CHAPTER XIX
A FOUR-FOOTED HUNTER
Hugh and Joe started off to look at the horses, while Jack stayed incamp and watched the mountains, and noticed how their shadows grewshorter and shorter as the sunlight crept toward the place where he wassitting.
It was quiet here. Now and then a bird's note sounded in the trees abovehim, and once he heard the shrill whistle of a mountain woodchuck andalways the dull sound of water falling over the cliff. Despite thequiet, there was yet much that was delightful in his surroundings.
As he sat there doing nothing, the forest, which to the casual travelerseems so silent and so destitute of life, began to give out littlesounds and to show movements that Jack hardly expected. Down by thestream a friendly little water ouzel came along feeding, and stoppingnear the place where Jack sat, perched himself on a dry stick, and satthere for a long time, practicing his thrush-like song. He seemed to bea young bird and, though low, his song was very musical. He tried itover and over again, stopping sometimes when he thought he had made amistake, and beginning anew with great patience and perseverance. He wasa humble bit of life as he perched there, clad in quaker gray and hardlyto be distinguished from a stub of the dead branch on which he rested,and Jack could not but admire the little fellow and be delighted by hisliquid notes.
On one of the trees hung the shoulders of the sheep, which, shining redagainst the dark green, attracted the notice of a vagrant company ofgray jays, which were flitting from point to point among the pines. Jackhad seen many of these amusing rascals, sometimes known as meat hawks orcamp robbers, and was always ready to admire their astonishingimpudence.
A gray jay has little fear of human beings. He is likely to alightwithin three feet of one's face, and to wink at one in daring fashion.He will stand on the legs of a deer which is hanging in a tree while youare skinning it, and from his perch will dart down to the ground afterevery little bit of meat or fat that drops from the knife. One canentice them almost up to his hand by tossing bits of food to them,making each bit fall a little nearer than the last; yet, notwithstandingall their impudence and apparent tameness, they are watchful and wellable to take care of themselves. They scan you suspiciously with keenblack eyes, and are always on the alert.
A group of these bold fellows darted down from the tree tops, some ofthem perching on the meat in the tree, but two or three plunging closeto the fire, and alighting with an audacious flirt and spreading of thetail, which made Jack feel that the camp belonged rather to the birdsthan to him, and that he, if he had any modesty at all, ought to go offand leave them to occupy it.
The jays raised themselves to their full height, as if standing ontiptoe, and looked round, and then seeming perfectly satisfied, hoppedabout and picked up little pieces of bacon, morsels of fat and crumbsof bread. Some of these they ate at once, some they took up and carriedoff bodily to a neighboring branch, where, holding the food under onefoot, they hammered and tore the piece until it was so divided that theycould swallow it.
One of the jays got hold of a bone of the sheep to which some flesh wasclinging, and as it was too big to carry off, pecked at it until he gota beak full of the food, and then flew off to eat it, but immediatelyreturned for more.
Jack noticed that the jays that were working at the meat hanging in thetrees sometimes clung to it, hanging head down, like titmice, which,indeed, they somewhat resembled. They did not seem very good-naturedamong themselves, and Jack noticed that if two alighted on the samepiece of meat, one of them always retired and waited until the other hadsatisfied himself and gone off. Once or twice there seemed a possibilityof an active quarrel between two of them. One of the two would drawhimself up very straight indeed, slightly raise the feathers of his headand give a low flute-like whistle, and when the other saw this attitudeand heard the warning he at once flew away.
Jack supposed that the jays would eat what they wanted, and then goaway, but this was not the case. After satisfying their appetites, theycontinued their foraging, carrying off their booty and laying it up insecret storehouses on the branches, or in the little festoons of mossthat hung from the trees.
Jack noticed that they seemed to store away quite a little bit of foodin their throats, and that when they had all they could carry they wentoff and deposited it, and came back for more. The gray jays were sopersistent and such wholesale robbers that Jack contemplated throwingsticks and stones at them to drive they away, but before he had made uphis mind to do this another bird appeared, which at once scattered thejays.
While they were hard at work gathering plunder from the camp a darkshape flashed across the opening, and a moment later a beautifulSteller's jay alighted in a small tree near the tent, raised his longcrest, looked about him for an instant, and then hopping from one branchto another, reached the topmost spray of the tree, where he hung for aninstant, swinging backward and forward on a slender twig. Then he darteddown and alighted on the meat, and after another glance about him,attacked it with much vigor, sinking his sharp bill into the tenderflesh at every stroke. He was a fine fellow, this Rocky Mountain bluejay, beautiful in color and shape, with dark blue wings and tail, asmoky brown body and head and a long crest, with light blue dots on hisforehead. He was trim, graceful, alert and quick in all his motions, buthe remained about the camp only a little while and then dashed away intothe forest.
After the blue jay had gone, and the coast was clear, the gray jays cameback again, and so persistently did they assail the meat that Jackfinally drove them off, and threw a coat over it to protect it.
The daring and impudent gray jays were not, however, the only birdsabout the camp. Modest little juncos--birds like the black snow bird ofthe East--now and then crept out of the forest and made cautiousadvances to the neighborhood of the fire, where they feasted on thebread crumbs that had been dropped on the ground.
When Jack first saw them they seemed to him the most timid, shrinkinglittle creatures imaginable, and he was astonished later to see two ofthem almost come to blows over a choice bit of bread that one had found.When another bird approached the dainty which its discoverer was pickingto pieces, the owner grimly lowered his head and bristled up hisfeathers, prepared to defend his rights. The other little bird threwitself into a defensive position as if quite prepared for battle, butthe two did not quite come to blows. After eyeing each other for a fewseconds one made a little hop to one side and then the other moved off,and presently the ruffled feathers were smoothed down.
Back in the woods, Jack could hear now and then dull tappings anddrummings, which told him that the carpenters among the birds were atwork, and after a while one of these woodpeckers dashed into camp, and,alighting near the top of an old stub, stood there for a while as ifwaiting to be admired.
He was a handsome fellow, with a glossy black back, relieved by whiteshoulder knots and wearing a satiny cap of red. He was also an energeticworker, but liked frequent intervals of rest.
He hammered away on the wood as if his life depended on it, making thechips fly this way and that, but when he secured the grub that his keenear told him was concealed there and had swallowed it, he would sitstill for some moments as if considering its excellent flavor.
A sudden movement of the gray jays, which still loitered about in thehope of being able to steal something more, occasionally alarmed thisvisitor and caused him to dodge around to the other side of the stubwith a little shriek of alarm, but he would at once peer out from behindit and, finding that he had been frightened without cause, went to workagain.
Two rather distant cousins of this woodpecker also came into the camp.They were banded three-toed woodpeckers, somewhat more modestly clad inblack and white, with yellow silk caps.
Jack noticed that they worked most on the trunks of the higher trees andon the larger limbs, corkscrewing about them and pecking away in modestfashion, as if anxious to escape observation.
One of them crept into a hollow in the bark of a great spruce and stayedthere for a long time, and Jack thought that he
was taking a nap beforestarting out for his supper.
For some hours Jack sat there watching the birds and having adelightfully lazy time. Once in a while he looked across the creek tothe place where the horses were, and could see two figures, which heknew must be Hugh and Joe. They seemed in no hurry to return to thecamp, but had gone beyond the horses and almost to the crest of the hillabove the old camp where the bears had been killed.
At length when the birds had all gone off and he felt a little tired ofdoing nothing, Jack took up his rifle and crossing the tiny stream whichlay before the camp, clambered half a mile or more up the mountainside.It was steep, but not bad going.
There was little sign of game, but, presently, on one of the ledges,Jack walked into a little brood of Franklin's grouse; a mother and halfa dozen young ones as big as a quail.
At first the old bird seemed rather uneasy, but not sufficiently alarmedto resort to any of the common tricks for leading an intruder away fromher young, and Jack sat down on the ground close to them and watchedthem for a long time. They did not seem very active birds, nor did theydisplay much energy in searching for food. They seemed to him ratherlazy, and at last he rose and, leaving them, went on.
From his high perch he could see far into the distance and could nowoverlook the great cliff lying south of the camp, which he discovered tobe the northern boundary of an immense snow field which ran back a longway to a vast mountain and to the ridges which extended from it oneither hand.
"My," said Jack to himself, "that will be no fool of a climb to crossthat ice and get on those ridges. We will have to do that before verylong."
Looking down across the valley he could now see Hugh and Joe returningto camp, and turning about retraced his steps and got to the tent soonafter the others.
The next morning Hugh proposed that they should explore still furtherthe valley which lay to the east of the camp, up which they had riddenwhen they had been here before. There was no special reason for hunting,since they still had plenty of the sheep killed a few days before.
It took some little time to go across the stream and bring in thehorses--the pack animals along with the others, since there was no placeover where they were feeding where they could be tied up. The longlevel ledges of rock that formed the floor of the bench gave noopportunity for driving a picket pin down into the soil, and indeed thefeed was so scattered that a picketed horse would get nothing to eat.
Jack suggested that they should tie up the pack animals near camp, butHugh said no, that it would be better to let them follow, and perhapsgraze in the little valley up which they were about to go. There was nolikelihood that they would get out of this narrow trough, and even ifthey did not follow the saddle horses, they could be picked up on thereturn to camp and taken back to their feeding ground.
As the three riders passed among the scattered pines that grew in thevalley they were again impressed by the vast height to which themountains rose on either hand, by the stillness of the place, and by theglimpses they had from time to time of new snowfields and rockpinnacles.
When they had passed the little lake that lay high up in the valley Jackrode down to its edge, and saw there the fresh tracks of mountain sheepand one huge footmark of an immense bear. He got down from his horse andmeasured the length of this track, which was very large, reaching fromthe heel-plate of his rifle to the hammer.
Remounting, he followed Hugh and Joe, whose horses were clambering up asteep slope which presently ended in a tumbled mass of rock lying at thefoot of a low cliff.
When the travelers reached the rocks they tied their horses to somelittle spruces and started to breast the steep ascent on foot.
It was a long, hard climb, but in no way dangerous, simply the mountingone after another of low ledges or steep rocky slopes, wearying to thelegs and making the climbers puff.
At last they reached a very high point from which they could look outover the upper lake and see to the northeast a number of cold snowybasins. Over some mountain points they could see also what they believedto be the prairie shining in the hot sun, but the lower lake was hiddenby the mountains.
"Come on now," said Hugh, "let us see if we can work our way over on tothis next ridge to the south. If we can get there, I believe we can seedown into the head of Red Eagle Creek."
Following the ridge as well as they could, and going down hill butlittle, the three soon stood on another crest of rock, from which theylooked down into a long valley, carpeted at its head with grass and lowwillows, but farther down supporting large spruces and pines. In thetimber a long way off shone a bit of silver, which Hugh told them wasRed Eagle Lake.
"Who is the lake named after, Hugh?" asked Jack. "It cannot be our RedEagle that we saw back at the Agency."
"Yes," said Hugh, "that's just who it is. A man that thought a greatdeal of him came up that valley and found the lake and named it afterthe old man, and the creek and the valley take their name from the lake,I reckon."
"That's interesting, Hugh," remarked Jack, "I'm glad somebody has givenIndian names to these mountains. I think that is the way that mountains,lakes and rivers ought to be named. The first thing we know there won'tbe any Indians left, and unless we name the main features of the landafter them, the Indians will all be forgotten."
"Well," said Hugh, "I don't know but you're right. It seems to me agreat deal better to call things and places after Indians than to callthem after the names of European cities. Haven't you got a Rome in NewYork State? I know we've got a Paris in my State, and I don't thinkeither name is a very good one for an American city."
"Not a bit good," replied Jack.
While Hugh and Jack had been discussing names and places, Joe had beenstudying the mountainsides, to see whether he could discover any game.Presently he picked up a little bit of snow and tossed it toward Hughand Jack. It hit Hugh's leg and he turned around and looked at Joe, whomade, with his lips, a side motion toward the valley, and after amoment's search Hugh, and then a little later, Jack, discovered severalsheep feeding far below them.
Taking out their glasses, they sat down on the rocks and began to searchthe valley for sheep, and before long discovered a number.
Jack thought that there must be eighteen or twenty, though it was noteasy to count them, for some would occasionally disappear, hidden behindsome bush or rise of the ground, while others would be found inunexpected places.
Those feeding at the upper end of the valley seemed to be rams, some ofthem with very large horns, while those farther away were harder toidentify, but appeared to be ewes and lambs.
"Well, son," said Hugh, "there are your sheep all right, but as near asI can see they're pretty safe."
"I guess they are, Hugh," answered Jack. "I don't see any way of gettingat them without going down into that valley, and the way it looks to meyou couldn't go and come in the same day."
"No," said Hugh, "it's a long way."
They spent some hours looking at the sheep, all of which after a whilestopped feeding, and the ewes and lambs lay down on the grass, whilemost of the rams left the valley and climbed some distance up the rocksand lay down.
"Well," said Hugh, "I don't know but we've seen enough of Red EagleValley and its bunch of sheep, especially as we're not going to get anyof them. What do you say to turning round and going back to camp?"
The boys were ready, and they started back, following along the rim ofrocks on which they were until they came to the high cliffs, down whichthey had to climb to get to their horses.
They were descending these, sometimes jumping from ledge to ledge, andin bad places lowering themselves by their hands, when Hugh, who was alittle below the others, gave a low hiss, which caused the boys to standmotionless. After a moment he said in a low voice, "Come on down towhere I am, and be quick about it."
Cautiously and silently the boys descended to the broad ledge on whichHugh stood.
He pointed across the valley to a mountainside not more than threehundred yards away and said, "Do you see that hil
l there with the ridgerunning down toward camp? Well, a minute ago three young rams passedbehind that, and behind the rams came a lion stalking them."
"Well, what became of them, Hugh?" asked Jack. "Are they still behindthere?"
"Yes," said Hugh, "I haven't seen them come out and I don't know as wewill, but if the lion jumps on one of them, the other two ought to showup soon."
Almost as he spoke they saw the three young rams climbing toward theupper ledges of the mountain, evidently undisturbed as yet, and a momentor two later the panther appeared on the trail that the rams hadfollowed, eagerly looking after them.
The sheep climbed higher and higher and then stopped, and after standingfor a little while, two of them lay down.
Meanwhile, their pursuer had not been able to advance, for if he hadfollowed the trail which the rams had taken they would surely have seenhim and run off. Two or three times he put up his head to look at themand then drew it back again.
"What can we do, Hugh?" asked Jack. "I'd like to get a shot at thatlion, but he's a long way off, and doesn't show himself."
"No, you can't do anything now," declared Hugh, "except wait. Maybe ifthe rams move, he will come out so that you can shoot at him with somechance of hitting. As it is now, it's a thousand to one that youwouldn't come anywhere near him and would just scare the game and make anoise for nothing. If you were 'round on the other side of that hill youcould probably get a good shot, but so you could if you had wings andcould fly right over the beast."
"Nothing to do but wait here, I expect?" said Joe.
"Nothing else," said Hugh.
Eager though Jack was to get a shot at the panther and strong as werehis sympathies with the sheep, he could not help being interested as hesat there and watched the three rams which stood unconsciously so neartheir deadly enemy, and the patience and caution of the great cat. Hehardly marked the passage of time, so anxious was he to see the lion asit took an occasional peep at the sheep, and then settled back again outof sight. At last, however, he whispered to Hugh, "Isn't there anythingwe can do, Hugh? I'd like that lion."
"I don't know of anything unless we want to end the show right here. Ifyou make a move the rams will see us and go off, and likely enough whenthe lion sees them go away scared he will see us, and then he'll go."
For a long time they sat there, but at length the two rams that had beenlying down got up, and after moving about a little, started on, passingout of sight, round the side of the mountain, and long before they haddisappeared the lion was cautiously creeping after them.
"Now, Hugh," said Jack, "can't we go over there and follow that lion andperhaps get him?"
"Well," said Hugh, "there's a chance, of course, of getting him and agood many chances that we may not see him again. If you feel like it, wecan get up on the ledge along which the animals passed. We'll make quitea procession, I think, the sheep in the lead, the lion after the sheep,and we three after the lion. I think it will be rather a funny sight tosee, and I'm willing to be one of the procession, if you like."
With due caution, and making as little noise as possible, they crossedover to the hill and started in pursuit of the lion.
As Hugh supposed, the chase was fruitless. When they got round on theother side of the hill they could see the three rams a long way offdescending the rocks toward the meadow at the head of Red Eagle Valley,and after a careful inspection with the glasses the lion was also seen,still following them, but some distance behind.
"You see," said Hugh, "we can't catch that lion and the lion can't catchthe sheep. I believe we might as well turn round and go back to camp. Wecan come up here again some day before long and kill a sheep, if we needone, I reckon, and possibly get a shot at the lion, but we can'tto-day."
On the way down they picked up the pack animals, and as they passed thecamp Hugh stopped to cook supper, while the boys took the horses acrossthe river and turned them loose to feed, returning to camp on foot.
The day had been warm, and from the mountains all around them, sometimesloud and sometimes faint and far off, came the rumble and roar ofavalanches sliding down the heights.
As they were eating supper, and the sun was sinking over the greatmountain to the west, Hugh pointed toward the mountain, and they sawwhat seemed to be the greater part of a vast snow bank start, at firstmoving slowly and then more rapidly, slide for some distance down themountainside, pour in a cloud of what looked like white spray over thegreat cliff at the mountain's foot and then pile in a bank at the baseof the cliff.
"Lots of snow falling to-day," said Hugh.
"Lots of it," assented Jack. "But, say, Hugh, is this going to keep upall night?"
"No," said Hugh, "just as soon as it gets a little bit cold these slideswill stop falling, and then if the sun shines hot to-morrow they'llbegin again toward night."
"Don't the animals sometimes get caught in these slides, White Bull?"asked Joe.
"I don't know," replied Hugh. "Sometimes I've thought they do. One timeI found a bunch of sheep bones at the foot of a cliff lying all mixed uptogether, and I had an idea that maybe they'd been caught in a snowslideand killed there. I heard, too, of a man that found half a dozen goatsonce in just such a place, and he thought they had been killed by aslide.
"In neither case had the animals been torn to pieces or skinned. Theirhair and wool lay all about them. Still, I reckon these mountain animalsare pretty well able to take care of themselves, and that they don'toften get into places where snowslides can harm them. Nowadays, most ofthe sheep live too high up to be caught by slides."
"You say nowadays, Hugh, as if there had been a time when the sheep didnot live high up. I have always thought that they were a mountain animaland always lived among the rocks," said Jack.
"Hold on, son," said Hugh. "I don't know if I've ever talked with youabout these things before, but even if I haven't you've seen sheep downon the prairie yourself, where there were no mountains, living aroundamong the Bad Land Bluffs just where the black-tailed deer or elk may befound, and where the buffalo often go. What about the first sheep thatyou ever killed? Was that in the mountains?"
"That's so, Hugh; you are certainly right. Sheep don't need themountains."
"No," said Hugh, "they don't. Of course, they always try to run tobroken land when they're scared, but that broken land need notnecessarily be mountain land. I have seen sheep a good many timesfeeding out on the flat prairie and a long way from any hills; feedingwith the antelope, in fact. Haven't I ever told you old Hugh Monroe'sstory about how the Piegans used to hunt sheep in old times?"
"I don't know, Hugh," replied Jack. "If you have I've forgotten it."
"Well," said Hugh, "all through the Piegan country there are great bigbuttes rising up out of the prairie, and in old times there used to belots of sheep on all these buttes. They fed on the prairie down below,and then if they got scared for any reason, they'd run up on the rocksand get away. Old man Monroe says that in old times when he was a youngman the Indians used to start out on horseback and go to one of thesebuttes where sheep lived and make a big circle around it. Then two orthree of them would climb up on top of the butte and run the sheep offthe top. Then they would go down to the prairie and the horsemen wouldchase them and kill them. They used to do this only occasionally, whenthey wanted mountain sheep hides for war shirts or women's dresses."
"Is it possible that the sheep here were ever so plentiful that theycould be killed in that way, Hugh?" said Jack.
"Yes," said Hugh, "there's no doubt about either of those things. Asheep can run pretty fast and can climb well, but on the level a goodfast dog can overtake it after a fairly short chase. When I first cameinto the country, the Indians used to say that of all the animals,except the buffalo, the sheep were the gentlest and easiest to kill."
"Well, they've changed since then, haven't they, Hugh?" said Jack.
"Yes," replied Hugh, "they're pretty sharp now. We saw to-day one of theworst enemies that a sheep has, and one that along the mountains herep
robably kills more than all the men that are hunting them do."
"What was that, White Bull?" asked Joe, "the lion?"
"Yes," said Hugh, "that's just what it is. You see, the lion is at workall the time. He's got to eat every two or three days, and to eat he'sgot to kill something. Now and then he may pick up a bird or a rabbit ora woodchuck, but his main dependence is these animals here in themountains. High up like this there are not so many lions, and I wassurprised to see that one to-day, but lower down there are a good many,and, of course, in summer they work up higher. On the other side of therange, where deer are plenty, they kill lots of deer and a few elk, butthey also kill a great many sheep and goats, most of them, perhaps,young ones.
"You know about their killing goats, son, for you've seen them do it,and you remember that story that I was telling you the other day about alion jumping on what he took to be a sheep. Now, there's a place downsouth of here on Boulder Creek up near its head, where two men, both ofwhom I know well, Colonel Pickett and Billy Hofer, found eighteen ortwenty skulls of sheep all by one rock. They had been killed atdifferent times. Some of them were mighty old and all falling to pieces,and some of them were pretty fresh. They had all been killed under ahigh rock, not in a place where they could have been hit by a snowslide,but in a place where a lion could lie by the trail without being seen,but could himself see both ways. The rock was right over the trail, soclose that a lion could jump right down on it.
"The two men who found these skulls were both good mountain men and theyboth believe that this was a place where a lion lay and killed his foodas the sheep passed along the trail under the rock.
"There's another interesting thing about sheep that most people don'tknow. A sheep is awful easy tamed, especially if you get him young. Iknew of one owned by a man in Salt Lake, caught when a little lamb andas tame as any dog. He was good-natured and liked to be petted. He spentmost of his time lying on the roof of the house, but sometimes he'd jumpdown and feed in the yard and sometimes go quite a way along the street.Sometimes the dogs would chase him and he'd come back as hard as hecould pelt, and then jump up on the roof, where he was safe.
"I once knew an Indian that had a lamb that was perfectly tame and wasnot afraid of the Indian dogs around the house. This Indian lived in acabin and was always complaining about the sheep because it would jumpup on the windowsill, sometimes breaking a light of glass out of thewindow.
"You take a young sheep, though, and tame him and let him grow up into abig ram and he isn't afraid of anything and is likely to get real cross;and I expect that a big ram can hit a terrible blow with those horns ofhis.
"I reckon there are sheep found all the way up and down the mountains,maybe from the Arctic to Mexico. I've heard of a white sheep up Northand of a black one, and I've been told that sheep were plenty down inthe hot desert country in California and Arizona, but I never have beendown there and don't know anything about them. They say that down therethey kill 'em by watching the water holes."
"I suppose," said Jack, "that there are not many sheep found on theprairie now, are there?"
"No," replied Hugh, "I guess there are very few, if any at all. You seethe prairie is getting covered with cattle now, and where there arecattle there are cowboys, and the cowboys don't like anything betterthan the fun of chasing and roping any wild animal that they comeacross.
"A sheep don't bear chasing very well. If they get much harried in anyplace, they get up and move away to where they think they'll be safer."
By this time the sun had set and it was quite dark. The roar of thesnowslides, heard less and less frequently as the air grew cooler, hadnow ceased, and before very long Hugh smoked a final pipe, and advisedall hands to turn in.
Jack the Young Explorer: A Boy's Experiances in the Unknown Northwest Page 22
