Ranger Bill, Warrior of the Woodland.
Ranger Bill, Warrior of the Woodland.
Struggling against extreme odds, traveling dangerous trails, showing rare courage in
the face of disaster, in the air, on horseback, or in a screaming squad car.
Ranger Bill, his mind alert, a ready smile, unswerving, loyal to his mission.
And all this in exchange for the satisfaction and pride of a job well done.
Hello boys and girls, I'm Ranger Bill.
Today did you hear that strange noise?
What did you think it was?
Kind of hard to tell just what it was, don't you think?
You know, the first time I heard it, I couldn't believe my ears.
When I saw what was making the noise, I couldn't believe my eyes.
Well, finding out what that noise was and then trying to find out a way to stop it,
gave Henry and myself one of the most exciting adventures of our lives.
I call it, The Mountain That Moved.
My land clan, there you go, slamming their screen door again.
Won't you never learn?
Oh Martha, it seems like I forget.
I don't go for a slam it, but somehow or other I just...
I know, I know.
Of course, you've been forgetting for 40 years.
Yes, and for 40 years you've been reminding me.
Oh Cleo.
Come over here and set a spell in your rocker.
Well, reckon I will.
Cool enough, I might reckon.
It sure is, it sure is.
And the sun's dropping behind the mountain.
You know, taint everybody that has a mountain in their backyard like we got, Martha.
Why that there mountain has shielded us from the hot sun in the summertime and oh the cold
winds in the winter.
Well, you know, ever since we homesteaded here.
Cleo.
What?
I hear that noise again.
What noise Martha?
Oh you know, Clem, the noise.
Now listen.
Now don't tell me you can't hear it.
Oh, I hear it all right.
We keep hearing it more often lately.
What is it, Clem?
He's got no idea.
A thunder maybe?
No, that ain't no thunder, Clem.
Not a cloud in the sky.
That's right.
Well, whatever it is, it'll go away.
Oh, you always say that.
Well, it always does go away, don't it?
I don't like it, Clem.
I just don't like it.
It's some kind of a noise.
It seems to come from over by that mountain.
There.
You see, she's quit.
Does come over from by the mountain though.
Well, whatever she is, she don't amount to nothing.
Good morning.
Glad to see you.
I take it you're Mr. Chenoweth.
That's right, sir, and I take it you arranged a bill.
That's right.
I have my credentials here in case you...
Oh no, I got your telegrams that I was expecting you.
I've got two telegrams, one from you and one from the...
The United States Geodetic Survey?
That's right.
Well, what brings you out to our neck of the woods, Mr. Chenoweth?
I don't exactly know.
Fishing's pretty good.
No, I'm not here to fish.
I'm here as a sort of detective, I guess.
Detective?
A geographical detective.
Bill, I'm a seismologist.
Oh, you're one of those...
That's right.
I specialize in the study of disturbances on the Earth's surface.
Ah, earthquakes.
Well, yes.
Any shifting in the Earth's crust.
It's a big world, you know, Bill, and every now and then it gives a sort of a shake and
a shudder.
And when it does, well, it means trouble.
But this is an earthquake country.
Oh, I know that.
And that's the strange part of it all.
In fact, that's why I'm here in your office this morning.
Now look here.
Now, these probably won't mean much to you, but they mean a great deal, a very great deal
to a seismologist.
These are papers, charts or graphs taken from our recording machines in Washington.
Oh, yeah.
We have machines there so delicate and sensitive that any movement in the Earth's surface anywhere
in the world is registered on those machines.
In Japan or under the sea or anywhere, in fact.
Any such movement is picked up by those machines and then we can compute exactly where the
disturbance originates.
But what has all that got to do with Noddy Pie?
A very great deal.
I've checked and rechecked my figures and have come to the same conclusion each time.
Something is happening to part of the Earth's surface near here.
And whatever it is, I can tell you right now, it's something I don't like.
Well, here's the best place, Stumpy.
The water's deep, right by this jib rock.
We sure plumb, plumb up this hill mountain and the fishing better be good.
Well, high mountain streams are the best places for trot.
Go ahead and cast.
Here goes.
I got him.
The great granddaddy of all trots.
I got him.
Easy.
Get dirty, Henry.
I'm a plain and easy leg.
Oh, oh, oh, he almost got away there.
Easy, easy.
Get the net, Henry.
Get the net.
OK.
Pop him into the creel.
I took a little bit of the water.
The only thing to do was climb up this here mountain if he wanted to get the lungers.
Hey, what's the matter?
Nothing, I guess.
Well, something must be the matter, if it makes you stop talking.
Just for a minute there, I felt kind of dizzy, but I ain't dizzy, if you know what I mean.
Maybe the sun's too high.
No, no.
Hey, what's the matter with you?
You're jumping all around like that.
I lost my footing for a minute.
But what I can figure out is this.
How can a man lose his footing when he's standing still?
Henry, when I told you I thought I was dizzy, it was because the ground right under me seemed
like it was moving.
And then you...
Henry, there's something awful to matter with this mountain.
Let's get out of here.
What do you reckon you want for supper, Clem?
Well, being at his house, she's such a nice day, Marthy.
I thought I'd like to take a walk up to the mountain, to one of them trout streams, and
see if I couldn't get us a mess of trout for supper.
Sounds good.
Well, if you're going, you better get started.
Oh, there's plenty of time.
Well, let's just sit here and rest for a while on the stoop.
Let's just rest for...
Gracious.
Land Sakes, what was that?
I'll go see, Clem.
Well, I never, oh, very me, very me.
Looky here, Clem, look at this.
My very best cream pitcher, the one that said souvenir of the world's fair painted right
on the side.
My best cream pitcher all smashed to snifferines.
Oh, dread that cat, Clem, she's jumped up on that shelf and knocked that cream pitcher
off onto the floor.
If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times.
That cat is just going to have to...
Marthy, Marthy, that cat's been sitting right here on my lap all the time.
Then, then what made that cream pitcher fall off the shelf, Clem, all by itself?
Well, I don't know, maybe you set it too close to the edge.
Oh, my very best souvenir of the world's fair cream pitcher, never.
Now you know better than to say that, Clem.
Oh, reckon we'll get another one, Marthy, next time we...
What, what's gotten into you?
The cat, I mean the cat's tail.
Look at that cat's tail, Marthy.
It's all puffed up like a balloon.
That means she's frightened.
Frightened of what, Marthy?
Nice of you to invite me to lunch, Bill, before we get started for the mountain.
Ah, fried ham country style and sweet potatoes.
Makes a fella hungry just to...
Oh, excuse me.
Excuse me.
Certainly.
Dear Lord Jesus, we ask you to bless this food to our use and to be with us this day
as we start on our trip to the mountain.
We ask this in your name.
Amen.
Do you, do you always ask grace like that for four meals?
That's right, Mr. Jenoweth.
Hmm, I see.
And does it work?
Work?
Well, I mean, do you...
We're Christians here, Mr. Jenoweth, so we're grateful for the opportunity to ask the Lord's
blessing on the food he supplies and to thank him for it.
We do this because we're happy to do it.
But you said something just then about our trip this afternoon.
Well, Christians continually ask the Lord for help and guidance in anything they undertake.
Well, I thought people did that sort of thing in church on Sunday.
They do, but you don't have to be in church to pray.
Well, this scientific research of mine, of ours this afternoon, do you really think the
Lord is concerned with that?
Mm-hmm, I know he is.
But the Lord didn't send me out here.
It's those danger marks and those calibrated charts and graphs that's the only reason I'm
here.
Are you sure?
Why?
Well, as a scientist, of course I'm sure.
Pass the ham, please.
Am I going too fast, will you?
Oh, no, keep it up.
I can follow.
Mr. Chenoweth, do you know what we'll find when we get to the mountain?
Well, let's say I'm afraid of what we'll find.
Huh?
Afraid?
Yes, from all the symptoms and all the clues and the indications we have, it begins to
look very much as though Old Thunderhead, as you call it, has just decided to move.
What?
A whole mountain move?
Mm-hmm.
Mr. Chenoweth, you must be joking.
No.
Well, is this an earthquake?
No, it's not that.
A volcano?
No.
Well, what?
Well, Bill, we have a historical background for this sort of thing.
It's happened before, you know.
Yes?
Several times in South America on the fringe of the Andes, a mountain, a whole mountain
will move, will shift, change position, if you like.
Maybe a matter of a few feet, maybe several miles.
Slides downhill, you mean?
Well, not necessarily.
But it's a gradual thing and moves slowly like a glacier.
No, when it goes, it goes fast.
Not a volcanic eruption, not an earthquake.
Not a landslide or an avalanche, just a mountain that moves.
But what causes it?
Probably some great cataclysmic upheaval or disturbance deep, deep in the center of the
earth.
Either that or gradual erosion of the base of the mountain over the centuries or a crumbling
of the mountain's foundation.
But this was in South America.
It's happened in Italy, too, near the Alps.
Far away.
It's happened in this country in the year 1906 in the state of Washington, near the
Rockies.
Near the...
Why, where near the...
Oh, but can it be stopped?
I think so.
I think so.
How?
Depth charges.
Depth charges?
What are you talking about?
This is a mountain we're headed for, not an ocean.
I know, I know that, Bill.
But what invariably happens in a case like this, when a mountain starts to move, great
cracks appear.
Giant cracks in the earth's surface.
We call them crevasses.
They can be hundreds of feet deep.
And if you can lower a high explosive down to the bottom and detonate it, the incredible
force of such an underground blast will...
But we don't have any such explosives.
Oh, yes, we do.
Plenty of it.
Compound C in that knapsack on your back.
Plus fine nylon rope with the electric detonating wire woven right into it.
Oh, um, Mr. Chenoweth.
Yes, Bill?
In those cases you told me about, when a mountain moved, were there people living on those mountains?
Uh-huh, there were.
And uh, and what, what happened to them?
I understand.
I should have known.
Dear Lord Jesus, help those people up there today on Old Thunderhead.
And help us to help them.
Amen.
You know, it's interesting to me as a scientist to observe how a man like yourself resorts
to prayer.
Prayer is available for everyone, Mr. Chenoweth.
Even scientists.
Yes, yes, of course.
However, and I'm sure you know I have no wish to hurt your feelings.
For my part, I'll put my faith in modern day know-how.
Well, I can walk much faster than we have been.
How about stepping up the pace and I'll follow.
Well, we're nearly down now.
I just caught a glimpse of level ground.
Can't be far now.
Yeah, good.
We're about going to come out of Clem and Martha's farmhouse.
Good thing too.
More than you'll have a peachy ice cold buttermilk somewhere handy.
We're almost down now.
Mayday, Henry, Henry, help me.
I fell down.
I can't get up.
I ain't hurt nowhere.
There's nothing in no help.
I can't get up.
I fell down too.
You can't see nothing.
Particularly unusual.
But here we are, two grown men and we can't stand up.
What's happening to the ground?
I don't know.
Well, it's bad, that's for sure.
I never, never, never as long as I've...
Henry, listen.
Listen.
The whole ground is shaking.
Stop it.
I'm scared.
It can't be an earthquake.
This ain't earthquake country.
Henry.
I don't know.
Hey, it's going.
It's a rainbow.
The noise is coming from the sky.
It's gone now.
Let's get up.
It's good to have your shanks under you again.
We're having a terrible time.
We sure are.
Well, let's get along home as fast as we can.
What's the matter?
What you looking at?
You look kind of funny, Henry.
What you staring at?
You see what I see?
Yep.
I see you see it.
Same as I do.
They're ditch-like.
She stretches out in both directions, as far as a fellow can see.
She's deep too.
She's so deep you can't see the bottom of it.
And she's wide too.
Too wide to get across.
That's what that big noise was.
That monstrous crack then opened up right in the face of the earth between us and the
bottom of this mountain.
Henry, we're up here on this mountain, and we can't get down.
And this mountain is moving.
There, there, there, you poor little thing.
Poor pussy.
Marthy, everything all right inside?
Ragnar will never get this mess cleaned up, Glenn.
Every dish in the house is broke.
Well, we're all right.
We can get new dishes, Marthy.
Come on out here on the porch and rest.
I'm hunting for something, Glenn.
Marthy, what in the earth are you hunting for that takes you so long?
Come here.
Here's what I was hunting for, Glenn.
Here's what.
And I had a time finding it.
I tell you, all that bur is nest in there.
Yes, the Bible.
Yes, yes, Glenn, the Bible.
Glenn, with all this awful goings on going on, I want to have the good book handy.
Yes.
But Glenn, when that awful crackety slam bang come, I didn't know what to think.
Yes, she sure rattled everything around.
Whatever she was.
Every dish, Glenn, every single dish.
Yes, you said that, Marthy.
What was it, Glenn?
I can't figure it out.
Well, it seems like the whole world just started to...
Marthy.
What, Glenn?
Marthy, take a look over yonder.
At that mountain, look.
The mountain, Glenn, the mountain.
There's a great big tremendous crack in it running crossways.
But aren't there before, Glenn, makes it look as if the whole mountain was kind of leaning
this way.
Glenn, we gotta run.
No, no, Marthy.
Why ever not?
We ain't running.
Oh, Glenn, something terrible's taking place.
The mountain looks like it's...
Marthy, my eyes are pretty good for an old feller.
Good enough for me to see that there's two men standing up there on that mountain.
Oh, so there be, Glenn.
Well, let them climb down then.
No, no, Marthy.
Marthy, them fellers can't get down.
They're on the wrong side of that tremendous crack.
No, we're not running away.
I admit, I don't know what's happening, but we ain't running.
Not until I can try and help them fellers some.
Well, there's Old Thunderhead.
The traditional topography, I see.
See how it sort of stands out by itself?
Oh, yes.
On the edge, so to speak, of those larger mountains.
Yes, it's a good place to see it.
Up here on this ridge, just after across this valley here, about a mile, we'll be right
on the slopes of Old Thunderhead.
You're sure that's the right mountain?
Oh, positive.
I've been checking these dials all the way, and that's the one.
Even make out the dirt road winding up that crooked valley.
That's the only way in and out of the mountain.
That's the road the cottagers and the fishermen take.
That's the warning signal.
It's a danger signal.
Something's taking place over there.
Yeah.
Something we can't see.
But we can see it.
Which is, of course, right there by that little road.
Yes.
Oh, this is fantastic.
It's incredible to see a thing like this.
Look at that.
Watch, Bill.
See how the rock folds?
That outcropping over there, it's like falling over a slice of bread, I guess.
Tremendous.
Strange.
How strange to stand here in perfect safety and see this happen.
Yet we're so far away, we can't even hear it.
Yes.
There's a phrase somewhere.
I don't know where.
Something about moving mountains.
I know.
Well, we're seeing a mountain move.
Ah, there.
See, it subsided again.
That's what always happens, you know.
There are a few upheavals like that one.
Increasing in violence and the whole mountain goes.
When the crevasses appear, it's only a matter of time.
How much time?
An hour.
Maybe more.
Maybe less.
But once the crevasses come up, the mountain is on the move.
The road.
The road.
In and out of the mountain.
What about it?
It's gone.
I don't like the look of things, Bill.
These readings all point to the fact that the mountain is ready to let go.
Are you sure?
Every scientific test I've made and I've made them all makes it a positive fact.
Mr. Chenoweth, the explosive.
It's our only hope.
Are we almost there?
Yes, just around this bend.
That house down there, do people live there?
Yes.
Say, we've got to get them away.
If that mountain goes, that house will vanish.
Hey, you in there?
No use calling.
Why not?
I can see them.
It's an old man and his wife.
They live there, but they're not there now.
Where are they?
Up there.
Up on the edge of that crevasse.
The crevasse?
It's just like I told you, the crevasse.
The last warning.
Quick, give me the explosive.
Stumpy and Henry are up there too.
Who?
Oh, yes, an old man and a boy.
And they're on the wrong side of the crevasse.
Unless I can settle things with a high explosive, there's nothing we can do for them.
And for that matter, if you and that old couple stick around too long, if things go wrong, there's nothing I can do for you either.
Why don't you get out of here?
I want to be here, Mr. Chenoweth, to do what I can.
No matter if it does seem hopeless.
Very well. Suit yourself.
You're here, you know.
Naturally, I'm a scientist. There's work to do. I have no choice.
Well, I'm not a scientist, but like you, I have work to do. And I'll stay. Like you, I have no choice.
Very well. I don't get it. Come along. Let's start climbing.
Bill, glad to clap eyes on you.
Howdy, Bill.
Hi, Henry. Hi, Stumpy. Hi, Martha, Clem.
Say, Bill, things has come to a pretty pass here. Now that you are here, maybe you can tell us just what's happening.
Well, it doesn't look good.
But what?
This is Mr. Chenoweth.
I see.
He tells me this mountain, for some unknown but positive geological reason, is due to move.
I knew it. I knew it all along.
I'm going over to the edge of the crevasse to lower the explosive down in as far as we'll go.
All right, I'll go with you.
No, Bill. The less disturbance, the better. You stay here. You and all these people remain quiet.
Don't run about and, above all, don't shout. Say, how many that knapsack was the explosive and the prepared rope and wire?
Thanks. Well, so long.
Now then, I'll just crawl as carefully and as quietly as I can right up to the edge.
I hope it doesn't crumble. Oh, well. I didn't want to make too much of it, but I know this mountain is going.
I'm sorry for all those people, the cartridges and the fisherman, Bill and his friends.
Me too, I suppose. If the explosive doesn't, huh? Almost there.
I'll have to be careful. Well, well, you look at that. The old man and the boy, they're kneeling.
Praying, I guess. And the old man and his wife and Bill, they're kneeling too. They're all praying.
Well, now to the edge. Ah, it's a deep one, all right. Tie on the explosive. There. Lower it down. Down. Down.
Ah, this is as far as it'll go. Nearer the end of the rope too. Now to crawl back and press the button that will activate the charge.
Slowly now. I mustn't jar anything.
And so, dear Lord Jesus, we turn this whole thing over to you. Amen.
He's done crawled back to that little box. That's the mechanism that sets off the explosion.
He's pushing a button, looks like.
Oh, the earth, that great big crack. It's closing up. The crack is closing up. Praise the Lord.
Martha, you see Martha, the crack is closing up. In fact, she is closed up.
You've smashed trees here and there to be sure, but the crevasse has vanished and no life's lost.
And here comes that scientific fellow. Yes. Oh, Mr. Chenoweth. Oh, Mr. Chenoweth, you have our true thanks.
The crevasse is closed, Bill, and what's more, I can't detect any disturbance.
The mountain seems to have settled. It's back to normal. And there's no danger now anywhere.
There are many strange occurrences in God's creation, not the least of which was the moving mountain.
But along with strange incidents, God gives us knowledge to cope with them and opportunities to really trust Him.
Well, see you next week for more Adventure with Stranger Bill.