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ROCKY MOUNTAIN BOYS
or
Camping in the Big Game Country
By
St. George Rathborne
Chicago
M. A. Donohue & Co.
Made in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I--COMRADES OF THE TRAIL
CHAPTER II--IN POSSESSION OF THE DUGOUT
CHAPTER III--THE FIRST GOOD LUCK
CHAPTER IV--THE WOLF PACK
CHAPTER V--A FIRST TASTE OF VENISON
CHAPTER VI--FELIX TAKES HIS TURN
CHAPTER VII--UNAVOIDABLE DELAY
CHAPTER VIII--PLENTY OF TROUBLE
CHAPTER IX--ADRIFT IN THE SNOW FOREST
CHAPTER X--TURNING THE TABLES
CHAPTER XI--THE BUCK'S HEAD
CHAPTER XII--BURNING OUT A HONEY THIEF
CHAPTER XIII--HUNTING THE BIGHORN
CHAPTER XIV--A WAKEFUL NIGHT
CHAPTER XV--OUT FOR A GRIZZLY
CHAPTER XVI--THE TERROR OF THE ROCKIES
CHAPTER XVII--WHEN MUSIC WAS PLAYED OUT
CHAPTER XVIII--A HARD CUSTOMER
CHAPTER XIX--BREAKING CAMP--CONCLUSION
ROCKY MOUNTAIN BOYS
CHAPTER I
COMRADES OF THE TRAIL
"We must be pretty nearly there now, Tom, I take it!"
"I reckon we'll sight the dugout inside of half an hour or so, Felix; if
the description, and the little chart old Sol Ten Eyck gave me, are
correct."
"Well, I'll sure be glad when we arrive, because this pack is getting
heavier, it seems to me, every hour now. One thing certain, Chum Tom,
we'll go out of this part of the country a heap lighter than we're
coming in; with all this good grub swallowed up after two months
roughing it. Been three days on the trail now, since Frazer turned us
loose out of his big bull-boat."
They were two pretty well-grown boys, the one tall and slender; while
the other, whom he called Tom, seemed stockily built, with the ruddy hue
of perfect health on his sun and wind tanned cheeks.
Tom was really Tom Tucker, and the taller young hunter, Felix Edmondson.
Besides repeating rifles of a modern make, and such ordinary
accompaniments as ditty bags and hunting knives, the lads were carrying
heavy packs on their backs, to each of which were also strapped a pair
of snow-shoes, proving that they anticipated staying around the
foothills of the great Rocky Mountains, for some time at least, and were
prepared for getting around when several feet of snow covered the
ground.
They were in a region not a great distance from the border of that
Wonderland which Uncle Sam has transferred into a grand playground,
known far and wide as the Yellowstone Park. In fact, a range of the
Rocky Mountains towered almost above them as they looked up, standing
out against the blue afternoon sky like a rock-ribbed barrier.
Around them lay the great forest that in many places grows at the base
of the giant uplifts that are well called the back-bone of the
continent. It was a wild region, seldom pressed by the foot of man; save
when some Indian or trapper chose to pursue his calling--the "primeval
wilderness," Felix was fond of calling it, in his humorous way.
Felix was a city-bred boy who had ambitions to take up his father's
profession later in life, and shine as a surgeon. But not being very
strong, it was under this parent's wise advice that he was now knocking
off for a year from his studies, and getting in the great Outdoors all
he possibly could, in order to build himself up, so as to have a good
foundation for the hard work that lay before him.
And he was succeeding wonderfully, since there is nothing better under
the sun to change a weakly boy into a sturdy man than this free life of
the Wild West. If proof of this statement were needed, it could be
demonstrated in the life of Theodore Roosevelt himself, who took the
same course of treatment.
As for Tom Tucker, he had always lived pretty much in the open ever
since his father bought that Wyoming cattle range with its herds.
Between times Tom had attended school, so that he was far from being
ignorant; the fact of his great love of reading also put him in touch
with what was going on in the world, whether in the line of scientific
discoveries, exploration, or the constant change in the map of nations.
The two lads were really cousins, and it was while Felix was paying a
long promised lengthy visit to the home of the other that this trip to
the foothills of the Rockies was discussed and decided on.
Just at present the one great ambition in the life of the city lad was
to bag a genuine grizzly bear. He had done considerable hunting of
smaller game, having spent two seasons in the woods, one up in Maine,
and the other in Canada. While he had more than one deer to his credit,
besides wildcats, and even a wolf, Felix had conceived a desire to come
face to face with the most dreaded wild animal of the American wilds,
the grizzly.
So they had organized this expedition, being taken in a bull-boat as far
on the way as was possible; and after that manfully shouldering their
heavy packs. Under such conditions they did not cover many miles a day,
which accounted for their being so long on the road.
But as Tom Tucker had said, they were now pretty near the end of their
trail, and he fervently hoped that ere darkness descended they would
have reached the goal of all their ambitious progress.
An old trapper with whom Tom had spent part of a season in another part
of the big game country, had a dugout up here, in which he used to
hibernate winter after winter, sometimes with a tried and true
companion, often absolutely alone; content to live his simple life under
the shadow of the mighty Rockies, and take his toll of the fur-bearing
animals that frequented this favored region.
Tom had a rude map of the country, as well as directions, how to find
the dugout when he got there. And here the two boys anticipated putting
in about two months of the late fall and early winter, doing a little
trapping, just for fun, and considerable hunting besides.
Naturally they expected having a glorious time, as what boy, with a love
for the woods and the chase, would not?
The leaves had long since turned a russet brown, and any day now they
might expect the first snow of the season to fall. It was a time when
the bracing air was filled with a tonic which Felix needed more than
anything else in the wide world; and as his lungs filled with its
life-giving qualities, the boy from the Far East was never tired of
telling how different he was feeling from the conditions of a few months
back.
As they struggled onward, hoping at almost any minute now to sight their
goal, the two boys exchanged remarks concerning the matters that were
naturally uppermost in their minds.
"You said that Old Sol hadn't been up here for several seasons now,
didn't you, Tom?" the taller lad was asking.
"Why, yes," the other replied, "you see, the old fellow isn't as strong
as he used to be, and does his hunting nearer his sister's home. Fact
is, she won't let him come up here any more; and there are a lot of
youngsters in her family, too, that Sol has become interested in. So
he's satisfied to keep around there, if only they let him take a week
now and then in the woods, with a comrade. That's how I came to know
him, and often we spent some mighty fine days together. He taught me
about all I know of trapping, and lots besides about the habits of big
game animals. I'm itching to make use of some of the things that Old Sol
handed down to me."
"And the traps he said he had catched up here, do you reckon, now,
they'll be in decent condition, or rusted all to pieces?" Felix
continued.
"Well," Tom observed, "he said he had rubbed them all over with bear's
grease, and rolled them up in a leather cover, before he hid them away;
so he expected they'd keep in fair shape many years. We'll have to take
our chances on that. It wasn't the hope of making anything at trapping
that fetched us away up here, you know. That's only a little side issue,
you might say, just to see if we've learned anything about the game."
"One thing sure, Tom, this region doesn't seem to be overrun with
settlers, seeing that we haven't met a solitary soul these three days;
while game seems fairly plentiful, because we sighted seven black-tailed
deer on the way, and had a peep at some bighorn sheep yesterday away up
on the mountain."
"I've seen no sign of any one around but they told us below that once in
a while some Indian was known to be in this part of the country, doing
his winter's trapping. And you remember, they said that if we happened
to run across an old Shoshone chief, who now goes by the name of Charley
Crow, and who sometimes acts as guide for Eastern sportsmen, we ought to
cultivate his acquaintance, because he has the reputation of being the
straightest redskin in the whole State of Wyoming."
"I remember that they said he was really a halfbreed," remarked Felix;
"but his wife is a full blood. Perhaps we may happen to run across the
old fellow while we're up here. I'd like to meet him, wouldn't you,
Tom?"
"Well, I don't know," replied the other, with a shrug of his broad
shoulders, on which the big pack seemed to rest so easily in comparison
with the way that of Felix gave him trouble; "I must say, that so far
I've never run across an Injun I'd care much to cultivate. They're not
what they used to be. The white man's whisky has changed them terribly.
In the old days they never worked, only hunted; and went to war; while
the squaws did all the drudgery in camp. And now, as a rule, they are
just satisfied to loaf their lives away, fed by the bounty of the White
Father at Washington--gambling and drinking, and doing a little stealing,
when everything else fails them."
"But on the reservations many of them farm, and I understand with
success, too," remonstrated Felix.
"Oh, sure, that must be a fact," admitted Tom, readily enough, "though
I've never seen it; but others have told me that many of the braves have
taken to farming, and are doing well. I was only speaking of the Injuns
who wouldn't change their way of living. But Felix, take a look at that
monster tree over there. Seems to me that answers the description Old
Sol gives of the big one overhanging his hidden dugout."
Felix heaved a sigh of relief, as with one hand he mopped his forehead,
using a red bandana handkerchief which he wore knotted around his neck
in true cowboy fashion; for despite the coolness of the day, the labor
had heated him up considerably.
"I hope so, Tom," he remarked, trying to act as though after all it was
not such a vital matter whether or not they came upon the shack that day
or the next; but all the same his eyes eagerly sought the vicinity of
the big tree, and he was trying to make out something vaguely resembling
the shape of a rough dugout near its base.
They kept on advancing, and Tom suddenly gave utterance to an
exclamation of intense satisfaction.
"We've arrived, all right, Felix!" he declared, positively. "It must lie
in that tangle under the shadow of the tree. And say, this just suits me
all to the good. Look around, and think of spending a whole two months
in such a grand stretch of country. Here are the woods around us, where
we must surely find lots of deer and other game; and there stands the
range of mountains, where you're going to bag that grizzly you want so
bad, not to speak of big-horns, such as can be found in no other section
of the known world, I'm told. For one I'll feel like dancing a jig if it
turns out that we've come on Old Sol's shack at last."
"Well, it'd take a whole lot to tempt me to do that same," chuckled
Felix; "and anyhow, I'm not going to begin till we make sure. When I
throw this pack down for the last time I'll be pretty happy, though,
Tom, believe me."
"It has been pretty hard on you, Felix, for a fact," observed the other,
"for the reason that you've not been used to carrying heavy packs on
your back, like I am. Look at my shoulders and see what I could stand. I
wanted you to let me take more of it in my load, you remember."
"Oh! just as if you hadn't picked out all the heaviest things already,"
declared Felix, indignantly, "why, I'm dead sure your bundle weighs a
third again as much as mine does, right now. I'd be ashamed to let you
tote it all, Tom, however willing you were. But do you see anything that
looks like that blessed old dugout?"
Hardly had he asked this question than the other started on a run.
"That's what I do, Felix, right through that screen of bushes that
serves to hide it from any one who didn't have a tip it was there. Make
up your mind we're at the end of our long tramp, and in another hour
you'll smell smoke, perhaps the tempting odor of coffee cooking. Hurrah!
what did I tell you, old boy?"
There could no longer be any doubt, for as they broke their way through
the vines and brush that had not been disturbed for several years, they
looked upon a sort of half cabin, and the rest dugout. The rise of the
ground had allowed Old Sol to construct an ideal winter hiding-place,
with the great mountains to protect him from the worst of the chilling
northwest winds and storms.
Down went both packs instantly. Tom began to caper around, to show his
delight, and Felix actually followed suit; but more to get some of the
"kinks" out of his weary leg muscles, for that last day's tramp had
sorely tried the city boy.
"Here it is, just as he described it to me!" exclaimed Tom, staring hard
at the singular little shelter where the trapper had spent many a happy
season, content to gather his share of the pelts of the wild animals
that wore valuable fur; and secure enough meat for his own consumption
from the elk, black-tailed deer, or it might be, some antelope that
lingered late in the Fall in the grassy valleys of the foothills.
"I suppose we might as well take a look in," remarked Felix, presently.
"That's right," replied the other, readily enough. "You see, such a
thing as locks are unknown in this country. Notice that the door has a
bar on the outside that simply holds it shut when the owner is away, so
that wild animals will not have a chance to sneak in, and steal his
grub. Well, all we have to do is just to give this bar a turn--whew! she
moves hard, as if stuck there--then push open the door, and enter!"
Tom Tucker was carrying out his words to the letter, but just as he
started to push the door back the two boys heard an ominous savage growl
that came from within the cabin.
Immediately Tom, being a boy of quick action, drew the door shut again,
and at the same time swung the stout bar into place; after which he
turned around to look at his amazed companion.