Snap: A legend of the Lone MountainPhillipps-Wolley, Clive
General
Snap: A legend of the Lone Mountain
Phillipps-Wolley, Clive
Canadian Rockies (B.C. and Alta.) -- Fiction; English fiction -- 19th century; Mountaineering -- Fiction
'He wasn't sane when we pulled him up yesterday, but may be he'll be
all right to-day,' was the answer, and at that moment the object of
their solicitude woke and sat up.
'Is that you, Dick?' asked Towzer's voice feebly.
'Yes, my lad, that's me. Don't you try to get up yet, you've been a
bit ill. Mustn't let him look over that edge yet at any price,' he
whispered aside to Snap.
'Lie still, old fellow,' added Snap soothingly as he bent over him,
'how do you feel?'
'Oh, only a bit faint and as if I was sea-sick, Snap,' he replied,
'but I've had such a dreadful dream.'
Snap didn't ask him what it was, he guessed that the boy half
remembered yesterday's experiences; but Towzer went on addressing
Frank, who was now sitting up beside him.
'I dreamed,' he said, 'that I was a coward, that you called me one,
Frank, and then they put me on a roasting-jack for a punishment, and
hung me on to the bottom of the world, and I went round and round and
round----'
'Here, dry up that soft talk,' interposed Dick roughly, 'we don't
want no talk of dreams here: you get a knife into that tin, Towzer,
and let's have breakfast,' and, so saying, the old man handed the boy
a tin of meat and a knife, 'just to prevent him thinking,' as he
explained later on.
'I think he is all right now,' said Frank after breakfast, 'let's
tell him a little; we can't go on like this.'
'Very well, but take care how you do it,' assented Dick.
Then they told him, not all, but most of that last day's doings,
concluding with: 'And when we got you on the rope you must have
bumped your head against the rock, or spun round until you went
nearly silly and fainted; and so now you must keep quiet and promise
not to look over the edge again until we give you leave. Is that a
bargain?'
'Yes,' sighed Towzer, 'I suppose it is; but I must be a terrible
nuisance to you fellows. What a little brute you must think me!'
All that day and the next the boys lay in their narrow bed watching
the sun rise and set, and the clouds go hurrying by. Sometimes a few
rugged brown clouds would drift up, and then a little flurry of wind
and rain would almost wash them out of their exposed position, while
the balloon creaked and strained at her moorings in an alarming
fashion.
'Snap,' said Dick on the second day, 'them Injuns can't see the
balloon from below, and they're getting more daring, now they think
the great bird has gone.'
'How is that, Dick?' asked Snap.
'Well, you see we have drawn the balloon out of sight by mooring it
close alongside among these crags. Leastways I reckon that's so, for
the Crows have come out of cover. Look for yourself.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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