The Camp of the Snake/Chapter 4

DAY or so later, we got out at a junction where there was a real breeze and rocks and trees that looked natural. A narrow gauge railway took me up to a kind of pleasure resort, which I passed by, wishing to see more of the country. It was all mountains, each range higher than the last, and a fellow traveler told me there was a station a few days' ride up and in, so I took one bag and hopped into a mail cart with two ponies and two wheels and a bearded pirate to drive it.

Lord, how that man did drive! We left the post road and climbed for two days up into trails that hung on the sides of hills. We skidded around corners with my overcoat flapping over a sheer precipice, and across log bridges that swayed up and down close above a river that looked like the rapids of the St. Lawrence. The smell of the pines was mighty good after the mixtures of Delhi. I saw a peak covered with snow ahead of us, and also a mass of black, rushing cloud to windward. The leaves on the birches turned white side up and the sunlight became sickly. Judging by the driver's curses a thunderstorm was no joke in this country.

Just then we rounded a turn and nearly bumped an auto stalled in the trail. The native driver reined his steeds up the bank a bit and maneuvered past, but I signaled for him to stop.

The car was one of those English models, light, with a long wheel base and plenty of power. One man, a tall chap with a brown, likeable face and a dinky mustache, was testing out the ignition system and wasting no time about it. The young chap beside him hailed me.

"Hullo, Smith, did you have any money on Sir Havelock? He came in nicely, you must admit."

It was Arnold Carnie, and his sister was in the rear seat. The other fellow went by the name of Dixon—evidently the Captain Dixon I had heard them speak of in Delhi—and Carnie assured me cheerfully that if they did not get the bus working before the storm broke they would be in a fine jam because the trail would be mud and the bridges would be slippery elm.

After watching Dixon working a while I thought the ignition was O.K. Carnie said they'd tested out the gas line and that was all right. I didn't feel like leaving Miss Carnie parked in the mud on the edge of a half mile drop into the river, and asked if they minded my tinkering with the carburetor.

It was a brand I'd never seen before, but they all work on the same principle. I found it was a mess of dirt, and cleaned it out, and got the float to functioning again. This done the motor sputtered a bit when we cranked her up and finally began to purr in a business-like way.

"Come along, Smithy," Carnie urged. "We might break down again, you know."

I asked if they were going to the Chitral station.

"Either that or the river, as the case may be."

The prospect of a real ride was tempting, and I yanked my bag from the cart and climbed in as Dixon, who took the wheel, slipped in his clutch and started with a jerk that nearly landed me in the girl's lap. The wind whined in the khaki top, and our dust swept out over the gorge in a great plume. The sun had quit altogether, and Dixon switched on his lights and trod on the gas until we were making more than thirty along that trail built for mules and carts. He seemed to know the road, and took the turns at a rate that sent loose stones rattling over the great divide.

As thunderstorms sometimes do, this one held off for several miles. Then the far-off trees began to thresh and a red glare shone out along the crests across the valley. Thunder went off right overhead and when the first flash came it glittered on a million raindrops.

Dixon eased the car up close to an overhanging rock that protected us from the full force of the storm. We wrapped the girl up in blankets and listened to rocks bouncing down the hillside and caroming over our heads. Now and then a tree cracked and I heard one fall not far behind us.

The storm was beyond us in a few minutes; the sun darted into rolling mist that looked like clouds and glowed red from the light behind it. The rumble of the river came up stronger than ever as we went on.

Again Dixon drove as if he never wanted to reach the hotel alive. I've been at the wheel in one or two transcontinental sprints, and I know that mountain driving isn't as bad as it looks, when the road bed is dry. But we were skidding up to bridges and slithering down drops that might have ended in a washout.

Miss Carnie gasped once or twice and even the youthful Arnold called a halt when the trail forked.

"We'll never make the climb to the station, Larry," he gave out. "Not in this mud, you confounded ! So be a good chap and edge off to the lumber camp; somebody's there, I'm sure, and Gordon can dry out, at least."

Dixon looked at him as if he was going to object, then thought better of it and swung into the right fork, into a forest of big pines, and I took my feet off the floor-boards where they'd been clamped for an hour. About twilight we came out of a winding trail to the edge of the gorge again, and a cluster of tents.

It was really one tent with a scattering of huts, but the tent was more like a pavilion. Some native servants came from the shacks and helped us carry in our bags. Captain Dixon ran the car under some of the thickest foliage—the whole place was a grove of big pines, visible in the glare of the headlights—and I heard him swearing at the natives because they didn't rig a tarpaulin over it properly.

There were lamps going in the big tent. The thing was divided up into rooms and passageways like a bungalow; oriental rugs covered every inch of the floorboards, and the lamps were queer affairs, with a big Chinese lantern painted like a dragon, hung from the silk top of each of the two main compartments.

One of these looked like a reception hall with a kerosene stove with a few bearskins and leather cushions slung around. I only saw one chair in the tent, in the next room, which must have been the owner's study. This had a teakwood table, some bookshelves and other shelves stacked with bundles of clippings and papers. The chair by the table was black hardwood, carved all over, with gilt patterns and it looked as if it might have been a throne, some time or other.

Across the passageway were three sleeping compartments in a row, every one with a cot and rug and washstand. I looked into the fourth compartment at the back of the passage on the side away from the entrance and found that it was full of stores, foodstuffs, kerosene, blankets, medicines and so forth.

The doors, except the front entrance were just openings in the partitions, curtained off. I went out and examined it to find out why the heat kept in so well. The tent had double sides and top. A big tarp was stretched on a frame of eight inch bamboo, and the guys were inch manila rope anchored around logs that were sunk in the ground. Besides, the dense growth of pines protected it from the worst of the wind that I could hear moaning 'way up over my head.

Arnold Carnie called me. "Dinner is on the rug, Smithy. Our host is absent, so we've conscripted his house boys and some excellent port."

As he said, the natives were serving a hot meal of rice and mutton, with those chupatty cakes, in the reception room, and we all squatted down on the animal skins to eat. Dixon didn't trouble to ask permission to make ourselves at home, because hospitality in these places is a matter of course, and we were only taking things for granted.

In the lamp light Dixon looked more than a little tired. He had a lined face, yellow brown like many Englishmen who spend their lives in that steam sunbath of a place. He said practically nothing, though he was attentive to Gordon Carnie and I suspected they were engaged.

Dixon and Miss Carnie paid little heed to me, though they were polite enough. But Arnold was the kind that makes everybody his friend—or enemy. He explained that the owner was away on a hike or hunt, and the tent was really a native affair, the kind used by Indian dukes or dignitaries when they traveled a bit.

Two things struck me as queer. There weren't any chairs, except the one curio. And I had not seen any guns stacked in the den. The man had skins enough to mark him for a hunter, and that sort usually keeps a small arsenal on hand. But I had an idea that I knew the name of the tent dweller. On the den table I noticed a black book that was either the one Moorcroft had been reading on the train or its twin. And I was not over pleased at stumbling on Dr. Paul Moorcroft again.