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By Root 321 0

you were, in a mile-long line of freezing, exhausted men, so tight packed it was left, right, left, together all the way, your lungs aching and your head pounding in the altitude, and just when you think you can't lift your foot one more time, that you're going to drop in your tracks and die, you're at the top, falling into the snow with the crate on your back. And when you've got your breath back you take the ropes off that crate, sit on your shovel, and slide down the iced track to the bottom, where you put another crate on your shoulders and line up to start again. After twenty, twenty-five times you have your supplies at the top of the hill, and you're ready to start on your way to the fields. Lot of men stood in Sheep Camp at the bottom of the Scales, saw what they were up against, and their hearts just gave up on them. Sold their supplies for ten cents on the dollar and went home."

"But you didn't."

"Didn't have the sense to, no. It was winter, but the weather was still uncertain, and I'd only shifted half my load when the snow turned warm. Six, eight feet of wet snow in a couple of days. The Indians were smart—they cleared out back to town—but stubborn us.

"I knew it was going to get dangerous, so I started climbing early, still night in fact. I nearly made it, had my last load on my back and was halfway up when the cliffs gave way. The whole hill, a mile of snow and ice, just moved out from under our feet, a mile-long line of hundreds of men, their equipment, their dogs, everything just bundled up and swept down into Sheep Camp in a heap of snow. Seventy, eighty men died, my partner one of them. I was locked in, upside down, though I didn't know it—couldn't tell, it was dark and I couldn't move anything but my right hand. It was like being caught in set cement. My boot was sticking out, and that's what saved me, when they found it and dug me out."

"Good…heavens," I said weakly. I did not have to manufacture a response; the claustrophobic horror of his experience made me feel a bit lightheaded.

Ketteridge put down the glass that he had been nursing all during his narrative and looked at me with concern. "I'm so sorry, Mrs Holmes, have I upset you?"

"No no, just the idea of that sort of suffocation. It's pretty horrific."

"At the time, you know, I wasn't even frightened. Angry at first, if you can credit it—the thought that I'd have to carry everything up all over again just made me furious. I know, funny that should be the first thing on my mind. And then I was worried about my partner, who'd been just behind me, and then I was uncomfortable, all squashed and cold. But then that passed, and I began to feel warm; my wrenched leg didn't even hurt. Running out of air, I suppose, but it wouldn't have been a bad way to die, you know. Compared to some."

He smiled. "Shall we take coffee in the library, Tuptree? The car ought to be back soon."

This last was to me, and I folded my table napkin and stood up.

"May we walk through the dining hall?" I asked, gently reminding him of his promise.

"Certainly, if you like. The lighting in there isn't very good, I'm afraid. For some reason Baskerville never had that room wired for electricity. It's better during the day."

Ketteridge took up a candelabra and lit the tapers with the cigar lighter he carried in his pocket, and we went through into the great, dim banqueting hall. It was like walking into a cavern, empty and full of shadows—although in times past the entire manor had gathered here for meals, the family on its raised dais, the servants at long tables in the rest of the room. A minstrel's gallery looked down from the far end, silent and abandoned by all except the painted Baskervilles, a cheerless substitute indeed for the music the spot was intended to house. We strolled in near complete silence ourselves, down one side and up the end. He held the light up for me to see the portraits.

"The Baskervilles seem a varied lot," I commented.

"The last owner took all the good ones with her," he said ruefully. "She did leave these tapestries,