The Young Mountaineers

Young Mountaineers, by Charles
Egbert Craddock

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Title: The Young Mountaineers Short Stories
Author: Charles Egbert Craddock
Illustrator: Malcolm Fraser
Release Date: January 15, 2007 [EBook #20365]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: HE WAS PALLID AND PANTING]

THE YOUNG MOUNTAINEERS
SHORT STORIES
BY
CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY MALCOLM FRASER
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND
COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1897
Copyright, 1897, BY MARY N. MURFREE.
All rights reserved.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. Electrotyped and
Printed by H. O. Houghton and Company.

CONTENTS PAGE
THE MYSTERY OF OLD DADDY'S WINDOW 1 'WAY DOWN IN
POOR VALLEY 26 A MOUNTAIN STORM 63 BORROWING A
HAMMER 83 THE CONSCRIPTS' HOLLOW 103 A WARNING 172
AMONG THE CLIFFS 186 IN THE "CHINKING" 208 ON A
HIGHER LEVEL 230 CHRISTMAS DAY ON OLD WINDY
MOUNTAIN 245

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE

HE WAS PALLID AND PANTING (see page 221) Frontispiece.
TOGETHER THEY WENT OVER THE CLIFF 48 HOW LONG
WAS IT TO LAST 190 IN THE MIDST OF THE TORRENT 242

THE MYSTERY OF OLD DADDY'S WINDOW
Picture to yourself a wild ravine, gashing a mountain spur, and with
here and there in its course abrupt descents. One of these is so deep and
sheer that it might be called a precipice.
High above it, from the steep slope on either hand, beetling crags jut
out. Their summits almost meet at one point, and thus the space below
bears a rude resemblance to a huge window. Through it you might see
the blue heights in the distance; or watch the clouds and sunshine shift
over the sombre mountain across the narrow valley; or mark, after the
day has faded, how the great Scorpio draws its shining curves along the
dark sky.
One night Jonas Creyshaw sat alone in the porch of his log cabin, hard
by on the slope of the ravine, smoking his pipe and gazing meditatively
at "Old Daddy's Window." The moon was full, and its rays fell aslant
on one of the cliffs, while the rugged face of the opposite crag was in
the shadow.
Suddenly he became aware that something was moving about the
precipice, the brink of which seems the sill of the window. Although
this precipice is sheer and insurmountable, a dark figure had risen from
it, and stood plainly defined against the cliff, which presented a
comparatively smooth surface to the brilliant moonlight.
Was it a shadow? he asked himself hastily.
His eyes swept the ravine, only thirty feet wide at that point, which lies
between the two crags whose jutting summits almost meet above it to
form Old Daddy's Window.
There was no one visible to cast a shadow.

It seemed as if the figure had unaccountably emerged from the sheer
depths below.
Only for a moment it stood motionless against the cliff. Then it flung
its arms wildly above its head, and with a nimble spring
disappeared--upward.
Jonas Creyshaw watched it, his eyes distended, his face pallid, his pipe
trembling in his shaking hand.
"Mirandy!" he quavered faintly.
His wife, a thin, ailing woman with pinched features and an uncertain
eye, came to the door.
"Thar," he faltered, pointing with his pipe-stem--"jes' a minit ago--I
seen it!--a ghost riz up over the bluff inter Old Daddy's Window!"
The woman fell instantly into a panic.
"'Twarn't a-beckonin', war it? 'Twarn't a-beckonin'? 'Kase ef it war, ye'll
hev ter die right straight! That air a sure sign."
A little of Jonas Creyshaw's pluck and common sense came back to
him at this unpleasant announcement.
"Not on his say-so," he stoutly averred. "I ain't a-goin' ter do the beck
nor the bid of enny onmannerly harnt ez hev tuk up the notion ter riz up
over the bluff inter Old Daddy's Window, an' sot hisself ter motionin'
ter me."
He rose hastily, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and followed his
wife into the house. There he paused abruptly.
The room was lighted by the fitful flicker of the fire, for the nights were
still chilly, and an old man, almost decrepit, sat dozing in his chair by
the hearth.
"Mirandy," said Jonas Creyshaw in a whisper, "'pears like ter me ez

father hed better not