Girl Scouts in the Rockies Part 22

The scouts saw a great k.n.o.b on one side of the bear's head, and an old scar that cleft his left hind-quarter almost in two.

"Dis ole Devil-Bear come down all time to ranches, kill calf, eat lamb, carry off ennything, an' n.o.buddy ketch him. Evehbud' hunt and shoot, but Devil-Bear quick an' get away. He climb glacier, go over peaks, live evehwhere.

"Sometime him in Flat Top, nudder time him down in Wyom. One time he run in Denver, kill horse, scare evehbuddy away, den run back to Flat Top." Tally laughed at the last memory.

"Him steal cattle, even fight ranchers, so big reward out fer him,"

added Omney.

"How can you be sure you have killed this demon?" asked Mrs. Vernon, eagerly.

"We hear 'bout Devil-Bear and pickshers nail on all signboard for reward. Big scar in rump, big lump on haid--him got 'em," Tally replied.

"Um! Dis scar make by rancher. One day he chop wood and fine sheep-dog play round. Devil-Bear steal out of woods, catch dog unner man's nose, and run away. Rancher so mad he frow axe at bear, an' it hit right there," explained Omney, poking his foot at the scar on the bear.

"Rancher say dat bear neveh walk gin, but nex' year nudder rancher see bear kill calf an' many lamb and run away," added Tally.

"Then I'm glad you shot him!" declared Betty, glaring at the dead beast.

"But you've got to get him back to camp, boys, to get the reward,"

said Mrs. Vernon.

The two Indians considered this the least of their problems, and when they had tied the forelegs and the hindlegs together, they swung the heavy animal from a long pole they had cut down from a clump of pine.

That night when Mr. Gilroy heard the story, he a.s.sured the scouts that the guides had really done a great service to the country at large, as this bear had terrorized every one in the mountain ranches.

"As a rule, grizzlies are not ferocious except when interfered with.

They use their fine intelligence to keep man at a safe distance with their roaring and display of fierce strength. But this rascal was the exception, and it's well he is dead," added he.

"If the guides get the reward, the scouts ought to have the pelt,"

suggested Mr. Vernon.

"I'll see to it that they do," returned Mr. Gilroy.

The Indians made quick work of skinning the beast and leaving the head on the body so the b.u.mp could be identified. The bear fat was tried out and saved by the guides, and several fine steaks were carved from the carca.s.s and broiled, but the girls refused them.

The men had no such qualms, however, and ate greedily, then smacked their lips laughingly at the disgust manifested on the scouts' faces.

"Devil-Bear good eat!" chuckled Tally, as he wrapped the remaining steaks in a paper for another time.

When the campers resumed their ride, Devil-Bear--or all that was left of him--was packed on Jolt's back. The mule cared not a fig for a dead bear, so the skin was carried along without demur, although the horses now and then caught a whiff of the bear-pelt and tossed their heads nervously.

The trail up Flat Top Mountain proved as wonderful as it had promised to be. The scouts rode their horses without a tremor, although at times they went on narrow ledges, forded roaring streams, or plunged down through gulches, and over down-timber. They steadily climbed all that day, and towards night were on Flat Top--twelve thousand, three hundred feet high.

Mr. Gilroy reached his desired Tyndall Glacier, and so delighted was he that he acted like a boy with a new toy. Here they camped for a few days while the scientist collected some interesting bits, then the party continued to the very top of the mountain.

From this summit the scouts could see over the entire country for miles around. Estes Park looked like a tiny city park from that height. And Long's Peak appeared on a line with their sight. They could plainly see Stone's and Taylor's Peaks, and also Mt. Hallett, while several famous lakes,--Mills, Bierstadt, Dream, and others--were seen gleaming like sheets of blue ice down in the hollows between the crags.

Fresh camp was pitched that night under the shadow of a gigantic column of jagged rock that rose perpendicularly above the tableland of the peak. The base of the rock was about a quarter of a mile around, but one side of the monolith dropped sheer down to a cliff a thousand feet below. From that ledge it again dropped down to another rocky resting-spot hundreds of feet lower. Thence it went straight down three thousand feet to the bottom of its stand, where it found a firm footing in the valley.

As every one was tired with the climb of the day, they were soon fast asleep on the fragrant balsam beds, and slept until the snorting of the horses roused the Indians, and then they, in turn, called to the others to get up.

CHAPTER TWELVE

LOST IN A BLIZZARD

It was early dawn but such dark clouds obscured everything that the scouts thought it still was night.

"Bad storm blowin', Mees'r Gilloy. Us hurry down f'om here," said Tally, anxiously.

"All right--all up, and hurry away!" shouted Mr. Gilroy, running for the horses, to help Omney saddle them for the ride.

Soon thereafter, without stopping to attend to any of their customary toilets, the scouts were in the saddles and quickly following the guides down the trail on the opposite side from that they had mounted the day before.

The blackness was now so thick that it was difficult to see any one ten feet ahead, and the girls could not see the trail at all. Then Tally suddenly shouted a warning to those behind him.

"Huddle togedder--blizzer comin' down now!"

And in a few seconds, an unexpected breaking of the clouds drove thick smothery, enveloping snow across the plateau. Even the heavy clouds seemed to choke everything in their folds. The wind, which blew a gale, uprooted trees and flicked them out of the way as if they were snips of paper. Gusts of the mad tornado tore off great ma.s.ses of the dark clouds and, eddying them about, whirled the vapor out of them, away down the sides of the mountain. Trees, rocks, clods of earth, everything movable that presented an obstacle to the gale, was carried away like thistledown.

The poor horses and pack-mules crouched close together, with heads low, making of their bodies as scant a resistance as possible against the storm, and at the same time providing shelter, with their steaming bodies, for the human beings who huddled under them.

Then, as suddenly as the storm broke, it ceased. A weird light played over the plateau for a time, and Mr. Gilroy noted the worried expressions of the Indians.

"What now, Tally?"

"Us clim' saddles, stick gedder an' must get away!" shouted Tally, trying to be heard above the soughing of the wind, that was now blowing from behind the crag.

Even as the riders tried to get into the saddles and start after Tally, a chill filled the air. It crept into bones and marrow, and in a few minutes the full fury of the blizzard was felt. In less than five minutes after the first snow fell, everything was drifted under white blankets. The cold bit into human flesh like sharp points of steel, and it was certain that every one must get down from that alt.i.tude immediately or be frozen to death.

The Indians led the way, although they trusted their safety on these mountains entirely to the horses and their wonderful sense. The other riders tried to follow as closely as they could in the tracks made by the first two horses. Then as they descended further from the plateau, the storm abated and the temperature felt warmer, until they reached the place where dripping snow from all the tree branches and rocks thoroughly soaked the unfortunates.

The mountainside was cut up by ravines and gulches, or "draws" as they are called, made by erosion of mountain streams that came from the glacier on top of Flat Top.

From one of these draws the scouts could look down for miles to a place where it widened out through the velocity of the roaring waters and unearthed everything in its floods.

Here and there great pines had fallen across and formed natural bridges over the chasms. At other spots the roots or branches of a tree washed down, would catch in the debris of the sides of a draw, obstructing the way and holding up great ma.s.ses of waste that acc.u.mulated rapidly about the twisted limbs, when the torrent washed everything against this comb, that caught the larger objects.

So the file of riders went carefully downward, on the watch for a favorable trail that might lead them to the valley. But every draw they found was so forbidding that they were repulsed from trying it.

Some showed great rocks that might roll down at the slightest motion of the ground, and crush everything in their plunge. Even as they pondered the chance of going down one of these, the water caused by the melting snow loosened the grip of a great fragment of rock held up in the gorge, and down it crashed! Other draws displayed century-old snags, and down-timber that lay half-sunken in slimy ooze which trickled down from the mossy sides of the gully; these would suck in any horse or rider that was daring enough to try and go over them.

Finally, Tally came to a draw which was not nearly so forbidding as the others, but it was a very deep chasm, and sent up echoes of roaring water in its bottom.

"Wad yuh tink, Omney--do we try him?" asked Tally.