THE TAMAHNOWIS ROCKS
It was very early--in fact, the first rays of the sun, not yet risen,
had just touched the lofty heights of Rainier--when Rhodes and I left
the Inn.
Besides our revolvers and a goodly supply of ammunition, there were the
lights, an aneroid, a thermometer, our canteens, ice-picks; two pieces
of light but very strong rope, each seventy-five feet in length; our
knives, like those which hunters carry; and food sufficient to last us
_a week_.
Yes, and there were the ice-creepers, which we should need in making
our way over the glaciers, the Paradise and the Cowlitz, to that mass
of rock, the scene of those mysterious tragedies.
We did not take the direct trail up but went over to the edge of the
cañon that I--for this was my first visit to Mount Rainier--might see
the Nisqually Glacier.
And, as we made our way upward through the brightening scene, as I
gazed upon the grim cosmic beauty all about me, up into the great
cirque of the Nisqually, up to the broad summit of the mountain and
(in the opposite direction) out over the Tatoosh Range to distant
Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens all violet and gold in the morning
sun--well, that strange story which had brought us here then took on
the seeming of a mirage or a dream.
"The mountain," said Milton Rhodes, as we stood leaning on our
alpenstocks during one of our halts, "once rose to a height of sixteen
thousand feet or more. The dip of the lava layers shows that. The whole
top was blown clean off."
"Must have been some real fireworks," was my comment, "when that
happened."
"See that line of bare rock there on the very summit, Bill, midway
between Point Success up here on the left and Gibraltar here on the
right?"
"I noticed that," I told him, "and was wondering about it. Why isn't
there any snow there?"
"Heat, Bill," said Rhodes. "Heat."
"Heat! Great Vesuvius, I thought that Mount Rainier was a dead volcano."
"Not dead, Bill. Only slumbering. Four eruptions are on record.[4]
Whether Old He is to die in his slumber, or whether he is one day to
awake in mad fury--that, of course, no man can tell us."
[Footnote 4: "At this time (November, 1843) two of the great snowy
cones, Mount Regnier and St. Helens, were in action. On the 23rd of
the preceding November, St. Helens had scattered its ashes, like a
white fall of snow, over the Dalles of the Columbia, 50 miles distant.
A specimen of these ashes was given to me by Mr. Brewer, one of the
clergymen at the Dalles."--Fremont.]
"To see it belching forth smoke and sending down streams of lava would
be an interesting sight certainly," said I. "And I wonder what effect
that would have on this Drome business--that is, if there is any such
thing as Drome at all."
"Drome!" Milton echoed.
For some moments he stood there with a strange look of abstraction upon
his face.
"Drome! Ah, Bill," said he, "I wish that I knew what it means.
But come, we'll never reach the Tamahnowis Rocks if we stand here
wondering."
And so we resumed our climb. We were the early birds this morning; not
a living soul was to be seen anywhere on the mountain. But hark! What
was that? Somebody whistling somewhere up there and off to the right.
The whistles came in rapid succession, and they were loud and clear and
ringing. I stopped and looked but could see nothing.
I should have explained that we had turned aside from the edge of the
cañon, had crossed that little stream mentioned by grandfather Scranton
and had begun to climb that steep rocky mass that he spoke of.
"What the deuce," said I, "is that fellow whistling like that for? It
can't be to us."
"That," Milton Rhodes smiled, "isn't a man, Bill."
"Not a man?"
"It's a marmot," Milton told me.
"A marmot? Well," said I, "we live and we learn. I could have sworn,
Milton, that it was a human being."
The ascent was a steep one, and we climbed in silence. The horse-trail,
coming from the left, goes slanting and then twisting its way up this
rocky rampart. On reaching the path, we paused for some moments to get
our breath, then plodded on.
"I was thinking," said Milton Rhodes at last, "of what Francis Parkman
said."
"What did he say?"
"'I would go farther for one look into the crater of Vesuvius than to
see all the ruined temples in Italy.'"
"I wonder," I returned, "how far we shall have to go to see that angel
that says Drome, not to mention her pretty demon."
Rhodes laughed.
"We are getting there, Bill; we're getting there--near the scene of the
tragedies at any rate."
Ere long we reached the top. Here we passed the last shrub and in a
little space came to a small glacier. The tracks of the horses led
straight across it. But our route did not go thither; it led up over
the rocks.
Suddenly, as we toiled our way upward, Rhodes, with the remark that
Science had some strange stories to tell, asked me if I had ever heard
of Tartaglia's _slates_. I never had, though I had heard of Tartaglia,
and I wanted to know about those slates.
"Tombstones," said Milton.
"Tombstones?"
"Tombstones, Bill. What with the terrible poverty, Tartaglia, when
educating himself, could not get even a slate, and so he went out and
wrote his exercises on tombstones."
"Gosh!"
"And did you ever hear of Demoivre's death? There is a problem for your
psychological sharks."
"I never heard of him. And how did the gentleman die?"
"He told them that he had to sleep so many minutes longer each day."
"And did he do it?"
"That's what he did, Bill."
"And," I asked with growing curiosity, "when he had slept through the
twenty-four hours? Then what?"
"He never woke up," said Milton Rhodes.
Then he told me that queer story about Isaac Barrow, or, rather, about
his father. When sent to school, at Charter-house, young Barrow raised
the very deuce and raised it high; so much deuce, in fact, that dad
Barrow, whilst praying, said that, if it should be the Divine pleasure
to take from him any of his children, he could best stand the loss of
Isaac.
And did I know what the heart of a man does when his head is cut off?
I (who was wondering at his sudden turn to these queer scientific
matters) said I supposed that the heart stops beating. But Milton
Rhodes said no; the organ continues its pulsations for an hour or
longer.
And had I heard of Spallanzani's very curious experiment with the crow?
I never had, but I wanted to. Spallanzani, Milton told me, gave a crow
a good feed and then chopped its head off. (That decapitation didn't
surprise me any, for I knew that Spallanzani was a real scientist.)
The body was placed in a temperature the same as that of the living
bird and kept there for six hours. Spallanzani then took the body out,
opened it and found that the food which he had given the bird was
thoroughly digested.
"These scientists," was my comment, "are queer birds themselves."
Then he told me some strange things about sympathetic vibrations--that
a drinking-glass can be smashed by the human voice (I knew that) that
an alpine avalanche can be started thundering down by the tinkle of a
bell; and so, as Tyndall tells us, the muleteers in the Swiss mountains
silence the bells of their animals when in proximity to such danger.
And he told me of that musician who came near destroying the Colebrook
Dale suspension bridge _with his fiddle_.[5]
[Footnote 5: "When the bridge at Colebrook Dale (the first iron bridge
in the world) was building, a fiddler came along and said to the
workmen that he could fiddle their bridge down. The builders thought
this boast a fiddle-de-dee, and invited the itinerant musician to
fiddle away to his heart's content. One note after another was struck
upon the strings until one was found with which the bridge was in
sympathy. When the bridge began to shake violently, the incredulous
workmen were alarmed at the unexpected result, and ordered the fiddler
to stop."--Prof. J. Lovering.]
Then came the strangest thing of all--the story of Vogt's cricket. The
professor severed the body of a cricket (a living cricket, of course)
into two pieces, and the fore part then turned round and _ate up the
hinder_!
"Yes," Milton Rhodes said, "Science has some queer stories to tell."
"I should say that she has!"
"And maybe," he added, "she'll have a stranger one than ever to tell
when we get back--that is, if we ever do."
We passed McClure's Rock, height about seven thousand four hundred
feet; made our way along the head of a small glacier, which fell away
towards the Nisqually; ascended the cleaver, at this point very low and
along the base of which we had been moving; and there, on the other
side and coming up within a few yards of the spot where we stood, was
the Paradise Glacier, white and beautiful in the sunlight.
Milton Rhodes gave me an inquiring look.
"Recognize this spot?" he queried.
"I never saw it before, of course; but, yes, I believe that I do: this
is the place where the angel and the demon crossed over, the spot where
Scranton, White and Long found the tracks again."
"This is the place."
"And where," I asked, "are the Tamahnowis Rocks?"
"Can't see them from here, Bill. They're right over there, half a mile
distant or so, probably three-quarters."
He moved down to the edge of the snow and ice; I followed.
"Now for the creepers," said Milton, seating himself on a
rock-fragment. "Then we are off."
A few moments, and we had fastened on the toothed soles of steel and
were under way again.
Suddenly Rhodes, who was leading, stopped, raised his alpenstock and
pointed with it.
"There they are, Bill!"
And there they were. The Rocks of Tamahnowis--the Spirit, the Demon
Rocks--in sight at last.