CHAPTER XI
The traveler who is wise, going from Grand Cañon Hotel to Tower Falls, will pass over Mount Washburn—and he starts early. He starts early that he may take with him the memory of the Upper and Lower Falls wrapped in the mist which they and night have wrought together, and which the nocturnal calm has perhaps left hanging wraith-like over the tremendous slot so filled with the roar of many waters. And he starts early, too, that he may make the ten-mile climb to Washburn's summit before the day-wind rises and sweeps the mountain's head with that gale which so tears the trees and twists them into a permanent declination, like vegetable dipping needles.
The Seven Wonderers pursued the way of wisdom, and so they startled deer and elk from their night beds along the road to Cascade Creek; and began the climb of Washburn before sunrise. The tops of Dunraven and Hedges Peaks were rosy with morning when the rested cayuses pulled over the first rugged spurs of these peaks, and it was morning with the perfect trees, that stood like spires about them, morning with the columbine and the larkspur, the forget-me-nots and the asters, the flea-bane and the paint-brush—and all the wild flowers that enameled the wayside. For many days they had been in the heart of the Rockies, and yet the scenery had not seemed like real mountain scenery. Here for the first time, it became alpine. They threaded Dunraven Pass in the early forenoon, and took the high road straight over the summit. The team leaned hard into the squeaking collars, and frequent stops that the horses might breathe made the tourists glad. Every stop and every turn brought the eye new delights. The great lake came into view again, like a distant splash of silver; and as if for another good-by, away off to the south stood Mount Sheridan, with the three Tetons to the right of it, solemnly overlooking the Park of which they are a part to the eye only.
"Oh! Oh!" said the Bride, gasping. "There's the Grand Cañon, like a crack in the floor!"
"And," said the Poet, "there's the ghost of wasted power, mistily brooding over the falls, just as when we left."
"Ghost of wasted power!" repeated the Groom. "That's not half bad, Poet."
Another turn, and the Absarakas notched the eastern horizon; and the whole huge valley, with titanic slopes as its farther wall, and the zigzag trench of the cañon as its central drain, lay at their feet. The air was cooler, now, and the breath came short, as lungs labored for more of the rare atmosphere. At their feet lay green meadows and open parks, on which they might have expected to see grazing herds of shaggy black Highland cattle.
Again a few starts and stops, and as if turned into view by machinery, came the northwest quarter of the Park, with all the country they had traversed—Electric Peak, in whose shadow they had entered upon their journey, Sepulcher Mountain, with its grave and the monuments at head and foot no longer to be made out, the valley of Carnelian Creek at their feet, and beyond it the jagged range, of which Prospect, Folsom and Storm Peaks are the culminations.
"That's something you don't always see," said Aconite, pointing to something away off to the northwest. "That thing is the Devil's Slide."
"And we saw his Inkstand yesterday," said the Hired Man. "He seems to've preëmpted a lot of this here region."
"Well," remarked the Colonel sardonically, "isn't the Park dedicated to the enjoyment, as well as the benefit of the people?"
"It started as 'Colter's Hell,'" suggested the Groom.
"In Old Jim Bridger's time," said Aconite, "it rained fire up here in these hills one year."
"I don't doubt it," assented the Artist. "And we've either seen or are promised a view of Hell Roaring Creek, Hell Broth Springs, Hell's Half Acre, Satan's Arbor, and a lot of other infernal real estate."
"It's heavenly up here!" said the Bride.
Once at the summit the Park lay under their eyes like a map—all these and a thousand other features to be taken in by merely turning about. The land was sown with every variety of all that is wild and beautiful and strange; the sky was filled with peaks. Here they had mountains to spare. They looked, and looked, and grew tired of looking—and then gazed again. The wind blew up and whipped their faces; and the sun was far past the meridian, passing south through the silvery splotch of Yellowstone Lake, when Aconite literally loaded them into the surrey, and drove down the mighty flanks of Washburn, northwardly, until he found a place where a fire could be builded and luncheon prepared.
"You folks mustn't fergit," said he, "that scenery ain't so fillin' f'r them as looks it every little while, as it is f'r the tenderfoot."
The Professor was evidently pleased when his name came from the Stetson for the second time. He seemed to have something on his mind. Fully a mile short of Tower Falls, which they planned to visit in the early morning, they camped in dense forest, with a party of sight-seers just so far away as to seem neighborly without intrenching on privacy.
"This is the best camp we've had," said the Bride, hooking her hands over her knee, and gazing into the fire.
"Sure," said Billy. "Every camp is the best in life, for me, honey! Listen to the Professor, now—nobody heard!"