THE SOURCE OF AN UNKNOWN RIVER
Early next morning the tent was down, the beds rolled and the horses
brought in, saddled, and tied to the trees. As soon as breakfast was
over the packing began and fortunately was soon completed, for before
the party started the mosquitoes and flies had begun to be very
troublesome. As soon as the last lash rope was tied and the hackamore
shanks were looped around the animals’ necks, Hugh mounted and rode
through the narrow strip of cottonwood timber, plunged down into the bed
of the creek, and then up on the other side and in a few moments reached
the foot of a high point of rocks jutting out from Goat Mountain into
the lake and began to climb the steep trail that zigzags up its side.
The way was rough and rocky and sometimes so very steep that Jack,
hanging to the mane of his horse, threw one foot out of the stirrup in
order to be ready to jump in case the horse should fall over backward.
The climb was not long, however, and after one or two pauses to breathe
the horses, the party emerged on the level top of the point, where the
rocks were overgrown with green moss and dotted here and there with
young pine trees. Jack had no idea as to where they should go, but
Hugh’s more practiced eye made out a dim game trail, which he followed
for some distance through the timber, and which at last came out on the
slide rock, fallen from the side of the mountain far above. Here there
was a plain trail made in times past by the mountain bison and the elk
which passed up and down from the plains to the recesses of the high
mountains. Sometimes the slide rock was bare of vegetation; again there
would be half a mile where the soil had slid down from the mountainside
and supported a growth of willows or alders. Sometimes the climb was
very steep, again it was level, and at last the trail passed around the
head of a deep ravine, and after a climb of a few feet, led out on to
grassy ledges.
They were riding quietly along here, when Hugh turned and waved his hand
toward the rocks that towered far above them, and Jack, following the
motion, saw three white goats feeding two or three hundred yards above
them. Involuntarily he checked his horses, intending to take a shot at
them, but seeing that Hugh had not paused, Jack thought better of it and
rode on. After all, there was no special reason for killing them, as the
meat was not needed.
As they went on along the side of the steep mountain toward the head of
the lake, they saw goats several times, usually merely white dots on the
high rocks. These alpine animals seem to suffer greatly from the heat,
and even in very cold weather often seek a shaded spot to get out of the
sun.
Near the head of the lake the travelers crossed a large stream, which
came from a basin running far back into the mountains, where they could
see great fields of snow and ice. Then there was a long ride through the
green timber, during which they passed the head of the lake.
They were evidently following the river valley, for, off on the left,
they could hear the roar of cascades and falls, and once, through the
open stems of some tall aspens, Jack thought he saw spray rising from a
cataract. Hugh kept steadily onward, though so far as Jack and Joe could
see all sign of a trail had now vanished.
At length they came to the edge of a swollen river, on the brink of
which Hugh paused, and after looking at it for awhile, shook his head,
turned his horse and followed up its bank. Now the going was harder, and
through tangled brush, interrupted now and then by deep muddy holes,
where springs or small brooklets came down from the hillsides above
them. The mosquitoes and flies were very bad, and each member of the
party wore gloves and had a handkerchief tied about his neck and turned
up under his hat to protect the back of the neck and head. Hugh smoked
constantly, but even so, was obliged to use his hands continually to
drive away the insects.
They had just wallowed through a particularly deep mud hole in which one
of the pack horses had nearly mired down, when Hugh stopped, dismounted
and went back to tighten a cinch, while Jack got off to help him. They
were pulling on the ropes, and Joe was trying to hold the other horses
to keep them from breaking away, when, suddenly, on the hillside above,
they heard a crashing of sticks and, looking up, saw a huge black moose
trotting along, crossing fallen logs and rocks in his stride, until he
finally disappeared in the timber. The moose had been so close that they
could plainly see his large horns, still soft, more or less shapeless
and velvet covered, but of course they had no opportunity of shooting at
him.
“A good big fellow, wasn’t he, son?” said Hugh, and Jack assented.
“That’s the first moose I’ve seen, Hugh, since we came down from the
Yellowstone Park. Do you remember we killed one there?”
“Yes,” said Hugh, “I remember, and I remember, too, that we got a bear
or two close to him.”
“So we did,” assented Jack.
“There,” said Hugh, as he knotted the lash rope, “let’s go on. The flies
make these horses crazy.”
All day long they continued on the rough road, through underbrush, over
rocks and around enormous boulders that had fallen from the precipice
above. About three o’clock they reached a large stream coming from the
right, which evidently joined the river that they had been following a
little further down. Here it took some time to find a place where the
river was fordable. The current was swift and the water looked deep.
No one wished to have the packs thrown down in the stream, for this
would wet everything and might even result in the loss of a horse. By
following up the stream a few hundred yards, however, they found a
riffle, across which stretched a gravel bar, and here they made a
crossing in water no deeper than to the horses’ knees. Not far above
this stream was a wide alder swamp, which gave them much trouble. A
little farther on they came to a small stream flowing down the valley,
along which ran an old game trail, and following this, they emerged just
before sunset on a little round meadow, at the head of which was a lake
a mile long and a quarter of a mile broad. About this, on every side
except the lower, rose vertical walls of rock, now black in the shadow
of the high mountains to the west.
“I tell you, Joe,” said Jack, “this is a curious place, isn’t it? Cold
and gloomy enough.”
“Yes,” said Joe, “I don’t like this much. You can’t see far. I don’t
wonder that my people would rather stay out on the prairie.”
“What shall we do with the horses, Hugh?” asked Jack. “Tie ’em up, or
let them loose?”
“Well,” said Hugh, “you may as well let ’em feed and drag their ropes
until it gets dark. They are pretty tired, and the feed is fairly good
here. They won’t go far, and before it gets dark we’ll tie them up.”
Away to the left they could see a deep valley running up to enormously
high mountains. Snow lay everywhere on their crests, and even in the
valley, down to within a few hundred feet of the level of the little
lake beside which they camped.
At supper Jack asked Hugh’s opinion where they were and whither they
were going.
“Well,” said Hugh, “it’s a pretty sure thing that we can’t go any
farther up this stream. There’s a wall a thousand feet high in front of
us and on both sides, but I guess we can get up here to the left by
climbing that point of rocks. When we do that we’ll get into the snow
banks right off, and I don’t know that there’s much profit for us in
that. However, we can try it. I believe that if we get up there, on or
close to the snow, we’ll have the everlasting bulge on the flies, for I
don’t think they’ll follow us there.”
There was plenty of wood here, and that night they sat about a good camp
fire. The horses had been picketed where they could feed and yet would
not interfere with each other. Night had settled down cold and frosty
and the mosquitoes had ceased to trouble them.
“To-morrow or next day,” said Hugh, “I’d like to see where that big
river comes from that we followed up all to-day. I expect it comes down
out of that valley and from the big snow, and I reckon we lost it by
keeping away to the right. It’s a good thing that we didn’t have to
cross it, for if we had I think we’d have all been swimming. There’s a
terrible lot of water coming down from these mountains, and this valley
drains a big lot of them.”
“And of course, it all goes into the lakes, doesn’t it, Hugh?” asked
Jack.
“Sure,” said Hugh, “that’s the only place it can go.”
“Well,” said Jack, “I’d rather travel through a lot of brush than try to
get across a big swift river like that.”
“Yes,” said Hugh, “you’re right about that. It’s mean to be caught in a
stream, especially when you’re not fixed for it. I remember, years ago,
trying to take some cattle across the Running Water and being carried
down. My horse got scared and commenced to flounder and I rolled off to
help. It was in winter, and I had an old-fashioned army overcoat on and
got kind of rolled up in it, and I reckon I would have drowned if the
cape of the coat hadn’t caught on a limb of a dead tree that was
sticking out over the water and held me there until some of the boys
came along and pulled me out.”
“That must have been a close call, White Bull,” said Joe.
“Yes,” answered Hugh, “it was close enough. I don’t want one any
closer.”
“Now, White Bull,” Joe went on, “can we climb this point of the mountain
over here? If we do we’ll go up pretty near to the head of that big
river you speak of and cross it where it is only a little small stream.”
“I don’t know yet whether we can get up here or not. We’ll tell in the
morning,” Hugh replied, “but if we can, I think we’ll find good
traveling right up over the snow banks and we may find a place up there
where we can camp. I don’t feel any way sure that we’ll find a place
where we can get feed for the horses. We’ll know more about that when we
get up there. If we can’t find feed, why, then we’ll have to come back
and camp here or else find another trail down into the valley of the
main river, and take the horses down there over night.”
When Jack went down to the shore of the lake the next morning, he was
interested to see a pair of little harlequin ducks swimming close to the
beach. He recognized them from colored pictures that he had seen of the
species, and felt sure that the birds must be breeding somewhere about.
Looking at them a second time, however, he saw that both birds were
males. They made him think of the time of the year, and he realized that
now, of course, the females would be sitting on their eggs, while the
males would be enjoying a bachelor existence and getting ready to shed
their winter plumage and to put on their brief summer dress.
As Jack squatted on a rock, rubbing his hands, face and head with the
icy water, his eyes were busy searching the mountainside for signs of
living creatures. With the naked eye he could see no game high up on the
mountain, but just as he was about to turn from the shore, he happened
to look up the lake and there, lying in a sort of cave in the rocks,
only a short distance away, was a white goat. The same impulse to shoot
that he had felt yesterday assailed him, but he did not yield to it.
Instead, he felt rather ashamed of his desire to kill.
At breakfast he told Hugh about the goat, and his friend rather laughed
at him and said, “Wait until you have been out a few weeks and then you
won’t be so anxious to kill things, unless you need to. I have seen that
every time you go back East you catch a little of the pilgrim fever, and
you have to be out here for a week or two before you can shake off the
disease.”
“Maybe you’re right, Hugh,” said Jack. “It does seem pretty silly to
want to kill every wild thing I see.”
“Well, yes,” rejoined Hugh, “there’s no reason for killing anything
without you’ve got some use for it. If you need a shirt or a pair of
buckskin pants, kill what hides you need and have your clothing made, or
if you need food, kill what you want to eat, but don’t shoot at things
just to see whether you can hit them or not. That’s just a pilgrim
trick, and you’ve been out here too long to be guilty of things like
that.”
“Now, I tell you what, boys,” said Hugh, after breakfast was over,
stooping over the fire to pick up a brand with which to light his pipe,
“we don’t know what there is up above us here. We don’t even know that
we can climb this hill. Now, what do you say to leaving the pack horses
here and taking the saddle horses and going off to prospect? It isn’t
very far, and if we can find a good camping place we can come back here
and get the horses and take them up there.”
“Why,” said Jack, “that seems to me the best thing to do. We don’t want
to pack up and take a train up there and then find that we’ve got to
drive back and unpack and camp here again.”
“No,” said Hugh, “we don’t, and I believe we might as well go up first
and find out where we’re going. There’s one thing, though, that we’d
better do,” he went on, “I’ve an idea that there’s some bears up here,
and likely bears that haven’t been hunted much. I believe that it would
be a good idea for us to hoist up the main part of our grub into one of
these trees and tie it there, so that if a bear should come into camp he
won’t tear it all to pieces. Suppose you boys get a couple of sling
ropes and we’ll take our flour and bacon and coffee and sugar and put it
in a safe place.”
The boys brought the sling ropes and before long two stout young pine
trees were each decorated with a couple of large bundles. Then they
saddled and Jack said to Joe, “If any bears should come prowling around
here, Joe, won’t they stampede the horses, and make trouble for us?”
“I guess they might,” said Joe. “We ought to tie ’em up tight.”
Joe took the ax, and going a few steps down the creek, cut some stout
alder stems from which he manufactured half a dozen strong picket pins,
then going out to where the horses were, they drove a second pin close
to each picket pin that stood in the ground, so that the heads of the
two pins crossed and supported each other.
“Now,” said Joe, “take a half hitch around these two pins with the
lariat and I’ll bet the pack horses can’t get away.”
Hugh, who saw what they were doing, nodded approval, and presently they
all climbed into the saddles, and Hugh leading the way, they crossed the
little brook which flowed out from the lake and headed toward the point
of the mountain which they hoped to climb. Before they had reached it
Hugh found a game trail and followed it, for he knew, as all mountain
men do, that game always selects the easiest road across natural
obstacles. The climb was neither steep nor long, though it was a little
slippery, for the upper end of the trail was wet with snow that had just
melted. When they emerged on top of the shoulder, they could see
extending up the valley before them a long level snow bank, while to the
right the steep slope was everywhere strewn with huge boulders and rock
fragments that had rolled down from the mountainside; some in past ages
and some very recently.
Hugh paused until the two boys came up and then said, “We may as well
keep up here along the main valley and see how far we can go and what we
can find. We could not take the horses along the mountainside to the
west. If we go that way we’ll have to go on foot. I’d like to see what
there is on the other side of that high wall. I believe it’s Pacific
Coast water.”
“Yes, Hugh,” said Jack, “let’s go on up the valley and maybe we can
cross over to those pine trees on the other side. It looks as if there
might be a good camping place there, though I don’t see any feed for the
horses.”
“Come on then,” said Hugh.
For a mile or more they rode slowly on over the hard snow field, into
which the horses hoofs did not sink at all. On the right rose first a
steep slope covered with huge angular rock fragments, and then above
that successive walls of vertical cliff, in each recess and crevice of
which there was a drift of snow. To the left, the snow field sloped
gradually to an almost flat surface of rock, over which flowed a hundred
little trickles of water. There was, here and there, a little soil,
green with springing grass or weed blades and in many places spangled
with beautiful alpine flowers of variegated colors.
At one place Jack dismounted and gathered a handful of these plants,
which he looked at as they rode along. Many of them were much like the
dog-tooth violet found in the woods in the East in the early spring,
others looked something like dandelions, but had tall, straight stems;
still others were like the columbine of early summer, but instead of
being red were blue and white. All were beautiful and fresh, and all
were growing within a short distance of the edge of the snow banks and
were watered by the cold trickle from the melting snow.
As they went on the travelers could see at the end of the valley, now
close to them, a great wall of rock over which plunged cataracts of
white water, while from the mountains on the right came sharp gray
lines, which as they drew near them, Jack recognized as moraines--the
soil and gravel pushed to one side by the progress of a glacier. He felt
sure that this valley along which they were traveling, and perhaps also
the narrow valley in which lay the river and the great lakes, had ages
ago been carved out of the solid mountains by some vast glacier, such as
he had seen two years before on the British Columbia coast and the work
of which Mr. Fannin had more than once clearly explained to him.
They were riding quietly along, looking at the mountains, the snow
fields and the flower beds when, almost from beneath the feet of Hugh’s
horse, a bird spotted white and brown rose from the ground and, with a
loud cackle, scaled off ahead of them and alighting on a rock, stood
with head and tail up, still uttering a sharp cry. Jack recognized it at
once as a ptarmigan and reached for his rifle to see whether he could
kill it, but Hugh, who had looked around, called back to him, “I
wouldn’t shoot at it, son. You see these birds have their nests now, and
if you kill the old birds that means that the young ones will not be
hatched. Besides that, the old ones are not fit to eat now.”
“That’s so, Hugh, I have got to teach myself not to want to kill
everything that I see. I’m a regular pilgrim about that, and you’ll have
to watch me, and I’ll watch myself, too.”
A little farther along they left the snow bank and pushed on over bare
rounded stones, some of them of great size. On the mountain above him
Jack saw two great moraines, gradually approaching one another, one
coming down from the right and one from the left, but with a wide space
between their lower ends. He was looking at this, when, without warning,
he heard all about him the rustle of wings and sweet chirping whistles,
and suddenly a large flock of gray-crowned finches alighted on the
ground and on the stones about him. They walked busily hither and
thither picking up something, though he could not see what, and it
seemed impossible that there could be seeds or any other vegetable food
on the bare rocks. The birds were absolutely tame and paid no attention
to the animals, except when they walked close to them; then a few wing
beats would take the threatened bird out of the horse’s way, and it
would alight and again begin to feed. The ashy crown of the head, the
brown body and the rosy tinge of the upper and lower parts were plainly
to be seen, and Jack thought again that he had never known such
beautiful little birds, or any that seemed so tame or confiding.
By this time the precipice at the head of the valley was close to them
and they were obliged to turn to the left and cross the stream, which,
though wide and turbulent, was not deep. On the east side the land rose
sharply in one or two terraces, and then the travelers found themselves
on another snow bank, just beyond which rose some stunted pine timber.
At the edge of this they halted to take a look back over the valley, and
when they did so, Hugh said, “Well, I reckon we are smart hunters; look
over there.”
The boys looked, and not half a mile below where they had passed along,
but hidden from them during their passage by several rocky elevations,
were seen three bears, one large and two very small ones. They were
working along the hillside, apparently looking for insects, for the
largest was busily employed in turning over stones, and the little ones
were imitating her in so far as their strength permitted, and, at the
same time, keeping pretty close to her, and every few minutes rushing to
her head and putting their noses down to the ground as if eating.
Hugh took out his glasses and looked at the bears for a long time. “It’s
an old one and a couple of cubs,” he remarked at last, “and I don’t
believe they’ve been out very long. They’re working hard over there and
of course, if we had known they were there, it would be easy enough to
get them all as we came along. I don’t really know that we need them,
except that I suppose we’d all be glad to take in some good bear hides,
and hides seem to be prime now. Then, too, those little fellows would be
good eating, I reckon, though they are pretty small. Not much bigger, I
should think, than young shotes.”
“Well, but, Hugh,” said Jack, “oughtn’t we to have seen them as we came
along?”
“No,” said Hugh, “I don’t see how we could have done so. Of course, if
we’d been hunting, we’d have taken a good many looks over into that
valley, but as we weren’t hunting, we just rode along and, of course,
those shelves of rock that you see there hid the bears from us just as
they hid us from the bears. Of course, it’s possible that they may be
there when we go back to-night, and if they are, why you and Joe can
maybe get a shot at them.”
“Well,” said Jack, “it’s too late now for us to do anything. Let’s see
what there is beyond this timber.”
In the timber which grew on a little crest running parallel with the
axis of the valley, there was no snow and a good camping place, but on
the other side of the little stream, though the ground was bare and some
flowers were springing, there was no grass, nor indeed, wherever they
went during the day, could they find anything that looked like feed
enough to support their horses, if they should bring them over.
“This would be a mighty handy place to camp, Jack,” said Joe, “but I
don’t see anything here for the horses to eat.”
“No,” said Hugh, “there’s no feed over here at all, except those weeds
that we passed this morning on the other side of the valley. Maybe
there’s feed enough there to keep the horses for a day or two, but no
more. We’d be a lot better off if we were camped over here; that is,
provided we wanted to hunt here or climb the mountains, but we’ve got to
have grass for our horses to eat, and I reckon we’ll have to leave them
where they are and ride three or four miles every morning, before we
begin to prospect around these mountains and the valleys between them.”
“Well,” said Jack, “there doesn’t seem to be any feed here, and I don’t
see any other way than to do as you say.”
“Let’s ride up this valley here to the eastward,” said Hugh. “There may
be some sheltered warm spot up there where the snow will be gone, though
it’s no ways likely the grass has started yet.”
They crossed the stream and pushed up through the snow which lay among
the pine timber. It was not deep nor crusted and the going was easy, and
after the first steep ascent they found themselves in an open smooth
valley, which sloped very gradually upward between two tall peaks. Here
the snow was disappearing and, as they ascended, they presently found
the ground bare, but as Hugh had said, the grass had not yet started.
There were a few tufts of brown dried-up herbage, but nothing that could
be called feed, even for so small a pack train as theirs. In the soft
earth at the margin of a little lake that lay near the head of this
valley, Hugh pointed out the tracks of several sheep, among them two old
rams of great size, and a well-worn sheep trail led back from this lake
up over the rocks to high pinnacles behind.
“I reckon there are lots of sheep here, son,” said Hugh, “but it isn’t
time to kill them now and we’ll have to be satisfied with a young ram
now and then. I hope they won’t be very strong of garlic.”
“I hope not,” said Jack.
A little later they turned about to return to camp, following the same
trail by which they had come up. As they were going down through the
timber, Hugh drew up his horse and pointed out to Jack a porcupine
waddling slowly over the snow. “There is some game for you, son, if you
want it,” he said, “but I wouldn’t waste a cartridge on it. If you want
to kill it, knock it on the head with a club. Porcupine is pretty good
meat--for those that like it. The Northern Indians, those that live in
the timber at least, eat them whenever they can get hold of them.”
Jack dismounted, and getting a long stick, ran after the porcupine and
poked it and the beast stopped, put its nose on the ground between its
forepaws, erected its quills in all directions, and stood there
thrashing with its great tail as if quite prepared for war. Jack gave it
a poke or two and then examined some of the quills, which had been
thrust into the end of the stick, and then returning to his horse,
remounted and rode up beside the others.
“What,” said Hugh, “aren’t you going to take it along with you?”
“No,” said Jack, “I guess not. We’ve plenty of food in camp and this
time I’ll keep myself from killing, instead of having you warn me.”
By the time they had started back, the sun had fallen behind the great
peak that overhung their road, the air was cold, and the melting of the
snow field had stopped. Here in these high mountains winter lingers
long, and though in the middle of the day it may be warm, it is cold at
night.
When they reached the point in the trail opposite where they had seen
the bears earlier in the day, Jack and Joe dismounted and went to look
down in the valley to see if they could discover them, but as they saw
nothing, they went on.
When they came in sight of camp, however, it became evident that there
was some excitement there. The horses were frightened and were running
to and fro, apparently trying to pull up their picket pins; but what
first attracted the attention of the men was the appearance of their
tent, which seemed to have been taken down and transformed into a white
bundle, moving a little now and then, but for the most part quite still.
Hugh looked for a moment and then said, “Come on, there is trouble down
there, and I’m afraid some of those horses will get hurt if we don’t
hurry.” He put spurs to his horse and galloped down the steep descent as
if it had been a bit of level prairie. Jack and Joe, though both
suspecting what had taken place, said nothing, but followed, and when
they had crossed the little river and rode over the level meadow toward
camp, Hugh was sitting on his horse by the tent, with as broad a smile
on his face as Jack had ever seen. The tent, converted into a small
bundle of less size than a barrel, though somewhat longer, was
shivering and shaking, and from it came groans, growls and moans, which
sounded mysterious but funny.
“That’s a comical thing,” said Hugh. “That’s one of the funniest things
I ever saw. Do you know what’s inside that tent, son?” he added.
“No,” said Jack, “I don’t know, but I guess likely it’s a bear.”
“Right you are,” said Hugh, “and I reckon we’ll have to bloody up the
tent a little to get him out. Take a shot at it and try to kill the
beast.”
“All right,” said Jack, as he loaded his rifle, while Joe called out,
“White Bull, do you see the cubs in the trees?”
Hugh and Jack both turned, and there, perched high up in the stunted
pine trees, were two little cubs, each about as large as a small setter
dog, though of course not standing nearly so high.
“Well, I swan,” said Hugh, “if that old bear and her family didn’t come
down here to make us grief. Jack, you kill the old one in the tent, and
Joe and I will settle these cubs. We’ll have some meat to eat now.”
Jack fired a shot through the tent and a squawl of rage and pain was
followed by a series of struggles, but at last the tent lay still, and
below the point where Jack’s ball had entered, a little red stain began
to appear on the canvas. Hugh and Joe shot the cubs in the trees. The
tent was unrolled and the old bear extracted from it. It was evident
that she had entered it to investigate its contents and in overhauling
things had knocked down the poles. Her struggles had wrapped her so
tightly in the canvas that she could not use her legs or paws to tear
her way out, and she had lain there firmly bound in the stout duck,
until vengeance, in the shape of Jack, descended on her from the
hillside above.
The evening and a part of the next morning were spent in skinning the
bears, and stretching their hides; and many were the jokes that the
hunters made over this curious capture.