Gold, Gold, in Cariboo! A Story of Adventure in British Columbia

by Clive Phillipps-Wolley

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  THE KING OF THE BIG-HORNS.

  "This here's the last day's huntin' as you'll get for quite a while, anddon't you forget it."

  The speaker was Rampike, and he spoke with the emphasis of conviction.Ned Corbett, who stood beside him at the door of the dug-out, seemedinclined to argue with him, but Rampike did not wait to hear what he hadto say.

  "You think," said the old man, "as it ain't partickler cold jest becausethe air is dry and there's plenty of sunshine. Wait until you get out ofthe sunshine and you'll know more about it. Why, look there at the oldriver--she don't close up for nothing."

  Ned looked in the direction indicated by Rampike's outstretched hand,and noticed for the first time that on the yellow flood of the Frazer astrange white scum had risen, which seemed to gather as it drifted by soas to almost impede the river's progress in places. This was thebeginning of the ice.

  "There'll be a bridge to-morrow, I shouldn't wonder, as you mout drivecattle over. If you want any more huntin' you'd better get it to-day. Wecould do with another sheep or two." And so saying the old man went backinto the cabin.

  The air of British Columbia is so dry and the sunlight so bright, thatuntil the shadows begin to fall or the wind begins to blow, it neveroccurs to anybody that the thermometer may have fallen to "ten below."To Ned Corbett, as he shouldered his rifle and climbed the first hill,it seemed that the weather was about what you would expect in England inOctober, but he changed his mind after he had been for five minutes in anarrow gully with a northern aspect into which no sunlight came. Thereindeed he began to wonder why, in spite of his toil, he earned nohealthy glow such as exercise should bring, and even when he emergedupon the top of the bench he was almost afraid to open his mouth lestthe bitter cold should creep down his throat and freeze his vitals.

  But there was that upon the glittering snow-covered table-land whichdiverted his attention from the cold. At first he thought that the herdsof some distant rancher had wandered to the Frazer, and were now feedingbefore him in little mobs and bunches of from ten to twenty head. Therewere so many beasts in sight, and in the wonderfully clear atmospherethey looked so large, their dark coats contrasting with the snow uponwhich they stood, that it never occurred to Ned that they were sheep.

  A second glance, however, revealed the truth, just as a second thoughtreminded him that there was no rancher then in British Columbia fromwhom these herds could have wandered.

  Here and there Ned could see the yellowish-white sterns of a bandfeeding from him, or the splendid sweep of a noble pair of horns againstthe clear sky. These were no domestic cattle, bred to be butchered, buta great army of big-horns driven from their mountain haunts by theadvance of winter. For a while Ned lay and looked at them as theyscraped away the snow to get at the sweet sun-dried grasses beneath, andthen he began to consider how best he might win some trophy from themwith which to adorn the hall of that long, low house of his father'swhich looked from Shropshire across the hills to Wales.

  There were giants amongst them, Ned could see that, and his fingersitched to pull the trigger at more than one great ram; but the chiefs ofthe herd, nine in number, lay like nine gray images of stone in themiddle of a level, park-like expanse, round which the smaller beasts fedand kept guard. For a long time Corbett lay and looked at the silentnine, with their heads turned in different directions, as if each hadundertaken to watch one particular quarter for a coming foe. At last oneof the nine rose slowly, and stood looking intently towards Corbett. Atthe moment he himself had risen somewhat upon his hands and knees to geta fairer view of the coveted horns, and possibly at a thousand yards theram had seen enough of Ned's cap above the sky-line to make himsuspicious. Had a gray-faced old ewe seen as much she would have giventhe alarm, but the ram was bolder or more careless.

  For ten minutes Corbett had to remain as he was, his head rigid, and thespines of a prickly pear running into the palms of his hands. At the endof that time the ram lowered his head, turned round, and lay down again.It was only an odd-looking boulder, he thought, after all; but had helooked ten minutes later the ram would have missed that boulder upon thesky-line, for Ned Corbett was going at his best pace downhill to a pointfrom which he thought that he could creep to within two hundred yards ofhis prey.

  Ned was going at his best pace, because the sun stood so high in theheavens, that under ordinary circumstances the sheep would have alreadybeen on the move for the timber.

  As it was there could not be much time to spare in spite of thetemptations of the new-found pasture, and as Ned's snow-cloggedmoccasins kept letting him down upon the hillside, he just lay where hefell, and, in his own words, "let himself rip" until he reached thebottom. There he pulled up with a jerk, a somewhat bruised andbreathless person, but utterly reckless of such small matters as bruisesif he could only get up to his point of vantage in time.

  Alas for the hopes of mortals! When Ned Corbett had reached the top ofthe opposite bank his breath was coming thick and short, and great dropsof perspiration were splashing on to the snow from his brow, but therewas not one single sheep in sight where half an hour before he had seenfive hundred. The white table-land was empty. Ned could have seen asparrow on it if there had been one to see, but there was no livingthing there, only across and across it were the tracks of many feet, andin one place where the rams had been, long plunging tracks, and then, asit were, a road along which the herd had trotted steadily away to thetimbered gulches above. That stalker's curse, the wind, had brought somehint of Ned's presence to the watchful beasts, and they had not waitedfor anything more.

  "Confound the wind!" Ned muttered, "I'll be shot if I can understand howit happened;" and plucking a few hairs from his yellow head he let themgo, and watched them as they drifted straight back into his face.

  "The wind is all right now," he growled. "Well, I've not done with themyet;" and having made quite sure that the nine chiefs had gone up acertain gully, he began to make another detour in order to get abovethem.

  Up and up he went, the snow getting deeper as he climbed higher, andthe trees growing wider apart. Now and again he had to force his waythrough a thick place of young pines, where, as his shoulders brushedagainst them, the boughs discharged whole avalanches of soft, heavy snowupon his head, half blinding him for the moment. Once he saw thesunlight gleam upon what looked like a spear-head low down on the otherside of a pine-hole, but as he looked a big brown ear flickered forwardbeside the spear-head, and next moment a great stag had risen, and forhalf a second stood looking at the intruder. But Ned let the stag go. Hedid not want stags just then, and, besides, in the green timber on theridge where he stood there were lots of them, and all large ones. Thelittle fellows lived lower down, it seemed.

  So he pushed on, until all at once the frost got hold of him. In amoment his heart seemed to stop beating, his knee remained bent in thevery act of climbing over a log, his hands stuck to his sides, and hiseyes stared as if he had seen a ghost. Right below him, not sixteenpaces away, stood the statue of the thing he sought. It could not be alive beast; it was too still. Only for a second Ned dared to look beforehe sank into the snow behind a juniper bush, but in that second he sawthat what he looked on was the statue of an old, old ewe, big almost asa six-year old ram, and gray with age, her villainously-inquisitive headturned (luckily for Ned) downhill. For a few seconds the ewe stoodsearching the depths of the gully below, and then, without so much as aglance uphill, tossed her head in the air and walked silently forwardpast Corbett's hiding-place. One after another, all at the same soberpace and all as silent as shadows, ten or a dozen old ewes went by inthe footsteps of the first.

  Then there was a little noise--you would not have heard it anywhereelse, but in the silence of the snow it was quite loud--and forty orfifty ewes and lambs went by, all, even the lambs, looking inquiringlydown into the gully below, but none of them wasting so much as a glanceupon the ground above them. After the lambs had gone by there was apause, a break in the stream, and Corbett'
s heart began to throb louderthan it had any right to. So far he had not even drawn a bead upon thesheep. Sixty beasts at least had gone by him one after another withinsixteen paces, and he had let them go. He knew well from experience thatthe last comers would be the rams, and last of all would come the masterof the flock. There was a kind of knoll just below him, and the firstsight he got of each new-comer was upon this. One after another thesheep appeared, like figures upon a pedestal, at this spot, stoodawhile, gazed, and then passed on. At last a ram stood there, his greathorns standing out very wide from his head. "Not of much account,"thought the hunter. "He's a four-year old; maybe fourteen inches roundthe butt--not more anyway," and he let him go.

  Twice after that Ned raised his rifle and refrained. The biggest had notcome yet. At last he could stand it no longer. How could he tell thatthe beauty before him was not the master ram? and if so, in anothersecond he would be gone. The rifle rang through the mountains, a dozenblue grouse rattled out of the pines and swung downhill on wide,motionless wings, the ram toppled right over and went bumping down thegully out of sight. There was a wild rush of hurrying feet and the thud,thud of beasts that leapt from rock to rock, and then all was still.Rushing forward in the direction taken by the herd, Corbett foundhimself stopped by a ravine--a deep-cut, uncompromising cleft in therock, bare stone on either side, and a sheer fall between of somehundreds of feet, and from side to side not less than twenty-five tothirty feet across. Ned stopped dead. This was beyond any man's power,even with a fair run and a good take-off, and yet every lamb in thatband had jumped it--jumped it clear!

  As he stood marvelling at the great leap before him, a stone rattleddown from the other side of the ravine, and raising his eyes Corbett sawwhat many a man has sought season after season in vain, a ram, big andsquare-built as a mountain pony, with great horns curling close againsthis head in a perfect curve, horns which measured at the very least,eighteen good inches round the butt.

  Ned had only a second to look at him in, and even before he could pullthe trigger the ram had turned; but for all that Ned heard the loudsmack of his bullet, and he knew that it was not the rock against whichit had struck.

  "Got him right on the shoulder-blade," he muttered, as he started fullof hope to circumnavigate the head of the ravine. It was a long wayround, but Ned got over the ground quickly, and soon found his woundedbeast hobbling slowly away upon three legs. For two solid hours Nedfollowed his ram, who, in spite of his wound, could go just fast enoughto keep his pursuer out of range.

  Meanwhile the sun was sinking fast, and in spite of himself Ned had toadmit that he must give up the chase. Even for an eighteen-inch head hedared not risk a night out on these mountains with the thermometer atten degrees below zero. "Just one more ridge," he muttered to himself,"and then I'll give him up;" and so muttering he climbed painfullythrough the deep snow to the top of yet one more of those little ridges,over so many of which he had climbed that day. As his head came over thesky-line, Ned's heart dropped into his boots, and he felt the sicknessof despair. The ram had vanished. He could see for half a mile in frontof him, but there was no ram. Could it be that after all that wearytramp, and in spite of all those great splashes of blood, his prey hadgathered fresh strength, and making a final effort had got clean awayfrom him? For a moment Ned thought that it must be so, but the next hiseye lighted upon what looked like a great gray boulder, a boulder thoughwhich had no snow upon it, and which moved ever so little. Then as herushed forward the gray thing staggered to its knees, lurched heavilyforward, and lay still again. A few seconds later Ned Corbett's handsclutched the solid crown of one who had been a king amongst the highplaces of the earth.

  But there was no time for rest, much less for exultation. The crimson ofthe setting sun was already beginning to flush along the forest floors,and Ned, as he looked over the country below him, felt his heart growsick at the thought that if he returned as he came he could not reachthe hut before dark.

  Was there no other way--no short cut? Ned rather thought that there was,and determined to try it. Instead of going up and down every gully onthe face of the range, he would make for the edge of the divide andfollow it round until he reached a point opposite to his camp, then hewould descend, taking his chance of finding an easy way down. Butbefore starting on his homeward journey, Ned hacked off the head of hisvictim and bound it (a heavy load) upon his own shoulders. If he had tostop out all night and risk death by frost-bite, he might as well takewith him a souvenir of his hardships should he be lucky enough tosurvive them. As for the meat, Rampike and Steve could help him bringthat in, later on. If the _coyotes_ let it alone it would keep wellenough; and Ned thought that a rag, which he had drawn through his riflebarrels and fastened to the carcase, would keep off the _coyotes_.

  Having made his preparations he started, and toiled steadily until hereached the ridge, where the walking became infinitely easier. Ned hadnot much time to look about him, but for all that his eyes were notshut, and he could not help noticing one valley some distance away inthe opposite direction to his camp. It seemed to him that he had seenthat valley before, but it was far off, and the light was failing.

  It was night when Ned reached the dug-out; there was a harsh grindingsound down in the river bed, and his clothes, which had been wet withperspiration, were frozen stiff and cold. But as he gazed at his ram'shead, Ned Corbett was content.