CHAPTER XIV--Up the Divide in a Rain, With a Lost Horse On the Way,

and a Howling Snow-Storm At the Top

Joe was still sleepy when the Ranger shook him by the shoulder.

"Get up," said Mills. "We're in for a rain before night, sure. I want to get as far as we can before it begins. Get breakfast, and put up some stuff handy for lunch, so you can get it without unpacking."

Joe crawled out into a new, strange world. For the first time since he'd been in the Park it was not a clear day. The clouds hung low, way down over the tops and sides of the mountains, gray, dull clouds, with ghostly strings of vapor moving around on the under side. Sperry Glacier was invisible, and the vapors were half-way down the wall where the goats had been. Here, in the deep bowl of Avalanche Basin, with its towering, precipitous sides, the result was that Joe felt exactly as if he were shut in down at the bottom of a huge well, a well with a gray smoke cover over it. Even the bright green water of the little lake, without any sunlight, had turned a dull, chalky green, and looked ominous and unreal, as if you would catch dead fish in it.

"I don't like this--I feel as if I were in a prison," he said to the Ranger, as he kindled his fire.

"You may like it less before we get to Granite Park," Mills answered. "Put your poncho over your saddle to-day--you're going to need it."

Then he woke the camp.

Everybody felt more or less as Joe did, and breakfast was curiously quiet. Even Bob stopped his gay chatter. They got an early start, and were soon down on the main trail beside McDonald Creek, and plugging north through the deep forest of pines, larches and Englemann spruce. It was dull, monotonous work, with no view at all, for when there was an opening in the woods, all they could see was a cliff wall going up into the gray cloud overhead, which shut down over them like a roof. Mile after mile they went, now and then Bob or the girls starting a song, but soon stopping it. The trail was wet and muddy underfoot, and there were some fallen trees to jump. Moreover, the packhorses were, for some reason, particularly badly behaved that day, and Joe and Val nearly lost their tempers a dozen times as they rode into the brush, to head off some packhorse which was trying to get out of line.

When they stopped for lunch, it had already begun to drizzle. Joe made coffee, and passed out the usual collection of food for a Charlie Chaplin sandwich. By the time lunch was eaten, the drizzle had settled down into a misty rain, and the trees had begun to drip. Then everybody realized why they had been carrying around slickers on their saddles. On went these slickers--long, yellow rubber coats such as are worn by the Gloucester fishermen. They fitted the men all right, but poor Lucy and Alice were completely enveloped, with the sleeves coming down over their hands. Joe put his head through the hole in his poncho--and that was all right till he came to mount his horse. Then he discovered that a poncho is decidedly not the thing for horseback riding, for his knees and legs kept coming out from under, on either side, and as the trees and bushes were soon dripping wet, and the rain kept falling, he was speedily soaked almost to the waist. It grew colder, too. But there was nothing to do but plod on, through the wet, miry trail.

However, very soon after lunch, the trail suddenly left the canyon, and headed east right up the side wall, to Swift Current Pass.

"Less than three miles to camp," Mills called back; "and three thousand feet to climb," he added.

"Three thousand feet in less than three miles," Joe reflected. "Let's see, Mount Lafayette in the White Mountains is fifty-two hundred feet high, and the trail starts from the Profile House, which is nineteen hundred feet up. That makes only thirty-three hundred feet, and the trail is five miles long."

Then Joe thought of that trail, which he had climbed only two summers before, and how steep it was, and whistled to himself.

"We're in for it," he thought.

And he was right. Ordinarily, this trail, while it is steep and not well graded or maintained, is easy enough for a Rocky Mountain horse; but now, with the rain pouring down, it was converted into a regular brook in places, and in other places, where the rocks were bare or mossy, it was slippery as ice.

"Everybody off, and take hold of the tails of your horses," Mills finally ordered, after two horses had almost slipped off.

"I can't walk up here! What do you think I hired this horse for?" Mrs. Jones demanded.

"Well, your horse can't walk up here with you on him," the Ranger replied. "I'm not responsible for the weather. You'll have to walk, or break your neck."

And Joe could see he wanted to add--"I don't care which."

Bob and the girls grabbed their horses by the tails, and scrambled up rapidly to the next easy stretch, but their fathers and mothers climbed up more slowly, while Mills drove up the horses. Then Dick, Val and Joe drove up the packhorses, which, of course, couldn't be unloaded, and had a hard time. All of them were up but two, and they were breathing easier, when the next to the last horse, on a slippery ledge, bumped his pack against the upper wall, slipped out toward the edge, pawed madly with his hoofs, got no grip on the skin of wet, slimy moss and mud which covered the rock, and went over backward, with a wild whinny, and staring, frightened eyes.

Fortunately, it was not straight down here, only a very steep slope, and twenty feet below was a thick tangle of scrub pine and tall huckleberry bushes. The poor horse tipped over on his back, turned a complete double somersault, and landed crash against the pines, where he lay struggling to get on his feet again. Joe, Val, Dick and Mills all dashed down to him, and one held his head while the rest got the pack off his back. He got up on his feet, trembling, and the Ranger and Dick felt him all over.

"I guess the pack saved him, at that," Mills said. "He fell on the blankets. Well, boys, haul the stuff up."

They each took part of the load, and carried it to the level above, while the Ranger led up the poor, frightened horse. At the top the party was waiting, huddled in the rain. They were a sorry and comical looking lot, and though Joe's own feet were soaked, and he was wet to the skin below the hips, and he was cold, he certainly wanted to laugh. Water was dripping from the women's hair, Mrs. Jones' face looked blacker than the clouds which hung in the trees just above her, Mrs. Elkins looked as if she was about to cry any minute, Mr. Elkins simply looked wet and cold and mad, and Alice and Lucy, almost buried in their enormous slickers, were trying to sing to keep up their courage. Only Bob was still cheerful. He was eating wet huckleberries--wet and half green.

It was a nasty, wet job getting the pack on again, and Mills sent the party on ahead, with Dick to guide them. But the Granite Park chalet was not far away. They were over the worst of the trail. In another half hour, after crossing a meadow which was now full of running brooks, and climbing up a last steep pitch, Joe suddenly saw the chalet emerge from the heavy cloud, as if a picture of Switzerland in his old school geography had popped out of a fog right over his head. Built partly of stone and partly of rough timber, exactly in the style of a Swiss chalet, this building was about the size of an ordinary house. Joe knew by the map that it was almost up to the top of Swift Current Pass, just below the Great Divide, but you could not have told it now. The clouds were swirling all around, and it was already so cold that the rain was beginning to freeze as fast as it hit, making a thin skin of ice on the rocks.

Unpacking the horses, and getting the packs piled under the shelter of the porch, and then taking the horses to a rough stable near by, was done in a hurry. The three men then dove into the kitchen door, into the warmth of the fire which roared in a red hot stove.

In the big front room there was another stove roaring, and around that the party were already huddled, waiting for their dunnage bags, to get out dry clothes. Joe and Dick brought the bags in, and each one went to a room up-stairs to change. Joe himself had dry underclothes, socks, and a pair of shoes, but he had no extra trousers. He and the cowboys and Mills changed as much as they could in the kitchen, but Joe had to put his wet trousers on again. When Lucy came down, in a skirt and dry shoes, she saw this at once.

"Oh, Joe, you _must_ get some dry trousers," she said. "You mustn't run such a risk."

Joe laughed. "Oh, I'm all right," he said. "Won't hurt me--I've been exercising."

"But you're not exercising now. I'm going to fix you."

She went over and spoke to the manager in charge of the chalet; he nodded, and went into the little room where he slept, emerging with a pair of his own trousers. As he was some six inches larger around the middle than Joe, everybody laughed, and they laughed more when Joe reappeared, with the trousers on.

"Say, Joe, you'll need some supper to fill them!" Bob cried.

"Never mind," said Lucy. "They are dry."

The chalet now smelled of drying clothes and drying leather. Over both stoves hung stockings and trousers and even underclothes, and behind them stood rows of boots. Outside, the wind was howling and shaking the entire house with every gust. It was almost as dark as if it had been evening, though it was only five o'clock, and Bob, peering through the steamed window pane, suddenly cried, "Hi! look quick--snow!" and opened the front door to dash out.

As he lifted the latch, the wind caught the door and blew it wide open, a great gust of snow swirling in, half across the room.

"Say, is this August first or January first?" Mr. Elkins demanded. "I thought we came to a summer resort, not Greenland."

"Our mountains are just showing off for you a bit," Mills smiled, as the young people and Joe, in spite of the gale, went out on the porch to see the snow-storm driving past.

But they were soon driven in, blowing on their fingers, and brushing the snow off their clothes.

"The man who built this old shack right here gets my vote," Bob declared. "Say, ma, how'd you like to be on your prancing steed right now, up on top of the Pass, still seven miles from blighty? Eh, wot?"

"Thanks," said Mrs. Jones. "I prefer it here."

"I know!" Lucy said. "Let's have afternoon tea."

"All those in favor say aye--the ayes have it--it's a vote--Joe, go to it," cried Bob. "That's the way they put a bill through in dad's old Congress--just like that."

Joe got out the tea and the cups, and with Alice and Lucy helping, they soon had hot tea on the table, and a big plate of crackers, and a lot of sweet chocolate Mr. Jones bought at the little counter by the manager's desk.

"Let the wild winds howl; what do we care for your old August blizzards?" said Bob, as he passed his cup to Joe for a second helping.

When tea was over, Joe set about cooking a good, hot dinner, for he had a real stove to work with now, and an oven. He mixed dough for hot biscuit, got out eggs for omelettes, tins of soups, made a batter for griddle cakes, and opened his last can of preserved peaches for dessert.

While he was working, with Val sitting in a corner, telling him stories about broncho busting, there came a sudden stamping of feet on the porch outside, the door opened, and two men, covered with snow, with heavy packs on their backs, almost fell into the kitchen.

Val sprang up and caught one of them as he staggered and was about to tumble. Mills and the manager of the chalet came hurrying in from the front room. Joe jumped to his stove and poured boiling water on some fresh tea leaves.

While the others were getting the two men into chairs, and pulling off their soaked clothes, Joe steeped his tea, and brought each of them a big tin mug full. They swallowed it eagerly, and brightened up. They changed into dry clothes, supplied partly from their own packs and partly from the manager's wardrobe. "You see," the man said, "I keep old clothes here for just such emergencies."

They were from a mid-western city, and had come to Glacier for a vacation. Being fond of walking, and also wanting to do the Park as cheaply as they could, they had decided to hike from point to point. They had already come over Piegan Pass from the south, and stopped last night at the tepee camp at Many Glacier. To-day they had first visited Iceberg Lake, and then, in spite of the threatened rain (it had not rained till long after noon on the east side of the Divide, they said), they had climbed Swift Current Pass, headed for this chalet. They had run into the heavy cloud near the top of the Pass, but did not expect any trouble in finding their way, because the trail is well marked by countless horses. But in the Pass meadow they got the full force of the storm, where the snow hit them, and before they got across, the track was obliterated; the cloud was so dense they could not see fifty feet ahead, and they were almost benumbed with the cold. However, they continued to pick up trail marks here and there, and stumbled down finally till they saw the chalet looming up under the cloud mantle.

"We never expected anything like this, in mid-summer," one of them said, "or, of course, we wouldn't have climbed the Pass to-day."

"You wouldn't get it once in five years," Mills answered,--"but there's always a time, you know. That's why the chalet's here."

The two men were so tired that Joe's party offered to share dinner with them, relieving them of the task of cooking, since the regular cook employed by the chalet had deserted the day before and all guests now had to shift for themselves. It was quite a party that sat down to table, with Val as waiter and Joe turning the omelettes and tossing the griddle cakes on the stove. They ate by the light of a lamp, though up there, ordinarily, at seven o'clock it would have been bright daylight. Outside the wind howled, the snow flew, and the house shook as if hit by a giant fist as each gust struck it

But suddenly, as Joe was dishing out the canned peaches in the kitchen, he heard a cry from Bob.

"Hi, look--it's getting light--oh, gee, folks--come quick!"

When Joe came into the room with what dishes Val could not carry, he found every one up from the table and crowded at the west windows. The lamplight had paled. Into the windows was pouring the last rays of the setting sun, over behind the Livingston Range, the other side of the canyon. These rays came out of a great, blue hole in the wall of clouds, and seemed to stream like a vast search-light along the under side of the cloud wrack overhead. They pierced right through the falling snow, which turned to a dancing, dazzling veil of golden crystals between the windows and the sun. And, against the hole into the west, stood up the snow-crowned pyramid of Trapper's Peak, while, to the south, just emerging from the clouds, its great snow-fields tinged with sunset as with blood and gold, rose the beautiful cone of Heaven's Peak, shining, mysterious, magnificent.

"Dessert--peaches," said Val.

"Go 'way," said Alice. "This is better than any dessert. Oh, I'm going out!"

Peaches were forgotten--everything was forgotten. Every one piled out on the west porch and watched the wonderful display. Now the low sun was shooting a great rainbow up on the under side of the cloud right over the Divide. One end of this rainbow dropped down past the steep cliff of the Divide south of the Pass, known as the Garden Wall, and ended in a patch of snow.

"Hi--Joe, let's go down and get the pot o' gold," Bob called. "I can see just where it is."

"I would, if I had on my own pants," Joe laughed.

As if to finish off the display with a pretty touch, the snow stopped falling, so they could see plainly all the white slopes around the camp, and suddenly a deer bounded out from behind a pine thicket, circled all around below them, and disappeared at last to the north.

The sun dropped, leaving a green and pink hole in the west, enlarging every moment. The clouds were lifting. It was still cold, however, and the wind was howling. The crowd went in reluctantly, blew on their fingers, and finished their dinner.

Some one proposed games after the dinner was cleared away. Some one else proposed a story. But Bob proposed bed, and after some debate, his motion prevailed, chiefly, his father declared, because every one on the opposition side was yawning so that he could not argue.

"Are you all right? You haven't got a cold, have you?" Lucy asked Joe, as she said good-night.

"No, I feel fine," Joe answered.

He did, too, and went to sleep, rolled in his blankets on the kitchen floor, thinking of the girl--or the woman, he hardly knew which to call her--who was so thoughtful and kind.

"This is a pretty good old world, and pretty nice folks in it," was his last reflection, before he dropped asleep, with Dick on one side, and Val on the other, while the wind was still shaking the chalet.