Boy Scouts in Glacier Park

by Walter Prichard Eaton

  CHAPTER XXV--Protecting the Deer Yards--The Scouts Wait in the Moonlightand Bag a Mountain Lion

  That storm lasted two days, and it brought the snow to the valley, laidat least sixteen inches of it on the level in the woods, and swept itacross Lake McDermott against the hotel, till the drift reached the topof the first story. As soon as it stopped, the scouts and Mills were outon their snow-shoes, tracking through the woods.

  "I want to find out where the deer yards are going to be this winter,"the Ranger said. "We'll want to know, so we can keep an eye on them, forlions or wolves, and protect the herds if we can."

  "What's a deer yard?" the boys asked.

  "Big game, especially in winter, don't travel very much," the Rangeranswered. "They pick out some place where the feeding is good, and learnto know it well, not only where to get food, but where to turn quick andhide from enemies. When winter and deep snow come, they begin packingdown the snow with their hoofs in a sort of yard--moose, deer, andsometimes even sheep do this--and as the snow grows deeper, theirpacking raises them higher and higher up, so they can feed on taller andtaller bushes, and even finally get up to the limbs of trees."

  Mills decided that the protected southwestern slopes of the mountainalong which the trail winds to Iceberg Lake was a likely field, so theparty split up, and each one went his own way through the woods andacross the open parks, looking for tracks, and following any that hediscovered. They were to meet at one o'clock on the shore of the lake.

  Joe was soon out of sight and sound of the others, and as he was lowestdown, close to the brook at the bottom of the canyon, he was also in thethickest woods, where the fir-trees, covered with snow like Christmascards, shook their "frosty pepper" into his nose as he pushed through.The brook was partially frozen, and he often found it easiest to walk onthe snowy edge. Presently he came on deer tracks leading into the openwater, and not emerging. The deer had walked up-stream, in the water,evidently--several of them, and recently. He hurried on, beside thebrook, and suddenly, rounding a little cover of pines, came full on aherd of five, walking in the water. He had not heard them, because ofthe gurgle of the brook, nor they him. He stopped dead in his tracks andwatched them a second, before they got his scent, or in some other waydetected him, and turned to look. He did not quite know what to do, butthe deer quickly decided. They stepped out of the brook and into thewoods, as if to let him pass. He went on, and looked back. The deer hadwalked into the brook again, and were slowly coming on, browsing onoverhanging shrubs as they came.

  So Joe moved some distance from the bank, and then followed them. Afterhalf a mile, they left the stream and entered a thick, small wood where,just outside, was long, dried grass under the snow. He saw that they hadbeen here before, pawing away the snow to eat this hay. He followed intothe wood, stampeding them out on the farther side, and found already thesigns that they had begun to stamp down paths through their "yard."Walking around the grove, he looked for tracks of coyotes or lions, butthere was nothing but the track of a snow-shoe rabbit. The deer, so far,were safe. Indeed, they even now stood about three hundred yards away,watching him with alert curiosity, their heads raised, a pretty pictureover the white snow.

  He carefully took note of the spot, and hurried on to report. Tom andthe Ranger reached the lake about the time he did. The Ranger had founda yard, also, and Tom had found a mink track, and seen a snow-shoerabbit, in his white winter dress.

  They built a fire on the snow, beside the white snow-field which was thelake (the water was now frozen solid), and as they made their tea, theywatched a herd of goats low down on the cliff that Tom had climbed,evidently quite content up there, on the ledges too steep for snow tocling, and finding something to eat.

  "It must be dry picking," Tom declared. "Why, there was little enough insummer."

  "And no tin cans," Joe laughed. "You might have left 'em a few tin cans,Tom, when you climbed the wall."

  "Never thought of it," Tom answered, "and now it's too slippery."

  From then on it became the scouts' almost daily task--or, rather,pleasure--to visit the deer yards to see how the herds were getting on.There were five deer in one yard, and eleven in the other, and beforelong they got so used to the boys that if they happened to be "at home,"as Joe put it, they would hardly go a hundred yards away while thescouts inspected their methods of feeding, looked for enemy tracks, andsometimes left bundles of hay on the tramped snow--hay which Joe haddiscovered he could dig out in a sheltered spot near the chalets. Itwasn't much, but it served to make the deer tamer.

  Often, now, the scouts came on their skis, for two more storms had putthree feet of snow on the ground, and it elevated them above theunderbrush. The run home was thrilling, with long, fast slides down openparks and hard, Telemark stems at the bottom to keep from crashing intotrees or rocks. But they couldn't get the Ranger on skis.

  "No, sir!" he said. "You boys know how, and can keep from breaking yournecks. But I'm too old to learn."

  It was the day after Thanksgiving, when Joe, true to his word, hadkilled a hen and cooked the nearest thing he could to a real New EnglandThanksgiving dinner, that he and Tom, visiting the first of their yardsearly in the morning, came upon a tragedy.

  There were no deer in sight as they approached, and on entering thepacked path under the trees they heard no sounds. Pushing on, they camesuddenly upon all five beautiful creatures, lying dead on the snow!There was blood on the snow, too, and one or two bodies had beensomewhat eaten. But three of them had merely been killed wantonly, andnot eaten at all.

  The boys were furious. They cocked their rifles, and began a rapid,angry search for tracks. Yes--there they were--big, catlike paw tracks!The lion had crouched in the evergreens, sneaked up in the night whenthe herd were huddled close for mutual warmth, and laid them all low!

  They circled the grove till they found the tracks leading away, andfollowed them as fast as they could. But, being on skis, they were soonbaffled, as the lion had made at once for the steep, rocky cliffs. Sothey rushed to the other yard. Here the herd had not been disturbed.They were all browsing on a new path they had packed among some willows.

  "Come," Joe cried. "Back to see Mills and find out what to do! The oldlion may get the other herd to-night."

  That night there was a moon, and the Ranger and the boys, clad in alltheir thickest clothes, with four pairs of woollen socks in their big,easy moccasins, with sweaters, fur coats, fleece-lined mittens andbearskin helmets, advanced on snow-shoes up the valley.

  "The lion may come back to the carcases, or wolves may scent 'em andcome," Mills said, "or he may attack the other herd. Then, again, he maydo nothing, and we'll have to watch every night for a week. You two takethe dead herd, and I'll watch the other. Approach it up wind--don't geton the windward side at all, and if you can find a good rest in a tree,get up in that, with a clear view of the opening. Let the lion get inclose before you fire, and let him have it in the heart and head. Thereought to be light enough to-night. Better have your guns in rest,pointed at the carcases, so you won't have to make any noise lifting'em."

  The Ranger and the scouts now separated, and Joe and Tom, making a widecircle to get sharp to leeward of the yard, moved silently over the deepsnow, in the cold, clear, almost Arctic moonlight, with the great peaksof the Divide rising up like silvery ghosts far overhead. There was nonoise in all the world, and no living thing except themselves, exceptonce when a startled snow-shoe rabbit leaped across an opening, white asthe snow he was half wallowing in.

  "Say, this is spooky!" Joe whispered.

  "You bet," Tom whispered back. "The little old electric lights inSouthmead Main Street are some way off!"

  They drew near the wood where the yard was, and crept stealthily intothe dark shadows of the pines. The dead deer lay in a tiny opening, fiveblack objects on the moonlit snow. The boys, still keeping down wind,each picked out a tree, and with their rifles carefully locked, climbedup through the scratching, snowy branches till they could work into somekind of a s
eat, and get their guns pointed out, with an opening alongthe barrel to sight.

  "Say, I hope the old lion don't take too long," Tom whispered. "Myseat's about two inches wide, and sharp on top."

  "Gosh, I'd sit on a needle all night to save those other deer," Joeanswered. "But don't talk. He may be coming any minute."

  In cold and silence, they waited. There wasn't a sound, except now andthen a muffled groan or creak of a tree limb, as one or the other of theboys had to shift his position. It grew later and later. Joe's eyesached with watching the five black objects on the snow, and the patch ofwhite moonlight around them. They ached, and would close. He wasbitterly cold, too. He did not know whether he would be able to pull thetrigger if the lion came, or pry his lids wide enough apart to see thesights. Every time he tried to sight the gun now, it was just a blur ofshining blackness. And he knew Tom must be feeling the same way. Millscertainly had not fired at anything--they could have heard a rifle shotfor ten miles in that deadly still Arctic hush.

  Then, so suddenly it almost made him fall off his branch, something darkand long and lean came sneaking into the patch of moonlight. It was thelion, its paws sinking down, its body crouched over them, till it seemedto creep like a snake. In this ghostly light, it looked about ten feetlong, and Joe suddenly felt hot blood go through his half-frozen veins.

  The lion gave a low, angry snarl, and stopped dead about three feet fromthe body of a deer, raising its head a little. Evidently it had heardJoe or Tom moving his rifle barrel to sight. But he had no time toretreat. Almost as one shot, the two guns blazed, with two flashes ofred out of the evergreens, and a report that seemed to shatter the coldnight silence.

  The dark form of the lion gave a leap into the air, and landed kickingin the snow.

  At the same instant two figures literally fell out of the trees, andrushed toward it, going in up to their waists, for neither waited to puton his snow-shoes again.

  Tom was the first near it.

  "Look out!" Joe yelled. "He's not dead! He may come at you!"

  But Tom had his gun up, and at pointblank range, with his sights in fullmoonlight, he deliberately took aim, and fired again, at the lion'sheart.

  The body gave a last kick, and fell on its side, stone dead, its bloodslowly running out on the snow.

  "_He'll_ never kill any more deer!" Tom cried.

  They turned the lion over, and examined it. One bullet had hit him inthe front leg, one in the jaw, shattering it, and entering its throat.But which shot was whose, nobody could say.

  "I guess it was yours that got his head," Tom declared, "'cause I was sosleepy I couldn't see to sight."

  "My hands were so cold, I almost couldn't pull the trigger, so it musthave been yours," Joe answered.

  "After you, my dear Alphonse," Tom laughed. "Anyhow, we both hit him,and that's some shooting at a hundred feet, in the middle of the night,even if it is moonlight. We better get our snow-shoes on, and drag himhome. Wonder if Mr. Mills will come, or stick it out at the other yard?"

  "I bet he comes," said Joe. "He must have heard us fire."

  They made an improvised sledge of a big, broken pine bough, to keep thebody up on top of the snow, and were tying it on to this with theirhandkerchiefs knotted around the feet, when they heard a far call.

  "He's coming!" said Joe, and making his hands into a trumpet, heanswered the call.

  They had the body out of the yard, and were crossing an open park withit, tugging hard, when the Ranger's halloo sounded much nearer, andshortly after he appeared in the moonlight, coming fast.

  "You got him, eh?" he said. "That's good work. I heard your two shots,and then one more. That was to finish him at close range, I bet."

  "You win," said the boys. "Gee, but he's heavy to drag."

  "That's a bum sled," the Ranger laughed. "Either of you got your axeon?"

  "No, we haven't," the boys said.

  "I'll find a fallen pole, then. Drag him along to the next stand."

  The Ranger went ahead, and found a small fallen tree from which he brokethe dead branches and made a pole. Slipping this between the lion's paws(which were knotted together with handkerchiefs) he picked up one endand Tom the other, the lion hanging down between them. Joe took therifles, and they started home.

  The moon was setting behind the Divide and the world growing dark underthe frosty stars as they neared the cabin. Once inside, the boys got arule, and ran back to measure their prey. He was exactly eight feetlong, with three feet more of tail, and by lantern light they could seehis yellowish-brown color, his gray face and dirty white belly. Helooked like some gigantic, elongated house cat.

  "Is that what used to be all over the country, and was called apanther?" Joe asked.

  "I suppose it is," the Ranger said. "Probably this type that lives inthe Rocky Mountains looks a bit different, but it's the same breed o'cat. You don't have panthers out East any more, do you?"

  "No, they say one hasn't been seen in Massachusetts for fifty years ormore," Tom answered. "Don't know that I'm sorry. I like the deer toowell."

  "Speaking of deer, to-morrow we'll go up and rescue the good carcases hedidn't eat, and have some fresh meat," said Mills. "Now to bed. Do youknow it's two o'clock?"

  "'Most time to get up!" the boys laughed, as they cleaned their riflebarrels and made ready for bunk.