Such a log bridge spanned Granite Creek near the North Fork of the San
Joaquin at an elevation of about seven thousand feet. It was suspended
a good twenty feet above the water, which boiled white in a most
disconcerting manner through a gorge of rocks. If anything fell off
that log it would be of no further value even to the curiosity seeker.
We got over all the horses save Tunemah. He refused to consider it,
nor did peaceful argument win. As he was more or less of a fool, we
did not take this as a reflection on our judgment, but culled cedar
clubs. We beat him until we were ashamed. Then we put a slip-noose
about his neck. The Tenderfoot and I stood on the log and heaved while
Wes stood on the shore and pushed. Suddenly it occurred to me that if
Tunemah made up his silly mind to come, he would probably do it all at
once, in which case the Tenderfoot and I would have about as much show
for life as fossil formations. I didn't say anything about it to the
Tenderfoot, but I hitched my six-shooter around to the front, resolved
to find out how good I was at wing-shooting horses. But Tunemah
declared he would die for his convictions. "All right," said we, "die
then," with the embellishment of profanity. So we stripped him naked,
and stoned him into the raging stream, where he had one chance in three
of coming through alive. He might as well be dead as on the other side
of that stream. He won through, however, and now I believe he'd tackle
a tight rope.
Of such is the Trail, of such its wonders, its pleasures, its little
comforts, its annoyances, its dangers. And when you are forced to draw
your six-shooter to end mercifully the life of an animal that has
served you faithfully, but that has fallen victim to the leg-breaking
hazard of the way, then you know a little of its tragedy also. May you
never know the greater tragedy when a man's life goes out, and you
unable to help! May always your trail lead through fine trees, green
grasses, fragrant flowers, and pleasant waters!
X
ON SEEING DEER
Once I happened to be sitting out a dance with a tactful young girl of
tender disposition who thought she should adapt her conversation to the
one with whom she happened to be talking. Therefore she asked
questions concerning out-of-doors. She knew nothing whatever about it,
but she gave a very good imitation of one interested. For some occult
reason people never seem to expect me to own evening clothes, or to
know how to dance, or to be able to talk about anything civilized; in
fact, most of them appear disappointed that I do not pull off a war-jig
in the middle of the drawing-room.
This young girl selected deer as her topic. She mentioned liquid eyes,
beautiful form, slender ears; she said "cute," and "darlings," and
"perfect dears." Then she shuddered prettily.
"And I don't see how you can ever BEAR to shoot them, Mr. White," she
concluded.
"You quarter the onions and slice them very thin," said I dreamily.
"Then you take a little bacon fat you had left over from the flap-jacks
and put it in the frying-pan. The frying-pan should be very hot. While
the onions are frying, you must keep turning them over with a fork.
It's rather difficult to get them all browned without burning some. I
should broil the meat. A broiler is handy, but two willows, peeled and
charred a little so the willow taste won't penetrate the meat, will do.
Have the steak fairly thick. Pepper and salt it thoroughly. Sear it
well at first in order to keep the juices in; then cook rather slowly.
When it is done, put it on a hot plate and pour the browned onions,
bacon fat and all, over it."
"What ARE you talking about?" she interrupted.
"I'm telling you why I can bear to shoot deer," said I.
"But I don't see--" said she.
"Don't you?" said I. "Well; suppose you've been climbing a mountain
late in the afternoon when the sun is on the other side of it. It is a
mountain of big boulders, loose little stones, thorny bushes. The
slightest misstep would send pebbles rattling, brush rustling; but you
have gone all the way without making that misstep. This is quite a
feat. It means that you've known all about every footstep you've
taken. That would be business enough for most people, wouldn't it?
But in addition you've managed to see EVERYTHING on that side of the
mountain--especially patches of brown. You've seen lots of patches of
brown, and you've examined each one of them. Besides that, you've
heard lots of little rustlings, and you've identified each one of them.
To do all these things well keys your nerves to a high tension, doesn't
it? And then near the top you look up from your last noiseless step to
see in the brush a very dim patch of brown. If you hadn't been looking
so hard, you surely wouldn't have made it out. Perhaps, if you're not
humble-minded, you may reflect that most people wouldn't have seen it
at all. You whistle once sharply. The patch of brown defines itself.
Your heart gives one big jump. You know that you have but the briefest
moment, the tiniest fraction of time, to hold the white bead of your
rifle motionless and to press the trigger. It has to be done VERY
steadily, at that distance,--and you out of breath, with your nerves
keyed high in the tension of such caution."
"NOW what are you talking about?" she broke in helplessly.
"Oh, didn't I mention it?" I asked, surprised. "I was telling you why I
could bear to shoot deer."
"Yes, but--" she began.
"Of course not," I reassured her. "After all, it's very simple. The
reason I can bear to kill deer is because, to kill deer, you must
accomplish a skillful elimination of the obvious."
My young lady was evidently afraid of being considered stupid; and also
convinced of her inability to understand what I was driving at. So she
temporized in the manner of society.
"I see," she said, with an air of complete enlightenment.
Now of course she did not see. Nobody could see the force of that last
remark without the grace of further explanation, and yet in the
elimination of the obvious rests the whole secret of seeing deer in the
woods.
In traveling the trail you will notice two things: that a tenderfoot
will habitually contemplate the horn of his saddle or the trail a few
yards ahead of his horse's nose, with occasionally a look about at the
landscape; and the old-timer will be constantly searching the prospect
with keen understanding eyes. Now in the occasional glances the
tenderfoot takes, his perceptions have room for just so many
impressions. When the number is filled out he sees nothing more.
Naturally the obvious features of the landscape supply the basis for
these impressions. He sees the configuration of the mountains, the
nature of their covering, the course of their ravines, first of all.
Then if he looks more closely, there catches his eye an odd-shaped
rock, a burned black stub, a flowering bush, or some such matter.
Anything less striking in its appeal to the attention actually has not
room for its recognition. In other words, supposing that a man has the
natural ability to receive x visual impressions, the tenderfoot fills
out his full capacity with the striking features of his surroundings.
To be able to see anything more obscure in form or color, he must
naturally put aside from his attention some one or another of these
obvious features. He can, for example, look for a particular kind of
flower on a side hill only by refusing to see other kinds.
If this is plain, then, go one step further in the logic of that
reasoning. Put yourself in the mental attitude of a man looking for
deer. His eye sweeps rapidly over a side hill; so rapidly that you
cannot understand how he can have gathered the main features of that
hill, let alone concentrate and refine his attention to the seeing of
an animal under a bush. As a matter of fact he pays no attention to the
main features. He has trained his eye, not so much to see things, as
to leave things out. The odd-shaped rock, the charred stub, the bright
flowering bush do not exist for him. His eye passes over them as
unseeing as yours over the patch of brown or gray that represents his
quarry. His attention stops on the unusual, just as does yours; only
in his case the unusual is not the obvious. He has succeeded by long
training in eliminating that. Therefore he sees deer where you do not.
As soon as you can forget the naturally obvious and construct an
artificially obvious, then you too will see deer.
These animals are strangely invisible to the untrained eye even when
they are standing "in plain sight." You can look straight at them, and
not see them at all. Then some old woodsman lets you sight over his
finger exactly to the spot. At once the figure of the deer fairly
leaps into vision. I know of no more perfect example of the
instantaneous than this. You are filled with astonishment that you
could for a moment have avoided seeing it. And yet next time you will
in all probability repeat just this "puzzle picture" experience.
The Tenderfoot tried for six weeks before he caught sight of one. He
wanted to very much. Time and again one or the other of us would hiss
back, "See the deer! over there by the yellow bush!" but before he
could bring the deliberation of his scrutiny to the point of
identification, the deer would be gone. Once a fawn jumped fairly
within ten feet of the pack-horses and went bounding away through the
bushes, and that fawn he could not help seeing. We tried
conscientiously enough to get him a shot; but the Tenderfoot was unable
to move through the brush less majestically than a Pullman car, so we
had ended by becoming apathetic on the subject.
Finally, while descending a very abrupt mountain-side I made out a buck
lying down perhaps three hundred feet directly below us. The buck was
not looking our way, so I had time to call the Tenderfoot. He came.
With difficulty and by using my rifle-barrel as a pointer I managed to
show him the animal. Immediately he began to pant as though at the
finish of a mile race, and his rifle, when he leveled it, covered a
good half acre of ground. This would never do.
"Hold on!" I interrupted sharply.
He lowered his weapon to stare at me wild-eyed.
"What is it?" he gasped.
"Stop a minute!" I commanded. "Now take three deep breaths."
He did so.
"Now shoot," I advised, "and aim at his knees."
The deer was now on his feet and facing us, so the Tenderfoot had the
entire length of the animal to allow for lineal variation. He fired.
The deer dropped. The Tenderfoot thrust his hat over one eye, rested
hand on hip in a manner cocky to behold.
"Simply slaughter!" he proffered with lofty scorn.
We descended. The bullet had broken the deer's back--about six inches
from the tail. The Tenderfoot had overshot by at least three feet.
You will see many deer thus from the trail,--in fact, we kept up our
meat supply from the saddle, as one might say,--but to enjoy the finer
savor of seeing deer, you should start out definitely with that object
in view. Thus you have opportunity for the display of a certain finer
woodcraft. You must know where the objects of your search are likely
to be found, and that depends on the time of year, the time of days
their age, their sex, a hundred little things. When the bucks carry
antlers in the velvet, they frequent the inaccessibilities of the
highest rocky peaks, so their tender horns may not be torn in the
brush, but nevertheless so that the advantage of a lofty viewpoint may
compensate for the loss of cover. Later you will find them in the open
slopes of a lower altitude, fully exposed to the sun, that there the
heat may harden the antlers. Later still, the heads in fine condition
and tough to withstand scratches, they plunge into the dense thickets.
But in the mean time the fertile does have sought a lower country with
patches of small brush interspersed with open passages. There they can
feed with their fawns, completely concealed, but able, by merely
raising the head, to survey the entire landscape for the threatening of
danger. The barren does, on the other hand, you will find through the
timber and brush, for they are careless of all responsibilities either
to offspring or headgear. These are but a few of the considerations
you will take into account, a very few of the many which lend the deer
countries strange thrills of delight over new knowledge gained, over
crafty expedients invented or well utilized, over the satisfactory
matching of your reason, your instinct, your subtlety and skill against
the reason, instinct, subtlety, and skill of one of the wariest of
large wild animals.
Perversely enough the times when you did NOT see deer are more apt to
remain vivid in your memory than the times when you did. I can still
see distinctly sundry wide jump-marks where the animal I was tracking
had evidently caught sight of me and lit out before I came up to him.
Equally, sundry little thin disappearing clouds of dust; cracklings of
brush, growing ever more distant; the tops of bushes waving to the
steady passage of something remaining persistently concealed,--these
are the chief ingredients often repeated which make up deer-stalking
memory. When I think of seeing deer, these things automatically rise.
A few of the deer actually seen do, however, stand out clearly from the
many. When I was a very small boy possessed of a 32-20 rifle and large
ambitions, I followed the advantage my father's footsteps made me in
the deep snow of an unused logging-road. His attention was focused on
some very interesting fresh tracks. I, being a small boy, cared not at
all for tracks, and so saw a big doe emerge from the bushes not ten
yards away, lope leisurely across the road, and disappear, wagging
earnestly her tail. When I had recovered my breath I vehemently
demanded the sense of fooling with tracks when there were real live
deer to be had. My father examined me.
"Well, why didn't you shoot her?" he inquired dryly.
I hadn't thought of that.
In the spring of 1900 I was at the head of the Piant River waiting for
the log-drive to start. One morning, happening to walk over a slashing
of many years before in which had grown a strong thicket of white
popples, I jumped a band of nine deer. I shall never forget the
bewildering impression made by the glancing, dodging, bouncing white of
those nine snowy tails and rumps.
But most wonderful of all was a great buck, of I should be afraid to
say how many points, that stood silhouetted on the extreme end of a
ridge high above our camp. The time was just after twilight, and as we
watched, the sky lightened behind him in prophecy of the moon.
ON TENDERFEET
XI
ON TENDERFEET
The tenderfoot is a queer beast. He makes more trouble than ants at a
picnic, more work than a trespassing goat; he never sees anything,
knows where anything is, remembers accurately your instructions,
follows them if remembered, or is able to handle without awkwardness
his large and pathetic hands and feet; he is always lost, always
falling off or into things, always in difficulties; his articles of
necessity are constantly being burned up or washed away or mislaid; he
looks at you beamingly through great innocent eyes in the most
chuckle-headed of manners; he exasperates you to within an inch of
explosion,--and yet you love him.
I am referring now to the real tenderfoot, the fellow who cannot learn,
who is incapable ever of adjusting himself to the demands of the wild
life. Sometimes a man is merely green, inexperienced. But give him a
chance and he soon picks up the game. That is your greenhorn, not your
tenderfoot. Down near Monache meadows we came across an individual
leading an old pack-mare up the trail. The first thing, he asked us to
tell him where he was. We did so. Then we noticed that he carried his
gun muzzle-up in his hip-pocket, which seemed to be a nice way to shoot
a hole in your hand, but a poor way to make your weapon accessible. He
unpacked near us, and promptly turned the mare into a bog-hole because
it looked green. Then he stood around the rest of the evening and
talked deprecating talk of a garrulous nature.
"Which way did you come?" asked Wes.
The stranger gave us a hazy account of misnamed cañons, by which we
gathered that he had come directly over the rough divide below us.
"But if you wanted to get to Monache, why didn't you go around to the
eastward through that pass, there, and save yourself all the climb? It
must have been pretty rough through there."
"Yes, perhaps so," he hesitated. "Still--I got lots of time--I can
take all summer, if I want to--and I'd rather stick to a straight
line--then you know where you ARE--if you get off the straight line,
you're likely to get lost, you know."
We knew well enough what ailed him, of course. He was a tenderfoot, of
the sort that always, to its dying day, unhobbles its horses before
putting their halters on. Yet that man for thirty-two years had lived
almost constantly in the wild countries. He had traveled more miles
with a pack-train than we shall ever dream of traveling, and hardly
could we mention a famous camp of the last quarter century that he had
not blundered into. Moreover he proved by the indirections of his
misinformation that he had really been there and was not making ghost
stories in order to impress us. Yet if the Lord spares him thirty-two
years more, at the end of that time he will probably still be carrying
his gun upside down, turning his horse into a bog-hole, and blundering
through the country by main strength and awkwardness. He was a
beautiful type of the tenderfoot.
The redeeming point of the tenderfoot is his humbleness of spirit and
his extreme good nature. He exasperates you with his fool performances
to the point of dancing cursing wild crying rage, and then accepts
your--well, reproofs--so meekly that you come off the boil as though
some one had removed you from the fire, and you feel like a low-browed
thug.
Suppose your particular tenderfoot to be named Algernon. Suppose him
to have packed his horse loosely--they always do--so that the pack has
slipped, the horse has bucked over three square miles of assorted
mountains, and the rest of the train is scattered over identically that
area. You have run your saddle-horse to a lather heading the outfit.
You have sworn and dodged and scrambled and yelled, even fired your
six-shooter, to turn them and bunch them. In the mean time Algernon
has either sat his horse like a park policeman in his leisure hours, or
has ambled directly into your path of pursuit on an average of five
times a minute. Then the trouble dies from the landscape and the baby
bewilderment from his eyes. You slip from your winded horse and
address Algernon with elaborate courtesy.
"My dear fellow," you remark, "did you not see that the thing for you
to do was to head them down by the bottom of that little gulch there?
Don't you really think ANYBODY would have seen it? What in hades do
you think I wanted to run my horse all through those boulders for? Do
you think I want to get him lame 'way up here in the hills? I don't
mind telling a man a thing once, but to tell it to him fifty-eight
times and then have it do no good-- Have you the faintest recollection
of my instructing you to turn the bight OVER instead of UNDER when you
throw that pack-hitch? If you'd remember that, we shouldn't have had
all this trouble."
"You didn't tell me to head them by the little gulch," babbles Algernon.
This is just the utterly fool reply that upsets your artificial and
elaborate courtesy. You probably foam at the mouth, and dance on your
hat, and shriek wild imploring imprecations to the astonished hills.
This is not because you have an unfortunate disposition, but because
Algernon has been doing precisely the same thing for two months.
"Listen to him!" you howl. "Didn't tell him! Why you gangle-legged
bug-eyed soft-handed pop-eared tenderfoot, you! there are some things
you never THINK of telling a man. I never told you to open your mouth
to spit, either. If you had a hired man at five dollars a year who was
so all-around hopelessly thick-headed and incompetent as you are, you'd
fire him to-morrow morning."
Then Algernon looks truly sorry, and doesn't answer back as he ought to
in order to give occasion for the relief of a really soul-satisfying
scrap, and utters the soft answer humbly. So your wrath is turned and
there remain only the dregs which taste like some of Algernon's cooking.
It is rather good fun to relieve the bitterness of the heart. Let me
tell you a few more tales of the tenderfoot, premising always that I
love him, and when at home seek him out to smoke pipes at his fireside,
to yarn over the trail, to wonder how much rancor he cherishes against
the maniacs who declaimed against him, and by way of compensation to
build up in the mind of his sweetheart, his wife, or his mother a
fearful and wonderful reputation for him as the Terror of the Trail.
These tales are selected from many, mere samples of a varied
experience. They occurred here, there, and everywhere, and at various
times. Let no one try to lay them at the door of our Tenderfoot merely
because such is his title in this narrative. We called him that by way
of distinction.
Once upon a time some of us were engaged in climbing a mountain rising
some five thousand feet above our starting-place. As we toiled along,
one of the pack-horses became impatient and pushed ahead. We did not
mind that, especially, as long as she stayed in sight, but in a little
while the trail was closed in by brush and timber.
"Algernon," said we, "just push on and get ahead of that mare, will
you?"
Algernon disappeared. We continued to climb. The trail was steep and
rather bad. The labor was strenuous, and we checked off each thousand
feet with thankfulness. As we saw nothing further of Algernon, we
naturally concluded he had headed the mare and was continuing on the
trail. Then through a little opening we saw him riding cheerfully
along without a care to occupy his mind. Just for luck we hailed him.
"Hi there, Algernon! Did you find her?"
"Haven't seen her yet."
"Well, you'd better push on a little faster. She may leave the trail
at the summit."
Then one of us, endowed by heaven with a keen intuitive instinct for
tenderfeet,--no one could have a knowledge of them, they are too
unexpected,--had an inspiration.
"I suppose there are tracks on the trail ahead of you?" he called.
We stared at each other, then at the trail. Only one horse had
preceded us,--that of the tenderfoot. But of course Algernon was
nevertheless due for his chuckle-headed reply.
"I haven't looked," said he.
That raised the storm conventional to such an occasion.
"What in the name of seventeen little dicky-birds did you think you
were up to!" we howled. "Were you going to ride ahead until dark in
the childlike faith that that mare might show up somewhere? Here's a
nice state of affairs. The trail is all tracked up now with our
horses, and heaven knows whether she's left tracks where she turned
off. It may be rocky there."
We tied the animals savagely, and started back on foot. It would be
criminal to ask our saddle-horses to repeat that climb. Algernon we
ordered to stay with them.
"And don't stir from them no matter what happens, or you'll get lost,"
we commanded out of the wisdom of long experience.
We climbed down the four thousand odd feet, and then back again,
leading the mare. She had turned off not forty rods from where
Algernon had taken up her pursuit.
Your Algernon never does get down to little details like tracks--his
scheme of life is much too magnificent. To be sure he would not know
fresh tracks from old if he should see them; so it is probably quite as
well. In the morning he goes out after the horses. The bunch he finds
easily enough, but one is missing. What would you do about it? You
would naturally walk in a circle around the bunch until you crossed the
track of the truant leading away from it, wouldn't you? If you made a
wide enough circle you would inevitably cross that track, wouldn't you?
provided the horse started out with the bunch in the first place. Then
you would follow the track, catch the horse, and bring him back. Is
this Algernon's procedure? Not any. "Ha!" says he, "old Brownie is
missing. I will hunt him up." Then he maunders off into the scenery,
trusting to high heaven that he is going to blunder against Brownie as
a prominent feature of the landscape. After a couple of hours you
probably saddle up Brownie and go out to find the tenderfoot.
He has a horrifying facility in losing himself. Nothing is more
cheering than to arise from a hard-earned couch of ease for the purpose
of trailing an Algernon or so through the gathering dusk to the spot
where he has managed to find something--a very real despair of ever
getting back to food and warmth. Nothing is more irritating then than
his gratitude.