Boy Scouts in Glacier Park

by Walter Prichard Eaton

  CHAPTER IV--Tom and Joe Cross the Continent With Their Faces Gluedto the Car Window and Reach the Rocky Mountains

  Neither Tom nor Joe had ever been West before, even as far as Chicago.As soon as they had changed cars to the through train, not far fromtheir home town, each armed with a ticket about a yard and a half long,and got settled in their seats in the sleeping car, they gluedthemselves to the windows, and watched the country. There was somethingnew to see every minute--the Berkshire Hills, the Hudson River atAlbany, the great factories at Schenectady, the Mohawk River and theErie Canal, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo. They slept soundly thatnight, and woke up as they were passing along the southern shore of LakeMichigan. In Chicago they had to change cars again, to another station,and they had time, after seeing that their baggage was transferred, towalk around a little, among the high buildings, and out to the lakefront.

  "It's an awful dirty place, strikes me," said Joe. "All the buildingslook as if somebody had spilled soot over 'em."

  "I guess somebody has," Tom answered. "I guess they burn soft coal here.The air's full of it. Wait till we get to the Rockies, though; there'sthe air!"

  The trip from Chicago to St. Paul was even more interesting than thefirst stage, because after a while the train followed the bank of theMississippi River (the scouts had a railroad folder with a map spreadout in their seat, to see where they were every minute), and there wassomething thrilling to both of them about the first sight of the greatriver, which they had heard about all their lives.

  "Say, it's yellow, all right," Joe exclaimed. "I'd rather go swimming inour old hole back home, I guess. It ain't so awful big, either."

  "Not way up here. We're a thousand miles from the mouth. But you'dbetter not try to jump it, even here--not till you get well," Tomlaughed.

  At St. Paul they changed once more, for the final train, thetrans-continental limited which would take them right through to thePark.

  "Golly, we won't see any of Minnesota," Tom complained. "It'll be darkwhile we go through that. And look at all those lakes we pass." Hepointed to the map.

  "Well, there has to be night as well as day out here, just like home. Iguess we can't do anything about it," said Joe. "I'm kind o' glad tosleep, at that."

  "Poor old Joe, I forget you get tired," Tom cried, penitently. "Seems tome I _never_ want to go to sleep, with so much to see!"

  "Oh, I'm not tired any more,--just sleepy," Joe said, bravely. But Tomsaw he was tired, and called the porter to make up the berths.

  They woke up in the prairie country of North Dakota--or, rather, Spiderdid. He was sleeping in the upper berth, of course, so Joe could haveall the air possible, and he climbed down as quietly as he could andwent into the observation car to see where they were. It was brightsunlight, almost as it would be at home at eight o'clock, yet his watchtold him it was only a little after four. He looked out of the window ona strange land--on the prairies about which he had read all his life andnever seen before. He had been disappointed in the Mississippi River,but there was no disappointment here. They were more wonderful than hehad ever dreamed--just one endless green sea of growing wheat stretchingto the horizon, without a hill or a valley, as flat as the floor of theocean. Indeed, they looked like a green ocean, with the small houses,the big red barns and silos, the little groves of trees behind the barnsfor a windbreak, rising like islands every mile or so. The whole worldhere seemed to be grain. Everything was under cultivation, there were notrees at all except the groves planted beside the farmhouses, mile aftermile as far as the eye could see to the far horizon rolled the sea ofyoung wheat, or else the golden stubble where the winter crop had beenharvested.

  For the first time, Tom understood what men mean when they speak of "thegreat wheat fields of the West," for the first time he realized thebigness of America. He wanted to go wake Joe at once, and if Joe hadn'tbeen sick, he certainly would have done so. As it was, he let him sleeptill six, and then he couldn't stand it any longer, and shook him awake.

  "Joe! we're on the prairie!" he cried.

  All that day, mile after mile, they traveled through the wheat, withnever a break in the vast monotony of the level land, the endlessprocession of houses and barns far off, like islands in the green sea.The sun did not set till late, and even at nine o'clock they could readon the back platform of the observation car, as the prairie turneddusky, and in the west the lingering sunset was like a sunset over thesea.

  "My, it's been a wonderful day!" Joe sighed, as they went to bed. "Ifeel as if I'd just been soaked in _bigness_. I guess the Rockies aren'tany bigger than these prairies. But what gets me, though, is how thekids here go sliding in winter."

  A man on the platform beside them laughed.

  "Say, I never saw a toboggan till I went East after I was twenty-oneyears old," he said. "But I've seen some drifts that were twenty feethigh, and that's quite a hill for us."

  The next morning Tom again was the first awake, and he hurried out tosee the prairie once more--but there was no prairie. The world lookedexactly as if there had come a great wind or earthquake in the night andkicked the calm prairie sea up into waves. There were still no trees,only a great expanse of grayish grass and wild flowers, but you couldn'tsee far from the train in any direction, because the land was so cut upwith the billows, little rounded hills and earth waves maybe fifty feethigh. This was the cattle country now, and every little while a roughlog cabin and log stables, half dug out of the side of a bank, wouldappear beside the track, and there would be cattle and horses grazingover the slopes. Again Spider waked Joe, and they watched for a cowboy,but none appeared.

  As they were eating an early breakfast, the train seemed to be runninginto more level prairie country again, though it never settled back intothe really flat prairies. Presently they stopped at a little town, witha single street of low wooden and brick stores and houses, and no trees,and the two scouts got out to stretch their legs. The first thing theysaw as they alighted was a cowboy! Clad in a flannel shirt, with bigblack fur chaps down his legs and a wide-brimmed felt hat mysteriouslysticking on his head, he came dashing up about a mile a minute, kickingup a tremendous dust, and pulling his horse down with a quick sweep thatstopped him exactly against the platform. The boys were so interested inhim that it was not till they were getting aboard again, at theconductor's shout, that Joe looked to the west, and cried, "Spider,quick! Look there!"

  Tom followed his finger, and, lo! there they were, the Rocky Mountains!As far to the north, as far to the south, as the eye could see stretchedthe great, blue procession of towering peaks, dazzling white with greatpatches of snow on summits and shoulders, and seemingly only a few milesaway.

  "And we could have seen 'em _hours_ ago, if we'd only been lookingahead," Joe complained, as they took their seats on the observationplatform. "They can't be more'n ten miles off now."

  A big, heavy man who was sitting there laughed loudly.

  "Guess you ain't never been out here before, have you?" he asked.

  "No, we never have."

  "Well, this train's making thirty miles an hour, and we got three hoursto go yet before we get to them hills," he went on. "You chaps remind meof a story, about a friend o' mine who was prospectin' up here beforethe government made a park out o' Glacier. An Englishman came along oneday, and he started out to walk to the base o' one o' them mountainsbefore breakfast, so my friend, bein' just naturally curious, allowedhe'd go along too. Fust, though, he sneaked out and got a bite o' grub.Well, they walked and walked till along about ten o'clock, and themountain not gettin' any nearer. By'mby they come to a brook a babycould have jumped, and the Englishman started to peel off his clothes.

  "'What in blazes be you goin' to do?' asked my friend.

  "'Well,' said the bally Britisher, 'that _looks_ like a brook, but Iain't taking no chances.'"

  Tom and Joe laughed.

  "I've always heard you could see awfully plain out here," said Tom. "Itmust bother you at first sighting a gun."

  "I r
eckon it does bother a stranger. I seen fellers sight for a goat atfour hundred yards, when he was a clean eight hundred, and kick up thedust on the rocks twenty feet below him."

  "Have you hunted goats?" the boys demanded.

  "What I've not hunted, _ain't_," said the man. "I don't know what folkswant goats for, though. They're the hardest work to get, and no goodwhen you get 'em. A bighorn, now!"

  "What's a bighorn?" asked Joe.

  The man looked at him in profound surprise. "By glory, don't you knowwhat a bighorn is?" he demanded. "Where do you come from, anyhow? Abighorn's a Rocky Mountain sheep, the old ram of the flock, with hornsfifty inches long that curl around in a circle, and he's the handsomest,finest, proudest lookin' critter God Almighty ever made. Wait till yousee one!"

  "Do you think we can see one in the Park this summer?" the boys asked.

  "If you climb up a cliff about seven thousand feet and make a noise likea bunch o' grass, I reckon maybe you can," said the stranger.

  The next three hours were about the longest the boys had ever spent.They went back into the sleeper as soon as the berths were moved out ofthe way and they could sit at the window, and with their faces glued tothe pane strained their eyes ahead to see the mountains. Whenever theroad made a curve, they could see them plainly, a vast, sawtooth rangeof blue peaks, some of them sharp like pyramids, some of them roundedinto domes, marching down out of the north and stretching away to thesouth as far as the eye could see. Not only were they bigger mountainsthan the scouts had ever seen, even on a trip the year before to theWhite Mountains in New Hampshire, but all over them, on their summits,in great patches on their sides, sometimes quite covering an entirepeak, were great fields of snow. Here it was about the 4th of July, withflowers blooming in the grass beside the track and a blazing hot sun inthe heavens--and the mountains just out there covered with vast fieldsof snow!

  "Gee, I wish the old engineer'd put on some steam!" sighed Joe.

  "I wish he would," Tom answered. "But I guess that snow ain't all goingto melt before we get there. Say, Joe, why do you suppose that rangegoes right up out of the prairie without any foot-hills? Remember, whenwe went to the White Mountains we got into smaller mountains long beforewe reached Washington? They went up like steps. But here the Rockiesjust jump right up out of the plain."

  "I don't know--wish I'd studied geology. Maybe the guy who had thefriend who walked with the Englishman can tell us."

  Tom shook his head. "I have a hunch he knows more about goats thangeology," said he. "Maybe we can get a book at the Park."

  The mountains were now getting perceptibly nearer. They were becomingless blue, the snow showed more plainly on their sharp peaks and greatshoulders, and the boys began to pack up their handbags and get ready todisembark.

  Their rear-platform friend, coming through the car, stopped and laughed.

  "Don't go trying to jump no brooks, now," he said.

  "Sure--we'll throw a stone first," Spider answered. "Can you tell us whythe Rocky Mountains haven't any foot-hills?"

  The stranger seemed to take this very seriously. "They did have once,"said he, "but they was all dug away for the gold and copper."

  Then he passed on, still laughing.

  "He's a good scout," laughed Joe.

  "But I'd hate to have him for a geology teacher," Tom answered.

  The mountains didn't seem much nearer than they had looked for half anhour when the train finally rolled up to the Glacier Park station andstopped. The boys, together with several tourists, got off, and theminute they stepped on the platform they felt how much cooler it wasthan back in St. Paul, and how much purer the air.

  "Take a big lungful, Joey," Tom cried. "This is the real old ozone!"

  The station is at the gate of the mountains, where the railroad entersthe pass which takes it through the range. The mountains here do notlook very high, for you are so close under that you do not see much ofthem. The boys looked up at a ragged wall to the north, covered firstwith fir timber and then with snow patches on the reddish rocks. Behindthem to the east, they looked out over the rolling plains. Close by thestation was a big hotel, several stories high, but built entirely ofhuge fir logs. Even the tall columns in front were single logs.

  "I suppose I go up there and report," said Tom. "Let's see if ourbaggage is all here, first"

  They found the baggage on the platform, and set out for the hotel,passing on the way an Indian tepee, with pictures painted on theoutside, and smoke ascending from the peak. This was the home of oldChief Three Bears, the boys learned, a Blackfeet Indian who lives hereby the hotel in summer, and welcomes arriving guests. He was coming downthe path, in fact, as the boys walked up, a tall Indian, over six feet,and looking taller still because of his great feathered head-dress. Hewas very old, but still erect, though his face was covered all over withtiny wrinkles.

  The two scouts stopped and saluted him.

  Old Three Bears smiled at them, and grunted, "Okeea" (with the accent onthe first syllable, and the _ee_ and _a_ sounds slid together). Then heheld his blanket around him with his left hand, and putting out hisright, solemnly shook both boys by their hands.

  "Say, the old Chief's got a big fist, all right," said Joe, as they wenton. "I'll bet he was strong once."

  "He must 'a' been good looking, too," said Tom. "I didn't know Indianswere so big and--and sort of noble looking."

  They now entered the great lobby of the hotel, which, like the outside,was all made of fir logs, with tremendous trunks, bark and all, used asthe columns clear to the fourth story. Hunting out the manager, theylearned that they were to take the motor bus for Many Glacier Hotel infifteen minutes, and they just had time to go to the news stand andsecure a government map of the Park and a government report about itsgeology, before turning in their baggage checks and climbing aboard thebus, a four-seated motor something like a "Seeing New York" automobile.This bus was full, three on a seat, and a moment later the drivercranked his engine, gave a toot on his horn, and they were off.