THE MYSTERY OF THE BLUE GOOSE 



5 2 9 



mused Big Pete, and for a moment or so he 

 stood in silent thought; at length he ex- 

 claimed, "Why, bless my corn shucking 

 soul, if I don't believe she's got a lariat 

 staked out tha' an' crosses this ditch same 

 as we-uns aimed to do!" With that he be- 

 gan raking and scraping the top of the oppo- 

 site rock with the shepherd's crook, and 

 presently there came tumbling and twisting 

 like a snake down the face of the cliff a long 

 braided rawhide rope with a loop at the 

 bottom end. 



"Waugh, Le-Loo! tha's no witchcraft 

 'bout this 'cep the magic of common-sense; 

 but we hain't through with her yit!" By 

 this time Pete had the end of the rawhide 

 rope in his hands and was testing the 

 strength of its anchorage upon the opposite 

 cliff. The point where it was fastened pro- 

 jected some distance over the ledge, where 

 the supposed landing-place was located, 

 thus making it possible for one to swing at 

 the end of the rope from our side without 

 danger of coming into too violent contact 

 with the opposite cliff. 



As soon as my big friend was satisfied 

 that the rope was safe he grasped it with his 

 two hands, and with one foot in the loop and 

 the other free to use as a fender, he sailed 

 across the abyss and landed safely upon the 

 crumbling ledge opposite. 



Holding fast to the rawhide rope with his 

 hands and bracing his feet against the rock, 

 Pete could walk up the face of the cliff by 

 going hand-over-hand up the cable at the 

 same time. He had almost reached the top 

 when I was horror-stricken to see a small, 

 shapely hand and a beautifully modeled 

 arm reach over the precipice; it was neither 

 the grace nor the beauty of this shapely bit 

 of femininity which sent the blood surging 

 to my heart, but the fact that the cold 

 gray glint of a long-bladed knife caught my 

 eyes and fascinated me with the fabled 

 "charm" of a serpent. The power of 

 speech forsook me, but with great effort I 

 succeeded in giving utterance to the inarticu- 

 late noise people gurgle when confronted in 

 their sleep by a shapeless horror. Big Pete 

 heard the noise, but he was not unnerved 

 when he saw the knife, neither did he show 

 any nightmare symptoms, although he was 

 dangling over the terrible abyss with a full 

 knowledge that it needed but a touch of the 



keen blade of that knife to sever the strain- 

 ing lariat and dash him, a mangled mass, on 

 the rocks below. The danger was too real 

 to give Pete the nightmare; there was noth- 

 ing spooky to him in the glittering knife 

 blade, and only ghosts and the supernatural 

 could give Big Pete the nightmare. Calmly 

 he looked at the little hand grasping the 

 power of death with its tapering fingers. 

 Suddenly and in a firm, commanding voice 

 he gave the order, "Drop tha' knife!" 



Ever since I had been in the company of 

 this masterful forest companion I had 

 obeyed his commands as a matter of course, 

 and so was not surprised to see the fingers 

 instantly relax their grasp and the knife go 

 gyrating to the mysterious depths. In a 

 few moments Big Pete was up and over the 

 edge of the rock and hidden from my view. 



Seizing the long-handled shepherd's crook , 

 I caught the dangling end of the lariat, and 

 was soon scrambling up the face of the cliff, 

 leaving a trail which the veriest novice 

 would not fail to notice and sending showers 

 of the crumbling stones down the path taken 

 by the knife; it was several minutes before I 

 had clambered over the face of the project- 

 ing crag and was safe across the black chasm 

 which lay athwart our trail. 



CHAPTER XIII 



THE WHITE DEATH 



Only those persons who have made a soli- 

 tary trip over snow-capped mountain ridges 

 can appreciate the overwhelming feeling of 

 solitude that such a scene inspires. To 

 whatever point of view one's eyes are di- 

 rected, they are greeted with a tumbled sea, 

 composed of stupendous petrified billows. 



The occasional fields of snow are the 

 white froth of the stony waves and the tur- 

 quoise-colored glacial lakes between the 

 crags rather add to the effect of an angry 

 ocean than detract from it. 



On a closer examination some of the 

 rocks appear to be rough bits of unfinished 

 worlds still retaining the form they had 

 when poured from the mighty blast furnaces 

 of the Creator. It is God's workshop strewn 

 with huge fragments, still bearing the marks 

 of His mallet and chisel; yet these cold, bar- 

 ren wastes are the pasture lands of the 

 shaggy-coated white goats and the lithe- 



