The White Desert. Courtney Ryley Cooper
valleys, the deeper tones of coloring, the vagueness of the distance which comes with the end of day.
Anxiously he studied his speedometer as the road stretched out for a space of a few hundred feet for safety. Five miles—only five miles in a space of time that on level country could have accounted for a hundred. Five miles and the route book told plainly that there were four more to go before the summit was reached. Anxiously—with a sudden hope—he watched the instrument, with the thought that perhaps it had broken, but the slow progress of the mile-tenths took away that possibility. He veered his gaze along the dashboard, suddenly to center it upon the oil gauge. His jaw sagged. He pressed harder upon the accelerator in a vain effort. But the gauge showed no indication that the change of speed had been felt.
"The oil pump!" came with a half gasp. "It's broken—I'll have to—"
The sentence was not finished. A sudden, clattering roar had come from beneath the hood, a clanking jangle which told him that his eyes had sought the oil gauge too late—the shattering, agonizing cacophony of a broken connecting rod, the inevitable result of a missing oil supply and its consequent burnt bearing. Hopelessly, dejectedly Barry shut off the engine and pulled to one side of the road—through sheer force of habit. In his heart he knew that there could be no remedy for the clattering remonstrance of the broken rod, that the road was his without question, that it was beyond hope to look for aid up here where all the world was pines and precipices and driven snow, that he must go on, fighting against heavier odds than ever. And as he realized the inevitable, his dull, tired eyes saw from the distance another, a greater enemy creeping toward him over the hills and ice gorges, through the valleys and along the sheer walls of granite. The last, ruddy rim of a dying sun was just disappearing over Mount Taluchen.
CHAPTER II
Hazard Pass had held true to its name. There were yet nearly four miles to go before the summit of nearly twelve thousand feet elevation could be reached and the downward trip of fourteen miles to the nearest settlement made. And that meant—
Houston steadied himself and sought to figure just what it did mean. The sun was gone now, leaving grayness and blackness behind, accentuated by the single strip of gleaming scarlet which flashed across the sky above the brim of Mount Taluchen, the last vestige of daylight. The wind was growing shriller and sharper, as though it had waited only for the sinking of the sun to loose the ferocity which too long had been imprisoned. Darkness came, suddenly, seeming to sweep up from the valleys toward the peaks, and with it more snow. Barry accepted the inevitable. He must go on—and that as swiftly as his crippled machine, the darkness and the twisting, snow-laden, treacherous road would permit.
Once more at the wheel, he snapped on the lights and huddled low, to avail himself of every possible bit of warmth from the clanking, discordant engine. Slowly the journey began, the machine laboring and thundering with its added handicap of a broken rod and the consequent lost power of one cylinder. Literally inch by inch it dragged itself up the heavier grades, puffing and gasping and clanking, the rattling rod threatening at every moment to tear out its very vitals. The heavy smell of burnt oil drifted back to the nostrils of Barry Houston; but there was nothing that he could do but grip the steering wheel a bit tighter with his numbed hands—and go on.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the indicator of the speedometer measured off a mile in dragging decimals. The engine boiled and Barry stopped, once more to huddle against the radiator, and to avail himself of its warmth, but not to renew the water. No stream was near; besides, the cold blast of the wind, shrilling through the open hood, accomplished the purpose more easily. Again a sally and again a stop. And Barry was thankful, as, huddled and shivering in his light clothing, he once more sought the radiator. Vaguely there came to him the thought that he might spend the night somewhere on the Pass and go on with the flush of morning. But the thought vanished as quickly as it came; there was no shelter, no blankets, nothing but the meager warmth of what fire he might be able to gather, and that would fade the minute he nodded. Already the temperature had sunk far beneath the freezing point; the crackling of the ice in the gulleys of the road fairly shouted the fact as he edged back once more from the radiator to his seat.
An hour—and three more after that—with the consequent stops and pauses, the slow turns, the dragging process up the steeper inclines of the road. A last final, clattering journey, and Barry leaped from the seat with something akin to enthusiasm.
Through the swirling snow which sifted past the glare of his headlights, he could discern a sign which told him he had reached the summit, that he now stood at the literal top of the world.
But it was a silent world, a black world, in which the hills about him were shapeless, dim hulks, where the wind whined, where the snow swept against his face and drifted down the open space of his collar; a world of coldness, of malice, of icy venom, where everything was a threatening thing, and never a cheering aspect except the fact that the grades had been accomplished, and that from now on he could progress with the knowledge that his engine at least need labor no longer. But the dangers! Barry knew that they had only begun. The descent would be as steep as the climb he had just made. The progress must be slower, if anything, and with the compression working as a brake. But it was at least progress, and once more he started.
The engine clanked less now, the air seemed a bit warmer with the down grade, and Barry, in spite of his fatigue, in spite of the disappointment of a disabled car, felt at least the joy of having conquered the thing which had sought to hold him back, the happiness of having fought against obstacles, of having beaten them, and of knowing that he now was on the down trail. The grade lessened for a few hundred feet, and the machine slowed. Houston pressed on the clutch pedal, allowing the car to coast slowly until the hill became steeper again. Then he sought once more to shift into gear—and stopped short!
Those few moments of coasting had been enough. Overheated, distended, the bearings had cooled too suddenly about the crank shaft and frozen there with a tightness that neither the grinding pull of the starter nor the heavy tug of the down grade could loosen. Once more Barry Houston felt his heart sink in the realization of a newer, a greater foreboding than ever. A frozen crank shaft meant that from now on the gears would be useless. Fourteen miles of down grade faced him. If he were to make them, it must be done with the aid of brakes alone. That was dangerous!
He cupped his hands and called—in the vain hope that the stories of Hazard Pass and its loneliness might not be true, after all. But the only answer was the churning of the bank-full stream a hundred yards away, the thunder of the wind through the pines below, and the eerie echo of his own voice coming back to him through the snows. Laboriously he left the machine and climbed back to the summit, there to seek out the little tent house he had seen far at one side and which he instinctively knew to be the rest room and refreshment stand of the summer season. But he found it, as he had feared he would find it, a deserted, cold, napping thing, without a human, without a single comfort, or the possibility of fire or warmth through the night. Summer, for Hazard Pass, at least, still was a full month away. For a moment he shivered within it, staring about its bleak interior by the aid of a flickering match. Then he went outside again. It was only a shell, only a hope that could not be realized. It would be less of a hardship to make the fight to reach the bottom of the Pass than to attempt to spend the night in this flimsy contraption. In travel there would be at least action, and Barry clambered down the hill to his machine.
Again he started, the brake bands squeaking and protesting, the machine sloughing dangerously as now and again its sheer weight forced it forward at dangerous speeds until lesser levels could be reached and the hold of the brake bands accomplish their purpose again. Down and down, the miles slipping away with far greater speed than even Barry realized, until at last—
He grasped desperately for the emergency brake and gripped tight upon it, steering with one hand. For five minutes there had come the strong odor of burning rubber; the strain had been too great, the foot-brake linings were gone; everything depended upon the emergency now! And almost with the first strain—
Careening,