Saddle and Mocassin

by Francis Francis

A few yards from where we had first seen him lay the elk in the bracken, a magnificent fellow, with a fine head, only unfortunately two of his points were broken.

"How many poets gild the lapse of years!" May we not paraphrase it, and write for "poets" pictures?—for scenes such as these are like frescoes in the galleries of memory. The hollow that we bivouacked in. The sleepy willow bottom where our bronchos were picketed. The afternoon hunt afoot, marked by glimpses of an elk and four white-tailed deer. The evening vigil on an elk-trail in the dim forest twilight, when the winds slumbered, the earth was dumb, and even a falling leaf created quite a stir. The calumet and chat, with our mocassined feet to the camp fire, the light from which playing upon the giant trunks around, made them seem like pillars in some mysterious hall; the cheerful glow anear, the sombre gloom beyond. Is it not all photographed and laid aside to beguile us of idle hours hereafter? He who has no ambition in the future should create a pleasant past.

At daybreak we climbed the highest peak in the ridge. Soft distances, with hills of violet and lapis-lazuli, stretched to the far-off horizon, where hung low-lying clouds. Nearer, half-hidden beneath coverlets of mist, still valleys slept, and broke, together with a tortuous, silver-gleaming trout stream, the vast expanse of sombre pine forest and bronze prairie. Miles and miles away to the south, keen-edged and transparent, loomed up the beacon towers of the Tetons. And on their centre peak, caught by a wreath of last year's snow, there played a lambent flame of roseate fire—a thing of inexpressible delicacy—the wraith of a long-lost old-world colour stolen forth from its rest in the sun.

Although tracks were fairly numerous, we saw no game. Still, if rewarded by occasional success, it is sufficient to feel that game is in the neighbourhood. To note fresh spoor, to find in grassy glades, upon the edge of willow thickets, the scarce deserted beds of elk and deer, to see the trees they have "used," rubbing the velvet from their antlers, to chance upon a bison wallow, or on the trunks of pines that have been barked by bears, even to watch the chipmunk and squirrel—Cobweb and Peaseblossom, "hop in your walks and gambol in your eyes"—and hear the blue grouse drumming on the trees, is a pleasure. The charm of hunting lies not entirely in finding.

Soon after breaking the camp from which we made this trip, we reached Henry's Fork of the Snake River, the prettiest trout stream that I ever saw. General Sheridan and a large party, numerously escorted, camped just above us on the evening that we reached its banks, and Dick, who was of a social disposition, soon made the acquaintance of an old Irish sergeant in the escort. Being anxious to acquire any information to be had concerning routes, etc., he asked him which track they proposed to follow thence.

"Sure," replied the sergeant, "an' the dhevil of a whon of us knows at all, but ould Phil (the general) himself, and he dhon't expriss his moind very freely."

A good tale is current concerning certain Grand Dukes and personages of their world, who were taken through the Yellowstone country about this time. I give it as it was given to me, without vouching for its truth.

It seems that the party had with them an ample supply of what are known in the field as "medical comforts." Of these they not only partook freely themselves, but largely distributed them amongst the members of their escort. The consequence was that, as the day wore on accidents occasionally happened. The officer in command of the escort was jogging along quietly by himself one afternoon, when a private rode up and saluted him. The man was reeling in his saddle, and had the greatest difficulty in maintaining his balance. "Well, what is it?" inquired his superior sharply. "Please, sir (hic), worre them ki-kings 'as fallenoff's 'orse." The native of the great republic had, as I have often found in men of his class out West, very hazy notions about eastern titles.

Gradually we worked down stream, shifting camp from day to day. I generally travelled on a pine-log raft with Dick, fishing as we floated on the current.