"Valley Forge"
The next day the mountains were still under. It wasn't raining, but the
clouds were a dark, gun metal color, and seemed to rest like heavy smoke
on the rocks overhead.
"Nothing doing," said Mills. "They may be over for two days yet, and it
will surely rain. We'll keep the trail over Ahern Pass, and make Flat
Top to-day. All out!"
And it was a strange day that followed. The trail was none too good,
with much fallen timber to drive the packhorses around for the first two
or three miles, and it very soon got up into a wild, desolate, narrow
canyon under the southern wall of Mount Merritt, with the water of Lake
Elizabeth beside the path, looking in this gray light under the lowering
clouds a sort of dead, chalky green. Beyond Lake Elizabeth the canyon
grew steeper and narrower, the cliffs of Mount Merritt went sheer up
into the clouds, and on the other side of the valley rose the equally
steep walls that were the reverse side of the Iceberg Lake cliffs Tom
had scaled. But the tops both of Merritt and these cliffs were hidden in
cloud, that swirled and raised and lowered as the upper wind currents
hit it. When they reached Lake Helen, at the head of the canyon, where
the trail began to switchback up the wall of the Divide, they could see,
just under the clouds, poised, it seemed, almost over their heads, no
less than four glaciers, one of them apparently hanging on a shelf and
ready to fall off at any moment. In fact, a huge cake as big as a house
did fall off, and crashed down with a great roar to the rocks below,
even as they watched.
"The mountain gnomes are bombarding us!" Mr. Crimmins laughed.
They went steadily and steeply up, on the switchbacks, and reached the
top of the Divide at noon. But half an hour before they got to the
Divide they were in the clouds, in a thick, damp, chilling fog, that was
not rain and yet covered their clothes with drops of moisture, made
their hands wet and cold, and of course obscured every vestige of a
view.
"Well," said the Ranger, "here we are on the backbone of the world. Over
there is Heaven's Peak. Just to the left, only a mile away, Tom, is the
top of the Iceberg Lake head wall. If it was clear, you could take Joe
over and show him where you climbed. But I guess as it is we'll get down
as fast as we can, and not even wait for lunch."
"Anything to get out of this," the men said, blowing on their wet, numb
fingers.
So they dropped down on the west side of the Divide, getting out of the
cloud below timber-line, and stopped while Joe made hot coffee. Then
they pushed on down still farther, picked up a better trail in the deep
woods in a canyon beside a stream--Mineral Creek Canon; and turning sharp
north, began slowly and gradually to climb again. It was the kind of a
day when nobody does much talking, and even the horses seemed to plug
dejectedly along. After two or three miles, however, they began to go up
more rapidly, out of deep timber, into a region of meadows and low
balsams. Joe was the first to smell the balsams, and sniffed eagerly.
"I'm going to have a real bed to-night," he called to Mills, "if you
don't look. I know it's against the rules to cut bough beds in the
Park."
"I won't look, if you won't tell," Mills called back. "We have to make
that rule to protect the trees, but way up here in the wilds Uncle Sam
won't miss a few twigs, I guess."
They were now nearly under the clouds again. To their right a steep
debris pile rose, and ended in a jagged cliff wall, which disappeared in
the vapor. To the left was a wooded slope, and ahead the trail climbed
sharply to a ridge which could barely be seen under the clouds.
"We're almost at the north end of Flat Top Mountain," the Ranger said.
"That cliff to the right is the Divide, and dead ahead that ridge you
see is the Divide turning sharp left and running across to the western
range. From here on into Canada the western range is the watershed. We
could climb to the top of that ridge--only half a mile, and camp on the
Divide, if you want to."
"And spend the night in the cloud? Excuse me!" Mr. Crimmins said. "This
is bad enough."
"All right--all off," the Ranger answered.
He called to Joe and Tom, and the three of them pitched the two tents in
a sheltered spot, in the centre of a grove of balsams about twenty feet
tall.
"And peg 'em down hard," he said. "Anything may come out of those clouds
to-night. Now, Tom, get a good big supply of wood, and stack it up dry,
under a pack cover, while I turn out the horses."
While Joe was getting supper, the three tourists gathered balsam boughs
for beds, following Mills' orders to take only a few twigs from any one
tree.
"It's against the rules," he said, "but we may need to sleep as warm as
we can to-night."
"I believe you," Robert Crimmins replied, blowing on his numb fingers.
Tom, meanwhile, combed the region all around for dead wood. The supply
was none too large, for they were perilously close to timber-line; and
under the cloud darkness was coming on early, to make the job harder.
But he finally found a large dead tree, down in a sheltered hollow by
the stream, and got four or five good logs out of that, and a lot of
smaller stuff. The two tents were pitched facing each other, with a
camp-fire and Joe's fire pit between, and with the surrounding
evergreens for a windbreak and the tent flaps open to catch the heat,
they were pretty comfortable that evening, though every one wore his
sweater, and Joe and Tom, who had brought their mackinaws, were glad
enough to put them on, too.
Nobody undressed that night at all, except to take off his boots and put
on an extra pair of socks instead. The wind was rising steadily, the
tents shook, the evergreens over them sighed and whistled, and Joe lay
awake for the first time since he had been in the Park, with a curious
feeling that something was going to happen.
He got to sleep at last, but he woke up presently--it seemed to him that
he woke up immediately--and peering through the tent flap saw no sign of
a fire. At least, he thought, the embers ought still to be glowing. He
slipped out of his blankets as softly as he could, climbed over Mills,
who was sleeping nearest the entrance, and started to unbuckle the flap.
As he did so, a gust of wind hit the tent, half lifting it off its pole,
and blew the flap wildly in. As it blew in, something soft and cold and
stinging hit Joe's face. Snow! He stuck out his head for an instant, and
all he could see was a kind of swirling, waving, hissing white darkness.
It was bitter cold, too, and the fire was out. Dimly he could see the
outline of the other tent, and the roof of it was white with drift. No
use trying to build up the fire in that! He fought the wind to close the
flap again.
But the swirl of the snow in his face had waked the Ranger.
"What's the matter?" he said.
"A blizzard," Joe replied, as another gust of wind strained the canvas
and rattled the guy ropes.
"I thought something would come out of this," said Mills. "Hang it, we
ought to have camped lower down. I'd rather be drowned than frozen."
Tom woke up now, and they lighted the camp lantern, to peep out into the
night.
A voice, half drowned in the roar of the gale, came across from the
other tent.
"Say," it called, "what had we better do?"
"Keep in your blankets and hang onto your tent!" Mills shouted back.
"I wonder if he thinks we can call a taxi and drive to a hotel!" he
added in a normal tone, that couldn't have been heard two feet beyond
the tent flap.
Nobody slept any more in either tent that night. They were too cold, and
too busy bailing out snow that drifted under the tent walls, or trying
to peg down the walls or stop up the gaps with the balsam beds. Finally,
toward morning, there came a perfect hurricane of wind. The tent the
scouts were in swayed, tugged, seemed about to leave its moorings, and
in the midst of the gust the occupants heard a snapping sound outside,
and a smothered yell.
Mills sprang out into the storm, and a moment later came back with
Robert and the two men, all wrapped in their blankets, and powdered
white by the brief crossing.
Their tent pole had snapped, and the tent had come down on top of them!
There was no chance of getting it up again then, so the six people all
huddled in the one tent, and waited for daylight.
"Anyhow, the more we are, the warmer we can keep," said Robert, who was
rather enjoying the adventure. "Go on, Joe, keep your knee in my back, I
like it! It's as good as a hot water bottle."
The storm began to abate presently, and as the light brightened outside,
Mills, peering out, reported that the snow had stopped falling. With the
diminution of the wind, too, the cold lessened, and the noise, and
nearly everybody, in spite of the cramped quarters, fell into a
troubled, rather restless sleep.
What woke Joe up was the bright daylight hitting him in the eye through
a crack in the tent flap.
He extricated himself from between Robert and Mr. Taylor, and pushed his
way out. It was a transformed, a wonderful, a beautiful world he looked
on! Evidently the sun was up over the prairie, for far down Mineral
Creek Canon he could see the top of Cannon Mountain, snow covered, pink
and rosy with the light, and Heaven's Peak, a little nearer, was like a
great pyramid of gleaming rose crystal. On the ground about him, half
covering his fire pit, was almost a foot of snow, which hung on the
balsams, was drifted over the fallen tent, covered the rocks, and
through which, here and there, rose the stems of wild flowers, their
blossoms nodding above the white carpet!
He gave a shout.
"Don't miss this!" he cried. "Gee, it's worth a lost night's sleep, and
then some!"
Sleepy, stiff forms emerged from the tent behind him, and gazed at the
sunrise over a world that was white with winter, and yet was summer.
Everybody exclaimed with delight--except the Ranger.
"This will make Cleveland hopeless," was all he said, as he began to
pull the fallen tent up out of its drift.
"Well, I'm going to name this old camp Valley Forge," Robert Crimmins
laughed, as he stamped his feet and blew on his fingers, before picking
a wild flower for his buttonhole!