--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Powers, Alfred collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 28 number: 6 published: 1925-04 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Alfred Powers, “The Fourth of the Far Fifteen,” *Improvement Era 28, no. 6 (April 1925)*: 553–567." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2806unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2806unse start_page: 553 end_page: 567 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1925-04) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2806unse publication_year: 1925 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1925, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Fourth of the Far Fifteen THE FOURTH OF THE FAR FIFTEEN By Alfred Powers At six p. m., an hour late, the branch-line train pulled into Klamath Falls, Oregon, May 20, 1923. A crowd, regardless of cool- ing suppers at home, waited eagerly at the postoffice for distribution of the mail. In that crowd was a boy who wasn't expecting anything for himself, but who was there to claim and take home to his parents what the postal clerks might place in Box 119. When he turned the key and opened the window of that box, he found an official-looking envelope, addressed neither to his father nor his mother but in four typewritten lines to: "Mr. Scott Howe, Leader Pelican Patrol, Boy Scout Troop No. 1, Klamath Falls, Ore- gon." He opened the envelope, read the letter and left the postoffice in haste and excitement. As quickly as he could he gathered up the seven other members of the patrol for an impromptu meeting at the home of Professor George Griffin, the scoutmaster, to consider the proposals of the letter, which was from the Panther Patrol of the Boy Scout troop at Hood River, Oregon, and which read as follows: Will the Pelican Patrol climb Mt. Shasta to light red fire on the summit at exactly ten-fifteen the night of July Fourth. If so, this patrol promises to be on top of Mt. Hood at exactly ten o'clock the same night to signal with fireworks. The quarter of an hour interval will keep each party from being blinded by its own light. This proposition is made for two reasons: One is to clear up the scientific point. No one has ever seen Mt. Shasta from Mt. Hood or vice versa. They are two hundred and fifty miles apart and the question is: Does the natural curvature of the earth bulge up the intervening Cascade Range so as to break the line of vision? In daytime, the snow-covered tops are not bright enough to focus the sight to the best advantage at so great a distance. But brilliant fireworks at night would make the peaks visible from each other if the roundness of the earth doesn't interfere, and to find out definitely whether it does interfere is one reason for this climb. The other reason is that we can furnish a Fourth of July spectacle which has never been equalled anywhere. Portland's 260,000 inhabitants and many smaller towns in Oregon, Southern Washington and Northern California can see one or the other illuminated mountain, so that more than half a million people will enjoy the fireworks we put on. Druggists will mix up red fire for about seventy-five cents a pound. We'll need close to a hundred pounds for each mountain. But the celebration committees of Portland and the other towns ought to be willing to finance the trips. If you wish, our scoutmaster. Sheriff John Taylor, will see what can be done about this. Only six of us can make the climb: John Taylor, scoutmaster; Jess Wilson, Ben Clark, Jack Sutton, Gus Peterson and Andy Applegate. We have only about six weeks before the Fourth, so if you can't climb Mt. Shasta let us know by return mail if possible and we'll submit the proposition to one of the patrols of Medford, Oregon, or Sacramento, California. Yours very truly, (Signed) JESS WILSON, Leader Panther Patrol, Hood River, Oregon. 5 54 IMPROVEMENT ERA "Medford or Sacramento," repeated Scott, as the letter was fin- ished. "What do they take us for, tenderfeet? Let's write the letter now and tell them we're on." "Yes, let's write it," they all agreed. "You'll be our guide, won't you, Professor Griffin? You've climbed the mountain once or twice." "Yes," consented the scoutmaster, "I'll go along. But I want to be sure you boys fully understand what you're undertaking. Shasta is one of the highest mountains in North America and climbing it is a hard job and may prove a dangerous one. If you burn the red fire at ten-fifteen, you'll have to stay on the summit from then till morn- ing. It'll be the longest night you ever spent in your lives, and cold — say! Eight sets of teeth will clatter all night — nine sets, for mine will join the chorus. But I believe every boy here is equal to the task. I wouldn't agree to go along if I didn't think so. Hands up, all who want to make the climb." "You see it's unanimous," announced Scott. "Let's write the letter." "Before we do that," said Professor Griffin, "we must take another vote. You're forgetting your parents. Go home, each one of you, and get their consent. Then we'll write the letter." No parental veto being reported, they jointly composed the fol- lowing reply: You don't need to take your proposition to Medford or Sacramento. This patrol will be on top of Mt. Shasta to shoot off red fire at exactly 10:15 on the night of the coming Fourth of July. We shall get the direction of Mt. Hood by compass and shall be looking for your light at exactly ten o'clock. You bring up an interesting point as to whether the curvature of the earth's surface is sufficient to cut off the view from one mountain to the other. Mt. Hood is 11,225 feet high; Mt. Shasta is 14,440. We believe these will be high enough watch towers to enable us to see the two hundred and fifty miles. We can hardly wait for the time to come to settle the question by the actual test of sight. With our scoutmaster, Professor George Griffin, as guide, all eight members of this patrol will undertake the climb, their names being Scott Howe, Ed Stockton, Walter Underwood, Mike McGee, Ralph vWeed, Cal Eaton, Sid St. Slair and Al Whitaker. We shall be glad for Sheriff Taylor to arrange for the expense money as you suggest. We can take up further details by correspondence and probably our scout- masters can meet for a conference a few days before the Fourth. Sincerely yours, (Signed) SCOTT HOWE, For the Pelican Patrol. Plans went ahead, receiving much notice in the newspapers. A score of Fourth of July posters in as many cities and towns, had prominently displayed as a feature: "Pyrotechnic display from top of Mt. Hood, 10:00 p. m. Top of Mt. Shasta, 10:15 p. m." Plenty of money was donated for the enterprise. Other gifts were made also. Among them was a watch and a compass apiece for the scoutmasters, and, most prized of all, two American flags from the Daughters of the American Revolution. These thoughtful THE FOURTH OF THE FAR FIFTEEN 555 women had had special staffs of hickory made, spiked with steel, the silken banners themselves being incased in waterproof tubing. A note to each patrol explained that in order that the flag might not be an incumbrance, the staff could be used by the boy carrying it as an alpenstock. There was no more beautiful thought in connection with the whole program than of these two flags fluttering their bright folds at each other from those far distant summits on Independence Day. The district forestry office in Portland offered the use of four carrier pigeons, two for each patrol, one to be let loose on the way up, preferably at the beginning of the final climb, the other when the summit was reached. In case of accident during the climb, the second pigeon, if it itself escaped disaster, could carry news and bring help. Each patrol took regular hikes and hardened themselves for the climb. The Mazamas. the famous mountain climbing club of Ore- gon, gave help and advice. The scoutmasters had a conference in Portland. By the last day in June everything was in readiness. Meanwhile, waiting for their part in the great event, the two silent mountain peaks lifted far upward toward the summer skies their crowns all powdered like a cavalier's wig. II It was still dark when the suburban roosters began lustily to herald July second, but the sleeping town of Hood River paid no attention. The town slept on, unheeding and unawakened. It did not hear a motor truck pass through the streets and out upon a south- bound road or the cadenced tramp of feet upon the pavement like soldiers marching. It was the Panther Patrol, with Sheriff Taylor as guide, starting for Mt. Hood, which, more than twenty miles away, stood unseen in the morning darkness. They might have ridden part of the way, or even all of the way, to the timbered base of that great mountain, but they preferred to walk. Their light army packs contained nothing but their lunches and their mess kits. The truck, bound for Cloud Cap Inn, 6,500 feet up at timber line, carried their equipment. This consisted of one hundred pounds of red fire stored in ten water-tight bags, a toboggan, a coil of rope, a compass, two carrier pigeons in a box, a hatchet, an ice axe, three flashlights, six alpenstocks, one of them — the flag — encased part way like a traveler's umbrella, two pup tents, ten woolen blankets, extra clothing to the extent of six pairs of woolen socks, six suits of woolen underclothes and six heavy rough-neck sweaters. The truck also carried a supply of bacon, canned beans, hardtack, raisins, unsweetened chocolate bars and other plain food. This was most of the equipment, though there were other odds and ends like goggles for the eyes and grease-paint for the face. 5 56 IMPROVEMENT ERA After this hard day of uphill hiking they might have slept and eaten at Cloud Cap Inn, but they did neither. Among the last wind- beaten trees, not far from the lower edge of the white expanse, they set up their pup tents, cut boughs for mattresses, cooked their suppers, flipped coins to see who would be the lucky ones to sleep in the middle and repaired by threes to their tiny quarters, with all their clothes on, including some of the extras. Only their shoes were taken off. Their camp preparations had included the building of a rock coop for the pigeon box. This was further protected by a covering of boughs, an opening for air being left to leeward. They needed no alarm clock to get them up in the morning, and at that frosty altitude crowing roosters would have been like paint- ing the lily or bringing coals to Newcastle. An arctic cold, against which three covers are no adequate protection, is the best kind of inducement for early rising. In one of the tents a flashlight turned on the face of a watch showed that it was only 3:00 a. m., but the boy announced: "I'm going to get up." "No, it isn't time," protested the boy in the middle. "It isn't nearly time." "I'm going to get up, too," declared the boy on the other side. This seemed like rank desertion to the boy in the middle. "What's the big idea," he demanded, "of getting up in the middle of the night?" "To build a fire and thaw out — that's the idea," they replied, putting on their stiffened shoes. Five minutes later, the boy thus left exposed both port and star- board to the creeping chill, reversed his former opinion and called to the firemakers: "I believe it is time to get up." They spent that day, July third, in getting their redfire half way up to the top. They tied the ten sacks of this securely on board the toboggan, using for this purpose part of their rope but leaving a long length to pull with. They harnessed themselves by tying three sticks at intervals along the rope, two pulling at a stick. By this arrange- ment also if anyone lost his footing, all he had to do was to hang on. One hand of each was given over to draft purposes. Each outside hand carried an alpenstock. The baggage was no great impediment at first, but before long it began to show a lot of resistance. By the middle of the morning they were dragging it along by slow and difficult stages. To make matters worse the July sun distilled tropical weather upon them as they labored. They put on goggles to protect their eyes from the glare, their faces being already protected from snowburn by grease- paint, lamp-black and even patches of court plaster. Forcing the sled to follow them, they toiled slowly up the steepening slope. They THE FOURTH OF THE FAR FIFTEEN 557 pulled the toboggan across crevasses on snow bridges, and, lifting it up, carried it like a stretcher over warty areas of lava outcroppings. At last, with some satisfaction, they looked up at the summit and down at timber line whence they had come. In actual distance they had come more than half way. But how much steeper it was above than below. Soon they would have to leave the sled and transfer its distributed load to their backs. "Let's call it a day," said Sheriff Taylor. Before descending to camp, they cached the toboggan in as pro- tected a place as they could find and anchored it by means of the rope to the neighboring rocks, so that it would not be lifted up and thrown back down the slope by the night winds that whip these altitudes like a winter gale at sea. After the toil of the day sleep yielded less easily to the interrup- tions of the cold so the night seemed reasonably short. At five a. m. on the Fourth of July the mobilized patrol stood round their extinguished camp fire, all ready for the final ascent. It was the Fourth of fair weather for which they had hoped — no cloud, or fog, or threat of rain. The white slopes stretched upward before them in the starlight. They took only their alpenstocks, their pack equipment, their extra clothes, the ice axe, the flashlights, the compass, some hardtack and chocolate which they carried in their pockets, and the pigeons, the first of which they meant to turn loose when they reached the cache of the toboggan. In addition, Sheriff Taylor carried a canteen of water at his belt. "Forward march!" he called and soon the crusted snow was crunching under their feet. They reached the sled at nine o'clock. A boy took one of the pigeons and warmed it under his sweater, while Sheriff Taylor with a sharp-pointed pencil wrote a note in tiny script. He fastened this into the band on the pigeon's leg and the boy with a final stroke of a caressing hand along its glossy back let the messenger fly. The pigeon spiralled overhead, twice, three times, and then, with its mysterious and unerring sense of direction, started off towards Portland. They now turned to the work of the day. They looked up at the precipitous incline of white and down at the sled with its ten bags of red fire. "This is the end of the journey for the toboggan," announced the sheriff. "After this it will be a la pack mule. I'll take three in my pack. Jess and Ben are big fellows and can handle two apiece. Jack, you can take the pigeon besides a bag, can't you? Gus and Andy can take a bag apiece." They planted weary feet upon the summit at four o'clock and almost wished they hadn't arrived so soon, for the wind, cold and piercing, assailed this pinnacle with savage fury. 558 IMPROVEMENT ERA First of all they turned loose the pigeon. Then they lost «o time in putting on their extra clothes. Five of them formed a circle, within which as a dressing room the sixth in turn effected a change. In this way he got some protection from the icy blasts during the brief period when shoes, shirt and trousers were off and the extra socks and union suit were not yet on. The additional garments made a lot of difference but were far from affording complete comfort against the buffet of that chill and lofty gale. It was now only four-thirty. They would have to get along as best they could for nearly six hours longer. For a while they found ample entertainment in the view spread out before them on every hand. To the north rose the white peaks of St. Helens, Adams and Ranier. With one sweep of their eyes they took in three hundred miles of the mighty Columbia's course — from where it flowed through desert sage and dune to where it met the ocean in a white and tumultuous embrace. Southward their gaze leaped the zigzag ridges of the Cascades to Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Wash- ington, the Three Sisters — where their strained vision abruptly stop- ped, powerless in spite of all the bright daylight that lay over the ranges to make the final reach to Shasta. To this far-leagued landscape they made an appropriate addi- tion. They took the protective covering from the flag, planted the staff deeply in the snow and loosed the clean, bright standard to the play of the winds, which by this time had begun to die down but which still blew strong enough so the slender hickory pole bent back and forth and the silken banner now contracted in shimmering folds and now stretched this way and that towards various sections of the fair land it symbolized. At right angles to Portland, in a basin among the exposed rocks, they prepared a place for the red fire but dared not pour it out of the bags and spread it for fear it would be blown away. The sun went down, the woods and valleys and all the wide- spreading world faded from view, and the stars came out. Here and there patches of light denoted the presence of far distant towns and cities. Except to determine the time at frequent intervals, they moved about and exercised to keep warm without the use of their flashlights, all three of which, with unweakened batteries, would be needed to light the steep way down the mountain to camp after their own illumina- tion and the illumination they hoped to see. While waiting, they watched the fireworks in Portland and other towns below. From that height and distance they looked like min- iature pyrotechnics in Lilliputia. Rockets and Roman candles that were no doubt hailed witla "Golly, that's a high one" seemed to them to shoot upward only a foot or two and to be wire-like shafts of light no bigger than the filament of an electric bulb. At last it was five minutes to ten. They poured the red fire THE FOURTH OF THE FAR FIFTEEN 559 out of the bags, spread it, and at a point of contact fluffed some dry cotton for a fuse. One boy held a watch, while another stood ready with a match. "Ten!" cried the timekeeper. The lighted match was touched to the cotton at the edge of the mealy-looking substance spread out there like food for chickens. All have seen a dark hall made light to its furthest corner with an ounce of photographer's flash powder, but few have seen a hun- dred pounds of red fire in simultaneous and magnificent conflagration. Suddenly, at the wholesale ignition, the dark and lofty world where they stood grew brighter than day. Crimson snow, crimson rocks and crimson faces of one another. No alloy of smoke, no ailoy of violence — the mealy chemical, with its mixture of red chellac, gave all its energy to the creation of a pure and dazzling flame. It was too brilliant for the eyes to look upon. It was more intense than the sun's rays at summer noonday and redder than those rays at setting For a minute only it held vivid sway over the ruddied mountain top and in the night above. Then upon the instant the transitory splendor faded and the redescending darkness settled down ten times more pro found than before. At twelve minutes after ten, standing in a row, they faced toward the south in the direction the compass showed them Shasta to be. During these three minutes they were on guard against the chance of any discrepancy of time, though the watch that the sheriff held in his hand had been regulated to the second with Professor Griffin's. They stood in peering expectancy, focused eyes alert to catch the faintest gleam of that distant signal. The watch said fourteen min- utes after ten. Then the second hand went round till it reached forty "Watch for the light," cautioned Sheriff Taylor. The hand reached sixty. It was ten-fifteen. The time had arrived for the great- est of all triumphs of human sight. But they saw nothing. There was no light, no signal, no dis- turbance of the universal darkness southward across the ranges. At less tension, but still hopefully, they waited five minute; more, but they waited in vain. They forgot that the roundness of the earth might have shut off the signal, forgot that the red fire on Shasta might have burned un- seen by them. They were sure this could not be — not after the long distances they had seen that day. And they knew that if the other climbers had failed, danger and accident were back of that failure. There came to them all one thought — one fear: "What has happened to the Pelican Patrol on Mt. Shasta?" Ill In the city of Portland thousands of people shared this concern. The modern newspaper works fast. A few minutes after the light on 560 IMPROVEMENT ERA Mt. Hood, the morning edition was on the street with a brief account of it. The raucous chorus came from the newsboys: "Morning p-a-per! Illumination of Mt. Hood. Boys lost on Shasta! Oregonian p-a-per! Paper, mister?" The account read as follows: "The most unique Fourth of July event ever staged in Oregon and probably the whole nation was the illumination of Mt. Hood. Precisely at ten p. m., the time appointed, a bright red light shone way up in the sky above the eastern horizon. It lasted for fifty-five seconds and was greeted with cheers from the thousands congregated on the bridges, wharves, roofs and the hills back of town, and with vigorous and long-continued whistles from the vessels in the harbor. "But what has happened to the boys that climbed Mt. Shasta to illuminate it in a similar manner?" "Three pigeons have returned to the cote of Forest Examiner James McDuff. Two of these are from Mt. Hood, where we know the boys are safe. The one from Mt. Shasta was turned loose at 8:30 a. m. and reached Portland at 12:30 p. m., making the two hun- dred and fifty miles in four hours. It brought this abbreviated mes- sage: 'Jly 4. %y2 a. m. J^way up slope fm timber line. Evrybdy O. K. Pel. Patrol.' "The second pigeon was to be released as soon as the patrol reached the summit. Why hasn't it arrived? What has happened to the boy climbers of Shasta?" IV What indeed had been the fate of the Pelican Patrol while toiling up the snowy slopes of Shasta? By what danger had their progress been halted? By what catastrophe had they been overwhelmed? With practically the same equipment as the Hood River group they had started out from Klamath Falls on the morning of July second. They went by train to Sisson, California, where they se- cured packhorse transportation for the bulk of their supplies to timber line. They had spent July third, as had the Panther Patrol on Mt. Hood, pulling their loaded toboggan as far as possible up the moun- tain side. From the place of its cache, at 8:30 a. m. on July Fourth, they had released the first pigeon and had started on the long march up- ward. There are several available routes up Shasta but they selected the one ordinarily used by the Sisson guides. This was over a snow field flanked on either hand by two sharp ridges, or hog backs, which buttressed the mountain on that side and which lifted almost vertical walls a thousand feet above the snow. These had serried and crumbling skylines from which the boulders tumbled in mighty cannonading. THE FOURTH OF THE FAR FIFTEEN 561 Luckily, the glacier was wide enough so they were safe from being crushed. They did not go up the center, however, but kept as far to the right as they safely could. They did this because the snow not only sloped down but rather steeply from left to right. Their march was along the lower side. A little after eleven they came to a crevice that stretched athwart their path, without a bridge of snow anywhere in sight. The fissure extended clear across the snow field from one ridge to the other. They might have found a crossing at the end of it, along the base of the nearest ridge, but they had seen too many huge stones come catapulting down to expose themselves even briefly in that constantly menaced locality. But it was necessary to get across. Further along, toward the right-hand ridge they found a place where the cleavage was only six or seven feet wide. Not all of them had ever qualified for the broad jump in track events but they decided this could be leaped in safety, though they realized that six feet on safe and level ground is quite different from six feet over an abyss. They stood cautiously at the edge of the crevasse to test the solidity of the bank and peered down its sheer and gleaming walls. Although out at the center it was probably hundreds of feet deep, here it was not more than fifty or sixty feet. "I'll go across first," said Professor Griffin. "I'll hold one end of the rope and jump. You boys hold the other end so you can break my fall if I tumble in." He made it across without mishap as did four of the boys. Then before the others jumped, they gave their attention to getting the loaded toboggan across. How to do this had stumped them at first but they had hit upon a plan which they now carried out. The rope was attached so that a length extended from each corner of the sled. The two front lengths were thrown across to the four boys and Professor Griffin on the far side, the other four boys managing the rear ropes. When the toboggan was safely over, those on the far side pulled it several yards out of the way, towards the cliff at the right where they saw a smooth ascent for its runners when they should start upward. They left it there, detached the rope, and returned to their place opposite the four who still had to cross. Just then a crash of thunder came from the summit. While climbing they had seen a cloud resting on the top, but had thought nothing of it except that it might prevent their illumination from being seen to the best advantage if it continued to hang there, as it probably wouldn't, for they knew that such foggy wreaths were accustomed to disappear as quickly as they formed. But now the whole volume of the cloud was black and sinister and pregnant with electricity. They were to witness one of the sudden thunderstorms that wrack this peak when all the world below is calm and bright. The angry cloud boiled round the pinnacle and in its turmoil shot 562 IMPROVEMENT ERA out dark and opaque arms of vapor a short way over the ridges. The thunder pealed and reverberated and seemed to shake with its awful claps the whole vast bulk of the mountain, while tongues of lightning shot out and hurled zigzag streaks against the crags. It was a spectacle to intimidate and alarm but strangely enough the fair weather where they stood was scarcely disturbed. The four remaining boys began to cross the crevasse. Now the rope was held on the farther side, not directly in front of the person jumping but off to one side so he would not be impeded by it or get entangled in it. Sometimes as a boy was running to make the leap he was stop- ped at the very brink, as one stops at sight of a snake, by a sharp clap of thunder. It did not strike him; it was the terrible sound that halted him in his tracks. In a few minutes all had safely crossed except Scott. His alpen- stock was the flag. Holding this in his left hand and the end of the rope in his right, he jumped as the others before him had done. As he landed he stuck his staff like a spear in the snow at his feet. This snow, weakened by the repeated jars, began to cave, so that Scott was able to save himself only by grabbing hold with both hands of the rope which the boys pulled towards them, the snow on which he had stood falling with a crash as he quitted it. He was safe but the alpenstock — the American flag — had gone down into the crevasse with the cave-in. "It's the flag," said Scott, "and we must rescue it." "Yes," agreed Professor Griffin, "I'm sure none of us feel like leaving it down there. You boys hang onto the rope and I'll go down after it." "Let me," asked Scott. "I'm lighter than you. You'll be stouter holding the rope. And I was the one that lost it. Let me go." Professor Griffin hesitated a moment, looked over the edge from a safe place and saw the staff sticking up from amidst the fallen ice at the bottom. It didn't appear particularly hazardous. "You can go," he said. They threw the end of the rope down into the crevasse, all eight of them hanging on, while Scott scaled down hand over hand to the bottom. "I'm down," he called and they felt the weight go from the rope. "I'll have to do some digging to get it out." As they waited to pull him up, the detonations above rolled in long crescendo, ending up with deafening crashes. A bolt of lightning bigger than a cable shot out like a vivid arm from cloud to ridge top — the ridge on the left and farthest away. There was another crash but this time it wasn't of thunder. At the impact of the lightning a rock as big as a house left a gap in the skyline of the cliff and leaped down a thousand feet. Up to this time the patrol had been safe but they were safe no longer. THE FOURTH OF THE FAR FIFTEEN 563 The jar of those hundreds of tons of granite set moving the snow on the steep momi.iiji side. They saw it start and they knew what it meant. The snow field, as has been said, not only sloped down but from left to right — from where the stone had fallen to where they stood. It would come — already it was coming — diagonally down and they would be in its path. It was beginning to gain momentum and a spray of snow dust rose from its surface. If they could have run then they could have got out of the way. But they had a duty to perform. "Catch the rope," they shouted to Scott. "An avalanche! Catch the rope!" As they spoke they jerked on the rope but it came up without weight. In their anxiety they had jerked it out of his hands before he had firm hold of it. They gave it length and let it back down again. But by now the rushing, roaring snowslide was practically upon them. Terrible are the decisions demanded by peril, but brave men with only a second of time somehow choose when nothing is left but a choice of hazards. What would you have done? That rope with its weight of nearly a hundred and forty pounds could never be pulled out in time. "Drop the rope and run!" came the sharp command from Pro- fessor Griffin. "Run — past the sled!" He followed them with racing feet but held on to the end of the rope and went no further than its length. As he stopped there was a tug at it from the bottom of the crevasse. "He still expects us to pull him out," thought the scoumaster, and that was his last thought before the flood of ice and snow en- gulfed him in its outer edge. The boys, whose flight had saved them, came running up, white with terror. "Professor Griffin?" they cried, fearing that he was dead. "I'm all right, boys," he said, fighting his way out of the snow that nearly buried him. Just stunned a little — one hard piece of snow. The rest was loose. I still have the rope here. How's Scott?" At the question there was one fear in the hearts of all. Where once had been the crevasse was a ridge of snow. Their comrade was buried fifty feet down under all this. "Don't give up hope, boys," the scoutmaster urged. "If be was not injured and still has hold of the rope we can get him out." They dug and distinterred the rope back to the original edge of the crevasse. Then they made a trial pull. The rope stuck but whether from the weight at the end or because of the great thickness of snow through which it went and which was congealing around it, they did not know. 5 64 IMPROVEMENT ERA "He may be stunned," said the guide "Certainly he can't stay down there long without being smothered. ' We must work fast. We must dig down to him. We'll reach him by following the rope." No time was lost. They pulled the toboggan apart and using the runners as shovels began to dig a well down through the new snow to the boy buried below. At first they threw the snow out by armfuls but when they had descended over their heads they faced the serious problem of getting it out of the well. "Sweaters," suggested one. "We can use them for buckets." "Just the thing," they all agreed. The necks and sleeves were tied with cords. They were filled and handed out until the well became too deep; then they were pulled out with the free length of the rope. Rapidly the boys dug. Never was a shaft sunk so quickly. "Scott! Scott!" they shouted as loudly as they could through the thinning roof of snow. But there was no answer. They pulled on the rope. It gave. After the first frozen grip of the ice was loosened they might without difficulty have pulled it out. They knew now that no one had hold of it below. "I fear the worst," admitted Professor Griffin. "But we must recover the body." So on they dug, drawing up in rapid succession the sweaterfuls of snow, sinking deeper and deeper the shaft which they no longer dared hope would reach their entombed comrade in time. Then the boys on the rim heard a call. "Listen," they said, "didn't you hear him?" They leaned attentively over the excavation, thinking the voice had come up from there. Those in the well also stopped and listened, but no voice came up to them from under the snow. Was it their imagination? Were they hearing ghost voices? No, for the call was repeated, this time in plainly articulate words and unmuffled by any intervening wall of snow. "Here I am. Over here. I'm coming." The boys on the rim looked in the direction of the farther ridge and saw Scott making his way towards them across the wide and disheveled trail of the snowslide. "What are you doing?" he asked when he came up. "Digging my grave?" "No," they replied. "We thought we were digging you out of your grave. How in the world did you get out?" "The crevasse widened out at the bottom," he explained. 'At its floor it is forty or fifty feet wide, running back under each wall. This is what saved me. When I heard you yell "Avalanche!" I ducked under the shelter of the upper wall, still holding onto the end of the rope, for I didn't know what would happen to me. But THE FOURTH OF THE FAR FIFTEEN 565 when the snow and ice poured in, it didn't hurt me at all. The fill widened some at the bottom as it was pressed down by its own weight from above but it didn't spread all the way to the back edge of the cavity. A little cave or tunnel was left, big enough for me to crawl in, and I want to tell you I lost no time in crawling. I yelled to you fellows that I was all right but I wasn't sure you'd hear me through all that snow. A good deal of the way it was so low I bumped my head against the ice above and couldn't go on all fours but had to slide along on my stomach like a snake. I lost all sense of di- rection, I guess. I thought I was heading for the nearer cliff, but it turned out to be the farther one, so I had to go under the whole width of the snowslide. I thought I never would get through crawling, but I finally came to where the crevasse was no longer filled with snow. I climbed out over the end of the fill to the top, and here I am and you see I've got the flag." A detailed account of the rest of their journey to the top would be an account of toil and hardships, of weary climbing on the part of boys already worn out with fatigue and excitement, of delays and disappointments in the dark that overtook them and the heavy fog that encompassed them. After the summit plateau of the mountain is reached, Shasta Peak, a craggy pinnacle about four hundred feet high, must still be scaled. At the base of this, only a few minutes before ten o'clock, they turned the pigeon loose and with the red fire on their backs began to climb, hoping to emerge from the fog in time to see the signal of the Panther Patrol. It was a slow ascent, for there in the dark a slip meant a sheer fall and almost certain destruction on the rocky talus below. At ten o'clock the thick and opaque vapor still enveloped them above and below and towards the Mt. Hood signal fire, whose 250-mil^ gleam was destined never to gladden their eyes. Sight of it was as completely shut off by the fog as if by a drawn window blind They were forever bereft of the reward of that climb, but its duty might still be performed. So they continued to drag weary bodies yard by yard up the almost vertical wall of the pinnacle. At last the leader was greeted by the countless and gleaming stars overhead, and the clammy touch of vapor was lifted from his face. The last 30 feet of the spire, like a lonely tower on an off-shore reef, rose above a smooth-bosomed ocean of fog. They went on upward to the top, spread the red fire, touched a match to the cotton fuse, and unfurled the flag to the sudden burst of light. But it was half past ten. They were a quarter of an hour late. Would the light, coming so tardily, be of any avail? Or would the question of the roundness of the earth shutting off the view from one mountain to the other, remain a question still? 566 IMPROVEMENT ERA V "They've failed to reach the top," declared a member of the Panther Patrol on top of Mt. Hood. "Let's go. We'll freeze if we stay here much longer." "It's only twenty minutes past ten," replied Jess Wilson. "They may be late. Let's don't take any chances. I move we wait ten minutes more — till half past. Ten minutes isn't long." But it seemed long, interminably long, to the group standing there with clattering teeth. "Is it ten minutes yet?" "No, only three minutes." At last the slow-moving watch hand reached ten-thirty. "No use to wait any longer. Let's go." But before they had lifted their feet for the march, before their eyes had been turned from their southward gaze, a boy cried out: "I see it! Look, I see the light!" The signal came to them unmistakably as they watched — came from Shasta two hundred and fifty miles away. They saw it like a faint flash of lightning reaching dimly above a distant horizon, like a phosphorescent glow in a forest trail, like the faraway lantern light must have looked to Columbus on first approaching the Western Isles. Eugene, Oregon. One Good Work No pen of mine can ever tell, No word of mine can ever say How weak I was. how far I fell, And blinder grew, yes, every day. Hazy thoughts had I of heaven, And thoughts of God were just the same. I had prayed and tried and striven But it was always the same. Walking in the depths of darkness, Down in the vales of deep dispair, Groping sadly in my blindness: But you came; you found me there. You then shewed me paths of sunshine. Paths along which gladness flows. Clearing all my hazy visions, All my doubts and all my woes: May your life be long and happy, Doing good where e'er you can. May God always bless and help you To be a "Mormon" and a man. HoHrt, Tasmania. Elsie Parton My Day of Silence The many times have I beheld each scene, With deep emotions looked upon these vales; Have onward gazed to where the mountains lean; The past have weighed once more in trembling scales. Aye, dwelt with love have I laughed in fond pride, Or closed mine eyes, in anguish bowed my head; Here, act nor word a happiness did hide, Albeit, mine heart anon hath been as lead. This hour, this day, a silence held these lips; Mute have I been, nor held a speech with man; Lost pain is sweet, remorse can sting as whips, From changing years I with the moments ran: This day in Silence life I've held in lease, From Nature's Voice my heart hath found a peace! Alfred Lambourne.