Yup, magically conveyed by some force down the side of “Slumber Mountain” (significance of that name to be determined…) Mark and Wes are treated to a free-standing, available, watertight and cheery cabin for two, complete with “discarded” (yet I am sure quite water-tight and buoyant) canoe-  suspended upside-down and protected from rot on a canoe RACK!  No doubt nestled on the shores of the same lake that Shelley and Cherry are currently waiting and tapping their feet (or running quickly into to escape wolf-bite.)

Once again, though, one must take the dialogue apart with a tweezers… “Really bad Feelings,” Mark, are reserved for when you think Sasquatch might be holed up in said cabin, not that it’s been potentially “abandoned for a while now…”  And then as you burst through the door you proclaim your omniscience, “Just as I thought… Abandoned!”  A canoe? With or without paddle?  For surely that spells the worst luck of all- being anywhere at all in a canoe without a paddle…

You know what we need right about now?  Some Disney magic!  This is getting way too serious!!  Some oblique reference to “Slumber Mountain” an obvious rip-off of “Hushabye Mountain” from the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang…  “Dick” Van Dyke (Given name Richard Wayne) singing his charges to sleep after an exciting day aboard the flying car… Wait- maybe this whole thing has been a dream?  Has there ever been a dream sequence in all of Mark Trail?  Not that I Know of…

But don’t give up, Wes!  Shelley is probably back a base camp having that revelatory moment you can only imagine… the real beauty of the outdoors is foisting itself upon her in the form of a hungry pack of wolves…  while you use the tall, angular, implacable Mark Trail as your guide and crutch… because isn’t that really what being outdoors is all about?

And oh, by the way Harry, better order more orange ink, I think that barrel’s getting low…

The sunken cheeks, the fever.  Shock has set in, Trail… Wes is in real Danger… not to mention that, notwithstanding all the physical discomfort, he, HOWEVER, wants to “get back to Shelley.”  Seriously, who uses the word ‘However’ in this context?  And oh by the way, Mark, Wes sure is HUNGRY…  The close-up of Wes reveals facial stubble, while in frame one it looks as though Mark has grown the full Abraham Lincoln chinstrap… Which is probably the spontaneous Trail body reaction to being suddenly thrown into survival mode… but then it miraculously disappears by panel three…

But down the mountain we go, hat perched on the back of the Trail-head- ha!- Trailhead- get it?? That’s a joke, son! ( a little hiking humor…)

And for what it’s worth, I can only manufacture a certain amount of worry here… I don’t think we have ever actually LOST a character in the decades that this strip has been in production… so, Mark, Wes, Carry On!  We should have you back to safety by Independence Day!

Heading off, no telling where they are or when they will be back…

But I see that while Miss Breakfast-in-Bed is all about trying to console herself and her worries, with Cherry doing her best STAY CALM routine, (Said another way, “Shut that pie hole Missy, Or I will give you something to REALLY worry about…) Shelley is warding off the coming stress induced migraine… At Least Cherry has a cheery fire going with ample glowing sticks of wood to pull out and use to ward off the impending wolf attack.

Meanwhile, the wolf pack is warming up with a “chase me, chase me” game with the moose family.  Predators like it when their prey runs… do we suppose that Shelly and Cherry will oblige?   Remember, Cherry, you don’t have to be faster than the wolves, just faster than Shelley.  That really shouldn’t be a problem…

OK, I am not wishing any harm to come to Shelley and Cherry, but c’mon, we had some REAL TENSION building back at base camp…  Pink Mist, Howling wolves, the whole schmear… And this is all remedied by a “propane camp stove” and a cup of Tea?  Never mind that the chair she is sitting in along with the tent in the background (of which there must be two) is of the safari-quality canvas type that could only be brought in by a train of pack-mules, not stowed in the cargo hold of a little pontoon plane…

Love that Shelley still appears to be clutching her kerchief in her right hand while being waited on hand and foot…  That’s the spirit!  And never mind that Old Wes and is new best friend Mark are out there in Heaven knows what predicament…  “We might end up getting STUCK OUT HERE!  I may never get a signal on my phone ever again!  I will never again tweet!  Or find out if Kanye returns to Kim!”  The strategic head tilt in Panel two yields to the uncomely furrowed brow of panel three, as Shelley is now being driven to take off in search of help!

OK, now I am amused…  With the sheep that Mark and Wes were fixing to “shoot” perched high above them and mocking them mercilessly, we are being asked to believe that the “men” are perched precariously on a mountainside, with Mark’s voice emanating from the very essence of our Mother Earth… and why is it getting snowier?  It would seem that they are walking INTO trouble, not away from it.  But who am I to judge??

And out of what, pray tell, will Mark build his shelter?  I cannot wait to see what he is able to whip up in these dire circumstances…  but then he IS Mark Trail, and I dasn’t doubt him, not even for a minute.   Wes continues to worry about “the girls…” Imagine how worried he would be if he knew that the wolf pack was circling!

Another thought… why would you take a novice, and especially one that has not a shred of enthusiasm about the whole endeavor, on a high altitude/ high adventure junket?  Aren’t we just asking for trouble??

Yes, of course Mark “fashioned a crutch,” such are the magical powers of one Mark Trail, who can fashion anything out of nothing.  A couple of days back it appeared that the surrounding area was devoid of anything deciduous or coniferous, so Heaven only knows WHAT he used to make the crutch… And the look on Wes’s face is troubled to say the least, but then he probably has gone into shock from his injuries, so hopefully Mark remembers the tell-tale signs, and what to do in that event…  Sentinel Squirrel is at his post, however, alerting all the woodland creatures that Master Mark is in trouble…

But really Mark…  What’s with the hat?  There’s jaunty, Jauntier and Jauntiest… and right now with the way it is perched on the back of your head you are tipping the Jaunty scale to a dangerous level…  Cherry/ Shelley; Shelley/ Cherry…  what is it they say you should always name your dog something that ends in an “ee” sound?  That it gets and holds their attention? That you can draw the sound out as you call (as in “La-a-assie-e-e-e-e-e-e…” ) Not sure how that works on Wolves…

In the stillness of the mountain twilight, wolves calling out to each other, with the sun setting on our increasingly concerned damsel(s?) in distress, the lake water turns… pink?  A nod to Victoria’s Secret?? And what exactly is enveloping Shelley in the second frame? Pink fog, Pink bushes?  A nod to Stephen King??

Shelley, cortisol flowing freely through her body, her delicate fingers touching her dermabrased and foundation-laden cheek, declares her fright for all the wild, natural world to feed upon…  Cherry offers up, “They’re wolves, Apex Predators that hunt cooperatively in packs, and we are in very strong canvas tents; don’t worry we are safe!”

Uh, OK, Cherry, even I am starting to think the whole “outdoors” thing is a little extreme…

And were we “Speaking of Wes??”  What were we saying?  Damn… missed all the dirt!  Cherry checks her watch and looks more angry than worried… as if to say, “All right, I have done all I can with this hopeless case…  I have taken one for ‘Team Trail,’ when do we pack up, make like a cow-pie, and hit the trail?”

At least we now see the lake where the plane has executed its take-offs and landings!

Yes, and as the sun slowly sets, the alpha make wolf is calling to the pack.  Translation: “Two estrogen-charged, bipedal creatures have been left behind and will serve nicely as our dinner tonight!”  So before you get too angry, ladies, consider the possibilities- that your respective husbands have gone DOWN, and you are being eyed as PREY!  Have to admit, there is real tension here…

Seemingly another world away, Cherry and Shelley bask in the relative comfort of camp, surrounded by lush green and frolicking fowl…  compared to the moonscape our hero and benefactor now find themselves in…  I think Shelley is just a little OCD with that phone… surprised that by now the battery hasn’t gone dead as the phone constantly tries to find a signal, any signal… It must miss the city along with its owner!  Doesn’t Shelley Realize that she has been transported back to another time and place, where objects of the future do little good?

Shelley went fishing with that question, though, and is actually a bit surprised by Cherry’s answer, that she and Mark “enjoy living in a wilderness area.”  Good for Shelley to show a little couth in that she did not insert the adjective that no doubt was forming on the tip of her tongue: godforsaken wilderness area…  Oh but what fun awaits once the plane is not back when expected!

AND it would seem as though they gained in elevation since when we first took stock of their situation!  Gone are the pines that would have suggested that they weren’t on the very tip top of the mountains, only to be replaced with the barren, rocky slopes that would suggest that they are in a world devoid of life and other essential things… Even a small flock of geese glide by, looking for a place to land, flying over what looks to be quite a drop along the rocky face.

Poor Wes, foot “wrapped,” leaning against a boulder, suggesting that, in the works of Ulysses Everett McGill, “We’re in a tight spot…”

Define “long way,” Mark…  I mean how far could they be?  Far enough I suppose to have entered another distinct ecosystem…

And let’s be clear… compared to other “tight spots” we’ve seen our hero overcome, this could be the “tightest” yet, in that unlike other situations where the nemesis is a thief, a cheat, a kidnapper, or a baddy that’s all three at once, this is a test with Mark pitted against Mother Nature herself!

Oh my, Wes’s hat is the first casualty of the C*R*A*S*H… replaced by the always useful goose-down “puffy-jacket-man” coat in not quite blaze orange…  Compared to Mark’s neutral, blend-in-with-mountainside jacket, at least Wes won’t get shot at…

But let’s take stock…  they are below the tree line, which means temperature shouldn’t be terribly extreme, they probably didn’t pack any provisions for their little outing since I am sure they planned to be back to camp in time for cocktails, but it’s damn good thing they are packing, with the rifle #2 (of how many exactly? Just how expansive is this arsenal?) slung over Mark’s shoulder.

OK, they have half a chance of getting out of this one… by the time school starts in the fall, I would imagine.

A broken foot, though, that’s going be a problem…  and I don’t know that “wrapping it” (what? like a bologna sandwich?) is going to do it, Mark…

And isn’t Mark starting to look an awful lot like Tom Cruise in the second panel?  No doubt taller (I mean, who isn’t?) and certainly less crazy, but still there’s the look…

Even with the bad proportioning of the cabin/ cockpit windows which makes the plane’s fuselage look grotesquely large, I will give credit where it is due- the fact that this is a SEA PLANE with PONTOONS, the artist has faithfully included the CLEATS on the PONTOONS, which are de rigueur for such a craft, as in how else would a person secure such a craft and keep it from floating off once brought down?  Of course, the cleats will have little or no use on dry land, and since said pontoon in the second frame is now a crumpled, twisted mass along with other airplane parts, it matters little…  But I digress…

So now the plane goes, “CRASH,” in equally large, red letters, equal to the “CRUNCH” from yesterday, except that they have thrown in an extra-large, red ‘R’ (or is that an ‘A’?) just in case the dear readers of this saga could not piece that one together…  But then that also suggests the grind-it-out nature of metal scraping along dry ground, when such an activity was never designed into the plane in the first place… or the sound of two frightened grown men going ‘AAAAAHHHH!’  Just for the record, I wouldn’t hold that against them.

But yes. Oh. Dear.  Will our Hero and his client walk away from this one?  Will Wes’s hat survive?  Will Mark’s hair be mussed?  Tomorrow’s installment will tell!

Ooh, that’s going to leave a mark…  Mark Trail, that is… (ha, ha…) but seriously folks,  the port wing has been cleaved asunder from the failing aircraft, our intrepid hero and the benefactor of Woods and Wildlife Magazine are hurtling into the canopy, large sounds are being emanated, and good heavens what WILL become of them?  Good thing Editor Bill Ellis is blithely unaware of the peril unfolding… his meal ticket and favorite writer are about to go down!  Now THIS is real action!  No more “My cell phone doesn’t work/ I hate the outdoors” from ol’ whats-her-name… We have real danger going on here…

Assuming that Wes has the chops to set this craft down (oh that’s right the plane “isn’t responding”) he and Mark should be able to continue this story line as a study in survival.  Taking notes everyone?  What Would Mark Do?

Well, let’s at least hope that the plane has the requisite arrangement of survival gear, although given that they couldn’t get her “back over water,” I imagine that they won’t be using their life preservers or seat bottom cushions, clutched tightly to their chest, arms folded and hands locked through the straps… “Hey, were you guys paying attention during the pre-flight?? I bet you weren’t…”

This is what we call, in the writing business, a PLOT INFLECTION.  I think, anyway, because I am not actually IN the writing business.  I just hack away and let flow whatever comes to mind…  but let it be known that there are no clumsier plot inflections than in a Mark Trail story line.   Or more imagery or metaphor…  I mean where else could an inanimate object – a plane- get so scared as to go all ashen and pale?? We have a problem, Mark, the union in China, or wherever this strip goes to get colored in, is sending us signals that they aren’t going to work for the “bowl of rice a day” that is in their current contract…

And I don’t pretend to be an expert in avionics or an aircraft engineer, but is the plane getting larger, I mean relative to the windows?  If the windows are an indication of relative cockpit size, then suddenly this beast of a craft has the cargo capacity rivaling a C-130…  Is that the issue? Is the plane growing?  Or does Wes just want to secretly put-er-down and create the tension that is so badly needed in this particular story?  So far the Whiny wasn’t Working, so let’s introduce some real drama!  The Trail-verse’s own version of LOST!  Will they go back in time?  Meet up with Charles Lindbergh or Amelia Earhart?  Stay tuned!

“We will be JUST FINE, man with the Bengal Tiger hat band…”  And off the MEN go, up into the wild blue.  Spending their valuable, limited resources on a joy ride to go look at SHEEP.  Really?  Hard to know where this one is going.  Hard to not repeat previous story lines… but then that has never stopped Trail, Inc. before, and it’s never stopped me from waiting impatiently for the next installment…

“Well, Mark, if you have been paying any attention at all, you would know that so far you are failing mightily in what was your prime directive- getting my sour-puss, outdoors hating wife to appreciate what is my passion and where I am pouring my hard earned money in support of ‘Woods and Wildlife Magazine.’  No matter how many times I have told her to ‘Not ask me about my business’ she persists.  If this little gambit doesn’t work, I will have to kill her…  now we wouldn’t want that, would we?  Let that not be on YOUR conscience…”

Showin’ her “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle” chops… And not so much with a shotgun where she’d have many chances with many shot dispersing after the target, but with a rifle!  What a dead-eye! Kind of begs the question as to why they chose to fly in CANNED food, since they have to pack out what trash they brought in, and the weight would certainly have to be a factor with four people plus gear in that little plane… but this is 1953 (isn’t it?) and freeze-dried food and lighter packaging hasn’t made into the vernacular, if in fact cell phones being out of range have…Meanwhile, Shelley is dabbing herself with a kerchief, not having figured out that wearing a woolen turtleneck sweater is bound to make a person hot…

At least now we know what Cherry’s up to when Mark is off on his “assignments.”  She is practicing, polishing her guns, and shilling for the NRA… Notice Mark nestled calmly and figuratively in the crook of Cherry’s neck, enjoying a draw on his pipe (when’s the last time we saw that??) as if this is all too familiar… I guess now we get to see the Real Cherry Blossom.  It is almost May and high time!

The product of good schooling!  And relentless nagging by mother and school marm!  Using the objective form of the pronoun and a avoiding the classic blunder of thinking one should use ‘I’ instead of “me.”  My heart sings!  Nouveau Riche and refined.  Would we expect nothing less…  That he so willingly is in on the “take pictures of sheep” excuse is funny.  Really?  Mark? Like you don’t have enough pictures of wildlife?  But here’s a challenge for the writers of Mark Trail- Create a story line that involves neither fishing nor cameras.  I dare you to try!

Meanwhile in the third panel, Shelley, hand raised, is casting her vote to stay behind with Cherry…  I am sorry- was this subject to a vote? Do we care what whiny noise comes out of your mouth next?    But where will the attention stay? On Mark and Wesley as they fly off, or on the ladies, who will dish dirt on their respective life partners??? Oh boy, this should be interesting…

Someone please explain to the whiny person (he says resisting a stronger term) that cell phone reception is a function of proximity to a transmitting tower… and that perched high in a mountain range, one is probably well beyond the 2-3 mile range offered up by said towers… which is why one typically sees them dotting the landscape even along I-35 heading south from Minneapolis to Des Moines…  But yet she stares at her device, no doubt a Galaxy or an iPhone judging by the shape (was there ever a Trail story that featured a brick phone or a flip phone??) and looks peevishly at it, wondering, “Why won’t it talk to me??”  And who is it she wants to talk to, or what is it she is after?  The latest Kardashian Dirt?  One has to wonder…

Turn page to the greatest Cherry Trail “look” of all time… Sort of a cross between Lockjaw and “what <on earth> am I doing here??”  Not that long ago, while still in the relative comfort of Lost Forest, the girls were bonding and chatting it up… what a difference a couple days and a few thousand feet of elevation makes!  Meanwhile, Mark, ever the schemer, and in direct reflection of wanting to get the hell away from this annoying female-type human being, doubles down on the ol’ “Let’s go flying and take pictures of Bighorns gambit.”  In other words, “If you don’t mind (please…) doing a little flying, we could get the hell away from your wife, who clearly is beyond redemption…” Maybe that’s why Cherry is gritting her teeth and setting her jaw- “not without me, you don’t- I want to get away from this too, you know…”  If being spoiled and whiny is the makings of great drama, we have now set the table!

“Oh, I don’t know…  Lying about, being served on hand and foot, just like dear old mum taught me…” We never think about accents that the characters might bring… or possible back stories… what if Shelley is ROYALTY, and against her parents’ best wishes, the LORD and LADY KUMQUAT, she married this AMERICAN SELF MADE MAN… <<gasp…>> who makes her do all these things against her will?  While I appreciate the need to move the “story” along, I think her patience level is ridiculously short… or maybe that indeed is the point, and the plot resolution will be her coming around to the fact that life in the great out-of-doors is actually noble and good… <<yawn>> really?  Where are the bad guys, the smuggling ring, the kidnappers when you really need them??

The hapless, defeated look on Wesley’s face in panel three says it all… “What was I thinking when…??”

Mark in the background, cap on his head, exhibiting perfect form… so I guess it WAS him carrying the bags and fishing poles yesterday.  Stay tuned… tomorrow… Enter the Grizzly??