Spider, who was watching them slide up the snow-fields, suddenly cried, “Look! Look at the summit!”
Everybody looked upward. The sun had evidently risen now, and as the clouds reached the top of the mountain they ran into its rays. The angle was just right to refract the rays down to the climbers, and the result was that the summit peak of the mountain was haloed with a beautiful rainbow. This rainbow lasted for ten minutes or more, and then the sun got too high, and it disappeared.
By the time they reached the lava spine, the clouds were thinner, and the wind had died down. They were warmed up with climbing, too, and took off their sweaters. The doctor got out the rope, and proceeded to make six loops in it, tied with knots which couldn’t slip. The loops were about fifteen or twenty feet apart. He put the first loop under his own arms; then came Bennie, then Dumplin’, then Mr. Stone, then Spider, and last of all, Norman. Everybody then covered his face with grease paint, putting it especially thick on noses and lips, and donned colored goggles.
Then the doctor spoke. “Now, boys,” he said, “from this point on you must obey orders quickly and without question. You must do exactly what I tell you to, and nothing else. There are two things to remember, above everything. Number one is this,—every second man on the rope must have his stock driven in deep and firm, with a good grip on it, when the man in front takes his stock out to make a step, and he mustn’t pull his stock out of the snow till the man ahead has made the step and drivenhisstock in again. If you do that, you see, fifty per cent of us will always be anchored, if anybody slips. If I find you cannot or will not obey this rule, I’ll stop the climb at once. The second thing is:—never let the rope get taut between you and the next man, so it can yank either of you, and never let it get slack enough to trip anybody. Keep it sagging, but not dragging. Now, all set!”
Uncle Billy spoke sternly. The boys knew he meant what he said, and that it was serious business ahead. They followed him carefully down the north side of the lava spine, and found themselves on a steep slope of pumice and fine conglomerate, like a mixture of gravel and wood ashes, hung at such a sharp angle that it just did stay there, and that was all. It hung at what is called the angle of repose. As Uncle Billy started out across it, to get to the snow slope beyond, Bennie noticed that every time he put his foot down, the stuff below him started slipping a little. Bennie looked down the mountain to see what would happen if they started a slide and all slipped. A hundred feet below the snow began again, and ran down for a thousand feet or more, smooth as glass, and ended at the top of a precipice! Below that, all he could see was a hole! Something went flipflop in the pit of his stomach at the sight, and he looked quickly away, just in time to see that if he didn’t step out, the rope between his uncle and himself would be pulled taut. So he had to walk ahead, on to the treacherous slope. It was exactly like running tiddly-benders on thin ice, only instead of the danger of going through into water was the danger of starting a landslide and going down with it. You could feel with every step the sickening start of the slide.
However, everybody got across to the snow.
“Well, I’m gladthat’sover!” exclaimed Mr. Stone. “That conglomerate is hung exactly at the angle of repose. One degree more tilt, and she’d slide off into the cañon. Where do we go from here?”
The doctor pointed to the great west snow-field that lay between them and a high shoulder, which extended toward the northwest.
“We have to traverse that snow-field,” he said.
Everybody looked at it. Between them and it were four or five little snow slopes, each about a hundred yards wide, and separated by ridges of broken lava fragments. The great west snow-field itself looked to be a quarter of a mile wide, or even more. It was practically unbroken, except for one island of lava near the middle, looked smooth as glass, was tilted at an angle of more than forty-five degrees, and stretched right up to the precipice of the summit pinnacle, and right down to the top of the precipice which dropped to the cañon. If you slipped when you were out on it, and started down, it was certain death. Bennie didn’t need to be told a second time why fifty per cent of the climbers must have their alpenstocks driven in at every step!
The doctor now took his scout ax out of the sheath at his belt, and stepped out on the first snow-field. Being on the western side of the mountain the sun had not yet touched it, of course, and even when he drove his boot down hard, he could not make enough of an impression for a good footing. So, holding his stock in his right hand and driving it deep into the snow at each stride, he leaned down and with the ax in his left hand cut out a chunk of snow—one blow inward against the slope, and a second downward. This took out the chunk in such a way that a very small but level step was made. He reached as far ahead as he could, and the steps were three feet apart.
Bennie watched him carefully, glad not to look either up or down the terrifying slope. While his uncle was cutting, with his stock driven in, Bennie took a step behind him and drove his stock deep. Then he waited, clinging to it, while the doctor pulled his stock out and moved one step ahead. As the doctor cut and moved, cut and moved, Bennie discovered that there was a regular rhythm to it, and the only way to keep this rhythm unbroken was to pull your stock up at the right instant—that is, when you saw the man ahead drive his in. If you delayed doing it, you broke the rhythm. But to pull your stock up at the right instant wasn’t so easy as it sounds. Once driven two feet deep into the packed snow, the sharp point wedged there almost like a nail in wood. You had to pull it out with one hand, and pull it out quickly, without stopping your stride and above all without upsetting your balance on the tiny, icy steps. It took muscle. It took a lot of muscle, and it strained your back and shoulder.
When they all were across the first snow slope, and were resting a moment on the lava spine, Uncle Billy said, “Well, Bennie, how do you like it so far? Getting any exercise yet?”
“I always thought you climbed mountains with your legs,” Bennie answered. “But I feel as if I was climbing with my back and shoulder. Gosh, it’s hard work pulling that old alpenstock out!”
“They say a good mountain climber is a combination of a weak head and a strong back,” his uncle laughed.
“Too bad, Bennie, your back isn’t very strong,” said Dumplin’.
“Well, if your back is strong, you’ll be able to scale Mount Everest,” Bennie retorted.
They moved out now across the second small snow-field, and then the third and fourth. They were working upward a little, as well as across, and the summit precipices grew nearer. Bennie looked up once at those cliffs towering almost over his head, absolutely precipitous and hung with ice—and looked quickly down again. Jefferson hadn’t seemed very hard to climb from a distance, but now that summit looked absolutely impossible, and sure death if you tried it. He preferred to keep his eyes on his uncle, who was methodically cutting steps across the frozen snow.
They rested a moment, and took a drink from the canteens, on the last lava spine before they tackled the big snow-field. Uncle Billy looked out across it with troubled eyes.
“I don’t like those two chutes down the centre,” he said, pointing to a couple of deep scars, like ditches, which started far up at the base of the pinnacle cliffs, swept down the middle of the field, and only ended at the top of the cañon wall far below.
“Nothing coming down ’em now,” Norman said. “I don’t believe there will be till the sun gets around this side. It’s coming down tonight that we’ll be in danger.”
“What has made them?” Spider asked. “They look like toboggan slides.”
“That’s about what they are. They are made by big hunks of lava and ice breaking off the pinnacle and sliding down, digging a chute as they go.”
“How fast do the hunks travel?” asked Dumplin’.
“Fast enough!” Norman laughed.
But Dumplin’ didn’t laugh. He looked up that terrific incline to the ice-capped summit precipices, and said, “Do we have to cross those chutes?”
“We do if we want to climb Jefferson,” the doctor answered.
“Tell Mama I was a good boy,” Dumplin’ groaned.
“Shut up!” said his father, sharply. “Uncle Billy knows what he’s about.”
Without further words, the doctor started out on to the big snow-field, cutting steps as he went. Bennie followed, his arm and shoulder aching now, his heart thumping a little in his chest as he thought of those chutes ahead. When they reached the first one, it turned out to be about six feet deep and eight feet wide. The sides were almost straight, and the snow on the bottom was packed hard and smooth.
His uncle beckoned Bennie up to him.
“Drive in your stock,” he said, “and play me out on the rope. If we hear anything coming, take up the slack, and haul me back to you.”
He started cutting steps down the side, across the bottom, and up the farther side. Nothing happened, and once across, he cut a good firm step to brace his foot on, faced back toward the chute, told Dumplin’ to come up to Bennie, and then he took up the slack of rope between himself and Bennie, while Dumplin’ played out the rope behind. In this way, everybody got across.
“Well, that’s that,” said the doctor, with a sigh of relief. “Now for the next one.”
The next chute turned out to be just about the same size, and they crossed it slowly and cautiously, by the same method. Again nothing happened, and soon they were at the lava island, which turned out to be much nearer the northwest shoulder than it had looked. Here they sank down on some firm rock to rest, and while they rested, the sun peeped over the shoulder of the mountain south of them, and almost instantly the snow all around leaped into a blinding dazzle. The boys, who had taken their colored glasses off, put them hurriedly on again.
The doctor laughed. “Not much dust up here—the snow stays clean and reflects the light,” he said.
“Pretty soon you’ll be yelling for more grease paint, too.”
When they started on again, it was boiling hot. In spite of the glasses, their eyes began to smart, for the dazzle got in around the edges, and their faces and necks to burn.
“And now the real business is beginning,” the doctor said, heading directly from the lava island to the base of the northwest shoulder.
Bennie took one look at that shoulder, and cried, “Do we climb that?”
“Sure thing.”
“Well, if you say so, I suppose we do. But I’m no human fly.”
Ahead of them was an unbroken wall of snow, the side of a vast drift which had blown over the shoulder. It was about three hundred feet high, and the angle couldn’t have been less than sixty-five degrees. If you will tip a board or a ruler up to an angle of sixty-five degrees, and then imagine that slope to be hard, icy snow crust, with a drop of two or three thousand feet to the bottom of a cañon below you, you’ve got some idea of what the climbers were up against.
But the doctor went right ahead, cutting steps. He was chopping almost opposite his face, the slope was so steep. Bennie, watching him, had to tip his head way back, as you would to watch a man ahead of you on a ladder. He kept his head tipped back, too. He tried one look downward—and no more. All he saw was the top of Dumplin’s cap—and then the white snow slope sliding away to the hole of the cañon. He swallowed hard and bit his lips, which had already begun to swell and crack.
“I willnotget scared,” he whispered to himself. “I willnotget scared!”
The dazzle of the snow was now right in their faces, because the slope was so steep, and they could actually feel the reflected rays blister their noses. Their eyes smarted, their lips were cracking. But nobody had any time or chance to do anything about it. There was enough to do without that. Every second man had to be absolutely sure his stock was driven deep when the man above him took an upward step, and he had to pull out his own stock and drive it in firmly on a level with his face (no small muscular task) when it was his turn to take an upward step. The doctor was cutting good, high steps, too, a couple of feet to a rise. Bennie ached in every joint, and felt as if he were balancing on the edge of eternity—as, indeed, he was! But he climbed grimly, steadily, keeping the alternate rhythm with the doctor.
There was no chance to rest here. For half an hour they crawled up. Mr. Stone said he’d like a movie of it, but there didn’t seem to be any way to take a movie of it. It wasn’t safe for anybody to get off the rope; in fact, it would have been sheer recklessness. Bennie was never so glad of anything in his life as he was of his uncle’s call, “The top!” He scrambled up over the edge of a great drift, and found himself on a narrow spine of snow and lava blocks, a spine leading straight up to the northern end of the summit pinnacle.
When the rest were over the rim, they took off the rope, and sat down to rest on a lava platform. The wind had died down. It was calm and cloudless now, and there wasn’t a sound in the world—not a whisper of wind, not a bird song—nothing but the stillness of the everlasting snows, and their own voices, which sounded strange up here, almost startling.
The doctor took out his instrument for measuring altitude, called an aneroid barometer. It showed that they were over 9,000 feet. Their watches told them it was one o’clock.
“Wow, we’ve been climbing more’n nine hours since breakfast!” said Bennie. “I wouldn’t have guessed it.”
“Funny, I don’t feel very hungry,” said Dumplin’.
“That is funny,” his father laughed.
“It’s the funniest thing he ever said,” Bennie added. “Didn’t hear you making many jokes coming up that old drift just now, Dump.”
“You won’t hear me makinganyjokes till we get down this mountain again,” Dump replied. “Gee, my lips are all cracked, and my nose feels as big as a house, and my back aches, and my eyes smart, and I haven’t got any wind and—and——”
He paused for breath.
“But except for that you’re feeling fine, eh?” Uncle Billy smiled. “Well, out with the lunches, everybody. We’ve got to eat and be on our way. We ought to have got here by eleven o’clock. But maybe we can go faster now. The snow is getting soft, and I won’t have to cut steps, and the shoulder won’t be very steep.”
They ate their lunches, huddled on the shady side of the lava block, to keep out of the sun glare, put more grease paint on their lips, noses, cheeks and necks, and set out again up the shoulder. The sun had been shining up here for several hours, and the snow was softened. Their feet sank ankle deep into it, in fact, and in a short distance it had soaked through their boots so that their feet were wet and cold, while their faces were burning. The pitch of the shoulder, too, turned out to be much steeper than they had reckoned. Even the doctor and Norman were fooled, old hands that they were at mountain climbing. It was so steep that the doctor kept them roped, and it grew steeper as they toiled slowly upward, like tiny black ants on the vast white expanse of the mountain. It was almost three o’clock when they reached a big jagged pyramid of lava which stuck up above the snow, just below the summit pinnacle, and found a level spot in its lee. Here the doctor gathered them together into a group, and pointed to the pinnacle, without at first saying a word.
Bennie looked up a forty-five degree slope of dazzling snow, frozen into little wind ripples like desert sand, for two or three hundred feet, and saw that slope end at the base of the pinnacle itself. The pinnacle, as he could see only too plainly now, was a sheer precipice at every place except the edge just above them. That edge—the north end, which the shoulder they were climbing on led to, was just enough off the perpendicular to make it a daring and desperate hazard. Even it, in some places, looked perfectly straight up. And those places were not snow covered, as Bennie could now see. They were just green, glistening ice! The pinnacle rose thus for a full 300 feet, into the naked blue sky.
Dumplin’ groaned. “I can’t do it,” he said. “Honest, Dad, I can’t do it! I didn’t say anything, but I got dizzy back on the shoulder, and my head’s aching now. Gosh, I don’t want to look at it!”
He turned quickly away. Bennie started to laugh, but stopped himself when he saw his uncle’s face.
“Sit down, Dumplin’,” the doctor said kindly. “You won’t have to climb it. Rest a bit, and don’t think about it. None of us is going to climb it.”
“Oh, why not?” Bennie exclaimed. “It doesn’t look to me as if anybodycouldclimb it, but if they have, I guess we can, with you to lead us. Gee, think of getting this far, and stopping!”
“How long do you think it would take us to go from here to the top?” his uncle asked.
“Half an hour.”
“An hour,” Spider amended.
Norman laughed, and said nothing.
“It would take nearly two hours up, from this point, and two hours down,” said the doctor. “If you boys were all skilled climbers, and one of you could cut the steps, we might do it in an hour and a half each way. But I wouldn’t let even Norman cut the steps on that pinnacle—he’s not done enough ice climbing. And I’m pretty well fagged already. Besides, it’s three o’clock. If we didn’t get back to this spot till seven, where do you think we’d spend the night? Want to spend it up on these snow-fields, with soaked shoes, and no food, no fire and no blankets?”
“No, and I don’t particularly want to go down that shoulder wall and cross those chutes after dark, either,” Norman said. “It’ll be dark before we get to the horses if we start back now.”
“Give me one shot at the pinnacle, and I’m with you,” Mr. Stone said, pointing his camera.
Bennie and Spider turned reluctantly away. It seemed tough to get up 10,000 feet, almost to the very base of the summit pinnacle, and then have to turn back.
“It’s like being licked, when you still have a punch left,” Bennie said.
“We were licked by daylight, not by the mountain,” his uncle answered.
The descent of the shoulder to the lava block where they had eaten lunch, which Bennie and Spider had expected to make in rapid time, was just as slow as the ascent. The pitch was so steep that they did not dare to come down facing forward. They had to face up the slope, and sink their feet into their old tracks, as you come down a ladder.
At the lava block, Mr. Stone shifted to number one on the rope, so he could be the first down the wall of the drift, and get a movie of the rest. Bennie stayed at number two, Dumplin’ at three, Uncle Billy took number four place, then Spider, and finally Norman. The doctor told them, before they started down, how to make the descent, using the steps cut that morning. You faced sideways to the wall of snow, drove in your stock firmly, and then sank your left foot to the lower step, got a good footing, sank your right foot also, and then pulled out your stock and drove it home again lower down. Everybody was cautioned to keep the rhythm, and not to pull out his stock till the man above had made his step and anchored again.
When they were ready, Mr. Stone slipped over the edge, and Bennie had a sickening feeling as he saw him disappear. When the rope was played nearly out, Bennie started. That first step took his nerve more than anything all day. With his stock driven into the snow at the very edge, he had to look down to see where to place his foot, and in doing so, he had to see past the step, fifteen feet down to the top of Mr. Stone’s hat, and then 300 feet to the bottom of the drift, and then the long, white shoot of the snow-field to the cañon hole! For one instant, Bennie’s knees shook. Then he got a brace on himself, and began slowly, cautiously, to creep down, testing each footing before he pulled out his stock.
As soon as Dumplin’ appeared above him, he kept an eye upward, to make sure that his stock was always driven in when Dumplin’ changed position. And he soon found, too, that Dumplin’ was coming very slowly.
“Poor old Dump,” Bennie thought, “I bet he’s too fat for this kind of work. I must be careful not to go fast, and yank the rope. Might pull him off.”
They were about half-way down, and Bennie had just driven his stock hard in, waiting for Dumplin’ to shift, when he saw the snow under Dump’s foot beginning to cave. The step had melted since morning, and grown weak, and the boy, besides, had got his weight too much on the very edge. Dumplin’ felt it give, too, and with a little cry tried to get his alpenstock driven in again.
“Dumplin’s slipping! Hold him, Uncle Billy!” Bennie called.
Even as he spoke, the step gave way, and Dumplin’s alpenstock, which he hadn’t been braced to drive deep enough, gave way also. Dumplin’ began to drop! Bennie saw him coming directly down. If he kept on, he would hit him, and both of them would go! It was a sickening instant, while Bennie leaned in against the snow, braced both feet, and clung with both hands to his stock.
But Dumplin’ dropped only four or five feet, and hung there, against the slope, while Uncle Billy’s voice came down, cool and steady, “Don’t drop your stock! Get your foot back on a step, Dumplin’. Keep your head!”
It was all over so quickly that Bennie could hardly realize for a second just what had happened. Of course, Uncle Billy had been anchored, and when Dump slipped, he could only go the length of the slack between him and the doctor! Bennie really knew that when he called up to his uncle. But he had forgotten everything but his instinct to cling to his stock when Dumplin’ had actually begun to fall. He felt suddenly sick and faint.
Then he said to himself, “This is no place to be sick on! Get on to your job!”
Looking Across Hunt’s Cove to Jefferson. Dotted Line Shows Route of Climb. Arrow Points to Place Where Dumplin’ Slipped.Looking Across Hunt’s Cove to Jefferson. Dotted Line Shows Route of Climb. Arrow Points to Place Where Dumplin’ Slipped.
Looking Across Hunt’s Cove to Jefferson. Dotted Line Shows Route of Climb. Arrow Points to Place Where Dumplin’ Slipped.
He heard the doctor above and Mr. Stone below encouraging Dumplin’, too, and he knew it was up to him.
“Some old rope, Dumplin’, if it can hold you that way,” he shouted. “Come on, now, steady. I’ll kick the steps out bigger so’s they won’t break again.”
He kicked and packed them vigorously as he descended, and soon Mr. Stone was at the bottom, and he was within fifteen feet of it. Mr. Stone asked them to stop for a minute while he got out of the rope and went fifty feet out on the traverse, and took a movie of the final stages of the descent.
When he got back, Dumplin’ was sitting on the snow, very pale, but grinning as cheerfully as he could.
“Rope kind of yanked me under the arms,” he said. “But I’m all right. I won’t be so dizzy now we’re down. I couldn’t see very well, and I guess I didn’t get my foot far enough in on the step. It was looking down got my goat.”
The doctor and his father patted his back, and once more shifted positions on the rope.
“Once we get across those chutes, and it’s plain sailing,” Uncle Billy said, as he prepared to start out across the big snow-field, on the little path of steps he had cut that morning. Bennie noticed that there was a red ring around his left hand, and realized that he had seized the rope with a lightning twist when Dumplin’ slipped, and caught the weight that way, before the yank came on his body, and before Dumplin’ could get up speed.
“He’s some quick thinker,” Bennie reflected. “Gee, I guess you have to be, in this game.”
They were now out on the big traverse. Their morning steps were melted out deeper and larger, and they made fairly rapid progress toward the first chute. Nothing had come down it while they were approaching, and nothing came as the doctor crossed. But, once on the other side, he took his large jack-knife from his pocket, opened it, and held it ready to cut the rope as the others crossed, for if something should come down large enough to stick up above the sides while the rope was stretched across the chute, it might pull them all down with it. Nothing at all happened, however, either here or in the second big chute. Once across the latter, Uncle Billy gave a sigh of relief.
“Well,that’sover!” he said. “Now we have plain sailing.”
Hardly were the words out of his mouth when they heard a crackle and roar far up on the pinnacle precipice. Looking quickly upward, they saw snow powder, like white smoke, rising from the base of the cliff, and something descending toward them, not in the chute at all, but on top of the smooth snow!
“Run for it!” Bennie instinctively cried, taking a step forward that nearly yanked Dumplin’ off his feet again.
“Stop!” the doctor cried, in a sharp command. “Don’t you dare give orders again! Don’t try to run! You’ll have us all down. Watch it, till we see just where it is coming, and how big it is. Let it come between us if we have to, and if it’s too big to pass under the rope, I’ll cut. Stand ready to hold the rope up, or move as I tell you to!”
The thing was coming toward them, piling up snow in front of it. This piling up of the snow impeded its progress and diminished its speed. It had to push its way. Instead of coming a mile a minute, as the boys expected it would, it came slowly enough to give them time to estimate where it would pass.
“Move ahead!” the doctor snapped. “Easy, now—don’t try to run. Don’t forget your stocks—don’t pull on the rope. Steady!”
They moved forward several steps, and just as Norman, the last one on the rope, took a long, quick stride of two steps instead of one, the great hunk of lava, as big as a molasses hogshead, went slowly but inexorably downward, over the very spot where, a few seconds before, they had stood! Slowly as it moved, pushing the snow ahead, and piling it out on the sides, nothing could have stood in its path. They watched it go on down, leaving a track two feet deep behind it.
“There’s chute number three just started,” Norman said.
They heard another crack and roar on the pinnacle as he spoke, and looking up again saw something starting down one of the big chutes behind them.
“Say, let’s get out of here!” Dumplin’ cried. “I don’t like this.”
“I’m not stuck on it myself,” Uncle Billy answered. “Forward, march!”
They plugged ahead to the first lava spine, and rested a minute, looking back over the traverse. The sun was sinking, and its rays hit the slope almost level, making dark shadows of their steps, like a long row of dots out across the great field of white. These dots crossed the traverse, and then went straight up the shoulder, and in that light the shoulder looked as perpendicular as the side of a house.
“Did we go up there?” Spider exclaimed.
Dumplin’ took one look, and remarked, with such a heartfelt expression that everybody laughed, “Gosh, I don’t believe it!”
But there was no time for a long rest. Tired as they were, they had to keep on going, for they were still a long way from camp.
As they started across the first of the five smaller snow traverses, it seemed to Bennie as if his back and shoulders were one big ache every time he had to pull out his stock from the sticky snow. Yet Uncle Billy was moving ahead with a regular stride, and hehadto get his stock in and then out with one firm motion, or else lose the step, fall behind, and make the rope yank his uncle. He gritted his teeth and told himself that hewould notlet that happen.
As they stepped up on the second lava spine, Bennie cried, “Hello, old lava!”
As they reached the third spine, Dumplin’ cried, “Hello, old lava!”
As they reached the fourth, Spider cried, “Hello, old lava!”
“You boys seem to be glad you’re getting down,” the doctor called back.
“We’re glad we’re getting where we don’t have to pull these stocks out of the snow in time to your steps,” Bennie replied.
“Sorry to go so fast—but we must get to the horses before dark,” his uncle answered.
At last they were creeping over the treacherous slope of pumice, they were up the southwest shoulder—they were on the lower snow-field which sloped more gradually to timber line and the horses!
“Rope off!” the doctor called.
He coiled it up and hung it over his shoulder.
“Now, each man for himself,” said he, starting down with huge strides, his boots sinking into the soft snow, which had been frozen crust that morning, and keeping him from sliding. The rest followed. It was such a relief to be free of the rope and the danger that they took a new lease of life, and almost ran down the quarter mile to timber.
When they reached the poor hungry, thirsty, impatient horses, however, the sun had sunk behind the western mountains, and the hole of Hunt’s Cove was already dusky.
“Don’t change your boots. We can’t ride down as quickly as we can lead the horses,” the doctor commanded. “Saddle them quickly, and come on.”
In the timber, too, the snow had softened, and the horses sank knee deep. Bennie soon discovered that a horse, which scrambles rapidly up a steep slope, goes very slowly down it, especially when the footing is soft snow and he doesn’t know whether he is going to break through a long way or not. The doctor and Norman, more used to the ways of horses, and knowing how to manage them, were soon far ahead. Mr. Stone was somewhere in between. The three boys were before long so far in the rear that the leaders had vanished. Bennie and Spider could have gone a little faster than they did, but Dumplin’ was about all in with weariness, and they stuck with him. By the time they reached bare ground at the head wall of Hunt’s Cove, it was so dusky they could just make out the tracks. Below them, somewhere on the slope, they could hear the leaders crashing down through the fire scar.
“Come on,” Bennie urged. “We got to hurry. Can’t see the track at all on the bare ground. It’s dark down in the cove already.”
“I could hurry, but I can’t make this darn horse go any faster. Nearly pulled my arm out dragging him,” Spider answered.
The three of them started over the rim, tugging at the reluctant horses, who wanted to pick their way gingerly over the dead, fallen timber. The long spikes in their boots, which had been so necessary up on the snow, were a hindrance now. They kept catching in the dead sticks, and half turning the boys’ ankles when they stepped on a hard piece of lava in the dark. Several times they tripped and fell, scratching themselves. Once Spider’s horse slipped, knocking Spider over and bruising his leg. At the bottom, now, they heard the doctor calling to them.
“Coming as fast as we can!” Bennie yelled.
It was pitch black night at the bottom of the cove, in the heavy woods. They could just see the doctor waiting for them. The minute they were down, he led the way, after Norman and Mr. Stone, who had kept on to camp. In the dark they couldn’t see the swampy places, or the little brooks, and soon their boots, soaked all the afternoon by snow, were full of water, and they were wet almost to their waists. They came to the main stream at last, and mounted the horses, spikes or no spikes. The horses reared and balked, and had to be kicked and driven into the dark water, and nearly spilled their riders as they scrambled snorting out on the farther bank.
Nobody had said a word for ten minutes, but now, through the black forest ahead, they saw suddenly the red glow of a big fire, and Bennie emitted a whoop.
“Hello, fire!” he yelled.
“Hello, food!” yelled Dumplin’.
“Dumplin’ has recovered,” said the doctor.
The boys dropped off their horses at camp—literally dropped off. The rustler, who had stayed in camp, took the horses back to pasture, and the doctor and the three boys joined Norman and Mr. Stone in front of a huge camp fire, flopped wearily on the ground, and began to peel off their boots and stockings. They took off their trousers, also, and got dry clothes from their dunnage bags. Then, without even attempting to wash the grease paint off their faces, they flopped on the ground again beside the roaring fire, and let the cook bring them food.
“If anybody speaks to me before I’ve had a cup of coffee, I’ll bite him,” said Bennie. “I was never so tired and cross in my life.”
“Nobody wants to speak to you,” Dumplin’ retorted. “Don’t worry.”
“And yet,” said Uncle Billy, “if we’d really got to the top, we’d be so set up now that we wouldn’t mind the weariness. It’s like a crew race. You’ll notice it’s always the losing crew which collapses at the finish line.”
“I’d like to try it again, from a base camp at timber line,” Norman said. “That would give us two hours more of daylight at each end. We could do it easily with that.”
“If anybody talks about climbing Jefferson again, he’s in danger of his life,” Bennie retorted.
“Well, well, Bennie has had enough exercise for once!” Mr. Stone smiled. “He must have had—he hasn’t even spoken to poor Jeff.”
“Oh, gee, I was so tired I forgot him!” Bennie cried, jumping up with sudden energy. “Where is he, cook? What you done with him?”
“Whined so I tied him up down the creek a bit,” the cook answered. He, too, was cross, because he had to get supper so late.
Bennie grabbed a lantern, and went off into the woods, calling, “Jeff, Jeff!” Those in camp heard a far-off yelp of greeting, and a few minutes later Bennie returned, with Jeff at his heels, and lay down by the fire again with the dog’s head snuggled up to him.
It was after ten o’clock when supper was finished. The six climbers took enough water from the stove to wash the worst of the grease paint from their faces, and without any further preparation for bed pulled off their clothes, got into their pyjamas, crawled, stiff and lame and aching in every joint, with cracked and bleeding lips, and red, smarting eyes, into their sleeping bags, and almost before their heads touched the little air pillows were fast asleep.
Bennie had started to remark to Spider, as he got into bed, that real mountain climbing was the hardest work there was, but he forgot what he was going to say before he could open his mouth. And, if he had said it, nobody would have been awake enough to listen.
The doctor and Mr. Stone let the boys sleep late the next morning. The sun was high when they finally arose, and tumbled out into the ice-cold water of the creek for a good scrub with soap. After the bath, and a hot breakfast, they all felt cheerful and fairly fit again. The aches of the night before had somehow vanished, though their lips were still cracked and their noses were peeling.
“By Jiminy,” said Bennie, as he scraped the breakfast plates to feed Jeff, “I believe I’d like to climb the old mountain again, after all. I sure do hate to go away from here and admit it beat us.”
“Me, too,” said Spider.
“Well, I know when I’m licked,” Dumplin’ put in. “I guess if you’d been dizzy and if you’d slipped the way I did, you wouldn’t be so keen to go back.”
“You’ve got more weight to cart up than we have,” Spider laughed.
“That’s no joke, either,” said the doctor. “Dumplin’ needs a lot of training down before he tackles a climb like Jefferson. It isn’t his fault he was dizzy, or that he got so tired. Some people are always dizzy at high altitudes, anyhow. I wouldn’t let him try it again in his present shape. But if you other boys are game, and Stone is game, I’d like to tackle the mountain from a base camp where we tethered the horses. That will keep us here two days longer, so we won’t have time to get in to see Mount Hood close to. You’ll have to decide whether you’d rather reach the top of Jefferson, or see Hood. Those in favor say ‘Aye.’”
“Aye!”
“Aye!”
“Aye!”
“Aye!”
“The ‘ayes’ have it,” the doctor laughed. “Well, Norman, we’ll take up a tent and bedding right after lunch. We’ll sleep at timber line tonight, and again tomorrow night. Have two horses sent up day after tomorrow morning, at daybreak, to get the stuff, and have the rest of the train packed and waiting at the head of the cove. We’ll make our getaway over the head wall by seven or eight o’clock. I’m going to try to get out by the short trail, day after tomorrow, snow or no snow.”
Everybody lay around all that morning, in the shade of the woods, resting. After lunch, the largest tent, some grub, the sleeping bags, and a few cooking utensils were packed on two horses, while the climbers toted their climbing boots (now dried and oiled again), and a change of clothes in their packs. Nothing else was taken except the necessary climbing equipment—not even cameras. Dumplin’ went along to spend the night with them, and have supper ready for them when they got down the next evening. He was pretty blue at the idea of being left behind, and kept saying, “I bet I could do it this time, and not get dizzy.” But his father and the doctor wouldn’t say he could go.
They got the tent pitched as near timber line as they could find a level, dry spot, and spent the latter part of the afternoon gathering fuel and melting snow for water. The two horses, of course, had been taken back down the slope by the guide. The six of them were alone, in the chill silence at the edge of the eternal snows, with the mountain rising right above them, white and naked, to the glittering pinnacle. While supper was cooking, Bennie and Spider walked up a few hundred feet on the lower snow-field, glanced back at the tumbled wilderness of forest and mountain and cañon, stretching south to the white pyramids of the Three Sisters, and then looked long upward at the pinnacle, pink with sunset.
“Gosh!” Bennie exclaimed, “what a lot of wild country! Do you realize, Spider, that we haven’t met a human being since we left Marion Lake?”
“You forget the chap in the aeroplane,” Spider laughed. “Well, we came out here to see the wilderness, didn’t we?”
“You bet we did! And tomorrow we’re going to tackle old Jefferson again. You know, I feel just as if it was a kind of fight. I bet other mountaineers feel that way, too. That’s why it’s such fun.”
“Othermountaineers is good,” Spider replied. “You talk as if you were a Swiss Guide.”
“Well, I feel as if I could be one, when we get through with this old ant-hill,” Bennie laughed. “I bet that pinnacle is going to be a sockdologer!”
Spider’s face was sober. “I’m kind of scared of it, I don’t mind admitting. I don’t blame poor old Dump a bit for getting dizzy. I don’t get dizzy, but when I think how easy it would be to slip, I kind of get hollow in the pit of my stomach.”
Bennie was about to answer, when he heard a bark down the slope, and looking back saw Jeff bounding up the snow! The pup had broken loose back at the camp (or the cook had let him loose), and he had followed the tracks up here. He fell upon Bennie with yelps of joy.
“Well, that pup loves you, if nobody else does,” Spider laughed. “Dumplin’ will have to sit on him all day tomorrow.”
With the setting of the sun, it grew very cold up here under the snow-fields. They all huddled around the fire to eat, and soon after supper took off nothing but their boots and crawled into bed with even their sweaters on. The six sleeping bags had been packed into the one tent, so there was no free floor space at all. The first man in couldn’t get out without stepping on all the rest. Poor Jeff, driven outside, snuggled down against the tent on the lee side, out of the wind, and so the night was passed, none too comfortably by anybody.
They were up with the first daylight, built the fire, and cooked breakfast. Then Jeff was tied with a piece of the tent guy ropes, and Dumplin’ came with them as far as the southwest shoulder, where they roped.
“Don’t let Jeff get away and follow us!” was Bennie’s parting word.