The Silent Barrier
such heartfelt, if silent, thanksgiving. She sank exhausted on a rough
bench, and watched the matter-of-fact Engadiners unpacking the stores
and firewood carried in their rucksacks. Their businesslike air
supplied the tonic she needed. Though the howling storm seemed to
threaten the tiny refuge with destruction, these two men set to work,
coolly and methodically, to prepare a meal. Barth arranged the
contents of Karl's bulky package on a small table, and the porter
busied himself with lighting a fire in a Swiss stove that stood in the
center of the outer room. An inner apartment loomed black and
uninviting through an open doorway. Helen discovered later that some
scanty accommodation was provided there for those who meant to sleep
in the hut in readiness for an early ascent, while it supplied a
separate room in the event of women taking part in an expedition.
Bower offered her a quantity of brandy and water. She declined it,
declaring that she needed only time to regain her breath. He was a man
who might be trusted not to pester anyone with well meant but useless
attentions. He went to the door, lit a cigarette, and seemed to be
keenly interested in the sleet as it pelted the moraine or gathered in
drifts in the minor fissures of the glacier.
Within a remarkably short space of time, Karl had concocted two cups
of steaming coffee. Helen was then all aglow. Her strength was
restored. The boisterous wind had crimsoned her cheeks beneath the
tan. She had never looked such a picture of radiant womanhood as after
this tussle with the storm. Luckily her clothing was not wet, since
the travelers reached the _cabane_ at the very instant the elements
became really aggressive. It was a quite composed and reinvigorated
Helen who summoned Bower from his contemplation of the weather
portents.
"We may be besieged," she cried; "but at any rate we are not on famine
rations. What a spread! You could hardly have brought more food if you
fancied we might be kept here a week."
The sustained physical effort called for during the last part of the
climb seemed to have dispelled his fit of abstraction. Being an
eminently adaptable man, he responded to her mood. "Ah, that sounds
more like the enthusiast who set forth so gayly from the Kursaal this
morning," he answered, pulling the door ajar before he took a seat by
her side on the bench. "A few minutes ago you were ready to condemn me
as several kinds of idiot for going on in the teeth of our Switzers'
warnings. Now, confess!"
"I don't think I could have climbed another ten yards," she admitted.
"Our haste was due to Barth's anxiety. He wanted to save you from a
drenching. It was a near thing, and with the thermometer falling a
degree a minute soaked garments might have brought very unpleasant
consequences. But that was our only risk. Old mountaineer as I am, I
hardly expected such a blizzard in August, after such short notice
too. Otherwise, now that we are safely housed, you are fortunate in
securing a memorable experience. The storm will soon blow over; but it
promises to be lively while it lasts."
Helen was sipping her coffee. Perhaps her eyes conveyed the question
her tongue hesitated to utter. Bower smiled pleasantly, and
gesticulated with hands and shoulders in a way that was foreign to
his studiously cultivated English habit of repose. Indeed, with his
climber's garb he seemed to have acquired a new manner. There was a
perplexing change in him since the morning.
"Yes," he said. "I understand perfectly. You and I might sing _lieder
ohne worte_, Miss Wynton. I have known these summer gales to last four
days; but pray do not be alarmed," for Helen nearly dropped her cup in
quick dismay; "my own opinion is that we shall have a delightful
afternoon. Of course, I am a discredited prophet. Ask Barth."
The guide, hearing his name mentioned, glanced at them, though he was
engaged at the moment in taking the wrappings off a quantity of bread,
cold chicken, and slices of ham and beef. He agreed with Bower. The
barometer stood high when they left the hotel. He thought, as all men
think who live in the open, that "the sharper the blast the sooner
it's past."
"Moreover," broke in Karl, who refused to be left out of the
conversation, "Johann Klucker's cat was sitting with its back to the
stove last evening."
This bit of homely philosophy brought a ripple of laughter from Helen,
whereupon Karl explained.
"Cats are very wise, _fraeulein_. Johann Klucker's cat is old.
Therefore she is skilled in reading the tokens of the weather. A cat
hates wind and rain, and makes her arrangements accordingly. If she
washes herself smoothly, the next twelve hours will be fine. If she
licks against the grain, it will be wet. When she lies with her back
to the fire, there will surely be a squall. When her tail is up and
her coat rises, look out for wind."
"Johann Klucker's cat has settled the dispute," said Bower gravely in
English. "A squall it is,--a most suitable prediction for a cat,--and
I am once more rehabilitated in your esteem, I hope?"
A cold iridescence suddenly illumined the gloomy interior of the hut.
It gave individuality to each particle of sleet whirling past the
door. Helen thought that the sun had broken through the storm clouds
for an instant; but Bower said quietly:
"Are you afraid of lightning?"
"Not very. I don't like it."
"Some people collapse altogether when they see it. Perhaps when
forewarned you are forearmed."
A low rumble boomed up the valley, and the mountain echoes muttered in
solemn chorus.
"We are to be spared none of the scenic accessories, then?" said
Helen.
"None. In fact, you will soon see and hear a thunder storm that would
have delighted Gustave Dore. Please remember that it cannot last long,
and that this hut has been built twenty years to my knowledge."
Helen sipped her coffee, but pushed away a plate set before her by
Barth. "If you don't mind, I should like the door wide open," she
said.
"You prefer to lunch later?"
"Yes."
"And you wish to face the music--is that it?"
"I think so."
"Let me remind you that Jove's thunderbolts are really forged on the
hilltops."
"I am here; so I must make the best of it. I shall not scream, or
faint, if that is what you dread."
"I dread nothing but your anger for not having turned back when a
retreat was possible. I hate turning back, Miss Wynton. I have never
yet withdrawn from any enterprise seriously undertaken, and I was
determined to share your first ramble among my beloved hills."
Another gleam of light, bluer and more penetrating than its
forerunner, lit the brown rafters of the _cabane_. It was succeeded by
a crash like the roar of massed artillery. The walls trembled. Some
particles of mortar rattled noisily to the floor. A strange sound of
rending, followed by a heavy thud, suggested something more tangible
than thunderbolts. Bower kicked the door and it swung inward.
"An avalanche," he said. "Probably a rockfall too. Of course, the hut
stands clear of the track of unpleasant visitors of that description."
Helen had not expected this courageous bearing in a man of Bower's
physical characteristics. Hitherto she had regarded him as somewhat
self indulgent, a Sybarite, the product of modernity in its London
aspects. His demeanor in the train, in the hotel, bespoke one
accustomed to gratify the flesh, who found all the world ready to
pander to his desires. Again she was conscious of that instinctive
trustfulness a woman freely reposes in a dominant man. Oddly enough,
she thought of Spencer in the same breath. An hour earlier, had she
been asked which of these two would command her confidence during a
storm, her unhesitating choice would have favored the American. Now,
she was at least sure that Bower's coolness was not assumed. His
attitude inspired emulation. She rose and went to the door.
"I want to see an avalanche," she cried. "Where did that one fall?"
Bower followed her. He spoke over her shoulder. "On Monte Roseg, I
expect. The weather seems to be clearing slightly. This tearing wind
will soon roll up the mist, and the thunder will certainly start
another big rock or a snowslide. If you are lucky, you may witness
something really fine."
A dazzling flash leaped over the glacier. Although the surrounding
peaks were as yet invisible through the haze of sleet and vapor,
objects near at hand were revealed with uncanny distinctness. Each
frozen wave on the surface of the ice was etched in sharp lines. A
cluster of seracs on a neighboring icefall showed all their mad chaos.
The blue green chasm of a huge crevasse was illumined to a depth far
below any point to which the rays of the sun penetrated. On the
neighboring slope of Monte Roseg the crimson and green and yellow
mosses were given sudden life against the black background of rock.
Every boulder here wore a somber robe. They were stark and grim. The
eye instantly caught the contrast to their gray-white fellows piled on
the lower moraine or in the bed of the Orlegna.
Helen was quick to note the new tone of black amid the vividly white
patches of snow. She waited until the deafening thunder peal was dying
away in eerie cadences. "Why are the rocks black here and almost white
in the valley?" she asked.
"Because they are young, as rocks go," was the smiling answer. "They
have yet to pass through the mill. They will be battered and bruised
and polished before they emerge from the glacier several years hence
and a few miles nearer peace. In that they resemble men. 'Pon my word,
Miss Wynton, you have caused me to evolve a rather poetic explanation
of certain gray hairs I have noticed of late among my own raven
locks."
"You appear to know and love these hills so well that I wonder--if you
will excuse a personal remark--I wonder you ever were able to tear
yourself away from them."
"I have missed too much of real enjoyment in the effort to amass
riches," he said slowly. "Believe me, that thought has held me
since--since you and I set foot on the Forno together."
"But you knew? You were no stranger to the Alps? I am beginning to
understand that one cannot claim kinship with the high places until
they stir the heart more in storm than in sunshine. When I saw all
these giants glittering in the sun like knights in silver armor, I
described them to myself as gloriously beautiful. Now I feel that they
are more than that,--they are awful, pitiless in their indifference
to frail mortals; they carry me into a dim region where life and death
are terms without meaning."
"Yes, that is the true spirit of the mountains. I too used to look on
them with affectionate reverence, and you recall the old days.
Perhaps, if I am deemed worthy, you will teach me the cult once more."
He bent closer. Helen became conscious that in her enthusiasm she had
spoken unguardedly. She moved away, slightly but unmistakably, a step
or two out into the open, for the hut on that side was not exposed to
the bitter violence of the wind.
"It is absurd to imagine us in a change of role," she cried. "I should
play the poorest travesty of Mentor to your Telemachus. Oh! What is
that?"
While she was speaking, another blinding flare of lightning flooded
moraine and glacier and pierced the veil of sleet. Her voice rose
almost to a shriek. Bower sprang forward. His left hand rested
reassuringly across her shoulders.
"Better come inside the hut," he began.
"But I saw someone--a white face--staring at me down there!"
"It is possible. There is no cause for fear. A party may have crossed
from Italy. There would be none from the Maloja at this hour."
Helen was actually trembling. Bower drew her a little nearer. He
himself was unnerved, a prey to wilder emotions than she could guess