A MYSTERIOUS CAVE
"Son, these blue grouse are getting to be a pretty good size now; why
don't you take your rifle, or maybe your uncle's shot gun, and go out
and try and get a mess this morning?" said Hugh to Jack. They were
down at the barn saddling up. Hugh was going into town to get the
mail, and Jack was at a loss what to do with himself during the two
days of Hugh's absence.
"Where had I better go, Hugh? Up on the mountain?" said Jack.
"No," said Hugh, "you'll find the old hens and their broods along
the little creeks, right close up to the mountain, but not high up
on it. I wouldn't be a mite surprised if you could get quite a few
birds right up on the heads of the creeks that run down through the
pasture. But say; there's one thing you want to remember; if you take
your rifle with you, only heads counts."
"What do you mean by that, Hugh?" said Jack.
"Why," said Hugh, "if you shoot with your rifle at one of them little
birds, and hit it in the body, there ain't nothing left except a few
feathers. You'll spoil all the meat. So I want you to shoot the
heads off all the birds you see; don't aim at the bodies at all. Fire
at the heads, or, if they have got their necks stretched up, aim at
the neck, just below the head. You needn't be afraid that you'll lose
many shots that way. Young birds are right gentle, and they'll let
you fire half a dozen shots at 'em, and won't move without they're
hit. Of course it would be better if you had one of them little pea
rifles, that don't make no noise and shoot a mighty small ball, but
your gun will do, and it's pretty good practice shooting the heads
off grouse; you get to learn just when to pull your gun off. You have
to get up pretty close to the birds, but they'll let you do that.
Draw your sight down right fine, and aim at the neck, just under the
head. You'll get so after a little that you can knock 'em every time."
Hugh finished saddling, rode up to the house, tied his bundle of mail
behind his saddle and trotted off over the hills; while Jack filled
his belt with cartridges, and then, mounting Pawnee, rode off toward
the mountain.
Before long he passed down into the valley of a little brook, and
followed it up, looking among the willows and along the hillside,
to see if he could discover any birds. He had not gone far before
he noticed above him, on the hillside, some small moving objects,
which he soon made out to be young sage grouse. These were not just
what he was after, but he thought they would do to practice on, and
dismounting and throwing down his horse's rein, he walked toward
them. In the brood there were eight or ten birds, about as large as
hens, all keeping quite close together, and following their much
larger mother. They paid no attention to him, and he walked up to
within fifteen or twenty yards, and stood watching them, before
beginning to shoot. They made their way slowly along the hillside,
feeding as they went. Now and then one of them would run wildly
about, chasing a grasshopper here and there, and at length capturing
it, and sometimes two or three followed the same insect. As they
walked along, they kept calling to each other with faint peeping
cries, and if one got off a little to one side of the group, he soon
turned and ran back to it.
It was rather pleasant to watch them, but Jack had come out to kill
some birds, and, putting a cartridge into his gun, he made ready to
shoot. At first they did not stand still long enough for him to catch
sight on one, but he walked along slowly after them, and presently
one of the grouse stretched up his neck and stood looking. Jack
fired at it, and the bird fell to the ground, while all the others
stretched their necks to their fullest lengths, and looked about
to see what had made the noise. Before he could reload and fire
again, they had resumed their feeding and moved on. Before long,
however, he had another shot, but this time he missed. Again the
birds looked about, and again started on. At his third shot the bird
fired at, instead of dropping at once, made a great fluttering, and
immediately the whole brood took wing and flew off over the ridge
and were not seen again. Jack's first shot had been a capital one,
cutting the bird's neck just below the head. His third shot had been
too low, and had not killed the bird at once, and its fluttering and
flouncing over the ground had frightened the others.
He tied the two grouse to his saddle and went on along the mountain
side. Nothing was seen on the next two streams that he crossed, but
as he looked down into the valley of the third, he saw, quite a long
way off, something that at once arrested his attention. Down in
the flat was a coyote, jumping and prancing about, as if in great
excitement, and quite close to it, sometimes standing still, and
again running toward the coyote, which retreated, was a badger. For
two or three minutes Jack sat there watching them, wondering what
they could be doing, but the strange game--if it was a game--was kept
up. He determined that he would get off and watch; so leaving his
horse behind the hill, he crept up to its crest and lay there, to try
to discover what the animals were doing.
Sometimes the coyote ran very fast, almost up to the badger, which,
in turn, ran toward the coyote, which then retreated, and when the
badger had stopped his advance, the coyote lay down, rested his head
on his paws, waved his tail from side to side, and sometimes rolled
over. The badger then started to walk off, but before he had gone
far the coyote got on his legs again and recommenced his play. This
continued for quite a long time, during which the animals worked
further and further away from Jack. The badger seemed to be trying
to cross the valley and go up onto the next hillside, and the coyote
seemed to be teasing him. It was rather a mysterious performance to
Jack, and he determined that he would ask Hugh whether he had ever
seen anything like it, and what it meant. When the two animals had
got so far from him that he could no longer see them distinctly, he
went back to his horse, mounted and rode on. As soon as the coyote
saw him, he left the badger and ran up on the hill, where he watched
Jack for a few moments, and then went off, while the badger trotted
briskly along up on the hillside, and presently disappeared in a hole.
In a ravine not far beyond this Jack found his first brood of blue
grouse. The birds were half grown, and he rode in among them before
seeing them. They flew up the ravine, but he saw where some of them
alighted, and, riding on until he was near the spot, he dismounted
again. He walked along very cautiously, looking everywhere on the
ground for the birds, but before he saw them, two rose, with a great
fluttering of wings, almost beneath his feet, and flew on further up
the ravine. He had been looking so carefully for these birds that
he felt sure that they must be hiding, and not walking along, for
if they had been moving he would certainly have seen them. A few
steps further on, his eye suddenly caught a brown shape on the grey
ground, which in an instant he saw was a grouse, crouching flat on
the soil, its head and tail pressed against it, and its bright brown
eye closely watching him. He slowly raised his rifle to his shoulder,
and firing very carefully, cut off its head. A little further on, two
that he had not seen flew, and then he saw another in the ground, but
it flew before he had time to shoot. Then he saw another and raising
his rifle just as he saw its shape, he pulled the trigger the instant
his eye fell full upon it. It occurred to him now that the birds were
watching him all the time, and that as soon as they caught his eye
they realised that they were seen, and flew away. In this, Jack was
quite right, for often one's face may be turned full toward a hiding
bird, and one may all look around it without its moving, but if he
looks fairly at its eye, the bird is almost sure to flush. Before
long he had four of the young blue grouse, and going back to his
horse, he mounted again.
By this time the morning was pretty well gone, and he hesitated
whether to go home for dinner, or to spend the afternoon here beneath
the cliffs. Finally he determined to ride up the ravine a little
further, on the chance of seeing more of this scattered brood, and
then, if he did not find any, to go home.
Following up the valley a short distance, a grouse rose under
Pawnee's feet, and flew up the hillside, alighting among some low
pines that grew at the very base of the cliff. Jack thought the
bird might have gone into a tree, and clambered up on the chance
of getting a shot. When he reached the pines he could not find the
bird, and after looking for it a little while, he sat down to rest,
and to watch some little striped squirrels that were playing among
the rocks just above him. While he sat watching the squirrels, he
suddenly heard a rushing sound, so close to his ear that he dodged,
and a great hawk, with long tail and sharp pointed wings, darted over
one of the squirrels, and in an instant rose in the air with the
tiny creature in its talons. It had happened so quickly that Jack
hardly realised the squirrel's capture until he saw the hawk rise,
and with a few strong strokes of its wings, swing up and alight on a
shelf of the cliff, above the tops of the tall pines that grew on the
hillside. Here the blue rock was stained white, and Jack made up his
mind that the hawk had a nest there. He determined to climb up and
see if he could not get to it, and learn what was in it. There might
be young birds, and these would make capital pets if they could be
tamed. It seemed a long way up to where the hawk sat, and the cliff
looked sheer as a wall, but here and there were crevices and places
where the water had worn away the rock, and he thought that perhaps
he could get up to the nest.
The climb to the base of the cliff was long and slow. When he reached
it he saw that it would be impossible to get far up if he carried
his gun with him, so he left it here, resting against a rock, and
clambered up toward the nest for thirty or forty feet, and then he
reached a place where he could get no further. But a little below,
he had passed a narrow shelf, running out to one side, and going
down to this, he made his way very carefully under the cliff to a
crevice, up which he worked a short distance, and then this ran out
and ended in a bare, smooth wall. He would have to give it up: the
nest could not be reached. He thought it would be shorter and easier
to follow the crevice down to the steep hillside at the foot of the
cliff, instead of going back along the shelf, as he had come. Going
down was easy, until he had almost reached the foot of the wall,
and could see, five or six feet below him, ground on which he could
walk. Here the crevice ended. It was rather a long jump down to the
ground, and that sloped off so sharply that he did not feel sure that
if he jumped he could stop himself. He turned around, therefore, and
let himself down backward, feeling with his toes for some little
knob of rock on which to rest his feet, but, as he let himself down
the rock all seemed smooth, and he could find no foothold. He was
now clinging by the ends of his fingers to the rock above, too far
down to draw himself up again, and yet with his feet a foot or more
above the ground. There was nothing for it but to let himself go,
and he dropped. The slope which his feet struck was too steep for a
foothold. He fell over backward, and rolled thirty or forty feet down
the slope, bringing up in a clump of bushes.
Jack was a little shaken and bruised by his roll, but not hurt.
He picked himself up and looked back at the way he had come, and
congratulated himself that it had been no worse. He started to climb
up the slope again to get his gun, but first it was necessary that he
should get out of the brush into which he had rolled. To his right
there seemed a place where the bushes were thinner than those over
which he had passed on his way down, and he turned in this direction
to make the ascent. He had gone only a few steps when he stopped, for
there before him was a great dark hole in the side of the hill. It
was shaped almost like a door, high, and not very wide, and within
all seemed black. Grass and bushes grew up in the entrance, and there
was no sign that anything ever passed in or out.
This hole looked rather mysterious to Jack, and he wondered what
there could be in it. He walked up to it and looked as hard as he
could into the blackness, but he could see nothing. He wanted very
much to go in, yet it was useless to do so unless he could see
something when he got there. "If I only had a lantern now," thought
Jack, "or even a candle, I could go in and see what is there. I'll
bet no one at the ranch knows of this cave, and I'd like to find
out all about it and tell them. That would be a good story to take
back." He thought for awhile, and decided that he must make a torch;
but what could he make it of? For a little while he could think of
nothing to use. He remembered that in the books that he had read,
people had always had birch bark for torches, or fat with which to
make candles, but he had neither. Then he thought of pine torches of
which he had read. There were plenty of pines growing here on the
mountain, but nothing that he could make a torch of. Suddenly he
remembered that dried pine needles burn brightly, though only for a
little while, and that on the ground not far from here he had seen
a half dozen pine limbs, twisted off from one of the trees in some
heavy wind storm. He thought if he could tie a good many bunches of
these needles together, they would make a torch for him. He crept out
of the underbrush and saw near by several of these pine limbs, with
the dried red needles on them, and he picked a number of the bunches.
Now he needed some string. "If I only had Pawnee here," he thought,
"I could take the strings from my saddle;" but Pawnee was feeding far
below him in the valley. As he cast his eye about him, in perplexity,
he saw a yucca plant growing on the slope, and he remembered what
Hugh had told him about using the fibre of this plant for thread.
He climbed up to it, cut off a number of the long bayonet-shaped
leaves, selected a straight dead stick, and went back to his pile of
pine needles. Splitting the tough leaves of the yucca, he found that
they could be used as strings, and with these strings he bound his
bunches of pine needles, one beneath the other, to the stick, and
soon had what he thought might perhaps serve him as a torch. Going
back to the mouth of the cave, he again looked into it, and listened,
but all was darkness and silence. He parted the low growing bushes
at the entrance, and stepped in, and then, lighting a match, touched
it to the top of his torch. The bunch of pine needles flared up for
two or three seconds, and then went out, but the light was enough to
show that for six or eight feet further in there was a smooth floor
to the cave, paved with small stones. The walls above and on either
side seemed high. A second match, touched to another bunch of pine
needles, gave another flame, lasting only an instant. Plainly, the
torch would not burn from the top downward. The only thing to do was
to light it below, and let the flames run up the stick. Jack lighted
another match, took two or three steps forward, and then touched the
torch at its lower part. The pine needles flared up, the flame caught
the next bunch above, and then the next. Jack could see on the ground
before him some feathers, a half dozen slender sticks, and, far back,
raised above the floor of the cave, was a pale, dim thing. There was
a whirring sound, something struck his hat, something else struck the
torch, he dropped it, and it went out.