To get into Jackson’s Hole was then a rather difficult affair, for it meant a long journey by pack-train from either Market Lake or Idaho Falls. But the surveyor and the sons of the pioneer, whom he engaged to pilot him, were not adverse to pushing into a wild country. It took a week to outfit the party, secure the necessary horses, engage the men, and whip the fractious range-animals into some kind of submission for carrying saddles, pack equipment, and heavy bags of food and tenting. Then, in a cloud of alkali dust, and with a crowd of Blackfeet children gazing open-mouthed at the curious caravan, we were off for the blue hills which lay to the northeast.
The plains of Idaho are not only arid and parched, but they are covered with sage-brush, which emits a strong, pungent odor that is delicious. The alkali dust arises in clouds, and chokes one, as one proceeds, but that is not the only difficulty, for—strange as it may seem—the mosquito breeds by the millions in the irrigating ditches, and had it not been for the thick gauntlet gloves and netting attached to our sombreros, we would have been fairly eaten alive by the black swarms which followed us in clouds.
Every now and again—afar off on the prairie—we would see a whirling cloud of moving alkali dust.
“Wild horses running to water,” said one of the cowboys. “That’s the way they always go, on the dead gallop.”
Occasionally we came near enough to see some of them and they were lean, gaunt and rangy creatures, which had escaped from the ranches, had run off to the prairie and had found pleasure in the free and untrammelled life of the plains. They would snort, as we approached, throw their heads high in the air, and then—turning around—would be off like the wind.
As we rode along, hot, dusty, and thirsty, I heard about Jerry Lane.
“This here Lane,” said Jack (a lean, little cowboy) “is a Noo Yorker. He came out here three years ago, sayin’ that life was too tame for him back East, an’ he wanted to be right in the Rocky Mountains, where the wolves, bears, and antelope could be seen, just th’ same as in th’ time of Kit Carson an’ Bill Bent. Some says that he’s a millionaire. Some says that he isn’t. Leastways he has about all th’ money one needs in this here country, an’ they tell me his cabin in th’ Rockies is full of th’ best kind of rifles, of steel traps, books, an’ all that’s nice.”
“He found life too tame for him back East.”
This sentence stuck in my mind and I knew—in a moment—what kind of a youth was Jerry Lane. He had the same spirit as the old explorers. He possessed the imagination of a Lewis or a Clarke; a Champlain, or a La Salle. To him the spirit of the wilderness was all absorbing, and, shaking off the trammels of civilization, he loved to live out his days amidst the towering mountains, which, even then, stretched before us, jutting high from the sage-brush plateau. I immediately felt a sympathetic interest for Jerry Lane.
To cross into the valley of Jackson’s Hole requires one’s utmost exertions, for one must climb up the Teton Pass in order to get over the mountains which surround this paradise of fish and game. For a man and a horse to pass up and across is easy work, but we were unfortunate enough to have a wagon with us. As we neared the bottom of the trail, which led almost perpendicularly up in the air, we saw a broken vehicle of a pioneer.