Pony Tracks Part 8

As we pulled up in front of the tents of the rest camp, one of those mountain thunder-storms set in, and it was as though the New York fire department had concentrated its nozzles on the earth. The place was presided over by a cla.s.sic Irishman by the name of Larry, who speedily got a roaring-hot beefsteak and some coffee on the table, and then busied himself conducting growing pools of rain-water out of the tent.

Larry is justly famous on the road for his _bonhomie_ and Celtic wit.

At an early hour we arose and departed--the pale moon shining through the mist of the valley, while around us rose the ghostly pines. We cowered under our great-coats, chilled through, and saddened at remembrances of the warm blankets which we had been compelled to roll out of at this unseemly hour. At 7.30 we broke into one of those beautiful natural parks, the Lower Geyser Basin, with the sun shining on the river and the gra.s.s, and spotting the row of tents belonging to D Troop, Sixth United States Cavalry. Captain Scott met us at the door, a bluff old trooper in field rig and a welcoming smile. After breakfast a soldier brought up Pat Rooney. Pat was a horse from the ground up; he came from Missouri, but he was a true Irishman nevertheless, as one could tell from his ragged hips, long drooping quarters, and a liberal show of white in his eye, which seemed to say to me, "Aisy, now, and I'm a dray-horse; but spare the brad, or I'll put ye on yer back in the bloomin' dust, I will." The saddle was put on, and I waited, until presently along came the superintendent, with his scout Burgess, three soldiers, and nine pack-mules with their creaking _aparejos_, and their general air of malicious mischief.

Pointing to a range of formidable-looking hills, the captain said, "We will pull in about there," and we mounted and trotted off down the road. What a man really needs when he does the back stretches of the Yellowstone Park is a boat and a balloon, but cavalrymen ride horses in deference to traditions. My mount, Pat, was as big as a stable door, and as light as a puff-ball on his pins. As Mr. Buckram said, "The 'eight of a 'oss as nothing to do with 'is size," but Patrick was a horse a man needed two legs for. Besides, he had a mouth like a bull, as does every other animal that wears that impossible bit which Uncle Sam gives his cavalry. We got along swimmingly, and, indeed, I feel considerable grat.i.tude to Pat for the two or three thousand times he saved my life on the trip by his agility and sureness of foot.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BURGESS, NEARLY FORTY-FIVE YEARS A SCOUT]

Burgess, the scout, was a fine little piece of a man, who had served the government with credit for over thirty years. He had breasted the high divide in a dozen places, had Apache bullets whistle around and through him, and withal was modest about it. He was a quiet person, with his instinct of locality as well developed as an Indian's, and contented with life, since he only wanted one thing--a war. I think he travelled by scent, since it would have been simple enough to have gone over easier places; but Burgess despised ease, and where the fallen timber was thickest and the slopes 60, there you would find Burgess and his tight little pony picking along.

Both Captains Anderson and Scott have a p.r.o.nounced weakness for geysers, and were always stopping at every little steam-jet to examine it. I suppose they feel a personal responsibility in having them go regularly; one can almost imagine a telegram to "turn on more steam."

They rode recklessly over the geyser formation, to my discomfort, because it is very thin and hazardous, and to break through is to be boiled. One instinctively objects to that form of cooking. The most gorgeous colors are observed in this geyser formation; in fact, I have never seen nature so generous in this respect elsewhere. I wondered that the pack-mules did not walk into the sissing holes, but I suspect a mule is a bit of a geologist in his way, and as most of them have been in the government service for thirty or forty years, they have learned how to conserve their well-being. There is a tradition that one was considerably overdone once in a geyser-hole, so they may have taken warning. Who can understand a mule? The packer leads the old bell-mare off to a feeding-ground, and the whole bunch of mules go racing after her, and chains wouldn't hold them. The old bell-mare takes across a nasty chasm or a dirty slough-hole, and as the tinkle of the little cow-bell is losing itself in the timber beyond, one after another they put their ears forward and follow on.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BELL-MARE OVER A BAD PLACE]

We pa.s.sed up a cleft in the hills, and were swallowed up in the pine and cedar forest. Presently the cleft ended, and nothing but good honest climbing was in front. There began my first experience in riding over the fallen timber, which obstructs all the northwestern Rocky Mountains. Once up in British Columbia I did it, but had trails, and I childishly imagined that there must also be trails wherever men wanted to go. Crisscross and all about lay the great peeled logs, and travel was slow, toilsome, and with anything but horses trained to it would have been impossible.

A good horse or mule, once accustomed, makes little of it, but on the steep down grades the situation is complicated by fallen logs, which it is necessary to "bucket" over, and then stop dead on an incline of 50, with a couple of miles of tumble if he fails. The timber grew thicker, and when Burgess would get us in a hopeless sort of place, Captain A. would sing out to Captain S., "Burgess is on the trail now"; and when it was fairly good going, "Now he is off." But nothing could rattle Mr. Burgess, and he continued calmly on his journey, the destination of which, it seemed, could be nothing short of the moon.

Finally we found ourselves seemingly so inextricably tangled up that even Burgess had to scratch his head. One mule was hung up hopelessly, while the rest crowded around us into the _chevaux-de-frise_ of logs, and merrily wound through the labyrinth the old Sixth Cavalry "gag,"

"Here's where we trot."

To complete the effect of this pa.s.sage it began to rain, and shortly to pelt us with hailstones, so we stopped under some trees to let it pa.s.s, and two people who should know better dismounted and got their saddles wet, while another, more wise in his generation, sat tight, and was rewarded later for his display of intelligence. By-and-by, wet and tired of fallen timber, we came into the Little Fire-hole Basin, and found buffalo signs in abundance. We were in great hopes of seeing some of these animals, but I may as well add that only one was seen on the trip, though there was fresh spoor, and they were undoubtedly about. We found no pony tracks either, which was more to the soldiers'

liking, since they are intrusted with the protection of the Park against poachers.

In this way squads are sent over the Park, and instructed not to follow the regular trails, but to go to the most unfrequented places, so that they may at any time happen on a malicious person, and perhaps be able to do as one scout did--photograph the miscreant with his own camera.

After a good day's march we made camp by a little lake, and picketed our horses, while the mules ran loose around the bell-mare. Our appet.i.tes had been sharpened by a nine hours' fast, when a soldier called us to the "commissaries" which were spread out on a pack canvas. It was the usual military "grub," and no hungry man can find fault with that.

"Any man who can't eat bacon can't fight," as Captain Scott said; so if any reader wants to be a soldier he must have a mania for bacon, it seems. "This is the stuff that makes soldiers brave," he added, as the coffee-pot came around, and we fell to, and left a dreary waste of empty tins for the cook to pick up. We lighted our pipes after the banquet on the gra.s.s, and walked down to the sh.o.r.e of the beautiful pond, which seemed so strangely situated up there on the very crest of the continental divide. There are only three seasons in these alt.i.tudes, which the boys divide into July, August, and Winter, and the nights are always chilly. An inch or two of snow may fall even in mid-summer. In winter the snow covers the ground to a great depth, as we can tell by the trees. Nothing grows but rather stunted fir and pine and a little gra.s.s of the most hardy variety. The rounds of the Park are then made by mounting the cavalry on the _ski_, or Norwegian snow-shoe, and with its aid men travel the desolate snow-clad wilderness from one "shack" to another. Small squads of three or four men are quartered in these remote recesses of the savage mountains, and remain for eight months on a stretch. The camps are provisioned for the arctic siege, and what is stranger yet is that soldiers rather like it, and freely apply for this detached service. There is little of the "pomp and vanity" in this soldiering, and it shows good spirit on the part of the enlisted men. They are dressed in fur caps, California blanket coats, leggings, and moccasins--a strange uniform for a cavalryman, and also quite a commentary on what are commonly called the vicissitudes of the service.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOWN THE MOUNTAIN]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GETTING GRUB]

In the early morning our tent was pulled down, and our bedding packed off almost before we had disentangled ourselves from its sheltering folds. The well-trained troopers went about their task of breaking camp with method and address. Burgess and a young soldier pulled a reluctant strawberry-blond mule out of the line of pack-animals, and throwing a blind over his face, proceeded to lay the blanket and adjust the _aparejo_. With a heave the _cincha_ is hauled tight, and the load laid on, while the expert throws the "diamond hitch," and the mule and pack are integral parts. This packing of nine mules was accomplished with great rapidity, and laying our saddles carefully, we mounted and followed the scouts off down the trail in single file on a toilsome march which would probably not end until three or four o'clock in the afternoon. We wound around the spurs of hills, and then across a marsh, with its yielding treacherous bottom, where the horses floundered, and one mule went down and made the mud and water fly in his struggles, while my apprehensions rose to fever-pitch as I recognized my grip-sack on his load, and not likely to be benefited by the operation. At the head-waters of these rivers--and it may be said that this little purling brook is really the source of the Missouri itself, although not so described--there is abundance of soggy marsh, which makes travel extremely difficult. In one place Captain Anderson's horse went belly-deep on a concealed quag made by a stream coming out of the side of the hill, and rolling back, fell heavily on the captain, and for a time it was rather a question whether the horse would get out or not; but by dint of exertion he regained firm ground.

When a big strong horse gets into a slough the dorsal action is terrific, and it is often necessary to dismount quickly to aid him out. We crossed the great divide of the continent at a place where the slope was astonishingly steep and the fallen timber thickly strewn. It was as thoroughly experimental travelling as I have ever seen, unless possibly over a lava-rock formation which I essayed last winter on the western slope of the Sierra Madre, in Chihuahua; and yet there is a fascination about being balanced on those balloonlike heights, where a misstep means the end of horse and rider. I was glad enough, though, when we struck the parklike levels of the Pitchstone plateau as the scene of our further progression. If one has never travelled horseback over the Rocky Mountains there is a new and distinct sensation before him quite as vigorous as his first six-barred gate, or his first yacht-race with the quarter-rail awash.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WORKING UP THE DIVIDE]

All through the Park were seen hundreds of wild-geese, so tame that they would hardly fly from us. It was a great temptation to shoot, but the doughty captain said he would run me off the reservation at a turkey-trot if I did shoot, and since I believed him I could restrain myself. The streams and marshes were full of beaver-dams, and the little mud-and-stick houses rose from the pools, while here and there we saw the purl of the quiet water as they glided about. This part is exactly as primitive as when the lonely trapper Coulter made his famous journey through it, and one cannot but wonder what must have been his astonishment at the unnatural steaming and boiling of the geysers, which made the Park known from his descriptions as "Coulter's h.e.l.l."

From the breast of the mountains overlooking the great Shoshonee Lake there opened up the most tremendous sight as the waters stretched away in their blue placidity to the timbered hills. The way down to the sh.o.r.es was the steepest place I have ever seen horses and mules attempt. In one place, where the two steep sides of the canon dipped together, it was cut by a nasty seam some six feet deep, which we had to "bucket over" and maintain a footing on the other side. After finding myself safely over, I watched the shower of pack-mules come sliding down and take the jump. One mule was so far overbalanced that for a moment I thought he would lose his centre of gravity, which had been in his front feet, but he sprang across to the opposite slope and was safe. Horses trained to this work do marvels, and old Pat was a "topper" at the business. I gave him his head, and he justified my trust by negotiating all the details without a miss. On a sandy "siding" he spread his feet and slid with an avalanche of detached hill-side. Old Pat's ears stuck out in front in an anxious way, as if to say, "If we hit anything solid, I'll stop"; while from behind came the cheery voice of Captain Scott, "Here's where we trot."

On the sh.o.r.es of the Shoshonee we camped, and walked over to the famous Union Geysers, which began to boil and sputter, apparently for our especial benefit. In a few minutes two jets of boiling water shot a hundred feet in air, and came down in rain on the other side, while a rainbow formed across it. The roar of the great geysers was awe-inspiring; it was like the exhaust of a thousand locomotives, and Mr. Burgess nudged me and remarked, "h.e.l.l's right under here."

Near the geysers, hidden away in a depression, we found a pool of water of a beautiful and curious green, while not twenty feet from it was one of a sulphur yellow. There was a big elk track in the soft mud leading into it, but no counter track coming out. There had been a woodland tragedy there.

The utility of a geyser-hole is not its least attraction to a traveller who has a day's acc.u.mulation of dust and sweat on him. I found one near the camp which ran into a little mountain stream, and made a tepid bath, of which I availed myself, and also got a cup of hot water, by the aid of which I "policed my face," as the soldiers call shaving.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BURGESS FINDING A FORD]

The next day we encountered one of those great spongy mountain meadows, which we were forced to skirt on the rocky timber-strewn hill-sides, until finally we ventured into it. We curved and zigzagged through its treacherous mazes, fording and recrossing the stream in search of solid ground. Burgess's little gray pony put his foot forward in a gingerly way, and when satisfied, plunged in and floundered through. The pony had a positive genius for mora.s.ses. We followed him into the mud, or plunged off the steep sides into the roaring river, and, to my intense satisfaction, at last struck a good pony trail. "Now Burgess is off the trail!" we cried, whereat the modest little scout grinned cheerfully. From here on it was "fair and easy," until we came to the regular stage-road, to travel on which it seemed to us a luxury.

This expedition is typical of the manner of policing the Park, and it is generally monotonous, toilsome, and uneventful work; and the usefulness of such a _chevau-chee_ is that it leaves the track of the cavalry horse-shoe in the most remote parts of the preserve, where the poacher or interloper can see it, and become apprehensive in consequence of the dangers which attend his operations. That an old trapper might work quietly there for a long time I do not doubt, if he only visited his line of traps in the early morning or late evening and was careful of his trail, but such damage as he could do would be trivial. Two regiments could not entirely prevent poaching in the mountain wastes of the great reservation, but two troops are successful enough at the task. It is a great game-preserve and breeding-ground, and, if not disturbed, must always give an overflow into Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, which will make big game shooting there for years to come. The unreasoning antipathy or malicious disregard of the American pioneer for game-laws and game-preservation is somewhat excusable, but the lines of the pioneer are now cast in new places, and his days of lawless _abandon_ are done. The regulation for the punishment of Park offenders is inadequate, and should be made more severe. The Park is also full of beasts of prey, the bear being very numerous. A fine grizzly was trapped by some of the superintendent's men and shipped to the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution while I was there. Near the Fountain Hotel one evening a young army surgeon and myself walked up to within one hundred and fifty yards of a big grizzly, who was not disposed to run off. Being unarmed, we concluded that our point of view was close enough, and as the bear seemed to feel the same way about it, we parted.

Americans have a national treasure in the Yellowstone Park, and they should guard it jealously. Nature has made her wildest patterns here, has brought the boiling waters from her greatest depths to the peaks which bear eternal snow, and set her masterpiece with pools like jewels. Let us respect her moods, and let the beasts she nurtures in her bosom live, and when the man from Oshkosh writes his name with a blue pencil on her sacred face, let him spend six months where the scenery is circ.u.mscribed and entirely artificial.

A MODEL SQUADRON

I am not quite sure that I should not say "The Model Colonel," since every one knows men and horses are much alike when they have first pa.s.sed under the eye of the recruiting officer and the remount board, and every one knows that colonels are very unlike, so that a model squadron or a model troop is certain to owe its superiority to its commander; but as we are observing the product in this instance, let the t.i.tle stand as above stated.

The model squadron aforesaid is quartered across the Potomac from Washington in Fort Meyer, which is the only purely cavalry post in the country. Everywhere else the troops are mixed, and the commandant may be of any arm of the service. Here they are all cavalry, with cavalry officers and cavalry ideas, and are not hindered by dismounted theories, or pick-and-shovel work, or any of the hundreds of things which hamper equally good "yellow legs" in other posts. There are many pa.s.sable misdemeanors in this post, but only one crime, and that is bad riding. There is little dismounted work, and any soldier can have his horse out on a pa.s.s, so long as he does not abuse the privilege; and when he does, it's plenty of walking falls to his lot.

There is a large brick riding-hall of approved pattern, which enables the men to do their work in all weathers. The four troops now quartered there are from the First, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth regiments, which creates a good-natured rivalry, very conducive to thorough work. It is the opinion of General Henry that one old troop should always be left at this post as a pace-setter for the newly transferred ones, which seems reasonable.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL GUY V. HENRY, SEVENTH UNITED STATES CAVALRY]

Now to tell what the preparatory discipline is to the magnificent riding which can be seen any morning by spectators who are "game for a journey" to the fort by ten o'clock, I must say that General Guy V.

Henry is a flaming fire of cavalry enthusiasm. He has one idea--a great broad expanse of principle--ever so simple in itself, but it is basic, and nothing can become so complicated that he cannot revert to his simple idea and by it regulate the whole. It is the individual training of the horse and rider. One bad rider or one unbroken horse can disarrange the whole troop movement, and "woe to him" who is not up to concert pitch! "Who is the scoundrel, the lummux, humph?" and the colonel, who is a brevet-brigadier-general, strides up and down, and fire comes from his nostrils. "Prefer charges against him, captain!" and the worst befalls. The unfortunate trooper has committed the highest crime which the commandant of Fort Meyer knows--he cannot ride.

A soldier becomes a rider by being bucketed about on a bareback horse, or he dies. The process is simple, the tanbark soft, and none have died up to date, but all have attained the other alternative. This is unimportant; but the horse--it is to his education that the oceans of patience and the mountains of intelligence are brought to bear. It is all in the books if any one cares to go into it. It is the gathering of the horse; it is the legs carried to the rear of the girths; it is the perfect hand and the instant compliance of the horse with the signs as indicated by the rider; it is the backing, the pa.s.saging, the leading with either foot, and the pivoting on the front legs; it is the throwing of horses, the acquisition of gaits, and the nice bitting; it is one hundred little struggles with the brute until he comes to understand and to know that he must do his duty. It all looks beautifully simple, but in practice we know that while it is not difficult to teach a horse, it is quite another matter to unteach him, so in these horses at least no mistakes have been made. After all this, one fine sunny Friday morning the people drove out from Washington in their traps and filed into the galleries and sat down--fair women and brave men; of the former we are sure, and of the latter we trust. The colonel blew a whistle--ye G.o.ds, what a sacrilege against all the traditions of this dear old United States army!--and in rode Captain Bomus's troop of the First Plungers, which I cannot but love, since I am an honorary member of their officers' mess, and fondly remember the fellows who are now sniffing alkali dust down in Arizona. They were riding with blankets and surcingles, and did their part of a drill, the sequence of which I have forgotten, since it was divided with the three other troops--Captain Bell's, of the Seventh, Captain Hughes's, of the Ninth, and Captain Fountain's, of the Eighth.

I felt a strong personal interest in some of these men, for memory took me back to a night's ride in Dakota with a patrol of the Ninth, when they were all wrapped in buffalo-skin overcoats, with white frost on their lapels; the horses' noses wore icicles, and the dry snow creaked under the tread of the hoofs as we rode over the starlit plain and through the black shadows of the _coulees_. I had pounded along also through the dust in the wake of this troop of the Eighth when it wasn't so cold, but was equally uncomfortable.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RIDING SITTING ON LEGS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: OVER THE HURDLE BACK TO BACK]

The sharp commands of the captain soon put the troop in motion, and they trotted along with a cadenced tread, every man a part of his horse; they broke into fours and wheeled to the right about, then into line and wound themselves up in the "spiral," and unwound again, and soon brought order out of a mess, and the regular canter was ever the same. Then low hurdles were strung across the hall, and by column of fours the troop went over, never breaking the formation; to the rear they turned and back again; finally they took the obstacle in line, and every horse rose as though impelled by the same mechanism. As if this was not enough, every second man was dismounted and put on double with a comrade, not with his breast to his comrade's back, but back to back, and then in line the odd cavalcade charged the hurdles, and took them every one. It was not an individual bucketing of one horse after another, but all in line and all together. After this what could there be more to test the "glue" in these troopers' seats? There was more, however, and in this wise: The saddles were put on, but without any girths, and all the movements were gone through with again, ending up with a charge down the hall, and bringing up against the wall of the spectators' stand at a sharp "halt," which would have unseated a monkey from a trick-mule.

The horses were all thrown by pulling their heads about, and one cavalryman amused himself by jumping over his prostrate mount. They rode "at will," and stood upon their knees on their horses' backs. One big animal resented carrying double, and did something which in Texas would be called "pitching," but it was scarcely a genuine sample, since the grinning soldiers made little of it.

The troop of the Ninth executed a "left backward turn" with beautiful precision, and this difficult undertaking will serve to give one an idea of the training of the mounts.

Gymnastics of all sorts were indulged in, even to the extent of turning summersaults over four horses from a spring-board. A citizen near me, whose mind had probably wandered back to Barnum and Bailey, said:

[Ill.u.s.tration: THROWING A HORSE]

"But what's this got to do with soldiers; is it not highly flavored with circus?"

I could offer no excuse except the tradition that cavalrymen are supposed to ride well. All the men were young and in first-rate physical fix, and seemed to enjoy the thing--all except one old first sergeant, who had been time-expired these half-dozen times, whose skin was so full of bullet-holes that it wouldn't hold blood, and who had entered this new regime with many protests:

"O'me nau circus ape; I can't be leppin' around afther the likes av thim!" whereat the powers arranged it so that the old veteran got a job looking after plug tobacco, tomato-cans, tinned beef, and other "commissaries," upon which he viewed the situation more cheerfully.

The drill was tremendously entertaining to the ladies and gentlemen in the gallery, and they clapped their hands and went bustling into their traps and off down the road to the general's house, where Madam the General gave a breakfast, and the women no doubt asked the second lieutenants deliciously foolish questions about their art. The gentlemen, some of whom are Congressmen and other exalted governmental functionaries, felt proud of the cavalry, and went home with a determination to combat any one hostile to cavalry legislation, if a bold front and firm purpose could stay the desecrating hand.