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+Project Gutenberg's Cruisings in the Cascades, by George O. Shields
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Cruisings in the Cascades
+       A Narrative of Travel, Exploration, Amateur Photography,
+       Hunting, and Fishing
+
+Author: George O. Shields
+
+Release Date: July 7, 2011 [EBook #36654]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRUISINGS IN THE CASCADES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: G. O. Shields]
+
+  CRUISINGS IN THE CASCADES.
+
+  A NARRATIVE OF
+
+  Travel, Exploration, Amateur Photography, Hunting, and Fishing,
+
+  WITH SPECIAL CHAPTERS ON
+
+  HUNTING THE GRIZZLY BEAR, THE BUFFALO, ELK, ANTELOPE, ROCKY MOUNTAIN
+  GOAT, AND DEER; ALSO ON TROUTING IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS; ON A MONTANA
+  ROUND-UP; LIFE AMONG THE COWBOYS, ETC.
+
+  BY G. O. SHIELDS,
+  ("COQUINA")
+
+  AUTHOR OF
+  "RUSTLINGS IN THE ROCKIES,"
+  "HUNTING IN THE GREAT WEST,"
+  "THE BATTLE OF THE BIG HOLE," ETC.
+
+  CHICAGO AND NEW YORK:
+  RAND, MCNALLY & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS.
+  1889.
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1889, BY RAND, MCNALLY & CO.
+
+The articles herein on Elk, Bear, and Antelope Hunting are reprinted by
+the courtesy of Messrs. Harper & Brothers, in whose Magazine they were
+first published; and those on Buffalo Hunting and Trouting are
+reproduced from "Outing" Magazine, in which they first appeared.
+
+    "Come live with me and be my love.
+    And we will all the pleasures prove
+    That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
+    Woods or steepy mountains, yield."
+                                 --_Marlowe._
+
+    "Earth has built the great watch-towers of the mountains, and they
+    lift their heads far up into the sky, and gaze ever upward and
+    around to see if the Judge of the World comes not."
+                                                       --_Longfellow._
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+And now, how can I suitably apologize for having inflicted another book
+on the reading public? I would not attempt it but that it is the custom
+among authors. And, come to think of it, I guess I won't attempt it
+anyway. I will merely say, by way of excuse, that my former literary
+efforts, especially my "Rustlings in the Rockies," have brought me in
+sundry dollars, in good and lawful money, which I have found very useful
+things to have about the house. If this volume shall meet with an
+equally kind reception at the hands of book buyers, I shall feel that,
+after all, I am not to blame for having written it.
+
+                                                             THE AUTHOR.
+
+CHICAGO, MARCH, 1889.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+
+  The Benefits, Mental and Physical, of Mountain Climbing--A
+    Never-failing Means of Obtaining Sound Sleep and a Good
+    Appetite--The Work to be in Proportion to the Strength of the
+    Climber--People Who Would Like to See, but are Too Lazy to
+    Climb--How the Photograph Camera May Enhance the Pleasures and
+    Benefits of Mountain Climbing--Valuable Souvenirs of Each
+    Ascent--How "These Things are Done in Europe"--An Effective Cure
+    for Egotism.
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+
+  The Cascade Mountains Compared with the Rockies--Characteristics
+    and Landmarks of the Former--The Proper Season for Cruising in
+    the Cascades--Grand Scenery of the Columbia--Viewing Mount
+    Tacoma from the City of Tacoma--Men Who Have Ascended this
+    Mysterious Peak--Indian Legends Concerning the Mountain--Evil
+    Spirits, Who Dwell in Yawning Caverns--The View from the
+    Mountain--Crater Lake and the Glaciers--Nine Water-falls in
+    Sight from One Point.
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+
+  The City of Seattle--A Booming Western Town--Lumbering and Salmon
+    Canning--Extensive Hop Ranches--Rich Coal and Iron Mines--Timber
+    Resources of Puget Sound--Giant Firs and Cedars--A Hollow Tree
+    for a House--Big Timber Shipped to England--A Million Feet of
+    Lumber from an Acre of Land--Novel Method of Logging--No Snow in
+    Theirs--A World's Supply of Timber for a Thousand Years.
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+
+  Length, Breadth, and Depth of Puget Sound--Natural Resources of
+    the Surrounding Country--Flora and Fauna of the Region--Great
+    Variety of Game Birds and Animals--Large Variety of Game and
+    Food Fishes--A Paradise for Sportsman or Naturalist--A Sail
+    Through the Sound--Grand Mountains in Every Direction--The Home
+    of the Elk, Bear, Deer, and Salmon--Sea Gulls as Fellow
+    Passengers--Photographed on the Wing--Wild Cattle on Whidby
+    Island--Deception Pass; its Fierce Current and Wierd
+    Surroundings--Victoria, B. C.--A Quaint Old, English-looking
+    Town.
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+
+  Through English Bay--Water Fowls that Seem Never to Have Been
+    Hunted--Rifle Practice that was Soon Interrupted--Peculiarities
+    of Burrard Inlet--Vancouver and Port Moody--A Stage Ride to
+    Westminster--A Stranger in a Strange Land--Hunting for a
+    Guide--"Douglass Bill" Found and Employed--An Indian Funeral
+    Delays the Expedition.
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+
+  The Voyage up the Frazier--Delicious Peaches Growing in Sight of
+    Glaciers--The Detective Camera Again to the Front--Good Views
+    from the Moving Steamer--A Night in an Indian Hut--The Sleeping
+    Bag a Refuge from Vermin--The Indian as a Stamping Ground for
+    Insects--He Heeds Not Their Ravages.
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+
+  A Breakfast with the Bachelor--Up Harrison River in a Canoe--Dead
+    Salmon Everywhere--Their Stench Nauseating--The Water Poisoned
+    with Carrion--A Good Goose Spoiled with an Express
+    Bullet--Lively Salmon on the Falls--Strange Instinct of this
+    Noble Fish--Life Sacrificed in the Effort to Reach its Spawning
+    Grounds--Ranchmen Fishing with Pitchforks, and Indians with
+    Sharp Sticks--Salmon Fed to Hogs, and Used as Fertilizers; the
+    Prey of Bears, Cougars, Wild Cats, Lynxes, Minks, Martins,
+    Hawks, and Eagles.
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  The River Above the Rapids--A Lake Within Basaltic Walls--Many
+    Beautiful Waterfalls--Mount Douglas and its Glaciers--A Trading
+    Post of the Hudson Bay Fur Company--The Hot Springs; an Ancient
+    Indian Sanitarium--Anxiously Waiting for "Douglass Bill"--Novel
+    Method of Photographing Big Trees.
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+
+  An Early Morning Climb--A Thousand Feet Above the Lake--Fresh
+    Deer Signs in Sight of the Hotel--Three Indians Bring in Three
+    Deer--"Douglass Bill" Proves as Big a Liar as Other
+    Indians--Heading off a Flock of Canvas Backs--A Goodly Bag of
+    these Toothsome Birds--A Siwash Hut--A Revolting Picture of
+    Dirt, Filth, Nakedness, and Decayed Fish--Another Guide
+    Employed--Ready on Short Notice--Off for the Mountain.
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+
+  Characteristics of the Flathead Indians--Canoeists and Packers by
+    Birth and Education--A Skillful Canoe Builder--Freighting
+    Canoes--Fishing Canoes--Traveling Canoes--Two Cords of Wood for
+    a Cargo, and Four Tons of Merchandise for Another--Dress of the
+    Coast Indians.
+
+  CHAPTER XI.
+
+  Climbing the Mountain in a Rainstorm-Pean's Dirty Blankets--His
+    Careful Treatment of His Old Musket--A Novel Charge for Big
+    Game--The Chatter of the Pine Squirrel--A Shot Through the
+    Brush--Venison for Supper--A Lame Conversation: English on the
+    One Side, Chinook on the Other--The Winchester Express Staggers
+    the Natives--Peculiarities of the Columbia Black Tail Deer.
+
+  CHAPTER XII.
+
+  The Chinook Jargon; an Odd Conglomeration of Words; the Court
+    Language of the Northwest; a Specimen Conversation--A Camp on
+    the Mountain Side--How the Indian Tried to Sleep Warm--The
+    Importance of a Good Bed when Camping--Pean is taken Ill--His
+    Fall Down a Mountain--Unable to go Further, We Turn Back--Bitter
+    Disappointment
+
+  CHAPTER XIII.
+
+  The Return to the Village--Two New Guides Employed--Off for the
+    Mountains Once More--The Tramp up Ski-ik-kul Creek Through
+    Jungles, Gulches, and Canyons--And Still it Rains--Ravages of
+    Forest Fires--A Bed of Mountain Feathers--Description of a
+    Sleeping Bag; an Indispensable Luxury in Camp Life; an Indian
+    Opinion of It
+
+  CHAPTER XIV.
+
+  Meditations by a Camp Fire--Suspicions as to the Honesty of My
+    Guides; at Their Mercy in Case of Stealthy Attack--A Frightful
+    Fall--Broken Bones and Intense Suffering--A Painful and Tedious
+    Journey Home--A Painful Surgical Operation--A Happy Denouement
+
+  CHAPTER XV.
+
+  The Beauties of Ski-ik-kul Creek; a Raging Mountain Torrent;
+    Rapids and Waterfalls Everywhere; Picturesque Tributaries--Above
+    the Tree Tops--The Pleasure of Quenching Thirst--A Novel
+    Spear--A Fifteen-Pound Salmon for Supper--The Indians' Midnight
+    Lunch--A Grand Camp Fire--At Peace with All Men
+
+  CHAPTER XVI.
+
+  Seymour Advises a Late Start for Goat Hunting; but His Council is
+    Disregarded--We Start at Sunrise--A Queer Craft--Navigating
+    Ski-ik-kul Lake--A "Straight-up" Shot at a Goat--Both Horns
+    Broken Off in the Fall--More Rain and Less Fun--A Doe and
+    Kid--Successful Trout Fishing--Peculiarities of the Skowlitz
+    Tongue; Grunts, Groans and Whistles--John has
+    Traveled--Seymour's Pretended Ignorance of English
+
+  CHAPTER XVII.
+
+  En Route to the Village Again--A Water-Soaked Country--"Oh, What
+    a Fall was There, My Countrymen!"--Walking on Slippery
+    Logs--More Rain--Wet Indians--"Semo He Spile de Grouse"--A
+    Frugal Breakfast--High Living at Home--A Bear He did a Fishing
+    Go; but He was Caught Instead of the Fish, and His Skin is
+    Bartered to the Unwashed Siwashes.
+
+  CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+  John and His Family "At Home"--An Interesting Picture of Domestic
+    Economy--Rifle Practice on Gulls and Grebes--Puzzled
+    Natives--"Phwat Kind of Burds is Them?"--A day on the
+    Columbia--The Pallisades from a Steamer--Photographing Bad Lands
+    from a Moving Train.
+
+  CHAPTER XIX.
+
+  Deer Hunting at Spokane Falls--Ruin Wrought by an Overloaded
+    Shotgun: A Tattered Vest and a Wrecked Watch--Billy's Bear
+    Story--The Poorest Hunter Makes the Biggest Score--A Claw in
+    Evidence--A Disgusted Party.
+
+  CHAPTER XX.
+
+  A Fusilade on the Mule Deer--Two Does as the Result--A Good Shot
+    Spoiled--View from the Top of Blue Grouse Mountain--A Grand
+    Panorama; Lakes, Mountains, Prairies and Forests--Johnston's
+    Story--Rounding Up Wild Hogs--A Trick on the Dutchman--A Bucking
+    Mule and a Balky Cayuse--Falls of the Spokane River.
+
+  CHAPTER XXI.
+
+  Hunting the Grizzly Bear--Habitat and Characteristics--A Camp
+    Kettle as a Weapon of Defense--To the Rescue with a
+    Winchester--Best Localities for Hunting the Grizzly--Baiting and
+    Still-Hunting--A Surprise Party in the Trail--Two Bulls-eyes and
+    a Miss--Fresh Meat and Revelry in Camp.
+
+  CHAPTER XXII.
+
+  Elk Hunting in the Rocky Mountains--Characteristics of the
+    Elk--His Mode of Travel--A Stampede in a Thicket--The Whistle of
+    the Elk, the Hunter's Sweetest Music--Measurements of a Pair of
+    Antlers--Saved by Following an Elk Trail--The Work of
+    Exterminators--The Elk Doomed.
+
+  CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+  Antelope Hunting in Montana--A Red Letter Day on Flat
+    Willow--Initiating a Pilgrim--Sample Shots--Flagging and
+    Fanning--Catching Wounded Antelopes on Horseback--Four
+    Mule-Loads of Meat.
+
+  CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+  Buffalo Hunting on the Texas Plains--A "Bull Train" Loaded with
+    Skins--A Sensation in Fort Worth--En Route to the Range--Red
+    River Frank's Mission--A Stand on the Herd--Deluged with Buffalo
+    Blood--A Wild Run by Indians--Tossed into the Air and Trampled
+    into the Earth.
+
+  CHAPTER XXV.
+
+  Hunting the Rocky Mountain Goat--Technical Description of the
+    Animal--Its Limited Range--Dangers Incurred in Hunting It--An
+    Army Officer's Experience--A Perilous Shot--A Long and Dangerous
+    Pursuit--Successful at Last--Carrying the Trophies to
+    Camp--Wading up Lost Horse Creek--Numerous Baths in Icy
+    Water--An Indian's Fatal Fall--Horses Stampeded by a Bear--Seven
+    Days on Foot and Alone--Home at Last.
+
+  CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+  Trouting in the Mountains--Gameness of the Mountain Trout--A Red
+    Letter Day on the Bitter Root--Frontier Tackle and Orthodox
+    Bait--How a Private Soldier Gets to the Front as an Angler--A
+    Coot Interrupts the Sport, and a Rock Interrupts the
+    Coot--Colonel Gibson takes a Nine-Pounder--A Native Fly
+    Fisherman--Grand Sport on Big Spring Creek--How Captain Hathaway
+    does the Honors--Where Grand Sport may be Found.
+
+  CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+  Deer Hunting in Northern Wisconsin--On the Range at Daylight--The
+    Woods Full of Game--Missing a Standing "Broadside" at Thirty
+    Yards--Several Easy Shots in Rapid Succession; the only Fruits
+    Shame and Chagrin--Nervousness and Excitement Finally Give Way
+    to Coolness and Deliberation--A Big Buck at Long Range--A Steady
+    Aim and a Ruptured Throat--A Blind Run Through Brush and Fallen
+    Trees--Down at Last--A Noble Specimen--His Head as a Trophy
+
+  CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+  Among the Pines--A Picture of Autumnal Loveliness--Cordial
+    Welcome to a Logging Camp--A Successful Shot--The Music of the
+    Dinner Horn--A Throat Cut and a Leg Broken--A Stump for a
+    Watch-Tower--The Raven Homeward Bound--A Suspicious Buck--A
+    Mysterious Presence--Dead Beside His Mate--Three Shots and Three
+    Deer
+
+  CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+  A Typical Woodsman--Model Home in the Great Pine Forest--A
+    Lifetime in the Wilderness--A Deer in a Natural
+    Trap--Disappointment and Despondency--"What, You Killed a
+    Buck!"--Sunrise in the Woods--An Unexpected Shot--A Free Circus
+    and a Small Audience--A Buck as a Bucker--More Venison
+
+  CHAPTER XXX.
+
+  Cowboy Life--The Boys that Become Good Range Riders--Peculiar
+    Tastes and Talents Required for the Ranch--Wages Paid to
+    Cowboys--Abuse and Misrepresentation to which They are
+    Subjected--The "Fresh Kid," and the Long-Haired "Greaser"--The
+    Stranger Always Welcome at the Ranch--A Dude Insulted--A Plaid
+    Ulster, a Green Umbrella, and a Cranky Disposition--Making a
+    Train Crew Dance--An Uncomplimentary Concert--No Sneak Thieves
+    on the Plains--Leather Breeches, Big Spurs, and a Six-Shooter in
+    a Sleeping Car--Fear Gives Way to Admiration--The Slang of the
+    Range--The "Bucker," and the "Buster"--The Good
+    Cow-Horse--Roping for Prizes--Snaking a Bear with a Lariat--A
+    Good School for Boys--Communion with Nature Makes Honest
+
+  CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+  A Montana Roundup--Ranges and Ranches on Powder River; Once the
+    Home of the Buffalo, the Elk, the Antelope; now the Home of the
+    Texas Steer and the Cowboy--The Great Plains in Spring Attire--A
+    Gathering of Rustlers--"Chuck Outfits" to the Front--Early
+    Risers--Taming an "Alecky" Steer--A Red-Hot Device--Branding and
+    Slitting--The Run on the Mess Wagon--"Cutting Out" and "Throwing
+    Over"--A Cruel Process.
+
+
+
+
+CRUISINGS IN THE CASCADES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+    "Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery."
+                                                             --RUSKIN.
+
+
+For anyone who has the courage, the hardihood, and the physical strength
+to endure the exercise, there is no form of recreation or amusement
+known to mankind that can yield such grand results as mountain climbing.
+I mean from a mental as well as from a physical standpoint; and, in
+fact, it is the mind that receives the greater benefit. The exertion of
+the muscular forces in climbing a high mountain is necessarily severe;
+in fact, it is more than most persons unused to it can readily endure;
+and were it not for the inspiration which the mind derives from the
+experience when the ascent is made it would be better that the subject
+should essay some milder form of exercise. But if one's strength be
+sufficient to endure the labor of ascending a grand mountain peak, that
+extends to or above timber line, to the regions of perpetual snow and
+ice, or even to a height that gives a general view of the surrounding
+country, the compensation must be ample if one have an eye for the
+beauties of nature, or any appreciation of the grandeur of the Creator's
+greatest works.
+
+[Illustration: MOUNT HOOD.]
+
+Vain, self-loving man is wont to consider himself the noblest work of
+God, but let him go to the top of one of these lofty mountains,
+surrounded by other towering peaks, and if he be a sane man he will soon
+be convinced that his place in the scale of creation is far from the
+top. Let him stand, for instance, on the summit of Mount Hood, Mount
+Tacoma, or Mount Baker, thousands of feet above all surrounding peaks,
+hills, and valleys, where he may gaze into space hundreds of miles in
+every direction, with naught to obstruct his view, face to face with his
+Creator, and if he have aught of the love of nature in his soul, or of
+appreciation of the sublime in his mental composition, he will be moved
+to exclaim with the Apostle, "What is man that Thou art mindful of him,
+or the son of man that Thou visitest him?" He will feel his littleness,
+his insignificance, his utter lack of importance, more forcibly perhaps
+than ever before. It seems almost incredible that there should be men in
+the world who could care so little for the grandest, the sublimest
+sights their native land affords, as to be unwilling to perform the
+labor necessary to see them to the best possible advantage; and yet it
+is so, for I have frequently heard them say:
+
+"I should like very much to see these grand sights you describe, but I
+never could afford to climb those high mountains for that pleasure; it
+is too hard work for me."
+
+And, after all, the benefits to be derived from mountain climbing are
+not wholly of an intellectual character; the physical system may be
+benefited by it as well. It is a kind of exercise that in turn brings
+into use almost every muscle in the body, those of the legs being of
+course taxed most severely, but those of the back do their full share of
+the work, while the arms are called into action almost constantly, as
+the climber grasps bushes or rocks by which to aid himself in the
+ascent. The lungs expand and contract like bellows as they inhale and
+exhale the rarified atmosphere, and the heart beats like a trip-hammer
+as it pumps the invigorated blood through the system. The liver is
+shaken loose from the ribs to which it has perchance grown fast, and the
+stomach is aroused to such a state of activity as it has probably not
+experienced for years. Let any man, especially one of sedentary habits,
+climb a mountain 5,000 feet high, on a bright, pleasant day, when
+
+    "Night's candles are burnt out and jocund day
+    Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops."
+
+[Illustration: MOUNT TACOMA.]
+
+There let him breathe the rare, pure atmosphere, fresh from the portals
+of heaven, and my word for it he will have a better appetite, will eat
+heartier, sleep sounder, and awake next morning feeling more refreshed
+than since the days of his boyhood.
+
+Although the labor be severe it can and should be modulated to the
+strength and capabilities of the person undertaking the task. No one
+should climb faster than is compatible with his strength, and halts
+should be made every five or ten minutes, if need be, to allow the
+system ample rest. In this manner a vast amount of work may be
+accomplished in a day, even by one who has had no previous experience
+in climbing.
+
+[Illustration: ON THE COLUMBIA.]
+
+The benefits and pleasures of mountain climbing are much better
+understood and appreciated in Europe than in this country. Nearly every
+city of England, France, Spain, Germany, and other European countries
+has an Alpine, Pyrenese, or Himalayan club. The members of these clubs
+spend their summer outings in scaling the great peaks of the mountains
+after which the societies are named, or other ranges, and the winter
+evenings in recounting to each other their experiences; and many a man,
+by his association with the clubs and by indulgence in this invigorating
+pastime develops from a delicate youth into a muscular, sturdy, athletic
+man in a few years.
+
+The possible value of mountain climbing as a recreation and as a means
+of gaining knowledge, has been greatly enhanced, of late years, by the
+introduction of the dry-plate system in photography, and since the
+small, light, compact cameras have been constructed, which may be easily
+and conveniently carried wherever a man can pack his blankets and a
+day's supply of food. With one of these instruments fine views can be
+taken of all interesting objects and bits of scenery on the mountain,
+and of the surrounding country. The views are interesting and
+instructive to friends and to the public in general, and as souvenirs
+are invaluable to the author. And from the negatives thus secured
+lantern slides may be made, and from these, by the aid of the calcium
+light, pictures projected on a screen that can only be excelled in their
+beauty and attractiveness by nature herself.
+
+[Illustration: GLACIERS ON MOUNT TACOMA.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Each succeeding autumn, for years past, has found me in some range of
+mountains, camping, hunting, fishing, climbing, and taking views. The
+benefits I have derived from these expeditions, in the way of health,
+strength, and vigor, are incalculable, and the pleasures inexpressible.
+My last outing was in the Cascade Range, in Oregon and Washington
+Territory, where I spent a month in these delightful occupations, and it
+is with a view of encouraging and promoting a love for these modes of
+recreation that this record is written.
+
+    "I live not in myself, but I become
+      Portion of that around me; and to me
+    High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
+      Of human cities torture."
+
+[Illustration: A VIEW IN THE CASCADES.]
+
+The Cascade Range of mountains extends from Southern Oregon through
+Washington Territory, away to the northward in British Columbia. In
+width, from east to west, it varies from fifty to one hundred miles. It
+is the most densely-timbered range on the continent, and yet is one of
+the highest and most rugged. It may not possess so many ragged,
+shapeless crags and dark canyons as the Rocky Range, and yet everyone who
+has ever traversed both accords to the Cascades the distinction of
+being the equal, in picturesqueness and grandeur, of the Rockies, or, in
+fact, of any other range in the country. As continental landmarks,
+Mounts Pitt, Union, Thielson, Jefferson, Hood, Adams, St. Helens,
+Tacoma, Baker, Stuart, Chiam, Douglass, and others are unsurpassed.
+Their hoary crests tower to such majestic heights as to be visible, in
+some instances, hundreds of miles, and their many glaciers feed mighty
+rivers upon whose bosoms the commerce of nations is borne. Mount
+Jefferson is 9,020 feet high; Mount Adams, 9,570; Mount St. Helens,
+9,750; Mount Baker, 10,800, Mount Hood, 11,025, and Mount Tacoma,
+14,444. There are many other peaks that rise to altitudes of 7,000 to
+9,000 feet, and from these figures one may readily form something of an
+idea of the general height and beauty of the Cascade Range. The
+foot-hills are generally high, rolling, and picturesque, and so heavily
+timbered that in many places one cannot see a hundred yards in any
+direction. Higher up the range, however, this heavy timber is replaced
+by smaller trees, that stand farther apart, and the growth of underbrush
+is not so dense; consequently, the labor of travel is lightened and the
+range of vision is extended. The geological formation in the Cascades is
+varied. Igneous rock abounds; extensive basaltic cliffs and large bodies
+of granite, limestone, sandstone, etc., are frequently met with, and
+nearly all the table-lands, in and about the foot-hills, are composed of
+gravel drift, covered with vegetable mold. The Cascades may be explored
+with comfort later in the fall than the Rockies or other more eastern
+ranges, the winter setting in on the former much later than on the
+latter, although the winter rains usually come in November. September
+and October are the most pleasant months for an outing in the Cascades.
+
+[Illustration: ONEONTA GORGE, COLUMBIA RIVER, OREGON.]
+
+* * * It was late in October when my wife and I started from Chicago for
+a tour of a month among the bristling peaks of the Cascades and the
+picturesque islands of Puget Sound. A pleasant ride of fifteen hours on
+the Wisconsin Central Railroad to St. Paul, and another of three days
+and nights on the grand old Northern Pacific, brought us face to face
+with the glittering crests and beetling cliffs that were the objects of
+our pilgrimage. As the tourist goes west, the first view of the range is
+obtained at the Dalles of the Columbia river, from whence old Mount
+Hood, thirty-five miles distant, rears its majestic head high into the
+ethereal vault of heaven, and neighboring peaks, of lesser magnitude,
+unfold themselves to the enraptured vision. As the train whirls down the
+broad Columbia river, every curve, around which we swing with dazzling
+speed, reveals to our bewildered gaze new forms of beauty and new
+objects of wonder. So many descriptions of the scenery along this mystic
+stream have been written, that every reading man, woman, and child in
+the land must be familiar with it, and I will not repeat or attempt to
+improve upon any of them. To say the most extravagant representations
+are not exaggerated, is to speak truly, and no one can know how
+beautiful some of these towers and cliffs are until he has seen them.
+
+The train arrived at Portland, that old and far-famed metropolis of the
+North Pacific coast, at half past ten o'clock in the morning, and after
+twenty-four hours pleasantly spent in viewing its many points of
+interest and the snow-covered mountains thereabouts, we again boarded
+the Northern Pacific train and sped toward Tacoma, where we arrived at
+six o'clock in the evening. Here we passed another day in looking over a
+booming Western city, whose future prosperity and greatness have been
+assured by its having been chosen as the tide-water terminus of the
+Northern Pacific Railway. Tacoma is situated on Commencement Bay, an arm
+of Puget Sound, and has a harbor navigable for the largest ocean
+steamships. The vast forests of pine, fir, and cedar, with which it is
+surrounded, give Tacoma great commercial importance as a lumbering town,
+and the rich agricultural valleys thereabout assure home production of
+breadstuffs, vegetables, meats, etc., sufficient to feed its army of
+workingmen. Rich coal fields, in the immediate neighborhood, furnish
+fuel for domestic and manufacturing purposes at merely nominal prices.
+All the waters hereabouts abound in salmon, several varieties of trout
+and other food-fishes, while in the woods and mountains adjacent, elk,
+deer, and bears are numerous; so the place will always be a popular
+resort for the sportsman and the tourist. The chief attraction of the
+city, however, for the traveler, will always be the fine view it affords
+of Mount Tacoma. This grand old pinnacle of the Cascade Range,
+forty-five miles distant, lifts its snow-mantled form far above its
+neighbors, which are themselves great mountains, while its
+glacier-crowned summit rises, towers, and struggles aloft 'til----
+
+    "Round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
+    Eternal sunshine settles on its head;"
+
+and its crown is almost lost in the limitless regions of the deep blue
+sky.
+
+From the verandas of the Tacoma House one may view Mount Tacoma until
+wearied with gazing. The Northern Pacific Railway runs within fifteen
+miles of the base of it, and from the nearest point a trail has been
+made, at a cost of some thousands of dollars, by which tourists may
+ascend the mountain on horseback, to an altitude of about 10,000 feet,
+with comparative comfort; but he who goes above that height must work
+his passage. There are several men who claim the distinction of being
+the only white man that has ever been to the top of this mountain.
+Others declare that it has been ascended only twice; but we have
+authentic information of at least three successful and complete ascents
+having been made. Indian legends people the mountain with evil spirits,
+which are said to dwell in boiling caldrons and yawning caverns--
+
+    "Calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire,
+        And airy tongues that syllable men's names."
+
+Tradition says their wild shrieks and groans may be heard therein at all
+times; and no Indians are known ever to have gone any great distance up
+Mount Rainier, as they call it. White men have tried to employ the
+native red men as guides and packers for the ascent, but no amount of
+money can tempt them to invade the mysterious canyons and cliffs with
+which the marvelous pile is surrounded. They say that all attempts to do
+so, by either white or red men, must result in certain destruction.
+Undoubtedly the first ascent was made about thirty years ago, by General
+(then Lieutenant) Kautz, and Lieutenant Slaughter, of the United States
+Army, who were then stationed at Steilacoom, Washington Territory. They
+took pack animals, and with an escort of several men ascended as far as
+the animals could go. There they left them and continued the climb on
+foot. They were gone nine days, from the time of leaving their mules
+until they returned to the animals, and claimed, no doubt justly, to
+have gone to the top of Liberty Cap, the highest of the three distinct
+summits that form the triplex corona; the others being known as the
+Summit and the Dome. The next ascent, so far as known, was made in 1876
+by Mr. Hazard Stevens, who gave an account of his experiences in the
+_Atlantic Monthly_ for November, of that year. In 1882, Messrs. Van
+Trump and Smith, of San Francisco, made a successful ascent, and in the
+same year an Austrian tourist who attempted to ascend the mountain, got
+within three hundred feet of the top, when his progress was arrested by
+an avalanche, and he came very near losing his life. Mr. L. L. Holden,
+of Boston, went to within about six hundred feet of the summit in 1883,
+and Mr. J. R. Hitchcock claims to have reached it in 1885.
+
+From the point gained by the trail above mentioned, the tourist may look
+down upon the glaciers of the North Fork of the Puyallup River, 3,000
+feet below, while on the other hand, the glaciers of the canyon of the
+Carbon may be seen 4,000 feet beneath him. Away to the north, glimmering
+and glinting under the effulgent rays of the noonday sun, stretches that
+labyrinth of waters known as Puget Sound--
+
+    "Whose breezy waves toss up their silvery spray;"
+
+while the many islands therein, draped in their evergreen foliage, look
+like emeralds set in a sheet of silver. Many prominent landmarks in
+British Columbia are seen, while to the north and south stretches the
+Cascade Range, to the west the Olympic, and to the southwest the Coast
+Range. All these are spread out before the eye of the tourist in a grand
+panorama unsurpassed for loveliness. Crater Lake forms one of the
+mysteries of Mount Tacoma. About its ragged, ice-bound and rock-ribbed
+shores are many dark caverns, from which the Indians conceived their
+superstitious fears of this mysterious pile. An explorer says of one of
+these chambers:
+
+"Its roof is a dome of brilliant green, with long icicles pendant
+therefrom; while its floor is composed of the rocks and debris that
+formed the side of the crater, worn smooth by the action of water and
+heated by a natural register, from which issue clouds of steam."
+
+The grand canyon of the Puyallup is two and a half miles wide, and from
+its head may be seen the great glacier, 300 feet in thickness, which
+supplies the great volume of water that flows through the Puyallup
+river. From here no less than nine different waterfalls, varying in
+height from 500 to 1,500 feet, are visible; and visitors are sometimes
+thrilled with the magnificent spectacle of an avalanche of thousands of
+tons of overhanging ice falling with an overwhelming crash into the
+canyon, roaring and reverberating in a way that almost makes the great
+mountain tremble. Fed by the lake, torrents pour over the edge of the
+cliff, and the foaming waters, forming a perpetual veil of seemingly
+silver lace, fall with a fearful leap into the arms of the surging
+waves below. Mount Tacoma will be the future resort of the continent,
+and many of its wondrous beauties yet remain to be explored.
+
+[Illustration: VIEW ON GREEN RIVER NEAR MOUNT TACOMA.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+The Oregon Railway & Navigation Company's steamers leave Tacoma, for
+Seattle, at four o'clock in the morning, and at six-thirty in the
+evening, so we were unable to see this portion of the sound until our
+return trip. Seattle is another of those rushing, pushing, thriving,
+Western towns, whose energy and dash always surprise Eastern people. The
+population of the city is 15,000 souls; it has gas-works, water-works,
+and a street railway, and does more business, and handles more money
+each year than many an Eastern city of 50,000 or more.
+
+The annual lumber shipments alone aggregate over a million dollars, from
+ten saw-mills that cost over four millions, and the value of the
+salmon-canning product is nearly a million more. The soil of the valleys
+adjacent to Seattle is peculiarly adapted to hop-raising, and that
+industry is extensively carried on by a large number of farmers. Some of
+the largest and finest hop-ranches in the world are located in the
+vicinity, and their product is shipped to various American and European
+ports, over 100,000 tons having been shipped in 1888, bringing the
+growers the handsome sum of $560,327.
+
+During the fifteen years since the beginning of this important
+cultivation, the hop crop is said never to have failed, nor has it been
+attacked by disease, nor deteriorated by reason of the roots being kept
+on the same land without replanting. It is believed that the Dwamish,
+the White River, and the Puyallup Valleys could easily produce as many
+hops as are now raised in the United States, if labor could be obtained
+to pick them. Indians have been mainly relied upon to do the picking,
+and they have flocked to the Sound from nearly all parts of the
+Territory, even from beyond the mountains. Many have come in canoes from
+regions near the outlet of the Sound, from British Columbia, and even
+from far off Alaska, to engage temporarily in this occupation; then to
+purchase goods and return to their wigwams. They excel the whites in
+their skill as pickers, and, as a rule, conduct themselves peaceably.
+
+Elliot Bay, on which Seattle is built, affords a fine harbor and good
+anchorage, while Lakes Union and Washington, large bodies of fresh
+water--the former eleven and the latter eighteen feet above tide
+level--lie just outside the city limits, opposite. There are rich coal
+mines at hand, which produce nearly a million dollars worth each year.
+Large fertile tracts of agricultural lands, in the near vicinity,
+produce grain, vegetables, and fruits of many varieties, and in great
+luxuriance. Iron ore of an excellent quality abounds in the hills and
+mountains back of the city, and with all these natural resources and
+advantages at her command, Seattle is sure to become a great metropolis
+in the near future. The climate of the Puget Sound country is temperate;
+snow seldom falls before Christmas, never to a greater depth than a few
+inches in the valleys and lowlands, and seldom lies more than a few days
+at a time. My friend, Mr. W. A. Perry, of Seattle, in a letter dated
+December 6, says:
+
+"The weather, since your departure, has been very beautiful. The morning
+of your arrival was the coldest day we have had this autumn. Flowers are
+now blooming in the gardens, and yesterday a friend who lives at Lake
+Washington sent me a box of delicious strawberries, picked from the
+vines in his garden in the open air on December 4, while you, poor
+fellow, were shivering, wrapped up in numberless coats and furs, in the
+arctic regions of Chicago. Why don't you emigrate? There's lots of room
+for you on the Sumas, where the flowers are ever blooming, where the
+summer never dies, where the good Lord sends the _tyee_ (great) salmon
+to your very door; and where, if you want to shoot, you have your choice
+from the tiny jacksnipe to the cultus bear or the lordly elk."
+
+There are thousands of acres of natural cranberry marshes on the shores
+of the sound, where this fruit grows wild, of good quality, and in great
+abundance. It has not been cultivated there yet, but fortunes will be
+made in that industry in the near future.
+
+But the crowning glory of Puget Sound, and its greatest source of
+wealth, are the vast forests of timber. It is scarcely advisable to
+tell the truth concerning the size to which some of the giant firs and
+cedars grow in this country, lest I be accused of exaggeration; but, for
+proof of what I say, it will only be necessary to inquire of any
+resident of the Sound country. There are hundreds of fir and cedar trees
+in these woods twenty to twenty-five feet in diameter, above the spur
+roots, and over three hundred feet high. A cube was cut from a fir tree,
+near Vancouver, and shipped to the Colonial Exhibition in London in
+1886, that measured nine feet and eight inches in thickness each way.
+The bark of this tree was fourteen inches thick. Another tree was cut,
+trimmed to a length of three hundred and two feet, and sent to the same
+destination, but this one, I am told, was only six feet through at the
+butt.
+
+[Illustration: PUGET SOUND SAW-LOGS.]
+
+From one tree cut near Seattle six saw-logs were taken, five of which
+were thirty feet long, each, and the other was twenty-four feet in
+length. This tree was only five feet in diameter at the base, and the
+first limb grew at a height of two feet above where the last log was cut
+off, or over one hundred and seventy feet from the ground. A red cedar
+was cut in the same neighborhood that measured eighteen feet in diameter
+six feet above the ground; and there is a well-authenticated case of a
+man, named Hepburn, having lived in one of these cedars for over a year,
+while clearing up a farm. The tree was hollow at the ground, the cavity
+measuring twenty-two feet in the clear and running up to a knot hole
+about forty feet above. The homesteader laid a floor in the hollow,
+seven or eight feet above the ground, and placed a ladder against the
+wall by which to go up and down. On the floor he built a stone
+fireplace, and from it to the knot hole above a stick and clay chimney.
+He lived upstairs and kept his horse and cow downstairs. It may be well
+to explain that he was a bachelor, and thus save the reader any anxiety
+as to how his wife and children liked the situation.
+
+The "Sumas Sapling" stands near Sumas Lake, northeast of Seattle. It is
+a hollow cedar, twenty-three feet in the clear, on the ground, and is
+estimated to be fifteen feet in diameter twenty feet above the ground. I
+have, in several instances, counted more than a hundred of these mammoth
+trees on an acre of land, and am informed that one tract has been out
+off that yielded over 1,000,000 feet of lumber per acre. In this case
+the trees stood so close together that many of the stumps had to be dug
+out, after the trees had been felled, before the logs could be gotten
+out. The system of logging in vogue here differs widely from that
+practiced in Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, and elsewhere. No snow or ice
+are required here, and, in fact, if snow falls to any considerable depth
+while crews are in the woods a halt is called until it goes off.
+
+Corduroy roads are built into the timber as fast as required, on which
+the teams travel, so that it is not necessary that the ground should be
+even frozen. Skids, twelve to eighteen inches thick, are laid across,
+these roads, about nine feet apart, and sunk into the ground so as to
+project about six inches above the surface; the bark is peeled off the
+top, they are kept greased, and the logs are "snaked" over them with
+four to seven yoke of cattle, as may be required. The wealthier
+operators use steam locomotives and cars, building tracks into the
+timber as fast and as far as needed. This great timber belt is
+co-extensive with Puget Sound, the Straits of Georgia, and the Cascade
+Mountains. I believe that at the present rate at which lumber is being
+consumed, there is fir, pine, and cedar enough in Washington Territory
+and British Columbia to last the world a thousand years.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Puget Sound is a great inland sea, extending nearly 200 miles from the
+ocean, having a surface of about 2,000 square miles, and a shore line of
+1,594 miles, indented with numerous bays, harbors, and inlets, each with
+its peculiar name; and it contains numerous islands inhabited by
+farmers, lumbermen, herdsmen, and those engaged in quarrying lime and
+building stone. Nothing can surpass the beauty of these waters and their
+safety. Not a shoal exists within the Sound, the Straits of Juan de
+Fuca, Admiralty Bay, Hood's Canal, or the Straits of Georgia, that would
+in any way interrupt their navigation by a seventy-four-gun ship. There
+is no country in the world that possesses waters equal to these. The
+shores of all the inlets and bays are remarkably bold, so much so that a
+ship's side would touch the shore before her keel would touch the
+ground. The country by which these waters are surrounded has a
+remarkably salubrious climate.
+
+The region affords every advantage for the accommodation of a vast
+commercial and military marine, with conveniences for docks, and there
+are a great many sites for towns and cities, which at all times would be
+well supplied with water, and the surrounding country, which is well
+adapted to agriculture, would supply all the wants of a large
+population. No part of the world affords finer islands, sounds, or a
+greater number of harbors than are found within these waters. They are
+capable of receiving the largest class of vessels, and are without a
+single hidden danger. From the rise and fall of the tide (18 feet),
+every facility is afforded for the erection of works for a great
+maritime nation. The rivers also furnish hundreds of sites for
+water-power for manufacturing purposes. On this Sound are already
+situated many thriving towns and cities, besides those already
+mentioned, bidding for the commerce of the world.
+
+The flora of the Sound region is varied and interesting. A saturated
+atmosphere, constantly in contact with the Coast Range system of
+upheaval, together with the warm temperature, induces a growth of
+vegetation almost tropical in its luxuriance. On the better soils, the
+shot-clay hills and uplands, and on the alluvial plains and river
+bottoms, grow the great trees, already mentioned, and many other species
+of almost equal beauty, though of no commercial value.
+
+"The characteristic shrubs are the cornels and the spiraeas, many
+species. These, with the low thickets of salal (_Gaultheria shallon_),
+Oregon grape (berries), and fern (chiefly pteris, which is the most
+abundant), and the tangle of the trailing blackberry (_Rubus pedatus_)
+make the forests almost impenetrable save where the ax or the wild beast
+or the wilder fire have left their trails.
+
+"The dense shade of the forest gives little opportunity for the growth
+of the more lowly herbs. Where the fire has opened these shades to the
+light the almost universal fireweed (_epilobium_) and the lovely brown
+fire-moss (_funaria_) abound. In swamps and lowlands the combustion of
+decay, almost as quick and effective as fire itself, opens large spaces
+to the light; and here abound chiefly the skunk cabbage of the Pacific
+coast (_lysichiton_) and many forms of the lovliest mosses, grown beyond
+belief save by those who have looked upon their tropical congeners.
+_Hypnums_ and _Mniums_ make the great mass which meet the eye; and among
+the many less obvious forms a careful search will reveal many species
+characteristic of this coast alone. The lower forms of the cryptogams,
+the lichens and the fungi, abound in greatest profusion as might be
+expected. The chief interest in these, in the present state of our
+knowledge of them, springs from their disposition to invade the more
+valuable forms of vegetation which follow advancing civilization."
+
+[Illustration: VIEWS ON PUGET SOUND.]
+
+I measured one fungus, which I found growing upon the decaying trunk of
+a mammoth fir, that was thirteen inches thick and thirty-four inches
+wide. I have frequently seen mosses growing on rotten logs, in the deep
+shades of these lonely forests, that were twelve to sixteen inches deep,
+and others hanging from branches overhead three feet or more in length.
+There are places in these dense forests where the trees stand so close
+and their branches are so intertwined that the sun's rays never reach
+the ground, and have not, perhaps for centuries; and it is but natural
+that these shade and moisture loving plants should grow to great size in
+such places.
+
+The fauna of this Territory includes the elk, black-tailed deer,
+_Cervus columbianus_; the mule-deer, _Cervus macrotus_; the Virginia
+deer, _Cervus virginianus_; the caribou, the Rocky Mountain goat, Rocky
+Mountain sheep, the grizzly and black bear. Among the smaller mammals
+there are the raccoon, the cougar, wild cat, gray wolf, black wolf,
+prairie wolf or coyote, gray and red fox, fisher, mink, martin, beaver,
+otter, sea otter, red squirrel, ermine, muskrat, sea lion, fur and hair
+seals, wolverine, skunk, badger, porcupine, marmot, swamp hare,
+jack-rabbit, etc. Of birds and wild fowls there is a long list, among
+which may be mentioned several varieties of geese and brant, including
+the rare and toothsome black brant, which in season hovers in black
+clouds about the sand spits; the canvas back, redhead, blue bill, teal,
+widgeon, shoveler, and various other ducks; ruffed, pinnated, and blue
+grouse; various snipes and plovers; eagles, hawks, owls, woodpeckers,
+jays, magpies, nuthatches, warblers, sparrows, etc. There are many
+varieties of game and food fishes in the Sound and its tributaries, in
+addition to the salmon and trout already mentioned. In short, this whole
+country is a paradise for the sportsman and the naturalist, whatever the
+specialty of either.
+
+We left Seattle, _en route_ for Victoria, at seven o'clock on a bright,
+crisp November morning. The air was still, the bay was like a sheet of
+glass, and only long, low swells were running outside. We had a charming
+view of the Cascade Mountains to the east and the Olympics to the west,
+all day. The higher peaks were covered with snow, and the sunlight
+glinted and shimmered across them in playful, cheery mood. Deep shadows
+fell athwart dark canyons, in whose gloomy depths we felt sure herds of
+elk and deer were nipping the tender herbage, and along whose raging
+rivers sundry bears were doubtless breakfasting on salmon straight. Old
+Mount Baker's majestic head, rising 10,800 feet above us and only fifty
+miles away, was the most prominent object in the gorgeous landscape, and
+one on which we never tired of gazing. We had only to cast our eyes from
+the grand scene ashore to that at our feet, and _vice versa_, to--
+
+    "See the mountains kiss high heaven,
+    And the waves clasp one another."
+
+A large colony of gulls followed the steamer, with ceaseless beat of
+downy wings, from daylight till dark, and after the first hour they
+seemed to regard us as old friends. They hovered about the deck like
+winged spirits around a lost child. Strange bird thus to poise with
+tireless wing over this watery waste day after day! Near the route of
+the vessel one of the poor creatures lay dead, drifting sadly and alone
+on the cold waves. Mysterious creature, with--
+
+    "Lack lustre eye, and idle wing,
+      And smirched breast that skims no more,
+    Hast thou not even a grave
+      Upon the dreary shore,
+    Forlorn, forsaken thing?"
+
+Our feathered fellow-passengers greeted us with plaintive cries whenever
+we stepped out of the cabin, dropping into the water in pursuit of every
+stray bit of food that was thrown overboard from the cook-room. My wife
+begged several plates of stale bread from the steward, and, breaking it
+into small pieces, threw handfuls at a time into the water.
+
+[Illustration: OUR FEATHERED FELLOW-PASSENGERS.]
+
+Twenty or thirty of the birds would drop in a bunch where the bread
+fell, and a lively scramble would ensue for the coveted food. The lucky
+ones would quickly corral it, however, when the whole flight, rising
+again, would follow and soon overtake the vessel. Then they would
+cluster around their patron, cooing, and coaxing for more of the welcome
+bounty. I took out my detective camera and made a number of exposures on
+the gulls, which resulted very satisfactorily. Many of the prints show
+them sadly out of focus, but this was unavoidable, as I focused at
+twenty feet, and of course all that were nearer or farther away, at the
+instant of exposure, are not sharp. Many, however, that were on wing at
+the time of making the exposure, and at the proper distance from the
+lens, are clearly and sharply cut.
+
+These pictures form a most interesting study for artists, anatomists,
+naturalists, and others, the wings being shown in every position assumed
+by the birds in flight. The shutter worked at so high a pressure that
+only one or two birds in the entire series show any movement at all, and
+they are but very slightly blurred. When we consider that the steamer,
+as well as the gulls, was in motion--running ten miles an
+hour--trembling and vibrating from stem to stern, and that, in many
+cases, the birds were going in an opposite direction from that of the
+vessel, the results obtained are certainly marvelous. It may interest
+some of my readers to know that I used an Anthony detective camera,
+making a four-by-five-inch picture, to which is fitted a roll holder,
+and in all the work done on this trip, I used negative paper. I also
+obtained, _en route_, several good views of various islands, and points
+of interest on the mainland, while the boat was in motion.
+
+There are many beautiful scenes in and about the Sound; many charming
+islands, clothed in evergreen foliage, from whose interiors issue clear,
+sparkling brooks of fresh water; while the mainland shores rise
+abruptly, in places, to several hundreds of feet, bearing their burdens
+of giant trees. There are perpendicular cut banks on many of the islands
+and the mainland shores, thirty, forty, or fifty feet high, almost
+perpendicular, made so by the hungry waves having eaten away their
+foundations, and the earth having fallen into the brine, leaving exposed
+bare walls of sand and gravel. On Whidby Island, one of the largest in
+the Sound, there was, up to a few years ago, a herd of wild cattle, to
+which no one made claim of ownership, and which were, consequently,
+considered legitimate game for anyone who cared to hunt them. They were
+wary and cunning in the extreme. The elk or deer, native and to the
+manor born, could not be more so. But, alas, these cattle were not to be
+the prey of true, conscientious sportsmen; for the greed of the market
+hunter and the skin hunter exceeded the natural cunning of the noble
+animals, and they have been nearly exterminated; only ten or twelve
+remain, and they will soon have to yield up their lives to the
+insatiable greed of those infamous butchers.
+
+[Illustration: DECEPTION PASS, PUGET SOUND.]
+
+One of the most curious and interesting points in the sound is Deception
+Pass. This is a narrow channel or passage between two islands, only
+fifty yards wide, and about two hundred yards long. On either side rise
+abrupt and towering columns of basaltic rock, and during both ebb and
+flow the tide runs through it, between Padilla and Dugalla Bays, with
+all the wild fury and bewildering speed of the maelstrom. This pass
+takes its name from the fact of there being three coves near--on the
+west coast of Whidby Island--that look so much like Deception that they
+are often mistaken for it at night or during foggy weather, even by
+experienced navigators. All the skill and care of the best pilots are
+required to make the pass in safety, and the bravest of them heave a
+sigh of relief when once its beetling cliffs and seething abysses are
+far astern. Gulls hover about this weird place, and eagles soar above it
+at all hours, as if admiring its pristine beauties, yet in superstitious
+awe of the dark depths. Mount Erie, two miles away, rising to a height
+of 1,300 feet, casting its deep shadows across the pass and surrounding
+waters, completes a picture of rare beauty and grandeur.
+
+We reached Victoria, that quaint, old, aristocratic, ultra-English town,
+just as the sun was sinking beneath the waves, that rolled restlessly on
+the surface of Juan de Fuca Strait. We were surprised to see so
+substantial and well-built a town as this, and one possessing so much of
+the air of age and independence, so far north and west. One might
+readily imagine, from the exterior appearance of the city and its
+surroundings, that he were in the province of Quebec instead of that of
+British Columbia. My wife felt that she must not remain longer away from
+home at present, and we were to part here; therefore, in the early
+morning she embarked for home, while I transferred my effects and self
+to the steamer Princess Louise, bound for Burrard Inlet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+At daylight in the morning we entered English Bay, having crossed the
+strait during the night. The sun climbed up over the snow-mantled
+mountains into a cloudless sky, and his rays were reflected from the
+limpid, tranquil surface of the bay:
+
+    "Blue, darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,"
+
+as if from the face of a mirror. A few miles to the east, the
+triple-mouthed Frazer empties its great volume of fresh, cold,
+glacier-tinted fluid into the briny inland sea, and its delta, level as
+a floor, stretches back many miles on either side of the river to the
+foot-hills of the Cascades. Thousands of ducks sat idly and lazily in
+the water, sunning themselves, pruning their feathers, and eyeing us
+curiously but fearlessly, as we passed, sometimes within twenty-five or
+thirty yards of them. A few geese crossed hither and thither, in low,
+long, dark lines, uttering their familiar honk, honk; but they were more
+wary than their lesser cousins, and kept well out of range. I asked the
+purser if there was any rule against shooting on board, and he said no;
+to go down on the after main deck, and shoot until I was tired. I took
+my Winchester express from the case, went below and opened on the ducks.
+They at once found it necessary to get out of the country, and their
+motion, and that of the vessel combined, caused me to score several
+close misses, but I finally found the bull's-eye, so to speak, and
+killed three in rapid succession. Then the mate came down and said:
+
+"We don't allow no one to be firin' off guns on board."
+
+"I have the purser's permission," I said.
+
+"Well," he replied, "the captain's better authority than the purser on
+this here boat," whereupon he returned to the cabin deck, and so did I.
+I was not seriously disappointed, however, for I cared little for the
+duck shooting; I was in quest of larger game, and only wanted to
+practice a little, to renew acquaintance and familiarity with my weapon.
+Early in the day we entered Burrard Inlet, a narrow, crooked, and
+peculiarly shaped arm of the salt water, that winds and threads its way
+many miles back into the mountains, so narrow in places, that a boy may
+cast a stone across it, and yet so deep as to be navigable for the
+largest ocean steamship. The inlet is so narrow and crooked that a
+stranger, sailing into it for the first time, would pronounce it a great
+river coming down from the mountains. Through this picturesque body of
+water our good boat cleft the shadows of the overhanging mountains until
+nearly noon, when we landed at Vancouver, the terminus of the Canadian
+Pacific Railway. In consequence of this important selection, the place
+is a busy mart of trade. The clang of saw and hammer, the rattle of
+wheels, the general din of a building boom, are such as to tire one's
+nerves in a few hours. Later in the day we reached Port Moody. This town
+was originally designated as the tide-water terminus of the road, and
+had its brief era of prosperity and speculation in consequence; but now
+that the plan has been changed it has been reduced to a mere way
+station, and has relapsed into the dullest kind of dullness.
+
+From here I staged across the divide to New Westminster, on the Frazer
+river, the home of Mr. J. C. Hughs, who had invited me there to hunt
+Rocky Mountain goats with him. I was grieved beyond measure, however, to
+learn on my arrival that he was dangerously ill, and went at once to his
+house, but he was unable to see me. He sank rapidly from the date of his
+first illness, died two days after my arrival, and I therefore found
+myself in a strange land, with no friend or acquaintance to whom I could
+go for information or advice.
+
+My first object, therefore, was to find a guide to take me into the
+mountains, and although I found several pretended sportsmen, I could
+hear of no one who had ever killed a goat, except poor Hughs, and a Mr.
+Fannin, who had formerly lived there, but had lately moved away, so of
+course no one knew where I could get a guide. Several business men, of
+whom I asked information, inquired at once where I was from, and on
+learning that I was an American, simply said "I don't know," and were,
+or at least pretended to be, too busy to talk with me. They seemed to
+have no use for people from this side of the boundary line, and this
+same ill-feeling toward my Nation (with a big N) was shown me in other
+places, and on various occasions, while in the province. I found,
+however, one gracious exception, in New Westminster, in the person of
+Mr. C. G. Major, a merchant, who, the moment I made known to him my
+wish, replied:
+
+"Well, sir, the best guide and the best hunter in British Columbia left
+here not three minutes ago. He is an Indian who lives on Douglass Lake,
+and I think I can get him for you. If I can, you are fixed for a good
+and successful hunt."
+
+This news, and the frank, manly, cordial greeting that came with it,
+were surprising to me, after the treatment I had been receiving. Mr.
+Major invited me into his private office, gave me a chair by the fire,
+and sent out a messenger to look for "Douglass Bill," the Indian of whom
+he had spoken. This important personage soon came in. Mr. Major told him
+what I wanted, and it took but a few minutes to make a bargain. He was a
+solid, well-built Indian, had an intelligent face, spoke fair English,
+and had the reputation of being, as Mr. Major had said, an excellent
+hunter. Mr. Major further said he considered Bill one of the most
+honest, truthful Indians he had ever known, and that I could trust him
+as implicitly as I could any white man in the country.
+
+This arrangement was made on Saturday night, but Bill said he could not
+start on the hunt until Wednesday morning, as his mother-in-law had just
+died, and he must go and help to bury her on Tuesday. The funeral was to
+take place on the Chilukweyuk river, a tributary of the Frazer, about
+fifty miles above New Westminster, and it was arranged that I should go
+up on the steamer, and meet him at the mouth of Harrison river, another
+tributary stream, on Wednesday morning. We were then to go up the
+Harrison to the hunting grounds. I was delighted at the prospect of a
+successful hunt, with so good a guide, and cheerfully consented to wait
+the necessary three days for the red man to perform the last sad rites
+of his tribe over the remains of the departed _kloochman_, but I was
+doomed to disappointment.
+
+[Illustration: A VIEW ON THE FRAZER.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+For many years I had read, heard, and dreamed of the Frazer, that
+mysterious stream which flows out from among the icy fastnesses of the
+Cascades, in the far-off confines of British Columbia. For many years
+had I longed to see with my own eyes some of the grand scenery of the
+region it drains, and now, at last, that mighty stream flowed at my
+feet. How eagerly I drank in the beauty of the scene! How my heart
+thrilled at the thought that I stood face to face with this land of my
+dreams and was about to explore a portion, at least, of the country in
+which this great river rises. The beautiful lines penned by Maria
+Brooks, on the occasion of her first visit to the St. Lawrence, came
+vividly to my mind:
+
+    "The first time I beheld thee, beauteous stream,
+      How pure, how smooth, how broad thy bosom heaved;
+    What feelings rushed upon my heart! a gleam
+      As of another life my kindling soul received."
+
+I left New Westminster at seven o'clock Monday morning on the steamer
+Adelaide, for the mouth of Harrison river, sixty miles up the Frazer.
+There were over twenty Indians on board, going up to the mouth of the
+Chilukweyuk, to attend the funeral of Douglass Bill's deceased relative.
+As soon as I learned their destination I inquired if he were among
+them, but they said he was not. He had come aboard before we left, but
+for some reason had decided to go on another boat that left half an hour
+ahead of the Adelaide. The voyage proved intensely interesting. The
+Frazer is from a quarter to half a mile wide, and is navigable for large
+steamers for a hundred miles above its mouth. There are portions of the
+valley that are fertile, thickly settled, and well cultivated. The
+valleys of some of its tributaries are also good farming districts, and
+grain, fruits, and vegetables of various kinds grow in abundance. At the
+mouth of the Chilukweyuk I saw fine peaches that had grown in the
+valley, within ten miles of perpetual snow. The river became very
+crooked as we neared the mountains, and finally we entered the gorge, or
+canyon, where the rocky-faced mountains rise, sheer from the water's
+edge, to heights of many hundreds of feet, and just back of them tower
+great peaks, clad in eternal snows. The little camera was again brought
+into requisition and, as we rounded some of these picturesque bends and
+traversed some of the beautiful reaches, I secured many good views,
+though the day was cloudy and lowery. The boat being in motion, I was,
+of course, compelled to make the shortest possible exposures, and was,
+therefore, unable to get fine details in the shadows; yet many of the
+prints turned out fairly well.
+
+We saw several seals in the river on the way up, and the captain
+informed me that at certain seasons they were quite plentiful in the
+Frazer and all the larger streams in the neighborhood. They go up the
+Frazer to the head of navigation and he could not say how much farther.
+He said that on one occasion a female seal and her young were seen
+sporting in the water ahead of the steamer, and that when the vessel
+came within about fifty yards they dove. Nothing more was seen of the
+puppy, and the captain thought it must have been caught in the wheel and
+killed, for the mother followed the vessel several miles, whining,
+looking longingly, pitifully, and beseechingly at the passengers and
+crew. She would swim around and around the steamer, coming close up,
+showing no fear for her own safety, whatever, but seeming to beg them to
+give back her baby. She appeared to have lost sight of it entirely,
+whatever its fate, and to think it had been captured and taken on board.
+Her moaning and begging, her intense grief, were pitiable in the
+extreme, and brought tears to the eyes of stout, brawny men. Finally she
+seemed completely exhausted with anguish and her exertions and gradually
+sank out of sight. My informant said he hoped never to witness another
+such sight.
+
+We arrived at the mouth of Harrison river at six o'clock in the evening.
+There is a little Indian village there called by the same name as the
+river, and Mr. J. Barker keeps a trading post on the reservation, he
+being the only white man living there. He made me welcome to the best
+accommodations his bachelor quarters afforded, but said the only
+sleeping-room he had was full, as two friends from down the river were
+stopping with him for the night, and that I would have to lodge with one
+of the Indian families. He said there was one _kloochman_ (the Chinook
+word for squaw) who was a remarkably neat, cleanly housekeeper, who had
+a spare room, and who usually kept any strangers that wished to stop
+over night in the village. While we were talking the squaw in question
+came in and Mr. Barker said to her:
+
+"Mary, yah-kwa Boston man tik-eh moo-sum me-si-ka house po-lak-le."
+(Here is an American who would like to sleep in your house to-night.) To
+which she replied:
+
+"Yak-ka hy-ak" (he can come), and the bargain was closed.
+
+I remained at the store and talked with Mr. Barker and his friends until
+ten o'clock, when he took a lantern and piloted me over to the Indian
+rancherie, where I was to lodge. I took my sleeping-bag with me and
+thanked my stars that I did, for notwithstanding the assurances given me
+by good Mr. Barker that the Indian woman was as good a housekeeper as
+the average white woman, I was afraid of vermin. I have never known an
+Indian to be without the hemipterous little insect, _Pediculus_
+(_humanus_) _capitis_. Possibly there may be some Indians who do not
+wear them; I simply say I have never had the pleasure of knowing one,
+and I have known a great many, too. I seriously doubt if one has ever
+yet lived many days at a time devoid of the companionship of these
+pestiferous little creatures. In fact, an Indian and a louse are natural
+allies--boon companions--and are as inseparable as the boarding-house
+bed and the bedbug. The red man is so inured to the ravages of his
+parasitic companion, so accustomed to have him rustling around on his
+person and foraging for grub, that he pays little or no attention to the
+insect, and seems hardly to feel its bite.
+
+You will rarely see an Indian scratch his head or, in fact, any portion
+of his person, as a white man does when he gets a bite. Lo gives forth
+no outward sign that he is thickly settled, and it is only when he sits
+or lies down in the hot sun that the inhabitants of his hair and
+clothing come to the front; then you may see them crawling about like
+roaches in a hotel kitchen. Or, when he has lain down on a board, or
+your tent canvas, or any light-colored substance and got up and gone
+away, leaving some of his neighbors behind, then you know he is--like
+others of his race--the home of a large colony of insects.
+
+When Mary and her husband, George, saw my roll of bedding, which they
+supposed to be simply blankets, they protested to Mr. Barker that I
+would not need them, that there was "hy-iu mit-lite pa-se-se" (plenty of
+covering on the bed). I told them, however, that I could sleep better in
+my own blankets and preferred to use them. I took the bundle into my
+room, spread the sleeping-bag on the bed and crawled into it. The outer
+covering of the bag being of thick, hard canvas, I hoped it would prove
+an effectual barrier against the assaults of the vermin, and that they
+might not find the portal by which I entered, and so it proved.
+
+George and Mary live in a very well-built, comfortable, one-story frame
+cottage, divided into two rooms; the kitchen, dining-room, parlor and
+family sleeping-room all in one, and the spare room being the other.
+The house has four windows and one door, a shingle roof and a board
+floor. They have a cooking-stove, several chairs, a table, cupboard,
+etc. The bedstead on which I slept was homemade, but neat and
+substantial. It was furnished with a white cotton tick, filled with
+straw, feather pillows, several clean-looking blankets, and a pair of
+moderately clean cotton sheets. I have slept in much worse-looking beds
+in hotels kept by white people.
+
+[Illustration: GEORGE AND MARY.]
+
+This Indian village, Harrison river, or Skowlitz, as the Indians call
+both the river and the village, is composed of about twenty families,
+living in houses of about the same class and of the same general design
+as the one described, although some are slightly larger and better,
+while others are not quite so good. All have been built by white
+carpenters, or the greater part of the work was done by them, and the
+lumber and other materials were manufactured by white men. None of the
+dwellings have ever been painted inside or out, but there is a neat
+mission church in the village that has been honored with a coat of white
+paint. There are a few log shacks standing near, that look very much as
+if they had been built by native industry. The frame houses, I am
+informed, were erected by the Government and the church by the Catholic
+Missionary Society.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+I was not compelled to eat with George and Mary, for Mr. Barker had
+kindly invited me to breakfast with him, and when I reached his store,
+at the breakfast hour in the morning, I found a neat inviting-looking
+table in the room back of the store, loaded with broiled ham, baked
+potatoes, good bread and butter, a pot of steaming coffee, etc.; all of
+which we enjoyed intensely. Mr. Barker informed me there was a cluster
+of hot springs ten miles up the river, at the foot of Harrison Lake, the
+source of Harrison river, near which a large hotel had lately been
+built. Upon inquiry as to a means of getting up there, I learned that he
+had employed a couple of Indians to take some freight up that morning in
+a canoe, and that I could probably secure a passage with them. As
+Harrison Lake, or rather the mountains surrounding it, were the
+hunting-grounds which Douglass Bill had selected, and as we would have
+to pass these hot springs en route, I decided to go there and wait for
+him. I therefore arranged with Barker to send him up to the springs,
+when he should call for me at the store, and took passage in the freight
+canoe.
+
+The Harrison river is a large stream that cuts its way through high,
+rugged mountains, and the water has a pronounced milky tinge imparted
+by the glaciers from which its feeders come, away back in the Cascades.
+It is a famous salmon stream, and thousands of these noble fishes, of
+mammoth size, that had lately gone up the river and into the small
+creeks to spawn, having died from disease, or having been killed in the
+terrible rapids they had to encounter, were lying dead on every sand
+bar, lodged against every stick of driftwood, or were slowly floating in
+the current. Their carcasses lined the shore all along the lower portion
+of the river, and the hogs, of which the Indians have large numbers,
+were feasting on the putrid masses as voraciously as if they had been
+ears of new, sweet corn. The stench emitted by these festering bodies
+was nauseating in the extreme; and the water, ordinarily so pure and
+palatable, was now totally unfit for use. I counted over one hundred of
+these dead fishes on a single sand bar of less than half an acre in
+extent. Cruising amid such surroundings was anything but pleasant, and I
+was glad the current was slow here so that, though going up stream, we
+were able to make good progress, and soon got away from this nauseating
+sight.
+
+About a mile above the village we rounded a bend in the river, where it
+spread out to nearly a quarter of a mile in width, and on a sand bar in
+the middle of the stream, sat a flock of geese. I picked up my rifle and
+took a shot at them, but the ball cut a ditch in the water nearly fifty
+yards this side, and went singing over their heads into the woods
+beyond. They did not seem lo enjoy such music, and taking wing started
+for some safer feeding-ground, carrying on a lively conversation in
+goose Latin, probably about any fool who would try to kill geese at that
+distance. I turned loose on them again, and in about a second after
+pulling the trigger one of them seemed to explode, as if hit by a
+dynamite bomb. For a few seconds the air was full of fragments of goose,
+which rained down into the water like a shower of autumn leaves. My red
+companions enjoyed the result of this shot hugely, and a canoe load of
+Indians from up river, who were passing at the time, set up a regular
+war whoop. We pulled over and got what was left of the goose, and found
+that my express bullet had carried away all his stern rigging, his
+rudder, one of his paddles, and a considerable portion of his hull. The
+water was covered with fragments of sail, provisions of various kinds,
+and sundry bits of cargo and hull. Charlie picked up so much of the
+wreck as hung together, and said in his broken, laconic English:
+
+[Illustration: DEAD SALMON ON HARRISON RIVER.]
+
+"Dat no good goose gun. Shoot him too much away."
+
+There were plenty of ducks, coots, grebes, and gulls on the river, and I
+had fine sport with them whenever I cared to shoot.
+
+A mile above where I killed the goose we entered a long reach of shoal
+rapids, where all the brawn and skill of the Indians were required to
+stem the powerful current and the immense volume of water. The rapids
+are over a mile long, and it took us nearly two hours to reach their
+head. As soon as we were well into them we came among large numbers of
+live, healthy salmon. Many of them were running down the stream, some
+up, while others seemed not to be going anywhere in particular, but
+just loafing around, enjoying themselves. They were wild, but, owing to
+the water being so rough and rapid, we frequently got within two or
+three feet of them before they saw us, and the Indians killed two large
+ones with their canoe poles. Occasionally we would corner a whole school
+of them in some little pocket, where the water was so shallow that their
+dorsal fins would stick out, and where there was no exit but by passing
+close to the canoe. When alarmed they would cavort around like a herd of
+wild mustangs in a corral, until they would churn the water into a foam;
+then, emboldened by their peril, they would flash out past us with the
+velocity of an arrow. They were doing a great deal of jumping;
+frequently a large fish, two or three feet long, would start across the
+stream, and make four or five long, high leaps out of the water, in
+rapid succession, only remaining in the water long enough after each
+jump to gain momentum for the next. I asked Charlie why they were doing
+this, if they were sick, or if something was biting them.
+
+[Illustration: WRECKED BY AN EXPRESS BULLET.]
+
+"No," he said. "Play. All same drunk--raise hell!"
+
+These salmon run up the rivers and creeks to deposit their spawn, and
+seem possessed of an insane desire to get as far up into the small
+brooks as they possibly can. They frequently pursue their mad course up
+over boiling, foaming, roaring rapids, and abrupt, perpendicular falls,
+where it would seem impossible for any living creature to go--regardless
+of their own safety or comfort. They are often found in dense schools in
+little creeks away up near their sources, where there is not water
+enough to cover their bodies, and where they become an easy prey to man,
+or to wild beasts. In such cases, Indians kill them with spears and
+sharp sticks, or even catch and throw them out with their hands.
+
+Or if their journeyings take them among farms or ranches, as is often
+the case, the people throw them out on the banks with pitch-forks, and
+after supplying their household necessities, they cart the noble fish
+away and feed them to their hogs, or even use them to fertilize their
+fields. I have seen salmon wedged into some of the small streams until
+you could almost walk on them. The banks of many creeks, far up in the
+foot-hills, are almost wholly composed of the bones of salmon. In
+traveling through dense woods I have often heard, at some distance
+ahead, a loud splashing and general commotion in water, as if of a dozen
+small boys in bathing. This would, perhaps, be the first intimation I
+had that I was near water, and, on approaching the source of the noise,
+I have found it to have been made by a school of these lordly salmon,
+wedged into one of the little streams, thrashing the creek into suds in
+their efforts to get to its head.
+
+After depositing their spawn the poor creatures, already half dead from
+bruises and exhaustion incurred in their perilous voyage up stream,
+begin to drift down. But how different, now, from the bright, silvery
+creatures that once darted like rays of living light through the sea.
+Unable to control their movements in the descent, even as well as in the
+ascent, they drift at the cruel mercy of the stream. They are driven
+against rough bowlders, submerged logs and snags, or through raging
+rapids by the fury of the torrent, until hundreds, yes thousands, of
+them are killed outright, and thousands more die from sheer exhaustion.
+
+I have seen salmon with their noses broken and torn off; others with a
+lower jaw torn away; some with sides, backs, or bellies bruised and
+bleeding; others with their tails whipped and split into shreds, and
+still others with their entrails torn out by snags. In this sad plight
+they are beset at every turn in the river by their natural enemies.
+Bears, cougars, minks, wild cats, fishers, eagles, hawks, and worst and
+most destructive of all, men, await them everywhere, and it would be
+strange, indeed, if one in each thousand that left the salt water should
+live to return. The few that do so, are, of course, so weak that they
+fall an easy prey to the seals, sharks, and other enemies, that wait
+with open mouths to engulf them. So, all the leaping, rushing multitude
+that entered the river a few months ago, have, ere this, gone to their
+doom, but their seed is planted in the icy brook, far away in the
+mountains, and their young will soon come forth to take the place of the
+parents that have passed away. The instinct of reproduction must,
+indeed, be an absorbing passion in poor dumb creatures, when they will
+thus sacrifice life in the effort to deposit their ova where the
+offspring may best be brought into being.
+
+[Illustration: INDIAN SPEARING SALMON.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+Above the rapids we had a lovely reach of river, from a quarter to half
+a mile wide, with no perceptible current. Impelled by our united
+efforts, our light cedar canoe shot over the water as lightly and almost
+as swiftly as the gulls above us sped through the air. I took one of the
+poles and used it while the Indians plied their paddles, and for a
+distance of nearly two miles the depth of water did not vary two inches
+from four and a half feet. The bottom was composed of a hard, white
+sand, into which the pole, with my weight on it, sunk less than an inch;
+in fact, the current is so slight, the width of the river so great, and
+the general character of the water such, that it might all be termed a
+lake above the falls; though the foot of the lake, as designated on the
+map, has a still greater widening five miles above the head of the
+falls.
+
+Abrupt basaltic walls, 500 to 1,000 feet high and nearly perpendicular,
+rise from the water's edge on either side. On the more sloping faces of
+these, vegetation has obtained root-room, little bunches of soil have
+formed, and various evergreens, alders, water hazels, etc., grow
+vigorously. Half a foot of snow had lately fallen on the tops of these
+mountains, and a warm, southwest wind and the bright sun were now
+sending it down into the river in numerous plunging streams of crystal
+fluid. For thousands of years these miniature torrents have, at frequent
+intervals, tumbled down here, and in all that time have worn but slight
+notches in the rocky walls.
+
+[Illustration: A TRIBUTARY OF THE HARRISON.]
+
+Shrubs have grown up along and over these small waterways, and as the
+little rivulets come coursing down, dodging hither and thither under
+overhanging clumps of green foliage, leaping from crag to crag and
+curving from right to left and from left to right, around and among
+frowning projections of invulnerable rock, glinting and sparkling in the
+sunlight, they remind one of silvery satin ribbons, tossed by a summer
+breeze, among the brown tresses of some winsome maiden. I took several
+views of these little waterfalls, but their transcendent beauty can not
+be intelligently expressed on a little four-by-five silver print.
+
+Several larger streams also put into the Harrison, that come from remote
+fastnesses, and seem to carve their way through great mountains of
+granite. Their shores are lined with dense growths of conifers, and
+afford choice retreats for deer, bears, and other wild animals.
+
+At three o'clock in the afternoon we rounded a high point of rocks that
+jutted out into the river, and another beautiful picture--another
+surprise, in this land of surprises--lay before us. Harrison Lake,
+nestling among snowy peaks and dotted with basaltic islands, reflected
+in its peaceful depths the surrounding mountains as clearly as though
+its placid surface had been covered with quicksilver. This lake is about
+forty miles long, is fed by the Lillooet river and numerous smaller
+streams. Silver creek, which comes in on the west side, twenty miles
+north of the hot springs, is a beautiful mountain stream of considerable
+size. A quarter of a mile above its mouth, it makes a perpendicular fall
+of over sixty feet. It is one of the most beautiful falls in the
+country. Near the head of the lake, and in full view from the springs,
+old Mount Douglass, clad in perpetual snow and glacial ice, towers into
+the blue sky until its brilliancy almost dazzles one's eyes. Though
+forty miles away, one who did not know would estimate the distance at
+not more than five, so clearly are all the details of the grand picture
+shown. It is said that from the glaciers on this peak come the streams
+whose waters give their peculiar milky cast to Harrison Lake and
+Harrison river. Near the base of Mount Douglass is an Indian village of
+the same name, and the Hudson Bay Fur Company formerly had a trading
+post in the neighborhood, which they called Fort Douglass. This Indian
+village is the home of my prospective guide, and from it he has adopted
+his unpoetic cognomen.
+
+Half a mile to the right of where we entered the lake, the famous hot
+springs, already mentioned, boil out from under the foot of a mountain,
+and discharge their steaming fluid into the lake. The curative power of
+these waters has been known to the natives for ages past, and the sick
+have come from all directions, and from villages many miles away, to
+bathe in the waters and be healed. All about the place are remains of
+Indian encampments, medicine lodges, etc. The tribes in this vicinity
+are greatly exercised over the fact of the white man having lately
+asserted ownership of their great sanitarium, and having assumed its
+control. Mr. J. R. Brown has erected over the springs a large
+bath-house, and near that a commodious hotel. He has cut a road through
+a pass in the mountains to Agassiz station, on the Canadian Pacific
+Railway, five miles distant, so that the springs may now be easily
+reached by invalids wishing to test their curative properties. Soon
+after my arrival at the springs, I climbed the mountain to the east of
+the hotel, and passed the time pleasantly, until sunset, viewing the
+beautiful scenery in the neighborhood.
+
+On the following morning I took a boat and rowed up the east shore of
+the lake, in hope of getting a shot at a deer, but though I saw plenty
+of fresh signs all along the shore no game was visible. I spent the
+afternoon looking anxiously for my promised guide, but he came not. I
+again amused myself, however, taking views of the scenery, but found on
+developing the negatives that I had not been eminently successful with
+either Mount Douglass or Mount Chiam. Snowy mountains are about the most
+difficult objects in all nature to photograph, especially if you attempt
+to include anything beside the snowy peaks in the picture; for they are
+so intensely white, and the sky or even clouds that form the background
+are so light and afford so slight contrast, that it is next to
+impossible to get good sharp pictures of them. The landscape about the
+mountains is sure to offer some dark objects, perhaps deep shadows, and
+even the mountain itself nearly always has bare rocks and dark, gloomy
+canyons, and to get these and the dazzling whiteness of the snow and ice
+on the same plate is decidedly difficult. Of course we see many fine
+photographs of snow-covered mountains, but if taken with a clear sky or
+with light clouds for background, there is generally more or less
+retouching necessary, and more or less doctoring in printing, with
+tissue paper, glass screens, etc., in order to obtain the results we see
+in the prints. I made some fair views of both these peaks, but not such
+as an enthusiastic amateur might wish. Of the lower mountains, where at
+that time there was no snow, of the lake, the islands, etc., I got very
+satisfactory pictures. I went up the road, toward the railway station, a
+mile or more, where it passes through one of those grand forests for
+which this country is so famous, where--
+
+    "Those green-robed senators of mighty woods
+    Dream, and so dream all night without a stir."
+
+There I made views of some of the giant cedars, the dense moss-hung
+jungles, the great fir trees, etc. In these dark, densely-shaded woods I
+had to take off the flying shutter and make time exposures. I gave three
+to five seconds to each plate. In the prints the trees and other objects
+nearest to the lens are of course over-exposed, but the details in the
+shadows and objects in the extreme distance are clearly and beautifully
+brought out. For these time exposures I placed the camera on some
+convenient log, stump, or stone, in lieu of a tripod. In two instances I
+seated the rear end of the instrument on the ground, with the lens
+bearing up through the tops of the trees. The whitened trunk and broken,
+straggling arms of one great old dead fir--one that has flourished in
+this rich soil and drawn sustenance from the moist, ozone-laden
+atmosphere of these mountains for hundreds of years, but has lived out
+his time and is now going the way of all things earthly--forms the
+subject of one of the best and most interesting pictures of the whole
+series. The tops of several other trees--birch, maple, etc., that stood
+near the fir--are also shown in the picture. It can best be seen and
+appreciated by holding it above your head, looking up at it, and
+imagining yourself there in the forest, looking up through the tops of
+the giant trees into the blue ethereal dome of heaven.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+In the morning I got up early to look for Douglass Bill, thinking and
+hoping he might have landed during the night, but no one had seen him
+and there was no strange canoe in the harbor. After breakfast, in order
+to kill time, I climbed the mountain east of the hotel to a height of
+about a thousand feet. It is heavily timbered, and I found plenty of
+fresh deer-signs within plain sound of the hammers wielded by the
+carpenters at work on the hotel, but failed to get a shot. I returned at
+eleven o'clock, but Bill had not yet shown up. Three other Indians were
+there, however, with three deer in their canoe, which they had killed on
+the opposite side of the lake the day before. I now concluded that Mr.
+Major's confidence in Bill was misplaced; that he was not going to keep
+his contract, and was, in short, as treacherous, as unreliable, and as
+consummate a liar as other Indians; so I entered into negotiations with
+these three Indians to get one or two of them to go with me. But they
+had planned a trip to New Westminster, to sell their venison, and I
+could not induce any one of them to go, though I offered big wages, and
+a premium on each head of game I might kill, besides. They said that if
+I wished they would take me to their village--which is five miles down
+the river--and that there were several good goat hunters there whom I
+could get. I accepted their offer of transportation, stepped into the
+canoe, and we pulled out. As we entered the shoal water in the river I
+asked for a pole, and impelled by it and the three paddles we sped down
+the stream at a rapid rate.
+
+There was a cold, disagreeable rain falling and a chilly north wind
+blowing. This storm had brought clouds of ducks into the river, among
+them several flocks of canvas backs. The Indians, who were using
+smooth-bore muskets, killed several of these toothsome fowls. One flock
+rose ahead of us and started directly down the river, but by some kind
+of native intuition the Indians seemed to know that they would come back
+up the opposite shore. They dropped their guns, caught up the paddles
+and plied them with such force that every stroke fairly lifted the light
+cedar canoe out of the water, and we shot across the river with the
+speed of a deer. Sure enough, after flying a hundred yards down stream
+the ducks turned and, hugging the shore, undertook to pass up the river
+on the other side, but we cut them off, so that they had to pass over
+our heads. At this juncture the two muskets carried by the two young men
+cracked and three canvas backs dropped, limp and lifeless, into the
+water within a few feet of us.
+
+We arrived at the hut occupied by this family at noon. It stands on the
+bank of the river, half a mile above the village of Chehalis, and as we
+pulled up, two old and two young squaws and nine small Indians, some of
+them mere papooses in arms (but not in long clothes--in fact, not in
+any clothes worth mentioning), came swarming out to meet us. Their abode
+was a shanty about twelve feet square, made by setting four corner posts
+into the ground, nailing cross-ribs on, and over these clapboards riven
+from the native cedars, and the roof was of the same material. The adult
+members of this social alliance had been engaged in catching and drying
+salmon during the recent run; the heads, entrails and backbones of which
+had been dumped into the river at their very door. There being no
+current near the shore they had sunk in barely enough water to cover
+them, and lay there rotting and poluting the water used by the family
+for drinking and cooking. Cart-loads of this offal were also lying about
+the dooryard, and had been trampled into and mixed up with the mud until
+the whole outfit stunk like a tanyard.
+
+Within was a picture of filth and squalor that beggars description. The
+floor of the hut was of mother earth. A couple of logs with two
+clapboards laid across them formed the only seats. On one side was a
+pile of brush, hay, and dirty, filthy blankets, indiscriminately mixed,
+on which the entire three families slept, presumably in the same
+fashion. Near the centre of the hut a small fire struggled for
+existence, and that portion of the smoke that was not absorbed by the
+people, the drying fish and other objects in the room, escaped through a
+hole in the centre of the roof. The children, barefooted and half-naked,
+came in out of the rain, mud, and fish carrion, in which they had been
+tramping about, and sat or lay on the ground about the fire, looking as
+happy as a litter of pigs in a mud hole. On poles, attached by cedar
+withes to the rafters, were hung several hundred salmon, absorbing
+smoke, carbonic acid gas from the lungs of the human beings beneath, and
+steam from the cooking that was going on. It is understood that after
+this process has been prolonged for some weeks these once noble fishes
+will be fit for the winter food of the Siwash.
+
+Some of the houses in Chehalis are neat frame cottages; in fact, it is a
+better-built town, on the whole, than the village of Harrison River
+already described; but these better houses all stand back about a
+quarter of a mile from the river, and the inhabitants have left them and
+gone into the "fish-houses," the clapboard structures, on the immediate
+river bank. Some of these shanties are much larger than the one
+mentioned above, and in some cases four, five, or even six families hole
+up in one of these filthy dens during the fish-curing season.
+
+As a matter of fact, there are salmon of one variety or another in these
+larger rivers nearly all the year, but sometimes the weather is too
+cold, too wet, or otherwise too disagreable in winter for the noble red
+man to fish with comfort, and hence all these preparations for a rainy
+day. After the fishes are cured they are hung up in big out-houses set
+on posts, or in some cases built high up in the branches of trees, in
+order to be entirely out of the reach of rats, minks, or other vermin,
+and the members of the commune draw from the stock at will. The coast
+Indians live almost wholly on fish, and seem perfectly happy without
+flesh, vegetables, or bread, if such be not at hand, though they can eat
+plenty of all these when set before them. If one of them kills a deer he
+seldom or never eats more of it than the liver, heart, lungs, etc. He
+sells the carcass, if within a three days' voyage of a white man who
+will buy venison.
+
+[Illustration: SALMON BOXES IN TREES.]
+
+One of the young men already mentioned went with me down to one of the
+big fish-houses and called out Pean, a man about fifty years of age, who
+he said was a good goat hunter and a good guide. They held a hurried
+conversation in their native tongue, at the close of which the young
+man said Pean would go with me for two dollars a day. I asked Pean if he
+could talk English, and he said "yes," but this proved, in after
+experience, to be about the only English word he could speak. He rushed
+into the hut, and in about three or four minutes returned with his gun,
+powder-horn, bullet-pouch, pipe, and a small roll of blankets, and was
+ready for a journey into the mountains of, he knew not how many days.
+His canoe was on the river bank near us, and as we were stepping into it
+I asked him a few questions which he tried to answer in English, but
+made a poor stagger at it, and slid off into Chinook.
+
+Just then another old Indian came up with a canoe-load of wood. I asked
+him if he could speak English--"wah-wah King George"; and he said "Yes."
+
+I then told him I had hired this other man to go hunting with me and
+asked him if he knew him.
+
+"Oh, yes," he said; "me chief here. All dese house my house. All dese
+people my people. No other chief here." I said I was delighted to know
+him, shook hands with him, gave him a cigar, and inquired his name.
+
+"Captain George," he said; "me chief here."
+
+"Is he a good hunter?" pointing to Pean.
+
+"Yes, Pean good hunter; good man. He kill plenty sheep, deer, bear."
+With this additional certificate of efficiency and good character I felt
+more confidence in Pean, and stepping into the canoe was once more _en
+route_ to the mountains.
+
+Still, I felt some misgivings, for my past experience with the fish
+eaters had taught me not to place implicit faith in their statements or
+pretensions, and the sequel will show how well grounded these fears
+were.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+The Flathead nation, to which nearly all the Puget Sound Indians belong,
+may almost be termed amphibians; for though they can, and do in some
+cases, live inland exclusively, they are never happy when away from the
+water. They are canoeists by birth and education. A coast Indian is as
+helpless and miserable without a canoe as a plains Indian without a
+horse, and the Siwash (Chinook for coast Indian) is as expert in the use
+of the canoe as the Sioux, Crow, or Arapahoe in the use and control of
+his cayuse. Almost the sole means of travel, of intercommunication among
+these people, and between themselves and the whites, is the canoe.
+
+There are very few horses owned in any of the coast tribes, and these
+are rarely ridden. When a Siwash attempts to ride a horse he climbs onto
+it kicking and grunting with the effort, much as an Alabama negro mounts
+his mule, and sits him about as gracefully. But let the Siwash step into
+his canoe, and he fears no rapid, whirlpool, nor stormy billow. He faces
+the most perilous water and sends his frail cedar shell into it with a
+skill and a consciousness of mastery that would put to the blush any of
+the prize winners in our Eastern canoe-club regattas. The canoes are
+models of nautical architecture. They are cut and carved from the cedar
+trees which bounteous Nature, in wise provision for the wants of Her
+children, has caused to grow so plentifully and to such prodigious size
+in the Sound country. They are of various sizes and lengths, owing to
+the uses for which they are intended. If for spearing salmon or for
+light traveling, they are cut from a tree twenty to twenty-four inches
+in diameter, and are not more than twelve to fifteen feet long. If for
+attending nets and bringing in the catch, they are generally longer, and
+if for freighting and long-distance traveling, they are of immense size
+and capable of carrying great burdens. A tree of the size wanted is
+selected, perfectly sound and free from knots, and a log of the desired
+length cut off. The log is hollowed, carved out to the desired shape,
+then trimmed and tapered outside until it is a mere shell, scarcely more
+than an inch thick anywhere.
+
+[Illustration: AN OCCIDENTAL GONDOLA.]
+
+It is then filled with water, a fire is built near in which rocks are
+heated and thrown into the canoe until the water boils. This is
+continued until the wood is thoroughly cooked and softened, when the
+water is turned out, the canoe is spread at the centre, braced out to
+nearly twice its natural width or diameter, and left to dry. This gives
+it "sheer" and enables it to ride a heavy sea like a lifeboat.
+Handsomely carved figureheads are attached to some of the large canoes,
+and the entire craft is painted, striped, and decorated in gay colors.
+I measured one of these cedar canoes that was thirty-four feet long and
+five and a half feet beam, and was told by its owner that he had carried
+in it four tons of freight on one trip, and two cords of green wood on
+another. It would carry fifty men comfortably and safely. There are not
+many of the Indians that can make the larger and better grade of canoes,
+and the trade is one that but few master.
+
+There is one famous old canoe builder near Vancouver, to whom Indians go
+from distances of a hundred miles or more when they want an extra fine,
+large, light canoe. For some specimens of his handiwork he gets as high
+as $80 to $100. The Indians throughout Washington Territory and British
+Columbia do considerable freighting for whites, on streams not navigable
+for steamers, and they take freight up over some of the rapids where no
+white man could run an empty canoe.
+
+Some of these Flatheads are industrious and are employed by the whites
+in salmon canneries, lumbering and logging operations, farming, etc.
+Steamboat men employ them almost exclusively for deck hands, and they
+make the best ones to be had in the country; better than either whites
+or Chinamen. They are excellent packers by education. In this
+densely-timbered country horses can not, as a rule, be used for packing,
+and the Indians, in going across country where there is no watercourse,
+pack all their plunder on their backs. Whites traveling in the woods
+also depend on Indians to pack their luggage; consequently it is not
+strange that the latter become experts at the business, and it is this
+schooling that makes them valuable as deck hands. They are not large
+men, but are tough, sinewy, and muscular. An average Siwash will pick up
+a barrel of flour or pork, a case of dry goods, or other heavy freight
+weighing three hundred pounds or more, roll it onto his back, and walk
+up a gang-plank or a steep river-bank as easily as a white man would
+with a barrel of crackers.
+
+No work is too dirty or too hard for them. They are obedient to orders
+and submissive to discipline, but their weak point, like that of all
+Indians, is their inordinate love of whisky. Quite frequently, after
+working a few weeks or months, they quit and go on a drunken debauch
+that ends only when their money is gone. Their dress is much the same,
+in general, as that of the whites in this region, with the exception
+that the Indians wear moccasins when hunting. This footgear is little in
+favor here with white hunters, owing to there being so much rainfall,
+and so much wading to do. Rubber boots are indispensable for hunting in
+most seasons, and a rubber coat should also be included in every
+hunter's outfit. I found the Hannaford ventilated rubber boot the most
+comfortable and perfect footgear I have ever worn. You can scarcely walk
+a mile in any direction in this country at any time of year, on
+mountains or lowlands, without encountering water. Moccasins soon become
+soaked, and are then the most uncomfortable things imaginable. I asked
+one of my guides why he did not wear rubber boots instead of moccasins,
+and he replied:
+
+"O, I dunno. De moxicans cheaper, mebbe. I mek him myself. Can't mek de
+boots."
+
+This is about the only use the Indians make of buckskin. It is not
+popular with them as a material for clothing, on account of the vast
+amount of rainy weather.
+
+It has been said they make cloth from the wool of the goat, but, so far
+as I could learn, they make very little, if any of it, of late years. I
+saw some blankets that Indians had woven from this wool, but they were
+very coarse. They have no machinery for spinning; the yarn is merely
+twisted by hand, and is so coarse and loose that it would not hold
+together a week if made into a garment and worn in the woods. Of course,
+a fair article of yarn, and even cloth, may be, and has been, made
+entirely by hand, but these people have neither the skill, the taste,
+nor the industry to enable them to do such work. A coarse hair grows
+with the wool on the goat, and the squaws do not even take the trouble
+to separate it, but work both up together, making a very uncouth-looking
+fabric, even if thick, warm, and serviceable.
+
+As a class, these Indians appear to be strictly honest, toward each
+other at least. They leave their canoes, guns, game, or in fact, any
+kind of property, anywhere they choose, without the slightest effort at
+concealment, and always feel perfectly sure of finding it on their
+return. About the only case of pilfering I ever heard of, while among
+them (and I took special pains to investigate) was when John asked me
+for some fish-hooks, and said in explanation:
+
+"I had plenty hooks, but I reckon Seemo he steal all my hooks."
+
+"Why, does Seymour steal?" I inquired. He looked all around to see if
+Seymour was within hearing, and not seeing him, replied:
+
+"You bet. He steal my hooks, too."
+
+[Illustration: A SIWASH AND HIS MORNING'S CATCH.]
+
+[Illustration: AN INDIAN SALMON FISHERY.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+I had left my bedding at the Hot Springs Hotel, and returning to get it
+staid there all night. Early next morning (Friday, November 12) we
+crossed Harrison Lake, in a drenching rain, to the foot of a high
+mountain, about two miles from the springs, on which Pean, Captain
+George, and other Indians said there were plenty of goats. We beached
+our canoe, and made up packs for the climb up the mountain. The outfit
+consisted of our guns, my sleeping-bag, Pean's gun and blankets, a few
+sea biscuits, a piece of bacon, and some salt.
+
+My sleeping-bag was wrapped up in a piece of canvas, and when I handed
+it to Pean, he commenced to unroll it to put his blankets in with it,
+but I objected. Visions of the insects with which I knew his bedding was
+inhabited rose up before me. I thought of the rotary drill, key-hole
+saw, and suction pump with which they are said to be armed, and I did
+not want any of them in my bag. So I unrolled the canvas only a part of
+its length, laid his blankets in and rolled it up again, hoping the
+remaining folds might prevent the vermin from finding their way in, and
+my reckoning proved correct. One of his blankets had been white in its
+day, but had long since lost its grip on that color, and was now about
+as pronounced a brunette as its owner. The other blanket was gray, but
+even through this sombre shade, as well as through the rank odor it
+emitted, gave evidence that it had not been washed for many years. Pean
+brought with him a cotton bedspread that had also once been white, but
+left this with the canoe. In my pack I carried the grub, and an extra
+coat for use on the mountain, where we expected to encounter colder
+weather.
+
+We started up the mountain at ten o'clock in the forenoon. For the first
+two miles we skirted its base to the eastward, through dense timber,
+crossing several deep, dark jungles and swamps. Then we began the ascent
+proper, and as soon as we got up a few hundred feet on the mountain
+side, we found numerous fresh deer-signs. We halted to rest, when Pean
+took from its case his gun, which up to this time he had kept covered,
+and which I naturally supposed to be a good, modern weapon. It proved,
+however, an old smooth bore, muzzle-loading, percussion-lock musket, of
+.65 calibre, with a barrel about fifty inches long. He drew out the
+wiping stick, on the end of which was a wormer, pulled a wad of paper
+from the gun and poured a charge of shot out into his hand. This he put
+carefully into his shot-bag. Then he took from another pouch a No. 1
+buckshot, and dropped it into the muzzle of his musket. It rolled down
+onto the powder, when he again inserted the bunch of paper, rammed it
+home with the rod, put on a cap, and was loaded for bear, deer, or
+whatever else he might encounter. He then replaced the musket in its
+sealskin cover as carefully as if it had been a $300 breech-loader.
+
+Nearly all these Indians use just such old muskets, bought from the
+Hudson Bay Company, and yet they keep them in covers made of the skin of
+the seal, which they kill in the rivers hereabout, or of deer or other
+animals. They take excellent care of their guns in this respect, but I
+have never seen one of them clean or oil his weapon, and several of them
+told me they seldom do so.
+
+My Winchester express, with fancy stock, Lyman sight, etc., was a
+curiosity to them. None of them had ever seen anything like it, and one
+of them asked me what kind of a rifle it was. When told it was a
+Winchester, he said:
+
+"I didn't know Winchester so big like dat. Didn't know he had stock like
+dat." He had only seen the little .44 Winchester, with a plain stock,
+and innocently supposed it was the only kind made.
+
+Pean and I had a hard day's work toiling up the mountain through fallen
+timber, over and around great ledges of jutting rock, across deep,
+rugged canyons and gulches, and through dense jungles of underbrush.
+About two o'clock in the afternoon we halted, lay down for a rest, and
+had been there but a few minutes when I heard the sharp, familiar
+chatter of the little pine squirrel. I looked around quickly, expecting
+to see one within a few feet of me, but instead saw Pean lying close to
+the ground, beckoning to me and pointing excitedly up the game trail in
+which we had been walking. Looking through the thick, intervening brush,
+I saw two deer, a buck and a doe, looking toward us. They had not seen
+nor scented us, but had merely heard the chatter of the little squirrel,
+as they supposed, and, though apparently as completely deceived by it as
+I had been, they had stopped to listen, as they do at almost every sound
+they hear in the woods. But there was no squirrel there. Pean had taken
+this method of calling my attention, and had imitated the cry of the
+familiar little cone-eater so perfectly that even the deer had been
+deceived by it.
+
+I cautiously and slowly drew my rifle to my shoulder, and taking aim at
+the breast of the buck, fired. Both deer bounded away into thicker
+brush, and were out of sight in an instant. Pean sprang after them, and
+in a few minutes I heard the dull, muffled report of his musket. He
+shouted to me, and going to him I found the buck dead and the Indian
+engaged in butchering it. My bullet had gone a little farther to the
+left than I intended, breaking its shoulder, and had passed out through
+the ribs on the same side. The deer had fallen after going but a few
+yards, but was not quite dead when Pean came up and shot it through the
+head. We took out the entrails, cut a choice roast of the meat for our
+supper and breakfast, and hurried on our way.
+
+We camped at four o'clock on a small bench of the mountain, and you may
+rest assured, gentle reader, that our conversation in front of the camp
+fire that night was novel. Pean, you will remember, could not speak half
+a dozen words of English. He spoke entirely in Chinook, and I knew but a
+few words of that jargon. I had a Chinook dictionary with me, however,
+and by its aid was able to pick out the few words necessary in what
+little talking I had to do, and to translate enough of Pean's answers to
+my questions to get along fairly well. The great trouble with him seemed
+to be that he was wound up to talk, and whenever I made a remark or
+asked a question in his adopted language he turned loose, and talked
+until I shut him off with "Halo kumtucks" (I don't understand). No
+matter how often I repeated this he seemed soon to forget it, and would
+open on me again whenever he got a cue. He was a fluent talker, and if I
+had only been well up in the jargon, I could have got lots of pointers
+from him.
+
+The deer of this region is the true black-tail (_Cervus columbianus_),
+not the mule-deer (_Cervus macrotis_), that is so often miscalled the
+black-tail. The black-tail is smaller than the mule-deer, and its ears,
+though not so large as those of the latter, are larger than those of the
+Virginia deer (_Cervus virginianus_). Its tail is white underneath, dark
+outside, shading to black at the lower end, and while longer than that
+of the mule-deer, is not so long as that of the Virginia deer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+Chinook is a queer jargon. It is said to have been manufactured many
+years ago by an employe of the Hudson Bay Fur Company, who taught the
+principal chiefs of various Indian tribes to speak it in order to
+facilitate traffic with them. From that time it has grown and spread
+until almost every Indian of the North Pacific Coast, and many inland
+tribes of Washington, British Columbia, and Oregon speak it. White men
+of all nations who live in this country speak it, and even the
+almond-eyed Chinaman learns it soon after locating here. In short, it is
+the court language of the Northwest, as the sign language is of the
+plains. It is made up from various Indian tongues, with a few English,
+or rather pigeon-English, French, and Spanish words intermixed. There
+are only about 1,500 words in the language and it is very easy to learn.
+Of course, it is woefully lacking in strength and beauty. You will often
+want to say something that can not be said in Chinook, because there are
+no words in that jargon with which to say it. But it is made to answer
+the purposes of trade, travel, and barter, in common forms. For
+instance:
+
+"Kah-tah si-ah ko-pa Frazer chuck?" would be, "How far is it to the
+Frazer river?"
+
+"Yutes kut klat-a-wa la-pe-a," "Only a short walk." If you wish to say
+good-morning or good-evening to an Indian you say:
+
+"Kla-how-ya, six."
+
+"Chah-co yah-wa" is "Come here."
+
+"Mi-ka tik-eh mam-ook?" "Do you want to work?"
+
+"Ik-ta mi-ka mam-ook?" "At what?"
+
+"Mam-ook stick." "Cut some wood."
+
+"Na-wit-ka." "Certainly."
+
+"Kon-si dat-la spose mi-ka mam-ook kon-a-way o-koke stick?" "What do you
+want for cutting that lot of wood?"
+
+"Ikt dol la." "One dollar."
+
+The numerals are ikt (one), mox (two), klone (three), lock-it (four),
+kwin-num (five), tagh-kum (six), sin-na mox (seven), sto te-kin (eight),
+twaist (nine), tah-tlum (ten), tah-tlum pee-ikt (eleven), tah-tlum
+pee-mox (twelve), mox-tah tlum (twenty), klone tah-tlum (thirty), ikt
+tali-kamo-nux (one hundred), tah-tlum to-ka mo-mik (one thousand), etc.
+It is often difficult to get accurate information from these Indians as
+to distances or time, as they have little idea of English miles or of
+the measurements of time, and very few of them own or know how to read a
+watch or clock. Under Pean's tutelage I learned rapidly, and was soon
+able to carry on quite an interesting conversation by the aid of the
+little dictionary.
+
+By the light of a rousing camp-fire I cut a large quantity of cedar
+boughs and made for myself a bed a foot deep. On this I spread my
+sleeping-bag, crawled into it and slept the sleep of the weary hunter.
+Pean cut only a handful of boughs, spread them near the fire, threw his
+coat over them, and lay down. Then he folded his two blankets and spread
+them over him, mostly on the side away from the fire, leaving that part
+of his body next to the fire exposed so as to catch its heat direct.
+During the night, whenever he turned over, he would shift his blankets
+so as to keep them where most needed. At frequent intervals he would get
+up and replenish the fire from the large supply of dry wood we had
+provided. The night was bitter cold, at this high altitude, and snow
+fell at frequent intervals. A raw wind blew, and the old man must have
+suffered from the cold to which he exposed himself.
+
+There are few of these savages that understand and appreciate fully the
+value of a good bed when camping. In fact, many white hunters and
+mountaineers go on long camping trips with insufficient bedding, simply
+because they are too lazy to carry enough to keep them comfortable. I
+would rather get into a good warm, soft bed at night without my supper,
+than eat a feast and then sleep on the hard ground, without covering
+enough to keep me warm. After a hard day's work a good bed is absolutely
+necessary to prepare one for the labor and fatigue of the following day.
+
+    "In bed we laugh, in bed we cry,
+    And born in bed, in bed we die;
+    The near approach, a bed may show,
+    Of human bliss to human woe."
+
+Any ablebodied man may endure a few nights of cold, comfortless sleep,
+but it will tell on him sooner or later; while if he sleep comfortably
+and eat heartily, he may endure an incredible amount of labor and
+hardship of other kinds. You may tramp all day with your feet wet, and
+all your clothing wet, if need be, but be sure you crawl into a good,
+warm, dry bed at night.
+
+Old Pean complained of feeling unwell during the evening, and in the
+morning when we got up said he was sick. I prepared a good breakfast,
+but he could not, or at least would not, eat. Then he told me that he
+had once fallen down a mountain; that his breast-bone had been crushed
+in by striking on a sharp rock, and that it always hurt him since when
+doing any hard work. He said the climb up the mountain with the pack was
+too hard for him and he was played out, that he could go no farther.
+
+Here was another bitter disappointment, as we were yet two miles from
+the top of the mountain, and in going that distance a perpendicular
+ascent of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet must be made. I deliberated,
+therefore, as to whether I should go up the mountain alone and let Pean
+go back, but decided it would be useless. I could not carry more load
+than my sleeping-bag, gun, etc., and therefore could bring no game down
+with me if I killed it, not even a head or skin. Beside, if he went back
+he would take his canoe, and I would be left with no means of crossing
+the lake. So the only thing to be done was to pack up and retrace our
+steps. On our way down we stopped and took the head and skin off of the
+deer killed the day before, and I carried them to the canoe. Arriving at
+the lake, we pulled again for Chehalis in a cold, disagreeable rain. I
+stopped at the hot springs on my way down, and took my leave of my
+host, Mr. Brown, who had been so kind to me, and who regretted my ill
+luck almost as much as I did.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+On our return to Chehalis--that town of unsavory odors and
+salmon-drying, salmon-smoking Siwashes--I at once employed two other
+Indians, named John and Seymour, and, on the following day we started up
+Ski-ik-kul Creek, to a lake of the same name, in which it heads ten
+miles back in the mountains. The Indians claimed that goats, or sheep,
+as they call them, were plentiful on the cliffs surrounding this lake,
+and that we could kill plenty of them from a raft while floating up and
+down along the shores. Seymour claimed to have killed twenty-three in
+March last, just after the winter snows had gone off, and a party of
+seven Siwashes from Chehalis had killed ten about two weeks previous to
+the date of my visit.
+
+Such glowing accounts as these built up my hopes again to such a height
+as to banish from my mind all recollection of the bitter disappointment
+in which the former expedition had ended, and, although the rain
+continued to fall heavily at short intervals, so that the underbrush
+reeked with dampness and drenching showers fell from every bush we
+touched, I trudged cheerily along regardless of all discomforts.
+
+The first two miles up the creek, we had a good, open trail, but at the
+end of this we climbed a steep, rocky bluff, about 500 feet high, and
+made the greater portion of the remaining distance at an average of
+about this height above the stream. There was a blind Indian trail all
+the way to the lake, but it led over the roughest, most tortuous,
+outlandish country that ever any fool of a goat hunter attempted to
+traverse. There are marshes and morasses away up among these mountains,
+where alders and water beeches, manzanitas, and other shrubs grow so
+thick that their branches intertwine to nearly their full length. Many
+of these have fallen down in various directions, and their trunks are as
+inextricably mixed as their branches, forming altogether a labyrinthine
+mass, through which it was with the utmost difficulty we could walk at
+all.
+
+There were numberless little creeks coming down from the mountain into
+the main stream, and each had in time cut its deep, narrow gulch, or
+canyon, lined on both sides with rough, shapeless masses of rock, and all
+these we were obliged to cross. In many cases, they were so close
+together that only a sharp hog-back lay between them, and we merely
+climbed out of one gulch 300 or 400 feet deep, to go at once down into
+another still deeper, and so on. Fire had run through a large tract of
+this country, killing out all the large timber, and many trees have
+since rotted away and fallen, while the blackened and barkless trunks of
+others, with here and there a craggy limb, still stand as mute monuments
+to the glory of the forest before the dread element laid it waste.
+
+We camped that night at the base of one of these great dead firs around
+which lay a cord or more of old dry bark that had fallen from it, and
+which, with a few dry logs we gathered, furnished fuel for a rousing,
+all-night fire. Within a few feet of our camp, a clear, ice-cold little
+rivulet threaded its serpentine way down among rocks and ferns, and made
+sweet music to lull us to sleep. After supper, I made for myself the
+usual bed of mountain feathers (cedar boughs), on which to spread my
+sleeping-bag.
+
+This old companion of so many rough jaunts, over plains and mountains,
+has become as necessary a part of my outfit for such voyages as my
+rifle. Whether it journey by day, on the hurricane deck of a mule, in
+the hatchway of a canoe, on my shoulder blades or those of a Siwash, it
+always rounds up at night to house me against the bleak wind, the
+driving snow, or pouring rain. I have learned to prize it so highly that
+I can appreciate the sentiments of the fallen monarch, Napoleon, on the
+lonely island of St. Helena, when he wrote:
+
+"The bed has become a place of luxury to me. I would not exchange it for
+all the thrones in the world."
+
+These Indians, like Pean, and, in fact, all others who have seen the
+bag, are greatly interested in it. They had never seen anything like it,
+and watched with undisguised interest the unfolding and preparing of the
+article, and when I had crawled into it, and stowed myself snugly away,
+they looked at each other, grunted and uttered a few of their peculiar
+guttural sounds, which I imagined would be, if translated:
+
+"Well, I'll be doggoned if that ain't about the sleekest trick I ever
+saw. Eh?"
+
+"You bet it's nice to sleep in, but heavy to carry."
+
+[Illustration: DIAGRAM OF SLEEPING-BAG.]
+
+By the way, some of my readers may never have seen one of these valuable
+camp appendages, and a description of it may interest them. The outer
+bag is made of heavy, brown, waterproof canvas, six feet long, three
+feet wide in the centre, tapered to two feet at the head and sixteen
+inches at the foot. Above the head of the bag proper, flaps project a
+foot farther, with which the occupant's head may be completely covered,
+if desired. These are provided with buttons and button-holes, so that
+they may be buttoned clear across, for stormy or very cold weather. The
+bag is left open, from the head down one edge, two feet, and a flap is
+provided to lap over this opening. Buttons are sewed on the bag, and
+there are button-holes in the flaps so it may also be buttoned up
+tightly. Inside of this canvas bag is another of the same size and
+shape, less the head flaps. This is made of lamb skin with the wool on,
+and is lined with ordinary sheeting, to keep the wool from coming in
+direct contact with the person or clothing. One or more pairs of
+blankets may be folded and inserted in this, as may be necessary, for
+any temperature in which it is to be used.
+
+If the weather be warm, so that not all this covering is needed over the
+sleeper, he may shift it to suit the weather and his taste, crawling in
+on top of as much of it as he may wish, and the less he has over him the
+more he will have under him, and the softer will be his bed. Beside
+being waterproof, the canvas is windproof, and one can button himself up
+in this house, leaving only an air-hole at the end of his nose, and
+sleep as soundly, and almost as comfortably in a snowdrift on the
+prairie as in a tent or house. In short, he may be absolutely at home,
+and comfortable, wherever night finds him, and no matter what horrid
+nightmares he may have, he can not roll out of bed or kick off the
+covers.
+
+Nor will he catch a draft of cold air along the north edge of his spine
+every time he turns over, as he is liable to do when sleeping in
+blankets. Nor will his feet crawl out from under the cover and catch
+chilblains, as they are liable to do in the old-fashioned way. In fact,
+this sleeping-bag is one of the greatest luxuries I ever took into camp,
+and if any brother sportsman who may read this wants one, and can not
+find an architect in his neighborhood capable of building one, let him
+communicate with me and I will tell him where mine was made.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+Long after the Indians went to sleep I lay there, looking into the fire
+and thinking. Many and varied were the fancies that chased each other
+through my restless brain--some pleasant, some unpleasant. I pondered on
+the novelty, even the danger, of my situation. I was away up there in
+that wild, trackless, mountain wilderness, alone, so far as any
+congenial companionship was concerned. Yes, I was worse than alone, for
+the moment I might close my eyes and sleep I would be at the mercy of
+these two reckless red men. True, they are not of a courageous, warlike
+race, but what might they not do for the sake of plunder? They could
+crush my skull at a blow and conceal my body beyond all possibility of
+discovery; or they could leave it and, saying I had killed myself by a
+fall, reveal its resting place to anyone who might care to go in search
+of me. I had some property with me, especially my rifle, sleeping-bag,
+and a small sum of money, that I knew they coveted, and I reflected that
+they might already have concocted some foul scheme for disposing of me
+and getting possession of my effects.
+
+In their native tongue of strange, weird gutturals, hisses, and
+aspirations, they had conversed all the evening of--I knew not what.
+John had rather an honest, frank face, that I thought bespoke a good
+heart, but Seymour had a dark, repulsive countenance that plainly
+indicated a treacherous nature. From the first I had made up my mind
+that he was a thief, if nothing worse. He pretended not to be able to
+speak or understand English, although I knew he could. John spoke our
+tongue fairly, and through him all communication with either or both was
+held. Should they contemplate any violence I would welcome them both to
+an encounter, if only I could have notice of it a second in advance.
+Their two old smooth-bore muskets would cut no figure against the deadly
+stream of fire that my Winchester express could pour forth. But I
+dreaded the treachery, the stealth, the silent midnight assault that is
+a characteristic of their race. Yet, on further consideration, I
+dismissed all such forebodings as purely chimerical. These were
+civilized Indians, living within the sound of the whistle of a railroad
+engine, and would hardly be willing to place themselves within the toils
+of the law, by the commission of such a crime, even if they had the
+courage or the desire to do it, and I hoped they had neither.
+
+Then my fancies turned to the contemplation of pleasanter themes. I
+thought of the dear little black-eyed woman, whom I had parted with on
+board the steamer nearly a week ago. She is homeward-bound and must now
+be speeding over the Dakota or Minnesota prairies, well on toward St.
+Paul. Will she reach home in safety? God grant it--and that in due time
+I may be permitted to join her there. Then other familiar images passed
+and repassed my mental ken. The kind acts of dear friends, the
+hospitalities shown me by strangers and passing acquaintances in distant
+lands and in years long agone came trooping through my memory, and a
+feeling of gratitude for those kindnesses supplanted for the time that
+of solitude. Gradually and sweetly I sank into a profound slumber and
+all was stillness and oblivion.
+
+Several hours, perhaps, have passed, and I am thirsty. I get up and
+start to the little brook for water; to reach it a log, lying across a
+deep fissure in the rocks, must be scaled. With no thought of danger I
+essay the task by the dying fire's uncertain light and that of the
+twinkling stars. I have not counted on the heavy covering of frost that
+has been deposited on the log since dark, and stepping out upon the
+barkless part of the trunk, my moccasins slip, and with a shriek and a
+wild but unsuccessful grasp at an overhanging limb I fall twenty feet
+and land on the mass of broken and jagged granite beneath! The Indians,
+alarmed by my cries, spring to my relief, carry me to the fire, give me
+stimulants, bind up my broken arm, and do all in their power to
+alleviate my sufferings.
+
+They are not the crafty villains and assassins that my fancy had
+painted. They are kind, sympathetic friends. I realize that my right
+collar-bone and three ribs on the same side are broken, and when I
+remember where I am, the deplorableness and utter helplessness of my
+condition appal me.
+
+[Illustration: EN ROUTE TO THE INDIAN VILLAGE.]
+
+The long hours until daylight drag slowly by, and at last, as the sun
+tips the distant mountain tops with golden light, we start on our
+perilous and painful journey to the Indian village and to the steamboat
+landing. The two red men have rigged a litter from poles and blankets,
+on which they carry me safely to their homes, and thence in a canoe to
+the landing below. How the long, tedious journey thence, by steamer and
+rail, to my own home is accomplished; how the weary days and nights of
+suffering and delirium which I endure _en route_ were passed, are
+subjects too painful to dwell upon. I am finally assisted from the
+sleeper at my destination. My wife, whom the wire has informed of my
+misfortune and my coming, is there. She greets me with that fervent
+love, that intensity of pity and emotion that only a wife can feel. Her
+lips move, but her tongue is paralyzed. For the time she can not speak;
+the wells of her grief have gone dry; she can not weep; she can only
+act. I am taken to my home, and the suspense, the anxiety, having been
+lived out, the climax having been reached and passed I swoon away. Again
+the surgeon appears to be racking me with pain in an effort to set the
+broken ribs, and seems to be making an incision in my side for that
+purpose, when I awake.
+
+The stars shone brightly above me, the frost on the leaves sparkled
+brightly in the fire-light. It took me several minutes to realize that I
+had been dreaming. I searched for the cause of the acute pain in my
+side, and found it to be the sharp point of a rock that my cedar boughs
+had not sufficiently covered and which was trying to get in between two
+of my ribs. I got up, removed it and slept better through the remainder
+of the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+Ski-ik-kul, or Chehalis Creek, as the whites call it, is surely one of
+the most beautiful streams in the whole Cascade Range. Its size may be
+stated, approximately, as two feet in depth by fifty feet in width, at
+or near the mouth, but its course is so crooked, so tortuous, and its
+bed so broken and uneven that the explorer will seldom find a reach of
+it sufficiently quiet and undisturbed to afford a measurement of this
+character. At one point it is choked into a narrow gorge ten feet wide
+and twice as deep, with a fall of ten feet in a distance of thirty.
+Through this notch the stream surges and swirls with the wild fury, the
+fearful power, and the awe-inspiring grandeur of a tornado. At another
+place it runs more placidly for a few yards, as if to gather strength
+and courage for a wild leap over a sheer wall of frowning rock into a
+foaming pool thirty, forty, or fifty feet below. At still another place
+it seems to carve its way, by the sheer power of madness, through piles
+and walls of broken and disordered quartz, granite, or basalt, even as
+Cortes and his handful of Spanish cavaliers hewed their way through the
+massed legions of Aztecs at Tlascala.
+
+Farther up, or down, it is split into various channels by great masses
+of upheaved rock, and these miniature streams, after winding hither and
+thither through deep, dark, narrow fissures for perhaps one or two
+hundred yards, reunite to form this headlong mountain torrent. Viewing
+these scenes, one is forcibly reminded of the poet's words:
+
+    "How the giant element,
+    From rock to rock, leaps with delirious bound."
+
+Series of cascades, a quarter to half a mile long, are met with at
+frequent intervals, which rival in their beauty and magnificence those
+of the Columbia or the Upper Yellowstone. Whirlpools occur at the foot
+of some of these, in which the clear, bright green water boils,
+sparkles, and effervesces like vast reservoirs of champagne. The
+moanings and roarings emitted by this matchless stream in its mad career
+may be heard in places half a mile. At many points its banks rise almost
+perpendicularly to heights of 300, 400, or 500 feet. You may stand so
+nearly over the water that you can easily toss a large rock into it, and
+yet you are far above the tops of the massive firs and cedars that grow
+at the water's edge. Looking down from these heights you may see in the
+crystal fluid whole schools of the lordly salmon plowing their way up
+against the almost resistless fury of the current, leaping through the
+foam, striking with stunning force against hidden rocks, falling back
+half dead, and, drifting into some clear pool below, recovering strength
+to renew the hopeless assault.
+
+The time will come when an easy roadway, and possibly an iron one, will
+be built up this grand canyon, and thousands of tourists will annually
+stand within its walls to gaze upon these magic pictures, absorbed in
+their grandeur and romantic beauty. Nor does the main stream afford the
+only objects of beauty and interest here. It is a diamond set in a
+cluster of diamonds, for many of the little brooks, already mentioned as
+coming down the mountain on either side, are only less attractive
+because smaller. Many of them tumble from the tops of rocky walls, and
+dance down among the branches of evergreen trees, sparkling like ribbons
+of silver in the rays of the noonday sun.
+
+Theodore Roosevelt, in his excellent work, "Hunting Trips of a
+Ranchman;" says: "Thirst is largely a matter of habit." So it may be,
+but I am sadly addicted to the habit, and I found it one from which, on
+this trip, I was able to extract a great deal of comfort, for we crossed
+one or more of these little brooks every hour, and I rarely passed one
+without taking a copious draught of its icy fluid. The days, were
+moderately warm, and the hard labor we performed, walking and climbing,
+made these frequent opportunities to quench thirst one of the most
+pleasant features of the journey. I was frequently reminded of Cole's
+beautiful tribute to the mountain brook:
+
+          "Sleeping in crystal wells,
+          Leaping in shady dells,
+          Or issuing clear from the womb of the mountain,
+          Sky-mated, related, earth's holiest daughter;
+          Not the hot kiss of wine,
+    Is half so divine as the sip of thy lip, inspiring cold water."
+
+We arrived at our destination, the foot of Ski-ik-kul Lake (and the
+source of the creek up which we had been traveling), at four o'clock in
+the afternoon of the second day out. We made camp on the bank of the
+creek, and John and I engaged in gathering a supply of wood. After we
+had been thus occupied for ten or fifteen minutes, I noticed that
+Seymour was nowhere in sight, and asked John where he was.
+
+"He try spear salmon."
+
+"What will he spear him with?" I said. "Sharp stick?"
+
+"No. He bring spear in him pocket," said John.
+
+We were standing on the bank of the creek again, and as he spoke there
+was a crashing in the brush overhead, and an immense salmon, nearly
+three feet long, landed on the ground between us. Seymour had indeed
+brought a spear with him in his pocket. It was made of a fence-nail and
+two pieces of goat horn, with a strong cord about four feet long
+attached. There was a sort of socket in the upper end of it, and the
+points of the two pieces of horn were formed into barbs. As soon as
+Seymour had dropped his pack he had picked up a long, dry, cedar pole,
+one end of which he had sharpened and inserted between the barbs,
+fastening the string so that when he should strike a fish the spear
+point would pull off. With this simple weapon in hand he had walked out
+on the vast body of driftwood with which the creek is bridged for half a
+mile below the lake, and peering down between the logs, had found and
+killed the fish. We made a fire in the hollow of a great cedar that
+stood at the water's edge. The tree was green, but the fire soon ate a
+large hole into the central cavity, and, by frequent feeding with dry
+wood, we had a fire that roared and crackled like a great furnace, all
+night. It
+
+    "Kindled the gummy bark of fir or pine,
+    And sent a comfortable heat from far,
+    Which might supply the sun."
+
+[Illustration: SUPPER FOR THREE-SAUMON ROTI.]
+
+Seymour cut off the salmon's head, split the body down the back, and
+took out the spine. Then he spread the fish out and put skewers through
+it to hold it flat. He next cut a stick about four feet long, split it
+half its length, tied a cedar withe around to keep it from splitting
+further, and inserting the fish in the aperture, tied another withe
+around the upper end. He now stuck the other end of the stick into the
+ground in front of the fire, and our supper was under way.
+
+I have often been reduced to the necessity of eating grub cooked by
+Indians, both squaws and men, and can place my hand on my heart and say
+truthfully I never hankered after Indian cookery. In fact, I have always
+eaten it with a mental reservation, and a quiet, perhaps unuttered
+protest, but I counted the minutes while that fish cooked. I knew
+Seymour was no more cleanly in his habits than his kin--in fact, he
+would not have washed his hands before commencing, nor the fish after
+removing its entrails, had I not watched him and made him do so; but
+even if he had not I should not have refused to eat, for when a man has
+been climbing mountains all day he can not afford to be too scrupulous
+in regard to his food. When the fish was thoroughly roasted on one side
+the other was turned to the fire, and finally, when done to a turn, it
+was laid smoking hot on a platter of cedar boughs which I had prepared,
+and the savory odors it emitted would have tempted the palate of an
+epicure. I took out my hunting knife, and making a suggestive gesture
+toward the smoking fish, asked John if I should cut off a piece; for not
+withstanding my consuming hunger, my native modesty still remained with
+me, and I thus hinted for an invitation to help myself.
+
+"Yes," he said. "Cut off how much you can eat."
+
+You can rest assured I cut off a ration that would have frightened a
+tramp. Good digestion waited on appetite, and health on both. I ate with
+the hunger born of the day's fatigue and the mountain atmosphere, and
+the Indians followed suit, or rather led, and in half an hour only the
+head and spine of that fifteen-pound salmon remained, and they were not
+yet in an edible condition. Near bedtime, however, they were both
+spitted before the fire, and in the silent watches of the night, as I
+awoke and looked out of my downy bed, I saw those two simple-minded
+children of the forest, sitting there picking the last remaining morsels
+of flesh from those two pieces of what, in any civilized camp or
+household, would have been considered offal. But when a Siwash quits
+eating fish it is generally because there is no more fish to eat. After
+such a supper, charmed by such weird, novel surroundings, lulled by the
+music of the rushing waters, and warmed by a glowing camp-fire, I slept
+that night with naught else to wish for, at peace with all mankind. Even
+"mine enemy's dog, though he had bit me, should have stood that night
+against my fire."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+Before going to bed, Seymour cautioned me through his interpreter, the
+faithful John, against getting out too early in the morning. He said the
+goats did not commence to move around until nine or ten o'clock, and if
+we started out to hunt before that time we were liable to pass them
+asleep in their beds.
+
+But I read the hypocrite's meaning between his words; he is a lazy
+loafer and loves to lie and snooze in the morning. It was his own
+comfort, more than our success in hunting, that he was concerned about.
+Goats, as well as all other species of large game, are on foot at
+daylight, whether they have been out all night or not, and from that
+time until an hour after sunrise, and again just before dark in the
+evening, are the most favorable times to hunt. The game is intent on
+feeding at these times and is not so wary as at other times. I told
+Seymour we would get up at four o'clock, get breakfast, and be ready to
+move at daylight. And so we did.
+
+The night had been clear and cold; ice had formed around the margin of
+the lake, and a hoar frost a quarter of an inch deep covered the ground,
+the logs, and rocks that were not sheltered by trees. Ski-ik-kul or
+Willey's Lake, as it is termed by the whites, is a beautiful little
+mountain tarn about a quarter of a mile wide and four miles long. It is
+of glassy transparency, of great depth, and abounds in mountain trout,
+salmon, and salmon trout. It is walled in by abrupt, rocky-faced
+mountains that rise many hundreds of feet from the water's edge, and on
+which a scanty growth of laurel, currant bushes, and moss furnish food
+for the goats. Stunted cedars, balsams, spruces, and pines also grow
+from small fissures in the rocks that afford sufficient earth to cover
+their roots.
+
+The craft on which we were to navigate this lake was an interesting
+specimen of Indian nautical architecture. It was a raft Seymour had made
+on a former visit. The stringers were two large, dry, cedar logs, one
+about sixteen feet long, the other about twenty; these were held
+together by four poles, or cross-ties, pinned to the logs, and a floor
+composed of cedar clapboards was laid over all. Pins of hard, dry birch,
+driven into the logs and tied together at the tops, formed rowlocks, and
+the craft was provided with four large paddles, or oars, hewed out with
+an ax. In fact, that was the only tool used in building the raft. The
+pins had been sharpened to a flat point and driven firmly into sockets
+made by striking the ax deeply into the log, and instead of ropes, cedar
+withes were used for lashing. These had been roasted in the fire until
+tough and flexible, and when thus treated they formed a good substitute
+for the white sailor's marline or the cow-boy's picket rope.
+
+We boarded this lubberly old hulk and pulled out up the north shore of
+the lake just as the morning sun gave the first golden tints to the
+mountain tops. Our progress was slow despite our united strength applied
+to the oars, but it gave us more time to scan the mountain sides for
+game. I did not find it so plentiful as I had been promised, for I had
+been told by the Indians that we should see a dozen goats in the first
+hour, but we had been out more than that length of time before we saw
+any. Finally, however, after we had gone a mile or more up the lake
+shore, I saw a large buck goat browsing among the crags about four
+hundred feet above us. He had not seen us, and dropping the oar I caught
+up my rifle. The men backed water, and as the raft came to a standstill,
+I sent a bullet into him. He sprang forward, lost his footing, came
+bounding and crashing to the foot of the mountain, and stopped, stone
+dead, in the brush at the water's edge not more than twenty feet from
+the raft. We pushed ashore and took him on board, when I found, to my
+disappointment, that both horns had been broken off in the fall, so that
+his head was worthless for mounting.
+
+We cruised clear around the lake that day and could not find another
+goat. In the afternoon it clouded up and set in to rain heavily again in
+the canyon, while snow fell on the mountains a few hundred feet above us.
+The next morning I went up a narrow canyon to the north, and ascending a
+high peak hunted until nearly noon, when I found two more goats, a
+female and her kid (nearly full grown), both of which I killed, and
+taking the skins and one ham of the kid, I returned to camp. It
+continued to rain at frequent intervals, which robbed camp life and
+hunting of much of their charm, so I decided to start for home the
+following morning. In the afternoon I rigged a hook and line, cut an
+alder pole, and caught five fine trout, the largest seventeen and a half
+inches long. Seymour speared three more salmon and roasted one of them,
+so that we had another feast of fish that night. We also roasted a leg
+of goat for use on our way home, and spent the evening cleaning and
+drying the three skins as best we could by the camp-fire, to lighten
+their weight as much as possible.
+
+Meanwhile, I questioned John at considerable length regarding the nature
+of his language, but could get little information, as he seemed unable
+to convey his ideas on the subject in our tongue. The language of the
+Skowlitz tribe, to which he and Seymour belong, is a strange medley of
+gutturals, aspirates, coughs, sneezes, throat scrapings, and a few
+words. I said:
+
+"Your language don't seem to have as many words as ours."
+
+"No; English too much. Make awful tired learn him."
+
+"Where did you learn it?"
+
+"O, I work in pack train for Hudson Bay one year, and work on boat one
+year."
+
+"Where did the boat run?"
+
+"She run nort from Victoria," he said.
+
+"Where to, Alaska?"
+
+"O, I dunno."
+
+"How far north?"
+
+"O, I dunno. Take seven day. We go to de mout of de river."
+
+"What river? What was the name of the town?"
+
+"O, I dunno know what you call 'em."
+
+And thus I learned, by continued questioning, that he did not know or
+remember the English names of the places he had visited, but that they
+were probably in Alaska. He always appealed to Seymour to reply to any
+of my questions that he could not himself answer, and a question or
+remark that in our tongue had taken a dozen words to express he would
+repeat in a cough, a throat-clearing sound, and a grunt or two.
+Seymour's answer would be returned in a half sneeze, a lisp, a
+suppressed whistle, a slight groan, and an upturning of the eye. Then
+John would look thoughtful while framing the answer into his pigin
+English, and it would come back, for instance, something like this:
+
+"Seymo say he tink we ketch plenty sheep up dat big mountain, on de
+top." Or, "He say he tink maybe we get plenty grouse down de creek.
+To-morrow we don't need carry meat," etc. John seemed to regard Seymour
+as a perfect walking cyclopedia of knowledge, and, in fact, he was well
+informed on woodcraft, the habits of birds and animals, Indian lore, and
+other matters pertaining to the country in which he lived, but outside
+of these limits he knew much less than John.
+
+I was disgusted with his pretended inability to speak or understand
+English, for on one of my former visits to the village I had heard him
+speak it, and he did it much better than John could. Beside, Pean had
+told me that Seymour had attended school at the mission on the Frazer
+river, and could even read and write, but now that he had an interpreter
+he considered it smart, just as a great many Indians do, to affect an
+utter ignorance of our language. I asked him why he did not talk; told
+him I knew he could talk, and reminded him that I had heard him speak
+good English; that I knew he had been to school, etc. He simply shook
+his head and grunted. Then I told him he was a boiled-down fool to act
+thus, and that if he really wanted to appear smarter even than his
+fellows, the best way to do it was to make use of the education he had
+whenever he could make himself more useful and agreeable by so doing. I
+saw by the way he changed countenance that he understood every word I
+said, though he still remained obstinate. On several occasions, however,
+I suddenly fired some short, sharp question at him when he was not
+expecting it, and before stopping to think he would answer in good
+English.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+After making a hearty breakfast on Rocky Mountain kid, salmon, and sea
+biscuits, we began our return journey down the creek in a drizzling
+rain. Our burdens were increased by the weight of the three goat skins,
+and the walking was rendered still more precarious than before by the
+logs, grass, soil, pine needles, and everything else having become so
+thoroughly watersoaked. If we had had hard climbing up the steep pitches
+on our outbound cruise, we had it still harder now. We could not stick
+in our toe nails as well now as before, and even if we stuck in our
+heels going down a hill, they would not stay stuck any better than a
+second-hand postage-stamp. I remembered one hill, or canyon wall, that in
+the ascent made us a great deal of hard work, and much perturbation of
+spirit, because it was steep, rocky, and had very few bushes on it that
+we could use as derricks by which to raise ourselves. I dreaded the
+descent of this hill, now that the rocks were wet, but we made it
+safely. Not so, however, the next one we attempted; it was not so rocky
+as the other, and had a goodly bed of blue clay, with a shallow covering
+of vegetable mold for a surface, with a little grass and a few weeds.
+It was very steep, I think about what an architect would call a
+three-quarter pitch, but we essayed it boldly and fearlessly. Seymour
+was in the lead, his faithful partisan, John, followed, and I
+constituted the tail end of the procession. We had just got well over
+the brow, when the end of a dry hemlock stick caught in the mansard roof
+of my left foot; the other end was fast in the ground, and, though I
+tried to free myself, both ends stuck; the stick played a lone hand, but
+it raised me clear out in spite of my struggles. I uttered a mournful
+groan as I saw myself going, but was as helpless as a tenderfoot on a
+bucking cayuse. My foot was lifted till my heel punched the small of my
+back, and my other foot slid out from under me; I spread out like a step
+ladder, and clawed the air for succor, but there was not a bush or
+branch within reach. I think I went ten feet before I touched the earth
+again, and then I landed head first among John's legs. He sat down on
+the back of my neck like a trip-hammer, and we both assaulted Seymour in
+the rear with such violence as to knock him clear out. For a few seconds
+we were the worst mixed up community that ever lived, I reckon. Arms,
+legs, guns, hats, packs, and human forms were mingled in one writhing,
+squirming, surging mass, and groans, shouts, and imprecations, in
+English, Chinook, and Scowlitz, rent the air. Every hand was grabbing
+for something to stop its owner, but there were no friendly stoppers
+within reach; if one caught a weed, or a stunted juniper, it faded away
+from his herculean grasp like dry grass before a prairie fire. I seemed
+to have the highest initial velocity of any member of the expedition,
+and, though in the rear at the start, I was a full length ahead at the
+finish. We finally all brought up in a confused mass at the foot of the
+hill, and it took some time for each man to extricate himself from the
+pile, and reclaim his property from the wreck. Strange as it may seem,
+however, but little damage was done. There was a skinned nose, a bruised
+knee or two, a sprained wrist, and everybody was painted with mud. All
+were, however, able to travel, and after that, when going down steep
+hills, the Siwashes kept looking back to see if I were coming.
+
+[Illustration: TRYING TO GET UP.]
+
+We performed several dangerous feats that day and the next, walking
+along smooth, barkless logs, that lay across some of the deep gorges; in
+places we were thirty feet or more above the ground, or rather rocks,
+where a slip would have resulted in instant death. My hair frequently
+stood on end, what little I have left, but John and Seymour always went
+safely across and I could not afford to be outdone in courage by these
+miserable, fish-eating Siwashes, so I followed wherever they led. We
+read that the wicked stand on slippery places, but I can see these
+wicked people, and go them about ten better, for I have stood, and even
+walked, on many of these wet logs, and they are about the all-firedest
+slipperyest things extant, and yet I have not fallen off. I fell only
+that once, when I got my foot in the trap, and that would have downed a
+wooden man. Just before going into camp that night, John shot a grouse,
+but we were all too tired and hungry to cook it then, and made our meal
+on cold kid, fish, and biscuits. After supper, however, John dressed
+the bird and laid it aside for breakfast, saying we would each have a
+piece of it then. The rain ceased falling at dark, and the stars came
+out, which greatly revived our drooping spirits. We gathered large
+quantities of dry wood and bark, so we were able to keep a good fire all
+night. I drew from a half-rotten log, a flat, slab-like piece of pine,
+which at first I failed to recognize. John saw it and said:
+
+[Illustration: TRYING TO GET DOWN.]
+
+"Good. Dat's beech."
+
+"Beech," I said. "Why, there's no beech in this country."
+
+"No, beech wood, make good fire, good kindle, good what you call him?
+Good torch."
+
+"Oh," I said, "pitch pine, eh?"
+
+"Yas, beech pine." And this was as near as he could get to pitch.
+
+About two o'clock in the morning, it commenced to rain heavily again,
+and the poor Indians were soon in a pitable condition, with their
+blankets and clothing wet through. They sat up the remainder of the
+night, feeding the fire to keep it alive and themselves warm, for they
+had neither canvas or rubber coats, or any other kind of waterproof
+clothing. They put up some of the longer pieces of the bark we had
+gathered for fuel, and made a passable shelter, but it was so small, and
+leaked so badly, that it was far from comfortable. I pitied the poor
+fellows, but had nothing I could give or even share with them for
+shelter. I got up at five o'clock, and we commenced preparations for
+breakfast. I told John he had better cook the grouse, but he shook his
+head, and said sadly:
+
+"Seymo, he spile de grouse."
+
+"How did he do that?" I inquired.
+
+"He say put him on stick by fire to cook in de night. Then he go to
+sleep and stick burn off. Grouse fall in de fire and burn."
+
+"That's too thin," I said. "Seymour cooked that grouse and ate it while
+you and I were asleep."
+
+Seymour glared at me, but had not the courage to resent or deny the
+charge. An Indian does not let sleep interfere with his appetite; he
+eats whatever there is first, and then sleeps. I divided the last of the
+bacon and biscuits equally between us, and with a remnant of cold
+broiled salmon, we eked out a scant breakfast on which to begin a day's
+work. John was clawing some white greasy substance from a tin can with
+his fingers, and spreading it on his biscuits with the same tools. He
+passed the can to me, and said:
+
+"Have butta?"
+
+"No, thanks," I answered; "I seldom eat butter in camp."
+
+"I like him all time," he replied; "I never git widout butta for brade
+at home." This by way of informing me that he knew what good living was,
+and practiced it at home. It rained heavily all day, and our tramp
+through the jungle was most dreary and disagreeable.
+
+    "The day was dark, and cold, and dreary;
+    It rained, and the wind was never weary."
+
+[Illustration: _EN FAMILLE_]
+
+About three o'clock in the afternoon, we sat down to rest on the bank of
+the creek. We had been there but a few minutes, when a good sized black
+bear came shambling along up the bank of the creek, looking for salmon.
+The Indians saw him when a hundred yards or more away, and flattened
+themselves out on the ground to await his nearer approach. I raised my
+rifle to my shoulder, but they both motioned me to wait, that he was yet
+too far away. I disregarded their injunction, however, and promptly
+landed an express bullet in the bear's breast. He reared, uttered a
+smothered groan, turned, made one jump, and fell dead. Now arose the
+question of saving his skin; it was late, and we were yet three miles
+from the Indian village; to skin the bear then meant to camp there for
+the night, and as the rain still came down in a steady, heavy sheet, I
+at once decided that I would not stay out there another night for the
+best bear skin in the country. Seymour and John held a short
+consultation, and then John said they would come back and get the skin
+next day, and take it in lieu of the money I owed them for their
+services. We struck a bargain in about a minute, and hurried on,
+arriving at the village just as it grew dark. My rubber coat and high
+rubber boots had kept me comparatively dry, but the poor Indians were
+wet to the skin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+On arriving at Chehalis John kindly invited me to stop over night with
+him, but I declined with thanks. I went into his house, however, to wait
+while he got ready to take me down to Barker's. It was the same type of
+home that nearly all these Indians have--a large clapboard building
+about eight feet high, with smoked salmon hung everywhere and a fire in
+the centre of the room, which, by the way, was more of a smoke than
+fire, curing the winter provender. A pile of wood lay in one corner of
+the room, some empty barrels in another, fish-nets were hung in still
+another, and the family lived, principally, in the fourth. John lives
+with his father-in-law, mother-in-law, two brothers-in-law, one
+sister-in-law, his wife and three papooses. Blankets, pots, tinware and
+grub of various kinds were piled up promiscuously in this living corner,
+and the little undressed kids hovered and shivered around the dull fire,
+suffering from the cold. We were soon in the canoe again, _en route_ to
+the steamboat landing, where we arrived soon after dark. I regretted to
+part with John, for I had found him a good, faithful servant and staunch
+friend. I was glad to get rid of Seymour, however, for I had learned
+that he was a contemptible sneak, and told him so in as many words.
+
+_En route_ home I had about two hours to wait at Port Moody for the
+boat. There were great numbers of grebes and ducks in the bay, and I
+asked the dock foreman if there was any rule against shooting there. He
+said he guessed not; he had never seen anyone shooting there, but he
+guessed there wouldn't be any objection. I got out my rifle and two
+boxes of cartridges and opened on the birds. The ducks left at once, but
+the grebes sought safety in diving, and as soon as the fusillade began a
+number of gulls came hovering around, apparently to learn the cause of
+the racket. I had fine sport between the two, and a large audience to
+enjoy it with me. In ten minutes from the time I commenced shooting all
+the clerks in the dock office, all the freight hustlers in the
+warehouse, all the railroad section men, the ticket-agent and
+baggage-master, numbering at least twenty men in the aggregate, were
+clustered around me, and their comments on my rifle and shooting were
+extremely amusing. Not a man in the party had ever before seen a
+Winchester express, and the racket it made, the way in which the balls
+plowed up the water, and the way the birds, when hit, vanished into thin
+air and a few feathers, were mysteries far beyond their power to solve.
+At the first lull in the firing half a dozen of them rushed up and
+wanted to examine the rifle, the fancy finish and combination sights of
+which were as profoundly strange to them as to the benighted Indians.
+They soon handed it back to me, however, with the request to resume
+hostilities against the birds; they preferred to see the old thing work
+rather than to handle it. The gulls were soaring in close, and six
+shots, rapidly delivered, dropped three of them into the water,
+mutilated beyond recognition. This was the climax; the idea of killing
+birds on the wing, with a rifle, was something these men had never
+before heard of, and two or three examined my cartridges to see if they
+were not loaded with shot, instead of bullets. When they found this
+suspicion was groundless they were beside themselves with wonder and
+admiration of the strange arm. As a matter of fact, it required no
+particular skill to kill the gulls on the wing, for they were the large
+gray variety, and frequently came within twenty or thirty feet of me, so
+that anyone who could kill them with a shotgun could do so with a rifle.
+
+Finally the steamer came in and I went aboard. The train arrived soon
+after and several of its passengers boarded the boat. The gulls were now
+hovering about the steamer, picking up whatever particles of food were
+thrown overboard from the cook-room. One old Irishman, who had come in
+on the train from the interior wilds, walked out on the quarter deck and
+looking at them intently for a few minutes, turned to me and inquired:
+
+"Phwat kind of burds is thim--geese?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "thim's geese, I reckon."
+
+"Well, be gorry, if I had a gun here I'd shoot some o'thim"; and he went
+and told his companions "there was a flock of the tamest wild geese out
+thare ye iver sawed."
+
+[Illustration: A SNAP SHOT WITH A DETECTIVE CAMERA.]
+
+The return journey to Portland was without incident. There I boarded the
+steamer and spent another delightful day on the broad bosom of the
+Columbia river, winding up among the grand basaltic cliffs and
+towering mountain peaks of the Cascade Range. Again the little camera
+came into requisition, and though the day was cloudy and blusterous,
+though snow fell at frequent intervals, and though the steamer trembled
+like a reed shaken by the wind, I made a dozen or more exposures on the
+most interesting and beautiful subjects as we passed them, and to my
+surprise many came out good pictures. Most of them lack detail in the
+deeper shadows, but the results altogether show that had the day been
+clear and bright all would have been perfect. In short, it is possible
+with this dry-plate process to make good pictures from a moving
+steamboat, or even from a railway train going at a high rate of speed. I
+made three pictures from a Northern Pacific train, coming through the
+Bad Lands, when running twenty-five miles an hour, and though slightly
+blurred in the near foreground, the buttes and bluffs, a hundred yards
+and further away, are as sharp as if I had been standing on the ground
+and the camera on a tripod; and a snap shot at a prairie-dog town--just
+as the train slowed on a heavy grade--shows several of the little
+rodents in various poses, some of them apparently trying to look pretty
+while having their "pictures took."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+I stopped off at Spokane Falls, on my way home, for a few days' deer
+hunting, and though that region be not exactly in the Cascades, it is so
+near that a few points in relation to the sport there may be admissible
+in connection with the foregoing narrative. I had advised my good
+friend, Dr. C. S. Penfield, of my coming, and he had kindly planned for
+me a hunting trip. On the morning after my arrival his brother-in-law,
+Mr. T. E. Jefferson, took me up behind a pair of good roadsters and
+drove to Johnston's ranch, eighteen miles from the falls, and near the
+foot of Mount Carleton, where we hoped to find plenty of deer. We hunted
+there two days, and though we found signs reasonably plentiful and saw
+three or four deer we were unable to kill any. Mr. Jefferson burned some
+powder after a buck and a doe the first morning after our arrival, but
+it was his first experience in deer hunting, so it is not at all strange
+that the game should have escaped. Mr. Jefferson was compelled to return
+home at that time on account of a business engagement, but Mr. Johnston,
+with characteristic Western hospitality and kindness, said I must not
+leave without a shot, and so hooked up his team and drove me twenty-five
+miles farther into the mountains, to a place where he said we would
+surely find plenty of game. On the way in we picked up old Billy
+Cowgill, a famous deer hunter in this region, and took him along as
+guide. We stopped at Brooks' stage ranch, on the Colville road to rest
+the team, and the proprietor gave us an amusing account of some
+experiments he had been making in shooting buckshot from a
+muzzle-loading shotgun. He had made some little bags of buckskin, just
+large enough to hold twelve No. 2 buckshot, and after filling them had
+sewed up the ends. He shot a few of them at a tree sixty yards away, but
+they failed to spread and all went into one hole. Then he tried leaving
+the front end of the bag open, and still they acted as a solid ball; so
+he had to abandon the scheme, and loaded the charge loose, as of old. He
+concluded, however, not to fire this last load at the target, and hung
+the gun up in its usual place. A few days later he heard the dog barking
+in the woods a short distance from the house, and supposed it had treed
+a porcupine. Mr. Brooks' brother, who was visiting at the time, took the
+gun and went out to kill the game, whatever it might be. On reaching the
+place, he found a ruffed grouse sitting in a tree, at which he fired.
+The ranchman said he heard the report, and his brother soon came back,
+carrying a badly-mutilated bird; he threw it into the kitchen, and put
+the gun away; then he sat down, looked thoughtful, and kept silent for a
+long time. Finally he blurted out:
+
+[Illustration: THE STAGE RANCH.]
+
+"Say, Tom; that gun got away from me."
+
+"How was that?" queried the ranchman.
+
+"I don't know; but I shot pretty near straight up at the grouse, and
+somehow the gun slipped off my shoulder and done this." And opening his
+coat he showed his vest, one side of which was split from top to bottom;
+he then took out a handful of his watch and held it up--one case was
+torn off, the crystal smashed, the dial caved in, and the running gear
+all mixed up. The ranchman said he guessed he had put one of the
+buckskin bags of shot into that barrel, and forgetting that fact, had
+added the loose charge. He said he reckoned twenty-four No. 2 buckshot
+made too heavy a load for an eight-pound gun.
+
+We reached "Peavine Jimmy's" mining cabin, which was to be our camp, at
+three o'clock in the afternoon, and busied ourselves till dark in the
+usual duties of cooking, eating, and gathering wood. Old Billy proved a
+very interesting character; he is a simple, quiet, honest, unpretentious
+old man, and unlike most backwoodsmen, a veritable coward. He has the
+rare good sense, however, to admit it frankly, and thus disarms
+criticism. In fact, his frequent admission of this weakness is amusing.
+He says that for fear of getting lost he does not like to go off a trail
+when hunting, unless there is snow on the ground, so that he can track
+himself back into camp. He rides an old buckskin pony that is as modest
+and gentle as its master. Billy says he often gets lost when he does
+venture away from the trail, but in such cases he just gives old Buck
+the rein, hits him a slap, and tells him to go to camp and he soon gets
+there. He told us a bear story that night, worthy of repetition.
+Something was said that reminded him of it, and he mentioned it, but
+added, modestly, that he didn't know as we cared for any bear stories.
+But we said we were very fond of them, and urged the recital.
+
+"Well, then," he said, "if you will wait a minute, I'll take a drink of
+water first and then I'll tell it to you," and he laughed a kind of
+boyish titter, and began:
+
+"Well, me and three other fellers was up north in the Colville country,
+huntin', and all the other fellows was crazy to kill a bear. I didn't
+want to kill no bear, and didn't expect to. I'm as 'feard as death of a
+bear, and hain't no use for 'em. All I wanted to kill was a deer. The
+other fellers, they wanted to kill some deer, too, but they wanted bear
+the worst. So one mornin' we all started out, and the other fellers they
+took the best huntin' ground, and said I'd better go down along the
+creek and see if I couldn't kill some grouse, for they didn't believe I
+could kill any thing bigger'n that; and I said, all right, and started
+off down the creek. Purty soon I come to an old mill that wasn't runnin'
+then. And when I got purty near to the mill I set down on a log, for I
+didn't think it was worth while to go any furder, for I didn't think I
+would find any game down the creek, and I didn't care much whether I did
+or not. Well, I heard a kind of a racket in the mill, and durned if
+there wasn't a big black bear right in the mill. And I watched him a
+little bit, and he started out towards me. And I said to myself, says I,
+'Now Billy, here's your chance to kill a bear.'
+
+"I hadn't never killed no bear before, nor never seed one before, and
+durned if I wasn't skeered nearly to death. But I thought there wasn't
+no use of runnin', for I knowed he could run faster'n I could, so I took
+out my knife and commenced cuttin' down the brush in front of me, for I
+wanted to make a shure shot if I did shoot, if I could. And the bear,
+he come out of the mill and rared up, and put his paws on a log and
+looked at me, and I said to myself, says I, 'Now Billy, this is your
+time to shoot'; but I wasn't ready to shoot yit. They was one more bush
+I wanted to cut out of the way before I shot, so I cut if off and laid
+down my knife, and then I took up my gun and tried to take aim at his
+breast, but doggoned if I didn't shake so I couldn't see the sights at
+all. And I thought one time I wouldn't shoot, and then I knowed the
+other fellers would laugh at me if I told 'em I seed a bear and didn't
+shoot at him, and besides I was afraid some of 'em was up on the
+hillside lookin' at me then. So I just said to myself, says I, 'Now
+Billy, you're goin' to get eat up if you don't kill him, but you might
+as well be eat up as to be laughed at.' So I jist took the best aim I
+could for shakin', an' shet both eyes an' pulled.
+
+"Well, I think the bear must a begin to git down jist as I pulled, for I
+tore his lower jaw off and shot a big hole through one side of his neck.
+He howled and roared and rolled around there awhile and then he got
+still. I got round where I could see him, after he quit kickin', but I
+was afeared to go up to him, so I shot two more bullets through his head
+to make sure of him. And then I set down and waited a long while to see
+if he moved any more; for I was afeard he mightn't be dead yit, and
+might be playin' possum, jist to get ahold of me. But he didn't move no
+more, so I went up to him with my gun cocked and pointed at his head, so
+if he did move I could give him another one right quick. An' then I
+punched him a little with my gun, but he didn't stir. An' when I found
+he was real dead I took my knife and cut off one of his claws, an' then
+I went back to camp, the biggest feelin' old cuss you ever seed.
+
+"Well, arter while the other fellers they all come in, lookin' mighty
+blue, for they hadn't any of 'em killed a thing, an' when I told 'em I'd
+killed a bear, they wouldn't believe it till I showed 'em the claw. An'
+then they wouldn't believe it, neither, for they thought I'd bought the
+claw of some Injin. And they wouldn't believe it at all till they went
+out with me and seed the bear and helped skin 'im, and cut 'im up, and
+pack 'im into camp. An' they was the dog-gondest, disappointedest lot of
+fellers you ever seed, for we hunted five days longer, an' nary one of
+'em got to kill a bear nor even see one. They thought I was the poorest
+hunter and the biggest coward in the lot, but I was the only one that
+killed a bear that clip."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+We were out at daylight the next morning and hunted all day with fair
+success. Johnston and Billy jumped a bunch of five mule-deer, a buck,
+two does, and two fawns. Johnston fired fourteen shots at them before
+they got out of the country, and killed the two does. In speaking of it
+afterward Billy said he was just taking a good aim at the old buck's eye
+when Johnston's gun cracked the first time, and of course the buck ran,
+so he did not get a shot.
+
+"But why didn't you shoot at him running?" I inquired.
+
+"Because I can't hit a jumpin' deer," he replied, frankly, "and I hate
+like thunder to miss."
+
+I spent the day about a mile from camp on top of Blue Grouse Mountain, a
+prominent landmark of the country. A heavy fog hung about the mountain
+and over the surrounding country until about three o'clock in the
+afternoon, when it lifted and disclosed a view of surpassing loveliness.
+Away to the west and southwest there was a level tract of swampy,
+heavily timbered country about thirty miles long and ten miles wide. I
+looked down on the tops of the trees composing this vast forest, and
+they appeared at this distance not unlike a vast field of half-grown
+green grain. Beyond this tract to the west a chain of hills wound in
+serpentine curves from north to south, their parks and bits of prairie
+gleaming in the sun like well-made farms. To the north lay Loon Lake
+nestling among the pine-clad hills, its placid bosom sparkling in the
+setting sun like a sheet of silver. Farther to the north and northeast
+were two other lakes of equal size and beauty, while far distant in the
+east were several large bodies of prairie separated by strips of pine
+and fir. I longed for my camera, but on account of the unfavorable
+outlook of the morning, I had not brought the instrument.
+
+[Illustration: ONE OF JOHNSTON'S PRIZES.]
+
+The following morning promised no better, for the fog hung like a pall
+over the whole country; but I took the little detective with me, hoping
+the mist would lift as before; in this, however, I was disappointed. I
+staid on the mountain from early morning till half-past three, and there
+being then no prospect of a change went down. Just as I reached the base
+I saw a rift in the clouds, and supposing the long-wished change in the
+weather was about to take place, I turned and began the weary climb, but
+again the fog settled down, and I was at last compelled to return to
+camp without the coveted views. I made several exposures during the day
+on crooked, deformed, wind-twisted trees on the top of the mountain,
+which, strange to say, came out good. The fog was so dense at the time
+that one could not see fifty yards. I used a small stop and gave each
+plate from five to twenty seconds, and found, when developed, that none
+of them were over exposed, while those given the shorter time were under
+exposed. That day's hunting resulted in three more deer, and as we then
+had all the meat our team could take out up the steep hills near camp,
+we decided to start for home the next morning. While seated around our
+blazing log fire in the old cabin that night, Mr. Johnston entertained
+us with some interesting reminiscences of his extensive experience in
+the West. He has been a "broncho buster," a stock ranchman, and a
+cow-boy by turns, and a recital of his varied experiences in these
+several lines would fill a big book. Among others, he told us that he
+once lived in a portion of California where the ranchmen raised a great
+many hogs, but allowed them to range at will in the hills and mountains
+from the time they were littered until old enough and large enough for
+market; that in this time they became as wild as deer and as savage as
+peccaries, so that the only way they could ever be reclaimed and
+marketed was to catch them with large, powerful dogs, trained to the
+work. Their feet were then securely tied with strong thongs, and they
+were muzzled and packed into market or to the ranches, as their owners
+desired, on horses or mules.
+
+[Illustration: ARE YOU LOOKING FOR US?]
+
+Johnston had a pair of these dogs, and used to assist his neighbors in
+rounding up their wild hogs. In one case, he and several other men went
+with an old German ranchman away up into the mountains to bring out a
+drove of these pine-skinners, many of whom had scarcely seen a human
+being since they were pigs, and at sight of the party the hogs stampeded
+of course, and ran like so many deer. The dogs were turned loose, took
+up a trail, and soon had a vicious critter by the ears, when the packers
+came up, muzzled and tied it securely. The dogs were then turned loose
+again, and another hog was rounded up in the same way. These two were
+hung onto a pack-animal with their backs down, their feet lashed
+together over the pack-saddle, and their long, sharp snouts pointing
+toward the horse's head. They were duly cinched, and the horse turned
+loose to join the train. This operation was repeated until the whole
+herd was corralled and swung into place on the horses, and the
+squealing, groaning, and snorting of the terrified brutes was almost
+deafening. One pair of hogs were loaded on a little mule which had
+never been accustomed to this work, and, as the men were all engaged in
+handling the other animals, the old ranchman said he would lead this
+mule down the mountain himself. Johnston and his partner cinched the
+hogs on in good shape, while the Dutchman hung to the mule.
+
+[Illustration: A BUCKING MULE.]
+
+As they were giving the ropes the final pull, Johnston gave his chum a
+wink, and they both slipped out their knives, cut the muzzles off the
+porkers when the old man was looking the other way, and told him to go
+ahead. He started down the trail towing the little mule, which did not
+relish its load in the least, by the halter. The hogs were struggling to
+free themselves, and, as the thongs began to cut into their legs, they
+got mad and began to bite the mule.
+
+Then there was trouble; stiff-legged bucking set in, and mule and hogs
+were churned up and down, and changed ends so rapidly that for a few
+minutes it was hard to tell which of the three animals was on the
+outside, the inside, the topside, or the bottom-side. The poor little
+mule was frantic with rage and fright, and what a mule can not and will
+not do under such circumstances, to get rid of a load can not be done by
+any four-footed beast. He pawed the air, kicked, and brayed, jumped
+backward, forward, and sidewise, and twisted himself into every
+imaginable shape. The old Dutchman was as badly stampeded as the mule;
+he shouted, yanked, and swore in Dutch, English, and Spanish; he yelled
+to the men above to come and help him, but they were so convulsed and
+doubled up with laughter that they could not have helped him if they
+would.
+
+Finally, the mule got away from the old man and went tearing down into
+the canyon; he overtook and passed the balance of the pack-train,
+stampeded them almost beyond control of the packers, and knocked the
+poor hogs against trees and brush until they were almost dead. He ran
+nearly six miles, and being unable to get rid of his pack, fell
+exhausted and lay there until the men came up and took charge of him.
+The old man accused Johnston of cutting the muzzles off the hogs, but he
+and his partner both denied it, said they certainly must have slipped
+off, and they finally convinced him that that was the way the trouble
+came about.
+
+[Illustration: THE BUCKER AND THE BUSTER.]
+
+This, with sundry other recitals of an equally interesting nature,
+caused the evening to pass pleasantly, and at a late hour we turned into
+our bunks. We were up and moving long before daylight the next morning,
+and as soon as we could see the trail hooked up the team and attempted
+to go, but, alas for our hopes of an early start, one of the horses
+refused to pull at the very outset--in short, he balked and no mule ever
+balked worse. Johnston plied the buckskin until the horse refused to
+stand it any longer and began to rear and to throw himself on the
+tongue, back in the harness, etc. Johnston got off the wagon, went to
+the animal's head and tried to lead it, but the brute would not be led
+any more than it would be driven, and commenced rearing and striking at
+its master as if trying to kill him. This aroused the ire of the
+ranchman and he picked up a piece of a board, about four inches wide and
+three feet long, and fanned the vicious critter right vigorously. I took
+a hand in the game, at Johnston's request, and warmed the cayuse's
+latter half to the best of my ability with a green hemlock gad. He
+bucked and backed, reared and ranted, pawed, pitched, plunged and
+pranced, charged, cavorted and kicked, until it seemed that he would
+surely make shreds of the harness and kindling wood of the wagon; but
+the whole outfit staid with him, including Johnston and myself.
+
+We wore out his powers of endurance if not his hide, and he finally got
+down to business, took the load up the hill and home to the ranch,
+without manifesting any further inclination to strike. We reached the
+ranch about nine o'clock at night, and the next day Johnston drove me
+into Spokane Falls, where, in due time, I caught the train for home.
+
+[Illustration: VIEW IN THE SPOKANE VALLEY.]
+
+Spokane Falls is a growing, pushing town, and the falls of the Spokane
+river, from which the town takes its name, afford one of the most
+beautiful and interesting sights on the line of the Northern Pacific
+road. There are over a dozen distinct falls within a half a mile, one of
+which is over sixty feet in perpendicular height. Several of these falls
+are split into various channels by small islands or pillars of basaltic
+rock. At one place, where two of these channels unite in a common plunge
+into a small pool, the water is thrown up in a beautiful, shell-like
+cone of white foam, to a height of nearly six feet. It is estimated by
+competent engineers that the river at this point furnishes a water-power
+equal in the aggregate to that of the Mississippi at St. Anthony's
+Falls. Every passenger over this route should certainly stop off and
+spend a few hours viewing the falls of the Spokane river.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+HUNTING THE GRIZZLY BEAR.
+
+
+The bear, like man, inhabits almost every latitude and every land, and
+has even been translated to the starry heavens, where the constellations
+of the Great Dipper and the Little Dipper are known to us as well as to
+the ancients as _Ursi Major_ and _Minor_. But North America furnishes
+the largest and most aggressive species in the grizzly (_Ursus
+horribilis_), the black (_Ursus americanus_), and the polar (_Ursus
+maritimus_) bears, and here the hunter finds his most daring sport. Of
+all the known plantigrades (flat-footed beasts) the grizzly is the most
+savage and the most dreaded, and he is the largest of all, saving the
+presence of his cousin the polar bear, for which, nevertheless, he is
+more than a match in strength and courage. Some specimens measure seven
+feet from tip of nose to root of tail. The distinctive marks of the
+species are its great size; the shortness of the tail as compared with
+the ears; the huge flat paws, the sole of the hind foot sometimes
+measuring seven and a half by five inches in a large male; the length of
+the hind legs as compared with the fore legs, which gives the beast his
+awkward, shambling gait; the long claws of the fore foot, sometimes
+seven inches in length, while those of the hind foot measure only three
+or four; the erect, bristling mane of stiff hair, often six inches long;
+the coarse hair of the body, sometimes three inches long, dark at the
+base, but with light tips. He has a dark stripe along the back, and one
+along each side, the hair on his body being, as a rule, a
+brownish-yellow, the region around the ears dusky, the legs nearly
+black, and the muzzle pale. Color, however, is not a distinctive mark,
+for female grizzlies have been killed in company with two cubs, one of
+which was brown, the other gray, or one dark, the other light; and the
+supposed species of "cinnamon" and "brown" bears are merely color
+variations of _Ursus horribilis_ himself.
+
+This ubiquitous gentleman has a wide range for his habitat. He has been
+found on the Missouri river from Fort Pierre northward, and thence west
+to his favorite haunts in the Rockies; on the Pacific slope clear down
+to the coast; as far south as Mexico, and as far north as the Great
+Slave Lake in British America. He not only ranges everywhere, but eats
+everything. His majesty is a good liver. He is not properly a beast of
+prey, for he has neither the cat-like instincts, nor the noiseless tread
+of the _felidae_, nor is he fleet and long-winded like the wolf, although
+good at a short run, as an unlucky hunter may find. But he hangs about
+the flanks of a herd of buffalo, with probably an eye to a wounded or
+disabled animal, and he frequently raids a ranch and carries off a
+sheep, hog, or calf that is penned beyond the possibility of escape.
+
+Elk is his favorite meat, and the knowing hunter who has the good luck
+to kill an elk makes sure that its carcass will draw Mr. Grizzly if he
+is within a range of five miles. He will eat not only flesh, fish, and
+fowl, but roots, herbs, fruit, vegetables, honey, and insects as well.
+Plums, buffalo-berries, and choke-cherries make a large part of his diet
+in their seasons.
+
+[Illustration: DEATH AND THE CAUSE OF IT.]
+
+The grizzly bear possesses greater vitality and tenacity of life than
+any other animal on the continent, and the hunter who would hunt him
+must be well armed and keep a steady nerve. Each shot must be cooly put
+where it will do the most good. Several are frequently necessary to
+stop one of these savage beasts. A single bullet lodged in the brain is
+fatal. If shot through the heart he may run a quarter of a mile or kill
+a man before he succumbs. In the days of the old muzzle-loading rifle it
+was hazardous indeed to hunt the grizzly, and many a man has paid the
+penalty of his folly with his life. With our improved breech-loading and
+repeating rifles there is less risk.
+
+The grizzly is said to bury carcasses of large animals for future use as
+food, but this I doubt. I have frequently returned to carcasses of elk
+or deer that I had killed and found that during my absence bears had
+partially destroyed them, and in their excitement, occasioned by the
+smell or taste of fresh meat, had pawed up the earth a good deal
+thereabout, throwing dirt and leaves in various directions, and some of
+this debris may have fallen on the bodies of the dead game; but I have
+never seen where any systematic attempt had been made at burying a
+carcass. Still, Bruin may have played the sexton in some cases. He
+hibernates during winter, but does not take to his long sleep until the
+winter has thoroughly set in and the snow is quite deep. He may
+frequently be tracked and found in snow a foot deep, where he is roaming
+in search of food. He becomes very fat before going into winter
+quarters, and this vast accumulation of oil furnishes nutriment and heat
+sufficient to sustain life during his long confinement.
+
+The newspapers often kill grizzlies weighing 1,500, 1,800, or even 2,000
+pounds, and in any party of frontiersmen "talking grizzly" you will find
+plenty of men who can give date and place where they killed or helped
+to kill at least 1,800 pounds of Bruin.
+
+"Did you weigh it?"
+
+"No, we didn't weigh 'im; but every man as seed 'im said he would weigh
+that, and they was all good jedges, too."
+
+And this is the way most of the stories of big bear, big elk, big deer,
+etc., begin and end. Bears are usually, though not always, killed at
+considerable distances from towns, or even ranches, where it is not easy
+to find a scales large enough to weigh so much meat.
+
+The largest grizzly I have ever killed would not weigh more than 700 or
+800 pounds, and I do not believe one has ever lived that would weigh
+1,000 pounds. The flesh of the adult grizzly is tough, stringy, and
+decidedly unpalatable, but that of a young fat one is tender and juicy,
+and is always a welcome dish on the hunter's table.
+
+The female usually gives birth to two cubs, and sometimes three, at a
+time. At birth they weigh only about 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 pounds each. The
+grizzly breeds readily in confinement, and several litters have been
+produced in the Zoological Gardens at Cincinnati. The female is
+unusually vicious while rearing her young, and the hunter must be doubly
+cautious about attacking at that time. An Indian rarely attacks a
+grizzly single-handed at any time, and it is only when several of these
+native hunters are together that they will attempt to kill one. They
+value the claws very highly, however, and take great pride in wearing
+strings of them around their necks.
+
+The grizzly usually frequents the timbered or brush-covered portions of
+mountainous regions, or the timbered valleys of streams that head in the
+mountains. He occasionally follows down the course of these streams, and
+even travels many miles from one stream to another, or from one range of
+mountains to another, across open prairie. I once found one on a broad
+open plateau in the Big Horn Mountains, about half a mile from the
+nearest cover of any kind. He was turning over rocks in search of worms.
+At the report of my rifle he started for the nearest canyon, but never
+reached it. An explosive bullet through his lungs rendered him unequal
+to the journey.
+
+Few persons believe that a grizzly will attack a man before he is
+himself attacked. I was one of these doubting Thomases until a few years
+ago, when I was thoroughly convinced by ocular demonstration that some
+grizzlies, at least, will attempt to make a meal off a man even though
+he may not have harmed them previously. We were hunting in the Shoshone
+Mountains in Northern Wyoming. I had killed a large elk in the morning,
+and on going back to the carcass in the afternoon to skin it we saw that
+Bruin had been there ahead us, but had fled on our approach. Without the
+least apprehension of his return, we leaned our rifles against a tree
+about fifty feet away, and commenced work. There were three of us, but
+only two rifles, Mr. Huffman, the photographer, having left his in camp.
+He had finished taking views of the carcass, and we were all busily
+engaged skinning, when, hearing a crashing in the brush and a series of
+savage roars and growls, we looked up the hill, and were horrified to
+see three grizzly bears, an old female and two cubs about two-thirds
+grown, charging upon us with all the savage fury of a pack of starving
+wolves upon a sheepfold.
+
+To make a long story short, we killed the old female and one cub; the
+other escaped into the jungle before we could get a shot at him. The
+resolute front we put on alone saved our lives.
+
+In another instance, when hunting deer in Idaho, I came suddenly upon a
+female grizzly and two cubs, when the mother bear charged me savagely
+and would have killed me had I not fortunately controlled my nerves long
+enough to put a couple of bullets through her and stop her before she
+got to me.
+
+I have heard of several other instances of grizzlies making unprovoked
+attacks on men, which were so well substantiated that I could not
+question the truth of the reports.
+
+The grizzly is partially nocturnal in his habits, and apparently divides
+his labor of obtaining food and his traveling about equally between day
+and night. It is not definitely known to what age he lives in his wild
+state, but he is supposed to attain to twenty-five or thirty years.
+Several have lived in domestication to nearly that age, and one died in
+Union Park, Chicago, a few years ago, that was known to be eighteen
+years old.
+
+Notwithstanding the great courage and ferocity of this formidable beast,
+he will utter the most pitiable groans and howls when seriously or
+mortally wounded.
+
+Two brothers were prospecting in a range of mountains near the
+headwaters of the Stinking Water river. The younger of the two, though
+an ablebodied man, and capable of doing a good day's work with a pick or
+shovel, was weak-minded, and the elder brother never allowed him to go
+any distance away from camp or their work alone. He, however, sent him
+one evening to the spring, a few rods off, to bring a kettleful of
+water. The spring was in a deep gorge, and the trail to it wound through
+some fissures in the rock. As the young man passed under a shelving
+rock, an immense old female grizzly, that had taken up temporary
+quarters there, reached out and struck a powerful blow at his head, but
+fortunately could not reach far enough to do him any serious harm. The
+blow knocked his hat off, and her claws caught his scalp, and laid it
+open clear across the top of his head in several ugly gashes. The force
+of the blow sent him spinning around, and not knowing enough to be
+frightened, he attacked her savagely with the only weapon he had at
+hand--the camp kettle.
+
+The elder brother heard the racket, and hastily catching up his rifle
+and hurrying to the scene of the disturbance, found his brother
+vigorously belaboring the bear over the head with the camp kettle, and
+the bear striking savage blows at him, any one of which, if she could
+have reached him, would have torn his head from his shoulders. Three
+bullets from the rifle, fired in rapid succession, loosened her hold
+upon the rocks, and she tumbled lifelessly into the trail. The poor
+idiotic boy could not even then realize the danger through which he had
+passed, and could only appease his anger by continuing to maul the bear
+over the head with the camp kettle for several minutes after she was
+dead.
+
+Some years ago I went into the mountains with a party of friends to hunt
+elk. Our guide told us we should find plenty of grouse along the trail,
+from the day we left the settlements; that on the third day out we
+should find elk, and that it would therefore be useless to burden our
+pack-horses with meat. We accordingly took none save a small piece of
+bacon.
+
+Contrary to his predictions, however, we found no grouse or other small
+game _en route_, and soon ate up our bacon. Furthermore, we were five
+days in reaching the elk country, instead of three as he said. All this
+time we were climbing mountains and had appetites that are known only to
+mountain climbers. We had plenty of bread and potatoes, but these were
+not sufficient. We hankered for flesh, and though we filled ourselves
+with vegetable food, yet were we hungry.
+
+Finally we reached our destination at midday. While we were unloading
+the horses, a "fool hen" came and lit in a tree near us. A rifle ball
+beheaded her, and almost before she was done kicking she was in the
+frying pan.
+
+A negro once had a bottle of whisky, and was making vigorous efforts to
+get outside of it, when a chum came up and asked for a pull at it. "O,
+g'long, nigger," said the happy owner of the corn juice. "What's one
+bottle of whisky 'mong one man?" And what was one little grouse among
+five half-starved men? The smell and taste only made us long for more.
+
+After dinner we all went out and hunted until dark. Soon after leaving
+camp some of us heard lively firing up the canyon, where our guide had
+gone, and felt certain that he had secured meat, for we had heard
+glowing accounts, from him and his friends, of his prowess as a hunter.
+The rest of us were not so despondent, therefore, when we returned at
+dusk empty handed, as we should otherwise have been, until we reached
+camp and found the guide there wearing a long face and bloodless hands.
+
+He told a doleful story of having had five fair shots at a large bull
+elk, who stood broadside on, only seventy-five yards away, but who
+finally became alarmed at the fusilade and fled, leaving no blood on his
+trail. The guide of course anathematized his gun in the choicest terms
+known to frontiersmen, and our mouths watered as we thought of what
+might have been.
+
+Our potatoes, having been compelled to stand for meat also, had vanished
+rapidly, and we ate the last of them for supper that night. Few words
+were spoken and no jokes cracked over that meal. We ate bread straight
+for breakfast, and turning out early hunted diligently all day. We were
+nearly famished when we returned at night and no one had seen any living
+thing larger than a pine squirrel. It is written that "man shall not
+live by bread alone," and we found that we could not much longer. And
+soon we should not have even that, for our flour was getting low. But we
+broke the steaming flat-cake again at supper, and turned in to dream of
+juicy steaks, succulent joints, and delicious rib roasts.
+
+We were up before daylight to find that six or eight inches of light
+snow had fallen silently during the night, which lay piled up on the
+branches of the trees, draping the dense forests in ghostly white. Our
+drooping spirits revived, for we hoped that the tell-tale mantle would
+enable us to find the game we so much needed in our business. We broke
+our bread more cheerfully that morning than for two days previously, but
+at the council of war held over the frugal meal, decided that unless we
+scored that day we must make tracks for the nearest ranch the next
+morning, and try to make our scanty remnant of flour keep us alive until
+we could get there.
+
+Breakfast over we scattered ourselves by the four points of the compass
+and set out. It fell to my lot to go up the canyon. Silently I strode
+through the forest, scanning the snow in search of foot-prints, but for
+an hour I could see none. Then, as I cautiously ascended a ridge, I
+heard a crash in the brush beyond and reached the summit just in time to
+see the latter end of a large bull elk disappear in the thicket.
+
+He had not heard or seen me, but had winded me, and tarried not for
+better acquaintance. I followed his trail some three miles up the canyon,
+carefully penetrating the thickets and peering among the larger trees,
+but never a glimpse could I get and never a sound could I hear of him.
+He seemed unusually wild. I could see by his trail that he had not
+stopped, but had kept straight away on that long, swinging trot that is
+such a telling gait of the species, and which they will sometimes keep
+up for hours together. Finally I came to where he had left the canyon
+and ascended the mountain. I followed up this for a time, but seeing
+that he had not yet paused, and finding that my famished condition
+rendered me unequal to the climb, was compelled to abandon the pursuit
+and with a heavy heart return again to the canyon. I kept on up it, but
+could find no other game or sign of any. Like the red hunter, in the
+time of famine, who
+
+    "Vainly walked through the forest,
+    Sought for bird, or beast, and found none;
+    Saw no track of deer or rabbit,
+    In the snow beheld no foot-prints,
+    In the ghostly gleaming forest
+    Fell and could not rise from weakness,"
+
+so I trudged on until, wearied and worn out, I lay down beside a giant
+fir tree, whose spreading branches had kept the snow from the ground,
+and fell asleep. When I awoke my joints were stiff and sore, and I was
+chilled to the bone. It was late in the afternoon, and a quiet,
+drizzling rain had set in.
+
+I found the trail that led through the canyon, and started back to camp,
+trudging along as rapidly as possible, for hunger was gnawing at my
+vitals and my strength was fast failing.
+
+    "Over snow-fields waste and pathless,
+    Under snow-encumbered branches,
+    Empty-handed, heavy-hearted,"
+
+I toiled wearily on. The snow had become saturated with the rain, and
+great chunks of it were falling from the trees with dull, monotonous
+sounds. "Slush, slush," "Splash, splash," came the gloomy sounds from
+all parts of the woods. I was nearing camp, and had abandoned all hope
+of seeing game. My only object was to reach shelter, to rest, and feast
+on the unsatisfying bread. I heard a succession of the splashings that
+came from my left with such regular cadence as to cause me to look up,
+when, great St. Hubert! there came a huge grizzly bear shambling and
+splashing along through the wet snow. It was his footsteps that I had
+been hearing for a minute or two past, and which I had, at first,
+thought to be the falling snow.
+
+He had not yet seen me, and what a marvelous change came over me! I
+forgot that I was tired; that I was weak; that I was hungry. The
+instincts of the hunter reanimated me, and I thought only of killing the
+grand game before me. I threw down my rifle, raising the hammer as the
+weapon came into position, and the click of the lock reached his ear. It
+was the first intimation he had of possible danger, and he stopped and
+threw up his head to look and listen. My thoughts came and went like
+flashes of lightning. I remembered then the famishing condition of
+myself and friends. Here was meat, and I must save it. There must be no
+nervousness--no wild shooting now. This shot _must_ tell. And there was
+not a tremor in all my system. Every nerve was as of steel for the
+instant. The little gold bead on the muzzle of the rifle instantly found
+the vital spot behind the bear's shoulder, gleamed through the rear
+sight like a spark of fire, and before he had time to realize what the
+strange apparition was that had so suddenly confronted him, the voice of
+the Winchester was echoing through the canyon and an express bullet had
+crashed through his vitals.
+
+The shock was so sudden and the effect on him so deadly that he
+apparently thought nothing of fight, but only of seeking a place to die
+in peace.
+
+He wheeled and shot into a neighboring thicket with the speed of an
+arrow. I fired at him again as he disappeared. He crashed through the
+jungle out into the open woods, turned to the right and went across a
+ridge as if Satan himself were after him. As the big gray mass shot
+through a clear space between two trees I gave him another speeder, and
+then he disappeared beyond a ridge.
+
+The snow had melted rapidly and the ground was bare in places, so that I
+had some trouble in trailing the bear, but wherever he crossed a patch
+of snow his trail was bespattered with blood. I followed over the ridge
+and through scattering jack pines, about two hundred yards, and found
+him lying dead near the trail. My first and third bullets had gone in
+behind his shoulder only an inch apart. The first had passed clear
+through him, and the other had lodged against the skin on the opposite
+side. Several ribs were broken on either side, and his lungs and other
+portions of his interior were ground into sausage; yet so great was his
+vitality and tenacity to life that he was able to make this distance at
+a speed that would have taxed the best horse in the country, and if he
+had seen fit to attack me instead of running away he would probably have
+made sausage of me.
+
+But what feasting and what revelry there was in camp that night. It was
+a young bear, fat as butter, and rib roasts and cutlets were devoured in
+quantities that would have shocked the modesty of a tramp. Not until
+well into the night did we cease to eat, and wrap ourselves in our
+blankets. We staid several days in the canyon after that, and killed
+plenty of elk and other game.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The skin of the grizzly is one of the most valuable trophies a sportsman
+can obtain on any field, and its rarity, and the danger and excitement
+attending the taking of it, the courage it bespeaks on the part of the
+hunter, render it a prize of which the winner may justly feel proud for
+a lifetime.
+
+The best localities in which to hunt the grizzly bear--that is, those
+most accessible and in which he is now most numerous--are the Big Horn,
+Shoshone, Wind River, Bear Tooth, Belt, and Crazy Mountains, in Wyoming
+and Montana, all of which may be easily reached by way of the Northern
+Pacific road.
+
+The best time of year to hunt for this, as well as all the other species
+of large game in the Rocky Mountains, is in the months of September,
+October, and November, though in the latter month the sportsman should
+not venture high up into the mountains where heavy snow-falls are liable
+to occur. There is a great deal of bear hunting done in the summer
+months, but it is contrary to the laws of nature, and should not be
+indulged in by any true sportsman. The skins are nearly worthless then,
+while in the autumn they are prime; the heat is oppressive, and the
+flies and mosquitoes are great pests.
+
+The best arm for this class of game is a repeating rifle of large
+calibre, 45 or 50, carrying a large charge of powder and a solid
+bullet. The new Winchester express, 50/110, with solid ball, is perhaps
+the best in the market, all things considered.
+
+There are several methods of hunting the grizzly, the most common being
+to kill an elk, and then watch the carcass. Shots may frequently be
+obtained in this way early in the morning or late in the evening, and on
+bright moonlight nights it is best to watch all night, for the immense
+size of the grizzly renders him an easy target at short range even by
+moonlight. Another method is to still-hunt him, the same as is done with
+deer. This is perhaps the most sportsmanlike of all, and if a coulee or
+creek bottom be selected where there are plenty of berries, or an open,
+hilly, rocky country, where the bears are in the habit of hunting for
+worms, or any good feeding-ground where bear signs are plentiful, and
+due care and caution be exercised, there is as good a chance of success
+as by any other method. Many hunters set guns with a cord running from
+the trigger to a bait of fresh meat, and the muzzle of the gun pointing
+at the meat; others set large steel traps or deadfalls. But such
+contrivances are never used by true sportsmen.
+
+Game of any kind should always be pursued in a fair, manly manner, and
+given due chance to preserve its life if it is skillful enough to do so.
+If captured, let it be by the superior skill, sagacity, or endurance of
+the sportsman, not by traps which close on it as it innocently and
+unsuspectingly seeks its food.
+
+Grizzly bear hunting is unquestionably the grandest sport that our
+continent affords. The grizzly is the only really dangerous game we
+have, and the decidedly hazardous character of the sport is what gives
+it its greatest zest, and renders it the most fascinating of pursuits.
+Many sportsmen proclaim the superiority of their favorite pastime over
+all other kinds, be it quail, grouse, or duck shooting, fox-chasing,
+deer-stalking, or what not; and each has its charm, more or less
+intense, according to its nature; but no man ever felt his heart swell
+with pride, his nerves tingle with animation, his whole system glow with
+wild, uncontrollable enthusiasm, at the bagging of any bird or small
+animal, as does the man who stands over the prostrate form of a monster
+grizzly that he has slain. Let the devotee of these other classes of
+sport try bear hunting, and when he has bagged his first grizzly, then
+let him talk!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+ELK HUNTING IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
+
+
+Of all the large game on the American continent, the elk (_Cervus
+canadensis_) is the noblest, the grandest, the stateliest. I would
+detract nothing from the noble game qualities of the moose, caribou,
+deer, or mountain sheep. Each has its peculiar points of excellence
+which endear it to the heart of the sportsman, but the elk possesses
+more than any of the others. In size he towers far above all, except the
+moose. In sagacity, caution, cunning, and wariness he is the peer, if
+not the superior, of them all. He is always on the alert, his keen
+scent, his piercing eye, his acute sense of hearing, combining to render
+him a vigilant sentinel of his own safety.
+
+His great size and powerful muscular construction give him almost
+unbounded endurance. When alarmed or pursued he will travel for twenty
+or thirty hours, at a rapid swinging trot, without stopping for food or
+rest. He is a proud, fearless ranger, and even when simply migrating
+from one range of mountains to another, will travel from seventy-five to
+a hundred miles without lying down. He is a marvelous mountaineer, and,
+considering his immense size and weight, often ascends to heights that
+seem incredible. He may often be found away up to timber line, and will
+traverse narrow passes and defiles, climbing over walls of rock and
+through fissures where it would seem impossible for so large an animal,
+with such massive antlers as he carries, to go. He chooses his route,
+however, with rare good judgment, and all mountaineers know that an elk
+trail is the best that can possibly be selected over any given section
+of mountainous country. His faculty of traversing dense jungles and
+windfalls is equally astonishing. If given his own time, he will move
+quietly and easily through the worst of these, leaping over logs higher
+than his back as gracefully and almost as lightly as the deer; yet let a
+herd of elk be alarmed and start on a run through one of these
+labyrinthine masses, and they will make a noise like a regiment of
+cavalry on a precipitous charge.
+
+I have stood on the margin of a quaking-asp thicket and heard a large
+band of elk coming toward me that had been "jumped" and fired upon by my
+friend at the other side, and the frightful noise of their horns
+pounding the trees, their hoofs striking each other and the numerous
+rocks, the crashing of dead branches, with the snorting of the
+affrighted beasts, might well have struck terror to the heart of anyone
+unused to such sights and sounds, and have caused him to seek safety in
+flight. But by standing my ground I was enabled to get in a couple of
+shots at short range, and to bring down two of the finest animals in the
+herd.
+
+The whistle of the elk is a sound which many have tried to describe,
+yet I doubt if anyone who may have read all the descriptions of it ever
+written would recognize it on a first hearing. It is a most strange,
+weird, peculiar sound, baffling all efforts of the most skillful
+word-painter. It is only uttered by the male, and there is the same
+variety in the sound made by different stags as in different human
+voices. Usually the cry begins and ends with a sort of grunt, somewhat
+like the bellow of a domestic cow cut short, but the interlude is a
+long-drawn, melodious, flutelike sound that rises and falls with a
+rhythmical cadence, floating on the still evening air, by which it is
+often wafted with singular distinctness to great distances. By other
+individuals, or even by the same individual at various times, either the
+first or last of these abrupt sounds is omitted, and only the other, in
+connection with the long-drawn, silver-toned strain, is given.
+
+The stag utters this call only in the love-making season, and for the
+purpose of ascertaining the whereabouts of his dusky mate, who responds
+by a short and utterly unmusical sound, similar to that with which the
+male begins or ends his call.
+
+Once, when exploring in Idaho, I had an interesting and exciting
+experience with a band of elk. I had camped for the night on a high
+divide, between two branches of the Clearwater river. The weather had
+been intensely dry and hot for several days, and the tall rye grass that
+grew in the old burn where I had pitched my camp was dry as powder.
+There was a gentle breeze from the south. Fearing that a spark might be
+carried into the grass, I extinguished my camp-fire as soon as I had
+cooked and eaten my supper. As darkness drew on, I went out to picket
+my horses and noticed that they were acting strangely. They were looking
+down the mountain side with ears pointed forward, sniffing the air and
+moving about uneasily.
+
+[Illustration: THE _WAPITI_, OR AMERICAN ELK.]
+
+I gave their picket ropes a turn around convenient jack pines, and then
+slipping cautiously back to the tent, got my rifle and returned. I could
+see nothing strange and sat down beside a log to await developments. In
+a few minutes I heard a dead limb break. Then there was a rustling in a
+bunch of tall, dry grass; more snapping of twigs and shaking of bushes.
+I ascertained that there were several large animals moving toward me and
+feared it might be a family of bears. I feared it, I say, because it was
+now so dark that I could not see to shoot at any distance, and knew that
+if bears came near the horses the latter would break their ropes and
+stampede. I thought of shouting and trying to frighten them off, but
+decided to await developments. Presently I heard a snapping of hoofs and
+a succession of dull, heavy, thumping noises, accompanied by reports of
+breaking brush, which I knew at once were made by a band of elk jumping
+over a high log.
+
+The game was now not more than fifty yards away and in open ground, yet
+I could not see even a movement, for I was looking down toward a dark
+canyon, many hundreds of feet deep. Slowly the great beasts worked toward
+me. They were coming down wind and I felt sure could not scent me, but
+they could evidently see my horses, outlined against the sky, and had
+doubtless heard them snorting and moving about.
+
+The ponies grew more anxious but less frightened than at first, and
+seemed now desirous of making the acquaintance of their wild visitors.
+
+Slowly the elk moved forward until within thirty or forty feet of me,
+when I could begin to discern by the starlight their dark, shaggy forms.
+Then they stopped. I could hear them sniffing the air and could see them
+moving cautiously from place to place, apparently suspicious of danger.
+But they were coming down wind, could get no indication of my presence,
+and were anxious to interview the horses.
+
+They moved slowly forward, and when they stopped this time, two old
+bulls and one cow, who were in the front rank, so to speak, stood within
+ten feet of me. Their great horns towered up like the branches of dead
+trees, and I could hear them breathe.
+
+Again they circled from side to side and I thought surely they would get
+far enough to one quarter or the other to wind me, but they did not.
+Several other cows and two timid little calves crowded to the front to
+look at their hornless cousins who now stood close behind me, and even
+in the starlight, I could have shot any one of them between the eyes.
+
+My saddle cayuse uttered a low gentle whinny, whereat the whole band
+wheeled and dashed away; but after making a few leaps their momentary
+scare seemed to subside, and they stopped, looked, snorted a few times
+and then began to edge up again--this time even more shyly than before.
+
+It was intensely interesting to study the caution and circumspection
+with which these creatures planned and carried out their investigation
+all the way through.
+
+The only mistake they made, and one at which I was surprised,
+considering their usual cunning and sagacity, was that some of them at
+least did not circle the horses and get to the leeward. But they were in
+such a wild country, so far back in the remote fastnesses of the
+Rockies, that they had probably never encountered hunters or horses
+before and had not acquired all the cunning of their more hunted and
+haunted brothers. After their temporary scare they returned, step by
+step, to their investigation, and the largest bull in the bunch
+approached the very log behind which I sat. He was just in the act of
+stepping over it when he caught a whiff of my breath and, with a
+terrific snort, vaulted backward and sidewise certainly thirty feet. At
+the same instant I rose up and shouted, and the whole band went tearing
+down the mountain side making a racket like that of an avalanche.
+
+As before stated, I could have had my choice out of the herd, but my
+only pack-horse was loaded so that I could have carried but a small
+piece of meat, and was unwilling to waste so grand a creature for the
+little I could save from him.
+
+The antlers of the bull elk grow to a great size. He sheds them in
+February of each year. The new horn begins to grow in April. During the
+summer it is soft and pulpy and is covered with a fine velvety growth of
+hair; it matures and hardens in August; early in September he rubs this
+velvet off and is then ready to try conclusions with any rival that
+comes in his way. The rutting season over, he has no further use for
+his antlers until the next autumn, and they drop off. Thus the process
+is repeated, year after year, as regularly as the leaves grow and fall
+from the trees. But it seems a strange provision of nature that should
+load an animal with sixty to seventy-five pounds of horns, for half the
+year, when weapons of one-quarter the size and weight would be equally
+effective if all were armed alike.
+
+I have in my collection the head of a bull elk, killed in the Shoshone
+Mountains, in Northern Wyoming, the antlers of which measure as follows:
+
+Length of main beam, 4 feet 8 inches; length of brow tine, 1 foot 6-1/2
+inches; length of bes tine, 1 foot 8-1/2 inches; length of royal tine, 1
+foot 7 inches; length of surroyal, 1 foot 8-1/2 inches: circumference
+around burr, 1 foot 3-1/4 inches; circumference around beam above burr,
+12 inches; circumference of brow tine at base, 7-1/2 inches; spread of
+main beams at tips, 4 feet 9 inches. They are one of the largest and
+finest pairs of antlers of which I have any knowledge. The animal when
+killed would have weighed nearly a thousand pounds.
+
+The elk is strictly gregarious, and in winter time, especially, the
+animals gather into large bands, and a few years ago herds of from five
+hundred to a thousand were not uncommon. Now, however, their numbers
+have been so far reduced by the ravages of "skin hunters" and others
+that one will rarely find more than twenty-five or thirty in a band.
+
+In the fall of 1879, a party of three men were sight-seeing and hunting
+in the Yellowstone National Park, and having prolonged their stay until
+late in October, were overtaken by a terrible snowstorm, which
+completely blockaded and obliterated all the trails, and filled the
+gulches, canyons, and coulees to such a depth that their horses could not
+travel over them at all. They had lain in camp three days waiting for
+the storm to abate; but as it continued to grow in severity, and as the
+snow became deeper and deeper, their situation grew daily and hourly
+more alarming. Their stock of provisions was low, they had no shelter
+sufficient to withstand the rigors of a winter at that high altitude,
+and it was fast becoming a question whether they should ever be able to
+escape beyond the snow-clad peaks and snow-filled canyons with which they
+were hemmed in. Their only hope of escape was by abandoning their
+horses, and constructing snow-shoes which might keep them above the
+snow; but in this case they could not carry bedding and food enough to
+last them throughout the several days that the journey would occupy to
+the nearest ranch, and the chances of killing game _en route_ after the
+severe weather had set in were extremely precarious. They had already
+set about making snow-shoes from the skin of an elk which they had
+saved. One pair had been completed, and the storm having abated, one of
+the party set out to look over the surrounding country for the most
+feasible route by which to get out, and also to try if possible to find
+game of some kind. He had gone about a mile toward the northeast when he
+came upon the fresh trail of a large band of elk that were moving toward
+the east. He followed, and in a short time came up with them. They were
+traveling in single file, led by a powerful old bull, who wallowed
+through snow in which only his head and neck were visible, with all the
+patience and perseverance of a faithful old ox. The others followed
+him--the stronger ones in front and the weaker ones bringing up the
+rear. There were thirty-seven in the band, and by the time they had all
+walked in the same line they left it an open, well-beaten trail. The
+hunter approached within a few yards of them. They were greatly alarmed
+when they saw him, and made a few bounds in various directions; but
+seeing their struggles were in vain, they meekly submitted to what
+seemed their impending fate, and fell back in rear of their file-leader.
+This would have been the golden opportunity of a skin hunter, who could
+and would have shot them all down in their tracks from a single stand.
+But such was not the mission of our friend. He saw in this noble,
+struggling band a means of deliverance from what had threatened to be a
+wintry grave for him and his companions. He did not fire a shot, and did
+not in any way create unnecessary alarm amongst the elk, but hurried
+back to camp and reported to his friends what he had seen.
+
+In a moment the camp was a scene of activity and excitement. Tent,
+bedding, provisions, everything that was absolutely necessary to their
+journey, were hurriedly packed upon their pack animals; saddles were
+placed, rifles were slung to the saddles, and leaving all surplus
+baggage, such as trophies of their hunt, mineral specimens and curios of
+various kinds, for future comers, they started for the elk trail. They
+had a slow, tedious, and laborious task, breaking a way through the deep
+snow to reach it, but by walking and leading their saddle animals
+ahead, the pack animals were able to follow slowly. Finally they reached
+the trail of the elk herd, and following this, after nine days of
+tedious and painful traveling, the party arrived at a ranch on the
+Stinking Water river, which was kept by a "squaw man" and his wife,
+where they were enabled to lodge and recruit themselves and their stock,
+and whence they finally reached their homes in safety. The band of elk
+passed on down the river, and our tourists never saw them again; but
+they have doubtless long ere this all fallen a prey to the ruthless war
+that is constantly being waged against them by hunters white and red.
+
+It is sad to think that such a noble creature as the American elk is
+doomed to early and absolute extinction, but such is nevertheless the
+fact. Year by year his mountain habitat is being surrounded and
+encroached upon by the advancing line of settlements, as the fisherman
+encircles the struggling mass of fishes in the clear pond with his long
+and closely-meshed net. The lines are drawn closer and closer each year.
+These lines are the ranches of cattle and sheep raisers, the cabins and
+towns of miners, the stations and residences of employes of the
+railroads. All these places are made the shelters and temporary abiding
+places of Eastern and foreign sportsmen who go out to the mountains to
+hunt. Worse than this, they are made the permanent abiding places, and
+constitute the active and convenient markets of the nefarious and
+unconscionable skin hunter and meat hunter. Here he can find a ready
+market for the meats and skins he brings in, and an opportunity to
+spend the proceeds of such outrageous traffic in ranch whisky and
+revelry. The ranchmen themselves hunt and lay in their stock of meat for
+the year when the game comes down into the valleys. The Indians, when
+they have eaten up their Government rations, lie in wait for the elk in
+the same manner. So that when the first great snows of the autumn or
+winter fall in the high ranges, when the elk band together and seek
+refuge in the valleys, as did the herd that our fortunate tourists
+followed out, they find a mixed and hungry horde waiting for them at the
+mouth of every canyon. Before they have reached the valley where the
+snow-fall is light enough to allow them to live through the winter their
+skins are drying in the neighboring "shacks."
+
+[Illustration: WORK OF THE EXTERMINATORS.]
+
+This unequal, one-sided warfare, this ruthless slaughter of inoffensive
+creatures, can not last always. Indeed, it can last but little longer.
+In ranges where only a few years ago herds of four or five hundred elk
+could be found, the hunter of to-day considers himself in rare luck when
+he finds a band of ten or twelve, and even small bands of any number are
+so rare that a good hunter may often hunt a week in the best elk country
+to be found anywhere without getting a single shot. All the Territories
+have good, wholesome game-laws which forbid the killing of game animals
+except during two or three months in the fall; but these laws are not
+enforced. They are a dead letter on the statute-books, and the illegal
+and illegitimate slaughter goes on unchecked.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+ANTELOPE HUNTING IN MONTANA.
+
+
+Of all the numerous species of large game to be found in the far West,
+there is none whose pursuit furnishes grander sport to the expert
+rifleman than the antelope (_Antilocapra americana_). His habitat being
+the high, open plains, he may be hunted on horseback, and with a much
+greater degree of comfort than may the deer, elk, bear, and other
+species which inhabit the wooded or mountainous districts. His keen
+eyesight, his fine sense of smell, his intense fear of his natural
+enemy, man, however, render him the most difficult of all game animals
+to approach, and he must indeed be a skillful hunter who can get within
+easy rifle range of the antelope, unless he happens to have the
+circumstances of wind and lie of ground peculiarly in his favor. When
+the game is first sighted, even though it be one, two, or three miles
+away, you must either dismount and picket your horse, or find cover in
+some coulee or draw, where you can ride entirely out of sight of the
+quarry. But even under such favorable circumstances it is not well to
+attempt to ride very near them. Their sense of hearing is also very
+acute, and should your horse's hoof or shoe strike a loose rock, or
+should he snort or neigh, the game is likely to catch the sound while
+you are yet entirely out of sight and faraway, and when you finally
+creep cautiously to the top of the ridge from which you expect a
+favorable shot, you may find the game placidly looking for you from the
+top of another ridge a mile or two farther away.
+
+But we will hope that you are to have better luck than this. To start
+with, we will presume that you are an expert rifleman; that you are in
+the habit of making good scores at the butts; that at 800, 900, and
+1,000 yards you frequently score 200 to 210 out of a possible 225
+points. We will also suppose that you are a hunter of some experience;
+that you have at least killed a good many deer in the States, but that
+this is your first trip to the plains. You have learned to estimate
+distances, however, even in this rare atmosphere, and possess good
+judgment as to windage. You have brought your Creedmoor rifle along,
+divested, of course, of its Venier sight, wind-guage, and spirit-level,
+and in their places you have fitted a Beach combination front sight and
+Lyman rear sight. Besides these you have the ordinary open step sight
+attached to the barrel just in front of the action. This is not the best
+arm for antelope hunting; a Winchester express with the same sights
+would be much better; but this will answer very well.
+
+We camped last night on the bank of a clear, rapid stream that gurgles
+down from the mountain, and this morning are up long before daylight;
+have eaten our breakfasts, saddled our horses, and just as the gray of
+dawn begins to show over the low, flat prairie to the east of us, we
+mount, and are ready for the start. The wind is from the northeast. That
+suits us very well, for in that direction, about a mile away, there are
+some low foot-hills that skirt the valley in which we are camped. In or
+just beyond these we are very likely to find antelope, and they will
+probably be coming toward the creek this morning for water.
+
+We put spurs to our horses and gallop away. A brisk and exhilarating
+ride of ten minutes brings us to the foot-hills, and then we rein up and
+ride slowly and cautiously to near the top of the first one. Here we
+dismount, and, picketing our ponies, we crawl slowly and carefully to
+the apex. By this time it is almost fully daylight. We remove our hats,
+and peer cautiously through the short, scattering grass on the brow of
+the hill.
+
+Do you see anything?
+
+No; nothing but prairie and grass.
+
+No? Hold! What are those small, gray objects away off yonder to the
+left? I think I saw one of them move. And now, as the light grows
+stronger, I can see white patches on them. Yes, they are antelope. They
+are busily feeding, and we may raise our heads slightly and get a more
+favorable view. One, two, three--there are five of them--two bucks, a
+doe, and two kids. And you will observe that they are nearly in the
+centre of a broad stretch of table-land.
+
+"But," you say, "may we not wait here a little while until they come
+nearer to us?"
+
+Hardly. You see they are intent on getting their breakfast. There is a
+heavy frost on the grass, which moistens it sufficiently for present
+purposes, and it may be an hour or more before they will start for
+water. It won't pay us to wait so long, for we shall most likely find
+others within that time that we can get within range of without waiting
+for them. So you may as well try them from here.
+
+Now your experience at the butts may serve you a good turn. After taking
+a careful look over the ground, you estimate the distance at 850 yards,
+and setting up your Beach front and Lyman rear sights, you make the
+necessary elevation. There is a brisk wind blowing from the right, and
+you think it necessary to hold off about three feet. We are now both
+lying prone upon the ground. You face the game, and support your rifle
+at your shoulder by resting your elbows on the ground. The sun is now
+shining brightly, and you take careful aim at that old buck that stands
+out there at the left. At the report of your rifle a cloud of dust rises
+from a point about a hundred yards this side of him, and a little to the
+left, showing that you have underestimated both the distance and the
+force of the wind--things that even an old hunter is liable to do
+occasionally.
+
+We both lie close, and the animals have not yet seen us. They make a few
+jumps, and stop all in a bunch. The cross-wind and long distance prevent
+them from knowing to a certainty where the report comes from, and they
+don't like to run just yet, lest they may run toward the danger instead
+of away from it. You make another half-point of elevation, hold a little
+farther away to the right, and try them again. This time the dirt rises
+about twenty feet beyond them, and they jump in every direction. That
+was certainly a close call, and the bullet evidently whistled
+uncomfortably close to several of them. They are now thoroughly
+frightened. You insert another cartridge, hurriedly draw a bead on the
+largest buck again, and fire. You break dirt just beyond him, and we
+can't tell for the life of us how or on which side of him your bullet
+passed. It is astonishing how much vacant space there is round an
+antelope, anyway. This time they go, sure. They have located the puff of
+smoke, and are gone with the speed of the wind away to the west. But
+don't be discouraged, my friend. You did some clever shooting, some
+_very_ clever shooting, and a little practice of that kind will enable
+you to score before night.
+
+We go back to our horses, mount, and gallop away again across the
+table-land. A ride of another mile brings us to the northern margin of
+this plateau, and to a more broken country. Here we dismount and picket
+our horses again. We ascend a high butte, and from the top of it we can
+see three more antelope about a mile to the north of us; but this time
+they are in a hilly, broken country, and the wind is coming directly
+from them to us. We shall be able to get a shot at them at short range.
+So we cautiously back down out of sight, and then begins the tedious
+process of stalking them. We walk briskly along around the foot of a
+hill for a quarter of a mile, to where it makes a turn that would carry
+us too far out of our course. We must cross this hill, and after looking
+carefully at the shape and location of it, we at last find a low point
+in it where by lying flat down we can crawl over it without revealing
+ourselves to the game. It is a most tedious and painful piece of work,
+for the ground is almost covered with cactus and sharp flinty rocks, and
+our hands and knees are terribly lacerated. But every rose has its
+thorn, and nearly every kind of sport has something unpleasant connected
+with it occasionally; and our reward, if we get it, will be worth the
+pain it costs us. With such reflections and comments, and with frequent
+longing looks at the game, we kill time till at last the critical part
+of our work is done, and we can arise and descend in a comfortable but
+cautious walk into another draw.
+
+[Illustration: A PORTRAIT.]
+
+This we follow for about two hundred yards, until we think we are as
+near our quarry as we can get. We turn to the right, cautiously ascend
+the hill, remove our hats, and peer over, and there, sure enough, are
+our antelope quietly grazing, utterly oblivious to the danger that
+threatens them. They have not seen, heard, or scented us, so we have
+ample time to plan an attack. You take the standing shot at the buck,
+and together we will try and take care of the two does afterward. At
+this short distance you don't care for the peep and globe sights, and
+wisely decide to use the plain open ones. This time you simply kneel,
+and then edge up until you can get a good clear aim over the apex of the
+ridge in this position. The buck stands broadside to you, and at the
+crack of your rifle springs into the air, and falls all in a heap,
+pierced through the heart.
+
+And now for the two does. They are flying over the level stretch of
+prairie with the speed of an arrow, and are almost out of sure range
+now. You turn loose on that one on the right, and I will look after the
+one on the left. Our rifles crack together, and little clouds of dust
+rising just beyond tell us that, though we have both missed, we have
+made close calls. I put in about three shots to your one, owing to my
+rifle being a repeater, while you must load yours at each shot. At my
+fourth shot my left-fielder doubles up and goes down with a broken neck;
+and although you have fairly "set the ground afire"--to use a Western
+phrase--around your right-fielder, you have not had the good fortune to
+stop her, and she is now out of sight behind a low ridge.
+
+But you have the better animal of the two, and have had sport enough for
+the first morning. We will take the entrails out of these two, lash them
+across our horses behind our saddles, go to camp, and rest through the
+heat of the day; for this September sun beams down with great power in
+midday, even though the nights are cool and frosty.
+
+And now, as we have quite a long ride to camp, and as we are to pass
+over a rather monotonous prairie country _en route_, I will give you a
+point or two on flagging antelope, as we ride along, that may be useful
+to you at some time. Fine sport may frequently be enjoyed in this way.
+If you can find a band that have not been hunted much, and are not
+familiar with the wiles of the white man, you will have little trouble
+in decoying them within rifle range by displaying to them almost any
+brightly-colored object. They have as much curiosity as a woman, and
+will run into all kinds of danger to investigate any strange object they
+may discover. They have been known to follow an emigrant or freight
+wagon, with a white cover, several miles, and the Indian often brings
+them within reach of his arrow or bullet by standing in plain view
+wrapped in his red blanket. A piece of bright tin or a mirror answers
+the same purpose on a clear day. Almost any conspicuous or
+strange-looking object will attract them; but the most convenient as
+well as the most reliable at all times is a little bright-red flag.
+
+On one occasion I was hunting in the Snowy Mountains, in Northern
+Montana, with S. K. Fishel, the government scout, and Richard Thomas,
+the packer, from Fort Maginnis. We had not been successful in finding
+game there, and on our way back to the post camped two days on the head
+of Flat Willow creek, near the foot of the mountains, to hunt antelopes.
+As night approached several small bands of them came toward the creek,
+but none came within range of our camp during daylight, and we did not
+go after them that night, but were up and at them betimes the next
+morning.
+
+I preferred to hunt alone, as I always do when after big game, and went
+out across a level flat to some low hills north of camp. When I ascended
+the first of these I saw a handsome buck antelope on the prairie half a
+mile away. I made a long detour to get to leeward of him, and meantime
+had great difficulty in keeping him from seeing me. But by careful
+maneuvering I finally got into a draw below him, and found the wind
+blowing directly from him to me. In his neighborhood were some large,
+ragged volcanic rocks, and getting in line with one of these I started
+to stalk him. He was feeding, and as I moved cautiously forward I could
+frequently see his nose or rump show up at one side or the other of the
+rock. I would accordingly glide to right or left, as necessary, and move
+on. Finally, I succeeded in reaching the rock, crawled carefully up to
+where I could see over it, and there, sure enough, stood the handsome
+old fellow not more than fifty yards away, still complacently nipping
+the bunch-grass.
+
+"Ah, my fine laddie," I said to myself, "you'll never know what hurt
+you;" and resting the muzzle of the rifle on the rock, I took a fine,
+steady aim for his heart and turned the bullet loose. There was a
+terrific roar; the lead tore up a cloud of dust and went screaming away
+over the hills, while, to my utter astonishment, the antelope went
+sailing across the prairie with the speed of a greyhound. I sprang to my
+feet, pumped lead after him at a lively rate, and, though I tore the
+ground up all around him, never touched a hair. And what annoyed me most
+was that, owing to some peculiar condition of the atmosphere, the smoke
+of each shot hung in front of me long enough to prevent me from seeing
+just where my bullets struck, and, for the life of me, I could not tell
+whether I was shooting over or under the game!
+
+I went back over the hill to my horse, with my heart full of
+disappointment and my magazine only half full of cartridges. I loaded
+up, however, mounted, and, as I rode away in search of more game, I
+could occasionally hear the almost whispered "puff, puff" of Fishel's
+and Thomas's rifles away to the south and west, which brought me the
+cheering assurance that they were also having fun, and also assured me
+that we should not be without meat for supper and breakfast.
+
+I soon sighted a band of about thirty antelopes, and riding into a
+coulee dismounted, picketed my horse, and began another crawl. In due
+time I reached the desired "stand," within about eighty yards of them,
+and, picking out the finest buck in the bunch, again took a careful,
+deliberate aim and fired, scoring another clear miss. The band, instead
+of running away, turned and ran directly toward me, and, circling,
+slightly, passed within thirty yards of me, drawn out in single file. It
+was a golden opportunity and I felt sure I should kill half a dozen of
+them at least; but, alas! for fleeting hopes. I knew not the frailty of
+the support on which I built my expectations. I fanned them as long as
+there was a cartridge in my magazine, and had to endure the intense
+chagrin of seeing the last one of them go over a ridge a mile away safe
+and sound.
+
+I was dumb. If there had been anyone there to talk to, I don't think I
+could have found a word in the language to express my feelings. As
+before, the smoke prevented me from seeing just where my bullets struck
+the ground, but I felt sure they must be striking very close to the
+game. I sat down, pondered, and examined my rifle. I could see nothing
+wrong with it, and felt sure it must be perfect, for within the past
+week I had killed a deer with it at 170 yards and had shaved the heads
+off a dozen grouse at short range. I was, therefore, forced to the
+conclusion that I had merely failed to exercise proper care in holding.
+I returned to my horse, mounted, and once more set out in search of
+game, determined to kill the next animal I shot at or leave the country.
+
+I rode away to the west about two miles, and from the top of a high hill
+saw another band of forty or fifty antelopes on a table-land. I rode
+around till I got within about two hundred yards of them, when I left my
+horse under cover of a hill and again began to sneak on the unsuspecting
+little creatures. They were near the edge of the table, and from just
+beyond them the formation fell abruptly away into the valley some fifty
+feet. I crawled up this bluff until within about forty yards of the
+nearest antelope, and then, lying flat upon the ground, I placed my
+rifle in position for firing, and, inch by inch, edged up over the apex
+of the bluff until within fair view of the game. Again selecting the
+best buck--for I wanted a good head for mounting--I drew down on his
+brown side until I felt sure that if there had been a silver dollar hung
+on it I could have driven it through him. Confidently expecting to see
+him drop in his tracks, I touched the trigger. But, alas! I was doomed
+to still further disgrace. When the smoke lifted, my coveted prize was
+speeding away with the rest of the herd.
+
+I simply stood, with my lower jaw hanging down, and looked after them
+till they were out of sight. Then I went and got my horse and went to
+camp. Sam and Dick were there with the saddles of three antelopes. When
+I told them what I had been doing, they tried to console me, but I
+wouldn't be consoled. After dinner, Sam picked up my rifle and looked it
+over carefully.
+
+"Why, look here, you blooming idiot," said he. "No wonder you couldn't
+kill at short range. The wedge has slipped up under your rear sight two
+notches. She's elevated for 350 yards, and at that rate would shoot
+about a foot high at a hundred yards." I looked and found it even so.
+Then I offered him and Dick a dollar each if they would kick me, but
+they wouldn't.
+
+Sam said good-naturedly: "Come, go with me and get the head of the buck
+I killed. It's a very handsome one, and only two miles from camp."
+
+I said I didn't want any heads for my own use unless I could kill their
+owners myself, but would take this one home for a friend, so we saddled
+our horses and started.
+
+As we reached the top of a hill about a mile from camp a large buck that
+was grazing ahead of us jumped and ran away to what he seemed to
+consider a safe distance, and stopped to look at us. Sam generously
+offered me the shot, and springing out of my saddle I threw down my
+rifle, took careful aim and fired. At the crack the buck turned just
+half way round, but was unable to make a single jump and sank dead in
+his tracks.
+
+Sam is ordinarily a quiet man, but he fairly shouted at the result of my
+shot. I paced the distance carefully to where the carcass lay, and it
+was exactly 290 steps. The buck was standing broadside to me and I had
+shot him through the heart. Of course, it was a scratch. I could not do
+it again perhaps in twenty shots, and yet when I considered that I shot
+for one single animal and got him I could not help feeling a little
+proud of it. As we approached the animal, not knowing just where I had
+hit him, I held my rifle in readiness, but Sam said:
+
+"Oh, you needn't be afraid of his getting up. One of those Winchester
+express bullets is all an antelope needs, no matter what part of the
+body you hit him in."
+
+This old fellow had a fine head, and we took it off, and now as I write
+it gazes down upon me with those large, lustrous black eyes, from its
+place on the wall, as proudly and curiously as it did there on the
+prairie when I looked at it through the sights of my Winchester. His
+portrait adorns page 199 of this book, and though the artist has treated
+it with a master's hand, it does not possess the lordly beaming, the
+fascinating grace, the timid beauty that distinguished the living
+animal.
+
+It was so late when we got this one dressed that we decided to return to
+camp at once.
+
+The curiosity which is so prominent a feature in the antelope's nature
+costs many a one of them his life, and is taken advantage of by the
+hunter in various ways. When we reached camp that afternoon Dick told us
+how he had taken advantage of it. He had seen a small band on a level
+stretch of prairie where there was no possible way of getting within
+range of them, and having heard that if a man would lie down on his
+back, elevate his feet as high as possible, and swing them back and
+forth through the air, that it would attract antelopes, decided to try
+it. But the antelopes of this section had evidently never seen soap
+boxes or bales of hay floating through the air, and had no desire to
+cultivate a closer acquaintance with such frightful looking objects as
+he exhibited to their astonished gaze. And Dick said that when he turned
+to see if they had yet come within shooting distance they were about a
+mile away, and judging from the cloud of dust they were leaving behind
+them seemed to be running a race to see which could get out of the
+country first.
+
+The next morning Sam and I went together and Dick alone in another
+direction. During the forenoon I shot a buck through both fore legs,
+cutting one off clean and paralyzing the other. Sam said not to shoot
+him again and he would catch him, and putting spurs to his horse was
+soon galloping alongside of the quarry. He caught him by one horn and
+held him until I came up. The little fellow pranced wildly about, and
+bleated pitifully, but a stroke of the hunting knife across his throat
+soon relieved his suffering.
+
+We then got the head from the buck Sam had killed the day before, and
+returned to camp about 11 o'clock a. m.
+
+In the afternoon we rode out together again, and had not gone far when
+we saw five of the bright little animals we were hunting on a hill-side.
+They were too far away for anything like a sure shot, but were in such a
+position that we could get no nearer to them. They stood looking at us,
+and Sam told me to try them. I had little hope of making a hit, but
+dismounting took a shot off hand, holding for the shoulder of a good
+sized buck. When the gun cracked there was a circus. I had missed my aim
+so far as to cut both his hind legs off just below the knee. The buck
+commenced bucking. First he stood on his fore feet, got his hind legs up
+in the air and shook the stumps. Then he tried to stand on them and paw
+the air with his fore feet, but lost his balance and fell over backward.
+He got up, jumped first to one side, then to the other, then forward.
+Meantime Sam rode toward him, and he tried to run. In this his motions
+were more like those of a rocking horse than of a living animal. The
+race was a short one. Sam soon rode up to him, caught him by a horn and
+held him till I came up and cut the little fellow's throat. Then Sam
+said that was a very long shot, and he would like to know just what the
+distance was. He went back to where I stood when I shot, stepped the
+distance to where the antelope stood, and found it to be 362 paces.
+
+We rode on a mile further and saw a young antelope lying down in some
+tall rye-grass. We could just see his horns and ears, and though he
+appeared to be looking at us he seemed to think himself securely hidden,
+for he made no movement toward getting up. I told Sam to shoot this
+time, but he said, "No, you shoot. I live in this country and can get
+all the shooting I want any time. You have come a long way out here to
+have some fun. Turn loose on him." And slipping off my horse I knelt
+down to get a knee rest, but found that from that position I could not
+see the game at all, and was compelled to shoot off hand again. Raising
+up I drew a bead on one of the horns, and then lowering the muzzle to
+where I thought the body should be, pressed the trigger. There was a
+lively commotion in the grass, but the buck never got out of his bed.
+The ball went in at one shoulder and out at the opposite hip. On
+stepping the distance we found it to be only 125 yards.
+
+And now, having in a measure wiped out the disgrace of the previous
+day's work and secured all the meat, skins, and heads that our
+pack-mules could carry, we returned to camp and the next day went back
+to Fort Maginnis.
+
+These bright little creatures, though naturally timid, sometimes show
+great courage in defense of their young. I once saw a coyote sneak from
+behind a hill toward a herd of antelope. Instantly there was a grand
+rush of all the adult members of the band, male and female, toward the
+intruder, and when they had gotten in front of the kids they stopped,
+with bristles erect, ears thrown forward, and heads lowered, presenting
+a most warlike and belligerent appearance. The coyote, when he saw
+himself confronted with this solid phalanx, suddenly stopped, eyed his
+opponents for a few moments, and then, apparently overawed at the
+superiority of numbers and warlike attitude of his intended prey, slunk
+reluctantly away in search of some weaker victim. When he was well out
+of sight, the older members of the band turned to their young, caressed
+them, and resumed their grazing.
+
+The speed of the antelope is probably not excelled by that of any other
+animal in this country, wild or domestic, except the greyhound, and, in
+fact, it is only the finest and fleetest of these that can pull down an
+antelope in a fair race.
+
+In the little village of Garfield, Kansas, there lived a man some years
+ago--the proprietor of a hotel--who had two pet antelopes. The village
+dogs had several times chased them, but had always been distanced. One
+day a Mexican came to town who had with him two large, handsome
+greyhounds. Immediately on riding up to the hotel he saw the antelopes
+in the yard, and told the proprietor gruffly that he had better put
+"them critters" in the corral, or his dogs would kill them. The
+proprietor said he guessed the "critters" were able to take care of
+themselves, especially if the dogs did not spring upon them unawares.
+This aroused the Mexican's ire, and he promptly offered to wager a
+goodly sum that his dogs would pull down one or both of the antelopes
+within a mile. The challenge was accepted, the stakes deposited, the
+antelopes turned into the street, and the "greaser" told his dogs to
+"take'em."
+
+The dogs sprang at the antelopes, but the latter had by this time
+reached a vacant lot across the street. They started off down the river.
+For a distance of four miles the river bottom was an open prairie, and
+as level as a floor. As the quartette sped over this grand natural
+race-course, the whole populace of the town turned out _en masse_ to see
+the race. Men and boys shouted, and ladies waved their handkerchiefs.
+Betting was rife, the natives offering two to one on the antelopes, the
+Mexican and the few other strangers in town being eager takers. It was
+nip and tuck, neither animals gaining nor losing perceptibly, and when
+at last the four went round a bend in the river four miles away, and
+were hidden by a bluff, the game was, as nearly as could be seen by the
+aid of good field-glasses, just about the same distance ahead of the
+dogs as when they left town.
+
+Some hours later the dogs returned, so tired they could scarcely walk.
+The Mexican eagerly looked for hair on their teeth, and although he
+could find none, was confident that his dogs had killed the antelopes. A
+mounted expedition to search for the carcasses and settle the question
+was agreed upon, but as it was too near night to start when the dogs
+returned, it was arranged to go in the morning. But when the parties
+got up the next morning they found the antelopes quietly grazing in the
+hotel yard. The Mexican left town in disgust followed by his lame,
+sore-footed dogs, and muttering that he "never seed no varmints run like
+them things did."
+
+The antelope, one of the brightest and most graceful and beautiful of
+all our Western game animals, is fast disappearing from our broad
+plains, owing to the ceaseless slaughter of it that is carried on by
+"skin hunters," Indians, "foreign noblemen," and others who come to this
+country year after year and spend the entire summer in hunting. Hundreds
+of them are killed every summer by this latter class, and left to rot
+where they fall, not a pound of meat, a skin, or even a head being taken
+from them. I have seen with my own eyes this butchery carried on for
+years past, and know whereof I speak.
+
+Nearly all the Territories have stringent laws intended to prohibit this
+class of slaughter, but in these sparsely settled countries the
+provisions for enforcing them are so meagre that these men violate them
+day after day and year after year with impunity. This is one of the
+instances in which prohibition does not prohibit. And what I have said
+of the antelope is true of all the large game of the great West. The
+elk, deer, mountain sheep, etc., are being slaughtered by the hundreds
+every year--tenfold faster than the natural increase. And the time is
+near, _very_ near, when all these noble species will be extinct. The
+sportsman or naturalist who desires to preserve a skin or head of any of
+them must procure it very soon or he will not be able to get it at all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+BUFFALO HUNTING ON THE TEXAS PLAINS.
+
+
+The "Texas boom" was at its height in 1876, and there was a grand rush
+of emigrants of all nationalities and conditions of people to the then
+New Eldorado. Thousands of men went down there to make money. Many of
+them had not the remotest idea how this was to be done, but from the
+glowing stories afloat regarding the resources of that wonderful
+country, they felt sure it could be done in some way. The little town of
+Fort Worth was then on the frontier--that is, it was one of the most
+westerly towns having railroad communication, and was therefore one of
+the important outfitting points for parties going into the wilds. A
+great many were going further west, on all kinds of expeditions, some in
+search of minerals, some in search of choice lands, some to hunt the
+large game which was then abundant.
+
+The village consisted of a public square, around and fronting on which
+were a row of cheap, one-story, log and frame buildings, most of which
+were occupied as saloons and gambling houses. But there were a few
+respectable general stores, half a dozen so-called hotels, shops, etc.
+The town was full to overflowing with gamblers, rustlers, hunters,
+cowboys, Mexican rancheros, northern sight-seers, adventurers,
+commercial travelers, etc.
+
+[Illustration: AT BAY.]
+
+All day and all night could be heard the call of the _croupier_ at the
+gambling-table as he announced the numbers and combinations that the
+wheel or cards produced in the course of the manipulations to which his
+deft fingers subjected them.
+
+Hot words often came from fortunate and unfortunate gamesters, and the
+short, sharp report of the six-shooter, the shouts of combatants, the
+groans of wounded or dying men, the clatter of heavy boots or spurs on
+the feet of stampeded spectators were sounds that, nearly every night,
+greeted the ears of the populace.
+
+Mob law reigned supreme, and there was little effort on the part of the
+village authorities to punish offenders. Sometimes Judge Lynch's court
+was convened on short notice, and someone who had committed an unusually
+flagrant violation of the "law of honor" and had killed a man without
+due provocation, was hurriedly tried and strung up to the nearest tree.
+
+One evening in the month of November, the excitement was varied by the
+arrival of a "bull-train"[1] of ten wagons loaded with buffalo skins.
+They drove to the warehouse of the largest trader in the place to
+unload, and were quickly surrounded by a crowd of eager inquirers who
+sought for news from the front.
+
+[1] What is known on the frontier as a "bull-train" is a number
+of ponderous wagons, drawn by from six to ten yoke of oxen each, used
+for hauling heavy freight across the plains.
+
+Some inquired as to the nature of the country, some as to the progress
+of settlements, some as to friends who were at the front, and many as to
+the buffalo herd from which the five thousand skins brought in by this
+train had been taken.
+
+"The main herd," said the wagon boss, "is two hundred miles west on the
+headwaters of the Brazos river."
+
+"How large a herd is it?"
+
+"Nobody knows that, for none of 'em has took time to ride to the west
+end of it."
+
+"Are there many hunters there?" inquired a young St. Louis lawyer.
+
+"Wall, you'd reckon," said the boss. "Tha's 'bout a hundred and fifty
+white hunters, and more'n a thousand red-skins."
+
+"When do you start back?"
+
+"To-morrow mornin', if I can keep my bull punchers from gettin' full of
+pizen."
+
+The crowd gradually scattered, while a little knot of the more
+respectable element repaired to the hotel to discuss the question of
+organizing a hunting party to go to the buffalo range. In an hour they
+agreed to go, the time for the start being fixed for the morning of the
+second day following.
+
+And then the busy notes of preparation were heard throughout the town.
+But few of the men who decided to go were prepared for such a trip, and
+it was necessary for most of them to buy or hire complete outfits.
+Horses were the first and most important requisite. The corral (the
+frontier livery stable) was first visited, and spirited bidding was
+indulged in for the choicest animals. The stock here was soon exhausted,
+and the demand was not yet supplied. Then all the horses and ponies
+standing tied to the railing around the public square were inspected,
+and any that were for sale were tested. Word having been circulated that
+a hunting party was outfitting, a large number of ponies were brought in
+from neighboring camps and ranches. The party was soon creditably
+mounted, though the number had increased to double that originally
+planned.
+
+Next, teams must be employed. A number of these were also found, and
+five were engaged, their owners agreeing to work for seven dollars a day
+"and found."
+
+Guns and ammunition were also in demand, and enough were offered to arm
+a regiment. A number of hunters had recently come in from the front and
+were selling off their outfits. Every store and hotel had from one to
+half a dozen guns in pawn, and one dealer had a number of new ones.
+Anything in the shape of a rifle could be had. Old Kentucky
+muzzle-loaders, "five feet long in the barrel;" condemned army carbines
+of Spencer, Sharps, and other patterns; Springfield muskets; Henry and
+Winchester rifles; and a few of the old reliable Sharps "buffalo guns"
+of 45 and 50 calibre, and using 100 to 120 grains of powder. These
+latter were taken at good figures by the more knowing ones, and the best
+of the others selected by the less intelligent buyers until all were
+fairly well armed.
+
+Then a guide was needed, and a Chicago newspaper correspondent, who was
+to be a member of the expedition, was deputed to employ one. As usual in
+frontier towns, there were plenty of them, each one of whom, in his own
+estimation, was the best in the whole country. Each claimed to know
+every foot of the ground in question, to be able to speak the language
+of every Indian tribe on the frontier, to be a crack shot and intrepid
+horseman, afraid of nothing, and ready for any undertaking, no matter
+how hazardous.
+
+Inquiry among the more reliable citizens of the town as to who was best
+suited for the uses of the present enterprise resulted in the choice of
+a rather quiet and attractive-looking young man bearing the euphonious
+pseudonym of "Red River Frank." He was clad in the conventional buckskin
+suit, and his long glossy black hair hung in heavy curls down to his
+shoulders. He was six feet two inches in height, straight as an arrow,
+and had a deep, clear gray eye; rode a good sized spirited mustang, and
+sat in his saddle like a life-trained trooper.
+
+At the time appointed for the departure, the party, which had now
+swelled to thirty-two men all told, assembled in the public square. The
+wagons were loaded with the tents, bedding, food, and other necessary
+provisions for the trip, which, it was arranged, should occupy about six
+weeks. At ten o'clock the party rode out of town on the road leading
+west, taking with them the hearty good wishes of the assembled throng.
+They crossed a narrow belt of timber and emerged upon a stretch of
+gently undulating prairie, which was densely covered with a luxuriant
+growth of gramma grass, and over which they traveled at a lively gait
+until after sundown before again reaching timber and water. Then they
+camped on a small creek where food, fuel, and good water were abundant.
+The tents were pitched, supper prepared and eaten, and then the party
+assembled around a large camp fire.
+
+The lawyer arose, and requesting the attention of the men, said that, as
+they were going on a long journey into a wild country, which was
+infested with hostile Indians and lawless white men, where it might be
+necessary for this party to defend themselves and their property by
+force of arms, it was thought best to effect a permanent and binding
+organization, which would insure unity of action throughout the trip,
+and especially in the event of any such trouble as he had intimated
+might arise. He therefore nominated as chief executive officer of the
+expedition, Captain W. H. Enders, who, he said, had done good and
+faithful service during the late war; who, since the war, had traveled
+extensively in the West, and who was now engaged in cattle raising in
+Kansas. Several men seconded the nomination, and Captain Enders was
+unanimously chosen by acclamation.
+
+He arose and thanked his friends, modestly and gracefully, for this mark
+of their esteem and confidence, stating that he had no desire to
+exercise any arbitrary or unnecessary authority over them, but should
+only order them in so far as safety and success in their undertaking
+seemed necessary. He asked that all who were willing to stand by him and
+obey his orders to this extent should so pledge themselves by rising to
+their feet. The entire party arose. Then their leader thanked them
+again, and their informal deliberation ended.
+
+The captain detailed four men to act as a guard over the camp and stock
+during the night, each watching two hours and then calling up the one
+who was to relieve him, and this precaution was followed up throughout
+the expedition.
+
+The men were tired from their long ride, and sought the comfort of their
+blankets at an early hour. As they had a ten days' journey before them
+to reach the buffalo range, it was agreed that they should start early
+each morning, and the camp fires were therefore ordered to be lit at
+four o'clock.
+
+The journey was uneventful for several days. The road upon which the
+party had first traveled bearing off to the southwest, and the course of
+our party being due west, they left it. "Red River Frank" now sustained
+his good reputation as a guide by selecting with excellent skill and
+judgment the best portion of the country to travel in, avoiding the
+numerous swamps and sandy plains, finding safe and easy fords across the
+streams, and selecting good camp sites for each night.
+
+They were now in a country where deer and turkeys were abundant, and
+their tables were bountifully supplied with fresh meat. They camped on
+the night of November 12 in a clump of tall cottonwood trees that
+skirted a small creek. Just at dusk a great rush of wings was heard in
+the air, and, looking in the direction from whence the sound came, a
+large flock of wild turkeys was seen sailing directly toward their camp,
+and, a moment later, they lit in the trees amongst which our party was
+camped. Instantly every rifle was brought forth, and the whole camp was
+ablaze with burning powder. The smoke floated up amongst the dazed and
+panic-stricken birds, who fluttered wildly and aimlessly from tree to
+tree, knocking their wings against each other and the dead limbs, and
+making a most frightful noise.
+
+The hunters scattered and tongues of flame shot up from every quarter.
+Volley after volley was fired. The roar of the rifles interspersed with
+the "thud" and "crash" of falling birds, the shouts of the excited
+throng, the neighing of terrified horses, the barking of dogs, turned
+the quiet camp of a few moments ago into a veritable pandemonium. The
+slaughter went on for, perhaps, twenty minutes, when the more humane
+became ashamed of themselves and quit. Finally they prevailed upon their
+friends to desist, and the dead game was gathered up. Sixty-three of
+these noble birds had met their death, and the survivors were allowed to
+sit quietly and watch the camp fires till morning, when they sailed away
+toward the east.
+
+In the afternoon of that day, Frank and the journalist were riding in
+advance of the column across a level, monotonous stretch of country,
+where there was little to attract attention or excite remark. They had
+already become warm friends and talked confidentially on many subjects,
+but Frank had said nothing of his past history, yet his strange demeanor
+at times had excited in the mind of the newspaper man an anxiety to know
+what had moved this refined, generous, scholarly young man to adopt a
+life so uncivilized as the one he was living.
+
+"Frank," he finally said, "I have no wish to question you on a subject
+that you may not wish to speak on, yet I have observed many traits in
+you that are not found in other men of your calling. I am of the opinion
+that you have been bred in a very different sphere of life from this in
+which you now live. If you have no objection, I should like to know what
+motive prompted you to adopt this wild life."
+
+He bit his lip and hesitated. Finally, after some moments, he said:
+
+"Well, I'll tell you how it came about, and I'll make the story brief.
+It is similar to that of many another scout, in general, but different
+in detail, perhaps, from any of them. I was born and bred in an Eastern
+city, and was being educated for the ministry. My father failed in
+business and I was compelled to leave school. He gathered what little
+was left of his shattered fortune, and with his family emigrated to the
+far West. There he engaged in farming on what was then the frontier, but
+before we had been there six months we were awakened one morning at
+daylight by the yells of savage Indians, and, looking out, beheld them
+all around us. They were Comanches.
+
+"Our house was burned. My father was tomahawked and scalped before our
+eyes, and my mother, my sister (who was older than I), and myself were
+carried into captivity. I was fortunate enough to escape. I returned and
+organized a pursuing party, but our efforts were fruitless, and a few
+months later I learned from a half-breed that death had relieved the
+sufferings of my mother and sister. That was twenty years ago. I was
+fifteen years old then, and from that day to this I have been on the
+trail of that tribe. I boast of nothing, but each year I feel better
+satisfied with my work. I hope that, in time, I may feel content to
+return East and engage in some lawful and more congenial pursuit."
+
+At that instant a deer bounded up out of the tall grass a hundred yards
+ahead and went prancing away to the left. Frank caught his rifle from
+the sling at his saddle bow and sent a bullet through its head.
+
+Early the next morning the hunters came upon fresh buffalo signs, and in
+the afternoon a few stragglers were seen. One was killed in the evening,
+and on the creek where they camped that night fresh Indian camp signs
+were found. A small herd of buffalo came to the creek to drink, a mile
+below, just after sundown, and various facts indicated that they were
+near the main herd. All through the next day they were in sight of small
+bands, and several hunting parties were sighted, some white and some
+red. The feed was getting scarce, owing to its having been eaten down by
+the game, and at two o'clock the party camped on Willow creek, a small
+tributary of the Brazos river. The main herd was yet about ten miles
+away, but the hunters could not consistently go any nearer for a
+permanent camp, and decided to make it here. Two white hunters visited
+them in the evening, and told them that a party of ten Comanches were
+camped on Turtle creek seven miles further west. At this intelligence
+Frank's face darkened and his eye gleamed, but he said nothing. Soon
+after dark, however, he was missing, and did not turn up again till near
+noon the next day. He had a different horse from the one he rode away;
+not so good a one, it is true, and there were two bullet holes in his
+coat. He was reticent and uncommunicative as to where he had been, but
+wore a very pleased expression on his countenance, and was occasionally
+seen to smile when not talking with anyone.
+
+[Illustration: NATIVE BUFFALO HUNTERS.]
+
+The majority of the hunters mounted and rode southwest early in the
+morning. Seven men in one party sighted a herd of buffaloes numbering
+about 200, and dismounting, when within a mile, cached their horses in a
+coulee, and began a cautious advance.
+
+They found a deep and crooked ravine into which they crawled, and in
+which they were able to approach to within about 400 yards of the
+nearest animals. A gentle breeze blew from the game toward the hunters,
+and taking advantage of the most favorable point, they crawled up the
+steep bank to where they could command a good view of the game. The
+"tenderfeet" in the party were in favor of firing a volley, but an old
+hunter who had led them advised them to fire singly, and at intervals of
+a minute or two, this plan being much less likely to frighten the game.
+He cautioned them to take very careful aim, to make every shot count,
+and to wound as few animals as possible. One slightly wounded animal, he
+said, would create more uneasiness among the herd than ten dead or
+fatally wounded ones.
+
+Several of this party were good marksmen, and had good strong-shooting,
+long-range rifles. Though, they shot heavy charges, yet, the wind in
+their favor, at this long distance, the animals would scarcely hear the
+reports. The leader advised them to shoot only at animals broadside, and
+gave them careful directions as to elevation and where to aim. Evans
+opened the fire with a sixteen-pound 50-calibre Sharp's. Immediately
+after the report the emphatic "thud" of the bullet came back and a large
+cow was seen to drop on her knees, get up again, stagger away a few rods
+and lie down.
+
+"Good," said the old hunter. "Now, Pete, you go."
+
+"Pete fired, and an old bull whisked his tail, walked sullenly away,
+turned around a few times, and fell dead. Another complimentary remark
+from the old hunter, and then he said:
+
+"Now I guess I'll try one."
+
+He fired, but to his great chagrin did just what he had cautioned the
+others not to do, broke a fore leg below the knee. This cow commenced to
+bellow and "buck," and in an instant the whole herd was in commotion.
+
+"Stop her, somebody, stop her, or she'll stampede the hull bizness!" he
+said, as he pushed another bullet into his muzzle loader. By this time
+she had stopped broadside, for a moment, at the edge of the herd, and
+the journalist, at the order of the boss, drew a bead on her. The "spat"
+of the heavy bullet told of a palpable "hit". She no longer felt like
+running, but was not yet down and it took two more bullets to lay her
+out. The next shot was a clean miss, so far as it concerned the animal
+shot at, but it wounded one somewhere in the herd. Then there was more
+commotion and it was evident the "stand" was at an end.
+
+"Give it to 'em, everybody," the old hunter now said, and a fusillade
+followed that soon put them under full speed.
+
+The hunters now mounted their horses and made a "run" on the band that
+resulted in some very exciting sport and the death of three more
+buffaloes. This over, they returned to the scene of the first firing and
+gralloched the seven animals killed "on the stand." Then they mounted
+their tired beasts again and were on the point of starting for camp when
+they heard strange noises, and looking toward the west beheld a great
+black surging mass, waving and rolling up across the prairie, half
+hidden by great clouds of dust which were only occasionally blown away
+by the brisk autumn wind. It was the great herd of buffalo, and they had
+been stampeded by the Indian hunters. The roar of the hoofs upon the dry
+earth was like the low and sullen thunder. The vanguard of the herd was
+yet more than a mile away, but the dark line stretched to right and left
+almost as far as the eye could reach, and our hunters saw that instant
+and precipitate flight was necessary in order to save their lives. They
+specially chose the northward as offering the shortest and best
+direction by which to escape the coming avalanche, and sinking the spurs
+deep into their terror-stricken beasts, they flew with the velocity of
+an arrow across the wild prairie. A mile was covered in a few seconds,
+and yet they were not past the herd, which was rapidly closing in upon
+them.
+
+[Illustration: THE FIRST RUN.]
+
+They turned their horses' heads partly in the direction the buffaloes
+were going and, urging them to their utmost speed, finally passed the
+outer line of the herd just as the leaders passed by. Then, having
+reached a place of safety, they dismounted, and throwing their bridle
+reins over their arms commenced to load and fire into the herd with all
+possible rapidity, nearly every shot killing or disabling an animal. It
+took nearly half an hour for the rolling, surging, angry horde to pass
+the point where our hunters stood, and as the rear guard came in sight
+there came a new and still more terrible scene in the great tragedy.
+
+More than a hundred Indians were in hot pursuit of the savage beasts.
+They were mounted on wild and almost ungovernable bronchos, who were
+frothing at the mouth, charging and cavorting amongst the fleeing game.
+The white foam dropped in flakes and bubbles from all parts of their
+bodies. Their nostrils were distended, their eyes flashed fire, and they
+seemed as eager as their wild masters to deal death to the buffaloes.
+The savage riders seemed beside themselves with mad, ungovernable
+passion.
+
+Their faces were painted in the most glaring colors, their bright and
+many-colored blankets fluttered in the wind secured to the saddle only
+by an end or a corner, their long black hair streaming back like the
+pennant at the mast head of a ship, and their deep black eyes gleamed
+like coals of fire in a dungeon. Arrow after arrow flew from deep-strung
+bows and sunk to the feathered tip in the quivering flesh of the shaggy
+monsters.
+
+Ponderous spears were hurled with the power and precision of giants and
+struck down the defenceless victims as a sturdy woodman strikes down the
+frail sapling in his path.
+
+"Crack!" "crack!" came from rifles, and "ping!" "ping!" from carbines
+and revolvers. Hundreds of shots were fired by those who carried
+firearms, and before these murderous weapons, the poor bison sank like
+ripened grain before the reaper's blade.
+
+One young warrior, more ardent and fearless than the rest, had forced
+his high-strung steed far into the midst of the solid phalanx, where the
+horse was finally impaled upon the horns of a monster bull. He and his
+rider were tossed like sheaves of wheat into the air; then both sank to
+earth, and were instantly trodden into the dust.
+
+At last the great storm had passed, and our friends watched until it
+faded away in the distance and finally disappeared from their view.
+
+Then came the squaws, the boys, and the old men, to dispatch the wounded
+and to skin and cut up the dead. These were strewn all over the prairie,
+and not a tithe of them were, or could be, saved by all the people,
+white and red, assembled there.
+
+Our hunters returned to camp at sunset, where they met those of their
+companions who had been out during the afternoon, and over the evening
+camp fire, each related the thrilling incidents which he had witnessed,
+or in which he had participated during the day.
+
+On the following morning they again started out in several parties of
+five or six each and going in various directions. Frank and the
+newspaper man started with three others, but soon separated from them to
+go after a small band which they had sighted about two miles south of
+camp.
+
+When within a proper distance, they dismounted, picketed their horses in
+a swale, and stalking to within about a hundred yards opened fire. A
+young cow dropped at the first shot, to all appearances dead, and the
+remainder of the band scurried away, one old bull being badly wounded.
+The hunters started to run to the top of a ridge, over which the game
+had gone, to get another shot. As they passed the cow the guide called
+to his companion to look out for her, as she was only "creased" and
+liable to get up again and charge them. They had gone but a few rods,
+when, sure enough, she did spring to her feet and make a dash at Frank.
+He turned to shoot her, but his gun missed fire, and as he attempted to
+throw out the cartridge, the action failed to work, and his gun was, for
+the moment, disabled. By this time she was almost on him, and as his
+only means of escape, he sprang into a "washout" (a ditch that had been
+cut by the water, some ten feet deep), the sides of which were
+perpendicular.
+
+He called loudly for help, but his friend had not seen the charge, and
+was by this time a hundred yards away. He turned and saw the cow, almost
+blind with rage, rapidly jumping back and forth across the washout, in a
+mad effort to get at the guide, but she seemed unwilling to jump down
+into it. She was shot through the throat, and the blood, flowing from
+her in torrents, had deluged poor Frank, until he looked as if he had
+been at work in a slaughter-house. The scribe ran back, killed the cow,
+and drew his friend from his sanguinary retreat.
+
+The guide then repaired his gun, and mounting their horses they pursued
+the wounded bull. They soon found him at bay, and riding up close to
+him, commenced firing at him with their revolvers. Quick as a flash of
+lightning he made a frightful charge at the journalist, who, taken by
+surprise, was unable to avoid the rush. Both horse and rider were dashed
+to the earth. The horse was so badly injured as to be unable to rise,
+and as the burly antagonist made another rush at him, the man was
+enabled to seek safety in flight, and before the bull again turned his
+attention to the fugitive, the rapid and well-directed fire of the scout
+had brought the shaggy beast to the earth.
+
+The horse was fatally injured and had to be shot, so our friends, with
+one horse between them, took turns riding and walking to camp.
+
+This day's killing by the party was large, and supplied all their wants
+as to meat, skins, and sport. The next few days were devoted to jerking
+meat, dressing and drying skins, and preparing for the return journey,
+and in ten days from the date of their arrival on the hunting ground,
+the teams were all loaded up, camp was broken, and the homeward march
+was begun, which progressed uneventfully from day to day, and was made
+in safety in about the same time occupied in going out.
+
+Twice during the hunt the party were alarmed by the discovery of Indians
+lurking about their camp, late in the night. The guards discovered them
+in both instances, and fired on them, when they beat a hasty retreat and
+disappeared in the darkness. It was not known that their object was
+anything worse than pilfering, and yet there was little doubt that had
+they found the party all off guard and asleep, a massacre would have
+resulted. But, true to their aboriginal instincts, they did not wish to
+engage in a fight with a formidable foe, whom they found ever ready for
+such an emergency.
+
+[Illustration: PROWLERS.]
+
+Such scenes and such sport as this party enjoyed were common almost
+anywhere on the great plains west of the Missouri river up to a few
+years ago. Herds of buffalo extending over a tract of land, as large as
+one of the New England States, and numbering hundreds of thousands of
+heads, might be found any day in what was then "buffalo country." An
+army officer told me that, when crossing the plains in 1867 with a
+company of cavalry, he encountered a herd that it took his command three
+days to ride through, marching about thirty miles a day.
+
+When two of our transcontinental railways were first built it was no
+uncommon thing for herds of buffalo to delay trains for several hours in
+crossing the tracks, the animals being packed in so close together that
+the train could not force a passage through them.
+
+But, alas, those days are passed forever. This noble creature, provided
+to feed the human multitude who should people the prairies, is to-day
+practically extinct; slaughtered and annihilated by that jackal of the
+plains, that coyote in human shape, the "skin hunter." Hundreds of
+thousands of buffaloes were annually killed, their skins sold at from
+seventy-five cents to a dollar and a half each, and the meat which, when
+properly taken care of, is equal, if not superior, to the finest
+domestic beef, was left to rot on the ground.
+
+There are scarcely a hundred buffaloes left on the continent to day in
+their wild state. A very few stragglers are known to be in the Panhandle
+of Texas, a small bunch in the Yellowstone National Park, and a few in
+the British Northwest, but they are being remorselessly pursued by large
+numbers of hunters, and it is safe to say that a year hence not one will
+be left in the whole broad West unless it be those in the park, and they
+will escape only in case they stay within the park limits where they are
+protected by United States soldiers. Should they ever stray beyond the
+bounds of the park they will all be killed in less than a week.
+
+Several small bunches have been domesticated by Western cattlemen, and
+it is hoped the species may, by this means, be saved from total
+extinction. They are being successfully cross-bred with domestic
+cattle, and an excellent strain of stock is thus produced, but the grand
+herds that for ages roamed at will over the great plains are a thing of
+the past.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+HUNTING THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT.
+
+
+There is, perhaps, no large mammal in this country of which the
+scientific world and the reading public in general knows so little as of
+the Rocky Mountain goat (_Aplocerus Montanus_). There are several
+reasons for this. First, its limited range. It is confined to a small
+area of the Rocky Mountains, principally west of the main divide; to
+Western Montana, Eastern Idaho, the Cascade Range in Washington
+Territory, a small portion of British Columbia, and to Alaska. Secondly,
+its habitat is the tops or near the tops of the highest and most rugged
+peaks and cliffs, where none but the hardiest and most daring hunter may
+venture in pursuit of it, and so comparatively very few are ever killed
+and brought into the settlements. Third, it can not be successfully
+domesticated. Its favorite food is so different from that generally
+growing in or near any settlement, the atmosphere it breathes, the mean
+temperature in which it lives, and the ground, or rather rocks, on which
+it is accustomed to walk, so widely different from those surrounding any
+human habitation, that the few young that have been captured and
+brought down to the settlements have soon died. So that none of them are
+found in parks and zoological gardens, as are specimens of nearly all
+other large wild animals.
+
+There are fewer mounted skins of this animal in Eastern museums than of
+any other species indigenous to this country, and hence the public and
+naturalists have had fewer opportunities to study and become familiar
+with it than with other wild mammals. Yet it is one of the most
+beautiful and interesting of all our American quadrupeds, and probably
+no sportsman or naturalist has ever yet mustered courage and hardihood
+enough to go where he could kill a Rocky Mountain goat without feeling
+amply repaid for all the labor and hardship encountered by being able to
+behold this mystic creature in his lofty mountain home. In view of the
+limited facilities people have had for studying this animal a somewhat
+minute description of it may not be amiss here.
+
+In size it is but a trifle larger than the Merino sheep, which, in fact,
+it closely resembles in many respects. The form of its body is robust,
+fore parts rather thicker than hinder parts, with a slight hump over
+shoulders, similar to that of the American bison. Its color is entirely
+white, or, in some instances, of a light creamy shade. Hair long and
+pendant. A beard-like tuft of hair on the chin. Long coarse hair, more
+abundant, on shoulders, neck, and back. Under and intermixed with this
+long hair there is a close coat of fine, silky, white wool, equal in
+fineness to that of the Cashmere goat. Hair on face and legs short and
+without wool. Horns (which are present in both sexes) jet black, small,
+conical, nearly erect, polished, and curving slightly backward; ringed
+or wrinkled at the base, much like those of the chamois. Muzzle and
+hoofs also black. False or accessory hoofs present. Dentition: Incisors,
+8 lower; canines, none; molars, 12 upper, 12 lower; total 32. The
+mountain goat brings forth two or three young at a time, usually late in
+May or early in June. Slightly gregarious, being frequently found in
+small bands in winter, but in summer season not more than a single
+family is usually seen together, and in summer and fall the older males
+may frequently be found entirely alone. The nose is nearly straight,
+ears rather long, pointed, and lined with long hair. Tail six to eight
+inches long, clothed with long hair. Legs thick and short. Hoofs grooved
+on sole and provided with a thick spongy mass of cartilage in centre,
+projecting below the outer edges of hoof, enabling the animal to cling
+firmly to steep or smooth rocks. The dimensions of one adult male
+specimen measured are as follows: Length from tip of nose to root of
+tail, 3 feet 7 inches; length of tail, 7 inches; length of head, 11-3/4
+inches; length of horns, 8-1/2 inches; diameter of horns at base, 1
+inch. Its estimated gross weight is 130 pounds.
+
+The food of the mountain goat consists principally, in summer, of the
+leaves of the alder and of various mountain shrubs, and in winter of
+mosses and lichens that grow on the rocks.
+
+_Aplocerus Montanus_ is much more closely allied to the antelope than to
+the domestic goat, and has few characteristics in common with the
+latter genus. He is an agile, fearless climber, and appears to delight
+in scaling the tallest, grandest, and most rugged crags and cliffs to be
+found in the ranges which he inhabits, not so much in quest of his
+favorite food, for this grows abundantly lower down, but apparently from
+a mere spirit of daring; from a desire to breathe the rarest and purest
+atmosphere obtainable, and to view the grandest scenery under the sun
+without having his vision in the least obstructed by intervening
+objects. These forbidding and almost inaccessible crags are the
+favorite, and nearly the exclusive, haunts of this strange creature, and
+the hunter who follows it thither must indeed be a daring mountaineer.
+The goat is frequently found at altitudes of 10,000 to 14,000 feet,
+where the atmosphere is so rare as to render it difficult indeed for man
+to climb, yet this fearless creature nimbly leaps from crag to crag,
+over deep yawning chasms, with no more fear than the domestic lamb feels
+when bounding over the greensward in an Eastern farmyard.
+
+The hunter literally takes his life in his hand when pursuing the goat,
+for he must pass over many places where a misstep or a slip of a few
+inches would plunge him over a precipice, where he would fall thousands
+of feet, or be hurled into some narrow and deep fissure in the rocks
+whence escape would be impossible.
+
+Over such rugged and perilous ground he may climb, hour after hour,
+until he has passed the highest ranges of the elk, the mountain sheep,
+and all the other game, for the mountain goat, "the American chamois,"
+as he has been aptly termed, ranges higher than any of them. He may
+toil on until he is far above timber line, and is working his way over
+and around vast drifts and beds of perpetual snow and ice. Finally he
+sights his game--a fine handsome specimen--standing fearlessly on some
+jutting crag, deliberately feeding on some tender lichens or, perhaps,
+peering proudly out over the lower world. The hunter now changes his
+course until he can conceal himself behind some neighboring rock, and
+then crawls stealthily and cautiously up to within rifle range of the
+game. Then, peering cautiously from behind his cover, he takes careful
+aim and fires. He is a dead shot and the rifle ball pierces the heart of
+the quarry, but to his dismay it makes a convulsive bound and down it
+goes over the precipice, rebounding from crag to crag, until it finally
+reaches a resting place hundreds of feet below. It may go to where he
+can never reach it, or may land where he can recover it on his return
+down the mountain side; but if the latter, it may be torn to fragments
+and scattered here and there until the hide is useless, the horns are
+broken off, the skull crushed so that the head is unfit to mount, and
+the flesh so bruised and mangled that he can scarcely save enough of it
+to make him a dinner.
+
+A few years ago an officer of the United States army and a party of
+friends were hunting goats in the Bitter Root Mountains, near Missoula,
+Mont. They followed two--a male and female--to the top of a rough and
+dangerous peak, when the game, before they could get a shot at it,
+started down the opposite side and took refuge from the hunters under a
+shelving rock. Here it was, owing to the nature of the rocks and ice,
+absolutely impossible for the hunters to follow them on foot, but the
+intrepid officer, not to be baffled in the pursuit, tied a long rope
+securely around his body, just under his arms, laid down, and grasping
+his rifle slid quietly down, on a bed of ice, some sixty or seventy
+feet, while his companions held on to the other end of the rope and
+controlled his perilous descent. Finally, when he had gone far enough to
+be able to see the game, he signaled his friends, who stopped him, and
+raising on his elbows he fired and killed both goats, and was then drawn
+up again in safety. Such, however, was the nature of the rocks between
+him and the carcasses that it was utterly impossible to reach them after
+he had killed them, and he was compelled reluctantly to abandon them.
+Several members of the party tried to reach them from other points, but
+were unable to do so, and they were all obliged to return empty-handed
+to camp.
+
+In another instance this same officer, upon crawling out on the edge of
+a shelving rock and looking down over a precipice hundreds of feet
+below, saw two goats near the base, but they were actually inside of a
+perpendicular line running down from the edge of the rock he occupied,
+and he was therefore unable to bring his rifle to bear upon them without
+projecting his body out over the edge of the rock further than was safe.
+After discussing the matter for some minutes, one of his friends offered
+to hold his feet and thus enable him to extend his head and shoulders
+far enough out to get his aim. By this means both of the goats were
+killed, but a party had to go around and ascend the mountain from the
+other side in order to secure them.
+
+The same party, while climbing the rugged and almost perpendicular face
+of Little Mountain to bring down some goats they had already killed,
+came suddenly upon a large buck in a narrow V-shaped fissure in the
+rock, from which there was no escape but by the opening at which they
+had entered, and across this they formed a skirmish line. The goat
+climbed upon a narrow projection on one of the walls of the fissure just
+out of reach of the tallest man in the party, and as they had no rifles
+with them (having left them below to lighten the labor of the ascent),
+they tried to dislodge him by throwing rocks at him, but their footing
+was so insecure and there was such great danger of their falling that
+they could not hurl these with sufficient force to bring him down though
+several of them hit him. If they had had a rope they could easily have
+lassoed him, but there was no such thing at hand. They finally decided
+to leave one of the men to guard their prisoner, and on their return to
+camp another man took a rifle, went back, killed the goat, and the two
+bore him triumphantly down to camp. The gentleman says: "Had I not been
+an eye witness, and had I subsequently been shown the place where the
+goat stood thus at bay, I could scarcely have believed it possible for
+anything larger than a fly to have found footing there."
+
+Fortunately, however, the successful hunting of the goat is not always
+thus perilous, for though he habitually selects for his home the
+roughest and most inaccessible peaks to be found in the mountains, yet
+he sometimes ranges on more favorable ground, and if the sportsman be so
+fortunate as to find him there he may be killed and saved. They range
+somewhat lower in winter than in summer, but never even then venture
+down into the canyons or valleys, as do all the other large mountain
+animals. They only come down upon the lower peaks and ridges, and remain
+about the rocky walls, which are so precipitous that the snow can not
+lie on them to any considerable depth. Their power of climbing over and
+walking on these almost perpendicular rock walls is utterly astounding.
+They will walk along the side of an upright projecting ledge that towers
+hundreds of feet above and below them where a shelf projects not more
+than four or five inches wide. They will climb straight up an almost
+perpendicular wall, if only slightly rough and irregular, so that they
+can get a chance to hold on with their spongy hoofs here and there. And
+they seem to select these difficult passes in many instances when a
+good, easy passage could be had to the place to which they are bound by
+going a little further around. They seem to delight in scaling a
+dangerous cliff as a courageous boy does in climbing the tallest tree. I
+once saw where a goat had walked straight up over a smooth flat slab of
+granite ten feet wide, that laid at an angle of about fifty degrees, and
+that was covered with about two inches of wet snow and slush. I could
+not climb up it with moccasins on my feet, and no dog could have
+followed him there. This faculty is accounted for by the peculiar shape
+and quality of their hoofs before described.
+
+The skin of the Rocky Mountain goat has never had any regular commercial
+value. The stiff, coarse, brittle hair that is mixed with the wool
+renders them unsuitable for robes or rugs, and this hair can not readily
+be plucked out. The only demand for them is for mounting. Very few white
+hunters and none of the Indians understand how to skin and preserve them
+properly for this purpose, and this fact, taken in connection with that
+of the rough and dangerous nature of the ground they inhabit, makes it
+difficult to secure good skins, or even heads for mounting.
+
+The flesh of the goat is edible, but in the adult animal is dry and
+tasteless. When kids of less than a year old can be obtained, their
+flesh is tender and toothsome. They are not hunted, therefore, for meat,
+for in the ranges where they are found, deer, mountain sheep, or elks
+can be obtained much lower down and are much more desirable for the
+table.
+
+During a sojourn of a month in the Bitter Root Mountains, near Missoula,
+Mont., last fall I had some very exciting, not to say dangerous,
+experiences in hunting this animal. We were camped in Lost Horse Canyon,
+through which flows a typical mountain stream. The walls on both sides
+are very abrupt and from three to four thousand feet in height. That on
+the north is covered from bottom to top with great masses of granite
+that have been broken loose from the cliffs at the top by earthquakes,
+the action of frost, or other agency, and have tumbled down, breaking
+into irregular-shaped fragments, of all sizes, lodging and piling on top
+of each other in such a manner as to form a gigantic sort of pavement
+from the top of the mountain to the foot. There were narrow strips of
+the mountain side that had escaped these fallen masses. Here the
+outcropping granite remained in its natural shape--irregular ledges with
+small patches of earth intervening. Pines, hemlocks, cedars, and various
+kinds of shrubs grew in these places as far up the mountain side as the
+timber line.
+
+I ascended this north wall one morning and after a weary and toilsome
+climb of about two miles, and when in snow about six inches deep, I came
+upon the track of a very large goat. It was some hours old, but he had
+been feeding deliberately along the mountain side, and as they are not
+rapid travelers in any case, I knew he was not a great distance away. I
+took up the trail and followed it. It led over a succession of these
+vast rock piles, which, owing to their being covered with snow, made the
+traveling doubly dangerous. A slight misstep at any point, or an
+unfortunate slip would be liable to let my foot drop in between two of
+these rocks and throw me in such a way as to break a leg, an arm, or
+possibly my head. The greatest care was therefore necessary in picking
+my way over this dangerous country, and I was frequently struck with the
+wise provisions which Nature makes for fulfilling her ends when I saw
+where the animal I was pursuing had bounded lightly from rock to rock
+over chasms many feet in width; or where he had walked up the sharp edge
+of some slab of granite not more than three or four inches wide and
+lying at a high angle; or where he had walked up over a flat slab of it,
+tilted so steep that no other large animal in the mountains could have
+followed him. There were many of his passages in which I could not
+follow, but I had to make slow and tortuous detours, coming upon his
+trail again beyond these most dangerous points.
+
+Had he traveled straight ahead I could never have overtaken him, but the
+time he consumed in frequently stopping to nip the tender leaves of the
+mountain alder or the juicy lichens that grow upon the rocks proved
+fatal to him, and finally, after a chase of probably two miles and when
+near the top of the peak close to timber line, I came in sight of him.
+He was truly a beautiful creature. There he stood, unconscious of
+approaching danger, looking calmly out across a neighboring canyon as if
+enjoying the grand scenery about him. Occasionally he turned to take a
+mouthful of some delicate mountain herb that stood near him. The pale
+creamy white of his fleece contrasted delicately and beautifully with
+the green of the cedars, the golden autumn-colored leaves of the shrubs,
+the dull gray of the granite rocks, and the pure white of the early
+autumn snow. The sunlight glistened upon the polished black of his
+proudly curved and beautifully rounded horns, and his large black eyes
+gleamed as with conscious innocence and pride. I contemplated his
+majestic mien for several minutes before I could nerve myself to the
+task of taking his life, but finally the hunter's instinct conquered my
+more delicate feelings. I put my rifle to my shoulder, pressed the
+gently yielding trigger, and in an instant more his life blood crimsoned
+the driven snow.
+
+After making temporary disposition of his remains, I returned as rapidly
+as possible to camp to get my photographic outfit and some help to
+carry him in, for we were short of meat at the time. It was three
+o'clock in the afternoon when I reached camp, and, eating a hasty lunch,
+I started back up the mountain with three of my friends.
+
+When we again reached the carcass it was five o'clock, and our work must
+be done hastily in order to get down the mountain as far as possible
+before dark. To add to the discomfort of our undertaking a drizzling
+rain set in just as I was ready to make the views. I exposed a couple of
+plates, however, which fortunately turned out fairly. We then set to
+work to skin him as rapidly as possible, and as soon as this was
+accomplished we started on our return to camp, two of the men taking the
+two hind quarters of the animal, another my camera, and I the skin and
+head. With these loads, weighing from twenty-five to thirty-five pounds
+each, besides our rifles, and considering the difficult and dangerous
+nature of the ground we had to travel over and the fact that it was
+already beginning to grow dark, we had, indeed, a perilous journey
+before us. Climbing over these rock piles when covered with snow was
+difficult enough work in daylight, but to attempt it in the darkness and
+now that it was raining heavily, the snow having become wet and slushy
+and the rocks more slippery than before, it was doubly perilous.
+
+Our course lay diagonally down and along the side of the mountain, and
+as long as the light was sufficient to at all see where we were stepping
+we made fair progress. Frequently, however, someone would slip and fall,
+but fortunately without receiving any serious injury. We were often
+compelled to hold to some shrub or tree and let ourselves down over
+projecting rocks several feet, where we could not possibly have stood up
+without such aid.
+
+Finally, when we were yet less than half way down the mountain side, it
+became pitch dark. Here we sat down to rest. The rain was falling in
+torrents, and but for the snow on the ground we could not now have seen
+a step ahead of us. We had entered one of those more favored strips of
+land where the falling rocks had not covered the ground entirely, and
+where there was a considerable growth of timber, both large trees and
+underbrush. I was in favor of going straight down through this into the
+creek bottom where we could at least walk in safety, even if our
+progress should be slower. One of my friends--Mr. Overturf--agreed with
+me, but the other two--Mr. McWhirk and Mr. Hinchman--preferred to
+continue over the rocks in a direct line to camp. We therefore decided
+to separate, Frank and I going straight down through this strip of
+timber and over the smoother ground, and the other two following the
+more direct course.
+
+We two reached the foot of the mountain in about an hour more; not,
+however, without encountering serious difficulties in grasping and
+finding our way down over precipitous rocks and earth, hanging on to one
+limb or shrub until we came in reach of another, and thus letting
+ourselves down safely. We were then about a mile and a half from camp.
+The creek bottom was densely timbered. There was a dim game trail
+leading through it up to our camp, but it was impossible to follow it in
+the darkness, and, in fact, it required the closest attention of
+experienced woodsmen and hunters to follow it in daylight. We were
+therefore utterly at sea. We were safe, however, and we heaved a sigh of
+relief when we found ourselves on level ground, for none of us had
+relished the idea of having a bone broken in that country, so far from
+medical aid and home comforts.
+
+Great snow slides had for ages been coming down these mountain sides
+bringing their debris, such as rocks, and logs, and whole trees with
+them. These had frequently gone some distance into the creek bottom,
+breaking and felling all the trees in their path. Tornadoes had raged
+through the canyon, also, breaking and lopping trees in various
+directions, so that we now encountered a body of woods through which the
+most expert woodsman could not possibly travel more than a mile an hour
+in daylight. Add to this the cimmerian darkness in which we were now
+groping (for there was no snow here in the bottom of the canyon) and the
+reader may well imagine that our progress was slow and tedious in the
+extreme.
+
+We sat down and held another consultation. I favored building a fire and
+staying there till morning, but Frank preferred pushing on to camp, so I
+acquiesced. We soon found, however, that it was utterly impossible for
+us to get through these windfalls in the darkness and with our heavy
+loads, and decided as a last resort to get into the bed of the creek and
+wade up it. We were already wet to the skin from head to foot, and this
+wading could be no worse than clambering over logs and through jungles
+of wet underbrush. We soon reached the creek and our hearts sank within
+us as we listened to its tumultuous roar and looked upon its angry
+bosom, for here we were enabled to see slightly, owing to the faint
+light admitted through the narrow opening in the trees overhead, how
+rough and boisterous it was! Its bed was a succession of bowlders from
+the size of a man's head to that of a small house, and its waters,
+coming direct from the snow, were ice cold. Yet to camp here was to
+suffer all night from wet and cold, and we preferred to push on.
+
+By keeping near the shore we could nearly all the time have brush to
+hang to and steady ourselves, but where there were none of these in
+reach our rubber boots slipped on the smooth wet rocks, and several
+times we fell into the icy flood up to our chins. Once, in particular, I
+fell in water nearly three feet deep, dropped my gun and it went to the
+bottom. I fished it out, however, staggered to my feet, and struggled
+on.
+
+After nearly two hours of this terrible trudging, wading, and
+staggering, we at last reached camp at eleven o'clock at night and
+triumphantly deposited our burdens within the tent.
+
+Our two friends, from whom we had separated _en route_, had arrived only
+half an hour ahead of us, and notwithstanding the rain, which still fell
+heavily, Dr. Hale, who had remained in camp, had a great log-heap fire
+blazing in front of the tent. A pot of coffee steamed by the fire, and a
+sumptuous supper of broiled bear steaks, baked potatoes, and hot
+biscuits awaited us, but I was too tired to eat. I drank a pint of hot
+coffee, put on dry flannels, crawled into my blankets, and slept soundly
+till morning.
+
+As further illustrating the habits of the mountain goat and the perils
+attending its capture, I may be permitted to narrate the experience of
+Mr. Westlake, a ranchman in Eastern Idaho, who attempted to procure a
+pair of skins for a friend in the East a few years ago. He employed a
+Flathead Indian as guide and assistant, who claimed to know the country
+thoroughly in which they purposed hunting, and to have had considerable
+experience in hunting goats. Mr. Westlake provided himself with a good
+saddle-horse and one pack-horse, a rifle, camp outfit, including a small
+tent, and provisions for himself and the Indian for twenty days. The
+Indian was fairly mounted on a small but tough Indian pony and well
+armed. They set out on September 2, and traveled across the country to
+the Clearwater river, up which they rode several days, over a very
+difficult and tedious trail, and when well up toward the head of the
+stream they reached the mouth of one of its tributaries which debouches
+from a deep and rugged canyon. Up this they decided to go, for it was
+their intention to reach the Bitter Root Mountains, one of the best
+known ranges for the goat.
+
+This canyon proved, like many others in that region, almost impassable
+for man or beast, and it was with the utmost difficulty and by the
+endurance of untold and incredible hardships that they were able to make
+seven or eight miles a day. They encountered plenty of game in the
+canyon, however, among which were elks, bears, and mule-deer, and the
+creek which ran through the canyon yielded them an abundance of trout, so
+that they fared sumptuously so far as food was concerned.
+
+Finally, after several days in this canyon, they reached the head of it
+and came out on a high plateau which was covered with heavy pine timber
+interspersed with beautiful parks or meadows and thickets of aspen and
+alder. Numerous springs boiling up here coursed down into the canyon from
+which they had just emerged, and fed the creek which ran through it.
+Pressing forward across this formation for a distance of about ten
+miles, they reached the base of one of the great snow-capped peaks, near
+the top of which they expected to find the particular game of which they
+were in search. But this mountain was so precipitous and so rough that
+it was impossible for them to get their horses up it in any way. They
+discussed various plans of accomplishing their object. It was highly
+dangerous to leave their horses here alone, lest the bears or mountain
+lions, which were so numerous in the vicinity, should stampede and run
+them off. It was impossible for either man to go alone and bring down
+two of the skins and heads suitably prepared for mounting, as they, with
+the other load which it was necessary to take along, would be more than
+any one man could carry. It would take two days to make the ascent, have
+a few hours for hunting, and return to where they then were, and in
+order to pass the night at all comfortably in that high altitude a
+liberal supply of blankets must be carried.
+
+They therefore decided, as the only feasible plan, to make camp where
+they were and start up early the next morning, leaving their horses
+behind. They made all possible preparations that night, and the next
+morning arose at four o'clock. By sunrise they had breakfasted, and
+with their packs, consisting of two pairs of blankets each and a two
+days' supply of cooked food, they started. They did not dare picket or
+hobble their horses, as either would give the wild beasts a chance to
+attack and kill them, and could only trust to luck, an abundant supply
+of good grass and water, and the well-known attachment which nearly all
+Western horses feel for a camp, to keep them there until their return.
+
+After a hard day's climb they came upon abundant signs of goats about
+the middle of the afternoon, and, preparing a temporary bivouac under a
+shelving rock, they deposited their loads, made a pot of coffee, ate a
+hearty dinner, and started out to look for the game. They had not gone
+far when Mr. Westlake sighted a large, handsome male goat standing on
+the top of a cliff, and approaching within easy rifle range he fired and
+killed it. It fell some twenty or thirty feet, and lodged behind a
+projecting slab of granite. It was secured after considerable hard work,
+hastily skinned, and the skin and some of the best cuts of the meat
+carried to their temporary camp. Night was now approaching, and the
+hunters set about preparing a supply of wood. There were numerous dead
+pine and cedar trees, of stunted growth and peculiar shapes, standing
+and lying among the rocks, and a generous supply was soon provided.
+Next, a large quantity of cedar boughs were cut, brought in and spread
+under the overhanging rock, to a depth of a foot or more. On these the
+blankets were spread, and the hunters had a bed which many a tired
+lodger in Eastern city hotels might well envy them. By building a
+rousing fire in front, which was reflected against the rock wall behind
+them, and by occasionally replenishing it during the night, they slept
+comfortably, though the temperature ran several degrees below zero.
+
+Early the next morning both men started out in search of a female goat
+to complete their undertaking. Nearly two hours had been spent in
+hunting, when the Indian found a fresh track in the snow some distance
+above their temporary camp. He followed it until it led in among a
+forest of rent and jagged cliffs of granite, and Westlake, who was some
+distance away, seeing by the Indian's motions that he was on a trail,
+started toward him. When within a few feet of where he had last seen the
+Indian he heard the report of his rifle, and a shout announced that his
+shot had been successful. Mr. Westlake followed on into the chasm from
+whence the report came and saw the Indian attempting to scale the side
+of a nearly perpendicular wall of rock, stepping cautiously from niche
+to niche and shelf to shelf; holding on with his hands to every
+projecting point that afforded him any assistance. He finally reached
+the top of the ledge, and reaching over caught hold of the now lifeless
+body of the goat that he had killed, and drew it toward him. But when it
+swung off from the top of the ledge its weight and the consequent strain
+on his muscular power was greater than the Indian had anticipated, and
+before he had time to let go of the carcass and save himself his slight
+hold on the rock was torn loose, and uttering a wild shriek he fell a
+distance of nearly sixty feet, striking on a heap of broken rocks! He
+was instantly killed.
+
+Here was a sad blow to poor Westlake. His only companion, his faithful
+guide, and the only human being within fifty miles of him, lay a corpse
+at his feet. He had no means whatever of getting the body back to their
+camp, much less of returning it to the unfortunate red man's friends. He
+had not even a tool of any kind to dig a grave with, and the only thing
+he could do in that direction was to build a wall of rocks around the
+body, lay some flat slabs across the top, and then carry and lay on top
+of these a number of the largest and heaviest rocks he could handle, to
+protect it from the ravages of wild beasts. When this sad duty was
+completed he returned with a heavy heart to their temporary camp, and
+with as much of their luggage as he was able to carry started down the
+mountain. Arriving about noon at the tent, he was horrified to find the
+tracks of a large bear in and about it, the greater portion of his
+supplies eaten up or destroyed, and his horses nowhere in sight. A hasty
+examination showed that the bear had passed through the little park in
+which they had last been grazing--evidently early that morning--that
+they had taken flight and fled in the direction of the head of the canyon
+up which they had come. Westlake followed them several miles until
+convinced that they had really started on their back trail, and then he
+returned to camp. By this time night was again approaching and it was
+with a heavy heart that he prepared to pass it there, all alone, and
+still further depressed with the thought that he had now a journey of a
+hundred miles or more before him, to the nearest settlement, which he
+must undoubtedly make on foot. He ate his supper alone and in sadness,
+and as the camp fire blazed in front of his tent it cast fitful shadows
+into the gloom, which was unbroken by any sound save the occasional
+soughing of the wind through the pine trees or the cry of some wild
+animal. He finally retired to rest, but his sleep was broken by troubled
+dreams. As the sun arose he prepared a hasty meal, which was eaten in
+silence, and with a pair of blankets, a few pounds of flour, salt, and
+coffee, and his rifle, he started, leaving his tent standing and all
+else in it as a monument to the memory of his friend and a landmark to
+future hunters and mountaineers to locate the scene of his great
+misfortune. He traveled seven days before seeing the face of a human
+being or sleeping under a shelter of any kind, when he finally reached a
+ranch where his horses had preceded him and had been corraled to await
+an owner.
+
+It is fortunate that all goat hunters do not meet with such disasters as
+did poor Westlake and his young friend, or the noble sport would have
+still fewer votaries than it now has.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+TROUTING IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
+
+
+In September, 1884, I joined a party of genial sportsmen at Fort
+Missoula, Mont., for a month's outing in the Bitter Root Mountains. Our
+special mission was to hunt large game; but while perfecting
+arrangements for the trip, which occupied two days, and during the
+mornings and evenings of the several days occupied in traveling up and
+down the river to and from the hunting grounds, those of us who had our
+fishing tackle with us turned what would otherwise have been long hours
+of impatient waiting into merrily-fleeing moments, by luring the grand
+mountain trout (_Salmo purpuratus_) with which this river abounds from
+their crystalline retreats and transferring them to our creels and our
+camp table.
+
+The Bitter Root is a typical mountain stream, rising among the snow-clad
+peaks in the vicinity of the Big Hole basin and flowing with the mighty
+rush imparted to it by a fall of 200 to 300 feet per mile, fed by the
+scores of ice-cold brooks that tumble out of the high ranges on either
+side from its source to its mouth. After traversing a distance of
+perhaps 200 miles, it empties its pure waters into the Hellgate river,
+just west of Missoula.
+
+[Illustration: THE RISE.]
+
+Its valley is two to four miles wide, and the lower portion of this is
+occupied by numerous ranches. The soil is tilled by well-to-do farmers
+or "ranchmen," to speak in the vernacular of the country, so that the
+angler, while within a mile or two of rugged mountain peaks, is still in
+the midst of civilization, where his larder may daily be replenished
+with nearly all the varieties of good things that grow on any New
+England farm. The banks of the stream are fringed with stately pines and
+cottonwoods, and in places with thickets of underbrush.
+
+From a tiny brook at its source the stream grows rapidly to a veritable
+river of thirty to fifty yards in width as it passes on toward its
+destination. It sweeps and whirls in its course, here running straight
+and placidly for a hundred yards, then turning abruptly to right or left
+and returning almost parallel to itself, forming "horse-shoe bends,"
+"ox-bow bends," compound S's, right angles, etc.
+
+In many cases it tumbles down over a long, steep pavement of granite
+bowlders, working itself into a very agony of bubbles and foam, and when
+the foot of this fall is reached it whirls and eddies in a great pool
+ten or twenty feet deep and covering half an acre of ground, almost
+surrounded by high-cut banks, and seeming to have lost its way. It
+eventually finds an exit, however, through an opening in the willows and
+masses of driftwood, and again speeds on.
+
+In many of these large, deep pools whole trees, of giant size, brought
+down by the spring freshets, have found lodgment beyond the power of
+the mighty current to drive them further, and underneath these drifts
+the angler is liable to hook a lusty trout that will make short work of
+his tackle if he be not very gentle and expert in manipulating it.
+
+[Illustration: SOLID COMFORT.]
+
+This river may be fished from a canoe or boat, if it be manned by a
+master of the art of fresh-water cruising; but no amateur oarsman or
+canoeist should ever attempt it or he will surely come to grief. It may
+also be fished from the bank or by wading; and I have even known it to
+be fished from the hurricane-deck of a cayuse, so that all lovers of the
+gentle art may be accommodated.
+
+A large bump of caution would also be a good thing for the man to take
+along who essays to wade it, for he will find places--slippery
+places--where even the wicked can not stand; for over the surface
+thereof flows such a mighty torrent of waters that his pride will surely
+have a fall, even if he do not; and if he get out with a dry thread on
+his back he will regard it as a miracle and not owing to any skill or
+strength of his. I think a day on that stream will take the conceit out
+of any living man and show him what a poor, weak worm he is, _if_ he get
+into some of the places I have been in. He will find himself in
+positions from whence he would give half his worldly possessions to be
+delivered; where he would forgive his bitterest enemy the meanest thing
+he ever did if he were only there and would cast him a friendly line.
+The bed of the stream is composed of glacial drift, all the rapids being
+paved with bowlders varying in size from an inch to two or three feet in
+diameter. These are worn smooth by the action of the water and coated
+with a light growth of fungus, so that they furnish a very precarious
+footing at best, and when the power of the raging torrent is brought to
+bear against one's nether limbs, he is, indeed, fortunate who is not
+swept into the pool below.
+
+On the riffles or more placid portions of the stream wading is not
+attended with so much danger or difficulty. And while the angler
+beguiles the hours in dalliance with these beauties of the river, gazing
+into its crystalline depths and toying with its poetic denizens, a
+glance to east or west reveals to him scenes of even grander and more
+inspiring loveliness; for there, so close as to reveal their every rock
+and shrub, tower the shapely peaks, the shattered crags and beetling
+cliffs which constitute the Bitter Root range of mountains. And even in
+midsummer the fresh, pure breezes sweeping down from these snow-clad
+summits fan his parched brow and render existence, under such
+circumstances, the realization of a poet's dream.
+
+[Illustration: MID RUSHING WATERS.]
+
+On a bright, cheery September morning, Private Westbrook, of the Third
+Infantry, and myself left camp as soon as the sun had expelled the
+frost from the vegetation. On the way down we caught a number of
+grasshoppers--the orthodox bait in this region--to fall back on in case
+of necessity; for there are days when the mountain trout, as well as his
+cousin, the brook trout of the East, declines the most seductive fly on
+the bill of fare, and will have nothing but his favorite every-day diet.
+
+Arriving at the river, Westbrook skirmished through the brush until he
+found an alder about an inch and a quarter in diameter at the ground and
+ten or twelve feet high. This he cut, trimmed up, and attached his line,
+a number two Sproat hook and a split shot, put on a "hopper," and was
+ready for business. I remonstrated gently with him on the heathenish
+character of his tackle, but he said, pleasantly and politely, that it
+was the kind that generally got to the front when trout-fishing was the
+business in hand. He said the fancy rods and reels and flies were all
+well enough for those who wanted to use them, but he preferred something
+with which he could round up his fish and corral them without losing any
+time. He said it was all right for any gentlemen to spend half an hour
+monkeying a trout after he had hooked it, if he wanted to, but for his
+part, he never could see much fun in that sort of fishing. He thought it
+was decidedly more interesting to yank a fish in out of the wet the
+instant he bit, and then lay for another.
+
+He walked boldly out into the stream, waded down a little way below the
+ford, on a riffle, till he reached a point where the water was about
+two feet deep and where it rolled sullenly and gloomily over a series
+of large bowlders.
+
+Here he made a cast, and his bait had barely touched the water when
+there was a vicious rush, a swirl and a dash downstream, but the cruel
+pole was brought to bear in the opposite direction. Then there was a
+flop, a splash, a hop, skip and a jump, and a three-pound trout took a
+header and went down into the soldier's haversack.
+
+The bait was renewed, another cast made, and the act was repeated on a
+half-pounder. Then another weighing one-and-a-half pounds and a couple
+of about a pound each followed in rapid succession, when this portion of
+the stream failed to yield, and Westbrook moved on down. I followed
+along the bank and watched him for half an hour before attempting to rig
+my tackle at all. To watch the play of the various emotions on his hard,
+brown, honest face; to study the effect of the intense enthusiasm which
+possessed him; to note the utter disregard of personal safety and
+comfort with which he would plunge into the surging rapids and eddies up
+to his waist, or even to his arm-pits, wherever he thought he could
+catch a trout by so doing, was a genuine treat.
+
+Finally I went back to the ford, jointed up my rod, put on a gray
+professor, and walking down the bank to a sudden bend in the river where
+the current had cut a deep hole near the bank, I made a cast. The fly
+dropped on the riffle just above the eddy, and as it floated gracefully
+on the little wavelets down and out upon the bosom of the deep-blue
+miniature ocean, it turned hither and thither with the capricious
+currents that played there, for perhaps five minutes. I was just in the
+act of reeling up for another cast, when a gleam of silvery light
+flashed upon my vision, flecked with settings of jet and gold. There was
+a mighty commotion upon the surface and a monster trout leaped full into
+the air as he seized the feathered bait and then shot down, down into
+the crystal fluid, leaving the water in the vicinity of his exploit
+bubbling, effervescing, and sparkling like the rarest old champagne. For
+the nonce I was paralyzed with the suddenness and viciousness of his
+coming and going, and my reel was singing merrily when I awoke to a
+realization of what it all meant.
+
+Then I thumbed the cylinder and checked him in his wild flight, but he
+continued to fight his way clear down to the lower end of the pool, a
+distance of twenty yards. Then he turned and came toward me with the
+speed of an arrow, but the automatic reel took up the slack as rapidly
+as he gave it. When within twenty feet of me he turned out into the
+stream, and as I checked him he again vaulted into the air and the
+sun-light glistened on his beautifully-colored sides and fins as he
+struggled to free himself. Finding this impossible he started for the
+bank, where brush and roots projected into the water; but by a vigorous
+and fortunate sweep of the rod I was enabled to check him again. Again
+he sounded and again rushed up, down, and out into the river, but the
+steel was securely set, and he was compelled at last to succumb.
+Gradually I reeled him in, and as I brought him up to the bank he turned
+on his side exhausted. He weighed two and three-quarter pounds and
+measured seventeen inches in length.
+
+[Illustration: AN ANXIOUS MOMENT]
+
+I took two others, nearly as large, out of the same hole, and then
+proceeding down fifty yards, I saw a large cottonwood tree lying in the
+middle of the stream where it had lodged and been securely anchored,
+probably a year or two before. The current had scooped out a great
+cavity about its roots and I felt sure there must be a giant old trout
+lying amongst them, but I could not reach it with a cast from the shore.
+To attempt to wade to it I saw would be hazardous, for the channel
+between me and it was waist deep and ran with all the velocity of a mill
+tail. But what danger will not an enthusiastic angler brave when in
+pursuit of a trout? I started in, and when half way to the trunk, would
+gladly have retreated, but was actually afraid to attempt to turn in the
+midst of this current, so I pressed forward, finally reached the trunk
+of the tree and climbed upon it. I made a cast up near the root and
+hooked a handsome fellow, but after playing him until I had him
+completely under control and almost ready to land, the hook, which had
+been but slightly caught, tore out and he drifted down the river on his
+side.
+
+Another effort secured a two-pounder, and failing to get any further
+encouragement, I climbed into the icy torrent and with great difficulty
+again reached the shore.
+
+A little further down I saw another very deep pool, into which a small,
+green cottonwood tree had lately fallen and hung by its roots to the
+bank. I felt sure of making a good catch here, for the hole was ten or
+twelve feet deep, and the driftwood that had lodged about this tree
+afforded excellent cover for the wary old fellows that always seek such
+secluded and impregnable strongholds. The fly settled gracefully on the
+surface at the upper end of the pool, and as it floated listlessly down
+toward the drift, Westbrook, who had come down and was fishing from the
+bank opposite, said:
+
+"You'll get a good one there, sir. That's a splendid hole for a big old
+fellow."
+
+"I think so; but he seems backward about coming forward."
+
+"Maybe that blasted bird has scared him," said he, referring to a coot
+that floated unconcernedly and even impudently about the pool, eyeing us
+without a symptom of fear, but evincing the liveliest curiosity as to
+who and what we were.
+
+I reeled up and made another cast farther out on the pool. As the fly
+fell, Mrs. Coot swam up to it as if inclined to pick it up. I almost
+hoped she would, for I should really have enjoyed yanking her a few
+times. But she thought better of it, and turned away. After exhausting
+all my ingenuity on this pool, and finding it impossible to induce a
+rise, I laid down my rod, picked up a rock, and threw it at the
+ill-omened bird, whom I blamed for my lack of success.
+
+Westbrook took his cue from this and also sent a rock after her. Both
+made close calls for her, but she only scurried about the livelier,
+making no effort to get away. She, however, swam behind a projection in
+the bank, so that I could not see her, and I told Westbrook to continue
+the attack and drive her out.
+
+He picked up another bowlder as large as a league baseball and hurled it
+at her, when the dullest and most "thudful" sound I ever heard,
+accompanied by a faint squawk, came from behind the bank.
+
+"Well, bleach my bones if I haven't killed her!" said Westbrook, as he
+threw down his hat and jumped on it.
+
+Sure enough, he had made a bull's-eye, and a mass of feathers floated
+off downstream, followed by the mortal remains of the deceased. And now
+the trout were jumping at these stray feathers, and returning to the
+siege, we each caught a good one at the lower end of the pool.
+
+We had now about as many fish as we cared to carry to camp, and started
+back up river. On our way we met Lieutenant Thompson, of the Third
+Infantry--also a member of our party--who had left camp about the same
+time we did, and we stopped and watched him fish awhile. The lieutenant
+is a veteran fly-fisherman, and it is a pleasure to see him wield his
+graceful little split bamboo rod, and handle the large vigorous trout
+found in this stream. I had my camera with me and exposed a plate on him
+in the act of playing a two-pounder while holding a string of six others
+in his left hand, and though I did not give it quite enough time, it
+turned out fairly well. He had also filled his creel, and on our return
+to camp we hung our total catch, with several others that General Marcy
+had taken, on a pair of elk horns and got a good negative of the whole
+outfit.
+
+Trout grow to prodigious sizes in the Bitter Root, as well as in several
+other streams in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Washington Territory. The
+Indians frequently spear them through the ice, or take them in nets,
+some of these weighing ten to twelve pounds each. But these large ones
+rarely rise to the fly. However, Colonel Gibson, of the U. S. A.,
+commanding at Fort Missoula, took one on a fly that weighed nine pounds
+and two ounces, and other instances have been recorded in which they
+have been taken by this method nearly as large. They have frequently
+been taken on live bait, and have been known to attack a small trout
+that had been hooked on a fly, before he could be landed.
+
+While I was hunting in the Bitter Root Mountains in the fall of '83, a
+carpenter, who was building a bridge across the Bitter Root, near
+Corvallis, conceived the idea of fishing for trout with a set hook. He
+rigged a heavy hook and line, baiting with a live minnow, tied it to a
+willow that overhung one of the deep pools, and left it over night. By
+this means he secured three of these monster trout in a week, that
+weighed from nine to eleven and a half pounds each.
+
+The supply of trout in the Bitter Root seems to be almost unlimited, for
+it has been fished extensively for ten years past, and yet a man may
+catch twenty-five to fifty pounds a day any time during the season, and
+is almost sure to do so if he is at all skillful or "lucky." I know a
+native Bitter Rooter who, during the summer and fall of '84, fished for
+the market, and averaged thirty pounds a day all through the season,
+which he sold in Missoula at twenty-five cents a pound. Of course, the
+majority of the ranchmen along the stream do little or no fishing, but
+the officers and men at Fort Missoula do an immense amount of it, as do
+the residents of the town of Missoula; and visiting sportsmen from the
+East take out hundreds of pounds every season. But the stream is so
+large and long, and its net-work of tributaries so vast, and furnish
+such fine spawning and breeding grounds, that it is safe to say there
+will be trout here a century hence. The heathen Chinee has never been
+permitted to ply his infamous dynamite cartridge here, or in any of the
+streams of this vicinity, as he has long been doing in Colorado, Nevada,
+and elsewhere, and this fact alone would account for the unimpaired
+supply in these streams.
+
+The reproductive power of the mountain trout is equal to all the tax
+likely to be levied against it here by legitimate sportsmen, and if
+dynamiting and netting are prohibited hereafter as heretofore, no fear
+need be felt as to the future supply.
+
+The market fisherman of whom I spoke was a faithful devotee to the fly,
+and never would use any other lure. A white or gray hackle was his
+favorite. He used a stiff, heavy pole, however, about ten feet long, cut
+from the jungles that grow on the river bottom, and a heavy line, a foot
+shorter, with double gut for attaching the fly. He fished from the shore
+or waded, as was necessary to reach the best water. He cast with both
+hands, and the instant the fly touched the water he would raise the tip
+so that the line would just clear, and then trail or skitter the fly
+gently, but rapidly, toward him. Thus, the line being taut, when the
+fish arose to the fly he would simply hook himself. Then he was
+ignominiously "yanked," and either landed high and dry on mother earth
+or in the ranchman's gunny-sack.
+
+Although devoid of sport and requiring little skill, it was the most
+effective method of filling a "bag" that I have ever seen practiced. I
+have seen him take ten to twenty-five trout in an hour's fishing and not
+miss a single rise. I had this man with me on a hunting trip, and
+whenever we came within two miles of a trout stream our table was sure
+to be supplied with an abundance of fish.
+
+I visited Fort Maginnis in September, 1883, and during my stay, Capt. F.
+H. Hathaway kindly invited me to spend a day trouting with him on Big
+Spring creek, a beautiful stream that flows out of the Snowy Mountains
+about twenty-five miles from the post. We left the captain's quarters at
+noon, comfortably seated on his buckboard, while Sam, Fishel, and Dick
+Thomas rode their horses and drove a pack-mule, which carried a part of
+our provisions, the remainder being carried on the buckboard.
+
+We covered the twenty-five miles by six o'clock, camping at the base of
+the Snowies, within two miles of the source of the creek, which source
+is a cluster of large cold springs. We pitched our tent on the bank of
+the creek, where it murmured sweet music in its course over the rugged
+bottom and lulled us into quiet and refreshing sleep with its rhythmical
+sounds. When we awoke the next morning the foot-hills all about us
+glistened with frost, and the high peaks, three or four miles away, were
+draped in a mantle of spotless white, which the storm-king had spread
+upon them a few days ago.
+
+Notwithstanding the lateness of the season, a few musquitoes began to
+sing about our ears as soon as the sun came up. Fishel, who was full of
+droll good nature, observed them.
+
+"Well, look here," he said, as he broke the ice in the water pail and
+dipped out a basinful to wash in, "I'll be doggoned if here aint a lot
+of these measley musquitoes buzzing around here with buffalo overcoats
+on."
+
+The keen mountain air at this low temperature, and the grand scenery
+with which we were surrounded, combined to sharpen our appetites, and
+our breakfast beside a rousing camp-fire was enjoyed as only a meal can
+be enjoyed amid such surroundings. As soon as the sun had risen high
+enough to banish the frost and warm the air slightly, the grass all
+about us was set in motion by thousands of grasshoppers who gamboled
+playfully, in order, apparently, to warm up their benumbed limbs and get
+an appetite for breakfast. All hands then turned out and harvested a
+goodly supply of them, for we had been advised that the trout in that
+stream would not take a fly so late in the season.
+
+Then we proceeded to business; the captain and Dick fishing up the
+stream and I down, while Sam took his rifle and went across the hills in
+search of game. The stream, where we started in, was not more than three
+to four feet wide and two feet deep in the deepest holes, yet at the
+first cast I hooked a trout that after a few vigorous plunges took the
+barb off my hook and departed. I put on a new one and had better luck
+next time, for in another hole a few rods farther down I took one that
+weighed a pound and a half.
+
+In the meantime the captain shouted to me, and looking up the stream I
+saw him displaying one of about the same size. We each followed our
+courses, and did not meet again for some hours, when the captain came
+down to see how I was getting on. He had eight and I had six, the
+average weight of which was over a pound each. He relieved me of my load
+and returned to camp, and from that time on did but little fishing
+himself, preferring, in the fullness of his generous nature, to devote
+the most of his time to accompanying me, showing me the most favorable
+points, exulting in my success, and in every way possible promoting my
+comfort. Whenever he left me for a short time he would send one of his
+men to take my fish to camp, dress them, and do anything and everything
+else possible for me.
+
+I fished down the creek nearly two miles during the day, going over
+parts of the stream two or three times, not ceasing from the fascinating
+sport long enough to even eat a lunch that I carried in my pocket. Nor
+did I turn my steps toward camp until it became so dark that the fish
+would no longer rise. Then, when I started campward, I met Dick coming
+with an extra saddle horse which the captain had kindly sent for me to
+ride.
+
+After supper came the always charming social intercourse around the
+camp-fire, the exchange of personal notes of the day's sport--the
+experience meeting, so to speak. No one had misgivings to record so far
+as the fishing was concerned. Each had enjoyed his full measure of the
+grand sport, as was evidenced by the display of the several strings of
+salmon-colored beauties which hung around the camp-fire. There was not a
+fingerling in the entire catch. No one had caught a trout during the day
+of less than four ounces in weight, and very few of that size had been
+taken. The majority of them ranged between half a pound and two pounds,
+and the numbers were only limited by the amount of work each had done.
+My friends, being residents and accustomed to this kind of sport
+whenever they choose to enjoy it, had not cared to fish all day, and
+consequently had not taken so many as I, but had taken all they wanted.
+
+The only man in the party who had anything to regret in the day's
+experience was Sam. He had started a large bull elk early in the morning
+and had followed him several miles, but had not been able to get a
+favorable shot, though he had twice caught sight of him. We all
+sympathized deeply with him in his misfortune, for Sam is an expert shot
+with the rifle, and if he had ever drawn a bead on the game we should
+have had elk steak on our table at the next meal, sure.
+
+We broke camp early the next morning and prepared to start for home, but
+decided to fish down the creek till near noon before leaving it. We
+drove down about a mile, when I alighted and started in, the others
+distributing themselves at other points along the stream. The trout rose
+as rapidly and gamily as on the previous day, and I soon had a load in
+my creel that pulled down uncomfortably. Among them was one old
+nine-spot which turned the scales at two and a quarter pounds after
+having been out of the water over two hours. He measured seventeen and a
+half inches in length.
+
+The captain told me of a certain deep hole where he said an old pioneer
+made his headquarters, who had taken off two hooks and leaders for him
+on two different days during the summer. When I reached the hole I
+recognized it in a moment by the captain's description. It was in a
+short bend or angle of the creek. On the opposite side from where I
+stood, and on the lower angle of the square, the channel had cut a deep
+hole under an overhanging bank, which was covered with willows. These
+drooped over the water and shaded it nicely. There was a slight eddy
+there and the surface of the water was flecked with bits of white foam
+which came from the rapids just above. What a paradise for a wary old
+trout!
+
+I stopped about forty feet above the hole and put on one of the largest
+hoppers in my box; then I reeled out ten or fifteen feet of line and
+cast into the foot of the rapid. As the current straightened out my line
+I reeled off more of it and still more until it floated gently and
+gracefully down into the dark eddy, and when within two feet of the edge
+of the bank there was a whirl, a surge, a break in the water, as if a
+full-grown beaver had been suddenly frightened from his sun bath on the
+surface and had started for the bottom. I saw a long, broad gleam of
+silvery white, my line cut through the water, and the old-timer started
+for his bed under the bank.
+
+I struck at the proper instant, and, bending my little split bamboo
+almost double, brought him up with a short turn. He darted up the
+stream a few feet, and again turning square about started for his den. I
+snubbed him again. This time he shot down the creek, and, turning, made
+another dive for his hiding place. Again I gave him the butt, but this
+time he was determined to free himself, and with a frantic plunge he
+tore the hook from his mouth and disappeared in his dark retreat.
+
+My heart sank within me, when I realized that he was gone. He was truly
+a monster, fully two feet long, and I think would have weighed four
+pounds or over. I reeled up and made two or three more casts in the same
+hole. His mate, a comely-looking fellow, but not nearly so large, came
+out once and smelt of the bait but declined to take it. He had evidently
+seen enough to convince him that it was not the kind of a dinner he was
+looking for. I fished down the creek for an hour and then returned and
+tried the old fellow again, but he had not yet forgotten his recent
+set-to with me, and refused to come out. I presume he is still there,
+and will probably reign for some years to come, the terror of tackle
+owners, unless someone gets a hook firmly fastened in his jaw, and has
+tackle sufficiently derrick-like to land him; and whoever that lucky
+individual may be, I congratulate him in advance. My tackle would have
+held him if I had been fortunate enough to get the proper _cinch_ on
+him, and the only thing I have to regret in thinking of the trip, is
+that I was not so fortunate.
+
+We had enough, however, without him. We took home forty-eight trout that
+weighed, when dressed, sixty pounds, and of all the many days I have
+spent fishing in the many years long gone, I never enjoyed any more
+intensely, never had grander sport than in these two days on Big Spring
+creek.
+
+It has been stated that the mountain trout lacks the game qualities of
+our Eastern brook trout. I have not found it so. They are quite as gamy,
+as vicious in their fighting, and as destructive to fine tackle as the
+brook trout, the only perceptible difference being that they do not
+fight so long. They yield, however, only after a stubborn resistance,
+sufficiently prolonged to challenge the admiration of any angler. I have
+caught a number of two and three pounders that required very careful and
+patient handling for twenty to thirty minutes before they could be
+brought to the landing net.
+
+There are various other streams along the line of the Northern Pacific
+Railroad which afford almost equally as fine sport as the Bitter Root,
+and some of them that are even more picturesque and beautiful. In fact,
+nearly every stream reached by the road, between Billings and Puget
+Sound, teems with these graceful beauties. By leaving the road at almost
+any point on the Rocky Mountain or Pend d'Orielle Divisions and pushing
+back into the mountains twenty to one hundred miles, the enterprising
+angler may find streams whose banks have seldom been profaned by the
+foot of a white man; where an artificial fly has seldom or never fallen
+upon the sparkling blue waters, and yet where millions of these
+beautiful creatures swarm, ready to rush upon anything that reaches the
+surface of their element bearing the least resemblance to their natural
+food, with all the fearless enthusiasm of untainted and unrestrained
+nature. In these wilder regions the tourist will also find frequent use
+for his rifle, for elk, bear, deer, mountain sheep, and other large game
+may yet be found in reasonable quantities in all such undisturbed
+fastnesses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+DEER HUNTING IN WISCONSIN.
+
+
+Northern Wisconsin is one vast and almost unbroken deer range. It is
+penetrated by several railroads, along the immediate lines of which are
+a few small farms and some fair-sized towns and villages; but on going a
+few miles back from these roads, in almost any direction, one passes the
+confines of civilization and enters a wilderness that is broken only by
+the numerous logging camps, and these as a rule are occupied only in
+winter. Thousands of acres of these pine lands have been chopped over,
+and the old slashings, having grown up to brush, brambles, and briars of
+various kinds, furnish excellent cover and feeding grounds for _Cervus
+Virginianus_.
+
+True, it is difficult to see the game at any great distance in these
+thickets, unless the hunter take his stand on a high stump or log and
+wait until the deer come in sight. This is a favorite and very
+successful method of hunting with many who know how to choose location
+and time of day. But adjacent to these slashings are usually large
+tracts of open woods, frequently hardwood ridges, through which the
+game passes at intervals while moving from one feeding ground to
+another. In such localities a deer may be seen at a considerable
+distance, and shots are often taken at 150 to 200 yards.
+
+I remember one of my first trips to these hunting grounds, many years
+ago, before I knew how to sneak on the game, and before I had gained
+sufficient control of my nerves to be able to stop a deer while vaulting
+over a fallen tree trunk, turning suddenly from left to right and _vice
+versa_, as a wary old buck will frequently do when fleeing from a
+hunter. I stopped at a hotel in Merrill, on the Wisconsin Valley
+Division of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway, and, having
+learned something of the nature of the surrounding country by a hasty
+tramp in the afternoon, I got up the next morning and started at four
+o'clock to what seemed to be a favorable piece of ground. By daylight I
+was on the margin of a large slash that, since being chopped off, had
+burned over and then grown up to brush and weeds. There were many
+blackened trunks of trees lying everywhere, and some still standing that
+had been scorched and roasted in the great conflagration that had swept
+over the country, but had not been entirely consumed. These latter,
+stripped of bark and limbs, looked like gloomy monuments placed there to
+mark the resting places of their hapless fellows, and the whole aspect
+of the landscape in the gray of dawn was weird and chilly in the
+extreme. There was scarcely a breath of air stirring, and by listening
+intently I could hear the rustling of dry leaves and the occasional
+snapping of twigs in various directions, that indicated the near
+presence of the game and set my blood tingling and my nerves twitching.
+
+So soon as there was sufficient light to show the front sight of my
+rifle against a gray stump fifty yards away, I started to move, as
+cautiously as I knew how, toward a clump of wild-cherry bushes that I
+had seen moving and from which came slight but suspicious sounds. When
+within thirty yards of it I stepped on a stick that snapped, and
+simultaneously with the sound a monster buck leaped high in the air, and
+landing twenty feet away, uttered a shrill whistle and stopped, with his
+head thrown up, to try and locate the danger. I brought my rifle to my
+shoulder with a convulsive jerk, pointed it at him and fired without
+thinking of the sights, and of course scored an ignominious miss.
+
+Well, I wish every friend I have on earth could have been there at that
+moment. That whole tract of country, as far as I could see, seemed alive
+with deer. Thrash! Crash! Bumpety-bump! Phew! Phew!
+
+There was jumping, thrashing through the brush, whistling, flipping and
+flapping of white flags, and the air seemed full of glistening gray
+coats. The buck I had shot at sailed away, and was soon followed in his
+flight by a doe and two fawns. A doe and fawn went in another direction,
+three fawns in another, two does and a buck in another, and so on _ad
+infinitum_.
+
+I stood there; like a mile-post by the roadside, until they had all
+vanished, forgetting that I had other cartridges in my belt. Finally I
+recovered consciousness and began to wonder where some of those deer
+would stop. If I could only get another chance such as I had on that
+buck, wouldn't I down him in fine style? I would plant a bullet in the
+center of his shoulder next time sure. No dime-novel scout was ever more
+unerring in his aim than I would be if I could only get another aim. I
+started on toward the top of a ridge, over which one of the large bucks
+had disappeared, and on reaching it I saw him, or some other one, just
+behind an oak grub on the opposite side-hill. I raised my rifle and took
+careful aim this time, but was so nervous that I could not hold the bead
+on him, and when I pulled he made another series of those daring leaps
+that soon carried him out of sight. I fired a second shot at him as he
+went, but with no better result than the first.
+
+I now crossed over to the farther edge of the slash, and, seeing no more
+game, started through a body of large pines to an old burn that I had
+been told lay a mile to the east. I was walking hurriedly through this
+green timber, not expecting to see game, and stepped upon a large log,
+when a doe and two fawns, that had been lying down in the top of a
+fallen tree, jumped and ran across in front of me, offering an excellent
+opportunity for a good shot to have killed all three of them. I slung
+lead after them at a lively rate, firing five or six shots before they
+got out of sight, but did no further harm than to accidentally clip an
+ear off one of the fawns close down to its head.
+
+After they were gone I went and picked up this trophy and stopped to
+meditate on my ill-luck, or want of skill. I then remembered that though
+I had striven to hold the front sight on one or the other of the deer
+at each shot after the first, I had entirely forgotten to look through
+the notch in the rear sight. Chagrined and mortified beyond all power to
+describe, I trudged along and finally reached the burn I was in search
+of. The sun was now high in the heavens and shining brightly, so that
+the game was no longer on foot, but had sought the seclusion of various
+bits of dense cover and lain down. My only chance for a shot was,
+therefore, in walking them up, which I proceeded to do. The brush was
+dense all over this burn, so that I could rarely see twenty yards in any
+direction, yet I hoped against hope for another chance. I was desperate
+over the disgraceful failures I had made, and yet I knew I could shoot.
+I had killed quantities of small game with the same rifle I was then
+using and had killed one deer years ago with an old muzzle loader. I
+could always depend upon making a good fair score at the target at 200
+yards, or even longer ranges, and yet I had shot away a dozen cartridges
+this morning at deer, some of which were standing within a few yards of
+me, and had not stopped one of them. I was furious, and determined that
+the next shot should tell.
+
+I walked down an old logging-road several hundred yards, hoping that
+some belated traveler might be found crossing or walking in it, but,
+failing in this, I turned out and walked along the crest of a ridge,
+looking down both sides of it. Struggling through briers and brush,
+making a good deal of noise, unavoidably, I still failed to jump a deer
+until I left the ridge and started toward a "draw" in which was a
+small meadow or slough. When half way down the hill I came to a large
+stump, about four feet high, from which a tree had been cut when the
+snow was deep. I climbed upon this to take a look at the surrounding
+country. As I did so, a large buck that had been been lying just below
+it, sprang from his bed and bounded away through the brush, showing here
+and there a flash of his white flag and a gleam of his majestic antlers,
+but not enough of his body to shoot at. I was perfectly cool now. My
+nervousness had all disappeared. In short, I was mad. I stood watching
+his course and awaiting developments with all the confidence and
+coolness of a veteran, instead of the novice I really was. He ran down
+the long hill, across the swale, and up the hill on the opposite side,
+and, on reaching the top of it and coming out upon open ground, turned
+broadside and stopped to look at me, doubtless deeming himself perfectly
+safe at that great distance. Standing erect on that high stump I was
+clear above the surrounding underbrush and had a fine view of the
+magnificent quarry. His head was thrown high up and well back; his ears
+erect, nostrils distended, and even at that distance I imagined I could
+see the defiant gleam of his jet black eye. His glossy coat glistened in
+the brilliant autumn sunlight, and his spreading antlers and powerful
+muscular development characterized him as a giant among his kind. As I
+raised my rifle slowly to my shoulder, I felt that at last I had perfect
+control of my nerves and that I was in some measure to redeem myself
+from the ignominy of past failures. I had elevated my rear sight for 250
+yards, and as I looked through the delicate notch in it and saw the
+little golden front bead glimmer on the buck's shoulder, the muzzle of
+the rifle was as steady and immovable as if screwed in a vice. There was
+no tremor, no vibration now; and holding well up to the spine and
+showing the full size of the bead, to allow for the distance, I pressed
+the trigger.
+
+At the report the deer bounded into the air as if a dynamite cartridge
+had exploded under him, and, lowering his head to a line with his body,
+started to run. There was none of those lofty, airy leaps now, no
+defiant waving to and fro of the white flag. That emblem was closely
+furled. His pride was broken and his sole object in life seemed to be to
+get out of the country as soon as possible. The course he had taken lay
+along the top of the ridge and I had a fine view of the run from start
+to finish. He at once began to waver in his course, turning slightly
+from left to right and from right to left. He stumbled and staggered
+like a blind horse. He ran crashing and smashing into the dead top of a
+fallen tree, breaking the dry limbs, some of them three or four inches
+in diameter, as if they had been rye straws. When he had gone as far
+into this labyrinth of branches as he could get, he sank to the ground
+as if exhausted, but suddenly rose again, extricated himself by a few
+desperate struggles to the right, and sped on. He ran squarely against a
+good-sized sapling with such force as to throw him prostrate upon his
+side. Still, his great vitality was not spent, and, struggling to his
+feet, he dashed on again. Next he ran against a log that lay up from the
+ground some three feet and was set back upon his haunches. He quickly
+recovered, took it in good shape, and now dashed into a clump of oak
+grubs that still held their dry leaves. Tearing and forcing his way
+through these, he forged ahead with all his remaining strength and
+plunged headlong into another fallen tree-top. In this he struggled,
+trying to force his way out until he sank upon the ground from sheer
+loss of blood and expired. From where he stood when I shot, to where he
+finally fell was about 300 yards.
+
+I stepped the distance from where I stood to where the deer was when I
+fired and found it to be 267 yards. Taking up his trail, I found the
+ground copiously sprinkled with blood where he came down at the end of
+his first jump, and the leaves and brush were crimsoned with it from
+there to where he gave up the struggle. On coming up to him I found that
+my bullet had drifted slightly to the left, owing to the force of a
+strong wind which was blowing at the time, and cut his throat almost as
+neatly as I could have done it with my hunting-knife. The oesophagus was
+entirely severed and the thorax nearly so. His body was sadly bruised
+and lacerated by the terrible ordeal through which he had passed, and I
+concluded that he must have gone stone blind when the bullet struck him.
+In no other way can I account for his strange conduct. I saved his head
+and had it mounted as a memento of one of the most remarkable scratch
+shots I ever made.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THREE OF A KIND.
+
+
+Early autumn's frosts had tinged the foliage of the birch, maple, oak,
+and elm trees, that intermingle in the great pine forests, with a
+thousand rich colors and shades of gold, brown, olive, pink, and
+crimson, while the pines, the hemlocks, the firs, and the cedars still
+wore their dark mantels of perennial green, and all Nature was clad in
+her sweetest smiles. A solitary woodpecker, perched on the topmost
+branch of a dead giant of the forest, reaching out far above the
+surrounding network of leafy branches, from which he might survey the
+surrounding country, sounded his morning reveille and awaited the coming
+of his mate. The dry leaves with which mother earth was carpeted,
+rustled now and again to the bound of the saucy red squirrel, the
+darting hither and thither of the shy wood-mouse, or the tread of the
+stupid, half-witted porcupine. The chill October wind soughed through
+the swaying tree-tops, laden with the rich ozone that gives life,
+health, and happiness to all animate beings that are permitted to inhale
+it.
+
+On such a morning, and amid such a scene of natural loveliness, I left
+the train at Junction City, on the Wisconsin Central Railway, started
+on a three-mile jaunt to a logging camp, for a day or two on a deer
+roundup. I reached my destination at nine o'clock. The men had long
+since gone to their work, but the "boss" had returned to camp to attend
+to some business in hand, and, welcoming me with the generous
+hospitality that is always shown by these sturdy sons of the forest to
+strangers, bade me make myself at home as long as I cared to stay. To my
+inquiry as to the presence of game in the vicinity, he said there was
+plenty of it, and that the men saw one or more deer nearly every day
+while going to or returning from their work, which was only a mile away.
+
+I lost no time in getting out and entering an old slashing to the east
+of the camp where the foreman said signs were plentiful. I had not gone
+more than half a mile, when, turning to the left, on an old logging
+road, I saw several fresh tracks of deer that had been feeding there
+that morning. It was now eleven o'clock in the forenoon and I had no
+hope of finding the game on foot at that late hour, but depended
+entirely upon jumping a deer from its bed and upon having to risk, in
+all probability, a running shot. I moved very cautiously, however, and
+was on the _qui vive_ for any straggler that might perchance be moving.
+Every foot of ground that came within the scope of my vision was
+carefully scanned and every sound or movement of leaf or shrub, no
+matter how slight, received the most careful attention, during long and
+frequent pauses, before proceeding on my way.
+
+I followed the road through various turns, along the bed of a slight
+ravine, and as I rounded one of its abrupt bends that gave me a view of
+a considerable expanse of hill-side, I stopped again to reconnoitre. The
+ground was covered with a dense growth of weeds, raspberry briers, and
+wild-cherry bushes that had sprung up since the timber had been cut off,
+all of which had been stricken by recent frosts, and dried by subsequent
+sun and wind. In these dry weeds I saw a slight movement, and on careful
+examination was able to distinguish a faint outline of a doe, standing
+partially behind a large stump, a hundred yards away. Her head and
+shoulders were entirely hidden by the stump, and I had to step back some
+distance before I could get sight of a vital part to shoot at. As her
+shoulder came in view I knelt on my right knee, rested my left elbow on
+my left knee, and, drawing a fine bead on her shoulder, fired. She
+dropped in her tracks. My aim was a little higher than I intended, and
+the bullet, passing through her shoulder blades high up, severed the
+spine between them on its way, killing her as suddenly as if it had
+entered the brain. At the report of the rifle a young buck bounded out
+of the brush near by and waved me a vaunting farewell as he disappeared
+over the ridge, not giving me even a fair running shot. I dressed the
+doe and went back to camp for dinner, the welcome notes of the huge old
+tin horn, floating in musical cadence through the forest, summoning me
+at that moment to that much needed repast.
+
+After dinner I went out on another old unused logging road, leading to
+the south, and, following it a few hundred yards, branched off to
+another which led to the southwest. A number of fallen trees, lying
+across these, gave me frequent opportunities to mount their prostrate
+trunks and look over large tracts of surrounding country. In thus
+sauntering and looking I had spent an hour or more when, on passing an
+unusually dense clump of tall dry weeds that stood near the road, I was
+startled by a sudden crashing and rattling among them, and an instant
+later two large does broke cover at the farther side and started across
+a narrow open space. But before they reached the farther side of it the
+voice of my Winchester express was reverberating among the lofty pines,
+and a cloud of smoke hung between me and where I had last seen them. I
+sprang to one side to avoid this, but they had both disappeared in the
+thicket, and I could still hear one of them crashing away toward the
+green woods. I felt sure that I had hit the other, and, going to where I
+had last seen her, I found blood, hair, and several small bits of flesh
+on the ground and the neighboring weeds. Following the trail a distance
+of fifty feet, I found her lying dead with her throat cut, and, in fact,
+a considerable portion of it shot away. The express bullet, driven by a
+heavy charge of powder, has such a high velocity that when it strikes
+flesh it invariably makes a big hole in it. One hind leg was also broken
+squarely off at the knee and the bone protruded through the skin.
+
+I stood pondering and puzzling over this strange phenomenon. How in the
+name of wonder could one bullet break her hind leg and cut her throat? I
+stooped down and examined the wound. To my surprise, I found that it had
+not been made with a bullet at all. The joint was dislocated and the
+skin torn away until the disjointed member hung only by a narrow
+segment. Then the mystery was deeper than ever. What could possibly have
+caused this violent and terrible wound? It had been made after I shot,
+for at that time the agile creature was bounding over logs and through
+clumps of brush with all the grace and airiness of her sylph-like
+nature. I turned, took up her back track, and, following it thirty or
+forty feet, came to a fallen tamarack sapling about six inches in
+diameter, that laid up about a foot from the ground. The track showed
+that the poor creature, in one of her frantic leaps, just after being
+hit, came down with her fore feet on one side of this pole and her hind
+feet on the other; that one hind foot had slipped on the soft earth and
+slid under the pole to her knee, and that the next bound had brought it
+up against the pole in the form of a lever--much as a logger would place
+his handspike under it in attempting to throw it out of his way--and the
+pole, being far too long and heavy to yield to her strength, the leg had
+been snapped short off.
+
+I describe this incident merely as one of the many strange and
+mysterious ones that come under the observation of woodsmen, and not
+with any desire to give pain to sensitive and sympathetic readers.
+
+The beautiful animal did not suffer long from this hurt, however, for
+she was dead when I reached her, within perhaps three or four minutes
+after I fired the fatal shot. I saved her head and had it mounted and it
+hangs beside that of the buck whose taking off has been described and
+whose throat was also neatly severed by the bullet. They were two
+remarkable shots.
+
+After dressing this deer I returned to the old burn in which I had
+killed the doe in the morning, and took a stand on a high, flat-top
+stump, which commanded a good view of a large tract of surrounding
+country. I felt certain that the young buck that was with her when I
+killed her would come back toward night to look up his companion, for he
+probably did not realize that she was dead. I stood within thirty yards
+of her carcass and for an hour kept a close watch in every direction,
+turning slowly from one position to another, so that any game that came
+in sight could not detect the movement and would, if seeing me at all,
+consider me one of the numerous old high stumps with which the landscape
+was marked. Toward sundown a large, handsome buck came out of the green
+woods half a mile away, walking deliberately toward me. I could see only
+a proud head and spreading antlers, and an occasional glimpse of his
+silvery-gray back as he marched with stately but cautious tread through
+the dry weeds. He stopped frequently to look and listen for danger, or
+the coy maidens of his kind, of whom he was in search. Oh, how I longed
+for a shot at him! With bated breath and throbbing heart I watched his
+slow progress across the open country. But, alas! the wind (what little
+there was) was wrong. When within about 200 yards of me he scented me
+and bounded squarely sidewise as though a rattlesnake had bitten him,
+uttering at the same time one of those peculiarly thrilling whistles
+that might have been heard in the stillness of the evening a mile or
+more. He struck a picturesque attitude and scanned the country in every
+direction, trying to locate the danger but could not. After a few
+seconds he made another high bound, stopped, and whistled again. I stood
+perfectly still, and he could make nothing animate out of the inanimate
+objects about him. He leaped hither and thither, snorted, whistled, and
+sniffed the air as we have seen a wild colt do when liberated in a
+pasture field after long confinement in his stall.
+
+Although still unable to satisfy himself as to the whereabouts of his
+foe, he finally seemed to decide that that was not a healthy
+neighborhood for him, and, taking his back trail, started to get out of
+it by a series of twenty-foot leaps. I was tempted to hazard a shot at
+him, but could see such a small portion of his body when standing that
+the chances were against making a hit. Besides, as already stated, I
+felt sure of a shot at shorter range by keeping still. I watched and
+listened closely in every direction. The sun had gone down. Night was
+silently wrapping her somber mantle over the vast wilderness, and the
+only sounds that broke the oppressive stillness were the occasional
+croakings of the raven as he winged his stately flight to his rookery,
+and the low, solemn sighing of the autumn breezes through the pine tops.
+I was benumbed with cold, and was tempted to desert my post and make a
+run for camp. I raised my rifle to my shoulder to see if I could yet see
+the sights, for stars were beginning to sparkle in the firmament. Yes;
+the little gold bead at the muzzle still gleamed in the twilight, with
+all the brilliancy of one of the lamps of heaven. I turned to take a
+last look in the direction of the carcass of my morning's kill,
+and--imagine my astonishment if you can--there stood the young buck,
+licking the body of his fallen mate! How he ever got there through all
+those brush and weeds without my hearing or seeing him will always
+remain a profound mystery to me. But a ball from my express entering his
+shoulder and passing out at his flank laid him dead by the side of his
+companion, and completed the best score I ever made on deer--three in
+one day--and I had fired but three shots in all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+Mr. George T. Pease lives in a log shanty, in the heart of the great
+Wisconsin pine woods, five miles west of Wausaukee station, on the
+Milwaukee & Northern Railroad. A beautiful little lake stretches out in
+front of his door, in which numerous black bass make their home, and
+several brooks meander through the wilderness not far away, all of which
+abound in the sprightly, sparkling brook trout. Deer roam over the hills
+far and near, and when the first "tracking snow" comes, in the van of
+icy winter, their hoof-prints may be found within a hundred yards of the
+cabin any morning. Pease is a genial, kind-hearted old man, in whose
+humble quarters the true sportsman is always welcome. Reared in these
+woods, and bred in the pure atmosphere that abounds here, a hunter by
+trade and from necessity, he is a simple, honest child of nature. With
+the exception of four or five years spent in the service of his country,
+during the war of the Rebellion, he has lived and hunted in this region
+since the days of his boyhood, and his gray hairs bespeak for him the
+respect men always feel for the honest old woodsman.
+
+I spent several days hunting with him in November, 1885, and the
+intervening nights--or a large portion of each--in talking with him. I
+learned in that short time to esteem and value him as one of the best
+guides and hunters I ever knew, and one of the truest friends I have.
+Although he has been hunting so many years and has always been a close
+observer of the habits of game; although thoroughly posted on woodcraft
+in all its details, he is not egotistical as are so many old woodsmen.
+He never intrudes his opinions on any subject unless asked for them;
+never dictates what anyone under his guidance shall do. He modestly
+suggests, and if you do not agree with him, defers cheerfully to your
+judgment.
+
+He is intelligent, well-informed generally, full of interesting
+reminiscences of his life in the wilderness, and relates many thrilling
+episodes in his experience in hunting deer, bear, wolves, etc. He told
+me that once, when hunting on the Menominee river, he saw a doe lying
+down, and raised his rifle to shoot her. But before firing he noticed
+that she had seen him and was struggling to get up. As she did not
+succeed in this, he concluded that she must have been wounded, and
+started toward her. She kept struggling, but was unable to rise, and on
+going to her he found that she had lain down near a large hemlock root,
+that had curved out of the ground, forming an arch or loop three or four
+inches high. One of her hind legs had slipped under this root to the
+knee, and when she had attempted to get up she had probably been thrown
+violently on her side, dislocating the hip joint and thus rendering it
+utterly impossible for her to draw the imprisoned leg from under the
+root. He said the poor creature had apparently been in this pitiable
+plight several days; that she was starved and emaciated almost to a
+shadow, and had tramped and pawed a hole in the earth more than a foot
+deep, over the entire space reached by her fore feet. Had she not been
+discovered, the poor creature must soon have died from starvation. As it
+was, she was so weak that when he released her leg from this strange
+trap she was unable to stand, and he reluctantly killed her, as the
+speediest, most humane, and, in fact, the only means of ending her
+misery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I reached the old man's cabin at about noon. We hunted diligently all
+the afternoon, and though we saw plenty of fresh tracks everywhere in
+the newly-fallen snow, neither of us could get sight of a deer, and when
+we met at the shanty at dark and exchanged notes, Pease was sorely
+disappointed. The next forenoon was a repetition of this experience, and
+when we met again at the cabin for dinner, both empty-handed, his
+disappointment was intensified into despondency. We separated after the
+noon meal, and when we came in at night, I looked even more dejected and
+disgusted than ever, and asserted, with a good deal of emphasis, that I
+did not believe the "blasted" country was any good for game; that I
+thought he or someone had hunted the deer and shot at them until they
+were so wild that no man could get within 500 yards of one. He insisted
+that such was not the case; that he had been killing plenty of deer that
+fall, and that others had killed a few in the neighborhood, but not
+enough to spoil the hunting, as I claimed. He said our want of success
+utterly astonished him; that he was truly sorry; that he could not
+account for it, and that we should surely make a killing on the morrow.
+
+"Have you seen any fresh tracks to-day?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, yes, plenty of them; haven't you?"
+
+"Well, yes, two or three; but I think the deer that made them were ten
+miles away when I got there."
+
+"Why," said he, "when I started out this afternoon I skirted along that
+big swamp, where you hunted in the morning, and I saw where four deer
+had crossed your track since you went along. One of them was an awful
+big buck. I took up his trail and followed it in hopes of overtaking him
+and getting a shot. He roamed and circled around among the hills and
+through the swamps for, I reckon, more than five miles. I walked just as
+still as I possibly could, for I knew we were mighty nigh out of meat,
+and I am gettin' mighty tired of bacon anyhow. But somehow that buck
+heard me or smelt me, or something, and the first and last I saw of him
+was just one flip of his tail as he went over a ridge about three
+hundred yards away. I sat down on a log and waited and studied a long
+time what to do or where to go next; and finally I concluded I'd just
+come in and get supper ready by the time you got here. Set up, sir, and
+have a cup of coffee and some of these baked potatoes and some of this
+bacon. It ain't much of a supper, but maybe we'll feel a little better
+after we eat it, anyway."
+
+I surrounded one side of the rough pine table suddenly, and when I got
+my mouth so full I couldn't talk plain, I said, in a careless,
+uninterested sort of a way:
+
+"I saw where you sat down on that log."
+
+"Did you?"
+
+"Yes; I sat down and rested there, too. I was just about as tired and as
+disgusted and as mad as I am now; but after sitting there ten or fifteen
+minutes, I trudged along through that maple thicket just below there,
+and when I got through it I saw a big buck smelling along on a doe's
+track, up on the side-hill, and I killed him and then started on after
+the doe, and----"
+
+Pease had dropped his knife and fork and was looking at me with his
+mouth half open and his eyes half shut.
+
+"What did you say?" he inquired in a dazed, half-whispered tone.
+
+"I say I killed the buck and then started----"
+
+"You killed a buck?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When?" he gasped, with his mouth and eyes a little wider open.
+
+"This afternoon," said I, calmly and complacently.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Why just below that thicket; just below where you sat down on the log."
+
+The old man sat and gazed at me for two or three minutes while I
+continued to eat as if nothing unusual had happened.
+
+"Are you joking?" he said at last.
+
+"No; I'm telling you the straight truth. The liver and heart are hanging
+out there on the corner of the cabin; go out and look at them."
+
+"Well, I'll be dad blasted!" shouted the old man, as he jumped up and
+grasped me by the hand. "Why on earth didn't you say so when you first
+came in? What did you want to deceive me for? Why did you want to do all
+that kicking about the hunting being so poor?"
+
+"Oh, I just wanted to have a little fun with you."
+
+Throughout that evening Pease was one of the happiest men I ever saw. He
+seemed, and, in fact, said he was, twice as proud to have me, his guest,
+kill a deer as he would have been to have killed it himself.
+
+He chatted cheerfully until eleven o'clock before showing any signs of
+sleepiness. This was about all the game I cared to kill, so I asked
+Pease to go into the station and get a team to come out and take my meat
+in. In order to pass the forenoon pleasantly, I took my rifle and
+started into the woods again. I went at once to the buck I had killed,
+reaching the carcass shortly after sunrise. I cut down a jack pine, and,
+trimming off the boughs, made a bed. Then I laid down, took out a book
+and commenced to read, while waiting for the team and for any deer that
+might happen along.
+
+But I had not read half a dozen lines when I heard a slight rustling and
+cracking in the frozen snow, and, looking in the direction of the noise,
+I saw a young spike buck walking slowly and deliberately down the hill
+not a hundred yards away. I caught up my express and made a snap shot at
+him, but in my haste and surprise missed him clear. At the report he
+stopped, threw up his head and presented a beautiful picture, as well
+as a fair, easy target.
+
+"Now, my lad," I said to myself, "you are my meat sure."
+
+I was so confident of success this time that I scarcely took any aim at
+all. Again I scored an inglorious miss and the deer started away on a
+series of long, high bounds. I threw in another cartridge, held ahead of
+him, and as he struck the ground the second time I pulled for the third
+time. Then there was a circus of a kind that a hunter rarely sees. The
+buck fell to bucking, bleating, and kicking. His hind feet would go into
+the air like a couple of arrows and with such force that they would snap
+like a whip cracker. Then he would rear on his hind feet and paw the
+air; then jump sidewise and backward. He threw himself twice in his
+gyrations, and each time was on his feet again almost before I could
+realize that he had gone down. This gymnastic exhibition lasted perhaps
+two or three minutes, during which time I was so paralyzed with laughter
+that I could not have shot within six feet of him if I had tried.
+Besides, I wanted to see the performance out. Finally the bucker
+recovered his wits and skipped out. I followed and found that he was
+discharging blood at such a rate that he could not go far. He went into
+a large thicket. I jumped him three times before I could get a fair shot
+at him, and could hear him wheeze every time I came near him. Finally I
+saw him lying a few yards away, but his head was still up and I sent a
+bullet through his neck. On examination I found that my first shot had
+cut the point of his breastbone off and had ruptured both his
+oesophagus and trachea. I dragged him out and laid him by the side of
+the big buck, and when Pease came in with the team an hour later he
+said:
+
+"Well, I'll be dad blasted if he hain't got another one."
+
+I shall always remember that hunt as one of the pleasantest of my life,
+considering the length of time it occupied.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+COWBOY LIFE.
+
+
+The workings of the law of evolution are plainly discernible in the
+development of the "cowboy," a certain prominent and now well-defined
+character of the far West--one that was made necessary by, and has grown
+out of, the vast cattle interests which have, in the past two or three
+decades, spread over that mystic region. His counterpart is scarcely to
+be found anywhere else in the civilized world, for the very good reason
+that such a species of manhood is not required anywhere else. True,
+cattle-raising is carried on extensively in many States of our Union and
+in various other countries, but nowhere under the same conditions and on
+the same plan as in the West; hence, though herders, drovers, and the
+like are employed elsewhere, there is no locality in which a class of
+men endowed with such characteristics and requiring such peculiar tastes
+and faculties are to be found as are combined in the cowboy of our
+Western plains. The life he leads and the services he is required to
+perform call into the business young men possessing tastes and traits
+different from those of average human nature, and such as are not found
+in men following any other vocation, as a class. It is an occupation
+that entails, generally speaking, a life of isolation from society, and
+in many cases from civilization. It is one in which home comforts must
+be dispensed with; it is one requiring its devotees to live on plain
+food, in log huts, and to sleep in blankets at best; it is one in which
+there is often intense hardship and suffering, and which exposes its
+disciples to dangers of various kinds.
+
+When all these facts and peculiarities of the calling are considered we
+must readily perceive that men of ordinary tastes and inclinations would
+not seek to engage in it. Cowboys are not "native and to the manor
+born." They do not follow in the footsteps of their fathers as do young
+men on Eastern farms. The business is yet too young in our Western
+Territories to have brought about this state of affairs, though it will
+come to exist in future. But at present cowboys are all exotics,
+transplanted from Eastern soil. Let us consider, then, what manner of
+boy or young man would adopt such a calling. Certainly not he who
+considers a well-spread table, a cozy, cheerful room, a good soft bed,
+and neat, tasty clothing essential to his health and happiness; nor he
+who is unwilling to sever his connection with the social circle or the
+family group; nor he who must have his daily paper, his comfortable
+office chair and desk; his telegraph and other commercial facilities and
+comforts; nor yet he who, when he travels, must needs ride in a
+comfortable carriage on the highway, or a Pullman coach on the railway.
+But the young man who is willing to engage in the occupation of
+"rustling cattle" on the plains, who is willing to assume the title of
+"cowboy," must be he who, although he may love all these luxuries, and
+may perhaps have been accustomed to enjoy them, has in his nature enough
+of romance, enough love for outdoor life, enough love of sport,
+excitement, and adventure, enough enthusiasm for the wild freedom of the
+frontier, to be willing to deny himself all these luxuries and to allow
+such pleasures as the ranch and range can afford, to compensate for
+them.
+
+The love of money can not enter largely into the consideration of the
+question, for while the work is often of the hardest kind a man can
+endure and the hours of labor only limited by the men's power of
+endurance, the wages usually paid are low. From $25 to $35 a month is
+the average rate of wages for all good men on the range except the
+foreman, who commands from $60 to $75 a month, according to his ability,
+the number of men he is to have charge of, and the responsibility of his
+position generally. Ambition to succeed to this dignity, or a desire to
+learn the cattle-growing business with a view of engaging in it on their
+own account, may induce some boys to engage as herders, but the young
+man who deliberately chooses this occupation is usually one with a
+superabundance of vim, energy, and enthusiasm; one who chafes under the
+restraints of society, who is bored and annoyed by the quiet humdrum
+life of the Eastern village, city, or farm house; one who longs to go
+where he can breathe fresh air, exercise his arms, legs, and lungs, if
+need be, without disturbing the peace; one who, in short, requires more
+room to live in than his birthplace affords.
+
+Many a cowboy of to-day was, in his childhood or youth, the street
+gamin, the newsboy, the "hard nut" at school; the dare-devil of the
+rural districts; the hero of daring exploits; the boy who did not fear
+to climb to the top of the highest tree to punch a squirrel out of his
+hole; who led the raid on an orchard or watermelon patch on a dark
+night; who at college was at the head of all wild, reckless frolics, and
+was also well up in his classes; who led the village marshal or the city
+policeman many a wild-goose chase and caused them many a sleepless night
+by his innocent though mischievous pranks. He is the boy who was always
+ready for a lark of any kind that could produce excitement, fun, or
+adventure without bringing serious harm to anyone. He was not the
+vicious, thieving, lying, sneaking boy, but the irrepressible,
+uncontrollable, wild, harum-scarum chap who led the gang; the champion
+of the weak; the boy who would fight "at the drop of the hat" in defense
+of a friend of his own sex or of even a stranger of the opposite sex.
+These are the boys of ten, twenty, or thirty years ago whom to-day you
+may find riding wild cayuses on the cattle ranges of the boundless
+plains.
+
+As a class, they have been shamefully maligned. That there are bad,
+vicious characters amongst them can not be denied, but that many of the
+murders, thefts, arsons, and other depredations which are committed in
+the frontier towns and charged to cowboys, are really committed by
+Indians, bummers, superannuated buffalo hunters, and other hangers on,
+who never do an honest day's work of any kind, but who eke out a
+miserable, half-starved existence by gambling, stealing, poisoning
+wolves, etc., is a fact well known to every close student of frontier
+life. And yet, crimes and misdemeanors are occasionally committed by men
+who are, for the time being at least, regularly employed in riding the
+range. Fugitives from justice, thieves, cut-throats, and hoodlums of all
+classes from the large cities have drifted West, and have sought
+employment on the ranges because nothing better or more congenial
+offered; but such are seldom employed, and if employed at all, are
+generally discharged as soon as their true character is learned and
+their places can be filled by worthier men.
+
+[Illustration: THE "WOOLLY COWBOY."]
+
+Neither do I wish to defend the "fresh" young man from the East who goes
+West to "paralyze" the natives, who gets a job on the ranch, makes a
+break for "loud togs," arms, and knives, large nickel-plated spurs,
+raises a crop of long hair and "catches on" to all the bad language of
+the country, fills up on bad whisky at every opportunity and then
+asserts that "he's a wolf, it's his night to howl."
+
+Nor do I wish to defend the swarthy, loud-oathed, heavily-armed
+"greaser" of Mexico and the Texan ranges, who accounts himself a
+"cowboy" _par excellence_, but who much prefers the filthy atmosphere of
+the gambling den, or the variety dive of frontier towns, to the pure air
+of the prairies. These are the exceptions, and fortunately are in a
+"distinguished minority," and it is but just that all such swaggering
+humbugs should be loaded with the obloquy they deserve, and should be
+appropriately branded, even as their master's beasts are branded, that
+all the world might know them, wherever found, for the infamous humbugs
+that they are. My purpose here is to champion the frank, honest,
+energetic, industrious young fellows who engage in this calling from
+pure motives, most of whom have fair educations, and some of whom are
+graduates of Eastern colleges--who are brimful of pure horse-sense, and
+who are ambitious to earn an honest living, and to make themselves
+useful to their employers in every possible way, aside from their
+ability to snare a bullock. Many of these are Nature's noblemen, and
+their good qualities shine through their rough garb, as the sunlight of
+heaven shines through a rift in a dark cloud. Their hearts, though
+encased in blue flannel or water-proof canvas, are as light as the air
+they breathe; their minds as pure and clear as the mountain brooks from
+which they love to drink; their whole natures as generous and liberal as
+the boundless meadows upon which their herds graze, and their
+hospitality only limited by the supply of food and other comforts they
+have with which to entertain a visitor. Strangers are always welcome at
+their shacks, and no matter at what time of day or night you arrive, you
+and your horses are promptly taken care of, you are invited to stay and
+eat, to sleep if you will, and are promptly given to understand that the
+best the ranch affords is at your command. I have known many of these
+men intimately, and have never known one who would not cheerfully share
+his last ounce of food, his last dollar, or his only blanket with a
+needy stranger; or who would not walk and allow an unfortunately
+dismounted traveler to ride his horse half way to camp, or the ranch,
+even though that might be a hundred miles away. They invariably refuse
+all remuneration for services or accommodations of such nature, and if
+it be pressed upon them, the stranger is liable to be told in language
+more expressive than elegant they don't make their living by taking care
+of tenderfeet.
+
+As a class, they are brimful and running over with wit, merriment, and
+good humor. They are always ready for any bit of innocent fun, but are
+not perpetually spoiling for a fight, as has so often been said of them.
+They are at peace with all men, and would not be otherwise from choice.
+As a rule, if a man quarrel with one of them, he forces the war and is
+himself to blame. Their love of fun often leads to trouble, though
+generally because the victim of it does not know how, or is not willing,
+to either "chip in" or excuse himself. They are fond of "piping off"
+anything that is particularly conspicuous, or _vice versa_, no matter to
+whom it belongs, and they dislike to see snobbish airs assumed in their
+country, though such might pass current in any Eastern city.
+
+I once saw a dude step out of a hotel in Cheyenne, wearing a silk hat,
+cut-away coat, lavender pants, high pressure collar, scarlet velvet
+scarf, patent leather shoes, etc. Several cowboys were riding through
+the street and spied him.
+
+"Say, Dick," said one of them, "what de ye s'pose it is?"
+
+"Let's tackle it and see," said Dick; "it looks alive."
+
+"Pard, hadn't you better put them togs on ice?" queried another of the
+party. "They're liable to spile in this climate."
+
+The youth was highly offended, gave them a haughty, withering look, and
+without deigning a reply of any kind turned to walk back into the hotel.
+
+"Let's brand it," said Dick, and as quick as a flash a lariat fell about
+the dude, closed round his slender waist, and he was a prisoner. The
+boys gathered round him, chaffed him good-naturedly, took his hat and
+rubbed the nap the wrong way, put some alkali mud on his shoes, and then
+released him, bidding him "go in and put on some clothes." A little
+good-natured repartee on his part, or an invitation to drink or smoke,
+or a pleasant reply of any kind, would have let him out without any
+unpleasant treatment; but he scorned them, and they considered it a duty
+to society to post him on how to act when away from home.
+
+A friend relates having seen an eccentric individual, with a long plaid
+ulster, walking along the principal street in Miles City, and as the sun
+came out from behind a cloud and commenced to beam down with a good deal
+of force, he raised a green umbrella. A "cow puncher" rode up and,
+pointing at the umbrella, asked:
+
+"What is she pard? Fetch her in and put a drink in 'er."
+
+The man was both scared and mad. He thought he had been insulted by one
+of those "notorious, ruffianly cowboys." He called "police." But the
+police was not at hand, and in the disturbance that followed his
+umbrella was spirited away, he knew not whither or by whom, and his
+plaid ulster was somewhat damaged by contact with mother earth. All he
+would have had to do to preserve the peace and his self-respect, would
+have been to answer the fellow good-naturedly in the first place, either
+declining or accepting his invitation, and he could have gone on his way
+unmolested; but he brought a small-sized riot on himself by assuming a
+dignity that was out of place in that country and under such
+circumstances.
+
+In common with all other human beings, the cowboy requires and must have
+amusement of some kind, and his isolated condition, depriving him of the
+privileges of theatres, parties, billiards, and other varieties of
+amusement that young men in the States usually indulge in; of the
+refining and restraining influences of the female sex, it is but natural
+that his exuberance of spirit should find sport of other kinds. His only
+sources of amusement on the ranch are his rifle, revolver, bronco,
+lariat, and cards, and in course of time he tires of these and seeks a
+change. He goes to town and meets there some of his comrades or
+acquaintances, and they indulge in some wild pranks, which to Eastern
+people, and especially those who happen to fall victims to their
+practical jokes, appear ruffianly. Their love of excitement and
+adventure sometimes gets the better of their judgment, and they carry
+their fun to excess. They corral the crew of a train which has stopped
+at the station, and amuse themselves and the passengers by making the
+conductor, brakeman, baggageman, engineer, and fireman dance a jig to
+the music of six-shooters. In one instance they boarded the train and
+made the Theo. Thomas orchestra (which happened to be aboard) give them
+an extemporaneous concert. They have even been known to carry their
+revels to a still worse stage than this, and to resort to acts of real
+abuse and injury against defenseless people. But such acts on the part
+of genuine cowboys are rare. They are usually perpetrated by the class,
+already mentioned, of "fresh" young chaps or objectional characters who
+drift into the business from other than pure motives, and frequently by
+pretended cowboys who are not such in any sense of the term. But by
+whomsoever perpetrated, such acts are highly offensive to and vigorously
+condemned by the respectable element in the business, both employers
+and employes. Much odium has attached to the fraternity by such conduct,
+and much more by reason of crimes committed by others and charged to
+this class, so that the cowboy is in much worse repute among Eastern
+people than he would be if better known by them. And notwithstanding all
+the hard things with which these men have been charged, I had much
+rather take my chances, as to safety of life and personal property, in a
+country inhabited only by them than in any Eastern town or city with all
+their police "protection." When sojourning in cattle countries, I have
+left my camp day after day and night after night, with valuable property
+of various kinds lying in and about it, without any attempt at
+concealment. I have left my horses and mules to graze, wholly unguarded,
+several days and nights together, and though on my return I may have
+seen that my camp had been visited, probably by several men, not a thing
+had been disturbed, except that perchance some of them had been hungry
+and had eaten a meal at my expense. It is the custom of the country to
+leave camps and cabins at any time, and for as long a time as necessary,
+without locking up or concealment of any kind, and instances of stealing
+under such circumstances are almost unheard of, while he who would leave
+personal property similarly exposed within the bounds of civilization
+would scarcely hope to find it on his return.
+
+[Illustration: ON THE TRAIL.]
+
+An incident may serve to illustrate how suddenly Eastern people change
+their opinions of cowboys on close acquaintance. I was going west a few
+years since on the Northern Pacific Railroad, and stepping off the train
+at Dickinson, Dak., met Howard Eaton, an old-time friend and fellow
+hunter, a typical cowboy, who has charge of a ranch and a large herd of
+cattle in the "Bad Lands" on the Little Missouri river. He was dressed
+in the regulation costume of the craft--canvas pants and jacket, leather
+_chaparejos_, blue flannel shirt, and broad-brimmed white felt hat. His
+loins were girt about with a well-filled cartridge-belt, from which hung
+the six-shooter, which may almost be termed a badge of the order. Large
+Mexican spurs rattled at his heels as he walked. He had ridden
+thirty-five miles under the spur, arriving at the station just in time
+to catch the train, and having no time to change his apparel, even if he
+had wished to do so. He was going some distance on the same train, and I
+invited him into the sleeper. As he entered and walked down the aisle
+the passengers became suddenly alarmed at the apparition--imagining that
+the train had been corraled by a party of the terrible cowboys of whom
+they had heard such blood-curdling tales, and that this was a committee
+of one sent in to order them to throw up their hands. They looked
+anxiously and timidly from the windows for the rest of the gang and
+listened for the popping of revolvers, but when I conducted him to our
+section and introduced him to my wife they began to feel easier. He
+remarked casually that he was hungry. We had a well-filled lunch-basket
+with us, and, ordering a table placed in position, my wife hastily
+spread its contents before him. He ate as only a cowboy can eat,
+especially after having lately ridden thirty-five miles in three hours.
+Our fellow passengers became interested spectators, and after our friend
+had finished his repast we introduced him to several of them. They were
+agreeably surprised to discover in conversation his polished manners,
+his fluent and well-chosen language. His handsome though sunburned face,
+and his kind, genial nature revealed the fact that his rough garb
+encased the form of an educated and cultured gentleman; and before we
+had been an hour together they had learned to respect and admire the
+wild, picturesque character whom at first they had feared.
+
+The skill which some of these men attain in their profession challenges
+the admiration of everyone who is permitted to witness exhibitions of
+it. As riders they can not be excelled in the world, and I have seen
+some of them perform feats of horsemanship that were simply marvelous. A
+cowboy is required to ride anything that is given him and ask no
+questions. A wild young bronco that has never been touched by the hand
+of man is sometimes roped out of a herd and handed over to one of the
+boys with instructions to "ride him." With the aid of a companion or two
+he saddles and mounts him, and the scene that ensues baffles
+description. A bucking cayuse must be seen under the saddle, under a
+limber cowboy, and on his native heath, in order to be appreciated at
+his true worth. His movements are not always the same--in fact, are
+extremely varied, and are doubtless intended to be a series of surprises
+even to an old hand at the business. The bronco is ingenious--he is a
+strategist. Sometimes the first break a "fresh" one makes is to try to
+get out of the country as fast as possible. If so, the rider allows him
+to go as far and as fast as he likes, for nothing will tame him quicker
+than plenty of hard work. But he soon finds that he can not get out from
+under his load in this way, and generally reverses his tactics before
+going far. Sometimes he stops suddenly--so suddenly as to throw an
+inexperienced rider a long ways in front of him. But a good cowboy, or
+"bronco buster," as he would be termed while engaged in this branch of
+the business, is a good stayer and keeps his seat. The horse may then
+try to jump out from under his rider--first forward then backward, or
+_vice versa_. Then he may spring suddenly sidewise, either to right or
+left, or both. Then he may do some lofty tumbling acts, alighting most
+always stiff-legged; sometimes with his front end the highest and
+sometimes about level, but usually with his hinder parts much the
+highest and with his back arched like that of a mad cat. He keeps his
+nose as close to the ground as he can get it. Sometimes he will utter an
+unearthly squeal that makes one's blood run cold, and will actually eat
+a few mouthfuls of the earth when he gets mad enough. Sometimes he will
+throw himself in his struggles, and again as a last resort he will lie
+down and roll. This must free him for a moment, but the daring and agile
+rider is in the saddle again as soon as the beast is on his feet. Then
+the horse is likely to wheel suddenly from side to side and to spin
+round and round on his hind feet like a top; to snort and bound hither
+and thither like a rubber ball. During all this time the valiant rider
+sits in his saddle, loose-jointed and limp as a piece of buckskin, his
+body swaying to and fro with the motions of his struggling steed like a
+leaf that is fanned by the summer breeze. He holds a tight rein, keeping
+his horse's head as high as possible, and plunges the rowels into his
+flanks, first on one side and then on the other, until frequently the
+ground is copiously sprinkled with the blood of the fiery steed. The
+duration of this scene is limited simply by the powers of endurance of
+the horse, for in nearly every instance he will keep up his struggles
+until he sinks upon the ground exhausted, and, for the time being at
+least, is subdued. Then he is forced upon his feet again and may
+generally be ridden the remainder of that day without further trouble.
+
+He is awkward, of course, but rapidly learns the use of bit and spur,
+and soon becomes useful. Many of these ponies, however, are never
+permanently subdued, and will "buck" every time they are mounted. Others
+will, all through life, start off quietly when first mounted, but
+suddenly take a notion to buck any time in the day. This class is the
+most dangerous, for the best rider is liable to be caught at a
+disadvantage when off his guard and thrown, and many a poor cowboy has
+been crippled for life, and many killed outright by these vicious
+brutes.
+
+I have seen "pilgrims" inveigled into riding "bucking cayuses," either
+for the sake of novelty, or because they wanted a mount and there was no
+other to be had; but in every instance the trial of skill between the
+man and the pony was of short duration. For an instant there would be a
+confused mass of horse, hat, coat-tails, boots, and man, flying through
+the air. The horse, on his second upward trip would meet the man coming
+down on his first; the man would see whole constellations--whole
+milkyways of stars; the horse would meander off over the prairie free
+and untrameled, and as we would gather up the deformed and disfigured
+remains of the pilgrim and dig the alkali dirt out of his mouth, ears,
+and eyes, he would tell us, as soon as he recovered sufficiently to be
+able to speak, that in future he "had rather walk than ride."
+
+But, fortunately for the poor cowboys, there are many of these ponies
+who are not vicious, and let us do full honor to the genuine, noble
+cow-horse who is so sure and fleet of foot that he will speedily put his
+rider within roping distance of the wildest, swiftest, longest-horned
+Texan on the range. Such a horse always knows when the _riata_ falls
+right for head or heels, and if it does not will never slacken his
+speed, but keep right on until his rider can recover and throw again.
+But when it does fall fair, he puts it taut, wheels to right or left as
+directed by a gentle pressure of his rider's knee, takes a turn on it
+or gives it slack as may be required to down the beef, and, when this is
+accomplished, stands stiff-legged, firm, and immovable as a rock,
+holding him down by the strain on the rope, and watching, with eyes
+bulged out and ears set forward like those of a jack rabbit, every
+struggle of the captive bullock, and stands pat even when his rider
+dismounts and leaves him to brand the steer. When this is done, and his
+rider remounts he is ready to repeat the operation on another animal.
+
+[Illustration: "SNARED."]
+
+I have frequently known a cowboy to rope a wild cow, throw her and milk
+her while his horse held her down at the other end of a forty foot rope.
+Such a horse is worth his weight in gold to a cattleman, and his
+kind-hearted and appreciative rider would go supperless to bed any
+night, if necessary, in order that his faithful steed should be well fed
+and made comfortable in every possible way.
+
+The skill that some of these men attain in the use the lariat is also
+most marvelous. An expert will catch a steer by the horns, the neck, the
+right or left fore foot or hind foot, whichever he may choose--and
+while running at full speed--with almost unerring certainty. I have even
+seen them rope jack rabbits and coyotes after a long run, and there are
+well authenticated instances on record of even bears being choked to
+death by the fatal noose when wielded by a daring "knight of the
+plains."
+
+At a "tournament" in a Black Hills town some months ago, a cowboy
+caught, threw, and securely tied a wild steer in fourteen minutes from
+the time he was let out of the corral. A similar exhibition of skill,
+but on a bronco instead of a steer, which lately took place in a New
+Mexico town, is thus described by an eye witness.
+
+"After an hour of discussion and pleasant wrangling, the judge, himself
+a fine rider, called out the name of an Arizona cowboy, a champion
+puncher and rustler from Apache County; at the same moment, a wild-eyed
+bronco was released from the pen and went bounding and bucking over the
+miniature plain. According to the rule, the Apache County man had to
+saddle his own bronco, rope the fleeing horse, and tie him for branding
+in a certain time. Being a "rustler", he rustled around so lively that
+before the bronco was two hundred feet away, he had saddled and bridled
+his own animal, swung himself onto it, and was off, gathering up his
+lariat as he went. The other bronco, seeing the coming enemy, doubled
+his pace, dodging here and there, but at every turn he was met by his
+pursuer, who was evidently directed by his rider's legs, and in an
+incredibly short space of time the fugitive was overhauled; the rope
+whistled through the air, and dropped quickly over the bronco's head,
+notwithstanding the toss he had made. The instant it fell, the pursuing
+bronco rushed and headed off the other, winding the rope about his legs;
+then suddenly sitting back upon his haunches he waited, with ears back,
+for the shock. It came with a rush, and the little horse at the other
+end of the rope, as was the intention, went headlong onto the field, the
+cowboy's bronco holding him down by the continual strain that he kept
+up. The moment the horse went down the cowboy vaulted from the saddle,
+untying a rope from his waist as he ran, and was soon over the prostrate
+animal, lashing the hoofs with dextrous fingers, so that it could have
+been branded then and there. This accomplished, up went his hands as a
+signal to the judges, who now came galloping over the field, a roar of
+cheers and yells greeting the Apache County man, who had done the entire
+work in twelve minutes, thereby securing the prize of sundry dollars."
+
+These men use large, heavy, strongly-built saddles, and by setting the
+cinch up tight and taking a turn or two of the rope around the saddle
+horn they will snake a large animal, either dead or alive, any desired
+distance. I once got one of them to drag a large bear that we had killed
+out of a thicket into an open space, so that we could photograph him.
+
+Few men take more chances or endure more hardships than cowboys. In
+addition to the dangers they have to contend with from riding vicious
+horses and from riding into stampeding herds of wild cattle, in both of
+which lines of duty many of them are crippled and some killed outright,
+it is frequently necessary for them to lay out on the open prairie for
+several days and nights together, perhaps in cold, rough weather, with
+no other food or bedding than they can carry on their saddle.
+
+The slang of the fraternity is highly amusing to a stranger. It is
+decidedly crisp, racy, and expressive. Words are coined or adopted into
+their vernacular that will convey their meaning with the greatest
+possible force and precision. In addition to the few illustrations
+already given in this sketch there are many others that would be utterly
+unintelligible to an Eastern man unless translated. For instance, when
+they brand an animal they put the "jimption" to him; when they want a
+hot drink they say "put some jimption in it"; when they warm up a horse
+with the spurs or quirt they "fan" him; when they throw lead from a
+six-shooter or a Winchester after a flying coyote they "fan" him. And
+"goose hair"--ever sleep on goose hair? This is a favorite term for any
+kind of a "soft snap." When they want to ridicule a tenderfoot, and
+especially one who is fond of good living, they say "he wants a
+goose-hair bed to sleep on"; when a cowboy is in luck he is described as
+having "a goose-hair pillar," or as "sleepin' with the boss," or as
+"ridin' ten horses," etc. Altogether, cowboys are a whole-souled,
+large-hearted, generous class of fellows, whom it is a genuine pleasure
+to ride, eat, and associate with, and it is safe to say that nine-tenths
+of the hard things that have been said of them have come from men who
+never knew, intimately, a single one of them.
+
+I contend that a year spent on the hurricane deck of a cow-pony is one
+of the most useful and valuable pieces of experience a young man can
+possibly have in fitting himself for business of almost any kind, and if
+I were educating a boy to fight the battles of life, I should secure him
+such a situation as soon as through with his studies at school. A term
+of service on a frontier cattle-ranch will take the conceit out of any
+boy. It will, at the same time, teach him self-reliance; it will teach
+him to endure hardships and suffering; it will give him nerve and pluck;
+it will develop the latent energy in him to a degree that could not be
+accomplished by any other apprenticeship or experience. I know of many
+of the most substantial and successful business men in the Western towns
+and cities of to-day who served their first years on the frontier as
+"cow punchers," and to that school they owe the firmness of character
+and the ability to surmount great obstacles that have made their success
+in life possible.
+
+I claim that the constant communion with Nature, the study of her broad,
+pure domains, the days and nights of lonely cruising and camping on the
+prairie, the uninterrupted communion with and study of self which this
+occupation affords, tends to make young men honest and noble--much more
+so than the same men would be if deprived of these opportunities,
+confined to the limits of our boasted "civilization," and compelled to
+constantly breathe the air of adroitness, of strategy, of competition,
+of suspicion and crime. I claim that in many instances a man who is
+already dishonest and immoral may be, and I know that many have been
+made good and honest by freeing themselves from the evil influences of
+city life, and betaking themselves to a life on the plains; by living
+alone, or nearly so, and habitually communing with themselves, with
+Nature, and with Nature's God. If every young man raised in town or city
+could have the advantages of a year or two of constant study of Nature,
+untrammeled by any air of vice, and at the proper time in life, we
+should have more honest men, and fewer defaulters, thieves, and
+criminals of every class.
+
+[Illustration: A BEEF-GATHERING SOIREE.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+A MONTANA ROUNDUP.
+
+
+Descriptions of cattle roundups in the far West have been written, and
+yet many of the characteristic scenes that the spectator at one of these
+semi-annual "beef-gathering parties" will observe have not been
+described. There is so much to interest and excite the denizen of the
+States who first attends a roundup on the great plains that I am tempted
+to speak of some of the more prominent points in this "greatest show on
+earth," for the benefit of such as have not had the pleasure of
+witnessing it.
+
+The interests of cattlemen in general are so closely linked, and there
+is such urgent need of a concert of action among them, that in all
+Western cattle-growing districts they have organized into local or
+general associations, in which the most perfect harmony and good
+fellowship exists, and in which the interests of every individual member
+are closely guarded and fostered by the organization as a whole. These
+associations meet in the spring and fall of each year and fix the dates
+for holding the roundups, usually prescribing the general boundaries in
+which each local outfit shall work. The spring roundup, which is the one
+now under consideration, is held in the latter part of April or early
+part of May in Wyoming and Montana, and earlier or later in other States
+and Territories, according to the nature of the climate, weather, etc. A
+roundup district is usually limited to the valley of some large stream,
+or its boundaries are designated by other prominent and well-known
+landmarks.
+
+From five to fifteen miles, or even more, each way from the ranch, are
+claimed by each owner or company as a range, though no effort is made
+usually to keep the stock within these boundaries. They are allowed the
+freedom of the hills and table-lands in every direction, the foreman
+merely being required to know about where to find them when wanted, and
+to prevent them from going, for instance, west of the Tongue and north
+of the Yellowstone rivers or south into Wyoming.
+
+As a typical spring roundup, let us observe the one recently conducted
+on the Powder river in Montana, for it furnished, perhaps, as many
+interesting episodes and incidents as are usually seen at one of these
+entertainments. This stream rises in the Big Horn Mountains in Northern
+Wyoming and flows northeast through Southern Montana to the Yellowstone,
+into which it empties its wealth of crystal fluid just east of Miles
+City. Up to a few years ago its valley and adjacent table-lands were
+peopled only by roving bands of Sioux, Cheyenne, Pegan, or Crow Indians,
+while vast herds of buffaloes and antelopes grazed upon its nutritious
+grasses. The lordly elk and the timid, agile deer roamed at will through
+the groves of cottonwood and box-elder that fringe its banks, and the
+howl of the coyote made night musical to the ear of the savage in his
+wigwam. But how changed the scene of to-day! An iron railroad bridge,
+that of the great Northern Pacific, spans the stream near its mouth,
+over which roll trains of palace coaches at short intervals, while
+commercial freights _en route_ from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or
+_vice versa_, pass over it almost every hour. From the mouth of the
+stream to the foot-hills of the mountain range, amid whose snow-capped
+peaks it rises, is now a well-beaten road over which supplies for the
+various ranches in the valley are carried, and over which the gallant
+knights of the plains--the cowboys--dash to and fro in the performance
+of their various duties.
+
+At intervals of ten to fifteen miles along the valley, the traveler
+passes ranches, the headquarters of the wealthy cattlemen whose herds
+roam all over the valleys, the hills, and table-lands for many miles in
+every direction, designating the companies or individual owners merely
+by the brands their herds bear (which is the custom of the country). We
+shall encounter on our way the "MC" outfit, whose herd numbers fourteen
+thousand head; the "WL" brand, six thousand head; "7OL," one thousand
+head; "S-I," twenty-five thousand head; "_N_," twenty-five thousand
+head; "[3-rail]," five thousand head; and many other smaller and some
+larger herds. The buildings and improvements consist generally of
+substantial, roomy log houses, stables for the horses, corrals or strong
+yards in which large herds of cattle may be confined for branding, etc.
+The Montana Stock Growers' Association has also built public
+branding-pens at intervals of four to six miles along the river. The
+owners of the stock seldom live on the ranches themselves, many of them
+being residents of Eastern cities, and others having their homes in the
+railroad towns within convenient distance of the ranches. The occupants
+of the "shack," as the ranch house is called, are the foreman, the cook,
+and a sufficient number of cowboys or herders to look after and handle
+the stock properly. Some of the choice bits of natural meadow are fenced
+and hay cut on them, and each ranch has more or less hay land about the
+heads of creeks on its range, for it is necessary to make hay enough
+each season to feed at least the calves and some of the weaker cattle
+through the severe blizzards that so frequently occur in winter. The
+cattle belonging to each of these ranches are allowed to range almost at
+will over the adjacent hills and table-lands, though the limits proper
+of each range are supposed to extend ten to fifteen miles in each
+direction from the ranch house.
+
+The Montana Stock Growers' Association, at its meeting in March,
+designated the seventh day of May as the day for beginning the roundup
+in the Powder river district this year, and selected a foreman to take
+charge of it who had seen many years of service in the saddle, who has a
+happy faculty of controlling the men under his charge perfectly, and yet
+of putting himself on free and friendly terms with them all. He can
+throw a _riata_ with such precision as to take a steer by the head or by
+either foot he wishes in almost every instance, and beasts as well as
+men soon learn to obey his wishes.
+
+Anyone who has only seen the great plains late in summer or in the
+autumn, after the grass has become sere and yellow and the foliage along
+the streams has faded, can have little idea of the pristine beauty
+presented by such a valley as that of the Powder river in early
+springtime, when the earth is carpeted with verdure, the river banks
+lined with newly-clothed trees and shrubs, and the meadows blooming with
+flowers, the beauty and brilliancy of which can not be excelled
+anywhere. The winter snows have melted; the spring rains have come and
+gone, leaving the earth fresh and moist; the climate is mild and
+delightful. Under all these charming conditions who would not enjoy the
+scene unfolding before our eyes as we mount our spirited broncos and
+ride out to the place of rendezvous which has been appointed near the
+mouth of the river, and where the clans are already gathering. Temporary
+camps have been established by those who have arrived in advance of us,
+around which groups of cowboys are lounging. A band of horses and ponies
+which they have liberated is contentedly grazing on the river bank, and
+several small bands of cattle may be seen in various directions, most of
+them at considerable distances away, for they are wild and avoid the
+presence of human beings. A cloud of dust is faintly visible on top of
+the divide nearly three miles to the south, and on examining it
+carefully with our glasses we find it is being raised by a jolly band of
+five cowboys, who are riding like mad, each leading four or five horses.
+Looking away to the north we see a mess-wagon, or "chuck outfit,"
+approaching, drawn by four horses, and from the slow and labored gait at
+which they toil along they doubtless bring abundant store of good
+things. Behind this, two riders are driving ten head of loose horses.
+And these small detachments continue to come in from every point of the
+compass all the forenoon, until, when all the ranches in this roundup
+district have furnished their levies, the force numbers one hundred and
+thirty-five men and about twelve hundred horses. Each rider has his
+"string" of horses, numbering from five to seven, and changes two or
+three times a day, riding one horse twenty to forty miles, and sixty to
+seventy-five miles a day is considered a fair day's work for a man. The
+reserve herd is placed in charge of a herder or "wrangler," who is
+required to keep them under perfect control, and to be able to produce
+such of them as are wanted on short notice, the _riata_ being frequently
+used in taking them out of the herd. The foreman has arrived and takes
+charge of the entire outfit, placing it on a thoroughly effective and
+working basis for the morrow.
+
+At 3.30 o'clock in the morning the men are called. They are out of their
+blankets and dressed in less time than it takes an Eastern man to rub
+his eyes and yawn; each catches and saddles his horse; breakfast is
+hastily eaten, and at the first dawn of day, they ride out in twos or
+fours in every direction. These men present a decidedly picturesque, not
+to say brigandish, appearance as they dash out across the prairie; their
+red, blue, and gray flannel shirts, canvas pants, leather _chaparejos_,
+broad sombreros, colored silk handkerchiefs knotted around their necks;
+well-filled cartridge-belts, from which hang their six-shooters; their
+high-top cowhide boots and large Mexican spurs, making up a _tout
+ensemble_ that a band of Texan rangers might envy. Their work, their
+fun, their excitement now begin, for small bunches of cattle are sighted
+in every direction, which are to be rounded up and driven along, and
+there is no time to lose. As they dash hither and thither after the
+fleeing, scurrying creatures, the proverbial good nature, high spirits,
+and enthusiasm of these "knights of the plains" find vent in a series of
+hoots, yells, jokes, "ki-yis," bits of song, and grotesque slang
+expressions, many of which are strikingly expressive when understood,
+but which would be utterly unintelligible to a fresh tenderfoot. The
+majority of these Western cattle are almost as wild as the native
+buffaloes whose place they have usurped, having never been subjected to
+the dominion of man, and rarely, in fact, have they ever come face to
+face with him. At the first approach of the riders, therefore, they
+throw up their heads and tails, look wild, sniff the air, and then turn
+and run like a herd of antelopes. But by fast riding and skillful
+maneuvering they are soon rounded up and herded. It is a bit of the true
+spice of life for these dare-devil riders to find a vicious, rebellious,
+"alecky" young critter who concludes that he won't be rounded up; and no
+sooner has the belligerent shaken his burly head, pawed the earth a few
+times, turned tail to his pursuers, broken through the skirmish line and
+sailed away across the prairie, than three, four, or perhaps half a
+dozen cayuses, who are also now in their elements, are headed for him.
+Lariats are loosened from the saddle horn, spurs rattle as they pierce
+the flanks of the already willing and eager steeds, and there ensues a
+wild, headlong, reckless race that can have but one result. The steer
+may be fleet of foot, and may lead, through a half-mile dash, but sooner
+or later is headed off and turned. He may make a fresh break in another
+direction, but his pursuers are down on him again like a pack of hungry
+wolves on a stray sheep. And now, as the riders close in on him, they
+belabor him unmercifully with their heavy coils of rope, or with rawhide
+"quirts" carried for this purpose. If particularly wild, obstinate, or
+obstreperous, he still keeps breaking away, and refusing to come into
+camp. A _riata_ glistens in the sunlight, whistles through the air and
+falls over his head. Another follows and puts a foot in the stocks.
+Taking two or three turns of the lariat around the horn of the saddle,
+the men ride in opposite directions till the ropes come taut, the steer
+is fairly lifted from the earth and falls with a dull and thudful sound
+that may be heard a hundred yards. Then another rope is thrown over his
+head, the spurs are put to the faithful ponies, they are transposed for
+the time into draft horses, and the luckless victim is ignominiously
+"snaked" toward the herd, while the other boys "bang" him with coils of
+rope from behind. A few yards of this mode of travel is usually
+sufficient to tame the wildest long-horn Texan on the range, and a few
+vigorous bellows soon announce an unconditional surrender. The ropes are
+then taken off, he is let up, and it is short work to put him in the
+herd.
+
+The valiant riders scour the country hither and thither, far and near,
+"gathering beef" from east, west, north, and south. Every hoof found,
+regardless of the brand it bears, or whether it bears any, is picked up
+by this human cyclone and carried along. Toward noon the herds already
+gathered are driven into the branding pens, where they are corraled. The
+calves are snatched out and the "jimption is socked to 'em," as the boys
+express it. So with any yearlings or older stock that have escaped the
+branding-iron in former seasons. One or more irons for each owner are
+kept hot, and when a roper has "downed" an animal he or the foreman
+calls for the iron wanted, and setting his foot upon the victim's neck
+places the red-hot device on its ribs, and throws his weight upon it,
+leaving a deep, indelible, and time-enduring trade-mark which even he
+who runs may read. Its ears, dew lap, or the loose skin on its jaw are
+then slit and it is turned loose again.
+
+When a band is branded it is turned out; the party who brought it in
+change horses, and away they go for another run. No special branders are
+now provided, every man in the outfit, the cook and wrangler excepted,
+being required to "swaller dust" and "wrestle calves" in the pens. Near
+the middle of the day each squad comes in after finishing their catch,
+make a run on the mess-wagons and devour the substantial provender with
+which they are loaded, with appetites born only of the labor and
+excitement in which they are engaged.
+
+The afternoon is usually devoted to branding the last bunches brought
+in, and to "cutting out," returning or throwing over such stock as does
+not belong to any of the ranchmen in this district. Strays are
+frequently picked up whose brands show them to be a hundred miles or
+more from home. When a number of these are collected they are cut out
+and a squad of men drive them onto their proper ranges. This process is
+called "throwing over."
+
+The cooks, teamsters, and wranglers usually move camp up the river every
+morning to the next branding pen, or to some other spot designated by
+the foreman, to which rounders bring their cattle during the day. A
+portion of the stock collected, called the "cavoy," is carried along
+with the camp all the time and herded by the "holders," but large
+numbers after being branded are bunched and again thrown off onto the
+range each day. Thus the outfit moves slowly up the stream, making a
+clean sweep of everything to the middle of the divides on the east and
+west, until the Wyoming roundup on the same stream is met coming down.
+And now, having completed the work in hand, the outfit breaks up, and
+the men return to the respective ranches on which they are employed or
+go to other roundups where their services are needed.
+
+The object of the fall roundup is to gather in and cut out the fat
+steers and drive them to the railroad stations for shipment to Eastern
+markets. The work being almost entirely on adult animals is even more
+laborious and hazardous than that of the spring, where the majority of
+animals actually handled are calves. Hard riding, vigorous "cutting,"
+and daring dashes into headstrong, panic-stricken, stampeding herds are
+necessary here, and roping and dragging out by main strength are hourly
+occurrences. Branding-irons are also carried along, and any calves
+missed on the spring roundup, or dropped after it, are subjected to the
+fiery ordeal, just as their brothers and sisters were at the Mayday
+party.
+
+Stray cattle, either calves or adults, bearing no brand and found alone
+or herded with others already branded, but whose parentage can not be
+definitely determined, are called "Mavericks," and in some districts are
+sold at auction and the proceeds given to the school fund. In others,
+they become the property of the man or company upon whose range they are
+found. This privilege, however, is seriously abused by dishonest
+ranchmen and cattle thieves, who infest every Western cattle-growing
+district. These men ride out over the ranges at times when they are not
+likely to be observed, carrying their branding-irons along, and rope and
+brand every animal they can find that does not already bear a brand. In
+some cases these are allowed to remain where found, for the time being,
+but are usually driven onto the range claimed by the pirate who does the
+work. In other instances, these men first drive the unbranded stock onto
+their own ranges, and then, under cover of the Maverick law, openly
+claim and brand it as their own. Many large herds have been accumulated
+almost wholly by this system of thievery, and there are wealthy
+cattlemen in the West to-day who never bought or honestly owned a dozen
+head of the thousands that bear their brand. A certain cowboy, when
+asked by an Eastern man what constitutes a Maverick, replied: "It's a
+calf that you find and get your brand on before the owner finds it and
+gets his on."
+
+But it is risky business, this cattle stealing, and many a man who has
+been caught at it has been left on the prairies as food for the
+coyotes, or has ornamented the nearest cottonwood tree until the magpies
+and butcher birds have polished his bones.
+
+Branding is a decidedly cruel proceeding, and would doubtless come under
+the bane of Mr. Bergh's displeasure were he here to witness it. Yet it
+seems a necessary evil, there being no other known means of marking
+cattle so effectually and indelibly.
+
+Parties of ladies frequently go out from the towns or cities to see the
+roundup, not knowing or thinking of the painful features of it. They
+enjoy the ride across the prairies and through the valleys. The
+beautiful scenery, the grotesque "Bad Lands," the red, scoria-capped
+hills, the beautiful green meadows, and the fringes of green trees that
+mark the meanderings of the streams, all delight and interest them; they
+enjoy the displays of horsemanship given by the valorous cowboys as they
+wheel and cavort hither and thither in pursuit of scurrying bands of
+cattle; they enjoy the stampeding and wild flight, the "knotting" and
+"holding" of the large herds, all so skillfully and cleverly performed;
+they enjoy the sight of the thousand and more loose horses, grazing and
+scampering over the plains; they enjoy the fresh, pure air, the
+wholesome noon repast in the shade of the great cottonwood trees, and
+many other pleasant phases of the affair. But when the fire is lit and
+the murderous irons inserted in it; when the captive creatures are
+dragged forth lowing, murmuring, and bellowing; when the red-hot iron is
+pressed into their quivering, smoking sides until the air is laden with
+the odor of burning hair and roasting flesh, and the poor creature
+writhes and struggles in its agony, the roundup is robbed of its
+romance, and the ladies are ready to start for home at once.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+
+Italics indicated _like this_.
+
+Small caps indicated LIKE THIS.
+
+Minor punctuation errors corrected without note.
+
+Words with multiple and archaic spellings left as in original.
+
+p. 329 [3-rail] used to represent a branding symbol with three parallel
+bars.
+
+
+Spelling changes:
+
+Table of Contents Chapter 1. "Enchance" changed to "Enhance".
+
+p. 63 "barrrier" changed to "barrier".
+
+p. 67 "ordinarly" changed to "ordinarily".
+
+p. 123 "fuanace" changed to "furnace".
+
+p. 167 "playad" changed to "played".
+
+p. 171 "catchng" changed to "catching".
+
+p. 201 "conspicious" changed to "conspicuous".
+
+p. 204 "intstead" changed to "instead".
+
+p. 237 "similiar" changed to "similar".
+
+p. 294 "firmanent" changed to "firmament".
+
+p. 296 "Novemver" changed to "November".
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Cruisings in the Cascades, by George O. Shields
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