In this National Park you may come unexpectedly upon a caribou grazing on the luscious grass, or in spring you may find a doting she-bear, leading her cubs to feast on the tender green shoots. But let your boots make the slightest noise, both these wild creatures will disappear so suddenly that you will rub your eyes to make sure you are awake. Other furred and feathered inhabitants of the forests will sit, screened behind the foliage and fern, laughing silently at your amateur ways of discovering them.
You may not be woodsman enough ever to spy them, but they are about, just the same. Furtive eyes will watch your every movement as you ride along the trail. The partridge that has effaced himself by merging his mottled feathers with the shaggy bark where he is hidden, saw every least thing you did. The wild hare, covered with tall grasses and fern, flicked his long ears in fun, when your awkward steps passed within an inch of his nose, and you never dreamed of his sitting there! The squirrels and woodchucks wondered at your clumsy ways in the wilderness. Did they not leap and run joyously without a sound? And you only have two feet to manage while they have four! In short, every denizen of the forest about you will know as if the message were flashed by wire, that a mere MAN is on his way through their domains.
The Park realm stretches along on the mountain top at an altitude of nine thousand feet, and more. And it embraces the most rugged section of the Continental Divide. Long’s Peak rises about fourteen thousand two hundred feet high, and towers above the park plateau. It looks down upon ten or more other peaks that are only thirteen thousand feet high, and many more of twelve thousand feet altitude. Long’s Peak is rocky and not easy to climb, but perfectly safe for man or beast. It is also free from the treacherous ice and snow that so often causes slides. Hence one can reach its summit, where a view of over a hundred miles of country is to be had. The Park is about twenty-five miles long and from ten to twenty miles wide.
This, then, was the wonderful place the scouts of Dandelion Troop were to visit and glory in.
[CHAPTER FIVE—HITTING THE TRAIL]
The horses Tally had contracted for were all the tourists could desire. They were sure-footed and experienced mountain climbers; they could go without food or water for a longer period than ordinary animals, as they had been so accustomed. They were not heavy, but wiry and muscular,—in short, the genuine ranch horse of the Rocky Mountains. The two pack mules, named Frolic and Jolt, were sleepy-looking beasts, but it was only in appearance. Once they started on the trail they proved splendid carriers, even though they took life their own way.
The little cavalcade left the hotel at Loveland the center of curious eyes, for the summer tourists stopping at the inn had heard of the well-known geologist and the Troop of Scouts. As few members of the interesting organization of Girl Scouts had ever been through the Rockies, this Troop created quite a diversion for visitors.
Tally soon turned from the beaten track that most tourists take in going to Estes Park, and led his party to the old abandoned Indian Trail. Finally they came to a cool shadowy thread of a path that could be distinguished only because the trees were not closely interlocked each with the others.
At this hour the forest was like the translucence of the sea, bathing everything in the cool green light of its depths; and the exhilarating effect was the same as the salt tang of an ocean bath.
“Makes one feel as if one were in church at Vesper time,” softly declared Julie, glancing at the arched aisles they were riding through.