Not very long before I had been to the front in Belgium and in France. I confess that no excursion to the trenches gave me a greater thrill than the one that accompanied that start the next morning from the Glacier Park Hotel to cross the Continental Divide. For we were going to cross the Rockies. Our route was three hundred miles long. It was over six passes, and if you believe, as I did, that a pass is a valley between two mountains, I am here to set you right.
A pass is a bloodcurdling spot up which one's horse climbs like a goat and down the other side of which it slides as you lead it, trampling ever and anon on a tender part of your foot. A pass is the highest place between two peaks. A pass is not an opening, but a barrier which you climb with chills and descend with prayer. A pass is a thing which you try to forget at the time and which you boast about when you get back home. For I have made it clear, I think, that a horseback trip through Glacier Park, across the Rockies, and down the Pacific Slope, is a sporting proposition. It is safe enough. Howard Eaton has never had an accident. But there are times—
Once, having left the party to make a side trip, my precious buckskin horse—called "Gold Dollar"—was "packed" over. Now, Gold Dollar was a real horse with a beard. He was not a handsome horse. Even when I was on him, no one would have turned to admire. But he was a strong horse, and on a trail up a switchback—do you know what a switchback is?—well, a mountain switchback bears about as much relation to the home-grown amusement-park variety as a stepmother to the real thing—on a switchback he was well-behaved. He hugged the inside of the trail, and never tried to reach over the edge, with a half-mile drop below, to crop grass. He was not reckless. He was a safe and sane horse. He never cared for me, but that is beside the question.
So, having temporarily left Gold Dollar, I had to get back to him. I had to go fifty miles to do it, and I was provided with a horse by the man who holds the horse concession in the park. A horse? A death-trap, a walking calamity, a menace. If the companies who carry my life insurance had seen me on that horse, they would have gone pale. He was a white horse, and he was a pack-horse. Now, the way of a pack-horse is on the edge of the grave. Because of his pack he walks always at the outer side of the trail. If his pack should happen to hit the rocky wall, many unpleasant things would follow, including buzzards. So this beast, this creature, this steed of death, walked on the edge of the precipice. He counted that moment lost that saw not two feet dangling blithely over the verge. Now and then the verge crumbled. We dislodged large stones that fell for a mile or two, with a sickening thud. Once we crossed a snow-field which was tilted. He kept one foot on the trail and gave the other three a chance to take a slide. There was a man riding behind me. When it was all over, he shook my hand.
Off, then, to cross the Rocky Mountains—forty-two of us, and two wagons which had started early to go by road to the first camp: cowboys in chaps and jingling spurs; timorous women, who eyed rather askance the blue and purple mountains back of the hotel; automobile tourists, partly curious and partly envious; the inevitable photographer, for whom we lined up in a semi-circle, each one trying to look as if starting off on such a trip was one of the easiest things we did; and over all the bright sun, a breeze from the mountains, and a sense of such exhilaration as only altitude and the West can bring.
Then a signal to fall in. For a mile or two we went two abreast, past a village of Indian tepees, past meadows scarlet with the Indian paintbrush, past—with condescension—automobile busses loaded with tourists who craned and watched. Then to the left, and off the road. The cowboys and guides were watching us. As we strung out along the trail, they rode back and forward, inspecting saddles, examining stirrups, seeing that all were comfortable and safe. For even that first day we were to cross Mount Henry, and there must be no danger of saddle slipping.