The autumn of the year when I watched the young beavers I had the pleasure of seeing some immigrants pass me en route for a new home in the Moraine Colony. Of course they may have been only visitors, or have come temporarily to assist in the harvesting; but I like to think of them as immigrants, and a number of things testified that immigrants they were. One evening I had long been lying on a boulder by the stream below the colony, waiting for a gift from the gods. It came. Out of the water within ten feet of me scrambled the most patriarchal, as well as the largest, beaver that I have ever seen. I wanted to take off my hat to him, I wanted to ask him to tell me the story of his life, but from long habit I simply lay still and watched and thought in silence. He was making a portage round a cascade. As he scrambled up over the rocks, I noticed that he had but two fingers on his right hand. He was followed, in single file, by four others; one of these was minus a finger on the left hand. The next morning I read that five immigrants had arrived in the Moraine Colony. They had registered their footprints in the muddy margin of the lower pond. Had an agent been sent to invite these colonists, or had they come out of their own adventurous spirit? The day following their arrival I trailed them backward in the hope of learning whence they came and why they had moved. They had traveled in the water most of the time; but in places they had come out on the bank to go round a waterfall or to avoid an obstruction. Here and there I saw their tracks in the mud and traced them to a beaver settlement in which the houses and dams had been recently wrecked. A near-by rancher told me that he had been "making it hot" for all beavers in his meadow. During the next two years I occasionally saw this patriarchal beaver or his tracks thereabout.
It is the custom among old male beavers to idle away two or three months of each summer in exploring the neighboring brooks and streams. But they never fail to return in time for autumn activities. It thus becomes plain how, when an old colony needs to move, some one in it knows where to go and the route to follow.
I had enjoyed the ways of "our first engineers" for several years before it dawned upon me that their works might be useful to man and that the beaver might justly be called the first conservationist. One dry winter the stream through the Moraine Colony ran low and froze to the bottom, and the only trout in it that survived were those in the deep holes of these beaver ponds. Another demonstration of their usefulness came one gray day. The easy rain of two days ended in a heavy downpour and a deluge of water on the mountainside above. This mountain-slope was still barren from the forest fire. It had but little to absorb or delay the excess of water, which was speedily shed into the stream below. Flooding down the stream's channel came a roaring avalanche or waterslide, with a rubbish-filled front that was five or six feet high. This expanded as it rolled into the pond and swept far out on the sides, while the front, greatly lowered, rushed over the dam. Much of this water was caught and temporarily detained in the ponds, and by the time it poured over the last dam its volume was greatly reduced and its speed checked. The ponds had broken the rush and prevented a flood.
Every beaver pond is a settling-basin that takes sediment and soil from the water that passes through it. If this soil were carried down it would not only be lost, but it would clog the deep waterway, the river channel. Deposited in the pond, it will in time become productive. During past ages the millions of beaver dams in the United States have spread soil over thousands of square miles and rendered them productive. Beavers prepared the way for numerous forests and meadows, for countless orchards and peaceful, productive valleys.
The Moraine colonists gathered an unusually large harvest during the autumn of 1909. Seven hundred and thirty-two sapling aspens and several hundred willows were massed in the main pond by the largest house. This pile, which was mostly below the water-line, was three feet deep and one hundred and twenty-four feet in circumference. Would a new house be built this fall? This unusually large harvest plainly told that either children or immigrants had increased the population of the colony. Of course, a hard winter may also have been expected.
No; they were not to build a new house, but the old house by the harvest pile was to be enlarged. One day, just as the evening shadow of Long's Peak had covered the pond, I peeped over a log on top of the dam to watch the work. The house was only forty feet distant. Not a ripple stirred among the inverted peaks and pines in the clear, shadow-enameled pond. A lone beaver rose quietly in the scene from the water near the house. Swimming noiselessly, he made a circuit of the pond. Then for a time, and without any apparent purpose, he swam back and forth over a short, straight course; he moved leisurely, and occasionally made a shallow, quiet dive. He did not appear to be watching anything in particular or to have anything special on his mind. Yet his eyes may have been scouting for enemies and his mind may have been full of house plans. Finally he dived deeply, and the next I saw of him he was climbing up the side of the house addition with a pawful of mud.
By this time a number of beavers were swimming in the pond after the manner of the first one. Presently all began to work. The addition already stood more than two feet above the water-line. The top of this was crescent-shaped and was about seven feet long and half as wide. It was made mostly of mud, which was plentifully reinforced with willow cuttings and aspen sticks. For a time all the workers busied themselves in carrying mud and roots from the bottom of the pond and placing these on the slowly rising addition. Eleven were working at one time. By and by three swam ashore, each in a different direction and each a few seconds apart. After a minute or two they returned from the shore, each carrying or trailing a long willow. These were dragged to the top of the addition, laid down, and trampled in the mud. Meantime the mud-carriers kept steadily at their work; again willows were brought, but this time four beavers went, and, as before, each was independent of the others. I did not see how this work could go on without some one bossing the thing, but I failed to detect any beaver acting as overseer. While there was general coöperation, each acted independently most of the time and sometimes was apparently oblivious of the others. These beavers simply worked,—slowly, silently, and steadily; and they were still working away methodically and with dignified deliberation when darkness hid them.
Most beaver houses are conical and round of outline. This house originally was slightly elliptical and measured forty-one feet in circumference. After enlargement it was almost a flattened ellipse and measured sixty-three feet in circumference. Generally I have found that small beaver houses are round and large ones elliptical.
One of the last large interesting works of the Moraine Colony was the making of a new pond. This was made alongside the main pond and about fifty feet distant from it. A low ridge separated the two. As it was nearly one hundred feet from the stream, a ditch or canal was dug from the stream, below the main pond, to fill it. The new pond was made for the purpose of reaching with a waterway an aspen grove on its farther shore.
The making of the dam showed more forethought than the getting of the water into the pond. With the exception of aspen, no dam-making material such as beavers commonly use was to be found. The population of the colony was now large, while aspen, the chief food-supply, was becoming scarce. Would the beavers see far enough ahead to realize this? Evidently they did; at any rate not a single precious aspen was used in making the dam. Close to the dam-site was a supply of young lodge-pole pines; but it is against the tradition of the beaver to cut green pines or spruces. Two of these lodge-poles were cut, but evidently these pitchy, smelly things were not to the beavers' taste and no more of them were used.
Not far away were scores of fire-killed trees, both standing and fallen. "Surely," I said to myself, when two dead chunks had been dragged into place, "they are not going to use this dead timber?" A beaver avoids gnawing dead wood; it is slow work, and besides is very hard on the teeth. Most of these dead trees were inconveniently large, and were fire-hardened and full of sand-filled weather-cracks; but contrary to all my years of observation, they, after long, hard labor, built an excellent dam from this material.
I have determined to do all I can to perpetuate the beaver, and I wish I could interest every man, woman, boy, and girl in the land to help in this. Beaver works are so picturesque and so useful to man that I trust this persistent practicer of conservation will not perish from the hills and mountains of our land. His growing scarcity is awakening some interest in him, and I hope and half believe that before many years every brook that is born on a great watershed will, as it goes swiftly, merrily singing down the slopes toward the sea, pass through and be steadied in a poetic pond that is made and will be maintained by our patient, persistent, faithful friend the beaver.
Harvest Time with Beavers
One autumn I watched a beaver colony and observed the customs of its primitive inhabitants as they gathered their harvest for winter. It was the Spruce Tree Colony, the most attractive one of the sixteen beaver municipalities on the big moraine on the slope of Long's Peak.
The first evening I concealed myself close to the beaver house by the edge of the pond. Just at sunset a large, aged beaver of striking, patriarchal appearance, rose in the water by the house and swam slowly, silently round the pond. He kept close to the shore and appeared to be scouting to see if an enemy lurked near. On completing the circuit of the pond, he climbed upon the end of a log that was thrust a few feet out into the water. Presently several other beaver appeared in the water close to the house. A few of these at once left the pond and nosed quietly about on the shore. The others swam about for some minutes and then joined their comrades on land, where all rested for a time.
Meanwhile the aged beaver had lifted a small aspen limb out of the water and was squatted on the log, leisurely eating bark. Before many minutes elapsed the other beaver became restless and finally started up the slope in a runway. They traveled slowly in single file and one by one vanished amid the tall sedge. The old beaver slipped noiselessly into the water, and a series of low waves pointed toward the house. It was dark as I stole away in silence for the night, and Mars was gently throbbing in the black water.
This was an old beaver settlement, and the numerous harvests gathered by its inhabitants had long since exhausted the near-by growths of aspen, the bark of which is the favorite food of North American beaver, though the bark of willow, cottonwood, alder, and birch is also eaten. An examination of the aspen supply, together with the lines of transportation,—the runways, canals, and ponds,—indicated that this year's harvest would have to be brought a long distance. The place it would come from was an aspen grove far up the slope, about a quarter of a mile distant from the main house, and perhaps a hundred and twenty feet above it. In this grove I cut three notches in the trunks of several trees to enable me to identify them whether in the garnered pile by a house or along the line of transportation to it.
The grounds of this colony occupied several acres on a terraced, moderately steep slope of a mountain moraine. Along one side rushed a swift stream on which the colonists maintained three but little used ponds. On the opposite side were the slope and summit of the moraine. There was a large pond at the bottom, and one or two small ponds, or water-filled basins, dotted each of the five terraces which rose above. The entire grounds were perforated with subterranean passageways or tunnels.
Beaver commonly fill their ponds by damming a brook or a river. But this colony obtained most of its water-supply from springs poured forth abundantly on the uppermost terrace, where the water was led into one pond and a number of basins. Overflowing from these, it either made a merry, tiny cascade or went to lubricate a slide on the short slopes which led to the ponds on the terrace below. The waters from all terraces were gathered into a large pond at the bottom. This pond measured six hundred feet in circumference. The crooked and almost encircling grass-grown dam was six feet high, and four hundred feet long. In its upper edge stood the main house, which was eighty feet high and forty feet in circumference. There was also another house on one of the terraces.
After notching the aspens I spent some time exploring the colony grounds and did not return to the marked trees until forty-eight hours had elapsed. Harvest had begun, and one of the largest notched trees had been felled and removed. Its gnawed stump was six inches in diameter and stood fifteen inches high. The limbs had been trimmed off, and a number of these lay scattered about the stump. The trunk, which must have been about eighteen feet long, had disappeared, cut into lengths of from three to six feet, probably, and started toward the harvest pile. Wondering for which house these logs were intended, I followed, hoping to trace and trail them to the house, or find them en route. From the spot where they were cut, they had evidently been rolled down a steep, grassy seventy-foot slope, at the bottom of this dragged an equal distance over a level stretch among some lodge-pole pines, and then pushed or dragged along a narrow runway that had been cut through a rank growth of willows. Once through the willows, they were pushed into the uppermost pond. They were taken across this, forced over the dam on the opposite side, and shot down a slide into the pond which contained the smaller house. Only forty-eight hours before, the little logs which I was following were in a tree, and now I expected to find them by this house. It was good work to have got them here so quickly, I thought. But no logs could be found by the house or in the pond! The folks at this place had not yet laid up anything for winter. The logs must have gone farther.
On the opposite side of this pond I found where the logs had been dragged across the broad dam and then heaved into a long, wet slide which landed them in a small, shallow harbor in the grass. From this point a canal about eighty feet long ran around the brow of the terrace and ended at the top of a long slide which reached to the big pond. This canal was new and probably had been dug especially for this harvest. For sixty feet of its length it was quite regular in form and had an average width of thirty inches and a depth of fourteen. The mud dug in making it was piled evenly along the lower side. Altogether it looked more like the work of a careful man with a shovel than of beaver without tools. Seepage and overflow water from the ponds above filled and flowed slowly through it and out at the farther end, where it swept down the long slide into the big pond. Through this canal the logs had been taken one by one. At the farther end I found the butt-end log. It probably had been too heavy to heave out of the canal, but tracks in the mud indicated that there was a hard tussle before it was abandoned.
The pile of winter supplies was started. Close to the big house a few aspen leaves fluttered on twigs in the water; evidently these twigs were attached to limbs or larger pieces of aspen that were piled beneath the surface. Could it be that the aspen which I had marked on the mountainside a quarter of a mile distant so short a time before, and which I had followed over slope and slide, canal and basin, was now piled on the bottom of this pond? I waded out into the water, prodded about with a pole, and found several smaller logs. Dragging one of these to the surface, I found there were three notches on it.
Evidently these heavy green tree cuttings had been sunk to the bottom simply by the piling of other similar cuttings upon them. With this heavy material in the still water a slight contact with the bottom would prevent the drifting of accumulating cuttings until a heavy pile could be formed. However, in deep or swift water I have noticed that an anchorage for the first few pieces was secured by placing these upon the lower slope of the house or against the dam.
Scores of aspens were felled in the grove where the notched ones were. They were trimmed, cut into sections, and limbs, logs, and all taken over the route of the one I had followed, and at last placed in a pile beside the big house. This harvest gathering went on for a month. All about was busy, earnest preparation for winter. The squirrels from the tree-tops kept a rattling rain of cones on the leaf-strewn forest floor, the cheery chipmunk foraged and frolicked among the withered leaves and plants, while aspens with leaves of gold fell before the ivory sickles of the beaver. Splendid glimpses, grand views, I had of this strange harvest-home. How busy the beavers were! They were busy in the grove on the steep mountainside; they tugged logs along the runways; they hurried them across the water-basins, wrestled with them in canals, and merrily piled them by the rude house in the water. And I watched them through the changing hours; I saw their shadowy activity in the starry, silent night; I saw them hopefully leave home for the harvest groves in the serene twilight, and I watched them working busily in the light of the noonday sun.
Most of the aspens were cut off between thirteen and fifteen inches above the ground. A few stumps were less than five inches high, while a number were four feet high. These high cuttings were probably made from reclining trunks of lodged aspens which were afterward removed. The average diameter of the aspens cut was four and one half inches at the top of the stump. Numerous seedlings of an inch diameter were cut, and the largest tree felled for this harvest measured fourteen inches across the stump. This had been laid low only a few hours before I found it, and a bushel of white chips and cuttings encircled the lifeless stump like a wreath. In falling, the top had become entangled in an alder thicket and lodged six feet from the ground. It remained in this position for several days and was apparently abandoned; but the last time I went to see it the alders which upheld it were being cut away. Although the alders were thick upon the ground, only those which had upheld the aspen had been cut. It may be that the beaver which felled them looked and thought before they went ahead with the cutting.
Why had this and several other large aspens been left uncut in a place where all were convenient for harvest? All other neighboring aspens were cut years ago. One explanation is that the beaver realized that the tops of the aspens were entangled and interlocked in the limbs of crowding spruces and would not fall if cut off at the bottom. This and one other were the only large ones that were felled, and the tops of these had been recently released by the overturning of some spruces and the breaking of several branches on others. Other scattered large aspens were left uncut, but all of these were clasped in the arms of near-by spruces.
It was the habit of these colonists to transfer a tree to the harvest pile promptly after cutting it down. But one morning I found logs on slides and in canals, and unfinished work in the grove, as though everything had been suddenly dropped in the night when work was at its height. Coyotes had howled freely during the night, but this was not uncommon. In going over the grounds I found the explanation of this untidy work in a bear track and numerous wolf tracks, freshly moulded in the muddy places.
After the bulk of the harvest was gathered, I went one day to the opposite side of the moraine and briefly observed the methods of the Island beaver colony. The ways of the two colonies were in some things very different. In the Spruce Tree Colony the custom was to move the felled aspen promptly to the harvest pile. In the Island Colony the custom was to cut down most of the harvest before transporting any of it to the pile beside the house. Of the one hundred and sixty-two trees that had been felled for this harvest, one hundred and twenty-seven were still lying where they fell. However, the work of transporting was getting under way; a few logs were in the pile beside the house, and numerous others were scattered along the canals, runways, and slides between the house and the harvest grove.
There was more wasted labor, too, in the Island Colony. This was noticeable in the attempts that had been made to fell limb-entangled trees that could not fall. One five-inch aspen had three times been cut off at the bottom. The third cut was more than three feet from the ground, and was made by a beaver working from the top of a fallen log. Still this high-cut aspen refused to come down and there it hung like a collapsed balloon entangled in tree-tops.
Before the white man came it is probable that beaver did most of their work in the day-time. But at present, except in the most remote localities, day work is perilous. Prowling hunters have compelled most beaver to work at night. The Spruce Tree Colony was an isolated one, and occasionally its members worked and even played in the sunshine. Each day I secluded myself, kept still, and waited; and on a few occasions watched them as they worked in the light.
One windy day, just as I was unroping myself from the shaking limb of a spruce, four beaver were plodding along in single file beneath. They had come out of a hole between the roots of the spruce. At an aspen growth about fifty feet distant they separated. Though they had been closely assembled, each appeared utterly oblivious of the presence of the others. One squatted on the ground by an aspen, took a bite of bark out of it and ate leisurely. By and by he rose, clasped the aspen with fore paws and began to bite chips from it systematically. He was deliberately cutting it down. The most aged beaver waddled near an aspen, gazed into its top for a few seconds, then moved away about ten feet and started to fell a five-inch aspen. The one rejected was entangled at the top. Presently the third beaver selected a tree, and after some trouble to get comfortably seated, or squatted, also began cutting. The fourth beaver disappeared and I did not see him again. While I was looking for this one the huge, aged beaver whose venerable appearance had impressed me the first evening appeared on the scene. He came out of a hole beneath some spruces about a hundred feet distant. He looked neither to right nor to left, nor up nor down, as he ambled toward the aspen growth. When about halfway there he wheeled suddenly and took an uneasy survey of the open he had traversed, as though he had heard an enemy behind. Then with apparently stolid indifference he went on leisurely, and for a time paused among the cutters, which did nothing to indicate that they realized his presence. He ate some bark from a green limb on the ground, moved on, and went into the hole beneath me. He appeared so large that I afterward measured the distance between the two aspens where he paused. He was not less than three and a half feet long and probably weighed fifty pounds. He had all his toes; there was no white spot on his body; in fact, there was neither mark nor blemish by which I could positively identify him. Yet I feel that in my month around the colony I beheld the patriarch of the first evening in several scenes of action.
Sixty-seven minutes after the second beaver began cutting he made a brief pause; then he suddenly thudded the ground with his tail, hurriedly took out a few more chips, and ran away, with the other two beaver a little in advance, just as his four-inch aspen settled over and then fell. All paused for a time close to the hole beneath me, and then the old beaver returned to his work. The one that had felled his tree followed closely and at once began on another aspen. The other beaver, with his aspen half cut off, went into the hole and did not again come out. By and by an old and a young beaver came out of the hole. The young one at once began cutting limbs off the recently felled aspen, while the other began work on the half-cut tree; but he ignored the work already done, and finally severed the trunk about four inches above the cut made by the other. Suddenly the old beaver whacked the ground and ran, but at thirty feet distant he paused and nervously thumped the ground with his tail, as his aspen slowly settled and fell. Then he went into the hole beneath me.
This year's harvest was so much larger than usual that it may be the population of this colony had been increased by the arrival of emigrants from a persecuted colony down in the valley. The total harvest numbered four hundred and forty-three trees. These made a harvest pile four feet high and ninety feet in circumference. A thick covering of willows was placed on top of the harvest pile,—I cannot tell for what reason unless it was to sink all the aspen below reach of the ice. This bulk of stores together with numerous roots of willow and water plants, which in the water are eaten from the bottom of the pond, would support a numerous beaver population through the days of ice and snow.
On the last tour through the colony everything was ready for the long and cold winter. Dams were in repair and ponds were brimming over with water, the fresh coats of mud on the houses were freezing to defy enemies, and a bountiful harvest was home. Harvest-gathering is full of hope and romance. What a joy it must be to every man or animal who has a hand in it! What a satisfaction, too, for all dependent upon a harvest, to know that there is abundance stored for all the frosty days!
The people of this wild, strange, picturesque colony had planned and prepared well. I wished them a winter unvisited by cruel fate or foe, and trusted that when June came again the fat and furry young beaver would play with the aged one amid the tiger lilies in the shadows of the big spruce trees.
Mountain-Top Weather
The narrow Alpine zone of peaks and snow that forms the crest of the Rocky Mountains has its own individual elemental moods, its characteristic winds, its electrical and other peculiarities, and a climate of its own. Commonly its days are serene and sunny, but from time to time it has hail and snow and showers of wind-blown rain, cold as ice-water. It is subject to violent changes from clear, calm air to blizzard.
I have enjoyed these strange, silent heights in every season of the year. In climbing scores of these peaks, in crossing the passes, often on snowshoes, and in camping here and there on the skyline, I have encountered these climatic changes and had numerous strange experiences. From these experiences I realize that the transcontinental aviator, with this realm of peak and sky, will have some delightful as well as serious surprises. He will encounter stern conditions. He may, like a storm-defying bird, be carried from his course by treacherous currents and battle with breakers or struggle in vain in the monstrous, invisible maelstroms that beset this ocean of air. Of these skyline factors the more imposing are wind, cold, clouds, rain, snow, and subtle, capricious electricity.
High winds are common across the summits of these mountains; and they are most prevalent in winter. Those of summer, though less frequent and much more short-lived, are a menace on account of their fury and the suddenness with which they surprise and sweep the heights.
Early one summer, while exploring a wide alpine moorland above the timber-line, I—and some others—had an experience with one of those sudden stormbursts. The region was utterly wild, but up to it straggling tourists occasionally rode for a view of the surrounding mountain world. All alone, I was studying the ways of the wild inhabitants of the heights. I had spent the calm, sunny morning in watching a solitary bighorn that was feeding among some boulders. He was aged, and he ate as though his teeth were poor and walked as though afflicted with rheumatism. Suddenly this patriarch forgot his age and fled precipitately, with almost the speed of frightened youth. I leaped upon a boulder to watch him, but was instantly knocked headlong by a wild blast of wind. In falling I caught sight of a straw hat and a wrecked umbrella falling out of the sky. Rising amid the pelting gale of flung hail, ice-water, and snow, I pushed my way in the teeth of the storm, hoping for shelter in the lee of a rock-pile about a hundred yards distant. A lady's disheveled hat blew by me, and with the howl of the wind came, almost drowned, excited human utterances. Nearing the rock-pile, I caught a vague view of a merry-go-round of man and horse, then a glimpse of the last gyration, in which an elderly Eastern gentleman parted company with a stampeded bronco.
Five tourists had ridden up in the sunshine to enjoy the heights, and the suddenness and fierceness of the storm had thrown them into a panic and stampeded their horses. They were drenched and severely chilled, and they were frightened. I made haste to tell them that the storm would be brief. While I was still trying to reassure them, the clouds commenced to dissolve and the sun came out. Presently all were watching the majestic soaring of two eagles up in the blue, while I went off to collect five scattered saddle-ponies that were contentedly feeding far away on the moor.
Though the winter winds are of slower development, they are more prolonged and are tempestuously powerful. Occasionally these winds blow for days; and where they follow a fall of snow they blow and whirl this about so wildly that the air is befogged for several hundred feet above the earth. So violently and thickly is the powdered snow flung about that a few minutes at a time is the longest that one can see or breathe in it. These high winter winds come out of the west in a deep, broad stratum that is far above most of the surface over which they blow. Commonly a high wind strikes the western slope of the Continental Divide a little below the altitude of eleven thousand feet. This striking throws it into fierce confusion. It rolls whirling up the steeps and frequently shoots far above the highest peaks. Across the passes it sweeps, roars down the cañons on the eastern slope, and rushes out across the plains. Though the western slope below eleven thousand feet is a calm zone, the entire eastern slope is being whipped and scourged by a flood of wind. Occasionally the temperature of these winds is warm.
These swift, insistent winds, torn, intercepted, and deflected by dashing against the broken skyline, produce currents, counter-currents, sleepy eddies, violent vertical whirls, and milling maelstroms that are tilted at every angle. In places there is a gale blowing upward, and here and there the air pours heavily down in an invisible but almost crushing air-fall.
One winter I placed an air-meter in Granite Pass, at twelve thousand feet altitude on the slope of Long's Peak. During the first high wind I fought my way up to read what the meter said. Both the meter and myself found the wind exceeded the speed limit. Emerging above the trees at timber-line, I had to face the unbroken fury of the gale as it swept down the slope from the heights above. The region was barren of snow. The wind dashed me with sandblasts and pelted me with gravel volleys that were almost unbearable. My face and wrists were bruised, and blood was drawn in many places where the gravel struck.
Seeking rest and shelter from this persistent punishment, I approached a crag and when only a few yards away was struck and overturned by the milling air-current around it. The air was so agitated around this crag that its churnings followed me, like disturbed water, under and behind the large rock-fragments, where shelter was hoped for but only partly secured.
On the last slope below the meter the wind simply played with me. I was overthrown, tripped, knocked down, blown explosively off my feet and dropped. Sometimes the wind dropped me heavily, but just as often it eased me down. I made no attempt to stand erect; most of the time this was impossible and at all times it was very dangerous. Now and then the wind rolled me as I lay resting upon a smooth place. Advancing was akin to swimming a whirlpool or to wrestling one's way up a slope despite the ceaseless opposition of a vigorous, tireless opponent.
At last I crawled and climbed up to the buzzing cups of the meter. So swiftly were they rotating they formed a blurred circle, like a fast-revolving life-preserver. The meter showed that the wind was passing with a speed of from one hundred and sixty-five to one hundred and seventy miles an hour. The meter blew up—or, rather, flew to pieces—during a swifter spurt.
The wind so loudly ripped and roared round the top of the peak that I determined to scale the summit and experience its wildest and most eloquent efforts. All my strength and climbing knowledge were required to prevent my being literally blown out of converging rock channels through which the wind gushed; again and again I clung with all my might to avoid being torn from the ledges. Fortunately not a bruise was received, though many times this was narrowly avoided.
The top of the peak, an area of between three and four acres and comparatively level, was in an easy eddy, almost a calm when compared with the wind's activities below and near by. Apparently the wind-current collided so forcefully with the western wall of the peak that it was thrown far above the summit before recovering to continue its way eastward; but against the resisting spurs and pinnacles a little below summit-level the wind roared, boomed, and crashed in its determined, passionate onsweep.
The better to hear this grand uproar, I advanced to the western edge of the summit. Here my hat was torn off, but not quite grasped, by the upshooting blast. It fell into the swirl above the summit and in large circles floated upward at slow speed, rising directly above the top of the peak. It rose and circled so slowly that I threw several stones at it, trying to knock it down before it rose out of range. The diameter of the circle through which it floated was about one hundred and fifty feet; when it had risen five, or perhaps six, hundred feet above the summit it suddenly tumbled over and over as though about to fall, but instead of falling it sailed off toward the east as though a carrier pigeon hurrying for a known and definite place in the horizon.
Some of the gulf-streams, hell-gates, whirlpools, rough channels, and dangerous tides in the sea of air either are in fixed places or adjust themselves to winds from a different quarter so definitely that their location can be told by considering them in connection with the direction of the wind. Thus the sea of air may be partly charted and the position of some of its dangerous places, even in mountain-top oceans, positively known.
However, there are dangerous mountain-top winds of one kind, or, more properly, numerous local air-blasts, that are sometimes created within these high winds, that do not appear to have any habits. It would be easier to tell where the next thunderbolt would fall than where the next one of these would explode. One of these might be called a cannon wind. An old prospector, who had experienced countless high winds among the crags, once stated that high, gusty winds on mountain-slopes "sometimes shoot off a cannon." These explosive blasts touch only a short, narrow space, but in this they are almost irresistible.
Isolated clouds often soften and beautify the stern heights as they silently float and drift among peaks and passes. Flocks of these sky birds frequently float about together. On sunny days, in addition to giving a charm to the peaks, their restless shadows never tire of readjusting themselves and are ever trying to find a foundation or a place of rest upon the tempestuous topography of the heights below. Now and then a deep, dense cloud-stratum will cover the crests and envelop the summit slopes for days. These vapory strata usually feel but little wind and they vary in thickness from a few hundred to a few thousand feet. Sometimes one of these rests so serenely that it suggests an aggregation of clouds pushed off to one side because temporarily the sky does not need them elsewhere for either decorative or precipitative purposes. Now and then they do drop rain or snow, but most of the time they appear to be in a procrastinating mood and unable to decide whether to precipitate or to move on.
Commonly the upper surfaces of cloud-strata appear like a peaceful silver-gray sea. They appear woolly and sometimes fluffy, level, and often so vast that they sweep away beyond the horizon. Peaks and ridges often pierce their interminable surface with romantic continents and islands; along their romantic shores, above the surface of the picturesque sea, the airship could sail in safe poetic flight, though the foggy depths below were too dense for any traveler to penetrate.
One spring the snow fell continuously around my cabin for three days. Reports told that the storm was general over the Rocky Mountain region. Later investigations showed that that cloud and storm were spread over a quarter of a million square miles. Over this entire area there was made a comparatively even deposit of thirty inches of snow.
All over the area, the bottom, or under surface, of the cloud was at an altitude of approximately nine thousand feet. My cabin, with an altitude of nine thousand, was immersed in cloud, though at times it was one hundred feet or so below it. Fully satisfied of the widespread and general nature of the storm, and convinced of the comparatively level line of the bottom surface of the cloud, I determined to measure its vertical depth and observe its slow movements by climbing above its silver lining. This was the third day of the storm. On snowshoes up the mountainside I went through this almost opaque sheep's-wool cloud. It was not bitterly cold, but cloud and snow combined were blinding, and only a ravine and instinct enabled me to make my way.
At an altitude of about twelve thousand feet the depth of the snow became suddenly less, soon falling to only an inch or so. Within a few rods of where it began to grow shallow I burst through the upper surface of the cloud. Around me and above there was not a flake of snow. Over the entire storm-area of a quarter of a million square miles, all heights above twelve thousand had escaped both cloud and snow. The cloud, which thus lay between the altitudes of nine thousand and twelve thousand feet, was three thousand feet deep.
When I rose above the surface of this sea the sun was shining upon it. It was a smooth sea; not a breath of wind ruffled it. The top of Long's Peak rose bald and broken above. Climbing to the top of a commanding ridge, I long watched this beautiful expanse of cloud and could scarcely realize that it was steadily flinging multitudes of snowflakes upon slopes and snows below. Though practically stationary, this cloud expanse had some slight movements. These were somewhat akin to those of a huge raft that is becalmed in a quiet harbor. Slowly, easily, and almost imperceptibly the entire mass slid forward along the mountains; it moved but a short distance, paused for some minutes, then slowly slid back a trifle farther than it had advanced. After a brief stop the entire mass, as though anchored in the centre, started to swing in an easy, deliberate rotation; after a few degrees of movement it paused, hesitated, then swung with slow, heavy movement back. In addition to these shifting horizontal motions there was a short vertical one. The entire mass slowly sank and settled two or three hundred feet, then, with scarcely a pause, rose easily to the level from which it sank. Only once did it rise above this level.
During all seasons of the year there are oft-recurring periods when the mountains sit in sunshine and all the winds are still. In days of this kind the transcontinental passengers in glass-bottomed airships would have a bird's-eye view of sublime scenes. The purple forests, the embowered, peaceful parks, the drifted snows, the streams that fold and shine through the forests,—all these combine and cover magnificently the billowed and broken distances, while ever floating up from below are the soft, ebbing, and intermittent songs from white water that leaps in glory.
Though the summits of the Rocky Mountains are always cool, it is only in rare, brief times that they fall within the frigid spell of Farthest North and become cruelly cold. The climate among these mountain-tops is much milder than people far away imagine.
The electrical effects that enliven and sometimes illuminate these summits are peculiar and often highly interesting. Thunderbolts—lightning-strokes—are rare, far less frequent than in most lowland districts. However, when lightning does strike the heights, it appears to have many times the force that is displayed in lowland strokes. My conclusions concerning the infrequency of thunderbolts on these sky-piercing peaks are drawn chiefly from my own experience. I have stood through storms upon more than a score of Rocky Mountain summits that were upward of fourteen thousand feet above the tides. Only one of these peaks was struck; this was Long's Peak, which rises to the height of 14,256 feet above the sea.
Seventy storms I have experienced on the summit of this peak, and during these it was struck but three times to my knowledge. One of these strokes fell a thousand feet below the top; two struck the same spot on the edge of the summit. The rock struck was granite, and the effects of the strokes were similar; hundreds of pounds of shattered rock fragments were flung horizontally afar. Out of scores of experiences in rain-drenched passes I have record of but two thunderbolts. Both of these were heavy. In all these instances the thunderbolt descended at a time when the storm-cloud was a few hundred feet above the place struck.
During the greater number of high-altitude storms the cloud is in contact with the surface or but little removed from it. Never have I known the lightning to strike when the clouds were close to the surface or touching it. It is, however, common, during times of low-dragging clouds, for the surface air to be heavily charged with electrical fluid. This often is accompanied with strange effects. Prominent among these is a low pulsating hum or an intermittent buz-z-z-z, with now and then a sharp zit-zit! Sometimes accompanying, at other times only briefly breaking in, are subdued camp-fire cracklings and roarings. Falling snowflakes, during these times, are occasionally briefly luminous, like fireflies, the instant they touch the earth. Hair-pulling is the commonest effect that people experience in these sizzling electrical storms. There is a straightening of the hairs and apparently a sharp pull upon each. As John Muir has it, "You are sure to be lost in wonder and praise and every hair of your head will stand up and hum and sing like an enthusiastic congregation." Most people take very gravely their first experience of this kind; especially when accompanied, as it often is, with apparent near-by bee-buzzings and a purplish roll or halo around the head. During these times a sudden finger movement will produce a crackling snap or spark.
On rare occasions these interesting peculiarities become irritating and sometimes serious to one. In "A Watcher on the Heights," in "Wild Life on the Rockies," I have described a case of this kind. A few people suffer from a muscular cramp or spasm, and occasionally the muscles are so tensed that breathing becomes difficult and heart-action disturbed. I have never known an electrical storm to be fatal. Relief from the effects of such a storm may generally be had by lying between big stones or beneath shelving rocks. On one occasion I saw two ladies and four gentlemen lay dignity aside and obtain relief by jamming into a place barely large enough for two. In my own case, activity invariably intensified these effects; and the touching of steel or iron often had the same results. For some years a family resided upon the slope of Mt. Teller, at an altitude of twelve thousand feet. Commonly during storms the stove and pipe were charged with fluid so heavily that it was a case of hands off and let dinner wait, and sometimes spoil, until the heavens shut off the current.
The sustaining buoyancy of the air to aerial things decreases with altitude. In this "light" air some motor machinery is less efficient than it is in the lowlands. It is probable that aviators will always find the air around uplifted peaks much less serviceable than this element upon the surface of the sea. But known and unknown dangers in the air will be mastered, and ere long the dangers to those who take flight through the air will be no greater than the dangers to those who go down to the sea in ships. Flying across the crest of the continent, above the crags and cañons, will be enchanting, and this journey through the upper air may bring to many the first stirring message from the rocks and templed hills.
Rob of the Rockies
Hurrying out of the flood-swept mountains in northern Colorado, in May, 1905, I came upon a shaggy black and white dog, hopelessly fastened in an entanglement of flood-moored barbed-wire fence that had been caught in a clump of willows. He had been carried down with the flood and was coated with earth. Masses of mud clung here and there to his matted hair, and his handsome tail was encased as though in a plaster cast. He was bruised, and the barbs had given him several cuts. One ear was slit, and a blood-clot from a cut on his head almost closed his left eye.
Had I not chanced upon him, he probably would have perished from hunger and slow torture. Though he must have spent twelve hours in this miserable barbed binding, he made no outcry. The barbs repeatedly penetrated his skin, as I untangled and uncoiled the wires from around his neck and between his legs. As he neither flinched nor howled, I did him the injustice to suppose that he was almost dead. He trusted me, and as I rolled him about, taking off that last thorny tangle, the slit ear, bloody muzzle, and muddy head could not hide from me an expression of gratitude in his intelligent face.
Returning from a camping-trip, and narrowly escaping drowning, too, I was a dirty vagabond myself. When the last wire dropped from the prisoner, he enthusiastically began to share his earth coating with me. He leaped up and half clasped me in his fore legs, at the same time wiping most of the mud off his head on one side of my face. Then he darted between my legs, racing about and occasionally leaping or flinging himself against me; each time he leaped, he twisted as he came up so that he struck me with his back, head, or side, and thus managed to transfer much of this fertile coat to me. He finally ended by giving several barks, and then racing to the near-by river for a drink and a bath. I, too, needed another cloudburst.
Just what kinds of dogs may have made his mixed ancestry could not be told. Occasionally I had a glimpse of a collie in him, but for all practical purposes he was a shepherd, and he frequently exhibited traits for which the shepherd is celebrated. I could never find out where he came from. It may be that the flood separated him from his master's team; he may have been washed away from one of the flooded ranches; or he may have been, as the stage-driver later told me, "a tramp dog that has been seen in North Park, Cheyenne, and Greeley." Home he may have left; master he may have lost; or tramp he may have been; but he insisted on going with me, and after a kindly though forceful protest, I gave in and told him he might follow.
The flood had swept all bridges away, and I was hurrying down the Poudre, hoping to find a place to cross without being compelled to swim. He followed, and kept close to my heels as I wound in and out among flood débris and willow-clumps. But I did not find a place that appeared shallow.
As it was necessary to cross, I patted my companion good-by, thinking he would not care to go farther, and waded in. He squatted by the water's edge and set up a howl. I stopped and explained to him that this was very bad crossing for an injured dog, and that we would better separate; but he only howled the more. He wanted to go with me, but was afraid to try alone.
Returning to the bank, I found a rope in the flood wreckage, tied this around his neck and waded in. He followed cheerfully, but swam with effort. When about half way across, and in the water up to my shoulders, I attached myself to a floating log lest the dog should weaken and need help. Within sixty or seventy feet of the desired bank we struck a stretch of swift, deep water, in which I was compelled to let the animal go and swim for the shore. My companion was swept down by the current, and the rope caught on a snag, entangling my legs so that I had to cut it or drown. The current swept poor doggie against some stranded wreckage in midstream. On this he climbed, while I struggled on to the bank.
I called to him to come on, but he only howled. Again I called, patted my knees, made friendly gesticulations, and did all I could think of to encourage him. Finally, I told him that if he would only start I would come part way and be ready to help him if he got into trouble. But he would not start. Not desiring the task of returning for him through the cold, strong current, and feeling in a hurry, I started on. He howled and then cried so piteously that I went back and towed him safely ashore.
That night some good people of the ranch house treated both of us kindly, and in the morning they wanted to keep my companion. I was willing that he should stay, for he would have a good place, and I was bound for Denver, where I feared some accident would befall him. But he growled and ran away when the man advanced to tie him. I started on afoot and he joined me, insisting on following.
All the time he had been with me his only thought appeared to be to stay with me. Game, dogs, horses, and people he saw and passed with expressionless face, except two or three times when he imagined I was in danger; then he was instantly alert for my defense. When the stage overtook us, and stopped to let me in, he leaped in also, and squatted by the driver with such an air of importance that I half expected to see him take the lines and drive.
I lost him in my rush to make the train at the station. He could, of course, have kept with me had he been without fear, or if he had really so desired. As the train pulled out, I saw him start down-street with an air of unconscious confidence that told of wide experience. He was a tramp dog.
The next time I saw him was several months later, in Leadville, some two hundred miles from where he left me. Where, in the mean time, he may have rambled, what towns he may have visited, or what good days or troubles he may have had, I have no means of knowing.
I came walking into Leadville with snowshoes under my arm, from two weeks' snowshoeing and camping on the upper slopes of the Rockies. The ends of broken tree limbs had torn numerous right-angled triangles in my clothes, my soft hat was unduly slouchy, and fourteen nights' intimate association with a camp-fire, along with only an infrequent, indifferent contact with water, had made me a sight to behold,—for dogs, anyway. On the outskirts, one snarly cur noticed me and barked; in a few minutes at least a dozen dogs were closely following and making me unwelcome to their haunts. They grew bold with time, numbers, and closer inspection of me. They crowded unpleasantly close. Realizing that if one of them became courageous enough to make a snap at my legs, all might follow his example, I began to sidle out of the middle of the street, intending to leap a fence close by and take refuge in a house.
Before I could realize it, they were snapping right and left at me, and howling as they collided with the tail of a snowshoe which I used as a bayonet. We were close to the fence, I trying to find time to turn and leap over; but I was too busy, and, without assistance, it is probable that I should have been badly bitten.
Suddenly there was something like a football mix-up at my feet, then followed a yelping of curs, with tucked tails dashing right and left to avoid the ferocious tackles of a shaggy black and white dog. It was Rob, who was delighted to see me, and whom I assured that he was most welcome.
He had been seen about Leadville for two or three months, and several persons had bits of information concerning him. All agreed that he had held aloof from other dogs, and that he quietly ignored the friendly greetings of all who made advances. He was not quarrelsome, but had nearly killed a bulldog that had attacked a boy. On one occasion, a braying burro so irritated him that he made a savage attack on the long-eared beast, and sent him pell-mell down the street, braying in a most excited manner.
The drivers of ore wagons reported that he occasionally followed them to and from the mines up the mountainside. At one livery-stable he was a frequent caller, and usually came in to have a drink; but no one knew where he ate or slept. One day a little mittened girl had left her sled, to play with him. He had responded in a most friendly manner, and had raced, jumped, circled, and barked; at last he had carried her slowly, proudly on his back.
I grew greatly interested in his biography, and wondered what could have shaped his life so strangely. In what kind of a home was his pretty puppyhood spent? Why was he so indifferent to dogs and people, and had he left or lost a master?
Early next spring, after vainly trying to follow the trail of explorer Pike, I struck out on a road that led me across the Wet Mountain valley up into Sangre de Cristo Mountains. When well up into the mountains, I saw a large dog walking slowly toward me, and at once recognized him as Rob. Although clean and well-fed, he held his head low and walked as though discouraged. The instant he scented me, however, he leaped forward and greeted me with many a wag, bark, and leap. He was one hundred miles from Leadville, and fully three hundred miles from the flood scene on the Poudre. He faced about and followed me up into the alpine heights, far beyond trail. We saw a number of deer and many mountain sheep; these he barely noticed, but a bear that we came upon he was most eager to fight.
The second night in the mountains, near Horne's Peak, we had an exciting time with a mountain lion. Coyotes howled during the evening, much to the dog's annoyance. It was a cold night, and, being without bedding, I had moved the fire and lain down upon the warm earth. The fire was at my feet, a crag rose above my head, and Rob was curled up against my back. A shrill, uncanny cry of the lion roused me after less than an hour's sleep. The dog was frightened and cuddled up close to my face. The lion was on a low terrace in the crag, not many yards distant. Having been much in the wilds alone and never having been attacked by lions, I had no fear of them; but none had ever been so audacious as this one. I began to think that perhaps it might be true that a lion would leap upon a dog boldly at night, even though the dog lay at the feet of his master. I kept close watch, threw stones at suspicious shadows on the cliff terraces, and maintained a blazing fire.
Long before sunrise we started down the mountain. Both Rob and I were hungry, and although we startled birds and rabbits, Rob paid not the least attention to them. At noon, on Madano Pass, I lay down for a sleep and used Rob for a pillow. This he evidently enjoyed, for he lay still with head stretched out and one eye open.
At mid-afternoon we met a sheep-herder who was carrying a club. I had seen this man elsewhere, and, on recognizing me as he came up, he waved his club by the way of expressing gladness. Rob misinterpreted this demonstration, and dragged me almost to the frightened herder before I could make him understand that this ragged, unwashed, club-carrying fellow had no ill wishes for me.
I had in mind to climb Sierra Blanca the following day, and hoped to spend the night in a ranch house on the northern slope of this great peak. Toward sundown Rob and I climbed through a pole fence and entered the ranch house-yard. Round a corner of the house came a boy racing on a willow switch pony. On seeing us, he stopped, relaxed his hold on the willow and started for Rob. How happily he ran, holding out both eager hands! The dog sprang playfully backward, and began to dodge and bark as the boy laughingly and repeatedly fell while trying to catch him. Just as I entered the house, Rob was trying to climb to the top of the fence after his new playmate.
That night Rob was agreeable with every one in the house, and even had a romp with the cat. These people wanted to keep him, and offered money and their best saddle-horse. I knew that with them he would have kind treatment to the day of his death. I wanted him, too, but I knew the weeks of mountain-exploring just before me would be too hard for him. "Rob is a free dog," I said, "and is, of his own choice, simply traveling with me as a companion. I cannot sell or give him away. I like him, but, if he wants to stay, it will be a pleasure to me to leave him."
The next morning every one was wondering whether Rob would go or stay. The dog had made up his mind. He watched me prepare to leave with keenest interest, but it was evident that he had planned to stay, and his boy friend was very happy. As I passed through the yard, these two were playing together; at the gate I called good-by, at which Rob paused, gave a few happy barks, and then raced away, to try to follow his mountain boy to the top of the old pole fence.