CAPTAIN LUDINGTON TALKS OF BIG GAME
The boys retired into a corner of the aërodrome and gazed at each other
open-mouthed.
“Special car!” whispered Frank, tiptoeing as if afraid something might
break the spell.
“Private,” added Phil, his lips apart.
“I thought only millionaires and railroad presidents rode in private
cars,” went on Frank.
“Well,” whispered Phil, “ain’t your uncle a millionaire?”
“Millionaire?” repeated Frank. “What? Uncle Guy? I never heard he was.
Is he?”
“The boys at the factory say he owns miles of pine timber all over the
south. Anyway, I reckon he can have a private car if he wants it.”
“Say,” whispered Frank crowding closer to his chum. “I wonder how you
do in ’em. It sounds as if it might be like livin’ in a parlor all the
time.”
“And that’s where you eat, too,” answered Phil.
Frank knit his brows.
“I kind o’ thought we could sit together and look out the windows and
get off at all the stations when we got out west.”
“Now,” went on Phil, “I suppose we’ll have to watch our p’s and q’s.
Say,” he added, “I’m kind o’ sore on this special car already.”
“What are you boys brooding over?” called out Mr. Mackworth at this
moment. “I thought you’d be anxious to hear about our car and the
plans.”
“We’ve been waitin’ a week or more,” answered Frank. “And there are
a lot of things we’d like to know about, including the car. We are a
little surprised.”
“Surprised is the word,” interposed Captain Ludington. “Do you mean to
tell us, Mr. Mackworth, that we are about to be escorted to our hunting
grounds in state――in all the exclusiveness of a private car?”
“Cheapest way to travel if you want comfort,” answered his host
laughing. “I don’t like the food on trains. Then one usually gets
hungry at places where there are no eating houses.”
“Why, I never traveled in a private car in my life!” exclaimed Lord
Pelton.
“Don’t be alarmed,” answered Mr. Mackworth. “They’re really not half
bad. You’ll get used to it――”
“You don’t understand,” interrupted Lord Pelton, as if frightened. “Of
course, it will be a jolly lark. But, my word, Mr. Mackworth, roughing
it in your wild west in a private car and scaling ice and snow covered
peaks in a heated airship is quite too much.”
But, the automobile arriving just then, Mr. Mackworth only laughed and
the older members of the party were whisked off to their hotel. Frank
and Phil locked up the aërodrome and walked to Phil’s home where Frank
helped his chum sort over his outfit.
“I don’t know what I’ll be allowed to take――especially in a private
car,” Phil said significantly, glancing at his mother with a smile.
“A private car?” repeated Mrs. Ewing. “You’re not going in one of those
things, are you?”
“Certainly, mother. Why not?”
“If all’s true I’ve heard, those who ride in private cars don’t do
anything but drink champagne and carry on.”
“Don’t bother about that, Mrs. Ewing,” laughed Frank. “I’ve heard that
Uncle Guy never drinks anything of the kind. I know he won’t let Jake
Green drink whisky.”
“Well, I do hope it won’t be the ruination of you boys, making you so
important.”
“This don’t look much like it,” laughed Phil pointing to his fishing
clothes which he was packing in a suit case. “In spite of our luxurious
surroundings I’m fittin’ out just as if I were goin’ into the woods for
deer.”
Phil’s outfit was not elaborate: extra suits of woolen underclothing;
two gray flannel shirts; an old Norfolk jacket with cartridge pockets;
laced waterproof boots that reached to the knees; buckskin mittens with
a trigger finger; a cap with ear tabs; a soft cloth hat; his shotgun
and a box of loaded shells; a rod and fish-box.
“I don’t think you’ll need the shotgun as much as you will a rifle,”
suggested Frank. “As for the trout rod and flies, what are you goin’
to do with them in the mountains?”
“Like as not you’re right. But the fact is, old man,” said Phil
puckering his lips, “I haven’t a rifle, except father’s old Long Tom
and that’s too heavy and big to be taken. As for the rod――you wait.
Those mountain streams are the real trout factories and I expect to
land many a breakfast with this old rod.”
“Well, I’ll take father’s old single shot rifle――I haven’t anything
of my own,” said Frank. “That’ll do for both of us. And you take the
fishin’ outfit.”
The same sorting of equipment took place at Frank’s home a little
later. Mrs. Graham offered many suggestions of needed additions, all of
which the boys rejected except a small medicine kit which they accepted
with a half protest. The boys, having finished the packing of Frank’s
bag and case, washed up and withdrew to the lawn to hold their last
council of war.
Can any boy, eager for travel and adventure, imagine a more pleasant
moment? To Frank especially the possibilities of the near future were
already unrolling a panorama of all that he had read and dreamed――the
great wonderland of America into which he and Phil were about to
plunge. Not all Europe, he explained to Phil, contained more awe
inspiring and sublime scenery.
“Uncle said we are going to Fernie, across the line in British
Columbia,” explained Frank as he and his chum made themselves
comfortable on the grass. “He can go two ways; by the United States or
through Canada. But, whichever way he goes, we’ll end up in a bunch of
scenery that’ll open your eyes.”
“If there are mountain goats and Bighorn sheep there I suppose there’ll
be a mountain,” suggested Phil.
“A mountain,” sneered Frank. “There ain’t anything but mountains
for hundreds of miles in all directions. We’ll be just west of the
continental divide where the big Rockies turn the rivers to the Pacific
and Atlantic. To the north of us you’ll see the Purcell range and west
of us the Selkirks. The only place you won’t find mountains you’ll find
snow-fed rivers and ice-bottomed lakes――”
“Sounds good, just now,” chuckled Phil drawing his handkerchief across
his face. “But how are you goin’ to take a private car out there?”
“By sneakin’ through the mountain passes and crawlin’ along the canyon
bottoms through snowsheds,” explained Frank. “There are little branch
roads that leave the big lines and climb up and up.”
“And when they can’t go any further,” exclaimed Phil, “it’s ‘presto,
change’ out comes the _Loon_ and we’re off through the air.”
When Mr. Mackworth and his friends reappeared the latter carried no
signs of the accident. After all had been made comfortable on the wide
porch there was general talk for awhile and then, previous to dinner,
the party began to separate into groups. Mrs. Graham carried her
brother into the house; Mr. Graham and Lord Pelton began to discuss
water plants, of which there was a fine collection in an artificial
pool in one corner of the big yard and, for the first time, the boys
found themselves alone with Captain Ludington.
“Mr. Mackworth says you’ve had all kinds of experiences with big
game,” began Phil at once. “Won’t you tell us some of your adventures?”
“He can’t mean all kinds of experiences,” laughed the Englishman.
“He means many kinds. That’s true. But I’m afraid they are a bit
monotonous. In fact,” he continued modestly, “I’m afraid he exaggerates
my hunting experiences. Really,” he went on, straightening up in his
chair, “I’m quite sure we have better adventures before us in your
airship than I have behind me. I’ve never gone in quest of any game
with quite the enthusiasm that I have for this sheep shoot.”
“More’n tigers?” exclaimed Frank.
Captain Ludington smiled.
“Shooting tigers from the back of an elephant, with a hundred natives
to beat the bush and drive the panic-stricken beast within range of a
half dozen express rifles is not my idea of the best sport.”
The two boys, somewhat surprised, listened intently.
“What makes the Bighorn sheep such fine sport?” asked Frank suddenly.
“I suppose it’s because they are rare and hard to get.”
Captain Ludington was looking silently across the sloping yard into the
deep blue of the gathering evening, as if thinking.
“Are they very much different from common sheep an’ goats?” added Phil,
innocently.
The Englishman roused himself and laughed.
“It isn’t because they are so rare or so hard to kill,” he exclaimed
in answer. “And they are not at all like common sheep and goats. The
latter answers you partly. As for the rest, who can explain the charm
of the chase? In this case we must allow for the fascination of the
surroundings; the snow-tipped mountain peaks; the solitude of the
rugged mountain slopes; the baffling gorges that turn the hunters back;
the bottomless chasms, wherein the green glacier waters leap and roar
beyond the sound of human ear――”
“You must o’ been there, then?” ventured Frank, carried away by Captain
Ludington’s eloquence.
“Near enough to know what it means,” went on the speaker. “I’m afraid
you youngsters don’t know all about your own country.”
“I can see we’re goin’ to find out something if we stay near you,”
ventured Phil.
“I’m sure I can think of no more agreeable companions,” returned
Captain Ludington with a smile which fixed him fast in the hearts of
both boys.
“And where’d you see these glacier waters?” persisted Frank.
“I’ve been in America only once before,” explained the captain as he
helped himself to a thin little cigar from a gold case, “and that
was about four years ago, while on a quick mission home by way of
the Pacific. I traveled through Canada and stopped a few days in the
heart of the Canadian Rockies――at the foot of the Great Glacier of
the Selkirks. Here, surrounded by mountains towering eleven thousand
feet in the air; listening to the rush and play of the glacier streams
cooled by never melting snows, I heard the story of the Bighorn and the
snow white goat. I was led along dizzy heights and shown where, for
three hundred miles, this wilderness of peak and crag led to the south.
Between the snowy ranges, I was told, great streams and riverlike lakes
led to the distant United States. And in this land――one of Nature’s
solitudes――the Bighorn sheep and the ebon-horned goat have made their
last stand. In a few years the flag of the railway engineer will have
marked their end. Fortunately,” concluded the captain, “we shall
precede him.”
This was the sort of talk that pleased poetical Frank. More practical
Phil did not give way to sentiment so easily.
“Well, what are they like if they aren’t like common sheep and goats?”
“The Bighorn sheep,” answered Captain Ludington, “is known in the books
as Ovis Canadensis and the goat is called by zoölogists, Oreamnus
Montanus. The latter isn’t a goat at all. It is really an antelope and
is related, in a way, to the chamois.”
“Where the skins come from?” suggested Phil.
Neither Captain Ludington nor Frank seemed to think this especially
funny and the military man continued.
“There isn’t much question but what these animals reached this
continent from Asia by way of Bering strait, for we have animals much
like them in the Himalayas. In America they are most commonly found
in Alaska and British Columbia. But, according to old hunters, fifty
years ago they had penetrated the United States as far as Idaho. Old
horns are yet found in the mountains of that state and Montana, but now
the greatest herds of each seem to have collected in the Selkirk and
Purcell Mountains south of the Great Selkirk glacier, and along the
United States boundary line.”
“And that’s where we’re goin’!” exclaimed Frank.
“As I understand it,” answered the captain. “We can reach this region
through the Rockies by way of the Crow Nest Pass on a branch of the
Canadian Pacific, or we can come up from the States from Rexford in
Montana direct to Fernie.”
“Does a mountain goat look like a billy goat?” went on Phil.
“A mountain goat may stand between three and four feet high,” explained
the captain, “and its long, snow-white hair hangs straight down like
the fringe of a curtain. Its horns, never much more than six inches
long, are black as night, straight and pointed like stilettos. They
are inclined slightly to the rear and woe unto the man or beast that
meets the animal in contest――a lunge forward with lowered head; a brace
of its clinging hoofs; a thrust upward to impale its enemy, and then
the backward jerk that rends its victim with two long fatal gashes.”
“And the sheep?” continued Phil.
“Almost as large, with great, deep, oxlike eyes; close, short, brownish
to black hair; no tail, and heavy sweeping horns that are the envy
of every big game hunter. Where you find the sheep you do not find
the goat. But we shall find both. As for my own personal hunting
experiences you’ll have to excuse me to-day. If we find a dull hour
in camp out there in the mountains I may tell a story I heard on the
glacier――an Indian tale of a Bighorn sheep――the King of the Glacier.
But it is a story for the camp where the snow is in sight and deep
chasms echo the sound of buried waterfalls.”