september - october - Fort Sill

GUNS ON THE MOUNTAIN
eternity on the back of an avalanche. They began to feel a peculiar tingling
sensation in the soles of their feet. When they encountered this sensation
they drew back to a respectful distance from the edge and looked
elsewhere.
Their eyes were drawn to the mountain across the pass and they
remembered three comrades, slain on its slopes the year before. They
began to trace routes with index fingers. Far to the west the sea gleamed
under the afternoon sun. A liner was hastening along the coast making for
the great bay to the south. Such was the distance that it appeared to be but a
chip, lying motionless on the water.
When they had come thus far, the men were encouraged. They had risen
eleven hundred feet above the pass. The mountain had tried to trap them in
its fissures, had bombarded them with its boulders and had appealed to its
ally, the sun. Nevertheless, they were here. They considered that they had
passed the first line of defense and began to move the guns around the lip
of the crater.
The mountain now opposed an entanglement of gnarled, tough trees,
enlaced with wiry creepers. As an example of the elastic defense, it could
not be surpassed. One penetrated a few steps and was stopped, involved by
a hundred clinging vines, too strong to break, too nonresistant to suffer
from an axe. To counter this defense, the men produced bolos. They were
not the ponderous bolos issued by a ponderous bureatt. These the men used
cheerfully to split firewood, open cans or dig holes in the ground. For the
jungle, they preferred their own slim, light blades, beautifully balanced and
whetted like a razor. These implements are the open sesame to the jungle.
The boloman flourishes his weapon once, twice, thrice, and the way falls
open before him. To one who has thrashed about unavailingly, it comes as
a sort of wizardry.
Presently they approached the first cliff. The men spread along the foot of
it seeking a breach but found none. They scattered and there was heard the
swish of falling saplings. Leaning these against the cliff they lashed them
with ropes and, with dexterous strokes of their bolos, notched them. In the
notches were laid other saplings which were made fast in their turn. They
worked deftly and when they were finished the wide ladder stood as solidly
as if made of steel. It was amazing to see what they did with bits of hemp.
When the ladder was finished the guns surmounted the cliff. At this
point the mountain seemed to feel that there existed an emergency and
it called upon the raingod who dwelt among the peaks. Clouds began to
play about the buttresses of the mountain.
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