The Mountains [39]
evil of reputation was that trail beyond all others. The horses, as we bunched them in preparation for the packing, took on a new interest, for it was on the cards that the unpacking at evening would find some missing from the ranks.
"Lily's a goner, sure," said Wes. "I don't know how she's got this far except by drunken man's luck. She'll never make the Tunemah."
"And Tunemah himself," pointed out the Tenderfoot, naming his own fool horse; "I see where I start in to walk."
"Sort of a `morituri te salutamur,' " said I.
We climbed the two thousand two hundred feet, leading our saddle-horses to save their strength. Every twenty feet we rested, breathing heavily of the rarified air. Then at the top of the world we paused on the brink of nothing to tighten cinches, while the cold wind swept by us, the snow glittered in a sunlight become silvery like that of early April, and the giant peaks of the High Sierras lifted into a distance inconceivably remote, as though the horizon had been set back for their accommodation.
To our left lay a windrow of snow such as you will see drifted into a sharp crest across a corner of your yard; only this windrow was twenty feet high and packed solid by the sun, the wind, and the weight of its age. We climbed it and looked over directly into the eye of a round Alpine lake seven or eight hundred feet below. It was of an intense cobalt blue, a color to be seen only in these glacial bodies of water, deep and rich as the mantle of a merchant of Tyre. White ice floated in it. The savage fierce granite needles and knife-edges of the mountain crest hemmed it about.
But this was temporizing, and we knew it. The first drop of the trail was so steep that we could flip a pebble to the first level of it, and so rough in its water-and-snow-gouged knuckles of rocks that it seemed that at the first step a horse must necessarily fall end over end. We made it successfully, however, and breathed deep. Even Lily, by a miracle of lucky scrambling, did not even stumble.
"Now she's easy for a little ways," said Wes, "then we'll get busy."
When we "got busy" we took our guns in our hands to preserve them from a fall, and started in. Two more miracles saved Dinkey at two more places. We spent an hour at one spot, and finally built a new trail around it. Six times a minute we held our breaths and stood on tiptoe with anxiety, powerless to help, while the horse did his best. At the especially bad places we checked them off one after another, congratulating ourselves on so much saved as each came across without accident. When there were no bad places, the trail was so extraordinarily steep that we ahead were in constant dread of a horse's falling on us from behind, and our legs did become wearied to incipient paralysis by the constant stiff checking of the descent. Moreover every second or so one of the big loose stones with which the trail was cumbered would be dislodged and come bouncing down among us. We dodged and swore; the horses kicked; we all feared for the integrity of our legs. The day was full of an intense nervous strain, an entire absorption in the precise present. We promptly forgot a difficulty as soon as we were by it: we had not time to think of those still ahead. All outside the insistence of the moment was blurred and unimportant, like a specialized focus, so I cannot tell you much about the scenery. The only outside impression we received was that the canon floor was slowly rising to meet us.
Then strangely enough, as it seemed, we stepped off to level ground.
Our watches said half-past three. We had made five miles in a little under seven hours.
Remained only the crossing of the river. This was no mean task, but we accomplished it lightly, searching out a ford. There were high grasses, and on the other side of them a grove of very tall cottonwoods, clean as a park. First of all we cooked things; then we spread things; then we lay on our backs and smoked things, our hands clasped back of our heads. We cocked ironical eyes at the sheer cliff
"Lily's a goner, sure," said Wes. "I don't know how she's got this far except by drunken man's luck. She'll never make the Tunemah."
"And Tunemah himself," pointed out the Tenderfoot, naming his own fool horse; "I see where I start in to walk."
"Sort of a `morituri te salutamur,' " said I.
We climbed the two thousand two hundred feet, leading our saddle-horses to save their strength. Every twenty feet we rested, breathing heavily of the rarified air. Then at the top of the world we paused on the brink of nothing to tighten cinches, while the cold wind swept by us, the snow glittered in a sunlight become silvery like that of early April, and the giant peaks of the High Sierras lifted into a distance inconceivably remote, as though the horizon had been set back for their accommodation.
To our left lay a windrow of snow such as you will see drifted into a sharp crest across a corner of your yard; only this windrow was twenty feet high and packed solid by the sun, the wind, and the weight of its age. We climbed it and looked over directly into the eye of a round Alpine lake seven or eight hundred feet below. It was of an intense cobalt blue, a color to be seen only in these glacial bodies of water, deep and rich as the mantle of a merchant of Tyre. White ice floated in it. The savage fierce granite needles and knife-edges of the mountain crest hemmed it about.
But this was temporizing, and we knew it. The first drop of the trail was so steep that we could flip a pebble to the first level of it, and so rough in its water-and-snow-gouged knuckles of rocks that it seemed that at the first step a horse must necessarily fall end over end. We made it successfully, however, and breathed deep. Even Lily, by a miracle of lucky scrambling, did not even stumble.
"Now she's easy for a little ways," said Wes, "then we'll get busy."
When we "got busy" we took our guns in our hands to preserve them from a fall, and started in. Two more miracles saved Dinkey at two more places. We spent an hour at one spot, and finally built a new trail around it. Six times a minute we held our breaths and stood on tiptoe with anxiety, powerless to help, while the horse did his best. At the especially bad places we checked them off one after another, congratulating ourselves on so much saved as each came across without accident. When there were no bad places, the trail was so extraordinarily steep that we ahead were in constant dread of a horse's falling on us from behind, and our legs did become wearied to incipient paralysis by the constant stiff checking of the descent. Moreover every second or so one of the big loose stones with which the trail was cumbered would be dislodged and come bouncing down among us. We dodged and swore; the horses kicked; we all feared for the integrity of our legs. The day was full of an intense nervous strain, an entire absorption in the precise present. We promptly forgot a difficulty as soon as we were by it: we had not time to think of those still ahead. All outside the insistence of the moment was blurred and unimportant, like a specialized focus, so I cannot tell you much about the scenery. The only outside impression we received was that the canon floor was slowly rising to meet us.
Then strangely enough, as it seemed, we stepped off to level ground.
Our watches said half-past three. We had made five miles in a little under seven hours.
Remained only the crossing of the river. This was no mean task, but we accomplished it lightly, searching out a ford. There were high grasses, and on the other side of them a grove of very tall cottonwoods, clean as a park. First of all we cooked things; then we spread things; then we lay on our backs and smoked things, our hands clasped back of our heads. We cocked ironical eyes at the sheer cliff