Beyond the sunset

by Arthur D. Howden Smith

So far on our journey the obstacles thrown in our path by hostile men had outweighed those opposed by nature. From now on the reverse was true. The men we met were feeble savages, ignorant, superstitious, easily put to flight. But nature loomed as a foe of overawing strength. Each day brought its tests of endurance, daring, brawn or skill. Time meant nothing in face of the difficulties we must conquer. A month passed after our escape from the wolf pack before we even sighted the gigantic barrier of the Sky Mountains, and the passage of their snowy summits required additional months of effort.

But this is to gallop in advance of my story. Yet I scarce know how to set down in sober language the magnitude of the forces we encountered, the supreme majesty of that unknown country, the Godlike splendor of the Winter scenery, the awful, silent loneliness. And of all the wonders that lent emphasis to our own puny might I think the one that affected us most was the absence of man from the plains and forests that intervened betwixt the Teton villages and the mountains. For months we were companied only by the myriads of beasts that had fled the intense cold of the heights for the milder temperature below the timber-line.

The great deer which Tawannears called Wapiti, red deer, antelope, buffalo, wild goats and wild sheep we saw in millions. We killed fresh meat with our hatchets, and had it always at need. They moved about the low-lands—which, of themselves, were sufficiently high, inasmuch as the country shelved upward, mile after mile—in search of such food as could be afforded by tree-bark and the herbage left beneath the snow; and in their sore want and innocence of man they did no more than step aside from our path and stare after us. Of wolves we saw many and heard some, but they never again came near us—explain it as you choose. For myself, I have no more to say, being convinced by marvels I was yet to behold that Corlaer was right past disputation when he said, "der white man does not know eferything."

That was a Winter of unprecedented cold. Late in coming, it developed protracted periods of severe frost, linked by tumultuous storms, after which the forest would be scattered with wild things frozen in their tracks. Taught by experience, we became apt at seeking shelter with the first hint that the Wind Spirits were plucking the wild geese in the North, careful not to move across open country unless the weather signs were favorable; and whilst this delayed us, 'tis beyond question it preserved our lives. With a roof, four walls and fire, men may defy nature's worst attacks, no matter how make-shift the covering.

I said it was a month before we sighted the Sky Mountains—but they were still many miles away. We had followed a fork of the river which flowed through the Teton country. It carried us northwest, and after several weeks brought us within view of a range of ragged peaks, which, at first, we took to be our immediate goal. But the river banded the broken country at their base, and we came presently into a wide upland somewhat like the savannahs that lined the Missouri.* The ragged peaks dwindled behind us; the horizon was empty ahead—until a day of unusually brilliant sunshine with a cloudless sky revealed a serrated glory in the west, cones and saddlebacks and hulking ridges, square and round and oblong and eccentrically-shaped rock-masses, all draped in snow.

* It seems probable that Ormerod refers here to the Medicine Bow range and the Laramie Plains.—A.D.H.S.

A storm delayed us another week, but we picked up the trail with light hearts, and each sunset was an inspiration to faster progress. It was as if a giant's paint-pots had been upset and splashed harmoniously over the mountain-wall—soft reds, purples, yellow, and the half-tones that run between. Or the Painter's mood would be different, and they would be slung on in harsh, contrasting belts of color that jarred your eyes. Amazing! And it continued after we were at the very foot of the towering wall, poking this way and that to find a gateway to the mystery land beyond. The heights close by might lose their potent spells, but in the hazy distance, North or South, the Painter worked his will at random.

In my youth I marched with the Duke of Berwick into the Pyrenees. That was child's play compared to the undertaking we confronted. For we had no knowledge whatsoever of the secret of this jumbled prospect. Forests cloaked the mountains' lower flanks, and under the trees the snow was heaped so deep we must have been swallowed to suffocation but for our snowshoes. Above the timberline began the dominion of the rocks, and here all was snow and ice, either smoothly slippery or treacherously loose. Upon our first attempt to gain a height we precipitated a slide which carried us into the tree-tops of a forest. We were cripples for days.

Again and again we probed ravines and valleys in hopes they would lead up to a practicable pass, but we passed no more than time. We wasted weeks on protracted journeys which led to the brinks of precipices or dead-walls—dangerous work as well as tiresome, for the snow-slides were frequent and impossible to forecast. Enough sun on a certain spot to start a thaw, and a whole hillside might go.

In the beginning we worked north along the base of the range, in accordance with a theory advanced by Tawannears that possibly the fork of the river we had followed might break through the Sky Mountains, and when we demonstrated this was not so he suggested that the other, or southern fork, might do so. Neither Corlaer nor I had a better plan to offer, and we retraced our steps to the south, and presently struck into a likely valley that ended in a ramp of precipices. So we tried again, and a third time, always without success.