Page:Weird Tales Volume 9 Number 1 (1927-01).djvu/11

 "When I wag a boy, I heard a man—his name was Simpson—tell about it."

"Oh," said Scranton, and it was as though some fear or thing of dread had suddenly left him.

"His story, however," I added, "was vague, mysterious. Even at the time I couldn't understand what it was about."

"Of course. For, though Simpson knew of the journey, he knew but little of what had happened. And more than once I have heard my grandfather express regret that he had told Simpson even as much as he had. I suppose there was something of that I-could-tell-a-lot-if-I-wanted-to in Simpson's yarn."

"There was," I nodded.

"The man, however, knew virtually nothing—in fact, nothing at all about it. I have no doubt, though, that he did a lot of guessing. I don't believe that my grandfather, dead these many years now, ever told a single soul all. And, as for all that he told me—well, I can't tell everything even to you, Mr. Rhodes."

A strange look came into the eyes of Milton Rhodes, but he remained silent.

Scranton raised the note-book again.

"Nor is everything here. Nor do I propose to read everything that is here. Just now the details do not matter. It is the facts, the principal facts, with which we have to do now. This record, if you are interested—and I have no doubt you will be—I shall leave in your hands until such time as you care to return it to me. Now for my grandfather's journey.

"With three companions, he left the old homestead, near what is now Puyallup, on the 16th of August, 1858. At Steilacoom, they got an Indian guide, Sklokoyum by name. The journey was made on horseback to the Mishawl Prairie. There the animals were left, with one man to guard them, and my grandfather, his two companions and the Indian—this guide, however, had never been higher up the Nisqually than Copper Creek—set out on foot for the mountain."

"One moment," Milton Rhodes interrupted. "According to that Simpson, it was something that your grandfather heard from the soldier Dogue, and not from Kautz himself, that led to his making this journey to Rainier. Is that correct?"

"Yes; it is correct."

"May I ask, Mr. Scranton, what it was that he learned?"

Again that enigmatic smile on Scranton's face. He tapped the old journal.

"You will loam that, Mr. Rhodes, when you read this record."

"I see. Pray proceed."

"It was about 3 o'clock in the afternoon of the 24th," said Scranton, "that they reached the foot of the Nisqually Glacier, called Kautz Glacier by my grandfather. As for what followed, I shall give you that in my grandfather's own words."

He opened the book, at a place marked with a strip of paper, and read from it the following:

"August 24th, 10 p. m.—At last we are on the mountain. And how can I set it down—this amazing thing that has happened? What I write here must be inadequate indeed, but I shall not worry about that, for a hundred years could never dim the memory of what I saw. I have often wondered why the Indians were afraid of Rainier; I know now. And what do I really know? I know what I saw, I know what happened; but only God in heaven knows what it means.

"Got started early. Still following the river. Going very difficult.