13 Tiger Adventure (17 page)

Vic protested, ‘But how can I go on so long as I am covered by these pesky bugs that you let me get out of that Sherpa sleeping bag? I need a bath.’

Now they were up above the flowing streams and there was no water to be had. Hal said, ‘You can use snow. There’s plenty of that around. Take off your clothes, go outside and scrub yourself with snow.’

‘But how about my clothes - they’re full of bugs.’

That’s all right. We’ll burn them.’

‘Burn them? Then what will I wear?’

‘We have some extra clothing. You can have it. The Sherpa who very kindly gave you his sleeping bag has taken it back, bugs and all. Your own sleeping bag is here ready for you whenever you need it. Try to be a good sport. Climbing the mountain should be great fun if you will just let yourself enjoy it.’

‘Great fun!’ Vic exclaimed. ‘Buried in a snowbank, chopped out with ice-axes, climbing a rope ladder where there ought to be a flight of stairs. A howling blizzard full of Yeti. Bites all over me. Bathing in freezing cold snow. Great fun!’

‘Cheer up,’ said Hal. The worst is yet to come.’

The boys remembered that their father wanted an ibex.

‘What’s an ibex?’ Roger wanted to know. ‘Is it something like the unicorn, an animal that doesn’t really exist?’

‘No,’ said Hal. There’s no such animal as a unicorn. But there really is an ibex. Right up here where there are so many rocks and precipices we are likely to find one. It’s a sort of antelope with a dash of goat, a really remarkable animal. It has such keen eyesight that it can see you miles away. And it can smell you at the same distance. That’s quite an improvement on poor little man who can smell only if he gets close up to something smellable.’

They had reached an altitude of seventeen thousand feet. The Sherpas did not mind this, but the boys, who never before had been above ten thousand, had headaches and were so dizzy that they could hardly see each other, let alone an ibex a mile or so away. They were gasping for air. They really got plenty of it but it was too thin to do them much good. They could have made use of oxygen bottles but they were too proud to give up.

‘If the Sherpas can stand it, we can,’ said Hal.

Temba came into the tent. ‘Did you want an ibex? There’s one on the rocks just above us.’

The boys at once forgot how they felt and rushed out to see the ibex. They were amazed by the two great horns of the beast, each five feet long.

‘But how can it use them?’ Roger wondered. They curve backwards. They can’t kill another animal with horns that back up.’

‘Right,’ said Hal. ‘But the ibex isn’t interested in killing other animals. It lives on grass, plants, flowers, and the bark of trees.’

Then it doesn’t need horns at all,’ said Roger. ‘They are just a dead weight. Why do they grow them?’

‘Let’s say it’s just one of Nature’s mistakes. Or perhaps it’s Nature’s way of producing something beautiful. Those are very handsome horns.’

They’re handsome all right,’ said Roger, ‘but so far as I’m concerned I’d rather not be handsome than have such heavy horns. How much do you suppose they weigh?’

Hal thought a moment. ‘I’d say the animal weighs about two hundred pounds, and a hundred of that is horns.’

‘He doesn’t seem to be afraid of us,’ Vic said.

Hal said, ‘Perhaps he doesn’t know what dangerous creatures men are. Possibly he has never seen a man before.’

‘Look at him leap.’ Roger marvelled. ‘I’ll bet he jumped fifteen feet from one boulder to the next. And that rock has only a point for him to stand on. See - he’s clinging to it with all four feet. Why, he could walk a tightrope. I never saw any animal with such good balance.’

‘Speaking of rope,’ Hal said, ‘I’d better try my lasso.’

It was a far throw, but Hal’s fine muscles made light work of it. The loop settled down over the two magnificent horns. Since horns have no feeling the ibex was not aware that he had been caught. But when Hal began to draw in the rope, the ibex started dancing and prancing and pulling back with all his strength. But Hal drew him in to within ten feet and tied the rope to a piton whose sharp point was driven deep into the ice.

Hal spoke to Temba. ‘Can you and your men strap him on to a sled and take him down to camp?’

‘Yes,’ said Temba, ‘but not just now. Feel those quakes? They are very small but they generally mean that we’re going to have a real earthquake in a few minutes. And that may cause an avalanche.’

‘Avalanche?’ Vic’s voice trembled. He didn’t know exactly what an avalanche was but it must be something bad.

Temba said, That’s when everything comes tumbling down.’

The big shock came. The mountain trembled as if it had the ague. The snow was shaken off the upper slopes and came thundering down. Hal and Roger happened to be protected by a big rock. Vic was carried away.

There was snow below him, snow above him, snow packed firmly around him. He was suffocating for lack of air. He tried to get to the surface. He was swimming, moving arms and legs in a crawl. The surface must be very far away. The roar of flying rocks was terrific. Now and then rocks battered him or he ran into rocks that were not flying, and they knocked out of him what little breath he had.

He tried to inhale, but nothing came except snow. He continued to fight for air.

Now he was pinned under a block of ice. He remembered a story about someone who chiselled his way up through such a block with his pocket knife. Vic had no knife, nor did he have enough strength left to do any chiselling.

Now he was out from under the block and swimming again but so weak that he could give up and die.

He had never thought that snow could make a noise, but now the snow was going boom, boom, boom, like a stampede of cattle. Half the time his heels were over his head and all the time he was spinning or rolling and the snow was exploding all about him. With the snow in his eyes he was blind, and so dazed that he thought he was already dead.

He was hanging over a precipice. He kept very quiet, because one movement might send him over the cliff. If he slipped and fell, what did it matter? Whether he died on top of the precipice or at the bottom, it was all the same.

The avalanche had come to a stop. Hal and Roger began to look for Vic, Below them there was nothing but snow, snow, and more snow. There was not one sign of human life down there. Temba and his men had survived, and they helped hunt for Vic.

Hal had something in his pocket that was called an ‘electronic homing device’. It was designed for use after an avalanche to detect the presence of any person buried in the snow. Now was the time to make use of it.

He walked slowly down, holding the device. If there was anyone beneath him, the thing would go beep, beep, beep. It was hard going because the snow was not firm. It had been churned into powder by its rush down the mountain.

Roger went with him and also Temba and a Sherpa carrying a shovel. So far, there was nothing to shovel. They went a hundred feet down the slope, then another hundred, and another. The beeper was silent. After they had gone down a thousand feet they were about ready to give up. But Hal insisted upon continuing. On down to the fourteen-thousand-foot level. Here they stood on the edge of a precipice. There was a thousand-foot drop from the edge.

‘I’m afraid he’s not alive,’ said Hal. ‘If he went over that cliff and fell a thousand feet, he’s dead.’

Just then the beeper began to beep.

‘He’s right here,’ shouted Roger. Hal grabbed the shovel and began to dig. He was encouraged by the beeper which kept on playing its little tune.

At last the shovel poked something that wasn’t snow. And it was too soft to be a rock. Feverishly, Hal dug around the soft thing until it was evident that this was Vic Stone in person, but perhaps Vic Stone dead.

His body was half over the edge of the precipice. His eyes were closed. His face was very pale, and badly scratched by rocks.

Hal took Vic’s pulse. He could only faintly feel the beat of the pulse, but it was enough to tell him that Vic was alive.

They lifted his unconscious body out of the snow and, locking their hands beneath it, they carried it up three thousand feet to the place where the tents had been, and still were, though now they were flat on the ground.

The Sherpas had begun to erect them and soon it was possible to carry Vic inside and put him into his sleeping bag.

When he became warm he opened his eyes and seemed surprised to find that he was in a tent, not in heaven or hell. Hal was leaning over him with a cup of hot broth. The broth had to be spooned into Vic’s mouth, for his arms were still numb.

‘Who brought me here?’ he asked.

Temba said, ‘You owe your life to Hal and his little beeper. If it hadn’t been for him you would still be under twenty feet of snow three thousand feet down the mountain. And you would be dead.’

Hal expected Vic to scold as usual. But Vic, with tears in his eyes, said, ‘You’re really a good guy.’

Hal was so astonished that he spilled the rest of the broth.

The one who had tolerated the disaster better than anybody else was the ibex. He was quietened with the sleep-gun and two Sherpas took him on a sled down to Aligar.

The others went higher, still hoping to find those two unique animals, the snow leopard and the white tiger.

Today,’ said Hal, ‘we want to get a snow leopard. The best ones are in Tibet.’

Roger’s eyes popped. Tibet! We must be hundreds of miles from Tibet.’

‘Would you believe that Tibet is only two miles off?’ Hal said.

‘No, kind sir,’ retorted Roger, ‘I wouldn’t believe it.’

‘Well, it’s true. There’s a trail between these peaks to Tibet. We’re not actually going into Tibet because we have no visa. But Temba tells me that some of the wild Tibetan animals wander over to the Indian side. So, that’s where we’ll look for them. Two that we especially want are the snow leopard and the yak.’

There are plenty of yaks down at Aligar.’ said Roger. There are yak pastures, full of yaks. The Sherpas use them to do all their farm work.’

‘Right you are,’ said Hal. ‘But those yaks are small. The Tibetan yak is twice as big. That’s the one we want. One of us will go after the yak and the other will go after the snow leopard.’

‘Me for the snow leopard,’ said Roger.

‘But that’s the dangerous one.’ Hal warned.

‘I know.’ said Roger. ‘I’ll take one of your tear-gas pistols. And a sleep-gun. And a sled with a couple of our Sherpas to pull it - in case we find a snow leopard and put it to sleep, they can take it down to Aligar.’

Hal did not like the idea of his brother tackling any leopard, the most ferocious of all cats.

‘Very well, since you are determined, you bring home a snow leopard and I’ll try to produce a big yak.’

‘Where do I come in?’ said Vic.

Hal stared. It was the first time Vic had ever offered to do anything.

‘Vic,’ Hal said, ‘I’d like to have you go down to Aligar and see if the blue bear and the ibex are being properly cared for. They are extremely valuable animals and we don’t want to take any chances of neglect or injury. The mayor is supposed to be taking care of them.’

So the three boys started out, each in a different direction. First we shall follow the fortunes of Roger, in search of a snow leopard.

Followed by his two Sherpas with their sled he trudged off close to the line between India and Tibet. They were at an altitude of twenty thousand feet and the air was so thin that Roger often had to stop to breathe. He had forgotten to bring along an oxygen bottle. The Sherpas did not mind the altitude for they had grown up on the mountain.

There was no sun this morning and the wind was ice cold. His feet, hands and ears were the first parts of him to turn numb with frostbite. He was becoming ‘altitude-sick’. He staggered, and fell down in the snow. He refused to let the Sherpas help him and struggled to his feet and walked on. The mountainside was very steep here and it would be easy to fall. In that case you would keep on falling for thousands of feet and probably wind up dead.

It would be safer if they were roped together. A Sherpa produced a rope and tied it first to Roger, then, at a distance of six feet, to the other Sherpa, and finally, after another six feet, to himself.

Now, if Roger began to fall, there were two strong men to hold him back. The Sherpas had no idea that they would be the ones to fall. They had so much confidence in their own ability that they did not wear crampon spikes on the soles of their boots. Roger was not so cocksure. He not only wore crampons, but he carried an ice-axe and frequently plunged the point of it into the ice in order to keep himself from slipping.

All of a sudden he heard a yell behind him and the two Sherpas shot downhill like rockets.

Roger stabbed the point of his ice-axe into the ice, but the weight of two falling bodies on the rope tied about his waist nearly yanked him loose in spite of crampons and axe.

So he saved the Sherpas from what might have been a fatal fall of thousands of feet. They clambered back to his level and from that moment regarded him with more respect. He was just a boy, but a tough one.

Roger had only a moment to think how smart he was. The jolt he had suffered had shaken off his snow glasses. Then he had accidentally stepped on them and broken them to bits. To complete his misery the sun, which had been hiding behind clouds, suddenly burst out in its full glory and fury. The glare of sunlight on snow and ice was too much for his eyes. He blacked out. For a time he sat in the snow.

When he dared to open his eyes he saw double, even triple. His feet, when he looked at them, were a mile away. His mind played him tricks. He was in the Gir Forest capturing a golden langur. No, he was in a Tibetan monastery looking at Yeti relics. He could see only dimly. Although the sun was blazing, it seemed to him that everything was a dark grey.

The Sherpas knew what to do in a case of snow blindness. They would cover their eyes with their own hair so that they could just see out between hairs, and most of the glare, terrific at these altitudes, was cut off. Roger’s hair was not very long, but they managed to get a few wisps of it over his eyes and at once he felt a great relief.