A little later the boys reached the top of the slope, and looking down they could see the horses tied to the trees below. They took their load off the stick, tied the strips of skin of the legs tightly together, and then rolled the bundle over the top of the ledge, watching it as it rolled and bounded down the hill, and finally stopped among the trees only a hundred yards or so from the horses. Then they began to climb down the rocks, and before long had reached their animals.
“Now, Joe,” said Jack, “how are we going to carry this meat to camp?”
“I reckon we’d better pack it on my horse and I can walk,” said Joe. “It isn’t far.”
“Well, but how are you going to get across the creek?”
“Oh, I can ride on top of the load for a little short way like that,” declared Joe.
“I don’t know, though,” he went on, “whether these horses will pack fresh meat like this, but we’ll have to try.”
It was soon evident that the horses would strongly object to the load, and it was not until Joe’s horse had been blinded by a coat that the boys could lift the meat across the saddle and lash it with Joe’s lariat. After that had been done and the blind removed from the horse’s head he showed a good deal of disposition to buck, but at last thought better of it, and when Jack led the way down the trail, Joe’s horse followed very quietly.
When streams had to be crossed, Joe clambered on the load of meat, and they reached camp long before sundown without further incident.
“WELL,” said Hugh, when they rode up to the tent, “I’m glad you got some meat. Now, before you even unsaddle, I’m going to send one of you boys up into that cottonwood tree there. Knot a couple of those sling ropes together and let us haul that meat up above the flies if we can. It’ll spoil in a day if we leave it down here close to the ground, where the blow flies can get at it.”
The wisdom of this advice was recognized at once, and Jack promptly scrambled up into the cottonwood and made his way into the lower branches. Joe threw him the end of a sling rope and Jack climbed well into the tree, and then, passing the rope over a branch, the meat was hauled up and tied thirty or forty feet above the ground, out of reach of the flies and exposed to the breeze which blew almost constantly up or down the lake.
As they sat around the fire that night after supper Jack said, “Hugh, a man who was hunting sheep all the time would get to have mighty good wind, wouldn’t he?”
“Yes,” said Hugh, “that’s surely so. Good wind, strong legs and a mighty steady head come to anyone who hunts sheep or goats much. You’ve got to be climbing up or down pretty much all the time. You must look for your game on the high peaks and ridges and along the cliffs. Of course, where sheep are plenty you can follow the sheep trails, but sometimes it’s just pretty straight up and down climbing over the rocks and in places where, if a man lost his footing, he would roll a long way. I never minded climbing over the rocks, no matter how steep they were, but sometimes it’s wearying work to crawl around over the shale, that yields and slips under your feet, and where for every foot you go up you slip back nine inches; and of course, when the mountains are covered with snow and ice it’s harder yet, because you never can be quite sure of your foothold.”
“Well,” said Jack, “there are some Indians that hunt sheep almost altogether, aren’t there?”
“Yes,” replied Hugh, “the Sheep Eaters get their name from the fact that they used to make their main living by hunting sheep.”
“I’ve heard of the Sheep Eaters,” said Jack, “but I’ve forgotten who they are and where they lived. Tell me what you know about them, won’t you?”
“Well,” said Hugh, “they live south of here and their main range used to be somewhere near that country that we went through two or three years ago, where those hot springs and spouting geysers are. Sheep Eaters, as I understand it, are a band of the Bannocks, and the Bannocks are relations to the Snakes.
“In old times they say that these Sheep Eaters used to make drives of sheep. They would build a lot of blinds, and hide along the trails where the sheep were accustomed to go up and down the mountains, and then they’d send men around and scare the sheep, and when they came down near the blinds the Indians hidden there would shoot them. Then, of course, they used to still-hunt them with bows and arrows. I’ve heard that the men who were hunting sheep used to carry a head and skin and cover themselves with it in part, and disguised in that way, used to get up within arrow shot of the game. The man’s legs were rubbed with white or gray clay, and if he went along in a stooping posture, with his body covered with the animal’s skin and the head, it’s easy to see how he might get up pretty close to the game. I read a book once written by John Franklin, that man, you know, that was lost up in the Arctic a good many years ago and about whom there was a great deal of excitement at the time, in which he told how the Huskies up north used to hunt caribou something the same way, only in this case there were two men, one walking behind the other, both stooping down and the man in the lead carrying a caribou’s head. The book said that the rear man carried the two guns, and that the man in front, who carried the head, imitated the deer so well that sometimes they could walk right up to the edge of the herd. Seems to me I’ve heard something of the same sort about Indians using the antelope head in hunting antelope.”
“Well,” said Jack, “that’s seems queer. I don’t believe you could do that with any game in these days.” “No,” said Hugh, “maybe not, but you must remember in those old times game was plenty; it never was scared by noises, because then they didn’t have any guns, and the people in any range of mountain country were not many and were not often seen by the game. Speaking of this way of using game heads makes me think of a story that Wolf Voice told me about something that his grandfather saw a great many years ago. You don’t know Wolf Voice, of course, but he’s a young fellow—not so very young either, come to think about it; he must be a middle-aged man by this time. He’s half Cheyenne and half Minitari, and he did some considerable scouting for General Miles a few years ago. This is what he told me that his grandfather saw: He was one of a war party of Cheyennes that had gone off to try and take horses from the Snakes. One morning they were traveling along through the mountains, fifteen or sixteen of them, walking through a deep canyon. Presently one of them saw on a ledge of the canyon far above them, the head and shoulders of a big mountain sheep, which seemed to be looking out over the valley. The man pointed it out to the other members of the war party, and they watched it as they went along. After a while it drew back from the ledge, and a little later they saw it again, further along the canyon, and it stood there right at the edge of the precipice and seemed to be looking up and down the valley. The Cheyennes kept watching it as they went along, and presently they saw a mountain lion jump on the sheep’s back from another ledge above it and both animals fell over the cliff, a long way before they struck the rocks below. The Cheyennes, feeling sure that the sheep had been killed either by the fall or by the lion, ran to the place to get the meat. When they got there, the lion was trying to get away on three legs and one of the Indians shot it with an arrow. Then they went to the sheep, and when they started to skin it they saw that it wasn’t a sheep, but a man wearing the skin and head of a sheep. He had been hunting, and his bow and arrows were wrapped in the skin and lay against his breast. The fall had killed him. They could tell from the way his hair was dressed and from his moccasins that he was a Bannock.”
“Well,” said Jack, “that’s an interesting story, and that brings the fashion these people had right home to us, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Hugh, “I guess there’s no doubt but that they made these disguises and used them. Why, Joe here will tell you what he’s heard from his grandfathers about the way the men used to dress up and lead the buffalo into the piskuns.”
“Yes, I think I’ve heard about that. They used to wear a kind of buffalo skin dress, didn’t they, Joe?”
“Yes,” said Joe, “sometimes they wore a kind of a cap and coat made of buffalo skins, and sometimes they just carried their robes. Of course, they didn’t show themselves close to and in plain sight of the buffalo. They just showed themselves enough to make the buffalo wonder what they were, and follow ’em to try to find out. The Indians think that it was the power of the buffalo rock that used to make the buffalo come, but I guess it was just nothing but curiosity. Everybody has seen antelope get scared and run away, and then if a man dodges out of sight very likely they’ll turn around and run back and close up to him, to try to find out what it was they got scared at.”
“Sure, that’s so,” said Hugh, “and it isn’t antelope or buffalo alone. You’ll see elk and black-tailed deer do the same thing. They’ll stand and look and look, and often you can fire three or four shots at them before they’ll start to run away. In the same way if a bear sees something that he don’t understand, why, he gets up on his hind legs and looks as hard as he can. Of course, all these animals would rather smell than look; their noses tell them the truth and they don’t have to smell a second time to find out whether it’s an enemy or not, but often they have to look half a dozen times. Animals are mighty inquisitive creatures. If they see something they don’t understand they want to find out about it.”
“Why, Hugh,” said Jack, “it isn’t animals alone. Birds do the same thing. I’ve never seen this myself, but the books tell about it and I talked with one man, a friend of my uncle’s, who had seen it himself. In the winter when the ducks are down South and in big flocks they used to have a way of shooting them that they called toling. The way they did it was this: If a lot of ducks were sitting on the water too far off from the shore to be shot at, the gunners would go down and hide close to the shore and then they would send out a little dog that was trained to run up and down and play about so as to attract the attention of the ducks. The ducks might be sitting far off in a big raft or flock, many of them perhaps asleep; but when they saw the little dog playing, some of them would lift their heads and swim in toward the shore to find out what he was doing. Gradually more and more ducks would lift their heads and swim in, until, finally, the whole flock would be coming. As they got nearer, the dog, which of course was watching them, would make himself smaller and smaller, until finally he just crawled along the shore on his belly and perhaps gradually worked away from the beach and into the grass, but those fool ducks would keep swimming in, trying to see him, until at last they would get within gunshot, and the people hidden there would give them one barrel on the water, and then one as they rose, and sometimes kill twenty-five or thirty of them.”
“Well,” said Hugh, “that’s one on me. I never heard of that before, but since we’re branching off onto ducks, I’ll tell you what I have heard of and know of its being done, too, though I never did see it done. In spring and fall, in ponds where the wild rice grows, over, say, in Minnesota, there used to be terrible lots of ducks and geese stopping in spring and fall to feed, on their way north and south. The Indians, the Sioux anyhow, and likely Chippewas or Saulteaux, when they found a place where these ducks were right plenty, used to strip off and make a kind of a little hat or cap of grass that they’d put on their heads, and then they’d wade in the water and move along very slowly so that this cap would look either like a little floating trash or a little group of grass stems projecting above the water, and then they’d work up close to the ducks and catch them by the feet and pull them under and then wring their necks.”
“Yes,” said Jack, “I guess that’s all right, for I’ve heard of East Indian people doing the same thing, only they fitted a kind of a gourd over their heads and walked around with that, so that it just looked like a gourd floating in the water. Don’t the Blackfeet do anything like this, Joe?”
“I guess not,” said Joe; “I never heard anything like it. They say in old times, long before the white people came, the Piegans used to go to the shallow prairie lakes where ducks and geese bred, at the time of the year when they can’t fly, and then the dogs and young men would go into the pond on one side and drive out all the birds on the other and there the women and children would kill them with sticks. In the early spring, too, when the birds had their nests, they used to go to these lakes and get plenty of eggs. I bet you never heard the way they used to cook them.”
“I don’t know,” said Jack, “I reckon I never did.”
“Why,” said Joe, “they used to dig a hole in the ground, a pretty deep hole, and then put some water in it, and right over the water they’d build a little platform of twigs and put on that platform as many eggs as it would hold, and above that they’d build another platform and put eggs on that and so on to the top, maybe have three or four of these little platforms built of willows to hold the eggs up. Then from the top of the ground they dug out a little slanting hole to the bottom of the first hole. Then they covered the big hole with twigs and put grass on that and dirt on the grass. Then they built a fire close to the hole and heated rocks and rolled them down the little side hole, so that they would go into the water at the bottom of the big hole. They would keep rolling these hot rocks in until the water got very hot and made plenty of steam. The steam couldn’t get out of the big hole and it just stayed there hot and cooked the eggs. Then when they thought the eggs were cooked they uncovered the big hole and took them from the platforms and there they were all cooked.”
“That was ingenious, wasn’t it, Hugh?” said Jack.
“Yes, so it was,” said Hugh, “but then these people were mighty ingenious in many ways. Just think of the way they used to cook in a buffalo hide, or in the paunch of an animal. You and I would eat raw meat all our lives before we could get up such a scheme as that.”
“Yes, that’s so,” replied Jack. “It’s about the last thing I should think of. Practically all their boiling had to be done by means of hot stones put into the water, for, of course, they never had any vessels that could be set over a fire until they got pottery. I don’t suppose anybody knows when they first invented it, but it may have been a long time ago.”
“Well,” said Hugh, “don’t be too sure about their not having anything to put over a fire to boil. I never saw it myself, but I’ve been told by people that I believe, that these Saulteaux up North used to boil water in their birch bark dishes. They say that they could hang a birch bark kettle over the fire and boil water in it, and that the birch bark wouldn’t take fire while the water was in the kettle.”
“Well,” said Jack, “I certainly would like to see that done. I suppose it’s so, if you’ve been told so by people that you believe, but it seems to me that’s one of the hardest stories that’s been told me since I’ve been out in this country.”
THE next morning while the party were cooking and eating breakfast, a swarm of mosquitoes settled upon the camp in great numbers. Not only did they trouble the men, but the horses were greatly annoyed by them; so much as that they stopped feeding and began to wander off, seeking the thickets of quaking aspen and willow, through which they walked in order to brush off the insects. Besides the mosquitoes, the green head flies—bulldogs, Hugh called them—were very troublesome. Before breakfast was over Hugh said, “Look here, boys, we can’t stay here. The flies are too bad. We must pack up and go on and get somewhere higher up, or else to a place where the wind is blowing. Unless we do that we are likely to lose our horses. They’ll run away on us.”
“Yes,” said Jack, “we’ve either got to get high up on the hills or else go out on the prairie. Here the flies are too bad.”
“Well,” said Hugh, “you two boys build two or three small fires and throw some grass or wet bark on them so as to make plenty of smoke, and then go out and round up the horses and bring them in, so that they can stand in the smoke. Then we’ll cache the wagon here in the brush somewhere, and pack up and go on up the river and see if we can’t find some place where the flies are not so thick.”
It took the boys but a short time to build a line of small fires at right angles to the lake, down which a gentle breeze was blowing, and then, pulling some green grass and stripping the wet bark off an old rotting cottonwood log, they soon had a line of smokes too strong for any insect. Then, going a little way down the lake, they found the horses and drove them back to leeward of the fire, where they stopped in apparently great contentment, with only their heads visible above the smoke.
Meanwhile Hugh had been unloading the wagon, getting out the pack saddles with their riggings and making up the packs. A portion of the provisions he left in the wagon, but the flour and the bacon he tied with extra ropes and, when the boys had finished with the horses, he had one of them climb into a tree and hang the food where it could not be reached by mice or ground squirrels. The sheep meat was lowered and found to be perfectly good and so dried on the outside that the flies would not trouble it. It was put in an old flour sack to go on one of the packs.
Long before noon matters were so far advanced that the horses were saddled and, after three of the animals had been packed and led back again into the smoke, the three riding horses were saddled, and presently the little train set off up the lake over the trail followed by Jack and Joe the day before. While they were crossing the inlet, and for the first mile or two up the trail on the other side of the upper lake, the flies were very bad, but presently, when they emerged from the growth of young quaking aspens they met a strong breeze blowing down the lake, which made things better.
Hugh had sent Jack ahead, telling him to follow the trail that led up the lake to an old Indian camping ground six or seven miles above the outlet. The trail was plain and it was impossible to lose it, and Jack plodded along fighting mosquitoes and watching the splendid mountains which rose on either side of the lake. As he passed over a little ridge between two of the many streams that ran down from the mountains, he suddenly saw ahead of him and a little to his right, a huge brown bear, apparently looking not at him, but at something behind him on the trail. The bear stood on the hillside at a little distance above the trail, and a rise of the ground had hidden Jack from view. It was a splendid-looking animal, its coat bright and glossy, and Jack could see the long fur ripple as the breeze struck it.
All this Jack’s eye took in at a glance, and instantly he had slipped out of his saddle and stepped around his horse’s head, holding the reins over his left arm. He pitched his gun to his shoulder, aimed at the bear just behind the foreleg and low down and fired. Then, turning, he sprang into his seat almost without touching the saddle.
At the shot the horse had stepped quickly to one side, but had not pulled back, so that Jack had no trouble in remounting, while the bear had given a loud bawl, and had fallen to the ground, turning its head to bite the wound, and then had rolled over two or three times down the steep hillside.
Jack whirled his horse and spurred up the hill, wishing to be above the bear rather than below it. At the same time he waved his arm to Hugh, who was now in sight, motioning to him to go up the hill. By this time the bear had gained his feet and was coming back along the trail as hard as he could. His head hung low, his ears were laid back and his long tongue lolled from his mouth. The noise of the shot had put every one on the alert, and it made Jack laugh a little to look back and see his two companions and all the pack horses scramble up the hill as hard as they could. The bear covered forty or fifty yards, running fast and strong, and then, seeming to notice the people on the hill above it, turned and rushed toward Jack, but before it had got anywhere near him, it began to go more and more slowly and to stagger a little and presently fell, rolled over backwards two or three times and then lay still. The three men with their pack horses came together on the hill, well above the bear, and Hugh said, “Well, son, what’s the matter with you? Do you want to stampede this outfit? Looks to me like you’ve got quite a bear there.”
“Why, yes, Hugh, he’s about the prettiest bear I ever saw. He looked so handsome standing there on the hillside that I couldn’t help taking a shot at him. I think he has a good hide, too, but maybe I oughtn’t to have fired, for it will take us some time to skin him and while we’re doing that the flies will be getting in their work.”
“That’s so,” said Hugh, “but now that he’s dead, we’ve got to take his coat off. I’ll tell you what we’d better do. You and Joe go on to that little point that you see sticking out there, just this side of where that big creek comes down, and make camp there. Get as far out toward the water as you can. I think maybe the breeze will keep the flies down, and we can stop there with comfort. I’ll stay here and start in to skin the bear, and after you’ve made camp you come back with a pack horse and we’ll take the hide into camp.”
“Hold on, Hugh,” said Jack. “That’s a kind of a low-down trick for me to kill this bear, and then leave you here to skin it and fight flies. Let me stop here with you now and take the skin off and let Joe go on and make camp. If the flies are not bad he can do it alone just about as well as we could together, and if they are, he’ll have to make a smoke for the stock and unpack, and when you and I get back with this hide, it won’t take long to put up the tent.”
“Well,” said Hugh, “maybe that is better. It’ll shorten up the work to skin now.”
Hugh explained again to Joe where it was that he wanted to camp, and Joe went on with the pack horses. Hugh and Jack sat down by the bear and began to skin it.
“Now, I want you to take notice, son,” said Hugh. “Here it is July and this bear hasn’t begun to shed out a bit yet nor even to get sunburned, and yet maybe he’s been out of his den now for two months or more. He isn’t fat; he’s lost considerable flesh since he’s come out, but his coat is just as good as it was the day he left his den.”
“I’ve always heard, Hugh,” said Jack, “that bears, when they come out of their dens, are just as fat as when they go into them.”
“That’s what everybody says,” said Hugh, “and I reckon it’s true. I never happened to kill a bear right fresh from its den, but I’ve killed them in May and found them very fat. I’ve a kind of an idea that they lose their fat slowly. Most people say that when they come out and start wandering about looking for food they keep going all the time and get poor right away. I don’t quite believe that is so. I’m pretty sure they don’t get much to eat at first, and I’ve a notion that if they lost their fat right away some of them would starve to death before food got plenty. When we get this fellow’s skin off, I’m going to look into his stomach and see what he’s had to eat in the last twenty-four hours.”
“That’ll be good,” said Jack. “I’d like to see, too.”
For some time the skinning went on in silence and the hide began to drop from both sides of the great carcass.
“I tell you, Hugh,” said Jack, “this skin beats any one of those that we got last summer down in North Park. I think it’s fully as big as the biggest one that we got then, and it seems to me that the hair is twice as long and twice as silky.”
“Yes,” said Hugh, “it’s an awful good hide. I don’t know when I’ve seen one that was much better. You must remember that those we killed last summer were not in good order; the winter coat had only just begun to grow. This hide will make a fine robe if we can get anybody to tan it.”
“How do you mean, Hugh?” said Jack. “Won’t any woman tan this hide if we pay her for it?”
“Why, no, son, you know a great deal better than that. Haven’t I told you a good many times that lots of Blackfeet women won’t touch a bear hide on any terms? You know the Blackfeet, anyhow, are afraid of bears and think they’re powerful medicine. A good many of them won’t call a bear by his name. They call him Sticky Mouth. Most of them won’t sit on a bear robe. There are some medicine men or priests that can wear a kind of cap made of a strip of bearskin on the head, but it’s hard to find a woman that has the power to tan a bear hide. They are afraid of the spirit of the bear; afraid that it will bring them bad luck.”
“Now, Hugh,” said Jack, “I don’t remember that you ever told me about that before. I know that the Indians think that a bear is mighty smart and has great power, and I know that the Eastern Indians when they killed a bear used to smoke to the head and make the head presents of tobacco, but I didn’t know that they wouldn’t touch a bear hide.”
“Well,” said Hugh, “you know it now. There’s only now and then one of these Piegan women that would dare to dress a bear hide. We may find such a woman in camp when we go back, but the chances are against it. However, I reckon we’ll manage somehow to get the hide tanned.”
While they were talking thus, both workers were plying the knife vigorously and in a little while the hide was free all around and the carcass was slipped off it. Then Hugh, cutting into the bear’s stomach, turned out its contents on the ground. It was almost empty, containing nothing but two or three wads of grass and a single ground squirrel, which had been swallowed whole.
“You see,” said Hugh, “this fellow hasn’t had much to eat, and you see, too, that he’s got quite a little fat left on his carcass. I reckon maybe he’s been down along the shore of the lake to see if he couldn’t pick up a fish or two that had drifted ashore, and not having found anything there, he was going back up onto the mountain to try to dig out a gopher, or a woodchuck, or one of those little rock rabbits.”
They now folded the bear hide, and while Jack held his horse, Hugh tried to tie on the hide behind the saddle, but the horse would have none of it. He struggled and pulled back, and it was only by blinding him with a coat—an operation which took some time and involved some trouble because both men were covered with bear’s grease, the scent of which frightened the horse—that they could get him blindfolded and the hide firmly lashed in position.
“Now, Hugh,” said Jack, “I’m not proposing to get onto that horse on this side hill. The chances are that he’d buck and very likely drop me off on a rock. I’ll walk and lead him until he’s a little more used to his load.”
“Well,” said Hugh, “that’s pretty sensible. You go ahead and lead him and I’ll follow, and if he pulls away from you, why I’ll drive him along the trail.”
Jack took the blind from the horse’s head and taking up his gun went down toward the trail. The horse, however, was afraid of his load and bucked pretty savagely. They had, however, taken the precaution to cinch the saddle tightly, and the lashing held, so that, at length, the badly frightened horse followed more or less uneasily along the trail, Hugh riding behind him and having some trouble in controlling his own animal, into whose nostrils the scent of the bear hide was constantly blown. Their progress toward camp was slow, but an hour after they started they reached it and found the horses feeding near it not greatly troubled by the flies, for a strong wind was now blowing down the lake.
During the afternoon, while Hugh was getting the camp in shape and cooking supper, the two boys stretched the bear hide and went over it with a knife, scraping from it all possible grease. After supper and just before sundown, Jack, casting at the mouth of the turbulent mountain stream which here poured itself into the lake, caught a dozen splendid trout, some of which gave him fine sport.
After nightfall, the breeze which swept down from the mountains was so cool that the mosquitoes ceased to be troublesome, and they sat about the camp fire enjoying its grateful warmth. Presently Joe broke out and said, “Where are we going, White Bull? I never came into the mountains so far as this, and I don’t know this country.”
“Well,” said Hugh, “I ain’t much surprised at that, for the Piegans don’t go much into the mountains. They are afraid of the bears and of the bad ghosts that live there.”
“Yes,” said Joe, “that is true. The Piegans like the open prairie, where there is always plenty of light and where you can see a long way. The only people here that go much into the mountains are the Kootenays and the Stonies. Sometimes the Bloods go in a little way to hunt or trap beaver, but not far. Plenty of men in my tribe would stop right here; they would not go any further. Up above here, on this lake, I see that the mountains come close together, and there is only just room enough for the water to get through. We don’t know what there is beyond there and we do not want to go to meet the dangers that may be there.”
“Why,” said Jack, “you don’t feel that way, do you, Joe? You’ve been pretty nearly raised among white people. You are not afraid of the mountains, are you?”
“No,” replied Joe, “I’m not much afraid of them. I’m a little afraid, but I don’t know what there is up behind these rocks that we see ahead of us. Only to-day we saw this awful big bear that you killed. Maybe up in the mountains there are more bears and bigger ones and worse. I would like to see what there is up there, but then I know that it may be very dangerous to go there.”
“Well,” said Hugh, with a smile, “we haven’t talked much about it, but I thought we’d just go up here along the lake and get to the head of it and then follow up the river that comes into it and keep on climbing until we got to the head of that river. Somewhere, not very far away, it must begin, and must come falling down from these high peaks, because not very far beyond here there are other rivers running the other way, so that we are here somewhere near the backbone of this country.
“Well,” said Joe, “I’d like to see it. In old times you know the Piegans were not afraid of the mountains as they are now. In old times they used to cross over these mountains and go beyond, into the country of the Snakes and the Kootenays and the River people,[A] and used to take horses from them and drive them back through the mountains; also, they used to go through the mountains and make long journeys to war to the southwest, and if they found little parties of white men who were trapping or trading, they would try and take their horses and a scalp or two, if they could. I have heard old people tell about how their fathers used to go on these war journeys and used to fight everyone that they met, white people or Indians.”
[A] The Kalespelms, more commonly called Flathead Indians, who dwell on and near Lake Pend d’Oreille.
“Yes,” said Hugh, “that’s so. In the early days before my time the Blackfeet were thought to be a terrible people.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Jack, “I’ve read some of the old books about the early trappers and they are always talking about the danger from the Blackfeet, and how they would lie in wait for the trappers, as they went along the streams gathering their fur in the morning, and kill them, or how they would try to run off their horses. Sometimes they would have big battles with them. The trappers, I think, were mostly at peace with the Snakes and perhaps with other tribes, and often camped with them, and when the Blackfeet were troublesome, if the trappers had Indian allies, they often used to follow up the Blackfeet, and punish them pretty severely for the raids they had made on them.”
“Well,” said Hugh, “as I was saying, we haven’t talked much about this and none of us here know much about the country ahead of us. I came up once, trapping, as far as the head of the lake. I got a few beaver, and once I killed an elk just above the head of the lake, but beyond there I have not been. Still, I guess we’ll be able to find our way. The valley is narrow and the mountains high on either side, and we cannot very well get out of that trough, but, on the other hand, it may be pretty bad going there. The whole valley may be a swamp or a succession of little lakes and it’s possible that we can’t find a way to the head of it at all. The only way to learn about it is to try. Anyhow, it’s new country. I never heard of anybody going up on the river above the lake, except one man, old man Ellis. He told me once about going up there and said that he got across to the other side of the range, but he said it was pretty hard traveling for the animals, and that in one place they had to lower their horses by ropes over some bad places.”
“Do you mean to say, Hugh, that no white men have been up here, except that one?”
“He’s the only one I ever heard about,” replied Hugh. “And I never felt quite sure that he got as far as he thought he did. At all events it won’t be a bad trip to make, unless the flies are too awful bothersome, and by the way, son, to-morrow morning before we start, we’d better get out that strip of mosquito bar that you put in. If the mosquitoes are bad we’ll need it before very long.”
“I’ll do that, Hugh,” said Jack. “But what do you suppose we’ll find up there at the head of the river?”
“It’s pretty hard to say,” Hugh answered. “I expect we’ll find lots of rocks and stone and ice, probably lots of game, and we’ll surely see some mighty pretty scenery; high peaks and big snow fields. There sure ought to be lots of sheep and goats up there, some elk, maybe a moose or two, and of course some bears, but that doesn’t mean that we’re going to get all this game. It only means maybe that we’ll see some of it; perhaps only some signs of it. Just how far we can take the horses, of course, I don’t know. We’ll have to try and do the best we can. Likely enough, we’ll know a lot more about it three or four days from now.”
“Well,” said Jack, “I’ll be mighty glad to get up there and see what there is.”
“Yes,” agreed Joe, “that will be good. I shall have plenty of things to tell the people when I get back to the camp after this trip.”
FOR a time all sat silent, and then Joe asked, “White Bull, did you ever hear that the people once lived on the other side of the mountains; that there is where they came from?”
“No,” said Hugh, “I don’t know as I have. I seem to remember something about such a story, but I can’t remember what it is.”
“Tell it to us, Joe,” said Jack.
“Well,” said Joe, “it’s a story I heard my uncle tell a good many years ago, when I was a little fellow, but I don’t believe it’s true. He didn’t know whether it was true or not. It was just something that he had heard from some older person. You know the Piegans believe that they used to live far up northeast, in the timber by some big lake, and that they came this way looking for some place where life was easier, where there was more game and it was easier to get close to the animals. I guess that is true, because there are old people still living whose fathers and grandfathers can remember old Piegans, who said that they had made that journey. This other story is about some of the people having lived across the mountains. It’s a long story, but I’ll tell it to you if you want me to.”
“Go ahead,” said Hugh.
“Well,” Joe went on, “the story tells that a long time ago the people lived west of the mountains and in a hot country away to the south. A season came when all animals were scarce and hard to find and the people got hungry. In the camp was an old man and his family, three sons, young men grown up. Now, at last, when there was no food to be had, this old man said, ‘Why should I stay here where there is no food? I shall go away with my children and we will try to find a place where there are animals and where food can be had. I will travel toward the rising sun, even to the mountains, to the country where no one has ever been, to a land no one has looked on.’
“They started; the old man and his wife, and the three sons and their wives and children. They did not know the mountains, and supposed that as soon as they had gone over the nearest one they would pass down on the other side to the plain, but they found that this was not so. Beyond the first mountain rose another, and beyond this another. They traveled on, day after day, and climbed ridges and went down into valleys and always in front of them they saw other ridges or other valleys, always steeper, higher and harder to cross. The road was rough, thick timber kept them back, sharp stones cut their feet, wide rivers stopped them. They found no game, except now and then some birds, and soon they grew tired, hungry, footsore and discouraged. At last they had almost made up their minds to stop looking for what they could not find, and to turn about and try to return to their own country and their own people; but one night, as they talked about this, the old man said to them, ‘Come, let us take courage, let us keep on a little longer and try to find that country. The road has been long and hard, and we are almost tired out, but let us go on a little further. It may be that we have almost arrived. To-day you saw that high mountain beyond, toward which we are traveling; let us climb over that and if beyond that we see nothing except more mountains, then we will turn about and go back to the place we came from.’ The sons said it was good, and the next day they traveled on.
“At length they reached the top of the high peak, and when they looked down on the land below they saw before them a wide prairie. It looked beautiful to these people, who were tired of the lonely, rough, dark mountains. On the plain they could see herds of big brown animals, larger than any that they had ever seen before, animals with curly hair and short black horns. There, too, were yellow antelope, and in the valleys, deer, and on the ridges of the mountain were many elk. Fresh streams ran to the prairie, and the sight was one that made their hearts glad.
“‘Ah,’ said the old man, ‘now it is good.’
“They all stopped, and he sat down and smoked to the sun and said, ‘Listen, O Sun, now you have taken pity on us. We believed that we were going to die among these rocks, but you have taken care of us and have brought us safely out of them. Now we can see the things that we may live by.’ So he prayed for help, and for plenty to eat and for long life, and when he had finished his prayer and his smoking, they made a present to the sun. Then they went slowly down the mountainside and toward night camped on a stream.
“The next day they hunted, but they could kill no game. They had no arrows, for they had used them all up in crossing the mountains, and the buffalo would not let them get too close to them, so they were still without food and hungry.
“Then the old man saw that something must be done, and he made strong medicine, a black medicine, which he rubbed on the feet of his oldest son, and after this had been put on his feet, the young man became so swift that he could at once run up alongside the fastest cows and kill them with his knife. This made the young man feel good, and he said to his brothers, ‘Now and from this time forth I and my children are Sĭks´ ĭ kā.[B] This shall be our name.’
[B] Black his foot.
“When the other two sons saw that their elder brother could do so much through the medicine their father had made and that they could do nothing, they felt badly. They went to the old man and said, ‘Why do you treat our brother so much better than you treat us? You have made him a swift runner, so that he can overtake the game, while we can kill nothing, and our wives and children have to eat what he gives us. What have we done that you have forgotten us? Come, now, make us also swift runners, so that we, too, can have enough to eat and can have names.’
“The old man answered them and said, ‘Why do you do nothing except sit about the fire and eat food which your brother has killed? If you wish names go to war, and when you come back, if you have done well and killed enemies and counted coups, you, too, shall have names.’
“So the young men went back to the lodge, and each asked his wife to make him some moccasins and a war sack, and they made themselves some war arrows and started.
“They were gone a long time. Sĭks´ ĭ kā killed many buffalo, and the women dried the meat and tanned the hides. The berries grew ripe, and the women cut down the sarvice bushes and beat off the fruit over a robe spread on the ground and dried the berries. Then the tops of the mountains became white with snow, the leaves fell. From the north came the wild fowl, the swans, geese and ducks, and their numbers covered the surface of the prairie lakes, while their cries were heard night and day through the air. Then the wild fowl passed on, the snow fell and melted and fell again, and it was winter. After a long time black winds began to blow from the west and the snow disappeared. Then again the wild fowl were seen. Then the Thunder shouted, bringing the rain, so that the berries might grow large and sweet. Then the grass began to spring, the prairie to turn green, and soon it was summer.
“One night, a year after the young men had gone away, as they sat about the fire in the lodge, they heard the dogs bark and presently the door was lifted and the second son stepped in and sat down. His robe was thin and all his clothing worn by long travel, but his body was lean and hard. The women hurried and set food before him, and while he ate they sang songs about him, telling how brave he was and how he had traveled far to strike his enemies. After he had eaten the old man filled the pipe and smoked and passed it to his son, who spoke, and told of his journeyings to far-off lands and among strange people, and how he had struck his enemies and all that he had done.
“After he had finished the old man said to him, ‘My son, you have done well and since you have killed many chiefs, let that be your name, Ah´ kāi nāh’ (many chiefs). So after that the second son and his children and their children were called Ah´ kāi nāh, but now they call them Kāi´nāh.
“Another season passed, the berries ripened, the leaves fell, the water fowl came and went; it was winter. Then again the Thunder spoke, and again the grass grew. The wife of the third son thought much about her husband, fearing that she would not see him again. She used to talk of him to her children, telling them that they ought to be brave like their father.
“One night in summer, when all in the lodge were asleep, the dogs barked loudly, the lodge door was lifted and a person entered and sat down by the fire. ‘Who is there?’ said the old man. There was no answer. Then the wife of the third son rose from her bed and spread grass on the fire, and soon it blazed up and she saw sitting there her husband. Glad then was her heart, and quickly she built the fire and gave him food, and as he ate, she looked at him and saw that his clothing was torn and ragged, his face thin and his arms and breast scarred, but from his quiver hung scalps, and on the ground beside him was a bundle. Then she began to sing about him and the others in the lodge arose and sat by the fire while he ate. After he had eaten and smoked, he said to the old man, ‘I have traveled far and I have seen many people. Look at these scalps,’ and he showed them the scalps and the bundle of strange clothing that he had taken from enemies far to the south. He told them all that he had seen and done, and after he had finished speaking his father said to him, ‘Because you have taken this strange clothing you shall be called Pī kŭn´ ni’ (garments), so since that time he and his children’s children have been called Pī kŭn´ ni.”
“That’s a bully story, Joe,” exclaimed Jack, after the tale was ended, and Hugh joined in and said, “So it is, a mighty good story, but I reckon it’s just a story and nothing else. I’ve always heard, like Joe said a little while ago, that the people came from up north and I’ve always believed that they were relations of the Crees. I’ve often wondered, though, about how the tribes got their names. There are lots of stories, but none of them seem to ring true. Now this word Pī kŭn´ ni for Piegans, I’ve always believed came from Ap´ ĭ kŭn nĭ, which means a badly tanned robe, one with white spots on it. Isn’t that so, Joe?”
“Yes,” said Joe, “that’s so all right, and you know Ap´ kŭn nĭ is a common name in the tribe to-day. There are two or three Indians and one white man that have that name. This story says that Ah´ kāi nāh has been shortened to Kainah, and if that is so why shouldn’t Ap´ ĭ kŭn nĭ have been shortened to Pi kun ni. Then the name of my tribe would mean a robe with hard white spots in it.”
“Of course it would,” said Hugh, “and I believe that’s what it does mean, but I don’t know that we’ll ever find out for sure.
“Well, boys,” he went on, “let’s turn in. Get out early to-morrow morning and bring in your horses. I want to start before it gets warm, so as to get rid of the flies. We may have quite a ways to go to-morrow.”
EARLY next morning the tent was down, the beds rolled and the horses brought in, saddled, and tied to the trees. As soon as breakfast was over the packing began and fortunately was soon completed, for before the party started the mosquitoes and flies had begun to be very troublesome. As soon as the last lash rope was tied and the hackamore shanks were looped around the animals’ necks, Hugh mounted and rode through the narrow strip of cottonwood timber, plunged down into the bed of the creek, and then up on the other side and in a few moments reached the foot of a high point of rocks jutting out from Goat Mountain into the lake and began to climb the steep trail that zigzags up its side.
The way was rough and rocky and sometimes so very steep that Jack, hanging to the mane of his horse, threw one foot out of the stirrup in order to be ready to jump in case the horse should fall over backward. The climb was not long, however, and after one or two pauses to breathe the horses, the party emerged on the level top of the point, where the rocks were overgrown with green moss and dotted here and there with young pine trees. Jack had no idea as to where they should go, but Hugh’s more practiced eye made out a dim game trail, which he followed for some distance through the timber, and which at last came out on the slide rock, fallen from the side of the mountain far above. Here there was a plain trail made in times past by the mountain bison and the elk which passed up and down from the plains to the recesses of the high mountains. Sometimes the slide rock was bare of vegetation; again there would be half a mile where the soil had slid down from the mountainside and supported a growth of willows or alders. Sometimes the climb was very steep, again it was level, and at last the trail passed around the head of a deep ravine, and after a climb of a few feet, led out on to grassy ledges.
They were riding quietly along here, when Hugh turned and waved his hand toward the rocks that towered far above them, and Jack, following the motion, saw three white goats feeding two or three hundred yards above them. Involuntarily he checked his horses, intending to take a shot at them, but seeing that Hugh had not paused, Jack thought better of it and rode on. After all, there was no special reason for killing them, as the meat was not needed.
As they went on along the side of the steep mountain toward the head of the lake, they saw goats several times, usually merely white dots on the high rocks. These alpine animals seem to suffer greatly from the heat, and even in very cold weather often seek a shaded spot to get out of the sun.
Near the head of the lake the travelers crossed a large stream, which came from a basin running far back into the mountains, where they could see great fields of snow and ice. Then there was a long ride through the green timber, during which they passed the head of the lake.
They were evidently following the river valley, for, off on the left, they could hear the roar of cascades and falls, and once, through the open stems of some tall aspens, Jack thought he saw spray rising from a cataract. Hugh kept steadily onward, though so far as Jack and Joe could see all sign of a trail had now vanished.
At length they came to the edge of a swollen river, on the brink of which Hugh paused, and after looking at it for awhile, shook his head, turned his horse and followed up its bank. Now the going was harder, and through tangled brush, interrupted now and then by deep muddy holes, where springs or small brooklets came down from the hillsides above them. The mosquitoes and flies were very bad, and each member of the party wore gloves and had a handkerchief tied about his neck and turned up under his hat to protect the back of the neck and head. Hugh smoked constantly, but even so, was obliged to use his hands continually to drive away the insects.
They had just wallowed through a particularly deep mud hole in which one of the pack horses had nearly mired down, when Hugh stopped, dismounted and went back to tighten a cinch, while Jack got off to help him. They were pulling on the ropes, and Joe was trying to hold the other horses to keep them from breaking away, when, suddenly, on the hillside above, they heard a crashing of sticks and, looking up, saw a huge black moose trotting along, crossing fallen logs and rocks in his stride, until he finally disappeared in the timber. The moose had been so close that they could plainly see his large horns, still soft, more or less shapeless and velvet covered, but of course they had no opportunity of shooting at him.
“A good big fellow, wasn’t he, son?” said Hugh, and Jack assented.
“That’s the first moose I’ve seen, Hugh, since we came down from the Yellowstone Park. Do you remember we killed one there?”
“Yes,” said Hugh, “I remember, and I remember, too, that we got a bear or two close to him.”
“So we did,” assented Jack.
“There,” said Hugh, as he knotted the lash rope, “let’s go on. The flies make these horses crazy.”
All day long they continued on the rough road, through underbrush, over rocks and around enormous boulders that had fallen from the precipice above. About three o’clock they reached a large stream coming from the right, which evidently joined the river that they had been following a little further down. Here it took some time to find a place where the river was fordable. The current was swift and the water looked deep.
No one wished to have the packs thrown down in the stream, for this would wet everything and might even result in the loss of a horse. By following up the stream a few hundred yards, however, they found a riffle, across which stretched a gravel bar, and here they made a crossing in water no deeper than to the horses’ knees. Not far above this stream was a wide alder swamp, which gave them much trouble. A little farther on they came to a small stream flowing down the valley, along which ran an old game trail, and following this, they emerged just before sunset on a little round meadow, at the head of which was a lake a mile long and a quarter of a mile broad. About this, on every side except the lower, rose vertical walls of rock, now black in the shadow of the high mountains to the west.
“I tell you, Joe,” said Jack, “this is a curious place, isn’t it? Cold and gloomy enough.”
“Yes,” said Joe, “I don’t like this much. You can’t see far. I don’t wonder that my people would rather stay out on the prairie.”
“What shall we do with the horses, Hugh?” asked Jack. “Tie ’em up, or let them loose?”
“Well,” said Hugh, “you may as well let ’em feed and drag their ropes until it gets dark. They are pretty tired, and the feed is fairly good here. They won’t go far, and before it gets dark we’ll tie them up.”
Away to the left they could see a deep valley running up to enormously high mountains. Snow lay everywhere on their crests, and even in the valley, down to within a few hundred feet of the level of the little lake beside which they camped.
At supper Jack asked Hugh’s opinion where they were and whither they were going.
“Well,” said Hugh, “it’s a pretty sure thing that we can’t go any farther up this stream. There’s a wall a thousand feet high in front of us and on both sides, but I guess we can get up here to the left by climbing that point of rocks. When we do that we’ll get into the snow banks right off, and I don’t know that there’s much profit for us in that. However, we can try it. I believe that if we get up there, on or close to the snow, we’ll have the everlasting bulge on the flies, for I don’t think they’ll follow us there.”
There was plenty of wood here, and that night they sat about a good camp fire. The horses had been picketed where they could feed and yet would not interfere with each other. Night had settled down cold and frosty and the mosquitoes had ceased to trouble them.
“To-morrow or next day,” said Hugh, “I’d like to see where that big river comes from that we followed up all to-day. I expect it comes down out of that valley and from the big snow, and I reckon we lost it by keeping away to the right. It’s a good thing that we didn’t have to cross it, for if we had I think we’d have all been swimming. There’s a terrible lot of water coming down from these mountains, and this valley drains a big lot of them.”
“And of course, it all goes into the lakes, doesn’t it, Hugh?” asked Jack.
“Sure,” said Hugh, “that’s the only place it can go.”
“Well,” said Jack, “I’d rather travel through a lot of brush than try to get across a big swift river like that.”
“Yes,” said Hugh, “you’re right about that. It’s mean to be caught in a stream, especially when you’re not fixed for it. I remember, years ago, trying to take some cattle across the Running Water and being carried down. My horse got scared and commenced to flounder and I rolled off to help. It was in winter, and I had an old-fashioned army overcoat on and got kind of rolled up in it, and I reckon I would have drowned if the cape of the coat hadn’t caught on a limb of a dead tree that was sticking out over the water and held me there until some of the boys came along and pulled me out.”
“That must have been a close call, White Bull,” said Joe.
“Yes,” answered Hugh, “it was close enough. I don’t want one any closer.”
“Now, White Bull,” Joe went on, “can we climb this point of the mountain over here? If we do we’ll go up pretty near to the head of that big river you speak of and cross it where it is only a little small stream.”
“I don’t know yet whether we can get up here or not. We’ll tell in the morning,” Hugh replied, “but if we can, I think we’ll find good traveling right up over the snow banks and we may find a place up there where we can camp. I don’t feel any way sure that we’ll find a place where we can get feed for the horses. We’ll know more about that when we get up there. If we can’t find feed, why, then we’ll have to come back and camp here or else find another trail down into the valley of the main river, and take the horses down there over night.”
When Jack went down to the shore of the lake the next morning, he was interested to see a pair of little harlequin ducks swimming close to the beach. He recognized them from colored pictures that he had seen of the species, and felt sure that the birds must be breeding somewhere about. Looking at them a second time, however, he saw that both birds were males. They made him think of the time of the year, and he realized that now, of course, the females would be sitting on their eggs, while the males would be enjoying a bachelor existence and getting ready to shed their winter plumage and to put on their brief summer dress.
As Jack squatted on a rock, rubbing his hands, face and head with the icy water, his eyes were busy searching the mountainside for signs of living creatures. With the naked eye he could see no game high up on the mountain, but just as he was about to turn from the shore, he happened to look up the lake and there, lying in a sort of cave in the rocks, only a short distance away, was a white goat. The same impulse to shoot that he had felt yesterday assailed him, but he did not yield to it. Instead, he felt rather ashamed of his desire to kill.
At breakfast he told Hugh about the goat, and his friend rather laughed at him and said, “Wait until you have been out a few weeks and then you won’t be so anxious to kill things, unless you need to. I have seen that every time you go back East you catch a little of the pilgrim fever, and you have to be out here for a week or two before you can shake off the disease.”
“Maybe you’re right, Hugh,” said Jack. “It does seem pretty silly to want to kill every wild thing I see.”
“Well, yes,” rejoined Hugh, “there’s no reason for killing anything without you’ve got some use for it. If you need a shirt or a pair of buckskin pants, kill what hides you need and have your clothing made, or if you need food, kill what you want to eat, but don’t shoot at things just to see whether you can hit them or not. That’s just a pilgrim trick, and you’ve been out here too long to be guilty of things like that.”
“Now, I tell you what, boys,” said Hugh, after breakfast was over, stooping over the fire to pick up a brand with which to light his pipe, “we don’t know what there is up above us here. We don’t even know that we can climb this hill. Now, what do you say to leaving the pack horses here and taking the saddle horses and going off to prospect? It isn’t very far, and if we can find a good camping place we can come back here and get the horses and take them up there.”
“Why,” said Jack, “that seems to me the best thing to do. We don’t want to pack up and take a train up there and then find that we’ve got to drive back and unpack and camp here again.”
“No,” said Hugh, “we don’t, and I believe we might as well go up first and find out where we’re going. There’s one thing, though, that we’d better do,” he went on, “I’ve an idea that there’s some bears up here, and likely bears that haven’t been hunted much. I believe that it would be a good idea for us to hoist up the main part of our grub into one of these trees and tie it there, so that if a bear should come into camp he won’t tear it all to pieces. Suppose you boys get a couple of sling ropes and we’ll take our flour and bacon and coffee and sugar and put it in a safe place.”
The boys brought the sling ropes and before long two stout young pine trees were each decorated with a couple of large bundles. Then they saddled and Jack said to Joe, “If any bears should come prowling around here, Joe, won’t they stampede the horses, and make trouble for us?”
“I guess they might,” said Joe. “We ought to tie ’em up tight.”
Joe took the ax, and going a few steps down the creek, cut some stout alder stems from which he manufactured half a dozen strong picket pins, then going out to where the horses were, they drove a second pin close to each picket pin that stood in the ground, so that the heads of the two pins crossed and supported each other.
“Now,” said Joe, “take a half hitch around these two pins with the lariat and I’ll bet the pack horses can’t get away.”
Hugh, who saw what they were doing, nodded approval, and presently they all climbed into the saddles, and Hugh leading the way, they crossed the little brook which flowed out from the lake and headed toward the point of the mountain which they hoped to climb. Before they had reached it Hugh found a game trail and followed it, for he knew, as all mountain men do, that game always selects the easiest road across natural obstacles. The climb was neither steep nor long, though it was a little slippery, for the upper end of the trail was wet with snow that had just melted. When they emerged on top of the shoulder, they could see extending up the valley before them a long level snow bank, while to the right the steep slope was everywhere strewn with huge boulders and rock fragments that had rolled down from the mountainside; some in past ages and some very recently.
Hugh paused until the two boys came up and then said, “We may as well keep up here along the main valley and see how far we can go and what we can find. We could not take the horses along the mountainside to the west. If we go that way we’ll have to go on foot. I’d like to see what there is on the other side of that high wall. I believe it’s Pacific Coast water.”
“Yes, Hugh,” said Jack, “let’s go on up the valley and maybe we can cross over to those pine trees on the other side. It looks as if there might be a good camping place there, though I don’t see any feed for the horses.”
“Come on then,” said Hugh.
For a mile or more they rode slowly on over the hard snow field, into which the horses hoofs did not sink at all. On the right rose first a steep slope covered with huge angular rock fragments, and then above that successive walls of vertical cliff, in each recess and crevice of which there was a drift of snow. To the left, the snow field sloped gradually to an almost flat surface of rock, over which flowed a hundred little trickles of water. There was, here and there, a little soil, green with springing grass or weed blades and in many places spangled with beautiful alpine flowers of variegated colors.
At one place Jack dismounted and gathered a handful of these plants, which he looked at as they rode along. Many of them were much like the dog-tooth violet found in the woods in the East in the early spring, others looked something like dandelions, but had tall, straight stems; still others were like the columbine of early summer, but instead of being red were blue and white. All were beautiful and fresh, and all were growing within a short distance of the edge of the snow banks and were watered by the cold trickle from the melting snow.
As they went on the travelers could see at the end of the valley, now close to them, a great wall of rock over which plunged cataracts of white water, while from the mountains on the right came sharp gray lines, which as they drew near them, Jack recognized as moraines—the soil and gravel pushed to one side by the progress of a glacier. He felt sure that this valley along which they were traveling, and perhaps also the narrow valley in which lay the river and the great lakes, had ages ago been carved out of the solid mountains by some vast glacier, such as he had seen two years before on the British Columbia coast and the work of which Mr. Fannin had more than once clearly explained to him.
They were riding quietly along, looking at the mountains, the snow fields and the flower beds when, almost from beneath the feet of Hugh’s horse, a bird spotted white and brown rose from the ground and, with a loud cackle, scaled off ahead of them and alighting on a rock, stood with head and tail up, still uttering a sharp cry. Jack recognized it at once as a ptarmigan and reached for his rifle to see whether he could kill it, but Hugh, who had looked around, called back to him, “I wouldn’t shoot at it, son. You see these birds have their nests now, and if you kill the old birds that means that the young ones will not be hatched. Besides that, the old ones are not fit to eat now.”
“That’s so, Hugh, I have got to teach myself not to want to kill everything that I see. I’m a regular pilgrim about that, and you’ll have to watch me, and I’ll watch myself, too.”
A little farther along they left the snow bank and pushed on over bare rounded stones, some of them of great size. On the mountain above him Jack saw two great moraines, gradually approaching one another, one coming down from the right and one from the left, but with a wide space between their lower ends. He was looking at this, when, without warning, he heard all about him the rustle of wings and sweet chirping whistles, and suddenly a large flock of gray-crowned finches alighted on the ground and on the stones about him. They walked busily hither and thither picking up something, though he could not see what, and it seemed impossible that there could be seeds or any other vegetable food on the bare rocks. The birds were absolutely tame and paid no attention to the animals, except when they walked close to them; then a few wing beats would take the threatened bird out of the horse’s way, and it would alight and again begin to feed. The ashy crown of the head, the brown body and the rosy tinge of the upper and lower parts were plainly to be seen, and Jack thought again that he had never known such beautiful little birds, or any that seemed so tame or confiding.
By this time the precipice at the head of the valley was close to them and they were obliged to turn to the left and cross the stream, which, though wide and turbulent, was not deep. On the east side the land rose sharply in one or two terraces, and then the travelers found themselves on another snow bank, just beyond which rose some stunted pine timber.
At the edge of this they halted to take a look back over the valley, and when they did so, Hugh said, “Well, I reckon we are smart hunters; look over there.”
The boys looked, and not half a mile below where they had passed along, but hidden from them during their passage by several rocky elevations, were seen three bears, one large and two very small ones. They were working along the hillside, apparently looking for insects, for the largest was busily employed in turning over stones, and the little ones were imitating her in so far as their strength permitted, and, at the same time, keeping pretty close to her, and every few minutes rushing to her head and putting their noses down to the ground as if eating.
Hugh took out his glasses and looked at the bears for a long time. “It’s an old one and a couple of cubs,” he remarked at last, “and I don’t believe they’ve been out very long. They’re working hard over there and of course, if we had known they were there, it would be easy enough to get them all as we came along. I don’t really know that we need them, except that I suppose we’d all be glad to take in some good bear hides, and hides seem to be prime now. Then, too, those little fellows would be good eating, I reckon, though they are pretty small. Not much bigger, I should think, than young shotes.”
“Well, but, Hugh,” said Jack, “oughtn’t we to have seen them as we came along?”
“No,” said Hugh, “I don’t see how we could have done so. Of course, if we’d been hunting, we’d have taken a good many looks over into that valley, but as we weren’t hunting, we just rode along and, of course, those shelves of rock that you see there hid the bears from us just as they hid us from the bears. Of course, it’s possible that they may be there when we go back to-night, and if they are, why you and Joe can maybe get a shot at them.”
“Well,” said Jack, “it’s too late now for us to do anything. Let’s see what there is beyond this timber.”
In the timber which grew on a little crest running parallel with the axis of the valley, there was no snow and a good camping place, but on the other side of the little stream, though the ground was bare and some flowers were springing, there was no grass, nor indeed, wherever they went during the day, could they find anything that looked like feed enough to support their horses, if they should bring them over.
“This would be a mighty handy place to camp, Jack,” said Joe, “but I don’t see anything here for the horses to eat.”
“No,” said Hugh, “there’s no feed over here at all, except those weeds that we passed this morning on the other side of the valley. Maybe there’s feed enough there to keep the horses for a day or two, but no more. We’d be a lot better off if we were camped over here; that is, provided we wanted to hunt here or climb the mountains, but we’ve got to have grass for our horses to eat, and I reckon we’ll have to leave them where they are and ride three or four miles every morning, before we begin to prospect around these mountains and the valleys between them.”
“Well,” said Jack, “there doesn’t seem to be any feed here, and I don’t see any other way than to do as you say.”
“Let’s ride up this valley here to the eastward,” said Hugh. “There may be some sheltered warm spot up there where the snow will be gone, though it’s no ways likely the grass has started yet.”
They crossed the stream and pushed up through the snow which lay among the pine timber. It was not deep nor crusted and the going was easy, and after the first steep ascent they found themselves in an open smooth valley, which sloped very gradually upward between two tall peaks. Here the snow was disappearing and, as they ascended, they presently found the ground bare, but as Hugh had said, the grass had not yet started. There were a few tufts of brown dried-up herbage, but nothing that could be called feed, even for so small a pack train as theirs. In the soft earth at the margin of a little lake that lay near the head of this valley, Hugh pointed out the tracks of several sheep, among them two old rams of great size, and a well-worn sheep trail led back from this lake up over the rocks to high pinnacles behind.
“I reckon there are lots of sheep here, son,” said Hugh, “but it isn’t time to kill them now and we’ll have to be satisfied with a young ram now and then. I hope they won’t be very strong of garlic.”
“I hope not,” said Jack.
A little later they turned about to return to camp, following the same trail by which they had come up. As they were going down through the timber, Hugh drew up his horse and pointed out to Jack a porcupine waddling slowly over the snow. “There is some game for you, son, if you want it,” he said, “but I wouldn’t waste a cartridge on it. If you want to kill it, knock it on the head with a club. Porcupine is pretty good meat—for those that like it. The Northern Indians, those that live in the timber at least, eat them whenever they can get hold of them.”