Drome/Chapter 1
"Down he came plunging. There was a glimpse of a blood-covered visage; then he was past."
Chapter 1
The Mysterious Visitor
The forenoon of that momentous August day (how momentous Time, like unto some spirit-shaking vision, was soon and swiftly to show us) had been bright and sunny. Snowy cumuli sailed along before a breeze from the north. When the wind comes from that quarter here in Seattle, it means good weather. But there was something sinister about this one.
As the day advanced, the clouds increased in number and volume; by
noon the whole sky was overcast. And now? It was midafternoon now; a gale from the south was savagely flinging and dashing the rain against the windows, and it had become so dark that Milton Rhodes had turned on one of the library lamps. There was something strange, unearthly about that darkness which so suddenly had fallen upon us.
"Too fierce to last long, Bill," observed Milton, raising his head and listening to the beating of the rain and the roar of the wind.
He arose from his chair, went over to one of the southern windows and stood looking out into the storm.
"Coming down in sheets, Bill. It can't keep this up for very long."
I went over and stood beside him.
"No," I returned; "it can't keep this up. But, rain or sun, our trip is spoiled now."
"For today, yes. But there is tomorrow, Bill."
But, in the sense that Milton Rhodes meant, there was to be no tomorrow: at that moment, in the very midst of the roar and rage of the elements, Destiny spoke, in the ring of a telephone bell—Destiny, she who is wont to make such strange sport with the lives of men. Certainly stranger sport no man had ever known than she was to make with ours.
"Wonder who the deuce 'tis now," muttered Rhodes as he left the room to answer the call.
I remained there at the window. Of that fateful conversation over the wire, I heard not so much as a single syllable. I mast have fallen into a deep revery; at any rate, the next thing I knew there was a sudden voice, and Milton Rhodes was standing beside me again, a quizzical expression on his dark features.
"What is it, Bill?" he smiled. "In love at last, old tillicum? Didn't hear me until I spoke the third time."
"Gosh," I said, "this is getting dreadful! But"
"Well?"
""What is it?"
"Oh, a visitor."
I regarded him for a moment in silence.
"You don't seem very enthusiastic."
"Why should I be? Some crank, most likely. Mast be, or he wouldn't set out in such a storm as this is."
"Great Pluvius, is he coming through this deluge?"
"He is. Unless I'm mighty badly mistaken, he is on his way over right now."
"Must be something mighty important."
"Oh, it's important all right—to him," said Milton Rhodes. "But will it interest me?"
"I'll tell you that before the day is done. But who is the fellow?"
"Name's Scranton—Mr. James W. Scranton. That's all I know about him, save that he is bringing us a mystery—a terrible, horrible, scientific mystery he called it."
"That," I exclaimed, "sounds interesting."
It was patent, however, that Milton Rhodes was not looking forward to the meeting with any particular enthusiasm.
"It may sound interesting," he said; "but will it prove so? That is the question, Bill. To some people, you know, some very funny things constitute a mystery. We must wait and see. Said he had heard of me, that, as I have a gift (that is what he called it, Bill, a gift) of solving puzzles and mysteries, whether scientific, psychic, spooky or otherwise—well, he had a story to tell me that would eclipse any I ever had heard, a mystery that would drive Sherlock Holmes himself to suicide. Yes, that's what he said, Bill—the great Sherlock himself to suicide."
"That's coming big!" I said.
Rhodes smiled wanly.
"We haven't heard his yarn yet. We can't come to a judgment on such uncertain data."
"Scranton," said I. "Scranton. Hold on a minute!"
"What is it now?"
"Wonder if he belongs to the old Scranton family."
"Never heard of it, Bill."
"Pioneers," said I. "Came out here before Seattle was ever founded. Homesteaded down at Puyallup or somewhere, about the same time as Ezra Meeker. It seems to me"
"Well?" queried Milton Rhodes after some moments, during which I tried my level best to recollect the particulars of a certain wild, gloomy story of mystery and horror that I had heard long years before—in my boyhood days, in fact.
"I can not recollect it," I told him. "I didn't understand it even when I heard the man, an old acquaintance of the Serantons, tell the story—a story of some black fate, some terrible curse that had fallen upon the fam-ily."
"So that's the kind of mystery it is! From what the man said—though that was vague, shadowy—I thought 'twas something very different. I thought it was scientific."
"Maybe it is. We are speculating, you know, if one may call it that, on pretty flimsy data. One thing: I distinctly remember that Rainier had something to do with it."
"What Rainier?"
"Why, Mount Rainier."
"This is becoming intriguing," said Milton Rhodes, "if it isn't anything else. You spoke of a black fate, a horrible curse: what has noble Old He, as the old mountain-men called Rainier, to do with such insignificant matters as the destinies of us insects called humans?"
"According to this fellow I mentioned, this old acquaintance of the Serantons, it was there that the dark and mysterious business started."
"What was it that started?"
"That's just it. The man didn't know himself what had happened up there."
"Hum," said Milton Rhodes.
"That," I went on, "was many years ago—just, I believe, after Kautz climbed the mountain. Yes, I am sure he said 'twas just after that. And this man who told us the story—his name was Simpson—said 'twas something that Scranton learned on Kautz's return to Steilacoom that had led to his (Scranton's) visit to Old He. Not from Kautz himself, though Seranton knew the lieutenant well, but from the soldier Dogue."
"What was it he learned?"
"There it is again!" I told him. "Simpson said he could tell what that something was, but that he would not do so."
"A very mysterious business," smiled Milton Rhodes. "I hope, Bill, that our visitor's story, whatever it is, will prove more definite."
"Wasn't it," I asked, "in the fifties that Kautz made the ascent?"
"In July, 1857. And pretty shabbily has history treated him, too. It's always Stevens and Van Trump, Van Trump and Stevens—why, their Indian, Sluiskin, is better known than Kautz!'
"But," I began, "I thought that Stevens and Van Trump were the very first"
"Oh, don't misunderstand me, Bill!" said Milton Rhodes. "All honor to Stevens and Van Trump, the first of men to reach the very summit; but all honor, too, to the first. white man. to set foot on the mountain, the discoverer of the great Nisqually Glacier, the first to stand upon the top of Rainier, though adverse circumstances prevented his reaching the highest point."
"Amen!" said I—as little dreaming as Kautz, Stevens and Van Trump themselves had ever done of that discovery which was to follow, and soon now at that.
For a time we held desultory talk, then fell silent and waited.
There was a lull in the storm; the darkness lifted, then suddenly it fell again, and the rain began to descend with greater violence than ever.
Milton Rhodes had left his chair and was standing by one of the eastern windows.
"This must be our visitor, Bill," he said suddenly.
I arose and went over to his side, to see a big sedan swinging in to the curb.
"Yes!" exclaimed Rhodes, his face beginning to brighten. "There is Mr. James W. Scranton. Let us hope, Bill, that the mystery which he is bringing us will prove a real one, real and scientific."
If we had only known the truth! The next moment a slight figure, collar up to ears, stepped from the car and headed swiftly up the walk, leaning sidewise against the wind and rain.
"'Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson,'" quoted Milton Rhodes with a smile as he started toward the door, "'when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill.'"