Milton Rhodes' pause was a significant one, but Scranton did not enlighten him further.
"On his return from Old He, did he tell just what had happened up there?"
"He did not, of course, care to tell everything, Mr. Rhodes, for fear he would not be believed. And little wonder. He was cautious, very guarded in his story; but, at that, not a single soul believed him. Perhaps, indeed, his very fear of distrust and suspicion and his consequent caution and vagueness, hastened and enhanced those dark and sinister thoughts and suspicions of his neighbors, and, indeed, of every one else who heard the story. There was talk of insanity, of murder even. This was the cruelest wound of all, and my grandfather carried the scar of it to his grave."
"Probably it would have been better," said Rhodes, "had he given them the whole of the story, down to the minutest detail."
"I do not see how. When they did not believe the little that he did tell, how on earth could they have believed the wild, the fantastic, the horrible thing itself?"
"Well, you may be right, Mr. Scranton. And here is a strange thing, too. It is inexplicable, a mystery indeed. For many years now, thousands of sightseers have every summer visited the mountain—this mountain that your grandfather found so mysterious, so hellish—and yet nothing has ever happened."
"That is true, Mr. Rhodes."
"They have found Rainier," said Milton Rhodes, "beautiful, majestic, a sight to delight the hearts of the gods; but no man has ever found anything having even the remotest resemblance to what your grandfather saw—has ever even found strange footprints in the snow. I ask you: where has the mystery been hiding all these years?"
"That is a question I shall not try to answer, Mr. Rhodes. It is my belief, however, that the mystery has never been hiding—using the word, that is, in its literal signification."
"Of course," Milton said. "But you know what I mean."