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THE WHITE DESERT
by
COURTNEY RYLEY COOPER
Author of
The Cross-Cut, Etc.
Frontispiece by Anton Otto Fischer
[Frontispiece: It was easier to accept the more precipitous journey,
straight downward.]
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers ---------- New York
Copyright, 1922,
by Little, Brown, And Company
All Rights Reserved
Published February, 1922
Reprinted March, 1922
To a Certain Little Gray Lady
who seems to like everything
I write, the main reason being
the fact that she is
MY MOTHER
THE WHITE DESERT
CHAPTER I
It was early afternoon. Near by, the smaller hills shimmered in the
radiant warmth of late spring, the brownness of their foliage and
boulders merging gradually upward to the green of the spruces and pines
of the higher mountains, which in turn gave way before the somber
blacks and whites of the main range, where yet the snow lingered from
the clutch of winter, where the streams ran brown with the down-flow of
the continental divide, where every cluster of mountain foliage
sheltered a mound of white, in jealous conflict with the sun. The
mountains are tenacious of their vicious traits; they cling to the snow
and cold and ice long after the seasons have denoted a time of warmth
and summer's splendor; the columbine often blooms beside a ten-foot
drift.
But down in the hollow which shielded the scrambling little town of
Dominion, the air was warm and lazy with the friendliness of May. Far
off, along the course of the tumbling stream, turbulently striving to
care for far more than its share of the melt-water of the hills, a
jaybird called raucously as though in an effort to drown the sweeter,
softer notes of a robin nesting in the new-green of a quaking aspen.
At the hitching post before the one tiny store, an old horse nodded and
blinked,--as did the sprawled figure beside the ramshackle
motor-filling station, just opened after the snow-bound months of
winter. Then five minutes of absolute peace ensued, except for the
buzzing of an investigative bottle-fly before the figure shuffled,
stretched, and raising his head, looked down the road. From the
distance had come the whirring sound of a motor, the forerunner of a
possible customer. In the hills, an automobile speaks before it is
seen.
Long moments of throbbing echoes; then the car appeared, a mile or so
down the cañon, twisting along the rocky walls which rose sheer from
the road, threading the innumerable bridges which spanned the little
stream, at last to break forth into the open country and roar on toward
Dominion. The drowsy gasoline tender rose. A moment more and a long,
sleek, yellow racer had come to a stop beside the gas tank, chortled
with greater reverberation than ever as the throttle was thrown open,
then wheezed into silence with the cutting off of the ignition. A
young man rose from his almost flat position in the low-slung driver's
seat and crawling over the side, stretched himself, meanwhile staring
upward toward the glaring white of Mount Taluchen, the highest peak of
the continental backbone, frowning in the coldness of snows that never
departed. The villager moved closer.
"Gas?"
"Yep." The young man stretched again. "Fill up the tank--and better
give me half a gallon of oil."
Then he turned away once more, to stare again at the great, tumbled
stretches of granite, the long spaces of green-black pines, showing in
the distance like so many upright fronds of some strange, mossy fern;
at the blank spaces, where cold stone and shifting shale had made
jagged marks of bareness in the masses of evergreen, then on to the
last gnarled bulwarks of foliage, struggling bravely, almost
desperately, to hold on to life where life was impossible, the dividing
line, as sharp as a knife-thrust, between the region where trees may
grow and snows may hide beneath their protecting boughs and the
desolate, barren, rocky, forbidding waste of "timber line."
Young he was, almost boyish; yet counterbalancing this was a
seriousness of expression that almost approached somberness as he stood
waiting until his machine should be made ready for the continuance of
his journey. The eyes were dark and lustrous with something that
closely approached sorrow, the lips had a tightness about them which
gave evidence of the pressure of suffering, all forming an expression
which seemed to come upon him unaware, a hidden thing ever waiting for
the chance to rise uppermost and assume command. But in a flash it was
gone, and boyish again, he had turned, laughing, to survey the gas
tender.
"Did you speak?" he asked, the dark eyes twinkling. The villager was
in front of the machine, staring at the plate of the radiator and
scratching his head.
"I was just sayin' I never seed that kind o' car before. Barry
Houston, huh? Must be a new make. I--"
"Camouflage," laughed the young man again. "That's my name."
"Oh, is it?" and the villager chuckled with him. "It shore had me
guessin' fer a minute. You've got th' plate right where th' name o' a
car is plastered usually, and it plum fooled me. That's your name,
huh? Live hereabouts--?"
The owner of the name did not answer. The thought suddenly had come to
him that once out of the village, that plate must be removed and tossed
to the bottom of the nearest stream. His mission, for a time at least,
would require secrecy. But the villager had repeated his question:
"Don't belong around here?"
"I? No, I'm--" then he hesitated.
"Thought maybe you did. Seein' you've got a Colorado license on."
Houston parried, with a smile.
"Well, this isn't all of Colorado, you know."
"Guess that's right. Only it seems in th' summer thet it's most o' it,
th' way th' machines pile through, goin' over th' Pass. Where you
headed for?"
"The same place."
"Over Hazard?" The villager squinted. "Over Hazard Pass? Ain't daft,
are you?"
"I hope not. Why?"
"Ever made it before?"
"No."
"And you're tacklin' it for the first time at this season o' th' year?"
"Yes. Why not? It's May, isn't it?"
The villager moved closer, as though to gain a better sight of Barry
Houston's features. He surveyed him carefully, from the tight-drawn
reversed cap with the motor goggles resting above the young, smooth
forehead, to the quiet elegance of the outing clothing and well-shod
feet. He spat, reflectively, and drew the back of a hand across
tobacco-stained lips.
"And you say you live in Colorado."
"I didn't say--"
"Well, it don't make no difference whether you did or not. I know--you
don't. Nobody thet lives out here'd try to make Hazard Pass for th'
first time in th' middle o' May."
"I don't see--"
"Look up there." The old man pointed to the splotches of white,
thousands of feet above, the swirling clouds which drifted from the icy
breast of Mount Taluchen, the mists and fogs which caressed the
precipices and rolled through the valleys created by the lesser peaks.
"It may be spring down here, boy, but it's January up there. They's
only been two cars over Hazard since November and they come through
last week. Both of 'em was old stagers; they've been crossin' th'
range for th' last ten year. Both of 'em came through here lookin'
like icicles 'an' swearing t' beat four o' a kind. They's mountains
an' mountains, kid. Them up there's th' professional kind."
A slight, puzzled frown crossed the face of Barry Houston.
"But how am I going to get to the other side of the range? I'm going
to Tabernacle."
"They's a train runs from Denver, over Crestline. Look up there--jest
to the right of Mount Taluchen. See that there little puff o' smoke?
That's it."
"But that'd mean--."
"For you t' turn around, go back to Denver, leave that there chariot o'
your'n in some garage and take the train to-morrow mornin'. It'd get
you t' Tabernacle some time in the afternoon."
"When would I get there--if I could make the Pass all right?"
"In about five hours. It's only fourteen mile from th' top. But--"
"And you say two other cars have gone through?"
"Yep. But they knowed every crook an' turn!"
For a long moment, the young man made no reply. His eyes were again on
the hills and gleaming with a sudden fascination. From far above, they
seemed to call to him, to taunt him with their imperiousness, to
challenge him and the low-slung high-powered car to the combat of
gravitation and the elements. The bleak walls of granite appeared to
glower at him, as though daring him to attempt their conquest; the
smooth stretches of pines were alluring things, promising peace and
quiet and contentment,--will-o-the-wisps, which spoke only their
beauty, and which said nothing of the long stretches of gravelly mire
and puddles, resultant from the slowly melting snows. The swirling
clouds, the mists, the drifting fogs all appeared to await him, like
the gathered hosts of some mighty army, suddenly peaceful until the
call of combat. A thrill shot through Barry Houston. His life had
been that of the smooth spaces, of the easy ascent of well-paved
grades, of streets and comforts and of luxuries. The very raggedness
of the thing before him lured him and drew him on. He turned, he
smiled, with a quiet, determined expression of anticipation, yet of
grimness.
"They've got me," came quietly. "I'm--I'm going to make the try!"
The villager grunted. His lips parted as though to issue a final
warning. Then, with a disgruntled shake of the head, he turned away.
"Ain't no use arguin' with you Easterners," came at last. "You come
out here an' take one look at these here hills an' think you can beat
Ole Lady Nature when she's sittin' pat with a royal flush. But go
on--I ain't tryin' t' stop you. 'Twouldn't be nothin' but a waste o'
breath. You've got this here conquerin' spirit in your blood--won't be
satisfied till you get it out. You're all th' same--I 've seen fellows
with flivvers loaded down till th' springs was flat, look up at them
hills an' figure t' get over an' back in time for supper. So go
on--only jis' remember this: once you get outside of Dominion an' start
up th' grade, there ain't no way stations, an' there ain't no
telephones, ner diner service, ner somebody t' bring y' th' evenin'
paper. You're buckin' a brace game when y' go against Hazard Pass at a
time when she ain't in a mood f'r comp'ny. She holds all th' cards,
jis' remember that--an' a few thet ain't in th' deck. But jis' th'
same," he backed away as Barry stepped into the racer and pressed a
foot on the starter, "I'm wishin' you luck. You'll need it."
"Thanks!" Houston laughed with a new exhilaration, a new spirit of
desire. "It can't do any more than kill me."
"Nope." The villager was shouting now above the exhaust of the
powerful engine, "But it shore can take a delight in doin' that! S'
long!"
"So long!" The gears meshed. A stream of smoke from the new oil spat
out for a second. Then, roaring and chortling with the beginning of
battle, the machine swept away toward the slight turn that indicated
the scraggly end of the little town of Dominion, and the beginning of
the first grade.
The exhilaration still was upon Barry Houston. He whistled and sang,
turning now and then to view the bright greenness of the new-leafed
aspens, to watch the circling sallies of the jaybirds, or to stare
ahead to where the blues and greens and purples of the foliage and
rocks merged in the distance. The grade was yet easy and there was no
evidence of strain upon the engine; the tiny rivulets which ran along
the slight ruts at each side of the road betokened nothing to him save
the slight possibility of chains, should a muddy stretch of
straightaway road appear later on. But as yet, that had not occurred,
and Barry was living for the moment.
The road began to twist slightly, with short raises and shorter level
stretches winding among the aspens and spruces, with sudden, jagged
turns about heavy, frowning boulders whose jutting noses seemed to
scrape the fenders of the car, only to miss them by the barest part of
an inch. Suddenly Barry found himself bending forward, eyes still on
the road in spite of his half-turned head, ears straining to catch the
slightest variation of the motor. It seemed to be straining,--yet the
long, suddenly straight stretch of road ahead of him seemed perfectly
level; downhill if anything. More and more labored became the engine.
Barry stopped, and lifting the hood, examined the carbureter. With the
motor idling, it seemed perfect. Once more he started,--only to stop
again and anxiously survey the ignition, test the spark plugs and again
inquire into the activities of the carbureter. At last, reassured, he
walked to the front of the machine, and with the screwdriver pried the
name plate from its position on the radiator and tossed it into the
tumbling, yellow stream beside the road. Then he turned back to the
machine,--only to stop suddenly and blink with surprise. The road was
not level! The illusion which comes to one at the first effort to
conquer a mountain grade had faded now. A few feet away was a deserted
cabin, built upon a level plot of ground and giving to Barry a chance
for comparison, and he could see that his motor had not been at fault.
Now the road, to his suddenly comprehending eyes, rose before him in a
long, steady sweep of difficult grades, upward, steadily upward, with
never a varying downfall, with never a rest for the motor which must
climb it. And this was just the beginning! For Barry could see beyond.
Far in the distance he could make it out, a twisting, turning, almost
writhing thing, cutting into the side of the mountain, a jagged scar,
searing its way up the range in flights that seemed at times to run
almost perpendicular and which faded, only to reappear again, like the
trail of some gigantic cut-worm, mark above mark, as it circled the
smaller hills, cut into the higher ones, was lost at the edge of some
great beetling rock, only to reappear once more, hundreds of feet
overhead. The eyes of Barry Houston grew suddenly serious. He reached
into the toolbox, and bringing forth the jack, affixed the chains,
forgetting his usually cheery whistle, forgetting even to take notice
when an investigative jay scrambled out upon a dead aspen branch and
chattered at him. The true meaning of the villager's words had come at
last. The mountains were frowning now, instead of beckoning, glowering
instead of promising, threatening instead of luring. One by one he
locked the chains into place, and tossing the jack once more into the
tool-box, resumed his place at the wheel.
"A six per cent. grade if it's an inch!" he murmured. "And this is
only the beginning. Wonder what I'm stepping into?"
The answer came almost before the machine had warmed into action. Once
more the engine labored; nor was it until Barry had answered its
gasping plea by a shift to second gear that it strengthened again. The
grade was growing heavier; once Barry turned his head and stared with
the knowledge that far beneath him a few tiny buildings dotted what
seemed to be a space of ground as level as a floor. Dominion! And he
had barely passed outside its environs!
He settled more firmly in his seat and gripped hard at the steering
wheel. The turns had become shorter; more, Barry found himself
righting the machine with sudden jerks as the car rounded the short
curves where the front wheels seemed to hang momentarily above
oblivion, as the chasms stretched away to seemingly bottomless depths
beneath. Gradually, the severity of the grade had increased to ten, to
twelve and in short pitches to even eighteen and twenty per cent! For
a time the machine sang along in second, bucking the raises with almost
human persistence, finally, however, to gasp and break in the smooth
monotony of the exhaust, to miss, to strain and struggle vainly, then
to thunder on once more, as Houston pressed the gears into low and
began to watch the motormeter with anxious eyes. The mercury was
rising; another half-hour and the swish of steam told of a boiling
radiator.
A stop, while the red, hissing water splattered from the radiator cock,
and the lifted hood gave the machine a chance to cool before
replenishment came from the murky, discolored stream of melted snow
water which churned beneath a sapling bridge. Panting and light-headed
from the altitude, Barry leaned against the machine for a moment, then
suddenly straightened to draw his coat tighter about him and to raise
the collar about his neck. The wind, whistling down from above, was
cold: something touched his face and melted there,--snow!
The engine was cool now. Barry leaped to the wheel and once more began
his struggle upward, a new seriousness upon him, a new grimness
apparent in the tightness of his lips. The tiny rivulets of the road
had given place to gushing streams; here and there a patch of snow
appeared in the highway; farther above, Barry could see that the white
was unbroken, save for the half-erased marks of the two cars which had
made the journey before him. The motor, like some refreshed animal,
roared with a new power and new energy, vibrant, confident, but the
spirit was not echoed by the man at the wheel. He was in the midst of
a fight that was new to him, a struggle against one of the mightiest
things that Nature can know, the backbone of the Rocky Mountains,--a
backbone which leered above him in threatening, vicious coldness, which
nowhere held surcease; it must be a battle to the end!
Up--up--up--the grades growing steadily heavier, the shifting clouds
enveloping him and causing him to stop at intervals and wait in
shivering impatience until they should clear and allow him once more to
continue the struggle. Grayness and sunshine flitted about him; one
moment his head was bowed against the sweep of a snow flurry, driving
straight against him from the higher peaks, the next the brilliance of
mountain sunshine radiated about him, cheering him, exhilarating him,
only to give way to the dimness of damp, drifting mists, which closed
in upon him like some great, gray garment of distress and held him in
its gloomy clutch until the grade should carry him above it and into
the sun or snow again.
Higher! The machine was roaring like a desperate, cornered thing now;
its crawling pace slackening with the steeper inclines, gaining with
the lesser raises, then settling once more to the lagging pace as
steepness followed steepness, or the abruptness of the curve caused the
great, slow-moving vehicle to lose the momentum gained after hundreds
of feet of struggle. Again the engine boiled, and Barry stood beside
it in shivering gratitude for its warmth. The hills about him were
white now; the pines had lost their greenness to become black
silhouettes against the blank, colorless background Barry Houston had
left May and warmth and springtime behind, to give way to the clutch of
winter and the white desert of altitude.
But withal it was beautiful. Cold, harassed by dangers that he never
before knew could exist, disheartened by the even more precipitous
trail which lay ahead, fighting a battle for which he was unfitted by
experience, Houston could not help but feel repaid for it all as he
flattened his back against the hot radiator and, comforted by the
warmth, looked about him. The world was his--his to look upon, to
dissect, to survey with the all-seeing eyes of tremendous heights, to
view in the perspective of the eagle and the hawk, to look down upon
from the pinnacles and see, even as a god might see it. Far below lay
a tiny, discolored ribbon,--the road which he had traversed, but now
only a scratch upon the expanse of the great country which tumbled away
beneath him. Hills had become hummocks, towering pines but blades of
grass, streams only a variegated line in the vast display of Nature's
artistry. And above--
Barry Houston looked upon it with dazzled eyes. The sun had broken
forth again, to stream upon the great, rounded head of Mount Taluchen,
and there to turn the serried snows to a mass of shell-pink pearl, to
smooth away the glaring whiteness and paint instead a down-like
coverlet of beauty. Here and there the great granite precipices stood
forth in old rose and royal purple; farther the shadows melted into
mantles, not of black, but of softest lavender; mound upon mound of
color swung before him as he glanced from peak to peak,--the colors
that only an artist knows, tintings instead of solid grounds,
suggestions rather than actualities. Even the gnarled pines of timber
line, where the world of vegetation was sliced off short to give way to
the barrenness of the white desert, seemed softened and freed from
their appearance of constant suffering in the pursuit of life. A lake
gleamed, set, it seemed, at an upright angle upon the very side of a
mountain; an ice gorge glistened with the scintillation of a million
jewels, a cloud rolled through a great crevice like the billowing of
some soft-colored crepe and then--
Barry crouched and shivered, then turned with sudden activity. It all
had faded, faded in the blast of a shrilling wind, bringing upon its
breast the cutting assault of sleet and the softer, yet no less vicious
swirl of snow. Quickly the radiator was drained and refilled. Once
more, huddled in the driver's seat, Barry Houston gripped the wheel and
felt the crunching of the chain-clad wheels in the snow of the roadway.
The mountains had lured again, only that they might clutch him in a
tighter embrace of danger than ever. Now the snow was whirling about
him in almost blinding swiftness; the small windshield counted for
nothing; it was only by leaning far outside the car that he could see
to drive and then there were moments that seemed to presage the end.
Chasms lurked at the corners, the car skidded and lurched from one side
of the narrow roadway to the other; once the embankment crumbled for an
instant as a rear wheel raced for a foothold and gained it just in
time. Thundering below, Barry could hear the descent of the dirt and
small boulders as they struck against protruding rocks and echoed forth
to a constantly growing sound that seemed to travel for miles that it
might return with the strength of thunder. Then for a moment the sun
came again and he stared toward it with set, anxious eyes. It no
longer was dazzling; it was large and yellow and free from glare. He
swerved his gaze swiftly to the dashboard clock, then back to the sun
again. Four o'clock! Yet the great yellow ball was hovering on the
brim of Mount Taluchen; dusk was coming. A frightened glance showed
him the black shadows of the valleys, the deeper tones of coloring, the
vagueness of the distance which comes with the end of day.
Anxiously he studied his speedometer as the road stretched out for a
space of a few hundred feet for safety. Five miles--only five miles in
a space of time that on level country could have accounted for a
hundred. Five miles and the route book told plainly that there were
four more to go before the summit was reached. Anxiously--with a
sudden hope--he watched the instrument, with the thought that perhaps
it had broken, but the slow progress of the mile-tenths took away that
possibility. He veered his gaze along the dashboard, suddenly to
center it upon the oil gauge. His jaw sagged. He pressed harder upon
the accelerator in a vain effort. But the gauge showed no indication
that the change of speed had been felt.
"The oil pump!" came with a half gasp. "It's broken--I'll have to--"
The sentence was not finished. A sudden, clattering roar had come from
beneath the hood, a clanking jangle which told him that his eyes had
sought the oil gauge too late,--the shattering, agonizing cacophony of
a broken connecting rod, the inevitable result of a missing oil supply
and its consequent burnt bearing. Hopelessly, dejectedly Barry shut
off the engine and pulled to one side of the road,--through sheer force
of habit. In his heart he knew that there could be no remedy for the
clattering remonstrance of the broken rod, that the road was his
without question, that it was beyond hope to look for aid up here where
all the world was pines and precipices and driven snow, that he must go
on, fighting against heavier odds than ever. And as he realized the
inevitable, his dull, tired eyes saw from the distance another, a
greater enemy creeping toward him over the hills and ice gorges,
through the valleys and along the sheer walls of granite. The last,
ruddy rim of a dying sun was just disappearing over Mount Taluchen.