Jack the Young Explorer: A Boy's Experiances in the Unknown Northwest

by George Bird Grinnell

By the time the travelers had reached the head of the lake the sun had disappeared and long shadows were creeping up the sides of the mountain to the east of them.

Hugh stopped his horse, looked about a little, and said, “Now, boys, I don’t know what there is beyond here, and it’s getting late in the day. I reckon we may as well stop and camp here and then to-morrow morning look out a trail up above. We’re not greatly rushed for time, and if we travel in the dark we’re liable to run into some mud hole, or find a lot of fallen timber, and perhaps get in trouble that will take us some little time to get out of. Let’s camp here and do our exploring to-morrow. We’ll have to pitch the tent in the timber and I reckon the horses can get along in this little park at the head of the lake. There isn’t very much for them to eat, and so we’ll have to tie them up. Suppose we unload here, and I’ll begin to get supper while you boys make some pins and picket the horses, and put up the tent.”

They did as he said, and when darkness fell the white tent gleamed among the green timber, and a fire—perhaps the first ever kindled on the borders of this lake—cast its cheerful gleam over the water.

Camp was astir very early the next morning, for this was to be a day of real exploration; a trip up to the head of the narrow valley and then perhaps a climb up the mountains beyond, for Hugh had said that the main Divide was probably near at hand.

During the talk of the evening before, he had expressed the belief that they could go only a little farther with horses, and that when they reached the head of the valley the animals must be left behind, and the mountains, stern and forbidding, the snow-covered peaks which had been in sight ever since they had entered the valley, must be climbed afoot.

While breakfast was being cooked, Joe and Jack changed the pack horses to fresh grass, and brought in and saddled the three riding animals. A little later all three mounted, and Hugh taking the lead, they plunged into the forest to try to find a trail to the foot of the mountains.

It was not easy riding. The timber was thick and stood close together. Hugh made his way down to the stream in the hope that it would be possible to ride up its bed and so avoid the obstacles in the forest, but though they entered the creek, they were soon obliged to leave it, for it was blocked by masses of drift timber, over which the horses could not pass. They had traveled a little more than half a mile up the valley, when they came to the edge of a snowslide, the path of an enormous avalanche, which many years before had rushed down the mountainside, making a path through the forest several hundred yards in width.

From this open space a fine view was had of the mountains, and of a great glacier that lay at the head of the valley—an enormous mass of ice a mile or two wide and a half mile deep, lying in a great cup in the mountainside. The glacier was covered for the most part with new fallen snow, but here and there broken surfaces showed blue or green in the light of the morning sun.

While the others looked at the ice, Joe borrowed the field glasses and began to sweep the mountains for goats, and presently found one, and then another, until at last he had made out no less than eleven of the animals. Then after a time they went on and entered the forest on the upper side of the snowslide, where the going was open and dry, and a little farther on crossed a large stream coming out of a side canyon. Not far beyond that the timber grew thinner, and presently they rode out into a little grassy park.

Just as they passed out of the timber they heard a noise of stones rattling in front of them, and a moment later the plunge of a heavy body into water, and then the cracking of branches, growing fainter and fainter.