“And a few spitzes,” Spider answered.
It was bitter cold again that night, and soon after supper they all crawled into their sleeping bags. They were so weary, however, that even the cold could not keep them awake.
CHAPTER XXIV
Back Over the Divide—A Horse Turns Three Somersaults Down the Snow Slope
The doctor, as usual, was first up. He rose at dawn, got the fire and the breakfast started, and then routed out the rest. The peak of Jefferson above them was hidden in mist, and Hunt’s Cove below was filled with white cloud, also. In fact, they looked out over a billowing sea of white, with the sharp lava spires of Three Fingered Jack to the south, rising up like an island.
“Looks like a phantom ship,” said Bennie.
They were scarcely through breakfast, when they heard horses coming up through the timber, and soon the guide appeared, leading a couple of pack animals to take the luggage down. An hour later they were once more in Hunt’s Cove. The luggage was repacked, the boys unscrewed the spikes from their boots and mounted into the saddle again, and Norman led the way almost due south, following a trail up the head wall, instead of trying to get back as they had entered across Grizzly Flats.
“We can get back to the cars this afternoon this way—if we can cross at all,” he said. “But I won’t promise we can cross, doctor. A week ago you couldn’t get up on the other side.”
“Just the same, we’ll try it,” the doctor replied. “Bennie needs some exercise.”
For the next few miles they traveled through woods and across open upland meadows, riding on deep snow. In the hot glare of the sun, they had to put on their glasses again, and repaint their faces. Their lips once more cracked open, and their noses were burnt a still brighter brick red. Then they came to the crest of the Divide, below the long south shoulder of Jefferson, and started down. They realized at once why Norman said it was impossible a week ago to climb up here. There was a drop of a couple of hundred feet where the trail was completely buried in a huge drift, which, Norman said, a week before had an overhang at the top, completely preventing any horse getting over. But this cornice had now melted and collapsed. They dismounted, grasped their horses by the bridles, and started down, taking the slope at an angle to lessen the pitch. The saddle horses got down well enough, but the pack horses, with the top-heavy loads on their backs, could not keep their footing so well, and half-way down one of them fell. He turned three complete somersaults as he pitched headlong. At first the load held, but at the second somersault the hitch slipped, and out burst the load, scattering and tobogganing in all directions—two rolled-up sleeping bags, a tent, alpenstocks, a dunnage bag, a coffee-pot, and what canned goods were still left in their provision supply.
