13 The Mountains

When we awoke the next morning the sun was high and the ground was dry. We were somewhat stiff after the wetting we had received in the night and our sleep in damp clothes, but we felt courageous and strong and ready for any emergency. I would have preferred my breakfast cooked, and I know the others felt the same way, but we were willing to overlook a trifle like that—at least it looked like a trifle at such a time. Henry was quite well again, and, in fact, all of us were very much refreshed and invigorated.

Pike thought that the broken nature of the ground indicated our approach to mountains, and he was in favor of pressing on toward them as fast as we could. We were more than willing, as we were thoroughly tired of the heart-breaking country in which we then lay. In the mountains there might be water and cool shade and plenty of game.

After our breakfast we resumed the march. It was easy enough for us to make a start. All we had to do was to throw our rifles over our shoulders and begin the tramp forward. Sam began to chant the inspiriting strains of his favorite nautical song, and Bonneau capered about. Between the efforts of the two our little party perked up wonderfully, and by noonday we had covered quite a stretch of ground. Fortunately we found some buffalo chips and cooked our strips of meat. Before dusk came on again we saw a dim blue line in the distance, which Pike said was mountains, and we pushed on with all speed.

As we knew the mountains were very far away and we were not sure of finding any more game, we travelled half the night and were on foot again very early in the morning. We pushed on all the next day, and the outlines of the mountains grew clearer. They were very high, for the crests of the peaks were snowclad. Henry, with his imagination stirred into vigor, said he could see the cascades of water tumbling down the precipices, but we laughed at him. Again we travelled half the night, and the next morning the mountains looked quite near. Our supply of food was sufficient, but the water in the canteens was getting very low.

I do not know why we looked forward with such confidence to finding an abundance of game in the mountains, but the idea had taken possession of us all. Those mountains were our Mecca. How long and how grievous seemed that last day’s tramp! With bruised feet and stiff and aching bones we struggled on, and just as night came we reached the base of the first ridge. The mountains looked bare, bleak and repellent, but we came to a little rivulet which trickled down a slope, probably fed by the melting snows of the summits, and soon lost itself in the sands of the plain. This alone was enough to reward us for all our toil and suffering. We drank of the cool liquid. Then we pulled off our clothes and bathed in it. Heaven knows we needed a bath badly enough, for each of us was a mass of dust and grime. Then we slept the night through by the banks of the brook.

In the morning we began the ascent of the mountains, which we soon found to be very steep. We toiled forward and upward for half a day, but found no game. I was not sure what sort of game Pike was looking for, but he persisted in saying that we would find it yet.

“Thar’s always game in the mountains,” he said, “an’ I’ll bet my hat we find somethin’ to shoot at before nightfall.”

I could not for the life of me see what any animal would find to subsist upon on those bare slopes, but Pike’s words inspired confidence nevertheless. We stopped about this time and looked back at the country we had left. The considerable height to which we had climbed made the view a very fine one. Far behind us stretched the desert over which we had toiled so painfully. Off to the south we could see another line of mountains, and there was a third chain in the southwest.

“We’re in the Rockies,” said Pike, and for a few minutes we were silent. I think one of the most impressive sights of a man’s life is his first view of snowclad mountains. I know the sea is very majestic, but the great peaks, with their snowclad crests, glittering and white, right under the nose of the sun, strike the imagination with still greater force.

We had ascended to a very considerable height, for the air was much thinner and colder, when Pike called to us to stop and pointed to a precipice to our right. Perched upon the very edge of this precipice were half a dozen animals. At that distance we could not tell much about them except that they had enormous curved horns.

“They’re Rocky Mountain sheep! They’re Rocky Mountain sheep! I’ve read about ’em in the books!” exclaimed Henry.

“Right you are,” said Pike. “The kid guessed it fust thing. An’ what’s more to the p’int, boys, thar’s our supper, right up thar on them cliffs. But we’ve got to git it yet”

For this latter task Pike chose himself alone. He said the sheep were very suspicious brutes, and it took a practised hunter to stalk them. He told us to lie down among the rocks, concealing ourselves as well as possible, and to make no noise whatever. All of which we did faithfully.

Pike made a circuit on the mountain-side which brought him on a level with the sheep and much nearer to them. He guarded his movements so well that the sheep showed no signs of alarm. We saw him crouching for a shot, then we heard the crack of his long-barrelled rifle, and one of the sheep bounding out from the precipice, curved over and over and landed at our feet. Pike’s bullet had pierced him in the brain. The others leaped along the mountain-side and disappeared. But one was enough for us.

The sheep that Pike had killed was in fairly good flesh, and he was such a peculiar-looking animal that we examined him critically. Pike had seen this kind before, and told us some extraordinary tales about their powers. He said they could jump down precipices a hundred feet high and land without harm on their horns. Though Henry said travellers had told such tales about them and he had read their stories in books, I am inclined to believe that Pike stretched the truth a little.

We found some scrubby timber on the mountain-side. With a great deal of difficulty we lighted a fire. Then came Bonneau’s turn. He was always anxious to do the cooking, and the others were more than willing to let him have his way about it. Pike had some culinary skill that he had picked up in his wild life on the border, but Bonneau learned all his tricks in the wink of an eye and then improved on them. He had never seen a mountain sheep before, but the mutton he cooked for us that day was as delicious as any I ever tasted. Pike expressed the sentiments of us all when he said it was worth half starving to have meat taste so good.

We slept that night on the mountain-side and found it very cold. Fortunately we had been wise enough to keep our blankets, which we carried in a tight roll on our backs, and they protected us to a considerable extent.

The next day we crossed a ridge between the snowclad peaks and began the descent of the other slope. We soon noticed a great difference in the appearance of the western side of the mountains. We could see below us trees which appeared to be of good size, and even where we were then standing the indications of vegetation were numerous.

When we were half down the slope and had reached the bottom of a rather steep place, Henry, who was in-advance and had just turned around a big rock, uttered a cry of surprise and delight and pointed ahead.

“Look! Look! I believe we’ve found the Garden of Eden!” he exclaimed.

We hastened forward and looked upon the pleasantest sight it had ever been the lot of any of us to behold. Before us and apparently hemmed in on all sides by the high mountains was a beautiful green valley. It seemed to be about ten miles long and about one-half as broad. There were green sward and noble trees, and in the centre of the valley, and probably occupying one-third of its area, gleamed the silver waters of a lake. I have since learned that there are many of these lakes and fertile little valleys in the Rocky Mountains, but this was the first we had come upon. After our dangers and our toils in that grim, brown desert behind us it looked bright enough and attractive enough to warrant Henry’s exclamation that we had found the Garden of Eden. Bonneau awarded it the highest praise in his vocabulary:

“It ees as beautiful as la belle France!” he exclaimed.

Even Pike’s weather-beaten and usually stolid face showed signs of enthusiasm.

“Thar may be Injuns in that valley, or thar may not be,” he said. “At any rate we’ll camp thar. Ef I ain’t mighty mistaken that place is just alive with game.”

By the middle of the afternoon we had descended the mountain and were in the valley, which we found on closer acquaintance to be even more fertile and beautiful than had appeared at first The trees were of great size, and the turf under them, though its green was already tinged with the brown of autumn, was as level and smooth as if it had been trimmed with a scythe. Henry said it must be like the noblemen’s parks in Europe that his books told about.

Pike’s surmises about the game were correct, for before we had gone a hundred yards in the valley a troop of magnificent elk suddenly appeared ahead of us. Starboard Sam instantly had his gun up for a shot, but Pike struck it down.

“We want to find out fust if thar are any enemies in this valley. Ef they are here we don’t want to notify ’em fust thing that we’ve come by firin’ off our guns. But I should say from the way them elk are doin’ that we are the first human bein’s to come to this place, at least for a long time. But it’s best to be shore.”

There were probably a hundred elk in the herd, and though they saw us plainly they did not seem to be alarmed, but stalked off down the forest aisles with the utmost gravity and dignity, and when we saw them disappear in the distance they had not condescended to increase their speed beyond a walk.

This confirmed Pike in his opinion that they were unaccustomed to the presence of human beings. Still, we were very wary, as we walked on towards the lake. A half-hour brought us to its pebbly margin. Swarms of wild fowl floated on its bosom, and others hovered over it. Scarcely two hundred yards from us we saw two deer drinking. The lake was fed by brooks of clear water, which came tumbling down the sides of the mountain from the snow-clad peaks, and we found that one of them had been dammed by an industrious colony of beavers, who plunged into the water and disappeared when we came up.

“The pelts of all them beavers would be worth a pile of money back in St. Louis,” said Pike, “but as they are a leetle distant from market, we’ll let’em keep their hides.”

We explored the valley until nightfall and saw more elk and deer, and were thoroughly convinced by their lack of fear that we were the only human beings in the valley, hence we dismissed whatever uneasiness we had felt on that subject. We still had plenty of the flesh of the mountain sheep; so we shot no game, but built a fire of fallen timber and went to sleep under the boughs of a big tree.

When we held a little council meeting the next morning, and Pike called for opinions, there was but one expressed. All were in favor of staying awhile in the valley and recuperating. We were haggard and worn, and needed rest badly before resuming our journey. Bonneau was the most delighted of all, for he foresaw unlimited opportunities in the culinary way. He soon had a chance to display his skill still further. We shot a deer that day and found its flesh exceedingly fat and tender. Sam cut strips of its hide, trimmed a piece of bone into the semblance of a hook and soon had a rude fishing equipment. Anywhere else his efforts with this improvised line and hook might have been a failure, but these secluded waters were swarming with life, and in a half-hour Sam had as many fine lake trout as a whole picnic party could have eaten. Bonneau broiled them to a turn, and they were so good as to fairly melt in our mouths. Sam shot a couple of ducks, which we found almost as appetizing as the fish, and what with these and the venison and the mutton, we had a dinner that day fit for a king. We did not feel the lack of bread half so much as one might think we would have done.

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