Classic Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories

by Stephen Brennan

  But now, little as men guessed it, the beginning of the end was close at hand.

  THE DETECTIVE OF SCIENCE

  The morning of my arrival at Grand Teton station, on my return from the East, Andrew Hall met me with a warm greeting.

  “I have been anxiously expecting you,” he said, “for I have made some progress towards solving the great mystery. I have not yet reached a conclusion, but I hope soon to let you into the entire secret. In the meantime you can aid me with your companionship, if in no other way, for, since the defeat of the mob, this place has been mighty lonesome. The Grand Teton is a spot that people who have no particular business out here carefully avoid. I am on speaking terms with Dr. Syx, and occasionally, when there is a party to be shown around, I visit his works, and make the best possible use of my eyes. Captain Carter of the military is a capital fellow, and I like to hear his stories of the war in Luzon forty years ago, but I want somebody to whom I can occasionally confide things, and so you are as welcome as moonlight in harvest-time.”

  “Tell me something about that wonderful fight with the mob. Did you see it?”

  “I did. I had got wind of what Bings intended to do while I was down at Pocotello, and I hurried up here to warn the soldiers, but unfortunately I came too late. Finding the military cooped up in the guard-house and the mob masters of the situation, I kept out of sight on the side of the Teton, and watched the siege with my binocular. I think there was very little of the spectacle that I missed.”

  “What of the mysterious force that the doctor employed to sweep off the assailants?”

  “Of course, Captain Carter’s suggestion that Syx turned molten artemisium from his furnace into a hose-pipe and sprayed the enemy with it is ridiculous. But it is much easier to dismiss Carter’s theory than to substitute a better one. I saw the doctor on the roof with a gang of black workmen, and I noticed the flash of polished metal turned rapidly this way and that, but there was some intervening obstacle which prevented me from getting a good view of the mechanism employed. It certainly bore no resemblance to a hose-pipe, or anything of that kind. No emanation was visible from the machine, but it was stupefying to see the mob melt down.”

  “How about the coating of the bodies with artemisium?”

  “There you are back on the hose-pipe again,” laughed Hall. “But, to tell you the truth, I’d rather be excused from expressing an opinion on that operation in wholesale electro-plating just at present. I’ve the ghost of an idea what it means, but let me test my theory a little before I formulate it. In the meanwhile, won’t you take a stroll with me?”

  “Certainly; nothing could please me better,” I replied. “Which way shall we go?”

  “To the top of the Grand Teton.”

  “What! aAre you seized with the mountain-climbing fever?”

  “Not exactly, but I have a particular reason for wishing to take a look from that pinnacle.”

  “I suppose you know the real apex of the peak has never been trodden by man?”

  “I do know it, but it is just that apex that I am determined to have under my feet for ten minutes. The failure of others is no argument for us.”

  “Just as you say,” I rejoined. “But I suppose there is no indiscretion in asking whether this little climb has any relation to the mystery?”

  “If it didn’t have an important relation to the clearing up of that dark thing I wouldn’t risk my neck in such an undertaking,” was the reply.

  Accordingly, the next morning we set out for the peak. All previous climbers, as we were aware, had attacked it from the west. That seemed the obvious thing to do, because the westward slopes of the mountain, while very steep, are less abrupt than those which face the rising sun. In fact, the eastern side of the Grand Teton appears to be absolutely unclimbable. But both Hall and I had had experience with rock climbing in the Alps and the Dolomites, and we knew that what looked like the hardest places sometimes turn out to be next to the easiest. Accordingly we decided—the more particularly because it would save time, but also because we yielded to the common desire to outdo our predecessors—to try to scale the giant right up his face.

  We carried a very light but exceedingly strong rope, about five hundred feet long, wore nail-shod shoes, and had each a metal-pointed staff and a small hatchet in lieu of the regular mountaineer’s axe. Advancing at first along the broken ridge between two gorges we gradually approached the steeper part of the Teton, where the cliffs looked so sheer and smooth that it seemed no wonder that nobody had ever tried to scale them. The air was deliciously clear and the sky wonderfully blue above the mountains, and the moon, a few days past its last quarter, was visible in the southwest, its pale crescent face slightly blued by the atmosphere, as it always appears when seen in daylight.

  “Slow westering, a phantom sail—

  The lonely soul of yesterday.”

  Behind us, somewhat north of east, lay the Syx works, with their black smoke rising almost vertically in the still air. Suddenly, as we stumbled along on the rough surface, something whizzed past my face and fell on the rock at my feet. I looked at the strange missile, that had come like a meteor out of open space, with astonishment.

  It was a bird, a beautiful specimen of the scarlet tanagers, which I remembered the early explorers had found inhabiting the Teton canyons, their brilliant plumage borrowing splendor from contrast with the gloomy surroundings. It lay motionless, its outstretched wings having a curious shrivelled aspect, while the flaming color of the breast was half obliterated with smutty patches. Stooping to pick it up, I noticed a slight bronzing, which instantly recalled to my mind the peculiar appearance of the victims of the attack on the mine.

  “Look here!” I called to Hall, who was several yards in advance. He turned, and I held up the bird by a wing.

  “Where did you get that?” he asked.

  “It fell at my feet a moment ago.”

  Hall glanced in a startled manner at the sky, and then down the slope of the mountain.

  “Did you notice in what direction it was flying?” he asked.

  “No, it dropped so close that it almost grazed my nose. I saw nothing of it until it made me blink.”

  “I have been heedless,” muttered Hall under his breath. At the time I did not notice the singularity of his remark, my attention being absorbed in contemplating the unfortunate tanager.

  “Look how its feathers are scorched,” I said.

  “I know it,” Hall replied, without glancing at the bird.

  “And it is covered with a film of artemisium,” I added, a little piqued by his abstraction.

  “I know that, too.”

  “See here, Hall,” I exclaimed, “are you trying to make game of me?”

  “Not at all, my dear fellow,” he replied, dropping his cogitation. “Pray forgive me. But this is no new phenomenon to me. I have picked up birds in that condition on this mountain before. There is a terrible mystery here, but I am slowly letting light into it, and if we succeed in reaching the top of the peak I have good hope that the illumination will increase.”

  “Here now,” he added a moment later, sitting down upon a rock and thrusting the blade of his penknife into a crevice, “what do you think of this?”

  He held up a little nugget of pure artemisium, and then went on:

  “You know that all this slope was swept as clean as a Dutch housewife’s kitchen floor by the thousands of miners and prospectors who swarmed over it a year or two ago, and do you suppose they would have missed such a tidbit if it had been here then?”

  “Dr. Syx must have been salting the mountain again,” I suggested.

  “Well,” replied Hall, with a significant smile, “if the doctor hasn’t salted it somebody else has, that’s plain enough. But perhaps you would like to know precisely what I expect to find out when we get on the topknot of the Teton.”

  “I should certainly be delighted to learn the object of our journey,” I said. “Of course, I’m only going along for company and fo
r the fun of the thing; but you know you can count on me for substantial aid whenever you need it.”

  “It is because you are so willing to let me keep my own counsel,” he rejoined, “and to wait for things to ripen before compelling me to disclose them, that I like to have you with me at critical times. Now, as to the object of this break-neck expedition, whose risks you understand as fully as I do, I need not assure you that it is of supreme importance to the success of my plans. In a word, I hope to be able to look down into a part of Dr. Syx’s mill which, if I am not mistaken, no human eye except his and those of his most trustworthy helpers has ever been permitted to see. And if I see there what I fully expect to see, I shall have got a long step nearer to a great fortune.”

  “Good!” I cried. “En avant, then! We are losing time.”

  THE TOP OF THE GRAND TETON

  The climbing soon became difficult, until at length we were going up hand over hand, taking advantage of crevices and knobs which an inexperienced eye would have regarded as incapable of affording a grip for the fingers or a support for the toes. Presently we arrived at the foot of a stupendous precipice, which was absolutely insurmountable by any ordinary method of ascent. Parts of it overhung, and everywhere the face of the rock was too free from irregularities to afford any footing, except to a fly.

  “Now, to borrow the expression of old Bunyan, we are hard put to it,” I remarked. “If you will go to the left I will take the right and see if there is any chance of getting up.”

  “I don’t believe we could find any place easier than this,” Hall replied, “and so up we go where we are.”

  “Have you a pair of wings concealed about you?” I asked, laughing at his folly.

  “Well, something nearly as good,” he responded, unstrapping his knapsack. He produced a silken bag, which he unfolded on the rock.

  “A balloon!” I exclaimed. “But how are you going to inflate it?”

  For reply Hall showed me a receptacle which, he said, contained liquid hydrogen, and which was furnished with a device for retarding the volatilization of the liquid so that it could be carried with little loss.

  “You remember I have a small laboratory in the abandoned mine,” he explained, “where we used to manufacture liquid air for blasting. This balloon I made for our present purpose. It will just suffice to carry up our rope, and a small but practically unbreakable grapple of hardened gold. I calculate to send the grapple to the top of the precipice with the balloon, and when it has obtained a firm hold in the riven rock there we can ascend, sailor fashion. You see the rope has knots, and I know your muscles are as trustworthy in such work as my own.”

  There was a slight breeze from the eastward, and the current of air slanting up the face of the peak assisted the balloon in mounting with its burden, and favored us by promptly swinging the little airship, with the grapple swaying beneath it, over the brow of the cliff into the atmospheric eddy above. As soon as we saw that the grapple was well over the edge we pulled upon the rope. The balloon instantly shot into view with the anchor dancing, but, under the influence of the wind, quickly returned to its former position behind the projecting brink. The grapple had failed to take hold.

  “‘Try, try again’ must be our motto now,” muttered Hall.

  We tried several times with the same result, although each time we slightly shifted our position. At last the grapple caught.

  “Now, all together!” cried my companion, and simultaneously we threw our weight upon the slender rope. The anchor apparently did not give an inch.

  “Let me go first,” said Hall, pushing me aside as I caught the first knot above my head. “It’s my device, and it’s only fair that I should have the first try.”

  In a minute he was many feet up the wall, climbing swiftly hand over hand, but occasionally stopping and twisting his leg around the rope while he took breath.

  “It’s easier than I expected,” he called down, when he had ascended about one hundred feet. “Here and there the rock offers a little hold for the knees.”

  I watched him, breathless with anxiety, and, as he got higher, my imagination pictured the little gold grapple, invisible above the brow of the precipice, with perhaps a single thin prong wedged into a crevice, and slowly ploughing its way towards the edge with each impulse of the climber, until but another pull was needed to set it flying! So vivid was my fancy that I tried to banish it by noticing that a certain knot in the rope remained just at the level of my eyes, where it had been from the start. Hall was now fully two hundred feet above the ledge on which I stood, and was rapidly nearing the top of the precipice. In a minute more he would be safe.

  Suddenly he shouted, and, glancing up with a leap of the heart, I saw that he was falling! He kept his face to the rock, and came down feet foremost. It would be useless to attempt any description of my feelings; I would not go through that experience again for the price of a battleship. Yet it lasted less than a second. He had dropped not more than ten feet when the fall was arrested.

  “All right!” he called, cheerily. “No harm done! It was only a slip.”

  But what a slip! If the balloon had not carried the anchor several yards back from the edge it would have had no opportunity to catch another hold as it shot forward. And how could we know that the second hold would prove more secure than the first? Hall did not hesitate, however, for one instant. Up he went again. But, in fact, his best chance was in going up, for he was within four yards of the top when the mishap occurred. With a sigh of relief I saw him at last throw his arm over the verge and then wriggle his body upon the ledge. A few seconds later he was lying on his stomach, with his face over the edge, looking down at me.

  “Come on!” he shouted. “It’s all right.”

  When I had pulled myself over the brink at his side I grasped his hand and pressed it without a word. We understood one another.

  “It was pretty close to a miracle,” he remarked at last. “Look at this.”

  The rock over which the grapple had slipped was deeply scored by the unyielding point of the metal, and exactly at the verge of the precipice the prong had wedged itself into a narrow crack, so firmly that we had to chip away the stone in order to release it. If it had slipped a single inch farther before taking hold it would have been all over with my friend.

  Such experiences shake the strongest nerves, and we sat on the shelf we had attained for fully a quarter of an hour before we ventured to attack the next precipice which hung beetling directly above us. It was not as lofty as the one we had just ascended, but it impended to such a degree that we saw we should have to climb our rope while it swung free in the air!

  Luckily we had little difficulty in getting a grip for the prongs, and we took every precaution to test the security of the anchorage, not only putting our combined weight repeatedly upon the rope, but flipping and jerking it with all our strength. The grapple resisted every effort to dislodge it, and finally I started up, insisting on my turn as leader.

  The height I had to ascend did not exceed one hundred feet, but that is a very great distance to climb on a swinging rope, without a wall within reach to assist by its friction and occasional friendly projections. In a little while my movements, together with the effect of the slight wind, had imparted a most distressing oscillation to the rope. This sometimes carried me with a nerve-shaking bang against a prominent point of the precipice, where I would dislodge loose fragments that kept Hall dodging for his life, and then I would swing out, apparently beyond the brow of the cliff below, so that, as I involuntarily glanced downward, I seemed to be hanging in free space, while the steep mountain-side, looking ten times steeper than it really was, resembled the vertical wall of an absolutely bottomless abyss, as if I were suspended over the edge of the world.

  I avoided thinking of what the grapple might be about, and in my haste to get through with the awful experience I worked myself fairly out of breath, so that, when at last I reached the rounded brow of the cliff, I had to stop and cling there for fu
lly a minute before I could summon strength enough to lift myself over it.

  When I was assured that the grapple was still securely fastened I signalled to Hall, and he soon stood at my side, exclaiming, as he wiped the perspiration from his face:

  “I think I’ll try wings next time!”

  But our difficulties had only begun. As we had foreseen, it was a case of Alp above Alp, to the very limit of human strength and patience. However, it would have been impossible to go back. In order to descend the two precipices we had surmounted it would have been necessary to leave our life-lines clinging to the rocks, and we had not rope enough to do that. If we could not reach the top we were lost.

  Having refreshed ourselves with a bite to eat and a little stimulant, we resumed the climb. After several hours of the most exhausting work I have ever performed we pulled our weary limbs upon the narrow ridge, but a few square yards in area, which constitutes the apex of the Grand Teton. A little below, on the opposite side of a steep-walled gap which divides the top of the mountain into two parts, we saw the singular enclosure of stones which the early white explorers found there, and which they ascribed to the Indians, although nobody has ever known who built it or what purpose it served.

  The view was, of course, superb, but while I was admiring it in all its wonderful extent and variety, Hall, who had immediately pulled out his binocular, was busy inspecting the Syx works, the top of whose great tufted smoke column was thousands of feet beneath our level. Jackson’s Lake, Jenny’s Lake, Leigh’s Lake, and several lakelets glittered in the sunlight amid the pale grays and greens of Jackson’s Hole, while many a bending reach of the Snake River shone amid the wastes of sagebrush and rock.

  “There!” suddenly exclaimed Hall, “I thought I should find it.”

  “What?”

  “Take a look through my glass at the roof of Syx’s mill. Look just in the centre.”