No one enjoyed the life of the camp half as much as did Chiquita. She was in her element. The respite from the continual grind of college had been such a welcome one that she preferred to listen to the others rather than join in the general conversation. The topics discussed found no sympathetic chord in her mind, and, notwithstanding the years she had submitted to the refining influences of education, she was a savage at heart. She realized it. Her restive spirit broke the bonds of captivity as soon as the first campfire was lighted. Like a golden winged chrysalis she burst her civilization fetters and became again the forest-born Indian maiden, Chiquita. No longer did she feel the restraint which society demanded. The buoyant freedom of the camp injected new life into her veins, new aspirations into her mind. But she was not aware that the very ascendency of civilization immeshed her in its grasp. Her manners, always charming, had become more so under the polish of education and association with those who trained the soul as well as the hand, the eye, the body.
"The smoke of the tepee fire has driven away the oppressive chaotic whirl of classes, recitations and examinations which have had possession of me ever since I left the college," she said, apologetically.
"That was one reason I had for making this trip overland," said Jack. "I knew you longed to break away from crockery and tablecloths, and in your tent you will find something that will please and make you still more at home."
When Jack superintended the packing of the paraphernalia for the trip over the trail, he managed to include in Chiquita's outfit a complete set of buckskin garments, and these she found awaiting her. It was not long before she appeared in her native costume.
"Now you look natural," said Cal.
"The daughter of the woods is happy again," she replied, half sadly, but, recovering quickly, proposed a specimen-hunting expedition up the mountain which derives its name from the great pockets of specimen rocks found upon its slopes.
The party picked its way carefully over slippery, slimy, ooze-covered shale to the specimen beds. Geodes, rounded nodules of rock, filled with waxy uncrystallized deposits of infiltrated silicious waters were broken open, presenting in some instances masses of infinitesimal stalactites, in others the beautiful ribbon agate so much prized by the mineralogist, with its alternate rows of different colors. Much more difficult to find was chrysoprase in green, and the flesh red carnelian, all of these known as chalcedony and of which in Rev. 21:19 and 20, St. John describes the third foundation of the wall of the holy city as "a chalcedony," the tenth foundation "a chrysoprasus." Hours were spent in digging these precious souvenirs from their resting place.
Far above, an occasional mountain sheep appeared for a moment, reconnoitering to see if it was safe for him to descend with his family to the night camp of the Big Horn, for the oozy, slimy deposit was salty and this "lick" was the most famous in all the great length and breadth of the Rocky Mountains. It consequently became the resort of thousands of those wary, intelligent animals, but there were times when the insatiable desire for alkali grew so strong that no danger appalled them, and they rushed recklessly only to meet death at the hands of the hunter who took advantage of this weakness. Skulls, broken horns and bones could be discerned upon the apex of many of the spires or truncated cones which rose at intervals from the eruptive lava, that in ages gone by had broken forth from the earth's crust, the surface of one of these beds being, in many cases, not over three feet in width, while the precipitous sides of the cone varied from one foot to a thousand feet. To these dizzy spots, which formed the Big Horn's aerial stairway, did this wonderful animal bound, whether pursued or in search of a resting place, alighting with sure foot, and immediately curling down for a nap or another bound in event danger was scented. That leap from danger was in itself marvelous—with all four feet curled beneath that ponderous body, the iron muscles warmed by the heavy hair coat, it was not the laborious effort of a steer elevating its hindquarters, unfolding one foreleg and then the other with a groan; it was a propulsion of a seemingly inert mass into space, a touch of toes to the earth and another bound into the air and probably out of sight, for that stairway is a mass of intricate, steep sided fissures, deep rifts opening one into another, each presenting a ledge sufficiently large to enable one of these sure-footed travelers to find "bouncing room" and so down, down, down for a thousand or more feet this denizen of the clouds would make his escape. This method of retreat being so sudden and the disappearance so sure, tales have been ofttimes told of the wonderful leaps into mid air, dropping to the bottom of one of those cañons and of his sheepship alighting on his horns, none the worse for jumping half a mile or more.
All one afternoon Chiquita told wonderful stories of the wild game life, the parties of hunters who came even from Europe to wait for days until the sheep came to the "lick," and how these hunters crept up to the "beds" in the darkest and stormiest nights, waiting within rifle shot until the dawn should break, when the slaughter would commence. She told of the bands of elk, two and three thousand herding together, migrating from their summer feeding grounds among the high willow grown, spongy bogs, to the cedar grown mountains along Eagle River, crossing Middle Park in October and November after the first great snow storms began to drive them out.
"The mountains around here used to be the greatest paradise for game that Indian ever found. Is it any wonder my people resent the intrusion of the paleface?" said she, after giving an enthusiastic account of one of the Ute hunting expeditions which took place when she was but a few years old.