A Mountain Boyhood Part 2

FIRST CAMP ALONE--EXPLORING

My short trips into the wilds tempted me to go beyond the trails. So far my rambles had taken me only to the threshold of the wilderness, I wondered what lay beyond; I wanted to follow the game trails and see where they led. Above all I was eager to pit my scant skill against primitive nature and learn if my resourcefulness was equal to the emergencies of the unknown. Somehow I never doubted my courage--I simply didn't fear.

As the short high-alt.i.tude summer began to wane, I grew restless.

September advanced; the aspen trees near timberline turned to gold; from day to day those lower down turned also until a vast richly colored rug covered the mountain sides. Ripe leaves fluttered down, rustling crisply underfoot. Frost cut down the rank gra.s.s, humbled the weeds and harvested the flowers. Forests of spruce and lodgepole were dark with shadow. A beaver colony returned to its former haunts at the foot of Long's Peak and was working night and day. Its pond of still water was glazing over with clear ice.

October came. The nights grew colder. The snow of early winter came to the high peaks, dusting their bare, bald crowns.

"Fur ought to be getting prime now," the Parson said one day. "It'll be better still, higher up."

This was the message I had been waiting for. It set me packing at once, for I was going into Wild Basin, alone, to hunt, trap and explore.

On a morning near the middle of October, much excited, I set out for the land of mystery. Ahead lay the unknown, uncharted wilds. I could go where I chose and stay as long as I wished. Bold Columbus, looking westward, I could not have been more thrilled. Mountain maple beckoned with ripe, red banners. The mountains peeked through the autumn haze, divulging nothing, promising everything!

My outfit consisted of an old, ragged tent, a little food, a camera that had been through a fire and leaked light badly, a knife, an ax, a six-shooter, and an old rifle that had been traded about among the early settlers and had known many owners. In addition I had bought six double-spring steel traps sufficiently large to hold beaver, coyotes or wolves. The pair of ragged blankets that had served me on my short trips about the region had been reinforced with an old quilt, faded and patched, but sweet and clean.

All this duffle I packed upon a "return" horse, lent me by the Parson, one that would return home as soon as it was let loose.

The Parson chuckled at the appearance of my pack, even the horse turned his head inquiringly, but I was too excited to mind their insinuations.

As the sun topped the mountains, I led the horse slowly down the old tollroad toward a game trail, and swung up in the direction of Wild Basin.

Deer tracks showed in the old road and in the game trails; I also recognized coyote tracks, and puzzled over strange tracks which I could not make out. The small streams I crossed had many deep pools where trout were collecting for the winter. I tossed stones into them and the fish, like rainbow darts, dashed for shelter beneath the rocks.

Hourly my excitement grew--a million plans ran through my head. I would become a mighty hunter and make a fortune trapping; I would turn prospector and locate a mine: Father and Mother would yet have the gold of which they were thwarted.

The second evening brought me into such rough country that going farther with the horse was next to impossible. With excited hands I unpacked, bade the beast good-by, and started him toward home on the back trail. He trotted off, neighing eagerly.

Save for the rumble of the river deep down in its canon, the great basin was voiceless. The forest showed no signs of man. Above and beyond rose a circle of snow-capped peaks. I paused in awe; the world was bigger than I had dreamed. I was a boy without a woodsman's skill--a boy alone in the heart of an overwhelming silence. I turned, with a pang of homesickness, just in time to see the return horse disappear. Whistling loudly, I set about making camp. It should be my headquarters, from which I could explore in all directions, returning as often as necessary for supplies.

A lake with sandy sh.o.r.es lapped in and out among immense bowlders. On the west side a cliff rose straight from the water. At the upper edge a small cataract came leaping down the ledges and plunged noisily into the pool that overflowed into the lake. Above the water was a grove of Engelmann spruces, giant trees that rose straight for more than a hundred feet. I pitched my tent in a small open glade, but had trouble getting down the stakes, for everywhere was granite. The first test of my resourcefulness had come--I met it by piling stones around the tent stakes, bracing them taut for the ropes.

The call of the wild was too loud to ignore--I hastened my camp making.

The sun was going down on a world of splendor. Overhead were brilliantly colored clouds, while deep in the canon below the early darkness was thickening. From somewhere in the distance came the cry of an animal. Camp was left unfinished; I climbed to a jutting shoulder that overlooked the canon. From far below came the noise of the river as it chugged and sobbed and roared endlessly between its towering walls. I promised myself I would go down and explore that dark canon at an early date.

Of a sudden there came an indescribable, unearthly sound that echoed and reechoed among the cliffs. I could not tell the direction from which it came; a sudden chill crept along my spine, my hair p.r.i.c.kled and lifted. Then the echoes ceased, the silence that followed was equally terrifying. I bethought me of my unfinished camp. Later I learned that alarming sound was the bugling of a bull elk. It was the mating season.

As darkness came on I ate beans and bread by the light of the campfire.

The beans came out of a can, so were well cooked; but the bread was my first campfire, culinary concoction. It was a flour and water mixture, plus salt and baking powder, cooked against a hot rock. It was smoked black and cooked so hard it nearly broke my teeth, besides, it had a granite finish from a.s.sociation with the rock oven. But I ate it with boyish relish in spite of its flaws. My imagination expanded as I watched ghostly shadow-figures dance upon the face of the cliff. The shifting flame, the wood smoke, the silent, starry night swelled my heart to pride in my great adventure. I ignored the incident of the animal cry that had sent me scurrying to camp. This first camp was just below timberline, at an alt.i.tude of eleven thousand feet or more.

I had much to learn about alt.i.tude, as well as of winds and weather, woods and mountains. In the mountains the higher one goes the harder the wind blows. In the Rockies, around timberline, gales often reach a velocity of a hundred miles, or more, an hour. Here during the long alpine winters, the wind booms and crashes among the peaks, roars through the pa.s.ses, and rips through the shattered trees. That first night I lay in camp and listened to its unceasing roar, as it tore along the ridge tops. Occasionally, a gust would scatter my fire. It raged through the spruces like a hurricane, causing me much uneasiness lest one of the trees should come crashing down upon my frail shelter.

At last, after dozing before the dying fire, I went inside the tent, crept between my blankets and fell asleep.

I was aiming at a charging grizzly, when there came a swishing, banging crash! I sat up, half awake. The tent flapped wildly, lifting clear of the ground. My stone cairns had been jerked down by the repeated yanks of the stake ropes. A stronger gust, the tent went down, or rather up, and vanished into the night. The spruce tree, which was my tent pole, struck me on the head. I sat dazed. Gradually it came to me that my clothes, as well as my tent, were gone. I realized, too, that I had pitched camp on the wrong side of the little stream, for the mischievous gusts, saturated with water from the falls, spat upon me and soaked my blankets. I managed to strike a match, but the wind snuffed it out instantly. I tried again and again to make a light--with no success. I crawled dazedly about--I struggled upright--my toe caught beneath a rock, and I pitched headlong. That hour of darkness taught me never to venture about blindly.

The night was unbelievably cold. During the day, while the sun had shone brightly, the temperature had been very comfortable, even warm.

But now, with wind blasts from the snow-fields and glaciers and waterfall, I was chilled through and through. As I felt about for my vanished clothes, my teeth chattered. Soon I gave up the search and sought shelter in the spruces; I found a leaning slab of rock and crept beneath it as a wild animal would have done. Through the remaining hours of the night I shivered and shook there; my imagination dulled, my ambition dampened. I decided to break camp as soon as it was light.

But it is marvelous what sunshine will do. When at last the tardy sun came up, and the wind died down and I had recovered my clothes and warmed myself at a leaping fire, my heart too leaped up with renewed courage. All was serene. It seemed impossible that I could have been so miserable in the night.

As soon as I had eaten I dragged the tent back among the spruces where I set it up and anch.o.r.ed it securely. Lesson Number One had sunk in.

It would not need repeating.

When camp was at last secure, I climbed slowly to the ridge top above.

Its crest was above timberline. On all sides rose lofty mountains, many of them patched with s...o...b..nks. Deep canons cut sharply between the ridges and shoulders. Ice fields indicated possible glaciers. I wanted to explore everything at once; wanted to climb the peaks, and delve into the canons; hunt out the game and explore the glaciers.

At timberline I stopped in silent wonder. Broken trees were scattered about upon the ground like soldiers after a battle. I didn't quite comprehend its significance, but Parson Lamb had described it to me. I had seen other timberlines in my rambles, but none so impressive as this. Here was the forest frontier. How dauntless, how gallant, these pioneers were! How they strove to hold the advantage gained during the brief summer respite! Here a canny stripling grew behind a sheltering bowlder, but whenever it tried to peep above its breastworks, the wind, with its sh.e.l.l-shot of sand and gravel and ice bullets, cut off its protruding limbs as neatly as a gardner might have done. Consequently its top was as flat as a table.

In the open, other trees trailed along the ground like creeping vines, their tops pointing away from the wind. It seemed as if they banded together for mutual protection, for they formed a dense hedge or "bush." Here was the deadline established by alt.i.tude. The forests were commanded to halt; this line of last defense was not unlike the sweeping sh.o.r.eline of the sea. Here and there were lone scout trees in advance of the ranks. They were twisted and dwarfed, misshapen, grotesque.

There were wide, naked stretches bare of snow. Great drifts lay in the woods; the deep, narrow canons were piled full of it. Many of these drifts would last far into the following summer; a few would be perpetual. At the approach of summer, such drifts turn to ice through frequent thawing and freezing, since the surface snow, melting under the glare of the summer sun, seeps down through the ma.s.s beneath in daytime, and freezes again at night. From such drifts flow icy streams for the leaping trout. Countless sparkling springs gurgled forth at the foot of the slopes.

Here I had my first lessons in conservation and learned that it is indeed an ill wind that does no good. Here nature h.o.a.rds her savings in s...o...b..nks. To these savings she adds constantly throughout the winter. Long I sat upon a promontory and marveled. Dimly, only, did I grasp the significance of what lay before me! The ranks of primeval forest waiting to aid civilization; snow, that white magic eventually destined to water crops on the distant plains; and, above all, woods, the final refuge of the big game; the sanctuary of the birds.

Everywhere were scattered unnamed lakes. These edged out and around the rock peninsulas, folded back into dark coves and swung out of sight behind the timbered bends. Some were almost pinched in half by the crowding cliffs till they formed giant hour-gla.s.ses; again they bulged and overflowed like streams at high water. I began to name them according to their shape. "Hourgla.s.s," of course; the one that bulged out at one end was surely a plump "Pear"--yes, and "Dog-with-three-legs"! My imagination was recovering.

For miles I followed the strange, fantastic timberline. Occasionally I found stunted little trees scarcely knee high, peeping through the crushing weight of snow that had smothered them, even throughout the summer. I cut several trees to count the rings of growth. I found trees growing close together and about the same size, with centuries of variation in age. One, that had been broken off by a rock slide, had two hundred and ninety-six annual rings. It had grown in a sheltered nook. Ten yards away another, much smaller, but growing upon an exposed, rocky point, was no higher than my head, yet I counted five hundred and seven rings; for half a thousand years it had stood at its post. I found the counting of these annual rings extremely difficult, as they were so dense that it was hard to distinguish them and they averaged from fifty to a hundred rings to an inch of thickness, but the small magnifying gla.s.s I carried made it possible.

The most striking thing I discovered about the timberline trees was their irregularity. There was no similarity of form, as prevails among trees of the deep forest. Each tree took on a physical appearance according to its location and its opportunities. One resemblance only did they have in common: none had limbs on the west side. All their leafy banners pointed toward the rising sun. Thus I learned the direction of the prevailing winter winds. The west side of the trees were polished smooth, many cut halfway through. Trees that had reached maturity, or had died, were stripped almost bare of limbs, which had been cut away by the constant scouring.

There were abundant tracks of deer, and some of elk, but I saw not a single animal. Near the spot from which had risen the terrifying sounds of that first night, a deep-worn game trail led down into the heavy forests. Sharp hoofs had cut into it recently, yet neither hide nor hair of an animal did I glimpse. There were no traces of beaver nor any coyote tracks. There were bear tracks, but the small traps I had brought would not hold bear, so I did not set them. I was running low on provisions, for I had counted on the game for meat: I had meant to have venison steak as soon as I had got settled in my permanent camp.

Here was mystery! My curiosity was challenged; I determined to fathom it!

How I studied those tracks! Those of the sheep could be distinguished by the rounded toe marks of their hoofs, worn blunt by the granite rocks they lived on. This was especially true of the forefeet. They were also wide apart, while the deer tracks were sharply pointed, with the hoofs close together. Days pa.s.sed and the tracks in the trails grew dim, but not before I had read their story. I followed the sheep's up above timberline--they grew plainer and more numerous. So that was it! The sheep climbed where the wind would keep their tables, spread with sweet cured gra.s.s, swept free of snow, and had placed the barrier of timberline drifts between them and their enemies!

The other tracks all led down to the valleys. There in the foothills winter would be less rigorous, and the gra.s.s would not be buried for months beneath the snow. Winter was at hand in the high country and all but the Bighorn had deserted it. What with them above me, and the rest below, I found myself in a no-game zone.

There was no repet.i.tion of the frightful sound that had sent me scurrying for camp. I suspected a bull elk had made it, though I recognized no resemblance between that hair-raising sound and a bugle.

My thoughts turned to other game. I must have meat--how about a bear?

If I couldn't trap one, perhaps I could shoot one. I got out my battered old rifle, so like the timberline trees, and boldly set out for "b'ar." In and out of the dense forest I blundered; crashed through the tangle at timberline; toiled up the rocky ridges. Up and up I climbed, paying no heed to the direction of the wind. I found bear tracks, both large and small, but no sight of Bruin himself.

Discouraged, I lay down to rest and had a nap in the sun. Later, with the wind in my face, I peeped over a rocky upthrust near a large s...o...b..nk. My eyes bulged, my mouth opened. There was a bear just ahead. Surely it was mad--crazy--for no animal in its right mind would do what it was doing.

First it would lumber along a few feet from the edge of the snow, stopping, sniffing, striking out suddenly with its forepaws; it repeated this performance again and again. I watched, hypnotized, unaware of the gun gripped tightly in my hands. Anyhow, who'd want to eat a mad bear?

A slight sound caused me to turn my head. Twenty feet away another bear stood regarding me curiously.

Not being absent-minded, I have never been able to understand why I left my rifle on the mountainside after lugging it up there for an avowed purpose. At any rate I made record time back to camp, glancing rearward frequently, to see if the "flock" of bears was pursuing me.

The next day, after surveying the mountainside to make sure that no bears were lurking there, I went back up and recovered the rifle. The sand beneath the shelving rock where I had seen the second bear was disturbed. Claws had rasped it sharply. It appeared as though this bear had been startled suddenly; had wheeled about and fled for its life in the opposite direction to that I had taken. The tracks were small, too, apparently those of a cub. This was my first hear experience. I had yet to learn that bear are as harmless as deer or mountain sheep; they attend strictly to their own business, and they never come near man except through accident. At that time, though, I was willing to give all bears the benefit of the doubt--and the right of way.

While further exploring the ridge above the camp I came upon an old abandoned tunnel with its dump concealed among the trees below timberline. The entrance to the tunnel had been timbered to prevent its caving. There was nothing in its appearance to tell how long it had been abandoned. Beside the dump was a small selected pile of ore.

This I gloated over happily, mistaking mingled stains and colors for pure sold. But if it was a gold mine, why had the owners departed--and why had they left rich ore? These and, other questions unanswered, left me with an uneasy feeling. I wondered if a tragedy had happened here, so many miles from civilization. With a torch of small twigs I ventured into the dark hole running straight back beneath the cliff. A short distance inside the tunnel I stopped uneasily. The silence was intense. The twig torch fluttered faintly and went out. The darkness was black beyond belief. Without delay I felt my way out into the sunshine, leaving further exploration for another day.

For weeks I roamed the forest, circled the scattered lakes, climbed to the jagged tops of high-flung peaks; and daily, almost, had new and strange experiences. Everything was intensely interesting, and all was fairyland. Many times I was torn between timidity and curiosity.

Though I often carried the huge old rifle with deadly intent, I failed to bring down any big game. Invariably when I had a good chance, my gun would be at camp.

Before breakfast one morning I made an excursion to a promontory to watch the sunrise. Deep down in the canons below, darkness still lingered. Slowly the world emerged from the shadows like a photographic plate developing and disclosing its images in the darkroom. Beyond the promontory a great spire lifted high above the canon; I climbed to its top. Above the spire was a higher crag. Again I climbed up. Up and up I climbed until almost noon. Each new vantage point revealed new glory; every successive outpost lured me on.