A Mountain Boyhood Part 13

At daybreak we managed to get through Keyhole and made our way to the trough, where we separated, Cooper and Piltz following the trail to the top while I descended the trough toward Glacier Gorge. We had agreed to watch for silent signals, since it was impossible to hear even the loudest calls more than a few feet.

In a little patch of sand not much larger than my hand, I discovered a human footprint, with a dog's track imposed upon it. I wigwagged to my companions, received their answering signal, and went on down the trough, whistling to the dog and shouting his name though I could not hope he would hear me above that gale. I searched beneath every likely slab as I went.

Suddenly the dog appeared atop a huge rock. He howled in answer to my call; the wind blew him off his post and he disappeared. I hastened forward; then paused. What would I find beneath the rock? Resolutely I started to crawl beneath it--and met Miss Broughm coming out. She was cold, her lips were blue and cracked, but she had not given up hopes or lost her courage. With her hair blowing like the frayed remnants of a flag, she stood beside the bowlder and smiled a brave if twisted smile. She was too cold to walk unaided, so as soon as the others came up, we all supported her and started upon the return trip.

We reached the hotel between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning with our lost lady still smiling wanly but rapidly recovering the use of her limbs. She retired for a few hours and reappeared in time for luncheon, little the worse for her night out on top of the world.

A compa.s.s is limited in its usefulness partly because it is sometimes, though rarely, affected by mineral deposits and goes wrong, but mostly because a lost person seldom thinks he is lost and traveling in the wrong direction, but instead doubts the accuracy of the compa.s.s. At most he will admit he is off the trail, but he does not think that is synonymous with being lost. His tracks will record the uncertainty of his mind, wavering, haphazard, indefinite, but he will not admit, even to himself, that he is lost.

There are a few general rules followed by searchers for lost people.

If the proposed destination or general direction in which they disappeared is known, the rescuers take the trail and track them.

Every trail, even across windswept bare rocks high above the timberline, as is the Long's Peak trail, has occasional deposits of soft sand in which footprints may be imprinted. And as I have said before, the area which must be searched is restricted by confining cliffs and ridges. A lost person who cannot find his way back over the trail he has come, shows wisdom in following down a stream which will eventually bring him to habitations in the valley below.

Whether or not searching parties start out at once for the unfortunate climber depends on the character of the country he was bound for. If his goal is the summit of a high, bleak peak like Long's; or a glacier, it is imperative to start at once as the temperature above the timberline is often below freezing, even during the summer months. But if the country is not so menacing, the searchers delay, hoping the lost person, like Bo Peep's sheep, will come home unsought, as indeed he generally does.

Most of the lost are found, but a few persons have vanished never to be seen again. The Reverend Sampson disappeared supposedly somewhere along the Continental Divide between Estes Park and Grand Lake, and though parties made up of guides, rangers and settlers searched for more than a week, they found no trace of the missing man. I was in the town of Walden, North Park, late one fall when a woodsman came down from the mountains west of the Park with some human bones he had found near the top of the Divide. By the marks on its barrel, the rusty rifle lying near the bones was identified as one belonging to a man who had been lost while on a hunting trip thirty years before.

One moonlight night I had an extraordinary and ludicrous experience with a lost person, though at the time it seemed only exasperating. I had stepped outside my cabin to drink in the "moons.h.i.+ne" on my superb outlook. Across the valley, as clearly as in daylight. Long's Peak and its neighbors stood out. The little meadow brook s.h.i.+mmered like a silver ribbon. I walked out to Cabin Rock, a thousand feet above the valley, and sat down. Coyotes yip-yipped their salutations to the sailing moon. The murmur of the little brooks rose to my ears, subdued, distant. I listened for each familiar night sound as one does for the voices of old friends. I sat entranced, intoxicated with the beauty of the hour, refres.h.i.+ng my soul, at peace, content.

A strange cry startled me from my reverie, a human cry, faint, as though far off.

"Help!" Then a pause. "H-e-l-p!" Then more urgently: "H-E-L-P!"

For a few minutes I sat still upon my crag, puzzling. Some one has stumbled into a bear trap, I thought, or been injured in a fall. After marking the locality from which the calls came, I ran down my zigzag trail, and hastened down the valley toward the spot whence the cries had come. Whenever I came to the open, parklike clearings, I stopped to listen. The floor of the wide valley had been burned over scores of years before, and a new growth of lodge-pole pines covered it. These trees were of nearly uniform height, about fifteen feet, and in places too dense to permit of pa.s.sage.

Three miles were covered in record time. Then, thinking that I must be close to the spot from which the calls had come, I climbed an upthrust of rock, searched the openings among the trees near by, and listened intently. I shouted; no reply. For perhaps ten minutes I waited.

Then from far up the valley, close below my cabin, the distressing calls were repeated.

"He's certainly not crippled," I thought. "He's traveled nearly as far as I."

I set off at a run, for I know every little angle of the woods in the vicinity. But when I arrived, breathless and panting, there was no answer to my shouts. I gave up the chase in disgust, and started up the trail toward my cabin. I decided some one was having fun with me.

Midway up the trail to my cabin, I heard the cries again, agonized, fearful. They came from across the valley, toward the west. Heading for the peaks! I must stop him! It certainly sounded serious. I'd have to see it through.

I hurried across the valley, shouting at intervals, stopping to listen and to look for the person in distress. There was no answer, no one in sight. As I reached the steep slope, leading upward to the high peaks, I heard terrified, heart-rending cries, southward, toward the spot from which the first call had come. It was strange, and maddening, that I could hear him so distinctly, yet he could not hear me. He was certainly deaf or very stupid, for he continued calling for help, when help was pursuing him and yelling at the top of its lungs.

Again calls. This time straight south of my position. It was a riddle; annoying, yet interesting. Never in my mountain experience had I encountered such a mystifying situation. However, with grim determination, but little enthusiasm, I turned south. My curiosity was aroused. I wanted to see what sort of fool ran around in dizzy circles yelling for help, yet not waiting for an answer to his supplications, nor acknowledging my answering shouts.

I was in prime condition, and well warmed up with ten miles of travel.

My endurance was too much for the will-o'-the-wisp. As, for the second time, I neared the spot from which he had first called, he shattered the silence with l.u.s.ty appeals, then broke cover within a hundred yards of where I followed, hot on his trail. He looked able-bodied and goodness knows he'd been active, so I withdrew into the shadows of a thicket to watch what he would do.

After his outcry, he kept mumbling to himself--his words were inaudible--lost his voice--don't wonder! Some rooter he'd make at a football game while he lasted! After muttering a minute, he stopped and listened intently, as though expecting an answer. Good heavens!

He thinks he can be heard! He moved on, staggering crazily, stumbling, stopping to look at the s.h.i.+ning peaks; then going on aimlessly.

"Loco," I decided.

I circled ahead of him and concealed myself behind an old stump. I wanted to hear what he was saying. Twice he had crossed the road that ran down the valley, the only road in that vicinity. From Cabin Rock I had seen a tent beside it.

As he came toward me, I stepped from behind the stump.

"What in time ails you?" I roared.

He stared at me and walked completely around me before saying a word.

"Huh," he grunted then. "Where'd you come from?"

I explained with considerable emphasis that I had come from almost every point of the compa.s.s.

"Will you tell me why in Sam Hill you are yelling for help when it's as light as day?" I demanded hotly.

"I'm lost," he said meekly.

"Lost!" I yelled.

He nodded shamefacedly.

"Went fis.h.i.+ng and couldn't find my camp again," he confessed.

I recalled the tent beside the road, I'd seen from Cabin Rock. It was the only camp, on the only road in the vicinity.

"Why in thunder didn't you follow the road?"

"Didn't know which way to go," he defended.

"There's the Peak!" I gibed, pointing upward; "plain as day. Your camp is straight east of it--didn't you know that?"

He winced, but did not answer.

"Couldn't you see the Peak?" I insisted. "You couldn't help but recognize it."

"Yes," he admitted. "I saw the Peak, but I thought it was in the wrong place."

CHAPTER TWELVE

DREAMERS OF GOLDEN DREAMS

What with my hunting, trapping, exploring, cabin-building and guiding, my boyish dreams of striking it rich and sending home trainloads of glittering nuggets to my parents, who had been frustrated by illness in their trek across the plains to the golden mountains of Colorado, began to fade into the background. I was engrossed in getting acquainted with my wild neighbors, in learning their habits and customs, and in trying to photograph them in their natural habitat. Moreover there was no rich gold ore in the vicinity of my cabin. Though I was greatly disappointed in this fact at the time, I have since become reconciled to it. After seeing the naked, desolate, scarred-up country around Central City, Cripple Creek, Ouray and other mining localities, I am thankful that no such madness will ever tempt men to despoil the beauties of the region around Estes Park.

But if there was no paying gold in the vicinity, there were plenty of prospectors. The slopes above the Parson's ranch were "gophered" all over by them. There were miles of outcrop showing and all bore traces of gold. Every summer some wanderer came probing among the countless holes sure he'd find riches where others had failed. The most persistent one was called "Old Mac" who returned repeatedly. Late one fall he took up his quarters in a log cabin belonging to a mining company. The cabin stood near Long's Peak trail, at an alt.i.tude of about ten thousand feet. There they had cached some left-over supplies. Old Mac, forever dreaming, stumbled on to the cache and decided to take up his residence there.

Through October and November I saw Old Mac frequently as he pottered about the mine or picked up ore samples from the dump. He staked half a dozen claims, marked their locations, and dug some new holes to test the mineral. In December, when deep snows came, I left the region.

When I returned in the spring the snow lay deep and undisturbed about the old cabin. Evidently Old Mac had got out before winter set in.

However, I shouted his name, more in the spirit of talking to myself than of expecting a reply. I was surprised to hear a faint reply.

From inside the cabin came a creaking as though some one were getting out of bed. Then the door opened and the old man, blinking owlishly, stood before me. His long white hair was unkempt and tangled. He yawned and stretched like a bear emerging from its winter hibernation.

"Came up to bring them papers?" he asked, expectantly. I recalled then, when I last saw him in December, that he had asked to borrow some Denver papers that contained information about the Reno gold rush. I had forgotten about them. I explained and apologized.