mules, refused to go forward or turn back. In vain I urged them to
start down, assuring them the lower altitude would bring relief. The
sick men didn't care what happened; they craved instant relief by death
or any other instantaneous method, as seasick persons always do. Their
more fortunate friend looked at them in disgust, as those who have
escaped the consequences of their deeds often look at those who have
not. He upbraided me for not keeping them from making fools of
themselves. I knew argument with him would be futile in his
quarrelsome frame of mind. I kept still. His sick companions crawled
beneath an overhanging rock, and lay shivering and shaking, too
miserable to sleep. Presently he joined them, sputtering at me as the
author of all their troubles. His sputterings grew intermittent,
ceased. He was audibly asleep.
After a long time one of his pals demanded.
"Who in the ---- proposed this ---- trip anyway?"
The conduct of these men was not unique. Most climbers start out
exuberantly, burn up more energy than they can spare for the first part
of the trip, and find themselves physically bankrupt before they've
reached their goal. The rarefied air of the high country seems to make
them lightheaded! The most disagreeable character to have in a party,
as in other situations, is the bully, or know-it-all, who spoils
everyone's fun. A guide is a trifle handicapped in handling such
people, in that his civilized inhibitions restrain him from pushing
them off the cliffs or entombing them in a crevasse. I was too small
to do them physical violence anyway, so I had to resort to more subtle
weapons, the most effective being ridicule. If a joke could be turned
on the disturber he generally subsided. The rest of the crowd were
profuse in their expressions of gratitude to me for such service
rendered.
Such an individual was once a member of a fishing party I guided to
Bear Lake. The trip was made on horseback and we hadn't gone a mile
before he urged his horse out of line and raced ahead, calling to some
kindred spirit to follow. They missed the turn and delayed the whole
party more than an hour while being rounded up.
"Lanky," as the party dubbed him out of disrespect, blamed me for their
getting lost, but dropped behind when he saw the half-suppressed mirth
of the others. Along the way were many inviting pools, and
occasionally we saw a fisherman. "Lanky" soon raised the question of
trying out the stream, but was outvoted by the others. He was inclined
to argue the matter, but we rode up the trail, leaving him to follow or
fish as he desired.
At Bear Lake at that time was a canvas boat, cached twenty steps due
west of a certain large bowlder that lay south of the outlet. The boat
was small, would safely hold but two persons. As it was being carried
to the water, "Lanky" appeared and insisted on having the first turn in
it. To this the others agreed, much against my wishes. To save the
others from the annoyance of the fellow, I went out with him in the
boat.
The trout were too well fed to be interested in our flies, though
"Lanky" and I paddled around and across, and tempted them with a dozen
lures.
My passenger became abusive and blamed me for wasting a good fishing
day by bringing the party to the lake. In the midst of his tirade the
boat tilted strangely. For a few minutes he shamefully neglected me
while he gave his whole attention to righting it.
By sundown the party had caught a few small fish, and were ready to
quit. They had gladly let "Lanky" monopolize the boat so as to be
spared his society. To "Lanky's" disgust we had caught only two
six-inch fish. Just as we started for the shore he made a farewell
cast.
Something struck his spinner; his reel sang, his rod bent, and he stood
up in the boat, yelling instructions at me. The rest of the party quit
fishing to watch him land the fish. The trout was a big one, and game,
but we were in deep water with plenty of room. From the shore came
excited directions: "Give him more line!" "Reel him in!" "Don't let
him get under the boat!" "Head him toward the shore!" "Lanky" turned
a superior deaf ear.
After a tussle of ten minutes a two-pound trout lay in the boat, and
"Lanky" raised an exultant yell in which the cliffs of Hallett joined.
Now, indeed, was justice gone astray, when the one disagreeable member
of the party had the only luck.
When the last triumphant echo died away, I picked up his prize,
inspected it critically, held it aloft for the others to witness. "I'm
a deputy warden," I snapped at him disgustedly, "and you don't keep
small ones while I'm around." With that I tossed the trout into the
lake.
Just as I finished, the boat mysteriously upset, and "Lanky" and I
followed the fish.
The early trips I made with parties were mostly short ones for game or
fish, but as more and more visitors came each succeeding summer, longer
trips became popular. From fishing, the summer guests turned to trail
trips, camping en route and remaining out from five to ten days. To
cross the Continental Divide was the great achievement. Everyone
wanted to tell his stay-at-home neighbors about trailing over the crest
of the continent, and snowballing in the summer.
The route commonly chosen was the Flattop trail to Grand Lake, where
camp was pitched for a day or two; then up the North Fork of the Grand
River (known farther south as the Colorado River) to Poudre Lake, where
another camp was made. From here they made a visit to Specimen, a
mountain of volcanic formation which rises from the lake shore. This
peak has ever been the home of mountain sheep. One can always count on
seeing them there, sometimes just a few stragglers, but often bands of
a hundred or more.
However interesting the day's experience had been, the climax came
after camp was made, supper served and cleared away, when a big bonfire
was lighted and all sat about it talking over the happenings of the
day, singing and putting on stunts. In the tourists' minds the guide
and the grizzly were classed together; both were wild, strange and
somewhat of a curiosity. Nothing delighted them more than to get the
guide to talking about his life in the wilds. Most of them looked upon
him as a sort of vaudeville artist.
When several parties were out on the same trip they all assembled
around a common campfire. The guides were given the floor, or ground,
and they made the most of the occasion. Such competition as there was!
Each, of course, felt obliged to uphold the honor of his party and
out-yarn his fellows. Their stories grew in the telling, each more
lurid than the last. There were thrilling tales of bear fights; of
battles with arctic storms above timberline; of finding rich
gold-strikes and losing them again.
At first the guides stuck to authentic experiences. But as the demand
outgrew their supply, they were forced to invention. They had no mean
imaginations and entranced their tenderfoot audiences with their
thrilling tales. Around the campfires of primitive peoples have
started the folklore of races. These guides were more sophisticated
than their rustic mien hinted, the points of their yarns more subtle
than the city dwellers suspected.
One evening I reached the Poudre Lake camp at dusk, to find two other
parties ahead of mine. The others had finished supper and were
gathered around the campfire, with North Park Ned the center of
attraction.
"I was camped over on Troublesome crick, an' havin' a busy time with
cookin', wranglin' the hosses and doin' all the camp work. The
fellers, they was all men, were too plumb loco to help, everything they
touched spelt trouble. They admired to have flapjacks, same as we et,
for supper, an' they watched jest how I made 'em, an' flipped 'em in
the frypan. Then they wanted to do the flippin'."
Ned chuckled quietly to himself and went on:
"I hadn't realized afore that a tenderfoot with a pan of hot, smeary
flapjacks is as dangerous as he is with a gun. He's liable to cut
loose in any direction. He ain't safe nowhere. One of them I had out
was called Doctor Chance; guess he got his name cause other folks took
chances havin' him round. Well, Chance was the first flipper. I'd
showed him the trick of rotatin' the frypan to loosen the jacks so't
they wouldn't stick an' cause trouble. The doctor got the hang of
flippin' 'em 'an did a good job 'til he wanted to do it fancy. The
plain ordinary flip wasn't good enough for him, no siree. He wanted to
do it extra fancy. Instead of a little flip so's they'd light batter
side down, the doctor'd give 'em a double turn an' they'd come down in
the pan with a splash. He got away with it two or three times; then he
got careless--flipped a panful without loosen'n 'em proper--them jacks
stuck at one edge, flopped over and come down on doc's hands. We had
to stop cookin' and doctor the doctor.
"Then another one of 'em thought he'd learnt how from watchin' the doc,
so I set back an' let 'im have all the rope he wanted. It was their
party, an' they could go the limit so far as I was concerned. But the
new guy slung 'em high, wide an' crooked as a sunfishin' bronc. First
thing I knowed there was a shower of sizzlin' flapjacks rainin' where I
set, an' I had to make a quick getaway to keep from bein' branded for
life. Then he heaved a batch so high they hit a dead limb over the
fire an' wrapped aroun' it.
"It was then the next feller's turn, and he started in, while Number
Two shinned up the tree to get the jacks off en the limb. Number Four
hadn't came to bat yet, so the performance was due to last some time.
I got up on a big rock, outta range.
"Number Two was in the tree; Number Three flippin'; Number Four was a
rollin' up his sleeves an' gettin' ready for his turn. The third chef
was sure fancy! He juggled them cakes just like a vodeville artist
does. Of a sudden he cuts loose a batch that sailed up high an'
han'some, turned over an' cum down on the back of Four's neck--him
bein' entertained at the time by the feller in the tree."
Ned had acquitted himself well, his story had the tang of reality in
it, and he told it with rare enthusiasm. He was so clever, in fact,
that the younger guides, including myself, decided not to enter the
story contest that night. But there was one in camp who did not
hesitate; Andrews was his name. I had not seen this man on the trail
before, so listened as eagerly as the others to what he had to offer.
"Remember the mountain sheep we saw on Flattop?" Ed recalled as he put
aside his pipe. "Well, them wild sheep always has interested me.
They're plumb human some ways, I reckon. They sure got a whale of a
bump of curiosity, an' they beat country kids in town when it comes to
starin' at strange sights. Reckon there ain't nuthin' short of a
neighbor that's got more curiosity than them sheep. The old rams git
so wise they live two or three times as long as the foolish ones that
don't never seem to learn nothin'.
"Ole Curiosity, up in back on Specimen, is the biggest ram I ever saw.
He's sure curious, an' smart along with it. If trouble shows up around
Specimen, why Old Curiosity just ain't home, that's all, but hid away
somewheres in the cliffs. An' once when there was shootin' he went
over to another mountain till the hunters was gone. That there ole ram
got so famous that the fellers used to devil the life outta him.
They'd make a show of takin' their gun up the mountain jest ter see the
old feller hide out.
"One day I was guidin' a party up toward Lulu Pass. We was down in a
deep gully, with high walls. All to onct I looked up an' saw a bunch
of sheep. They hadn't seen us yet on account of our bein' in the
aspens. I flagged the party an' told 'em to watch.
"Guess some one was after the sheep, for they was in a hurry to git
across the gully. One at a time they jumped off the cliff an' landed
in the sand along the river. Must have been fifty feet anyhow, maybe
more; but that didn't phase 'em. Of a sudden out walked Ole Curiosity,
lookin' as big as a house, with circlin' horns three feet long. The
ole feller jumped last; and jest as he jumped I rode out of the woods."
Ed eyed the circle of eager faces; his listeners tensed and leaned
forward breathlessly. Then he continued:
"When the ole ram was about halfway down he seen me. An' what do you
reckon he did?"
His hypnotized audience were too spellbound to hazard a guess.
"He turned aroun' and went back."
The story of the ram that turned back is still told around the
campfires of the Rockies, and it has not grown leaner in the
repetitions. But the old-time guides are giving way to younger ones,
more scientific but not so entertaining. The Indians who have turned
guides are unexcelled when it comes to following trails that are dim,
or in tracking down runaway horses. Indians have a subtle sense of
humor, even during the most serious situations. "Injun not lost, trail
lost," one said when adrift in the woods.
To prevent "trails from getting lost," the Park Service requires all to
pass examinations on packing, making camp, handling horses, first aid,
familiarity of the region and general aptness for the calling before
granting them a license entitling them to conduct parties on the peaks
and trails of Rocky Mountain National Park. When the first
superintendent was giving these examinations he invited me to assist
him.
In order to focus the attention of the would-be guides upon certain
important essentials, the questions started out by asking:
"What is the first consideration of a guide?"
"What is the second consideration of a guide?"
The answer expected to the first, of course, was the safety of the
party, and to the second the comfort of the party.
The superintendent and I strolled about the room where a dozen or more
young fellows were laboriously writing out their answers. One chap in
particular attracted my attention, for he was from the woods, a big
strapping fellow with clear eyes, and an eager, honest face.
I peeped over his shoulder. Beneath "What is the first consideration
of a guide?" he had written in unmistakable brevity: "HAM." Beneath
"What is the second consideration of a guide?" in a clear, legible hand
was the kindred word: "BACON."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
OFF THE TRAIL
That same youthful ambition to emulate the early explorers and discover
new worlds which had led me West also tempted my boyish feet off the
beaten, man-made trails. I was told that trails were the safe, the
sure routes into and out of the wilds, but their very existence
proclaimed that other men had been there before me. I was not the
first on those narrow, winding high roads. I preferred the game trails
to them, but I liked better still to push beyond even those faint
guides, into the unmarked, untracked wilderness. There I found the
last frontier, as primitive as when bold Columbus dared the unknown
seas, and my young heart thrilled at such high adventure.
Late one fall, I climbed high above timberline on the Long's Peak
trail, and, following my adventurous impulse, left the cairn-marked
pathway and swung over to the big moraine that lay south. From its top
I peeped into the chasm that lies between it and the Peak, then angled
down its abrupt slope to a sparkling waterfall, and, following along
the swift, icy stream above it, was climbing toward Chasm Lake, when an
eerie wail rose from the gorge below. Somewhere down there a coyote
was protesting the crimes committed against his race. His yammering
notes rose and fell, ascending and descending the full run of the
scale, swelled into a throaty howl and broke into jerky, wailing yaps
like a chorus of satyrs. The uninitiated could never have believed all
those sounds came from one wolfish throat; it seemed that it must be
that the entire pack, or at least half a dozen animals, raised that
woeful lamentation.
Facing, first one way and then another, I tried to locate the
brokenhearted mourner. But Long's sheer, precipitous face and the
lofty cliffs around me formed a vast amphitheater about which echoes
raced, crossing and recrossing, intermingling. For a full minute the
coyote howled, his sharp staccato notes rising higher and higher, the
echoes returning from all directions, first sharply, then blurred,
faint, fainter. The higher the sounds climbed the gorge the longer
were the intervals between echoes, for the canyon walls sloped back and
were wider apart toward the top. I counted seven distant echoes of a
single sharp bark before it trailed off into numberless
indistinguishable echoes. The varying angles and heights of the walls
altered their tones, but just as they reached the top they came in
uniform volume, and then overflowed the lower north rim and were lost.
For ten minutes that coyote howled, and I tried to locate him by the
sound. I knew it would be impossible to sight him for his dun-colored
coat blended perfectly with the surrounding bowlders. At last I
decided he was due west of me. Cautiously I started toward him, but as
soon as I moved he materialized from the jumbled pile of slide rock a
hundred feet north of where I stood. The echoes had fooled me
completely. I wondered then, and many times since, why he howled with
me so near. He surely saw me. Was lie familiar with the echoes of the
gorge? Did he know their trickery? Did he lift his voice there to
confound me? He is somewhat of a ventriloquist anywhere, perhaps he
liked to howl from that spot because the abetting echoes deluded him
into thinking his talent was increasing and he excelled all his rivals
in the mysterious art! Or perhaps like some singers I have known, he
enjoyed the multitudinous repetition of the sound of his own voice!
After more than a score of years I am no nearer a solution of the
riddle.
Twenty miles from the spot where the music-fond coyote sang, near the
headwaters of the Poudre River, I rode one day in pursuit of a pair of
marauding wolves. As soon as they discovered me tracking them, they
took to an old game trail that climbed several thousand feet in ten
miles distance and headed toward the timberline. From their tracks I
could tell the country was strange to them, for animals, like men, are
uneasy in unfamiliar surroundings.
Somewhere a prospector set off a blast. The sound rolled around and
echoed from all about. The wolves were startled at the repeated
reports, as they thought them, and at sea as to the direction from
which they came; so they hid away in a dense new growth of Engelmann
spruce. When I rode in sight with rifle ready across my saddle, they
lay low, no doubt fearing to blunder into an ambush if they took flight.
A campbird sailed silently into the tops of the young trees and peered
curiously downward. Its mate winged in and together they hopped from
limb to limb, descending toward the concealed animals, and conversing
in low tones of their discovery.
My horse stopped at my low command; I raised my rifle and fired into
the undergrowth beneath the trees. The wolves sprang out at a run,
with lightning bounds, crossed a small opening and disappeared into the
heavy forest beyond. I continued firing at them, without effect. Just
before they vanished into the spruces, I fired a final salute. To my
astonishment, they turned tail and came racing back, straight toward
me, but glancing back fearfully as they came. For a foolish instant I
thought they meant to attack, then the reason for their action dawned
on me. A sharp echo of each shot had been flung back by a cliff beyond
the grove. The fleeing animals on nearing the cliff had mistaken these
echoes for another pursuer. They feared the unseen gun more than the
gun in the open.
[Illustration: They turned tail and came racing back, straight toward
me.]
I killed them from the saddle. An echo had betrayed them. But they
were in unfamiliar country. I doubt if they would have been misled at
home, for animals are commonly familiar with every sight, sound and
scent of their home range, and wolves are uncannily shrewd.
Thus I learned that the same phenomenon that had confounded me deceived
the animals. Echoes make an interesting study and add mystery to the
mountains. But animals, and most woodsmen, have a sixth sense upon
which they rely, an intuitive faculty we call instinct. It is more
infallible than their conscious reasoning or physical senses of sight,
sound, smell, taste and touch. It leads them unerringly through
unblazened forests, during blinding storms or in the darkness of night.
It helps them solve the enigma of echoes, and sometimes when the
vagrant breezes trick their sensitive noses, and bring scents to them
from the opposite direction of their sources, it senses the deception,
and, setting them on the right path, delivers them from their enemies.
I suppose I must have had this instinct to some degree or I would
surely have been lost in those mountain mazes. Not that anticipation
of such a possibility would have deterred me--it would really have
added allurement to the adventure. As it was, I did get lost, but
always succeeded in finding my way home again.
But even with this instinct, people are often lost in the high country
of the Rockies. Mountain trails twist and turn, tack and loop around
unscalable cliffs. Let a stranger step off a trail for a moment to
pick a flower blooming in the shade of the surrounding woods, and,
unless he be an outdoor man, he is liable to be confused as to the
trail's location when he tries to return to it. The sudden changing
weather of high altitudes also causes the climber to lose his way. A
sky which at sunrise is as innocently blue as a baby's eyes, may be
overcast by lowering clouds by noon, or even sooner. A fog may settle
below the summits of the peaks, and cloak all objects more than a few
yards distant, distorting and magnifying those mistily discernible. A
turn or a detour to survey the vicinity and attempt to get one's
bearings almost invariably brings disaster. A fall that dazes one even
for a few minutes is liable to befuddle one as to direction and cause
one to lose one's way.
Few persons lost in the mountains travel in a circle. The typography
of the country prevents them, high ridges confine them to limited
areas. They are as apt to travel in one direction as in the opposite,
but they may usually be looked for and found in a shut-in valley or
canyon.
I was lost one day within a mile of home, almost in sight of the home
buildings, upon a slope I knew well. It came about through my
following a band of deer on my skis. The day was windy the snow
blowing about in smothering clouds. I came upon the deer in a cedar
thicket. At my approach they retreated to a gully and started up the
slope. The snow grew so deep that after floundering in it a few yards,
they deserted the gully, tacked back close to me, and cut around the
slope about level with my position. I gave chase on skis, which almost
enabled me to keep up with them. When they altered their direction and
headed down hill, I easily outran them. Soon I was in their midst, but
had difficulty in keeping my balance.
All at once the animals indulged in queer antics. One lay upside down,
his feet flailing the air; another stood on his head in space; two does
on my left whirled round and round as though dancing with a phonograph
record for a floor. The next instant I joined their troupe. In the
flash that followed I remembered seeing the tops of small trees beneath
me, remembered my skis whipping across in front of my face.
In their panic to escape me, the deer's instinct had deserted them, and
they had dashed full speed across a slope where a spring overflowed and
froze, and the ice was coated with snow.
When I regained my feet I was lost. Everything was unfamiliar. I set
my course toward a prominent thumb of rock, but when I reached it, it
had either changed its shape or moved. The whole valley was strange.
After skiing for several hours, I topped an utterly foreign ridge.
Below me were houses. I coasted down to the nearest that had smoke
rising from its chimney. A neighbor, living just a mile from home,
came to the door. Then I realized where I was, and recognized the
"strange" valley, the "unfamiliar" ridge and my neighbors' houses. I
had traveled in a ten-mile circle. The fall with the deer hadn't
exactly dazed me--I wasn't unconscious--but it had jarred shut the
window of my memory, and though almost at my own door, there was
"nobody home."