Just as the sun was sinking, we entered a splendid forest of fir and spruce, and soon found that our trail forked. The heavy, well-traveled branch turned a little west of north; the other, leading due north, had apparently not been used since last year, as it was covered with old leaves. We did not know what to do, as the man whom we had met in the morning had not mentioned this fork. While we were talking about it, we heard the jingling bells of a pack horse or Indian cayuse, and soon a boy hove in sight, driving a couple of pack ponies. Moving to one side to let him pass, I asked him where he was going.
“To Sican Valley, to a sheep ranch,” he answered, and immediately was lost to sight among the giant trees. We meekly fell in behind and hurried after him.
Suddenly we came out into a natural park, the end of our trail. Five Indian lodges stood about in the open space, and five valiant braves, in their usual attire of paint and breech-cloths, with the inevitable Winchester, stepped forward to inform us that “white man was lost in the woods,” and that they would show him the trail for two dollars.
“Where is that miserable papoose?” I demanded, but they only grinned and repeated, “We will show you the road for two dollars.”
It was my habit, in a crisis of this kind, to smoke, for I regret to say that I was for many years a lover of the soothing weed; so, drawing out of my saddlebag a pound of fragrant “Lone Jack,” I proceeded to fill my pipe and decide upon my further course. Instantly the Indians crowded around me, and dropping the butts of their guns to the ground, pulled out their tobacco pouches, and opening them wide, held them up to be filled, crying in chorus, “Me tobac! Me tobac!”
But the memory of the deceitful boy was still rankling in my mind. I told George to follow me with the pack horse, and deliberately lighting my pipe and filling my lungs with smoke to their utmost capacity, I blew a cloud of it into the faces of the expectant beggars. Then I drove my spurs into my pony’s flanks and started off in a mad race against time, as the long shadows warned me only too plainly that the daylight, our only guide now, would soon leave us. I did not look back, but George, who did, saw the Indians, in anger, level their rifles as they shouted to us to stop.
That race with darkness was an exciting one, but just before night overtook us, we reached the trail which we had left to follow the lying Indian boy. In our haste, our bread had been torn from its sack by the outstretched limb of a tree, and was lost. However, we were so thankful to have escaped paying toll to those filthy Snakes, that we cheerfully made our supper of coffee, and sought our blankets.
At the first streak of daylight, after another meal of coffee, we were in our saddles; and we traveled all day, until, just as the sun was setting, we heard the welcome bleat of sheep and saw the herders driving their flocks down the slopes of the neighboring hills to their corrals in Sican Valley. Following them, we soon spied the camp in the heavy timber and smelled the delicious savor of a pot of mutton that was boiling over the fire. And before long, seated at the rude table, we were enjoying to the uttermost the hospitality of the camp.
We had learned on the journey that Sprague River rises in the heart of the mountains, instead of in Silver Lake, and we had crossed the divide between it and the lake before reaching Sican Valley. The next morning our sheepmen directed us on our way; and that same evening we were skirting the lake’s lovely shores. Its wide expanse of water put me in mind of my boyhood days on Otsego Lake or the Glimmer-glass.
We soon reached the hospitable home of Mr. Duncan, the postmaster of Silver Lake. He had built a comfortable house of logs, with a large chimney at one end and an old-fashioned fireplace, around which, as the nights were cold, we gathered and talked until far into the night.