Jack the Young Explorer: A Boy's Experiances in the Unknown Northwest

by George Bird Grinnell

  CHAPTER V

  OFF FOR THE MOUNTAINS

  When Joe appeared early the next morning he was at once sent off to getthe horses. Jack went with him, and an hour or two later the wagon, twosaddle horses, and three loose animals were standing in front of thetrading store. Beds, provisions, pack saddles, and a tent were soonloaded into the wagon, and before very long the party pulled out acrossBadger Creek, above the stockade, and climbed the hills toward thenorth. Hugh and Joe rode in the wagon, while Jack drove the loose horsesahead of it. For some distance there was a road which was partly wagonroad and partly old travois trail, but gradually the track became moreand more dim, and soon Jack found himself riding over the unmarkedprairie. Before this, however, they crossed Two Medicine Lodge River,just below Old Red Eagle's camp, and climbed the high hill on the otherside and saw before them the wide, undulating prairie and pinnacledmountains to the northwest. After reaching substantially level groundJack pulled up, and when the wagon overtook him asked Joe, "Which way dowe go from here on, Joe?"

  "Well," said Joe, "keep pretty well off to your left, riding prettynearly straight for that pointed mountain that you see over there, theone away to the left of Chief Mountain."

  "Oh," asked Jack, "is that Chief Mountain that we see sticking up therelike a finger off to the north?"

  "Yes," said Joe, "that's it, the last mountain to the right. But youwant to keep off to the left, and in three or four hours you'll come toa big wide valley with a good-sized river running through it. I reckonwe'd better camp there, hadn't we, White Bull?" he asked, turning toHugh.

  "Yes," said Hugh, "that's a good place. We can't get on as far as MilkRiver to-night; in fact, we'll do well if we get up to the head of itto-morrow."

  "All right," said Jack, "I'll go on. I don't believe you will be farbehind me, anyhow."

  "No," said Joe, "we'll be pretty close to you. There's a big flat in thevalley we're going to and some timber at the upper end, and we'll campthere. Maybe you'll see some of the people there, too. Cross Guns oftencamps up at the head of that flat."

  For several hours Jack trotted briskly along over the prairie, keepingthe horses well together ahead of him. They drove very nicely and gavehim little trouble. He was surprised and pleased to find how easy ridingseemed, for it was nearly a year since he had been on a horse. It waspleasant under the bright warm sun, with the fragrance of the sage brushin his nostrils, the green swells of the prairie on either side, thebeautiful flowers showing everywhere, and the air full of the sweetsongs of prairie birds.

  As he rode over a hill about the middle of the afternoon he saw beforehim a wide valley, through which ran a considerable stream, with largecottonwoods and low willows marking its course at various points, andturning a little more to the left he pushed the horses down the hills,and at length came out on a wide grassy bottom. Still to the left therewas a grove of tall cottonwood trees, among which shone two or threewhite lodges, and he rode up toward them, slackening his pace as he didso. The horses that he was driving at once began to feed, and lookingback he saw the wagon coming into sight on the crest of the bluffs thathe had just left. Leaving the horses to feed, he galloped to the timberwhere the lodges stood, and rode up to one of them.

  At the fierce barkings of the dogs, a woman put her head out of a door,and when she saw Jack, put her hand quickly over her mouth in surprise,and then spoke to someone in the lodge, and a moment later Cross Gunscame through the door, and walking up to Jack shook hands with him verycordially. By means of signs and broken Piegan the two held a shortconversation, and then, as Cross Guns saw the wagon approaching, hesigned to Jack to go and tell his friends to come up and camp here, andJack, riding off, delivered the message to Hugh and Joe, and thenbrought the loose horses close to the lodge. Meanwhile Cross Guns hadhad one of his lodges cleared and a fire built in it, so that the threemen at once moved into a house, and thus were spared the labor ofputting up their tent. It was a fine, new buffalo skin lodge; perhapsthe lightest, warmest, and most comfortable portable shelter everdevised by any people.

  After the horses had been turned out and put in charge of Cross Guns'young nephew, who took them off and turned them out with Cross Guns'herd, the wife of their host came in and cooked supper for them, whilethe others lounged comfortably about on the beds with their feet towardthe fire and talked.

  "Who is Cross Guns, Hugh?" whispered Jack. "I know his face perfectlywell, but I don't remember where I've seen him, nor who his relationsare."

  "Why," said Hugh, "don't you know? He's one of the sons of Old WhiteCalf and a brother of Wolf Tail. Old White Calf is the chief now, and agood old man, always thinking about what he can do for his people."

  "Of course," said Jack, "I know White Calf perfectly well, and I knowwhat a good man he is, but I had forgotten that Cross Guns is his son."

  "And this woman here," said Hugh, "do you know who she is?"

  "No," said Jack, "I don't. I've seen her before, too, and she's a mightypleasant-faced woman, but I don't know her."

  "Well," said Hugh, "you wouldn't think it to look at her, but she's agranddaughter of one of the chief factors of the Hudson's Bay Companyabout a hundred years ago. Old James Bull came over here, I reckon,about 1775, and after working for the Hudson's Bay Company for a whilehe became one of the chief factors. He married a Piegan woman, and hisson, Jim Bull, is living here yet. I reckon he must be about ninetyyears old. This woman is a daughter of Jim Bull. I reckon you never sawhim. He's a queer old chap, mighty religious nowadays, but they tellgreat stories about him in old times, about how wild he was. They say heused to go off on the warpath with the Blackfeet and fight the whitetraders, run off their horses, and of course kill the men when he could.Of course I don't know whether these stories are true or not, but one ofthem is that one time he met a party of traders and trappers and theBlackfeet attacked them and were driven off. The fur traders were on oneside of the river and the Blackfeet on the other, and after the fightwas over Jim Bull, they say, came to the edge of the stream and calledacross to the fur traders, saying that he was a white man and wanted tomake peace. He wanted to know if one of them wouldn't cross over andtalk it over with him. There was some talk among the white men as towhether it would be safe to do this, but finally one of them said he'dgo over, and did so. The trader went over, and he and Bull sat down andsmoked and talked about making peace and what a pity it was to fight andall that sort of thing, and then presently, while they were sittingthere smoking, Jim Bull pulled out a pistol and killed the white man andscalped him and gave the war-cry and went off.

  "Another time, according to the story, he went into camp dressed up likea Canadian engage, that is, with a blanket coat, and so on, and told theman that was on guard over the horses that he was ordered to turn themout to feed. They were let go and scattered about feeding, and presentlya party of Blackfeet that were hidden near by rounded them up and tookthem all off, and Bull went with them. He got to be so mean after awhile that they say that one of the head men of one of these trappingoutfits offered five hundred dollars for Bull's head. Of course, he's anold man now, and he gave up all these boy's tricks a good many yearsago. As I say, now he's mighty religious. He had a Piegan woman andquite a number of children here in the country; pretty smart, too, allof them are."

  After supper was over Hugh said to Jack, "Now, son, there are quite alot of trout in the creek there, and if you want to help out ourbreakfast you might go out and try to catch some."

  "A good idea, Hugh; I'll do it," and Jack jointed his rod and spent anhour or two fishing. The trout did not seem to care much for his flies,and at last he substituted for them a plain hook, which he baited with agrasshopper. With grasshoppers for bait, he caught about a dozen fish,none of them large, but enough to provide a breakfast for the party.

  It was about sunset when he returned, and when Hugh saw his catch hesaid, "That's good; those little trout are going to taste mighty wellto-morrow morning, but give them to me and I'll go out and dress themnow. You know these
Indians won't eat fish nor anything that lives inthe water, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Cross Guns' wife shouldrefuse to cook them. We may have to fry them ourselves to-morrowmorning."

  It was full daylight before camp was astir, and the sun was sending longlevel beams from the eastern sky when Jack went out of the lodge anddown to the stream to wash. When he returned Hugh was frying the fish,having thought that he had better get that done rather than to take thechance of Cross Guns' wife refusing to do it. A little later the horseswere brought in, and, soon after, bidding their host and hostessgood-by, they started on toward the mountains.

  As Jack drove his horse across the different channels of the river,which here cut the bottom up into a number of small, gravelly islands,he started a mother hooded merganser and her brood of tiny young fromone of the banks, and was interested to see the speed with which theyswam and dived to get out of reach. The trees and the prairie were alivewith birds, and in a tall cottonwood he saw a great hawk's nest, nearwhich one of the parent birds was perched. As he rode up out of thebottom on to the higher prairie, he began to see the wall of mountainson the left, now much nearer than it had seemed when he had started theday before.

  During that day's ride no large animals had been seen. Scattered overthe prairie at frequent intervals were the white bones of buffalo killedlong ago, but no quadruped larger than a prairie dog or a cotton-tailshowed itself.

  Through the day, as he rode along, the country became more and morebroken; the small streams which he crossed flowed at the bottom of deepvalleys walled in by high, steep bluffs, and the pines and spruces ofthe mountains seemed to be coming closer and closer to him. At length,after descending the long hill, he found himself in the bottom of arather large stream, and remembering Joe's directions, turned to theleft and followed it up toward the mountains. At length it forked, andat first he could not determine which branch of the stream to take, sohe stopped, got off his horse, and waited for the wagon to come up.

  Presently he saw it coming down the hill, driving toward him. Justbefore it reached him he saw, a mile or two above him on the river,several large animals hurrying down the bluff. The distance was so greatthat he could not tell what they were, but thought they acted likehorses. After the wagon had come up and he had learned which way theywere going, he mounted to go on, and just as he did so a bunch of abouttwenty horses, herded by two men, burst out of the brush a mile ahead ofthe wagon, dashed across the wide bottom and up the bluffs on the northside of the valley.

  "What do you make of that, Hugh?" asked Jack.

  "Well, I don't know, son," said Hugh. "It looks as if there were acouple of men there that wanted to get away and not be seen. What do youthink, Joe? Are any of the people camped up in this direction?"

  "I guess not," said Joe. "I think maybe those men have been stealinghorses and don't want anybody to see them."

  "That's the way it looks to me," said Hugh. "But where have the horsesbeen taken from? We don't know and I reckon it's no business of ours,and we'd better go right along."

  "I guess they saw us coming a long way off, Hugh," said Jack. "Only alittle while ago I saw some of those horses come down the bluffs, awayabove where they came out of the bottom just now. The men must have seenme coming and begun to gather up their horses and then start them on toget out of the way."

  "Well," said Hugh, "it's no business of ours. We'd better keep on andattend to our own affairs. Of course, if we knew who these horses hadbeen taken from it would be different; but it isn't like it was with usthat year when we came down through the Park and had to go and stealthose horses from Black Jack Dowling."

  Joe shook his head solemnly and said, "I don't want no more of that sortof thing," while Jack said, "That was sure a ticklish time. I'll neverforget how I felt that night when we were driving those horses off."

  "Very well," said Hugh, "let's go on to where those fellows came out ofthe brush, and see whether there's any sign there that will tell us whothey are."

  When they reached the trail made by the horses in crossing Jack rode upto the edge of the brush and said, "Why, I believe these people havebeen here some time. There's a plain trail leading into these willows."

  "Hold on a minute, son," said Hugh, and he jumped down from the wagonand went over to Jack, and the two followed the trail on foot into thebrush. Evidently the people had been there for some time, for the grassand weeds were worn down where they had passed to and from the stream toa little camp concealed in the thick willows. Here was a place where afire had been built, and a little shelter of willow stems, builtsomething like a sweat-house, in which the men had evidently slept. Alittle inspection of the tiny camping ground showed that the men had hadno bread or coffee, for there were no coffee grounds lying about, norwas there any place on the ground where a coffee pot had stood, and nocrusts or crumbs of bread. It seemed that they had been cooking theirdinner when Hugh and his party had come in sight, and this was part ofsome small black animal, probably a dog. Bits of the hide with the hairsinged off were found about the fire, and on one piece were the stumpsof the ears, the tips having been burned off. In all respects, thecampers seemed to have been poorly provided; but they were white men;the tracks of the shoes told that.

  "Well," said Hugh, "I don't know who these men are, nor what they'vebeen doing, but it looks to me as if they had been hiding here with abunch of horses, maybe animals that they have stolen over in Canada.Anyhow, they haven't taken any horses of ours, and we may as well goon."

  When they reported at the wagon, Joe could throw no light on theoccurrence, and, giving up the riddle, they kept on up the valley. A fewmiles further on they turned off to the right, over some low ridges,into another valley overgrown with willows, which came directly from themountains. Here Jack, as he drove the horses ahead of the wagon, startedseveral sharp-tailed grouse, and at one crossing of a little stream sawa few elk tracks, but no four-footed game. Only once, toward the end ofthe afternoon, did he see anything larger than a bird or a groundsquirrel; then a great gray wolf got up from a hill where he had beenlying, five or six hundred yards away, and trotted slowly off out ofsight.

  They followed the valley toward the mountains until late in theafternoon, when they came to a broad, heavy trail, made, Hugh said, bythe carts of the Red River halfbreeds in their journeyings north andsouth along the mountains. It was a rough road for a wagon and requiredcareful driving, but they made fairly good progress.

  Shortly after they had left Milk River it had grown cloudy, and now thewind blew and a storm threatened. Hugh called to Jack, who was not farahead of the wagon, telling him to look out for a place to camp and tostop at the first one he found. A little later, a small stream appearedon the trail, and on the other side of it was a little meadow, wherethere would be grass for the horses.

  The trail went down to the creek and plunged over a three-foot bank, andJack held up his hand to stop the wagon, which was following closebehind him. It took a little riding up and down the stream to find aplace where the wagon could cross, but at length they got over and madecamp. Before the horses were turned out, however, a cold rainstormbegan, and by the time the tent was up and the fire started all handswere wet and uncomfortable, but the warmth of the fire soon made themfeel better. After supper they sat about in the tent, chatting over theevents of the day and the probabilities of the morrow. The rain stillfell, though the wind had ceased, and they were warm and comfortable.

  Before daylight the next morning Jack was roused by a rasping sound madeby something scratching against the canvas of the tent. He raisedhimself on his elbow, but of course could see nothing, and was about tolie down again when Hugh spoke and said, "It's snow on the tent," and amoment later the sound was repeated, and then Jack saw that it was madeby wet snow sliding down the steep roof above them. When day came helooked out of the tent door and saw that the ground was white with snow,but that it was not cold, and the rapidly falling flakes melted as theytouched his clothing. Joe had gone out to look for the horses, whichcould be
easily tracked, and presently came back driving the bunch,which he had found close at hand. They were caught and tied to thewagon, so that as soon as the storm should cease a start might be made.

  Not long after breakfast it stopped snowing, and camp was quickly brokenand the party moved on. After a little rough traveling, up high hillsand down into deep valleys and across narrow streams, they came upon along slope dotted here and there with young pines, and a couple ofhours' drive brought them to the top of a ridge from which they lookeddown into the valley of the St. Mary's Lakes.

  The scene was beautiful. The sky had not yet cleared and a heavy foghung about the ridge, so that they could see only a short distance oneither side; but in the valley below there was little mist, so that thelower end of the upper lake and the whole lower lake were visible.Rounded hills covered with pale green quaking aspens rose sharply fromthe water, and here and there a little open park where the green grassof summer showed against the silver poplars or the black pines. The mistclouds were moving and changing constantly, and the travelers could notsee the mountain tops, but once, a long way up the upper lake, Jack saw,or thought he saw, the stern black faces of tremendous cliffs risingfrom the very edge of the water. Now and then a soft fold of mistdropped from the overhanging clouds and floated from the upper, acrossthe lower, lake, now hiding and again revealing the beauty of the scene.

  "Isn't that a wonderful scene, Hugh?" asked Jack. "This is the firsttime I've ever seen the upper lake, and I had no idea how beautiful itwas. All I've seen before is the lower end of the lower lake and theriver. There's so much more of it than I thought there was."

  "Yes," said Hugh, "it's surely a pretty sight, but on a clear day it'sprettier than it is now."

  "Yes," said Jack, "I suppose so; but just think of the mystery of thisfog. It might hide all sorts of things. Nobody can tell what there isbeyond it."

  For a little while they sat there, looking at the view, and then camethe question of getting down the steep hills to the shores of the lake.

  "How are we going to get down, Joe?" asked Hugh. "If we start down hereI'm afraid this wagon will get away from us, and nobody knows where itwill go to. Can't we get around to the road that goes down to the footof the lake?"

  "No," said Joe, "it's an awful long way down there; bad road, too; lotsof gulches to cross, and maybe break a tongue, maybe break an axle."

  "Well," said Hugh, "I don't like this a little bit, but if there's noother way, why, we'll have to try it. Luckily there's no load in thewagon, and maybe if we rough-lock the wheels and go mighty slowly we canmake it; but if that wagon ever gets started with those horses ahead ofit, it will sure kill the horses and smash the wagon."

  Getting out their ropes and a chain that there was in the wagon, theymade preparations for locking the wheels.

  "But, look here," said Hugh; "locking wheels isn't going to do us muchgood. Don't you see that if we lock the wheels we're just turning eachpair into a pair of runners, and on this snow the wagon will go fasterthat way than it would if the wheels were free."

  Hugh got out the ax, however, and cutting a green quaking aspen sticklashed it to the wagon so that it dragged on the ground just in front ofthe hind wheels, and was held down by them. Then with Joe on foot,driving on the upper side of the wagon, and Hugh and Jack on foot withrope tied to the tail of the wagon, they slowly started down the hill.It was ticklish business. The slope was hard, grass-covered gravel, andon this were two or three inches of snow. Sometimes the drag held andsometimes it slid. Hugh and Jack tried hard to keep the tail of thewagon from swinging around and starting down hill backward. Graduallythey worked their way down the hill, and presently, just as they weregetting near a level piece of ground which promised easier going, thewagon began to slide, and for a little it looked as if it would get awayfrom them. Joe was ready, however, and in response to Hugh's shout,guided his horses into a thicket of young aspens, where the wagonstopped, and by cutting a road through these they worked down the slopeuntil they found better traveling and got below the snow. Then Jackclimbed back up the hill, got his horses, and followed the wagon.

  He found that it had stopped on the shores of a little curving bay nearthe head of the lake, where there was good feed for the horses andplenty of wood. A little trout brook coming down from the hills tinkledpleasantly at one end of the meadow and was shaded by half a dozenancient cottonwood trees. Joe and Hugh were putting up the tent as hereached the camp, and as soon as he had unsaddled he helped them.

  Though the sky was still overcast, the air at the level of the lake wasclear, and one could see a long way. Jack looked out over the lake, nowabsolutely without a ripple, and saw a few ducks swimming about.

  After supper, as there was still a little daylight left, he jointed hisrod and began to fish, at first without any success, but casting outinto the lake at the point where the brook flowed into it, he gotseveral rises, and hooked a small trout, weighing perhaps a quarter of apound, which he soon brought to land.

  After a while Joe left camp and sauntered out to join Jack. It was thefirst time that he had seen a trout rod, and when he saw how slender andhow limber it was he shook his head and said, "What do you expect to dowith that fishing pole?"

  "Why," said Jack, "I want to catch some fish, as I did the othermorning."

  "Did you catch them with that pole?" asked Joe.

  "Yes," said Jack, "caught 'em with this, and I hope to catch some morewith it."

  "My!" said Joe; "what's the use of fishing with a little thing likethat? You can't catch any big fish on that. It will break right off. Youbetter let me go back into the willows and cut you a pole that you cancatch fish with."

  Jack laughed a little as he replied: "Hold on a bit and see. If any fishwill rise I can catch them with this rod if I can catch them at all."

  Joe said nothing, but waited, and presently Jack got a rise from a goodtrout, and, fortunately, hooked it. The fish was a strong one and dartedhither and thither with splendid rushes, sometimes making the reelscream as it took the line, which Jack slowly recovered whenever hecould. At times the little rod bent almost double, and more than onceJoe said, "Look out, you're breaking your rod;" but when the fishyielded, the pliant bamboo sprang back and was straight again. Atlength, tired out, the fish turned on its side and Jack brought it closeto the beach and told Joe to go and grasp it by the gills and lift itfrom the water. Joe did so, and the fish proved to be a splendid greattrout that perhaps weighed two pounds. After the fish was saved Joewanted to look at the rod. He went over it from butt to tip, feeling itbetween his fingers and muttering to himself in his astonishment that soslight an implement should have caught so big a fish.