CHAPTER VII--Joe Gets Acquainted with Porcupines, the Diamond Hitch,

and Switchback Trails

Some hours later the boys were awakened by a tremendous clatter just outside the tent. They both sprang up and rushed out. It was pitch dark, the last ember of the fire had died, and they could see nothing. But they could hear something scampering away in the underbrush.

"Is it a bear?" Joe whispered. "Gee, I wish they'd let you have a gun in the Park!"

Tom jumped into the tent and lit the lantern. By its dim rays, they saw what had made the clatter. Half their little stock of canned goods and other provisions had been knocked down off the shelf Joe had built.

"I know--porcupines!" Spider cried. "Remember, Big Bertha told us to look out for 'em."

They carried their provisions back into the tent, and went to sleep again.

Tom was the first up. Joe heard him muttering and exclaiming outside the tent, and crawled out to see what was the matter.

"Matter? Matter?" Spider shouted. "Look at this--and this!"

He held up his sweater in one hand, and one of the scout axes in the other. One entire sleeve of the sweater was gone, and the handle of the axe was so chewed up that it was practically useless.

"Holy smoke, what did that?"

Before Tom could answer, there was a movement in the undergrowth, and both boys sprang toward it. There, sure enough, was the culprit--a fat porcupine, surprised by their quick descent, and backing away from them with every quill rigid and ready for business. Tom grabbed a heavy stick, and was about to hit it, when Joe stopped him.

"Wait a minute--I want to see it work," he said. "I want to see if they really throw their quills. You keep him here."

Joe quickly hunted up a rotten stick, and gingerly poked it at the porcupine, which bit at the end viciously, and filled it full of quills, but he certainly didn't "shoot" them. The stick had to touch them first before they came out.

"There, now you see the story's a fake," Tom cried, "so good-night, Pork,--you'll pay for my sweater, you beast, you!"

He brought his club down on the poor animal's head, and laid it out.

"I kind of hate to see him killed," said Joe.

"I hate to kill animals myself, but we got to keep our sweaters and axes," Tom answered. "We'll make an Indian belt, or something, of the quills, and send it home to the kids."

They were still talking about the porcupine as they got breakfast.

"Don't seem as though a woollen sweater sleeve and a wooden axe handle were exactly what you'd call nourishing," said Joe.

"I'd rather have bacon," Tom laughed. "He looks fat, too."

As they were speaking, they heard steps in the woods, and a second later a tall, thin, tanned man in a khaki-colored uniform, with leather riding gaiters and a wide-brimmed felt hat, appeared in their little clearing. The two scouts rose quickly, in surprise.

"Hello, boys," the man said, as his blue eyes took in them and every detail of the camp at a single piercing glance, "goin' to have porcupine for breakfast?"

"He'll never have my sweater for breakfast again!" Tom replied.

The man laughed--or, rather, he smiled. It was really a kind of inside laugh, noiseless. Even his voice was low, so you had to listen sharply to hear what he was saying.

"They'll eat the clothes off your back if you let 'em," said he.

"But why do they eat such--such dry stuff? It's worse than patent breakfast food without cream," said Joe.

"Salt," the man replied. "They'll eat anything a man or a horse has touched, to get it salty with perspiration--an axe handle, for instance. I knew a lumber jack once who had a grudge against a feller, so he put salt on his cabin roof, and the porcs came in the night and ate the roof most off. There come a rain the next day, too."

The boys laughed. They wanted to ask their visitor who he was, but didn't see quite how to bring it about. Finally Tom said, "Won't--won't you have some breakfast?"

"Had mine," the man answered. "Might take a cup of coffee, though. Yours smells good."

He sat down on the log which was serving the boys as a chair, first easing his belt holster, which held a 38-calibre automatic.

"He must be a Park Ranger," Tom whispered to Joe. "Nobody else can carry arms in the Park, they say."

Joe brought him a cup of coffee, and as he took it, he said, "Well, boys, I hear you're goin' to look after the tepee camp. Thought I'd come down to inspect you. I'm the Ranger for this district. Mills is my name. My cabin's just up the trail a piece toward Swift Current. Let me know if I can do anything for you."

"Thank you, sir," said Joe. "Some time, if you--you'd----"

He hesitated, turning red at the boldness of his demand.

The Ranger waited in silence, only keeping a pale blue eye on his face, but a kindly eye.

"----if you'd show me how to throw a diamond hitch."

"Is that all?" said the Ranger, with one of his silent laughs. "I thought you were goin' to ask me for a thousand dollars. I can show you the diamond hitch 'most any time. I'm packing off to-day, about ten. Come around and get a lesson. Ride a horse, either of you?"

"Well, we ride just a little--farm horses out to plowing, and things like that," Spider replied.

"I have an extra horse. Maybe one of you'll come along with me some day when you both ain't needed in the camp. If you can always make coffee like this I'd like you along."

"Joe's the cook," Tom said. "He can go any time. It's I who am running the camp. He's just loafing and getting well. He's been sick."

"Well, Joe, you come out to my cabin at ten, and you can see me throw a hitch," the Ranger said, getting up, "and ride up the trail with me a spell, if you want."

Joe's eyes grew big with excitement. "I'll be there!" he cried.

The Ranger went back again, and the two scouts looked at each other.

"Say, he's some prince!" Joe exclaimed. "But I don't like to be getting the first ride ahead of you. I wouldn't do it, only if I learn to ride, and tie a pack on, maybe I can get a job as cook."

"Go to it, old scout," Tom answered. "That's what we came here for."

After breakfast Tom went over to the chalets to report and to do some work around the camp, and before ten o'clock Joe was at the Ranger's log cabin.

Mills, the Ranger, had three horses out of the little stable behind, and was putting a saddle on the largest horse.

"Go get the other saddle from the stable, and let's see you put it on your horse," he said.

Joe brought the saddle, a regular western saddle, with the high back and the horn in front, and did his best to get it on. The Ranger watched him a minute, and then showed him how to cinch it properly and tight.

"Don't be afraid to pull it hard," he said. "The old nag'll lose some of his belly before he gets home, and if you've not cinched it tight your saddle will slip."

Mills now put a saddle blanket on the third horse, and then a pack saddle, which is a framework of wood, arranged like a saddle underneath with a cinch belt under the belly and a broad canvas belt extending around the back and under the tail. After this is put on the horse the wooden frame of the saddle makes a kind of platform on each side to rest the pack upon. The Ranger now brought out his stuff--dunnage bags, an axe, blankets, a canvas covering, and a long rope.

"You hold his head," said he to Joe, "and talk to him real kind, while I hang the bags on."

One bag was hung on one side, one on the other, to balance the pack, and then, while the horse tried to do a one-step on Joe's toes with his front legs, and kick Mills in the stomach with his hind legs, the Ranger threw the blankets on top, done up in a flat roll, over the whole saddle, and covered them with the tarpaulin. Finally, he took the long rope, which Joe saw had a canvas band and strap on one end, and fastened this strap, like a cinch, around the horse's belly.

"Now," said he, "we are ready to throw a hitch. Come here and help. We'll throw a double one, because that's stronger."

Joe soon saw that the process consists of weaving the rope back and forth under the sides of the saddle and then crossways over the top, in such a way that when it is done the strands of rope, from above, would be seen to make a diamond. Each time the rope was passed over to Mills, he took the end, braced one foot against the horse, and pulled it taut. Joe did the same on his side.

"Won't I hurt the horse?" he asked.

The Ranger laughed. "I give you leave, if you can," he said.

When the rope was all used, Mills fastened the end, went over the whole thing with his hand, testing it to see if it was tight, and then finished by giving the horse a resounding slap.

"That's the way you have to finish," he said, "or the horse wouldn't think you were through."

"I wouldn't think the horse would like to be packed much," Joe suggested.

"Never knew one that did," Mills replied. "Lots o' times, while you're throwing the hitch, that canvas band under the tail works up and sort o' tickles the horse, and then, Oh, Boy, look out! Your plug'll buck, and a packhorse don't reckon he's done a real good job o' buckin' till he's covered about three square acres of ground, and deposited canned beef, tea, syrup, blankets, axes, coffee-pots and a few other things entirely over said area. Then, when you cinch him tight before you start, too, he's likely to feel that's goin' to interfere with his digestion, and start buckin'. A packhorse is an ornery critter."

But this horse, now he was packed, was quiet as a kitten, waiting for the party to start. The Ranger called to Joe's horse, which had wandered away.

"Now mount," said Mills.

Joe, on the right side of his horse, started to put his right foot into the stirrup, and the horse shied away from him, almost spilling him on the ground.

"First lesson," said the Ranger. "Never get on a horse from the right. Some of 'em don't mind, but most of 'em do. No use tempting Providence."

Joe came around to the left side, and grasping the horse by the mane and the saddle horn, swung himself up.

"Now, just stand up as straight-legged as you can, and see how many fingers you can put between your saddle and the crotch of your legs."

"Two," said Joe. "Oughtn't my stirrups to be shorter?"

"If you want to ride like a bally British monkey, or a jockey, yes," Mills answered. "If you want to ride like a regular human bein', they're just right. Let's see you trot."

Joe tightened the reins and gave his horse a jab with his heels, and the animal started off with abrupt suddenness, at a sharp trot. Poor Joe began to bob up and down, and bang the base of his spine against the saddle. He tried to rise on his toes with the motion of the horse, but that, he felt, only made him the more awkward. The Ranger came up alongside, and passed him.

"Watch me," he said. "Just barely stand in your stirrups, comfortable like, bend forward from your hips, and let your body, not your legs, keep the gait."

He trotted ahead, and Joe saw with admiration that his shoulders hardly bobbed up and down at all. He did his best to imitate him, and after a while felt as if he were getting on to the hang of it. But they couldn't trot far, because the packhorse was following them, all by himself, and if he trotted it shook up his pack too much. So they pulled down to a walk, and climbed the trail, first the Ranger, then Joe, then the patient packhorse, through woods at first, and across a roaring, racing little green river, which foamed up against the horses' legs and made Joe hold up his feet under him to keep them dry.

"I'm going over Swift Current Pass," the Ranger said, "and on up the Mineral Creek Canon on the other side, and then down into the Little Kootenai River country, to open the trail a bit. You can come with me to the top of the pass, and pick up some party to bring you back."

"I wish I could come all the way!" Joe exclaimed.

Mills laughed another of his silent laughs. "You're ambitious for a sick boy and a tenderfoot," he said. "You'll be sore enough, with fourteen miles, to-night."

They were getting out of high timber now, into stunted limber pines, which were covered all over with bright reddish-pink cone buds, like flowers, and everywhere in the grass and trees around them Joe saw more beautiful wild flowers, and more kinds of wild flowers, than he had ever seen in his life before. It was like riding through a garden, with tremendous red mountain precipices for walls. Beside the trail was the Swift Current River, every now and then widening out into a lovely little green lake, and directly ahead of them, at the head of the canyon, rose an almost perpendicular wall of rock for two thousand feet, to a lofty shelf, on which Swift Current Glacier, snow-covered now, hung like a gigantic white napkin. To the right was the Egyptian pyramid of Mount Wilbur. From the glacier, down over the precipice, were falling half a dozen white streams of waterfalls, like great silver ribbons. As they got nearer and nearer to this head wall, and it seemed to rise higher and higher over them, while the walls on each side of them, the one across the canyon bright red, also grew higher and higher, Joe began to get nervous.

"Say," he finally asked, "are we going to _climb_ that?"

Mills looked back at him with a grin.

"Sure," he said.

"Well, I don't see how," Joe answered. "I'm no goat."

Mills laughed again, but said no more. Instead, he plodded steadily on, till the great cliff wall seemed about to hit them in the face, and Joe could hear the thunder of the white waterfalls as they leaped and plunged down from the melting glacier two thousand feet over his head.

Just as he had decided the Ranger was playing a joke on him, for surely nobody could get up those walls, the trail turned sharp to the right, and began to go up.

Then Joe learned what a Rocky Mountain switchback is.

A switchback trail can be put up almost any slope that is not actually perpendicular, and the slope they were climbing now was not quite that, though to Joe it seemed pretty near it. The trail was about four or five feet wide, and was dug right out of the side of the hill. It went up at an angle of about twenty degrees, for perhaps two hundred feet to the right, then it swung sharp left on a steep hairpin turn and ran another two hundred or three hundred feet, took another sharp hairpin turn, and so on up, and up. When Joe had made one of these turns, he could look right down on the top of the blankets on the packhorse below him.

"Say," he called up to the Ranger, "what happens to you if your horse falls off here?"

"Your horse never falls off," Mills answered. "If he did, you'd probably take to harp playing. But he won't."

They climbed up these switchbacks for two thousand feet or so, and then worked around a shoulder of the mountain so that they couldn't see the glacier any more, but looking back down the canon Joe could see a great, narrow hole, with the green lakes like a string of jewels at the bottom, and at the far end, as blue and level as the ocean, the vast prairie.

"The prairie looks just like the ocean," he said.

"Does it?" said the Ranger. "I never saw the ocean. Must be fine."

In a minute or two they reached the first snow-field. Joe did not want to appear too green and excited, but he was almost trembling with excitement, just the same. He had reached the level of summer snow! He was above timber-line, or almost above, and here in a great northern hollow was a vast drift, four hundred feet wide and thirty feet deep in the middle, which Mills said would not melt all summer! Little streams of water were gushing out from the lower side, and the snow was very soft and coarse, like rock salt. The trail went right across it, the horses picking their way carefully over the treacherous footing. They climbed but a little way more, and they were on the top of the pass.

When you think of a mountain pass, probably, you think of a deep valley or canyon between the hills, but a pass is not like that at all in the high Rockies. In order to get over the Continental Divide (which the Indians called "the backbone of the world"), you have to climb, and the pass is simply a point on this spine which is not quite so high as other points, and can be reached, moreover, from the base. Joe found himself in a little meadow which was full of stunted pine trees, the last of the timber, with snowdrifts, and with bright gold dog-tooth violets, some of them coming right up and blossoming through two inches of snow. On either side of him, the Divide rose up perhaps another five hundred or a thousand feet, in pyramids of naked rock. Ahead, to the west, he could see a great hole, where the Divide dropped down on the other side, and ten miles away across this hole a wonderful sharp-peaked mountain all covered with snow, and looking like the pictures of the Alps in his old geography.

"What's that mountain?" he asked.

"Heaven's Peak," said the Ranger. "Good name for it, eh?"

"It sure is!" said Joe.

Mills stopped the horses in a little grassy glade, sheltered from the wind by a group of stunted pines, and unslung the packs.

"You're going to make me some more of that coffee," he laughed, opening one of his dunnage bags.

While Joe was building the fire, Mills pointed up the great slope of naked, tumbled rocks to the south. "Climb up there some day," said he, "and down the other side, and you'll get on top of the Divide above Swift Current Glacier. It's narrow--just a knife blade, and all along the centre of it you'll see a game trail."

While they were eating lunch, Joe was amused to see the ground squirrels--hundreds of them, it seemed--come up out of their holes in the grass and look at the intruders. They sat up on their hind legs, pressed their front paws against their stomachs, and made a _cheeping_ noise, almost like birds.

"Looks as if they were mechanical toys," Joe laughed, "and had to squeeze their middles to get a sound."

He put a piece of bread down side of him, to fill his cup again, and when he went to pick it up, it wasn't there--it was vanishing into a hole!

"Mechanical toy, eh?" the Ranger grinned. "Pretty smart mechanism!"

Before they were through lunch, another party appeared from the west, coming up into the pass, and dismounting. This was a regular tourist party of men and women, with two cowboy guides.

"I thought they'd be along," said Mills. "I'm going to send you back with them. And now here's what I really brought you for--I'll be gone three or four days, and somebody's got to look after Popgun (that's the horse you're riding). How'd you like to feed him every day, and give him some water, and a bit o' exercise, just around the lake, mind you. I don't want you riding off alone on the trails."

Joe gasped with surprise and delight. "You--you mean it?" he asked.

"Sure I mean it. Don't take me long to size folks up. I like you boys, and maybe we can help each other. Pretty lonely in my cabin, you know."

Mills gave him directions about the feed, and then went over and spoke to one of the guides. When he came back, he said to Joe, "Now, let's see you throw a diamond hitch."

Joe did his best, but he had to have help.

"I could get it with two or three more tries, I bet!" he cried. "Then I could get a job as cook with a party, maybe."

"There's a rope in the barn. You can be practicing," the Ranger laughed. "So long."

"Good-bye, sir," Joe answered, as the lean Ranger swung into his saddle, called to his packhorse as if it were a dog, and disappeared down the trail to the west, the faithful packhorse plodding on behind.

The other party were a long time about their meal, and Joe climbed part way up the peak to the south, getting above the last timber, which consisted of tiny, twisted trees not over two feet high, and some of them growing along the very ground. Up here he found beautiful, tiny Alpine flowers in the rock crannies, he started up what looked like a big black and gray woodchuck, and which he later learned was a whistling marmot, and he came upon a bird, something like a partridge, but the same gray color as the rocks. This bird was followed by six little fluffy chicks, which went scuttering away with shrill little peeps into the maze of stones, and ten feet away couldn't be seen, so like the stones were they.

"That's protective coloring," Joe thought. "Wonder why they are colored that way?"

He was later to learn that this was a ptarmigan hen and her chicks, the largest bird which lives above timber in these mountains. No doubt it is colored like the rocks to protect it from the eye of foxes, eagles, and other foes.

Joe didn't dare climb any higher, though he longed to get to the top, which now rose steep above him. He felt perfectly well, too, and the climbing didn't make him cough. But he saw the party was packing up again, so he hurried down and cinched up another notch in his saddle to make sure it did not slip on the descent. He mounted and fell in behind the procession, which immediately began winding its way down the steep switchbacks. Joe, from the rear, could look almost directly down on the head of the leader, a hundred feet below him. One or two of the women were screaming, and now and then a stone, loosened by a house's hoof, would go bounding down the slope with a terrifying rattle. But the horses, carefully putting one foot ahead of the other, were as calm and sure as if they were on level going, and nothing at all happened, of course.

Once on the comparatively level trail below, the leading guide broke into a trot, and the whole cavalcade came bouncing on behind. Joe bounced at first as much as anybody, but by dint of much trial, he got into the swing a little, and began to ride more comfortably. When they were on the level trail in the woods at last, a mile from the lake, the leader gave a yell, touched his spurs, and leaped out at a gallop. All the other horses, without waiting for any command, started in to gallop also, including Popgun. Joe yelled with the rest, jammed his cap on hard, hung to the horn of his saddle to keep aboard, and felt the wind rush against his face. Still galloping and shouting, the cavalcade dashed past the Ranger's cabin, and on toward the tepee camp.

Joe hoped Spider would be around to see. He wanted to stop his horse at the tepees, but whether he could or not was another question. Popgun didn't appear to have any intention of stopping till the rest did.

As they dashed in sight of the camp, he saw Spider standing by the trail. Joe yelled, "Hi--Tom!" and began to tug at the reins. Popgun came down to a trot obediently--and also suddenly, very nearly sending Joe out over his head. Another tug, and a "Whoa!" brought him up short, though his ears were pricked up, and his eyes were following the galloping cavalcade now disappearing toward the hotel.

"Well--_what_ are you doing?" exclaimed the astonished Tom.

"I'm a regular cowboy now, eh, what? Allow me to introduce Popgun, my gallant broncho. We've been on top of the Great Divide, we have, and seen the water going toward the Pacific, and, gee I know where there's a game trail we can climb to, and I'm goin' to have this horse to ride for three or four days, and feed him, and--and all."

"I bet you're sore to-night," said Tom.

"I bet I am, too. You try him. Gee, he's a fine old horse. You ought to see him come down a trail--just as careful. Wow! and some trail, too!"

Joe dismounted, stiffly, with an "Ouch!" and Tom climbed into the saddle. Popgun looked mildly around, to see what the change meant, and then trotted obediently off.

Joe watched, laughing. There was no doubt that Tom bounced. He bounced as much as the women. The harder he tried not to, the more he bounced.

"See, you got to do it this way," said Joe, as the other scout came back. He started to mount again, with a leap, but his legs were so stiff they'd hardly work.

"Very graceful, _very_ graceful indeed!" Tom taunted. "Why don't you get a job in the movies, you're so graceful?"

"Maybe I will," Joe answered, finally getting into his saddle. "Now look--here's the way."

He hit Popgun with his heels, and started up the trail, but before he was out of sight a second cavalcade, with a cowboy at the head, came thundering past. Popgun turned, and in spite of Joe's cries and tugs at the rein, insisted on galloping with it. Hanging helpless to his saddle horn, Tom saw Joe tearing past, in the middle of the crowd, and disappearing toward the hotel.

Five minutes later he returned, looking very sheepish.

"I see just how to do it," Tom taunted. "Joe, you've got speed, but no control!"

"You wait! I'll have old Popgun eating out of my hand yet," Joe answered. "Guess I'll put him up now, and feed him."

"Yes, and then you come back and rest. You've been doing too much to-day," said Tom.

When Joe got back, he found Tom busy at the camp. The first party of hikers had arrived--ten of them, men about thirty-five years old from Chicago, who were taking their vacation tramping through the Park. They all wore high, heavy boots with hobnails, flannel shirts, khaki trousers, and carried knapsacks on their backs. Tom was hustling around buying provisions for them at the chalet store, fixing their bunks, getting fresh water, making a fire in the stove, and so on, while two of the men, who acted as cooks, were getting ready to cook the supper.

"Can I help?" Joe asked.

"No, you go back to our tent and rest," said Tom. "You can get our supper, after you've thought a while about how graceful you are."

Joe went limping off, and was only too glad to lie down in the tent. He lay on his side presently. He began to realize acutely, and locally, that he had been riding horseback, fourteen miles, for the first time.

But he had supper ready when Tom came at six-thirty.

"How do you feel?" Tom demanded. "I bet you've been doing too much. Tired? Got a fever?"

He got out the thermometer.

"I'm sore, all right, but I'm not very tired, not half as tired as I used to get at home, just walking back from school."

Tom answered by putting the thermometer in his mouth.

"No fever at all--and you're all sweaty," he said a minute later. "You really feeling better, old Joey?"

"Sure I am."

But Tom wouldn't let him help after supper in getting more wood for the camp. Tom did it all, while Joe sat at first outside the tepees and tried to hear the talk of the hikers about their trip, and later, when Tom was through, moved closer to the "council fire," built in a ring of stones, at the invitation of the men, and heard them tell of their twenty-two mile hike that day over Piegan Pass from Upper St. Mary Lake. It was fine to sit there, by the warm fire, as the darkness gathered over the great, solemn wall of the Divide, as the lights in the hotel across the lake twinkled on, as the night wind whispered in the pines, and hear the talk of glaciers, and snow-fields, and ten-thousand-foot climbs. It made Joe and Tom long for the day when they could get out, with blanket and knapsack, over the high trails. They went back to their tent at last reluctantly, while the hikers bade them a cheerful good-night.

"Seems as if everybody in the Park was good-natured," Joe remarked, as he crawled into bed. "Guess it's the air."

"I like everybody but the porcupines," Tom answered, carefully folding what was left of his sweater under his pillow! "I wrote home for a new one to-day, but I'll hang on to what I've got."