and a Howling Snow-Storm At the Top
Joe was still sleepy when the Ranger shook him by the shoulder.
"Get up," said Mills. "We're in for a rain before night, sure. I want to
get as far as we can before it begins. Get breakfast, and put up some
stuff handy for lunch, so you can get it without unpacking."
Joe crawled out into a new, strange world. For the first time since he'd
been in the Park it was not a clear day. The clouds hung low, way down
over the tops and sides of the mountains, gray, dull clouds, with
ghostly strings of vapor moving around on the under side. Sperry Glacier
was invisible, and the vapors were half-way down the wall where the
goats had been. Here, in the deep bowl of Avalanche Basin, with its
towering, precipitous sides, the result was that Joe felt exactly as if
he were shut in down at the bottom of a huge well, a well with a gray
smoke cover over it. Even the bright green water of the little lake,
without any sunlight, had turned a dull, chalky green, and looked
ominous and unreal, as if you would catch dead fish in it.
"I don't like this--I feel as if I were in a prison," he said to the
Ranger, as he kindled his fire.
"You may like it less before we get to Granite Park," Mills answered.
"Put your poncho over your saddle to-day--you're going to need it."
Then he woke the camp.
Everybody felt more or less as Joe did, and breakfast was curiously
quiet. Even Bob stopped his gay chatter. They got an early start, and
were soon down on the main trail beside McDonald Creek, and plugging
north through the deep forest of pines, larches and Englemann spruce. It
was dull, monotonous work, with no view at all, for when there was an
opening in the woods, all they could see was a cliff wall going up into
the gray cloud overhead, which shut down over them like a roof. Mile
after mile they went, now and then Bob or the girls starting a song, but
soon stopping it. The trail was wet and muddy underfoot, and there were
some fallen trees to jump. Moreover, the packhorses were, for some
reason, particularly badly behaved that day, and Joe and Val nearly lost
their tempers a dozen times as they rode into the brush, to head off
some packhorse which was trying to get out of line.
When they stopped for lunch, it had already begun to drizzle. Joe made
coffee, and passed out the usual collection of food for a Charlie
Chaplin sandwich. By the time lunch was eaten, the drizzle had settled
down into a misty rain, and the trees had begun to drip. Then everybody
realized why they had been carrying around slickers on their saddles. On
went these slickers--long, yellow rubber coats such as are worn by the
Gloucester fishermen. They fitted the men all right, but poor Lucy and
Alice were completely enveloped, with the sleeves coming down over their
hands. Joe put his head through the hole in his poncho--and that was all
right till he came to mount his horse. Then he discovered that a poncho
is decidedly not the thing for horseback riding, for his knees and legs
kept coming out from under, on either side, and as the trees and bushes
were soon dripping wet, and the rain kept falling, he was speedily
soaked almost to the waist. It grew colder, too. But there was nothing
to do but plod on, through the wet, miry trail.
However, very soon after lunch, the trail suddenly left the canyon, and
headed east right up the side wall, to Swift Current Pass.
"Less than three miles to camp," Mills called back; "and three thousand
feet to climb," he added.
"Three thousand feet in less than three miles," Joe reflected. "Let's
see, Mount Lafayette in the White Mountains is fifty-two hundred feet
high, and the trail starts from the Profile House, which is nineteen
hundred feet up. That makes only thirty-three hundred feet, and the
trail is five miles long."
Then Joe thought of that trail, which he had climbed only two summers
before, and how steep it was, and whistled to himself.
"We're in for it," he thought.
And he was right. Ordinarily, this trail, while it is steep and not well
graded or maintained, is easy enough for a Rocky Mountain horse; but
now, with the rain pouring down, it was converted into a regular brook
in places, and in other places, where the rocks were bare or mossy, it
was slippery as ice.
"Everybody off, and take hold of the tails of your horses," Mills
finally ordered, after two horses had almost slipped off.
"I can't walk up here! What do you think I hired this horse for?" Mrs.
Jones demanded.
"Well, your horse can't walk up here with you on him," the Ranger
replied. "I'm not responsible for the weather. You'll have to walk, or
break your neck."
And Joe could see he wanted to add--"I don't care which."
Bob and the girls grabbed their horses by the tails, and scrambled up
rapidly to the next easy stretch, but their fathers and mothers climbed
up more slowly, while Mills drove up the horses. Then Dick, Val and Joe
drove up the packhorses, which, of course, couldn't be unloaded, and had
a hard time. All of them were up but two, and they were breathing
easier, when the next to the last horse, on a slippery ledge, bumped his
pack against the upper wall, slipped out toward the edge, pawed madly
with his hoofs, got no grip on the skin of wet, slimy moss and mud which
covered the rock, and went over backward, with a wild whinny, and
staring, frightened eyes.
Fortunately, it was not straight down here, only a very steep slope, and
twenty feet below was a thick tangle of scrub pine and tall huckleberry
bushes. The poor horse tipped over on his back, turned a complete double
somersault, and landed crash against the pines, where he lay struggling
to get on his feet again. Joe, Val, Dick and Mills all dashed down to
him, and one held his head while the rest got the pack off his back. He
got up on his feet, trembling, and the Ranger and Dick felt him all
over.
"I guess the pack saved him, at that," Mills said. "He fell on the
blankets. Well, boys, haul the stuff up."
They each took part of the load, and carried it to the level above,
while the Ranger led up the poor, frightened horse. At the top the party
was waiting, huddled in the rain. They were a sorry and comical looking
lot, and though Joe's own feet were soaked, and he was wet to the skin
below the hips, and he was cold, he certainly wanted to laugh. Water was
dripping from the women's hair, Mrs. Jones' face looked blacker than the
clouds which hung in the trees just above her, Mrs. Elkins looked as if
she was about to cry any minute, Mr. Elkins simply looked wet and cold
and mad, and Alice and Lucy, almost buried in their enormous slickers,
were trying to sing to keep up their courage. Only Bob was still
cheerful. He was eating wet huckleberries--wet and half green.
It was a nasty, wet job getting the pack on again, and Mills sent the
party on ahead, with Dick to guide them. But the Granite Park chalet was
not far away. They were over the worst of the trail. In another half
hour, after crossing a meadow which was now full of running brooks, and
climbing up a last steep pitch, Joe suddenly saw the chalet emerge from
the heavy cloud, as if a picture of Switzerland in his old school
geography had popped out of a fog right over his head. Built partly of
stone and partly of rough timber, exactly in the style of a Swiss
chalet, this building was about the size of an ordinary house. Joe knew
by the map that it was almost up to the top of Swift Current Pass, just
below the Great Divide, but you could not have told it now. The clouds
were swirling all around, and it was already so cold that the rain was
beginning to freeze as fast as it hit, making a thin skin of ice on the
rocks.
Unpacking the horses, and getting the packs piled under the shelter of
the porch, and then taking the horses to a rough stable near by, was
done in a hurry. The three men then dove into the kitchen door, into the
warmth of the fire which roared in a red hot stove.
In the big front room there was another stove roaring, and around that
the party were already huddled, waiting for their dunnage bags, to get
out dry clothes. Joe and Dick brought the bags in, and each one went to
a room up-stairs to change. Joe himself had dry underclothes, socks, and
a pair of shoes, but he had no extra trousers. He and the cowboys and
Mills changed as much as they could in the kitchen, but Joe had to put
his wet trousers on again. When Lucy came down, in a skirt and dry
shoes, she saw this at once.
"Oh, Joe, you _must_ get some dry trousers," she said. "You mustn't run
such a risk."
Joe laughed. "Oh, I'm all right," he said. "Won't hurt me--I've been
exercising."
"But you're not exercising now. I'm going to fix you."
She went over and spoke to the manager in charge of the chalet; he
nodded, and went into the little room where he slept, emerging with a
pair of his own trousers. As he was some six inches larger around the
middle than Joe, everybody laughed, and they laughed more when Joe
reappeared, with the trousers on.
"Say, Joe, you'll need some supper to fill them!" Bob cried.
"Never mind," said Lucy. "They are dry."
The chalet now smelled of drying clothes and drying leather. Over both
stoves hung stockings and trousers and even underclothes, and behind
them stood rows of boots. Outside, the wind was howling and shaking the
entire house with every gust. It was almost as dark as if it had been
evening, though it was only five o'clock, and Bob, peering through the
steamed window pane, suddenly cried, "Hi! look quick--snow!" and opened
the front door to dash out.
As he lifted the latch, the wind caught the door and blew it wide open,
a great gust of snow swirling in, half across the room.
"Say, is this August first or January first?" Mr. Elkins demanded. "I
thought we came to a summer resort, not Greenland."
"Our mountains are just showing off for you a bit," Mills smiled, as the
young people and Joe, in spite of the gale, went out on the porch to see
the snow-storm driving past.
But they were soon driven in, blowing on their fingers, and brushing the
snow off their clothes.
"The man who built this old shack right here gets my vote," Bob
declared. "Say, ma, how'd you like to be on your prancing steed right
now, up on top of the Pass, still seven miles from blighty? Eh, wot?"
"Thanks," said Mrs. Jones. "I prefer it here."
"I know!" Lucy said. "Let's have afternoon tea."
"All those in favor say aye--the ayes have it--it's a vote--Joe, go to
it," cried Bob. "That's the way they put a bill through in dad's old
Congress--just like that."
Joe got out the tea and the cups, and with Alice and Lucy helping, they
soon had hot tea on the table, and a big plate of crackers, and a lot of
sweet chocolate Mr. Jones bought at the little counter by the manager's
desk.
"Let the wild winds howl; what do we care for your old August
blizzards?" said Bob, as he passed his cup to Joe for a second helping.
When tea was over, Joe set about cooking a good, hot dinner, for he had
a real stove to work with now, and an oven. He mixed dough for hot
biscuit, got out eggs for omelettes, tins of soups, made a batter for
griddle cakes, and opened his last can of preserved peaches for dessert.
While he was working, with Val sitting in a corner, telling him stories
about broncho busting, there came a sudden stamping of feet on the porch
outside, the door opened, and two men, covered with snow, with heavy
packs on their backs, almost fell into the kitchen.
Val sprang up and caught one of them as he staggered and was about to
tumble. Mills and the manager of the chalet came hurrying in from the
front room. Joe jumped to his stove and poured boiling water on some
fresh tea leaves.
While the others were getting the two men into chairs, and pulling off
their soaked clothes, Joe steeped his tea, and brought each of them a
big tin mug full. They swallowed it eagerly, and brightened up. They
changed into dry clothes, supplied partly from their own packs and
partly from the manager's wardrobe. "You see," the man said, "I keep old
clothes here for just such emergencies."
They were from a mid-western city, and had come to Glacier for a
vacation. Being fond of walking, and also wanting to do the Park as
cheaply as they could, they had decided to hike from point to point.
They had already come over Piegan Pass from the south, and stopped last
night at the tepee camp at Many Glacier. To-day they had first visited
Iceberg Lake, and then, in spite of the threatened rain (it had not
rained till long after noon on the east side of the Divide, they said),
they had climbed Swift Current Pass, headed for this chalet. They had
run into the heavy cloud near the top of the Pass, but did not expect
any trouble in finding their way, because the trail is well marked by
countless horses. But in the Pass meadow they got the full force of the
storm, where the snow hit them, and before they got across, the track
was obliterated; the cloud was so dense they could not see fifty feet
ahead, and they were almost benumbed with the cold. However, they
continued to pick up trail marks here and there, and stumbled down
finally till they saw the chalet looming up under the cloud mantle.
"We never expected anything like this, in mid-summer," one of them said,
"or, of course, we wouldn't have climbed the Pass to-day."
"You wouldn't get it once in five years," Mills answered,--"but there's
always a time, you know. That's why the chalet's here."
The two men were so tired that Joe's party offered to share dinner with
them, relieving them of the task of cooking, since the regular cook
employed by the chalet had deserted the day before and all guests now
had to shift for themselves. It was quite a party that sat down to
table, with Val as waiter and Joe turning the omelettes and tossing the
griddle cakes on the stove. They ate by the light of a lamp, though up
there, ordinarily, at seven o'clock it would have been bright daylight.
Outside the wind howled, the snow flew, and the house shook as if hit by
a giant fist as each gust struck it
But suddenly, as Joe was dishing out the canned peaches in the kitchen,
he heard a cry from Bob.
"Hi, look--it's getting light--oh, gee, folks--come quick!"
When Joe came into the room with what dishes Val could not carry, he
found every one up from the table and crowded at the west windows. The
lamplight had paled. Into the windows was pouring the last rays of the
setting sun, over behind the Livingston Range, the other side of the
canyon. These rays came out of a great, blue hole in the wall of clouds,
and seemed to stream like a vast search-light along the under side of
the cloud wrack overhead. They pierced right through the falling snow,
which turned to a dancing, dazzling veil of golden crystals between the
windows and the sun. And, against the hole into the west, stood up the
snow-crowned pyramid of Trapper's Peak, while, to the south, just
emerging from the clouds, its great snow-fields tinged with sunset as
with blood and gold, rose the beautiful cone of Heaven's Peak, shining,
mysterious, magnificent.
"Dessert--peaches," said Val.
"Go 'way," said Alice. "This is better than any dessert. Oh, I'm going
out!"
Peaches were forgotten--everything was forgotten. Every one piled out on
the west porch and watched the wonderful display. Now the low sun was
shooting a great rainbow up on the under side of the cloud right over
the Divide. One end of this rainbow dropped down past the steep cliff of
the Divide south of the Pass, known as the Garden Wall, and ended in a
patch of snow.
"Hi--Joe, let's go down and get the pot o' gold," Bob called. "I can see
just where it is."
"I would, if I had on my own pants," Joe laughed.
As if to finish off the display with a pretty touch, the snow stopped
falling, so they could see plainly all the white slopes around the camp,
and suddenly a deer bounded out from behind a pine thicket, circled all
around below them, and disappeared at last to the north.
The sun dropped, leaving a green and pink hole in the west, enlarging
every moment. The clouds were lifting. It was still cold, however, and
the wind was howling. The crowd went in reluctantly, blew on their
fingers, and finished their dinner.
Some one proposed games after the dinner was cleared away. Some one else
proposed a story. But Bob proposed bed, and after some debate, his
motion prevailed, chiefly, his father declared, because every one on the
opposition side was yawning so that he could not argue.
"Are you all right? You haven't got a cold, have you?" Lucy asked Joe,
as she said good-night.
"No, I feel fine," Joe answered.
He did, too, and went to sleep, rolled in his blankets on the kitchen
floor, thinking of the girl--or the woman, he hardly knew which to call
her--who was so thoughtful and kind.
"This is a pretty good old world, and pretty nice folks in it," was his
last reflection, before he dropped asleep, with Dick on one side, and
Val on the other, while the wind was still shaking the chalet.