Boy Scouts in Glacier Park Part 37

From almost the very top of this peak, a long, very steep shale slope led to the "Valley Forge" meadow, and down this they descended, by the aid of the rope, sending showers of stones ahead, so that the leader was in constant danger, and wearing down the spikes and soles of their boots rapidly. They camped that night in the old spot, using their former fire pit, but there was no storm, and the next day they had an uneventful pa.s.sage back down Mineral Creek, up to Swift Current by the trail Joe had first climbed in the rain, and so on back to Many Glacier--a long trip of twenty-four miles, but to Joe, who by this was as hard as nails, not very tiresome. At Many Glacier the boys bid the two men and Robert good-bye, and as darkness was gathering, once more cooked their supper in Camp Kent, which by now was like home to them.

"Well," said Tom, "that was some trip, old wifey--let's see, we were six days out, and we didn't meet a soul after we left the road till we got back to Granite Park, except the ranger up under Cleveland. The real wilderness stuff, eh?"

"You bet!" said Joe. "And eighteen dollars more for me and ma."

"You're getting terribly practical," Tom laughed.

"I'm getting self-supporting," Joe replied. "No more grafting off you."

"You're getting _well_," Tom cried. "That's the real thing. Gee, you're harder'n I am now! You never seem to get tired."

"Bet I can hit the little old cot, though," Joe laughed, as he began to make up the beds in the tent.

CHAPTER XXIV--The Boys Prepare for Winter in the Park, and Learn Why the Timber-Line Trees Are Only Three Feet Tall

It was now September, and already a rain in the valleys meant fresh snow on the peaks and high pa.s.ses. The hotel was still full, however, and Tom was busy at the tepees, while Joe had steady work as a camp cook, once on a fishing trip, when, in three days, he cooked so many trout he said he should be ashamed ever to look a fish in the face again, and sick if he ate one.

"I didn't think it was possible to get fed up on trout," he declared.

"Wait till next April, and you'll be out whipping up Roaring Brook, all right, all right," Tom laughed.

Of course school had begun back in Southmead, but Tom did not feel like quitting his job before the season was over, and, besides, after long talks together, and consultations with the Ranger, and letters home to their parents and Mr. Rogers, the boys had decided to stay on with Mills, in his cabin (paying for their own food, of course, which would be a very small item), until Christmas. It would mean that they'd lose the whole school term instead of a month, but, in return, Joe would have that much more outdoor life, they could do a lot of reading evenings, and, above all, they could learn from Mills some of the duties of a forest ranger in winter, and learn how to handle themselves in the mountains and big woods after all trails were closed, all tourists departed, and the Park had gone back to its primitive wildness.

Mr. Rogers agreed with them, and evidently persuaded their parents.

"After all," he wrote, "you'll really be taking a term in practical field forestry, and Joe can never hope to get a position as a forester if he hasn't fully recovered his health. The government won't take a sick man on the job. Learn all you can, especially how to take care of yourselves."

So the boys sent home for their very warmest winter clothes, mittens, pull down hats, ski boots and skis and some school books and stories to read evenings. Mills said he could get them real Indian snow-shoes in the Park, and elk skin sleeping-bags. He was even more delighted at the prospect of having them than they were at staying. It meant he would have company till nearly Christmas, and the scouts knew how lonely he usually was in the winter, because that was one thing he had never talked about.

The tepee camp closed about mid-September, when it got too cold for many hikers to come over the high pa.s.ses, and the next two weeks Tom worked as a regular guide, with a license badge from the Park superintendent.

Joe also had a couple of jobs with camping parties, but he had had his badge from the start. All the hotels and chalets closed on October first, and then the boys moved into the Ranger's cabin.

They were glad to move, too. Already winter had begun to come, up on the Divide. The snow that fell did not melt, and the line of it was creeping down the bare, rocky slopes of Gould. The nights were cold, and water froze in a kettle, and ice formed on the edge of the lake on a still night. Before the last bus had departed, all three made a trip out to Glacier Park station and laid in supplies for the winter.

"The next trip we make may be on snow-shoes," the Ranger said. "That's fifty miles afoot, packing your sleeping-bag on your back."

The horses presently were sent down to the prairie to winter, and Joe got some of the hens from the hotel, which otherwise would have been killed or taken away, and installed them in the stable.

"We'll have fresh eggs for a while, anyhow," he declared.

"What you going to feed 'em with?" the Ranger asked.

"I got two barrels of feed," said Joe, "and our table sc.r.a.ps. When the feed gives out, we'll live on frica.s.seed chicken. Anyhow, I'll keep one good one alive till Thanksgiving, and we'll have some fresh meat that day."

In the weeks that followed, Tom and Joe lived a hardy, active life afoot, sometimes going with the Ranger up the high trails to inspect where the early snows first slid, so that he could get a line on the spots in which the most danger to the trails lay.

"My idea is," he said, "that in some places where we have trouble, making us a lot of work in the spring, the government could plant Arctic willow or limber pines, to hold the snow from sliding, and save a lot of money. I'm going to study snowslides this winter, and make a report."

Sometimes, too, the scouts went hunting with him, not for sheep or goats or deer, of course, but for the animals which prey on the sheep, goats, deer, etc. The worst pest, perhaps, is the coyote, which is a sort of cowardly fox-wolf, and as the snow gradually pushed down the slopes and drove many animals with it, the coyotes grew more numerous around the cabin, so the boys could hear them barking at night. Now all the tourists were gone, Mills gave each boy a gun, making them his a.s.sistants, and especially on moonlight nights, when they heard the coyotes barking, they would go out where some bait had been placed and shoot two or three.

"Every one you bag saves the life of a dozen ptarmigan hens, and probably a lot of lambs and fawns," said Mills.

It wasn't long before the side of the barn was covered with coyote skins.

"But what you really want is a lion's skin," said Mills.

"What _I_ want is a silver tip skin," said Tom. "I want a coat like yours."

"Nothing doing," Mills laughed. "Mr. Silver Tip is protected now."

"Well, then, bring on your lion!" Spider replied.

"We'll get one yet," Mills answered.

Until the snow got well down toward the valleys, Tom and Joe used to go off for a day at a time, also, with the rope, climbing up cliffs for practice and still oftener, with their cameras, seeking out the upland slopes where the wind kept the snow blown off, and lying in wait for sheep, to photograph them. The sheep, they found, came to such places to feed. But it was cold work waiting, so they finally hit on the idea of packing up their sleeping-bags on their backs, and lying in them, under the shelter of some rock or timber-line pine. In this way, they got several photographs at close range.

They got something else, too; they got a real idea of why the trees at timber-line are only a few feet high. It was mid-November when they had gone up a shoulder of Mount Wilbur, early in the morning, to a bare upland pasture where they believed that sheep would come to feed. The sun was shining when they left, and there was no snow to speak of down in the valley. But they took snow-shoes, to keep their feet dry up above, and their sleeping-bags.

Before they reached the pasture, however, which was at the extreme upper edge of timber-line, the sun was overcast, and the wind was rising to a gale. They kept on, in spite of it, and picking out the lee side of a rock, where a tree grew about three feet tall, till it got above the rock and then turned at a right angle and trailed out parallel to the ground, they got into their bags to wait. No sheep came that morning, but as the wind rose and shrieked and howled, and snow began to fall, they were too interested to go back down.

If they raised their faces the least bit above this rock, smash! came the gale to hit them, and the snow particles cut like ice, while in the wind they felt little stinging particles of rock dust that actually hurt when they hit you.

"I don't blame this tree for not growing any higher!" Joe exclaimed.

"It's like us--just cuddles down behind the rock."

"Sure," said Tom. "If a branch does grow up over in summer, a wind like this the next winter just cuts it off like pruning shears."

The scouts were now beginning to get covered with snow, and in spite of the fascination of lying up here with the storm howling over them and feeling why it is the trees at timber-line grow only a few feet, or even in some cases a few inches, tall in a hundred years, they realized it was time to be getting down.

The instant they stood up, and got the full force of the gale, they were almost knocked off their feet. The snow was coming fast now, and it was all they could do to keep their footing over the treacherous rocks. They had no rope, as they had not supposed they would need it, but when Joe was suddenly bowled over, and went nearly fifty feet down a long drift before he could dig in his heels and stop, it began to look grave.

As soon as they got off the partially bare shoulder, into a trifle less windy reach, they put on their snow-shoes, and fought along toward the Swift Current trail, almost blindly in a brief time, for the snow was increasing till it shrouded them like a cloud.

"Say, I'm getting nervous!" Joe cried. "We ought to be at that trail by now."

"Shut up," Tom said. "If you get a funk, it lets down your vitality, and then you'll get cold and freeze your ears or feet or something. We can't miss it; we got the pitch of the slope to go by."

"That's so," Joe answered. And as he realized that the slope would guide them, so they couldn't go in a circle, he suddenly felt warmer. He realized how important it is to keep your head.

Once on the Swift Current trail, which, though snow covered, showed plainly, they descended rapidly on their snow-shoes, which gripped well.

There was not yet snow enough here to start a slide, but they weren't sure there might not be, and they kept an anxious eye above them all the way down. Once in the woods at the bottom, they hurried on to the cabin, not even stopping to make tea.

"Say, you poor b.o.o.bs," Mills exclaimed, "I was just coming after you.

Why don't you pick a wild, windy, stormy day to go climbing Wilbur? What are you trying to do, commit suicide?"

"No," said Tom, "to see why the timber-line trees are so dwarfed."