CHAPTER XVII
IN THE LAND OF PINK SNOWS
"I--I think I should prefer to sleep downstairs," stammered Stacy.
"If that is the way you feel, you have only to roll over and you will bedownstairs for keeps," promised Lieutenant Wingate.
"All right, I'll sleep in the hole in the ground, but don't you darethrow dirt on me," warned Stacy, crawling into the trench and cautiouslydisposing of himself to see if his bed fitted. "This isn't even half abed, Tom. How am I going to turn over?"
"Don't," laughed Grace.
"Yes, please do," urged Emma.
"Wow!" muttered Chunky sitting up and peering over the edge of his bedat the cloud-sea rolling slowly along just below the camp. "Wouldn't itbe a terrible catastrophe if I were to be transmigrated out of bed?"
"That depends upon the point of view," suggested Emma.
The Overlanders were startled at this juncture by a shout from theChinaman, accompanied by a series of bangs.
"Somebody knocked over the kitchen table!" cried Chunky.
"Me savvy piecee kettle go 'way," wailed Woo, who, in emptying out somedishes, had let them fall over the side of the ridge so that theutensils were then on their way to the bottom of the canyon, a thousandfeet below.
"He has lost the kettle," groaned Nora. "At this rate we shall soon bewithout anything."
"Except our appetites," finished Chunky.
"What a tragedy," observed Emma.
"Don't wolly till to-mollow," advised the guide. "Hi-lee, hi-lo!"Nothing could disturb the equanimity of Woo Smith for very long, and heimmediately resumed his duties. The loss of a few utensils was not athing to be greatly disturbed about--at least he so reasoned the matterout.
It was late in the evening when the Overlanders finally got into theirtrenches and dropped off to sleep, but their sleep was brief. First,Stacy had a nightmare and set up such a howling that all hands awakenedin alarm. The next disturbance came when a sudden mountain wind-stormsprang up. The Overlanders were aroused just in time to see theircampfire lifted into the air and hurled out over the clouds in which theembers and sparks quickly disappeared.
"Oh, this is terrible! We shall surely be blown off the ridge," criedEmma.
"Lie down in your trenches and let the blooming storm blow itself out!"shouted Hippy. "No wind-storm up here can harm you so long as you keepdown."
The girls of the party rather reluctantly lay down again, and foundthat, in that position, the wind barely touched them, and, from thattime on, peace reigned in the Overland camp until morning. The morning,however, brought with it fresh troubles. Every member of the partyawakened shivering. Stacy declared that his feet were frozen, which Emmaasserted was a chronic condition with him.
The Overlanders dragged themselves from the trenches, shoulders hunchedforward, hands thrust into their pockets, their faces blue and pinched.The limit of their endurance was reached, however, when the familiarvoice of Woo Smith assailed their ears.
"Hi-lee, hi-lo! Don't wolly till to-mollow," sang the guide.
"Smith!" shouted Tom Gray.
"He--he thi--thi--thinks he's a bird," chattered Stacy. "I hope he triesto fly."
"Smith, please cut out the singing and prepare hot coffee as quickly aspossible," directed Tom.
"Me savvy coffee. Me savvy nicee piecee day. You savvy nicee day?"bubbled the guide.
"Oh, let him have his way, Tom," urged Grace laughingly. "We should beglad that we have such a cheerful guide."
"Cheerful idiot!" muttered Tom.
"Yes, Woo. We savvy," called Grace, smiling over at the grinning face ofthe Chinaman. "Please make haste with the breakfast, though. Girls, getup and look out over the wonderful scene before you, and I willguarantee that you will instantly forget your troubles."
With shaded eyes, they looked and did, for the moment, forget theirchilled condition. The peaks were now in the full glare of the morningsun, while down in the canyons day had not yet fully dawned, and the dimshadows there were gray with the morning mist.
Another day of hard riding was before them, but before starting out Tomand Hippy announced that they would try to find a trail up the mountainthat loomed in the sky some distance beyond. Upon reaching the end ofthe ridge that formed a natural bridge connecting two mountain ranges,Tom and Hippy came upon a sharp descent that led down into a broad, openvalley, beyond which lay the mountain they were to climb.
"This looks promising," nodded Tom, as they jogged down into the valley.
"It is more than that; it is wonderful," cried Hippy as the two menfound themselves in a field knee-deep with blue lupines that grew therein profusion. The odor of the flowers was almost overpowering. To theright and the left of the two explorers were bunches of tuft-grass, hereand there groves of slender lodge-poles, and spindling pines andjunipers. Tom and Hippy paused in admiring silence. It was morebeautiful than anything that they had thought possible in this ruggedcountry.
While they were hunting for a possible trail that would lead them up themountain, Tom Gray declared that Nature had used this sweetly scentedfield for a dumping ground, after having completed the building of themountain itself.
"Yes, and she protected her work mighty well when she erected thatsnow-capped peak," answered Hippy. "I know that there _must_ be a wayout of this place to reach that mountain," he added, getting up from afall, very red of face, his jaw set stubbornly.
Despite their persistent efforts to find a trail out of the valley ofthe lupines, it was noon before they did discover a possible way out fortheir party. After marking it by tying a handkerchief to the bent-overtop of a spindling pine, they started back to join their companions. TheOverland party had some time since saddled and bridled their ponies andwere ready to move when Tom and Hippy returned to them, and all were ontheir way soon after the arrival of the two men.
"You are going to see something that will gladden your heart, BrownEyes," declared Hippy as they started on. It was late in the afternoonwhen they finally rode into the valley below. The blue lupines, thegrass, the pines and the junipers there presented a scene that broughtcries of delighted amazement from the Overland girls.
"Oh, look at the pink ice cream!" cried Emma, pointing to the toweringmountain which they were to try to climb.
"Why, Tom, we didn't notice that coloring on the snow up there thismorning," exclaimed Lieutenant Wingate. "It must be a cloud reflection."Tom Gray nodded and said that the pink shade probably would soondisappear.
"We must camp in the midst of these flowers," cried Grace Harlowe. "Itis finer than any place we have yet seen in these mountains."
"I agree with you," answered Elfreda. "It gives me fresh courage to goon. Why, Grace, I feel as if I could vault a six-foot fence."
"Suppose you try to jump over the white mare," suggested Grace,laughingly. "This high altitude has gone to my head, too."
"No, thank you. I think that it might be best for a person of my yearsto keep her feet on the ground," laughed Elfreda. "But the effect, aswell as the view here, is wonderful. I do not believe there is anythinglike it anywhere else in the world."
Camp was promptly made amid the flowers. Soon thereafter the clouds onthe horizon rolled down behind the mountains as the sun sank out ofsight, but as long as light remained on the mountain tops, the wonderfulpink tint clung to the everlasting snows on the pinnacles, and themosquitoes increased in numbers and ferociousness.
"The higher we go the worse they get," complained Stacy Brown. "Isn't itqueer how that pink tint hangs on?"
"Say, girls," bubbled Emma Dean, "what if it should prove to be icecream in reality?"
"In that event I know someone who never would go home," laughed Nora.
"Two someones," reflected Stacy, with a far-away, longing look in hiseyes.
Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the High Sierras Page 18
