THE CHIEF'S CROWN, FROM THE EAST.
After we were rolled in our blankets, and the late moon, rising from the prairie ocean behind us, had turned the dark, threatening wall to cheering silver, we thought again of the old warrior's steadfastness and longed to make his example ours.
The Doctor's thermometer marked 20 degrees Fahrenheit when Fox called us, and the morning bucket which he dashed over us was flavored with more of the spirit of duty than usual. But otherwise the weather had been made for us. Yesterday's storm had beaten down the smoke from Washington forest fires, which had clouded everything for the past month, and the Sweet Grass Hills twinkled across one hundred miles of prairie as if at our feet; and yet there was hardly a breath of wind. Under the lee of the wall itself absolute stillness brooded over ledges which even a moderate breeze could have made dangerous. We did not make an early start. The thing could be done quickly if it could be done at all, for there was only 1,500 feet of cliff.
Our men did not give the attempt to reach the summit from this, the eastern side, even the scant compliment of a doubt; in their minds its failure was certain, but they were willing to see how far we could get up. The Doctor, too, had at first suggested, and with perfect correctness, that to try a difficult side of a mountain before reconnoitering the other was bad mountaineering, to say the least. But, on the other hand, this east side was the famous side of the Chief—the side which every passer-by on the prairie saw and wondered at. With our glasses we had mapped a course which seemed not impossible; was it not better to meet our king face to face than to steal on him from behind? Besides, this wonderful weather might not last long enough for us to reach the other side. And so our final conclusion was to try the east face.
Half way up the sheer face of the cliff was divided horizontally by a broad, steep shelf which ran nearly the length of the mountain. That shelf could clearly be crossed at any place; the difficulty would lie with the walls below and above it. The lower one was bad enough at best, but it was easy to recognize as least bad a place where a slope of shale abutted against it, shortening it some 300 feet. The upper wall in general seemed even worse, but it was furrowed by two deep chimneys, side by side, one of which led into the mountain's well-known cleft. The other chimney seemed to lead directly to the summit, but its lower mouth was inaccessible—cut off by overhanging cliff. Our plan, therefore, if we could ever reach the halfway shelf, was to use the first chimney in the beginning, then try to find a way around the dividing shoulder into the second, then follow that to the top. And at 9 o'clock we began on the lower wall.
Of course, the work which followed was not so difficult as it had promised from below—rock work rarely is—but it thoroughly taxed our slender experience, and, for a single man without a rope, must have been far worse. The Doctor and I took turns in leading, carrying up or having thrown to us from below a rope, on which the others then ascended. Most of the difficulty was thus confined to one man, and he could often be assisted from beneath. We were not skilled enough in the use of the rope to risk tying ourselves together.
Two hundred feet up came our first trouble, perhaps the worst of the day. We were sidling along a narrow shelf, with arms outstretched against the wall above, when we reached a spot where the shelf was broken by a round protruding shoulder. Beyond it the ledge commenced again and seemed to offer our only way upward. I was leading at the time, and, after examining it, turned back to a wider portion of the shelf for consultation. It was not a place one would care to try if there was an alternative.
We braced the Indian against the wall, and his skillful hand sent the lariat whirling up at a sharp rock above our heads. Time after time the noose settled fairly around it, but found no neck to hold it, and came sliding down. Then, almost before we knew it, the Doctor had run out along the ledge to the shoulder and had started around. For a moment he hung, griping the rounded surface with arms and knees; then a dangerous wriggle and he was on the other side.
Under his coaching the Indian and I followed; but Fox, when half way, lost his head, and barely succeeded in getting back to the starting point. He would not try again. The poor fellow's moccasins had lost some of their nails and he had slipped once or twice that morning, thus destroying the nerve of one who had at other times shown himself a good climber. But of the Indian's companionship for the rest of the day we were now sure.