Rocky Mountain Boys Part 1

Rocky Mountain Boys.

by St. George Rathborne.

CHAPTER I

COMRADES OF THE TRAIL

"We must be pretty nearly there now, Tom, I take it!"

"I reckon we'll sight the dugout inside of half an hour or so, Felix; if the description, and the little chart old Sol Ten Eyck gave me, are correct."

"Well, I'll sure be glad when we arrive, because this pack is getting heavier, it seems to me, every hour now. One thing certain, Chum Tom, we'll go out of this part of the country a heap lighter than we're coming in; with all this good grub swallowed up after two months roughing it. Been three days on the trail now, since Frazer turned us loose out of his big bull-boat."

They were two pretty well-grown boys, the one tall and slender; while the other, whom he called Tom, seemed stockily built, with the ruddy hue of perfect health on his sun and wind tanned cheeks.

Tom was really Tom Tucker, and the taller young hunter, Felix Edmondson.

Besides repeating rifles of a modern make, and such ordinary accompaniments as ditty bags and hunting knives, the lads were carrying heavy packs on their backs, to each of which were also strapped a pair of snow-shoes, proving that they antic.i.p.ated staying around the foothills of the great Rocky Mountains, for some time at least, and were prepared for getting around when several feet of snow covered the ground.

They were in a region not a great distance from the border of that Wonderland which Uncle Sam has transferred into a grand playground, known far and wide as the Yellowstone Park. In fact, a range of the Rocky Mountains towered almost above them as they looked up, standing out against the blue afternoon sky like a rock-ribbed barrier.

Around them lay the great forest that in many places grows at the base of the giant uplifts that are well called the back-bone of the continent. It was a wild region, seldom pressed by the foot of man; save when some Indian or trapper chose to pursue his calling--the "primeval wilderness," Felix was fond of calling it, in his humorous way.

Felix was a city-bred boy who had ambitions to take up his father's profession later in life, and shine as a surgeon. But not being very strong, it was under this parent's wise advice that he was now knocking off for a year from his studies, and getting in the great Outdoors all he possibly could, in order to build himself up, so as to have a good foundation for the hard work that lay before him.

And he was succeeding wonderfully, since there is nothing better under the sun to change a weakly boy into a st.u.r.dy man than this free life of the Wild West. If proof of this statement were needed, it could be demonstrated in the life of Theodore Roosevelt himself, who took the same course of treatment.

As for Tom Tucker, he had always lived pretty much in the open ever since his father bought that Wyoming cattle range with its herds.

Between times Tom had attended school, so that he was far from being ignorant; the fact of his great love of reading also put him in touch with what was going on in the world, whether in the line of scientific discoveries, exploration, or the constant change in the map of nations.

The two lads were really cousins, and it was while Felix was paying a long promised lengthy visit to the home of the other that this trip to the foothills of the Rockies was discussed and decided on.

Just at present the one great ambition in the life of the city lad was to bag a genuine grizzly bear. He had done considerable hunting of smaller game, having spent two seasons in the woods, one up in Maine, and the other in Canada. While he had more than one deer to his credit, besides wildcats, and even a wolf, Felix had conceived a desire to come face to face with the most dreaded wild animal of the American wilds, the grizzly.

So they had organized this expedition, being taken in a bull-boat as far on the way as was possible; and after that manfully shouldering their heavy packs. Under such conditions they did not cover many miles a day, which accounted for their being so long on the road.

But as Tom Tucker had said, they were now pretty near the end of their trail, and he fervently hoped that ere darkness descended they would have reached the goal of all their ambitious progress.

An old trapper with whom Tom had spent part of a season in another part of the big game country, had a dugout up here, in which he used to hibernate winter after winter, sometimes with a tried and true companion, often absolutely alone; content to live his simple life under the shadow of the mighty Rockies, and take his toll of the fur-bearing animals that frequented this favored region.

Tom had a rude map of the country, as well as directions, how to find the dugout when he got there. And here the two boys antic.i.p.ated putting in about two months of the late fall and early winter, doing a little trapping, just for fun, and considerable hunting besides.

Naturally they expected having a glorious time, as what boy, with a love for the woods and the chase, would not?

The leaves had long since turned a russet brown, and any day now they might expect the first snow of the season to fall. It was a time when the bracing air was filled with a tonic which Felix needed more than anything else in the wide world; and as his lungs filled with its life-giving qualities, the boy from the Far East was never tired of telling how different he was feeling from the conditions of a few months back.

As they struggled onward, hoping at almost any minute now to sight their goal, the two boys exchanged remarks concerning the matters that were naturally uppermost in their minds.

"You said that Old Sol hadn't been up here for several seasons now, didn't you, Tom?" the taller lad was asking.

"Why, yes," the other replied, "you see, the old fellow isn't as strong as he used to be, and does his hunting nearer his sister's home. Fact is, she won't let him come up here any more; and there are a lot of youngsters in her family, too, that Sol has become interested in. So he's satisfied to keep around there, if only they let him take a week now and then in the woods, with a comrade. That's how I came to know him, and often we spent some mighty fine days together. He taught me about all I know of trapping, and lots besides about the habits of big game animals. I'm itching to make use of some of the things that Old Sol handed down to me."

"And the traps he said he had catched up here, do you reckon, now, they'll be in decent condition, or rusted all to pieces?" Felix continued.

"Well," Tom observed, "he said he had rubbed them all over with bear's grease, and rolled them up in a leather cover, before he hid them away; so he expected they'd keep in fair shape many years. We'll have to take our chances on that. It wasn't the hope of making anything at trapping that fetched us away up here, you know. That's only a little side issue, you might say, just to see if we've learned anything about the game."

"One thing sure, Tom, this region doesn't seem to be overrun with settlers, seeing that we haven't met a solitary soul these three days; while game seems fairly plentiful, because we sighted seven black-tailed deer on the way, and had a peep at some bighorn sheep yesterday away up on the mountain."

"I've seen no sign of any one around but they told us below that once in a while some Indian was known to be in this part of the country, doing his winter's trapping. And you remember, they said that if we happened to run across an old Shoshone chief, who now goes by the name of Charley Crow, and who sometimes acts as guide for Eastern sportsmen, we ought to cultivate his acquaintance, because he has the reputation of being the straightest redskin in the whole State of Wyoming."

"I remember that they said he was really a halfbreed," remarked Felix; "but his wife is a full blood. Perhaps we may happen to run across the old fellow while we're up here. I'd like to meet him, wouldn't you, Tom?"

"Well, I don't know," replied the other, with a shrug of his broad shoulders, on which the big pack seemed to rest so easily in comparison with the way that of Felix gave him trouble; "I must say, that so far I've never run across an Injun I'd care much to cultivate. They're not what they used to be. The white man's whisky has changed them terribly.

In the old days they never worked, only hunted; and went to war; while the squaws did all the drudgery in camp. And now, as a rule, they are just satisfied to loaf their lives away, fed by the bounty of the White Father at Washington--gambling and drinking, and doing a little stealing, when everything else fails them."

"But on the reservations many of them farm, and I understand with success, too," remonstrated Felix.

"Oh, sure, that must be a fact," admitted Tom, readily enough, "though I've never seen it; but others have told me that many of the braves have taken to farming, and are doing well. I was only speaking of the Injuns who wouldn't change their way of living. But Felix, take a look at that monster tree over there. Seems to me that answers the description Old Sol gives of the big one overhanging his hidden dugout."

Felix heaved a sigh of relief, as with one hand he mopped his forehead, using a red bandana handkerchief which he wore knotted around his neck in true cowboy fashion; for despite the coolness of the day, the labor had heated him up considerably.

"I hope so, Tom," he remarked, trying to act as though after all it was not such a vital matter whether or not they came upon the shack that day or the next; but all the same his eyes eagerly sought the vicinity of the big tree, and he was trying to make out something vaguely resembling the shape of a rough dugout near its base.

They kept on advancing, and Tom suddenly gave utterance to an exclamation of intense satisfaction.

"We've arrived, all right, Felix!" he declared, positively. "It must lie in that tangle under the shadow of the tree. And say, this just suits me all to the good. Look around, and think of spending a whole two months in such a grand stretch of country. Here are the woods around us, where we must surely find lots of deer and other game; and there stands the range of mountains, where you're going to bag that grizzly you want so bad, not to speak of big-horns, such as can be found in no other section of the known world, I'm told. For one I'll feel like dancing a jig if it turns out that we've come on Old Sol's shack at last."

"Well, it'd take a whole lot to tempt me to do that same," chuckled Felix; "and anyhow, I'm not going to begin till we make sure. When I throw this pack down for the last time I'll be pretty happy, though, Tom, believe me."

"It has been pretty hard on you, Felix, for a fact," observed the other, "for the reason that you've not been used to carrying heavy packs on your back, like I am. Look at my shoulders and see what I could stand. I wanted you to let me take more of it in my load, you remember."

"Oh! just as if you hadn't picked out all the heaviest things already,"

declared Felix, indignantly, "why, I'm dead sure your bundle weighs a third again as much as mine does, right now. I'd be ashamed to let you tote it all, Tom, however willing you were. But do you see anything that looks like that blessed old dugout?"

Hardly had he asked this question than the other started on a run.

"That's what I do, Felix, right through that screen of bushes that serves to hide it from any one who didn't have a tip it was there. Make up your mind we're at the end of our long tramp, and in another hour you'll smell smoke, perhaps the tempting odor of coffee cooking. Hurrah!

what did I tell you, old boy?"

There could no longer be any doubt, for as they broke their way through the vines and brush that had not been disturbed for several years, they looked upon a sort of half cabin, and the rest dugout. The rise of the ground had allowed Old Sol to construct an ideal winter hiding-place, with the great mountains to protect him from the worst of the chilling northwest winds and storms.

Down went both packs instantly. Tom began to caper around, to show his delight, and Felix actually followed suit; but more to get some of the "kinks" out of his weary leg muscles, for that last day's tramp had sorely tried the city boy.

"Here it is, just as he described it to me!" exclaimed Tom, staring hard at the singular little shelter where the trapper had spent many a happy season, content to gather his share of the pelts of the wild animals that wore valuable fur; and secure enough meat for his own consumption from the elk, black-tailed deer, or it might be, some antelope that lingered late in the Fall in the gra.s.sy valleys of the foothills.

"I suppose we might as well take a look in," remarked Felix, presently.

"That's right," replied the other, readily enough. "You see, such a thing as locks are unknown in this country. Notice that the door has a bar on the outside that simply holds it shut when the owner is away, so that wild animals will not have a chance to sneak in, and steal his grub. Well, all we have to do is just to give this bar a turn--whew! she moves hard, as if stuck there--then push open the door, and enter!"