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

 tried my level best to recollect the particulars of a certain wild, gloomy story of mystery and horror that I had heard long years before—in my boyhood days, in fact.

"I can not recollect it," I told him. "I didn't understand it even when I heard the man, an old acquaintance of the Serantons, tell the story—a story of some black fate, some terrible curse that had fallen upon the fam-ily."

"So that's the kind of mystery it is! From what the man said—though that was vague, shadowy—I thought 'twas something very different. I thought it was scientific."

"Maybe it is. We are speculating, you know, if one may call it that, on pretty flimsy data. One thing: I distinctly remember that Rainier had something to do with it."

"What Rainier?"

"Why, Mount Rainier."

"This is becoming intriguing," said Milton Rhodes, "if it isn't anything else. You spoke of a black fate, a horrible curse: what has noble Old He, as the old mountain-men called Rainier, to do with such insignificant matters as the destinies of us insects called humans?"

"According to this fellow I mentioned, this old acquaintance of the Serantons, it was there that the dark and mysterious business started."

"What was it that started?"

"That's just it. The man didn't know himself what had happened up there."

"Hum," said Milton Rhodes.

"That," I went on, "was many years ago—just, I believe, after Kautz climbed the mountain. Yes, I am sure he said 'twas just after that. And this man who told us the story—his name was Simpson—said 'twas something that Scranton learned on Kautz's return to Steilacoom that had led to his (Scranton's) visit to Old He. Not from Kautz himself, though Seranton knew the lieutenant well, but from the soldier Dogue."

"What was it he learned?"

"There it is again!" I told him. "Simpson said he could tell what that something was, but that he would not do so."

"A very mysterious business," smiled Milton Rhodes. "I hope, Bill, that our visitor's story, whatever it is, will prove more definite."

"Wasn't it," I asked, "in the fifties that Kautz made the ascent?"

"In July, 1857. And pretty shabbily has history treated him, too. It's always Stevens and Van Trump, Van Trump and Stevens—why, their Indian, Sluiskin, is better known than Kautz!'

"But," I began, "I thought that Stevens and Van Trump were the very first"

"Oh, don't misunderstand me, Bill!" said Milton Rhodes. "All honor to Stevens and Van Trump, the first of men to reach the very summit; but all honor, too, to the first. white man. to set foot on the mountain, the discoverer of the great Nisqually Glacier, the first to stand upon the top of Rainier, though adverse circumstances prevented his reaching the highest point."

"Amen!" said I—as little dreaming as Kautz, Stevens and Van Trump themselves had ever done of that discovery which was to follow, and soon now at that.

For a time we held desultory talk, then fell silent and waited.

There was a lull in the storm; the darkness lifted, then suddenly it fell again, and the rain began to descend with greater violence than ever.

Milton Rhodes had left his chair and was standing by one of the eastern windows.

"This must be our visitor, Bill," he said suddenly.

I arose and went over to his side, to see a big sedan swinging in to the curb.