AN EXPEDITION FOR FUR
Hugh and Jack had ridden some miles across the Basin without seeing
any game except a few distant antelope, for which they did not turn
aside. The hills, as they grew more and more bare of snow, were already
beginning to turn green with the new grass which showed among the sere
and yellow tufts of last year's growth. The buds were swelling on the
trees and bushes which grew in the ravines they crossed, but as yet no
leaves had begun to appear. Yet, all over the prairie, on and under
the bushes, were seen numbers of small birds, some of them migrants on
their way to the north, others summer residents that were building or
were about to build their nests. Now and then was heard the distant
hooting of the sage grouse.
After crossing the valley and climbing the hill on the other side of
the Basin, they came out on a rolling table-land, from which the snow
had almost disappeared, though here and there long lines of white were
seen marking some ravine shaded from the direct rays of the sun. Over
the plain before them were scattered many antelope, and Hugh said,
"Now, son, watch out sharp, and let's get our meat as soon as we can,
and get back."
As they rode along, they approached the top of each hill carefully,
Jack keeping a little behind Hugh, who rode up very slowly to the
crest, and before showing anything more than the top of his head,
scanned the country beyond. They had passed over one or two such rises,
when Hugh slowly bent his head, turned his horse, and rode back toward
Jack, saying, as he reached him, "There's a bunch of antelope just over
the hill, and they may be just what we want; I saw the backs of two
that were feeding; we better creep up there and see what they are, and
remember, a dry doe, or even a yearling doe is likely to be better than
a buck, and if you get a chance, kill one; I'll do the same."
Dropping their horses' reins and loading their rifles, they returned to
the hilltop. Hugh went slowly and carefully, bending lower and lower as
he approached the crest, and finally dropped on his knees, and crept
forward. At last he stopped and very slowly raised his bared head, for
he had left his hat behind him, to take another look; then, with the
same slow motion, he lowered his head, and turning, motioned Jack to
come beside him. As Jack reached him, Hugh whispered, "There's a big
buck off to the right that you can kill, and there's another buck right
in front of me that I'll take after you've shot. Get ready now, and
kill your animal."
Cocking his rifle, Jack slowly raised his head, and in a moment saw the
black horns of an antelope that was looking off over the prairie. He
waited an instant, and then, as the animal lowered his head, he rose up
a little higher, drew a careful bead on the spot that Hugh, years ago,
had told him to shoot at--the little dark curl of hair just behind the
foreleg--and fired. The antelope rushed away, and immediately a dozen
others that had been still nearer to the hunters and out of sight,
followed him. They ran part way up the next slope and then stopped
nearly a hundred and fifty yards off, and as they did so, Hugh's rifle
came to his shoulder and he fired. The animal that he had shot fell in
his tracks, and the others rushed off over the hill. The hunters rose
to their feet, and went back to the horses, picking up their hats on
the way. When they were in the saddle, Jack said to Hugh, "Did you see
anything of my buck?"
"No," said Hugh, "I don't feel sure whether he fell into the ravine
as they crossed, or whether he went on. I heard the ball strike him,
though, and I reckon we'll find him presently."
Riding over toward the animal that Hugh had shot, they crossed the
ravine, and just as they were rising the hill, Hugh stopped his horse
and said, "There's your buck," and pointed down the ravine where,
seventy-five or eighty yards from them, the antelope was seen standing
with his head down, evidently unable to go further.
Jack pulled up his horse and looked at the animal, and said, "I don't
know whether I had better give him another shot, or wait for him to
die."
"Well," said Hugh, "I reckon if I was you, I'd get off and shoot him
again; he's hard hit, but sometimes one of those fellows will give you
a chase of three or four miles if he gets frightened, even though he
may have a mortal wound."
"All right," said Jack, and he dismounted, and stepping back behind the
horses, he shot from the shoulder, and the antelope fell over and was
hidden in the brush of the ravine.
It took but a short time to clean Hugh's buck and put it on the horse,
and a few minutes later, Jack's was similarly tied on his horse. Both
animals had fair heads, but Hugh had said, "It's not worth while to
pack all this extra weight back to the ranch; we may as well cut it
down as low as possible so they had removed the heads and necks and
shanks, before tying the carcasses behind the saddles with the buckskin
strings with which they were provided. While they were doing all this,
the sky had become overcast and the wind had begun to blow up cold from
the west. They mounted their horses and started back for the ranch,
stopping at the first snowbank, where, in the moist snow they washed
the blood from their hands.
"Well," said Hugh, "this wind is blowing up right cold; if we had a
sheltered place to sit down, I would like to smoke a pipe, but as we
haven't, I reckon we better keep on across the valley until we find a
lee over there where we can sit and smoke and talk." But by the time
they had crossed the valley the sun had come out again, and Hugh said,
"Now, son, if we keep poking right along and don't stop, we will get
back to the ranch in time to get some dinner. I move that we do that,
for I'm right wolfish."
"Good enough," replied Jack, "that will suit me; we'll have all the
afternoon to smoke and talk."
They were yet half a mile from the ranch when they heard the dinner
horn, but after they had hung up their meat, unsaddled their horses,
and got into the house, they found the men were still at the table, and
sat down with them.
How good that first dinner did taste to Jack after his morning's ride!
There was the last of some elk meat, killed the fall before by Hugh,
potatoes, canned tomatoes, and lots of good bread, and plenty of milk
and cream. Joe said to Jack, as he watched him eat, after he had
finished his own meal, "Eat hearty, Jack; it's a mighty good thing to
enjoy your victuals like you do!"
"Well," said Jack, "I've enjoyed lots of good meals in my life, but
it seems to me that this is the best I ever did eat, and this milk is
splendid, too. I can drink a quart of it."
"It's something you don't get often on a cow ranch in this country,"
said Joe. "'Pears like the more cows a man has, the less milk he gets;
but I tell you it's a mighty good thing to have, and it helps out the
eatin' wonderfully."
"Well," said Mr. Sturgis, "it always seemed to me that it is worth
while to have the best food there is going, just as far as you can
afford it."
"You had better drink all you can, son," said Hugh, "because if you and
me are going off for a trip, to be gone two or three months, you won't
see any milk for a mighty long time."
Jack grinned as he replied, "Don't be afraid, Hugh. I'm going to fill
myself just as full of the good things as I possibly can, and when I
get where I can't have them, why, I will enjoy the things we can have
just as much as I know how."
"That's good philosophy, Jack," said his uncle; "stick to it; always
get the best you possibly can, but never grumble if that best is pretty
poor."
Dinner over, Hugh and Jack adjourned to the bunk house, and there,
sitting in its lee in the warm sunshine, they began to discuss their
plans.
"Now, Hugh," said Jack, "what do you think about our summer's trip?
Tell me all you can, for I want to know what is coming. Of course
whatever you say goes."
"Well, son," said Hugh, "you have traveled and hunted and seen Indians,
but there's one thing you have not done; you haven't done any trapping.
It seems to me that it would not be a bad idea for you to learn
something about that. I used to be a pretty fair trapper in my young
days, and I reckon we can go down south here in the high mountains and
perhaps get some fur; not much, but enough, maybe, to pay our expenses,
and then we can come back here and turn it in to Mr. Sturgis as a sort
of pay for our time and for the use of the horse flesh we have had."
"That seems to me a bully idea, Hugh; it does seem a shame for me to
come out here every year and take you away from the ranch for all
summer, for I suppose that, of course, my uncle pays you right along?"
"Sure he does," said Hugh. "He paid me my wages that season we spent
up in the Blackfoot country, and again when we came down through the
mountains, and again out in British Columbia, just the same as if I had
been here hunting and wrangling horses for the ranch, working thirty
days in every month. Of course, he does this on your account, he don't
do it on my account; he does it because he is fond of you, and wants
you to have a good time, and wants you to learn things about this
Western country. I'm a kind of hired school teacher for you, and I tell
you, Jack, I like the job, and I reckon you do, too. The reason I speak
to you about it now is because you're older, and you ought to think
about things more, and not just take the good things that come to you,
like a hog under an acorn tree."
"Of course, Hugh, I understand, and I'm glad that you speak to me like
this about it; but what do you mean by 'a hog under an acorn tree'?"
"Why don't you know that old saying about a hog going along and eating
the acorns under an oak tree and never stopping to think where they
come from, or who sends them? I expect it's just because he's a hog."
"No," said Jack; "that's new to me."
"Well," said Hugh, "I reckon it's a mighty good saying. To go back," he
resumed; "now we can go down into the high mountains south of here on
the other side of the range and trap, and maybe get a few beaver. Of
course beaver ain't worth much now, but they are worth something. If we
were out on the prairie down in the lower country it wouldn't be worth
while to do it, because beaver fur gets poor early in the summer, but
up in the mountains, where I think of going, fur is good all the year
round--better in the early spring than it is late in the summer--but
it's good enough all the time."
"Well, Hugh," said Jack, "what particular place did you think of going
to?"
"I thought of North Park," said Hugh. "There are high mountains there,
plenty of game and fish, and it used to be a great country for beaver.
It's a good many years since I've been in there. It must be a dozen
years or more. Last time I crossed through there I had been camping on
Henry's Fork of Green River, along with Ike Edwards, old John Baker,
Phil Maas, and Dick Sun. That was a good bunch of men; mighty few like
them in the country now. They were all old-timers, and all had skin
lodges and lived there with their women in the country near Bridger,
and in winter moved into houses which they had on Henry's Fork. I
reckon I'll have to tell you something about them some of these days,
but now we'll stick to our trip.
"North Park is high up, with mountains on both sides of it, mighty high
mountains, too, and if there are any beaver living in that country, we
will probably he able to find them. Beaver is about all the fur that's
worth bothering with. There are not many marten, and if there were, the
fur would not be good now. Of course, you may get a bear or so, and
each bear would bring about seven or probably ten dollars, if we kill
them before they begin to shed. Beaver is worth three or four dollars a
pound. That would make a skin worth about five or six dollars--that is,
a good skin. It's a good deal of a trick to skin a beaver and dry his
pelt in good shape. It's one of them things, of course, that you have
got to learn.
"On the other hand, beaver trapping is mighty hard work, and you had
better know it beforehand. You've got to be in the water more than half
the time, and have to get your beaver back to camp and skin 'em, and
by the time you have been running to your traps, getting your beaver,
setting your traps, packing your catch to camp and skinning it, you
will think you've done a mighty good day's work. All the same, son,
you're pretty husky, and there's no reason why you should not do a full
day's work, but I tell you one thing we had better do, because it will
add a whole lot to our comfort--we had better get rubber boots for
both, before we start out, so that we won't get any wetter than we have
to get. I have had a touch of rheumatism in past years, and I don't
want to get any more of it."
"That seems bully, Hugh," said Jack. "I'm willing to work harder this
year than ever before, and I'm bigger and stronger and better able to
do work than I ever was before. I'll try to hold up my end just as well
as I can."
"Well," said Hugh, "it ain't like as if we were stone broke, and trying
to make a raise to carry us through the winter. We needn't work any
harder than we feel like, but when I tackle a job I like to make it a
good one, and I reckon you feel that way, too."
"Yes," said Jack, "that's the way I feel about it, for that is the way
the people I think most of in the world have always talked to me."
"That's good sound sense, my son," said Hugh.
"Now tell me, Hugh, how do we go from here down into North Park?"
"It's quite a ways," replied Hugh; "eight or ten days' march. We go
from the ranch down the Muddy to the Medicine Bow, up that river quite
a little way, and then cross over the divide to the Big Laramie and
follow that up into the Park. That takes us pretty well on to Laramie
City, and I guess we may as well go there anyhow, if we are going to
get the rubber boots I spoke about."
"In that case we ought to start just as soon as we possibly can,
oughtn't we?" said Jack. "I understand that the sooner we get onto the
trapping grounds the better the fur will be."
"You're dead right," said Hugh, "and I'd rather start to-morrow than
the day after."
"Well," said Jack, "is there any reason why we should not start
to-morrow?"
"I don't know of any," said Hugh; "but your uncle is the doctor, and
he'll have to tell us what to do."
"Well," said Jack, "what's the matter with hunting him up and finding
out?"
"All right," said Hugh, "let's look for him."
Mrs. Carter, when asked as to the whereabouts of Mr. Sturgis, said
that the last she had seen of him he had started down toward the
blacksmith's shop, and there, a little later, Hugh and Jack found him
and Joe busy tinkering with some iron work needed for the horse rake.
The two stood around and watched the blacksmithing for a time, and then
Mr. Sturgis looked up with a twinkle in his eye, and said, "You two
look like scouts that have come in to make a report; what is it?"
"You tell him, Hugh," said Jack, and so Hugh reported the conversation
which had taken place and the conclusion that they had reached.
"Well," said Mr. Sturgis, "I don't know but you are right, but whether
you start to-morrow or next week there is no reason why you should not
get your stuff together and have it all ready to pack on the animals.
If I were you, I would go and get out your pack riggings, select the
horses you want to use, and get Mrs. Carter to put up your grub."
"Hurrah!" said Jack, and he threw his hat up to the roof, and then
felt much mortified when it fell into the forge bucket and he dipped
it out all wet; he then rushed out of the shop toward the house, while
Hugh followed more slowly, going to the store room to get out the pack
saddles and their riggings.