"Yet I can't help thinking about them, Mr. Rhodes. I wish I could accompany you, at least as far as the scene of the tragedies; but I am far from strong. Even to drive a car sometimes taxes my strength. I doubt if I could now make the climb even from the Inn as far as Sluiskin Falls."
A silence fell, to be suddenly broken by Milton.
"Let us regard that as a happy augury," said he, pointing toward the southern windows, through which the sunlight, bright and sparkling, came streaming in: "the gloom and the storm have passed away, and all is bright once more."
"I pray heaven that it prove so!" the other exclaimed.
"For my part, I shall always be glad that you came to me, Mr. Scranton; glad always, even—even," said Milton Rhodes, "if I never come back."
Chapter 10
On the Mountain
It was a few minutes past 3 on the afternoon of the day following when Rhodes and I got into his automobile and started for Rainier. When we arrived at the Park entrance, which we did about half-past 6, the speedometer showed a run of one hundred and two miles.
"Any firearms, a cat or a dog in that car?" was the question when Milton went over to register.
"Nope," said Milton.
There was a revolver in one of his pockets, however, and another in one of mine. But there was no weapon in the car: hadn't I got out of the car so that there wouldn't be?
A few moments, and we were under way again, the road, which ran through primeval forest, a narrow one now, sinuous and, it must be confessed, hardly as smooth as glass.
Soon we crossed Tahoma Creek, where we had a glimpse of the mountain, its snowy, rocky heights aglow with a wonderful golden tint in the rays of the setting sun. Strange, wild, fantastic thoughts and fears came to me again, and upon my mind settled gloomy forebodings—sinister nameless forebodings, terrible as a pall. We were drawing near the great mountain now, with its unutterable cosmic grandeur and loneliness, near to its unknown mystery, which Milton and I were perhaps fated to know soon, perhaps to our sorrow.
From these gloomy, disturbing thoughts, which yet had a weird fascination too, I was at length aroused by the voice of Rhodes.
"Kautz Creek," said he.
And the next moment we shot across the stream, which went racing and growling over its boulders, the pale chocolate hue of its water advertising its glacial origin.
"Up about 2,400 feet now," Milton added. "Longmire Springs next. I say, Bill, I wonder where we shall be this time tomorrow, eh?"
"Goodness knows. Sometimes I find myself wondering, if the whole thing isn't pure moonshine, a dream. An angel and a demon on the slopes of Rainier! And they say that this is the Twentieth Century!"
Rhodes smiled wanly.
"I think you will find the thing real enough, Billy me lad," said he.
"Too real, maybe. The fact is I don't know what on earth to think."
"The only thing to do is to wait, Bill. And we won't have long to wait, either."
When we swung to the grade out of Longmire, I thought we were at last beginning the real climb to the mountain. But Milton said no.
"When we reach the Van Trump auto park, then we'll start up," said he.
And we did—the road turning and twisting up a forest-clad steep. Then, its sinuosities behind us, it ran along
