# Drome/Chapter 3

Chapter 3
The Mystery of Old He
"It was about 3 o'clock in the afternoon of the 24th," said Scranton, "that they reached the foot of the Nisqually Glacier, called Kautz Glacier by my grandfather. As for what followed, I shall give you that in my grandfather's own words."
He opened the book, at a place marked with a strip of paper, and read from it the following:
"August 24th, 10 p. m.—At last we are on the mountain. And how can I set it down—this amazing thing that has happened? What I write here must be inadequate indeed, but I shall not worry about that, for a hundred years could never dim the memory of what I saw. I have often wondered why the Indians were afraid of Rainier; I know now. And what do I really know? I know what I saw, I know what happened; but only God in heaven knows what it means.
"Got started early. Still following the river. Going very difficult. ​Crossed stream a number of times and once had to take to the woods. Reached the glacier about 3 o'clock—an enormous wall of dirty ice, four or five hundred feet in height, with the Nisqually flowing right out of it. Day had turned dark and threatening. Climbed the eastern wall of the canyon. Clouds suddenly settled down—a fog cold and thick and dripping—and we made camp by a tiny stream, near the edge of the canyon cut by the glacier. Soon had a good fire burning, and it was not long before it came—the shrouded figure and with it that horrible shape, 'if,' as old Milton has it in Paradise Lost, 'shape it might be called that shape had none.'
"At times the fog would settle down so thick we could see no farther than fifty feet. Then of a sudden objects could be made out two or three hundred feet away. At the moment the fog was about us thicker than ever. We were sitting there by the fire, warming ourselves and talking—White, Long and myself. Of a sudden there was an exclamation. I looked at Long, and what I saw on his face and in his eyes brought me to my feet in an instant and whirled my look up in that direction in which he was staring.
"And, there on the top of the bank, not more than forty feet from us, stood a tall, white, shrouded figure, a female figure, and beside it, seemingly squatting like a monstrous toad, was that dark, fearful shape that had no shape. But, though shape it had none, it had eyes—small eyes that burned at us with a greenish, hellish fire.
"White snatched up his rifle and thrust it forward, but I stepped over and shoved the muzzle aside. When we looked up there again, the woman—for a woman, a white woman too, it certainly was—well, she was gone, and with her that formless thing with the hellish fire in its eyes.
"'What was it?' exclaimed White.
"He rubbed his eyes and stared up there again, then this way and that, all about into the thick vapor.
"'Was it only a dream?'
"'It was real enough,' I told him. 'It was a woman, a white woman.'
"'Or,' put in Long, 'the spirit of one.'
"'I know one thing,' said White: 'she may be a flesh-and-blood creature, and she may be a spirit; but that thing that crouched beside her was not of this world of ours!'
"He shuddered.
"'Men, what was that thing?'
"That, of course, was a question that neither Long nor myself could answer.
"Of a sudden White exclaimed: 'Where's Sklokoyum?'
"'Not far,' I told him. 'Come, let's look into this.'
"I sprang up the bank. They followed. A moment, and we were in that very spot where the woman and the thing had stood so brief a space before.
"'It was no dream,' observed Long, pointing to the crushed purple flowers—a species, I believe, of aster.
"'No,' I returned; 'it was no dream.'
"'Maybe,' said White, peering about, 'we'll wish, before this business is ended, that it had been a dream.'
"Came a loud scream from above—silence—and then the crash of some body through the branches and shrubs.
"'Sklokoyum!' I cried.
"White's hand closed on my arm with the grip of a vise.
"'Hear that!'
"I heard it—the voice of a woman or girl!
"'She's calling,' said Long, "calling to it.'
"Great heaven!' I exclaimed; 'it's after the Indian! Come!'
​"I started up, but I had taken only a half dozen springs or so when Sklokoyum came leaping, plunging into view. I have seen fear, horrible fear, that of cowards and the fear of brave men; but never had I seen anything like that fear which I saw now. And Sklokoyum, whatever his faults, has a skookum tumtum—in other words, is no coward.
"Down he came plunging. There was a glimpse of a blood-covered visage; then he was past. The next instant a shock, a savage oath from White, and he and the Siwash fell in a heap, went over the edge and rolled down the bank and clean to the fire.
"Long and I followed, keeping a sharp lookout behind us, and, indeed, in every direction. But no glimpse was caught of any moving thing, nor did the faintest sound come to us from out that cursed vapor, settling on the trees and dripping, dripping, dripping.
"Sklokoyum's right cheek was slashed as though by some great talon, and he had been terribly bitten in the throat.
"'A little more,' observed Long, 'and it would have been the jugular, and that would have meant klahowya, Sklokoyum.'
"The Indian declared that he had been attacked by a demon, a klale tamahnowis, a winged fiend from the white man's hell itself. What was it like? Sklokoyum could not tell us that. All he knew was that the demon had wings, teeth a foot in length, and that fire shot out of its eyes and smoke belched from its nostrils. And surely it would have killed him (and I have no doubt that it would) if an angel, an angel, from the white man's heaven, had not come and driven it off. What was the angel like? Sklokoyum could not describe her, so wonderful was the vision. And her voice—why, at the very sound of her voice, that horrible tamahnowis flapped its wings and slunk away into the fog and the gloom of the trees.
"Poor Sklokoyum! No wonder he gave us so wild an account of what happened up there! And, said he, to remain here would be certain death. We must go back, start at once. Well, we are still here, and we are not going to turn back at this spot, though I have no doubt that Sklokoyum himself will do so the very first thing in the morning.
"The fog is thinning. Now and again I see a star gleaming down with ghostly fire. We came here seeking a mystery; well, we certainly have found one. I wonder if I can get any sleep tonight. Long is to relieve me at 12 o'clock. For, of course, we can not, after what has happened, leave our camp without a guard. And I wonder if—what, though, is the good of wondering? But what is she, Sklokoyum's angel? And where is she now?"