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

by George Bird Grinnell

"Well now, Hugh, that's mighty interesting," said Jack, "and I ought to have worked it out for myself, for three or four times to-day I saw dead trees pressing little green sprouts over to one side; but I never thought about that being the reason for the bends in these big trees. The fact is, I never thought of them bending while the trees were young, but supposed it must be some accident or disease that had struck the trees after they were big."

"Well," said Hugh, "you see it's all simple enough, if you understand it."

"Simple!" said Jack, "Why it's simple as rolling off a log; but you've got to understand the reason."

"Well," said Hugh, "you keep your eyes open as you ride through the timber, and you'll see the very thing I've been talking about, happening before your face all the time."

The wind blew fiercely all day long, though when they were in the timber they hardly felt it, and only the sighing of the pines and occasionally the crash of some distant tree told of the force of the gale. They crossed Snake River about noon, and kept on southward. During a halt at the river all hands went to the fishing, and caught some splendid trout, which they promptly cooked and which gave them a delicious meal. A little more fishing furnished them with enough fish for two or three meals more, and Jack was hard at work trying to catch a big one that he had seen rise, when he saw two great shadows on the water, and looking up, saw only a few yards above him a pair of great sand-hill cranes. They were not in the least afraid, and flying on a little further, alighted in the meadow where they fed, walking about in most dignified fashion until the train started on again, and alarmed them.

As they went into camp that afternoon at a little spring, Hugh said to the boys, "Now, look here; if one of you don't go out pretty soon and kill something, I'll have to do that myself. This camp needs fresh meat. Dried meat and back-fat is good; fish are good; but we want either a deer or an elk; or, better still, if you can find it, a buffalo; but I reckon these bison here in the mountains are a little too smart for any of us. They're pretty scarce, and they're pretty watchful."

"Well," said Jack, "which one of us shall go? We can't both go, because one has got to stay and help drive the animals. I'll toss up with you, Joe, to see which shall hunt to-morrow morning."

"All right," said Joe, "I'll toss up;" but as no one of them had a coin, Jack took a fresh chip, and rubbing some black earth on one side of it, said, "We'll call that black side heads, and the other tails; and Hugh will throw the chip. You call, Joe." Hugh tossed the chip into the air, and Joe called heads. But the chip came down the clean side up, and so Jack was to go hunting next morning.

As soon as the animals were packed, Jack started off, keeping to the right of the trail and up the hill. He knew, of course, that at this time of the year the elk were likely to be found high up, and the deer, too; for the flies and mosquitoes were bad. The underbrush was thick, and there were many marshy places, and once this hillside had been covered with a great forest, for it was strewn with logs. The underbrush seemed higher and thicker than he had been accustomed to, and he saw many sorts of plants that he did not remember to have seen before; and at last it struck him that perhaps as he was now on the western side of the Continental Divide, the rain-fall might be greater, and that this might make a difference in the vegetation. Willow and alders, and other brush, made riding rather difficult, and besides that, the hillsides grew steeper and steeper, until at last Jack dismounted, and clambering up on foot, left Pawnee to follow, as he had long ago been trained to do. Getting up on a high ridge, bald now, though once forest-grown, for the ground was strewn with great charred and rotting tree-trunks, long before killed by fire, he followed the ridge toward higher land, and gradually climbing, at last reached a commanding height, from which he saw the beautiful Jackson's Lake, and its lovely surroundings.

To the eastward the Red Mountain Ridge, rising above him, cut off the view, but northeast he could see the valley of Snake River, broad near at hand, but narrowing further off, until the mountains, closing in, hid the silver ribbon of the stream's course. To the west were the splendid gray and white masses of the Teton range, low and rounded toward the north, with long easy ridges of moderate steepness, and crowned with great fields of snow. Toward the southward the mountains became more and more abrupt, until at last the highest peak of all, Jack knew must be the Grand Teton. From this pinnacle the ridge gradually sank away again, becoming lower and lower in the blue and misty distance. Immediately under the ridge, and south of where Jack stood, was Jackson's Lake. He had often heard Hugh speak of Jackson's Hole and Jackson's Lake, spots for many years hardly known to white men, and about which most marvelous stories were told. Here, men used to say—the miners that the streams were paved with nuggets of gold, the trappers that the rivers and forests abounded in fur, the hunters that game was so abundant and so tame that there was always plenty to eat, and the camp never starved; and now this wonderful region lay before him.