Havergal College - Magazine Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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HAVERGAL COLLEGE MAGAZINE 25 further accessories. All afternoon we toiled up the other side through dense shin-tangle. Suddenly, as I was making my way laboriously up a water-fall, I heard Bert give a great shout. In a minute he was snatching off my pack and leaping onward. We were home! 0, the rest and calm and peace of that camp-scene; the orderly piles of saddles, the stock of firewood, the plates and knives and large kettles. No more eating from one cup and a small spoon helped out by our pocket knives! But as we sat comfortably in Photo by Mary L. Jobe. CROSSING BIG SMOKY front of the fire eating our modest supper of fool-hen mulligan, we spoke feelingly of those other two making their way back over the worst part of the trail on a pure meat diet — no salt, no biscuit, no sugar — only the strength within them to support them. The next two days passed uneventfully. Bert searched for the cayuses and found them so wild that they ran away at sight of him. To me fell the washing and cleaning up. The fourth day found us up early, baking and stewing and getting ready the feast for our returning climbers. Then we made beautifully springy balsam beds inches thick. Next, Bert went up and brought down the horses so as to be ready to start off on the return journey next morning, now a matter of urgency. Then we sat down and waited. Hours passed by and no signs of them. Seven o ' clock came and no answer to our shouts. Bert

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24 HAVERGAL COLLEGE MAGAZINE There was nothing to be done but to camp, keeping a big fire all night for warmth. The next morning we struggled down the shoulder, making the Big Salmon for lunch. This unexpected day ' s march put us on rations, so that for lunch we each had a big flapjack, but it was surprising how fit that made us for the remaining six and one- half hours that still lay before us. We crossed two large tribu- taries later in the afternoon, one on a log jam and the other on a log felled by Curlie. One more small ridge and we were in the Big Mountain valley, down which a wide spray-covered torrent rushes. We were just going on up to the glacier when, looking over our shoulders, we saw storm clouds closing in the valley. At the same moment Curlie saw a small space in which a tent could be put up. Both men dashed to the work, and just as we pressed inside the storm broke. Safe and dry we listened to the ava- lanches hurled from the Big Mountain. There was nothing friendly in his greeting to those who had dared to invade his realms after years of uninterrupted sway. When the storm was over we went outside to take in our sur- roundings. Clouds covered both peaks far down the sides, and all we saw were battlements of glaciers extending all along the front. Rain fell at night and most of the next morning, so that climbing was out of the question for that day. The next morning it was still threatening, but all felt that, as grub was getting short, another day must not be lost. So, at 6, Curlie, Miss Jobe and Bert Wilkins started off. Left alone below, I sat and waited. Rain fell in torrents but they did not come back. Gradually clouds crept down to the very base of the mountain, but still they did not return. Three kettles of water had boiled away before I heard shouts, and rushing out saw them just round- ing the point, soaked to the skin but still cheerful. They had been obliged to turn back by a blizzard on the snow-field before the peak began. Besides their very welcome selves they brought back six ptarmigan. Ptarmigan mulligan soon revived us all, and next morning, regretfully, we started homeward. The great dis- appointment lay in the fact that if they had had enough food to wait until fine weather, they felt sure they could make the ascent. That return journey was a very melancholy one. The bushes were dripping and in five minutes we were soaked, and remained so all day. By 6 o ' clock we had made Providence Pass, so named because there Curlie shot a caribou. By this time the continued wet had brought back Bert ' s rheumatism, and as I wasn ' t going to climb, it was decided that Bert and I should return to Last Cayuse camp, while Curlie and Miss Jobe went back with our blessing to try their luck on the Big Mountain once more. In the morning we went our diverse ways sadly and anxiously, with Curlie ' s words ringing in our ears, We ' ll be back on the fourth day, sure. That day Bert and I went down the side, crossed the river on a log jam and had a lunch on the other side of broiled fool-hen, shot en route, without salt or bread or

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26 HAVERGAL COLLEGE MAGAZINE and I looked anxiously at each other as shadows began to creep up the mountain and all the valley gradually receded into black- ness. They ' ll never come now, said Bert. But Curlie said he ' d come on the fourth day, I replied. Eight o ' clock and now darkness was everywhere. What might not have happened to them out there! Even now they might be lying at the bottom of a crevasse or somewhere in those dark, ghostly woods. O, the maddening inactivity of that last hour! For the fiftieth time Bert went to the edge and gave a shout. Suddenly from below came an answering call. For one moment the sudden change from sickening fear to hope struck us dumb. Then, with a shout, both of us dashed down the hill in the direc- tion of the voices. But we could go no distance in that inky black- ness and were obliged to return. Then for nearly an hour no answer came to our shouts, for they were now too tired to waste breath in calling. Just as we had given them up for the second time we heard a shout quite near at hand, and in a few minutes into the light of the camp-fire they came, two gleams of white ' teeth high up on two browny masses. There they were again, dirty, burnt, tired, soaked, but grinning. Did you do it? we shouted. She can ' t be done, they answered. Then such a babel as ensued over that delayed meal! How we waited on them, and how gratefully they ate! Then as they dried themselves over the fire we all talked together. We asked a thousand questions and didn ' t wait for the answers. I see them now, the bright fire-light on their faces, telling us of that fourteen hours on the mountain, almost wholly of ice, with huge seracs and caves and unclimbable, precipitous walls. At last exhausted nature had her way and wc went off to our tents. The next day we continued our willing service and lounged for the last time. From that point we hurried homewards, mak- ing two drives a day where possible, back to Robson statiori. There we heard for the first time of the monstrous war-clouds rolling over Europe, and as we sped eastward to take up again the responsi- bilities of life, the bright scenes of the past six weeks faded gently back into the peaceful gallery of memory, whose pictures are ac- cessible for all time M.S. Chivalry. I haven ' t any car tickets, Miss Spr-ng-t-, but I ' ll walk you home.