A MOUNTAIN MYSTERY.
Ralph said nothing of his adventure of the night till the next
morning. As he had expected, his young chums put it down to a feverish
imagination. Even the professor suggested a dose of quinine; but
Mountain Jim walked over after the morning meal to where the boy had
seen the apparition, which, Ralph was beginning to believe, the figure
must have been.
The lad accompanied the mountaineer, who had expected to find some
tracks or traces by which Ralph’s adventure might be verified. But the
ground was rocky, and the soft bed of the forest beyond held no tracks,
so that they were disappointed in their anticipation of finding some
clew to the strange appearance of the night.
“You’re certain sure, dead certain sure that you did see something.
Didn’t just dream it?” questioned Mountain Jim as they made their
way back to camp where the others were busy packing the ponies, even
Persimmons being by this time able to cast a “diamond hitch.”
“I’m positive,” declared Ralph firmly; “if I hadn’t been so certain
that what I saw was a man, I would have fired. But who could it have
been?” he added in a perplexed voice. Jim shook his blond head.
“Great Blue Bells of Scotland, I dunno, boy,” he said, thoughtfully
puffing at his pipe. “You ain’t the sort of lad to dream things, I can
see that. But it’s got me. If we’d been in the gold country now it
might have been a prospector, but nobody goes through here, not even
hunters, for right where we are now is a bad place for game.”
So, for the time being, the mystery of the midnight visitor was
unsolved and almost forgotten. It was destined to be recalled later in
a startling manner, but for the present even Ralph began to believe
that he might have been the victim of some sort of an hallucination,
caused, possibly, by the fact that he was only half awake when he had
beheld the figure on the rock.
As Mountain Jim had said, the country through which they were now
traveling was indeed a bad section for hunters. Although the boys made
several detours after game, not so much as a rabbit did they see.
The day following the night on which Ralph had seen, or thought he
had seen, the figure of the watching man, they encountered, for the
first time, a tract of country common enough in the Canadian wilds
but particularly unpleasant to travel through, namely, a _brulee_ or
vast tract of woods through which a forest fire has swept, leaving
desolation in its path.
Nothing more depressing can be imagined than these burned forests.
Naked, blackened trees, with rags of scorched bark peeling from their
bare trunks, tower out of a desert expanse of gray-black ash. Horses
or foot travelers passing through, churn up clouds of this ashen dust
which chokes the nostrils, burns the eyes and blackens everything with
which it comes in contact.
Our travelers found themselves on the outskirts of such a place some
time before noon on the day mentioned. Mountain Jim had at first
thought of making a detour up a mountain side, but after a consultation
it was decided to press on through the desolate waste, where charred
trunks stuck up like the blackened stumps of teeth in an old man’s jaws.
As they plunged into the _brulee_ they found their ponies sinking
over the fetlocks in the ashes. In places, huge piles of trunks,
burned through at the base, lay like barriers across their path,
and it was necessary to go around them to find a passable way. Long
before they were out of the wretched place the water in their canteens
was gone, and their throats were clogged and lips cracked from the
dry, acrid dust that rose in clouds. From time to time the boys were
compelled to rub their eyes to relieve the tingling smart in them, and
speedily their faces were blackened like those of coal heavers. A more
sorry-looking party it would be hard to imagine than that which, hour
after hour, painfully wended its way through the burned forest. Not a
sprig of green, not a rill of water refreshed their sight. No birds or
animals could be seen or heard. On every side was nothing but black
desolation.
Ralph and young Ware rode ahead, side by side, while behind straggled
the rest of the party. Mountain Jim brought up the rear behind the pack
animals, which needed urging with whip and voice through the desolation
of the _brulee_. Now and then, far off, they could hear the crash of
some forest giant as its burned-through trunk gave way and it came
smashing to the ground with a roar like thunder, not infrequently
bringing two or three of its mates with it.
Jim had warned the boys and the professor to be on the lookout for such
things, and as Ralph and Harry Ware rode along they kept a bright and
vigilant watch for any tree that looked as if its fall was imminent.
“Gee whiz! I feel like an ant that has lost its way in the ashes of a
camper’s fire,” was the graphic way in which Hardware expressed his
feelings, as for the twentieth time that morning he tried to clear his
throat of ashes.
They ate a hasty lunch, of which, the boys declared, ashes formed the
chief ingredient, for the dry, implacable gray dust appeared to sift
into every mouthful they tasted. A long stop was out of the question.
There was no knowing how far the _brulee_ extended and they must push
on and get to water, for already the ponies were beginning to show
signs of distress. The poor animals’ sweaty sides were caked with gray
dust till they all appeared of one uniform drab color. For the matter
of that, the travelers themselves were no better off. Like a dull
monochrome, they were cloaked in ashen gray from head to foot.
Hardly speaking, for their spirits were at the lowest ebb in this
ghastly ruin of a majestic forest, they pushed on. The only life in the
_brulee_ appeared to be the black flies and mosquitoes which bit till
they drew blood, further annoying them.
“I thought I’d rough it in the West,” muttered Ralph once as his pony
tumbled over a blackened trunk that lay across the trail, “but this
beats anything I’ve ever experienced,--pah!” and he spat out a mouthful
of ashy dust.
The afternoon wore on, and still they stumbled along through the
_brulee_ without any signs of its coming to an end. As far as they
could see the forest of blackened trunks extended, the same carpet of
ashen dust was everywhere. The sun, growing lower, hung like a glowing
ball of copper in a red sky, seen through the dust that they kicked up
as they moved painfully along.
The horses were driven half mad by the biting flies, and their fetlocks
were cruelly bruised and cut by the charred logs and rocks. It was
heartbreaking traveling, but of a kind that must befall sooner or later
everyone who ventures into the wilds of the Canadian Rockies.
Tired, choked and irritable, Harry Ware was lagging behind Ralph, who
was now riding in advance alone. Behind him he could hear the voice
of Mountain Jim unceasingly urging on the pack animals. Mountain Jim
never swore, but his range of words which were forceful and expressive
without being profane, was amazing. Evidently, too, his adjurations had
their effect on the jaded ponies, for they stumbled bravely on leaping
logs and dodging stones with renewed agility every time the guide’s
voice boomed through that blackened, fire-swept wilderness.
Ralph had fallen into a semi-doze. The deadly monotony of the
half-calcined columns on every hand, the close heat of the _brulee_
made him drowsy. The voice of Mountain Jim fell more and more faintly
on his ears. Harry Ware, kicking his pony viciously, passed him.
“I’m going to be the first out of this beastly place,” he remarked with
emphasis as he rode by.
“Well, don’t kick any more dust in my face than you can help,” rejoined
Ralph, only a shade less irritably.
“Oh, shut up!” snapped Harry, ordinarily the best and most
even-tempered of boys.
Ralph flushed angrily for an instant and his hand clenched as a cloud
of choking dust was spurned in his face by the heels of Harry Ware’s
mount. But the next instant he gained control of himself.
“Pshaw! I guess we’re all losing our tempers,” he murmured to himself,
“and it’s a fact that this place would make a saint cross--Hold up
there, pony! Not much longer now.”
Content with his spurt ahead, Hardware slowed his pony down to a walk
a few paces in front of Ralph. He did not apologize for his unthinking
act of smothering Ralph with dust. Instead, he gazed sullenly straight
ahead of him.
He was hot, thirsty, and bitten mercilessly by black flies. The lad was
in no mood to go around obstacles. Rather was he in that savage humor
that rushes recklessly on, although he had been warned of the dangers
of the _brulee_. In fact, the frequent crashing of half burned-through
trees, as a vagrant wind caught them and snapped them off, would have
been sufficient indication that a sharp lookout was necessary to anyone
in a less irritable mood. But Harry didn’t think of this. Instead, he
urged his tired pony viciously over blackened logs with quirt and heel.
Suddenly Ralph, whose vigilance had not relaxed although he was
fearfully drowsy, thought he saw a great blackened trunk directly ahead
of them lean over a trifle. He was sure of it in another moment.
“Pull out!” he yelled to Harry, who was driving his pony straight in a
path which would bring him under the swaying trunk.
“Oh, mind your own business!” flung back Hardware crossly, and drove
his little mount right on.
Ralph did not hesitate a minute. He wore spurs, the same blunt-rowelled
pair he had used on the border. He drove these into his pony’s side and
brought down his quirt with a crack that made the little animal snort
angrily and plunge forward.
In front of him he saw the mighty column sway and oscillate as though
in a vain attempt to recover its equipoise. Directly under it was Harry
Ware, sullenly riding on with his eyes on the ground. Once more Ralph
yelled and his pony gave a wild leap forward.
Suddenly the mighty trunk rushed earthward. Simultaneously Ralph’s
hand fell on Hardware’s bridle. He gave a tug that brought the latter’s
pony up on its haunches. It reared wildly, almost toppling backward.
At the same instant a cold wind fanned both boys as the trunk swept
down. There was a deafening crash almost under the feet of the plunging
ponies, and both lads were shrouded in a cloud of black dust that rose
up like a dark veil.
“Good heavens! They’re killed!” shouted the professor dashing forward.
About the two boys the dust whirled and eddied. The ponies plunged
wildly, almost unseating them, but Ralph held on till he had dragged
Hardware’s mount out of the black dust cloud.
As he did so, from ahead of them, came crash after crash with a
startling suddenness. The _brulee_ was filled with shocks of sound that
rang in thunderous reverberations along the steep rocks. The echoes
flung back and forth till the uproar was deafening. In the meantime
the party, including the two lads who had been saved from what appeared
certain death, stood fast.
They hardly breathed till the crashes grew less and less frequent and a
brooding silence settled down over the _brulee_ once more.
Then Hardware, shaking all over, gazed at the great trunk lying
recumbent not two yards from them. His eyes filled with tears. He held
out a blackened hand to Ralph, who smiled at him through his mask of
gray ash.
“I--I--I don’t know how to thank you, Ralph, old man,” he choked out.
“If it hadn’t been for you, in my silly temper I’d have gone right on
without minding you, and--and----”
He could not go further, but Ralph’s fingers closed on his
out-stretched hand.
“That’s all right, old man,” was all he said; but between both boys
a thrill ran as their fingers clasped. Hardware had learned a lesson
there in the _brulee_ that all the schools in Christendom couldn’t
have taught him, and he knew it.
“A mighty near thing,” said Mountain Jim, as the others rode up, “I
guess I’ll have a smoke.”
His voice was steady enough, but his hands shook as he filled his old
brier. Death had swept by too closely for any of them to recover their
nerve for half an hour or more. By that time, as they rode on, the
charred trunks were fewer and fewer, and an hour before sundown they
came out of that “Valley of Desolation” into a wide canon, carpeted
with lush, green grass and watered by a crystal clear stream. On each
side towered rocky scraps of cliff clothed with dark pines and balsams.
Boys and men broke into a cheer, and even the dispirited ponies fell
into a brisk gait without urging. The travelers forgot their trials as
they laved in the fresh, cold water of the mountain stream and watched
Jim getting supper, assisted by Jimmie, while the ponies ravenously
cropped the fresh, juicy grass. But it was days before the last trace
of ashes was removed from their belongings, and one at least of the
party was destined never to forget that _brulee_ in the Rockies as long
as he might live.