure, and beside it,
seemingly squatting like a monstrous toad, was that dark shape that had
no shape. But, though shape it had none, it had eyes--big eyes that
burned at us with a greenish, hellish fire.
"White snatched up his rifle and thrust it forward, but I stepped over
and shoved the muzzle aside. When we looked up there again, the woman,
for a woman, a white woman too, it certainly was--well, she was gone,
and with her that formless thing with the hellish fire in its big eyes.
"'What was it?' exclaimed White.
"He rubbed his eyes and stared up there again, then this way and that,
all about into the thick vapor.
"'Was it only a dream?'
"'It was real enough,' I told him. 'It was a woman, a white woman.'
"'Or,' put in Long, 'the spirit of one.'
"'I know one thing,' said White: 'she may be a flesh-and-blood
creature, and she may be a spirit; but that thing that crouched there
beside her was not of this world of ours!'
"He shuddered.
"'Not of this world of ours! Men, what _was_ that thing?'
"That, of course, was a question that neither Long nor myself could
answer.
"'If,' I said, 'it hadn't been for this fog! If we could only have seen
them better!'
"Of a sudden White exclaimed:
"'Where's Sklokoyum?'
"'Not far,' I told him. 'Say--he was up there, up there where they came
from. Come, let's look into this.'
"I sprang up the bank. They followed. A moment, and we were in that
very spot where the woman and the thing had stood so brief a space
before.
"'It was no dream, at any rate,' observed Long, pointing to the crushed
purple flowers--a species, I believe, of aster.
"'No,' I returned; 'it was not a dream.'
"'Maybe,' said White, peering about, 'we'll wish, before this business
is ended, that it all had been a dream.'
"Came a loud scream from above. Silence. And then the crash of some
heavy body through the branches and shrubs.
"'Sklokoyum!' I cried.
"White's hand closed on my arm with the grip of a vice.
"'Hear that?'
"I heard it. It was the voice of a woman or a girl.
"'She's calling,' said Long, 'calling to _it_.'
"'Great Heaven!' I exclaimed. 'It's after the Indian! Come!'
"I started up, but I had taken only a half-dozen springs or so when
Sklokoyum came leaping, plunging into view. I have seen fear, horrible
fear, that of cowards and the fear of brave men; but never had I, never
have I, seen anything like that fear which I saw now. And Sklokoyum,
whatever his faults, has a _skookum tumtum_--in other words, is no
coward.
"Down the Indian came plunging. There was a glimpse of a blood-covered
visage; then he was past. The next instant a shock, a savage oath from
White, and he and the Siwash fell in a heap, went over the edge and
rolled down the bank and clean to the fire.
"Long and I followed, keeping a sharp lookout behind us, and, indeed,
in every direction. But no glimpse was caught of any moving thing, nor
did the faintest sound come to us from out that cursed vapor, settling
on the trees and dripping, dripping, dripping.
"Sklokoyum's right cheek was slashed as though by some great talon, and
he had been terribly bitten in the throat.
"'A little more,' observed Long, 'and it would have been the jugular,
and that would have meant _klahowya_, Sklokoyum.'
"The Indian declared that he had been attacked by a demon, a _klale
tamahnowis_, a winged fiend from the white man's hell itself. What was
it like? Sklokoyum could not tell us that. All he knew was that the
demon had wings, teeth a foot in length and that fire shot out of its
eyes and smoke belched from its nostrils. And surely it would have
killed him (and I have no doubt that it would have) if an angel, an
angel from the white man's Heaven, had not come and driven it off. What
was the angel like? Sklokoyum could not describe her, so wonderful was
the vision. And her voice--why, at the very sound of her voice, that
horrible _tamahnowis_ flapped its wings and slunk away into the fog and
the gloom of the trees.
"Poor Sklokoyum! No wonder he gave us so wild an account of what had
happened up there! And, said he, to remain here would be certain death.
We must go back, start at once. Well, we are still here, and we are not
going to turn back at this spot, though I have no doubt that Sklokoyum
himself will do so the very first thing in the morning.
"The fog is thinning. Now and again I see a star gleaming down with
ghostly fire. We came here seeking a mystery; well, we certainly
have found one. I wonder if I can get any sleep tonight. Long is to
relieve me at twelve o'clock. For, of course, we can not, after what
has happened, leave our camp without a guard. And I wonder if--what,
though, is the good of wondering? But what is she, Sklokoyum's angel?
And what is that _klale tamahnowis_, that demon? And where is the angel
now?"