When the birds fly south

by Stanton A. Coblentz

I shall pass over the eternities between my first attempt upon Yulada in November and my more resolute efforts in March. But I must not forget to describe my physical changes. I had grown a bushy brown beard, which hid my chin and upper lip and spread raggedly over my face; my hair hung as long and untended as a wild man's; while from unceasing exertions in the open, my limbs had developed a strength they had never known before, and I could perform tasks that would have seemed impossible a few months earlier.

Hence it was with confidence that I awaited the spring. Daily I scanned the mountains after the first sign of a thaw in the streams; I noted how streaks and furrows gradually appeared in the white of the higher slopes; how the gray rocky flanks began to protrude, first almost imperceptibly, then more boldly, as though casting off an unwelcome garb, until great mottled patches stood unbared to the sunlight. Toward the middle of March there came a week of unseasonably warm days, when the sun shone from a cloudless sky and a new softness was in the air. And then, when half the winter apparel of the peaks was disappearing as at a magic touch and the streams ran full to the brim and the lake overflowed, I decided to pay my long-postponed visit to Yulada.

Almost exultantly I set forth early one morning. The first stages of the climb could hardly have been easier; it was as though nature had prepared the way. The air was clear and stimulating, yet not too cool; and the comparative warmth had melted the last ice from the lower rocks. Exhilarated by the exercise, I mounted rapidly over slopes that would once have been a formidable barrier. Still Yulada loomed afar, with firm impassive face as always; but I no longer feared her, for surely, I thought, I should this day touch her with my own hands! As I strode up and up in the sunlight, I smiled to remember my old superstitions—what was Yulada after all but a rock, curiously shaped perhaps, but no more terrifying than any other rock!

Even when I had passed the timber-line, and strode around the blue-white glaciers at the brink of bare ravines, I still felt an unwonted bravado. Yulada was drawing nearer, noticeably nearer, her features clear-cut on the peak—and how could she resist my coming? In my self-confidence, I almost laughed aloud, almost laughed out a challenge to that mysterious figure, for certainly the few intervening miles could not halt me!

So, at least, I thought. But Yulada, if she were capable of thinking, must have held otherwise. Even had she been endowed with reason and with omnipotence, she could hardly have made a more terrible answer to my challenge. I was still plodding up the long, steep grades, still congratulating myself upon approaching success, when I began to notice a change in the atmosphere. It was not only that the air was growing sharper and colder, for that I had expected; it was that a wind was rising from the northwest, blowing over me with a wintry violence. In alarm, I glanced back—a stone-gray mass of clouds was sweeping over the northern mountains, already casting a shadow across the valley, and threatening to enwrap the entire heavens.

Too well I recognized the signs—only too well! With panicky speed, more than once risking a perilous fall, I plunged back over the path I had so joyously followed. The wind rose till it blew with an almost cyclonic fury; the clouds swarmed above me, angry and ragged-edged; Yulada was forgotten amid my dread visions of groping through a blizzard. Yet once, as I reached a turn in the trail, I caught a glimpse of her standing far above, her lower limbs overshadowed by the mists, her head obscured as though thus to mock my temerity.

And what if I did finally return to my cabin safely? Before I had regained the valley, the snow was whirling about me on the arms of the high wind, and the whitened earth, the chill air and the screeching gale had combined to accentuate my sense of defeat.

It might be thought that I would now renounce the quest. But there is in my nature some stubbornness that only feeds on opposition; and far from giving up, I watched impatiently till the storm subsided and the skies were washed blue once more; till the warmer days came and the new deposits of snow thawed on the mountain slopes. Two weeks after being routed by the elements, I was again on the trail to Yulada.

The sky was once more clear and calm; a touch of spring was in the air, and the sun was warmer than in months. Determined that no ordinary obstacle should balk me, I trudged with scarcely a pause along the winding trail; and, before many hours, I had mounted above the last fringe of the pines and deodars. At last I reached the point where I had had to turn back two weeks ago; at last I found myself nearer to the peak than ever before on all my solitary rambles, and saw the path leading ahead over bare slopes and around distorted crags toward the great steel-gray figure. The sweetness of triumph began to flood through my mind as I saw Yulada take on monstrous proportions, the proportions of a fair-sized hill; I was exultant as I glanced at the sky, and observed it to be still serene. There remained one more elevated saddle to be crossed, then an abrupt but not impossible grade of a few hundred yards—probably no more than half an hour's exertion, and Yulada and I should stand together on the peak!

But again the unexpected was to intervene. If I had assumed that no agency earthly or divine could now keep me from my goal, I had reckoned without my human frailties. It was a little thing that betrayed me, and yet a thing that seemed great enough. I had mounted the rocky saddle and was starting on a short descent before the final lap, when enthusiasm made me careless. Suddenly I felt myself slipping!