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

by George Bird Grinnell

"All right," said both boys.

The next morning saw the little train following its back trail up Snake River for a few miles, when Hugh turned off to the right, and entered the valley of a great stream which rushed down from the Red Mountain Range. The hills were low and rounded and composed of sand and gravel, covered with grass and sage-brush. On either side, from time to time, the stream had cut into the hills and washed away the gravel, and its bed was full of huge boulders; so that it was necessary for them to keep back on the ridge, at some distance from the water. The river was so large and along it there were so many evidences of a vast body of water running down through this valley in the spring, that it seemed evident that it must be a very long stream, and must drain a wide area of country. Before they had gone very far, the sun, which had been shining, went behind clouds; it began to rain hard; and before long they began to get wet. Early in the day, therefore, Hugh drew up his horse in the shelter of some spruces on a little bench about thirty feet above the valley, and said, "Let's camp, boys, and get out of this wet." It took but a little time to put up the lodge, to unsaddle, get things covered and a fire in the lodge, and also one outside under a shelter of manta, so that they were soon dry and comfortable again. Jack tried the fishing, but the fish would not bite. The rain continued, and by the middle of the afternoon had changed to snow, and before dark the ground was white. When they went to bed at night the snow was still falling and the weather was growing colder.

The next morning the snow had stopped, but it was two or three inches deep on the ground. Everything was wet, and it looked as if it might snow again at any time. Jack got tired of sitting round the fire, and watching Hugh fill his pipe, and light it and smoke it out, and then fill and light it again, and presently he proposed to Joe that they should go out and try to kill a deer. Joe was ready and they started. For a short distance, they followed the trail up the river, and then turning to the left, took the first ridge and began to climb the hill on the north side of the valley. It was pretty wet. It had begun to rain again, and the snow was damp, and under the snow there seemed to be an inch or two of water. When they had to pass through willows and other underbrush, these wet the upper parts of their bodies. The ground was soft and slippery, and the down timber and the loose stones made walking and climbing quite hard work. Nevertheless, they pushed on, and having reached the top of the ridge, could see beyond other ridges toward which they climbed.

They crossed one or two elk tracks, made since the snow had stopped falling, but the animals were going pretty fast and they did not follow them. A few deer tracks, made while the snow was falling, tempted them; but they did not follow them and continued to climb. The higher they went the harder it seemed to rain, and every little while a heavy fog would rise from the valley, and creeping slowly along the mountains would shut out from sight one hilltop after another, until it reached them and hid everything from their sight. There was a little breeze blowing from the west, and these fogs did not last long; but while they were about them the boys could only stand still and wait for the mist to lift.

As they climbed they saw a good many birds: flickers, robins, and blue snow-birds, as well as some other western birds that Jack did not know.

The boys climbed hill after hill for several hours, but saw nothing but tracks, and none of these seemed worth following. At last Jack turned to Joe and said, "What do you say, Joe, shall we go any further? It's pretty cold, and we can't see far, and perhaps we might as well go down the hill again and get back to camp."

"Well," said Joe, "it's pretty cold and wet up here and we don't see much."

They turned and followed the ridge they were on for some little distance, trying to see down into the valley, and to determine just where the camp was. As they were doing this, all at once the fog lifted, and Jack saw, a little way before them, a green timbered ridge leading down into the valley, pretty near where the camp should be. As he looked down into the valley, Jack heard Joe whisper, "Hold on!" Jack stopped, slowly turned his head and threw a cartridge into his gun, and then stood motionless; for over the crest of the ridge just above them had risen the horns, head and body of an enormous black-tailed buck. Almost at once, two others, much smaller, followed him, and in a moment more two others, one nearly as large as the leader, and the other smaller, came up to the top of the ridge and looked over. They were a long way off, perhaps three hundred yards, and neither boy dared move for fear of startling them, for two or three jumps would have taken them out of sight. The great leader had seen the boys at once, but could not make out what they were, and perhaps for ten minutes he stood there and watched. He was not alarmed or suspicious, but these two upright objects, which might be stumps or might be something else, excited his curiosity, and he kept looking at them. The deer stood on the very crest of the ridge, with only a white sky for a background; so that the outline of his graceful form and large branching horns was plainly visible.

While he stood there watching, the other deer wandered about, now taking a bite of grass and again giving a long look over the country. One of the smallest came a few steps down the face of the ridge to a low pine, three or four feet in height, against which he began to rub his horns and head, just as a deer or an elk does when ridding the antlers of the velvet, or, as it is termed, "shaking." The large one, next in size to the leader, came still further down the bluff and began to feed at a bush that grew there. A third, the smallest of all, was very playful and frisked about almost as a fawn might do.

At length, after his long, long stare, during which the boys scarcely breathed, the big leader seemed satisfied. He shook himself, and then turned and gave a long look to the east and one to the west; then he lowered his head, took a bite of some weed, and stepping proudly along the ridge for a few yards, turned away and walked out of sight. While he was doing this, two of the young deer, like boys when the schoolmaster's back is turned and they feel that they can begin to play, backed away from each other, and then charged each other, coming together vigorously, head to head. It did not seem to be done angrily, but rather in sport, and one of them, being evidently much the stronger of the two, as he was the larger, pushed the other a few feet backward, when the smaller one sprang lightly out of the way, and both turned and walked off after the big buck.