I was rambling alone on snowshoes, doing some winter observations in the alpine heights of the Sangre de Cristo range. It was miles to the nearest house. There was but little snow upon the mountains, and, for winter, the day was warm. I was thirsty, and a spring which burst forth among the fragments of petrified wood was more inviting than the water-bottle in my pocket. The water was cool and clear, tasteless and, to all appearances, pure.
As I rose from drinking, a deadly, all-gone feeling overcame me. After a few seconds of this, a violent and prolonged nausea came on. Evidently I had discovered a mineral spring! Perhaps it was arsenic, perhaps some other poison. Poison of some kind it must have been, and poisonous mineral springs are not unknown.
The sickness was very like seasickness, with a severe internal pain and a mental stimulus[Pg 110] added. After a few minutes I partly recovered from these effects and set off sadly for the nearest house of which I had heard. This was eight or ten miles distant and I hoped to find it through the guidance of a crude map which a prospector had prepared for me. I had not before explored this mountainous section.
SIERRA BLANCA IN WINTER SIERRA BLANCA IN WINTER
The gulches and ridges which descended the slope at right angles to my course gave me a rough sea which kept me stirred up. I advanced in tottering installments; a slow, short advance would be made on wobbly legs, then a heave-to, as pay for the advance gained.
Now and then there was smoothness, and I took an occasional look at severe Sierra Blanca now looming big before me. It was mostly bare and brown with a number of icy plates and ornaments shining in the sun.
At last in the evening light, from the top of a gigantic moraine, I looked down upon the river and a log ranch-house nestling in a grassy open bordered with clumps of spruces. An old lady and gentleman with real sympathy in their faces stood in the doorway and for a moment [Pg 111] watched me, then hastened to help me from the pole fence to the door.
While giving them an incoherent account of my experience, I fell into a stupor, and although I had evidently much to say concerning drinking and apparently showed symptoms of too much drink, these old people did not think me drunk. Waking from a fantastic dream I heard, "Does he need any more sage tea?" The Western pioneers have faith in sage tea and many ascribe to it all the life-saving, life-extending qualities usually claimed for patent medicines. The following morning I was able to walk about, while my slightly bloated, bronzed face did not appear so badly. Altogether, I looked much better than I felt.
These good old people declared that they had not seen better days, but that they were living the simple life from choice. They loved the peace of this isolated mountain home and the companionship of the grand old peak. In the Central States the wife had been a professor in a State school, while the husband had been a State\'s Attorney.[Pg 112]
The nearest neighbor was four miles downstream, and no one lived farther up the mountain. The nearest railroad station was seventy rough mountain-road miles away. It appeared best to hasten to Denver, but two days in a jarring wagon to reach the railroad seemed more than I could endure. I had not planned even to try for the top of Colorado\'s highest peak in midwinter, but the way across Sierra Blanca was shorter and probably much easier than the way around. Across the range, directly over the shoulder of Sierra Blanca, lay historic Fort Garland. It was only thirty miles away, and I determined to cross the range and reach it in time for the midnight train. On hearing this resolution the old people were at first astonished, but after a moment they felt that they at last knew who I was.
"You must be the Snow Man! Surely no one but he would try to do this in winter."
They, with scores of other upland-dwellers, had heard numerous and wild accounts of my lone, unarmed camping-trips and winter adventures in the mountain snows.[Pg 113]
The misgivings of the old gentleman concerning the wisdom of my move grew stronger when he perceived how weak I was, as we proceeded on mule-back up the slope of Sierra Blanca. The ice blocked us at timber-line, and in his parting handclasp I felt the hope and fear of a father who sees his son go away into the world. He appeared to realize that I was not only weak, but that at any moment I might collapse. He knew the heights were steep and stern, and that in the twenty-odd miles to Fort Garland there was neither house nor human being to help me. Apparently he hoped that at the last moment I would change my mind and turn back.
Up the northern side of the peak I made my way. Now and then it was necessary to cut a few steps in the ice-plated steeps. The shoulder of the peak across which I was to go was thirteen thousand feet above the sea, and in making the last climb to this it was necessary to choose between a precipitous ice-covered slope and an extremely steep rock-slide,—more correctly a rock glacier. I picked my way up this with the greatest caution. To start a rock avalanche[Pg 114] would be easy, for the loose rocks lay insecure on a slope of perilous steepness. From time to time in resting I heard the entire mass settling, snarling, and grinding its way with glacier slowness down the steep.
Just beneath the shoulder the tilting steepness of this rocky débris showed all too well that the slightest provocation would set a grinding whirlpool of a stone river madly flowing. The expected at last happened when a boulder upon which I lightly leaped settled and then gave way. The rocks before made haste to get out of the way, while those behind began readjusting themselves. The liveliest of foot-work kept me on top of the now settling, hesitating, and inclined-to-roll boulder. There was nothing substantial upon which to leap.
Slowly the heavy boulder settled forward with a roll, now right, now left, with me on top trying to avoid being tumbled into the grinding mill hopper below. At last, on the left, a sliding mass of crushed, macadamized rock offered a possible means of escape. Not daring to risk thrusting a leg into this uncertain mass, I al[Pg 115]lowed myself to fall easily backwards until my body was almost horizontal, and then face upwards I threw myself off the boulder with all my strength. The rock gave a great plunge, and went bounding down the slope, sending the smaller stuff flying before at each contact with the earth.
Though completely relaxed, and with the snowshoes on my back acting as a buffer, the landing was something of a jolt. For a few seconds I lay limp and spread out, and drifted slowly along with the slow-sliding mass of macadam. When this came to rest, I rose up and with the greatest concern for my foundation, made my way upwards, and at last lay down to breathe and rest upon the solid granite shoulder of Sierra Blanca.
In ten hours the midnight train would be due in Fort Garland, and as the way was all downgrade, I hoped that my strength would hold out till I caught it. But, turning my eyes from the descent to the summit, I forgot the world below, and also my poison-weakened body. Suddenly I felt and knew only the charm and[Pg 116] the call of the summit. There are times when Nature completely commands her citizens. A splendid landscape, sunset clouds, or a rainbow on a near-by mountain\'s slope,—by these one may be as completely charmed and made as completely captive as were those who heard the music of Orpheus\' lyre. My youthful dream had been to scale peak after peak, and from the earthly spires to see the scenic world far below and far away. All this had come true, though of many trips into the sky and cloudland, none had been up to the bold heights of Blanca. Thinking that the poisoned water might take me from the list of those who seek good tidings in the heights, I suddenly determined to reach those wintry wonder-heights while yet I had the strength. I rose from relaxation, laid down my snowshoes, and started for the summit.
Blanca is a mountain with an enormous amount of material in it,—enough for a score of sizable peaks. Its battered head is nearly two thousand feet above its rugged shoulder. The sun sank slowly as I moved along a rocky skyline ridge and at last gained the summit.[Pg 117]
Beyond an infinite ocean of low, broken peaks, sank the sun. It was a wonderful sunset effect in that mountain-dotted, mountain-walled plain, the San Luis Valley. Mist-wreathed peaks rose from the plain, one side glowing in burning gold, the other bannered with black shadows. The low, ragged clouds dragged slanting shadows across the golden pale. A million slender silver threads were flung out in a measureless horizontal fan from the far-away sun. The sunset from the summit of Sierra Blanca was the grandest that I have ever seen. The prismatic brilliancy played on peak and cloud, then changed into purple, fading into misty gray, while the light of this strong mountain day slowly vanished in the infinite silence of a perfect mountain night.
Then came the serious business of getting down and off the rough slope and out of the inky woods before darkness took complete possession. After intense vigilance and effort for two hours, I emerged from the forest-robed slope and started across the easy, sloping plain beneath a million stars.[Pg 118]
The night was mild and still. Slowly, across the wide brown way, I made my course, guided by a low star that hung above Fort Garland. My strength ran low, and, in order to sustain it, I moved slowly, lying down and relaxing every few minutes. My mind was clear and strangely active. With pleasure I recalled in order the experiences of the day and the wonderful sunset with which it came triumphantly to a close. As I followed a straight line across the cactus-padded plains, I could not help wondering whether the Denver physicians would tell me that going up to see the sunset was a serious blunder, or a poison-eliminating triumph. However, the possibility of dying was a thought that never came.
At eleven o\'clock, when instinctively and positively I felt that I had traveled far enough, I paused; but from Fort Garland neither sound nor light came to greet me in the silent, mysterious night. I might pass close to the low, dull adobes of this station without realizing its presence. So confident was I that I had gone far enough that I commenced a series of constantly[Pg 119] enlarging semicircles, trying to locate in the darkness the hidden fort. In the midst of these, a coyote challenged, and a dog answered. I hastened toward the dog and came upon a single low adobe full of Mexicans who could not understand me. However, their soft accents awakened vivid memories in my mind, and distinctly my strangely stimulated brain took me back through fifteen years to the seedling orange groves in the land of to-morrow where I had lingered and learned to speak their tongue. An offer of five dollars for transportation to Fort Garland in time for the midnight train sent Mexicans flying in all directions as though I had hurled a bomb.
Two boys with an ancient, wobbling horse and buckboard landed me at the platform as the headlight-glare of my train swept across it. The big, good-natured conductor greeted me with "Here\'s the Snow Man again,—worse starved than ever!"