The White Desert | Page 5

then settling once more to the lagging pace as steepness followed steepness, or the abruptness of the curve caused the great, slow-moving vehicle to lose the momentum gained after hundreds of feet of struggle. Again the engine boiled, and Barry stood beside it in shivering gratitude for its warmth. The hills about him were white now; the pines had lost their greenness to become black silhouettes against the blank, colorless background Barry Houston had left May and warmth and springtime behind, to give way to the clutch of winter and the white desert of altitude.
But withal it was beautiful. Cold, harassed by dangers that he never before knew could exist, disheartened by the even more precipitous trail which lay ahead, fighting a battle for which he was unfitted by experience, Houston could not help but feel repaid for it all as he flattened his back against the hot radiator and, comforted by the warmth, looked about him. The world was his--his to look upon, to dissect, to survey with the all-seeing eyes of tremendous heights, to view in the perspective of the eagle and the hawk, to look down upon from the pinnacles and see, even as a god might see it. Far below lay a tiny, discolored ribbon,--the road which he had traversed, but now only a scratch upon the expanse of the great country which tumbled away beneath him. Hills had become hummocks, towering pines but blades of grass, streams only a variegated line in the vast display of Nature's artistry. And above--
Barry Houston looked upon it with dazzled eyes. The sun had broken forth again, to stream upon the great, rounded head of Mount Taluchen, and there to turn the serried snows to a mass of shell-pink pearl, to smooth away the glaring whiteness and paint instead a down-like coverlet of beauty. Here and there the great granite precipices stood forth in old rose and royal purple; farther the shadows melted into mantles, not of black, but of softest lavender; mound upon mound of color swung before him as he glanced from peak to peak,--the colors that only an artist knows, tintings instead of solid grounds, suggestions rather than actualities. Even the gnarled pines of timber line, where the world of vegetation was sliced off short to give way to the barrenness of the white desert, seemed softened and freed from their appearance of constant suffering in the pursuit of life. A lake gleamed, set, it seemed, at an upright angle upon the very side of a mountain; an ice gorge glistened with the scintillation of a million jewels, a cloud rolled through a great crevice like the billowing of some soft-colored crepe and then--
Barry crouched and shivered, then turned with sudden activity. It all had faded, faded in the blast of a shrilling wind, bringing upon its breast the cutting assault of sleet and the softer, yet no less vicious swirl of snow. Quickly the radiator was drained and refilled. Once more, huddled in the driver's seat, Barry Houston gripped the wheel and felt the crunching of the chain-clad wheels in the snow of the roadway. The mountains had lured again, only that they might clutch him in a tighter embrace of danger than ever. Now the snow was whirling about him in almost blinding swiftness; the small windshield counted for nothing; it was only by leaning far outside the car that he could see to drive and then there were moments that seemed to presage the end.
Chasms lurked at the corners, the car skidded and lurched from one side of the narrow roadway to the other; once the embankment crumbled for an instant as a rear wheel raced for a foothold and gained it just in time. Thundering below, Barry could hear the descent of the dirt and small boulders as they struck against protruding rocks and echoed forth to a constantly growing sound that seemed to travel for miles that it might return with the strength of thunder. Then for a moment the sun came again and he stared toward it with set, anxious eyes. It no longer was dazzling; it was large and yellow and free from glare. He swerved his gaze swiftly to the dashboard clock, then back to the sun again. Four o'clock! Yet the great yellow ball was hovering on the brim of Mount Taluchen; dusk was coming. A frightened glance showed him the black shadows of the valleys, the deeper tones of coloring, the vagueness of the distance which comes with the end of day.
Anxiously he studied his speedometer as the road stretched out for a space of a few hundred feet for safety. Five miles--only five miles in a space of time that on level country could have accounted for a hundred. Five miles and the route book