THE FORKS OF SWIFT CURRENT
Daylight was slow in breaking the next morning, and when the earliest
riser came out of the tent he saw that the valley was filled with mist
which hid the mountain peaks. It was fairly cold, and all hands were
glad to wear their coats.
Hugh kindled the fire and began to get breakfast, while the boys went
out and turned loose the picketed horses, finding all the animals
together.
“No mosquitoes this morning, Jack,” said Joe, as they walked back to
camp.
“No, indeed,” replied Jack. “Any mosquito that came out this morning
would be likely to have his wings and beak frozen off. My, but it’s
cold!” and he crowded close to the fire, stretching out his stiff wet
hands to try to get some warmth into them.
“Yes,” said Hugh, “it’s pretty cold up here in the mountains. Ten miles
down the creek, on the prairie, I bet the sun is shining hot.”
“Isn’t it queer what a difference there is between the mountains and the
prairie?” said Jack.
“Yes,” said Hugh, “there’s lots of difference, but this place up here is
the coldest, stormiest country that I know anything about. It seems to
me that all these blizzards that we hear about that sweep over Eastern
Montana and Dakota and so on, toward the States, get their start right
up here. I’ve been right on top of the mountains along here where the
weather would be warm and fine as could be, but a little way down on the
eastern slope it would be raining and blowing like fury, and how far the
wind and storm reached, I never could find out. Of course, there are
lots of bad storms that start up here that never do get as far as the
prairie, but there are lots of others that get such a start here that
they keep going until they get a long way east.
“Well,” Hugh went on, “the grub is about ready and we may as well sit
down and eat. I believe this fog is going to lift in a while and we can
keep on up the valley and see how far we can go before the mountains
stop us. By rights, we ought to wait here until the sun comes out and
dries off the ropes and blankets, but I don’t believe we’ve got much
further to go, not more than six or seven miles anyhow, before we’ll
either get to the foot of the mountains or well up on them.”
A little while after breakfast the fog seemed to be growing thin and,
presently, the sun broke through. From that time the mist gradually
disappeared, but before it had wholly vanished from the mountainsides,
the packs were on the horses and the train was stringing out up the
trail. There was a short, steep climb about opposite the falls, where
Jack had tried to fish the day before, and then a stretch of level land,
the trail passing through scattered timber close to the shores of a
rather large lake. When they had reached the upper end of this, Hugh
stopped, and, turning to Jack, said, “Now, which way do you want to go?
This valley seems to have three forks, one short one in the middle, and
a longer one on either side. The short one is right ahead of us and the
easiest, but the longest one is up here, to the right. If we want to
find out what there is here, we may as well take them in order.”
“Then,” said Jack, “what’s the matter with taking the right-hand one
first? What do you think, Joe?”
Joe signified that he was doubtful which to take, and as he, apparently,
didn’t care much, Hugh said, “Well, come on then, we’ll see if we can
find some sort of a trail through the timber up here to the right.”
A dim trail, which seemed to Jack like a disused game trail, led through
the timber and the road was fairly easy. Before they had gone far, both
boys could see that people had traveled up it in previous years, for in
a number of places the bark was knocked from the trees, where packs had
hit against them and, in one or two places, they saw a thread of red or
white worsted clinging to a tree in a narrow place in the trail, showing
where a rider’s leg had rubbed against the bark and a shred had been
torn from his leggings or blanket. Once or twice they saw a tuft of goat
hair caught on a branch.
For some hours they wound through the forest, but at length the trees
grew smaller and they passed through some open timber into a little
park.
The mountains rose high on every side, but there was plenty of grass, a
good-sized stream, and abundant wood. At the head of the park, two
streams came from narrow valleys, one to the west and one to the east,
and immediately before the travelers rose a very sharp mountain slope,
terminating in a long high wall or precipice crowned by jagged
finger-like rocks.
“Well,” said Hugh, as they got to the upper end of the park, “I reckon
we’ve got to stop here. Of course, it may be that we could take the
horses higher up, but I don’t feel any way sure about it and, if we
should take them, we’d probably find the ground covered with snow. Let’s
make camp, and tie up the pack horses, and then we’ll ride farther on
and see what there is. It looks to me like there ought to be lots of
sheep and goats up here, and we may as well find out.”
It was nearly noon before the packs were off and the tent up, and then
it was time to cook and eat, so that it was one o’clock before they
mounted again and rode off. Hugh followed the westerly branch of the
stream and, after a little search, found a game trail which led up the
steep bank and brought them to the level of the valley, above the
forty-foot precipice over which the stream poured. Here the ground was
level and timber-covered, but they soon came out on rolling land which
rose steadily toward the mountain and was dotted with clumps of trees.
The stream, which they had been following, came from a beautiful lake of
clear, green water, in which two or three harlequin ducks were swimming,
among little fragments of ice floating in the water.
The three travelers dismounted and, sitting down beneath a pine tree,
looked over the lake and scanned the rocks above it.
Presently Hugh said, “Boys, do you want to see some goats?”
“Yes,” replied Jack, “I’ve been looking for them, but I don’t see any.”
“Well,” said Hugh, “I’ll tell you why. You’re looking too high up in the
air. Look down here in the valley, just below the edge of the snow, and
see what you can see.”
The boys looked, and there, to their astonishment, saw several herds of
goats feeding on the young grass that grew on the slopes of the
mountains.
“Plenty of goats,” said Joe.
“You bet, they’re plenty,” agreed Jack. “Let’s count them.” They did so
and found that there were no less than forty-three goats in sight and
none of them at a level higher than they were.
“Quite a show, isn’t it?” said Hugh. “I don’t remember that I ever saw
so many goats at one view, as we’re looking at now. It wouldn’t be much
of a trick to get goat meat here, if we wanted it.”
“No,” answered Jack, “I should think not, but, as you say, we don’t want
it particularly. I’d rather have some sheep or even an elk. I expect
there are some elk here, aren’t there? I saw some sign of them, as I
thought, coming up.”
“Yes,” said Hugh, “I reckon there are elk here; not very many, but some.
Maybe we can get to kill one before long.”
It was pleasant sitting there in the sun and watching the feeding goats,
unsuspicious of danger. Suddenly, however, there was a movement in the
group nearest the head of the valley and the animals began to walk
quickly toward the heights and were soon climbing up over the snowbanks.
“There!” exclaimed Hugh, “I reckon some eddy of wind from us must have
crept around and they have smelt us. Just see how they climb.”
“Yes,” said Jack, “and look at that little kid following its mother. It
can’t go very fast and see how she stops and turns, and looks, and waits
for it. That’s mighty pretty, I think.”
“Yes,” said Joe, “that’s nice. That’s the way the old ones always do
unless they’re too badly scared. There, you see the little one has
caught up, and now the mother goes on again.”
The disturbance among the first group of goats had started the others
along the mountainside, and now all were clambering toward the high
rocks. The men watched them, until they had passed over the snowbanks
and reached the precipice, along which they ran, like flies on a wall,
though of course the boys knew that there must be shelves wide enough
for them to walk on. Soon, however, the sun sank behind the towering
peak to the westward and the air grew chilly, and remounting their
horses the travelers returned to camp.
“No mosquitoes to-night, Hugh,” said Jack.
“No,” answered Hugh, “I guess we’re safe.”
“White Bull,” said Joe, as they were sitting before the fire, “have you
ever been up here before?”
“No,” said Hugh, “I never have and I never heard of anybody else that
has been up here. Of course, we know that the Kootenays and Stonies come
up here and sometimes maybe a little party of hunting Crees, but no
white men, as far as I ever heard. Along back, fifteen or twenty years
ago, there was a party of white men camped below here, on Kennedy’s
Creek. They were looking for gold. They found a few colors, but nothing
that paid at all and, after a little while, they gave up looking for
gold, and broke up into little parties, some of them going back to
Benton and some hunting along the flanks of the mountains, but I don’t
believe they or any other party of white men have ever been up here
before.”
“Well,” said Joe, “then, of course, you don’t know what there is up this
other creek that comes from the east.”
“No, I don’t,” said Hugh. “It can’t be very long, because Kennedy’s
Creek must be pretty close to us, on the other side of the mountains.”
“Say, Jack,” said Joe. “Let’s take our guns and go up this creek afoot
to-morrow, and see what there is there. We might see some game and,
anyhow, we’ll find out where the stream come from. What do you think,
White Bull, is it good?”
“Good,” said Hugh, “go on up there and see what you can find. I think
maybe I’ll stop around the camp or perhaps climb up to the top of these
rocks right in front of us, and see what stream it is that is on the
other side. It looks like a pretty straight up and down wall in front of
us, but, often, when you get close to a place like that you find that
you can climb it.”
“What do you expect to see on the other side, Hugh?” asked Jack.
“I don’t know,” said Hugh, “but I reckon I’ll see more mountains. Those
seem to be mostly what grows in this part of the world, but I shouldn’t
be much surprised if right on the other side of that wall I saw a narrow
valley, through which runs one of the forks of Belly River.”
“Won’t you find lots of snow going up there, Hugh?” said Jack.
“Some, I guess,” was the reply, “but you see this is the south face of
the wall and the sun is pretty strong now and hits the rocks up there,
so that I reckon most of the snow will be melted.”
“Well,” said Jack, “that will be bully. We will send out two exploring
parties from the camp, and then at night both will report.”
It was long after daylight the next morning when Jack and Joe set out,
but the mountains on either side of the little valley were so high that
the sun had not yet melted the frost on the grass. The first mile of
their journey was spent in clambering up a series of moss-covered
ledges, very steep, but not at all difficult to climb. Then they found
themselves at the bottom of a talus, a sharp slope of rock fragments,
that had fallen from the cliffs above, and they followed this around
point after point, until the narrow valley of the stream opened before
them.
This valley was nearly straight and only three or four miles in length,
walled in on the west and north by a vertical precipice, not very high,
but terminating in the same jagged rock pinnacles that crowned the wall
to the north of the camp, and beyond which Hugh thought he might see the
valley of Belly River. There was no timber growing at the foot of this
rock wall nor on the steep mountainside that lay to the east, but at one
time the actual valley where the stream ran and where grass and
underbrush now grew, had supported a growth of large timber. All these
trees, however, had been broken off twelve or fifteen feet above the
ground and their trunks lay piled one upon another among the growing
vegetation like a great heap of giant jack-straws.
“Now, what do you suppose broke off all those trees at just that height,
Joe?” asked Jack.
Joe looked for a long time before he answered, and then he said,
“Snowslide, I reckon.”
“By Jove,” said Jack, “that’s what it is, sure enough. You can see the
track of it coming down that mountainside, can’t you? What an immense
mass of snow it must have been, and what a force it must have had to
break off those great, thick trees. Some of them look eighteen inches
through. I wonder how long ago it took place.”
“Yes,” said Joe, “it sure must have come down fast and hit those trees
hard, and when it got down here into the valley, it must have just piled
up. It couldn’t get out anywhere, for big and swift as it was, it could
not knock down this wall.”
All along the mountainside opposite to them were to be seen places where
deep and wide grooves had been cut in the soil and, as they looked more
closely, they could see the stumps of many trees that had been cut down
by the slide.
“Well,” said Jack, “that certainly was a big avalanche.”
“Avalanche,” said Joe, “what’s that?”
“Why,” said Jack, “it’s just another name for snowslide. That’s what
they call a snowslide in Switzerland, I believe. A man once wrote a
piece of poetry about a fellow that was climbing the mountains in
Switzerland, and one of the people that he passed said to him, ‘Beware,
the awful avalanche.’ That meant watch out close for snowslides.”
“Well,” said Joe, “I’ve never been much in the mountains and I’ve never
seen a snowslide, but I have heard old people talk about them, and from
what they say, they are things to be scared of.”
Presently, the boys set out toward the head of the valley, following the
lower border of the talus, where the walking was fairly easy. They
hardly expected to see any game, yet both kept their eyes open for
anything that might turn up. Presently, immediately in front of them
were seen tracks where animals had been running back and forth, and a
little examination showed that a small band of mountain sheep had come
down from the rocks and had been playing about, no longer ago than this
morning.
“If we’d been a little earlier, Joe,” said Jack, “we might have got a
shot at those fellows.”
“We may do it yet,” replied Joe, “and if we don’t do it to-day, perhaps
we can find them to-morrow. Very likely they live right here somewhere,
and I don’t believe they’re a bit scary, so that if we look for them
carefully we may be able to get a shot.”
They could see where the sheep had come down to the edge of the valley,
perhaps to get a bite of green grass, perhaps to drink, though probably
not for water, since the melting snow all over the hillsides would have
given them many drinking places.
They kept on slowly up the valley, stopping often to look about and,
more than once, sitting down and scanning the rocks about, beyond them,
and across the valley for game. By this time the sun had climbed over
the mountains and was shining down into the valley with a pleasant
warmth and, with the rising sun, rose swarms of mosquitoes, which
bothered the boys not a little. As they were walking along, Jack
slightly in the lead, a brown and white bird suddenly rose from the
ground, almost at his feet, and then fell again, and tumbling over and
over, fluttered off for a little way, as if desperately hurt, and then
lay on the ground, with outspread, quivering wings, and open beak, as if
unable to go further.
“Ah,” said Jack, “there’s a ptarmigan, and there must be a nest right
here.”
Sure enough, a few minutes’ search revealed a nest just in front of
Jack. It was a mere hollow scratched in the ground and had no lining,
except a few blades of grass, and two or three feathers that had dropped
from the bird’s breast. In the nest were six beautiful eggs almost
covered with purplish spots, mottlings and cloudings, and so nearly the
color of many of the stones that lay on the slope that Jack’s eye had
passed over them two or three times without seeing that they were eggs
and not stones.
“Oh, aren’t they pretty!” said Jack. “Wouldn’t I like to have them
safely back East and a picture of the place where we found them, and of
the mother bird.”
By this time the mother had risen from the ground where she lay and had
walked back, close to the boys, and, with bristling feathers and angry
cluckings, stalked so close to them that they could have touched her
with their outstretched hands.
“Certainly, that’s one of the prettiest things I ever saw,” said Jack,
“and I’m mighty glad to have seen the eggs because I’ve seen the young
ones. Don’t you remember, Joe, the little one that we caught three or
four years ago, the first time that you and I ever hunted together on
the mountains?”
“Sure,” said Joe, “I remember. That was the time we got the sheep, just
before we went off to Grassy Lakes, where you counted your coup on the
Assinaboine.”
“Yes,” said Jack, “that was the time. I tell you, Joe, you and I have
had some pretty good times together, haven’t we?”
“You bet,” replied Joe, “and two or three times I’ve been pretty badly
scared when I’ve been with you, but we always came out all right.”
“Well,” said Jack, “I’ve been scared, too, but I suppose we didn’t
either of us show it.”
“No,” answered Joe, “I suppose we didn’t. I hope not, anyhow. I don’t
mind being scared, if I can only keep it to myself, but I don’t like to
have people laugh at me.
“Well,” he went on, “let’s go ahead, and leave this old mother to get on
her eggs again.”
The boys kept on towards the head of the valley and at last could see
that the stream that they had been following had its origin in a tiny,
deep, green lake, lying at the very head of the valley and close under
the rock wall and the high mountains to the east. When they reached this
lake, Jack said, “What do you say, Joe? Shall we cross over and try to
get down to camp on the other side of the valley? I don’t know whether
we can find good walking there or not, but I guess we can, and I’d like
to go over new ground if I could.”
“I say let’s try it,” replied Joe. “If we find we can’t get down that
way, we can come back and go home the way we came.”
“Come on then,” said Jack, and the two started across the valley,
walking on the beach of the little lake. The outlet was very narrow, and
the boys jumped across it and then set out directly toward the
mountainside. The going was not good, for the soil was full of water and
overgrown by thick moss, above which stood a tangle of small shrubs and
underbrush. However, the distance was not great, and before long they
had made their way over to the mountainside, and there found a talus of
slide-rock, much like that along which they passed on the other side.
Here the walking was not as good as on the other side of the stream,
because springs and trickles of water were constantly coming down from
the mountainside.
A couple of miles this side of camp the slope of the mountain grew
easier and scattered trees began to clothe its side. They crossed a
long, low point of timber and from here there was a gentle descent
toward camp, through a dry open forest. They were almost within sight of
camp when Jack heard a sound, stopped, and raised his gun, and then a
stick cracked in the timber not far off. Jack threw his gun to his
shoulder and fired, and in a moment the timber before them seemed filled
with animals, which disappeared almost at once, and the noise of their
footsteps and of the sticks which they broke in their flight, grew
fainter and fainter.
The boys had glimpses of elk running in all directions, but had no
chance to shoot again.
“Well,” said Jack, “I don’t know very certainly what I shot at, but I
think it was a young bull elk. Let’s go over and see if we can find
anything.”
Stepping briskly forward, the boys were soon near the point where the
animal had stood at which Jack fired. After looking about for a moment
or two, Joe said, “You hit him;” and pointed to a dark spot on a
weathered tree trunk, which Jack could see was blood.
The boys circled about, looking carefully at the ground, the trunks of
the trees, and the leaves of the low-growing plants, and presently Jack
saw that Joe had found the trail, which he was following, slowly at
first, because the sign was hard to see, and then more rapidly.
Jack walked after him and together they followed the trail which led
down toward the camp. The sign was, at first, slight, but after they had
gone some distance they could see a good deal of blood on the ground on
both sides of the tracks, and from this Joe declared that the animal was
hit in the lungs and would not go far. He was right; a hundred yards
further on the graceful form of a young bull elk was stretched on the
ground. It was a yearling, of course with its horns in the velvet and as
yet quite soft.
The boys dressed the animal and then, walking down to the camp, caught
and saddled a pack horse and, bringing it up into the timber, quartered
the elk, packed it on the horse and returned to camp, where they
unloaded their meat at the foot of a tree and, getting a couple of sling
ropes, managed with some labor to haul the quarters into the branches
well above the ground.
“Now,” said Joe, “when White Bull comes in we’ll see what he says and,
if he thinks best, we’ll cut out and dry a lot of that elk meat, and
take it along with us. We can’t be sure at this time of the year, that
we’re going to kill something every day.”
All through the afternoon they lounged about the fire, and the sun was
still two or three hours high when Jack, who for some time had been
watching the mountainsides to the north, saw Hugh coming down the slope
a long way off toward the camp.
“Hurrah, Joe!” said Jack, “there’s Hugh. Pretty soon we’ll find out what
he’s seen and tell him what we have done.”
A little later Hugh reached the camp and, after putting his rifle inside
the tent, said, “Well, boys, I see you’ve got some fresh meat, and I’m
mighty glad of it. I’ve had quite a walk and am feeling pretty wolfish.
Let’s get supper and then, after we’ve eaten, we’ll have a whole lot of
time to talk.”