“You mean––men have gone up there?”
“Oh, yes!”
“How?”
“There’s a trail, what’s left of it. The Warpath, they call it.”
“The Warpath?”
“Yes. It was first a war trail, when fighting tribes lived in these mountains. But even the Indians didn’t use it often––only in midsummer. It’s a trail over bare rocks, marked by stones set up at long intervals. The Indians didn’t mark it. They had their own ways of knowing it. But after the Indians came trappers, hunters, prospectors, and some of them set up the stones. It would be a valuable short cut between the Park and the San Luis country, if it were safe. But it’s not. I’m told that many lives have been lost on it. I can’t find details except of one tragedy. Some ten years ago a party of English people, guests at the ranch that Haig now owns, went on a pleasure trip to Thunder Mountain. They meant to go only as far as timber line. It’s not difficult as far as the foot of the scarp that lifts to the flat top you see yonder. It’s done on horseback to that point––and across too, if you care to try it. But on top––that’s another matter. It isn’t the mountain itself that gets you. It’s the storms. The English party ventured on top, and three of them never came back. The wind hurled them into a chasm, 117 and their bodies were never recovered. That’s enough for me, thank you!”
“Has nobody in the Park ever been across?” Marion persisted.
“Old Parker––Jim Parker’s father––crossed it once, many years ago. But he came back another way, around by Tellurium. Young Parker has been as far as the Devil’s Chair. That’s the top of the notch where the wind sucks you into it––unless, by good chance, it blows you away from it.”
“And no one else?” Marion insisted, breathless.
“One other man has gone to the Twin Sisters. That’s halfway over.”