I am too small for their heavy guns. But
a shelving trail on the verge of a chasm, a slip on an ice-field, a
rolling stone under a horse's foot--these are the weapons I fear above
the timber-line.
Even below there is danger--swamps and rushing rivers, but above all the
forest. In mountain valleys it grows thick on the bodies of dead forests
beneath. It crowds. There is barely room for a tent. And all through the
night the trees protest. They creak and groan and sigh, and sometimes
they burn. In a _cul-de-sac_, with only frowning cliffs about, the
forest becomes ominous, a thing of dreadful beauty. On nights when,
through the crevices of the green roof, there are stars hung in the sky,
the weight lifts. But there are other nights when the trees close in
like ranks of hostile men and take the spirit prisoner.
The peace of the wilderness is not peace. It is waiting.
On the Glacier Park trip, there had been one subject which came up for
discussion night after night round the camp-fire. It resolved itself,
briefly, into this: Should we or should we not get out in time to go
over to the State of Washington and there perform the thrilling feat
which Bob, the Optimist, had in mind?
This was nothing more nor less than the organization of a second
pack-outfit and the crossing of the Cascade Mountains on horseback by a
virgin route.
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