Jack the Young Trapper: An Eastern Boy's Fur Hunting in the Rocky Mountains

by George Bird Grinnell

"Are you going to take a tent with you, Hugh?" said Jack.

"Yes, sir," said Hugh. "I can get along all right without a tent, when I know it ain't going to rain or snow, but when I know it's going to rain I am powerful partial to some kind of shelter. Of course, if we had a small lodge, and we were sure we could get lodge poles wherever we went, I'd prefer a lodge, but as we can't have just what we want, I'm going to have a tent. Your uncle has got the nicest kind of an A tent with jointed poles, and I expect he'll be willing to let us have it. At least, I'm going to ask him for it. I don't reckon it will be in use at all this summer. You must understand that up in the mountains, and especially at this season of the year, we're likely to have lots of rain, and maybe some snow, and certainly plenty of thunder storms. Now, of course, you can get along all right when it's wet, and you can cook in the rain and eat in the rain and eat wet grub, too, if you have to, but I've always found that a man was just a little bit better off and more comfortable if he kept dry, and I've found, too, that it doesn't take much more work to keep dry than it does to keep wet. These jointed poles are the greatest things out. When they are taken apart they are about three or four feet long; there are only six pieces. They lash first class, and make a good top pack. They give you a chance, too, to put up a tent wherever you are, and into the tent you can bring all the things you want to keep dry. 'Most always you can arrange things so that you can do your cooking under some sort of cover, and even if you do get a little damp you can dry off in front of the fire, go to bed dry, and sleep dry at night. Your saddles, your ropes, and your blankets all are kept dry, and that helps you a whole lot in getting away in good shape and season in the morning. It only takes a few minutes to put up a tent, but those few minutes and the extra work will be more than paid for some night When perhaps it snows hard, and you know that if your things were lying out in the weather it might take you half a day or all day to go around and dig them out of the snow, or in fact you might have to wait until the snow melted before you could find them again."

"Well, Hugh, it seems to me it's a pretty good idea to take a tent, especially if we're likely to strike such weather as you tell of."

"We're likely to, of course," said Hugh; "but that doesn't mean that we will. I've seen it perfectly fair up there in them mountains day after day and week after week, but then, again, I've seen it rain and snow for weeks at a time. Yes, we'd better take a tent by all means, unless it is going to be in the way."

Hugh had finished his work on the pack saddles long before supper time, and the two went up to see what grub Mrs. Carter had laid out, carrying with them two rawhide panniers, which were to hang one on either side of a pack saddle, and in them they packed the grub and carried them back to the storeroom.

The load was a light one, and Jack did not stagger under his share of it.

After supper that night, Mr. Sturgis talked with Hugh and Jack and told them that he agreed with them that they had better start as soon as they could, and be gone as long as they liked.

"You will be pretty close to the settlements all the time, I take it," he said to Hugh, "and if either of you feel like it, I should like to have a letter from you from time to time, telling me how you're getting along and what you are doing. Of course, I don't want to have you feel obliged to carry on a correspondence with me, but whenever you do get within reach of a postoffice let me hear from you that you are all right. I know you are both pretty well able to take care of yourselves, and I shan't do any worrying about you, but I have a curiosity to know what fur you find, and generally what you see down there in those high mountains. I have never been down there myself, and if I had the time I should like to go with you. I hear that there is some great fishing in those streams. To-morrow morning I will get out my trout rod and reel and some flies, and you had better take the outfit with you. You should be able to carry it so that it won't break, and very likely there will be a good many times when you can catch some fish. You won't suffer for things to eat, because there is plenty of game in those mountains down there. You will have a good time, and maybe you will catch beaver enough to make a coat apiece. Do you expect to see any Indians, Hugh?" he asked.

"Why, yes, Mr. Sturgis, I reckon we will see some Utes, but they are all quiet now, since they killed their agent and had a fight with Thornburgh's command. I always had an idea that the truth of that business never came out, and that the Utes had a good deal more to stand than any of us know about, before they broke out the way they did. I lived down on the edge of their country once, for several years, and knew most of the Uinta Utes, and they were always good and kind people, and brave, too. You know they were always at war with the Pawnees, Sioux, and Cheyennes, and in fact with pretty much all the Plains people, and they generally managed to hold up their end pretty well, too."