The Mountains Part 14

The cow staggered to her feet, her eyes blazing fire. She took one good look, and then started for Sang.

What followed occurred with all the briskness of a tune from a circus band. Sang darted for the corral fence. Now, three sides of the corral were railed, and so climbable, but the fourth was a solid adobe wall. Of course Sang went for the wall. There, finding his nails would not stick, he fled down the length of it, his queue streaming, his eyes popping, his talons curved toward an ideal of safety, gibbering strange monkey talk, pursued a scant arm's length behind by that infuriated cow. Did any one help him? Not any. Every man of that crew was hanging weak from laughter to the horn of his saddle or the top of the fence. The preternatural solemnity had broken to little bits. Men came running from the bunk-house, only to go into spasms outside, to roll over and over on the ground, clutching handfuls of herbage in the agony of their delight.

At the end of the corral was a narrow chute. Into this Sang escaped as into a burrow. The cow came too. Sang, in desperation, seized a pole, but the cow dashed such a feeble weapon aside. Sang caught sight of a little opening, too small for cows, back into the main corral. He squeezed through. The cow crashed through after him, smashing the boards. At the crucial moment Sang tripped and fell on his face. The cow missed him by so close a margin that for a moment we thought she had hit. But she had not, and before she could turn, Sang had topped the fence and was halfway to the kitchen. Tom Waters always maintained that he spread his Chinese sleeves and flew. Shortly after a tremendous smoke arose from the kitchen chimney. Sang had gone back to cooking.

Now that Mongolian was really in great danger, but no one of the outfit thought for a moment of any but the humorous aspect of the affair.

a.n.a.logously, in a certain small cow-town I happened to be transient when the postmaster shot a Mexican. Nothing was done about it. The man went right on being postmaster, but he had to set up the drinks because he had hit the Mexican in the stomach. That was considered a poor place to hit a man.

The entire town of Willc.o.x knocked off work for nearly a day to while away the tedium of an enforced wait there on my part. They wanted me to go fishing. One man offered a team, the other a saddle-horse. All expended much eloquence in directing me accurately, so that I should be sure to find exactly the spot where I could hang my feet over a bank beneath which there were "a plumb plenty of fish." Somehow or other they raked out miscellaneous tackle. But they were a little too eager.

I excused myself and hunted up a map. Sure enough the lake was there, but it had been dry since a previous geological period. The fish were undoubtedly there too, but they were fossil fish. I borrowed a pickaxe and shovel and announced myself as ready to start.

Outside the princ.i.p.al saloon in one town hung a gong. When a stranger was observed to enter the saloon, that gong was sounded. Then it behooved him to treat those who came in answer to the summons.

But when it comes to a case of real hospitality or helpfulness, your cowboy is there every time. You are welcome to food and shelter without price, whether he is at home or not. Only it is etiquette to leave your name and thanks pinned somewhere about the place. Otherwise your intrusion may be considered in the light of a theft, and you may be pursued accordingly.

Contrary to general opinion, the cowboy is not a dangerous man to those not looking for trouble. There are occasional exceptions, of course, but they belong to the universal genus of bully, and can be found among any cla.s.s. Attend to your own business, be cool and good-natured, and your skin is safe. Then when it is really "up to you," be a man; you will never lack for friends.

The Sierras, especially towards the south where the meadows are wide and numerous, are full of cattle in small bands. They come up from the desert about the first of June, and are driven back again to the arid countries as soon as the autumn storms begin. In the very high land they are few, and to be left to their own devices; but now we entered a new sort of country.

Below Farewell Gap and the volcanic regions one's surroundings change entirely. The meadows become high flat valleys, often miles in extent; the mountains--while registering big on the aneroid--are so little elevated above the plateaus that a few thousand feet is all of their apparent height; the pa.s.ses are low, the slopes easy, the trails good, the rock outcrops few, the hills grown with forests to their very tops.

Altogether it is a country easy to ride through, rich in grazing, cool and green, with its eight thousand feet of elevation. Consequently during the hot months thousands of desert cattle are pastured here; and with them come many of the desert men.

Our first intimation of these things was in the volcanic region where swim the golden trout. From the advantage of a hill we looked far down to a hair-gra.s.s meadow through which twisted tortuously a brook, and by the side of the brook, belittled by distance, was a miniature man. We could see distinctly his every movement, as he approached cautiously the stream's edge, dropped his short line at the end of a stick over the bank, and then yanked bodily the fish from beneath. Behind him stood his pony. We could make out in the clear air the coil of his raw-hide "rope," the glitter of his silver bit, the metal points on his saddle skirts, the polish of his six-shooter, the gleam of his fish, all the details of his costume. Yet he was fully a mile distant.

After a time he picked up his string of fish, mounted, and jogged loosely away at the cow-pony's little Spanish trot toward the south.

Over a week later, having caught golden trout and climbed Mount Whitney, we followed him and so came to the great central camp at Monache Meadows.

Imagine an island-dotted lake of gra.s.s four or five miles long by two or three wide to which slope regular sh.o.r.es of stony soil planted with trees. Imagine on the very edge of that lake an especially fine grove perhaps a quarter of a mile in length, beneath whose trees a dozen different outfits of cowboys are camped for the summer. You must place a herd of ponies in the foreground, a pine mountain at the back, an unbroken ridge across ahead, cattle dotted here and there, thousands of ravens wheeling and croaking and flapping everywhere, a marvelous clear sun and blue sky. The camps were mostly open, though a few possessed tents. They differed from the ordinary in that they had racks for saddles and equipments. Especially well laid out were the cooking arrangements. A dozen accommodating springs supplied fresh water with the conveniently regular s.p.a.cing of faucets.

Towards evening the men jingled in. This summer camp was almost in the nature of a vacation to them after the hard work of the desert. All they had to do was to ride about the pleasant hills examining that the cattle did not stray nor get into trouble. It was fun for them, and they were in high spirits.

Our immediate neighbors were an old man of seventy-two and his grandson of twenty-five. At least the old man said he was seventy-two. I should have guessed fifty. He was as straight as an arrow, wiry, lean, clear-eyed, and had, without food, ridden twelve hours after some strayed cattle. On arriving he threw off his saddle, turned his horse loose, and set about the construction of supper. This consisted of boiled meat, strong tea, and an incredible number of flapjacks built of water, baking-powder, salt, and flour, warmed through--not cooked--in a frying-pan. He deluged these with mola.s.ses and devoured three platefuls. It would have killed an ostrich, but apparently did this decrepit veteran of seventy-two much good.

After supper he talked to us most interestingly in the dry cowboy manner, looking at us keenly from under the floppy brim of his hat. He confided to us that he had had to quit smoking, and it ground him--he'd smoked since he was five years old.

"Tobacco doesn't agree with you any more?" I hazarded.

"Oh, 'taint that," he replied; "only I'd ruther chew."

The dark fell, and all the little camp-fires under the trees twinkled bravely forth. Some of the men sang. One had an accordion. Figures, indistinct and formless, wandered here and there in the shadows, suddenly emerging from mystery into the clarity of firelight, there to disclose themselves as visitors. Out on the plain the cattle lowed, the horses nickered. The red firelight flashed from the metal of suspended equipment, crimsoned the bronze of men's faces, touched with pink the high lights on their gracefully rec.u.mbent forms. After a while we rolled up in our blankets and went to sleep, while a band of coyotes wailed like lost spirits from a spot where a steer had died.

[1] See especially Jackson Himes in The Blazed Trail; and The Rawhide.

XX

THE GOLDEN TROUT

After Farewell Gap, as has been hinted, the country changes utterly.

Possibly that is why it is named Farewell Gap. The land is wild, weird, full of twisted trees, strangely colored rocks, fantastic formations, bleak mountains of slabs, volcanic cones, lava, dry powdery soil or loose shale, close-growing gra.s.ses, and strong winds. You feel yourself in an upper world beyond the normal, where only the freakish cold things of nature, elsewhere crowded out, find a home. Camp is under a lonely tree, none the less solitary from the fact that it has companions. The earth beneath is characteristic of the treeless lands, so that these seem to have been stuck alien into it. There is no shelter save behind great fortuitous rocks. Huge marmots run over the boulders, like little bears. The wind blows strong. The streams run naked under the eye of the sun, exposing clear and yellow every detail of their bottoms. In them there are no deep hiding-places any more than there is shelter in the land, and so every fish that swims shows as plainly as in an aquarium.

We saw them as we rode over the hot dry shale among the hot and twisted little trees. They lay against the bottom, transparent; they darted away from the jar of our horses' hoofs; they swam slowly against the current, delicate as liquid shadows, as though the clear uniform golden color of the bottom had clouded slightly to produce these tenuous ghostly forms. We examined them curiously from the advantage our slightly elevated trail gave us, and knew them for the Golden Trout, and longed to catch some.

All that day our route followed in general the windings of this unique home of a unique fish. We crossed a solid natural bridge; we skirted fields of red and black lava, vivid as poppies; we gazed marveling on perfect volcano cones, long since extinct: finally we camped on a side hill under two tall branchless trees in about as bleak and exposed a position as one could imagine. Then all three, we jointed our rods and went forth to find out what the Golden Trout was like.

I soon discovered a number of things, as follows: The stream at this point, near its source, is very narrow--I could step across it--and flows beneath deep banks. The Golden Trout is shy of approach. The wind blows. Combining these items of knowledge I found that it was no easy matter to cast forty feet in a high wind so accurately as to hit a three-foot stream a yard below the level of the ground. In fact, the proposition was distinctly sporty; I became as interested in it as in accurate target-shooting, so that at last I forgot utterly the intention of my efforts and failed to strike my first rise. The second, however, I hooked, and in a moment had him on the gra.s.s.

He was a little fellow of seven inches, but mere size was nothing, the color was the thing. And that was indeed golden. I can liken it to nothing more accurately than the twenty-dollar gold-piece, the same satin finish, the same pale yellow. The fish was fairly molten. It did not glitter in gaudy burnishment, as does our aquarium gold-fish, for example, but gleamed and melted and glowed as though fresh from the mould. One would almost expect that on cutting the flesh it would be found golden through all its substance. This for the basic color. You must remember always that it was a true trout, without scales, and so the more satiny. Furthermore, along either side of the belly ran two broad longitudinal stripes of exactly the color and burnish of the copper paint used on racing yachts.

I thought then, and have ever since, that the Golden Trout, fresh from the water, is one of the most beautiful fish that swims. Unfortunately it fades very quickly, and so specimens in alcohol can give no idea of it. In fact, I doubt if you will ever be able to gain a very clear idea of it unless you take to the trail that leads up, under the end of which is known technically as the High Sierras.

The Golden Trout lives only in this one stream, but occurs there in countless mult.i.tudes. Every little pool, depression, or riffles has its school. When not alarmed they take the fly readily. One afternoon I caught an even hundred in a little over an hour. By way of parenthesis it may be well to state that most were returned unharmed to the water. They run small,--a twelve-inch fish is a monster,--but are of extraordinary delicacy for eating. We three devoured sixty-five that first evening in camp.

Now the following considerations seem to me at this point worthy of note. In the first place, the Golden Trout occurs but in this one stream, and is easily caught. At present the stream is comparatively inaccessible, so that the natural supply probably keeps even with the season's catches. Still the trail is on the direct route to Mount Whitney, and year by year the ascent of this "top of the Republic" is becoming more the proper thing to do. Every camping party stops for a try at the Golden Trout, and of course the fish-hog is a sure occasional migrant. The cowboys told of two who caught six hundred in a day. As the certainly increasing tide of summer immigration gains in volume, the Golden Trout, in spite of his extraordinary numbers at present, is going to be caught out.

Therefore, it seems the manifest duty of the Fisheries to provide for the proper protection and distribution of this species, especially the distribution. Hundreds of streams in the Sierras are without trout simply because of some natural obstruction, such as a waterfall too high to jump, which prevents their ascent of the current. These are all well adapted to the planting of fish, and might just as well be stocked by the Golden Trout as by the customary Rainbow. Care should be taken lest the two species become hybridized, as has occurred following certain misguided efforts in the South Fork of the Kern.

So far as I know but one attempt has been made to transplant these fish. About five or six years ago a man named Grant carried some in pails across to a small lake near at hand. They have done well, and curiously enough have grown to a weight of from one and a half to two pounds. This would seem to show that their small size in Volcano Creek results entirely from conditions of feed or opportunity for development, and that a study of proper environment might result in a game fish to rival the Rainbow in size and certainly to surpa.s.s him in curious interest.

A great many well-meaning people who have marveled at the abundance of the Golden Trout in their natural habitat laugh at the idea that Volcano Creek will ever become "fished out." To such it should be pointed out that the fish in question is a voracious feeder, is without shelter, and quickly landed. A simple calculation will show how many fish a hundred moderate anglers, camping a week apiece, would take out in a season. And in a short time there will be many more than a hundred, few of them moderate, coming up into the mountains to camp just as long as they have a good time. All it needs is better trails, and better trails are under way. Well-meaning people used to laugh at the idea that the buffalo and wild pigeons would ever disappear. They are gone.

XXI

ON GOING OUT

The last few days of your stay in the wilderness you will be consumedly anxious to get out. It does not matter how much of a savage you are, how good a time you are having, or how long you have been away from civilization. Nor does it mean especially that you are glad to leave the wilds. Merely does it come about that you drift unconcernedly on the stream of days until you approach the brink of departure: then irresistibly the current hurries you into haste. The last day of your week's vacation; the last three of your month's or your summer's or your year's outing,--these comprise the hours in which by a mighty but invisible transformation your mind forsakes its savagery, epitomizes again the courses of social evolution, regains the poise and cultivation of the world of men. Before that you have been content; yes, and would have gone on being content for as long as you please until the approach of the limit you have set for your wandering.

In effect this transformation from the state of savagery to the state of civilization is very abrupt. When you leave the towns your clothes and mind are new. Only gradually do they take on the color of their environment; only gradually do the subtle influences of the great forest steal in on your dulled faculties to flow over them in a tide that rises imperceptibly. You glide as gently from the artificial to the natural life as do the forest shadows from night to day. But at the other end the affair is different. There you awake on the appointed morning in complete resumption of your old att.i.tude of mind. The tide of nature has slipped away from you in the night.

Then you arise and do the most wonderful of your wilderness traveling.

On those days you look back fondly, of them you boast afterwards in telling what a rapid and enduring voyager you are. The biggest day's journey I ever undertook was in just such a case. We started at four in the morning through a forest of the early spring-time, where the trees were glorious overhead, but the walking ankle deep. On our backs were thirty-pound burdens. We walked steadily until three in the afternoon, by which time we had covered thirty miles and had arrived at what then represented civilization to us. Of the nine who started, two Indians finished an hour ahead; the half breed, Billy, and I staggered in together, encouraging each other by words concerning the bottle of beer we were going to buy; and the five white men never got in at all until after nine o'clock that night. Neither thirty miles, nor thirty pounds, nor ankle-deep slush sounds formidable when considered as abstract and separate propositions.

In your first glimpse of the civilized peoples your appearance in your own eyes will undergo the same instantaneous and tremendous revulsion that has already taken place in your mental sphere. Heretofore you have considered yourself as a decently well appointed gentleman of the woods. Ten to one, in contrast to the voluntary or enforced simplicity of the professional woodsman you have looked on your little luxuries of carved leather hat-band, fancy knife sheath, pearl-handled six-shooter, or khaki breeches as giving you slightly the air of a forest exquisite.

But on that depot platform or in presence of that staring group on the steps of the Pullman, you suddenly discover yourself to be nothing less than a disgrace to your bringing up. Nothing could be more evident than the flop of your hat, the faded, dusty appearance of your blue shirt, the beautiful black polish of your khakis, the grime of your knuckles, the three days' beard of your face. If you are a fool, you worry about it. If you are a sensible man, you do not mind;--and you prepare for amusing adventures.

The realization of your external unworthiness, however, brings to your heart the desire for a hot bath in a porcelain tub. You gloat over the thought; and when the dream comes to be a reality, you soak away in as voluptuous a pleasure as ever falls to the lot of man to enjoy. Then you shave, and array yourself minutely and preciously in clean clothes from head to toe, building up a new respectability, and you leave scornfully in a heap your camping garments. They have heretofore seemed clean, but now you would not touch them, no, not even to put them in the soiled-clothes basket, let your feminines rave as they may.

And for at least two days you prove an almost childish delight in mere raiment.

But before you can reach this blissful stage you have still to order and enjoy your first civilized dinner. It tastes good, not because your camp dinners have palled on you, but because your transformation demands its proper aliment. Fortunate indeed you are if you step directly to a transcontinental train or into the streets of a modern town. Otherwise the transition through the small-hotel provender is apt to offer too little contrast for the fullest enjoyment. But aboard the dining-car or in the cafe you will gather to yourself such ill-a.s.sorted succulence as thick, juicy beefsteaks, and creamed macaroni, and sweet potatoes, and pie, and red wine, and real cigars and other things.

In their acquisition your appearance will tell against you. We were once watched anxiously by a nervous female head waiter who at last mustered up courage enough to inform me that guests were not allowed to eat without coats. We politely pointed out that we possessed no such garments. After a long consultation with the proprietor she told us it was all right for this time, but that we must not do it again. At another place I had to identify myself as a responsible person by showing a picture in a magazine bought for the purpose.

The public never will know how to take you. Most of it treats you as though you were a two-dollar a day laborer; some of the more astute are puzzled. One February I walked out of the North Country on snowshoes and stepped directly into a Canadian Pacific transcontinental train. I was clad in fur cap, vivid blanket coat, corded trousers, German stockings and moccasins; and my only baggage was the pair of snowshoes.

It was the season of light travel. A single Englishman touring the world as the crow flies occupied the car. He looked at me so askance that I made an opportunity of talking to him. I should like to read his "Travels" to see what he made out of the riddle. In similar circ.u.mstances, and without explanation, I had fun talking French and swapping boulevard reminiscences with a member of a Parisian theatrical troupe making a long jump through northern Wisconsin. And once, at six of the morning, letting myself into my own house with a latch-key, and sitting down to read the paper until the family awoke, I was nearly brained by the butler. He supposed me a belated burglar, and had armed himself with the poker. The most flattering experience of the kind was voiced by a small urchin who plucked at his mother's sleeve: "Look, mamma!" he exclaimed in guarded but jubilant tones, "there's a real Indian!"