Lost on a Mountain in Maine (2 page)

One thing helped me not to worry too much. I knew that if Dad and the boys were still on the way up they must be nearing the place where I stood. At least they must be within hearing distance. I shouted several times. Not a sound answered me. My voice seemed hollow. I had a feeling it didn't go far through that heavy cloud. I waited and then I shouted again and again. At last, I just stood and listened for a long time. No answering shout—nothing but the noise of the wind among the rocks. Boy, I felt funny when I started on.

I couldn't see far on any side of me and I had a feeling I was right on the edge of a great cliff.
⁴
The way the clouds swirled scared me. The rocks about me looked more like ghosts than rocks, until I tried to climb over them. Besides, sleet was beginning to fall. It formed slick, thin ice on the sleeves of my reefer, and I had to wipe it off my face. I didn't like that. I was wearing a pair of blue dungarees and I could feel the water seeping through and getting cold about my legs.

“Maybe,” I thought, “I ought to sit down and wait for Henry and the man. They'd be along now any moment.” But when I stood still, the cold, wet cloud seemed to wrap me in an icy blanket. I started an Indian war dance to warm up. “Christmas!” I finally said to myself, “No use in this. Might as well go on. I'll be sure to find Dad a little farther down!” But I didn't find him, and the going grew rougher and rougher.

P
LUMES OF
P
AMOLA
• F
IRST
D
AY

I
HADN'T gone far before I
felt sure
I was down on the plateau. I was off the trail and the going was bad, but there weren't so many big, broken rocks to climb over. Once in a while I came to an open space, with moss on the ground, and I could run a little and warm myself. I kept this up for a while and then I ran plump into a tangle of pucker bush. Pucker bush grows so thick that a person can actually walk on it.
⁵
Some places I
did
walk on it. Of course, you kept breaking through, first one foot and then the other. That wasn't so good, but it was easier to do that than to struggle over those big rocks. Pucker bush is funny stuff. It hasn't any actual thorns, but when the ends of the limbs die, they dry up hard and brown. Boy, are they
sharp!

I knew now, of course, that I was off the trail, and I was really anxious. I don't know how long I kept on over that kind of ground, but suddenly the pucker bush gave way under me and I felt myself falling into a deep hole. I grabbed at the bushes as I went down and got hold of a big stem.

For a moment I thought I was a goner! Boy, that hole was deep—twenty or thirty feet—and there were jagged rocks on the bottom! I just hung on to that pucker bush hoping that it would not tear out by the roots. I prayed a little, too—just hung on and prayed. I had a feeling that that bush wasn't going to break away, and it didn't.

When I pulled myself up a little and found that the roots did not tear loose, I felt around and got a toe-hold on the rock and slowly worked my way upwards. It was some job, but I did it. At last I squirmed out onto the rock on my stomach. It felt good to be safe again. I was out of breath and more frightened than ever.

I just lay there for a moment, wondering what I should do next. When I got my wind, I stood up, and I guess I must have lost my head for a while. I remember running back the way I had come, shouting like mad. I cried a little, too.

I didn't seem to mind anything. I tore through the pucker bush and jumped over rocks, falling and getting up and bumping into things. Nothing seemed to matter if I could only get out of there. When I was all out of breath, I sat down on a rock and, after crying a while, I calmed down and began to think. No use running around like that when the cloud was so thick you couldn't see where you were going. The thing I had to do was to figure out a plan and stick to it.

I remembered some of the things I learned in Scouting. First thing, I must keep my head, then, maybe, if I looked close, I could find a trail. I got down on my hands and knees and scouted around. Not a thing—not a turned-over tuft of grass—not a broken weed nor a bent twig—not a displaced stone.

“That's funny,” I said out loud, “somebody
must
have come along here,
sometime
. Maybe, if I wait until the cloud parts again, I can get my bearings.” But the cloud rolled in denser than ever, and more sleet fell. I was getting awfully cold and wet.

I listened. There was a queer whining noise in the air. Sometimes it sounded like heavy surf. I tried to figure out where it came from. It might have been wind blowing in rocky caves, or wind in treetops on the timberline below. That sound made me feel creepy. I thought of Pamola, the evil Indian spirit of the mountain, and the stories the guides told about him. He lived on the mountaintop—right where I was standing, perhaps. Some guides call the clouds that stream across the top of the mountain the Plumes of Pamola. He hated his own race and, once, according to the strange tale of a half-breed, he shook his white feathery plumes over a party of redskins, and they just disappeared. There they were, one minute, shining in the sun, and the next, they were gone and nothing was left of them but clouds that dissolved into air and disappeared.

Strange that people should believe such yarns, but that's the kind of story the guides tell around their mountain campfires. Good stories, too—corkers—but I caught the guides winking at each other as they spun them for our benefit. And now, there I was, right on the spot, maybe, where those Indians had vanished. What if
I
should vanish, too? What would Mommy do and where would Dad look for me? Funny what thoughts pop into a fellow's head when he is alone with the clouds and the mountain!

S
HARP
R
OCKS AND
S
LEET
• F
IRST
D
AY

I
KNEW I couldn't sit where I was very long. Christmas! The wind was sharp, and it blew so hard that the rain and sleet stung like needles. I was getting wet all over. My fleece-lined reefer kept my chest dry, but my blue dungarees were cold and stiff as boards. Dungarees are all right for dry hikes, but they're terrible when they get cold and wet.

People want to know why I didn't stay where I was. Someone was sure to find me, they say. Well, I'd like to see anyone stay up there in that wind and sleet with the night coming on. You'd freeze stiff before morning.
⁶
I was already getting stiff. I had to keep moving, just to warm up. I shouted once more, as loud as I could—then I stood and listened—nothing but that strange noise.

I turned slowly about so as to be sure of my direction, and started back the way I thought I had come. Pretty soon I ran right into a trail marker. It said “Saddle Trail.” Now I
was
in a fix. I had heard about that trail. I had heard that it went far off into the woods and was dangerous, full of landslides and loose rocks. However, it
was
a trail and it was marked, often with blue daubs of paint. It would lead me somewhere—perhaps to some lonely spot miles and miles from camp. No, I mustn't take it.
⁷
The thing to do is to work off at right angles to it and cut across the main trail. I started on. Right away, I ran into more pucker bush. I climbed over it and fell through and crawled under it. Guides have said no one
could
crawl under it, but I did—for a long way.

Pretty soon, I was back among big rocks again. Right here, I had a funny experience. The cloud opened for just an instant and far, far below me I saw a lake—I thought was Moosehead—shining in the sun. The cloud closed and the lake was gone and everything was dull gray again. The sight cheered me some, and I hurried faster than ever.

I started to run and found I couldn't, because of the boulders; that made me frantic and I climbed over them like a cat and yelled and shouted and cried all the time. I yelled for my dad. I climbed up as high as I could on a big rock and screamed for him—then I waited. No answering shout—nothing—just the noise of that wind and the purring sound of fine sleet driving against my clothes.

I just
had
to get out of there and back to the trail. I started to run again, as fast as I could. I don't know how long I kept
that
up, but a long time—over rocks and sharp edges and things I stumbled over and into patches of pucker bush—sometimes falling and then getting up again, and often crawling under brush on my hands and knees. Boy, it was awful! And then, just when the cloud lifted again and I thought sunlight might break through, I ran into another trail sign. It said “Saddle Trail” and looked like the sign I had seen before. I was pretty scared by this time and I wasn't sure about that sign so I examined it closely. There was a mark on it that I recalled seeing before.
I had come back to the same sign
.

For a second I was stunned. I just stood there and looked at it. I knew now, for sure, that I was lost. I was running in a circle. I didn't know what to do, so I stumbled along hunting for other marks, on that same trail. I guess I went a long way over rocks and over pucker bush and sometimes under it, too, searching and hunting for another trail marker. I didn't find any, but I kept going
down
. I remember that. After a while, I came to a place where there was a lot of gravel, and boy, was it slippery! That place was dangerous, for a slip might mean a bad fall—maybe a hundred feet or more. I slowed down. I could imagine myself lying there, in the cold and dark, with a sprained ankle. Meanwhile, the rocks were getting bigger and bigger.

At last I came to a weather-beaten tree. The branches were all pulled out to one side, as though the tree were trying to get away from something. That tree looked scared. Beyond was another and another. I had reached the timberline, and I had to find a trail, because the shrubs grew as thick as doormats and, without a trail, the going down to camp would be pretty bad.

The sight of that tree calmed me down a bit, for I began to think more clearly. It's an awful thing to get lost in the clouds. You see things that aren't there at all. Rocks look like people and shaggy animals, and often you come to an edge and think you are looking down into space, and you draw back and get scared.

The mountain suddenly seemed awfully big under me. I listened. Only the whining noise of the wind in the stunted trees—no, there was another noise—rocks falling, far off to the right—a slow, heavy, crunching sound—then silence, deeper than before.

The rocks in this place had very sharp edges and some of them were loose, too, and had from under me. I had heard of landslides and had seen the remains of a few on the way up. I kept thinking of how a landslide starts—the slipping stones—just a few at first—then more and more and faster and faster, until the whole mountain seems to move. Then, trees tip over like matches, and there are crashings and grindings and dust. Boy! I just stood still, now and then, and shivered. What chance would a fellow have in a mess like that?

However, it was not quite so cold down there in the scrub, and that made me think that farther down, it would be still warmer. Maybe I'd better change my course a little to the right and keep going down. I hunted for an opening through the scrub growth. There wasn't any; so I just had to scramble along as best I could. That's where I cut my sneakers to pieces.
⁸
I noticed now that I had to scramble through more and more of those scrubby bushes. My face was badly scratched and I was awfully tired. It was getting dark, too.

I knew I hadn't covered more than three or four miles. That meant that Dad and Henry couldn't be a long way off. The camp must be right down below me in the trees. I felt a little better. What if it
were
hard going down to it? A fellow
could
make it, as long as he didn't break a leg or something. I'd just go a little more
slowly—that's the way a fellow figures things out. I was all wrong, of course. There wasn't any camp below
me
—not for miles and miles, and there weren't any trails where I was going.