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

by George Bird Grinnell

  CHAPTER VI

  A SHEEP HUNT

  The sun had hardly risen the next morning before the camp was astir, andwhile they were breakfasting on the excellent trout which had beencaught the night before, the question was discussed as to what theyshould do now. Immediately across the lake rose a high, castellated pileof rock, with almost vertical sides, which the boys had recognized asthe mountain under which Joe had killed a mountain sheep with his arrowssome years before. Both boys had spoken of this, and Hugh presently saidto them, "Why don't you boys go up there to-day and get a sheep. Fishare good, of course, but we want some fresh meat, and a good fat sheep,if you can find one, will help us out amazingly. We ought to havesomething to eat now, because these flies here are going to drive usaway from the lake and we'll have to get high up into the mountains.It's true we may find game anywhere, but it will be lots better to havesome fresh meat in the pack than to go along without it, and thenperhaps have storms or bad luck for two or three days and have to liveon bacon. The flies don't seem very bad this morning, but it's fly time,and they may tackle us any day and be mighty troublesome to us and tothe stock."

  "Well," said Jack, "there's nothing I'd like better than to get up onthat hill again, and if Joe feels like coming I'd like to start rightoff."

  "I'm ready," said Joe. "Come on."

  It took only a short time to bring in the saddle horses, and before longthe boys were mounted and riding off over the Indian trail that ledtoward the inlet.

  The inlet is a deep, swift river which flows through a strip of landperhaps two miles long by a mile wide, which separates the lower lakefrom the upper, and carries the drainage of all the great mountainregion about the upper lake. The lower end of this strip of land iswooded with spruces and cottonwoods, but the upper end is a wide meadowcovered with heavy grass, where, in old times, buffalo, elk, and deeroften fed. The Indian trail which the boys were following was originallya game trail made by the mountain bison and the elk. It wound throughthe bare, rolling hills, now and then crossing some tiny stream runningdown from the high land, and at last plunged to the level of the inlet,where a large swift stream spread itself over a graveled bar and twistedin and out among the willows and aspens. After crossing this theyreached the flat of the inlet, and presently the trail came out into theopen meadow, and a mile further on they rode down into the main inletstream. This was so deep that both the boys had to tuck their feet upbehind the saddles to keep from getting wet, and in one place it lookedas if the horses might have to swim. The crossing was a short one,however, and presently they emerged on the other side, and in a very fewmoments began to climb the hill just opposite the lower end of the lake.

  The hills here, though smooth, were steep and for the most part coveredwith a thick growth of small aspens. Here and there along the dim trailwere little open parks, in one or two of which were fresh elk tracks. Asthe boys climbed higher, the aspens gradually gave way to pines, andthen to spruces. The way grew steeper and more difficult, and at last,when they reached the top of a high hogback, above which the bare rocksrose sharply, they left their horses and began the ascent on foot. Herethe snow still lay on the ground and made the climb harder, because itwas impossible to see on just what one was stepping. It was rough anddifficult, and the slope was so steep that sometimes the boys had toscramble along on all fours. At first it was over smooth grass madedoubly slippery by the snow which covered it; then came the piled-uprocks, which in past ages had tumbled from the face of the mountains,and here progress, though slow, was easier, because the footing was moresecure. It was on this slope that they passed the last few stuntedspruces, and when they reached the top, they had left all the treesbehind.

  Nothing was to be seen save a wide expanse of gray rock and white snow,which ran up to a cliff whose top was hidden by dense mist. All themorning the clouds had been hanging about the mountains, and now theboys were fairly among them. They could see but a short distance in anydirection, and the prospects for hunting were very poor.

  "What do you think, Joe?" asked Jack. "Shall we sit down and wait for itto clear, or keep on?"

  "Well," said Joe, "not much use hunting when it's like this. Any animalsabout are sure to see you before you see them. I'd stop here and wait alittle while and see what happens."

  "All right," said Jack, "let's crawl in under this rock and sit there.Our eyes are not much good to us now, but anyhow we can listen and seewhether we can hear anything moving around. I guess there are sheep uphere all right, and if we can't get them to-day we can to-morrow."

  "That's so," said Joe. "There are sure sheep here. This is a great placefor them. You know Old Brockey?"

  "Yes," said Jack.

  "He's always told me that there are always sheep on this mountain insummer. They live around there in that valley where you and I killedone. In winter they live high up on the side toward the lake, but theyare always here. The only thing is to find them."

  "Yes," said Jack, "we've got to keep looking for them until we do."

  The boys sat there for an hour or two, pretty uncomfortable, for bothwere wet up to the knees. A cool breeze was blowing along themountainside, and the dense fog, which by this time had settled downover the hills, chilled the boys to the bone; so that after a littlewhile they got up and began to run up and down over the small levelspace near the boulder which sheltered them, beating their arms againsttheir breasts in the effort to keep warm. Presently, however, and almostwithout warning, the sky grew lighter, the fog lifted, and they couldlook out over the mountainside and down on the quiet dark green lakes,and as they looked the sun came out through the clouds, sparkled on thewet foliage below them, and changed the somber lakes into patches ofbrilliant blue. After a little the sun reached the boys, and it waswonderful to see how their spirits rose and how soon they got warm. Atonce they started on, gradually working up the rough slope until theyhad nearly reached the foot of the great wall of rock which overhung it.They made their way slowly around the northern point of the mountain andinto the rocky valley which separates it from the next mountain to thenorthward, but almost as soon as they entered this valley the weatherchanged again. Black clouds dropped down and a fierce wind began toblow, bringing with it now and then blinding snow squalls. The fog didnot descend as low as before, but every now and then a flurry of snowblotted out the whole scene.

  Jack and Joe backed up against a huge boulder out of the wind andwaited. As they sat there, a curious squeak, almost like that of alittle child's penny trumpet, came from the rocks just below them, andboth boys recognized it as the bleating cry of the little chief hare.Half a dozen small birds alighted close to the boys, as if seekingshelter from the wind, and with soft whistling twitter walked about onthe stones and on the snow, apparently picking up food. They were soclose that Jack could see their gray crowns and rosy breasts and backs,and he thought them about the prettiest birds he had ever seen.

  "What are they, Joe?" he whispered; but Joe could give him little help.He said, "Snow birds, I guess. Anyway, they only come in cold weather. Ireckon they live high up on the mountains."

  Presently the little gray-crowned finches disappeared, and only a fewminutes afterward they saw a white-tailed ptarmigan walking about amongthe rocks just below them. Then the sun came out and the wind went downand they started once more on their hunt.

  They were following a sheep trail which led along the rocks whensuddenly Jack, as his head arose above a rise, saw in a little meadowbelow him the hips and body of a feeding animal. Instantly he slowlysank out of sight, and Joe imitated him. Jack turned to Joe and made thesign for mountain sheep and pointed in the direction of the animal. Joesigned to him to go ahead, and he crept forward, and when he tookanother peep he saw a two-year-old ram alone, feeding in the littlemeadow in the valley below. The distance was a little more than ahundred yards and the shot seemed an easy one. Jack motioned Joe to comebeside him and said, "You take the shot, Joe; don't you want to?"

  "No," said Joe, "you shoot. I'm out here all the time.
I have plenty ofchances to kill animals. Now you try that sheep, and see what you cando."

  "All right," said Jack, and creeping forward to where a larger piece ofrock crowned the knoll, he rose to his knees behind it, and, resting hisrifle against the side of it, prepared to shoot. The sheep was stillfeeding and had his tail toward Jack, but was considerably below theboy's position, so Jack aimed at the animal's back, just in front of thehips, and drawing a fine sight, fired. The ram fell, and the boysscrambled down to it, and found it lying dead. The shot had entered theback just to the right of the backbone and had passed forward anddownward through the lungs and heart.

  "Good shot," said Joe. "It's pretty hard to shoot down hill that way;'most always shoot over."

  "Yes," said Jack, "that's so; but you see I had two or three chances,because his hips were toward me and that gave me a long surface to fireat. I made up my mind that I'd shoot at the kidneys, and if I didn't hitthem I had the chance of cutting his lungs and heart and also ofbreaking his back."

  "Yes," said Joe, "that's so. He gave you good shot."

  "Well," said Jack, "we've got to get this beast back to camp, or atleast as much of him as we can carry, and I suppose we may as well getat it."

  When their knives were out it did not take long to skin the sheep. Thehead was not worth taking along.

  When, however, it came to carrying the animal they found it was much tooheavy to be transported in one trip. As a matter of fact, neither of theboys was stout enough to take half the sheep on his back. They wereobliged to quarter it.

  "Tell you what," said Joe, "we don't know much."

  "Well," replied Jack, "I guess that's so; but what do you mean?"

  "Why," said Joe, "next time we come out hunting each one of us bettertake a sack and two or three strings in his pocket, and then if we killanything we can cut the meat off the bones and put it in the sack, andthat saves all the trouble of carrying the bones into camp."

  "That's so," said Jack. "What a pity we didn't think of that before. Butlook here; hold on; why can't we make a sack out of this sheep's hide,cut the meat off the bones and put it in the hide, and then carry thehide between us on a pole all the way to the horses?"

  "Well," said Joe, "maybe we could do that. That's a good idea. It's apretty heavy load to carry that way. It's going to be hard to climb upthe hill."

  "Well," said Jack, "let's try it anyhow. I don't care much about makingtwo trips from here to the horses if we can avoid it."

  Accordingly the hide was spread out on the rocks, flesh side up, and theboys cut away all the meat from the sheep's skeleton. Practically theonly bones they took with them were the shoulder blades, everything elsebeing cut out and left there. This meat was carefully piled up on thesheep's hide, and this was folded over and tied with strings cut fromthe sheep's hide and passed through little holes made in the border ofthe hide.

  "Jack," said Joe, "do you know that this is the way our people used tocarry meat into camp, away far back, long before they had horses, andwhen they had only a few dogs?"

  "No," said Jack, "I never heard that before. Tell me how it was."

  "Not now," said Joe. "The first thing we've got to do is to see whetherwe can carry this load to the horses."

  Going down a little way into the valley they cut a stout quaking aspenpole, trimmed off the branches and cut it off to about twelve feet inlength. Then, returning to the hide, the skin of the shanks was tiedabout the pole so closely that the load of meat lay immediately under itand had no swing from side to side.

  When Jack took his end of the pole and lifted it on his shoulder theload seemed much heavier than he had supposed. However, Joe raised hisend, and the two staggered forward, at first with more or lessdifficulty, but more steadily as they got used to it. Presently theybegan to climb the steep trail which would take them over the mountainto a point above where the horses were. Every now and then they had tostop and put down their load to rest and puff for a moment or two, untilthey recovered their wind. After stopping two or three times, theylearned to choose a place where the load could be deposited on the topof a high rock, so that it would not be necessary each time to lift itfrom the ground. It was slow and weary work, but some progress was made,and at last they reached the top of the shoulder, whence the way wouldall be over level ground or down hill. As they were sitting there,resting and not talking, Joe put out his hand and touched Jack, andpointing down the hill, showed him a marten, resplendent in his glossybrown coat, running along and whisking his black-tipped tail. The animaldid not see the boys, and after he had passed out of sight, Joe said,"You bet your life that fellow will find that sheep skeleton beforenight and he'll have a good time there."

  A little later the boys reached the top of the slope, and looking downthey could see the horses tied to the trees below. They took their loadoff the stick, tied the strips of skin of the legs tightly together, andthen rolled the bundle over the top of the ledge, watching it as itrolled and bounded down the hill, and finally stopped among the treesonly a hundred yards or so from the horses. Then they began to climbdown the rocks, and before long had reached their animals.

  "Now, Joe," said Jack, "how are we going to carry this meat to camp?"

  "I reckon we'd better pack it on my horse and I can walk," said Joe. "Itisn't far."

  "Well, but how are you going to get across the creek?"

  "Oh, I can ride on top of the load for a little short way like that,"declared Joe.

  "I don't know, though," he went on, "whether these horses will packfresh meat like this, but we'll have to try."

  It was soon evident that the horses would strongly object to the load,and it was not until Joe's horse had been blinded by a coat that theboys could lift the meat across the saddle and lash it with Joe'slariat. After that had been done and the blind removed from the horse'shead he showed a good deal of disposition to buck, but at last thoughtbetter of it, and when Jack led the way down the trail, Joe's horsefollowed very quietly.

  When streams had to be crossed, Joe clambered on the load of meat, andthey reached camp long before sundown without further incident.