The White Desert. Courtney Ryley Cooper
and he could see that his motor had not been at fault. Now the road, to his suddenly comprehending eyes, rose before him in a long, steady sweep of difficult grades, upward, steadily upward, with never a varying downfall, with never a rest for the motor which must climb it. And this was just the beginning! For Barry could see beyond.
Far in the distance he could make it out, a twisting, turning, almost writhing thing, cutting into the side of the mountain, a jagged scar, searing its way up the range in flights that seemed at times to run almost perpendicular and which faded, only to reappear again, like the trail of some gigantic cut-worm, mark above mark, as it circled the smaller hills, cut into the higher ones, was lost at the edge of some great beetling rock, only to reappear once more, hundreds of feet overhead. The eyes of Barry Houston grew suddenly serious. He reached into the toolbox, and bringing forth the jack, affixed the chains, forgetting his usually cheery whistle, forgetting even to take notice when an investigative jay scrambled out upon a dead aspen branch and chattered at him. The true meaning of the villager's words had come at last. The mountains were frowning now, instead of beckoning, glowering instead of promising, threatening instead of luring. One by one he locked the chains into place, and tossing the jack once more into the tool-box, resumed his place at the wheel.
"A six per cent. grade if it's an inch!" he murmured. "And this is only the beginning. Wonder what I'm stepping into?"
The answer came almost before the machine had warmed into action. Once more the engine labored; nor was it until Barry had answered its gasping plea by a shift to second gear that it strengthened again. The grade was growing heavier; once Barry turned his head and stared with the knowledge that far beneath him a few tiny buildings dotted what seemed to be a space of ground as level as a floor. Dominion! And he had barely passed outside its environs!
He settled more firmly in his seat and gripped hard at the steering wheel. The turns had become shorter; more, Barry found himself righting the machine with sudden jerks as the car rounded the short curves where the front wheels seemed to hang momentarily above oblivion, as the chasms stretched away to seemingly bottomless depths beneath. Gradually, the severity of the grade had increased to ten, to twelve and in short pitches to even eighteen and twenty per cent! For a time the machine sang along in second, bucking the raises with almost human persistence, finally, however, to gasp and break in the smooth monotony of the exhaust, to miss, to strain and struggle vainly, then to thunder on once more, as Houston pressed the gears into low and began to watch the motormeter with anxious eyes. The mercury was rising; another half-hour and the swish of steam told of a boiling radiator.
A stop, while the red, hissing water splattered from the radiator cock, and the lifted hood gave the machine a chance to cool before replenishment came from the murky, discolored stream of melted snow water which churned beneath a sapling bridge. Panting and light-headed from the altitude, Barry leaned against the machine for a moment, then suddenly straightened to draw his coat tighter about him and to raise the collar about his neck. The wind, whistling down from above, was cold: something touched his face and melted there—snow!
The engine was cool now. Barry leaped to the wheel and once more began his struggle upward, a new seriousness upon him, a new grimness apparent in the tightness of his lips. The tiny rivulets of the road had given place to gushing streams; here and there a patch of snow appeared in the highway; farther above, Barry could see that the white was unbroken, save for the half-erased marks of the two cars which had made the journey before him. The motor, like some refreshed animal, roared with a new power and new energy, vibrant, confident, but the spirit was not echoed by the man at the wheel. He was in the midst of a fight that was new to him, a struggle against one of the mightiest things that Nature can know, the backbone of the Rocky Mountains—a backbone which leered above him in threatening, vicious coldness, which nowhere held surcease; it must be a battle to the end!
Up—up—up—the grades growing steadily heavier, the shifting clouds enveloping him and causing him to stop at intervals and wait in shivering impatience until they should clear and allow him once more to continue the struggle. Grayness and sunshine flitted about him; one moment his head was bowed against the sweep of a snow flurry, driving straight against him from the higher peaks, the next the brilliance of mountain sunshine radiated about him, cheering him, exhilarating him, only to give way to the dimness of damp, drifting mists, which closed in upon him like some great, gray garment of distress and held him in its gloomy clutch until the grade should carry him above it and into the sun or snow again.
Higher! The machine was roaring like a desperate, cornered thing now; its crawling pace slackening with the steeper inclines, gaining with the lesser raises, then settling once more to the lagging pace as steepness followed steepness, or the abruptness of the curve caused the great, slow-moving vehicle to lose the momentum gained after hundreds of feet of struggle. Again the engine boiled, and Barry stood beside it in shivering gratitude for its warmth. The hills about him were white now; the pines had lost their greenness to become black silhouettes against the blank, colorless background Barry Houston had left May and warmth and springtime behind, to give way to the clutch of winter and the white desert of altitude.
But withal it was beautiful. Cold, harassed by dangers that he never before knew could exist, disheartened by the even more precipitous trail which lay ahead, fighting a battle for which he was unfitted by experience, Houston could not help but feel repaid for it all as he flattened his back against the hot radiator and, comforted by the warmth, looked about him. The world was his—his to look upon, to dissect, to survey with the all-seeing eyes of tremendous heights, to view in the perspective of the eagle and the hawk, to look down upon from the pinnacles and see, even as a god might see it. Far below lay a tiny, discolored ribbon—the road which he had traversed, but now only a scratch upon the expanse of the great country which tumbled away beneath him. Hills had become hummocks, towering pines but blades of grass, streams only a variegated line in the vast display of Nature's artistry. And above—
Barry Houston looked upon it with dazzled eyes. The sun had broken forth again, to stream upon the great, rounded head of Mount Taluchen, and there to turn the serried snows to a mass of shell-pink pearl, to smooth away the glaring whiteness and paint instead a down-like coverlet of beauty. Here and there the great granite precipices stood forth in old rose and royal purple; farther the shadows melted into mantles, not of black, but of softest lavender; mound upon mound of color swung before him as he glanced from peak to peak—the colors that only an artist knows, tintings instead of solid grounds, suggestions rather than actualities. Even the gnarled pines of timber line, where the world of vegetation was sliced off short to give way to the barrenness of the white desert, seemed softened and freed from their appearance of constant suffering in the pursuit of life. A lake gleamed, set, it seemed, at an upright angle upon the very side of a mountain; an ice gorge glistened with the scintillation of a million jewels, a cloud rolled through a great crevice like the billowing of some soft-colored crepe and then—
Barry crouched and shivered, then turned with sudden activity. It all had faded, faded in the blast of a shrilling wind, bringing upon its breast the cutting assault of sleet and the softer, yet no less vicious swirl of snow. Quickly the radiator was drained and refilled. Once more, huddled in the driver's seat, Barry Houston gripped the wheel and felt the crunching of the chain-clad wheels in the snow of the roadway. The mountains had lured again, only that they might clutch him in a tighter embrace of danger than ever. Now the snow was whirling about him in almost blinding swiftness; the small windshield counted for nothing; it was only by leaning far outside the car that he could see to drive and then there were moments that seemed to presage the end.
Chasms lurked at the corners, the car skidded and lurched from one side of the narrow roadway to the other; once the embankment crumbled for an instant as a rear wheel raced for a foothold and gained it just in time. Thundering below, Barry could hear the descent of the dirt and small boulders as they struck against protruding rocks and echoed forth to a constantly growing sound that seemed to travel for miles that it might return with the strength of thunder. Then for a moment the sun came again and he stared toward it with set, anxious eyes. It no longer was dazzling; it was large and yellow and free from glare. He swerved his gaze swiftly to the dashboard clock, then back to the sun again. Four o'clock! Yet the great yellow ball was hovering on the brim of Mount Taluchen; dusk was coming. A frightened glance