CHAPTER XIII

THE FORKS OF SWIFT CURRENT

Daylight was slow in breaking the next morning, and when the earliest riser came out of the tent he saw that the valley was filled with mist which hid the mountain peaks. It was fairly cold, and all hands were glad to wear their coats.

Hugh kindled the fire and began to get breakfast, while the boys went out and turned loose the picketed horses, finding all the animals together.

“No mosquitoes this morning, Jack,” said Joe, as they walked back to camp.

“No, indeed,” replied Jack. “Any mosquito that came out this morning would be likely to have his wings and beak frozen off. My, but it’s cold!” and he crowded close to the fire, stretching out his stiff wet hands to try to get some warmth into them.

“Yes,” said Hugh, “it’s pretty cold up here in the mountains. Ten miles down the creek, on the prairie, I bet the sun is shining hot.”

“Isn’t it queer what a difference there is between the mountains and the prairie?” said Jack.

“Yes,” said Hugh, “there’s lots of difference, but this place up here is the coldest, stormiest country that I know anything about. It seems to me that all these blizzards that we hear about that sweep over Eastern Montana and Dakota and so on, toward the States, get their start right up here. I’ve been right on top of the mountains along here where the weather would be warm and fine as could be, but a little way down on the eastern slope it would be raining and blowing like fury, and how far the wind and storm reached, I never could find out. Of course, there are lots of bad storms that start up here that never do get as far as the prairie, but there are lots of others that get such a start here that they keep going until they get a long way east.

“Well,” Hugh went on, “the grub is about ready and we may as well sit down and eat. I believe this fog is going to lift in a while and we can keep on up the valley and see how far we can go before the mountains stop us. By rights, we ought to wait here until the sun comes out and dries off the ropes and blankets, but I don’t believe we’ve got much further to go, not more than six or seven miles anyhow, before we’ll either get to the foot of the mountains or well up on them.”

A little while after breakfast the fog seemed to be growing thin and, presently, the sun broke through. From that time the mist gradually disappeared, but before it had wholly vanished from the mountainsides, the packs were on the horses and the train was stringing out up the trail. There was a short, steep climb about opposite the falls, where Jack had tried to fish the day before, and then a stretch of level land, the trail passing through scattered timber close to the shores of a rather large lake. When they had reached the upper end of this, Hugh stopped, and, turning to Jack, said, “Now, which way do you want to go? This valley seems to have three forks, one short one in the middle, and a longer one on either side. The short one is right ahead of us and the easiest, but the longest one is up here, to the right. If we want to find out what there is here, we may as well take them in order.”

“Then,” said Jack, “what’s the matter with taking the right-hand one first? What do you think, Joe?”

Joe signified that he was doubtful which to take, and as he, apparently, didn’t care much, Hugh said, “Well, come on then, we’ll see if we can find some sort of a trail through the timber up here to the right.”

A dim trail, which seemed to Jack like a disused game trail, led through the timber and the road was fairly easy. Before they had gone far, both boys could see that people had traveled up it in previous years, for in a number of places the bark was knocked from the trees, where packs had hit against them and, in one or two places, they saw a thread of red or white worsted clinging to a tree in a narrow place in the trail, showing where a rider’s leg had rubbed against the bark and a shred had been torn from his leggings or blanket. Once or twice they saw a tuft of goat hair caught on a branch.

For some hours they wound through the forest, but at length the trees grew smaller and they passed through some open timber into a little park.

The mountains rose high on every side, but there was plenty of grass, a good-sized stream, and abundant wood. At the head of the park, two streams came from narrow valleys, one to the west and one to the east, and immediately before the travelers rose a very sharp mountain slope, terminating in a long high wall or precipice crowned by jagged finger-like rocks.

“Well,” said Hugh, as they got to the upper end of the park, “I reckon we’ve got to stop here. Of course, it may be that we could take the horses higher up, but I don’t feel any way sure about it and, if we should take them, we’d probably find the ground covered with snow. Let’s make camp, and tie up the pack horses, and then we’ll ride farther on and see what there is. It looks to me like there ought to be lots of sheep and goats up here, and we may as well find out.”

It was nearly noon before the packs were off and the tent up, and then it was time to cook and eat, so that it was one o’clock before they mounted again and rode off. Hugh followed the westerly branch of the stream and, after a little search, found a game trail which led up the steep bank and brought them to the level of the valley, above the forty-foot precipice over which the stream poured. Here the ground was level and timber-covered, but they soon came out on rolling land which rose steadily toward the mountain and was dotted with clumps of trees.

The stream, which they had been following, came from a beautiful lake of clear, green water, in which two or three harlequin ducks were swimming, among little fragments of ice floating in the water.

The three travelers dismounted and, sitting down beneath a pine tree, looked over the lake and scanned the rocks above it.

Presently Hugh said, “Boys, do you want to see some goats?”

“Yes,” replied Jack, “I’ve been looking for them, but I don’t see any.”

“Well,” said Hugh, “I’ll tell you why. You’re looking too high up in the air. Look down here in the valley, just below the edge of the snow, and see what you can see.”

The boys looked, and there, to their astonishment, saw several herds of goats feeding on the young grass that grew on the slopes of the mountains.

“Plenty of goats,” said Joe.

“You bet, they’re plenty,” agreed Jack. “Let’s count them.” They did so and found that there were no less than forty-three goats in sight and none of them at a level higher than they were.

“Quite a show, isn’t it?” said Hugh. “I don’t remember that I ever saw so many goats at one view, as we’re looking at now. It wouldn’t be much of a trick to get goat meat here, if we wanted it.”

“No,” answered Jack, “I should think not, but, as you say, we don’t want it particularly. I’d rather have some sheep or even an elk. I expect there are some elk here, aren’t there? I saw some sign of them, as I thought, coming up.”

“Yes,” said Hugh, “I reckon there are elk here; not very many, but some. Maybe we can get to kill one before long.”

It was pleasant sitting there in the sun and watching the feeding goats, unsuspicious of danger. Suddenly, however, there was a movement in the group nearest the head of the valley and the animals began to walk quickly toward the heights and were soon climbing up over the snowbanks.

“There!” exclaimed Hugh, “I reckon some eddy of wind from us must have crept around and they have smelt us. Just see how they climb.”

“Yes,” said Jack, “and look at that little kid following its mother. It can’t go very fast and see how she stops and turns, and looks, and waits for it. That’s mighty pretty, I think.”

“Yes,” said Joe, “that’s nice. That’s the way the old ones always do unless they’re too badly scared. There, you see the little one has caught up, and now the mother goes on again.”

The disturbance among the first group of goats had started the others along the mountainside, and now all were clambering toward the high rocks. The men watched them, until they had passed over the snowbanks and reached the precipice, along which they ran, like flies on a wall, though of course the boys knew that there must be shelves wide enough for them to walk on. Soon, however, the sun sank behind the towering peak to the westward and the air grew chilly, and remounting their horses the travelers returned to camp.

“No mosquitoes to-night, Hugh,” said Jack.

“No,” answered Hugh, “I guess we’re safe.”

“White Bull,” said Joe, as they were sitting before the fire, “have you ever been up here before?”

“No,” said Hugh, “I never have and I never heard of anybody else that has been up here. Of course, we know that the Kootenays and Stonies come up here and sometimes maybe a little party of hunting Crees, but no white men, as far as I ever heard. Along back, fifteen or twenty years ago, there was a party of white men camped below here, on Kennedy’s Creek. They were looking for gold. They found a few colors, but nothing that paid at all and, after a little while, they gave up looking for gold, and broke up into little parties, some of them going back to Benton and some hunting along the flanks of the mountains, but I don’t believe they or any other party of white men have ever been up here before.”

“Well,” said Joe, “then, of course, you don’t know what there is up this other creek that comes from the east.”

“No, I don’t,” said Hugh. “It can’t be very long, because Kennedy’s Creek must be pretty close to us, on the other side of the mountains.”

“Say, Jack,” said Joe. “Let’s take our guns and go up this creek afoot to-morrow, and see what there is there. We might see some game and, anyhow, we’ll find out where the stream come from. What do you think, White Bull, is it good?”

“Good,” said Hugh, “go on up there and see what you can find. I think maybe I’ll stop around the camp or perhaps climb up to the top of these rocks right in front of us, and see what stream it is that is on the other side. It looks like a pretty straight up and down wall in front of us, but, often, when you get close to a place like that you find that you can climb it.”

“What do you expect to see on the other side, Hugh?” asked Jack.

“I don’t know,” said Hugh, “but I reckon I’ll see more mountains. Those seem to be mostly what grows in this part of the world, but I shouldn’t be much surprised if right on the other side of that wall I saw a narrow valley, through which runs one of the forks of Belly River.”

“Won’t you find lots of snow going up there, Hugh?” said Jack.

“Some, I guess,” was the reply, “but you see this is the south face of the wall and the sun is pretty strong now and hits the rocks up there, so that I reckon most of the snow will be melted.”

“Well,” said Jack, “that will be bully. We will send out two exploring parties from the camp, and then at night both will report.”

It was long after daylight the next morning when Jack and Joe set out, but the mountains on either side of the little valley were so high that the sun had not yet melted the frost on the grass. The first mile of their journey was spent in clambering up a series of moss-covered ledges, very steep, but not at all difficult to climb. Then they found themselves at the bottom of a talus, a sharp slope of rock fragments, that had fallen from the cliffs above, and they followed this around point after point, until the narrow valley of the stream opened before them.

This valley was nearly straight and only three or four miles in length, walled in on the west and north by a vertical precipice, not very high, but terminating in the same jagged rock pinnacles that crowned the wall to the north of the camp, and beyond which Hugh thought he might see the valley of Belly River. There was no timber growing at the foot of this rock wall nor on the steep mountainside that lay to the east, but at one time the actual valley where the stream ran and where grass and underbrush now grew, had supported a growth of large timber. All these trees, however, had been broken off twelve or fifteen feet above the ground and their trunks lay piled one upon another among the growing vegetation like a great heap of giant jack-straws.

“Now, what do you suppose broke off all those trees at just that height, Joe?” asked Jack.

Joe looked for a long time before he answered, and then he said, “Snowslide, I reckon.”

“By Jove,” said Jack, “that’s what it is, sure enough. You can see the track of it coming down that mountainside, can’t you? What an immense mass of snow it must have been, and what a force it must have had to break off those great, thick trees. Some of them look eighteen inches through. I wonder how long ago it took place.”

“Yes,” said Joe, “it sure must have come down fast and hit those trees hard, and when it got down here into the valley, it must have just piled up. It couldn’t get out anywhere, for big and swift as it was, it could not knock down this wall.”

All along the mountainside opposite to them were to be seen places where deep and wide grooves had been cut in the soil and, as they looked more closely, they could see the stumps of many trees that had been cut down by the slide.

“Well,” said Jack, “that certainly was a big avalanche.”

“Avalanche,” said Joe, “what’s that?”

“Why,” said Jack, “it’s just another name for snowslide. That’s what they call a snowslide in Switzerland, I believe. A man once wrote a piece of poetry about a fellow that was climbing the mountains in Switzerland, and one of the people that he passed said to him, ‘Beware, the awful avalanche.’ That meant watch out close for snowslides.”

“Well,” said Joe, “I’ve never been much in the mountains and I’ve never seen a snowslide, but I have heard old people talk about them, and from what they say, they are things to be scared of.”

Presently, the boys set out toward the head of the valley, following the lower border of the talus, where the walking was fairly easy. They hardly expected to see any game, yet both kept their eyes open for anything that might turn up. Presently, immediately in front of them were seen tracks where animals had been running back and forth, and a little examination showed that a small band of mountain sheep had come down from the rocks and had been playing about, no longer ago than this morning.

“If we’d been a little earlier, Joe,” said Jack, “we might have got a shot at those fellows.”

“We may do it yet,” replied Joe, “and if we don’t do it to-day, perhaps we can find them to-morrow. Very likely they live right here somewhere, and I don’t believe they’re a bit scary, so that if we look for them carefully we may be able to get a shot.”

They could see where the sheep had come down to the edge of the valley, perhaps to get a bite of green grass, perhaps to drink, though probably not for water, since the melting snow all over the hillsides would have given them many drinking places.

They kept on slowly up the valley, stopping often to look about and, more than once, sitting down and scanning the rocks about, beyond them, and across the valley for game. By this time the sun had climbed over the mountains and was shining down into the valley with a pleasant warmth and, with the rising sun, rose swarms of mosquitoes, which bothered the boys not a little. As they were walking along, Jack slightly in the lead, a brown and white bird suddenly rose from the ground, almost at his feet, and then fell again, and tumbling over and over, fluttered off for a little way, as if desperately hurt, and then lay on the ground, with outspread, quivering wings, and open beak, as if unable to go further.

“Ah,” said Jack, “there’s a ptarmigan, and there must be a nest right here.”

Sure enough, a few minutes’ search revealed a nest just in front of Jack. It was a mere hollow scratched in the ground and had no lining, except a few blades of grass, and two or three feathers that had dropped from the bird’s breast. In the nest were six beautiful eggs almost covered with purplish spots, mottlings and cloudings, and so nearly the color of many of the stones that lay on the slope that Jack’s eye had passed over them two or three times without seeing that they were eggs and not stones.

“Oh, aren’t they pretty!” said Jack. “Wouldn’t I like to have them safely back East and a picture of the place where we found them, and of the mother bird.”

By this time the mother had risen from the ground where she lay and had walked back, close to the boys, and, with bristling feathers and angry cluckings, stalked so close to them that they could have touched her with their outstretched hands.

“Certainly, that’s one of the prettiest things I ever saw,” said Jack, “and I’m mighty glad to have seen the eggs because I’ve seen the young ones. Don’t you remember, Joe, the little one that we caught three or four years ago, the first time that you and I ever hunted together on the mountains?”

“Sure,” said Joe, “I remember. That was the time we got the sheep, just before we went off to Grassy Lakes, where you counted your coup on the Assinaboine.”

“Yes,” said Jack, “that was the time. I tell you, Joe, you and I have had some pretty good times together, haven’t we?”

“You bet,” replied Joe, “and two or three times I’ve been pretty badly scared when I’ve been with you, but we always came out all right.”

“Well,” said Jack, “I’ve been scared, too, but I suppose we didn’t either of us show it.”

“No,” answered Joe, “I suppose we didn’t. I hope not, anyhow. I don’t mind being scared, if I can only keep it to myself, but I don’t like to have people laugh at me.

“Well,” he went on, “let’s go ahead, and leave this old mother to get on her eggs again.”

The boys kept on towards the head of the valley and at last could see that the stream that they had been following had its origin in a tiny, deep, green lake, lying at the very head of the valley and close under the rock wall and the high mountains to the east. When they reached this lake, Jack said, “What do you say, Joe? Shall we cross over and try to get down to camp on the other side of the valley? I don’t know whether we can find good walking there or not, but I guess we can, and I’d like to go over new ground if I could.”

“I say let’s try it,” replied Joe. “If we find we can’t get down that way, we can come back and go home the way we came.”

“Come on then,” said Jack, and the two started across the valley, walking on the beach of the little lake. The outlet was very narrow, and the boys jumped across it and then set out directly toward the mountainside. The going was not good, for the soil was full of water and overgrown by thick moss, above which stood a tangle of small shrubs and underbrush. However, the distance was not great, and before long they had made their way over to the mountainside, and there found a talus of slide-rock, much like that along which they passed on the other side. Here the walking was not as good as on the other side of the stream, because springs and trickles of water were constantly coming down from the mountainside.

A couple of miles this side of camp the slope of the mountain grew easier and scattered trees began to clothe its side. They crossed a long, low point of timber and from here there was a gentle descent toward camp, through a dry open forest. They were almost within sight of camp when Jack heard a sound, stopped, and raised his gun, and then a stick cracked in the timber not far off. Jack threw his gun to his shoulder and fired, and in a moment the timber before them seemed filled with animals, which disappeared almost at once, and the noise of their footsteps and of the sticks which they broke in their flight, grew fainter and fainter.

The boys had glimpses of elk running in all directions, but had no chance to shoot again.

“Well,” said Jack, “I don’t know very certainly what I shot at, but I think it was a young bull elk. Let’s go over and see if we can find anything.”

Stepping briskly forward, the boys were soon near the point where the animal had stood at which Jack fired. After looking about for a moment or two, Joe said, “You hit him;” and pointed to a dark spot on a weathered tree trunk, which Jack could see was blood.

The boys circled about, looking carefully at the ground, the trunks of the trees, and the leaves of the low-growing plants, and presently Jack saw that Joe had found the trail, which he was following, slowly at first, because the sign was hard to see, and then more rapidly.

Jack walked after him and together they followed the trail which led down toward the camp. The sign was, at first, slight, but after they had gone some distance they could see a good deal of blood on the ground on both sides of the tracks, and from this Joe declared that the animal was hit in the lungs and would not go far. He was right; a hundred yards further on the graceful form of a young bull elk was stretched on the ground. It was a yearling, of course with its horns in the velvet and as yet quite soft.

The boys dressed the animal and then, walking down to the camp, caught and saddled a pack horse and, bringing it up into the timber, quartered the elk, packed it on the horse and returned to camp, where they unloaded their meat at the foot of a tree and, getting a couple of sling ropes, managed with some labor to haul the quarters into the branches well above the ground.

“Now,” said Joe, “when White Bull comes in we’ll see what he says and, if he thinks best, we’ll cut out and dry a lot of that elk meat, and take it along with us. We can’t be sure at this time of the year, that we’re going to kill something every day.”

All through the afternoon they lounged about the fire, and the sun was still two or three hours high when Jack, who for some time had been watching the mountainsides to the north, saw Hugh coming down the slope a long way off toward the camp.

“Hurrah, Joe!” said Jack, “there’s Hugh. Pretty soon we’ll find out what he’s seen and tell him what we have done.”

A little later Hugh reached the camp and, after putting his rifle inside the tent, said, “Well, boys, I see you’ve got some fresh meat, and I’m mighty glad of it. I’ve had quite a walk and am feeling pretty wolfish. Let’s get supper and then, after we’ve eaten, we’ll have a whole lot of time to talk.”