The White Desert.

by Courtney Ryley Cooper.

CHAPTER I

It was early afternoon. Near by, the smaller hills shimmered in the radiant warmth of late spring, the brownness of their foliage and boulders merging gradually upward to the green of the spruces and pines of the higher mountains, which in turn gave way before the somber blacks and whites of the main range, where yet the snow lingered from the clutch of winter, where the streams ran brown with the down-flow of the continental divide, where every cl.u.s.ter of mountain foliage sheltered a mound of white, in jealous conflict with the sun. The mountains are tenacious of their vicious traits; they cling to the snow and cold and ice long after the seasons have denoted a time of warmth and summer's splendor; the columbine often blooms beside a ten-foot drift.

But down in the hollow which shielded the scrambling little town of Dominion, the air was warm and lazy with the friendliness of May. Far off, along the course of the tumbling stream, turbulently striving to care for far more than its share of the melt-water of the hills, a jaybird called raucously as though in an effort to drown the sweeter, softer notes of a robin nesting in the new-green of a quaking aspen.

At the hitching post before the one tiny store, an old horse nodded and blinked,--as did the sprawled figure beside the ramshackle motor-filling station, just opened after the snow-bound months of winter. Then five minutes of absolute peace ensued, except for the buzzing of an investigative bottle-fly before the figure shuffled, stretched, and raising his head, looked down the road. From the distance had come the whirring sound of a motor, the forerunner of a possible customer. In the hills, an automobile speaks before it is seen.

Long moments of throbbing echoes; then the car appeared, a mile or so down the canon, twisting along the rocky walls which rose sheer from the road, threading the innumerable bridges which spanned the little stream, at last to break forth into the open country and roar on toward Dominion. The drowsy gasoline tender rose. A moment more and a long, sleek, yellow racer had come to a stop beside the gas tank, chortled with greater reverberation than ever as the throttle was thrown open, then wheezed into silence with the cutting off of the ignition. A young man rose from his almost flat position in the low-slung driver's seat and crawling over the side, stretched himself, meanwhile staring upward toward the glaring white of Mount Taluchen, the highest peak of the continental backbone, frowning in the coldness of snows that never departed. The villager moved closer.

"Gas?"

"Yep." The young man stretched again. "Fill up the tank--and better give me half a gallon of oil."

Then he turned away once more, to stare again at the great, tumbled stretches of granite, the long s.p.a.ces of green-black pines, showing in the distance like so many upright fronds of some strange, mossy fern; at the blank s.p.a.ces, where cold stone and shifting shale had made jagged marks of bareness in the ma.s.ses of evergreen, then on to the last gnarled bulwarks of foliage, struggling bravely, almost desperately, to hold on to life where life was impossible, the dividing line, as sharp as a knife-thrust, between the region where trees may grow and snows may hide beneath their protecting boughs and the desolate, barren, rocky, forbidding waste of "timber line."

Young he was, almost boyish; yet counterbalancing this was a seriousness of expression that almost approached somberness as he stood waiting until his machine should be made ready for the continuance of his journey. The eyes were dark and l.u.s.trous with something that closely approached sorrow, the lips had a tightness about them which gave evidence of the pressure of suffering, all forming an expression which seemed to come upon him unaware, a hidden thing ever waiting for the chance to rise uppermost and a.s.sume command. But in a flash it was gone, and boyish again, he had turned, laughing, to survey the gas tender.

"Did you speak?" he asked, the dark eyes twinkling. The villager was in front of the machine, staring at the plate of the radiator and scratching his head.

"I was just sayin' I never seed that kind o' car before. Barry Houston, huh? Must be a new make. I--"

"Camouflage," laughed the young man again. "That's my name."

"Oh, is it?" and the villager chuckled with him. "It sh.o.r.e had me guessin' fer a minute. You've got th' plate right where th' name o' a car is plastered usually, and it plum fooled me. That's your name, huh? Live hereabouts--?"

The owner of the name did not answer. The thought suddenly had come to him that once out of the village, that plate must be removed and tossed to the bottom of the nearest stream. His mission, for a time at least, would require secrecy. But the villager had repeated his question:

"Don't belong around here?"

"I? No, I'm--" then he hesitated.

"Thought maybe you did. Seein' you've got a Colorado license on."

Houston parried, with a smile.

"Well, this isn't all of Colorado, you know."

"Guess that's right. Only it seems in th' summer thet it's most o' it, th' way th' machines pile through, goin' over th' Pa.s.s. Where you headed for?"

"The same place."

"Over Hazard?" The villager squinted. "Over Hazard Pa.s.s? Ain't daft, are you?"

"I hope not. Why?"

"Ever made it before?"

"No."

"And you're tacklin' it for the first time at this season o' th' year?"

"Yes. Why not? It's May, isn't it?"

The villager moved closer, as though to gain a better sight of Barry Houston's features. He surveyed him carefully, from the tight-drawn reversed cap with the motor goggles resting above the young, smooth forehead, to the quiet elegance of the outing clothing and well-shod feet. He spat, reflectively, and drew the back of a hand across tobacco-stained lips.

"And you say you live in Colorado."

"I didn't say--"

"Well, it don't make no difference whether you did or not. I know--you don't. n.o.body thet lives out here'd try to make Hazard Pa.s.s for th'

first time in th' middle o' May."

"I don't see--"

"Look up there." The old man pointed to the splotches of white, thousands of feet above, the swirling clouds which drifted from the icy breast of Mount Taluchen, the mists and fogs which caressed the precipices and rolled through the valleys created by the lesser peaks.

"It may be spring down here, boy, but it's January up there. They's only been two cars over Hazard since November and they come through last week. Both of 'em was old stagers; they've been crossin' th'

range for th' last ten year. Both of 'em came through here lookin'

like icicles 'an' swearing t' beat four o' a kind. They's mountains an' mountains, kid. Them up there's th' professional kind."

A slight, puzzled frown crossed the face of Barry Houston.

"But how am I going to get to the other side of the range? I'm going to Tabernacle."

"They's a train runs from Denver, over Crestline. Look up there--jest to the right of Mount Taluchen. See that there little puff o' smoke?

That's it."

"But that'd mean--."

"For you t' turn around, go back to Denver, leave that there chariot o'

your'n in some garage and take the train to-morrow mornin'. It'd get you t' Tabernacle some time in the afternoon."

"When would I get there--if I could make the Pa.s.s all right?"

"In about five hours. It's only fourteen mile from th' top. But--"

"And you say two other cars have gone through?"

"Yep. But they knowed every crook an' turn!"

For a long moment, the young man made no reply. His eyes were again on the hills and gleaming with a sudden fascination. From far above, they seemed to call to him, to taunt him with their imperiousness, to challenge him and the low-slung high-powered car to the combat of gravitation and the elements. The bleak walls of granite appeared to glower at him, as though daring him to attempt their conquest; the smooth stretches of pines were alluring things, promising peace and quiet and contentment,--will-o-the-wisps, which spoke only their beauty, and which said nothing of the long stretches of gravelly mire and puddles, resultant from the slowly melting snows. The swirling clouds, the mists, the drifting fogs all appeared to await him, like the gathered hosts of some mighty army, suddenly peaceful until the call of combat. A thrill shot through Barry Houston. His life had been that of the smooth s.p.a.ces, of the easy ascent of well-paved grades, of streets and comforts and of luxuries. The very raggedness of the thing before him lured him and drew him on. He turned, he smiled, with a quiet, determined expression of antic.i.p.ation, yet of grimness.

"They've got me," came quietly. "I'm--I'm going to make the try!"

The villager grunted. His lips parted as though to issue a final warning. Then, with a disgruntled shake of the head, he turned away.