CHAPTER XXI

The Pack Train Has to Toboggan Into Hunt’s Cove, and Bennie Puts “Action” Into It

The next morning Bennie expected to be sore and stiff, but somehow he wasn’t. He felt fine. The day began at sun-up with a plunge in the lake, and then an early start, because the horses hadn’t had enough to eat, and Norman wanted to get to pasturage. It was a wonderful day for Spider. They were now on the western side of the Cascade Divide, the side on which the rain and snow falls all winter, so that the woods, instead of being dry, were as rich and dark and damp as an Adirondack forest. The yellow pines had vanished, but in their place were great cedars, and stands of Douglas fir trees bigger even than those on the way to Crater Lake. About the middle of the morning they picked their way down a steep, broken, rocky trail into a cañon, and at the bottom they rode for a long way through a forest of fir trees so big that when anybody rode around one, both horse and rider vanished from sight! These trees rose 150 feet without a limb, straight as masts, and they were over 200 feet tall.

“Some shrubs!” cried Bennie. “My neck’s nearly broken trying to see the tops of ’em.”

“How’d you like to shin up one, Bennie?” Mr. Stone called.

“I’d rather shin up it than saw it into wood for the stove,” Bennie answered.

“Who owns these trees?” asked Spider.

“Your Uncle Sam,” Norman called back.

“I’m glad of that. I hope they’re never cut down. I wish everybody in America could see them, and know what trees are!”

“A lot of people in America would think they were dead before they could get here,” Uncle Billy laughed. “We are some ways from civilization, Spider.”

At noon they came to a natural meadow, and pastured the horses for two hours, while they themselves ate lunch. Then they pushed on. Late in the afternoon, when the boys were getting saddle sore and weary again, and everybody was hot and sweaty, Norman suddenly turned up the side of the cañon, by a dim trail through the bushes (there were few trees on this slope, due to an old fire). The trail was very steep, the horses sweated and panted, the pack horses had to be tugged and driven. For an hour they climbed, with frequent rests for breath, until the forests lay below them and the tumbled cañons, and they came into an open pasture near sunset time, a pasture full of glorious red and blue wild flowers and rich grass. They crossed this toward the east, still climbing, and suddenly came up over a crest into a second pasture, which was even fuller of flowers, and was the top of the mountain they had been climbing. But that wasn’t what made them pull up their horses and shout.

What made them do that was what they saw apparently only two or three miles eastward—the great white pyramid of Mount Jefferson, covered with cold, glittering snow, rising up and up against the sky, its summit needle flushed pink with sunset! It was a beautiful sight, but it was a tremendous sight, too. The mountain looked immense, terrific.

Bennie sobered after his first shout.

“Do you mean to say we are going to climb _that_?” he demanded.

“Surely,” his uncle smiled.

Bennie, for once, made no reply whatever.

They went into camp immediately, above a big, fine spring on a slope of the meadow, which is called Minto Pasture. The horses were unsaddled and unloaded, hobbled, and sent out to graze their fill. Tents were strung between some trees on the edge of the big natural clearing. Dry wood was gathered, and supper got under way. They were more than 5,000 feet up here, and the minute the sun set it grew very cold, with a strong, bitter wind blowing down from the snow-draped mountain. There were snow-drifts in the woods beyond the spring. Everybody got into sweaters, and huddled around the boiling coffee-pot. Even Jeff snuggled up close to Bennie—but that might have been because he was hungry and was looking for food.

He got the scrapings from all the dishes, and the last batch of pancakes, which nobody else had room for, and then went bounding off again, barking and wheeling amid the grass and flowers.

“Great dog, that!” Bennie declared.

“Well, here come some cattle. Let’s see how good a dog he is,” Norman grinned, pointing up the pasture.

Sure enough, a herd of cattle, turned out to range wild during the summer, was breaking out of the woods.

“They’ll be around all night, and walk all over camp, and get into the spring, if we don’t chase ’em off,” Norman went on. “Sic your sheep dog on ’em, Bennie.”

Bennie whistled to Jeff, and then pointed to the cattle.

“Sic ’em, Jeff! Drive ’em away!” he said.

Jeff gave a yelp, jumped madly around in a circle—and then ran barking loudly directly toward a bird sitting in a low tree, singing its evening song!

“Yes, that’s a great dog,” remarked Uncle Billy.

“He certainly knows how to herd up cattle,” Norman added.

“Maybe he’s a bird dog, Bennie,” said Spider.

“I know what he is,” Dumplin’ grinned. “He’s a Chickadee hound!”

“Aw, you make me sick,” Bennie retorted. “Just ’cause he’s a pup, and hasn’t been trained yet. Come here, Jeff. Bite ’em!”

Jeff came back, as proudly as if he had herded the cattle instead of scaring one small bird, and once more he had to be put out of the tent, after everybody had got nicely to sleep.

The next morning the thermometer, which the doctor carried in a case with his aneroid barometer, registered only 38° at five o’clock. Everybody was glad to pile out and hustle around striking camp, to get warmed up for breakfast.

“Now, gentlemen, we’ve got our work cut out for us,” said Norman, when they were ready to start. “Everything has been a picnic so far, but now we are going to run into the snow. I don’t know whether we can make Hunt’s Cove or not. It will depend on how good sports you are.”

“If the last two days have been a picnic, I don’t know whether I want to see your idea of working,” said Bennie.

“Afraid?”

“Afraid, your grandmother. But I sure am sorry for poor old Dobbin,” Bennie retorted.

Old Jefferson, which looked so near, wasn’t so near as it looked, of course. Mountains never are. They descended gradually from Minto Pasture, through a “ghost forest” for two or three miles. A ghost forest is a forest which has been burned, without consuming the standing trunks. There the trees stood, thousands of them, but ghostly gray and dead—not a live branch, not a needle. Beyond this forest, they came out on a great plateau three miles wide, which was bare of everything except low bushes, wild flowers, a few snow-drifts and lava heaps, and a tiny brown tarn of water. The fire had done its work thoroughly here.

“Grizzly Flats, they call this,” Norman said. “But I guess it’s been a long time since any grizzlies were seen here.”

“What a fire this must have been!” Spider was saying, when Bennie suddenly cried, “Sh!”

“What is it?”

“Somebody’s following us over the trail on a motorcycle,” he answered. “Don’t you hear?”

It certainly sounded that way. Far off they heard the roaring buzz of an unmuffled engine.

“An aeroplane!” Spider exclaimed.

They halted, listening and watching. A moment later, flying fairly low, the plane came over Minto Mountain behind them, and swept toward Grizzly Flats. As if he saw them, and wanted to tell them so, the aviator swooped a bit over their heads, then rose again, banked against the white wall of Jefferson, and swung off to the north.

“_What_ is he doing here?” the boys exclaimed.

“It’s one of the new aeroplane forest patrol,” Norman said. “They go out every day now, in the dry season, to spot fires. We haven’t had a bad fire—not one of the old-fashioned big blazes, since they started in. They can get up and see into all the cañons, everywhere, every day, and get back with the tip in no time.”

“But what would they do if they had to land?” asked Spider.

“I guess it’s up to them not to have to land,” Norman answered. “I don’t want the job—but it’s a great work, just the same.”

“Well, I’ll say war isn’t the only risky thing,” put in Bennie. “That guy ought to have a medal for flying over this country every day.”

The plane had disappeared. They pushed on, and soon found themselves at the edge of Grizzly Flats. Right below them the land dropped at an angle of fifty or sixty degrees for a thousand feet, into a deep hole. Directly across this hole it went up again, and up and up and up, for the other side was Mount Jefferson. They were only a mile from the wall of the mountain, but for all they could see, they might as well have been a hundred miles. It looked quite impossible to take horses down that slope. To the right and left were dense woods which the fire hadn’t burned, and these woods were full of snow. The hole below them, called Hunt’s Cove, was carpeted with snow. The great pyramid of Jefferson opposite them was blinding white with snow.

“You wait here,” said Norman, “while I prospect.”

He went off to the south, into the woods, and they saw his horse climbing up over the drifts. Uncle Billy got out his field-glasses, lay on his stomach with his elbows firmly on the ground at the rim of the precipice, and began a long, careful study of the slopes of Mount Jefferson. He was very grave about it, and didn’t say a word, except now and then in a low voice to Dumplin’s father. The three boys wandered along the rim, wondering how Norman was going to find a way down. They couldn’t see any trace of a trail. Wherever the slope was enough off the perpendicular to hold a trail, it was covered with snow.

Norman didn’t return for nearly an hour. When he finally came back, he said, “Well, I think I’ve found a way, if you care to risk it. I’ll risk the horses.”

“As bad as that, eh?” the doctor replied. “Well, if you’ll try it, we will. I think I’ve found a way up the mountain, too, though I don’t like the looks of certain rock slides down that big west snow-field.”

“But why do we go on the big west snow-field?” the boys asked. “Looks as if we could just go right up the southwest shoulder.”

“Look sharp at the summit pinnacle, Bennie,” the doctor said, handing him the glasses.

Bennie looked. All he said was “Wow!” and passed them to Dumplin’.

“Do we climb _that_?” Dumplin’ demanded.

“We do, if we get to the top of Jefferson,” the doctor answered. “You see, that top peak, or pinnacle, is absolutely straight up and down. It’s just a slab of lava set up on edge and covered with snow and ice. The only place it can possibly be climbed is on the northern end, so we’ve got to get around to the northern end. My plan is to go up from Hunt’s Cove by the southwest spur to the 7,000-foot level, where the permanent snow begins, then traverse the big west snow-field and get up on that first northwest shoulder, which apparently leads us right up to the north end of the pinnacle. It looks possible. Well, Norman, we’re ready.”

Norman led the way southward into the woods at the rim of the Cove. As soon as they were in the deep shadows of the evergreens, they were on snow, and deep snow. Some drifts were still as much as ten feet deep, and so hard that the horses barely sank over their hoofs.

“The trail is somewhere underneath us,” Norman called back.

He traveled for almost a mile above the rim, and then led the way over. By zigzagging through the woods, on the steeply pitched snow, they were able to ride about half the way down. Then he called for them all to dismount.

“Want to get a good motion picture, Mr. Stone?” he asked.

“Sure.”

The big camera was unpacked, and Norman and Mr. Stone disappeared with it, down the steep pitch ahead. Ten minutes later Norman came back.

“Now,” said he, “each man lead his horse. Keep as far away from him as you can, and jump fast, or he’ll step on you. Go in single file, and Joe and Bill you go last and drive the pack horses ahead of you. Come on—follow me.”

They pitched down a few feet through the evergreens, and came to the top of a long, straight, open chute, like a ski run cut in the woods, covered deep with snow, and descending 500 feet to the very bottom of Hunt’s Cove. It was evidently the path of an old landslide. Part way down, at one side, Mr. Stone had set up his camera, and was ready to shoot them as they went past him.

“Ready? Go!” cried Norman, and over the edge he went, dragging his horse.

Bennie followed, and Spider and Dumplin’ and the doctor, and the pack horses, and the rest, in single file. Two jumps, and you were speeding up. Three jumps, and the horses were going ten feet at a plunge, snorting and slipping and sometimes going through the snow to their bellies, and the boys, ahead of them, were leaping from side to side madly to keep out of the way of their iron-shod, plunging hoofs.

As he passed the camera, Bennie heard the crank grinding, and the laughing voice of Mr. Stone crying, “More action, Bennie!”

Bennie was about to make some reply, when his foot slipped, and he turned a superb somersault, and only was stopped from rolling the rest of the way to the bottom because he kept hold of his horse’s bridle.

It was all over in two minutes, but it was certainly lively while it lasted. Then all the horses, their legs wet, shivering and trembling with nervousness, stood huddled at the foot of the chute, and Mr. Stone was seen descending with his camera. Bennie sprang back up the slope to get the tripod.

“Say, that beats skiing!” he cried, “and I sure got some more action for you, Mr. Stone.”

“You did,” the man laughed. “You did! That was the best action picture I ever took.”

They found at the bottom of Hunt’s Cove a small open meadow, boggy now with melted snow and full of white cowslips and running brooks, but full, also, of fresh grass for the horses, and all around the meadow deep forests of fir trees and deep drifts. Among the trees, beside a rushing stream of ice cold water, and in a dry place between drifts, they pitched their tents.

There was no danger of a fire spreading here, with the snow all around, so they built a roaring camp fire between the tents, and while the dinner was being cooked the doctor got from his pack a box of spikes, and they began to fix their shoes for the climb.

Uncle Billy fixed his first, to show them how. As the heavy soles of his boots were already studded thick with sharp hobs, he didn’t have to put in any short spikes. But into each sole, with the help of a key wrench, he screwed eight sharp steel spikes more than an inch long, and four more into each heel.

“I’d hate to be catching when you tried to slide for home,” Bennie said. “Those are wicked looking hoofs!”

“Now make yours just as wicked. And be sure you get the spikes in straight and firm,” his uncle answered. “Everything on this trip so far has been a mere picnic to what we are going to get tomorrow. It’s not only going to be the hardest work you ever did in your life, but the most dangerous. We can’t have anything wrong with our equipment.”

Everybody who didn’t already have plenty of sharp hobs in his boots also screwed in a large number of short steel spikes, in addition to the long ones. Then all the shoes were freshly oiled, to make them as nearly water-proof as possible, and Uncle Billy got out the amber goggles, to see if they were unbroken. He also produced a stick of grease paint.

“What’s that for? Are we going to act in a play?” Dumplin’ asked.

“No, but we are going to paint our faces, just the same. You’ll be glad enough of this stick before the sun sets tomorrow.”

After supper the cook made ready six small packages of lunch, for Norman was going to make the climb, too, and the doctor wound up his alarm clock.

“Bed, boys!” he ordered.

“Oh, no, not yet!”

“Who’s captain here? Bed, I said! We get up at three o’clock sharp tomorrow morning.”

“Say, it’s worse than a bear hunt,” Dumplin’ groaned.

“You’ll think it is, by the time we get back to camp tomorrow night,” the doctor smiled. “I have a hunch that even Bennie is going to get enough exercise, for once.”

“Ho,” said Bennie, “Uncle Billy’s trying to scare us! Can I take Jeff along, Uncle, up his own mountain?”

“It might be a good way to get rid of him,” the doctor answered. “But if you _don’t_ want to get rid of him, I advise you to tie him up in camp.”

“I wonder if Uncle Billy is trying to scare us?” Bennie whispered to Spider as they got ready for bed. “Don’t seem as if the old mountain was so bad as all that.”

Spider was very sober. “I had a good look at it through the glasses yesterday,” he replied. “I don’t mind saying right now that it’s got me scared. Remember those pictures in the book at home?”

“You mean the old Spitzes, and things? Sure!”

“Well, we’re going to get some of that stuff ourselves tomorrow.”

“Hooray!” said Bennie. “The real thing beats a book.”

But he began to think of the pictures as he was going to sleep, pictures of men clinging to precipices with awful depths below them, and in his dreams he was falling, falling, falling——