The Mystery of Monster Mountain-us by Alfred Hitchcock

Author:Alfred Hitchcock
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

49

The Beast in the Woods

Bob began to walk west, not quite venturing in under the trees. He watched the ground as he went, stopping every few seconds to listen. He heard a jay cry out from some hidden place. A squirrel scampered along a branch.

Then he saw it. It was a faint depression, a place where some large creature had tramped down the earth under the trees and dislodged a few pine needles.

Bob touched the signal on his directional device. After a second, there was an answering beep from the north, and a second from the northwest. He considered shouting for help, to bring Jupe and Pete running to see his find, but there was nothing distinct about the track. He knew it was very likely another bear, or perhaps even a smaller animal. He decided to search farther in, under the trees, to see if he could find a better print.

He went into the dimness under the trees. Here and there he found patches of clear earth, and he hopefully examined these, but there were no more tracks.

Twice he found places where fallen pine needles had been pressed down when some animal stepped on them, but the needles were strewn so thickly on the ground that they would not take a clear imprint. There was nothing that could be called a definite track.

Bob went on. The trees grew more closely together. The light grew dimmer, and at last the blue sky was hidden by the interlacing branches. Then, ahead, Bob saw brightness. He went more quickly, and stepped out from under the trees into a small clearing. Almost at his feet was what looked like a huge crack in the earth.

Bob edged forward and looked down into the crevice. It was a split in the ground almost fifty yards long and, in the widest places, about ten feet across.

The sides were so sheer that they were almost straight up and down. At the bottom of this peculiar opening in the earth was snow, still unmelted by the summer warmth.

Bob knew what it was. While working at his parttime job at the library in Rocky Beach, he had come across a book of maps of hiking trails in the San

Gabriel Mountains and the Sierras. One map of trails in the Mammoth Lakes area showed a similar crevice, caused by an earthquake that had fractured the ground. The temperature at the bottom of the Mammoth fracture, many feet below the surface, was like the temperature in a cave. It was cool even on the hottest day, so the snow that fell during the winter never completely melted.

The beep sounded on Bob’s directional signal. It was Jupe, reporting his whereabouts on the north side of the meadow. A second beep came in, and the needle swung westward. Bob activated his own device to answer his friends, wishing that they had brought the walkie-talkies. The discovery of an earthquake fracture within a mile or so of Anna’s inn was something Bob would have liked to share immediately.

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