CHAPTER III. GETTING READY.
When Hugh and Jack went back to the bunk-house, after dinner, the snow had ceased falling, and the sun was shining brightly. The little birds that had been hidden in the brush during the storm had come out, and were now hopping about on the wet ground, feeding, while some were cheerily singing from the tops of the fence posts. The mellow whistle of the meadow lark was heard alike from far down the valley and from the hillsides above them, and the black-birds were gurgling in the aspens behind the house. Jack stopped before entering the bunk-house and looked at the mountain, still white with snow, and stretched out his arms and drew a deep breath, and yelled aloud with pure delight. Hugh turned and looked back at him through the open door, smiling, as if greatly pleased, and said, "Seems good to get back, don't it? I tell ye there's no place like the mountains, and the longer ye stay among them the longer ye want to be there."
"I guess that's so, Hugh," said Jack; "it seems to me I never was so glad to be anywhere as I am to be here. Somehow I can't say what I feel, but I just seem to be all full in here," and he placed his hand on his breast.
"Yes, I know what you mean, although I can't say it no more than you can."
A few moments later the two were kneeling on the floor, unpacking the contents of a large box which had come to the ranch some time before. Hugh and Mr. Sturgis had thought that it might be a good thing for the travellers to take with them some articles to trade with the Indians. Of course a few presents would be needed, for, although Hugh, from his old acquaintance with the tribe, was sure of a hearty welcome, and Jack, as a friend of Hugh and John Monroe, would be gladly received, there would be times when it would be desirable to make to certain men small gifts; but besides this, it had occurred to Mr. Sturgis that perhaps they might buy a few horses, and furs enough to load them, and might bring them back on their return journey. Thus, the trip would be one of mingled business and pleasure, and there certainly was no possible objection to making a trading journey of the visit.
The different bundles that were taken out were labeled, and were put in piles on the floor. There were bolts of red and of blue cloth; and of gaily figured calicos; two or three bundles of bright handkerchiefs; boxes containing beads, selected with care as being the kind most prized by the Indians; there was quite a large bundle of cans of dry paint of different colors; and last, and perhaps most important of all, if one might estimate its value by the amount of pleasure it would give, a large bundle of tobacco.
"Quite a bunch of stuff, ain't it, son?"
"Yes, indeed," said Jack; "there's more than I thought there was. How are you going to divide it up?"
"Well," said Hugh, "these things look like more than they are. A lot of these bundles are bulky, and don't weigh much. I guess we'll get it all on two horses, and that will leave one horse for the grub and one for our beds and the mess outfit. Now, I expect the best thing we can do is to go up and see if we can't get Mrs. Carter to give us three or four seamless sacks, and make up packs of all this stuff, so that we can throw 'em right on and off the horses. Then we won't have to be gathering up a lot of little, small bundles every time we start to pack in the morning. Of course gunny sacks would do, but we want to keep all this stuff as clean as we can, so that when we get to the Indian camp and open it, even the outsides of the bundles will look pretty fresh and new; and besides that we've got to get a couple of mantas for these packs, for likely we'll have plenty of rain storms while we're on the road, and we want to keep these things dry if we can. The best way we can work it, we'll likely get them wet crossing some creek between here and the north, for all the creeks will be full now for the next month, and we'll likely have to do some swimming." Hugh went back into the dark store room and rummaged about for awhile, and then came out, carrying three or four nearly square pieces of canvas, which he threw on the ground.
"I thought we had some," he said in a satisfied tone, "but they ain't been used for a long time, and I didn't know but the boys had lost 'em."
"What are they for, Hugh?"
"Why, you see," said Hugh, "you throw a manta over your pack, after you get the load on, but before you put on your lash rope; the lash holds the manta in place, and it keeps everything below it dry.
"Well now, son, we've got everything except the blankets, and I believe it would be a good idea if you'd saddle up Pawnee and go out and drive in the horses that are in the pasture, and I'll show you what pack horses we've picked out, and then we'll put the saddles on 'em, and make sure that we've got everything."
"All right, Hugh, I'll do it;" and he went down to the stable, put the saddle on Pawnee, rode over into the pasture and gathered what horses were there, drove them into the corral, and shut the gate. Hugh had already carried down two of the pack saddles and blankets, and Jack, leaving Pawnee at the corral, started up to the bunk-house, but met Hugh coming with the other two saddles and their blankets.
"Now," said Hugh, as they reached the corral, "I'll show you what horses I've picked out for the trip. We want animals that are fat and strong and pretty tough, and pretty fast, too. I ain't going to take along any old plug pack horses, because, you see, it might be such a thing as we'd get chased, and have to run, and we don't want to have horses that we'll have to leave behind, and so lose our grub or our blankets or our goods. Your uncle, he said he was willing we should take two pretty good saddle horses for two of our pack animals, and I figured we'd take two of them young horses that you see Toney bust last year; they ain't well enough broke yet to be right good riding horses, but they're tough and strong, and by the time they've carried a pack a week or ten days they'll be plenty gentle.
"Take your rope now and go in and catch me that paint horse, and we'll put him in the small corral, and then I want that big dun over there, him they call the bucking dun, and then that black with the white hind foot; and then I reckoned we'd take either that star-faced bay or else that gray, I ain't quite made up my mind which. Which do you like the best?"
"Well, Hugh, if we were just going off on a trip I'd take the gray, because he looks the stoutest, and the best able to carry a load, but I should think the bay could run the fastest, if you're looking for speed."
"Well now, you ain't forgot all you learned last year, have you? That's a pretty good judgment. I expect we'll leave the gray here and take the bay, and we'll make him carry our beds and ammunition, because that's the lightest load, and them's the things we'd hate most to lose."
Jack caught the horses one by one, and was pleased to find that he had not forgotten how to throw a rope. He turned them into the small corral, and Hugh let the other horses out into the pasture; then, one by one, the horses were caught, the hackamores put on them, and then blankets and saddles. At first the cinches were drawn only tight enough to keep the saddles in place, but after all were saddled, they went over them again and drew both cinches up tight. To this operation the bucking dun objected strenuously, and, as the flank cinch was drawn tight, he broke away, and bucked vigourously about the small corral. When he had stopped they caught him again, and again drew up on the cinch, finally tying it; and then, fastening up the hackamore, turned the horse loose. The star-faced bay also bucked, but not so hard nor so long as the dun.
"Now, I'll tell you what, son," said Hugh, "any of these horses we take along can be ridden, and they ain't none of 'em got loads so heavy but what three of 'em can carry all the stuff there is; so that if anything should happen to either of our riding horses we can still have a horse apiece to ride. Maybe it might be a pretty good thing to take along an extra saddle horse or two. I don't know as it would, and I don't know as it would. Of course for awhile we've got to picket all these horses, and when you've got to do that, every extra horse makes a lot of trouble, and makes another rope to lose. We'll have to think about that and I reckon I'll ask Jo if he knows of any one of these horses that's good to stay about camp; easy caught, and yet is pretty fast. You see, pretty nearly all these is new horses, and I don't know much about them."
By this time the afternoon was well advanced; the sun was still shining warmly, and the snow which had fallen in the morning was melting fast. Hugh and Jack went over to the sunny side of the bunk-house and sat down there on a log, and Hugh filled his pipe and smoked.
"There's one thing," he said, "we ought to have, but we ain't got it, and we ain't likely to get it; we ought to have some dried meat to take along. You see, we won't have no time to hunt, travelling steady, the way we will, and for a while we'll have to live on bacon. Of course there'll be a chance to kill an antelope now and then, but until we strike buffalo we can't expect much fresh meat. I'd like it right well if we had a little bunch of dried meat, but we ain't got it. If your uncle had thought best to send back and get some of that beef I butchered yesterday, we could have dried some of that, but he didn't want to eat another man's beef, and I don't know as I blame him much. If he did that this spring, somebody might kill a beef that belonged to him in the fall, just because he was hungry. Might be such a thing as we'd get a piece of beef over to Powell's; we'll about make his ranch to-morrow night, and then that'll be the last place we'll strike till we get way up north."
"Oh, do we go by Powell's?" said Jack; "I'd like to see all of them again, Charlie, Bess and Mr. and Mrs. Powell; they were nice to us last summer."
"Yes," said Hugh, "they're good people. Good neighbours. You know, don't you," he went on, "Powell bought thirty saddle horses from your uncle last fall, after you left; he paid fifty dollars a head for 'em, and sold 'em for sixty-five. He's quite a trader, Powell is."
As they sat there talking, the sound of a cow bell was heard at first faintly, and a long way off, but it kept getting nearer and nearer. Jack asked Hugh, "Who gets the milk cows now, Hugh?"
"Jo does. He often says he wishes he had you to send out to bring 'em in; but that ain't one of the milk cows coming now."
"Well, what is it? I thought it was old Browny's bell."
"No, that's the bell old Browny used to wear, but your elk wears it now, and that's him a-coming."
Sure enough; a moment afterward an elk stepped out of the brush above them on the hillside, and came toward the house; it wore a bell, and besides this, a great strip of red cloth was tied around its neck.
"What in the world is that he's got around his neck, Hugh?" said Jack; "it looks as if he had a sore throat and had a strip of red flannel tied around it."
"Well," said Hugh, "he's got the red flannel all right. This spring when we turned him out Jo was afraid that somebody would shoot him for a wild elk, so he put the bell on, and that red cloth, and then he told everybody he met, when he was riding, about it, and I expect there ain't no one in quite a scope of country but knows about that elk, and just how he sounds and looks."
Meantime the elk had been slowly approaching, and Jack got up and walked over toward it. It was just shedding out, and great patches of its body were smooth and yellow, while other patches were still covered with long, brownish hair, at the base of which a thick fur or wool could be seen. Hugh called out to Jack, "You want to look out for him, son; he's pretty handy sometimes with them fore feet of his, when he ain't in a good temper; he may strike at you." When Jack heard this he did not go very close to the elk, but contented himself with walking about it, while the animal followed him with its great mild eyes. A moment after, Hugh came up with some salt in his hand and held it out to the elk, which walked quietly up and licked the salt off his hand.
"I ain't got much use for a tame elk," said Hugh; "they're stupid critters, and 'most always mean; you never can trust 'em."
"I think just as you do, Hugh; that they're awful stupid; and I would never again take the trouble to pack a calf into camp."
Presently the elk put down its head and began to feed away from them, and they went back to their seat in the sun. A little later they went down to the corral, unsaddled the pack horses, turned them out into the pasture, and carried the riggings up to the bunk-house. It proved that Mrs. Carter had four seamless sacks that she could let them have, and with these they made up four side packs of the goods. The two centre packs they made up with gunny sacks and canvas, so that when they started they would only have to lift the packs onto the horses.
The remainder of the day was devoted to laying out their provisions and their mess-kit. Their cooking utensils were put in a wooden box to go on the load above their beds. Everything was made ready as far as possible, so that in the morning there would be nothing to do except to catch and saddle the horses, put the loads on them, and start.
The day had passed swiftly for Jack, and when night came he was pretty tired. After supper his uncle talked to him for a little while, impressing on him the necessity of caution, telling him of the responsibility that would rest on Hugh, who had charge of him for this long trip, and explaining to him that now he was starting off to act a man's part, and that he must exercise a man's discretion. He said, "Hugh feels very confident that you are old enough, and have had experience enough, to be trusted. He thinks that you will not be a cause of care or anxiety to him, but that you will understand that you must now use common sense and good judgment. I think that his estimate of you is a fairly just one, but I want you to try to be thoughtful and never let your boyish enthusiasm get the better of you. We all want you to have a good time on this trip, but we do not want you to have a good time at the cost of suffering of any sort to any older person."
"Well, Uncle Will," said Jack, "I have thought a good deal about that, too, and I know that there may be times when I'll have to use all the sense I have got, but I have made up my mind to follow Hugh's directions as closely as I can, and to try not to make a fool of myself."
"That's good," said his uncle; "if you can only keep that in mind all the time I shall not be anxious about you."