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

by George Bird Grinnell

  CHAPTER XVI

  AN ICE RIVER

  Early the next morning, while they were eating breakfast, Hugh said,"Now, boys, let's saddle and ride up this middle fork. I don't think itgoes far, and I reckon we'll not see much up there. We can come back andmaybe pack up and get to the head of the other fork to-night. You boysgo out right after breakfast and picket the pack horses and bring in thesaddle animals, while I'm washing up the dishes and rigging up a scareover this meat, to keep off the birds."

  When the boys got in with the saddle horses, after tying the pack horsesso that they could not follow, they found that Hugh had put up a polewhich slanted over the meat on the scaffold, and to that pole he hadtied a cross-stick from which a long strip of cloth was waving merrilyin the breeze.

  "There," said Hugh, "as long as this wind blows, no bird or animal willbother that meat. Now let's start along."

  They rode fast up the valley of the middle fork, for in most places itwas fairly open; sometimes in pretty park-like meadows, where the tallwhite-crowned flower stems of the soap grass waved in the wind,sometimes in broad flat meadows of wet ground, which looked suspiciouslylike beaver meadows, and sometimes in scattering pine timber growingfrom low mounds. As they advanced, the valley grew narrower, and onboth sides the mountains rose high and steep, but here and there on theheights above they could see the edges of snow fields, and when theyreached the head of the valley they found themselves under a tallprecipice, over which flowed two great water-falls, which had theirsources in the snow banks far above. It was a cold, gray place, grim andgrand, but not picturesque nor beautiful, and soon all three were gladto turn about and gallop down the valley toward the sunlight, which wasflooding the lower country.

  It was not yet noon when they reached the camp, and Hugh said they wouldjust stop for dinner and then move on.

  The boys loosened the cinches of the saddle horses, tied them up,brought in the pack horses and saddled them, and took down the tent andpacked up the meat, which by this time was quite dry. An hour later,Hugh mounted his horse and they again set out up the trail.

  Jack did not clearly see how they were going to get into the valley ofthe other fork, as the way appeared blocked by the lake on their left,which seemed to run to the very bases of the mountains which lay onthree sides of it. However, he followed Hugh and asked no questions.

  Joe, however, said, "How do you suppose we're going to get into thatvalley, Jack? Are we going to swim this lake?"

  "You can't prove it by me," said Jack. "But I reckon Hugh will find away."

  "That's so," said Joe, "White Bull knows how to travel in the mountains.I guess we'll get there."

  Hugh followed the trail that they had now passed over several times,until he had reached the head of the lake, and then turning off into theforest to the left, began to pick his way toward the mountains that laywest of the lake. Before long they came to the stream along which theyhad traveled in the morning. It was wide, but not deep, and the bottomwas hard. There was much pine timber and a good deal of marshy landthrough which they passed slowly and with some difficulty, but at lengththey came to higher ground where progress was better.

  As they went on they could see sometimes through the trees the water ofthe lake on the left; while to the right the mountainside rose abovethem.

  After a mile or two of this travel they came to more marshy meadowground and then entered a belt of forest, and passing through this,found themselves in a wide willow-grown park, which evidently had oncebeen the bed of a shallow lake.

  Mountains rose on either side, and to the left they could hear themurmur of the stream. This stream they crossed and following it up,before long found themselves on the border of another long, narrow lake,hemmed in on both sides by mountains. The timber on this side grewthickly, and Hugh, instead of trying to go through it, kept out a littleway in the lake, riding just beyond the overhanging branches of thetrees and in water which was from six inches to a foot deep. The bottomwas hard gravel--good going.

  The country was absolutely wild and undisturbed, and Jack expected everymoment to see or hear game in the timber. He kept looking and listeningfor this so intently that he neglected the bare sides of the mountainsacross the lake, until Joe, who was just before him, driving the packhorses that followed Hugh, turned and making a sign to attract hisattention, pointed to the mountainside. Then Jack saw, lying down on theface of the cliff, far above the water and really at a great distancefrom him, a monstrous white goat. He was greatly impressed by the beast,which, as it lay there with its head lowered, its long beard nearlyreaching to the ground, the hump on its back and its low hind quarters,reminded him very much of a buffalo.

  By the time the travelers had reached the head of the lake the sun haddisappeared and long shadows were creeping up the sides of the mountainto the east of them.

  Hugh stopped his horse, looked about a little, and said, "Now, boys, Idon't know what there is beyond here, and it's getting late in the day.I reckon we may as well stop and camp here and then to-morrow morninglook out a trail up above. We're not greatly rushed for time, and if wetravel in the dark we're liable to run into some mud hole, or find a lotof fallen timber, and perhaps get in trouble that will take us somelittle time to get out of. Let's camp here and do our exploringto-morrow. We'll have to pitch the tent in the timber and I reckon thehorses can get along in this little park at the head of the lake. Thereisn't very much for them to eat, and so we'll have to tie them up.Suppose we unload here, and I'll begin to get supper while you boys makesome pins and picket the horses, and put up the tent."

  They did as he said, and when darkness fell the white tent gleamed amongthe green timber, and a fire--perhaps the first ever kindled on theborders of this lake--cast its cheerful gleam over the water.

  Camp was astir very early the next morning, for this was to be a day ofreal exploration; a trip up to the head of the narrow valley and thenperhaps a climb up the mountains beyond, for Hugh had said that the mainDivide was probably near at hand.

  During the talk of the evening before, he had expressed the belief thatthey could go only a little farther with horses, and that when theyreached the head of the valley the animals must be left behind, and themountains, stern and forbidding, the snow-covered peaks which had beenin sight ever since they had entered the valley, must be climbed afoot.

  While breakfast was being cooked, Joe and Jack changed the pack horsesto fresh grass, and brought in and saddled the three riding animals. Alittle later all three mounted, and Hugh taking the lead, they plungedinto the forest to try to find a trail to the foot of the mountains.

  It was not easy riding. The timber was thick and stood close together.Hugh made his way down to the stream in the hope that it would bepossible to ride up its bed and so avoid the obstacles in the forest,but though they entered the creek, they were soon obliged to leave it,for it was blocked by masses of drift timber, over which the horsescould not pass. They had traveled a little more than half a mile up thevalley, when they came to the edge of a snowslide, the path of anenormous avalanche, which many years before had rushed down themountainside, making a path through the forest several hundred yards inwidth.

  From this open space a fine view was had of the mountains, and of agreat glacier that lay at the head of the valley--an enormous mass ofice a mile or two wide and a half mile deep, lying in a great cup in themountainside. The glacier was covered for the most part with new fallensnow, but here and there broken surfaces showed blue or green in thelight of the morning sun.

  While the others looked at the ice, Joe borrowed the field glasses andbegan to sweep the mountains for goats, and presently found one, andthen another, until at last he had made out no less than eleven of theanimals. Then after a time they went on and entered the forest on theupper side of the snowslide, where the going was open and dry, and alittle farther on crossed a large stream coming out of a side canyon.Not far beyond that the timber grew thinner, and presently they rode outinto a little grassy park.

 
Just as they passed out of the timber they heard a noise of stonesrattling in front of them, and a moment later the plunge of a heavy bodyinto water, and then the cracking of branches, growing fainter andfainter.

  "Ho," said Hugh to Jack, "I reckon we started a moose or an elk here,and he's going up the mountain."

  They rode forward and in a very few moments reached the gravelly bordersof a lake which was hemmed in on three sides by mountains. Just oppositethem and seen against the great dark precipice, which partly hid theglacier from their view, fell a white line of foam, the melting water ofthe great ice mass which supplied the lake. At the head of the lake wasa narrow fringe of willows and then an open meadow of small extent,broken on one side by a low, rocky, pine-grown knoll. Behind the littlemeadow rose a thousand feet of black precipice, and above this was theglacier. Behind the glacier stood a jagged wall of rock, but on eitherside to the right and the left rose abruptly high mountains, whichseemed to terminate in knife edges of naked rock. The scene was perhapsthe grandest and most beautiful that Jack had ever beheld near at hand.It made him feel solemn, while Hugh's look at these tremendous heightswas full of respect and admiration.

  "Son," said Hugh, "those mountains there seem to threaten one, ratherthan to ask him to come on. It's a job to get up there, and I don't feelsure that we can do it in one day. If we go, we've got to start rightaway, and we'd better leave our animals here and take it afoot from thison."

  "Yes," said Jack, "we can't get the horses any further; and we may aswell picket them here."

  Joe asked, "You are going to try to climb up there?"

  "Why, yes, Joe," replied Jack. "I want to get on to that ice up there ifI can, and maybe look over on to the other side of the mountains."

  "Well," said Joe, "I don't like those mountains much; they scare me. I'dlike to get back on the prairie where the sun shines warm and you canride wherever you want to."

  "Oh, come on," said Jack; "if you get up there, you'll be where noPiegan has been before. Come along."

  "Come on, Joe," said Hugh. "You may as well get used to the mountainsnow as any other time."

  The three tied their horses to pine trees, and took off the bridles sothat they could feed. Then Hugh said, "Now, I reckon the best thing forus to do is to try to work our way around this lake and climb up thatplace where the water is tumbling down. It looks like a bad place, butit's liable to be a good deal easier than it looks. We don't knowanything about these mountainsides, and if we try to go up them we'reliable to take a whole lot of time, and not get anywhere to-night. Let'sgo right around this lake, crawl through the alder brush that grows atits edge, and then try to get up that flume where the water comes down.I think we can do it."

  They started off without delay, and as they reached the rough shingle atthe edge of the lake, Hugh pointed to some tracks where the stones andsand were thrown up and said, "That's what we heard a little while ago."On the large stones it was impossible to tell just what animal had madethe tracks, but before they had gone far they saw where it had come downto the lake to drink, and in the grass and in the bare soil above theyfound the tracks of a good-sized moose.

  The work of making their way over the talus at the lake border andthrough the willows and alders which grew among the fallen rocks wasslow and difficult. The stones were more or less covered with moss andcare was needed in stepping, lest a slip should send one of the mensliding down the slope and into the cold waters below.

  At last, however, they had passed through the alders and reached therocky promontory where the going was open, and passing over this, weresoon in the open meadow below the precipice, where they took a moment'sbreathing spell, then started on, breasting a steep shoulder which gavean easy ascent for a couple of hundred feet to the lowest step of thecliff they wished to climb. Soon they reached the ledge and walked alongit until they came to the very bed of the falls, and here began theserious work of the day.

  The icy torrent which for ages had been flowing over this precipice hadcut for itself a deep channel. On one side or the other of this channelthe rock had fallen away so as to furnish here a crevice, there aprojecting knob, which gave hand or foothold to the climber. At times,to be sure, they found before them a smooth, naked cliff which could notbe climbed, and then search must be made along its face for a place upwhich they could pass.

  They climbed slowly and carefully, often crossing the stream from oneside to the other, clinging to little spruce trees that grew in thecrevices of the rock, thrusting their fingers into cracks and fittingtheir feet on some knob or projecting splinter that would give themsupport. Slowly they worked their way upward, inch by inch, foot byfoot.

  Often the crossing of the stream was nervous work, for the boulderswhich lay in it were worn smooth as glass, and the fine mist which rosefrom the falling waters froze to the rocks, making them very slippery.Sometimes long jumps had to be made from one to another of these rocks,often in places where a slip might cause a bad fall on rough rocksbelow.

  About two-thirds of the way to the top of the precipice they came out ona shelf perhaps a hundred feet wide, which was almost covered by highheaped rocks and gravel--morainal drift brought down by the glacierfrom above. This was composed of boulders and stones of all sizes, frommasses as large as a small house to grains no bigger than a pin's head.

  Here they stopped to rest, and Hugh, with his back against a great rock,smoked a comforting pipe.

  Close at hand they could see the beauty of the white, quivering fallsrushing down the cliff, often by vertical plunges of a hundred feet ormore, or down steep inclines, and in one place they had worn a deepfissure in the slate and shot down with a hissing sound thirty or fortyfeet back from one who looked in on them from the narrow opening of thecrevice. Everywhere there was spray and dampness, and Jack was remindedin some respects of the high mountain torrents which he had seen duringhis famous canoe trip in British Columbia.

  From here the going was much easier. The precipice was no longervertical, but ascended in a series of huge steps to the level of theglacier.

  There they began to see, at the lower border of the ice, vast quantitiesof drift spread far and wide, and to the right high naked ridges lyingparallel to the course of the ice river. The crests of these ridges weresometimes fifty or sixty feet above the surface of the ice which layagainst them and from a quarter to a half mile in length. At its lowerborder, the glacier had melted and had been covered with stones, so thatit was hard to say just where the ice ended and the drift which it hadcarried before it began.

  The main body of the glacier lay in the cup-shaped depression alreadyspoken of, but high up on the rock wall behind it and to the left, wasanother enormous mass of ice looking like a huge snowball thrownagainst the wall. Its size was very great, but there was no means ofestimating it. Hugh thought that the lower ice was two miles across, andnearly a mile deep.

  At first the climbers had eyes only for the ice and the mountains whichlay in front of them, but presently Joe happened to look behind him downthe valley, and there, far, far away, was the yellow prairie shining inthe warm sunshine. Joe called the attention of the others to this,saying, "Don't it look nice down there?"

  The climb had taken much less time than had been anticipated, not thatthe height to which they had ascended had been less than they hadthought, but because the way had been very direct and they had wastedlittle time in resting or loitering.

  After their first view, Hugh led the way to a little grassy spot justoutside of one of the moraines and, sitting down in a sheltered spot,said, "Let's sit here and smoke a pipe, and then get up as high as wecan and see the whole show; and then we can turn around and go back." Asthey sat there they had a fine view of the valley below them.

  "Isn't it a fine thing, Hugh," said Jack, "to get up here and see justhow this glacier is acting? Don't you remember how Mr. Fannin explainedglaciers to us; how simple and easy he made it to understand how theyacted? I don't think I shall ever forget the way he talked about them,and I don't think I shal
l ever see one without looking for the thingsthat he explained to us."

  "Yes," said Hugh, "that's so, he sure did make things plain, and I don'twonder that you remember what he said. I was thinking of him when wegot up here, but one of the things that seems queerest to me about thisice is that it's all made of snow. He said it was, and now we can seefor ourselves that it is. I was looking as we came along, and you cansee places just at the edges of the snow where it seems to be changingto ice. I guess the snow just gets solider and solider, and then getswater soaked and makes real ice."

  "Of course," said Jack, "that must be it. When I was a small boy I usedto make snow forts and defend them with snowballs, and sometimes thefellows would make the snowballs when the weather was warm and the snowwas melting, and if it froze that night, they would be just solid ice.To get hit with one of those ice balls was a good deal like getting hitwith a stone."

  "Well," said Hugh, "I expect if no more snow fell up here this piece ofice would just melt away and leave nothing but the hole that it's layingin--just a sort of a basin in the side of the mountain."

  "Yes," said Jack, "I guess that's so. I think that's what Mr. Fannintold us; that a glacier was a glacier, because it was constantly beingadded to at its upper end, and the weight of the snow and ice waspushing it along over the mountainside. I take it that a snowbank mightbe ice at the bottom, perhaps, but that if it doesn't move it isn't aglacier."

  "Yes," said Hugh, "I reckon that's so. I took notice of another thing,"he went on, "as we were coming along. Did you see how this ice seems tobe in layers? Some of 'em are half an inch thick and some of 'em aninch, and there seems to be a thin crust of dirt that separates onelayer from another."

  "Yes," said Jack, "I noticed that, and I was wondering how it couldhappen, or what it meant."

  "Well, I was figuring on that very thing," said Hugh, "and it seemed tome that these little layers of dirt must be the dust and dirt blown offthe mountainside by the wind after each fall of snow."

  "Well, Hugh," said Jack, "that seems a natural explanation. We all knowhow the wind is always blowing up here, and we all know that old snow isalways dusty. I guess you're right."

  By this time Hugh's pipe was smoked out, and he rose to his feet andsaid, "Come on, we've got to stretch our legs some more and see if wecan go up to the ridge. There looks to be a low place up ahead of us,and maybe if we can get up there we can see over the range. Look out foryourselves when you are walking over this smooth ice. If a man slips onone of these steep places, he's liable to go a long way beforestopping."

  The caution was a wise one, and for some distance they walked alongcarefully, keeping either on the moraine or on the very edge of the ice,or choosing a path where the snow was old and hard and gave a firmfooting.

  At one point, however, Joe tried to make a short cut by climbing oversome old snow which was quite steep. Before he had gone very far theothers saw him begin to dig his feet into the hard snow as if uncertainof his footing, then he slipped, recovered himself, stood for an instantas if doubtful whether to go backward or forward, took another step andthen his feet flew out from under him and he began to slide down theslope. It looked very funny to see him flying over the snow, but Hughdid not laugh, for he feared that possibly the boy might go on until hebrought up against rough rocks below. Luckily nothing of this kindhappened, and after going about a hundred yards at a high rate of speed,Joe ran into some soft snow and his momentum was checked. He stopped,rose to his feet, and making his way cautiously back to the edge of therocks, took the safe but longer road that his companions had followed.

  Hugh and Jack waited until he had come up, and then Hugh, shaking hishead, said to him, "That wasn't very smart, Joe. You'd better not tryany more experiments of that kind; it's dangerous. A man may slip anytime on one of these smooth icy slopes, and if he does he never can tellwhere he'll stop. You might have slid down there and brought up againstthe rocks, and broken some bones or killed yourself, and then we'd havehad a hard time packing you down this hill and taking you into theagency. Then, besides that, sometimes these big pieces of ice are allcracked and full of holes, and if anyone should slip into one of thosehe might go down to the bottom and get killed by the fall on the rocksbelow, or if he stuck somewhere half way down he'd freeze to deathbefore he could be hauled out. One thing we'll have to do after thiswhen we're climbing in bad places; that is, to bring along a couple ofsling ropes and tie ourselves together. It isn't likely that all threeof us will slip and fall at the same time, and if only one slips, theother two can haul him out."

  "That's a mighty good idea," said Jack; "I was scared when I saw Joesliding down that ice. I remember reading about people climbing themountains in Switzerland where they carry ice axes. They're sort oflike adzes, with long straight handles and a spike in the end of thehandle, and are used for cutting steps in the ice or hard snow. Thepeople who are climbing tie themselves together with ropes and go mightyslowly and carefully, so that there is no danger of more than one manslipping at the same time. They go along one by one, and when one man ismoving--I mean, of course, in bad places--the others all stand still andfasten their axes in the ice or hang on to the rope, so that if he doesslip, there's no trouble about catching him. I remember reading thatmost of the accidents happen where people have so much confidence inthemselves that they are not willing to be roped together, and some manmakes a blunder and falls and the others just have to stand and look athim."

  "Well," said Hugh, "if we're going to do much climbing around here, weought to fix ourselves out in some such way as that. I tell you I'm tooold myself to try any of these experiments.

  "Come on, now," he continued, as he turned and started up the ridge,"let's get up here to a sheltered place and then we can sit down and eata bite. I put some bread and bacon in my pocket this morning when westarted, and we may as well eat and smoke a pipe before we go on."