"VOICES!"
Scranton closed the journal on the forefinger of his right hand and
looked at Milton Rhodes.
"Well," said he, "what do you think of that?"
Rhodes did not say what he thought of it. I thought that I knew, though
I had to acknowledge that I wasn't sure just what I thought of this
wild yarn myself.
After a little silence, Milton Rhodes asked:
"Is that all?"
"All? Indeed, no!" returned Scranton.
He opened the book and prepared to read from it again.
"This adventure that I have just read to you," he said looking over
the top of the journal at Milton Rhodes, "took place in what is now
known as Paradise Park--a Paradise where, as you well know, there is
sometimes twenty-five feet of snow in the winter."
"Of course that was the place," Milton nodded, "for they had climbed
the eastern wall of the cañon and had camped near the edge."
"And the one that followed," Scranton added, "on what we now call the
Cowlitz Glacier. I believe, Mr. Rhodes, that you have visited Rainier a
number of times?"
"Many times, Mr. Scranton. Few men, I believe, know the great mountain
better than I do; and I never followed in the footsteps of a guide,
imported or otherwise, either."
"Then, in all likelihood, you know the Tamahnowis Rocks in the Cowlitz
Glacier."
"I have been there a dozen times."
"Did you ever, Mr. Rhodes, notice anything unusual at that place?"
"Nothing whatever. I found the ascent of the rocks themselves rather
difficult and the crevasses there interesting, but nothing more."
"Well, it was there," said Scranton, "that what I am going to read to
you now took place. Yes, I know that it was there at the Tamahnowis
Rocks, though I myself never could find anything there, either. And
now, after all these long years, once more it is in that very spot
that--"
He broke off abruptly and dropped his look to the old record.
Milton Rhodes leaned forward.
"Mr. Scranton," he asked, "what were you going to say?"
Scranton tapped the old journal with a forefinger.
"_This_ first," he said. "Then _that_."
"The story begins to take shape," observed Milton Rhodes; and I
wondered what on earth he meant. "Pray proceed."
Whereupon the other raised the book, cleared his throat with an ahem
and started to read to us this astonishing record:
"August 25th.--I was right: the very first thing in the morning the
Indian left us. Nothing could induce him to go forward, to remain at
the camp even. The demons of Rainier would get us, said he, if we went
on--the terrible _tamahnowis_ that dwelt in the fiery lake on the
summit and in the caverns in the mountain side, caverns dark and fiery
and horrible as the caves in hell itself. Had we not had warning? One
had come down here, even among the trees, and undoubtedly it would have
killed us all had it not been for that angel. He, Sklokoyum, would
not go forward a single foot. He was going to _klatawah hyak kopa
Steilacoom_. How the old fellow begged us to turn back, too! It was
quite touching, as was his leave-taking when he finally saw that we
were determined to go on. Old Sklokoyum acted as though he was taking
leave of the dead--as, indeed, he was. And at last he turned and left
us, and in a few minutes he had vanished from sight.
"How I wish to God now that we had gone back with him!"
At this point, Scranton paused and said:
"The Indian was never seen again or even heard of again."
The account (which I am copying from the journal itself) went on thus:
"Fog disappeared during the night. A fairer morning, I believe, never
dawned on Rainier. Sky the softest, the loveliest of blues. A few
fleecy clouds about the summit of the mountain, but not a single wisp
of vapor to be seen anywhere else in all the sky.
"Proceeded to get a good survey of things. From the edge of the cañon,
got a fine view clear down the glacier and clear up it, too. Ice here
covered with dirt and rock-fragments, save a strip in the middle,
showing white and bluish. Badly crevassed. It must have been right
about here that Kautz left the glacier. He climbed the cliffs on the
other side, and then, the next morning, he started for the top. It
seemed, to us, however, that the ascent could be made more easily on
this side. But we were not headed for the summit; we had a mystery to
solve, and we immediately set about trying to do it.
"We started to trail them--the angel and that thing with the big eyes
that burned with a greenish, hellish fire. Where they had crushed
through the flower-meadows, this was not difficult. At other places,
however, no more sign than if they had moved on through the air itself.
One thing was soon clear: they had held steadily _upward_, never
swinging far from the edge of that profound cañon in which flows that
mighty river of ice.
"The ground became rocky. No sign. Then at last, in a sandy spot, we
suddenly came to the plain prints left by the feet of the angel as she
passed there, and, mingled with those prints, there were marks over
which we bent in perplexity and then in utter amazement.
"These marks were about eight inches in length, and, as I looked at
them, I felt a shiver run through me and I thought of a monstrous bird
and even of a reptilian horror. But that squatting form we had seen for
those few fleeting moments--well, _that_ had not been either a bird or
a reptile.
"'One thing,' said Long, 'is plain: _it_ was leading and the angel was
following.'
"White and I looked closely, and we saw that this had certainly been so.
"'It appears,' Long remarked, 'that the fog didn't interfere any with
their journey. They seem to have gone along as steadily and surely as
if they had been in bright sunshine.'
"'I wonder,' White said, 'if the thing was smelling the way back like a
dog.'
"'Back where?' I asked. 'And I see no sign of a down trail.'
"'Lord,' exclaimed Long, looking about uneasily, 'the Siwashes say that
queer things go on up here, that the mountain is haunted; and, blame
me, if I ain't beginning to think that they are right! Maybe, before we
are done, we'll wish that we had turned back with old Sklokoyum.'
"I didn't like to hear him talk like that. He spoke as though he were
jesting, but I knew that superstitious dread had laid a hand upon him.
"'Nonsense!' I laughed. 'Haunted? That woman that we saw and that
thing--well, we know that they were real enough, and we knew that even
when we didn't have these footprints to tell us.'
"'Oh, they are real, all right,' said Long. 'But real _what_?'
"A little while after that, we came to a snowfield, an acre or two in
extent, and there we made a strange discovery. The trail led right
across it. And it was plain that _it_ had still been leading and the
angel had been following. Of a sudden White, who was in advance,
exclaimed and pointed.
"'Look at that,' he said. 'See that? Its tracks end here.'
"And that is just what they did! But the tracks of the angel went right
on across the snow.
"'Where did the thing go to?' I wondered.
"'Perhaps,' suggested Long, 'she picked it up and carried it.'
"But I shook my head.
"'A woman--or a man either, for the matter of that--carrying that
thing!' White exclaimed. 'She could never have done that. And you can
see for yourself; she never even paused here. Had she stopped to pick
the thing up--what a queer thought--we would have the story written
here in the snow.'
"'Then,' said Long, 'it must have gone on through the air.'
"'Humph!' White ejaculated. 'Through the air! Well, Sklokoyum said that
the thing has wings--the bat wings of the white man's devil!'
"'But,' I objected, 'Sklokoyum was so badly scared that he didn't know
what he saw.'
"'I wonder,' said White.
"Beyond the snowfield, the place was strewn in all directions with
rock-fragments. It was comparatively level, however, and the going
was not difficult. A tiny stream off to the right, a steep rocky mass
before us. We were soon, having crossed the stream, ascending this.
It was a steep climb, but we were not long in getting up it. At this
place we passed the last shrub. We figured that we must be near an
altitude of seven thousand feet now. Dark clouds forming. At times,
in a cloud-shadow, the place would have a gloomy and wild aspect. No
trail, though at intervals we would find a disturbed stone or faint
marks in the earth. Our route lay along a broken ridge of rock. On our
left the land fell away toward Kautz's Glacier [the Nisqually] while
on the right, coming up close, was another glacier [the Paradise] white
and beautiful.
"Ere long we reached a point where the ridge had a width of but a few
yards, a small glacier on the left, the great beautiful one on the
other side. And here we found it, found the trail of the thing and
Sklokoyum's angel. They had come up along the edge of the ice on our
left (to avoid the climb up over the rocks) crossed over the ridge
(very low at this point) and held steadily along the glacier, keeping
close to the edge. And in that dense fog! And just to the right the ice
went sweeping down, like a smooth frozen waterfall. A single false step
there, and one would go sliding down, down into yawning crevasses. How
had they done it? And to where had they been going, in this region of
barren rock and eternal snow and ice, through that awful fog and with
night drawing on?
"There was but one way to get the answer to that, and that was to
follow.
"And so we followed.
"And how can I set down here what happened? I can not. I simply can
not. Not that it matters, for it can never, in even the slightest
feature, fade from my mind. It may be that I shall find myself wishing
that some of it would.
"Clouds grew larger, thicker, blacker. The change was a sudden,
sinister one; there seemed to be something uncanny about it even. Our
surroundings became gloomy, indescribably dreary and savage. We halted,
there in the tracks of the thing and the angel, and looked about us,
and we looked with a growing uneasiness and with an awe that sent a
chill to the heart--at any rate, I know that it did to mine.
"White and Long wanted to turn back. Clouds had fallen upon the summit
of Rainier and were settling lower and lower. Viewed from a distance,
they are clouds, but, when you find yourself in them, they are fog;
and to find our way back in fog would be no easy matter. However, so I
objected, it would be by no means impossible. There would be no danger,
I said, if we were careful.
"'There is that pile of rocks,' I added, pointing ahead. 'Let's go on
to that at any rate. The trail seems to lead straight towards those
rocks. I hate to even think of turning back now, now when we are so
near.'
"Still, I noted with some uneasiness, my companions hesitated, their
minds, I suppose, a prey to feelings for which they could not have
found a rational explanation. All this, however, really was not
strange, for it was truly a wild and savage and awesome place and hour.
"At length, in an evil moment, we moved forward.
"Yes, soon there could be no doubt whatever about it: the trail led
straight toward those rocks. What would we find there?
"So engrossed were we that we did not see it coming. There was a sudden
exclamation, we halted, and there was the fog--the dreaded fog that we
had forgotten--drifting about us. The next moment it was gone, but more
was drifting after. We resumed our advance. It was not far now. Why
couldn't the fog have waited a little longer? But what did it matter?
It could affect but little our immediate purpose; and, though I knew
that it would be difficult, surely we could find our way back to the
camp.
"The fog thinned, and the rocks loomed up before us, dim and ghostly
but close at hand. Then the vapor thickened about us again, and they
were gone. We were in the midst of crevasses now and had to proceed
with great caution. How it happened none of us knew; but of a sudden we
saw that we had lost the trail. But we did not turn back to find it. It
didn't matter, really. The demon and the angel had gone to those rocks.
Of that we were certain. And there the rocks were, right there before
us. 'Tis true we couldn't see them now, but they were there.
"We went on. Minutes passed. And still there were no rocks. At length
we had to acknowledge it: in the twistings and turnings we had been
compelled to make among those cursed crevasses, we had missed our
objective, and now we knew not where we were.
"But we knew that we were not far. White and Long cursed and wanted
to know how we were ever going to find our way back through this fog,
since we had failed to find the rocks when they had been right there
in front of us. But it was nothing really serious; we would find
that rock-mass. We started. Of a sudden Long gave a sharp but low
exclamation, and his hand clutched at my arm.
"'What is it?' I asked in a voice low and guarded.
"'_Voices!_' he whispered."