Jack in the Rockies: A Boy's Adventures with a Pack Train

by George Bird Grinnell

  Chapter IX

  AN ELK HUNT UNDER THE TETONS

  He was riding along slowly, letting Pawnee make his own way amongthe loose rocks and tree-trunks, when he caught sight of an animalstanding with its tail toward him, in a little opening among thetrees. For an instant he thought it was a buckskin horse, andthe idea flashed through his mind that there must be a camp downthere. Almost before the thought had taken form, the animal moveda little, and he saw that it was an elk. He slipped off his horseon the side furthest from the animal, and led Pawnee out of sightbehind a clump of pines, and left him there. Then he crept backto the ridge. In the timber below he soon made out half-a-dozenelk, and as he watched, he could see quite a large bunch of cowsand calves. He lay there, watching and waiting. The drop down thehill into the valley was very steep, and he was hoping that the elkmight move into some position where he would not have to go down tothem. They seemed uneasy and suspicious, and presently somethingstartled them, and they ran a little way, and then stopped, lookingback up the valley. Two big heifers stood almost side by sidefacing opposite ways, with their shoulders close together, andtheir heads in such position that their necks seemed to cross.Jack raised his gun and took a careful sight at the necks, justbelow the heads, and pulled the trigger. One of the cows droppedinstantly, while the other, standing a moment to look, turnedand ran off. He heard the elk crashing through the timber of thevalley, and then saw them climbing the bald hills on the otherside, stopping every little while to look back, and at last walkingslowly off over the hills.

  A convenient side ridge gave Pawnee a good road down to where thecow had fallen, but she had rolled far down the hill, and finallyhad stopped on a little level place. She was quite dead. The animalwas rather large for Jack to handle, but with some trouble hemanaged to cut off her hams and sirloins, and tying the two hamstogether by the gambrel joints, he balanced them on his saddle, andthen tying the sirloins on behind, set out on foot for camp. Therewas much scrambling up steep hillsides, and down others quite assteep, and some working through the thick underbrush, before hecame out into the open lake valley. Here progress was more rapid.Jack walked swiftly, and Pawnee followed close behind. After a timehe came on the trail made by the pack train, some hours before,and hurrying along this, presently saw in the distance what lookedlike a house. Before he reached it, however, the trail that he wasfollowing turned sharply to the right, and led down toward theriver, two or three miles below the lake.

  As he approached the tall cottonwood timber, which he supposed grewon the shores of the river, he saw the horses feeding close to it,and before long the cone of the lodge showed through the leaves,and a little later he stopped by the fire.

  "Good boy," said Hugh. "I'm mighty glad to get that meat. That'llkeep us going for quite a while, and now that we've got fresh meat,and dried meat and fish, we're bound to live well."

  "Animal's in good order, too," he continued, as he began to liftthe meat from the saddle. "I expect you picked out a heifer, didn'tyou?"

  "Well," said Jack, "I tried to, but I wasn't sure that it wasn't anold cow until I put a knife into her. The only thing I was sure ofwas that she had no calf." "Well," said Hugh, "it's a nice piece ofmeat, and I'm mighty glad you got it."

  "What's that house that I see up there, Hugh? Nobody lives herenow, does there?"

  "No," said Hugh, "I reckon that's some kind of a shelter or stable,built by hunters or prospectors, for their horses in fly-time.Flies are pretty bad here now, and I reckon close about this lakethe greenheads must be enough to drive the horses crazy. I noticedto-day when we were crossing some points of that meadow up abovethat they were bad. If it hadn't been for that, I reckon we'd havecamped up there by the lake. It's an awful sightly spot, but therewere too many flies."

  Supper was almost ready, and they feasted royally that night ontrout and the fat sirloins of the elk; and after the meal was over,it was pleasant to sit round the big camp-fire that Jack and Joebuilt out in front of the lodge, and watch the blaze, and listen tothe murmur of the river as it hurried over the stones, just beyondthe camp. Every stick tossed on the burning pile sent a great cloudof sparks soaring upward to disappear among the dark green foliageof the spruces, which here grew among the taller cottonwoods. Thewarmth of the fire was grateful; the willows and cottonwoods andspruces all about their camp sheltered them from the strong windwhich still blew down the valley; and Jack, as he lay stretched outon the ground between Joe and Hugh, thought that he never couldhave a happier time than that very moment.

  "Now, boys," said Hugh, "I don't know how you feel about it, butit strikes me this is a terrible nice place to stop for a day ortwo. This is a good camp, and these mountains right opposite to usare things I like to look at. What do you say to our stopping here,say for one day, anyhow; and maybe to-morrow we'll take a littleride across the river, and get closer to these mountains, and seesomething of what they look like. I'd like mighty well to look atthem long enough to kind o' carry a remembrance of them back withme to the ranch."

  "Well," said Jack, "let's do that. There's no reason for ourhurrying; we've got plenty of grub, and I think we'd all like tostay here for one day, anyhow."

  "Now, there's two things we can do," said Hugh. "We ain't made upour minds how we'll go home; but we can cross the range in a wholelot of different places. We can either follow down Snake River fora way, and then work up one of the creeks, and go over and strikethe head of Wind River, and follow that down, or we can go back tothe park, and then cut across, and get down onto Stinking Water,and then go back on the prairie. My idea is that we'll do better tokeep on south, and try to go straight on our course. We can eithergo up Buffalo Fork, and then strike across to the head of the WindRiver, and follow that down; or go down and follow up the GrosVentre, and get across some way there. We don't have to make up ourminds to-day; we can settle that to-morrow night. Let's agree thatwe'll stop here to-morrow, and then to-morrow night decide whatwe'll do."

  "All right," said both boys.

  When the three friends got up next morning, and went to thestream to wash, they could see nothing of the great range beneathwhich they were camped, for the tall spruce trees which grew onthe opposite bank cut off the view of everything beyond. Afterbreakfast they saddled up and having picketed two of the packhorses, set out to cross the river, and to get nearer to themountains. The river was wide, and so deep that the water camealmost up to the saddle blankets, but they crossed comfortablyenough, and riding through the open dry timber of the bottom,before long were approaching the high bluffs which formed the firstterrace above the river. In the bottom were many tracks of deerand elk, some of the deer tracks quite fresh; and they almost rodeover a huge old porcupine, which waddled awkwardly to one side,and then stopped among some low rose bushes, with its head betweenits forefeet, its quills erect, and its tail thrashing about in athreatening way. Jack stopped his horse and said to Hugh:

  "Hugh, is there anything in that story that porcupines throw theirquills? I've heard lots of people say it is so, and then otherpeople say it isn't."

  Hugh drew his horse up, and turning in his saddle said, "Why no,son, there's nothing in that; though I've heard plenty of men whoought to know a heap better say that there was. Take a stick and goright up close to that fellow, and poke him with it, and then bringit to me."

  Jack picked up a dead branch, and going to the porcupine, poked himin the sides and back, and when he did this the porcupine thrashedhis tail about more vigorously than ever, and two or three timesstruck the stick. Leaving him, Jack went to Hugh, carrying thestick in his hand, and Hugh said, "Look at the end of that sticknow, and see those quills." The end of the stick was pierced by adozen or twenty sharp, strong quills, and Jack, taking hold of oneand trying to pull it out, found that the point was firmly fastenedin the wood, so that it required quite a little effort to pull itout.

  "Now, son," said Hugh, "a porcupine, as you have seen, is slow, andcan't run away. His back and sides and tail are covered with thesequills, which are m
ighty sharp, and which have little stickerspointing back toward the root, so that if a quill gets fast in theflesh, it is a very hard matter to pull it out again. If a quillgets stuck in an animal's head or foot, it keeps working forwardall the time; it never works backward and comes out; it has to gothrough to the other side. Most animals know that it isn't good tofool with a porcupine. The only way to kill him is to turn himover on his back, and get at his throat and belly, which are notcovered with quills. When a porcupine sees an animal coming heholds his body close to the ground, makes his quills stand up allover him, and thrashes around with his tail, which is pretty wellcovered with quills too. His tail is strong, and he can hit a hardblow with it; and so you see he's pretty well defended. The quillsare not set deep in the skin; they are loose, and they pull outmighty easy; you see that just by poking the porcupine you got thatstick full of quills. Sometimes when he thrashes hard with his tailhe may hit a piece of wood, or may knock loose some of the quillson his tail so that they may fly a little distance; but as forthrowing them any distance from his body, or with any force, why hecan't do it.

  "I have had dogs that would tackle porcupines, and when they did,it was a terrible job to pull the quills out of them."

  "Well," said Jack, "I'm glad to hear all that I've been told ofdogs tackling porcupines, up in the Adirondacks, but I never sawone that had been pierced by quills."

  "Most dogs," said Hugh, "soon learn never to bother porcupines,but some seem never to learn, and will go for one every time theysee it. Bears sometimes tackle them, and so do lynx and panthers,but they say the greatest animal of all to kill a porcupine is afisher. I've seen two or three panthers with their jaws full ofquills. I've heard people say that the fisher kills them by turningthem over on their backs and then jumping onto the belly, but Inever saw this done. What I have seen is fishers with lots ofquills in their bodies: some in the legs, some in the belly, andsome in the sides. And the Indians say that these quills don'tbother them at all; that is to say, that a fisher full of quillsdon't swell up the way a dog or a panther does. The porcupine isa pretty stupid beast, but its effect on its neighbors is quiteinteresting."

  Jack listened with much attention to this lesson in naturalhistory, and they mounted and rode on again.

  Soon they came to a great slough, evidently an old beaver meadow,and as Hugh drew up his horse and looked at it, he shook hishead:--"Too soft for us to cross, I reckon, we'll have to go roundsome other way. There's plenty of sloughs and mud-holes in therewhere our horses would go out of sight."

  They turned northward, and for the next two hours were occupiedin trying to make their way out to the high prairie. At frequentintervals they came to what looked like a tongue of hard dry landextending out to the bluffs, but after following it for a littledistance they found at its end a mud-hole, which obliged them toturn back and take another road. At length they reached a stripof hard ground which led them to the bluffs; and just before theyrode up the steep ascent, Hugh's horse started from the ground abrood of grouse, which scattered in all directions, many of themalighting on the willows and spruce branches close to them. Theywere singularly tame, almost as much so as the fool hens they hadseen farther north, and Jack rode up to within three or four feetof one, and then reached out his gun to touch it, but before themuzzle was within a foot of the bird, it flew away.

  When they reached the higher prairie they rode off toward therange, which was now plainly to be seen. There were three principalpeaks, the names of which Hugh gave them. One, he said, was MountMoran, a great square-topped mass of granite, with two or threevast snow or ice banks on its north face. To the south of that werethe three pinnacles of the Tetons, whose slender summits ran farup into the blue sky. The prairie over which they were now ridingwas uneven:--here cut by dry, grassy, ancient water-ways, therewith mounds of great extent rising above the general level. Therewas much gravel--some of it very large--which looked as if it mighthave been carried down by the water. Long ridges composed whollyof this gravel ran for long distances out from the foot of therange, and were now for the most part bare of timber, having beenburned over. On some of them the fire had spared many of the pines,and young aspen timber grew on their slopes. The terraces of theriver's flood-plain rose one above another, and on the highest ofall, on the west side, were groups of evergreen trees, and now andthen a single pine standing alone in the wide sage-plain. Scatteredabout over the prairie were many antelope.

  They rode on toward the mountains, trying to get up high enoughso as to look down on Jackson's Lake, which runs in close to thefoot of Mount Moran; but the ridges became higher and higher, moreand more timber grew on them, and cut off the view, so that atlength they gave up the effort and turned off to one side to ridethrough the timber. Here were many fresh elk tracks and trails,some made the night before, and some since daylight; and here,quite unexpectedly, as they rode over a ridge a little higher thanany that they had yet passed, a fine view was had of the southernend of Jackson's Lake. It seemed to wind and twist about among itspoints and islands, and sent out long and narrow finger-like baysinto the hills in a most curious way. A little further on they sawfrom a hilltop another lake, not nearly so large as Jackson's,but still perhaps two miles long. It was surrounded by denseforest, and reflected the great peaks which overhung it. Here theydismounted for a while to look at the range, which was now plainlyseen.

  "Big mountains, ain't they, son?" said Hugh, as they sat therelooking up at them.

  "Yes, Hugh," said Jack, "they're awful big, and how bare and graythey are. There seems to be a little timber in small patches, butexcept for that, there doesn't seem to be anything growing on themat all; they are just rocks with snow on top and in the ravines."

  "Well," said Hugh, "I expect for the most part that rock is sosteep that the snow can't lie there. Even if the wind don't blow,just as soon as any weight of snow falls on the rocks it slips off.

  "Have you got your glasses with you, son?" he continued, and whenJack had handed them to him, he looked through them and said: "Ithought so. Do you know, son, that snow up there in those highestravines isn't snow at all, it's ice; just like them glaciers thatwe have up there in the mountains to the north. Look through theglasses, and you can see the cracks on the lower border, and youcan see too that it is blue, and not white like snow."

  Jack and Joe both looked through the glasses and saw what Hughmeant, and both were reminded of the masses of ice that they hadseen in the mountains of the north, the year before.

  It was pleasant sitting in the warm sun and looking up at thiswonderful scenery, but at last they caught up their horses, andmounted and rode back to the camp. As they were going along side byside, down the wide point of a ridge, a great brown deer bouncedout from an aspen thicket on Joe's side and ran down the ravine.Joe sprang from his horse and raised his gun to shoot, but just ashe did so she sprang into a little gully, so that Joe could seeonly her ears as she raced along. She followed the ravine down andwas not seen again.

  Hugh and Jack both laughed at Joe, and told him that he should havestayed on his horse, for from their point of view on horseback, thedoe's body had been in sight for quite time enough to shoot.

  When they reached the level bottom, they rode out close to theriver, and keeping along the bank found firm ground all the way tothe camp. There remained still some hours of daylight, and bothboys got out their lines and began to fish, catching a number offine and heavy trout. Just as they were about to go to camp withtheir catch, a flock of seven wild geese flew up the river, callingloudly, and after they had passed a little beyond the boys, Joebegan to honk in response, and presently the great birds turnedabout and came back, flying directly over the boys, looking downat them, as if to see who it was that was talking to them. The airwas cool and damp after dark and they sat about the fire in thelodge. A great horned owl a little way down the river was hootingregularly, and Joe said, "We're going to have a storm."

  "Yes," said Hugh, "I hear him now, and I heard him last night. Ireckon we're going
to have change of weather."

  "What do you mean, Hugh?" said Jack, "has the owl anything to dowith the weather?"

  "Well no, son, I don't know that he has; but some of the Indianssay that if you hear an owl calling it means a storm's coming."

  It was raining the next morning when Jack thrust his head fromunder his blankets, and as the fire had not been started, andnobody seemed to be moving, he knew that this day also would bespent in camp. When he went out of the lodge the ground was coveredwith an inch of very wet snow, and the weather seemed to be tryingto make up its mind whether it would rain or no. Big wet flakeswere falling in a mixture of rain and snow, and moisture waseverywhere.

  After breakfast, Hugh cut some crotches and poles, and with theropes and two of the mantas made a very good shelter, under whichthey built an outdoor fire. By this they sat for a long time,discussing various matters, and then, since the rain had stopped,Jack went down to the stream and began to fish. He caught a fewfish weighing from three quarters of a pound to a pound, and therewere enough of them to make it interesting. The small ones seemedto trouble his hook very little, and one or two little ones that hecaught he shook off before getting them to shore. Suddenly, after along cast that he had made out toward the middle of the stream, ahuge fish rose to his fly, but in its eagerness, missed and sprangover the fly showing its full length out of the water. This wassuch a fish as Jack had not seen before, and he was very anxious toget it. He cast again over the same spot, and this time drew in hisline a little more slowly. The great fish rose again, and just atthe right moment Jack struck, and had him fast.

  For a moment the fish did nothing, but then came a fight the likeof which Jack had never witnessed. The fish made a strong rushtoward the deepest water of the rapid, and twice on his way therehe sprang into the air, shaking his head savagely to rid himself ofthe steel that was biting his jaw. Then he turned about and rushedback toward the bank, again throwing himself out of the water. Jackwas excited, but was trying to keep cool. Whenever the fish gavehim an opportunity he took in line, and when the fish ran he gavehim as little as possible.

  Suddenly the trout started down the river at great speed, so fastthat Jack was afraid to check him, and started racing after him,running over the slippery stones of the beach, and through thepools of water left by the river. Presently the fish stopped, andrefused to move, and Jack recovered all the line that he could, andthen began to try to move the fish. Now it began to give a seriesof tugging jerks on the line, as if it were bending itself fromside to side in the water; then it began to throw itself over andover, as if trying to twist the line; and then it would rush off,as if striving to break it. As the splendid fish grew tired, Jackworked it nearer and nearer to the beach; but he had no net andof course could not lift it from the water. After looking about alittle he found a place where the beach was shelving, and layingdown his rod, he drew the fish out by the leader and soon had itsafely in his hand. It was a handsome fish, deep and thick, and yetgraceful in all its lines, and it seemed to Jack as big as a NorthRiver shad. As soon as it was killed, Jack took his rod and startedback to the camp for he wished to show them there the biggest troutthat he had ever seen.

  White clouds hung low over the valley and hid the mountains oneither side; but as Jack walked along the beach the western skygrew lighter, and for a few moments the sun struggled to shinethrough the clouds. Then suddenly, far down the valley the whitewall that shut out the view broke away, and Jack could see thegreat mountain mass of the Teton Range. He stopped and gazed,waiting for the rent to close up again. Through it he could see,like a picture in its frame, the mountains, not dark and grayas they had been yesterday, but white now, in all the purity ofnew-fallen snow. As he looked, the break in the clouds movedrapidly northward, exposing one mountain after another, eachseeming more beautiful than the one seen just before. A wreath ofmist hung around and concealed the needle peak of the Grand Teton,adding to, rather than taking away from its height. The rift in theclouds passed northward, and after it had shown him Mount Moran, itclosed again and the white vapor cut off the view. Jack had seenthe glories of the Tetons, snow-clad. He returned to camp.