Jack in the Rockies: A Boy's Adventures with a Pack Train

by George Bird Grinnell

"Well, Hugh," said Jack, "I certainly would rather hunt than drive pack horses; and if you want me to I'll go off to-day and follow along a little closer to the hills, and see if I can't kill something."

"Do so," said Hugh, "and then if you kill anything you can easily overtake us. We will be traveling slow, and your horse is good and fat and can catch us wherever we are. All the same, keep your eye open for Indians, and don't let any strangers come up too close to you. I'd rather have you two boys go off together, but I've got to keep Joe with me, to drive these pack horses. You'd better throw the saddle on your horse and start right off, and maybe you'll catch us before we've gone very far."

No sooner said than done. Jack saddled up, and having asked Hugh the direction in which the party would move, rode away to the left, toward the low foot-hills of the mountains. He had gone only a mile or two when, passing over the shoulder of the foot-hills, he found himself coming down into a narrow valley, in which pretty little meadows were interspersed with clumps of cottonwoods and willows. Three or four antelope were feeding in the valley not far off, but there was no cover under which they could be approached, so he rode straight along. As he drew near, the antelope ceased feeding and raised their heads, and then, before he was within easy rifle shot, trotted off to the other side of the valley, and stood on the hillside watching him. After looking back for a few moments, they started, in single file, and slowly walked up the hill. They were by no means frightened, and it seemed likely that by taking a little time, after they had passed on out of sight, he might get a shot at them; but the brush above him on the stream seemed likely to hold a deer, and he turned his horse that way and rode quietly forward up the stream, among the groups of bushes. He had not gone very far when from a clump of willows at his right a big doe sprang into view, and moved slowly off by those high, long bounds which make the white-tail, in motion, one of the most graceful of animals. Jack's impulse was to jump off his horse and shoot at her, but he saw that, if he did this, he would be so low down that she could hardly be seen over the tops of the willows. He checked Pawnee, cocked his gun, and rising a little in his stirrups, and gripping the horse with his thighs, aimed carefully at the back of the doe's head, just as she was rising in one of her leaps, and pulled the trigger.

Almost at the report, her long tail fell flat to her body, and she began to run much faster. He knew he had hit her, and before she had gone fifty yards, and while she was crossing an open bit of meadow, she fell. Jack rode up to her, and on turning her over found that he had made a good shot. A ball had entered her back, just to the right of the spine, and had pierced both lungs and heart.

Turning her over, to get her ready to put on the horse, he was glad to see that she was a barren doe, one that had not produced a fawn that spring, and so would be fat and good eating. She was pretty big, however, and Jack was a little uncertain just how he was going to get her on his horse. Of course by cutting her up it could easily have been done, for then the quarters would not be too heavy for him to handle. At first he thought that he would take in the whole animal, but considering the time that this might take, and the fact that he had to ride a long way before overtaking his companions, he determined to do things in the easier way. He skinned the deer, therefore, cut off the shoulders and hams, and tied them on his horse, and then taking out sirloins and tenderloins, and some of the fat, wrapped this up in the skin, and put that on behind the saddle. Now he had a fairly compact load, which could be easily carried, and would not be a great additional weight for his horse; while on the ground were left all the bones of the deer, except those of the legs. This method of butchering he had learned from the Indians the summer before.

All this had taken some little time, and when Jack looked at the sun he saw that the morning was half gone. Hugh had told him that they would follow the trail around the point of the mountains, and would then strike the Carroll Road, and bend back toward the river again. This meant that if he could cross the point of the mountains he would save several miles travel, and this he determined to do.

Before starting, he tightened up his cinches carefully, for he knew that the pieces of meat tied on his saddle would give it more or less side motion, and he did not want it to chafe Pawnee's back. Then he climbed into the saddle and started. By this time the sun was pouring down hot upon him, and there was no breeze. From the high ridges that he crossed from time to time he had a wide view of the prairie, and of the distant mountains, the Little Belts and Snowies, which rose from the plain a long way to the south. Here and there on the prairie were black dots, which he knew were buffalo, and other white ones, much nearer, which were antelope. Occasionally, as he rode along, a great sage grouse would rise from the ground near his horse's feet, or a jack-rabbit would start up, and after running fifteen or twenty yards, would stop, sit up, raise its enormous ears, look at him for a moment, and then settle back on all fours, and flatten itself on the ground, so that if he took his eye off it for a moment he could not find it again. It seemed to him then, as it had so often seemed before, a wonderful thing to see how absolutely this wild creature, like so many others, could disappear from sight even while one was looking at it.

As he rode over a high ridge, he saw on the hillside before him, two white-rumped animals, that for a moment he thought were antelope; but a second glance showed him that they were not, and, to his very great astonishment, he recognized them as mountain sheep—a ewe and her young one—which had been feeding on the prairie, just where he would have expected an antelope to be. He threw himself off his horse and, cocking his gun, jerked it to his shoulder and then paused, and lowering it again, stepped back and put his foot in the stirrup. As he mounted, the ewe, which had been looking at him, started to run, passing hardly more than fifty yards in front of him, closely followed by the lamb. A little further on, she stopped again and gazed, and Jack sat there and returned her look. The sight of the sheep had been almost too much for him, and he had come near shooting her,—but before he pressed the trigger he realized that if he shot her he should have to shoot the lamb, and he could not conveniently carry either, and the old ewe would be thin in flesh and hardly worth taking with him. The temptation had been strong, but as he sat there and looked at the graceful animal, which stood and stamped, while the lamb, close beside her, imitated her motions, he realized that it was a good thing to let them go.

It seemed to him a mysterious thing, though, that these sheep should be down here on the prairie, and a long way from the rocky peaks, where he supposed they always lived. He made up his mind that he would ask Hugh about this when he got into camp and get him to explain it.

At last he had crossed the point of the mountains and began to descend. Stretching out toward the northeast he could see a dim thin line, which, although it was interrupted at times—and sometimes for long distances—he thought must be the Carroll Road. Then off a long way to the east was a line of dark—the timber along a stream's course—which he supposed was where they would camp to-night.