← catalogue

A Mountain Boyhood

by Joe Mills · English · Gutenberg #29681 · 358,807 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Mountain Boyhood
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: A Mountain Boyhood

Author: Joe Mills

Illustrator: Enos B. Comstock


        
Release date: August 12, 2009 [eBook #29681]
                Most recently updated: January 5, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29681

Credits: Produced by Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MOUNTAIN BOYHOOD ***




Produced by Al Haines










[Transcriber's note: Extensive research found no evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.]





[Frontispiece: AT THAT INSTANT THE BEAR CAME TO LIFE.]





  A
  MOUNTAIN
  BOYHOOD


_by_ JOE MILLS


Author of "The Comeback"



Illustrated by

ENOS B. COMSTOCK



J. H. SEARS & COMPANY, Inc.

PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK




COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY

J. H. SEARS & CO., INCORPORATED



COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY

THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA (INC.)


  MANUFACTURED COMPLETE BY THE
  KINGSPORT PRESS
  KINGSPORT, TENNESSEE

_United States of America_




  TO
  THE ONE WHO MADE THIS
  BOYHOOD POSSIBLE
  MY WIFE




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

    I.  GOING WEST
   II.  GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH WILD COUNTRY AND ANIMALS
  III.  FIRST CAMP ALONE--EXPLORING
   IV.  DANCING ACROSS THE DIVIDE
    V.  TRAPPING--MOUNTAIN-TOP DWELLERS
   VI.  A LOG CABIN IN THE WILDS--PRIMITIVE LIVING
  VII.  GLACIERS AND FOREST FIRES
 VIII.  THE PROVERBIAL BUSY BEAVER
   IX.  MOUNTAIN CLIMBING
    X.  MODERN PATHFINDERS
   XI.  OFF THE TRAIL
  XII.  DREAMERS OF GOLDEN DREAMS
 XIII.  THE CITY OF SILENCE
  XIV.  BEARS AND BUGBEARS
   XV.  ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


At that instant the bear came to life . . . . _Frontispiece_

I plunged downward, struggling frantically

I sat down by the fiddler and dozed

I glimpsed his flaming eyes and wide-open, fang-filled mouth

Sheep and rock dropped straight toward me

Never before had the ring of an ax echoed in Silent Valley

"See all fools ain't dead yit," he observed

The memory of that race for life is still vividly terrifying

Every fall I watched Mr. and Mrs. Peg at their repairs

They turned tail and came racing back, straight toward me

Out of the dust of years, we dug the history of a buried past




A MOUNTAIN BOYHOOD


CHAPTER ONE

GOING WEST

Father and mother settled on the Kansas prairie in the early fifties.
At that time Kansas was the frontier.  Near neighbors were twenty miles
or more apart.  There was no railroad; no stages supplied the vast
unsettled region.  A few supplies were freighted by wagon.  However,
little was needed from civilized sources, for the frontier teemed with
game.  Myriads of prairie chickens were almost as tame as domestic
fowls.  Deer stared in wide-eyed amazement at the early settlers.
Bands of buffalo snorted in surprise as the first dark lines of sod
were broken up.  Droves of wild turkey skirted the fringes of timber.
Indians roamed freely; halting in wonder at the first log cabins of the
pioneers.

In my father's old diary I found the following:

June, 1854.

Drove through from Iowa to Kansas by ox team.  Located four days' drive
south of Portsmouth.*  Not much timber here.

* Later Kansas City.

October, 1854.

Just returned from visit to our nearest neighbor, John Seeright, a
day's drive away.  Took the chickens and cow along and stayed several
days.


Father told me that the early settlers did not like a region after it
got "settled up."  He laughed heartily when he said this.  It is quite
true nevertheless; as soon as a region became "settled up," the
pioneers were ready to push on again into the unknown.  They loved the
frontier--it held adventure, hazard always, mystery, ofttimes, romance,
life.  They moved ahead of and beyond civilization--even the long arm
of the law did not penetrate their wilderness fastnesses.  Their
experience--so numerous books cannot hold them all--have become history.

It is not strange that my parents welcomed the gold rush of '59.  It
called them once more into the farther wilderness, the vaster unknown.
When news of the finding of gold in the Rockies came across the plains,
legions of adventurers trailed westward.  The few roads that led across
the rolling prairies to the Rockies were soon deep-cut.  Wagons trains
strung out across the treeless land like huge, creeping serpents moving
lazily in the sun.  Joyfully the adventurers went--happy, courageous.
They were the vanguards of civilization, pushing ever to the West.

To my lifelong regret, my boyhood came after the gold rushes were over;
the buffalo bands had passed for the last time; the Indian fighting
ended.  However, these exciting events were still fresh in the memory
of my parents.  When neighbors came to visit us, long hours were spent
in talking over and comparing experiences.  I thrilled as my father
told of climbing Long's Peak, the eastern sentinel of the Rockies--of
Estes Park, teeming with trout and game.  I thought then that I had
been born too late--that all the big things in the world were past
history.  I feared then that even the Rockies would lose their wildness
before I could explore them.

Within sight and sound of the farm where I was born, a number of Civil
War skirmishes took place.  The eastern Kansas border during the trying
time of the early sixties was perhaps the worst place in all the world
to live.  Raiding parties plundered on both sides of the
Kansas-Missouri line.  My mother watched the battle of Mine Creek from
the dooryard; saw the soldiers streaming by, and prayed fervently as
the tide of battle swayed back and forth.  My father was fighting in
that battle.  These frontier conflicts were still the favorite topics
of conversation at neighborhood gatherings when I was a little boy.  I
listened breathlessly to them and lived them over in my imagination.
Of all the tales recounted around our fire, I loved that of the gold
rush of '59 best--my father and mother had participated in it--and I'm
sure that story moved me most of all to obey Horace Greeley's
injunction.

The wagons, in the beginning of the journey, formed a train, keeping
close together for mutual protection.  As they neared the Rockies, they
scattered, each party following its individual route.  Late in the
summer, high up in the mountains near Breckenridge, Colorado, my father
fell ill of "mountain fever."  My mother, who weighed less than one
hundred pounds, alone drove the pony team back across the plains to
eastern Kansas.  Many weeks were spent en route.  Sometimes they camped
for a night with westward-bound wagons; then resumed the eastward
journey alone.  Buffalo, migrating southward, literally covered the
prairie--at times, so dense were their ranks, my mother had to stop the
team to let the herds go by.

One experience of this trying trip, often related by my father, filled
me with lasting admiration for my plucky mother.

"We were camped one night beneath some cottonwoods beside a wide,
shallow stream," father would say, "and I was unable to move from my
bed in the wagon.  Your mother cared for the team, started a fire, and
got supper.  Shortly after dark, and before supper was ready, a dozen
Indians filed solemnly into our camp and sat down facing the fire.
They said nothing, but followed your mother's every movement with
watchful eyes.  If your mother tasted the brew in the brass kettle,
every Indian eye followed her hand, and every Indian licked his lips
eagerly.  The brass kettle was about the only cooking utensil we
possessed, and your mother guarded it carefully.

"This night the kettle held a savory stew of buffalo meat.  When the
stew was done, your mother set it off the fire to cool.  During a few
seconds--while her back was turned--the kettle vanished.  From the
shelter of the wagon I saw an Indian reach out stealthily and slip it
beneath his blanket.  The next moment your mother was facing the silent
circle with blazing eyes.  And there, hundreds of miles from a
settlement, with no help at hand, she defied a dozen Indians.  In spite
of the fact that she weighed just ninety-two pounds, she swept around
the circle slapping the surprised braves, pulling their hair and
demanding the kettle.  She noticed that the chief was sheltering
something beneath his blanket.  At once she gave his blanket a jerk.
The hot brew spilled over the surprised redskin's legs.  There was a
yell that rent the stillness.  The fellow leaped high into the air, and
vanished into the night, leaving the brass kettle behind him."

Little did my parents realize that their recounted experiences would
eventually lead me, still a boy, to venture into new regions.

At ten years of age I hazarded the statement that I was old enough to
shift for myself; that I was going West to live the rest of my life in
the Rocky Mountains.  But my parents, in order to frighten me out of my
plans, told me that Indians still infested the wilds; that terrible
bull buffaloes and horrible grizzly bears roamed the wilderness.

These attempts to frighten me only strengthened my desire for adventure
and my determination to seek it.  When all else failed I was told that
I was too young to strike out for myself.  At last father put his foot
down firmly, a sign that his patience was at an end--so I postponed my
adventure.

The day finally came when I was aboard a train, heading westward,
toward the mountains of my dreams.  I possessed twenty dollars, my
entire savings.  During the journey I hardly slept, but kept watch out
the window for the first glimpse of the Rockies.  I have no
recollection that there were sleeping cars at that time; anyhow, my
thin little purse afforded no such gross extravagance if I had known.
I recall that the individual seat of the chair-car gave me much
concern.  I had considerable trouble adjusting it--putting it up and
laying it down.

Beside me in the companion seat rode a man of middle age, bearded,
roughly dressed, who took keen interest in my destination.  He was
located, I learned, over the Continental Divide in that vast region
beyond Grand Lake.  He talked of the forests of uncut timber near his
homestead, of the fertile valleys and grassy parks that would
eventually support cattle herds.  "Some day," he predicted, "there'll
be a railroad built between Denver and Salt Lake City; and when it
comes it's bound to pass close to my claim."

At dawn I caught my first sight of the great snow-covered peaks, a
hundred miles away, rearing rose-red in the early morning light.  At
first I mistook those misty ranges for cloud banks, lighted by the
rising sun.  Then, as we drew nearer and day wore on, I made them out.

Toward noon I reached Fort Collins, Colorado, fifty miles from Long's
Peak, where there was no stage connection with Estes Park, but
Loveland, a town fifteen miles south, had a horse stage that made three
trips a week.  The fare, I learned, was quite prohibitive, three
dollars for something more than thirty miles.  The walk would be
interesting, I decided.  But the old canvas bag, containing all my
worldly possessions, was too bulky and awkward to be carried.  After
some hours of dickering, I paid eight dollars for a second-hand
bicycle, tied the bag on the handle bars and started for the Mecca of
my dreams.

That first journey to the mountains was filled with thrills.  The old
stage road shot up successive mountain ranges, and plunged abruptly
down into the valleys between.  There was no Big Thompson route then;
instead, the road ascended Bald Mountain, climbed the foothill range,
crossed the top, then dropped into Rattlesnake Park.  It squirmed up
Pole Hill, a grade so steep that I could scarcely push up my wheel.  Up
and down, up and down, it seesawed endlessly.  The afternoon wore on;
each successive slope grew harder, for my legs were weary.  Twice,
braking with one foot on the front crotch and sliding the wheel, I had
pitched headlong over the handle bars.  Upon two descents that were too
precipitous to venture unballasted, I tied fair-sized pine trees to the
rear of my craft to act as drag-anchors.

As darkness came on I coasted down a sharp pitch to a little brook.  In
the aspens that bordered the road was a range cow standing guard beside
a newborn calf.  Across the road, like grisly shadows among the trees,
skulked several coyotes.  The calf half rose, wabbled, and went down.
Three times it attempted to rise, grew weaker, and at last gave up the
struggle.  With the waiting coyotes in mind, I leaned my wheel against
a bowlder and went to its rescue.  Several things happened at once.
The half-wild range cow misunderstood my good intentions.  She was
accustomed to seeing men on horseback; and one afoot was strange.  She
charged headlong.  I dodged quickly aside but not in time to escape
entirely.  She raked me with her sharp horns.  There was a wild race
through the aspens; I leading, but the cow a close second, her horns
menacing me at every leap, while I doubled and backtracked sharply
about among the trees.  I had no chance to "tree"; though no mountain
lion was ever more willing, for Mrs. Cow was too near.  Only Providence
and my agility saved me from an untimely end.  At last the cow halted,
for she was getting too far from her calf.  She shook her horns after
me menacingly, turned and hurried back toward where her offspring lay.

Each mile I covered impressed upon me more and more that there is not
even a distant relationship between mountain miles and my Kansas
prairie miles.  The latter are ironed out flat, the former stand on
end, cease to be miles and become trials.  Slowly the shadows filled
the cañons, and came creeping up the slopes.  I gazed in awesome wonder
at the beauty of my land of dreams.  My legs, cramped almost past
pedaling, still kept on--for my goal, my mountains, were at hand.
Exaltation of spirit overcame exhaustion of body.

At no time had I given any particular thought to what would happen when
I arrived; so far my whole attention had been centered on reaching the
Rockies.  Such trivialities as no job, no relatives, practically no
money, made little impression upon my Rocky-bound mind.

Long after nightfall I reached the crest of Park Hill, the last barrier
to Estes Park.  The moon shone full upon the valley below, and upon the
snow-capped mountains beyond.  The river murmured softly as its shining
folds curled back and forth across the dark green meadow, suddenly
vanishing between dark cañon walls.  Coyotes raised their eerie voices;
across the cañon, from the cliffs of Mount Olympus, an owl hooted
gloomily.  Before me loomed the Rockies, strangely unreal in the
moonlight and yet very like the mountains of my imagination.  I gazed,
spellbound.  My dream was realized.

It was midnight when, completely exhausted, I stopped before an old log
cabin.  Dogs charged out, barking furiously at the strange thing I rode
and nipping at my legs; but I was too weary to remember distinctly even
now what happened.  I must have tumbled off my wheel for I learned
afterward that I was picked up and put to bed; but for hours I tossed
about, my body racked with pain, my thoughts jumbled.  But boys must
sleep, and I slept at last.

Next morning, pushing the wheel slowly, I headed for the most remote
ranch in the region, that lay at the foot of Long's Peak.  Progress was
slow and painful for my body was stiff and sore; the road I followed
wound upward, climbing steadily to higher altitude.  Frequently I
halted to rest, and spent my time of respite searching the mountains
with eager, appraising eyes, planning explorations among them.  Toward
noon I came to the ranch I sought, located nine miles from the nearest
neighbor, at nine thousand feet altitude, and surrounded by rugged
mountains.  Above it rose Long's Peak, up and up into the clouds, to
more than fourteen thousand feet.  The rancher was the Reverend E. J.
Lamb, one of the early settlers of Estes Park.  The Parson, as he was
known, was more than six feet tall, straight as a lodge-pole pine
physically--and even more so spiritually.  He wore a long, flowing
beard, rose habitually and unprotestingly at four in the morning--a man
of diverse talents and eccentricities.




CHAPTER TWO

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH WILD COUNTRY AND ANIMALS

Parson Lamb's ranch consisted of a fenced garden tract surrounded on
every side for miles by high mountains that shut it in.  There was
heavy forest on the slopes above the ranch; and out of these came many
lively little streams that were almost as cold as their parent
snowbanks.

I hoarded my few remaining dollars.  The Parson gave me room and board,
in return for which I helped about the place, doing various chores,
such as wood-splitting and clearing land for more garden, and
occasionally going the nine miles to the village for the mail.  My work
took only a small part of my time, leaving me free to explore the
near-by region, with its deep, evergreen forests, and the wild animals
which lived in them.

Many were the tales the tall, rawboned Parson told of his early pioneer
days (for he had lived there since the early seventies, and was a
loquacious old fellow), as he and his wife, Jane, and I sat beside the
granite fireplace, when the coals glowed low and the shadows scurried
here and there over the rough logs of the cabin walls.  He had been
shot and nearly killed by a bandit, gored by a bull, dragged by a
frightened horse, and bitten by a bear.  Upon one lonely excursion far
from any settlement, he had been followed by a huge, stealthy, mountain
lion.

Harrowing as were these tales, the one that made me shiver despite the
radiant pitch knots, was that of his perilous descent of the precipice
on Long's Peak.  Time has not changed the character of that face--it is
sheer and smooth and icy now, as then.  He was probably the first man
to attempt its descent, and I was always weak and spent when he ended
his story of it, so vividly did he portray its dangers.  I sat tense,
digging my nails deep into my palms, living through every squirm and
twist with him, from the moment he slid down from the comparatively
safe "Narrows" to the first niche in the glassy, precipitous wall,
till, after many nearly-the-last experiences, he landed safely at its
foot.  That adventure had almost cost him his life, for he had once
missed his foothold, slipped and slid and had hung suspended by one
hand for a long, terrible moment.

Always I sat with eyes glued upon the story-teller, thrilling as he
talked, planning secretly to emulate his example, proving some of his
statements by daily short excursions.  However, the Parson was not
always away on trips.  Sometimes he guided visitors to the top of the
Peak or worked on the trail to its summit.  He chopped wood, worked in
the garden, hunted stray cattle or horses.  Frequently he rode off with
his Bible under his arm, for he was a circuit rider, carrying the
gospel into the wilderness.  He gave good, if free, advice, officiated
at weddings and funerals, at barn-raisings and log-rollings.  He
preached or worked as the notion moved him; lingered in one place or
rode long trails to fulfill his mission.  His own ranch was thirty
miles from the railroad, but many of his calls were made on settlers
even more remote.

Gradually I extended the scope of my explorations, frequently spending
the night abroad, carrying a pair of worn and faded blankets and a
little food.  A number of times I climbed Long's Peak alone.  On these
trips to high country I scouted the high-flung crest of Battle
Mountain, Lady Washington, Storm Peak, and Mount Meeker; explored
Glacier Gorge, investigated Chasm Lake, and from the top of Peak and
Meeker looked down into Wild Basin to the south.

I sketched a rude map of the great basin in my notebook and named it
"Land of Many Waters," because of the scores of small streams that
trickled down its inclosing mountain sides.  The oval bowl I estimated
to be fifteen miles long by about half as wide, its sides formed of
mountain slopes densely wooded up to bleak timberline.  Save the murmur
of falling water, or the wind upon the heights, it was a land of
silence.  Small streams converged, dropped into deep cañons and reached
the river that rumbled far below.  There were vivid, emerald lakes
everywhere--some lost in the woods near the river, others pocketed
behind the ridges, while still more could be seen up above naked
timberline.

I returned, thrilled with the thought of exploring Wild Basin, sought
the Parson and told him my ambition.  At first he was much amused, but
when he found I was serious he grew grave.

"There's no neighbors over that way," he objected.  "If anything
happens, you'll be beyond help."  Even though he was older and much
more experienced, I thought him hardly qualified, after his own
foolhardy adventures, to discourage me; but I decided to wait until
fall before setting out.  This delay would enable me to know more about
the mountains, to add to my experience, and better fit me to cope with
the emergencies of that inviting, great unknown--Wild Basin.

Everywhere I found strange birds and animals, and began to get
acquainted with them.  The handsome, black and white, long-tailed
magpies were much like the crows I had known in Kansas, so far as
wariness was concerned.  The Rocky Mountain long-crested jays, quite
unlike our prairie jays, much more brilliant in coloring, their
gorgeous coats of turquoise blue and black flashing in the sunshine,
were continually bickering, and following me through the woods to see
what I was about.  Chickadees and nuthatches were always inspecting the
trees for food, running up and down, paying no attention to me and
going about their business with cheerful little chirrups that expressed
their contentment.  Occasionally a crow flew up the valley with raucous
calls; and sometimes a raven pursued his way toward the deeper woods.
Meadow larks and robins were everywhere.

Woodpeckers and flickers did their bit to keep vermin off the trees,
and performed daily operations on trunk and limb, removing borers and
beetles that had penetrated beneath the bark, thus saving the lives of
many evergreen monarchs.  Around ten and eleven thousand feet there
were campbirds, Canada jays, friendly and inquisitive; on first
acquaintance they often took food from my hands, and helped themselves
freely of any food accessible in camp.  They were unruffled, flitting
softly from tree to tree, with little flapping, calling low, and in a
sweetly confidential tone.

However friendly I found the birds, the big game animals were extremely
wary.  I mentioned the fact to the Parson.

"They've been shot at," was his explanation.  "Every time they've come
in contact with men they've suffered.  They know men are dangerous,
always have guns."

In spite of the Parson's observations we always had wild game hanging
in the log meat house; there was never any question about securing
whatever we wanted in that line.  Except during the winter months, deer
could be had with little effort.  But the elk had practically vanished;
occasionally a lone survivor strayed into the ranch valley.  There were
bears, of course, shy and fearful, in the rough, unsettled country.  We
had great variety of meat, venison, Bighorn sheep, grouse, ptarmigan,
wild pigeon, sometimes squirrel and, rarely, bear steaks.

Wherever I went, even in the far-away places where few men had ever
been, the deer and elk and bear were very wild, and I found it
impossible to approach them unless the wind was from them to me, and I
moved forward carefully hidden.  I spent many eventful days, walking,
climbing, sitting motionless to watch the scampering chipmunks, or to
invite the birds up close.  Thus, a little at a time, I came to know
the habits of the wild folks I met; learned their likes and
dislikes--the things that excited their curiosity, and that frightened
them away in panic.

Upon my first climb to the top of Long's Peak alone, I halted above
timberline and stared about in amazement at the wide stretches of
rock-strewn slopes.  From a distance these had appeared no larger than
a back yard, but a close-up revealed they were miles across; and
instead of being barren, were a series of hanging gardens, one above
another, each of different shape and size, and all green with grass and
with a hundred different kinds of wild flowers waving in the sunshine.
I counted more than fifty varieties, none of which I knew, and still
they seemed endless.

Usually I wandered off the trail to follow birds or animals.  In the
arctic-like zone above were birds entirely strange to me, and animals
that never came down to the valley of the ranch.  It was not long
before I discovered that nearly all birds and animals live at a certain
zone of altitude, rarely straying above or below it.

Occasionally I heard a queer "squee-ek."  It sounded close, yet its
maker was invisible.  Many times I looked up, searching the air
overhead for the elusive "squee-eker."  At last I came upon a bunch of
grass, no larger than a water pail, and stopped to examine it.  Grass
and flowers had been piled loosely in an irregular heap, resembling a
miniature haystack.

"Something making a nest," I observed aloud.

"Squee-ek," denied a shrill voice almost at my elbow.

Ten feet away upon a bowlder that rose above the rest of the rocks, sat
a small animal which at first I mistook for a young rabbit.  In shape
and size he closely resembled a quarter-grown cottontail, but his ears
were different from any rabbit's, being short and round.  His eyes were
beady; somehow he made me think of a rat.  He ran down the rock and
climbed to another perch.  Not even so much tail as a bunny--none at
all.  In some respects he resembled a rabbit, a squirrel and a prairie
dog.  His actions reminded me of all of them.  In fact, he is sometimes
called "Rock Rabbit" and "Little Chief Hare."  He may have other names
besides.

I watched the interesting little fellow for some time and later found
his actions characteristic of his tribe.  He literally makes hay while
the summer shines.  He is the only harvester I ever saw who works on
the run.  He dashed at top speed, without stopping for breath, bit off
a mouthful of grass and again ran pell-mell for his growing stack.  He
scampered down its side, then leaped from an adjacent rock to its top,
laden with his bundle of hay.  Evidently he found the alpine summer
short and felt it necessary to step lively.  Altitude, that convenient
scapegoat of tenderfeet, did not seem to affect his wind or his
endurance.  He stacked his harvest in one corner of the field from
which he cut it.  He cut flowers along with the grass.  Perhaps he used
them for flavor as grandmother put rose-geranium leaves in her
crab-apple jelly.  The haycock he built was about the size of a
bucket--I have since seen them as large as bushel baskets.  His tiny
fields lay between bowlders; some of them were but a few inches square,
others a foot, several a yard, perhaps.

I was interested to learn if the little haycocks were blown away by the
timberline gales, so returned later, not really expecting to find them.
Nor were they in the same location, but their owners, not the wind, had
moved them.  Evidently, as soon as the hay was cured, it was stored for
safe-keeping, usually beneath the overhang of a rock, away from the
wind.

I was then curious to see how the cony would transport his hay in
winter.  Many of his under-rock passages would, at that season, be
filled with snow, forcing him to appear on the surface where the wind
was often strong enough to blow me over, to say nothing of what it
would do to the little midget in fur with a load of hay attached.  He
met the storm situation easily.  Whenever he exhausted one hayloft, he
moved his home to another.  Thus he solved the transportation question
and gained a new home at the same time.  Several times, upon digging
beneath the slide rock, I discovered cony dens, merely openings far
down between the jumbled rocks, beyond the reach of wind and weather.
They were of great variety, large, small, wide, narrow; all ready to
move into.  They were the conies' castles, ready refuges from enemies,
their devious passages as effective as drawbridge or portcullis.

The cony is something like the heaver far down on the flats below;
working at top speed when he does work, and then resting for many
months.  Outside the brief harvest period I have found him sitting idly
atop a rock, napping in the sun, dreaming apparently; thus for days and
months he is idle, always harmless--a condition that does not apply to
human beings under similar circumstances.  He is energetic, ambitious,
courageous, and acrobatic.  He is the scout of the mountain top, always
alert and friendly.

The altitude zone of the cony I found to be between eleven and thirteen
thousand feet.  He and the Bighorn, ptarmigan, weasels and foxes are
mountain-top dwellers throughout the year.  Marmots hibernate during
the long alpine winters.  But the cony I have seen on sunny days in
January; his welcome "squee-ek," piercing the roar of the wind, has
greeted me on the lonely storm-swept heights when not another living
thing was in sight.

But in spite of his living in the out-of-the-way world the cony has
enemies for whom he is always watching.  In summer there are hawks and
eagles, foxes and coyotes.  In winter his feathered foes depart, but
the foxes remain, as do the weasels.  Sitting motionless in the midst
of jumbled rocks I have faded into the bowlder fields, and thus have
been able to watch the cony and his enemies.  Usually his "squee-ek"
announced the appearance of a foe before I discovered it.  Then, if the
enemy was a bird or a beast, he merely hugged the rock, watching
alertly until he was discovered, then flipped out of sight to the
safety of rocky retreat, giving a defiant "squee-ek" as he went.  But
if a weasel appeared...

I sat watching a cony one day in early fall as he lay in the sunshine
upon a bowlder.  From somewhere below us came the distant "squee-ek" of
a relative, followed shortly by the shrill whistle of a marmot.  The
cony sat up suddenly, awake and alertly watching.  The signals were
repeated.  Instantly the little fellow departed from his outpost and
hurried away, circling the bowlder, leaping to another, disappearing in
the rocks and reappearing again.  His actions were so unusual that I
wondered what message the signals had carried; to me they were no
different than they were when they announced my coming--yet the
difference must have been plain to the wee furry ears, judging from
their owner's apprehensive actions.  Indeed, a weasel was abroad
seeking his quarry.  When his presence was announced, neither the cony
nor I could see him because of an intervening upthrust of rock.

Soon the weasel appeared, circling the rock where the cony had been
sunning himself, searching beneath it, hurrying along the tunnels
through which the cony had fled.  Emerging upon the bowlder, he paused
for a few seconds as he looked in all directions.  The weasel was
brownish-yellow in color.  I was to learn later that he changed to pure
white in winter.

I sprang to my feet and pursued him, shouting as I ran, throwing rocks
and attempting to scare him off.  Losing track of both pursuer and
pursued, I stopped for breath.  Suddenly, from almost beneath my feet,
the agile villain reappeared, staring at me with bright, bold eyes,
advancing toward me as though to attack.  He was no coward; with
amazing agility he dodged a rock I threw at him, turning a back-spring
and landing at my feet.  For a moment we glared at each other, then he
made off as though utterly unconscious of my presence.

I watched the long slender body disappear among the rocks in the
opposite direction to that taken by the cony, standing for a moment to
regain my breath and recover from my surprise.

Suddenly there was a shrill whistle behind me.  I jumped and whirled
about.  Twenty feet away a marmot stood erect atop a rock, eying me
inquiringly, watching every movement.  He had whistled his signal about
me, whether good or bad news I could not detect, but from the distance
came other whistles in reply.  He was the cony's ally, broadcasting
information about the skirmish taking place before his eyes; but
whether he was attempting to interfere and divert my attention, I could
not make out.  Certainly, though, he was giving information, signaling
my presence to all within hearing.  My intrusion upon the heights in
summer has ever been announced by the conies and the marmots.

From another direction came a second whistle; apparently I was
surrounded.  Then, as I moved, the second marmot hurried away from his
observation post.  He was short-legged, reddish-yellow in color, with a
bushy tail, and he ran with great effort but with very little speed,
like a fat boy in a foot race.

Down in the valley near the ranch were numerous grouse, old and young,
so tame that it was like knocking over pet chickens to kill them.  But
there was a strange bird above timberline, the ptarmigan, the arctic
quail of the north--fool hens, the Parson told me.  These birds were
mottled in color, matching the rocks among which they lived, and so
closely did their color blend with their environment it was impossible
to distinguish bird from rock so long as the fowl remained still.  It
was because they depended so utterly upon their protective coloration,
making no effort to get out of the way but acting with utmost
stupidity, that they came to be called "fool hens."

The days I spent above timberline were the most wonderful of all.  From
high above the world I could see tier upon tier of distant, snow-capped
mountains--ghost ranges--and southward, at the horizon, loomed Pike's
Peak a hundred airline miles away, a giant pyramid above the foothills,
standing sentinel over the vast, flat plains that reached to its foot.

As weeks passed and my interest in the wild things increased, I began
to wish for a cabin of my own, a home or a den to which I could retreat
and spend the time as I desired.  Wherever I rambled I was alert for a
location for my little house.  I was not yet old enough to take up a
homestead and claim land for myself.

Climbing to the summits of various promontories I planned the sort of
cabin I would like to build there; I'd have a dog, and a horse too, and
a camera--I began to doubt whether I'd want my rifle for as I developed
my acquaintance with the animals I found myself less eager to shoot
them.

Hunting and trapping was the habit of everyone I knew; even back in
Kansas the boys and men had gone shooting at every opportunity; and the
few men I encountered upon the trails in the Rockies were for the most
part real trappers and hunters, following the trade for a living.  They
gave no thought to the cruelty of their traps or the suffering their
operations occasioned, It is not strange, then, that such men saw no
harm in their actions, for they considered all game fair prey.

Occasionally I left my gun at home and found that I rambled the heights
above timberline in a changed mood from when I carried it.  The animals
were more friendly, perhaps my actions were more open and aboveboard.
My rifle naturally inspired a desire to shoot something; a mountain
sheep, a bear, even the fat marmots did not escape my deadly fire.

But, without a gun--there was interest everywhere.  Many times I
laughed at the antics of the animals, especially at the awkward,
lumbering haste of the marmots.  These animals, while very curious,
were quick to take alarm.  They would climb to a lookout post at the
top of a rock, watching me eagerly and whistling mild gossip for the
delectation of their neighbors who could not see me.  One day, far
skyward, I came upon an exceedingly fat marmot busily eating grass in a
narrow little hayland between bowlders.  He must have weighed more than
twenty pounds, but this fact did not deter him from adding additional
weight for the long, winter sleep.  At best his active period was
short, his hibernation long, so he ate and slept and ate again through
all the hours of daylight.  At my approach he reluctantly left off
eating, crept up a rock and whistled mildly as though merely curious.
For a time I amused him by advancing, retreating, and circling his rock.

Suddenly I dropped out of sight behind a bowlder.  Instantly his
whistle carried a note of warning.  So long as I remained in sight I
was merely a curiosity, but the instant I dropped from sight, I became
a suspicious character.  Again he broadcasted sharp warning to all
within hearing.  From near and far came answering marmot shrillings,
and from near by a cony "squee-eked" his quick alarm.

My reappearance reassured the marmot.  He whistled again, and I thought
I distinguished a note of disgust or of disappointment.

This marmot lived on the south slope of the big moraine that shoulders
against Lady Washington, neighboring peak to the giant mountain, Long's
Peak.  Sometimes I found the roly-poly fellow saving hay by eating it,
or asleep in the sun on an exposed rock.  Often he ventured down into
the cañon at the foot of the moraine to investigate the grass that grew
down there.

One day as I sat atop the big moraine, I heard his shrill whistle from
the edge of the trees in the cañon below.  It was somehow different
from any signal I had heard him give before, but just how it was
different I could not make out.  The notes were the same, but the tone
was different--that was it, the tone had changed.  Then the reason for
the difference came out of the scattered trees--a grizzly bear stalked
deliberately into the open and sat down facing the huge bowlder upon
which the marmot sat.

The marmot stood erect on his hind legs, eying the bear warily,
prepared to dash for his den beneath the rock the instant the visitor
made an unfriendly move.  But the bear was a very stupid fellow; he
took no note of the marmot.  Instead, he looked off across the cañon,
swung his head slowly to and fro as though thinking deeply of something
a hundred miles away.  He was a young bear with a shiny new coat of
summer fur.  He had just had a bath in the stream where ice water
gushed from beneath a snowbank.

The marmot gave a second whistle, carrying less fear.  Apparently the
slow-moving, sleepy bear meant no harm.  For half an hour the marmot
watched alertly, then slid down beneath the bowlders and started
eating.  From time to time he sat stiffly erect, peering suspiciously
at the intruder.  But since the bear made no overt move, he continued
his feeding as though he were too hungry to wait until his uninvited
guest departed.

At length the bear rolled over on his back with all four feet in the
air.  The marmot surveyed the performance for a few seconds, then went
on feeding, gradually grazing out beyond the shelter of the rock
beneath which he had his den.  The bear "paid him no mind," apparently
asleep in the sunshine.  Slowly the marmot fed away from the rock, the
farther he ventured the more luxuriant his feast, for the grass was
eaten off short around his dooryard.  For an hour I watched every move
of that silent drama, trying to guess the outcome, wondering if the
bear were really asleep.  All at once the little gourmand whistled
reassuringly: "All right, it's a friend."

The marmot was not more surprised than myself at what happened next.
The bear lay perhaps a hundred feet from the marmot's home, and the
marmot had fed perhaps forty feet from it--a distance he could quickly
cover if the visitor showed unfriendly symptoms.

But there were no symptoms.  It was all over so quickly that I was left
dazed and breathless.  There was a small bowlder about four feet high
in the midst of a tiny hayfield where the marmot fed.  The unsuspecting
whistler fed into the little field, passed behind the rock, and was out
of sight for just a second.  At that instant the bear came to life,
leaped to his feet and dashed toward the den beneath the rock, cutting
off the marmot's retreat.

Too late the quarry saw the bear.  It made a frantic dash for home and
shelter, its fat body working desperately, its short legs flying.  Ten
feet from the den the bear flattened the marmot with a single quick
slap of his paw.  Then he sat down to eat his dinner.  His acting had
been perfect; he had fooled me as well as the marmot.




CHAPTER THREE

FIRST CAMP ALONE--EXPLORING

My short trips into the wilds tempted me to go beyond the trails.  So
far my rambles had taken me only to the threshold of the wilderness, I
wondered what lay beyond; I wanted to follow the game trails and see
where they led.  Above all I was eager to pit my scant skill against
primitive nature and learn if my resourcefulness was equal to the
emergencies of the unknown.  Somehow I never doubted my courage--I
simply didn't fear.

As the short high-altitude summer began to wane, I grew restless.
September advanced; the aspen trees near timberline turned to gold;
from day to day those lower down turned also until a vast richly
colored rug covered the mountain sides.  Ripe leaves fluttered down,
rustling crisply underfoot.  Frost cut down the rank grass, humbled the
weeds and harvested the flowers.  Forests of spruce and lodgepole were
dark with shadow.  A beaver colony returned to its former haunts at the
foot of Long's Peak and was working night and day.  Its pond of still
water was glazing over with clear ice.

October came.  The nights grew colder.  The snow of early winter came
to the high peaks, dusting their bare, bald crowns.

"Fur ought to be getting prime now," the Parson said one day.  "It'll
be better still, higher up."

This was the message I had been waiting for.  It set me packing at
once, for I was going into Wild Basin, alone, to hunt, trap and explore.

On a morning near the middle of October, much excited, I set out for
the land of mystery.  Ahead lay the unknown, uncharted wilds.  I could
go where I chose and stay as long as I wished.  Bold Columbus, looking
westward, I could not have been more thrilled.  Mountain maple beckoned
with ripe, red banners.  The mountains peeked through the autumn haze,
divulging nothing, promising everything!

My outfit consisted of an old, ragged tent, a little food, a camera
that had been through a fire and leaked light badly, a knife, an ax, a
six-shooter, and an old rifle that had been traded about among the
early settlers and had known many owners.  In addition I had bought six
double-spring steel traps sufficiently large to hold beaver, coyotes or
wolves.  The pair of ragged blankets that had served me on my short
trips about the region had been reinforced with an old quilt, faded and
patched, but sweet and clean.

All this duffle I packed upon a "return" horse, lent me by the Parson,
one that would return home as soon as it was let loose.

The Parson chuckled at the appearance of my pack, even the horse turned
his head inquiringly, but I was too excited to mind their insinuations.
As the sun topped the mountains, I led the horse slowly down the old
tollroad toward a game trail, and swung up in the direction of Wild
Basin.

Deer tracks showed in the old road and in the game trails; I also
recognized coyote tracks, and puzzled over strange tracks which I could
not make out.  The small streams I crossed had many deep pools where
trout were collecting for the winter.  I tossed stones into them and
the fish, like rainbow darts, dashed for shelter beneath the rocks.
Hourly my excitement grew--a million plans ran through my head.  I
would become a mighty hunter and make a fortune trapping; I would turn
prospector and locate a mine: Father and Mother would yet have the gold
of which they were thwarted.

The second evening brought me into such rough country that going
farther with the horse was next to impossible.  With excited hands I
unpacked, bade the beast good-by, and started him toward home on the
back trail.  He trotted off, neighing eagerly.

Save for the rumble of the river deep down in its cañon, the great
basin was voiceless.  The forest showed no signs of man.  Above and
beyond rose a circle of snow-capped peaks.  I paused in awe; the world
was bigger than I had dreamed.  I was a boy without a woodsman's
skill--a boy alone in the heart of an overwhelming silence.  I turned,
with a pang of homesickness, just in time to see the return horse
disappear.  Whistling loudly, I set about making camp.  It should be my
headquarters, from which I could explore in all directions, returning
as often as necessary for supplies.

A lake with sandy shores lapped in and out among immense bowlders.  On
the west side a cliff rose straight from the water.  At the upper edge
a small cataract came leaping down the ledges and plunged noisily into
the pool that overflowed into the lake.  Above the water was a grove of
Engelmann spruces, giant trees that rose straight for more than a
hundred feet.  I pitched my tent in a small open glade, but had trouble
getting down the stakes, for everywhere was granite.  The first test of
my resourcefulness had come--I met it by piling stones around the tent
stakes, bracing them taut for the ropes.

The call of the wild was too loud to ignore--I hastened my camp making.
The sun was going down on a world of splendor.  Overhead were
brilliantly colored clouds, while deep in the cañon below the early
darkness was thickening.  From somewhere in the distance came the cry
of an animal.  Camp was left unfinished; I climbed to a jutting
shoulder that overlooked the cañon.  From far below came the noise of
the river as it chugged and sobbed and roared endlessly between its
towering walls.  I promised myself I would go down and explore that
dark cañon at an early date.

Of a sudden there came an indescribable, unearthly sound that echoed
and reëchoed among the cliffs.  I could not tell the direction from
which it came; a sudden chill crept along my spine, my hair prickled
and lifted.  Then the echoes ceased, the silence that followed was
equally terrifying.  I bethought me of my unfinished camp.  Later I
learned that alarming sound was the bugling of a bull elk.  It was the
mating season.

As darkness came on I ate beans and bread by the light of the campfire.
The beans came out of a can, so were well cooked; but the bread was my
first campfire, culinary concoction.  It was a flour and water mixture,
plus salt and baking powder, cooked against a hot rock.  It was smoked
black and cooked so hard it nearly broke my teeth, besides, it had a
granite finish from association with the rock oven.  But I ate it with
boyish relish in spite of its flaws.  My imagination expanded as I
watched ghostly shadow-figures dance upon the face of the cliff.  The
shifting flame, the wood smoke, the silent, starry night swelled my
heart to pride in my great adventure.  I ignored the incident of the
animal cry that had sent me scurrying to camp.  This first camp was
just below timberline, at an altitude of eleven thousand feet or more.

I had much to learn about altitude, as well as of winds and weather,
woods and mountains.  In the mountains the higher one goes the harder
the wind blows.  In the Rockies, around timberline, gales often reach a
velocity of a hundred miles, or more, an hour.  Here during the long
alpine winters, the wind booms and crashes among the peaks, roars
through the passes, and rips through the shattered trees.  That first
night I lay in camp and listened to its unceasing roar, as it tore
along the ridge tops.  Occasionally, a gust would scatter my fire.  It
raged through the spruces like a hurricane, causing me much uneasiness
lest one of the trees should come crashing down upon my frail shelter.
At last, after dozing before the dying fire, I went inside the tent,
crept between my blankets and fell asleep.

I was aiming at a charging grizzly, when there came a swishing, banging
crash!  I sat up, half awake.  The tent flapped wildly, lifting clear
of the ground.  My stone cairns had been jerked down by the repeated
yanks of the stake ropes.  A stronger gust, the tent went down, or
rather up, and vanished into the night.  The spruce tree, which was my
tent pole, struck me on the head.  I sat dazed.  Gradually it came to
me that my clothes, as well as my tent, were gone.  I realized, too,
that I had pitched camp on the wrong side of the little stream, for the
mischievous gusts, saturated with water from the falls, spat upon me
and soaked my blankets.  I managed to strike a match, but the wind
snuffed it out instantly.  I tried again and again to make a
light--with no success.  I crawled dazedly about--I struggled
upright--my toe caught beneath a rock, and I pitched headlong.  That
hour of darkness taught me never to venture about blindly.

The night was unbelievably cold.  During the day, while the sun had
shone brightly, the temperature had been very comfortable, even warm.
But now, with wind blasts from the snow-fields and glaciers and
waterfall, I was chilled through and through.  As I felt about for my
vanished clothes, my teeth chattered.  Soon I gave up the search and
sought shelter in the spruces; I found a leaning slab of rock and crept
beneath it as a wild animal would have done.  Through the remaining
hours of the night I shivered and shook there; my imagination dulled,
my ambition dampened.  I decided to break camp as soon as it was light.

But it is marvelous what sunshine will do.  When at last the tardy sun
came up, and the wind died down and I had recovered my clothes and
warmed myself at a leaping fire, my heart too leaped up with renewed
courage.  All was serene.  It seemed impossible that I could have been
so miserable in the night.

As soon as I had eaten I dragged the tent back among the spruces where
I set it up and anchored it securely.  Lesson Number One had sunk in.
It would not need repeating.

When camp was at last secure, I climbed slowly to the ridge top above.
Its crest was above timberline.  On all sides rose lofty mountains,
many of them patched with snowbanks.  Deep cañons cut sharply between
the ridges and shoulders.  Ice fields indicated possible glaciers.  I
wanted to explore everything at once; wanted to climb the peaks, and
delve into the cañons; hunt out the game and explore the glaciers.

At timberline I stopped in silent wonder.  Broken trees were scattered
about upon the ground like soldiers after a battle.  I didn't quite
comprehend its significance, but Parson Lamb had described it to me.  I
had seen other timberlines in my rambles, but none so impressive as
this.  Here was the forest frontier.  How dauntless, how gallant, these
pioneers were!  How they strove to hold the advantage gained during the
brief summer respite!  Here a canny stripling grew behind a sheltering
bowlder, but whenever it tried to peep above its breastworks, the wind,
with its shell-shot of sand and gravel and ice bullets, cut off its
protruding limbs as neatly as a gardner might have done.  Consequently
its top was as flat as a table.

In the open, other trees trailed along the ground like creeping vines,
their tops pointing away from the wind.  It seemed as if they banded
together for mutual protection, for they formed a dense hedge or
"bush."  Here was the deadline established by altitude.  The forests
were commanded to halt; this line of last defense was not unlike the
sweeping shoreline of the sea.  Here and there were lone scout trees in
advance of the ranks.  They were twisted and dwarfed, misshapen,
grotesque.

There were wide, naked stretches bare of snow.  Great drifts lay in the
woods; the deep, narrow cañons were piled full of it.  Many of these
drifts would last far into the following summer; a few would be
perpetual.  At the approach of summer, such drifts turn to ice through
frequent thawing and freezing, since the surface snow, melting under
the glare of the summer sun, seeps down through the mass beneath in
daytime, and freezes again at night.  From such drifts flow icy streams
for the leaping trout.  Countless sparkling springs gurgled forth at
the foot of the slopes.

Here I had my first lessons in conservation and learned that it is
indeed an ill wind that does no good.  Here nature hoards her savings
in snowbanks.  To these savings she adds constantly throughout the
winter.  Long I sat upon a promontory and marveled.  Dimly, only, did I
grasp the significance of what lay before me!  The ranks of primeval
forest waiting to aid civilization; snow, that white magic eventually
destined to water crops on the distant plains; and, above all, woods,
the final refuge of the big game; the sanctuary of the birds.

Everywhere were scattered unnamed lakes.  These edged out and around
the rock peninsulas, folded back into dark coves and swung out of sight
behind the timbered bends.  Some were almost pinched in half by the
crowding cliffs till they formed giant hour-glasses; again they bulged
and overflowed like streams at high water.  I began to name them
according to their shape.  "Hourglass," of course; the one that bulged
out at one end was surely a plump "Pear"--yes, and
"Dog-with-three-legs"!  My imagination was recovering.

For miles I followed the strange, fantastic timberline.  Occasionally I
found stunted little trees scarcely knee high, peeping through the
crushing weight of snow that had smothered them, even throughout the
summer.  I cut several trees to count the rings of growth.  I found
trees growing close together and about the same size, with centuries of
variation in age.  One, that had been broken off by a rock slide, had
two hundred and ninety-six annual rings.  It had grown in a sheltered
nook.  Ten yards away another, much smaller, but growing upon an
exposed, rocky point, was no higher than my head, yet I counted five
hundred and seven rings; for half a thousand years it had stood at its
post.  I found the counting of these annual rings extremely difficult,
as they were so dense that it was hard to distinguish them and they
averaged from fifty to a hundred rings to an inch of thickness, but the
small magnifying glass I carried made it possible.

The most striking thing I discovered about the timberline trees was
their irregularity.  There was no similarity of form, as prevails among
trees of the deep forest.  Each tree took on a physical appearance
according to its location and its opportunities.  One resemblance only
did they have in common: none had limbs on the west side.  All their
leafy banners pointed toward the rising sun.  Thus I learned the
direction of the prevailing winter winds.  The west side of the trees
were polished smooth, many cut halfway through.  Trees that had reached
maturity, or had died, were stripped almost bare of limbs, which had
been cut away by the constant scouring.

There were abundant tracks of deer, and some of elk, but I saw not a
single animal.  Near the spot from which had risen the terrifying
sounds of that first night, a deep-worn game trail led down into the
heavy forests.  Sharp hoofs had cut into it recently, yet neither hide
nor hair of an animal did I glimpse.  There were no traces of beaver
nor any coyote tracks.  There were bear tracks, but the small traps I
had brought would not hold bear, so I did not set them.  I was running
low on provisions, for I had counted on the game for meat: I had meant
to have venison steak as soon as I had got settled in my permanent camp.

Here was mystery!  My curiosity was challenged; I determined to fathom
it!

How I studied those tracks!  Those of the sheep could be distinguished
by the rounded toe marks of their hoofs, worn blunt by the granite
rocks they lived on.  This was especially true of the forefeet.  They
were also wide apart, while the deer tracks were sharply pointed, with
the hoofs close together.  Days passed and the tracks in the trails
grew dim, but not before I had read their story.  I followed the
sheep's up above timberline--they grew plainer and more numerous.  So
that was it!  The sheep climbed where the wind would keep their tables,
spread with sweet cured grass, swept free of snow, and had placed the
barrier of timberline drifts between them and their enemies!

The other tracks all led down to the valleys.  There in the foothills
winter would be less rigorous, and the grass would not be buried for
months beneath the snow.  Winter was at hand in the high country and
all but the Bighorn had deserted it.  What with them above me, and the
rest below, I found myself in a no-game zone.

There was no repetition of the frightful sound that had sent me
scurrying for camp.  I suspected a bull elk had made it, though I
recognized no resemblance between that hair-raising sound and a bugle.

My thoughts turned to other game.  I must have meat--how about a bear?
If I couldn't trap one, perhaps I could shoot one.  I got out my
battered old rifle, so like the timberline trees, and boldly set out
for "b'ar."  In and out of the dense forest I blundered; crashed
through the tangle at timberline; toiled up the rocky ridges.  Up and
up I climbed, paying no heed to the direction of the wind.  I found
bear tracks, both large and small, but no sight of Bruin himself.

Discouraged, I lay down to rest and had a nap in the sun.  Later, with
the wind in my face, I peeped over a rocky upthrust near a large
snowbank.  My eyes bulged, my mouth opened.  There was a bear just
ahead.  Surely it was mad--crazy--for no animal in its right mind would
do what it was doing.

First it would lumber along a few feet from the edge of the snow,
stopping, sniffing, striking out suddenly with its forepaws; it
repeated this performance again and again.  I watched, hypnotized,
unaware of the gun gripped tightly in my hands.  Anyhow, who'd want to
eat a mad bear?

A slight sound caused me to turn my head.  Twenty feet away another
bear stood regarding me curiously.

Not being absent-minded, I have never been able to understand why I
left my rifle on the mountainside after lugging it up there for an
avowed purpose.  At any rate I made record time back to camp, glancing
rearward frequently, to see if the "flock" of bears was pursuing me.

The next day, after surveying the mountainside to make sure that no
bears were lurking there, I went back up and recovered the rifle.  The
sand beneath the shelving rock where I had seen the second bear was
disturbed.  Claws had rasped it sharply.  It appeared as though this
bear had been startled suddenly; had wheeled about and fled for its
life in the opposite direction to that I had taken.  The tracks were
small, too, apparently those of a cub.  This was my first hear
experience.  I had yet to learn that bear are as harmless as deer or
mountain sheep; they attend strictly to their own business, and they
never come near man except through accident.  At that time, though, I
was willing to give all bears the benefit of the doubt--and the right
of way.

While further exploring the ridge above the camp I came upon an old
abandoned tunnel with its dump concealed among the trees below
timberline.  The entrance to the tunnel had been timbered to prevent
its caving.  There was nothing in its appearance to tell how long it
had been abandoned.  Beside the dump was a small selected pile of ore.
This I gloated over happily, mistaking mingled stains and colors for
pure sold.  But if it was a gold mine, why had the owners departed--and
why had they left rich ore?  These and, other questions unanswered,
left me with an uneasy feeling.  I wondered if a tragedy had happened
here, so many miles from civilization.  With a torch of small twigs I
ventured into the dark hole running straight back beneath the cliff.  A
short distance inside the tunnel I stopped uneasily.  The silence was
intense.  The twig torch fluttered faintly and went out.  The darkness
was black beyond belief.  Without delay I felt my way out into the
sunshine, leaving further exploration for another day.

For weeks I roamed the forest, circled the scattered lakes, climbed to
the jagged tops of high-flung peaks; and daily, almost, had new and
strange experiences.  Everything was intensely interesting, and all was
fairyland.  Many times I was torn between timidity and curiosity.
Though I often carried the huge old rifle with deadly intent, I failed
to bring down any big game.  Invariably when I had a good chance, my
gun would be at camp.

Before breakfast one morning I made an excursion to a promontory to
watch the sunrise.  Deep down in the cañons below, darkness still
lingered.  Slowly the world emerged from the shadows like a
photographic plate developing and disclosing its images in the
darkroom.  Beyond the promontory a great spire lifted high above the
cañon; I climbed to its top.  Above the spire was a higher crag.  Again
I climbed up.  Up and up I climbed until almost noon.  Each new vantage
point revealed new glory; every successive outpost lured me on.

At last the long ridge I followed shouldered against a sheer-topped
peak of the Continental Divide.  It was mid-afternoon and hunger urged
me homeward.  The way I had come was long and circuitous.  There was a
short cut back to camp, but this threatened difficulty, for there was a
deep cañon to be crossed; and even though I reached its bottom there
seemed to be no possible way up the precipitous farther wall.

I did, however, make the homeward side of the cañon very late.  The
clouds had shut down over the peaks, leveling their tops to timberline.
All day I had carried the heavy camera with a supply of glass plates.
Besides I carried my six-shooter, with belt and cartridges, buckled
around my waist.  Several times I saw grouse and fired at them, but not
once did I get a close-up shot.

As I toiled upward to cross the ridge that overlooked camp, I entered
the lower cloud stratum.  The air was biting cold.  It was impossible
to see more than a few feet ahead.  I regretted that I had brought no
food.  Snow began to fall; and the higher I plodded the thicker it
fell.  Darkness came rapidly; footing became precarious.  The snow
plastered the rocks; the light was ghostly and unreal.  I began to
stumble; I slipped and slid, lost my balance, and fell.

Then, as the snow deepened and the darkness increased, I realized that
to attempt the descent of the slope above camp would be folly, for it
was as steep as a house roof, and covered with loose bowlders.  Besides
it had many abrupt cliffs fifty to a hundred feet high.  There was only
one thing to do--camp here, for the night.  But I was on an exposed
shoulder of the mountain, above timberline, and it would be impossible
to live through the night without shelter and fire.

I headed downhill without regard for direction.  I was becoming numb,
but in half an hour I safely reached the dwarf trees at timberline and
plunged through them to a dense grove of spruce.  Occasionally there
was a dead tree, and nearly all trees had dead limbs low down.  With
such limbs or small trunks as I could find I constructed a rude
lean-to, with closed ends.  With my pocket knife I cut green boughs,
covered the lean-to and plastered the boughs with a coating of wet
snow.  The green branches, together with the snow that was streaming
down like a waterfall, soon rendered the shelter windproof.

With a glowing fire in front to light my way, I ranged in ever-widening
circles for fuel to last through the long night ahead.  Within an hour
I had collected a fair-sized pile of wood, but I thought I'd better
have even more.  My quest took me farther among the trees.  Of a sudden
there came a whirr of wings that made me jump and drop my load, as a
number of grouse flew in all directions, their booming wings fairly
exploding with energy.

One of the grouse alighted in a tree overhead and I snatched out the
six-shooter, aimed carefully and fired.  It was a new experience for
the grouse; it stretched its head out, and, twisting sidewise, stared
down at me curiously.  Once more I fired.  The interest of the grouse
increased.  Again and again I fired, pausing confidently after each
shot for the bird to tumble down.  Three times I emptied the cylinder
without a hit.  Then in disgust I shoved the gun back into its holster
and fumbled in the snow for a stone.  The first throw was close, the
second hit its mark, and the bird came fluttering down.

The clouds dropped lower, enveloping my camp.  The night was inky
black.  I lay beneath my lean-to, watching the fire before which the
plump grouse was slowly turning round and round as it roasted.  The
turning was accomplished by hooking a green twig into its neck and
tying the other end of the twig with a string that wound and unwound as
the bird alternated directions.  I unloaded one of the revolver
cartridges and used the salty powder for seasoning my feast.  I saved
some ammunition after all!

It was noon next day before I reached camp.  Then the storm shut down
again.  Snow began to accumulate.  In the woods it lay knee deep, while
the high ridges above the timberline were swept bare by the howling
wind.

Quite unexpectedly, in the dead of night, I had a visitor.  He was
uninvited, but was determined to make himself at home.  Awakened by the
rattle of tin, I sat up, listened and waited.  I struck a match and
caught a glimpse of a huge mountain rat disappearing in the darkness.
I had scarcely fallen asleep again before he returned, and when I
struck a light he stared at me with villainous, beady eyes.  By the
uncertain light of a match I took aim with the faithless six-shooter
and fired.  When I sprang up, expecting to find the mangled remains of
the intruder, I discovered a gaping hole in my only frying pan.

After an hour the pest came again, satisfied, no doubt, that my
marksmanship was not dangerous.  This time I was prepared for his
coming.  I had a lighted pine torch to see to aim by.  I tried another
shot.  The rat kept moving while in the open and only stopped when
behind shelter, peeping out with one eye.  At last he left the tent,
and I followed him into the woods.  Beneath the overhang of the cliff
he stopped, his piercing eyes flashing in the darkness as I advanced
with the torch.  Patiently he waited beneath a leaning tree trunk.  Ten
feet from him I knelt upon the velvet needles of the forest, and with
torch held aloft, steadied the six-shooter, aimed carefully, and fired.

At the shot the rat disappeared.  I pressed forward confident that at
last I had scored a hit.  The torch had gone out.  I was feeling among
the dead needles for the rat's mangled body when my fingers touched
something wooden.  Instantly the pest was forgotten.  By the light of a
match I saw that I had uncovered the corner of a little box.  It
flashed upon me that I had stumbled upon the cache where the old
prospectors had hidden their gold.  They were gone; the gold was mine!

I tugged and tugged till I dragged it from its concealment beneath the
rotting log.  In trembling haste I tore off its cover.  Then...

I staggered back with a cry of dismay!  The box was filled with old,
crystallized dynamite.  An inch above the top layer of the deadly stuff
was a fresh hole where my bullet had crashed through.  A little lower
and it would have hit the powder crystals!

The next morning snow lay deep about the tent.  It was impossible to
make my way through the woods.  I was marooned far from civilization.
The wind rose; crashing among the peaks, tearing along the ridges,
roaring through the passes.  Blinding clouds came sifting down from the
wind-swept heights.

After days of patient waiting, I started the laborious climb upward,
for it was impossible to make progress downward, where the soft snow
lay.  Now, like the sheep, I would take advantage of those wind-swept
stretches above timberline.

Before dawn I was on my way.  It required three hours to gain the first
mile.  Then, as I reached the cleared stretches, progress became
easier.  Though the wind came in angry squalls, that sometimes flung me
headlong, and buffeted and drove me about, the going underfoot was good.

If I could keep my bearings and head northward, steer out around the
heads of countless cañons, hold my given altitude above timberline, I
would eventually reach a spot some miles above the valley where the
home ranch lay.  All day I plodded.  The wind did not abate, but came
in a gale from the west.  At times it dropped to perhaps fifty miles an
hour, and again it rose to more than a hundred miles; it shrieked,
pounded at the cliffs, tore the battered timberline trees to bits,
caught up frozen snow crust and crashed it among the trees like ripping
shot.  At such times I was forced to turn my back, or to feel my way
blindly, head down.  I moved with utmost caution lest I walk over a
cliff.

The time came when I had to abandon the wind-swept heights and flounder
through the soft snow of the cañons.  Through narrow passes I had to
crawl, so terrific was the wind that poured through the channel like a
waterfall.  Nothing short of a Kansas cyclone can match the velocity of
a mountain-top gale.  All day I stemmed its tide, which sapped my
strength, bowled me over and cut my face.

As early darkness came on I reached a familiar cañon that dropped down
toward the valley where the ranch lay hidden.  Drunkenly I staggered
homeward, too exhausted to care what happened.  The last three miles
required three hours of heroic work.  I became extremely weary and
wanted nothing so much as to sink down in the snow and go to sleep; but
I knew what that would mean, so I kept slapping and beating myself to
keep awake.  In the end I reached the ranch, pounded upon the door and,
when it was opened, pitched headlong across its threshold.

The Parson gazed down at me from his six feet of height.

"Well," he said at length, "guess you found a pretty big world."




CHAPTER FOUR

DANCING ACROSS THE DIVIDE

So new was the life, so fascinating the animals and elements of the
primitive world, so miraculous was it that my lifelong dreams were come
true, that I never thought of home-sickness, nor missed the comrades
left behind me, although the Parson and his quiet wife were rather
elderly companions for a youngster.  There were, too, the diversions of
going for the mail, either horseback or in the old spring wagon behind
the steady, little mountain ponies, the swapping of yarns while waiting
for the generally belated stage to dash up, its four horses prancing,
and steaming, no matter how cold the weather, from the precipitous ups
and downs of the mountain roads they had traveled.  The return journey
in the dusk or by moonlight was never without incident: porcupine,
deer, bear, Bighorn, mountain lion--some kind of game invariably
crossed my trail.

And, as was true in all pioneer regions, the community abounded in
interesting personalities.  During the first half of the nineteenth
century, the fame and fairness of the country had reached the centers
of Eastern culture, and had lured the ambitious and the adventurous to
try their skill in hunting and trapping and fishing in this Paradise,
roamed over by big game, crossed by sparkling streams, alive with
trout.  Kit Carson was the first white man to look down upon its
beautiful valleys.  Others soon followed: Joel Estes, for whom the Park
was eventually named; "Rocky Mountain Jim," a two-gun man, living alone
with his dogs, looking like a bearded, unkempt pirate, taciturn, yet
not without charm, as later events proved, unmolesting and unmolested,
enveloped in a haze of respected mystery.  There was also that noted
lady globe-trotter, Miss Isabella Bird, an Englishwoman of undoubted
refinement, highly educated--whose volume, "A Lady's Life in the Rocky
Mountains," is one of the earliest and most picturesque accounts of
that time--upon whom "Rocky Mountain Jim" exerted his blandishments.
Some sort of romance existed between them, how serious no one knows,
for the tragic shooting of Jim, by an irate pioneer father, cut short
its development.

In the early sixties, an English nobleman and sportsman, the Earl of
Dunraven, attracted by the wealth of game in the region, attempted to
make it into a private hunting park or preserve.  He took up all the
acreage which he could legitimately acquire in his own name, then took
up fraudulent claims in the names of his tenants.  But the hardy
pioneers, who were coming into the country in ever-increasing numbers,
rightly doubting the validity of his own ownership of so many thousands
of acres, homesteaded land to their liking and built their log cabins
upon it.  Lord Dunraven tried to scare them off, but they would not be
bluffed, and in the contest which followed, he lost out and departed
from the region.  Although his coming to the Park contributed much to
its romantic history, in his "Memoirs"--two thick, heavy volumes,
published a few years ago--he devotes only half a page to his Estes
Park experiences.  Whether this is because he considered them
negligible or unworthy, would be interesting to know.

The old Dunraven Lodge was the first hostelry in the region, and about
the great fireplace in its spacious, trophy-hung lobby gathered many of
the political and artistic celebrities of that day.  The fame of the
mountain beauty spot spread--visitors came.  The settlers added "spare
rooms" to their log cabins, and during the summer and early fall "took
in boarders," thus helping to eke out their living expenses and, what
was even more far-reaching perhaps, the outer world was thus "fetched
in" to them: they heard of railroads annihilating the long
oxen-traversed distances of covered wagon days, of new gold strikes, of
national politics, rumblings of the Civil War, slavery agitation,
presidential elections, and those other momentous, history-making
events of their time.

The most important and regular social occasion of that day was the
community dinner and "literary."  Imagine the picturesque company,
congregated from miles around, each contributing whatever he could
muster of food and drink--the old Earl of Dunraven, as well as others,
had a bar!--and seated at a long, single table.  What genuine,
home-made fun!  What pranks, what wit--yes, what brilliance!  Some one,
usually Parson Lamb, sometimes gaunt old Scotch John Cleave, the
postmaster, rarely some noted visitor, who either from choice or
ill-health lingered on into the winter, made a speech.  There were
declamations, debates, the interminable, singsong ballads of the
frontier, usually accompanied by French harp or fiddle.  Families were
few, bachelors much in the majority; I remember that at one of the
community affairs there were eighteen bachelors out of a total
attendance of thirty persons!  But as the region settled up, the
bachelor ranks dwindled.  They, like the big game, disappeared, as
though in their case "open season" prevailed likewise.

I had attended several of these pioneer festivities and had enjoyed
them greatly, and was much impressed with their importance, for
underlying all the fun was an old-fashioned dignity seldom found
nowadays.  But Parson Lamb told me these dinners were tame compared to
a real mountain dance.  "Just you wait till you see a real shindig" he
said.  "Then you'll have something to talk about."  In January, there
was a letter in the mail from Jim Oss, my acquaintance of the train on
which I came West.  We had been carrying on a desultory correspondence,
but this message was momentous.

"I am giving a dance Monday," he wrote, "to celebrate proving up on my
homestead.  Come ahead of time so you can see all the fun."  His
hundred and sixty acres lay on the western slope of the Continental
Divide--fifty-five miles away.  Snow lay deep over every one of those
intervening, upstanding miles!  The Parson was concerned about my going
alone.

"'Tain't safe to cross that old range alone any time of year, let alone
the dead of winter.  Hain't no one else agoing from here?"

I inquired, but it seemed there was not.  Secretly I was well pleased
to have it so.  I was young enough to thrill at the chance of so
hazardous an experience.

Parson Lamb agreed that Friday morning would be a good time to start.
We were not superstitious, and it wasn't the thirteenth.  The trip had
to be made on snowshoes, with which I was not very adept, but that only
added to its attractions.  In order to cross the Divide, it was
necessary to descend from my lofty nine thousand feet elevation to
seven thousand five hundred, before starting to climb Flattop trail,
which led over to Grand Lake, the last settlement before reaching Oss's
place.  By sundown I reached a deserted sawmill shack, the last shelter
between me and Grand Lake.  It was six miles below the top of the
Divide, and twenty miles to the Lake.  There I spent the night and at
dawn was trailing upward, in the teeth of a sixty-mile gale!

The first two of those uprising six miles were fair going, and took
only a little more than an hour.  Thereafter the trail grew more
precipitous.  The third mile required one hour, and the fourth, two
hours of exhausting work.  The sun rose, but not the temperature;
powdery snow swirled around the heads of the peaks; clouds swept above
the ridges, flayed and torn; from above timberline came the roar of the
wind.

Dark glasses protected my eyes from snow and wind; and I was warmly
dressed.  I left my bedding roll at the sawmill, to be picked up on the
return trip, for shelter could be had at Grand Lake.  The light pack I
carried contained peanuts, chocolate, and a change of socks.

The higher I climbed the wilder became the wind.  From timberline I
surveyed the prospect ahead and hesitated.  Clouds and snow whirled up
in a solid mass, blinding and choking me.  The cold penetrated my heavy
clothing.  I went on.  In a few minutes I was in the midst of the
turmoil, utterly lost, buffeted about.  I tried to keep the wind in my
face for compass, but it was so variable, eddying from all directions,
that it was not reassuring.  Near the top of the mountain a blast
knocked me down, and half smothered me with flying snow.  I arose
groggily, uncertain which way to head; it was impossible to see even a
step in front.  The staff I carried served me well, with it I went
tapping and feeling my way like a blind man.  There I was on the top of
the world, thirteen thousand feet above sea level--and overlooking
nothing.

Flattop mountain is shaped like a loaf of bread, sloping off steeply at
the ends, its sides guarded by sheer cliffs..  It was these cliffs I
feared and strove to avoid.  I had heard startling tales of the effects
of high altitude on one; how the atmosphere was very rare and light.
Had it been any heavier that day, I could not have survived.  Violent
blasts of wind frequently bowled me over.  After one of these falls, I
arose uncertainly, drifted with the wind for a moment's respite,
neglected to feel ahead with my staff--and walked out upon a snow
cornice that overhung the top of the cliff.  The cornice broke away!
Amidst an explosion of snow I plunged downward, struggling frantically
as I went!

[Illustration: I plunged downward, struggling frantically.]

I landed in a snowdrift featherbed which, while it broke my fall,
almost buried me alive.  The wind reached me only in occasional gusts,
so I realized that I must be sheltered by the cliff wall.  In the first
brief lull I took my bearings.  I had landed upon a narrow ledge a few
feet wide.  Below me yawned the gorge.  It was a terrible half hour's
work with a snowshoe as a shovel to extricate myself, but a few minutes
later I was once more on top.

Again I struggled upward.  I reached the pass and started down the
western slope toward timber.  My fingers and toes were frosted, I was
numb with cold, and so battered by the gale I could only pant.  My
careful calculations had come to naught, as I was far behind the
schedule I had planned.  I decided to make up time by abandoning the
trail and taking a shortcut to timber and shelter through an unknown
cañon which I thought led to Grand Lake.

But the cañon was hard going.  Thick, young evergreens, entangling
willows and fallen logs impeded every step.  I could make no headway
and darkness was coming on.  Disgusted, despairing, I took to the
frozen stream, only to skid over icy bowlders and at last to break
through the ice crust into the frigid water.

Long after dark I staggered down the single street of Grand Lake toward
a dim patch of light.  It proved to be the window of a store.  Within
was a glowing stove, surrounded by a group of men.

The proprietor eyed me with suspicion.  "Where'd you drop from?"

I waved vaguely toward the Continental Divide.

"Must 'a' bin something urgent to make you tackle the Flattop trail in
winter."

He awaited my explanations curiously--but I had slumped down near the
stove and was half asleep.

Next morning I looked back up the way I had come--low clouds, tattered
to shreds.  Even at that distance I could hear the roar of the wind
among the loft crags.  I was thankful that I had crossed the Divide the
day before.  It was still thirty miles to the cabin of my friend, but
they were fairly easy miles compared with those I had just traversed.
Even so, so spent was my strength, it was pitch dark when I dragged
wearily up the broken road to where that cabin nestled in its grove of
spruces.

The dance was not until Monday night, so I took it for granted that I
should be the first to arrive, since I was a full day ahead of the
function.  But no!  Many were already there!  They were eating supper
and made room for me at the long table before the open fire.  They were
cordial and made me feel at home at once, marveling over my making the
trip alone, and praising my pluck.  I was much too weary and hungry to
protest, even though I had been becomingly modest.  Seeing this, they
filled my plate and let me be, turning their nimble tongues on our
host--What handsome whiskers--la! la!  He'd better be careful with
those hirsute adornments and a cabin with a plank floor!  He couldn't
hope to remain a bachelor long!  So the banter ran.

Supper over and the dishes cleared away, the candles were snuffed out
and the company (visitors were never called guests) sat around the
flickering hearth and speculated over the possible coming of the Moffat
railroad.  What an assorted company it was!  Young and
grizzled--trappers, miners, invalids seeking health, adventurers,
speculators, a few half-breeds; all men of little education, but of
fascinating experience; a few women of quiet poise and resourcefulness.
Their clothes were nondescript and betrayed the fact that they had come
from the East, having been sent west by condoning relatives, no doubt
after having lived in more fashionable circles.  There were two little
children who fell asleep early in the evening in their parents' arms.

The company was put to bed in Oss's one-room house by the simple means
of lying down upon the floor fully dressed, feet to the fire.

All were up early next morning, and each found some task to do.  Some
of the men cut wood and piled it outside the door; the women folks
assisted Oss with breakfast which was cooked in the fireplace; for he
had not yet reached the luxury of a cook stove, which would have to be
"fetched in" over sixty miles of mountain roads and would cost a tidy
sum besides.

Some artistic soul, with a memory of urban ways, made long ropes of
evergreens and hung them in garlands from the rafters, a flag was
draped above the fireplace, lanterns were hung ready to light.

Distant "neighbors" kept flocking in all day, each bringing a
neighborly offering; fresh pork from the owner of an only shoat; choice
venison steaks; bear meat from a hunter who explained that the bear had
been killed months before and kept frozen in the meat house.  Wild
raspberry jam, with finer flavor than any I have ever tasted before or
since, was brought by a bachelor who vied with the women folks when it
came to cookery.  The prize offering, however, were some mountain
trout, speared through the ice of a frozen stream.

Dancing began early.  The music was supplied by an old-time fiddler who
jerked squeaky tunes from an ancient violin, singing and shouting the
dance calls by turns.  Voice, fiddle and feet, beating lusty time to
his tunes, went incessantly.  He had an endless repertoire, and a
talent for fitting the names of the dancers to his ringing rimes.

Some of his offerings were:

  "Lady round lady and gents so low!
  First couple lead to right--
  Lady round lady and gents so low--
  Lady round gent and gent don't go--
  Four hands half and right and left."


The encores he would improvise:

  "Hit the lumber with your leather--
  Balance all, an' swing ter left."


All swayed rhythmically, beating time with their feet, clapping their
hands, bowing, laughing.  The men threw in their fancy steps, their
choice parlor tricks.  A few performed a double shuffle; one a pigeon's
wing; a couple of trappers did an Indian dance, twisting their bodies
into grotesque contortions and every so often letting out a yell that
made one's hair stand on end.

There was little rest between the dances, for the old fiddler had
marvelous powers of endurance.  He sawed away, perspired, shouted and
sang as though his life depended on his performance.  He was having as
good, or better time, than anyone.  With scarcely a moment to breathe
he'd launch into another call--and not once the whole night through did
he repeat:

  "Ole Buffler Bill--Buffler Bill!
  Never missed an' never will."


Then as the dancers promenaded he'd switch to a new improvisation,
ending in a whirlwind of wit and telling personalities, which sent the
company into hysterical laughter.  I joined in the dance, rather
gawkily no doubt, for my mother's father was a Quaker preacher and we
had never been allowed to dance at home.  The ladies regarded my
clumsiness with motherly forbearance, and self-sacrificingly tried to
direct my wayward feet.  But either because I was not recovered from my
trip or because the strangeness and confusion wearied me, I could not
get the hang of the steps.  Presently an understanding matron let me
slip out of the dance, and I sat down by the fiddler and dozed.
Clanking spurs, brilliant chaps, fur-trimmed trappers' jackets,
thudding moccasins, gaudy Indian blankets and gay feathers, voluminous
feminine flounces swinging from demure, snug-fitting basques--all
whirled above me in a kaleidoscopic blur!

[Illustration: I sat down by the fiddler and dozed.]

A wild war whoop awakened me--nothing but a little harmless hilarity!
It was two o'clock in the morning.  I wished the dance would end so I
could sleep undisturbed.  I envied the two children asleep on the
floor.  But the dance went on.  The fiddle whined, its player shouted,
heavy shoes clumped tirelessly on the plank floor.  There was still
energetic swing and dash to the quadrilles, still gay voices were
raised in joyous shouts.  Those hearty pioneers were full of "wim,
wigor and witality"!

Dawn broke redly over the Divide; still the dance continued.  Daylight
sifted over the white world, and yet the dancers did not pause.  At
last as the sun came up, the old fiddler reluctantly stood on his chair
and played "Home Sweet Home."

All-night dances were at that time the custom of the mountain folk; the
company assembled as far ahead of time as was convenient, and remained,
sometimes, a day or two after the close of the festivities.  There was
no doubt as to one's welcome and there was no limit to the length of
his stay.  Isolation made opportunities for such social intercourse
rare and therefore everyone got more "kick" out of these occasions than
is possible in our swiftly moving, blasé age.

Weather conditions changed while we danced: the wind eased off and the
mountain tops emerged from the clouds and drifting snow.  I trailed up
the cañon I had struggled through in the darkness; and except for the
final stretch of the steep mountain above timberline the snowshoeing
was nothing except plain hard work.  In some places the wind had packed
the snow hard; again it was soft so that I sank knee deep at every
step.  In the soft snow, where there was a steep slope to negotiate,
each snowshoe had to be lifted high, until my knee almost touched my
chest.  The webs accumulated snow, too, until each shoe weighed many
additional pounds.

But the fairyland that I found on top of the Divide was worth all the
effort required to reach it.  It was the first time I had found the
wind quiet; every peak stood out sharp and clear, many miles away
seemed but a few minutes' walk.  There were none of the usual objects
that help estimate distance; no horses or cattle, no trees or trails,
nothing but unbroken space.  The glare of the sun was blinding; even my
very dark snow glasses failed to protect my eyes.

The silence was tremendous.  Always before there had been the wind
shrieking and crashing.  Now there was not a sound, not a breath of
wind, not even a snow-swirl.  I shouted, and my voice came back across
the cañon without the usual blurring; each word was distinct.  I
whistled softly and other echoes came hurrying back.  Never have I felt
so alone, or so small.  As far as the eye could reach were mountains,
one beyond the other.  Near by loomed the jagged Never-summer range,
while farther down the Divide Gray's and Terry's peaks stood out; then
the Collegiate range--Harvard, Yale and Princeton.

In the midst of my reverie there came a creaking, groaning sound from
almost beneath my feet.  I had paused on the brink of the same
precipice over which I had fallen on my way to Grand Lake.  Before I
could move, the snow-cornice broke away and several hundred feet of it
crashed down the cliff.  In places it appeared to be ten to forty feet
thick.  It must have weighed thousands of tons.  It fell with a
swishing roar, with occasional sharp reports, as loose rocks dropped to
the clean-swept ledges of the cliff.  It seemed to explode as it
struck, to fly into powder which filled the gorge between Flat top and
Hallett peaks.

The wind had drifted the snow over the edge of the precipice where some
of it had clung.  Farther and farther it had crept out, overhanging the
abyss, its great weight slowly bending the cornice downward until it
had at last given way.

I shuddered a little at the awfulness of it; felt smaller than ever,
backed away from the rim of the cañon, and headed for home.




CHAPTER FIVE

TRAPPING--MOUNTAIN-TOP DWELLERS

Gold and fur have ever been beckoning sirens, luring men into the
unknown.  As I have said, the famous trapper, Kit Carson, was the first
white man to look down upon the picturesque, mountain-guarded valley,
later known as Estes Park.  From the foothills, he had followed up one
of the streams, seeking new fur-fields, until, after crossing the last
barrier range, he looked down upon a broad, river spangled park set
like a gem in the midst of the encircling peaks of the Divide, with
that sheer, pyramidal face of Long's Peak dominating all.  We like to
think that these early adventurers appreciated the beauty of the
primitive lands they explored, but whether or not Carson thrilled at
that exquisite alpine panorama, he noted keenly the profusion of tracks
criss-crossing its green and white expanse, promising an abundance of
game, for he moved down into the region and at the foot of Long's Peak
built himself a rude log cabin.  There he spent the winter trapping
beaver, and the following spring bargained with the Indians to help
pack out his catch.  The walls, the hearth, and part of the stone
chimney still mark the site of that first cabin.

I selected the top of a high cliff overlooking these storied ruins for
the location of a cabin which I planned to build as soon as I could
manage it.  I, too, would be a trapper, and though the beaver and other
fur-bearing animals were not nearly so numerous as they had been that
day, sixty years gone, when Carson first beheld their mountain
fastness, there still remained enough to make trapping interesting and
profitable.  Game tracks still abounded, and notwithstanding that I was
a mere boy, inexperienced in woodcraft, I could distinguish that they
differed, even though I could classify only a few of them; coyote
tracks, I found, were very like a dog's; sheep, elk and deer tracks
were similar, yet easily distinguished from one another; bear left a
print like that of a baby's chubby foot.  Yes, there was still a chance
for me!

As soon as I returned from the dance at Jim Oss's, I set about carrying
out my plans.  I mushed over deep snow back into Wild Basin, to recover
the six traps I had abandoned there on that memorable first camp alone,
and found my tent crushed under six feet of drifted snow and the region
still deserted by game.  I set the traps out in the vicinity of the
home ranch.  Every few days I inspected them, only to find them empty.
Indeed, over a period of long weeks I caught but one mink, two weasels
and three coyotes.  The Parson kindly said the country was trapped out;
still, I suspected my lack of skill was responsible for my scanty catch.

One morning in following up my trap line, I found a trap missing.  In
the sand about the aspen tree to which it had been anchored were coyote
tracks.  Ignorantly fearless, I set out to track down the miscreant.
The trail led down toward a forest, where dense thickets of new-growth
lodge-pole pines livened the stark, fire-killed trees.  As I neared the
forest, the tracks were farther apart and dimmer, but here and there
were scratches on fallen logs as though a trap had been dragged across
them; moreover, there were occasional spots where the earth was greatly
disturbed, showing that the animal had no doubt threshed about in his
efforts to dislodge the trap, caught on the snags or bowlders.

No denying I thrilled from head to foot over the prospect of meeting
Mr. Coyote face to face!  If he showed fight I'd snatch my six-shooter
from its holster (forgotten was its faithless performance in Wild
Basin!) and show him I was not to be trifled with.  Of course, I'd aim
to hit him where the shot would do least damage to his fur; it would be
more valuable for marketing.

Just then I heard the clank of the trap chain.  Heart pounding, hands
trembling, I shakily drew my gun, and cautiously advanced.  Around the
corner of a bowlder I came upon a large coyote, with a black stripe
running along his back, squatting in an old game trail, apparently
little concerned either at my presence or at his own dilemma.  As I
stumbled toward him, he faced about, and without taking his eyes off
me, kept jerking the trap which was wedged between a root and a
bowlder.  Twenty feet away I stopped, and with what coolness I could
command in my excitement, took aim and fired.  The bullet only ruffled
the heavy fur at his shoulder.  Determined to finish him next shot, I
edged nearer.  My target refused to stand still--he sprang the full
length of his chain again and again, striving to dislodge the trap.
Finally it jerked free and he was off like a rabbit, despite his
dragging burden, leaping logs or scuttling beneath them, zigzagging
along the crooked trail, dodging bowlders, tree limbs and my frequent
but ineffective fire.  For I madly pursued him though hard put to keep
up his pace.

Suddenly the trap caught again and jerked its victim to an abrupt stop.
He whirled about and faced me defiantly, eyes blazing, fangs bared.  I
reloaded my revolver, aimed--fired, aimed--fired again and again, until
the cylinder was empty, without once hitting him.

I began to think that, like old Tom, he led a charmed life.  Just then
he jerked loose, and once more the chase was on.  I reloaded my
six-shooter and fired on the run, shouting excitedly.  He ran on with
tireless, automatic motion, apparently as unperturbed as he was
impervious to bullets.

All at once I discovered my belt empty--I had exhausted my cartridges!
Disgusted, I shoved my gun back into its holster, and, picking up a
stout club, ran after the coyote.  Several times I was close enough to
hit him, but he deftly dodged or else sprang forward beyond reach.
Once when the trap caught and prisoned him an instant, I swung my club,
sure of ending the race, but it collided on a limb overhead and went
wide of the mark!  Again I overtook the coyote as he struggled through
hindering bush, and, reaching forward, swung my bludgeon with all my
might and fell headlong upon him!  I gave a terrified yell; my battered
hat flew off; I dropped my club.  The coyote was out of sight before I
gained my feet!

Suddenly we popped out of the forest on the edge of a cañon; its sides
were smooth and almost bare.  On this open ground, my quarry gained on
me by leaps and bounds.  I spied a rock-slide below--great slabs that
had slid down from the cliff above--between openings amply large to
admit almost any animal.  Once the coyote reached that slide, he would
escape.  Panting loudly, I sprinted forward to overtake him.

The trap chain wedged unexpectedly, the coyote changed ends, and came
up facing me.  I could not put on brakes quickly enough and skidded
almost into him.  He sprang at my throat.  As he launched upward I
glimpsed his flaming eyes and wide-open, fang-filled mouth.  I do not
know what saved me; whether my desperate effort to reverse succeeded,
whether I dodged, or whether the restraining trap chain thwarted him.
As it was, his teeth grazed my face, leaving deep, red scars across my
chin....  His was the handsomest skin that adorned the walls of my
cabin when that dream eventually became a reality.  I did not sell the
skin as purposed--not, however, because my bullets had ruined it for
marketing!

[Illustration: I glimpsed his flaming eyes and wide-open, fang-filled
mouth.]

In common with all small boys, I was the hero of my dreams, and in my
fancy saw myself growing into a magnified composite of Nimrod, Robin
Hood, Kit Carson, and Buffalo Bill, all molded into one mighty man who
dwarfed the original individuals!  I confess reality was retarding my
growth considerably.  It looked as though Kit Carson would go unrivaled
by me as a trapper; certainly the shades of Nimrod and Robin Hood had
no cause to be uneasy lest I win their laurels from them, and as for
Buffalo Bill--both the Buffalo and the redskins, whose scalps had
always dangled in fancy from my belt in revenge for their plaguing my
mother on her brave drive with my sick father across those long
unsettled miles, were far beyond my puny vengeance.

The Parson told me that the Utes, a nomadic tribe, had once roamed the
mountains and valleys around Estes, but that it was not generally
believed that they had permanent settlements here.  It was thought they
made temporary or seasonal camp when hunting or fishing was at its
height, and that they used the alpine valley as a vast council chamber
when they met to discuss inter-tribal matters.  Certain it is, I
puzzled over curious, dim, ghostly circles, or rings, in the valleys,
where neither grass nor any other vegetation had gained root even after
all these years.  The old-timers told me these had been made by the
Indians banking dirt around their lodges.  A few scattered tepee frames
still stood, here and there, in sheltered groves along the river.
Occasionally I picked up arrowheads--once upon a high-flung ledge I
came upon a score or more.  How my imagination soared!  Here, no doubt,
an Indian had stood, in eagle-feathered war bonnet and full regalia,
guarding this pass; he had been wounded sore unto death, he fell!  His
bones, and all his trappings, the wooden shaft of his arrows, had
disintegrated and disappeared.  Only these bits of flint enmeshed in
the clinging tendrils of Indian tobacco, or kinnikinic, were left to
tell the tale of his heroism.

Of course, I didn't give up hunting or trapping or even my hope of
finding a gold mine, altogether.  I continued to exercise my
six-shooter, though repeated failures to find my mark made it easy for
me to depend more and more on my camera for "shots."  I still inspected
my trapline, with mental resolutions against trailing trap-maddened
coyotes.

My trip over the Divide gave me a keener appreciation of winter upon
the heights.  When, from the window of our snug log cabin, I looked up
toward Long's Peak, and saw the clouds of snow dust swirling about its
head, I pictured just what was happening up there far more accurately
than I could ever have done before I had that experience.  I made
frequent trips above timberline, sometimes to find arctic gales that
filled the air with icy pellets which penetrated like shot, cutting my
face; gales that drove the cold through the thickest, heaviest clothes
I could put on; gales that blew the snow about until it enveloped me in
a cloud-like veil, making vision impossible.  On such days, retreat was
the only possible, if not valorous, course.  To have remained would
have been foolhardy, for blinded and buffeted by the storm, I might
easily have stepped off a precipice with less fortunate consequences
than had attended my experience on my journey over the Divide.

But sometimes, the conditions on the heights were astonishing.  Once I
left our valley chill and gloomy, all shut in by lowering clouds, and
climbed up toward the hidden summits of the peaks, to emerge above the
clouds into bright, warm sunshine.  Another day, at an altitude of
twelve thousand feet, I found it only twelve below freezing, while, at
the same time, as I learned later, it was twenty-four degrees below
zero at Fort Collins, a town forty miles away on the plains.  Strange
freak of weather!  The explanation lay in the difference between the
winds that blew over the respective sections, a blizzardly north wind
was sweeping over the low, exposed plains, while up on the
peak-encircled heights a balmy "chinook" gently stirred from the west.
Mountaineers know that as long as the west wind blows no severe storm
is to be feared.  It is the chill east wind that comes creeping up the
cañons from the bleak plains and prairies of the lowlands, which bring
the blizzards.

One rare, windless day upon the heights, my little hay-making friend,
the cony, greeted me with an enthusiastic "squee-ek."  He was sunning
himself upon a rock and looked so sleek and plump I knew his harvest
had been bountiful.  He lay gazing off into space, apparently
contemplating the Divide.  But when, a few minutes later, a beady-eyed
weasel challenged my right of way, I wondered whether little
"Squee-ek's" thoughts were so remote as those distant peaks!  In both
storm and sunshine, I saw weasels abroad on the heights.  They were
bold, fearless little cutthroats, approaching within a few feet to
stare at me wickedly.  I saw them below timberline pursuing snowshoe
rabbits many times their size.

Occasionally I came across fox tracks.  These sly fellows seemed
indifferent to cold or wind.  They stalked the ptarmigan above
timberline, and the grouse that had migrated up the slopes to winter,
below it, and accounted for the death of many.  One moonlit night, as I
prowled upward, I heard an unearthly, uncanny squall.  I couldn't help
the shiver that ran down my spine.  All the pent-up anguish and torment
in the world broke forth in that sound.  But perhaps it was only his
foxy protest because his prey had outfoxed him.

But by far the most interesting mountain-top dwellers were the Bighorn
sheep, which adopted those frigid regions as a winter resort.  I had
often wondered about those lofty-minded animals I had tracked over in
the Wild Basin country.  Were they still on those wind-blown heights?
It seemed incredible that they could stand a whole winter of such
bitter buffeting.  Yet, on the days when I climbed above the
timberline, no matter the weather, they were always there, contentedly
feeding on the sweet, early-cured tufts of grass that the raging alpine
gales kept uncovered.  It was fascinating to watch them; neither wild
winds nor blinding snow seemed to disconcert them; their thick wool
coats were impervious to the keenest, most penetrating blasts.  True,
on terribly stormy days they sought the shelter of giant upthrusts of
rock, towering cliffs or sky-piercing spires that faced eastward, away
from the prevailing winds.  There they probably stayed for days at a
time, as long as the worst storms prevailed.  Such days I did not dare
venture upon the heights, but I often found signs of their bedding down
among similar crags.

And such nerveless or nervy creatures as they were!  From the top of a
cliff, one day, I watched a band of them go down a nearly perpendicular
wall.  I could not follow, though I did go part way down to where the
wall bulged outward.  There the ledges had crumbled away, leaving
sheer, smooth rock.  It did not seem possible that anything could go
down that smooth face.  But half a dozen sheep in succession made the
descent safely, as I watched, breathless, from above.  They seemed to
defy the laws of gravitation in walking over the rim rock; for, instead
of tumbling headlong as I feared, they went skidding downward,
bouncing, side-stepping, twisting and angling across the wall like
coasters on snow; they could not stop their downward drop, but they
controlled their descent by making brakes of their feet, and taking
advantage of every small bump to retard their speed.  By foot pressure
they steered their course for a shelving rock below.  One after
another, in quick succession, they shot down, struck the shelf and
leaped sidewise to a ledge a dozen feet beneath.  In spite of their
efforts to retard their speed, they had gained tremendous momentum
before reaching the ledge and landed with all four feet bunched beneath
them.  It seemed that their legs would surely be thrust through their
bodies.  Their heads jerked downward, their noses threatened to be
skinned on the rock!  Yet that rough descent neither disabled nor
unnerved them.  They recovered their balance instantly and trotted away
around a turn of the wall.

One young ram thought to escape by leaving the cliff and making his way
across a steep, snowy slide to another crag.  In places he struck soft
snow and plunged heavily, breaking his way through.  Midway between
crags, however, he came to grief quite unexpectedly.  An oozing spring
had overflowed and covered the rocks with a coating of ice.  Then snow
had blown down from above and covered it.  The ram struck this at top
speed, and a moment afterward was turning somersaults down the slope.
A hundred feet below he nimbly recovered his balance and proceeded on
his way, carrying his head haughtily, as though indignant at my burst
of laughter.

Part way down the cliff I found the tracks of the big ram leader of the
band.  I had long since named him "Big Eye," which an old trapper had
told me was the Indians' expression for extraordinary eyesight.  Not
that "Big Eye" was exceptional in this respect, not at all!  Every one
of his band possessed miraculous eyesight.  But he was always alert and
wary.  It was unbelievable that he could detect me such a long way off,
around bowlders, through granite walls, in thick brush, but it seemed
to me he did.  No matter how carefully I concealed my approach, he
always discovered me.  This day he had left his band and had turned
aside upon an extremely narrow shelf and made his way out of sight.  I
followed his tracks, curious to learn where he had gone.  Many places
he had negotiated without slacking his speed, whereas I was forced to
make detours for better footing, to double back and forth, and
generally to progress very slowly.  Apparently he was not much
frightened, for his tracks showed that he had frequently halted to look
behind him.

So intent was I upon overtaking him, that I ran into a flock of
ptarmigan and nearly stepped on one of the "fool hens" before it took
wing and got out of the way, so utterly did it stake its safety on its
winter camouflage.  The whole flock had been sitting in plain sight but
their snow-white coats made them hardly distinguishable from their
background.  They faded into the landscape like an elusive puzzle
picture.  In summer they had depended on their speckled plumage, so
like the mottled patches of sand and snow and grass and granite whereon
they lived, to protect them.  They certainly put their trust in nature!

Around a turn, I came upon the old Patriarch.  He was standing with his
back to the wall, facing out and back, for here the ledge he had been
following pinched out, and even he, champion acrobat of the cliffs,
could neither climb up nor find a way down.  For several minutes we
faced each other, ten yards apart.  I had heard that mountain sheep
never attack men, and that even the big leaders never use their
massive, battering ram heads to injure anyone.  With this in mind I
moved up to within ten feet when a movement of his haughty head stopped
me.  Somehow in his action was the suggestion that he might forget
tradition.  One bump of his huge head would knock me overboard.  There
was nothing but space for a hundred feet below, then sheer wall for
several hundred feet more.

Arrogantly he faced me, unflinchingly; his eyes of black and gold never
wavering; statuesque, his heroic body set solidly upon his sturdy legs,
his regal head high, his lodestone feet secure upon the sloping rock,
he was a handsome figure.  He outweighed me about three pounds to one;
so the longer I looked at him, the less desire I had to crowd.  At
length I mustered up courage to try him out.  Slowly, an inch at a
time, I edged forward, talking quietly--assuring him that my intentions
were good, and that I merely wanted to learn how near a fellow might go
without his lordship's taking exceptions.

Suddenly he stiffened; half closed his eyes and lowered his head.  At
the same instant he shifted his feet as though to charge.  As I backed
carefully away, I recalled again that his kind had never harmed anyone,
but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and left him in undisputed
possession of the ledge.

On many a windy winter day thereafter, I saw "Big Eye" and his band.
Always I laughed a bit at my experience upon the ledge.  The ram
appeared so dignified, so quiet, so harmless!  Still, I had no fault to
find with my retreat that day.

One day there came a change over the world.  Signs of spring came
creeping up the valley.  The pussy willows put on their silvery furs,
the birches and elders unfurled their catkin tassels.  Bands of deer
and elk began to drift back into the valley; the Bighorn eagerly
forsook the heights.  The few coyotes that had remained throughout the
winter were joined by more of their kin; fresh bobcat tracks appeared
daily.  The mountain lions that had trailed the deer and elk down to
warmer climes, returned close on their heels as their red records
testified.  On my rambles I often came upon the scenes of their kills;
deer, elk and even wary sheep were their victims.

The wet, clinging, spring snows lent themselves readily as recording
tablets for the movements of all the woods folk.  Not far from the
proposed site of my dream cabin, the story of a lion's stalk was
plainly told by tracks.  He had climbed to the top of a rock that stood
ten feet above the level floor of the valley, a huge bowlder that had
rolled down from a crag above, torn its way through the ranks of the
trees and come to rest at last in the grassy meadow.  There he lay in
wait for the slowly advancing, grazing deer.

As they approached the rock, the band had split; a section passing on
either side of the bowlder.  Out and down the lion had leaped--ten feet
out and as far down.  His momentum had overthrown his victim which had
regained its feet and struggled desperately.  The turf was torn up for
thirty feet beyond the rock.  I found only the tracks of the hind feet
of the lion; it was not hard to imagine that, his front claws were
fastened in the shoulders of his prey, and that his terrible teeth had
reached an artery in his victim's neck.  Many such slaughters the soft
snow revealed!  Aroused by them, I determined to revenge the shy,
innocent deer family.  At every opportunity, I have taken toll of the
lion tribe.  As soon as the first new grass painted the meadows pale
green, the sheep flocked down from their lofty winter resort: the
sunshine in the hemmed-in valley was hot; they still wore their heavy
winter coats, they grew lazy; hours on end they lay dozing, or moving
tranquilly about, feasting on the succulent young shoots.  For six or
seven months,--it was at least that long ago since my discovery of
their uprising migration in Wild Basin--they had been living on dried
fare--unbaled hay--with no water to wash it down, for there were no
flowing springs about their airy castles.  Snow was the only moisture
to be had.

I was all eagerness to "shoot" them with my camera!  I had watched them
so often I felt we were at least acquainted.  But out of respect for
their tremendous dignity, I decided to keep my plans secret from them,
to approach under cover, to creep forward cautiously, soundlessly.  To
my dismay, as soon as I got within a quarter of a mile of them, some
busybody of a sentinel would see me, and if I continued advancing, no
matter how stealthily, the flock would move away.  It seemed offish,
not to say unfriendly; time and again I tried the same tactics, with
the same result.  I was disappointed and puzzled.

I came to the conclusion that I had presumed too much on our previous
friendship, that such regal creatures could not be expected to
capitulate after a brief winter's acquaintance.  I would visit them in
their little valley, learn their peculiarities--who would do less to
gain a friend worth while--and gain their confidence.  Accordingly,
every day I strolled casually in plain sight, over toward their feeding
ground.  They gradually lost their nervousness at my advances and
eventually let me come within a hundred feet of them.

One morning, after several weeks of this chivalrous conduct, I set out
with my camera, to spend the day with them.  Not that they had extended
an invitation, but they unconsciously invited me.  There were
thirty-two of them, including two huge old rams, grazing at the edge of
the valley.  I approached them from the windward side, so they would be
doubly sure of my identity, for I knew that with their telescopic eyes
they would recognize me while I was still a long way off.

I halted first while about a hundred yards distant.  Pausing a few
moments, I advanced again, until I cut the distance between us in half.
I affected the utmost indifference--I lay down to rest, I got up and
prowled about.  They left off feeding, and bunched together, the wary
old rams on the far side of the flock.  They gallantly let the ladies
and children be first to meet me!

For an hour the game went on.  Little by little I cut the distance to
thirty feet.  Some of them even forgot themselves so much as to lie
down and doze, others were discourteous enough to resume feeding, but a
canny few continued to watch my every movement sharply.  Several times
I tried to circle round them; each time they edged away towards the
mountain slopes.  At last they bunched together beside a jutting rock
and made such a beautiful picture, I could no longer control my desire
to photograph them.  Setting my camera at forty feet, I again slowly
advanced.  At thirty feet, the sheep still being quiet, I shortened the
range.  My greediness threatened to be the end of me!

Below my subjects was a smooth rock slope.  Having set my camera for
twenty-five feet, I ventured across it.  If I could only reach the edge
of that sloping rock before they took fright what a wonderful picture
I'd get!  Slowly, inch by inch I crept toward them.  My eyes were glued
to the finder, my finger trembled at the button, all at once, I stepped
out, on nothing!  Boy and camera turned over in midair and alighted,
amid a shower of cones, in the top of a young spruce tree.

After the first instant of astonishment, my exasperation grew.  I had
lost my first chance at getting a photograph of the sheep--most likely
the best chance I'd ever have, too.  Maybe ruined my camera, my
clothes, and my hide!  My disposition was past mending.  My second
surprise belittled my first.  For when I looked about, expecting the
sheep to have vanished, there they all were, crowding forward, and
peering over the edge of the rock, in friendly solicitude!  How often
the unpremeditated exceeds our fondest plans!  The picture I finally
made far excelled the one I had first counted on!

After my fall, the game was taken up again.  The sheep moved higher
whenever I came too near them.  Sometimes I dropped to all fours and
gave an imitation of a playful pup; stopping to sniff loudly at a
chipmunk's hole or to dig furiously with both hands.  The sheep crowded
forward appreciatively.  Evidently they had a weakness for vaudeville.
No acrobat, no contortionist, ever had a more flatteringly attentive
audience.  I laughed at my foolishness, but the sheep were courteously
grave.

Toward noon the band set off for a steep cliff, where each day they
took their siesta.  The two old rams led the way.  After making
pictures of them silhouetted against the sky, I circled the cliff and
hid at the end of a ledge.  I counted on getting a good photograph when
the old leaders surmounted the crag and marched forward at the head of
their single-file column.  To deceive them, I built a dummy at the spot
where they turned aside upon the ledge.  Coat and cap and camera case
went into the sketchy figure, and after it had been propped in place to
block the downward retreat, I hurried around the point and hid in some
bushes behind a granite slab, first setting my camera, well camouflaged
with stones, atop the rock, and focusing it toward the point where the
sheep would pass in review.  Minutes passed.  Not a sheep rounded the
point!  More waiting.  I sallied forth to reconnoiter.  The sheep were
feeding peacefully in the valley below.  They had knocked down the
dummy, trampled over it, and retreated along the ledge the way they had
come!

The joke was on me, but it had been a glorious day for all that.  I
retrieved the remains of my down-trodden dummy and started home.  I
halted midway down to the valley to study some queer records in the
sand.  Surely a crazy man had made them!  What would a stranger have
thought if he had happened upon that grotesque trail?  But a stranger
_had_ been there.  On the heels of my crazy trail were the tracks of a
mountain lion.  He had been stalking me!

From my experience with these sheep I made some naïve deductions and
wrote them in my notebook.  From it, lying open before me now, I
transcribe these boyish but none the less accurate observations:

"Mountain sheep have all-seeing eyes--therefore, one keeps in the open
at all times and never attempts stalking them under cover.  If you do,
you are acting suspiciously, and they will treat you in the same
manner."

"They will not permit you to approach from above them.  They are lofty
minded; so keep your place beneath them."

"If sheep are in the open, and on level ground, they will not permit a
near approach."

"Keep in the open, below them, permit them to retreat to the rocks.  If
these rocks give way to sheer cliffs the sheep will feel at home.  They
will then permit you to approach quite near."

"Sheep are tremendously curious.  Take advantage of this fact and offer
them something in the way of entertainment.  If you want to get on with
sheep, make a fool of yourself."

As spring advanced, the ewes left the flock and sought safety among the
cliffs where they raised their young in partial concealment.  While
their lambs were yet mere infants, a week old or so, they hid them
among the rocks.  Instinctively the youngsters lay low, remaining
immovable until their mothers returned from feeding near by, to claim
them.  Eagles hovered high overhead, waiting to drop like plummets upon
the helpless babies.  These great birds accounted for many a bleating
little lamb's passing.  Lions, likewise, visited the heights and took
toll of mothers as well as of offspring; even bobcats pounced upon
them.  Sometimes coyotes or wolves surprised partly grown sheep, that
had brashly ventured too far from sheltering rocks.

While returning home one day I stumbled upon a very young sheep.  The
youngster lay low, like a wounded duck.  Several times I walked within
a few feet of him, coming closer each time until at length he sprang up
and fled in terror.  He took refuge by climbing an almost perpendicular
cliff wall.  Camera in hand, I followed as best I could.  Fifty feet
up, he came to a point where even his nimble feet could find no
adequate footing.  His retreat ended.  He scrambled to a little jutting
point not much larger than a hand's breadth, and took refuge there with
all four feet bunched together.

Carefully I worked up toward him.  Several times he bleated for his
mother and shifted his position.  Every moment I feared he would lose
his footing and plunge down the rock face.  Twenty feet below I stopped
because I could climb no higher.  Carefully I turned about and faced
the wall, hugging it as closely as possible.  Holding the camera at
arm's length, and pointing it straight up, I sprung the shutter.  The
click, slight as it was, startled the lamb.  He leaped several feet to
another nub of rock, teetered precariously several seconds, then
suddenly his pedestal broke off.  Sheep and rock dropped straight
toward me.  To avoid the rock, I sprang sideways.  The sheep plunged
down upon me as the rock hurtled past.  Together we revolved, that
sheep and I, the camera being abandoned in midair to shift for itself.
Together the struggling youngster and I struck the rock, slid and
bounded outward, turning over as we fell, first one on top, then the
other, until at length I clutched a bush growing out of a crevice in
the slide and stopped myself; but the lamb continued his bouncing fall
down the mountain.  In all, he must have rolled three hundred feet
before he stopped, his feet sticking up out of the brush like the legs
of an overturned bench.

[Illustration: Sheep and rock dropped straight toward me.]

It was some time before I was able to walk.  But as quickly as possible
I went to the rescue of that sheep because I had caused his downfall.
He was still breathing, but unable to stand.  With great effort, for he
was heavy and I was shaking from my fall, I carried him down to the
stream and soused him in its icy water.  He revived at once.  The
camera had smashed to pieces before it finished its bouncing flight
down the mountain.

After all, it was a great experience, and though it cost me my camera,
some of my hide and most of my clothes, I wouldn't have missed it for
all Kit Carson's priceless furs!




CHAPTER SIX

A LOG CABIN IN THE WILDS--PRIMITIVE LIVING

At last, that long-anticipated day dawned, when my dream cabin became a
reality.  High upon a shoulder of Twin Sisters Mountain, a thousand
feet above the floor of the valley, where Parson Lamb's ranch stood,
overlooking the ruins of Kit Carson's own cabin, I built it.  Across
the valley, towered Long's Peak and its lofty neighbors.  Forty miles
of snowcapped peaks were at my dooryard, and beyond, toward the rising
sun, hazy plains stretched away to the illimitable horizon.  Between
its craggy shoulder and the main body of the mountain, lay an
unsuspected, wedge-shaped valley, down which a little brook went
gurgling.  There ancient spruce and yellow pine and quaking aspens grew
in sheltered luxuriance.

"Silent valley," I named it, though "Peaceful," or "Hidden," or "Happy"
might have fitted it as well.  About eighty years previously, as I
calculated by the age of the new trees since sprung up, fire had burned
over Silent Valley.  Many of the fire-killed trees were still standing,
sound to the heart.  These solid, seasoned trunks, I cut for the logs
of my cabin walls.  The Parson, almost as excitedly happy as I, lent me
a team to drag them to the spot where the house was to stand.  They
were far too heavy for me to lift, so I had to roll them into place by
an improvised system of skids.  Construction was a toilsome work; I was
not skilled at it, I handled my ax awkwardly, and squandered much
energy in "lost motion."  But how I sang and shouted at the task!
Never could Kit Carson nor any other pioneer have exulted at his
building as I did!  No wonder the deer paused in the aspen trails and
peered timidly out from their leafy retreat in amazement!  No wonder
those sages, the mountain sheep, watched from the cliffs above with
sharp, incredulous eyes.  Never before had the ring of an ax echoed in
Silent Valley!

[Illustration: Never before had the ring of an ax echoed in Silent
Valley!]

My cabin grew, as fast as young shoulders and eager hands could build
it.  Log walls snugly chinked, and log rafters boarded and sodded; two
windows, "lazy" windows we maligned them, because they lay down instead
of standing, one sash above the other, and opened by sliding past each
other.  The few dollars I had saved from my original stake and made
from the sale of hides, I spent, extravagantly, it seemed then, for
boards to make a door and lay a floor.  That lumber cost nine dollars
per thousand feet on the job, and had to be hauled eleven miles from a
local sawmill--an exorbitant price that made a lasting impression on my
thrifty mind and left my old leather pouch flat.  That same lumber
sells to-day for fifty-two dollars a thousand!  Shades of Kit Carson!
How fortunate I lived near your time!

Built-in furniture is nothing new, "we pioneers" always used it!  From
the odds and ends of planks left from the door and floor, I built a
wall seat, a chimney corner, a shelf cupboard and a bunk.  My scanty
furnishings were all homemade--a rough, pine-board table, which served
for kitchen, dining and library purposes, and a bench which I always
"saved," using the floor before the hearth instead.  "Aunt Jane"
insisted on giving me a featherbed to put on the rough slats of my
bunk, and some pieced quilts; I used my camp blankets for sheets.  She
gave me, too, a strip of old rag carpet she had brought from her
Eastern home.

The crowning architectural feature of my mansion was the corner
fireplace, raised of the native granite bowlders.  With what care I
selected the stones!--choosing those most richly encrusted with green
lichens, fitting each into its place, discarding many, ranging afar for
others to take their place.  Chimney building is a job for an artisan,
and even then much of a gamble.  Imagine my delight, then, when, the
last stone in place, I built a fire on my hearth, and it roared like a
furnace, and all the smoke went up, and out, the chimney!  Later, the
eddying winds sometimes shot prankishly down it and playfully chased
the smoke back into the room, but this only blackened the stones,
giving my fireplace an air of antiquity.

My open fire was cook stove as well as heater.  I added to my camping
utensils a Dutch oven, an iron pot with a heavy, deep-rimmed,
tight-fitting iron lid, and a tin basin.  My furnishings were complete!

Long evenings I sat on the floor before my hearth, dreaming.  Sometimes
I read, but the windy days outdoors, tramping and climbing, left me
relaxed and drowsy.  I possessed, perhaps, a dozen books; among them
"Treasure Island," which I read over and over, with my door bolted.  My
imagination gave piratical significance to the sighing of the pine
trees and the scampering of the pack rats over my roof.

Yes, my dream cabin was come true.  There it stood on its lofty
vantage, watching over me as I fared forth on my explorations, waiting
faithfully for my return, never reproaching me for my absence, its snug
walls always ready to welcome me like sheltering arms, its quickly
blazing hearth cheering me like a warm, loving heart.  So high was it
perched, that I could see it, while on my excursions, from many miles
away.  It was a beacon to my wandering spirit, a compass and a guide to
my wandering feet.

From it, as my knowledge of woodcraft, which I came to know was nothing
more than common sense and resourcefulness applied to outdoor living,
increased, I ranged farther and farther, into the wilder, more remote
regions, which, except for an occasional trapper, no other white man
had ever penetrated.  The country around my homestead, Long's Peak, and
the adjacent mountains, which have since been made a part of Rocky
Mountain National Park, is itself exceptionally high and rugged.
There, in a comparatively small area, are more than sixty peaks over
twelve thousand feet high, Long's, of course, being over fourteen
thousand feet.  As the years passed my wanderings took me along the
Continental Divide, from the Wyoming line at the north to the southern
boundary of Colorado.

The vastness of the Rocky Mountains is beyond comprehension, they
sprawl the length of the continent.  No one can hope to see all their
beauty, all their grandeur and awesomeness in a single lifetime.  From
the crest of the Divide, north, west, and south, stretches a world of
rugged peaks.  Range on range, tier on tier, like the waves of a
solidified ocean in a Titanic storm they roll away to the distant
horizon shore.

Always, as a boy, that compelling panorama fascinated me.  On pleasant,
sunny days, those rugged slopes, from a distance, looked safe and
plushy, for all the world like deerskin; the dark green cañons
mysteriously beckoned to me, the myriad lakes sparkled knowingly,
intimately, the swift brooks chattered incessantly, urging action,
adventure.  On stormy days, when violent winds swept over the Divide
and hid the heads of the peaks beneath the scuttling clouds, that
overwhelming vista, with its tremendous, deep-gashed cañons, its
towering, forbidding cliffs, still challenged even while it repelled me.

To explore every mile, vertical and horizontal, of that uncharted sea
of peaks!  That was my boyish ambition! that was what led me westward,
that was what lured me on and on!  And my field of exploration was
limitless--one peak conquered, there was always another just beyond, a
little higher, a little harder, waiting to be climbed.  The wilder the
region the greater was its fascination for me.  No matter how
difficult, how slow my progress, it never became tedious--there was
always the unexpected, the mysterious, as a guarantee against monotony.

Timberline always interested me and those vast, naked plateaus above it
never ceased to move me to wonder--miles and miles of great, granite
desert, up-flung into space.  The very tip-top of the world.  I used to
marvel that so much of the earth was waste.  It was an everlasting
enigma.

Timberline was not all grotesque trees with bleak winds forever
scourging them.  In late summer, it was a veritable hanging garden.
Sweet blue and pink forget-me-nots hid in the moss of its bowlders,
Edelweiss starred its stony trails.  King's crown, alpine primrose, and
many other flowers nodded a gracious welcome.

And just below it, what a riot of bloom there was!  I had learned, oft
to my inconvenience, that the higher the altitude the greater the
precipitation.  Around and just below timberline are many lakes, and
miles of marshy, boggy land.  On those first winter excursions to the
heights I marveled at the deep snowdrifts banked in the heavy Englemann
forests just below timberline.  Long after the last white patch had
melted or evaporated from the exposed slopes, these sheltered drifts
would lie undiminished and when summer really came, they gave birth to
scores of trickling rills.  Vegetation sprang up in that moist,
needle-mulched soil as luxuriant as any in the tropics.  From the time
the furry anemone lifted its lavender-blue petals above the dwindling
snow patch, until the apples formed on the wild rose bushes and the
kinnikinic berries turned red, it was a continuous nosegay.  Indian
paintbrush, marigolds, blue and white columbines as big as my hand and
nearly as high as my head, fragile orchids, hiding their heads in the
dusky dells, thousands of varieties I never knew or learned.  Some few
I recognized as glorified cousins of my Kansas acquaintances.  The
denser towering spruce forests sheltered them, conserved the moisture,
and scattered their needles over their winter beds.

In spite of the Parson's experienced advice on my first trips, boylike,
I ladened myself with blanket roll, cooking utensils and an unnecessary
amount of food.  I soon found, however, that besides tiring me early in
the afternoon and robbing me of my zest for scenery, my pack limited
the scope of my operations, for with it I did not dare attempt many
precipitous slopes where a single slip might land me in eternity.  I
found, too, that without it I could practically double the length of a
day's journey, and arrive at the end of it still fresh enough to enjoy
things.  So I soon simplified my camp equipment.  Campfires took the
place of blankets, a pocketful of raisins, a few shelled peanuts, some
sweet chocolate bars provided satisfying feasts.  Eventually, when I
became adept at snaring game, I made a spit of twigs and roasted the
game over hot coals.

Sometimes this primitive method of camping was inconvenient, but it was
lots of fun.  It was pioneering!  What boy has not wished himself
Robinson Crusoe?  Somehow, in this way I retrieved that early frontier
period passed before my birth.  So I met the challenge of the
mountains, met whatever emergencies arose, with such resourcefulness as
I could muster; made my own way with what ingeniousness I possessed,
and lived off the land.  Indians could do no more!

Having given up my gun, I learned other, and for me, at least, more
reliable methods of taking game for food.  Setting snares was an
intriguing sport, but when I did not have time for it, I resorted to a
more primitive method, stone-throwing.  Of course there were days when
neither of these methods succeeded, when the meal hour had to be
postponed, while I whetted my appetite, rather superfluously, with more
miles of tramping.  I was surprised to find I could go foodless for
several days and still have strength to plod ahead and maintain my
interest in the scenery.

The cottontail of the Rockies is the commonest and easiest source of
meat, not only to the camper, but to the rabbit's cannibalistic
neighbors.  He is a sort of universal food--a sort of staff of life to
the animal world.  But for him famine would stalk the big killers.
Fortunately for himself and for his preying foes, he is most prolific,
and holds his own, in numbers at least, despite man and beast.
Occasionally some ravaging disease carries his kind off by the
thousands, then starvation faces those dependent on him for food.  The
killers have to seek other hunting grounds, frequently far from their
home range, and often they become gaunt and lank, driven to take
desperate chances to save themselves from starvation and death.

As you can easily imagine, it keeps Bunny Cottontail moving to outwit
his many enemies.  He has no briar patches in that rugged country,
though the jumper thickets might serve as such, so he lives beneath the
rocks, usually planning a front and back door to his burrow.  In this
way he has a private exit when weasels or bobcats make their uninvited
visitations.  A whole Rooseveltian family of bunnies live in congested
districts.  Learning this, I usually set a number of snares in their
runways, or at likely holes beneath the rocks.

Part of the game of making nature yield one a living is keeping an eye
out at all times for possible food supplies.  If a rabbit scurried
across my path, I marked the spot of his refuge.  If he dodged beneath
a certain slab, I set my snare there.  Then I poked about, hoping to
scare him into the snare.  I did not always succeed in this, though,
for my stick could not turn the corners of his burrow, and he often
appeared out of some other exit, laughing at my stupidity, no doubt.
Sometimes, when very hungry, I tried smoking him out.  The stone porch
of his burrow usually sloped, so a small smudge started at its lower
side would travel up-hill, into the tunnel.  Mr. Rabbit, thinking the
woods were on fire, would make a dash for the open and fall victim to
the snare.  But despite the fact that rabbits are credited with little
wit, I have often known them to nose aside my traps and escape.

Cottontails I found up to eight or nine thousand feet, but even higher
I ran across their cousins, the snowshoe.  He quite excelled me in
manipulating his "webs"--his tremendous hind feet with long, clawlike
toes, covered with stiff and, I judged, waterproof hairs.  He made his
way nimbly over the soft, deep snow, while I on my webs often
floundered and fell.  Like the ptarmigan and the weasel, the snowshoe
rabbit changed to a white coat for winter.  In the spring, he was
bluish, though underneath he still retained his arctic snowiness.  In
the fall, with good taste and a sense of the fitness of things, he put
on a tan coat, and then, as the winter snows began to drift, he once
more donned his ermine robes.

Grouse were plentiful, except during the winter months.  Usually I
found them between six thousand and nine thousand feet altitude, but as
the fall coloring painted the mountain slopes, and the juniper berries
ripened, they moved to the higher, exposed wind-swept cliffs.  Above
timberline were the ptarmigan, always easy targets for a well-aimed
stone.

Rabbits, grouse and ptarmigan were all available and filling, but the
most abundant and most easily caught food in all the Rockies at that
time were the mountain trout.  When I was a boy, every stream, even as
far down as the plains, was alive with them.  Like salmon, they swam
upstream till they came to rapids or cataracts which they could not
leap.  Those in the lakes were exceptionally large, but too well fed to
be interested in my bait.  In the valleys were deep pools made by
beavers' dams and in these the trout "holed up" for the winter.
Fishing through the ice was common sport years ago.  I remember that
one of Jim Oss's neighbors brought a mess of trout to him when he gave
his homesteading dance in January.  With fish so abundant and unwary,
and fishermen few, fishing was easy.  It took me only five or ten
minutes to catch all the trout I could use.  Usually a few feet of
line, a hook, and a willow or aspen rod, was all I found necessary.
Sometimes I used bait--grasshoppers, bugs or worms.

Campfire cooking is an art comparatively primitive and elementary, but
it requires experience and intelligence to master.  Like most
accomplishments worth learning, it takes application, and a world of
patience.  Since I did not carry any utensils with me, I invariably
roasted or broiled the game I cooked, using hot rocks like the Indians.
I heated stones in my campfire, dug a shallow hole, and when the stones
were hot lined it with them, then put in my meat, covering it with a
hot flat stone.  From time to time, I renewed the cooled first stones
for fresh ones, hot from the fire.  Sometimes I intensified that heat
of my "fireless" by covering its top with moss or with pine needles.

If I decided to broil my bunny or grouse, I got out my short fishing
line and tied one end of it to a limb of a tree or to a tripod which I
made by fastening three poles together, setting them over the fire.
The other end I fastened to a green stick, three or four feet long,
which I skewered into the meat.  Then I gave my "broiler" a spin which
wound up the line.  When it was twisted tight, it reversed itself,
unwinding, and so revolving my cookery, exposing all sides to the fire.
Of course it gradually lost its spin, then I gave it another twirl.
Given plenty of time, over a slow fire of glowing coals, my bird would
be done to a queen's taste--a much too delicious dish to waste on any
king!

During dry, warm weather, I raked pine or spruce needles together for a
bed, but in the winter I used green pine or spruce boughs, putting
heavy, coarse ones on the bottom, planting their butt ends deeps in the
snow.  Upon these I placed smaller twigs, which gave "spring" to my
couch, and finally I tufted it with the soft, tender tips of the
branches.  Never have I rested better on mahogany beds than I did on
such pungent bunks!  Lying there, physically weary, mentally relaxed,
drowsily gazing into my campfire, I lived over the day's adventures,
and would not have changed places with any man alive!

I found making camp in temperate weather was no task at all.  It was
when it was cold or wet that the real test of my woodcraft came.  I
learned that the first requisite in camp-making was the selection of a
suitable camp site.  It had to be chosen with thought of the
accessibility to fuel and water.  It had to be sheltered from the wind,
which was not always easy to manage in high altitudes, for though the
prevailing winter wind in the Rockies blows from the west, it swirls
and eddies in the cañons, coming from most unexpected and unwelcome
directions and often from all points of the compass in turn.  Usually
ready-made camps, overhanging cliffs, were available.  When they were
not, my ingenuity rose to the occasion and I thatched together twigs of
willow or birch, or even spruce or pine, though the latter were stiffer
and more difficult to fit tightly together.  Beginning at the bottom, I
worked upward, lapping each successive layer over the one beneath, as
in laying shingles, and pointing the tips of the leaves or needles
downward, so they would shed water.

Sometimes I had difficulty in starting my fire.  If there had been
daily showers for weeks, and the needles and the deadwood, as well as
the ground itself, were soaked, or if in winter the deadwood were
buried beneath snow and the dead limbs of standing trees difficult to
break off, it was a discouraging task.  Sometimes after what seemed
like eons of struggling, I would get a sickly little flame flickering,
when, puff! along would come a blast of wind and smother it out with
snow.  I did learn eventually that pitch knots were so rich in gum or
resin that they would always catch fire, and so I shaved off splinters
with my trusty hunting knife and used them for tinder.  One night as I
lighted a candle in my cabin, it came to me that a piece of it would be
handy to tuck in my pocket for emergencies.  Ever afterwards I carried
several short, burned-down ends along on my excursions.  I discovered
that one of these stubs, set solidly on the ground and lighted, would
start my fire under the most adverse conditions.  But for them I would
have had many a cold camp.

I had read of the Eskimo igloos and I tried to make them.  But the snow
at hand in my mountains was never packed hard enough to freeze solid so
building blocks could be cut from it.  It is blown about and drifted
too much.  I did get an idea from "Buck" in Jack London's "Call of the
Wild," that I adapted.  On winter explorations I always carried
snowshoes, even though not compelled to wear them at the outset.  These
made handy shovels.  When ready to make camp I selected a snowdrift
three or four feet deep, and with my web shovel dug a triangular hole,
about seven feet long on each side.  In the angle farthest from the
wind I built my fire.  It soon assisted me in enlarging the corner.
Opposite it, I roofed over my dugout with dead limbs, thatching them
with green boughs, and finally heaping the excavated snow over all.  I
had a practically windproof nest which a little fire would keep snug
and warm.  True I had to fire up frequently throughout the night, for a
big blaze is too hot in a snow-hole, but I soon learned to rouse up,
put on more fuel, and drop back to sleep, all in a few minutes.

But the smoke nuisance in my early dugouts was terrible.  Pittsburgh
had nothing on me!  Many a morning I crawled out smelling like a smoked
ham, my eyes smarting, my throat sore and dry.  Years later, my rambles
led me to Mesa Verde and the kivas of the cliff dwellers.  Those
primitive people built fires deep underground, with no chimneys or
flues to conduct the smoke outside.  They ingeniously constructed cold
air passages down to the floor of the kivas near the fire bowl.  These
fed the fires fresh air, causing the smoke to rise steadily and pass
out through a small aperture in the roof.  I tried this, and to my
delight, found it rid me of the strangling plague.

I had discarded my gun, but my camera was with me always.  Frequent
dashing showers are common in the mountains.  Often, too, I had to
cross swollen streams, and sometimes got a ducking in transit.
Matches, salt and camera plates were ruined by wetting, so I had to
contrive a waterproof carrier for them.  I hit upon a light rubber
blanket, which added practically no pounds or bulk to my pack, and in
it wrapped my perishables.  It saved them more often than not, but even
it could not protect them in some predicaments.

There, was no month of the year I didn't camp out.  Naturally I was
caught in many kinds of weather.  In severe storms I learned to stick
close to camp, lying low and waiting for the furies to relent.  In the
early days, as in my first camp, I attempted to return home at once,
but traveling over the soft, yielding snow only sapped my strength and
got me nowhere.  I learned that by remaining inactive by my campfire, I
conserved both food and energy and had a far better chance to reach the
shelter of my cabin without mishap.

Being young and inexperienced, I was the recipient of much free advice,
the most common being warnings about the imminent weather or the
oncoming winter.  Most of these prognosticators used the cone-storing
squirrels or the beavers, working busily on their dams and houses, as
barometers.  But I found the old adage that only fools and newcomers
could forecast weather to hold true in the mountains.  I got so I
didn't believe in signs.  I saw the squirrels and the beavers make
preparation for winter every fall.  I took each day, with its vagaries,
as it came and made the best of it.

Returning from one of my midwinter trips to the wilds, one day I
coasted down a very steep slope and shot out of the woods into a little
clearing--a snug log cabin stood there, buried in snow up to its eyes.
In a snow trench, not far from the door, an old trapper was chopping
wood.  As I burst upon the scene he dropped his ax and stared at me.
Then he found words.

"See all fools ain't dead yit," he observed with a grin.  Then, as I
started on he yelled after me.

"But I bet they soon will be!"

[Illustration: "See all fools ain't dead yit," he observed.]

So I spent the days of my boyhood--tramping, climbing, exploring!  Was
ever another mortal so fortunate as I in the realization of his dreams?
Was ever another lad so happy?




CHAPTER SEVEN

GLACIERS AND FOREST FIRES

When I first came West, with my imagination fired by the reminiscent
tales of my mother and my father, and our pioneer neighbors, I looked
only for mountains made of gold, for roaming buffaloes and skulking
savages, for fierce wild beasts and mighty hunters.  That the mountains
were golden only in the sunset, and the Indians and bison alive only in
the immortal epics of the frontier, somehow did not disappoint me.  So
wonderful were those rocky upheavals in the reality, so intriguing were
the traces of redskin and buffalo, I forgot my fantastic
misconceptions.  To my enthusiastic youth, everything was
extraordinary, alluring, primitively satisfying.  Parson Lamb said the
big game were gone, but there were enough left to give me many a thrill.

Naturally, at first, I saw only the more obvious wonders of the wilds,
but as time passed I discovered other sources of interest, hitherto
unheard of.  High and dry upon the meadows and lower mountain sides
were smooth, round bowlders, undoubtedly water-worn.  The granite walls
of many of the cañons I climbed were curiously scored--here and there
were inlaid bands of varying colored stone.  Running out from the
loftier ranges were long, comparatively narrow heaps of earth, which
resembled giant railroad fills as flat on top as though they had been
sliced off by a titanic butcher knife.  They were covered with forests,
and small, jewel-like lakes were set in their level summits.  At the
foot of Long's and many other peaks were more lakes, with slick,
glazed, granite sides.  The water in them was usually greenish and
always icy.  There were immense, dirty "snowdrifts" that never
diminished, but appeared to be perpetual.

Following my trapline or trailing the Big-horn or watching the beaver,
I noticed these things and wondered about them.  How came those
bowlders, round and polished, so far from water?  What made those
scratches upon those granite cliffs?  What Herculean master-smith fused
those decorative belts into their very substance?  What engineer built
those table-topped mounds?  Who had gouged out the bowls for those icy
lakes?  Why were some snowdrifts perennial?  I puzzled over these
conundrums, until, bit by bit, I solved them.  The answers were more
amazing than anything else I encountered in the wilds.

I learned that those sand-coated drifts were not drifts at all, but
glaciers, probably the oldest living things in the world.  For they
were alive, moving deposits of ice and snow, the survivors of the ice
age.  Eons ago, they and their like had gouged out the huge bowls which
later became lakes, had gashed the earth and scoured its cañon walls,
leaving in their wakes those square-topped dumps or moraines; debris,
once solid granite, now ground into rocks and sand and gravel by their
slow-moving, irresistible force.

Most of the glaciers I found were upon the eastern slope of the Divide.
This is because the prevailing winter winds are from west to east.
Glaciers are formed by thawing of the exposed snow on top of the huge
deposits, the water trickling down through the moss, and freezing
solidly.  Gradually, through continued thawing and freezing, the whole
drift is changed into a field of ice.  The first sign of movement comes
when the mass of ice breaks away from the cliffs at its upper edges.
There is an infinitesimal downward sagging, as with incredible
deliberation it moves on with its cargo of rock and sand.  But, slowly
as it moves, its power is overawing.  A glacier is the embodiment of
irresistible force.  Its billion-ton roller cuts a trench through the
very earth, with cañon-like walls; these latter turn upon their master
and imprison him.  It tears immense granite slabs from the cliffs and
carries them along.  It grinds granite into powder.  I have seen water
emerging from glaciers, milk-white with its load of ground-up rocks.

By setting a straight line of stakes across the ice, I measured the
movements of some glaciers.  Some progressed several feet in a year,
others traveled scarcely more than a few inches.  All moved farthest
nearest the center; for, as is true of streams, there the friction of
the side walls does not retard them.  They varied in width from a
hundred feet to half a mile, in depth from forty to a hundred feet.

During my first years in the Rockies, the winters were severe, with
heavy snows, and the summers unusually rainy.  The low temperature and
great precipitation prevented the usual amount of thawing on the
glaciers.  But there came a season as arid as any in the Sahara desert.

"It's miserable droughty," grieved the Parson one day when I met him on
top of Long's Peak.  "Springs are going dry and the streams are
terrible low.  See that drift down there?"  Standing on Long's
overtowering summit he pointed down the Divide.  "The one with black
rock at its edge.  Well, sir, I've never seen that drift so small
before--not in all the thirty years I've watched it.  The glaciers will
be opening up with all this hot weather! the crevasses'll widen and
split clear down to the bowels of the earth.  Wal; it's an ill wind
that blows no good.  This drought will make it easy for the tenderfoot
to get a good look into 'em."

I took the Parson's tip and next day packed a horse and started for
Arapahoe glacier which lies south of Long's Peak.  On the second day
out, having taken my pack-horse as far up as possible, I unpacked him,
hobbled him and turned him loose to crop what grass he could find.
Then I set up camp.

Camp made, I began the last lap of my climb up the glacier.  Along the
way, below snowbanks, wild flowers grew head-high, but in the woods
beside the game trails they were scarce and stunted.  As I plodded
slowly up the steep slope I heard loud reports, as though some one were
setting off heavy blasts.  They echoed and reëchoed among the cliffs.
A roaring stream dashed frothily down the slope, rocks rolled past.  I
climbed a pinnacle overlooking the glacier and looked down upon it.

The Parson was right.  All the snow which ordinarily hid the icy
surface was melted away.  The glacial ice lay uncovered.  Its surface
was split by numberless yawning crevasses.  Water drenched their sides.
Every little while ice would break away, and then reports, similar to
the ones I had heard on my way up, would nearly deafen me.

I climbed gingerly down and edged out upon the glacier, testing each
foothold.  I peeped into the crevasses, and dropped stones or chunks of
ice into them to sound their depths.  I ventured into a shallow crack
and followed it until it pinched beneath a wall of solid ice.  Then I
tried another, a larger one.  Gaining a little courage by these
explorations, I ventured yet farther and climbed down into one of the
deeper crevasses.  Water showered down upon me, from melting walls
above.  I crept on down until I was about fifty feet below the top of
the glacier.  I paused; before me gaped a dark cavern fenced off by
heavy icicles as large as my body.  I peered through this crystal
lattice into the darkness beyond.  From somewhere came the tinkle of
water, I decided to investigate.  A stream pouring into the crevasse
from above, had washed down a stone.  Using it for a sledge, I set to
work to break into that barred vault.  I shattered one of the glassy
bars and crawled inside.  A ghostly blue light filled the place.  With
lighted candle I moved away from the entrance, turned a corner and
plunged into the blackest darkness I have ever experienced.

The silence was eerie, frightening.  Just then it was shattered by a
muffled report, followed almost at once by another that seemed to rend
my cavern walls asunder.  Bits of ice dropped about me.  I suddenly
remembered a number of things I wanted to do outside, I turned and
sought the guarded cavern of the ghastly light.  I mistook the way and
turned aside into a blind alley for a moment.  I grew panicky--my flesh
went clammy--but that momentary delay no doubt saved my life.  As I
reached the opening, there came a rending crash, a splintering of ice,
and broken blocks came hurtling into the crevasse just outside my
cavern door.  An inrush of air snuffed out my candle.

My hands trembled as I relighted the candle.  Ice still bombarded the
opening.  Somewhere water splashed.  Before I had descended into the
crevasse I had been perspiring freely, for the sun shone hot upon the
surface of the glacier; now I was shivering, my feet were soaked with
ice water, a dozen little streams trickled down from the cavern roof.
I would soon be warm in the hot sun outside; then...  I discovered the
crevasse was blocked with ice.

I lost my head and shouted for help.  There were none to hear.  I
pushed against the barriers.  I pulled myself together and began to
search for a passage among the blocks of ice.  The candle gave a feeble
light.  Without waiting to feel my way, I edged into a crack, wriggled
forward and stuck tight.  Cold sweat oozed as I wiggled backward into
the cavern again.  I had difficulty relighting the candle.  Again and
again I attempted to squeeze out among the pieces of broken ice; I
climbed up the smooth wall, lost my footing and tumbled back.  At last
I found a larger opening among the ice blocks and squeezed into it like
a rabbit into a rock pile.  I knew I must hurry because these jumbled
pieces would soon be solidly cemented together when the water pouring
over them froze.

I surged desperately against the pressing ice, held my breath and
squeezed my way through into the sunshine at last--safe.  Late that
evening I reached my camp, my interest in glaciers chilled.

Since that experience I have usually looked long before leaping into a
crevasse and then have not leaped.

The next morning I broke camp.  I had had enough of close-ups of
glaciers.  I followed the crest of the Continental Divide northward,
satisfied with such distant views of those treacherous juggernauts as
could be had from the rim rocks.

That was how I came to be camped at timberline above Allen's Park when
the big forest fire set the region south of it ablaze.  From my lofty
station I watched a thunder shower gather around Long's Peak and move
southward, tongues of lightning darting from it venomously.  It was
perhaps ten miles wide.  It circled Wild Basin, then faced eastward
toward the foothills, its forked tongues writhing wickedly.  Those to
the south struck repeatedly; I counted three fires they started, but
two of these the shower extinguished; the third was miles beyond the
edge of the rain, and began spreading even as I watched.  Smoke soon
hid the doomed forest, filling the cañon and boiling out beyond it.

Everywhere in the mountains, I had found burned-over forests; ancient
trees that had stood for centuries, had endured drought, flood, storm
and pestilence, only to be burned at last by a fiendish flash and left,
charred skeletons of their former green beauty.

I hurried down from the heights as the fire spread upward along both
sides of the gorge.  Upon a bare, rocky ridge, several miles north,
inside the edge of the shower limits, I deposited my pack and turned
the horse homeward, alone.  I hoped that I might be able to put out the
fire before it spread too far.

As I hurried in its direction I saw two deer standing in a little
opening watching the smoke intently.  They showed no fear, merely
curiosity.  But as I approached closer to its smouldering edge, I met
birds in excited, zig-zagging flight.  Along a brook I found fresh bear
tracks.  Bruin had galloped hastily from the danger zone.

The fire was confined to the heavy timber near the bottom of a cañon,
but was licking its way up both slopes, the backfire eating slowly
downward while the headfire leaped upward.  Trees exploded into giant
sparklers.  The heat of the approaching flames caused the needles to
exude their sap, combustion occurred almost before the actual fire
touched them.  Black acrid smoke arose visible a hundred miles out on
the plains.

Not a breeze stirred where I stood, but the fire seemed fanned by a
strong wind, that swayed it back and forth.  It did not travel in a set
direction; one moment it raced westward, paused, smoldered, then burst
forth again, running southward.  A little later a flood of flame would
come toward the east.  These scattered sorties cut narrow swaths
through the forest, flaming lanes that smoldered at the edges, widened
and combined.

The smoke cloud grew denser.  My eyes streamed with tears, my throat
burned, I began to cough.  I descended the ridge to cross the cañon--in
the bottom I found little smoke and fairly good air.

Flocks of panic-stricken birds veered uncertainly about.  They would
flee the fire, encounter dense smoke, and turn straight back toward the
flames.  They circled and alighted at the bottom of the gorge.  No
sooner safely there, then they'd take wing again and flutter back into
the trees near the fire.  Many dropped, overcome by the smoke, whole
flocks disappeared into the roaring flames to return no more.  They
lost all sense of direction, all instinct for self-preservation.

But the birds were not alone in their distress; the animals, too, were
on the move.  Down the slopes came deer, does with their young, bucks
with tender, growing horns.  To my surprise, they paid no attention to
me.  Whether they were unable to get my scent because of the fumes of
burning woods, or whether the fire filled them with a greater fear, I
could not decide.  A coyote trotted calmly down a game trail, eyed me
for a moment, and went on his way toward safety.  He was the only one
of the wild folk able to keep his wits about him.

Occasionally one of the deer would break away from the refugees, head
up or down without apparent reason, the rest of the band instantly
following his lead.  In less than a minute all would return.  They
feared to desert their usual haunts in time of trouble.  The smoke
robbed them of their sense of smell, the noise of the fire was too loud
for their usually alert, big ears to catch the smaller, significant
sounds.  As their confusion grew their terror mounted; they bundled
nervously away in all directions, rushing back together, heading
upstream toward the fire, and leaping wildly over smoldering needles of
the forest floor.

The fawns were deserted, their mothers dashed about frantically as
though unable to recognize their own offspring; they snorted wildly to
rid their noses of the biting fumes that robbed them of scent.  A fawn
stopped within a few feet of me and stared about with luminous,
innocent eyes.  Its hair was singed and its feet burned.  It lifted its
left hind foot and stared at it perplexed; then I saw between its
dainty, parted hoofs a burning stick.

Other animals passed.  A badger waddled slowly down the trail, pausing
to grin at me comically.  Two beavers splashed downstream, following
the water, diving through the deeper pools and lumbering through the
shallows of the brook.  Other animals crashed through the woods, but I
could not recognize them.

A little brook sizzled down through the burning land.  I stopped and,
cupping my hands, scooped up some water and drank thirstily.  The first
swallow nearly strangled me, it was saturated by the fumes of the
burning forest.  I drank on nevertheless; it was wet and cooling to my
parched throat.  I soused my head in the brook and soaked my
handkerchief in case of need.

A faint breeze sprang up.  Circling the fire, I moved up the slope,
with the wind at my back.  The needle-carpeted forest floor was a
smoldering mass--the squirrels' hidden hoards were afire.  Young trees,
just starting from those stored-up nurseries were destroyed by tens of
thousands.

On raced the head fire, setting the dead trees and stumps furiously
aflame, touching the needles of the living trees with swift, feverish
fingers, igniting insidious spot-fires as it went.  Its self-generated
draft roared thunderingly.  It snatched up countless firebrands and
sent those flaming heralds forth to announce its coming to the
trembling forest beyond.  As it topped the cañon walls it seemed to
leap beyond the clouds that hovered overhead and burn asunder the very
heavens.

Of a sudden I was enveloped by one of its serpentine arms.  It writhed
everywhere around me, hissing, striking at my face, singing my hair,
scorching my frantic hands that would ward it off.  My eyes could not
face that venomous glare.  My lungs were choked by its searing breath.
I found a stick and, feeling my way with it, fled, like the beaver, to
the brook for sanctuary.  That flaming serpent pursued me.  Its breath
grew more acrid, more deadly.  I coughed convulsively, strangled,
stumbled, fell: when I regained my feet, I was dazed, confused.  But I
retained consciousness enough to know I must keep moving.  I must reach
the fire's immemorial enemy and enlist the aid of that watery ally to
escape it.  I took leaps over the ground, but blindly, with no such
brilliant eyes as my relentless foe.

The memory of that race for life is still vividly terrifying; blinded,
choking, crashing into trees, falling, struggling to my feet, fighting
on and on and on, for what seemed endless hours.  In reality it was--it
could only have been--a few moments.  I plunged into the brook and
submerged my burning clothes, my tortured body.  I hurried on as fast
as I could, downstream, halting now and then to dive beneath the
grateful waters of the deeper pools, but never stopping, until,
staggering, gasping, sobbing, I reached the safety of the cañon.

[Illustration: The memory of that race for life is still vividly
terrifying.]








CHAPTER EIGHT

THE PROVERBIAL BUSY BEAVER

It was my boyish ambition to find some corner of those rocky wilds
where no human being had ever set foot and to be the first person to
behold it.  What boy has not felt that Columbus had several centuries'
advantage of him: that Balboa was a meddlesome old chap who might
better have stayed in Spain and left American oceans to American boys
to discover?  Oh! the unutterable regret of youthful hearts that the
Golden Fleece and the Holy Grail and other high adventures passed
before their time!

In searching for my virgin wilderness, I saw many spots that bore no
trace of human existence, wild enough, remote enough, calm enough, to
justify my willing credulity.

But I had another notion which even my young enthusiasm had to
acknowledge was in error.  I fancied that the animals in such a spot as
I have described, unwise to the ways of man, having had no experience
to teach them fear and caution, would be gentle and trusting, and
approachable.  I was doomed to disappointment.  I found that no matter
how remote the region, how primeval its forests or how Eden-new its
streams, its beasts were furtive, wary, distrustful.

But after all, though these ideas, like many of my other youthful
dreams, did not "pan out" in following them up, I found other leads
which yielded rich experiences.

When I first came to the mountains, the beavers were extremely wild.
Rarely did I glimpse one or even see signs of their activities.  True,
all along the streams were deserted beaver homes, merely stick frames
with most of the mud plaster fallen off, and through the meadows were a
succession of dams which might easily have flooded them for miles
around.  No doubt large colonies had once lived there.  Once in a while
I found a fallen aspen, with the marks of a beaver's keen chisels upon
it.  But as for the beaver's renowned industry--it wasn't!

"I thought beavers were busy animals," I complained to the Parson.
"I've heard industrious folks called beavers all my life.  I don't see
how they got their reputation.  Why, it wouldn't be hard for me to be
busier'n these beavers!"

The old man laughed.

"Now, you're rather hard on the little critters," he defended.
"They're not so indolent, considering their chances."  Then he went on
to explain.

A horde of trappers, he said, had followed Kit Carson's successful trip
into the region in 1840.  They visited every stream and strung traps in
all the valleys.  Beaver fur was taken out by pack-train load.  In
twenty years the trappers had reaped the richest of the harvest; in ten
years more they had practically "trapped out" all the beavers.  They
left only when trapping ceased to be profitable; and even so, the early
settlers had found some small profit in catching a few beavers every
winter.

The survivors, my old friend said, were wiser if sadder animals than
those the first trappers found.  Many beavers had maimed or missing
feet, reminders of the traps that caused their trouble.  They deserted
their ponds, neglected their dams and houses and sought refuge in holes
in the banks of streams.  Their tunnels entered the bank under water,
thus making it difficult to locate their runways, or to set traps after
the discovery of the runways.

So that was the reason for the beavers scarcity and wariness!  Few were
the chances they gave me, on my early rambles, to observe their habits.
But just when it seemed they were doomed to suffer the fate of the
buffalo, Colorado and a few other states woke up to the fact that
beavers were threatened to be classed with the dodo, and feeble
measures were taken to protect them.  Slowly their numbers increased,
they returned to their normal habits of living, and rebuilt their dams
and houses.

Down in the valley below my cabin, within a few rods of the spot where
the ruins of Kit Carson's cabin still stand, are two small streams
along which I early found numerous traces of beaver.  At the confluence
of these streams were dams and houses that were not entirely deserted;
for occasionally the beavers did some repair work.  Since they were
within five minutes' walk of my cabin I visited them frequently during
all seasons of the year.  Five times I saw the beavers return to the
old home site, repair the dams and rebuild the houses.  Four times I
saw them forced to desert their home, once because a fire burned the
surrounding trees which were their source of food, the other times to
elude trappers.

I discovered that this colony consisted of a trap-maimed old couple and
their annual brood.  The male had lost a portion of his right hind
foot, his mate had only a stump for her left front one.  I early dubbed
them Mr. and Mrs. Peg, and came to have a real neighborly affection for
them.  Their infirmities made it easy for me to keep track of them, and
to keep up with their social activities.  Neighborly interest must be
kept alive by the neighbors' doings, you know!

They certainly showed no inclination to become dull from overwork!
About the time the ice on their pond began to break up, they would take
their youngsters and start upon their summer vacation.  Upon a number
of occasions I found their familiar tracks along the streams eight or
ten miles below their home site; once more than fifteen miles away.  On
their rambles they met other beaver families, and stopped to visit; the
young people of the combined families played and splashed about, while
their more sedate elders lay contentedly basking in the sun.

But late August or early September always saw Mr. and Mrs. Peg back
home; usually without their youngsters.  Those precocious paddlers had
set up homes for themselves or had wedded into other tribes.  The old
couple at once set to work, toiling night and day, taking no time off
for rest.  They repaired their dam to raise the water to the desired
level, replastered their house inside and out with mud, and in addition
cut down a number of aspen trees, severed their trunks into lengths
they could handle, and brought both trunks and limbs down into the
pond.  They towed the heavy green wood down first and piled it in the
deep water near their house, the rest they piled upon these until their
larder was full.  They ate the whole of the smaller limbs of the aspen,
but only the bark of the larger boughs and trunks.  They used the wood
for house and dam construction.

Trappers have told me that the streams beaver live in are poor fishing
places because the furry inhabitants eat the fish.  By careful
observation, I proved to my own satisfaction at least, that quite the
opposite is true.  For the deep ponds made by the dams they build are
literally spawning pools for the trout, breeding grounds and
hatcheries.  They are also pools of refuge, to which the fish flee to
elude the fisherman, and in their warmer depths the finny tribe "hole
up" when the streams are frozen over in winter.  I have lain motionless
upon a bowlder overlooking a beaver-inhabited stream and watched large
trout lazing about almost within reach of a preoccupied paddler,
apparently in no alarm over his nearness.  Neither paid the other "any
mind." I am sure that beavers eat neither fish nor flesh.

Which reminds me that early in my mountain experience I happened upon
an old trapper's log cabin and stopped to visit him.  Mountain
hospitality generously insists that guests be fed, no home or hut is
too poor to provide a bite for the chance visitor.  Upon this occasion
I was handed a tin plate with some meat on it.

"Guess what it is," my host urged.

I tasted the meat, examined it, smelled it and tried to make out what
it was.  It tasted somewhat like venison, yet not quite the same.  It
had something the flavor of cub-bear steak broiled over a campfire, but
it was sweeter and not so strong.  I guessed wrong several times before
the trapper informed me.

"Beaver tail," he laughed, pleased at outwitting me.

Still chuckling he went outside to a little log meat house and returned
with a whole beaver tail for my inspection.  The tail was about ten
inches in length, nearly five inches wide at the broadest part and
perhaps an inch thick.  The skin that covered the tail was dark in
color and very tough, suggestive of alligator skin.  The meat of the
beaver tail was much prized by explorers and trappers, and visitors,
such as I, were often given this meat as a special treat.

The old fellow talked at length about the wise ways of the beaver he
had caught.  Though I made note of a number of his observations for
future reference, I was skeptical of their authenticity.  As years
passed and I talked with many men, I found that their observations
varied greatly.  They were not always unprejudiced observers, their
observations were colored by their personal point of view, under
diverse conditions.

I early learned that trappers and hunters, as a rule, are not real
nature students.  They are killers, and killers have not the patience
to wait and watch, to take painstaking care and limitless time in the
study of an animal.  They will spend only a few minutes watching an
animal that a man without a gun might study for days, or even weeks.
They are prone to snap judgment.  Then their over-active imaginations
supply ready misinformation for missing facts.

"A beaver has as many wives as he can git," my host informed me as we
sat before his fire.  "There's some that don't have many, and agin
there's some that have a lot, and that's the reason we find some ponds
with only a little house an' others with mighty big ones."

A Brigham Youngish sort of conception of beaver domestic economy!

That same summer another trapper in Middle Park, not many miles from
the first, gave me his version of a beaver's domestic life.

"Don't think they mate at all," he told me; "they're always working to
beat time or else they're wanderin' off somewhere lookin' up good
cuttin' timber and dam sites."

Now, I am sure that Mr. and Mrs. Peg were mated, and for life.  Indeed,
I believe all beavers mate for life.  They are by nature domestic,
home-loving and industrious, and provident, storing up food for the
winter, making provision against the time food will be scarce because
of snow and ice.  They have the coöperative instinct and often combine
their efforts, constructing a house large enough for the whole colony
in the deepest water of the pond, all joining in the harvesting of
green aspen or cottonwood.

Every fall I watched Mr. and Mrs. Peg at their repairs.  Their tribe
increased as the years passed, and the shielding laws of the state
protected them.  I called their group the "Old Settlers" colony.

[Illustration: Every fall I watched Mr. and Mrs. Peg at their repairs.]

One fall the Old Settlers abandoned their pond and constructed an
entirely new dam above it, thus solving a number of problems.  Sand and
gravel carried down by the swift little stream had settled in the still
water of the pool and almost filled it.  The ever-increasing family
outgrew the old house.  All the near-by aspens had been cut; this
necessitated the dragging of trees too great a distance before they
could be pushed into the water and floated down.  Coyotes had surprised
and killed a number of the Old Settlers' kin as they worked on the long
portage to the stream, and I am sure that the moving of their home was
partly to overcome this danger.

Then it was they earned the title, "Busy Beaver"!  How they worked!
That was before the days of ubiquitous automobiles and the beavers had
not become nocturnal in their habits.  They swarmed everywhere.
Certain ones were detailed to inspect the dam, make necessary repairs
and maintain the water at the same level all the time.  Others worked
at the new house, piling sicks and mud into a heap.  It grew, the dam
was raised, so the water was maintained within a few inches of the top
of the unfinished wall.  Occasionally I caught a glimpse of some
workers in the deep water or near the shores of the ponds; they were
digging safety-firsts, water escapes for emergency use.  These canals
led from the house to either bank and connected with tunnels that had
their openings concealed beneath the surface of the water.  Thus,
should their pond be drained suddenly, they could escape by the canals
to their emergency homes beneath the bank.

Other beavers worked in the aspen grove, felling trees and cutting them
into lengths that could be pushed or pulled or rolled to the bank and
floated down the stream.  Their work was impeded by the jamming of the
logs in a narrow rocky neck down which they had to be skidded into the
water.

Then the engineers decided upon the construction of a canal around the
rocky falls.  They started digging at a point upstream, beyond the
troublesome neck, swung outward, away from the water to the fringe of
aspens, then back again to the stream below the rocks.  In all the
canal was two hundred feet long, about two feet wide and averaged
fifteen inches deep.  For a time all other work was suspended, and
night and day the whole population toiled on the canal.  Apparently
each beaver had his own section to dig, and each went about his work in
his own way.  With tooth and claw they worked.  Often they cut slides
or runways down the sides of the canal giving them roads up which they
carried their loose dirt.

For thirty-seven nights they toiled in the dry ditch, then turned water
in, and completed the work of deepening the canal.  This transportation
system saved them much labor and delay, and provided a safe route to
and from the grove, for they could dive into the water when their
enemies attacked.

I suspected Mr. and Mrs. Peg directed the storing away of that wood,
for it was piled in the deep water beside the house, now rising
majestically several feet about the level of the pool, just as they
always did theirs.  The green wood was almost as heavy as the water,
and required little weight to force it under.  Thus they always had
some food in their icebox, where they could reach it handily when the
pool froze over.  I have observed other beavers on larger streams come
out of their tunnels in the banks and find food along the shores
throughout the winter months.  But the smaller the stream the closer
the beaver sticks to his pond.  This I believe is a matter of safety
for beavers are slow travelers, and if they venture far from their pool
they fall easy prey to such enemies as bobcats, coyotes, wolves and
mountain lions.

One day while following one of the small tributaries of the St. Vrain
River south of Long's Peak, I heard a loud explosion just ahead of me,
and when I emerged from the fringing woods I discovered two men busy
dynamiting the largest of the three beaver dams in the valley.

"Mining didn't pan out much," one of them replied in answer to my
question, "so we callated we'd take sum beaver fur to tide us over the
winter."

They were prospectors, out of grub, up against starving or getting a
job in the foothills town below, until with their golden promises, they
could again talk some sympathetic listener out of a grub stake.  Not
content with obtaining beaver by the usual but slower method of
trapping, they had decided to blow up the dam, drain the pond and shoot
the animals as they sought to escape.  Their rifles lay ready to their
hands.

For hours I lingered, to see what luck they would have.  They set off
three heavy charges before the dam was shattered.  When the water was
nearly drained out--it took but a few minutes--they grabbed their guns.
Not a beaver did any of us see.

They then set a charge of powder against the house and blew a gaping
hole in its side--but there was nobody home!  Evidently all had escaped
by the canal in the bottom of the pond to the tunnel beneath the bank.

The men would not admit defeat, but set about to dig the beavers out of
the bank.  Darkness saw their task unfinished so they camped for the
night at the entrance of the tunnel; they piled heavy stones at its
mouth hoping to trap the animals within.

Next morning I watched them resume their work, feeling sympathy for the
beavers, but not daring to interfere.  Shortly after noon the quest
ended quite unexpectedly.  The diggers had discovered a hidden exit
that was concealed among the willows, the beavers had followed the
canal, which could not be drained, to their refuge tunnel in the bank;
and when their enemies destroyed the tunnel, they had used the hidden
exit, and had in all probability made good their retreat during the
night.

As more people settled in the valleys, there was an inevitable
overlapping of claims.  The settlers claimed both the water and the
land, and they had government deeds to back them up in their claims.
But the beaver had prior rights, and gamely adhered to them.  A feud
arose that is still unsettled between the Old Settlers and the
newcomers.  In my rambles I continually came upon homesteaders striving
to drain the valleys and raise grass for their cattle, while
simultaneously the beavers were working to maintain high water.  Many
of them lost their lives for their cause, but rarely did they forsake a
home site once established.  In the same sections, where the
homesteaders had used aspen for their fence posts, the beavers, no
doubt mistaking them for trees, cut them down.  Sometimes their pluck
and persistence won them the admiration of their enemies.  In most
cases they won out.

One day, far up near the headwaters of the Cache la Podre River in
Colorado, I came upon a rancher trying to drain a number of beaver
ponds to secure water for irrigation; it was a very dry season and
water was scarce.  During the day he tore gaps in the dams, during the
night the beavers repaired the breaks.  When after opening the dams the
rancher hurried down to his fields to regulate the flow of water, the
beavers, even in the daytime, would swarm forth and plug up the holes.

Finally in desperation, the man set traps in the gaps he had opened in
the dams.  He caught a few beavers and decided that his troubles were
over.  But the survivors met the emergency.  They floated material down
from above and wedged it into the breaks, without going near the traps.

At this stage of the struggle an old prospector came down from the
higher mountains, driving his burros ahead of him.  Hearing of the
rancher's predicament, he suggested his own panacea for all troubles,
dynamite.  Enthusiastically, the rancher accepted his proposal.  Soon
the dams were in ruins.

A mile below where the dams had been destroyed an irrigation ditch
tapped the river and carried a full head to the green fields.  I saw
the rancher standing in the middle of the field, water flowing all
about him.  He looked upstream and chuckled, then leaned triumphantly
on his shovel handle.  For a long time, he leaned thus, lost in dreams
of prosperity.

Suddenly he awoke and hurried along his supply ditch.  Barely a trickle
was coming down it.  The beavers had dammed the intake.

I once worked for a rancher who had a homestead on the North Fork of
the St. Vrain River, which heads south of Long's Peak.  He had just
finished clearing a patch of ground to raise "truck" on.

"We've got to get rid of some beaver," he told me the very first day.
He shouldered his shovel and walked down to the dam that sprawled
across the meadow for several hundred feet.

"I cut her loose," he informed me on his return.  "She'll soon dry out
so we can put in the crop."

Next morning, whistling happily, he started out for the meadow.  His
whistle died away as he caught sight of the water in the pond.  It was
as high as usual.  The beavers had repaired the break.

Day after day he cut the dam, night after night, the beavers repaired
it.  He trapped five of them before they became "trap-wise."  After
that they either turned the traps over or covered them with mud.  After
trying a number of ruses to frighten them away, the man hung a lighted
lantern in the break he had opened in the dam.  The next morning his
whistle piped, merrily, the break was still open.  But his joy was
short-lived, for on the following night the beavers constructed a new
section of dam above the break, curving it like a horseshoe.

"Hope they appreciated my givin' 'em light to work by," he laughed; and
gave up the contest.

Beavers seem to possess sagacity in varying degrees.  The old animals
are wise according to their years; the stupid and lazy die young.  They
adapt themselves quickly to changed conditions; they outwit their
enemies by sheer cunning, never in physical combat; rarely do they
defend themselves--and not once have I known one to take the offensive
side of a fray.  Watching them waddling along, one wonders how they
accomplish their great engineering feats in so short a time.  Of
course, they can move more rapidly in water than on land, but I suspect
its "everlasting teamwork" that accounts for their achievements.  They
are prolific and, unlike the bees, drones are unknown to them.
Coöperative industry--there lies the secret.

I was absent from my cabin for more than a year; and upon my return at
once visited the Old Settlers.  Like any other thriving community, they
had made several improvements--two new ponds and houses had been built.
Tracks in the edge of a small new pond showed that my pioneer friends,
Mr. and Mrs. Peg, had removed to a new home.  Whether the increasing
number of beavers in the larger pond got on the old folks' nerves, I do
not know; but whatever the reason, they were living alone.  I walked
rapidly toward their home, instead of approaching slowly and giving
them a chance to look me over.  As I neared the edge of the road, one
of them, I presume Pa Peg, smote the water a mighty whack with his
tail.  Both disappeared.  I watched for their reappearance, for I knew
that they were watching me from their concealment among the willows.  I
sang, whistled, called to them to come out--that I was their old friend
returned.  My persistence was at last rewarded.  Shyly they came to the
surface, watching me sharply the while, diving at my slightest
movement, reappearing on the farther shore, cautious and canny as ever.

It was spring.  Within a few weeks after my homecoming the Pegs would
permit my near approach as they had done before I went away.  Though
they worked mostly at night, they did venture out in daytime.  If they
were working at separate tasks, the first to discover me would thump
the ground or give the water a resounding whack.

One morning Daddy Peg was missing from the pond.  Downstream I picked
up his tracks and discovered that he was hastening away from home.  As
it was springtime, I was not concerned lest he was deserting his
faithful wife.  It was his habit to leave home when Mrs. Peg was
"expecting."  I knew he'd come waddling back in a few weeks to give the
babies their daily plunge.

Sure enough, Mrs. Peg came forth with four midgets in fur; a happy,
romping family that splashed about the pool for hours at a time.  Like
all their kin, they had been born with their eyes open and were much
"perter" then other animal infants.  They swam, and ate, and took the
trail at once.  If Mrs. Peg showed fear of anything, the youngsters
took quick alarm, and forever afterward shunned the object.  Of me,
Mrs. Peg took little notice, merely giving me the right of way if I
intruded on one of her trails, or stopping work to watch me curiously
whenever I came near.  The beaver babies accepted me as a friend,
permitted me to sit or stand near them as they played.

One morning, as I approached the pool, I discovered the four youngsters
in great agitation.  They were not playing.  They swam about
restlessly, circled the pool, visited the dam, swam out to their house,
dived inside it, only to reappear almost at once.  I searched around
the pond, and found their mother's fresh tracks leading toward the
aspen grove.  Near it she had been overtaken by a coyote.

In vain I tried to catch the motherless waifs, but they eluded me.  I
went home, made a rude sort of dip-net from an old sack, and returned
to the pool.

During my absence a strange beaver mother with a brood of five babies
had visited the pool where the orphans lived.  She immediately adopted
the wee bereft babies.  Shortly the pool was merry with the rompings of
the combined families.




CHAPTER NINE

MOUNTAIN CLIMBING

Mountain climbing is the reverse of the general rule of life in that
the ascent is easier than the descent, and much safer.  Most climbers
underestimate the time required to make a chosen trip, and, starting
out with the day before them, ascend at their leisure, making frequent
and unnecessarily long stops to rest, drinking in the beauty of the
prospect from each rise attained, forgetting to allow themselves
sufficient time for the even more difficult descent.  Consequently the
return trip is crowded on the edge of darkness, a dangerous condition
on any trail any time, but especially hazardous when the climber is
weary and, therefore, not alert.  It is impossible for him to see the
slight footholds or handholds on which he must put his trust, and
weight.

One day, as a boy, I came to grief because I was so absorbed by the
interesting things about me that I took no note of the passing of time
or of the altitude to which I had climbed.  From my camp at Bear Lake I
had followed the old Flattop trail to the Divide, from which I could
see a hundred miles or more in all directions; to the north the
mountains of Wyoming peeped through purple haze; eastward, the
foothills dropped away to the flat and endless prairies, with gleaming
lakes everywhere.  West and south, my own Rockies rose, tier on tier,
to snowy heights.  Gay and fragrant flowers beckoned my footsteps off
the trail; friendly conies "squee-eked" at me from their rocky lookout
posts; fat marmots stuffed themselves, making the most of their brief
summer.  A buck deer left off polishing his new horns on a scraggly
timberline tree to look at me.  Overhead an eagle swept round and round
in endless circles.

From the rim of the cañon, between Flattop and Hallett, I viewed the
spot where I had blundered over the edge of the snow-cornice on the way
to the dance.  Beneath lay Tyndall glacier, its greenish ice exposed by
the summer thaw.  I circled the head of the cañon and climbed to the
top of Hallett.  From my eerie height, I got an eagle's view of the
world below--a hazy, hushed world where the birds called faintly, the
brooks murmured quietly and even the wind spoke in whispers.  From near
by came the crash of glacier ice; falling rocks that thundered down the
cliffs.

All the afternoon I traveled along the crest of the Divide, wandering
southward, away from familiar country into a new maze of peaks and
glaciers, deep cañons and abrupt precipices.  Suddenly a gale of wind
struck me, blinded me with penetrating snow.  In that instant, without
preliminary or warning, summer changed to winter, and forced me off the
heights.  It was impossible to thread my way back over the route I had
come; for it twisted in and out, around up-flung crags and cliffs.

My compass showed that the wind was driving eastward, the direction in
which I wanted to go; so I headed down wind, secure in the thought that
I would soon be off the roof of the world.  Lightning and heavy thunder
accompanied the snowstorm, the clouds came down and blotted out the
day; twilight descended upon the earth.

A band of mountain sheep started up from their shelter behind an
upthrust rock and ran ahead of me.  I followed them, partly because
they ran in the direction I was going, and partly because they are apt
to select the safest way down the cliffs.

But they turned aside the moment they were out of the wind, swung up on
a protected ledge and there halted to wait out the storm.  My compass
had gone crazy.  A dozen times I tried it out.  It would point a
different direction whenever I moved a few steps.  However, the compass
mattered little; the chief thing that concerned me was getting down off
the roof of the world.

Snow swirled down the cliffs, plastering rocks and ledges until both
footholds and handholds were hidden.  Still I had to go down, there was
nothing else to do.  The hardy sheep, with their heavy coats, could
wait out the storm.  But night, with numbing cold, and treacherous
darkness in which I'd dare not move, would soon o'ertake and vanquish
me.

For an hour the ledges provided footing.  By turning about, twisting
and doubling, there was always a way down.  Of a sudden the clouds
parted; a long bar of sunshine touched the green forest far below me,
focused for a moment upon a single treetop, then vanished as though the
shutter of a celestial camera has snapped shut.

At last I came to a ledge beneath which the sheer cliff dropped away
into unfathomable snowy depths.  After short excursions to right and
left I discovered that a section of the cliff had split off and dropped
into the cañon, leaving only sheer rock walls that offered nothing in
the way of footholds.  Irresolutely, I faced back the way I had come.
Overhead the wind roared deafeningly; the snow came piling down.  No
hope of retracing my steps.  I was tired; that upward climb would be
slow and tortuous, would require great strength and endurance.  I faced
about and began a thorough, desperate search for a downward route.  I
stood marooned in the cañon wall shaped like a crude horseshoe.  At its
toe water had leaped down and eroded a slight groove in the solid rock.
This was my only chance.  It was not inviting, but I had no
alternative.  It led me down a hundred feet, then tightened into a sort
of chimney.  Just below I could see the swaying top of a big tree.
Firewood must be near at hand!  Wider ledges must lay close beneath!

Fifty feet down the chimney, just as it deepened into a comfortable
groove with rough, gripable sides, I came to a sudden halt, for the
rock was broken away; the cleft bottom of the chute overhung the cliff
below.  Sweat streamed down my face, in spite of the cold wind.
Visions of a leaping campfire died out of my mind.

The Engelmann spruce swayed toward me encouragingly, as though offering
to help me down.  But its top was many feet from the wall.  There was
an abandoned bird's nest in it; a little below that was a dead limb
with a woodpecker's incision at its base.  By leaning out I could see,
a hundred feet or more below the bottom of the swaying tree.

In my extremity I shouted, even as I had done in the glacier crevasse,
though there was no one to hear.  The echo came back sharply.  "There
must be another wall angling this one," I thought.

"It's got to be done, there's no other way."  I spoke the words out
loud to boost my courage.

The tip of the old spruce rose to almost my level; but there was that
intervening gulf between it and the rock on which I stood.  How wide
was that gulf, I wondered.  Five feet?  Ten?  Too far!

A score of times I surveyed the tree-top, tried to estimate the
distance, sought a foothold in the cramped rock chute, and worked into
position for the leap.

No sharpshooter ever aligned his sights more carefully than I did my
feet.  My coat was buttoned tightly, cap pulled down.  When at last I
was all set, I hesitated, postponed the jump and cowered back against
the wall.  A dozen times I made ready, filled my lungs with deep
breaths, stretched each leg out to make sure it was in working order,
but every time my courage failed me.

Suddenly resolute, not giving myself chance to think, I tensed, filled
my lungs, leaned away from the rock, and launched headlong.

As my body crashed into the treetop my fingers clutched like talons, my
arms clasped the limbs as steel bands.  I was safe in the arms of that
centuries-old spruce.

Never since that day have I taken such a chance.  The thought of it,
even now, sends cold, prickly chills along my spine.

That time trouble came out of a clear sky, but sometimes a bit of
innocent curiosity betrays one.  Thus one day, with sunshine overhead
and peaceful murmurs below, I stood upon a rock spire upthrust from the
slope of Mount Chapin, watching a band of Bighorn sheep above
timberline.  The Fall River road now runs past the spot where they were
feeding.  When I climbed up toward them, they gathered close together,
some of them scrambling up rocks for vantage points, all watching me
interestedly.  They were not excited.  They moved away slowly at my
near approach, stopping now and then to watch me or to feed.  For
several hours I kept my position below them; sometimes edging close to
one of them, keeping in sight at all times, and being careful not to
move quickly.

The band worked its way to the foot of the steeper slopes, above the
tree line, hesitated, eyed me, then started up a narrow little passage
that led up between two cliffs.  A rock-slide cluttered this granite
stair.  Stable footholds were impossible for the loose rocks slipped
and slid, rolled from beneath the sheep's feet and bounded down the
slope.

Of a sudden something frightened the Bighorn, just what I had no time
to learn.  Instantly every one of those nineteen sheep was in full
flight up the rock-slide.  They bounded right and left, tacked across
it, turned, scrambled up, slipped back, tumbled, somersaulted, but
always regained their balance and made steady headway.

They seemed to have lost their wits, for they scattered, each selecting
his own route, all striving with great exertion to make speed up the
steep slope.

A barrage of stones fell all about me.  Dust-puffs dotted the slide.
Then the whole thing seemed to move downward, like the rapids of a
river, dashing rock spray everywhere.  The air was filled with flying
granite, as hurtling rocks struck and exploded into smoky fragments.
Bits, the size of wine-saps, scattered like birdshot; larger pieces,
the size of bushel baskets and barrels, bounded and danced, leaped away
from the slope, out into space, and dropped like plummets.  Huge
bowlders (sleeping Titans that they were) stirred, roused themselves,
and came crashing down, plowing through the forest below, furrowing the
earth and cutting a swath through the trees as clean as a scythe
through grass.  What was first merely the metallic clink of rolling
stones changed to a steady bombardment, and then into a sullen, ominous
roar as the giant bowlders got under way.

For me the scene had changed abruptly; a moment since I had been
following the wild sheep with ready camera, stalking them, entertaining
them with antics, occasionally hiding for a moment to excite them.  Now
pandemonium reigned.  The first few stones I dodged; then they came too
thick to be avoided.  I dived headlong behind a bowlder, partly buried
in the slide.  Like a rabbit I hid there, clinging as the stones hailed
about me, afraid to lift my head.  Rocks struck close, filling my eyes
with gritty dust, choking me.  Then a giant slab came grinding
downward.  I could hear it coming, its slow thunder drowned out all
other sounds.  The whole mountain heaved.  My rock fort shook, flinging
me backward amidst a deluge of smaller stones.  Over and over I rolled,
with the loosened rocks, fighting frant

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/29681