We made our start at daylight, loaded with all the necessities for a
climb over the mountains. The rest of our supplies and equipment we
cached, and Big Pete turned our horses loose assuring me that in the
spring he would come back and rope them.
The lower trail of the pass was quite well defined and we made famous
progress, but the higher we climbed the more difficult the going became
and more than once we were forced to pause on a ledge to rest and regain
our breath.
On one ledge I got my first really close view of a bighorn sheep, and I
became so excited that nothing would do but I must stalk him, despite
Big Pete's assurance that the wily old ram would not let me get within
gun shot of him in such an exposed area.
I crawled, and wriggled, and twisted over rock and boulders for what to
me seemed miles, but always the sheep kept just out of accurate shooting
distance ahead of me. It was an exasperating chase, but one cannot live
in the mountains for any length of time without paying more or less
attention to geology; the mountaineer soon learns that stratified rock,
that is rock arranged like layer cake, resting in a horizontal position
on its natural bed, makes travel over its top comparatively easy, but
when by the subsidence or upheaval of the earth's crust huge masses of
stone have been tilted up edgewise, it is an entirely different
proposition.
In this latter case the erosion, or the wearing away, caused by
trickling water, frost and snow, sharpens the edge of the rock, as a
grindstone does the edge of an ax, and traveling along one of these
ridges presents almost the same difficulties that travel along the edge
of an upturned ax would do to a microscopic man.
But when a sportsman, for the first time in his life, has succeeded in
creeping within range of a grand bighorn ram, and his bullet, speeding
true, has badly wounded the game, hardships are forgotten, and if, on
account of the miraculous vitality of the mountain sheep, there is
danger of losing the quarry, all the inborn instinct of the predaceous
beast in man's nature is aroused, and danger is a consideration not to
be taken in account.
A hawk in pursuit of a barnyard fowl will follow it into the open door
of the farmhouse; the hound in pursuit of the fox cares not for the
approaching locomotive--being possessed by the instinct to kill--nothing
is of importance to them but the capture of the game in sight. A man
following a buck is governed by a like singleness of purpose.
For this reason I was scrambling along the knife-like edge of the ridge,
with death in the steep treacherous slide rock on one side, death in the
steep green glacier ice on the other side, and torture and wounds under
my feet.
But the fever of the chase had possession of me. I had tasted blood and
felt the fierce joy of the puma and the wild intoxication of a hunting
wolf!
The cruel wounds inflicted by the sharp stones under my feet were
unnoticed. Away ahead of me was a moving object; it could use but three
legs, but that was one leg more than I had, and the ram had distanced
me. After an age of time I reached the rugged, broader footing of the
mountain side, and creeping up behind some sheltering rocks again fired
at the fleeing ram. With the impact of the bullet the sheep fell
headlong down a cliff to a projecting rock thirty feet below, where it
lay apparently dead. A moment later it again arose, seemingly as able as
ever, and ran along the face of the beetling rock where my eyes, aided
by powerful field glasses, could perceive no foothold; then it gave a
magnificent leap to a ledge on the opposite side of the narrow canyon
and fell dead, out of my reach.
Spent with my long, rough run, I naturally selected the most
comfortable seat in which to rest; this chanced to be a cushion of
heather-like plants along the side of a fragment of rock which
effectually concealed my body from view from the other side of the
chasm. Here, on the verge of that impassable canyon, I sat panting and
looking at the poor dead creature upon the opposite side; its right
front leg was shattered at the shoulder, a bullet had pierced its lungs.
Yet, with two fatal wounds and a useless leg, the plucky creature had
scaled the face of a cliff which one would think a squirrel would find
impossible to traverse and made leaps which might well be considered
improbable for a perfectly sound animal. The ram was dead and food for
the ravens, and a reaction had taken place in my mind; I felt like a
bloody murderer, and hung my head with a sense of guilt.
Presently, becoming conscious of that peculiar guttural noise, used by
Big Pete when desiring caution, and looking up I was amazed to see a
splendid Indian youth climb down the face of the opposite cliff, throw
his arms around the dead ram's neck and burst into deep but subdued
lamentation. For the first time I now saw that what I had mistaken for a
blood stain on the bighorn's neck was a red collar.
Cautiously producing my field glasses I examined the collar and
discovered it to be made of stained porcupine quills cleverly worked on
a buckskin band. The field glasses also told me that the boy's shirt was
trimmed with the same material, while a duplicate of the sheep's collar
formed a band which encircled his head, confining the long black hair
and preventing it from falling over his face, but leaving it free to
hang down his back to a point below the waist line.
So absorbed was I in this unique spectacle that I carelessly allowed my
elbow to dislodge a loose fragment of stone which went clattering down
the face of the precipice. This proved to be almost fatal carelessness,
for, with a movement as quick as the stroke of a rattlesnake, the lad
placed an arrow to the string of a bow and sent the barbed shaft with
such force, promptitude and precision that it went through my fur cap,
the arrow entangling a bunch of my hair, taking it along with it.
"Squat lower, Le-loo; arrows has been the death of many a man afore
you," whispered Big Pete in my ear, but even as he spoke another arrow
sang over our crouching bodies, shaving the protecting rock so closely
that their plumed tips brushed the dust on our backs.
"Waugh! Good shootin', by gum! I never seed it beat; if he onct sots
them black eyes on our hulking carcasses he'll get us yit," muttered my
guide, enthusiastically. "He's mighty slender, quick and purty--but so
also be a rattlesnake!" he exclaimed, as another arrow slit the sleeve
of his wamus as cleanly as if it were cut with a knife.
"For God's sake, stop!" I shouted, in real alarm. The boy paused, but
with an arrow still drawn to its head. His eyes flashing, head erect,
one moccasined foot on the ram's body, the other braced against the
cliff; his short fawn-colored skin shirt clung to his lithe body, and
the fringed edges hung over the dreadful black chasm in front of him. It
was a picture to take away one's breath. "Put down your weapon, and we
will stand with our hands up," I cried. Slowly the bow was lowered and
as slowly Big Pete and I arose, holding our empty hands aloft. "Now,
young fellow, tell us your pleasure."
There are a few gray hairs showing at my temples which first made their
appearance while I was crouching behind that stone on the edge of the
chasm.
To my polite inquiry asking his pleasure, the wild boy made no reply but
glanced at us with the utmost contempt when Big Pete went through some
gestures in Indian sign language. The lad mutely pointed to the dead
sheep, the sight of which seemed to enrage him again, for insensibly his
fingers tightened on the bow and the wood began to curve after a manner
which sent me ducking behind the sheltering stone again; but Big Pete
only folded his arms across his broad chest and looked the boy straight
in the eyes.
Never will I forget that picture, the cold, bleak, snow-covered
mountains towering above them, the black abyss of Sheol between them;
neither would hesitate to take life, neither possessed a fear of death;
but with every muscle alert and every nerve alive these two wild things
stood facing each other, mutually observing a truce because of--what?
Because, in spite of the fighting instinct or, maybe, because of it they
both secretly admired each other.