of the Englishman's Walk Before Breakfast Was No Joke
When Mills arrived after breakfast, he reported that the party was to
spend the day going down the lake in a motor launch to the office of the
superintendent of the Park, on the west shore, near the lower end, where
they were to have dinner.
"That means a holiday for you, Joe," the Ranger said. "They'll spend the
night here at the hotel again. But you'll get paid just the same. You're
your own boss to-day."
When the launch had left, Joe began the day by visiting the barber shop
and getting his hair cut, for he had not been near a barber since he
left Southmead. Then he made himself two or three sandwiches for a
lunch, put them in his pocket, and set off back up the trail through the
cedar forest. He had never been in such a wood before, a real piece of
the primeval forest, where no axe had ever been, except to clear the
trail, where the trees had fought for existence in such dense stands
that they had to shoot up straight and high for sun, without any lower
branches whatever, and where so many had died in the struggle that their
trunks lay, right and left, blocking every passage. It had always been
Joe's ambition to become a forester, and this wood and these trails over
the Rocky Mountains had more than ever made him sure that was the job
for him. So now he headed up into the timber, intent on a long day's
study of the trees, the way they grew, the effects of soil and water and
winter storms.
It was a wonderful day he had, too, though he got only about four miles
back up the range from the lake. The only part he did not like was being
alone.
"If only old Spider was here!" he kept thinking. "Golly, how he'd love
these woods!"
He ate his lunch on a point of rock above the forest, where he could
see, down over the tops, all the twelve green, dancing miles of Lake
McDonald. He made a list of all the kinds of trees he knew (for he got
up above the cedars), and looked carefully at the kinds he did not know,
so he could ask Mills about them. He picked forty-six kinds of wild
flowers, without half hunting, watched the different birds, especially
the Clark's crows (a black and white bird, a little smaller than a
crow), and just lazily enjoyed himself.
Not a very exciting day, you say? But wait till you get out in the Rocky
Mountains. You'll find, after you've ridden the high trails for a while,
and seen the tremendous precipices, and met up with a bear or two, and
otherwise had a lively time, you will suddenly want to loaf for one
whole day, too, and not put your foot into a stirrup or do much of
anything but lie around in the lovely woods or upland meadows, and do
nothing. It's great to loaf once in a while--not too often, nor too
long.
But Joe had one little adventure before he got back. He had sat down at
the edge of an open glade in the woods, to put a new film roll in his
camera, when he suddenly saw a big buck deer and two does come out of
the woods across the clearing. They did not see him for a full minute,
and stood feeding, quite unconsciously. Then he either made some sound
or they spied him, for the buck reared his head, stamped, and all three
looked at him with great, startled brown eyes.
Joe was working with nervous haste to get that precious film roll in
before they ran away. He didn't dare move more than his fingers and
hands, and it was hard work; but he got it in at last, and turned it to
position. But as he raised the camera to sight it, they finally took
fright and bolted for the woods. Joe pressed the bulb, and got a picture
of their three white tails disappearing, but, alas! he didn't get their
faces. It was the nearest he had ever come to photographing a wild deer
at close range, and he was mad enough that they had come just when he
was filling his camera, and was not ready for them.
That night Mills looked at the sky, sniffed the wind, and announced rain
before two days.
"We'll beat it with an early start," he said "Everybody ready at
seven-thirty. Where are you going to bunk, Joe?"
He had been told about the bear, Joe saw.
"I'm going to bunk where I did last night," Joe answered.
"In the hammock?"
"No, in the cedars."
"Good-night, nurse!" said Bob. "No more Big Ben for mine."
"Are you really?" Lucy asked. "Aren't you foolish?"
"Maybe," said Joe, "though it was probably a tame bear. But if I don't,
Mr. Mills will guy me all summer. I'll stay there this time, if he eats
me alive!"
"That's the right spirit," said Lucy. "If I were a boy, I'd stay with
you!"
"I bet you would!" Joe exclaimed. "Anybody who says girls are quitters
has got the wrong dope."
So he went back alone to the little camp in the woods, and though it was
dark and ghostly and every cracking twig gave him a jump, he built up
his fire and lay down to sleep. He did not sleep for a long time, for he
could not make himself stop listening to noises, but finally he dozed
off, and when he finally woke it was daylight.
"You poor simp!" he told himself. "Nothing has happened. Afraid of a
tame bear, who's probably twice as afraid of you! Glad old Spider wasn't
here to see!"
He fried himself some bacon, and hurried back to the stables, to help
pack the horses for the trip.
"And now where is it?" the men demanded, as they all mounted.
"Depends on the weather," Mills said. "If it holds off rain, I want to
camp to-night in Avalanche Basin, and maybe show you a goat or two. If
it comes on to rain, we'll make for Granite Park chalet, on Swift
Current Pass."
"I see--going around the circle, and back to Many Glacier over Swift
Current," said Mr. Elkins, who had been studying a map. "Well, let's
hope it doesn't rain. I don't see any signs now."
"I smell it," Mills said.
This day, with restocked provisions and well rested horses, they headed
north, on the west side of the Divide, past the head of the lake, and up
McDonald Creek, a rushing, turbulent little river which comes pouring
down the heavily wooded canyon between the Lewis Range, which is the
range that makes the Continental Divide, and the Livingston Range just
to the west. It was a pretty ride, up the side of the stream, but the
trees were so thick and tall that they could catch only occasional
glimpses of the mountain walls on either side of the canyon.
After five miles or more, Mills halted, by the side of a smaller stream
which came in from the east, and took a look at the sky and the peak of
a mountain visible in a gap of the trees.
"I guess we can risk it," he said, and turned eastward up the bank. This
side trail climbed much more steeply, and led them after a couple of
miles into a box canyon, like a deep rock ditch, with just the stream and
the trail at the bottom, and then into one of the wildest spots you can
imagine--a marvelous bowl, almost entirely closed in except for the gap
where they had climbed, with a green glacier lake at the bottom, and
steeply sloping sides which went up from the shore of the lake for over
five thousand feet--Cannon Mountain to the north, Brown to the south,
and at the eastern end, high over their heads, the great white field of
Sperry Glacier, pouring down its silver ribbons of waterfalls.
They reached this lovely wild spot, called Avalanche Basin because when
the snows come in winter the sides are so steep that avalanches keep
pouring down, before noon, and at once made camp, while Joe set about
the lunch.
After lunch, Bob said, "Well, Mr. Mills, bring on your goat."
Mills didn't answer, but lifted his head, and scanned the cliffs.
"All right," he finally said, "there are two."
And he pointed upward.
Everybody followed his finger, to a red cliff, across the lake and far
up the steep mountain wall.
"I don't see anything but some spots of snow," Bob said.
"Wait--wait--one of the spots is moving!" Lucy cried. "Is that really a
goat? My goodness, how does he stick on? Why, it's straight up and
down!"
"That don't trouble a goat," said the Ranger.
The two specks of snow were certainly moving. The whole party watched
till their necks ached, but the goats had either seen them or were not
bound for the lower reaches, anyhow, for they did not come down.
Instead, they walked along the cliff wall, and presently disappeared
around a headland.
"Why, they're just like flies!" one of the congressmen exclaimed. "I
suppose they were on a ledge. How wide do you reckon it was?"
"Might have been two feet, might have been six inches," Mills answered.
"I've seen sheep and goats go around a ledge on a sheer precipice that
wasn't over four inches wide, and stop to scratch themselves on the
way!"
"I'm going to climb up there and see how steep that place is!" Bob
cried.
"Hooray! Us, too," said Alice and Lucy. "Come on, Joe."
Mills was smiling, and Joe thought once more of the story of the
Englishman. He told the story now, and Mills smiled again.
"Is it that far, Mr. Mills--now, honestly?" the girls asked.
"Go ahead and try it," the Ranger said, still smiling. "I'll come along,
like Joe's friend."
The five of them started out, worked around the head of the lake, and
began at once to climb the long, steep, rough shale pile at the foot of
the first cliff. Above this first cliff was another slope, before the
cliff began on which they had seen the goats. It was hard going, with
thick patches of timber-line scrub spruces which held you like iron and
tore like barbed wire, and sharp, irregular rocks of all sizes, and
slopes of loose, small stones that gave way underfoot, and even patches
of snow. They toiled on, Mills in the rear this time, still smiling,
until at last they reached the foot of the first cliff, and looked far
down at the lake and their tents. They could see the people there, the
horses, even Joe's fire pit and a tin kettle.
"Why, I could almost throw a stone down on 'em," said Bob, "yet I feel
as if we'd come a long way."
He looked at his watch.
"Gee whiz, we've been gone 'most two hours already!" he cried. Then he
looked up at the cliff above, which was almost perpendicular. The girls
looked at it, too. Joe looked at it, and longed for Spider and a rope to
tackle it. But he did not see how any one could safely climb it without
a rope. Mills looked at the four of them--and still smiled.
"Well," he said, finally, "going on?"
"You win," Bob admitted reluctantly. "We're the goats."
"No, the trouble is, we're not!" laughed Lucy. "If we were, we could
keep on."
So they started back, sliding down a snow-field by sitting down and
"letting her go"--which was rapid, but very damp.
"The goats win," said Bob, as they reached camp almost three hours
later.
"And yet we could see you all the way," his father said "Now I realize
what Rocky Mountain air is."
That night they had a big camp-fire, and a sing--all the songs every one
knew, with Val playing on a harmonica he fished sheepishly out of his
saddle-bag. Then they all "turned in" early, to be ready for a long trip
the next day.