Kitabı oku: «Mr. Dide, His Vacation in Colorado», sayfa 6

CHAPTER X.
VAPOR

At the next evening's camp-fire I took down the Deacon's report of his trip:

"The trail from Glenwood Springs to Trapper's Lake is good, and the country through which it runs is always attractive, beautiful, and in places grand. In fact, it is a difficult matter, you know, to go astray of magnificent scenery in these beloved mountains of ours. We made one camp, the ladies being out for pleasure and not in a hurry, and for one day's ride the trip is a little tiresome, especially if you are not accustomed to the saddle. Our camp outfit and provisions made light loads for two pack animals.

"The first view of the lake coming in from the south side is finer than that from the trail out of Egeria Park. By the latter route you come directly upon the lake from the timber, low down the mountain side, and look directly across. By the way we came you get a fine view of the lake first from a point higher up the mountain, and can look down upon it, along its length, toward the outlet. You have a foreground of the beautiful lake, and through the wide gap at its foot a distant range of hills veiled in the gray mist forms a background, while the lake itself, except at the outlet, is shut in by the high-terraced mountains. These mountains, you will remember, reach down to the very margin of the lake, excepting only at the little meadow on the left of the outlet. The terraces are thickly covered with pines until the last precipice is reached, which runs up above the timber line.

"We remained four days there, fishing from rafts. There are two varieties of trout in the lake, the light and the salmon-colored. The light variety are the fighters, of course, and so abundant that but for the presence of others to help us dispose of them they would spoil on our hands; they are large, too, running uniformly to fourteen inches in length.

"I killed a buck in the little meadow near the outlet. The Deaconess declares that those four days were 'just too lovely.'"

"But about the trail, Deacon, from the lake to the forks here?"

"It is a good trail. Did you ever see an Indian trail that wasn't good? Our red brother, as you call him, is a first-class engineer in that respect; he is the only one who accomplishes his purpose prompted by pure laziness. We took the ridge part of the way, and made a short détour to see the Devil's Causeway, and on that account saw a band of elk; there were fifty in the band at least, because I counted that number, and missed some without doubt. There was indeed a commotion in the camp when I announced the discovery of bear signs, but I succeeded in allaying the fright by persuading them to believe that Cuffy was no more liable to attack us than the deer were. We had splendid fishing in the Pot Hole Valley, and I want you to know that I landed a trout of five pounds and four ounces out of one of those pools, and that's no fish story. The trout run large as they do here in the South Fork. White-fish are plentiful, too; the largest one I caught weighed a scant two pounds, and I know you agree with me as to their excellence on the table. The valley is filling up, though, with settlers; it is not so much in the wilderness as it was a few years ago."

"You are having an unusual wedding tour, Deacon."

"But a very happy one. Just try it, and see for yourself."

"I have been travelling the 'long path' too many years for that, Deacon."

"Well, you'll enjoy it, all the same."

Of course I had to thank the Deacon for the compliment and I promised to "try it."

The next day a few fleecy clouds climbed up over the hills in the west, and in the afternoon we moved further down the river toward Meeker. That evening we put up the fly for the first time, lapped and pegged down the ends. We thought we might have rain before morning, but were disappointed.

The following morning the clouds put in an appearance again; the sky had been absolutely clear during the most of our trip, and the pretty harbingers afforded a relief. From white they gathered into clusters and turned to gray, and the drapery of a darker shade, hanging below, told of the rain. It passed us by, however, and we had a beautiful sunset. The west was clear, while just above a range of hills in the east, veiled with a thin blue mist, was a stratum of pale bronze, its upper line apparently as straight as if run by a level. From this base of miles in length there arose a great mass of clouds, seemingly thousands of feet in height, and white as carded wool. Its northern and southern ends were almost perpendicular, and its summit of great rolling folds was outlined against the delicate blue of the sky. For half an hour there seemed no change; the huge pile stood apparently still, pure and white as newly-fallen snow. Then, as if moved by some gentle and artistic freak of its presiding genius, a rift in a mountain side appeared, reaching from the bronze base to the top, the line was sharply defined in white and gray and the shadow was cast against the background of white to our right. Away at the northerly summit a small bit seemed to break away, or was left; it divided, and in a few moments there were clearly defined a pair of gigantic wings, regular in their contour as those of a bird. In another place a gray tower presented itself with a great arched doorway near its base. Castles would spring into a brief existence, machicolated and loop-holed, to be lost again in some modern cottage with vine-clad porch. Along the upper margin figures would come and go as if the gods and their retinues were all abroad directing a magnificent display. And in one corner, by itself, there was plainly outlined a fleecy hood, into which I caught myself intently gazing, expecting to see the laughing eyes and face of a beautiful child. All this in tones of white and gray. But as the sun sank lower, veils of slanting mist appeared here and there, the apparently solid mass was being broken up, the summit was still white scroll-work, but below, the line of bronze had turned into a crimson shade, within an uneven apex; the lead-colored base of the main body was changing to a purple hue, and all through the mass the rose and amber were being laid in, shifting from moment to moment, until the hues became bewildering in their multitude; then, as the sun went down, the gray tones returned again, such as the artist may sometimes give a hint of but never paints.

It was a great storm we had witnessed, away over the range to the east; we were far from the sound of the artillery, and it hid from us the flash of its batteries.

During the beautiful display the Deacon's young wife sat a few feet in front of me and to the left. She had moved but once, and that was when the first shadow came and marked out the great gorge; she turned round then, and said to me:

"Is it not grand?"

When the rose tints faded out, she turned again; there was a mist in her dark eyes, and a perceptible quiver about her pretty lips; she spoke in a half-whisper, as of one just awakened from a happy vision:

"Did you ever see anything so glorious? and yet I felt all the time as if I must kneel and look upon it with reverence."

I did not blame Mr. Dide, nor the Deacon; they couldn't help it; I envied her father.

"When we can have our backs to the afternoon sun, with a mountain range to the east of us, these magnificent carnivals of shadows are not uncommon."

"Did you see the baby's bonnet? was it not too cute for anything?" and then, half-musingly to me, "you have lived in these beautiful mountains since before the time I was born – you ought to be happy!"

I told her that happiness was my normal condition, and then she wanted to know of me if I had ever read Ruskin, and I said I hadn't.

"I wish he could have seen what we have this afternoon."

"He would have criticised and found fault with it."

"It is unkind of you to say so, knowing nothing of him."

The rebuke was quick, earnest, and, I confessed to myself, not wholly unwarranted. I determined to read Ruskin, and I presume that if the Major and the others had not just then drifted up to us, I should have been led off after "Darwin and those fellows." With such disciples the philosophers in question might effect a revolution rapidly.

The Major and the others, except Joshua, had much to say about the afternoon's entertainment. Joshua didn't see anything except a great bank of clouds, and knew there had been a storm on the main range.

While we were at supper (and since we had ladies in company, the Major had improvised a table out of some boards which he picked up, using the wagon seats for supports), our table now decked with wild flowers, and the tin plates and cups presenting a brighter appearance, we had a call. Our visitor was a lank mortal in flannel shirt, blue cotton overalls, and the ordinary white felt hat of the country. He was not a cowboy, but "a hand" from a neighboring ranch, who had "hoofed it in last fall."

"Evenin'," was his salutation, with a nod, intended for all of us. "Bin campin' out, ain't ye? Had a good time, s'pose – lots o' fish and sech? Didn't see nothin' of a roan cayuse with a strip in face, up crick? No! been a-huntin' the darn brute since noon-time; branded 'J. K.' on his left hip."

"You'd better keep on, if you count on findin' him before night," hinted Joshua, shaking a flapjack in the frying-pan preparatory to a final turn.

"Stranger in these parts?" the visitor inquired of Joshua.

"Yes; been here a week."

"More'n that – I see you go up crick more'n two weeks ago. What's yer business?"

"Mindin' it."

"Mindin' what?"

"My business."

"Don't know as you'll ever die o' brain fever."

"Neither will you, if you stay in this country. I wonder you wasn't buried before spring."

"They wasn't no fellers round here handy 'nough – "

"What can we do for you, my friend?" broke in the Major, in some doubt as to the result of the dialogue.

"Nothin', 'bleeged to ye, 'less yer got sumpin's good for cuts; cut my finger sharpnin' a sickle; durn near cut it off an' it's festerin' – see." He exposed the wounded member. If there is anything in life with a tendency to raise one's curiosity, or anything else, I know of nothing more potent than a sick finger at meal time. The stranger was generously determined that none of us should miss the luxury. The Major stared, the ladies turned away, and Joshua, out of all patience, exclaimed:

"Come off the shelf, man, the flies'll eat you up."

The stranger's attention was distracted.

"Whatcher mean? I ain't got no flies on me, mister."

"Cover up that paw o' yours and go after your cayuse – don't you see it up yonder in the willers?" And Joshua took our visitor by the arm and started him in the right direction. He led him farther than was necessary, the pony being in sight, and they had some conversation on the way, but we did not overhear it, and they seemed to part with a satisfactory understanding.

The next day we made a move still farther down stream and camped in the vicinity of the site selected by the government for the erection of a sawmill that was to aid in civilizing the Utes. The habitations that had been erected at great expense were no longer visible; literally not one stone remained upon another. The boiler was perforated with bullet-holes, and rusty bits of machinery lay scattered over a square mile of the level mesa. A more complete wreck than this, effected by the gentle savages, would be hard to conceive, and a more sorrowful exhibition of sheer viciousness could not have been expressed; it was as if the destroyers had determined to obliterate every vestige that might give rise even to a memory of the kindness intended them. Those beautiful symbols of peace, the doves, were plentiful, flitting about the ruins, as docile as if the valley had never known a wrathful moment. The birds were not within the protection of the law, but to kill them in such a place seemed like adding sacrilege to cruelty, so not one was harmed.

Upon the breaking up of this camp our company was to be divided. The Deacon and his relatives would turn off to the right a few miles below, to visit the Thornburg battle-ground, while the Major and I would take our way back over the old route to Glenwood Springs. One more day's sojourn on the beautiful river at our first camping-ground, below Meeker, and we bade farewell, reluctantly, to the charming valley. But the keen edge of our unwillingness was softened by an assurance to ourselves that another summer would find us again with our tent pitched amid the sweet peacefulness. We would come again, if for no other purpose, to make acquaintance with the trail to Trapper's Lake – the gem of the Roan Range.

There is no comfort whatever in towels, with a tin cup for a bath-tub; the White River is no place to bathe in, unless one would encourage pneumonia or the rheumatism. The sight of the great pool at Glenwood, after several weeks of travesty, gave a hint of marvellous luxury. It was as if we approached the performance of a religious rite; we stood upon the edge, filled with the eagerness of neophytes, but hesitating for a moment before penetrating the mystery whose revelation we sought. But once within the warm embrace of the voluptuous crystal, the Wesleyan admonition was made manifest; we washed, and worshipped close to the throne. Then we thanked the men whose enterprise had converted the possibility of the luxury into a fact.

"Epicurean Rome could boast of no such treat as this," exclaimed the Major, shaking the crystal drops from his shaggy mane, as he rose to the surface after the first plunge.

"I don't know much about Rome," said Joshua, "but this suits me, this does."

We left the bright little city beautifully nestled among the carmine hills, as the afternoon sun was caressing the summits of the mountains in the west. We were again on the rail, speeding up the valley of the Roaring Fork. A slight bend in the road and Mount Sopris towers grandly, in front and to the right of us, with its long patch of snow offering a perpetual challenge to our daily friend.

The ride up the great gorge in the western slope to the top of the Saguache Range affords a grander pageant than that in descending. One experiences a sensation of quiet, while one is looking down upon a panorama that is drifting. As the sun touches only the highest peaks the magnificent cliffs and wooded mountain sides are in shadow, seem animate, and as if stealing away, phantom-like, into the deepening twilight below. But the sunlight of the morrow will clothe the scene in new beauties, and the summer days to come will be bountiful in fresh surprises for the sojourner in these recesses of the majestic hills.

CHAPTER XI.
PIKE'S PEAK

The name has a familiar sound; I have heard it almost every day for nearly three decades, and wherever English is spoken the name has been mentioned. Having it in sight daily, with its long slope reaching up to the apex over fourteen thousand feet high, its north face always clothed in or fretted with snow, it might seem that it would grow monotonous. Monotony is not possible with the magnificent eminence and, like the presence of one we love, it is always welcome. The great ice-field at the pole is as to the earth but the thickness of a hair, the great mountain range as a wrinkle on the surface; but we measure the thickness and the heights by miles. They who made the Bible possible loved the high places of the earth; the law was there given to the great leader, and the beloved Master sought the mountain top to pray. It lifted him away from the earth while he was of it, but brought him nearer to the Father. It is the vantage ground of humility, the sanctuary where arrogance cannot enter.

The devil was lacking in tact when he offered the world to the Master from a mountain top; his royal highness was out of his element, the atmosphere was repugnant. Neither he nor his pupils lack ambition, but on a mountain top there is nothing to which mortal may aspire, except the unknowable, and for the unknowable he is made willing to bide his time in meekness. It is no place for his majesty to proselyte; his most zealous disciples even, are liable to step into the path he never designed for them. No doubt the devil would have failed, on the occasion in question, had he selected a valley where the air was impure, but to seek a mountain top as the theatre for the bribery of One purer than the element he breathed, only goes to show that the devil, with all his accredited intelligence, was a very great ass. The only mystery to me is that he himself was not then and there led captive and future generations saved from his machinations. The solution may be that, being already condemned, he was beyond the pale of divine influence. I would, however give the devil his due, and should be glad to surmise that he longed to be clean, but was so much of a dolt as not to be worth regenerating.

The first man to climb a mountain peak may be pardoned exultation at the accomplishment of his feat. The gallant officer whose name this mountain bears essayed that exploit and failed, though history says he wrought valiantly. Grand monuments are not infrequently erected to the undeserving. We have other mountains with titles a little more satirical; there can be no objection to commemorating the memory of a dead hero, for a man is rarely a hero until he is dead, and this is no paradox. But except in a very few instances, it were well to leave the erection of memorials to the intimate friends of the dear departed, rather than to appropriate, without permission, the works of the Almighty. Mountains, however, are abundant, and we, not being the owners, can afford to give them away; it were better, though, to reward our live friends out of our own earnings. We know in such case they would have the chance at least to appreciate our acknowledgment of their merits.

He who goes up a mountain by trail may exult in a lesser degree than the first explorer. But all may not surmount unexplored mountains; many cannot do so even by trail. To him, then, who makes the happiness of conversion from the ills of this life possible to all, if only for an hour, great credit is due, and he may, with an easy conscience no doubt, exact toll for his achievement.

To the æsthetic it may seem like a sacrilege to disfigure a great mountain with a road; but a road for human needs is so slight a scratch here on the earth's surface that it does not mar the surroundings. The good that it does outweighs the apparent desecration. As the Major and myself aspire to that which is high, and as neither of us might reach the summit of the peak by the primitive methods any more than office may now be so reached, the opportunity to gratify our ambition by carriage was a blessing. The novelty must be considered as adding to the zest.

The mountain is not visible from Cascade, the initial point of the road; the intervening hills shut it out. Starting thence we follow the Fountain up a very little distance, then turn to the left along the face of the first hill, then to the right, and so winding our way for two miles we reach the vicinity of the Grotto in Cascade Cañon. In a direct line we are half a mile from the starting-point. Over and through the pines that sparsely cover the mountain side, and over beds of wild flowers that carpet the slope, we can, before this distance is accomplished, obtain a fair view of the valley of the Fountain, Cascade and Manitou, thence out on to the broad plains, rising blue and dim until they kiss the horizon. One does not look for valleys in the mountain tops, but a mountain top reached is still further surmounted, and the road winds through aspen glades and the air is freighted with the odor of pines.

The four horses trundle the light Beach wagon along most of the way at a trot. The driver tells you that after a little while the horses must be brought down to a walk. The grade is not steep, but "in the light air a fast gait would be a little hard on the stock."

Eight and a half miles we have come in a little less than two hours. "A pretty good road," that allows the making of such time to an elevation of over three thousand feet, at a guess. We are half way and are still in the timber. "The horses are changed to mules here" – an extraordinary metamorphosis, certainly – that is the way the driver put it, but there was no mystery in his language, except to a Boston lady, who was anxious to witness the process. Verily one must speak by the card in such a presence, or "equivocation will undo us." The four mules seemed to consider their load a trifle and they moved as jauntily as if out for a holiday.

To beguile the tediousness of the way we were assured that on returning we should "come in a whirl." The motive that prompted the information was commendable, and the driver to be excused – he travelled the road every day and his early pleasure had simply turned into an attractive matter of business. We told him not to hurry on our account, as it was our desire to miss no part of the scenery. He said he should come back in two hours and a half. I had ridden behind mules before – I mean in period of time – and was doubtful touching the prospective gloriousness of the journey, but he assured me that it was perfectly safe. He spoke of a "switch-back," and there was an intimation of occult peril in his manner. When we reached the vicinity of the timber line he pointed out the mystery. From our point of vision the zigzag scratches away up on the steep mountain side reminded me of old times. I was having a longitudinal view of a few sections of worm fence running up a hill at an angle of seventy degrees; at least a man under the influence of spirits would say it was a longitudinal view. Considered as a fence, from an economical basis, the angles were unnecessarily acute; it might fairly have represented five miles of fence and half a mile of ground in a straight line, or it looked as if unknown powers at each end were trying to jam the thing together and make it double up on itself.

I was very much interested in it. As a line for an irrigating ditch it might be pronounced a success. As nothing goes down a ditch except water, and very little of that in a dry season, nobody is put in jeopardy.

"And you come down there at the rate of eight or nine miles an hour?" I asked.

"Yes, oh, yes, easy enough."

"I should think it would be easy, especially if you went off one of those corners."

"You wouldn't know the difference."

"No, I suppose not. It must be a glorious ride, coming down at the rate of eight or nine miles an hour, I think you said?"

"Yes, eight or nine, mebbe less, dependin'."

"You can make it in less time, then?"

"Certainly."

"And turn round those corners?"

"'Course, how else? You don't s'pose I'm thinkin' 'bout rollin' down the mountain side?"

I wondered what else it would be without snow on the ground; but the driver seemed a little too short of breath to answer. I accounted for his deficiency in this regard because of the altitude; we were above timber line, eleven thousand feet and over from sea-level. The pines had become dwarfed, naked on one side, and were leaning toward the rocks above them, or, in their sturdy struggle for existence, they clung to the precipitous mountain side like matted vines. Looking down from a certain point I observed a large quantity of the road resembling a corpulent angle-worm in several stages of colic. I could not resist appealing to the driver again; I don't think anybody could.

"Do you go round all those places at the rate of eight or nine miles an hour?"

"Of course."

"And you don't slow up?"

"What should I slow up for?"

"So as not to turn over, you know."

"I never turned over in my life, and I drove stage in California twenty years."

I believed he was a liar, but deemed it inexpedient to tell him so, although he was a small man.

"Never had a runaway either, I suppose?" and sitting behind him I casually – it being convenient – put my hand on his biceps; the arm was not large, but assuring.

"No."

My opinion of his veracity was not augmented.

"I hardly think you can make the time you say you can."

"Just wait and see."

"I'm sure it will be grand; I've been suffering for such an experience."

"I didn't know but you was gittin' a little nervous – they sometimes do."

"Nervous! I'm an old stager. I have ridden with Bill Updyke and Jake Hawks many a mile in these mountains. Take it in the winter time, down hill, for instance, the road covered with ice and the driver obliged to whip his horses into a dead run to keep the coach from sliding and swinging off such a place as that," and I pointed to a precipice several hundred feet perpendicular at our left. "That's coaching!" and I placed my hand upon his shoulder affectionately. During the colloquy the Major had not opened his lips.

The vicinity is the dwelling-place of desolation; nothing but rocks about us. What had once perhaps been a solid mass of trachyte is split to fragments in the mill of the centuries, and bits from as big as one's fist to the size of one's body or a small house lay tumbled in a confused and monstrous heap, as though there might have been in the remote ages, a great temple here dedicated to the gods of old, and now in shapeless ruins.

Of the view from this great mountain peak, what shall I or any one say? Nothing! It does not admit of description; upon it, you can understand why the Indian never mounts so high. It is one of the places whence comes his inspiration of deity, the temple of his god, and he may not desecrate it with his unhallowed feet; it gathers the storm, and the sun caresses it into a smile and crowns it with glory, as he views it reverently from the valley. But we, the civilized, penetrate the mystery of these heights and find, what? humility! and feel as though we should have worshipped from afar. We have risen to receive the divine inspiration, our brother has remained below to kiss submissively the nether threshold of the sanctuary. Which is nearest to the Father?

It is very still to-day; no sound greets you save the gentlest murmur of the summer wind brushing lightly across the uninviting rocks. The wide plains checkered with green and gold, stretching away out below you, give you no sign. The city you see there, bustling with the ambition of youthful vigor, is silent as death; you recognize it as a town-plat on paper, that is all, except that it adds to the sense of your own insignificance; it may make you wonder, perhaps, why you were ever a part of the life there; it may be a shadow that you look down upon, as you would recall an almost faded dream. You turn.

 
"And the mountain world stands present
  And behold a wond'rous corps —
Well I knew them each, though never
  Had we met in life before —
Knew them by that dream-world knowledge
  All unknown to earthly lore."
 

Just below you a vast ocean bed of billowy hills, with its stately pines dwarfed to shrubs, its shores looming up in the dim distance through their dainty veil of gray, and brooding over all that

 
"Awful voice of stillness,
Which the Seer discerned in Horeb;
That which hallowed Beth El's ground."
 

It seems like sacrilege, but the interest in that town-plat down there, or in one like it, begins tugging at the skirts of one's adoration. The sun is going down and we also must go.

I had an interview with the driver, out behind the barn. (There is a signal station on the summit and the barn is a necessity.)

"You are sure you can go to Cascade from here in two hours and a half?" I inquired.

"Certain."

"Take something?" and I made a feint of reaching into the inside pocket of my coat for "something" I did not have.

"Can't! that's agin' the rules – I'm a man of family and I don't care to lose my job."

"So am I a man of family, and my friend, the Major there, he has a family – a wife and nine children, all young. You love your family?"

"What do you ask that for? 'Course I do."

"So does the Major love his – the eldest only ten years old. You noticed, perhaps, on coming up, when we were talking about making time, going down 'in a whirl;' I think you expressed it so? Yes, he said not a word, just sat and listened. He was thinking about the seventeen miles down hill, round those short curves, in two hours and a half. The Major has a slight heart trouble, and any little excitement, like rolling down the mountain side, or getting upset, might be injurious to him. Being a man with a large family I desire to avoid his running any risk – you understand? His family is dependent on him and he has no life insurance. Now, the making of this trip in two hours and a half might be well enough for me, because I am used to it, you know; I haven't so much of a family, and I've ridden with Bill Updyke and Jake Hawks, and there is nothing I should like better than just such a ride as you proposed – I'd glory in it, but I'm a little uneasy about the Major. The doctor has already warned him against any undue excitement. Hold on a minute! there is another matter: he'd never hint that he is nervous, he is very averse to having it thought that he is troubled that way – see? And just as like as not, to show you that he is not nervous, he would tell you to 'Let 'em out!' Now – hold on a minute! if he should tell you so, don't you do it – you just go round those curves quietly, and trot along easy like, or walk. He's a very close friend of mine, you can understand. Take this," and I slipped a half-dollar into the driver's hand. Just then I heard the Major yelling to me with the voice of a strong man in enviable health to "hurry up."

The driver accepted the half-dollar and went round one end of the barn to the carriage, while I took the other way. When we were seated he touched the off leader gently, the team started, and then he twirled the long lash of his whip with a graceful and fancy curve that rounded up with a report like that of a small pistol. The mules struck into a gallop and I concluded that my half-dollar was wasted, literally thrown away, to say nothing of my other appeal. The loss of the latter caused me the more chagrin – the money was a trifle. But think of that blessed stage-driver ignoring my eloquence! By the great horn spoon! as Joshua would have expressed it, if I had a gun and was not deterred by the thought of consequences, I'd leave the wretch as food for the eagles – he'd never be missed. Just about the time I had him fairly killed and his body comfortably rolled over a precipice where it would never be discovered, he came to the first turn. The mules were on a dead run, and what did that – blessed driver do? He just let that silk out again, gave a yell like a Comanche and whirled round that bend without so much as allowing the wheels to slide a quarter of an inch, and away he went, down the short, straight stretch as though he had been paid to go somewhere in a hurry. When he made the next turn I leaned over and said quietly: "Let me see that half-dollar I gave you; perhaps it is plugged."