THE EVERLASTING DOOR
Sometime during the night of the fifteenth, the belated Chinook wind began
to flute through the canyon, and towards dawn the guests at Scenic Hot
Springs were wakened by the near thunder of an avalanche. After a while,
word was brought that the Great Northern track was buried under forty feet
of snow and rock and fallen trees for a distance of nearly a mile. Later a
rotary steamed around the high curve on the mountain and stopped, like a
toy engine on an upper shelf, while the Spokane local, upon which Banks
had expected to return to Weatherbee, forged a few miles beyond the hotel
to leave a hundred laborers from Seattle. Thin wreaths of vapor commenced
to rise and, gathering volume with incredible swiftness, blotted out the
plow and the snow-sheds, and meeting, broke in a storm of hail. The cloud
lifted, but in a short interval was followed by another that burst in a
deluge of rain, and while the slope was still obscured, a report was
telegraphed from the summit that a second avalanche had closed the east
portal of Cascade tunnel, through which the Oriental Limited had just
passed. At nightfall, when the work of clearing away the first mass of
debris was not yet completed, a third slide swept down seven laborers and
demolished a snow-shed. The unfortunate train that had been delayed so
long in the Rockies was indefinitely stalled.
The situation was unprecedented. Never before in the history of the Great
Northern had there been so heavy a snowfall in the Cascades; the sudden
thaw following an ordinary precipitation must have looked serious, but the
moving of this vast accumulation became appalling. All through that day,
the second night the cannonading of avalanches continued, distant and
near. At last came an interlude. The warm wind died out; at evening there
was a promise of frost; and only the voice of the river disturbed the
gorge. Dawn broke still and crisp and clear. The mountain tops shone in
splendor, purple cliffs stood sharply defined against snow-covered slopes,
and whole companies in the lower ranks of the trees had thrown off their
white cloaks. It was a day to delight the soul, to rouse the heart, invite
to deeds of emulation. Even Frederic was responsive, and when after
breakfast Marcia broached a plan to scale the peak that loomed southeast
of the pass, he grasped at the diversion. "We're pretty high up already,
here at Scenic," he commented, surveying the dome from his chair on the
hotel veranda. "Three or four thousand feet ought to put us on the summit.
Have the chance, anyhow, to see that stalled train."
"Of course it wouldn't be an achievement like the ascent of Rainier," she
tempered, "but we should have chances enough to use our alpenstocks before
we're through; and it should be a magnificent view; all the great peaks
from Oregon to British Columbia rising around."
"With the Columbia River below us," said Elizabeth, "and all those miles
of desert. We might even catch a glimpse of your new Eden over there,
Beatriz."
Mrs. Weatherbee nodded, with the sparkles breaking in her eyes. "I know
this is the peak we watched the day I drove from Wenatchee. It rose white
and shining at the top of Hesperides Vale, and it may have another name,
but I called it the Everlasting Door."
Once since their arrival at Scenic Hot Springs they had followed, skeeing,
an old abandoned railroad track, used by the Great Northern during the
construction of the big tunnel, to the edge of the desired peak, and, at
Marcia's suggestion, Frederic invited Lucky Banks to join the expedition
in the capacity of captain and guide. The prospector admitted he felt "the
need of a little exercise" and, having studied the mountain with
field-glasses and consulted with the hotel proprietor, he consented to see
them through. No doubt the opportunity to learn the situation of the
Oriental Limited and the possibilities of getting in touch with Tisdale,
should the train fail to move before his return from the summit, had
influenced the little man's decision. A few spikes in his shoes, some
hardtack and cheese with an emergency flask in his pockets, a coil of rope
and a small hatchet that might serve equally well as an ice-ax or to clear
undergrowth on the lower slopes, was ample equipment, and he was off to
reconnoiter the mountainside fully an hour in advance of the packer whom
Morganstein engaged for the first stage of the journey.
When the man arrived at the foot of the sharp ascent where he was to be
relieved, Banks was finishing the piece of trail he had blazed and mushed
diagonally up the slope to a rocky cleaver that stretched like a causeway
from the timber to firm snow, but he returned with time to spare between
the departure of the packer and the appearance of his party, to open the
unwieldy load; from this he discarded two bottles of claret and another of
port, with their wrappings of straw, a steamer-rug, some tins of pâté de
foie gras and other sundries that made for weight, but which the
capitalist had considered essential to the comfort and success of the
expedition. There still remained a well-stocked hamper, including thermos
bottles of coffee and tea, and a second rug, which he rolled snugly in the
oilskin cover and secured with shoulder-straps. The eliminated articles,
that he cached under a log, were not missed until luncheon, which was
served on a high, spur below the summit while Banks was absent making a
last reconnaissance, and Frederic blamed the packer.
The spur was flanked above by a craggy buttress and broke below to an
abyss which was divided by a narrow, tongue-like ridge, and over this, on
a lower level of the opposite peak, appeared the steep roofs of the
mountain station at the entrance to Cascade tunnel, where, on the tracks
outside the portal, stood the stalled train. It seemed within speaking
distance in that rare atmosphere, though several miles intervened.
After a while sounds of metal striking ice came from a point around the
buttress; Banks was cutting steps. Then, following a silence, he appeared.
But, on coming into the sunny westward exposure, he stopped, and with two
fingers raised like a weather-vane, stood gazing down the canyon. His eyes
began to scintillate like chippings of blue glacier.
Involuntarily every one turned in that direction, and Frederic reached to
take his field-glasses from the shelf of the buttress they had converted
into a table. But he saw nothing new to hold the attention except three or
four gauzy streamers of smoke or vapor that floated in the lower gorge.
"Looks like a train starting up," he commented, "but the Limited gets the
right of way as soon as there's a clear track."
Banks dropped his hand and moved a few steps to take the glasses from
Morganstein. "You're right," he replied in his high, strained key. "It
ain't any train moving; it's the Chinook waking up." He focussed on the
Oriental Limited, then slowly swept the peak that overtopped the cars.
"Likely they dasn't back her into the tunnel," he said. "The bore is long
enough to take in the whole bunch, but if a slide toppled off that
shoulder, it would pen 'em in and cut off the air. It looks better
outside, my, yes."
"Here is your coffee, Mr. Banks," said Elizabeth, who had filled a cup
from the thermos bottle, "and please take anything else you wish while I
repack the basket. We are all waiting, you see, to go on."
The prospector paused to take the cup, then said: "I guess likely we won't
make the summit this trip. We've got to hustle to get down before it turns
soft."
"Oh, but we must make the summit," exclaimed Marcia, taking up her
alpenstock. "Why, we are all but there."
"How does it look ahead?" inquired Frederic, walking along the buttress.
"Heard you chopping ice."
"I was cutting steps across the tail end of a little glacier. It's a
gliddery place, but the going looks all right once you get past. Well,
likely you can make it," he added shrilly, "but you've got to be quick."
The life of the trail that sharpens a man's perceptives teaches him to
read individuality swiftly, and this Alaskan who, the first day out on a
long stampede, could have told the dominant trait of each husky in his
team, knew his party as well as the risk. Golf and tennis, added to a
naturally strong physique, had given the two sisters nerves of steel.
Marcia, who had visited some of the great glaciers in the north, possessed
the insight and coolness of a mountain explorer; and all the third woman
lacked in physical endurance was more than made up in courage. The man,
though enervated by over-indulgence, had the brute force, the animal
instinct of self-preservation, to carry him through. So presently, when
the buttress was passed, and the prospector uncoiled his rope, it was to
Mrs. Feversham he gave the other end, placing Morganstein next, with
Elizabeth at the center and Mrs. Weatherbee second. Once, twice, Banks
felt her stumble, a sinking weight on the line, but in the instant he
caught a twist in the slack and fixed his heels in the crust to turn, she
had, in each case, recovered and come steadily on. It was only when the
gliddery passage was made, the peril behind, that she sank down in
momentary collapse.
Banks stopped to unfold his pocket-cup and take out his flask. "You look
about done for," he said briskly. "My, yes, that little taste of glacier
was your limit. But you ain't the kind to back out. No, ma'am, all you
need is a little bracer to put you on your feet again, good as new."
"I never can go back," she said, and met his concerned look with wide and
luminous eyes. "Unless--I'm carried. Never in the world."
Morganstein forced a laugh. It had a frosty sound; his lips were blue.
"Excuse me," he responded. "Anywhere else I wouldn't hesitate, but here, I
draw the line."
The prospector was holding the draught to her lips, and she took a swallow
and pushed away the cup. It was brandy, raw, scalding, and it brought the
color back to her face. "Thank you," she said, and forced a smile. "It is
bracing; my tensions are all screwed. I feel like climbing on to--Mars."
Frederic laughed again. "You go on, Banks," he said, relieving him of the
cup; "she's all right. You hurry ahead before one of those girls walks
over a precipice."
He could not persuade her to take more of the liquor, so he himself drank
the bracer, after which he put the cup and the flask, which Banks had
left, away in his own pockets. She was up, whipping down her fear. "Come,"
she said, "we must hurry to overtake them."
Her steps, unsteady at first, grew sure and determined; she drew longer,
deeper breaths; the pink of a wild rose flushed her cheeks. But Frederic,
plodding abreast, laid his hand on her arm.
"See here," he said, "you can't keep this up; stop a minute. They've got
to wait for us. George, that ambition of yours can spur you to the pace.
Never saw so much spirit done up in a small package. Go off, sometime,
like Fourth o' July fireworks." He chuckled, looking down at her with
admiration in his round eyes. "Like you for it, though. George, it's just
that has made you worth waiting for."
She gave him a quick glance and, setting her alpenstock, sprang from his
detaining hand.
"See, they have reached the summit," she called. "They are waiting already
for us. And see!" she exclaimed tensely, as he struggled after her. "It is
going to be grand."
A vast company of peaks began to lift, tier on tier like an amphitheater,
above the rim of the dome, while far eastward, as they cross-cut the
rounding incline, stretched those tawny mountains that had the appearance
of strange and watchful beasts, guarding the levels of the desert, bare of
snow. Glimpses there were of the blue Columbia, the racy Wenatchee, but
Weatherbee's pocket was closed. Then, presently, as they gained the
summit, it was no longer an amphitheater into which they looked, but a
billowing sea of cloud, out of which rose steep and inhospitable shores.
Then, everywhere, far and away, shone opal-shaded islands of mystery.
"Oh," she said, with a little, sighing breath, "these are the Isles of the
Blest. We have come through the Everlasting Door into the better country."
She stood looking off in rapture, but the man saw only the changing lights
in her face. He turned a little, taking in the charm of pose, the lift of
chin, parted lips, hand shading softly shining eyes. After a moment he
answered: "Wish we had. Wish every other man you knew was left out, on the
other side of the door."
Her hand fell, she gave him her sweeping look and moved to join the
waiting group.
Banks came to meet them. "We've stayed to the limit; my, yes, it's the
last call," he explained in his tense key. "There's a couple of places we
don't want to see ourselves caught in when the thaw strikes. And they're
getting a heavy rain down at the Springs now; likely up at the tunnel it's
snow or hail." He paused, turning to send a final glance into the mist,
then said: "Less than ten minutes ago I had a sight of that train, but you
see now she's wiped off the map. It'll be a close race, my, yes. Give me
that stick, ma'am; you can make better time on the down-grade holding on
to me."
With this, he offered his able hand to Mrs. Weatherbee and, followed by
the rest of the party, helped her swiftly down the slope. But clearly his
mind was on the stalled train. "Likely, hugging the mountainside, they
don't see how the snow crowds overhead," he said. "And I'd ought to have
taken time to run over and give 'em a tip. I'm going to, I'm going to,
soon's I get you down to that old railroad track where you can make it
alone."
"Do you mean the Limited is in danger?" she asked, springing and tripping
to his stride.
And Banks nodded grimly. "Yes, ma'am. It's a hard proposition, even to a
man like Tisdale, who is used to breaking his own trail. He knows he's got
to fight shy of the slides along that burned over switchback, but if he
saw the box that train is in, he would just hike around to this side of
the canyon, where the pitches are shorter, and the green trees stand some
show to hold the snow, and work down to the old track to the Springs."
"Is Mr. Tisdale"'--her voice broke a little--"Mr. Hollis Tisdale on that
train?"
"Likely, yes. He was snowbound on her in the Rockies, last I heard, and
'feeling fit as a moose.' Being penned up so long, he'd likely rather take
a hike down to the hotel than not. It would be good for his health." And
the little man piped his high, mirthless laugh.
She stumbled, and he felt the hand in his tremble, but the abrupt incline
of the glacier had opened before them, and he believed she dreaded to
re-cross the ice. "Keep cool," he admonished, releasing her to uncoil the
rope again, "Stand steady. Just recollect if you came over this, you can
get back."
But when, presently, the difficult passage safely made, they rounded the
crag and gained the level shoulder where they had lunched, they seemed to
have arrived at a different place. The lower canyon, which not two hours
before had stretched into blue distance below them, was lost in the
creeping sea of cloud; the abyss at their feet gathered immensity, and the
top of the timbered ridge lifted midway like a strange, floating garden.
The station at Cascade tunnel, all the opposite mountain, was obscured,
then, while Banks stood re-coiling his rope, the sounds that had disturbed
the guests at Scenic Hot Springs those previous nights rose,
reverberating, through the hidden gorge. The Chinook had resumed its work.
The way below the spur broke in easy steps to the long and gradual slope
that terminated above the cleaver of rock and, anxious to reach the
unfortunate train, Banks hurried on. Marcia and Elizabeth trailed quickly
after, but Mrs. Weatherbee remained seated on the shelving ledge at the
foot of the crag. Frederic sank heavily into the place beside her and took
out the flask.
"You are all in," he said. "Come, take this; it's diluted this time with
snow."
But she gave him no attention, except to push aside the cup. She waited,
listening, leaning forward a little as though her wide eyes could
penetrate the pall. Then, torn by cross currents of wind, the cloud
parted, and the mountain loomed like a phantom peak over the gulf. She
started up and stood swaying gently on her feet while the trees, tall and
spectral and cloaked in snow, opened rank on rank like a uniformed
company. Lower still, the steep roofs of the station reflected a shaft of
the sun, and the long line of cars appeared clearly defined, waiting still
on the tracks outside the portal.
The rent in the cloud closed. She turned with a great, sighing breath.
"Did you see?" she said. "The train is safe."
"Of course." And again, having himself taken the bracer, Frederic rose and
returned the flask to his pocket. "So, that was troubling you; thought
that train might have been struck. Guess if an avalanche had come down
there, we'd have heard some noise. It's safe enough here," he added. "Top
of this crag was built to shed snow like a church steeple."
"But why are we waiting?" And glancing around, she exclaimed in dismay:
"The others have gone. See! They are almost out of sight."
She began to walk swiftly to the lower rim of the shoulder, and Frederic
followed. Down the slope his sisters and Banks seemed to be moving through
a film. They mingled with it indistinctly as the figures in faded
tapestry. But Morganstein laid his hand on her arm to detain her. "What's
your hurry?" he asked thickly. "All we got to do now is keep their trail.
Tracks are clear as day."
"We shall delay them; they will wait."
She tried to pass him, but they had reached the step from the spur, and he
swung around to block the narrow way. "Not yet," he said. "This is the
moment I've been waiting for. First time in months you've given me a fair
chance to speak to you. Always headed me off. I'm tired of being held at
arm's length. I've been patient to the limit. I'm going to know now,
to-day, before we go down from this mountain, how soon you are going to
marry me."
She tried again to pass him but, taking incautious footing, slipped, and
his arm saved her. "I don't care how soon it is," he went on, "or where.
Quietly at your apartments, or a big church wedding. On board the first
boat sailing for Yokohama, after those coal cases are settled, suits me."
She struggled to free herself, then managed to turn and face him, with her
palms braced against his breast. His arm relaxed a little, so that he was
able to look down in her lifted face. What he saw there was not altogether
anger, though aversion was in her eyes; not surprise, not wholly derision,
though her lips suggested a smile, but an indefinable something that
baffled, mastered him. His arm fell. "Japan is fine in the spring," he
said. "And we could take our time, coming back by way of Hawaii to see the
big volcano, with another stop-over at Manila. Get home to begin
housekeeping at the villa in midsummer."
"Oh," she exclaimed at last, "do you think I am a silly girl to be dazzled
and tempted? Who knows nothing of marriage and the cost?"
"No," he responded quickly. "I think you are a mighty clever woman. But
you've got to the point where you can't hedge any more. Banks has gone
back on that option. If he won't buy, nobody else will. And it takes ready
money to run a big ranch like that, even after the improvements are in.
You can't realize on your orchards, even in the Wenatchee country, short
of four years. So you'll have to marry me; only way out."
She gave him her swift, sweeping look, and the blue lights blazed in her
eyes. "I will remember you are Elizabeth's brother," she said. "I will try
to remember that. But please don't say any more. Every moment counts;
come."
Morganstein laughed. As long as she parried, as long as she did not refuse
outright to marry him, he must keep reasonably cool. He stooped to pick up
the alpenstock she had dropped, then offered his hand down the step from
the spur. "Sorry I put it just that way," he said. "I'm a plain business
man; used to coming straight to the point; but I guess you've known how
much I thought of you all these years. Had to keep on a high check-rein
while Weatherbee lived, and tried my best, afterwards, to give him a
year's grace, but you knew just the same. Know--don't you?--I might take
my pick out of the dozen nicest girls in Seattle to-day. Only have to say
the word. Not one in the bunch would turn me down. But I wouldn't have one
of 'em for second choice. Nobody but you will do." He paused, then added
with his narrow look: "And what I want, you ought to know that too, I
get."
She met the look with a shake of the head and forced a smile. "Some things
are not to be bought at any price. But, of course, I have seen--a woman
does--" she went on hurriedly, withdrawing her hand. "There was a time, I
confess, when I did consider--your way out. But I dared not take it; even
then, I dared not."
"You dared not?" Frederic laughed again. "Never thought you were afraid of
me. Never saw you afraid of anything. But I see. Miserable experience with
Weatherbee made you little cautious. George, don't see how any man could
have deserted you. Trust me to make it up to you. Marry me, and I'll show
you such a good time Weatherbee won't amount to a bad dream."
"I do not wish to forget David Weatherbee," she said.
"George!" he exclaimed curiously. "Do you mean you ever really loved him?
A man who left you, practically without a cent, before you were married a
month."
"No." Her voice was low; her lip trembled a little. "No, I did not love
him--as he deserved; as I was able to love." She paused, then went on with
decision: "But he did not leave me unprovided for. David Weatherbee never
deserted me. And, even though he had, though he had been the kind of man I
believed him to be, it would make no difference. I could not marry you."
There was a silence during which they continued to follow the tracks that
cross-cut the slope. But Morganstein's face was not pleasant to see. All
the complaisancy of the egotist who has long and successfully shaped lives
to his own ends was withdrawn; it left exposed the ugly inner side of the
man. The trail was becoming soft; the damp of the Chinook began to envelop
them; already the advancing film stretched like a curtain over the sun,
and the three figures that had seemed parts of a shaken tapestry
disappeared. Then, presently, Banks' voice, muffled like a voice under a
blanket, rose through the pall. And Frederic stopped to put his hand to
his mouth. "All right! Coming!" he answered, but the shout rebounded as
though it had struck a sounding board.
After another plodding silence, the prospector's hail reached them again.
It seemed farther off, and this time Morganstein did not respond. He
stopped, however, and the woman beside him waited in expectation.
"Suppose," he said slowly, "we are lost on this mountain to-night. Make a
difference to-morrow--wouldn't it?--whether you would marry me or not."
The color rushed to her face and went; her breast rose and fell in deep,
quick breaths, but she met his look fearlessly, lifting herself with the
swaying movement from the balls of her feet that made her suddenly taller.
"No." And her tone, the way in which she said it, must have stung even his
small soul; then she added: "You are more brutal than I thought."
She turned after that and herself sent the belated response to Banks. But
though she repeated the call twice, making a trumpet of her hands and with
all the power of her voice, his hail did not reach them again. She started
swiftly down. It was beginning to snow.
Frederic had nothing more to say. He moved on with her. It was as though
each tried to out-travel the other, still they could not make up that
delay. The snow fell in big, soft flakes that blurred the tracks they
followed; soon they were completely blotted out, and though he strained
his eyes continually, watching for the cleaver of rock they had climbed
that morning, the landmark never appeared. Finally, at the same instant,
they both stopped, listening. On the silence broke innumerable small
sounds like many little hurrying feet. The mountain trembled slightly.
"God Almighty!" he cried thickly. Then came the closer rush of a
considerable body, not unlike sheep passing in a fog, and panic seized
him. "We've got to keep on top," he shouted and, grasping her arm, he
swung her around and began to run back up the slope.
In the face of this common peril, personality called a truce, and she
pushed on with him blindly, leaving it to him to choose the way and set
the pace. But their own tracks down the incline had filled with incredible
swiftness; soon they were completely effaced. And, when the noise
subsided, he stopped and looked about him, bewildered. He saw nothing but
a breadth of sharply dipping slope, white, smooth as an unwritten scroll,
over which hung the swaying, voluminous veil of the falling snow. He put
his hands to his mouth then, and lifted his voice in a great hail. It
brought no reply, but in the moment he waited, somewhere far below in
those obscured depths, a great tree, splitting under tremendous pressure,
crashed down, then quickly the terrific sweep and roar of a second
mightier avalanche filled the hidden gorge.
Morganstein caught her arm once more. "We must get back to that shoulder
where it's safe," he shouted. "Banks will come to look us up." After that,
as they struggled on up the slope, he fell to saying over and over, as
long as the reverberations lasted: "Almighty God!"
As they ascended, the snow fell less heavily and finally ceased. It became
firm underfoot, and a cross wind, starting in puffs, struck their faces
sharply with a promise of frost. Then strange hummocks began to rise. They
were upheavals of ice, shrouded in snow. Sometimes a higher one presented
a sheer front shading to bluish-green. They had not passed this point with
Banks, but Morganstein shaped a course to a black pinnacle, lifting
through the mist beyond, that he believed was the crag at the shoulder.
She stumbled repeatedly on the rough surface. Her labored breathing in the
great stillness, like the beat of a pendulum in an empty house, tried his
strained nerves. He upbraided her for leaving her alpenstock down the
slope. But she paid no attention. She looked back constantly; she was like
a woman being led away from a locked door, moving reluctantly, listening
against hope for a word or sign. So, at last, they came to the rock. It
was not the crag, but a hanging promontory, where the mountain broke in a
three-sided precipice. The cloud surged around it like an unplumbed sea.
They crept back, and Morganstein tried again to determine their position.
They were too high, he concluded; they must work down a little to round
the cliffs, so they took a course diagonally into the smother. Then he,
too, began to lose alertness; he walked mechanically, taking the line of
least resistance; his head sagged forward; he saw nothing but the hummocks
before him. These grew larger; they changed to narrow ridges with fissures
between. After a while, one of these breaks roused him. It was exceedingly
deep; he could not see either end of it. The only way was to leap, and he
did it clumsily. Then, with his alpenstock fixed, and his spiked heels set
in the crust, he reached a hand to her. She was barely able to spring to
the lower side, but it did not terrify her. One fear only possessed her.
Her glance, seeking, returned to the hidden canyon. But soon they were
confronted by a wider and still deeper chasm. It was impossible to cross
it, though it seemed to narrow upwards in the direction of the summit. He
took her arm and began to ascend, looking for a way over. The pitch grew
steadily sharper. They entered the thinning edge of the cloud, and it
became transparent like tissue of gold. Suddenly it parted, and Frederic
stopped, blinded by the blaze of a red sunset on snow. He closed his eyes
an instant, while, to avoid the glare, he turned his face. His first
glance shocked him into a sense of great peril. The two fissures ran
parallel, and they were ascending a tongue of ice between. Not far below,
it narrowed to a point where the two crevasses, uniting, yawned in one.
His knees weakened, but he managed to swing himself cautiously around. The
causeway seemed to rock under his weight; then, shading his sight with his
hand, he saw they were almost beneath the shoulder he had tried to reach.
They had climbed too high, as he had believed, but also they had descended
too far. And they had come directly down the glacier, to cross the upper
end of which Banks had found it necessary to use a lifeline. "Be careful!"
he whispered thickly, and laid his hand on her shoulder, impelling her on.
"Be careful, but, for God's sake, hurry!"
He crowded her faster and faster up the incline; he dared not move
abreast, it was so narrow. Sometimes he lifted her bodily, for with every
step his panic grew. Beads of moisture gathered on his face, though the
wind stiffened and sharpened; his own breath out-labored hers, and he
cried again over and over: "God Almighty!" and "Almighty God!" Sometimes
his tone was blasphemy and sometimes prayer.
But the moment came when she could not be farther pressed. Her shoulder
trembled under his hold, her limbs gave, and she sank down, to her knees
at first, then to her elbow. Even then she moved her head enough to look
backward over the abyss. "The train," she whispered and, shuddering,
dropped her face on her relaxed arm.
Morganstein ventured to glance back. Ragged fragments torn from the cloud
below rose swirling across the opposite mountain top, and between their
edges, like a picture in a frame, appeared briefly the roofs of the little
station. But where the Oriental Limited had stood, the avalanche had
passed. "God Almighty!" he repeated impotently, then immediately the sense
of this appalling catastrophe whet the edge of his personal terror.
"Come!" he cried; "come, you can't stop here. It's dangerous. Come, you'll
freeze--or worse."
She was silent. She made no effort to rise or indeed to move. He began to
press by her and on in the direction of that safe spur. But presently
another dread assailed him; the dread of the city-bred man--accustomed to
human intercourse, the swing of business, the stir of social life, to face
great solitudes alone. This cross-fear became so strong it turned him back
in a second panic. Then floundering to keep his equilibrium after an
incautious step, he sat down heavily and found himself skidding towards
the larger crevasse. He lifted his alpenstock and in a frenzy thrust it
into the ice between his knees. It caught fast just short of the brink
and held him astride, with heels dangling over the abyss. He worked away
cautiously, laboriously, shaking in all his big, soft bulk; and would have
given up further attempt to rescue Beatriz Weatherbee had he not at this
moment discovered himself at her side.
He had not yet tried to rise to his feet, so safe-guarding himself with
the alpenstock thrust once more in the ice, he paused to take the flask
from his pocket and poured all that remained of the liquor into the cup.
It was a little over half full. Possibly he remembered how lavish he had
been with those previous draughts, for he looked at his companion with a
kind of regret as he lifted the cup unsteadily to drink. Then, gathering
the remnants of his courage, he put his arm under her head, raising it
while he forced the small surplus of brandy he had left between her lips.
She revived enough under the scalding swallow to push the cup away.
Anywhere else he would have laughed at her feeble effort to throw off his
touch; but he did not urge her to finish the draught, and, as he had done
earlier that day, himself hastily drained the cup. He dropped it beside
the empty flask and struggled up.
"Now," he said, "we've got to make that spur where it's safe. Come. It
isn't far; just been up to that place where Banks helped us across; had to
come back for you."
But he was obliged to lift her to her feet and to support her up the
slope. And this, even though the tongue widened above them, threw him
perilously close to the crevasse. Once, twice, the ice broke on the brink
and dropped clinking down, down. It was impossible to make the leap again
to the higher surface they had descended; unhampered, he must have been
physically unfit. Behind them the cloud closed over the Pass and the
mountain top under which the Oriental Limited had stood. His companion no
longer looked back; she moved as mechanically though less certainly than
one who walks in sleep. The fears that possessed him, that she herself had
held so finely in check when they had followed Banks on this glacier, did
not trouble her now. Her indifference to their extremity began to play on
Frederic's unhinged nerves. This white, blue-lipped woman was not the
Beatriz Weatherbee he had known; who had climbed the slope with him that
morning, all exhilaration, spirit, charm; whose example had challenged his
endurance and held his courage to the sticking point.
"Why don't you say something?" he complained. "Have you turned into ice?
Now look where you step, can't you? Deuced fix you got us into, dreaming
there in the clouds, when Lucky Banks had left the spur. Come on, you
bloodless ghost; come, or I'll let you stay where you drop. Nice place to
spend the night in. Almighty God!"
So, upbraiding her when she stumbled, blaming her for their plight,
threatening to leave her if she should fall, and flaying himself on with
renewed panic, he brought her to the top of the double crevasse and the
prospector's crossing. But here, with the levels of the spur before them,
her strength reached low ebb. This time he was not able to rouse her, and
he threw down his alpenstock and took her in his arms, and went slipping
and recovering the remaining steps. He stopped, winded, and stood her on
her feet, but her body sagged limply against him, and the sight of her
still face terrified him. He carried her a little farther, to the shelter
of the crag, and laid her there. Then he dropped to his knees beside her,
and grasping her shoulders shook her, at first slowly, then swiftly, with
the roughness of despair.
"Wake up," he cried thickly. "Wake up! Don't you see we're out of that
hole? Come, Banks will be here any minute. Come, wake up."
She made no response. The sun had set; it was growing bitterly cold, and
there was little protection under the crag. It was a place where cross
winds met. Torn fragments from the sea of cloud below drove against the
pinnacle. It was like a lofty headland breasting rolling surf. Frederic
stood erect and sent his voice down through the smother in a great shout.
It brought no answer, and he settled helplessly on the shelf beside her.
It began to hail furiously, and he dropped his face, shielding it in his
arms.
The storm passed and, rousing himself, he searched his pockets vainly for
a match to light his remaining cigar. Later he went through them again,
hoping to find a piece of chocolate--he had carried some that morning--but
this, too, was without result. He fell to cursing the packer, for
appropriating the port and tinned things that were missing at lunch-time.
But after that he did not talk any more and, in a little while, he
stretched himself beside the unconscious figure at the foot of the crag. A
second cloud lifted in a flurry of snow. Every hidden canyon sent out
innumerable currents of air, and gales, meeting, lifted the powdery crust
in swirls, wrapping them in a white sheet. Finally, from far off, mingling
with the skirling pipes of the wind came a different, human sound. And,
presently, when the call--if call it was--was repeated, the man sat up and
looked dully around. But he made no effort to reply. He waited, listening
stupidly, and the cry did not reach him again. Then, his glance falling to
the woman, a ray of intelligence leaped in his eyes. He rose on his knees
and moved her so there was room for his own bulk between her body and the
rock. He had then, when he stretched himself on the snow, a windbreak.
The wind rushed screaming into the vast spaces beyond the mountain top,
and returning, met the opposing forces from the canyon and instantly
became a whirlwind. It cut like myriads of teeth; it struck two-edged with
the swish, slash of a sword; and it lifted the advancing cloud in a mighty
swirl, bellied it as though it had been a gigantic sail, and shook from
its folds a deluge of hailstones followed by snow. Through it all a
grotesque shape that seemed sometimes a huge, abnormal beetle and
sometimes a beast, worked slowly around the crag, now crawling, now
rearing upright with a futile napping of stiff wings, towards the two
human figures. It was Lucky Banks, come to rescue them.
A heavier blast threw him on his face, but he rose to his knees and,
creeping close, squared his shoulders to protect the slighter body. At the
same time the significance of the position of Morganstein's unconscious
bulk struck him. "You rat!" he cried with smothered fury. "You damn
rat!"
Then he caught up a handful of snow with which he began to rub the woman's
face. Afterwards he removed her gloves to manipulate her cold hands. He
worked swiftly, with the deftness of practice, but the results were slow,
and presently he took the rug from the pack he carried and covered her
while he felt in Frederic's pockets for the flask he had neglected to
return. "Likely there wasn't a drop left when she came to need it, you
brute. And I'd like to leave you here to take your chances. You can thank
your luck I've got to use you."
Banks keyed his voice high, between breaths, to out-scale the wind, but he
did not wait for a reply. Before he finished speaking, he had opened his
big, keen-bladed clasp-knife and commenced to cut broad strips from the
rug. He passed some of these, not without effort, under Morganstein's
body, trussing the arms. Then, wrapping the smaller figure snugly in the
blanket, he lifted it on to the human toboggan he had made and bound it
securely. Finally he converted the shoulder-straps of his pack into a sort
of steering gear, to which he fastened his life-line.
These preparations had been quickly made. It was not yet dark when he
worked this sled over the rim of the spur and began to descend the long
slope. The violence of the wind was broken there, so that he was able to
travel erect, drawing his load. After a while, when the flurry of snow had
passed, a crust formed on the surface, and in steeper pitches he was
obliged to let the toboggan forge ahead, using himself as a drag. With the
change to colder temperature, there was no further danger of slides, and
to avoid the avalanche that had turned Morganstein back, the prospector
shaped his course more directly into the canyon. Soon he was below the
clouds; between their ragged edges a few stars appeared. Beyond a buttress
shone a ruddy illumination. Some firs stood against it darkly. It was the
fire Marcia and Elizabeth were watching at the place where he had cached
the surplus supplies that morning. It served as a beacon when the
crispness ceased, and for an interval he was forced to mush laboriously
through soft drifts. Then he came to a first bare spot. It was in crossing
this rough ground that Frederic showed signs of returning consciousness.
But Banks gave him no attention. He had caught a strange sound on the
wind. Others, far off, rose while he listened. Presently, looking back
beyond the end of the ridge that divided the upper gorge, he saw twinkling
lights. They were the lanterns of the searchers at the wrecked train.
The little man did not exclaim. He did not pray. His was the anguish of
soul which finds no expression.