WE ENTER THEIR SHADOW
For a space we stood there in silence looking at that dark mass which
reared itself up, like a temple in ruins I thought, in the midst of the
crevassed ice.
Then I said:
"Who, looking at that pile, would ever dream that there was anything
mysterious and terrible about it, anything _scientific_?"
"The place," Milton Rhodes returned, "certainly has an innocent look;
but looks, you know, are often deceiving. And how deceiving in this
particular instance, that we know full well indeed. Besides Scranton,
yourself and me, not a living soul knows how horrible was the death of
that poor girl."
I made no response. Many were the thoughts that came and went as I
stood there and looked at those Tamahnowis Rocks.
Of a sudden I noticed a slight smile in the eyes of my companion.
"Why the grin?" I queried. "This, I must say, is a sweet time for
grins. I would suggest that, instead, you say your prayers."
Rhodes laughed. Then he pointed to my right hand. This, I now
discovered, was resting on that pocket which held my revolver.
"I see," he said, "that you have your artillery very handy."
"Yes; and I notice that you have, too."
"I wish that I could have it even more so, Bill.
"You know, old _tillicum_," he added, his brows contracting and a
shadow seeming to pass athwart his face and then to return and linger
there, "maybe I'll wish that I hadn't dragged you into this wild,
unearthly business. And yet I wouldn't care to face it without you
beside me."
"_Dragged_ me into it?" I exclaimed. "Now, look here: please, Milton,
don't say that again."
"I hope, Bill, that I haven't--"
"Not a bit, not a bit. But I hope you will never talk like that any
more."
He raised a hand and placed it on my shoulder.
"Pardon me, old _tillicum_," he said. "And yet, after all, I may
regret it, for this business before us may prove a most terrible
one--something even worse than that."
For a few moments there was silence, and then I said:
"Well, let's _klatawah_."
"Yes," said he, turning and starting; "let's _klatawah_.
"And," he added, "do you know what that reminds me of?"
"I wonder."
"Of Sluiskin's appeal to Stevens and Van Trump, down there at the falls
that now bear his name:
"'_Wake klatawah! Wake klatawah!_'"
"But," said I, "they went, and they _came back_. That's an augury."
"But," he answered, "if it hadn't been for those steam-caves up there
in the crater, they might not have come back, might have perished on
the summit that night in the bitter cold. And then the Siwash would
have been a true prophet."
"Well, there may be something equivalent to those steam-caves somewhere
in the place that we are going to. I don't mean, of course, _in_ that
pile of rock over there."
"Of course not. But that isn't what's troubling me; it's the
possibility that we may be too late."
"Too late?" I exclaimed.
"Just so. It is only at long intervals--so far as we know, that
is--that these strange beings appear on the mountain."
"Well?" I queried.
"Well, Bill, glaciers, you know, move."
"I know that. But what on earth has the movement of the ice to do with
the appearance of this angel on Mount Rainier?"
But Milton wouldn't tell me that. Instead, he told me to think. Think?
I did. I thought hard; but I couldn't see it. However, we were drawing
close to the rocks now, and soon I would have the answer. I felt that
pocket again. Yes, the revolver was still there!
"Look here!" said I suddenly.
Milton Rhodes, who was on the point of springing across a fissure,
turned and looked.
"How does this come?" I wanted to know. "I thought that the Tamahnowis
Rocks were on the Cowlitz Glacier?"
"This is the Cowlitz, Bill."
"But we haven't left the Paradise yet."
"Oh, yes, we have. There is no cleaver between them, no anything; at
this place it is all one continuous sheet of ice."
"Oh, that's it. Well, the ice is pretty badly crevassed before us. Glad
it isn't all like this."
We worked our way forward, twisting and turning. Slowly but steadily we
advanced, drawing near and nearer to that dark, frowning, broken mass,
wondering (at any rate, I was) about the secrets that we should find
there--unless, indeed, we were too late. What had Milton meant by that?
How on earth could the apparition of the angel and the demon be in any
manner contingent upon the movement of the ice?
Well, we were very near now; we were so near, in fact, that, if there
was any one, any _thing_ lurking there in the rocks, human or monster
(or both) he or it could hear us.
We would soon know whether we had come too late.
Ere long we had got over the fissures and were moving over ice unbroken
and smooth. I wondered if this was the spot where, so many years ago,
White and Long had been killed. But I did not voice that thought. The
truth is that this terrible place held me silent. And, when we moved
into the shadow cast by the broken, towering pile, the scene became
more weird and terrible than ever.
A few moments, and we halted, so close to the rocky wall, precipitous
and broken, that I could have touched it with outstretched hand.
How cold it seemed here, how strange that sinister quality (or was it
only my imagination?) of the enveloping shadows!
"Well," said Milton Rhodes, and I noticed that his voice was low and
guarded, "here we are."
I made no response.
The silence there was as the silence of a tomb.