experience of Miss Victoria Broughm, the first woman to climb Long's
Peak alone. She started one September morning from a hotel at the foot
of the Peak, taking a dog as her companion. She tethered her horse at
bowlderfield, where horses are usually left, and without difficulty, or
delay, made the summit. Just as she reached the top, a storm struck
the mountain and, inside of a few minutes, hid the trail. Pluckily
Miss Broughm worked her way down, tacking back and forth, mistaking the
way but making progress. She was afraid to trust the dog to guide her.
Late in the evening she descended the trough, a steep rock-filled gully
that extends far below the timberline. The trail goes only part way
down this slide, then tacks across to Keyhole. In the storm she could
not distinguish the cairns that marked the turn-off, and continued on
down the trough far below the trail and was lost.
That evening when she did not return to the hotel, a searching party
set out to find her. But a terrific hundred-mile gale was raging upon
the heights. The searching party found it almost impossible to battle
their way above the timberline and after many ineffectual attempts,
they returned, nearly frozen, without tidings of the lost girl.
William S. Copper, Carl Piltz and myself set out at midnight for the
Peak. The wind that met us at the timberline halted our horses, even
jolted them off the trail. Just above the timberline my horse pricked
his ears toward a sheltered cove and gave a little whinny. We hurried
forward hoping to find Miss Broughm. But only her horse was there,
dragging its picket rope. We proceeded to bowlderfield.
The night was moonless and half cloudy. The wind shrieked among the
rim rocks and boomed against the cliffs. Our lantern would not stay
lighted. Time and again we crept beneath a rock slab and relighted it
only to have it snuffed out the instant we emerged into the wind.
Across the rocks we crept, crouching like wary wrestlers. When sudden
blasts knocked us off our feet, we dropped flat and clung to the rocks.
But even with all our caution we were toppled headlong at times, or
bowled over backward as the wind struck us.
It was after three in the morning when we reached Keyhole, the pass in
the knifelike ridge that separates bowlderfield from Glacier Gorge.
The wind forced up the slope from below tore through Keyhole like water
through a fire hose. One at a time we attempted to crawl through, but
it hurled us back. Together, each holding to his fellow, we braced
against the side walls, clung to little nubs on the floor, and edged
forward an inch at a time. Even so we were blown back like so much
chaff.
We dropped back down below Keyhole and, creeping beneath some rocks,
waited for daylight. No matter how far we crawled beneath the jumbled
slabs the wind found us out. We shivered, all huddled together for
warmth, and waited for dawn to light our way and to calm the hurricane.
At daybreak we managed to get through Keyhole and made our way to the
trough, where we separated, Cooper and Piltz following the trail to the
top while I descended the trough toward Glacier Gorge. We had agreed
to watch for silent signals, since it was impossible to hear even the
loudest calls more than a few feet.
In a little patch of sand not much larger than my hand, I discovered a
human footprint, with a dog's track imposed upon it. I wigwagged to my
companions, received their answering signal, and went on down the
trough, whistling to the dog and shouting his name though I could not
hope he would hear me above that gale. I searched beneath every likely
slab as I went.
Suddenly the dog appeared atop a huge rock. He howled in answer to my
call; the wind blew him off his post and he disappeared. I hastened
forward; then paused. What would I find beneath the rock? Resolutely
I started to crawl beneath it--and met Miss Broughm coming out. She
was cold, her lips were blue and cracked, but she had not given up
hopes or lost her courage. With her hair blowing like the frayed
remnants of a flag, she stood beside the bowlder and smiled a brave if
twisted smile. She was too cold to walk unaided, so as soon as the
others came up, we all supported her and started upon the return trip.
We reached the hotel between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning with
our lost lady still smiling wanly but rapidly recovering the use of her
limbs. She retired for a few hours and reappeared in time for
luncheon, little the worse for her night out on top of the world.
A compass is limited in its usefulness partly because it is sometimes,
though rarely, affected by mineral deposits and goes wrong, but mostly
because a lost person seldom thinks he is lost and traveling in the
wrong direction, but instead doubts the accuracy of the compass. At
most he will admit he is off the trail, but he does not think that is
synonymous with being lost. His tracks will record the uncertainty of
his mind, wavering, haphazard, indefinite, but he will not admit, even
to himself, that he is lost.
There are a few general rules followed by searchers for lost people.
If the proposed destination or general direction in which they
disappeared is known, the rescuers take the trail and track them.
Every trail, even across windswept bare rocks high above the
timberline, as is the Long's Peak trail, has occasional deposits of
soft sand in which footprints may be imprinted. And as I have said
before, the area which must be searched is restricted by confining
cliffs and ridges. A lost person who cannot find his way back over the
trail he has come, shows wisdom in following down a stream which will
eventually bring him to habitations in the valley below.
Whether or not searching parties start out at once for the unfortunate
climber depends on the character of the country he was bound for. If
his goal is the summit of a high, bleak peak like Long's; or a glacier,
it is imperative to start at once as the temperature above the
timberline is often below freezing, even during the summer months. But
if the country is not so menacing, the searchers delay, hoping the lost
person, like Bo Peep's sheep, will come home unsought, as indeed he
generally does.
Most of the lost are found, but a few persons have vanished never to be
seen again. The Reverend Sampson disappeared supposedly somewhere
along the Continental Divide between Estes Park and Grand Lake, and
though parties made up of guides, rangers and settlers searched for
more than a week, they found no trace of the missing man. I was in the
town of Walden, North Park, late one fall when a woodsman came down
from the mountains west of the Park with some human bones he had found
near the top of the Divide. By the marks on its barrel, the rusty
rifle lying near the bones was identified as one belonging to a man who
had been lost while on a hunting trip thirty years before.
One moonlight night I had an extraordinary and ludicrous experience
with a lost person, though at the time it seemed only exasperating. I
had stepped outside my cabin to drink in the "moonshine" on my superb
outlook. Across the valley, as clearly as in daylight. Long's Peak
and its neighbors stood out. The little meadow brook shimmered like a
silver ribbon. I walked out to Cabin Rock, a thousand feet above the
valley, and sat down. Coyotes yip-yipped their salutations to the
sailing moon. The murmur of the little brooks rose to my ears,
subdued, distant. I listened for each familiar night sound as one does
for the voices of old friends. I sat entranced, intoxicated with the
beauty of the hour, refreshing my soul, at peace, content.
A strange cry startled me from my reverie, a human cry, faint, as
though far off.
"Help!" Then a pause. "H-e-l-p!" Then more urgently: "H-E-L-P!"
For a few minutes I sat still upon my crag, puzzling. Some one has
stumbled into a bear trap, I thought, or been injured in a fall. After
marking the locality from which the calls came, I ran down my zigzag
trail, and hastened down the valley toward the spot whence the cries
had come. Whenever I came to the open, parklike clearings, I stopped
to listen. The floor of the wide valley had been burned over scores of
years before, and a new growth of lodge-pole pines covered it. These
trees were of nearly uniform height, about fifteen feet, and in places
too dense to permit of passage.
Three miles were covered in record time. Then, thinking that I must be
close to the spot from which the calls had come, I climbed an upthrust
of rock, searched the openings among the trees near by, and listened
intently. I shouted; no reply. For perhaps ten minutes I waited.
Then from far up the valley, close below my cabin, the distressing
calls were repeated.
"He's certainly not crippled," I thought. "He's traveled nearly as far
as I."
I set off at a run, for I know every little angle of the woods in the
vicinity. But when I arrived, breathless and panting, there was no
answer to my shouts. I gave up the chase in disgust, and started up
the trail toward my cabin. I decided some one was having fun with me.
Midway up the trail to my cabin, I heard the cries again, agonized,
fearful. They came from across the valley, toward the west. Heading
for the peaks! I must stop him! It certainly sounded serious. I'd
have to see it through.
I hurried across the valley, shouting at intervals, stopping to listen
and to look for the person in distress. There was no answer, no one in
sight. As I reached the steep slope, leading upward to the high peaks,
I heard terrified, heart-rending cries, southward, toward the spot from
which the first call had come. It was strange, and maddening, that I
could hear him so distinctly, yet he could not hear me. He was
certainly deaf or very stupid, for he continued calling for help, when
help was pursuing him and yelling at the top of its lungs.
Again calls. This time straight south of my position. It was a
riddle; annoying, yet interesting. Never in my mountain experience had
I encountered such a mystifying situation. However, with grim
determination, but little enthusiasm, I turned south. My curiosity was
aroused. I wanted to see what sort of fool ran around in dizzy circles
yelling for help, yet not waiting for an answer to his supplications,
nor acknowledging my answering shouts.
I was in prime condition, and well warmed up with ten miles of travel.
My endurance was too much for the will-o'-the-wisp. As, for the second
time, I neared the spot from which he had first called, he shattered
the silence with lusty appeals, then broke cover within a hundred yards
of where I followed, hot on his trail. He looked able-bodied and
goodness knows he'd been active, so I withdrew into the shadows of a
thicket to watch what he would do.
After his outcry, he kept mumbling to himself--his words were
inaudible--lost his voice--don't wonder! Some rooter he'd make at a
football game while he lasted! After muttering a minute, he stopped
and listened intently, as though expecting an answer. Good heavens!
He thinks he can be heard! He moved on, staggering crazily, stumbling,
stopping to look at the shining peaks; then going on aimlessly.
"Loco," I decided.
I circled ahead of him and concealed myself behind an old stump. I
wanted to hear what he was saying. Twice he had crossed the road that
ran down the valley, the only road in that vicinity. From Cabin Rock I
had seen a tent beside it.
As he came toward me, I stepped from behind the stump.
"What in time ails you?" I roared.
He stared at me and walked completely around me before saying a word.
"Huh," he grunted then. "Where'd you come from?"
I explained with considerable emphasis that I had come from almost
every point of the compass.
"Will you tell me why in Sam Hill you are yelling for help when it's as
light as day?" I demanded hotly.
"I'm lost," he said meekly.
"Lost!" I yelled.
He nodded shamefacedly.
"Went fishing and couldn't find my camp again," he confessed.
I recalled the tent beside the road, I'd seen from Cabin Rock. It was
the only camp, on the only road in the vicinity.
"Why in thunder didn't you follow the road?"
"Didn't know which way to go," he defended.
"There's the Peak!" I gibed, pointing upward; "plain as day. Your camp
is straight east of it--didn't you know that?"
He winced, but did not answer.
"Couldn't you see the Peak?" I insisted. "You couldn't help but
recognize it."
"Yes," he admitted. "I saw the Peak, but I thought it was in the wrong
place."
CHAPTER TWELVE
DREAMERS OF GOLDEN DREAMS
What with my hunting, trapping, exploring, cabin-building and guiding,
my boyish dreams of striking it rich and sending home trainloads of
glittering nuggets to my parents, who had been frustrated by illness in
their trek across the plains to the golden mountains of Colorado, began
to fade into the background. I was engrossed in getting acquainted
with my wild neighbors, in learning their habits and customs, and in
trying to photograph them in their natural habitat. Moreover there was
no rich gold ore in the vicinity of my cabin. Though I was greatly
disappointed in this fact at the time, I have since become reconciled
to it. After seeing the naked, desolate, scarred-up country around
Central City, Cripple Creek, Ouray and other mining localities, I am
thankful that no such madness will ever tempt men to despoil the
beauties of the region around Estes Park.
But if there was no paying gold in the vicinity, there were plenty of
prospectors. The slopes above the Parson's ranch were "gophered" all
over by them. There were miles of outcrop showing and all bore traces
of gold. Every summer some wanderer came probing among the countless
holes sure he'd find riches where others had failed. The most
persistent one was called "Old Mac" who returned repeatedly. Late one
fall he took up his quarters in a log cabin belonging to a mining
company. The cabin stood near Long's Peak trail, at an altitude of
about ten thousand feet. There they had cached some left-over
supplies. Old Mac, forever dreaming, stumbled on to the cache and
decided to take up his residence there.
Through October and November I saw Old Mac frequently as he pottered
about the mine or picked up ore samples from the dump. He staked half
a dozen claims, marked their locations, and dug some new holes to test
the mineral. In December, when deep snows came, I left the region.
When I returned in the spring the snow lay deep and undisturbed about
the old cabin. Evidently Old Mac had got out before winter set in.
However, I shouted his name, more in the spirit of talking to myself
than of expecting a reply. I was surprised to hear a faint reply.
From inside the cabin came a creaking as though some one were getting
out of bed. Then the door opened and the old man, blinking owlishly,
stood before me. His long white hair was unkempt and tangled. He
yawned and stretched like a bear emerging from its winter hibernation.
"Came up to bring them papers?" he asked, expectantly. I recalled
then, when I last saw him in December, that he had asked to borrow some
Denver papers that contained information about the Reno gold rush. I
had forgotten about them. I explained and apologized.
"What sort of a winter have you put in?" I asked by way of diverting
him.
He looked at me in a sort of maze.
"Winter?" he mumbled perplexed. "It's sure settin' in like it meant
business. But I'm plannin' to start a tunnel--got a rich vein I want
to uncover--think come spring I'll have her where somebody'll want to
build a mill an'----"
"But you told me you were going to Reno," I recalled.
"Yep; I am, come spring," he earnestly assured me.
"Do you know the date?" I shot at him.
He looked at me sheepishly.
"No-o-o, don't reckon I do," he admitted, scratching his head and eying
me quizzically.
I waited.
"Must be about Christmas, ain't it?" he guessed at length.
It was the eighth of May!
Old Mac was a typical prospector. They are all queer, picturesque
characters, living in a world of golden dreams, oblivious to everything
but the hole they are digging, the gold they are sure to find. They
have a fanatical, unshakable, perennial faith in every prospect hole
they open, no matter how many have been false leads. They are
incorrigible optimists, the world's champion hopers. Unkempt,
unhurried, dreaming, confiding, trustful, superstitious, they wander
the length of the Rockies, seeking the materialization of their golden
visions. They are seekers, far more concerned with finding gold than
with digging it out. Like hunting dogs, their interest ceases with the
capture of their quarry.
They do not care whether the region they propose to search has been
scientifically tested and thought to contain gold. They adhere to the
miner's adage, "Gold is where you find it"; and they seem to have some
occult power of divination for they have uncovered fabulous fortunes in
regions which, like Cripple Creek, had been declared "barren of gold."
Yet, as the old settlers say, "Prospectors never get anything out of
their finds." Having struck it rich, they take to the trail again, to
search endlessly, to probe ceaselessly, with patient faith, the
inscrutable hills.
In addition to their seemingly occult power of divining the location of
earth's hidden treasure, these rugged old men of the mountains possess
a mysterious means of learning news of gold strikes. Let a bonanza
strike be made and every prospector in the region will be on his way to
the new camp within a few hours.
"How did you know that gold had been struck at Caribou?" I asked an old
man whom I met on the trail, driving his pack burro ahead of him,
hurrying considerably for a prospector.
He looked at me, scratched his head, spanked the burro and started on.
No doubt regretting his discourteous silence, he turned, "I knowed they
was agoin' to," he told me.
Nearly every prospector has a little pack burro, that seems to absorb
all the patient philosophy of its master. To his shaggy burden-bearer,
he gives his last flapjack, tells his golden dreams, confides the
location of rich veins of ore, and turns for comfort when the false
lead plays out. The knowing animal provides that rarest of
companionship, a sympathetic, silent, attentive listener.
Most of the prospectors I have met on the trails were old men, working
alone, but two do sometimes cast their lot together, and become
partners.
The story I heard told once around a campfire, of two old prospectors
who were always quarreling, is characteristic. Many times they
separated, each to go his own way; sometimes they merely set up
separate camps a few yards apart, refusing to speak or to take any
notice of each other. Thus they bickered, fought and made up, close to
forty years. They staked claims wherever they discovered promising
outcrop. They were familiar with a hundred miles of ragged mountain
ranges.
After all those years, old and failing, they fell out over some trivial
thing and separated for good. One traveled north, the other south.
Both struck fine mineral that promised to make their dreams come true.
But neither was content. Each wanted the other's companionship and yet
each feared that pride would keep his poor partner from accepting his
advances. They grew morose, and finally both blew up their holdings to
conceal their riches and headed back along the Divide to meet, face to
face, the partner they had deserted.
Prospectors are philosophers, without hurry or worry. They meet each
situation as it arises calmly, and let to-morrow take care of its own.
When food and dynamite give out, they make a pilgrimage to the foothill
towns and with alluring tales of leads, lodes and veins of hidden
treasure soon to be revealed--just as soon as they have time to do a
little more development work--they secure another grub stake and are on
their way to high country again. They always find willing listeners,
for the heart of many a less daring, conservative business man is in
the hills. The listeners are easily inveigled into staking these old
beggars, hypnotized and hypnotizing with dreams, and do it again and
again, gambling on the next strike being a lucky one. The man who
furnishes a grub stake shares half and half with the prospector he
equips.
No matter how little they have, prospectors will share with anyone who
comes their way. Their hospitality is genuine, though perforce
limited. They invite you first, and learn who you are and what your
business may be later.
One day I was picking my way down the bogs and marshes of Forest Canyon.
All at once it narrowed, boxing up between high walls. To go on I had
either to climb the walls or back-track for some distance. I elected
to climb. After the struggle up the face of the rock I sat down to
rest.
"No one within miles," I panted as I sat down.
"Don't look like there's ever been anyone here," I added as I recalled
the way I had come.
"What ya take me fur?"
Ten feet away, standing motionless beside an old stump, stood a
cadaverous fellow whose rags suggested the moss that hung from the
trees.
"Hungry?" he shot at me before I recovered from my surprise. "Camp's
right hyar."
He led the way with all the poise of a gentleman.
But his camp! Beside an old tunnel that plunged beneath the side wall
of the canyon was a lean-to. Upon green boughs were spread a single
pair of ragged blankets. His campfire still smoldered. Upon its coals
were his only culinary utensils, an old tin bucket, in which simmered
his left-over coffee, and a gold pan containing a stew. The pan had
seen better days--and worse ones, too, for one side of its rim was
gone, and the bottom had been cleverly turned up to form a new one,
making it semi-circular with a straight side.
"Prospectin'?" my host ventured, eying me dreamily.
"No, lookin'," I told him.
"Humph." Then, "Hope you find it."
But his curiosity ended there.
"Say, if you're wantin' ter see sum'thin' good, looka that."
He tossed over a piece of quartz.
"Got er whole mountain uf it," he jerked his head toward the tunnel.
He lowered his voice, glanced around, beckoned me to follow, and led
the way inside his mine.
At the edge of the darkness he halted, returned to the entrance and
peered about. Then he leaned close that none might hear, and whispered
the secret; the old, old secret no prospector ever keeps. Not that
prospectors have anything to keep!
Another time, in the rough region west of Ypsilon Mountain, I came upon
a lean, wiry little old man leading a burro. He jerked at the lead
rope in vain attempt to hurry the phlegmatic animal.
"Com' on, durn ye," he squeaked as he tugged at the rope. "Don't ye
know we're tracin' the float? Lead's right close now."
But the burro was of little faith. He had lost his youthful
enthusiasm. He carried all his master's possessions (except his golden
dreams) on his back, but his pack was light.
So engrossed was the old man that he passed within fifty yards of where
I sat without seeing me. He was oblivious to everything but what might
lie hidden on the mountainside. The float would lead to a bonanza
strike, a mill would be built to handle the ore, a town would spring
up--his town, named in his honor as the discoverer of the lead! He
mumbled of these things as he worked. Sometimes he paused, looking
abstractedly at the peaks above, without apparently seeing them at all.
He babbled incoherently of leads, floats, lodes and veins.
His actions were like those of a dog puzzling out the faint trail of a
rabbit that had crossed and crisscrossed its own trail until nothing
could track it down. Somewhere on the mountain above was the source of
the float. The old man edged up the slope, tacking back and forth
across the line of scattered quartz. He located the vein at last by
trenching through a carpet of spruce needles.
He set up camp and started digging, so I dropped down the canyon towards
the Poudre River. But a week later, upon my return, he was still
there. He had located his claim and staked his corner. His location
notice, laboriously written with a blunt pencil, was fastened to a
tree. The burro lay in philosophical contemplation in the grass beside
the stream; while his master sat beside the shallow hole that perhaps
marked the beginning of a mine. His pose was that of a sentinel. He
watched the hole with an expectant air, as though from it something
important would presently emerge, and he was waiting to pounce upon it.
Years later when I passed that way again, the hole was no deeper, but
the frayed remnants of the location notice flapped in the breeze.