Bill's School and Mine Part 5

GOULD'S RANCH, July 7th.

_My Dear B:_

We have just returned from a week's hunt in the Medicine Bow Mountains east of here. We saw elk, killed a deer, and spent the Fourth of July on a prominent but nameless peak from which we got a splendid view.

After breakfast at Camp _Mush,_ Mr. E.B. Gould, a neighboring cattle rancher who has no cattle, was attracted by the smoke of our campfire, and coming up to see us, he invited us to his shanty to eat venison.

We went. We have now been with him a week and we are starting on our second carca.s.s.

Gould lives by hunting and trapping, and by odd work in the Park during the haying season. He came to this country years ago with a hunting party and has been hunting ever since. Several years ago he took up a claim in the extreme southeastern corner of North Park conveniently near to hunting grounds in the Medicine Bow. He gave up his claim, for good, a year ago, and made an overland trip to New Mexico. That did not satisfy him either, so now he is back in his old shanty again. He thinks we are the toughest "tender-foots" he ever saw. He approves of us, there is no doubt about that, and he has pulled up his stakes to travel with us just for the pleasure of our company! He takes great interest in D.'s knowledge of bugs, and D. and he are both real hunters each according to his experience. Before we fell in with Gould I could persuade D. to wanton exertion in the way of mountain climbing but now I am in the minority, but the hunters propose, with a flourish, the scaling of every peak that comes in sight.

I had a spell of mountain fever just before the Fourth and Gould dosed me with sage brush tea, the vilest concoction I ever had to take.

Gould is not accustomed to walk except when actually hunting, so he has a riding horse, and a trusty old pack animal whose minimum name is "G---- d---- you Jack," and whose maximum name (and load) is indeterminate. Gould is going with us to spend a week in the Range of the Rabbit's Ear, far to the west across North Park. He has an old wagon which, if it holds together, will save D. and me some tedious steps across the desert, for indeed this "park" is a desert. We shall pa.s.s through Walden, the metropolis and supply station of the Park.

Yours, F.

FROM D.'S MOTHER

_My precious boy:_

I trust you will excuse me for using this paper but I am up stairs, and no one [is] here to bring me any other. They tell me I need not wonder that we do not hear from you and I shall try not to be disappointed if we do not hear for a while. Nevertheless my dear boy, the uncertainty I feel in regard to your safety will make a letter very welcome indeed. Perhaps I would have more courage if I were strong. For five days I have been very uncomfortable. I am sitting up some today for the first [time] and hope soon to be well as usual.

We were exceedingly glad to hear from you from Grand Lake. I cannot, however, say that the account of your experience by stone slide[K] and river have lessened my anxiety. I am writing now, Thursday, in bed. I have been quite poorly again. We shall not look now for a letter from you but hope to see you face to face before many days. May G.o.d bless and keep you! Give our love to Mr. F. All join me in tenderest love to you.

Your devoted mother.

At Walden we laid in a fresh supply of flour and bacon, and canned goods, especially canned fruit, to last us while we stayed with the wagon. We then pushed on to the west, striking camp on the West Fork of the North Platte, where we stayed two nights. Here we tried hard a third time for trout without success, but we turned off the water from an irrigating ditch and captured a large number of "squaw fish"

(suckers).

From _Camp Chew_ we made our way well up into the foothills of the Range of the Rabbit's Ear, and then packed our animals, minimum Jack and our pony, and pushed up the range over the worst trail we had yet encountered, through an absolute wilderness of fallen timber. Rain with fog set in as we approached timber line, and we were forced to go into camp early to wait for morning. Morning came with fog and rain, and we spent the entire day hunting trail, only to go into camp again towards evening. The next day, however, came clear and we made our way over the range, through Frying Pan Meadow, and reached camp down on Elk river towards evening without difficulty. We found good fishing here at last and great numbers of deer but no elk. After three rainy days in _Elk River Camp,_ one of which was spent jerking venison of D.'s killing, we packed up and made the return trip over the range in one day of hard travel, going into camp by the sh.o.r.e of a shallow pond well out on the barren level of North Park. The next morning we parted company with Gould, and in two days we made sixty stage road miles across North Park and over the northern portion of the Medicine Bow Mountains to Woods post office at the edge of the Laramie plains, twenty-five miles from Laramie.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Looking North Across Specimen Mountain Stone Slide.]

We had intended walking through to Laramie, but ninety miles and two mountain ranges in three days, not to mention the writer's terribly blistered feet, had temporarily taken some of the ambition out of us, and after some fine diplomacy D. and the writer each found that the other was willing to descend to stage coach riding. We accordingly sold our fine little pony for five dollars, packed our outfit in a compact bundle which we wrapped in our small tent (which had been used as a smoke-house for curing venison at _Elk River Camp_), and took the stage for Laramie.

At Laramie we took the train for home, and with eyes eagerly awake we watched for hundreds of miles an increasing luxuriance of vegetation which reached its climax in the marvelously rich, endless, undulating fields of eastern Nebraska and Iowa:

This is the land that the sunset washes These are the Waves of the Yellow Sea; Where it arose and whiter it rushes, This is the western mystery.

[Ill.u.s.tration: In the Range of the Rabbit's Ear.]

We had been away from home for thirty-three days, and in the mountains for thirty-one nights--Indians reckon by nights; and we had tramped more than three hundred and fifty miles from Loveland to the edge of the Laramie plains. A large portion of the time was spent at high alt.i.tudes where the weather is not lamb-like in June, and no small portion of the three hundred and fifty miles was mud and water, snow and fallen timber, through a country as rough, perhaps, as is to be found anywhere, and as interesting. The only way to study Geography is with the feet! No footless imagination can realize the sublimity of western Mountain and Plain. Nothing but a degree of hardship can measure their widespread chaos and lonely desolation, and only the freshened eagerness of many mornings can perceive their matchless glory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Near Frying Pan Meadow.]

We reached home weather-beaten almost beyond recognition, but in robust health, especially D., who had actually gained in weight during the trip. From the railroad station we carried our outfit, and venison, two miles to the college grounds, reaching D.'s home about midnight.

Here our madly exuberant spirits were suddenly checked by finding that the illness of D.'s mother had become extremely serious. However she was determined to see us both--to give a last approval.

"We never know how high we are Till we are called to rise; And then, if we are true to plan, Our statures touch the skies.

"The heroism we recite Would be a daily thing, Did not ourselves the cubits warp For fear to be a king."

After four days D.'s mother died. It fell to B. and F. to make a sculptor's plaster mask, and photographs; and to F. to watch overnight--and hasten to the woods in the morning.

"The bustle in a house The morning after death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon earth.

"The sweeping up the heart And putting love away We shall not want to use again Until Eternity."

A beautiful Campanile now stands on the college campus erected in memory of D.'s mother by the state of Iowa; and from this memory-tower a chime of bells

Greets Those who pa.s.s in joy And those who pa.s.s in sorrow; As we have pa.s.sed, Our time.

"Superiority to fate Is difficult to learn.

'Tis not conferred by any, But possible to earn A pittance at a time, Until, to her surprise, The soul with strict economy Subsists till Paradise."

THE USES OF HARDSHIP.

Did you chance, my friends, any of you, to see, the other day, the 83rd number of the _Graphic,_ with the picture of the Queen's concert in it? All the fine ladies sitting so trimly, and looking so sweet, and doing the whole duty of woman--wearing their fine clothes gracefully; and the pretty singer, white-throated, warbling "Home sweet home" to them, so morally, and melodiously! Here was yet to be our ideal of virtuous life, thought the _Graphic!_ Surely we are safe back with our virtues in satin slippers and lace veils--and our Kingdom of Heaven is come _with_ observation!

RUSKIN.

Ruskin has said that the children of the rich often get the worst education to be had for money, whereas the children of the poor often get the best education for nothing. And the poor man's school is hardship. {8}