Tish: The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions Part 44

"Tish," Aggie called desperately, "I can't stand this. I'm going back!

I'm--Lordamighty!"

Fortunately Tish did not hear this. We had suddenly emerged on the brink of a precipice. A two-foot path clung to the cliff, and along the very edge of this the horses walked, looking down in an interested manner now and then. My blood turned to water and I closed my eyes.

"Tish!" Aggie shrieked.

But the only effect of this was to start her horse into a trot. I had closed my eyes, but I opened them in time to see Aggie give a wild clutch and a low moan.

In a few moments the trail left the edge, and Aggie turned in her saddle and looked back at me.

"I lost my lower set back there," she said. "They went over the edge. I suppose they're falling yet."

"It's a good thing it wasn't the upper set," I said, to comfort her. "As far as appearance goes--"

"Appearance!" she said bitterly. "Do you suppose we'll meet anybody but desperadoes and Indians in a place like this? And not an egg with us, of course."

The eggs referred to her diet, as at different times, when having her teeth repaired, she can eat little else.

"Ham," she called back in a surly tone, "and hard tack, I suppose! I'll starve, Lizzie, that's all. If only we had brought some junket tablets!"

With the exception of this incident the morning was quiet. Tish and Bill talked prohibition, which he believed in, and the tin pans on the pack-horse clattered, and we got higher all the time, and rode through waterfalls and along the edge of death. By noon I did not much care if the horses fell over or not. The skin was off me in a number of places, and my horse did not like me, and showed it by nipping back at my leg here and there.

At eleven o'clock, riding through a valley on a trail six inches wide, Bill's horse stepped on a hornets' nest. The insects were probably dazed at first, but by the time Tish's horse arrived they were prepared, and the next thing we knew Tish's horse was flying up the mountain-side as if it had gone crazy, and Bill was shouting to us to stop.

The last we saw of Tish for some time was her horse leaping a mountain stream, and jumping like a kangaroo, and Bill was following.

"She'll be killed!" Aggie cried. "Oh, Tish, Tish!"

"Don't yell," I said. "You'll start the horses. And for Heaven's sake, Aggie," I added grimly, "remember that this is a pleasure trip."

It was a half-hour before Tish and Bill returned. Tish was a chastened woman. She said little or nothing, but borrowed some ointment from me for her face, where the branches of trees had sc.r.a.ped it, while Bill led the horses round the fatal spot. I recall, however, that she said she wished now that we had brought the other guide.

"Because I feel," she observed, "that a little strong language would be a relief."

We had luncheon at noon in a sylvan glade, and Aggie was pathetic. She dipped a cracker in a cup of tea, and sat off by herself under a tree.

Tish, however, had recovered her spirits.

"Throw out your chests, and breathe deep of this pure air unsullied by civilization," she cried. "Aggie, fill yourself with ozone."

"Humph!" said Aggie. "It's about all I will fill myself with."

"Think," Tish observed, "of the fools and dolts who are living under roofs, struggling, contending, plotting, while all Nature awaits them."

"With stings," Aggie said nastily, "and teeth, and horns, and claws, and every old thing! Tish, I want to go back. I'm not happy, and I don't enjoy scenery when I'm not happy. Besides, I can't eat the landscape."

As I look back, I believe it would have been better if we had returned.

I think of that day, some time later, when we made the long descent from the Piegan Pa.s.s under such extraordinary circ.u.mstances, and I realize that, although worse for our bodies, which had grown strong and agile, so that I have, later on, seen Aggie mount her horse on a run, it would have been better for our nerves had we returned.

We were all perfectly stiff after luncheon, and Aggie was sulking also.

Bill was compelled to lift us into our saddles, and again we started up and up. The trail was now what he called a "switchback." Halfway up Aggie refused to go farther, but on looking back decided not to return either.

"I shall not go another step," she called. "Here I am, and here I stay till I die."

"Very well," Tish said from overhead. "I suppose you don't expect us all to stay and die with you. I'll tell your niece when I see her."

Aggie thought better of it, however, and followed on, with her eyes closed and her lips moving in prayer. She happened to open them at a bad place, although safe enough, according to Bill, and nothing to what we were coming to a few days later. Opening them as she did on a ledge of rock which sloped steeply for what appeared to be several miles down on each side, she uttered a piercing shriek, followed by a sneeze. As before, her horse started to run, and Aggie is, I believe Bill said, the only person in the world who ever took that place at a canter.

We were to take things easy the first day, Bill advised. "Till you get your muscles sort of eased up, ladies," he said. "If you haven't been riding astride, a horse's back seems as wide as the roof of a church.

But we'll get a rest now. The rest of the way is walking."

"I can't walk," Aggie said. "I can't get my knees together."

"Sorry, ma'am," said Bill. "We're going down now, and the animals has to be led. That's one of the diversions of a trip like this. First you ride and than you walk. And then you ride again. This here's one of the show places, although easy of access from the entrance. Be a good place for a holdup, I've always said."

"A holdup?" Tish asked. Her enthusiasm seemed to have flagged somewhat, but at this she brightened up.

"Yes'm. You see, we're near the Canadian border, and it would be easy for a gang to slip over and back again. Don't know why we've never had one. Yellowstone can boast of a number."

I observed tartly that I considered it nothing to boast of, but Bill did not agree with me.

"It doesn't hurt a neighborhood none," he observed. "Adds romance, as you might say."

He went on and, happening to slide on a piece of shale at that moment, I sat down unexpectedly and the horse put its foot on me.

I felt embittered and helpless, but the others kept on.

"Very well," I said, "go on. Don't mind me. If this creature wants to sit in my lap, well and good. I expect it's tired."

But as they went on callously, I was obliged to shove the creature off and to hobble on. Bill was still babbling about holdups, and Aggie was saying that he was sunstruck, but of course it did not matter.

We made very slow progress, owing to taking frequent rests, and late in the afternoon we were overtaken by Mr. Bell, on foot and carrying a pack. He would have pa.s.sed on without stopping, but Aggie hailed him.

"Not going to hike, are you?" she said pleasantly. Aggie is fond of picking up the vernacular of a region.

"No," he said in a surly tone quite unlike his former urbane manner, "I'm merely taking this pack out for a walk."

But he stopped and mopped his face.

"To tell you the truth, ladies," he said, "I'm working off a little steam, that's all. I was afraid, if I stayed round the hotel, I'd do something I'd be sorry for. There are times when I am not a fit companion for any one, and this is one of them."

We invited him to join us, but he refused.

"No, I'm better alone," he said. "When things get too strong for me on the trail I can sling things about. I've been throwing boulders down the mountain every now and then. I'd just as soon they hit somebody as not.

Also," he added, "I'm safer away from any red-headed men."

We saw him glance at Bill, and understood. Mr. Oliver was red-headed.

"Love's an awful thing," said Bill as the young man went on, kicking stones out of his way. "I'm glad I ain't got it."