When the birds fly south

by Stanton A. Coblentz

After swallowing the food, I felt considerably better. Having finished the entire handful and washed it down with a draught from a second leather flask, I had revived sufficiently to try to sit up unaided; and simultaneously I realized how ravenously hungry I was, and felt a fresh desire to live flaming up within me.

Being eager for a word with my benefactors, I muttered something in English without thinking exactly what I was saying. But the surprised answering stares cut me short in sharp realization. What could these mountain folk know of English?

There was a short, awkward pause; then, after a few words among themselves, they addressed me in their native tongue. At the first syllable, I realized that theirs was not the cultivated Persian of the Afghan court, but rather a variety of Pushtu, the speech in most common use among the people. From my wanderings of the past few months and especially from contact with the native guides, I had gathered a few words of this language, enough to enable me to recognize its peculiar intonation, although I could express none but the simplest ideas.

After a second handful of the dried herbs, and another draught of water, I felt well enough to try to stagger to my feet. But the effort was too much for me; my limbs threatened to collapse beneath me; and two of the men had to bolster me up.

But once I had arisen, they would not let me return to my rock-couch. Grimly they motioned toward the snow-streaked northern peak, as if to indicate that we must pass beyond it; at the same time, one of them pointed to the stone image on the summit; while the others, as if observing a religious rite, extended their arms solemnly and almost imploringly toward that strange womanly figure.

At the moment, it did not occur to me that their attitude was one of prayer; but later I was to remember this fact. For the time, my thoughts took a more personal turn; for when I saw my new acquaintances preparing to lead me across the mountains, I was profoundly alarmed. Although still too stunned to take in the full reality, I knew that I was on the threshold of unpredictable adventures, and that many a day might pass before I could rejoin my fellow geologists.

But when the ascent actually began, I was not at all certain that I should survive. We seemed to be undertaking the impossible; I had, literally, to be lifted off my feet and carried; my legs were useful only on the short stretches of comparatively level ground. In the humiliation of being an invalid, I felt a deep sense of inferiority to these brawny men that tugged and strained to bear me up the mountain; while, with increasing admiration, I noted the capable way in which they carried me along the brink of canyons, or over grades that I should have had to make on my hands and knees. But greatest of all was my admiration for the young girl who had offered me the dried herbs. She seemed agile as a leopard and sure-footed as a mountain sheep, leaping from boulder to boulder and from crag to crag with the swiftness and abandon of a joyous wild thing....

Hours—how many I cannot estimate—must have been consumed in the ascent. Fortunately, I am not a large man, being but five feet six in height and considerably under the average weight; but, even so, I proved more than an ordinary burden. Though my rescuers worked in shifts and each seemed powerful enough to carry me single-handed, yet before long the exertion began to tell upon them all. Occasionally, after completing some precipitous ascent, they would pause to mop their brows and rest; or else their bulging eyes and panting frames would testify to the ordeal they were undergoing.

Higher and higher we mounted, while they showed no thought of abandoning their efforts. In joy not unmixed with a half-superstitious dread, I saw the statuesque figure on the peak slowly approaching; saw its outlines expand until it seemed but a mile away, clad in a somber gray and beckoning like some idol superbly carved by a race of Titans. But while I was asking myself whether we were to climb to the very foot of this image, I observed that we were following a little trail which no longer ascended but wound sinuously about the mountainside. For what seemed time unending we plodded along this path, while in my weakness I was more than once close to fainting.

But, as we jogged ahead, the scenery was gradually changing; from time to time I caught glimpses of far-off snowy peaks and a deep basin north of "The Mountain of Vanished Men." It was long before this valley stretched before us in an unbroken panorama; but when I saw it entire it was enough to make me forget my sufferings.