ABOVE THE CLOUDS
Of all the trails in the McDonald country, there is none more travelled,
or more worthy of the toil than that which leads to the Piegan glacier.
From the moment we stand in expectant readiness in the little clearing
behind the log cabins comprising the hotel, a new phase of existence has
begun for us. So strange are the place and the conditions that it seems
we must have stepped back fifty years or more, into that West whose
glamour lives in story and song. Strong, tanned, sinewy guides who wear
cartridge belts and six-shooters, load grunting pack-horses and "throw"
diamond-hitches in businesslike silence. When at last all is ready, the
riders mount the Indian ponies or "cayuses"--Allie Sand, the yellow cow
pony; Babe, the slumbrous; Bunchie, but recently subdued, and Baldy,
nicknamed "Foolish" because of the musical pack of kettles, camp stoves
and sundries that jingle and jump up and down upon his back, lightening
the way with merriment for those who follow. With a quickened beating
of the heart, the good cheer and Godspeed of friendly voices ringing in
our ears, we take leave of the last haunt of civilization and strike out
into the virgin solitude of heaven-aspiring peaks.
As the feeling of remoteness smites the spirit when we pass beyond
the railway station of Belton and follow in creaking wagons the
shadow-curtained road to the lake, so now it returns with stronger
impulse, calling to life new emotions begotten of the Wild. The
world-rush calms into the great stillness of untrodden places, the
world-voices sigh out in the murmuring breeze, the petty traffic of the
cities is forgotten in the soulful silence of the trees. And out of
this newly found affinity with the Nature forces, the love of adventure
thrills into being, together with the fine scorn of danger and the
resolve to do that which we set out to do no matter what the cost or the
peril. Here the "white feather" is the greatest badge of dishonour, and
he who fails through cowardice to win his goal is a man among men no
more. This spirit is the faint, far-off echo of the hero-bearing days of
the early West.
Our guide is a stocky, little man of soldierly bearing, clad in khaki
suit and cow-boy hat, whom his fellows call "Scotty." He is brown
with exposure, smoothly shaven, and his keen, blue eyes are slightly
contracted at the corners from the strain of peering through vast
distances--a characteristic of men who follow woodcraft and hunting.
He rides ahead silently but for a rebuke to the slumbrous "Babe," such
as, "Go on, you lazy coyote," or a familiar, half-caressing remark to
Bunchie, the ex-outlaw, who is his favourite. Indeed, he, like most men
who have ridden the range, has the habit of talking to the ponies as
though they knew and understood. And who can be sure they do not?
The forests begin as soon as the bit of clearing is passed, then
single file the little cavalcade moves on through huckleberry fields,
purplish-black with luscious, ripe berries, where bears come to feed
and fatten, where, also, thirsty wayfarers stop to eat the juicy fruit.
The pines clasp branches overhead in a lacy, broken roof whose pattern
of needle and burr shows in dark traceries against patches of blue sky
remote and far beyond. A thick, sweet shadow dappled now and again with
splashes of yellow sun tempers the air which presses its cool touch upon
our brows. On either hand a dense, even lawn of tender green fern and
mist-maiden covers the earth and through the silence sounds the merry
clamour of a stream. It ripples gaily along between wooded banks,
breaking into little crests of foam upon the rocks, showing through the
glassy medium of its waters, every stone and pebble of its speckled bed
polished and rounded by ceaseless flowing. The horses splash through
the creek and upon the opposite side begins anew the delicate lawn of
mist-maiden and fern, so freshly, tenderly green with the pale greenness
of things that live away from the sun, so ephemerally exquisite as to
embarrass coarse, mortal presence. It is a spot fit for fairies to dance
upon; fit for wood-nymphs and white hinds to make merry in; fit for the
flute-like melody of Pan to awake to dancing echoes as he calls the
forest sprites unto high revelry.
A forest ranger joins us. He is tramping to the Gunsight Pass with his
axe upon his shoulder and his kit upon his back, to repair the trail to
the Great St. Mary's Lakes.
The shades of brown and green, the shadow threaded with an occasional
strand of gold, are livened by crimson patches of Indian Paint Brush,
bluebells, white starry lilies called Queen's Cups, trembling feathers
of coral pink, sun-yellow and white syringa. Beneath the overhanging
verdure, around and upon the mossy rocks, the ever-present twinflowers
open their delicate petals and sweeten the air, and from clumps of
coarse grass rise cones of minute white blossoms, the bear-grass, one
of the most curious of the mountain flowers. This ranger knows the
common names of nearly all the plants, and at every turn new varieties
spring up. He stops to gather each kind of bloom until we have a great
bouquet--a _potpourri_ of all the floral beauty of the multitudes that
people our path.
The way is very fair, ministering to the senses; troops of new,
forest forms and colours pass before the eye, the mingled sweets of
the flowers, the pungent mould and balsam of spruce and pine breathe
sensuously into the nostrils, and the fingers of the wind caress and
soothe as they pass. Through the voiceful silence, sounds that are on
the borderland between fancy and reality, thrill for a moment, then are
lost in the grand chorus of trees and rushing rivers. A stream of volume
and velocity flowing through a deep gorge falls twice in its downward
rush. These two falls, the Wynona and Minneopa, flash great, white
plumes among steeps of green forest.
With sharp descent and stubborn climb, the trail, that seems the merest
thread, untangles its skein and leads, at length, into a small basin
partly enclosed within sheer, naked rock-walls, whence three delicate
silver streams trickle down and join the creek that waters a little
park. Beyond, the peaks loom up masterfully, sheathing their icy lances
in the clouds. High over the lip of the mighty rock-wall, rising like
the giant counterpart of an ancient battlement, lies the glacier. Up
that precipitous, overhanging parapet we must make our way, but where
the footing or how the ascent is to be won, fancy cannot fathom, for
it would seem no living thing save a mountain goat, a bighorn sheep
or an eagle could scale this stronghold of Nature. Across the basin,
where there is a gentler slope, the mountain side is dotted with groups
of tall, spire-like pines. The level meadow is grassy and shaded with
small spruce of the size of Christmas trees. And in this peaceful spot,
girt with grim, challenging steeps, the tinkle of the stream sounds
pastorally sweet, while the more distant and powerful roar of the three
tumbling streams chants a solemn undertone to the merry lilt.
Here the camp is made. A fire crackles gaily and our tents are
pitched beneath the trees. Suddenly a shadow falls,--dimly, almost
imperceptibly. The sun has gone. It is only six o'clock in mid-summer,
but so lofty are the barrier-heights that even now we are in a world of
shade,--shade of a strangely luminous kind, hinting of ruddy lights that
are obscured but not quenched. Through the quiet, echo the whistle of
the marmot, the metallic whirr of contentious squirrels going off like
small alarm clocks, and the mellow, drowsy note of bells ringing to the
rhythmic crop of browsing ponies. So the long beautiful twilight settles
over the mountains until the sounds are stilled save the tinkling bells
and the water-voices singing their ceaseless song. The forest sleeps.
Long, mystical fancy-bearing moments and tens of moments pass, and
something of awe closes down with the gloaming. Then through the dim,
monkish grey shadow pulses a red-gold stream of light that runs in long,
uneven streamers across the face of the grim, dark walls, transfiguring
them into radiant shapes of living golden-rose. In that effulgence
of glory, lost peaks gleam for a second out of the dusk and vanish
into nothingness again, snowy diadems flash into being and fade like
a dream. The life-blood of the day ebbs and flows, sending out long,
slender fingers to trace its fleeting message on the rocks, then with a
deepening, crimson glow it flickers and is fled. Night settles fast and
the flare of the camp fire, shedding its spark-spangles in brilliant
showers, reclaims one little spot from the devouring blackness. It is
a magical thing--this campfire, and the living ring around it is an
enchanted circle. Perhaps its warmth penetrates even to the heart,
or perhaps the bond of human fellowship asserts itself more strongly
when only the precarious, flamboyant fire-light, leaping and waning,
throwing forth a rain of sparks, or searing grey with sudden decline,
separates our little group from utter desolation. Whatever the charm may
be, it falls upon us all, and with eyes fixed on the ember-pictures or
raised to the starry skies, we listen to tales of the long ago and of
a present as unfamiliar as the past. The reserve of our guide is quite
broken and he tells in a low, reminiscent voice, of wonder-spots in the
range,--for he knows its every peak and gorge,--of the animals that
dwell in its solitary recesses and of how the Piegan Glacier got its
name.
The Piegan Indians are a branch of the Blackfeet tribe, and in the
early days they were almost as noted horse raiders as the Absarokes who
flourished near the Three Tetons, in the country of the Yellowstone.
Back and forth across the passes they came and went in their nefarious
traffic, secure from pursuit among the horns of these lonely heights.
The vicinity of the eternal ice-fields, probably this little basin
itself, sheltered the shadowy bands, and thus the glacier became known
by their name. Still, you may look in vain on the maps for Piegan
Glacier; you will find it called Sperry instead. The old name was
discarded for that of a Professor who spent some weeks exploring its
crevasses and under whose supervision a corps of college students spent
a part of one summer's vacation, building the glacier trail. Yet there
are those who love the old names as they love the traditions for which
they stand, and to them the glacier will forever bear the time-honoured
title of these Indians who have long since disappeared from its
solitudes.
As the hours pass we draw from our guide and story-teller something
of himself. Little by little, in fragmentary allusions and always
incidentally, during that even-tide and the days following, we learn
thus much of his life. He was born in those troublous days of Indian
fighting on the frontier, shortly after his father, an army officer,
was ordered out on campaign against the Sioux. When he was but a few
weeks old word came to his mother that her husband had been killed,
and she, sick and heart-broken, died, leaving besides this infant one
other boy. The two children were left to the care of the officers at
Fort Kehoe, but they were separated while both were so young that they
did not realize the parting nor remember each other. Our guide became
the ward of a lieutenant who had been a friend of his father. He played
among the soldiers and Indian scouts at the Fort until he came to the
age when he felt the desire to learn, then he went East to school,
afterwards to college, always returning in the summer to ride the range
or to lose himself in the mountains. And when the college days were done
that old cry of the West, that old craving for the life that knows no
restraint nor hindering bonds, beckoned him back inevitably as Fate.
Again and again he had gone forth on the world's highway, once to serve
in Cuba in the war with Spain, where in a yellow-fever hospital he met
for the first time his older brother, who even then was dying of the
pestilence, but always he returned to the freedom of the wilderness.
He is a type in himself, who belongs to the time of Lewis and Clark,
rather than to this century--a man who lives too late. And there is
about him, for all his carefree indifference to the world, something
of indefinable pathos. He is quite alone--he has no kinsfolk and few
friends. He is a man without a home but the forests, who has renounced
human companionship for the solitudes, without a love but the mountains,
to whom the greatest sorrow would be the knowledge that he might never
look upon them again.
* * * * *
A cloud, heavy with rain, drifts across the sky, and big, cool drops
splash with a hissing noise in the fire, upon our upturned faces, upon
the warm, flower-sown earth which exhales, like incense, the odours
of sun-heated soil and summer shower. The bright flames deepen to a
blood-red glow and ashes gather like hoar frost on the cooling logs and
boughs. The circle around the fire disperses to seek the narcotic gift
breathed by the pines, sung as a lullaby by the voices of trees and
streams.
The start for the glacier is made while the day is young. Pack horses
and camp are left behind and with the guide leading the way, the
tortuous climb is begun. Sheer as those rock-walls seemed to be, there
is a footing for the careful ponies, as from narrow ledge to ledge
they turn and zigzag up the mountain-face; and naked as those steeps
appeared, they are animated with frisking conies and marmots, and hidden
among the stones are rarely exquisite flowers. Here the mountain lilies
grow, blossoms with brown eyes in each of their three white petals,
covered with soft, silvery fur which makes them seem of the texture
of velvet. These lilies are somewhat similar to the Mariposa lily of
the California Sierras. The ground-cedar, a minute and delicate plant;
strange varieties of fern and moss, and everchanging, unfamiliar
flowers appear as we ascend, until, wheeling dizzily hundreds of
feet above the basin upon the slight and slippery trail, with things
beneath dwarfed by distance into a pigmy world and things above looming
formidably, the increasing altitude shears the rocks and leaves them
bare and grim. The air grows sharp with icy chill, great billowy,
low-trailing clouds drag over the mountain-tops, down the ravines and
float in detached banners in free spaces below. Broad stretches of snow
lie ahead. The painstaking ponies pick their way across them, for it is
fifteen feet down to solid ground. Sluggish streams creep between banks
crusty with old ice, and pretty falls, broken into lacy meshes of foam,
cascade down a parapet of rock and baptize us as we pass. In this spot
the stone wall has been worn into a grotto where the water plays as in a
fountain. From every little fissure ferns dart their long green lances
and feathery fronds, and the rocks are grown over with moss.
From our eyrie we look down into a small lake called Peary's, sunk
within dark and desolate cliffs, shattered and ground down into
fantastic forms. It is but partly thawed and its cold, blue-green centre
is enclosed in opaque, greenish-white ice and drifts of snow. Indeed
snow is everywhere in broken drifts--in the furrowed mountain-combs
and along the level in smooth white stretches. Close to the margin of
the ice-sealed shores is a grotesque, sapless, scrubby vegetation,
as strange in its way as the brilliant-hued waters or the rocks that
impress us with huge antiquity and elemental crudeness, as though we
stood face to face with Earth's infancy, close in the wake of ebbing,
primeval seas. But for all the savage roughness and arctic chill this is
a scene to cherish and remember--the blue cup of heaven, flecked with a
thistledown of clouds, the black menace of shivered rock-crests, the
dazzle of the snow and the darkly beautiful waters that are neither blue
nor green yet seemingly of both colours, held fast in the circle of
cold, pale ice.
Above this lake, down an overhanging wall, are more little falls, indeed
the whole country is interlaced with them as though the life-blood of
the mountains flowed in silver veins upon the surface. Within the hollow
over the stone barrier lies Nansen's Lake, even more frigid in its
ice-sheath, more palely green in the little patch of water which the
sun has laid bare. And although the mountains soar tremendously, yet
ever and anon the course lies upward over the frowning brows, over the
very crowns of the Range, until the high peaks, stripped of atmospheric
illusion, stand stark and naked to the gaze. There is in this sudden
intimacy with the fellows of the clouds, the veiled lords of upper air,
an awe which we feel before powers incomprehensible.
At last the trail ceases; overhead are cliffs no horse could climb.
The guide ties the ponies, and with a stout rope clambers ahead up a
smoothly sculptured parapet. We follow him and find ourselves on a
bleak waste which leads to a small basin, strewn with great boulders
and lesser rocks, dark and of the colour of slate. Growing upon these
rock-heaps are masses of flowering moss starred by tiny pink buds and
blossoms, or white spattered with the crimson of heart's blood. And now
the guide begins to whistle--a long, plaintive note which is answered
presently by a similar sound and a shrill, infantile treble, cheeping,
cheeping among the stones. Then from the security of her home a
Ptarmigan, or Arctic Grouse, hops into the open with her family of five
chicks jumping on her patient back, and tumbling, the merest puff-balls,
at her feet. She chirps softly to them, proud and dignified in her
maternity, ever watchful of her pretty little brood. She is dressed in
Quakerish summer-garb of mottled grey, the feathers covering her to the
utmost extremity of her toes. Once the winter snows descend, these birds
become as white as the frigid regions which they inhabit. Ordinarily
they are very wild, but this little mother, knowing only friendliness
from human visitors, comes forth trustfully with her beloved young,
suffers them to be handled and caressed and she, herself, with wings
dropped in the semblance of a pretty courtesy, jumps into the hand of
the guide, and from that perch feeds daintily on the pink and white buds
of the moss, as fragilely lovely as the snowflakes to which they appear
strangely akin. Indeed, the bird, the flowers and the environing snow
all seem more of the cloud-land than of the earth.
But there is a sequel to the story of this little grouse, which is,
unhappily, a tragedy. Not long after she greeted us, giving an air of
friendliness to the forbidding, wind-swept rocks, a Tyrolese came
hunting through the mountains. He made his camp near the home of the
Ptarmigan and her little ones, and one day when the guide came calling
to her there was no answer but the empty whistling of the wind. He
called again and again; he searched among the crags and the rock-heaps,
then he came upon the ashes of a camp-fire and the mottled feathers
and silken down of the Ptarmigan and her chicks. She had been betrayed
at last by her trustfulness, and she and her brood had been cruelly
sacrificed to the blood-lust and appetite of that enemy of poor dumb
things--the man with the gun.
* * * * *
From the mossy basin of the Ptarmigan we climb with ropes up a broken
escarpment and there upon the very lip of the glacier are blossoms so
unearthly in form and colour as to seem the merest ghosts of flowers.
One is a dark, ocean-blue bell and another an ashen-green thing furred
over with a beard as soft and colorless as a moth's wing. From
this eminence a stormy, wind-tossed little lake, the Gem, flashes
angrily-bright waters beneath snow splashed, wonderfully stratified
peaks, and there, through a gateway in the mountains, spreading out in
a vast plateau of white, lies the glacier, undulating in frozen waves
like a polar sea. Even under its shroud of snow one can trace its course
by the seams and wrinkles of a congealed current. It is flanked on all
sides by the savage, beetling peaks marshalled in endless ranks like
the spears and unsheathed lances of war-gods in their domain midway
between earth and heaven. Out across the death-white pallor of snow, in
the death-chill of the ice-fields, we strike out slowly, cautiously,
for the surface of the ice, now hidden by snow, is cleft by crevasses
even to the mountain's core, and a misstep, a fall into their depths
would be doom. Far away over the white stretches, a gaunt, spectral
coyote watches our painful progress. On and on we go by a tusk-like
peak, the "Little Matterhorn," and ever on to a point where the giant
panorama unfolds its mountain-multitudes, its barricaded lakes, and the
echo breaks into a chorus that peals out as though each separate crest
were possessed of a brazen tongue. These grimly naked heights, split and
rent with elemental shocks and the resistance to huge forces, are the
cradle of the lightning and the thunder-bolt, the citadel whence the
storm-hosts ride down on blackwinged clouds upon the world. And even now
phantom troops of clouds come gliding up out of the moist laps of the
valleys, out of lakes and streams, passing in shifting wraith-shapes
over the mountains, spreading their filmy scarfs across the sky until
the livid expanse of snow, showing colourlessly in the grey light,
brings to one a vivid picture of the ice-age, of a frozen world and the
cold, pitiless illumination of a burnt-out sun.
[Illustration: GEM LAKE]
Fine, pricking points of snow cut with the sharpness of needle-thrusts;
the wind whips through the bleak gaps in the Range and over the glacier,
gathering cold and speed as it comes. A chilling numbness deadens our
feet and hands. So, wind-buffeted, storm-driven, with the trumpeting
gale in our ears, we turn back from the kingdom where Winter is
unbroken, and descend through alternate shadow and sun into the blooming
beauty, into the golden Summer that swims in the world below, whence
snow and cold are only hinted of in a white-breasted, mountain-kissing
cloud.
_THE LITTLE SAINT MARY'S_