Cyrus Brady - The Chalice Of Courage - A Romance of Colorado

The awe of the everlasting hills is greater than that of the heaving sea. Save in the infrequent periods of calm, the latter always moves, the mountains are the same for all time. The ocean is quick, noisy, living; the mountains are calm, still – dead.

The girl stood as it were on the roof of the world, a solitary human being, so far as she knew, in the eye of God above her. Ah, but the Eyes Divine look long and see far; things beyond the human ken are all revealed. None of the party had ever come this far from the camp in this direction she knew. And she was glad to be the first, as she fatuously thought, to observe that majestic solitude.

Surveying the great range she wondered where the peak climbers might be. Keen sighted though she was she could not discover them. The crest that they were attempting lay in another direction hidden by a nearer spur. She was in the very heart of the mountains; peaks and ridges rose all about her, so much so that the general direction of the great range was lost. She was at the center of a far flung concavity of crest and range. She marked one towering point to the right of her that rose massively grand above all the others. To-morrow she would climb to that high point and from its lofty elevation look upon the heavens above and the earth beneath, aye and the waters under the earth far below. To-morrow! – it is generally known that we do not usually attempt the high points in life's range at once, content are we with lower altitudes to-day.

There was no sound above her, the rushing water over the rocks upon the nearer side she could hear faintly beneath her, there was no wind about her, to stir the long needles of the pines. It was very still, the kind of a stillness of body which is the outward and visible complement of that stillness of the soul in which men know God. There had been no earthquake, no storm, the mountains had not heaved beneath her feet, the great and strong wind had not passed by, the rocks had not been rent and broken, yet Enid caught herself listening as if for a Voice. The thrall of majesty, silence, loneliness was upon her. She stood – one stands when there is a chance of meeting God on the way, one does not kneel until He comes – with her raised hands clasped, her head uplifted in exultation unspeakable, God-conquered with her face to heaven upturned.

"I will lift up mine eyes to the hills whence cometh my salvation," her heart sang voicelessly. "We praise Thee, O God, we magnify Thy Holy Name forever," floated through her brain, in great appreciation of the marvelous works of the Almighty Shaping Master Hand. Caught up as it were into the heavens, her soul leaped to meet its maker. Thinking to find God she waited there on the heaven-kissing hill.

How long she stayed she did not realize; she took no note of time, it did not occur to her even to look at the watch on her wrist; she had swept the skyline cut off as it were by the peaks when first she came, and when at last she turned away – even divinest moments must have an end – she looked not backward. She saw not a little cloud hid on the horizon behind the rampart of ages, as it were, no bigger than a man's hand, a cloud full of portent and which would alarm greatly the veteran Kirkby in the camp and Maitland on the mountain top. Both of them unfortunately were unable to see it, one being on the other side of the range, and the other deep in the cañon, and for both of them as for the girl the sun still shone brightly.

The declivity to the river on the upper side was comparatively easy and Enid Maitland went slowly and thoughtfully down to it until she reached the young torrent. She got her tackle ready, but did no casting as she made her way slowly up the ever narrowing, ever rising cañon. She was charmed and thrilled by the wild beauty of the way, the spell of the mountains was deep upon her. Thoughtfully she wandered on until, presently she came to another little amphitheater like that where the camp was pitched, only smaller. Strange to say the brook, or river, here broadened into a little pool perhaps twenty feet across; a turn had thrown a full force of water against the huge boulder wall and in ages of effort a giant cup had been hollowed out of the native rock. The pool was perhaps four or five feet deep, the rocky bottom worn smooth, the clearing was upon the opposite side and the banks were heavily wooded beyond the spur of the rock which formed the back of the pool. She could see the trout in it. She made ready to try her fortune, but before she did so an idea came to her – daring, unconventional, extraordinary, begot of innocence and inexperience.

The water of course was very cold, but she had been accustomed all her life to taking a bath at the natural temperature of the water at whatever season. She knew that the only people in that wilderness were the members of her own party; three of them were at the camp below, the others were ascending a mountain miles away. The cañon was deep sunk, and she satisfied herself by careful observation that the pool was not overlooked by any elevations far or near.

Her ablutions in common with those of the rest of the campers had been by piecemeal of necessity. Here was an opportunity for a plunge in a natural bath tub. She was as certain that she would be under no observation as if she were in the privacy of her own chamber. Here again impulse determined the end. In spite of her assurance there was some little apprehension in the glance that she cast about her, but it soon vanished. There was no one. She was absolutely alone. The pool and the chance of the plunge had brought her down to earth again; the thought of the enlivening exhilaration of the pure cold water dashing against her own sweet warm young body changed the current of her thoughts – the anticipation of it rather.

Impulsively she dropped her rod upon the grass, unpinned her cap, threw the fishing basket from her shoulder. She was wearing a stout sweater; that too joined the rest. Nervous hands manipulated buttons and the fastenings. In a few moments the sweet figure of youth, of beauty, of purity and of innocence brightened the sod and shed a white luster upon the green of the grass and moss and pines, reflecting light to the gray brown rocks of the range. So Eve may have looked on some bright Eden morning. A few steps forward and this nymph of the woods, this naiad of the mountains, plunged into the clear, cold waters of the pool – a water sprite and her fountain!

The water was deep enough to receive her dive and the pool was long enough to enable her to swim a few strokes. The first chill of the icy water was soon lost in the vigorous motions in which she indulged, but no mere human form however hardened and inured could long endure that frigid bath. Reluctantly, yet with the knowledge that she must go, after one more sweeping dive and a few magnificent strokes, she raised her head from the water lapping her white shoulders, and shaking her face clear from the drops of crystal, faced the shore. It was no longer untenanted, she was no longer alone.

What she saw startled and alarmed her beyond measure. Planted on her clothes, looking straight at her, having come upon her in absolute silence, nothing having given her the least warning of his approach, and now gazing at her with red, hungry, evil, vicious eyes, the eyes of the covetous filled with the cruel lust of desire and carnal possession, and yet with a glint of surprise in them, too, as if he did not know quite what to make of the white loveliness of this unwonted apparition flashing so suddenly at him out of the water, this strange invader of the domain of which he fancied he was sole master and lord paramount, stood a great, monstrous frightful looking Grizzly Bear. Ursus Horribilis , indeed.

He was an aged monarch of the mountains, reddish brown in color originally, but now a hoary dirty gray. His body was massive and burly, his legs short, dark colored and immensely powerful. His broad square head moved restlessly. His fanged mouth opened and a low hoarse growl came from the red cavern of his throat. He was an old and terrible monster who had tasted the blood of man and who would not hesitate to attack even without provocation especially anything at once so harmless and so whitely inviting as the girl in the pool.