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

by George Bird Grinnell

  CHAPTER XVIII

  AMONG THE ICEFIELDS

  The next morning they rose late, for the previous day had been long andhard. At breakfast Hugh said, "Now, to-day, let's picket the pack horsesand ride up on the mountains prospecting, and see whether we can campover there where that big snow bank lay when we were here last. I havean idea that we'll find most of the snow gone and that we'll have dryground to camp on and some little feed near by for the horses."

  Soon after breakfast they made ready to start.

  "They say lightning don't strike twice in the same place," remarkedHugh, "but then it might, so I'm going to hang up all our stuff in oneof these trees, where it will be out of the reach of the bears. If theyget to mixing up our things once or twice more, we won't have anythingto eat, and we'll have to go back to the Agency for grub. They'd likemighty well, I reckon, to get at this sheep meat, and if they could everget hold of that sheep head of yours, son, they'd carry it off in thebrush, and you never would find it."

  Some little time was spent in making up the bundles and in putting themin places of safety in the trees. Then they saddled the horses, andclimbing the steep game trail that led to the valley above, foundthemselves once more on the high bench on the mountainside. Here on theflat rocks there were still great expanses of snow, but it was meltingfast, and clear torrents of water ran toward the river in the valleybelow.

  Among the rocks was the same wealth of wild flowers that they had seenwhen they were here before, but the flowers were much more advanced andmany of the blossoms had withered and seemed now to be formingseed-pods.

  They had not gone far when an old mother ptarmigan hopped up in front ofthem and performed the familiar ruse of fluttering along the ground withhanging wings, as if wounded. They looked carefully for the chicks,which they knew must be near at hand, but could not see them. No doubtthey were lying immediately under their eyes hidden in crevices of therock, looking just like the little stones that were scatteredeverywhere.

  Across the valley the green timber was now showing black above the palergrass which carpeted the soil, and Joe said, "I reckon we can camp overthere all right, White Bull."

  "Yes," said Hugh, "it looks so, doesn't it? Anyhow, we'll go over andsee. You can't always tell so far off as this."

  They crossed the stream at its head among the great rounded bouldersthat had been carried down by the ice, and the roar of the fall comingover the precipice almost deafened them. When they had left it a littlebehind, Jack asked Hugh, "Where do you suppose all that water comesfrom?"

  "Why," said Hugh, "I reckon it comes from an awful lot of snow and icethat lies on the mountainside up above there. I wouldn't be a mitesurprised if up there we were to find a glacier two or three times asbig as the one where you killed the sheep. There's an awful lot of roomback between this place where the water falls over and the tops of themountains. We'll get there in the course of a day or two, if we find agood camping place, as I think we will."

  Hugh's prediction as to the possibility of camping here was right. Thesnow was gone, the ground had dried off, and the grass had started thickand green.

  Hugh seemed well pleased and selected a place for the camp, declaringthat the best thing they could do would be to go right back, pack up andmove here.

  "It's true," he said, "there isn't feed enough just now to keep thehorses, but we can turn them loose over across the creek, where there isgood feed, and can bring them in here and tie them up nights, if we wantto. I don't believe that they'll go off, even if we leave them overthere, though it's rather far from camp, and of course something mightscare them and give us some trouble to hunt them up."

  When they reached camp they put the packs on their animals andreturning, pitched their tent in a pretty little grove of stuntedspruces, close to the edge of a tiny rivulet, where wood was plentifuland there was some grass.

  From here they could look out on a dozen splendid mountain peaks, someof them covered with perpetual snow, and with great fields of white snowon the sides of others that seemed to indicate glaciers flowing downtheir slopes.

  Early next morning the three set out to explore this alpine valley, orrather, the mountains which surround it. Opposite them, to the west,rose the huge mountain along whose sides they had now passed severaltimes. To the south of it was a saddle, beyond which again rose a rockyridge, rising toward a point that was hidden from view by the high cliffto the south, over which came the great water fall that fed the largestream which was the main river. Opposite this saddle, and so to theeast of the camp, was a valley in which grew some pine timber, and whichseemed to rise by a gentle ascent to very high rocky peaks that werebare of snow.

  "Which way shall we go, Hugh?" said Jack. "We have a lot of country totravel over, though of course we don't know how far we can go in anydirection."

  "No," said Hugh, "we've got to learn that for ourselves. Now the horsesare a little tired; they've been traveling pretty steadily for two orthree days now, what do you say to leaving them to feed here andcrossing over the creek and walking up that snow slope to yon saddle,and seeing what there is on the other side of it? I reckon that herewe're about as close to the Divide as we can get, and I guess likelythat if we can reach that crest of rock that lies above the snow andlook over it, we'll be seeing waters that flow into the Flat Head Lake,and so into the Pacific Ocean. If we can get up on to that ridge, we maybe able to see what it is that lies off to the south of us here, whichis toward the Cut Bank Pass."

  "I'd like to do that," said Jack. "How do you feel about it, Joe?"

  "Well," answered Joe, "I'd like to see it, only I don't want to gosliding round, the way I did the other day. I tell you I was scared thattime. I couldn't hold myself back, and I didn't know what was going tohappen to me."

  "Yes," said Jack, "I was scared, too. It would be pretty bad luck ifone of us got hurt and had to be nursed up here in the mountains, orpacked in to the Agency to find a doctor."

  "Well," said Hugh, "you boys have got to be careful wherever you go, andyou must think about what your carelessness might cost other people.

  "Now, if we go up over that snow, we've got to try to fix ourselves outfor it. We'd better each one of us take a kind of walking stick to holdon with, and a rope, so that if we get in any place where the going isright bad we can tie ourselves together, and go mighty careful, one at atime, the way Jack was telling us the other day that thosemountain-climbing fellows do in Europe. I'll take the ax and go overinto this small timber across the creek, and cut some sticks for us touse."

  The boys went with Hugh, and in a few minutes returned with three longslender poles, from which, with ax and knife, all the branches androughness were soon trimmed. Hugh pointed the larger ends of the polesand then told the boys to thrust them into the fire so that they mightbecome charred and hardened. In that way they would last and beeffective much longer. Then Hugh took a couple of sling-ropes off thepack saddles, and coiling them up, put one over his right shoulder andunder his left arm, and gave the other to Joe, who carried it the sameway.

  It was but a few minutes' walk over meadows, green with new springinggrass and bright with wild flowers, to the ledges down which they passedto get to the stream. This was easily crossed by springing from rock torock, and a little later they were slowly trudging over the old snowupon an icefield.

  Just before reaching the snow, Hugh pointed out little brooklets runningthrough the drift and gravel, whose milk-white waters showed that theycame from under a glacier.

  "You remember, I reckon, son," he said to Jack, "what Fannin told usabout the way the masses of ice and the loose rocks under it ground upthe soil and rock over which the ice passed, and made the water milkywith this powdered rock. This must be what we see here, and we can besure, I reckon, that this is a glacier."

  "Yes," said Jack, "I guess there's no doubt about that, especially whenwe see that big moraine off there to the right. That must have been madeby the glacier, though it looks as if that had been done a long timeago."
r />   "That's what," said Hugh, "a long time ago. But seeing that morainethere makes me think that maybe it would be a good plan to get on thatand walk along as far as it goes. I've seen these glaciers sometimesthat were all cracked and full of holes, and sometimes the holes werebridged with snow, so that a man might break through the snow and fallinto one of them. Let's get on the moraine and walk along that, and thenwhen we have to walk over the snow, rope ourselves together."

  Edging to the right, they soon came to the steep-sided moraine, andafter a little search found a place where they could ascend it and walkalong its very sharp crest. It was a place for careful walking, sincethe crest was a sharp knife-edge and they had to walk with one foot oneither side of the ridge, with a drop of fifty or sixty feet below if amisstep were made. Before they had gone very far, Joe, who was bringingup the rear, called, "I don't like this very much. I am afraid I amgoing to fall."

  "Nonsense," said Hugh, "you won't fall, but if you feel as if you weregoing to, you better sit down astride of the ridge, take your rope andtie one end of it about your waist and throw the other end to Jack. Thenhe can tie that about his waist, and I'll throw my rope back and he cantie himself to that, too."

  Joe stopped and stood there for a moment and then called out, "No, I'mall right now. Go ahead and I'll follow, but don't go too fast."

  They went on very deliberately, and presently Hugh reached the end ofthe moraine and stepped off on to the snow, where a moment later he wasjoined by Jack and Joe.

  "Now," said Hugh, "let's put these ropes on, leaving a little slack inour hands. Then if any one of the three sees that one of the others isgoing to slip or fall, he must stand still and do the best he can tosupport his partner. Look out, too," he went on, "about where you'restepping. Try to follow as nearly as you can just where I go, and I'lltry the snow with my stick, and if I find a soft place we'll go aroundit."

  They started up the snow slope, directing their course toward the sideof the great mountain, until they had come pretty close to it. Then Hughturned off to the left, and plodded steadily along, vigorously punchingthe snow with his pole. Occasionally he stopped to rest and to draw afew deep breaths, and on one of these occasions Hugh said to Jack, "Youcan see, son, why I don't want to get close to the mountains here," andhe waved his hand toward the rocks, at the foot of which Jack saw manyplaces where recent snowslides from high up on the mountain had rusheddown and thrown great masses of snow and even great pieces of rock farout on the slope which they were ascending.

  "As the sun gets higher," Hugh went on, "and the rocks get warm, thissnow loosens its hold on the mountain, and sometimes a very little thingwill break the last hold it has, and the whole mass will come rushingdown. We don't want to get close enough under the rocks to have any ofthat stuff hit us."

  "Well, White Bull," asked Joe, "why don't you keep far out from themountain?"

  "It's like this," replied Hugh; "you see out there in the middle of theice the slope is steepest, and there in the middle is where the icemoves fastest. For that reason it's more likely to be cracked and brokenthere, and it's into those crevices that a man might slip and get hurt.We want to dodge those cracks in the ice on the one hand, and thefalling snow and rocks on the other, and that is just what I'm trying todo."

  "I tell you, Hugh," said Jack, admiringly, "you seem to see everythingand to think of everything."

  "Oh, no," replied Hugh, "there's lots of things that I don't see andlots of things that I don't think of, but, of course, a man that's beena long time in the mountains gets to know some things, and if he's gotany sense he tries to keep himself out of danger."

  For an hour or two more they climbed steadily, always keeping near therim of the great basin, yet well away from the rocks, and at last theywere on snow that was almost level, and well up toward a wall of rock,which sometimes stood up high, or again was broken down and so low thatit was but six or eight feet above the level of the snow. Gradually theydrew near to this wall, which was bare of snow and from which,therefore, Hugh anticipated no danger, until at last they had come soclose to it that it seemed that they might reach it at almost any point.

  Hugh kept on to a place where the wall was quite broken down, and then,turning, reached the edge of the snow and stepped across to the rocks,where the others joined him.

  Through the opening where they were standing they could see mountains,and, taking two or three steps forward, looked into a black gorge fullof snow and ice, from which a narrow valley led away to the southwest.It was the coldest, most desolate place that any of them had ever lookedinto. Below, a precipice fell away a sheer thousand feet, and then,piled up in the valley, one could not tell how thickly, was the snow,sometimes broken and showing green ice beneath it, and sometimes with animmense peak of rock sticking out through it. There was no life to beseen, and no green thing; only black rocks, white snow and dark ice.

  "My," said Jack, "that's a terrible place."

  "Yes," said Hugh, "it would be mighty lonesome for a man who was putdown anywhere in there."

  "I don't like to look at it," said Joe, "it scares me. I don't likethese mountains. I like the prairie, where it's warm and where you cansee a long way."

  "Do you suppose that anything lives down there, Hugh?" said Jack.

  "Well, I don't know," was the answer. "I reckon likely the goats go downthere in summer to get cool, but how they get up here again if they godown there, I don't know. Maybe there are some places where a goat or aman could get down, but I can't see them from here."

  "Well," said Jack, "I'd hate to go hunting down there, and I don'tbelieve I'd go if I saw a dozen goats."

  "No," said Hugh, "I don't reckon you would. I think it would be betterto try to find some easier place to do your hunting. It's scarylooking."

  They spent a long time looking down into this gulf, and the longer theylooked the more dark and forbidding it seemed. Hugh said that the watersfrom the melting snow and ice must run down into some river that enteredFlat Head Lake, but what river it was he did not know, for he had neverbeen in the mountains on the other side of the range.

  At length, retreating from the edge of the precipice, they went out tothe other side of the rocks, and, sitting down, ate the little lunch offried sheep meat and bread that they had brought in their pockets. ThenHugh smoked his pipe, and presently they started to return to camp.

  "How are you going back, Hugh?" asked Jack. "The way we came or someother way?"

  "No," said Hugh, "the way we came is good enough for me. I know I canget back that way, and, if we try some other road, I don't feel surethat we won't meet some steep slope or some big crack that will stop us.I took notice as we came up this morning that the snow on the other sideof the basin looks mighty steep, and I don't want to imitate Joe and gosliding around the way he did. Let's go back the way we came, and thenif we want to try some other way, if we ever come here again, we can tryit from the bottom, and if we get stopped we can go back to camp."

  Adjusting their ropes, they started on the return journey. The heat ofthe sun had decidedly affected the snow, and it was much softer thanwhen they had come up a few hours before. This made the walking easier,and their progress down the slope was much more rapid, so that theafternoon was only half spent when they found themselves once more incamp.

  None of the horses were in sight, and they at once set out to look forthem, and after considerable search found them all together not very farfrom camp, but a little way down the hill, where the grass grew thickerand greener than close to the camp.

  "Now, boys," said Hugh, "I'll tell you what we've got to do. We can'tafford to lose our horses and we can't expect them to stay close to campwhere there's no grass, so let's take them over across the creek, andturn them loose on the other side, where the feed is better and theycan't very well get away. If they come back and cross the creek to godown hill, we will hear them, and in the morning if any of them are gonefrom the place where we turned them loose, we can go down the hill onthis side of the creek and catch
them before they have gone far."

  Hugh's advice was acted on, and then returning to the tent they foundthat it was time for supper.

  After supper the question came up as to what they should do to-morrow.After talking for a little while, Hugh said, "Now, son, of course, wewant to keep busy and see and do all that we can up here in themountains, but then we must remember that we've got pretty nearly allthe time there is. We don't need to make a labor of our fun and climbthese hills every day. If you boys want to do so, you can just as wellstay in camp for a day now and then, and kind of rest up. These rockshere are not going to get away, and you don't have to climb them allto-morrow. If you feel like doing it, we can all stay in camp to-morrowand take things easy, and then start out on our travels the next day."

  "I think maybe that's a good idea, Hugh," said Jack. "We've been on thego pretty steadily ever since we came out, and maybe it would be a goodidea to loaf for a day."

  "I think so, too," agreed Joe, "and then something else, my eyes hurt meto-night. I think maybe the shine of the sun on the snow is what makesthem pain."

  "Yes," said Hugh; "we did a fool trick this morning. I didn't think ofit until we got well up on the ice, and the sun commenced to get strong.We ought to have blackened our noses before we started out. We're all ofus likely to have sore eyes to-morrow. I don't think it will last longnor hurt much, but the sun is strong now. You see it's mid-summer and,of course, the glare from the ice is pretty bad. After this, we must notstart out over the snow without fixing up our faces."

  So after a little more talk it was determined that the next day shouldbe spent in and about camp.

  The boys were lazy about rising the next morning, and when they got upthey saw Hugh sitting by the fire smoking, and noticed that thebrilliant sunlight which was cut off from the camp by the greatmountain that rose to the east of them, was slowly creeping down theice field across the valley. It was late.

  "Why, Hugh," said Jack, "I guess I was more tired than I thought. Islept right through, and I had no idea it was as late as this."

  "Yes," said Hugh, "it's pretty late. I've had breakfast cooked for twoor three hours, and I reckon you'll find everything pretty well dried upwhen you get to eating; but no matter about that, the grub is ready foryou; are you ready for it?"

  "I'll be ready in about five minutes," said Jack, as he hurried down tothe little stream where they had scraped out a pool where the water hadcollected and which made a very good place for washing their hands andfaces. Presently they were all at breakfast and enjoying their food,even if it was dried up.

  After Hugh had washed the dishes, he said, "Now, boys, I'm going over tothe other side of the creek there to look at the horses and see howthey're getting along, and I'll be back in two or three hours. Anybodythat wants to go with me can, and anybody that wants to stay here canstay."

  "I'll go," said Joe, "if you won't make me climb over that ice."

  "No," laughed Hugh, "I promise not to take you on to the ice, but I wantto see how those horses are making out over there, and if there's plentyof feed for them. They seemed to be well satisfied this morning."

  "I don't believe I'll go," Jack said. "My eyes hurt me a little, and Ithink I'll just sit here in camp, and then if I get tired of doing thatI'll take a little walk up the valley."