The First Attempt at Jefferson—Dumplin’ Almost Falls to Death—the
Hardest Work the Boys Ever Did
He was falling into a terrible black cañon where there was a loud noise
of whirling water—and he woke to hear the alarm clock buzzing. The grip
of the bad dream was still on him, and he was shivering a little, as
Uncle Billy got up and lit the lantern in the tent. It was pitch dark in
the woods outside, and still as death. But as they dressed, the three
could hear Mr. Stone and Dumplin’ dressing in their tent, and then the
sound of the cook starting the breakfast fire. Those who were to make
the climb put on light shoes, for they were going to use the horses as
far as timber line. They came out of the tents wearing their heavy
sweaters, for it was bitterly cold, and washing by the brook was a very
sketchy job. Nobody even suggested a bath.
While breakfast was cooking, they huddled around the stove. Meanwhile
the horse rustler had gone up into the open meadow to round up six
saddle horses. He was bringing them back as they ate their bacon and
drank their coffee by lantern light, still huddled around the stove. As
soon as the horses were saddled, each member of the party put his lunch
into his pack, slung a canteen over his shoulder, tied his climbing
boots over the saddle horn, took his alpenstock in his hand, like a
lance, made sure he also had his colored goggles, and mounted.
“I feel like Sir Launcelot,” cried Dumplin’, tipping his alpenstock
forward, like a knight about to tilt.
“I’d hate to tell you what you _look_ like,” Bennie laughed. “Did Sir
Launcelot carry his boots on his saddle?”
Bennie was the last one into the saddle, because he had to catch Jeff
and tie him up. “Don’t let him loose till we’ve been gone a couple of
hours,” he called back to the cook. “Don’t want him to follow us and
break his neck.”
The sleepy cook grunted, and Jeff whined and moaned and tugged at his
improvised rope collar, as Bennie patted him good-bye and climbed into
the saddle.
It was still dark in the woods as they moved out of camp, but out in the
open meadow of the cove there was a kind of gray daylight. Norman and
the doctor led the way, putting the horses across the creek, and heading
them for the steep side wall opposite the chute they had descended the
day before.
This wall, when they came to it, was not so steep, however, as the
chute. It had once been burned over, too, so that there was no timber
except some dead, fallen stuff, and no snow. They zigzagged up it
quickly, and at the top, looking over a two-mile gentler slope of low
forest, they saw again the snow-white cone of the mountain rising up
against the sky—or, rather, they half saw it, for the white clouds were
swirling around it.
“They’ll lift with the sun,” said Norman. “Don’t worry.”
For the next hour, the horses plodded upward, over deep, hard snow,
packed in huge drifts under the evergreen trees, which got smaller and
smaller as they approached timber line. What had looked like an easy
slope from below turned out to be full of short but steep pitches, over
lava ledges, and if it had not been for the snow they could hardly have
taken the horses up without endless zigzagging.
It was bright morning when they reached timber line, on the southwestern
shoulder of the mountain, but as yet the sun had not reached them, of
course, being cut off by the great bulk of the cone. They tied the
horses to the last little trees, where the poor creatures would have to
stay, without food or water, till night. Then they put on their heavy,
spiked boots, shouldered their packs, canteens and cameras, the doctor
with his coil of alpine rope, and set out for the summit above them,
around which the clouds were scudding at a tremendous pace, driven by a
strong west wind.
“How high up are we now?” Spider asked.
“About 7,000 feet, I should guess,” the doctor answered.
“Then we’ve got about 3,500 feet to climb,” Spider reckoned. “That’s not
as much as Mount Washington from Bretton Woods or the Crawford House.
You climb 4,200 there.”
“It’s 700 feet less,” said Bennie. “Gee, I’m good at arithmetic.”
“The only difference being that this is the second hardest snow climb in
the United States (excluding Alaska, of course), and we are tackling it
by a route which, so far as I know, nobody has ever tried before,” the
doctor smiled.
“What’s the hardest?” Bennie asked.
“The north side of Mount Baker in Washington, up the Roosevelt Glacier,”
his uncle answered.
“You been up there?”
“Yes.”
“Gee, I’d like to!”
“Suppose you do this one first,” said his uncle, “and suppose you follow
me, instead of racing ahead.”
Bennie fell back into line.
They had reached a long, upward-stretching snow-field now, which the
doctor said was the foot of permanent snow. It never melted entirely
away. It was frozen now so hard that it held them up, and the long
spikes were needed, or they would have slipped. They had to jam their
alpenstocks hard down to set them into it. It led upward for a quarter
of a mile or so, to a spine of broken, naked lava. As they climbed this
slope, they could look back into the hole of Hunt’s Cove—or they could
look where the cove was. They could only see it by flashes, as it were,
because whole seas of billowing white clouds were driving in over Minto
Mountain, crossing above the cove, and hitting Jefferson just below
them. As these clouds hit, they seemed to get thinner, slid right up the
snow slope past the climbers, like white snow, and blew off into blue
space over the peak.
Spider, who was watching them slide up the snow-fields, suddenly cried,
“Look! Look at the summit!”
Everybody looked upward. The sun had evidently risen now, and as the
clouds reached the top of the mountain they ran into its rays. The angle
was just right to refract the rays down to the climbers, and the result
was that the summit peak of the mountain was haloed with a beautiful
rainbow. This rainbow lasted for ten minutes or more, and then the sun
got too high, and it disappeared.
By the time they reached the lava spine, the clouds were thinner, and
the wind had died down. They were warmed up with climbing, too, and took
off their sweaters. The doctor got out the rope, and proceeded to make
six loops in it, tied with knots which couldn’t slip. The loops were
about fifteen or twenty feet apart. He put the first loop under his own
arms; then came Bennie, then Dumplin’, then Mr. Stone, then Spider, and
last of all, Norman. Everybody then covered his face with grease paint,
putting it especially thick on noses and lips, and donned colored
goggles.
Then the doctor spoke. “Now, boys,” he said, “from this point on you
must obey orders quickly and without question. You must do exactly what
I tell you to, and nothing else. There are two things to remember, above
everything. Number one is this,—every second man on the rope must have
his stock driven in deep and firm, with a good grip on it, when the man
in front takes his stock out to make a step, and he mustn’t pull his
stock out of the snow till the man ahead has made the step and driven
_his_ stock in again. If you do that, you see, fifty per cent of us will
always be anchored, if anybody slips. If I find you cannot or will not
obey this rule, I’ll stop the climb at once. The second thing is:—never
let the rope get taut between you and the next man, so it can yank
either of you, and never let it get slack enough to trip anybody. Keep
it sagging, but not dragging. Now, all set!”
Uncle Billy spoke sternly. The boys knew he meant what he said, and that
it was serious business ahead. They followed him carefully down the
north side of the lava spine, and found themselves on a steep slope of
pumice and fine conglomerate, like a mixture of gravel and wood ashes,
hung at such a sharp angle that it just did stay there, and that was
all. It hung at what is called the angle of repose. As Uncle Billy
started out across it, to get to the snow slope beyond, Bennie noticed
that every time he put his foot down, the stuff below him started
slipping a little. Bennie looked down the mountain to see what would
happen if they started a slide and all slipped. A hundred feet below the
snow began again, and ran down for a thousand feet or more, smooth as
glass, and ended at the top of a precipice! Below that, all he could see
was a hole! Something went flipflop in the pit of his stomach at the
sight, and he looked quickly away, just in time to see that if he didn’t
step out, the rope between his uncle and himself would be pulled taut.
So he had to walk ahead, on to the treacherous slope. It was exactly
like running tiddly-benders on thin ice, only instead of the danger of
going through into water was the danger of starting a landslide and
going down with it. You could feel with every step the sickening start
of the slide.
However, everybody got across to the snow.
“Well, I’m glad _that’s_ over!” exclaimed Mr. Stone. “That conglomerate
is hung exactly at the angle of repose. One degree more tilt, and she’d
slide off into the cañon. Where do we go from here?”
The doctor pointed to the great west snow-field that lay between them
and a high shoulder, which extended toward the northwest.
“We have to traverse that snow-field,” he said.
Everybody looked at it. Between them and it were four or five little
snow slopes, each about a hundred yards wide, and separated by ridges of
broken lava fragments. The great west snow-field itself looked to be a
quarter of a mile wide, or even more. It was practically unbroken,
except for one island of lava near the middle, looked smooth as glass,
was tilted at an angle of more than forty-five degrees, and stretched
right up to the precipice of the summit pinnacle, and right down to the
top of the precipice which dropped to the cañon. If you slipped when you
were out on it, and started down, it was certain death. Bennie didn’t
need to be told a second time why fifty per cent of the climbers must
have their alpenstocks driven in at every step!
The doctor now took his scout ax out of the sheath at his belt, and
stepped out on the first snow-field. Being on the western side of the
mountain the sun had not yet touched it, of course, and even when he
drove his boot down hard, he could not make enough of an impression for
a good footing. So, holding his stock in his right hand and driving it
deep into the snow at each stride, he leaned down and with the ax in his
left hand cut out a chunk of snow—one blow inward against the slope, and
a second downward. This took out the chunk in such a way that a very
small but level step was made. He reached as far ahead as he could, and
the steps were three feet apart.
Bennie watched him carefully, glad not to look either up or down the
terrifying slope. While his uncle was cutting, with his stock driven in,
Bennie took a step behind him and drove his stock deep. Then he waited,
clinging to it, while the doctor pulled his stock out and moved one step
ahead. As the doctor cut and moved, cut and moved, Bennie discovered
that there was a regular rhythm to it, and the only way to keep this
rhythm unbroken was to pull your stock up at the right instant—that is,
when you saw the man ahead drive his in. If you delayed doing it, you
broke the rhythm. But to pull your stock up at the right instant wasn’t
so easy as it sounds. Once driven two feet deep into the packed snow,
the sharp point wedged there almost like a nail in wood. You had to pull
it out with one hand, and pull it out quickly, without stopping your
stride and above all without upsetting your balance on the tiny, icy
steps. It took muscle. It took a lot of muscle, and it strained your
back and shoulder.
When they all were across the first snow slope, and were resting a
moment on the lava spine, Uncle Billy said, “Well, Bennie, how do you
like it so far? Getting any exercise yet?”
“I always thought you climbed mountains with your legs,” Bennie
answered. “But I feel as if I was climbing with my back and shoulder.
Gosh, it’s hard work pulling that old alpenstock out!”
“They say a good mountain climber is a combination of a weak head and a
strong back,” his uncle laughed.
“Too bad, Bennie, your back isn’t very strong,” said Dumplin’.
“Well, if your back is strong, you’ll be able to scale Mount Everest,”
Bennie retorted.
They moved out now across the second small snow-field, and then the
third and fourth. They were working upward a little, as well as across,
and the summit precipices grew nearer. Bennie looked up once at those
cliffs towering almost over his head, absolutely precipitous and hung
with ice—and looked quickly down again. Jefferson hadn’t seemed very
hard to climb from a distance, but now that summit looked absolutely
impossible, and sure death if you tried it. He preferred to keep his
eyes on his uncle, who was methodically cutting steps across the frozen
snow.
They rested a moment, and took a drink from the canteens, on the last
lava spine before they tackled the big snow-field. Uncle Billy looked
out across it with troubled eyes.
“I don’t like those two chutes down the centre,” he said, pointing to a
couple of deep scars, like ditches, which started far up at the base of
the pinnacle cliffs, swept down the middle of the field, and only ended
at the top of the cañon wall far below.
“Nothing coming down ’em now,” Norman said. “I don’t believe there will
be till the sun gets around this side. It’s coming down tonight that
we’ll be in danger.”
“What has made them?” Spider asked. “They look like toboggan slides.”
“That’s about what they are. They are made by big hunks of lava and ice
breaking off the pinnacle and sliding down, digging a chute as they go.”
“How fast do the hunks travel?” asked Dumplin’.
“Fast enough!” Norman laughed.
But Dumplin’ didn’t laugh. He looked up that terrific incline to the
ice-capped summit precipices, and said, “Do we have to cross those
chutes?”
“We do if we want to climb Jefferson,” the doctor answered.
“Tell Mama I was a good boy,” Dumplin’ groaned.
“Shut up!” said his father, sharply. “Uncle Billy knows what he’s
about.”
Without further words, the doctor started out on to the big snow-field,
cutting steps as he went. Bennie followed, his arm and shoulder aching
now, his heart thumping a little in his chest as he thought of those
chutes ahead. When they reached the first one, it turned out to be about
six feet deep and eight feet wide. The sides were almost straight, and
the snow on the bottom was packed hard and smooth.
His uncle beckoned Bennie up to him.
“Drive in your stock,” he said, “and play me out on the rope. If we hear
anything coming, take up the slack, and haul me back to you.”
He started cutting steps down the side, across the bottom, and up the
farther side. Nothing happened, and once across, he cut a good firm step
to brace his foot on, faced back toward the chute, told Dumplin’ to come
up to Bennie, and then he took up the slack of rope between himself and
Bennie, while Dumplin’ played out the rope behind. In this way,
everybody got across.
“Well, that’s that,” said the doctor, with a sigh of relief. “Now for
the next one.”
The next chute turned out to be just about the same size, and they
crossed it slowly and cautiously, by the same method. Again nothing
happened, and soon they were at the lava island, which turned out to be
much nearer the northwest shoulder than it had looked. Here they sank
down on some firm rock to rest, and while they rested, the sun peeped
over the shoulder of the mountain south of them, and almost instantly
the snow all around leaped into a blinding dazzle. The boys, who had
taken their colored glasses off, put them hurriedly on again.
The doctor laughed. “Not much dust up here—the snow stays clean and
reflects the light,” he said.
“Pretty soon you’ll be yelling for more grease paint, too.”
When they started on again, it was boiling hot. In spite of the glasses,
their eyes began to smart, for the dazzle got in around the edges, and
their faces and necks to burn.
“And now the real business is beginning,” the doctor said, heading
directly from the lava island to the base of the northwest shoulder.
Bennie took one look at that shoulder, and cried, “Do we climb that?”
“Sure thing.”
“Well, if you say so, I suppose we do. But I’m no human fly.”
Ahead of them was an unbroken wall of snow, the side of a vast drift
which had blown over the shoulder. It was about three hundred feet high,
and the angle couldn’t have been less than sixty-five degrees. If you
will tip a board or a ruler up to an angle of sixty-five degrees, and
then imagine that slope to be hard, icy snow crust, with a drop of two
or three thousand feet to the bottom of a cañon below you, you’ve got
some idea of what the climbers were up against.
But the doctor went right ahead, cutting steps. He was chopping almost
opposite his face, the slope was so steep. Bennie, watching him, had to
tip his head way back, as you would to watch a man ahead of you on a
ladder. He kept his head tipped back, too. He tried one look
downward—and no more. All he saw was the top of Dumplin’s cap—and then
the white snow slope sliding away to the hole of the cañon. He swallowed
hard and bit his lips, which had already begun to swell and crack.
“I will _not_ get scared,” he whispered to himself. “I will _not_ get
scared!”
The dazzle of the snow was now right in their faces, because the slope
was so steep, and they could actually feel the reflected rays blister
their noses. Their eyes smarted, their lips were cracking. But nobody
had any time or chance to do anything about it. There was enough to do
without that. Every second man had to be absolutely sure his stock was
driven deep when the man above him took an upward step, and he had to
pull out his own stock and drive it in firmly on a level with his face
(no small muscular task) when it was his turn to take an upward step.
The doctor was cutting good, high steps, too, a couple of feet to a
rise. Bennie ached in every joint, and felt as if he were balancing on
the edge of eternity—as, indeed, he was! But he climbed grimly,
steadily, keeping the alternate rhythm with the doctor.
There was no chance to rest here. For half an hour they crawled up. Mr.
Stone said he’d like a movie of it, but there didn’t seem to be any way
to take a movie of it. It wasn’t safe for anybody to get off the rope;
in fact, it would have been sheer recklessness. Bennie was never so glad
of anything in his life as he was of his uncle’s call, “The top!” He
scrambled up over the edge of a great drift, and found himself on a
narrow spine of snow and lava blocks, a spine leading straight up to the
northern end of the summit pinnacle.
When the rest were over the rim, they took off the rope, and sat down to
rest on a lava platform. The wind had died down. It was calm and
cloudless now, and there wasn’t a sound in the world—not a whisper of
wind, not a bird song—nothing but the stillness of the everlasting
snows, and their own voices, which sounded strange up here, almost
startling.
The doctor took out his instrument for measuring altitude, called an
aneroid barometer. It showed that they were over 9,000 feet. Their
watches told them it was one o’clock.
“Wow, we’ve been climbing more’n nine hours since breakfast!” said
Bennie. “I wouldn’t have guessed it.”
“Funny, I don’t feel very hungry,” said Dumplin’.
“That is funny,” his father laughed.
“It’s the funniest thing he ever said,” Bennie added. “Didn’t hear you
making many jokes coming up that old drift just now, Dump.”
“You won’t hear me making _any_ jokes till we get down this mountain
again,” Dump replied. “Gee, my lips are all cracked, and my nose feels
as big as a house, and my back aches, and my eyes smart, and I haven’t
got any wind and—and——”
He paused for breath.
“But except for that you’re feeling fine, eh?” Uncle Billy smiled.
“Well, out with the lunches, everybody. We’ve got to eat and be on our
way. We ought to have got here by eleven o’clock. But maybe we can go
faster now. The snow is getting soft, and I won’t have to cut steps, and
the shoulder won’t be very steep.”
They ate their lunches, huddled on the shady side of the lava block, to
keep out of the sun glare, put more grease paint on their lips, noses,
cheeks and necks, and set out again up the shoulder. The sun had been
shining up here for several hours, and the snow was softened. Their feet
sank ankle deep into it, in fact, and in a short distance it had soaked
through their boots so that their feet were wet and cold, while their
faces were burning. The pitch of the shoulder, too, turned out to be
much steeper than they had reckoned. Even the doctor and Norman were
fooled, old hands that they were at mountain climbing. It was so steep
that the doctor kept them roped, and it grew steeper as they toiled
slowly upward, like tiny black ants on the vast white expanse of the
mountain. It was almost three o’clock when they reached a big jagged
pyramid of lava which stuck up above the snow, just below the summit
pinnacle, and found a level spot in its lee. Here the doctor gathered
them together into a group, and pointed to the pinnacle, without at
first saying a word.
Bennie looked up a forty-five degree slope of dazzling snow, frozen into
little wind ripples like desert sand, for two or three hundred feet, and
saw that slope end at the base of the pinnacle itself. The pinnacle, as
he could see only too plainly now, was a sheer precipice at every place
except the edge just above them. That edge—the north end, which the
shoulder they were climbing on led to, was just enough off the
perpendicular to make it a daring and desperate hazard. Even it, in some
places, looked perfectly straight up. And those places were not snow
covered, as Bennie could now see. They were just green, glistening ice!
The pinnacle rose thus for a full 300 feet, into the naked blue sky.
Dumplin’ groaned. “I can’t do it,” he said. “Honest, Dad, I can’t do it!
I didn’t say anything, but I got dizzy back on the shoulder, and my
head’s aching now. Gosh, I don’t want to look at it!”
He turned quickly away. Bennie started to laugh, but stopped himself
when he saw his uncle’s face.
“Sit down, Dumplin’,” the doctor said kindly. “You won’t have to climb
it. Rest a bit, and don’t think about it. None of us is going to climb
it.”
“Oh, why not?” Bennie exclaimed. “It doesn’t look to me as if anybody
_could_ climb it, but if they have, I guess we can, with you to lead us.
Gee, think of getting this far, and stopping!”
“How long do you think it would take us to go from here to the top?” his
uncle asked.
“Half an hour.”
“An hour,” Spider amended.
Norman laughed, and said nothing.
“It would take nearly two hours up, from this point, and two hours
down,” said the doctor. “If you boys were all skilled climbers, and one
of you could cut the steps, we might do it in an hour and a half each
way. But I wouldn’t let even Norman cut the steps on that pinnacle—he’s
not done enough ice climbing. And I’m pretty well fagged already.
Besides, it’s three o’clock. If we didn’t get back to this spot till
seven, where do you think we’d spend the night? Want to spend it up on
these snow-fields, with soaked shoes, and no food, no fire and no
blankets?”
“No, and I don’t particularly want to go down that shoulder wall and
cross those chutes after dark, either,” Norman said. “It’ll be dark
before we get to the horses if we start back now.”
“Give me one shot at the pinnacle, and I’m with you,” Mr. Stone said,
pointing his camera.
Bennie and Spider turned reluctantly away. It seemed tough to get up
10,000 feet, almost to the very base of the summit pinnacle, and then
have to turn back.
“It’s like being licked, when you still have a punch left,” Bennie said.
“We were licked by daylight, not by the mountain,” his uncle answered.
The descent of the shoulder to the lava block where they had eaten
lunch, which Bennie and Spider had expected to make in rapid time, was
just as slow as the ascent. The pitch was so steep that they did not
dare to come down facing forward. They had to face up the slope, and
sink their feet into their old tracks, as you come down a ladder.
At the lava block, Mr. Stone shifted to number one on the rope, so he
could be the first down the wall of the drift, and get a movie of the
rest. Bennie stayed at number two, Dumplin’ at three, Uncle Billy took
number four place, then Spider, and finally Norman. The doctor told
them, before they started down, how to make the descent, using the steps
cut that morning. You faced sideways to the wall of snow, drove in your
stock firmly, and then sank your left foot to the lower step, got a good
footing, sank your right foot also, and then pulled out your stock and
drove it home again lower down. Everybody was cautioned to keep the
rhythm, and not to pull out his stock till the man above had made his
step and anchored again.
When they were ready, Mr. Stone slipped over the edge, and Bennie had a
sickening feeling as he saw him disappear. When the rope was played
nearly out, Bennie started. That first step took his nerve more than
anything all day. With his stock driven into the snow at the very edge,
he had to look down to see where to place his foot, and in doing so, he
had to see past the step, fifteen feet down to the top of Mr. Stone’s
hat, and then 300 feet to the bottom of the drift, and then the long,
white shoot of the snow-field to the cañon hole! For one instant,
Bennie’s knees shook. Then he got a brace on himself, and began slowly,
cautiously, to creep down, testing each footing before he pulled out his
stock.
As soon as Dumplin’ appeared above him, he kept an eye upward, to make
sure that his stock was always driven in when Dumplin’ changed position.
And he soon found, too, that Dumplin’ was coming very slowly.
“Poor old Dump,” Bennie thought, “I bet he’s too fat for this kind of
work. I must be careful not to go fast, and yank the rope. Might pull
him off.”
They were about half-way down, and Bennie had just driven his stock hard
in, waiting for Dumplin’ to shift, when he saw the snow under Dump’s
foot beginning to cave. The step had melted since morning, and grown
weak, and the boy, besides, had got his weight too much on the very
edge. Dumplin’ felt it give, too, and with a little cry tried to get his
alpenstock driven in again.
“Dumplin’s slipping! Hold him, Uncle Billy!” Bennie called.
Even as he spoke, the step gave way, and Dumplin’s alpenstock, which he
hadn’t been braced to drive deep enough, gave way also. Dumplin’ began
to drop! Bennie saw him coming directly down. If he kept on, he would
hit him, and both of them would go! It was a sickening instant, while
Bennie leaned in against the snow, braced both feet, and clung with both
hands to his stock.
But Dumplin’ dropped only four or five feet, and hung there, against the
slope, while Uncle Billy’s voice came down, cool and steady, “Don’t drop
your stock! Get your foot back on a step, Dumplin’. Keep your head!”
It was all over so quickly that Bennie could hardly realize for a second
just what had happened. Of course, Uncle Billy had been anchored, and
when Dump slipped, he could only go the length of the slack between him
and the doctor! Bennie really knew that when he called up to his uncle.
But he had forgotten everything but his instinct to cling to his stock
when Dumplin’ had actually begun to fall. He felt suddenly sick and
faint.
Then he said to himself, “This is no place to be sick on! Get on to your
job!”
[Illustration: Looking Across Hunt’s Cove to Jefferson. Dotted Line
Shows Route of Climb. Arrow Points to Place Where Dumplin’ Slipped.]
He heard the doctor above and Mr. Stone below encouraging Dumplin’, too,
and he knew it was up to him.
“Some old rope, Dumplin’, if it can hold you that way,” he shouted.
“Come on, now, steady. I’ll kick the steps out bigger so’s they won’t
break again.”
He kicked and packed them vigorously as he descended, and soon Mr. Stone
was at the bottom, and he was within fifteen feet of it. Mr. Stone asked
them to stop for a minute while he got out of the rope and went fifty
feet out on the traverse, and took a movie of the final stages of the
descent.
When he got back, Dumplin’ was sitting on the snow, very pale, but
grinning as cheerfully as he could.
“Rope kind of yanked me under the arms,” he said. “But I’m all right. I
won’t be so dizzy now we’re down. I couldn’t see very well, and I guess
I didn’t get my foot far enough in on the step. It was looking down got
my goat.”
The doctor and his father patted his back, and once more shifted
positions on the rope.
“Once we get across those chutes, and it’s plain sailing,” Uncle Billy
said, as he prepared to start out across the big snow-field, on the
little path of steps he had cut that morning. Bennie noticed that there
was a red ring around his left hand, and realized that he had seized the
rope with a lightning twist when Dumplin’ slipped, and caught the weight
that way, before the yank came on his body, and before Dumplin’ could
get up speed.
“He’s some quick thinker,” Bennie reflected. “Gee, I guess you have to
be, in this game.”
They were now out on the big traverse. Their morning steps were melted
out deeper and larger, and they made fairly rapid progress toward the
first chute. Nothing had come down it while they were approaching, and
nothing came as the doctor crossed. But, once on the other side, he took
his large jack-knife from his pocket, opened it, and held it ready to
cut the rope as the others crossed, for if something should come down
large enough to stick up above the sides while the rope was stretched
across the chute, it might pull them all down with it. Nothing at all
happened, however, either here or in the second big chute. Once across
the latter, Uncle Billy gave a sigh of relief.
“Well, _that’s_ over!” he said. “Now we have plain sailing.”
Hardly were the words out of his mouth when they heard a crackle and
roar far up on the pinnacle precipice. Looking quickly upward, they saw
snow powder, like white smoke, rising from the base of the cliff, and
something descending toward them, not in the chute at all, but on top of
the smooth snow!
“Run for it!” Bennie instinctively cried, taking a step forward that
nearly yanked Dumplin’ off his feet again.
“Stop!” the doctor cried, in a sharp command. “Don’t you dare give
orders again! Don’t try to run! You’ll have us all down. Watch it, till
we see just where it is coming, and how big it is. Let it come between
us if we have to, and if it’s too big to pass under the rope, I’ll cut.
Stand ready to hold the rope up, or move as I tell you to!”
The thing was coming toward them, piling up snow in front of it. This
piling up of the snow impeded its progress and diminished its speed. It
had to push its way. Instead of coming a mile a minute, as the boys
expected it would, it came slowly enough to give them time to estimate
where it would pass.
“Move ahead!” the doctor snapped. “Easy, now—don’t try to run. Don’t
forget your stocks—don’t pull on the rope. Steady!”
They moved forward several steps, and just as Norman, the last one on
the rope, took a long, quick stride of two steps instead of one, the
great hunk of lava, as big as a molasses hogshead, went slowly but
inexorably downward, over the very spot where, a few seconds before,
they had stood! Slowly as it moved, pushing the snow ahead, and piling
it out on the sides, nothing could have stood in its path. They watched
it go on down, leaving a track two feet deep behind it.
“There’s chute number three just started,” Norman said.
They heard another crack and roar on the pinnacle as he spoke, and
looking up again saw something starting down one of the big chutes
behind them.
“Say, let’s get out of here!” Dumplin’ cried. “I don’t like this.”
“I’m not stuck on it myself,” Uncle Billy answered. “Forward, march!”
They plugged ahead to the first lava spine, and rested a minute, looking
back over the traverse. The sun was sinking, and its rays hit the slope
almost level, making dark shadows of their steps, like a long row of
dots out across the great field of white. These dots crossed the
traverse, and then went straight up the shoulder, and in that light the
shoulder looked as perpendicular as the side of a house.
“Did we go up there?” Spider exclaimed.
Dumplin’ took one look, and remarked, with such a heartfelt expression
that everybody laughed, “Gosh, I don’t believe it!”
But there was no time for a long rest. Tired as they were, they had to
keep on going, for they were still a long way from camp.
As they started across the first of the five smaller snow traverses, it
seemed to Bennie as if his back and shoulders were one big ache every
time he had to pull out his stock from the sticky snow. Yet Uncle Billy
was moving ahead with a regular stride, and he _had_ to get his stock in
and then out with one firm motion, or else lose the step, fall behind,
and make the rope yank his uncle. He gritted his teeth and told himself
that he _would not_ let that happen.
As they stepped up on the second lava spine, Bennie cried, “Hello, old
lava!”
As they reached the third spine, Dumplin’ cried, “Hello, old lava!”
As they reached the fourth, Spider cried, “Hello, old lava!”
“You boys seem to be glad you’re getting down,” the doctor called back.
“We’re glad we’re getting where we don’t have to pull these stocks out
of the snow in time to your steps,” Bennie replied.
“Sorry to go so fast—but we must get to the horses before dark,” his
uncle answered.
At last they were creeping over the treacherous slope of pumice, they
were up the southwest shoulder—they were on the lower snow-field which
sloped more gradually to timber line and the horses!
“Rope off!” the doctor called.
He coiled it up and hung it over his shoulder.
“Now, each man for himself,” said he, starting down with huge strides,
his boots sinking into the soft snow, which had been frozen crust that
morning, and keeping him from sliding. The rest followed. It was such a
relief to be free of the rope and the danger that they took a new lease
of life, and almost ran down the quarter mile to timber.
When they reached the poor hungry, thirsty, impatient horses, however,
the sun had sunk behind the western mountains, and the hole of Hunt’s
Cove was already dusky.
“Don’t change your boots. We can’t ride down as quickly as we can lead
the horses,” the doctor commanded. “Saddle them quickly, and come on.”
In the timber, too, the snow had softened, and the horses sank knee
deep. Bennie soon discovered that a horse, which scrambles rapidly up a
steep slope, goes very slowly down it, especially when the footing is
soft snow and he doesn’t know whether he is going to break through a
long way or not. The doctor and Norman, more used to the ways of horses,
and knowing how to manage them, were soon far ahead. Mr. Stone was
somewhere in between. The three boys were before long so far in the rear
that the leaders had vanished. Bennie and Spider could have gone a
little faster than they did, but Dumplin’ was about all in with
weariness, and they stuck with him. By the time they reached bare ground
at the head wall of Hunt’s Cove, it was so dusky they could just make
out the tracks. Below them, somewhere on the slope, they could hear the
leaders crashing down through the fire scar.
“Come on,” Bennie urged. “We got to hurry. Can’t see the track at all on
the bare ground. It’s dark down in the cove already.”
“I could hurry, but I can’t make this darn horse go any faster. Nearly
pulled my arm out dragging him,” Spider answered.
The three of them started over the rim, tugging at the reluctant horses,
who wanted to pick their way gingerly over the dead, fallen timber. The
long spikes in their boots, which had been so necessary up on the snow,
were a hindrance now. They kept catching in the dead sticks, and half
turning the boys’ ankles when they stepped on a hard piece of lava in
the dark. Several times they tripped and fell, scratching themselves.
Once Spider’s horse slipped, knocking Spider over and bruising his leg.
At the bottom, now, they heard the doctor calling to them.
“Coming as fast as we can!” Bennie yelled.
It was pitch black night at the bottom of the cove, in the heavy woods.
They could just see the doctor waiting for them. The minute they were
down, he led the way, after Norman and Mr. Stone, who had kept on to
camp. In the dark they couldn’t see the swampy places, or the little
brooks, and soon their boots, soaked all the afternoon by snow, were
full of water, and they were wet almost to their waists. They came to
the main stream at last, and mounted the horses, spikes or no spikes.
The horses reared and balked, and had to be kicked and driven into the
dark water, and nearly spilled their riders as they scrambled snorting
out on the farther bank.
Nobody had said a word for ten minutes, but now, through the black
forest ahead, they saw suddenly the red glow of a big fire, and Bennie
emitted a whoop.
“Hello, fire!” he yelled.
“Hello, food!” yelled Dumplin’.
“Dumplin’ has recovered,” said the doctor.
The boys dropped off their horses at camp—literally dropped off. The
rustler, who had stayed in camp, took the horses back to pasture, and
the doctor and the three boys joined Norman and Mr. Stone in front of a
huge camp fire, flopped wearily on the ground, and began to peel off
their boots and stockings. They took off their trousers, also, and got
dry clothes from their dunnage bags. Then, without even attempting to
wash the grease paint off their faces, they flopped on the ground again
beside the roaring fire, and let the cook bring them food.
“If anybody speaks to me before I’ve had a cup of coffee, I’ll bite
him,” said Bennie. “I was never so tired and cross in my life.”
“Nobody wants to speak to you,” Dumplin’ retorted. “Don’t worry.”
“And yet,” said Uncle Billy, “if we’d really got to the top, we’d be so
set up now that we wouldn’t mind the weariness. It’s like a crew race.
You’ll notice it’s always the losing crew which collapses at the finish
line.”
“I’d like to try it again, from a base camp at timber line,” Norman
said. “That would give us two hours more of daylight at each end. We
could do it easily with that.”
“If anybody talks about climbing Jefferson again, he’s in danger of his
life,” Bennie retorted.
“Well, well, Bennie has had enough exercise for once!” Mr. Stone smiled.
“He must have had—he hasn’t even spoken to poor Jeff.”
“Oh, gee, I was so tired I forgot him!” Bennie cried, jumping up with
sudden energy. “Where is he, cook? What you done with him?”
“Whined so I tied him up down the creek a bit,” the cook answered. He,
too, was cross, because he had to get supper so late.
Bennie grabbed a lantern, and went off into the woods, calling, “Jeff,
Jeff!” Those in camp heard a far-off yelp of greeting, and a few minutes
later Bennie returned, with Jeff at his heels, and lay down by the fire
again with the dog’s head snuggled up to him.
It was after ten o’clock when supper was finished. The six climbers took
enough water from the stove to wash the worst of the grease paint from
their faces, and without any further preparation for bed pulled off
their clothes, got into their pyjamas, crawled, stiff and lame and
aching in every joint, with cracked and bleeding lips, and red, smarting
eyes, into their sleeping bags, and almost before their heads touched
the little air pillows were fast asleep.
Bennie had started to remark to Spider, as he got into bed, that real
mountain climbing was the hardest work there was, but he forgot what he
was going to say before he could open his mouth. And, if he had said it,
nobody would have been awake enough to listen.