[Transcriber's note: Extensive research found no evidence that the U. S. Copyright on this publication was renewed. ] [Frontispiece: AT THAT INSTANT THE BEAR CAME TO LIFE. ] A MOUNTAIN BOYHOOD _by_ JOE MILLS Author of "The Comeback" Illustrated by ENOS B. COMSTOCK J. H. SEARS & COMPANY, Inc. PUBLISHERS NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY J. H. SEARS & CO. , INCORPORATED COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA (INC. ) MANUFACTURED COMPLETE BY THE KINGSPORT PRESS KINGSPORT, TENNESSEE _United States of America_ TO THE ONE WHO MADE THIS BOYHOOD POSSIBLE MY WIFE CONTENTS CHAPTER I. GOING WEST II. GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH WILD COUNTRY AND ANIMALS III. FIRST CAMP ALONE--EXPLORING IV. DANCING ACROSS THE DIVIDE V. TRAPPING--MOUNTAIN-TOP DWELLERS VI. A LOG CABIN IN THE WILDS--PRIMITIVE LIVING VII. GLACIERS AND FOREST FIRES VIII. THE PROVERBIAL BUSY BEAVER IX. MOUNTAIN CLIMBING X. MODERN PATHFINDERS XI. OFF THE TRAIL XII. DREAMERS OF GOLDEN DREAMS XIII. THE CITY OF SILENCE XIV. BEARS AND BUGBEARS XV. ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS At that instant the bear came to life . . . . _Frontispiece_ I plunged downward, struggling frantically I sat down by the fiddler and dozed I glimpsed his flaming eyes and wide-open, fang-filled mouth Sheep and rock dropped straight toward me Never before had the ring of an ax echoed in Silent Valley "See all fools ain't dead yit, " he observed The memory of that race for life is still vividly terrifying Every fall I watched Mr. And Mrs. Peg at their repairs They turned tail and came racing back, straight toward me Out of the dust of years, we dug the history of a buried past A MOUNTAIN BOYHOOD CHAPTER ONE GOING WEST Father and mother settled on the Kansas prairie in the early fifties. At that time Kansas was the frontier. Near neighbors were twenty milesor more apart. There was no railroad; no stages supplied the vastunsettled region. A few supplies were freighted by wagon. However, little was needed from civilized sources, for the frontier teemed withgame. Myriads of prairie chickens were almost as tame as domesticfowls. Deer stared in wide-eyed amazement at the early settlers. Bands of buffalo snorted in surprise as the first dark lines of sodwere broken up. Droves of wild turkey skirted the fringes of timber. Indians roamed freely; halting in wonder at the first log cabins of thepioneers. In my father's old diary I found the following: June, 1854. Drove through from Iowa to Kansas by ox team. Located four days' drivesouth of Portsmouth. * Not much timber here. * Later Kansas City. October, 1854. Just returned from visit to our nearest neighbor, John Seeright, aday's drive away. Took the chickens and cow along and stayed severaldays. Father told me that the early settlers did not like a region after itgot "settled up. " He laughed heartily when he said this. It is quitetrue nevertheless; as soon as a region became "settled up, " thepioneers were ready to push on again into the unknown. They loved thefrontier--it held adventure, hazard always, mystery, ofttimes, romance, life. They moved ahead of and beyond civilization--even the long armof the law did not penetrate their wilderness fastnesses. Theirexperience--so numerous books cannot hold them all--have become history. It is not strange that my parents welcomed the gold rush of '59. Itcalled them once more into the farther wilderness, the vaster unknown. When news of the finding of gold in the Rockies came across the plains, legions of adventurers trailed westward. The few roads that led acrossthe rolling prairies to the Rockies were soon deep-cut. Wagons trainsstrung out across the treeless land like huge, creeping serpents movinglazily in the sun. Joyfully the adventurers went--happy, courageous. They were the vanguards of civilization, pushing ever to the West. To my lifelong regret, my boyhood came after the gold rushes were over;the buffalo bands had passed for the last time; the Indian fightingended. However, these exciting events were still fresh in the memoryof my parents. When neighbors came to visit us, long hours were spentin talking over and comparing experiences. I thrilled as my fathertold of climbing Long's Peak, the eastern sentinel of the Rockies--ofEstes Park, teeming with trout and game. I thought then that I hadbeen born too late--that all the big things in the world were pasthistory. I feared then that even the Rockies would lose their wildnessbefore I could explore them. Within sight and sound of the farm where I was born, a number of CivilWar skirmishes took place. The eastern Kansas border during the tryingtime of the early sixties was perhaps the worst place in all the worldto live. Raiding parties plundered on both sides of theKansas-Missouri line. My mother watched the battle of Mine Creek fromthe dooryard; saw the soldiers streaming by, and prayed fervently asthe tide of battle swayed back and forth. My father was fighting inthat battle. These frontier conflicts were still the favorite topicsof conversation at neighborhood gatherings when I was a little boy. Ilistened breathlessly to them and lived them over in my imagination. Of all the tales recounted around our fire, I loved that of the goldrush of '59 best--my father and mother had participated in it--and I'msure that story moved me most of all to obey Horace Greeley'sinjunction. The wagons, in the beginning of the journey, formed a train, keepingclose together for mutual protection. As they neared the Rockies, theyscattered, each party following its individual route. Late in thesummer, high up in the mountains near Breckenridge, Colorado, my fatherfell ill of "mountain fever. " My mother, who weighed less than onehundred pounds, alone drove the pony team back across the plains toeastern Kansas. Many weeks were spent en route. Sometimes they campedfor a night with westward-bound wagons; then resumed the eastwardjourney alone. Buffalo, migrating southward, literally covered theprairie--at times, so dense were their ranks, my mother had to stop theteam to let the herds go by. One experience of this trying trip, often related by my father, filledme with lasting admiration for my plucky mother. "We were camped one night beneath some cottonwoods beside a wide, shallow stream, " father would say, "and I was unable to move from mybed in the wagon. Your mother cared for the team, started a fire, andgot supper. Shortly after dark, and before supper was ready, a dozenIndians filed solemnly into our camp and sat down facing the fire. They said nothing, but followed your mother's every movement withwatchful eyes. If your mother tasted the brew in the brass kettle, every Indian eye followed her hand, and every Indian licked his lipseagerly. The brass kettle was about the only cooking utensil wepossessed, and your mother guarded it carefully. "This night the kettle held a savory stew of buffalo meat. When thestew was done, your mother set it off the fire to cool. During a fewseconds--while her back was turned--the kettle vanished. From theshelter of the wagon I saw an Indian reach out stealthily and slip itbeneath his blanket. The next moment your mother was facing the silentcircle with blazing eyes. And there, hundreds of miles from asettlement, with no help at hand, she defied a dozen Indians. In spiteof the fact that she weighed just ninety-two pounds, she swept aroundthe circle slapping the surprised braves, pulling their hair anddemanding the kettle. She noticed that the chief was shelteringsomething beneath his blanket. At once she gave his blanket a jerk. The hot brew spilled over the surprised redskin's legs. There was ayell that rent the stillness. The fellow leaped high into the air, andvanished into the night, leaving the brass kettle behind him. " Little did my parents realize that their recounted experiences wouldeventually lead me, still a boy, to venture into new regions. At ten years of age I hazarded the statement that I was old enough toshift for myself; that I was going West to live the rest of my life inthe Rocky Mountains. But my parents, in order to frighten me out of myplans, told me that Indians still infested the wilds; that terriblebull buffaloes and horrible grizzly bears roamed the wilderness. These attempts to frighten me only strengthened my desire for adventureand my determination to seek it. When all else failed I was told thatI was too young to strike out for myself. At last father put his footdown firmly, a sign that his patience was at an end--so I postponed myadventure. The day finally came when I was aboard a train, heading westward, toward the mountains of my dreams. I possessed twenty dollars, myentire savings. During the journey I hardly slept, but kept watch outthe window for the first glimpse of the Rockies. I have norecollection that there were sleeping cars at that time; anyhow, mythin little purse afforded no such gross extravagance if I had known. I recall that the individual seat of the chair-car gave me muchconcern. I had considerable trouble adjusting it--putting it up andlaying it down. Beside me in the companion seat rode a man of middle age, bearded, roughly dressed, who took keen interest in my destination. He waslocated, I learned, over the Continental Divide in that vast regionbeyond Grand Lake. He talked of the forests of uncut timber near hishomestead, of the fertile valleys and grassy parks that wouldeventually support cattle herds. "Some day, " he predicted, "there'llbe a railroad built between Denver and Salt Lake City; and when itcomes it's bound to pass close to my claim. " At dawn I caught my first sight of the great snow-covered peaks, ahundred miles away, rearing rose-red in the early morning light. Atfirst I mistook those misty ranges for cloud banks, lighted by therising sun. Then, as we drew nearer and day wore on, I made them out. Toward noon I reached Fort Collins, Colorado, fifty miles from Long'sPeak, where there was no stage connection with Estes Park, butLoveland, a town fifteen miles south, had a horse stage that made threetrips a week. The fare, I learned, was quite prohibitive, threedollars for something more than thirty miles. The walk would beinteresting, I decided. But the old canvas bag, containing all myworldly possessions, was too bulky and awkward to be carried. Aftersome hours of dickering, I paid eight dollars for a second-handbicycle, tied the bag on the handle bars and started for the Mecca ofmy dreams. That first journey to the mountains was filled with thrills. The oldstage road shot up successive mountain ranges, and plunged abruptlydown into the valleys between. There was no Big Thompson route then;instead, the road ascended Bald Mountain, climbed the foothill range, crossed the top, then dropped into Rattlesnake Park. It squirmed upPole Hill, a grade so steep that I could scarcely push up my wheel. Upand down, up and down, it seesawed endlessly. The afternoon wore on;each successive slope grew harder, for my legs were weary. Twice, braking with one foot on the front crotch and sliding the wheel, I hadpitched headlong over the handle bars. Upon two descents that were tooprecipitous to venture unballasted, I tied fair-sized pine trees to therear of my craft to act as drag-anchors. As darkness came on I coasted down a sharp pitch to a little brook. Inthe aspens that bordered the road was a range cow standing guard besidea newborn calf. Across the road, like grisly shadows among the trees, skulked several coyotes. The calf half rose, wabbled, and went down. Three times it attempted to rise, grew weaker, and at last gave up thestruggle. With the waiting coyotes in mind, I leaned my wheel againsta bowlder and went to its rescue. Several things happened at once. The half-wild range cow misunderstood my good intentions. She wasaccustomed to seeing men on horseback; and one afoot was strange. Shecharged headlong. I dodged quickly aside but not in time to escapeentirely. She raked me with her sharp horns. There was a wild racethrough the aspens; I leading, but the cow a close second, her hornsmenacing me at every leap, while I doubled and backtracked sharplyabout among the trees. I had no chance to "tree"; though no mountainlion was ever more willing, for Mrs. Cow was too near. Only Providenceand my agility saved me from an untimely end. At last the cow halted, for she was getting too far from her calf. She shook her horns afterme menacingly, turned and hurried back toward where her offspring lay. Each mile I covered impressed upon me more and more that there is noteven a distant relationship between mountain miles and my Kansasprairie miles. The latter are ironed out flat, the former stand onend, cease to be miles and become trials. Slowly the shadows filledthe cañons, and came creeping up the slopes. I gazed in awesome wonderat the beauty of my land of dreams. My legs, cramped almost pastpedaling, still kept on--for my goal, my mountains, were at hand. Exaltation of spirit overcame exhaustion of body. At no time had I given any particular thought to what would happen whenI arrived; so far my whole attention had been centered on reaching theRockies. Such trivialities as no job, no relatives, practically nomoney, made little impression upon my Rocky-bound mind. Long after nightfall I reached the crest of Park Hill, the last barrierto Estes Park. The moon shone full upon the valley below, and upon thesnow-capped mountains beyond. The river murmured softly as its shiningfolds curled back and forth across the dark green meadow, suddenlyvanishing between dark cañon walls. Coyotes raised their eerie voices;across the cañon, from the cliffs of Mount Olympus, an owl hootedgloomily. Before me loomed the Rockies, strangely unreal in themoonlight and yet very like the mountains of my imagination. I gazed, spellbound. My dream was realized. It was midnight when, completely exhausted, I stopped before an old logcabin. Dogs charged out, barking furiously at the strange thing I rodeand nipping at my legs; but I was too weary to remember distinctly evennow what happened. I must have tumbled off my wheel for I learnedafterward that I was picked up and put to bed; but for hours I tossedabout, my body racked with pain, my thoughts jumbled. But boys mustsleep, and I slept at last. Next morning, pushing the wheel slowly, I headed for the most remoteranch in the region, that lay at the foot of Long's Peak. Progress wasslow and painful for my body was stiff and sore; the road I followedwound upward, climbing steadily to higher altitude. Frequently Ihalted to rest, and spent my time of respite searching the mountainswith eager, appraising eyes, planning explorations among them. Towardnoon I came to the ranch I sought, located nine miles from the nearestneighbor, at nine thousand feet altitude, and surrounded by ruggedmountains. Above it rose Long's Peak, up and up into the clouds, tomore than fourteen thousand feet. The rancher was the Reverend E. J. Lamb, one of the early settlers of Estes Park. The Parson, as he wasknown, was more than six feet tall, straight as a lodge-pole pinephysically--and even more so spiritually. He wore a long, flowingbeard, rose habitually and unprotestingly at four in the morning--a manof diverse talents and eccentricities. CHAPTER TWO GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH WILD COUNTRY AND ANIMALS Parson Lamb's ranch consisted of a fenced garden tract surrounded onevery side for miles by high mountains that shut it in. There washeavy forest on the slopes above the ranch; and out of these came manylively little streams that were almost as cold as their parentsnowbanks. I hoarded my few remaining dollars. The Parson gave me room and board, in return for which I helped about the place, doing various chores, such as wood-splitting and clearing land for more garden, andoccasionally going the nine miles to the village for the mail. My worktook only a small part of my time, leaving me free to explore thenear-by region, with its deep, evergreen forests, and the wild animalswhich lived in them. Many were the tales the tall, rawboned Parson told of his early pioneerdays (for he had lived there since the early seventies, and was aloquacious old fellow), as he and his wife, Jane, and I sat beside thegranite fireplace, when the coals glowed low and the shadows scurriedhere and there over the rough logs of the cabin walls. He had beenshot and nearly killed by a bandit, gored by a bull, dragged by afrightened horse, and bitten by a bear. Upon one lonely excursion farfrom any settlement, he had been followed by a huge, stealthy, mountainlion. Harrowing as were these tales, the one that made me shiver despite theradiant pitch knots, was that of his perilous descent of the precipiceon Long's Peak. Time has not changed the character of that face--it issheer and smooth and icy now, as then. He was probably the first manto attempt its descent, and I was always weak and spent when he endedhis story of it, so vividly did he portray its dangers. I sat tense, digging my nails deep into my palms, living through every squirm andtwist with him, from the moment he slid down from the comparativelysafe "Narrows" to the first niche in the glassy, precipitous wall, till, after many nearly-the-last experiences, he landed safely at itsfoot. That adventure had almost cost him his life, for he had oncemissed his foothold, slipped and slid and had hung suspended by onehand for a long, terrible moment. Always I sat with eyes glued upon the story-teller, thrilling as hetalked, planning secretly to emulate his example, proving some of hisstatements by daily short excursions. However, the Parson was notalways away on trips. Sometimes he guided visitors to the top of thePeak or worked on the trail to its summit. He chopped wood, worked inthe garden, hunted stray cattle or horses. Frequently he rode off withhis Bible under his arm, for he was a circuit rider, carrying thegospel into the wilderness. He gave good, if free, advice, officiatedat weddings and funerals, at barn-raisings and log-rollings. Hepreached or worked as the notion moved him; lingered in one place orrode long trails to fulfill his mission. His own ranch was thirtymiles from the railroad, but many of his calls were made on settlerseven more remote. Gradually I extended the scope of my explorations, frequently spendingthe night abroad, carrying a pair of worn and faded blankets and alittle food. A number of times I climbed Long's Peak alone. On thesetrips to high country I scouted the high-flung crest of BattleMountain, Lady Washington, Storm Peak, and Mount Meeker; exploredGlacier Gorge, investigated Chasm Lake, and from the top of Peak andMeeker looked down into Wild Basin to the south. I sketched a rude map of the great basin in my notebook and named it"Land of Many Waters, " because of the scores of small streams thattrickled down its inclosing mountain sides. The oval bowl I estimatedto be fifteen miles long by about half as wide, its sides formed ofmountain slopes densely wooded up to bleak timberline. Save the murmurof falling water, or the wind upon the heights, it was a land ofsilence. Small streams converged, dropped into deep cañons and reachedthe river that rumbled far below. There were vivid, emerald lakeseverywhere--some lost in the woods near the river, others pocketedbehind the ridges, while still more could be seen up above nakedtimberline. I returned, thrilled with the thought of exploring Wild Basin, soughtthe Parson and told him my ambition. At first he was much amused, butwhen he found I was serious he grew grave. "There's no neighbors over that way, " he objected. "If anythinghappens, you'll be beyond help. " Even though he was older and muchmore experienced, I thought him hardly qualified, after his ownfoolhardy adventures, to discourage me; but I decided to wait untilfall before setting out. This delay would enable me to know more aboutthe mountains, to add to my experience, and better fit me to cope withthe emergencies of that inviting, great unknown--Wild Basin. Everywhere I found strange birds and animals, and began to getacquainted with them. The handsome, black and white, long-tailedmagpies were much like the crows I had known in Kansas, so far aswariness was concerned. The Rocky Mountain long-crested jays, quiteunlike our prairie jays, much more brilliant in coloring, theirgorgeous coats of turquoise blue and black flashing in the sunshine, were continually bickering, and following me through the woods to seewhat I was about. Chickadees and nuthatches were always inspecting thetrees for food, running up and down, paying no attention to me andgoing about their business with cheerful little chirrups that expressedtheir contentment. Occasionally a crow flew up the valley with raucouscalls; and sometimes a raven pursued his way toward the deeper woods. Meadow larks and robins were everywhere. Woodpeckers and flickers did their bit to keep vermin off the trees, and performed daily operations on trunk and limb, removing borers andbeetles that had penetrated beneath the bark, thus saving the lives ofmany evergreen monarchs. Around ten and eleven thousand feet therewere campbirds, Canada jays, friendly and inquisitive; on firstacquaintance they often took food from my hands, and helped themselvesfreely of any food accessible in camp. They were unruffled, flittingsoftly from tree to tree, with little flapping, calling low, and in asweetly confidential tone. However friendly I found the birds, the big game animals were extremelywary. I mentioned the fact to the Parson. "They've been shot at, " was his explanation. "Every time they've comein contact with men they've suffered. They know men are dangerous, always have guns. " In spite of the Parson's observations we always had wild game hangingin the log meat house; there was never any question about securingwhatever we wanted in that line. Except during the winter months, deercould be had with little effort. But the elk had practically vanished;occasionally a lone survivor strayed into the ranch valley. There werebears, of course, shy and fearful, in the rough, unsettled country. Wehad great variety of meat, venison, Bighorn sheep, grouse, ptarmigan, wild pigeon, sometimes squirrel and, rarely, bear steaks. Wherever I went, even in the far-away places where few men had everbeen, the deer and elk and bear were very wild, and I found itimpossible to approach them unless the wind was from them to me, and Imoved forward carefully hidden. I spent many eventful days, walking, climbing, sitting motionless to watch the scampering chipmunks, or toinvite the birds up close. Thus, a little at a time, I came to knowthe habits of the wild folks I met; learned their likes anddislikes--the things that excited their curiosity, and that frightenedthem away in panic. Upon my first climb to the top of Long's Peak alone, I halted abovetimberline and stared about in amazement at the wide stretches ofrock-strewn slopes. From a distance these had appeared no larger thana back yard, but a close-up revealed they were miles across; andinstead of being barren, were a series of hanging gardens, one aboveanother, each of different shape and size, and all green with grass andwith a hundred different kinds of wild flowers waving in the sunshine. I counted more than fifty varieties, none of which I knew, and stillthey seemed endless. Usually I wandered off the trail to follow birds or animals. In thearctic-like zone above were birds entirely strange to me, and animalsthat never came down to the valley of the ranch. It was not longbefore I discovered that nearly all birds and animals live at a certainzone of altitude, rarely straying above or below it. Occasionally I heard a queer "squee-ek. " It sounded close, yet itsmaker was invisible. Many times I looked up, searching the airoverhead for the elusive "squee-eker. " At last I came upon a bunch ofgrass, no larger than a water pail, and stopped to examine it. Grassand flowers had been piled loosely in an irregular heap, resembling aminiature haystack. "Something making a nest, " I observed aloud. "Squee-ek, " denied a shrill voice almost at my elbow. Ten feet away upon a bowlder that rose above the rest of the rocks, sata small animal which at first I mistook for a young rabbit. In shapeand size he closely resembled a quarter-grown cottontail, but his earswere different from any rabbit's, being short and round. His eyes werebeady; somehow he made me think of a rat. He ran down the rock andclimbed to another perch. Not even so much tail as a bunny--none atall. In some respects he resembled a rabbit, a squirrel and a prairiedog. His actions reminded me of all of them. In fact, he is sometimescalled "Rock Rabbit" and "Little Chief Hare. " He may have other namesbesides. I watched the interesting little fellow for some time and later foundhis actions characteristic of his tribe. He literally makes hay whilethe summer shines. He is the only harvester I ever saw who works onthe run. He dashed at top speed, without stopping for breath, bit offa mouthful of grass and again ran pell-mell for his growing stack. Hescampered down its side, then leaped from an adjacent rock to its top, laden with his bundle of hay. Evidently he found the alpine summershort and felt it necessary to step lively. Altitude, that convenientscapegoat of tenderfeet, did not seem to affect his wind or hisendurance. He stacked his harvest in one corner of the field fromwhich he cut it. He cut flowers along with the grass. Perhaps he usedthem for flavor as grandmother put rose-geranium leaves in hercrab-apple jelly. The haycock he built was about the size of abucket--I have since seen them as large as bushel baskets. His tinyfields lay between bowlders; some of them were but a few inches square, others a foot, several a yard, perhaps. I was interested to learn if the little haycocks were blown away by thetimberline gales, so returned later, not really expecting to find them. Nor were they in the same location, but their owners, not the wind, hadmoved them. Evidently, as soon as the hay was cured, it was stored forsafe-keeping, usually beneath the overhang of a rock, away from thewind. I was then curious to see how the cony would transport his hay inwinter. Many of his under-rock passages would, at that season, befilled with snow, forcing him to appear on the surface where the windwas often strong enough to blow me over, to say nothing of what itwould do to the little midget in fur with a load of hay attached. Hemet the storm situation easily. Whenever he exhausted one hayloft, hemoved his home to another. Thus he solved the transportation questionand gained a new home at the same time. Several times, upon diggingbeneath the slide rock, I discovered cony dens, merely openings fardown between the jumbled rocks, beyond the reach of wind and weather. They were of great variety, large, small, wide, narrow; all ready tomove into. They were the conies' castles, ready refuges from enemies, their devious passages as effective as drawbridge or portcullis. The cony is something like the heaver far down on the flats below;working at top speed when he does work, and then resting for manymonths. Outside the brief harvest period I have found him sitting idlyatop a rock, napping in the sun, dreaming apparently; thus for days andmonths he is idle, always harmless--a condition that does not apply tohuman beings under similar circumstances. He is energetic, ambitious, courageous, and acrobatic. He is the scout of the mountain top, alwaysalert and friendly. The altitude zone of the cony I found to be between eleven and thirteenthousand feet. He and the Bighorn, ptarmigan, weasels and foxes aremountain-top dwellers throughout the year. Marmots hibernate duringthe long alpine winters. But the cony I have seen on sunny days inJanuary; his welcome "squee-ek, " piercing the roar of the wind, hasgreeted me on the lonely storm-swept heights when not another livingthing was in sight. But in spite of his living in the out-of-the-way world the cony hasenemies for whom he is always watching. In summer there are hawks andeagles, foxes and coyotes. In winter his feathered foes depart, butthe foxes remain, as do the weasels. Sitting motionless in the midstof jumbled rocks I have faded into the bowlder fields, and thus havebeen able to watch the cony and his enemies. Usually his "squee-ek"announced the appearance of a foe before I discovered it. Then, if theenemy was a bird or a beast, he merely hugged the rock, watchingalertly until he was discovered, then flipped out of sight to thesafety of rocky retreat, giving a defiant "squee-ek" as he went. Butif a weasel appeared. .. I sat watching a cony one day in early fall as he lay in the sunshineupon a bowlder. From somewhere below us came the distant "squee-ek" ofa relative, followed shortly by the shrill whistle of a marmot. Thecony sat up suddenly, awake and alertly watching. The signals wererepeated. Instantly the little fellow departed from his outpost andhurried away, circling the bowlder, leaping to another, disappearing inthe rocks and reappearing again. His actions were so unusual that Iwondered what message the signals had carried; to me they were nodifferent than they were when they announced my coming--yet thedifference must have been plain to the wee furry ears, judging fromtheir owner's apprehensive actions. Indeed, a weasel was abroadseeking his quarry. When his presence was announced, neither the conynor I could see him because of an intervening upthrust of rock. Soon the weasel appeared, circling the rock where the cony had beensunning himself, searching beneath it, hurrying along the tunnelsthrough which the cony had fled. Emerging upon the bowlder, he pausedfor a few seconds as he looked in all directions. The weasel wasbrownish-yellow in color. I was to learn later that he changed to purewhite in winter. I sprang to my feet and pursued him, shouting as I ran, throwing rocksand attempting to scare him off. Losing track of both pursuer andpursued, I stopped for breath. Suddenly, from almost beneath my feet, the agile villain reappeared, staring at me with bright, bold eyes, advancing toward me as though to attack. He was no coward; withamazing agility he dodged a rock I threw at him, turning a back-springand landing at my feet. For a moment we glared at each other, then hemade off as though utterly unconscious of my presence. I watched the long slender body disappear among the rocks in theopposite direction to that taken by the cony, standing for a moment toregain my breath and recover from my surprise. Suddenly there was a shrill whistle behind me. I jumped and whirledabout. Twenty feet away a marmot stood erect atop a rock, eying meinquiringly, watching every movement. He had whistled his signal aboutme, whether good or bad news I could not detect, but from the distancecame other whistles in reply. He was the cony's ally, broadcastinginformation about the skirmish taking place before his eyes; butwhether he was attempting to interfere and divert my attention, I couldnot make out. Certainly, though, he was giving information, signalingmy presence to all within hearing. My intrusion upon the heights insummer has ever been announced by the conies and the marmots. From another direction came a second whistle; apparently I wassurrounded. Then, as I moved, the second marmot hurried away from hisobservation post. He was short-legged, reddish-yellow in color, with abushy tail, and he ran with great effort but with very little speed, like a fat boy in a foot race. Down in the valley near the ranch were numerous grouse, old and young, so tame that it was like knocking over pet chickens to kill them. Butthere was a strange bird above timberline, the ptarmigan, the arcticquail of the north--fool hens, the Parson told me. These birds weremottled in color, matching the rocks among which they lived, and soclosely did their color blend with their environment it was impossibleto distinguish bird from rock so long as the fowl remained still. Itwas because they depended so utterly upon their protective coloration, making no effort to get out of the way but acting with utmoststupidity, that they came to be called "fool hens. " The days I spent above timberline were the most wonderful of all. Fromhigh above the world I could see tier upon tier of distant, snow-cappedmountains--ghost ranges--and southward, at the horizon, loomed Pike'sPeak a hundred airline miles away, a giant pyramid above the foothills, standing sentinel over the vast, flat plains that reached to its foot. As weeks passed and my interest in the wild things increased, I beganto wish for a cabin of my own, a home or a den to which I could retreatand spend the time as I desired. Wherever I rambled I was alert for alocation for my little house. I was not yet old enough to take up ahomestead and claim land for myself. Climbing to the summits of various promontories I planned the sort ofcabin I would like to build there; I'd have a dog, and a horse too, anda camera--I began to doubt whether I'd want my rifle for as I developedmy acquaintance with the animals I found myself less eager to shootthem. Hunting and trapping was the habit of everyone I knew; even back inKansas the boys and men had gone shooting at every opportunity; and thefew men I encountered upon the trails in the Rockies were for the mostpart real trappers and hunters, following the trade for a living. Theygave no thought to the cruelty of their traps or the suffering theiroperations occasioned, It is not strange, then, that such men saw noharm in their actions, for they considered all game fair prey. Occasionally I left my gun at home and found that I rambled the heightsabove timberline in a changed mood from when I carried it. The animalswere more friendly, perhaps my actions were more open and aboveboard. My rifle naturally inspired a desire to shoot something; a mountainsheep, a bear, even the fat marmots did not escape my deadly fire. But, without a gun--there was interest everywhere. Many times Ilaughed at the antics of the animals, especially at the awkward, lumbering haste of the marmots. These animals, while very curious, were quick to take alarm. They would climb to a lookout post at thetop of a rock, watching me eagerly and whistling mild gossip for thedelectation of their neighbors who could not see me. One day, farskyward, I came upon an exceedingly fat marmot busily eating grass in anarrow little hayland between bowlders. He must have weighed more thantwenty pounds, but this fact did not deter him from adding additionalweight for the long, winter sleep. At best his active period wasshort, his hibernation long, so he ate and slept and ate again throughall the hours of daylight. At my approach he reluctantly left offeating, crept up a rock and whistled mildly as though merely curious. For a time I amused him by advancing, retreating, and circling his rock. Suddenly I dropped out of sight behind a bowlder. Instantly hiswhistle carried a note of warning. So long as I remained in sight Iwas merely a curiosity, but the instant I dropped from sight, I becamea suspicious character. Again he broadcasted sharp warning to allwithin hearing. From near and far came answering marmot shrillings, and from near by a cony "squee-eked" his quick alarm. My reappearance reassured the marmot. He whistled again, and I thoughtI distinguished a note of disgust or of disappointment. This marmot lived on the south slope of the big moraine that shouldersagainst Lady Washington, neighboring peak to the giant mountain, Long'sPeak. Sometimes I found the roly-poly fellow saving hay by eating it, or asleep in the sun on an exposed rock. Often he ventured down intothe cañon at the foot of the moraine to investigate the grass that grewdown there. One day as I sat atop the big moraine, I heard his shrill whistle fromthe edge of the trees in the cañon below. It was somehow differentfrom any signal I had heard him give before, but just how it wasdifferent I could not make out. The notes were the same, but the tonewas different--that was it, the tone had changed. Then the reason forthe difference came out of the scattered trees--a grizzly bear stalkeddeliberately into the open and sat down facing the huge bowlder uponwhich the marmot sat. The marmot stood erect on his hind legs, eying the bear warily, prepared to dash for his den beneath the rock the instant the visitormade an unfriendly move. But the bear was a very stupid fellow; hetook no note of the marmot. Instead, he looked off across the cañon, swung his head slowly to and fro as though thinking deeply of somethinga hundred miles away. He was a young bear with a shiny new coat ofsummer fur. He had just had a bath in the stream where ice watergushed from beneath a snowbank. The marmot gave a second whistle, carrying less fear. Apparently theslow-moving, sleepy bear meant no harm. For half an hour the marmotwatched alertly, then slid down beneath the bowlders and startedeating. From time to time he sat stiffly erect, peering suspiciouslyat the intruder. But since the bear made no overt move, he continuedhis feeding as though he were too hungry to wait until his uninvitedguest departed. At length the bear rolled over on his back with all four feet in theair. The marmot surveyed the performance for a few seconds, then wenton feeding, gradually grazing out beyond the shelter of the rockbeneath which he had his den. The bear "paid him no mind, " apparentlyasleep in the sunshine. Slowly the marmot fed away from the rock, thefarther he ventured the more luxuriant his feast, for the grass waseaten off short around his dooryard. For an hour I watched every moveof that silent drama, trying to guess the outcome, wondering if thebear were really asleep. All at once the little gourmand whistledreassuringly: "All right, it's a friend. " The marmot was not more surprised than myself at what happened next. The bear lay perhaps a hundred feet from the marmot's home, and themarmot had fed perhaps forty feet from it--a distance he could quicklycover if the visitor showed unfriendly symptoms. But there were no symptoms. It was all over so quickly that I was leftdazed and breathless. There was a small bowlder about four feet highin the midst of a tiny hayfield where the marmot fed. The unsuspectingwhistler fed into the little field, passed behind the rock, and was outof sight for just a second. At that instant the bear came to life, leaped to his feet and dashed toward the den beneath the rock, cuttingoff the marmot's retreat. Too late the quarry saw the bear. It made a frantic dash for home andshelter, its fat body working desperately, its short legs flying. Tenfeet from the den the bear flattened the marmot with a single quickslap of his paw. Then he sat down to eat his dinner. His acting hadbeen perfect; he had fooled me as well as the marmot. CHAPTER THREE FIRST CAMP ALONE--EXPLORING My short trips into the wilds tempted me to go beyond the trails. Sofar my rambles had taken me only to the threshold of the wilderness, Iwondered what lay beyond; I wanted to follow the game trails and seewhere they led. Above all I was eager to pit my scant skill againstprimitive nature and learn if my resourcefulness was equal to theemergencies of the unknown. Somehow I never doubted my courage--Isimply didn't fear. As the short high-altitude summer began to wane, I grew restless. September advanced; the aspen trees near timberline turned to gold;from day to day those lower down turned also until a vast richlycolored rug covered the mountain sides. Ripe leaves fluttered down, rustling crisply underfoot. Frost cut down the rank grass, humbled theweeds and harvested the flowers. Forests of spruce and lodgepole weredark with shadow. A beaver colony returned to its former haunts at thefoot of Long's Peak and was working night and day. Its pond of stillwater was glazing over with clear ice. October came. The nights grew colder. The snow of early winter cameto the high peaks, dusting their bare, bald crowns. "Fur ought to be getting prime now, " the Parson said one day. "It'llbe better still, higher up. " This was the message I had been waiting for. It set me packing atonce, for I was going into Wild Basin, alone, to hunt, trap and explore. On a morning near the middle of October, much excited, I set out forthe land of mystery. Ahead lay the unknown, uncharted wilds. I couldgo where I chose and stay as long as I wished. Bold Columbus, lookingwestward, I could not have been more thrilled. Mountain maple beckonedwith ripe, red banners. The mountains peeked through the autumn haze, divulging nothing, promising everything! My outfit consisted of an old, ragged tent, a little food, a camerathat had been through a fire and leaked light badly, a knife, an ax, asix-shooter, and an old rifle that had been traded about among theearly settlers and had known many owners. In addition I had bought sixdouble-spring steel traps sufficiently large to hold beaver, coyotes orwolves. The pair of ragged blankets that had served me on my shorttrips about the region had been reinforced with an old quilt, faded andpatched, but sweet and clean. All this duffle I packed upon a "return" horse, lent me by the Parson, one that would return home as soon as it was let loose. The Parson chuckled at the appearance of my pack, even the horse turnedhis head inquiringly, but I was too excited to mind their insinuations. As the sun topped the mountains, I led the horse slowly down the oldtollroad toward a game trail, and swung up in the direction of WildBasin. Deer tracks showed in the old road and in the game trails; I alsorecognized coyote tracks, and puzzled over strange tracks which I couldnot make out. The small streams I crossed had many deep pools wheretrout were collecting for the winter. I tossed stones into them andthe fish, like rainbow darts, dashed for shelter beneath the rocks. Hourly my excitement grew--a million plans ran through my head. Iwould become a mighty hunter and make a fortune trapping; I would turnprospector and locate a mine: Father and Mother would yet have the goldof which they were thwarted. The second evening brought me into such rough country that goingfarther with the horse was next to impossible. With excited hands Iunpacked, bade the beast good-by, and started him toward home on theback trail. He trotted off, neighing eagerly. Save for the rumble of the river deep down in its cañon, the greatbasin was voiceless. The forest showed no signs of man. Above andbeyond rose a circle of snow-capped peaks. I paused in awe; the worldwas bigger than I had dreamed. I was a boy without a woodsman'sskill--a boy alone in the heart of an overwhelming silence. I turned, with a pang of homesickness, just in time to see the return horsedisappear. Whistling loudly, I set about making camp. It should be myheadquarters, from which I could explore in all directions, returningas often as necessary for supplies. A lake with sandy shores lapped in and out among immense bowlders. Onthe west side a cliff rose straight from the water. At the upper edgea small cataract came leaping down the ledges and plunged noisily intothe pool that overflowed into the lake. Above the water was a grove ofEngelmann spruces, giant trees that rose straight for more than ahundred feet. I pitched my tent in a small open glade, but had troublegetting down the stakes, for everywhere was granite. The first test ofmy resourcefulness had come--I met it by piling stones around the tentstakes, bracing them taut for the ropes. The call of the wild was too loud to ignore--I hastened my camp making. The sun was going down on a world of splendor. Overhead werebrilliantly colored clouds, while deep in the cañon below the earlydarkness was thickening. From somewhere in the distance came the cryof an animal. Camp was left unfinished; I climbed to a juttingshoulder that overlooked the cañon. From far below came the noise ofthe river as it chugged and sobbed and roared endlessly between itstowering walls. I promised myself I would go down and explore thatdark cañon at an early date. Of a sudden there came an indescribable, unearthly sound that echoedand reëchoed among the cliffs. I could not tell the direction fromwhich it came; a sudden chill crept along my spine, my hair prickledand lifted. Then the echoes ceased, the silence that followed wasequally terrifying. I bethought me of my unfinished camp. Later Ilearned that alarming sound was the bugling of a bull elk. It was themating season. As darkness came on I ate beans and bread by the light of the campfire. The beans came out of a can, so were well cooked; but the bread was myfirst campfire, culinary concoction. It was a flour and water mixture, plus salt and baking powder, cooked against a hot rock. It was smokedblack and cooked so hard it nearly broke my teeth, besides, it had agranite finish from association with the rock oven. But I ate it withboyish relish in spite of its flaws. My imagination expanded as Iwatched ghostly shadow-figures dance upon the face of the cliff. Theshifting flame, the wood smoke, the silent, starry night swelled myheart to pride in my great adventure. I ignored the incident of theanimal cry that had sent me scurrying to camp. This first camp wasjust below timberline, at an altitude of eleven thousand feet or more. I had much to learn about altitude, as well as of winds and weather, woods and mountains. In the mountains the higher one goes the harderthe wind blows. In the Rockies, around timberline, gales often reach avelocity of a hundred miles, or more, an hour. Here during the longalpine winters, the wind booms and crashes among the peaks, roarsthrough the passes, and rips through the shattered trees. That firstnight I lay in camp and listened to its unceasing roar, as it torealong the ridge tops. Occasionally, a gust would scatter my fire. Itraged through the spruces like a hurricane, causing me much uneasinesslest one of the trees should come crashing down upon my frail shelter. At last, after dozing before the dying fire, I went inside the tent, crept between my blankets and fell asleep. I was aiming at a charging grizzly, when there came a swishing, bangingcrash! I sat up, half awake. The tent flapped wildly, lifting clearof the ground. My stone cairns had been jerked down by the repeatedyanks of the stake ropes. A stronger gust, the tent went down, orrather up, and vanished into the night. The spruce tree, which was mytent pole, struck me on the head. I sat dazed. Gradually it came tome that my clothes, as well as my tent, were gone. I realized, too, that I had pitched camp on the wrong side of the little stream, for themischievous gusts, saturated with water from the falls, spat upon meand soaked my blankets. I managed to strike a match, but the windsnuffed it out instantly. I tried again and again to make alight--with no success. I crawled dazedly about--I struggledupright--my toe caught beneath a rock, and I pitched headlong. Thathour of darkness taught me never to venture about blindly. The night was unbelievably cold. During the day, while the sun hadshone brightly, the temperature had been very comfortable, even warm. But now, with wind blasts from the snow-fields and glaciers andwaterfall, I was chilled through and through. As I felt about for myvanished clothes, my teeth chattered. Soon I gave up the search andsought shelter in the spruces; I found a leaning slab of rock and creptbeneath it as a wild animal would have done. Through the remaininghours of the night I shivered and shook there; my imagination dulled, my ambition dampened. I decided to break camp as soon as it was light. But it is marvelous what sunshine will do. When at last the tardy suncame up, and the wind died down and I had recovered my clothes andwarmed myself at a leaping fire, my heart too leaped up with renewedcourage. All was serene. It seemed impossible that I could have beenso miserable in the night. As soon as I had eaten I dragged the tent back among the spruces whereI set it up and anchored it securely. Lesson Number One had sunk in. It would not need repeating. When camp was at last secure, I climbed slowly to the ridge top above. Its crest was above timberline. On all sides rose lofty mountains, many of them patched with snowbanks. Deep cañons cut sharply betweenthe ridges and shoulders. Ice fields indicated possible glaciers. Iwanted to explore everything at once; wanted to climb the peaks, anddelve into the cañons; hunt out the game and explore the glaciers. At timberline I stopped in silent wonder. Broken trees were scatteredabout upon the ground like soldiers after a battle. I didn't quitecomprehend its significance, but Parson Lamb had described it to me. Ihad seen other timberlines in my rambles, but none so impressive asthis. Here was the forest frontier. How dauntless, how gallant, thesepioneers were! How they strove to hold the advantage gained during thebrief summer respite! Here a canny stripling grew behind a shelteringbowlder, but whenever it tried to peep above its breastworks, the wind, with its shell-shot of sand and gravel and ice bullets, cut off itsprotruding limbs as neatly as a gardner might have done. Consequentlyits top was as flat as a table. In the open, other trees trailed along the ground like creeping vines, their tops pointing away from the wind. It seemed as if they bandedtogether for mutual protection, for they formed a dense hedge or"bush. " Here was the deadline established by altitude. The forestswere commanded to halt; this line of last defense was not unlike thesweeping shoreline of the sea. Here and there were lone scout trees inadvance of the ranks. They were twisted and dwarfed, misshapen, grotesque. There were wide, naked stretches bare of snow. Great drifts lay in thewoods; the deep, narrow cañons were piled full of it. Many of thesedrifts would last far into the following summer; a few would beperpetual. At the approach of summer, such drifts turn to ice throughfrequent thawing and freezing, since the surface snow, melting underthe glare of the summer sun, seeps down through the mass beneath indaytime, and freezes again at night. From such drifts flow icy streamsfor the leaping trout. Countless sparkling springs gurgled forth atthe foot of the slopes. Here I had my first lessons in conservation and learned that it isindeed an ill wind that does no good. Here nature hoards her savingsin snowbanks. To these savings she adds constantly throughout thewinter. Long I sat upon a promontory and marveled. Dimly, only, did Igrasp the significance of what lay before me! The ranks of primevalforest waiting to aid civilization; snow, that white magic eventuallydestined to water crops on the distant plains; and, above all, woods, the final refuge of the big game; the sanctuary of the birds. Everywhere were scattered unnamed lakes. These edged out and aroundthe rock peninsulas, folded back into dark coves and swung out of sightbehind the timbered bends. Some were almost pinched in half by thecrowding cliffs till they formed giant hour-glasses; again they bulgedand overflowed like streams at high water. I began to name themaccording to their shape. "Hourglass, " of course; the one that bulgedout at one end was surely a plump "Pear"--yes, and"Dog-with-three-legs"! My imagination was recovering. For miles I followed the strange, fantastic timberline. Occasionally Ifound stunted little trees scarcely knee high, peeping through thecrushing weight of snow that had smothered them, even throughout thesummer. I cut several trees to count the rings of growth. I foundtrees growing close together and about the same size, with centuries ofvariation in age. One, that had been broken off by a rock slide, hadtwo hundred and ninety-six annual rings. It had grown in a shelterednook. Ten yards away another, much smaller, but growing upon anexposed, rocky point, was no higher than my head, yet I counted fivehundred and seven rings; for half a thousand years it had stood at itspost. I found the counting of these annual rings extremely difficult, as they were so dense that it was hard to distinguish them and theyaveraged from fifty to a hundred rings to an inch of thickness, but thesmall magnifying glass I carried made it possible. The most striking thing I discovered about the timberline trees wastheir irregularity. There was no similarity of form, as prevails amongtrees of the deep forest. Each tree took on a physical appearanceaccording to its location and its opportunities. One resemblance onlydid they have in common: none had limbs on the west side. All theirleafy banners pointed toward the rising sun. Thus I learned thedirection of the prevailing winter winds. The west side of the treeswere polished smooth, many cut halfway through. Trees that had reachedmaturity, or had died, were stripped almost bare of limbs, which hadbeen cut away by the constant scouring. There were abundant tracks of deer, and some of elk, but I saw not asingle animal. Near the spot from which had risen the terrifyingsounds of that first night, a deep-worn game trail led down into theheavy forests. Sharp hoofs had cut into it recently, yet neither hidenor hair of an animal did I glimpse. There were no traces of beavernor any coyote tracks. There were bear tracks, but the small traps Ihad brought would not hold bear, so I did not set them. I was runninglow on provisions, for I had counted on the game for meat: I had meantto have venison steak as soon as I had got settled in my permanent camp. Here was mystery! My curiosity was challenged; I determined to fathomit! How I studied those tracks! Those of the sheep could be distinguishedby the rounded toe marks of their hoofs, worn blunt by the graniterocks they lived on. This was especially true of the forefeet. Theywere also wide apart, while the deer tracks were sharply pointed, withthe hoofs close together. Days passed and the tracks in the trailsgrew dim, but not before I had read their story. I followed thesheep's up above timberline--they grew plainer and more numerous. Sothat was it! The sheep climbed where the wind would keep their tables, spread with sweet cured grass, swept free of snow, and had placed thebarrier of timberline drifts between them and their enemies! The other tracks all led down to the valleys. There in the foothillswinter would be less rigorous, and the grass would not be buried formonths beneath the snow. Winter was at hand in the high country andall but the Bighorn had deserted it. What with them above me, and therest below, I found myself in a no-game zone. There was no repetition of the frightful sound that had sent mescurrying for camp. I suspected a bull elk had made it, though Irecognized no resemblance between that hair-raising sound and a bugle. My thoughts turned to other game. I must have meat--how about a bear?If I couldn't trap one, perhaps I could shoot one. I got out mybattered old rifle, so like the timberline trees, and boldly set outfor "b'ar. " In and out of the dense forest I blundered; crashedthrough the tangle at timberline; toiled up the rocky ridges. Up andup I climbed, paying no heed to the direction of the wind. I foundbear tracks, both large and small, but no sight of Bruin himself. Discouraged, I lay down to rest and had a nap in the sun. Later, withthe wind in my face, I peeped over a rocky upthrust near a largesnowbank. My eyes bulged, my mouth opened. There was a bear justahead. Surely it was mad--crazy--for no animal in its right mind woulddo what it was doing. First it would lumber along a few feet from the edge of the snow, stopping, sniffing, striking out suddenly with its forepaws; itrepeated this performance again and again. I watched, hypnotized, unaware of the gun gripped tightly in my hands. Anyhow, who'd want toeat a mad bear? A slight sound caused me to turn my head. Twenty feet away anotherbear stood regarding me curiously. Not being absent-minded, I have never been able to understand why Ileft my rifle on the mountainside after lugging it up there for anavowed purpose. At any rate I made record time back to camp, glancingrearward frequently, to see if the "flock" of bears was pursuing me. The next day, after surveying the mountainside to make sure that nobears were lurking there, I went back up and recovered the rifle. Thesand beneath the shelving rock where I had seen the second bear wasdisturbed. Claws had rasped it sharply. It appeared as though thisbear had been startled suddenly; had wheeled about and fled for itslife in the opposite direction to that I had taken. The tracks weresmall, too, apparently those of a cub. This was my first hearexperience. I had yet to learn that bear are as harmless as deer ormountain sheep; they attend strictly to their own business, and theynever come near man except through accident. At that time, though, Iwas willing to give all bears the benefit of the doubt--and the rightof way. While further exploring the ridge above the camp I came upon an oldabandoned tunnel with its dump concealed among the trees belowtimberline. The entrance to the tunnel had been timbered to preventits caving. There was nothing in its appearance to tell how long ithad been abandoned. Beside the dump was a small selected pile of ore. This I gloated over happily, mistaking mingled stains and colors forpure sold. But if it was a gold mine, why had the owners departed--andwhy had they left rich ore? These and, other questions unanswered, left me with an uneasy feeling. I wondered if a tragedy had happenedhere, so many miles from civilization. With a torch of small twigs Iventured into the dark hole running straight back beneath the cliff. Ashort distance inside the tunnel I stopped uneasily. The silence wasintense. The twig torch fluttered faintly and went out. The darknesswas black beyond belief. Without delay I felt my way out into thesunshine, leaving further exploration for another day. For weeks I roamed the forest, circled the scattered lakes, climbed tothe jagged tops of high-flung peaks; and daily, almost, had new andstrange experiences. Everything was intensely interesting, and all wasfairyland. Many times I was torn between timidity and curiosity. Though I often carried the huge old rifle with deadly intent, I failedto bring down any big game. Invariably when I had a good chance, mygun would be at camp. Before breakfast one morning I made an excursion to a promontory towatch the sunrise. Deep down in the cañons below, darkness stilllingered. Slowly the world emerged from the shadows like aphotographic plate developing and disclosing its images in thedarkroom. Beyond the promontory a great spire lifted high above thecañon; I climbed to its top. Above the spire was a higher crag. AgainI climbed up. Up and up I climbed until almost noon. Each new vantagepoint revealed new glory; every successive outpost lured me on. At last the long ridge I followed shouldered against a sheer-toppedpeak of the Continental Divide. It was mid-afternoon and hunger urgedme homeward. The way I had come was long and circuitous. There was ashort cut back to camp, but this threatened difficulty, for there was adeep cañon to be crossed; and even though I reached its bottom thereseemed to be no possible way up the precipitous farther wall. I did, however, make the homeward side of the cañon very late. Theclouds had shut down over the peaks, leveling their tops to timberline. All day I had carried the heavy camera with a supply of glass plates. Besides I carried my six-shooter, with belt and cartridges, buckledaround my waist. Several times I saw grouse and fired at them, but notonce did I get a close-up shot. As I toiled upward to cross the ridge that overlooked camp, I enteredthe lower cloud stratum. The air was biting cold. It was impossibleto see more than a few feet ahead. I regretted that I had brought nofood. Snow began to fall; and the higher I plodded the thicker itfell. Darkness came rapidly; footing became precarious. The snowplastered the rocks; the light was ghostly and unreal. I began tostumble; I slipped and slid, lost my balance, and fell. Then, as the snow deepened and the darkness increased, I realized thatto attempt the descent of the slope above camp would be folly, for itwas as steep as a house roof, and covered with loose bowlders. Besidesit had many abrupt cliffs fifty to a hundred feet high. There was onlyone thing to do--camp here, for the night. But I was on an exposedshoulder of the mountain, above timberline, and it would be impossibleto live through the night without shelter and fire. I headed downhill without regard for direction. I was becoming numb, but in half an hour I safely reached the dwarf trees at timberline andplunged through them to a dense grove of spruce. Occasionally therewas a dead tree, and nearly all trees had dead limbs low down. Withsuch limbs or small trunks as I could find I constructed a rudelean-to, with closed ends. With my pocket knife I cut green boughs, covered the lean-to and plastered the boughs with a coating of wetsnow. The green branches, together with the snow that was streamingdown like a waterfall, soon rendered the shelter windproof. With a glowing fire in front to light my way, I ranged in ever-wideningcircles for fuel to last through the long night ahead. Within an hourI had collected a fair-sized pile of wood, but I thought I'd betterhave even more. My quest took me farther among the trees. Of a suddenthere came a whirr of wings that made me jump and drop my load, as anumber of grouse flew in all directions, their booming wings fairlyexploding with energy. One of the grouse alighted in a tree overhead and I snatched out thesix-shooter, aimed carefully and fired. It was a new experience forthe grouse; it stretched its head out, and, twisting sidewise, stareddown at me curiously. Once more I fired. The interest of the grouseincreased. Again and again I fired, pausing confidently after eachshot for the bird to tumble down. Three times I emptied the cylinderwithout a hit. Then in disgust I shoved the gun back into its holsterand fumbled in the snow for a stone. The first throw was close, thesecond hit its mark, and the bird came fluttering down. The clouds dropped lower, enveloping my camp. The night was inkyblack. I lay beneath my lean-to, watching the fire before which theplump grouse was slowly turning round and round as it roasted. Theturning was accomplished by hooking a green twig into its neck andtying the other end of the twig with a string that wound and unwound asthe bird alternated directions. I unloaded one of the revolvercartridges and used the salty powder for seasoning my feast. I savedsome ammunition after all! It was noon next day before I reached camp. Then the storm shut downagain. Snow began to accumulate. In the woods it lay knee deep, whilethe high ridges above the timberline were swept bare by the howlingwind. Quite unexpectedly, in the dead of night, I had a visitor. He wasuninvited, but was determined to make himself at home. Awakened by therattle of tin, I sat up, listened and waited. I struck a match andcaught a glimpse of a huge mountain rat disappearing in the darkness. I had scarcely fallen asleep again before he returned, and when Istruck a light he stared at me with villainous, beady eyes. By theuncertain light of a match I took aim with the faithless six-shooterand fired. When I sprang up, expecting to find the mangled remains ofthe intruder, I discovered a gaping hole in my only frying pan. After an hour the pest came again, satisfied, no doubt, that mymarksmanship was not dangerous. This time I was prepared for hiscoming. I had a lighted pine torch to see to aim by. I tried anothershot. The rat kept moving while in the open and only stopped whenbehind shelter, peeping out with one eye. At last he left the tent, and I followed him into the woods. Beneath the overhang of the cliffhe stopped, his piercing eyes flashing in the darkness as I advancedwith the torch. Patiently he waited beneath a leaning tree trunk. Tenfeet from him I knelt upon the velvet needles of the forest, and withtorch held aloft, steadied the six-shooter, aimed carefully, and fired. At the shot the rat disappeared. I pressed forward confident that atlast I had scored a hit. The torch had gone out. I was feeling amongthe dead needles for the rat's mangled body when my fingers touchedsomething wooden. Instantly the pest was forgotten. By the light of amatch I saw that I had uncovered the corner of a little box. Itflashed upon me that I had stumbled upon the cache where the oldprospectors had hidden their gold. They were gone; the gold was mine! I tugged and tugged till I dragged it from its concealment beneath therotting log. In trembling haste I tore off its cover. Then. .. I staggered back with a cry of dismay! The box was filled with old, crystallized dynamite. An inch above the top layer of the deadly stuffwas a fresh hole where my bullet had crashed through. A little lowerand it would have hit the powder crystals! The next morning snow lay deep about the tent. It was impossible tomake my way through the woods. I was marooned far from civilization. The wind rose; crashing among the peaks, tearing along the ridges, roaring through the passes. Blinding clouds came sifting down from thewind-swept heights. After days of patient waiting, I started the laborious climb upward, for it was impossible to make progress downward, where the soft snowlay. Now, like the sheep, I would take advantage of those wind-sweptstretches above timberline. Before dawn I was on my way. It required three hours to gain the firstmile. Then, as I reached the cleared stretches, progress becameeasier. Though the wind came in angry squalls, that sometimes flung meheadlong, and buffeted and drove me about, the going underfoot was good. If I could keep my bearings and head northward, steer out around theheads of countless cañons, hold my given altitude above timberline, Iwould eventually reach a spot some miles above the valley where thehome ranch lay. All day I plodded. The wind did not abate, but camein a gale from the west. At times it dropped to perhaps fifty miles anhour, and again it rose to more than a hundred miles; it shrieked, pounded at the cliffs, tore the battered timberline trees to bits, caught up frozen snow crust and crashed it among the trees like rippingshot. At such times I was forced to turn my back, or to feel my wayblindly, head down. I moved with utmost caution lest I walk over acliff. The time came when I had to abandon the wind-swept heights and flounderthrough the soft snow of the cañons. Through narrow passes I had tocrawl, so terrific was the wind that poured through the channel like awaterfall. Nothing short of a Kansas cyclone can match the velocity ofa mountain-top gale. All day I stemmed its tide, which sapped mystrength, bowled me over and cut my face. As early darkness came on I reached a familiar cañon that dropped downtoward the valley where the ranch lay hidden. Drunkenly I staggeredhomeward, too exhausted to care what happened. The last three milesrequired three hours of heroic work. I became extremely weary andwanted nothing so much as to sink down in the snow and go to sleep; butI knew what that would mean, so I kept slapping and beating myself tokeep awake. In the end I reached the ranch, pounded upon the door and, when it was opened, pitched headlong across its threshold. The Parson gazed down at me from his six feet of height. "Well, " he said at length, "guess you found a pretty big world. " CHAPTER FOUR DANCING ACROSS THE DIVIDE So new was the life, so fascinating the animals and elements of theprimitive world, so miraculous was it that my lifelong dreams were cometrue, that I never thought of home-sickness, nor missed the comradesleft behind me, although the Parson and his quiet wife were ratherelderly companions for a youngster. There were, too, the diversions ofgoing for the mail, either horseback or in the old spring wagon behindthe steady, little mountain ponies, the swapping of yarns while waitingfor the generally belated stage to dash up, its four horses prancing, and steaming, no matter how cold the weather, from the precipitous upsand downs of the mountain roads they had traveled. The return journeyin the dusk or by moonlight was never without incident: porcupine, deer, bear, Bighorn, mountain lion--some kind of game invariablycrossed my trail. And, as was true in all pioneer regions, the community abounded ininteresting personalities. During the first half of the nineteenthcentury, the fame and fairness of the country had reached the centersof Eastern culture, and had lured the ambitious and the adventurous totry their skill in hunting and trapping and fishing in this Paradise, roamed over by big game, crossed by sparkling streams, alive withtrout. Kit Carson was the first white man to look down upon itsbeautiful valleys. Others soon followed: Joel Estes, for whom the Parkwas eventually named; "Rocky Mountain Jim, " a two-gun man, living alonewith his dogs, looking like a bearded, unkempt pirate, taciturn, yetnot without charm, as later events proved, unmolesting and unmolested, enveloped in a haze of respected mystery. There was also that notedlady globe-trotter, Miss Isabella Bird, an Englishwoman of undoubtedrefinement, highly educated--whose volume, "A Lady's Life in the RockyMountains, " is one of the earliest and most picturesque accounts ofthat time--upon whom "Rocky Mountain Jim" exerted his blandishments. Some sort of romance existed between them, how serious no one knows, for the tragic shooting of Jim, by an irate pioneer father, cut shortits development. In the early sixties, an English nobleman and sportsman, the Earl ofDunraven, attracted by the wealth of game in the region, attempted tomake it into a private hunting park or preserve. He took up all theacreage which he could legitimately acquire in his own name, then tookup fraudulent claims in the names of his tenants. But the hardypioneers, who were coming into the country in ever-increasing numbers, rightly doubting the validity of his own ownership of so many thousandsof acres, homesteaded land to their liking and built their log cabinsupon it. Lord Dunraven tried to scare them off, but they would not bebluffed, and in the contest which followed, he lost out and departedfrom the region. Although his coming to the Park contributed much toits romantic history, in his "Memoirs"--two thick, heavy volumes, published a few years ago--he devotes only half a page to his EstesPark experiences. Whether this is because he considered themnegligible or unworthy, would be interesting to know. The old Dunraven Lodge was the first hostelry in the region, and aboutthe great fireplace in its spacious, trophy-hung lobby gathered many ofthe political and artistic celebrities of that day. The fame of themountain beauty spot spread--visitors came. The settlers added "sparerooms" to their log cabins, and during the summer and early fall "tookin boarders, " thus helping to eke out their living expenses and, whatwas even more far-reaching perhaps, the outer world was thus "fetchedin" to them: they heard of railroads annihilating the longoxen-traversed distances of covered wagon days, of new gold strikes, ofnational politics, rumblings of the Civil War, slavery agitation, presidential elections, and those other momentous, history-makingevents of their time. The most important and regular social occasion of that day was thecommunity dinner and "literary. " Imagine the picturesque company, congregated from miles around, each contributing whatever he couldmuster of food and drink--the old Earl of Dunraven, as well as others, had a bar!--and seated at a long, single table. What genuine, home-made fun! What pranks, what wit--yes, what brilliance! Some one, usually Parson Lamb, sometimes gaunt old Scotch John Cleave, thepostmaster, rarely some noted visitor, who either from choice orill-health lingered on into the winter, made a speech. There weredeclamations, debates, the interminable, singsong ballads of thefrontier, usually accompanied by French harp or fiddle. Families werefew, bachelors much in the majority; I remember that at one of thecommunity affairs there were eighteen bachelors out of a totalattendance of thirty persons! But as the region settled up, thebachelor ranks dwindled. They, like the big game, disappeared, asthough in their case "open season" prevailed likewise. I had attended several of these pioneer festivities and had enjoyedthem greatly, and was much impressed with their importance, forunderlying all the fun was an old-fashioned dignity seldom foundnowadays. But Parson Lamb told me these dinners were tame compared toa real mountain dance. "Just you wait till you see a real shindig" hesaid. "Then you'll have something to talk about. " In January, therewas a letter in the mail from Jim Oss, my acquaintance of the train onwhich I came West. We had been carrying on a desultory correspondence, but this message was momentous. "I am giving a dance Monday, " he wrote, "to celebrate proving up on myhomestead. Come ahead of time so you can see all the fun. " Hishundred and sixty acres lay on the western slope of the ContinentalDivide--fifty-five miles away. Snow lay deep over every one of thoseintervening, upstanding miles! The Parson was concerned about my goingalone. "'Tain't safe to cross that old range alone any time of year, let alonethe dead of winter. Hain't no one else agoing from here?" I inquired, but it seemed there was not. Secretly I was well pleasedto have it so. I was young enough to thrill at the chance of sohazardous an experience. Parson Lamb agreed that Friday morning would be a good time to start. We were not superstitious, and it wasn't the thirteenth. The trip hadto be made on snowshoes, with which I was not very adept, but that onlyadded to its attractions. In order to cross the Divide, it wasnecessary to descend from my lofty nine thousand feet elevation toseven thousand five hundred, before starting to climb Flattop trail, which led over to Grand Lake, the last settlement before reaching Oss'splace. By sundown I reached a deserted sawmill shack, the last shelterbetween me and Grand Lake. It was six miles below the top of theDivide, and twenty miles to the Lake. There I spent the night and atdawn was trailing upward, in the teeth of a sixty-mile gale! The first two of those uprising six miles were fair going, and tookonly a little more than an hour. Thereafter the trail grew moreprecipitous. The third mile required one hour, and the fourth, twohours of exhausting work. The sun rose, but not the temperature;powdery snow swirled around the heads of the peaks; clouds swept abovethe ridges, flayed and torn; from above timberline came the roar of thewind. Dark glasses protected my eyes from snow and wind; and I was warmlydressed. I left my bedding roll at the sawmill, to be picked up on thereturn trip, for shelter could be had at Grand Lake. The light pack Icarried contained peanuts, chocolate, and a change of socks. The higher I climbed the wilder became the wind. From timberline Isurveyed the prospect ahead and hesitated. Clouds and snow whirled upin a solid mass, blinding and choking me. The cold penetrated my heavyclothing. I went on. In a few minutes I was in the midst of theturmoil, utterly lost, buffeted about. I tried to keep the wind in myface for compass, but it was so variable, eddying from all directions, that it was not reassuring. Near the top of the mountain a blastknocked me down, and half smothered me with flying snow. I arosegroggily, uncertain which way to head; it was impossible to see even astep in front. The staff I carried served me well, with it I wenttapping and feeling my way like a blind man. There I was on the top ofthe world, thirteen thousand feet above sea level--and overlookingnothing. Flattop mountain is shaped like a loaf of bread, sloping off steeply atthe ends, its sides guarded by sheer cliffs. . It was these cliffs Ifeared and strove to avoid. I had heard startling tales of the effectsof high altitude on one; how the atmosphere was very rare and light. Had it been any heavier that day, I could not have survived. Violentblasts of wind frequently bowled me over. After one of these falls, Iarose uncertainly, drifted with the wind for a moment's respite, neglected to feel ahead with my staff--and walked out upon a snowcornice that overhung the top of the cliff. The cornice broke away!Amidst an explosion of snow I plunged downward, struggling franticallyas I went! [Illustration: I plunged downward, struggling frantically. ] I landed in a snowdrift featherbed which, while it broke my fall, almost buried me alive. The wind reached me only in occasional gusts, so I realized that I must be sheltered by the cliff wall. In the firstbrief lull I took my bearings. I had landed upon a narrow ledge a fewfeet wide. Below me yawned the gorge. It was a terrible half hour'swork with a snowshoe as a shovel to extricate myself, but a few minuteslater I was once more on top. Again I struggled upward. I reached the pass and started down thewestern slope toward timber. My fingers and toes were frosted, I wasnumb with cold, and so battered by the gale I could only pant. Mycareful calculations had come to naught, as I was far behind theschedule I had planned. I decided to make up time by abandoning thetrail and taking a shortcut to timber and shelter through an unknowncañon which I thought led to Grand Lake. But the cañon was hard going. Thick, young evergreens, entanglingwillows and fallen logs impeded every step. I could make no headwayand darkness was coming on. Disgusted, despairing, I took to thefrozen stream, only to skid over icy bowlders and at last to breakthrough the ice crust into the frigid water. Long after dark I staggered down the single street of Grand Lake towarda dim patch of light. It proved to be the window of a store. Withinwas a glowing stove, surrounded by a group of men. The proprietor eyed me with suspicion. "Where'd you drop from?" I waved vaguely toward the Continental Divide. "Must 'a' bin something urgent to make you tackle the Flattop trail inwinter. " He awaited my explanations curiously--but I had slumped down near thestove and was half asleep. Next morning I looked back up the way I had come--low clouds, tatteredto shreds. Even at that distance I could hear the roar of the windamong the loft crags. I was thankful that I had crossed the Divide theday before. It was still thirty miles to the cabin of my friend, butthey were fairly easy miles compared with those I had just traversed. Even so, so spent was my strength, it was pitch dark when I draggedwearily up the broken road to where that cabin nestled in its grove ofspruces. The dance was not until Monday night, so I took it for granted that Ishould be the first to arrive, since I was a full day ahead of thefunction. But no! Many were already there! They were eating supperand made room for me at the long table before the open fire. They werecordial and made me feel at home at once, marveling over my making thetrip alone, and praising my pluck. I was much too weary and hungry toprotest, even though I had been becomingly modest. Seeing this, theyfilled my plate and let me be, turning their nimble tongues on ourhost--What handsome whiskers--la! la! He'd better be careful withthose hirsute adornments and a cabin with a plank floor! He couldn'thope to remain a bachelor long! So the banter ran. Supper over and the dishes cleared away, the candles were snuffed outand the company (visitors were never called guests) sat around theflickering hearth and speculated over the possible coming of the Moffatrailroad. What an assorted company it was! Young andgrizzled--trappers, miners, invalids seeking health, adventurers, speculators, a few half-breeds; all men of little education, but offascinating experience; a few women of quiet poise and resourcefulness. Their clothes were nondescript and betrayed the fact that they had comefrom the East, having been sent west by condoning relatives, no doubtafter having lived in more fashionable circles. There were two littlechildren who fell asleep early in the evening in their parents' arms. The company was put to bed in Oss's one-room house by the simple meansof lying down upon the floor fully dressed, feet to the fire. All were up early next morning, and each found some task to do. Someof the men cut wood and piled it outside the door; the women folksassisted Oss with breakfast which was cooked in the fireplace; for hehad not yet reached the luxury of a cook stove, which would have to be"fetched in" over sixty miles of mountain roads and would cost a tidysum besides. Some artistic soul, with a memory of urban ways, made long ropes ofevergreens and hung them in garlands from the rafters, a flag wasdraped above the fireplace, lanterns were hung ready to light. Distant "neighbors" kept flocking in all day, each bringing aneighborly offering; fresh pork from the owner of an only shoat; choicevenison steaks; bear meat from a hunter who explained that the bear hadbeen killed months before and kept frozen in the meat house. Wildraspberry jam, with finer flavor than any I have ever tasted before orsince, was brought by a bachelor who vied with the women folks when itcame to cookery. The prize offering, however, were some mountaintrout, speared through the ice of a frozen stream. Dancing began early. The music was supplied by an old-time fiddler whojerked squeaky tunes from an ancient violin, singing and shouting thedance calls by turns. Voice, fiddle and feet, beating lusty time tohis tunes, went incessantly. He had an endless repertoire, and atalent for fitting the names of the dancers to his ringing rimes. Some of his offerings were: "Lady round lady and gents so low! First couple lead to right-- Lady round lady and gents so low-- Lady round gent and gent don't go-- Four hands half and right and left. " The encores he would improvise: "Hit the lumber with your leather-- Balance all, an' swing ter left. " All swayed rhythmically, beating time with their feet, clapping theirhands, bowing, laughing. The men threw in their fancy steps, theirchoice parlor tricks. A few performed a double shuffle; one a pigeon'swing; a couple of trappers did an Indian dance, twisting their bodiesinto grotesque contortions and every so often letting out a yell thatmade one's hair stand on end. There was little rest between the dances, for the old fiddler hadmarvelous powers of endurance. He sawed away, perspired, shouted andsang as though his life depended on his performance. He was having asgood, or better time, than anyone. With scarcely a moment to breathehe'd launch into another call--and not once the whole night through didhe repeat: "Ole Buffler Bill--Buffler Bill! Never missed an' never will. " Then as the dancers promenaded he'd switch to a new improvisation, ending in a whirlwind of wit and telling personalities, which sent thecompany into hysterical laughter. I joined in the dance, rathergawkily no doubt, for my mother's father was a Quaker preacher and wehad never been allowed to dance at home. The ladies regarded myclumsiness with motherly forbearance, and self-sacrificingly tried todirect my wayward feet. But either because I was not recovered from mytrip or because the strangeness and confusion wearied me, I could notget the hang of the steps. Presently an understanding matron let meslip out of the dance, and I sat down by the fiddler and dozed. Clanking spurs, brilliant chaps, fur-trimmed trappers' jackets, thudding moccasins, gaudy Indian blankets and gay feathers, voluminousfeminine flounces swinging from demure, snug-fitting basques--allwhirled above me in a kaleidoscopic blur! [Illustration: I sat down by the fiddler and dozed. ] A wild war whoop awakened me--nothing but a little harmless hilarity!It was two o'clock in the morning. I wished the dance would end so Icould sleep undisturbed. I envied the two children asleep on thefloor. But the dance went on. The fiddle whined, its player shouted, heavy shoes clumped tirelessly on the plank floor. There was stillenergetic swing and dash to the quadrilles, still gay voices wereraised in joyous shouts. Those hearty pioneers were full of "wim, wigor and witality"! Dawn broke redly over the Divide; still the dance continued. Daylightsifted over the white world, and yet the dancers did not pause. Atlast as the sun came up, the old fiddler reluctantly stood on his chairand played "Home Sweet Home. " All-night dances were at that time the custom of the mountain folk; thecompany assembled as far ahead of time as was convenient, and remained, sometimes, a day or two after the close of the festivities. There wasno doubt as to one's welcome and there was no limit to the length ofhis stay. Isolation made opportunities for such social intercourserare and therefore everyone got more "kick" out of these occasions thanis possible in our swiftly moving, blasé age. Weather conditions changed while we danced: the wind eased off and themountain tops emerged from the clouds and drifting snow. I trailed upthe cañon I had struggled through in the darkness; and except for thefinal stretch of the steep mountain above timberline the snowshoeingwas nothing except plain hard work. In some places the wind had packedthe snow hard; again it was soft so that I sank knee deep at everystep. In the soft snow, where there was a steep slope to negotiate, each snowshoe had to be lifted high, until my knee almost touched mychest. The webs accumulated snow, too, until each shoe weighed manyadditional pounds. But the fairyland that I found on top of the Divide was worth all theeffort required to reach it. It was the first time I had found thewind quiet; every peak stood out sharp and clear, many miles awayseemed but a few minutes' walk. There were none of the usual objectsthat help estimate distance; no horses or cattle, no trees or trails, nothing but unbroken space. The glare of the sun was blinding; even myvery dark snow glasses failed to protect my eyes. The silence was tremendous. Always before there had been the windshrieking and crashing. Now there was not a sound, not a breath ofwind, not even a snow-swirl. I shouted, and my voice came back acrossthe cañon without the usual blurring; each word was distinct. Iwhistled softly and other echoes came hurrying back. Never have I feltso alone, or so small. As far as the eye could reach were mountains, one beyond the other. Near by loomed the jagged Never-summer range, while farther down the Divide Gray's and Terry's peaks stood out; thenthe Collegiate range--Harvard, Yale and Princeton. In the midst of my reverie there came a creaking, groaning sound fromalmost beneath my feet. I had paused on the brink of the sameprecipice over which I had fallen on my way to Grand Lake. Before Icould move, the snow-cornice broke away and several hundred feet of itcrashed down the cliff. In places it appeared to be ten to forty feetthick. It must have weighed thousands of tons. It fell with aswishing roar, with occasional sharp reports, as loose rocks dropped tothe clean-swept ledges of the cliff. It seemed to explode as itstruck, to fly into powder which filled the gorge between Flat top andHallett peaks. The wind had drifted the snow over the edge of the precipice where someof it had clung. Farther and farther it had crept out, overhanging theabyss, its great weight slowly bending the cornice downward until ithad at last given way. I shuddered a little at the awfulness of it; felt smaller than ever, backed away from the rim of the cañon, and headed for home. CHAPTER FIVE TRAPPING--MOUNTAIN-TOP DWELLERS Gold and fur have ever been beckoning sirens, luring men into theunknown. As I have said, the famous trapper, Kit Carson, was the firstwhite man to look down upon the picturesque, mountain-guarded valley, later known as Estes Park. From the foothills, he had followed up oneof the streams, seeking new fur-fields, until, after crossing the lastbarrier range, he looked down upon a broad, river spangled park setlike a gem in the midst of the encircling peaks of the Divide, withthat sheer, pyramidal face of Long's Peak dominating all. We like tothink that these early adventurers appreciated the beauty of theprimitive lands they explored, but whether or not Carson thrilled atthat exquisite alpine panorama, he noted keenly the profusion of trackscriss-crossing its green and white expanse, promising an abundance ofgame, for he moved down into the region and at the foot of Long's Peakbuilt himself a rude log cabin. There he spent the winter trappingbeaver, and the following spring bargained with the Indians to helppack out his catch. The walls, the hearth, and part of the stonechimney still mark the site of that first cabin. I selected the top of a high cliff overlooking these storied ruins forthe location of a cabin which I planned to build as soon as I couldmanage it. I, too, would be a trapper, and though the beaver and otherfur-bearing animals were not nearly so numerous as they had been thatday, sixty years gone, when Carson first beheld their mountainfastness, there still remained enough to make trapping interesting andprofitable. Game tracks still abounded, and notwithstanding that I wasa mere boy, inexperienced in woodcraft, I could distinguish that theydiffered, even though I could classify only a few of them; coyotetracks, I found, were very like a dog's; sheep, elk and deer trackswere similar, yet easily distinguished from one another; bear left aprint like that of a baby's chubby foot. Yes, there was still a chancefor me! As soon as I returned from the dance at Jim Oss's, I set about carryingout my plans. I mushed over deep snow back into Wild Basin, to recoverthe six traps I had abandoned there on that memorable first camp alone, and found my tent crushed under six feet of drifted snow and the regionstill deserted by game. I set the traps out in the vicinity of thehome ranch. Every few days I inspected them, only to find them empty. Indeed, over a period of long weeks I caught but one mink, two weaselsand three coyotes. The Parson kindly said the country was trapped out;still, I suspected my lack of skill was responsible for my scanty catch. One morning in following up my trap line, I found a trap missing. Inthe sand about the aspen tree to which it had been anchored were coyotetracks. Ignorantly fearless, I set out to track down the miscreant. The trail led down toward a forest, where dense thickets of new-growthlodge-pole pines livened the stark, fire-killed trees. As I neared theforest, the tracks were farther apart and dimmer, but here and therewere scratches on fallen logs as though a trap had been dragged acrossthem; moreover, there were occasional spots where the earth was greatlydisturbed, showing that the animal had no doubt threshed about in hisefforts to dislodge the trap, caught on the snags or bowlders. No denying I thrilled from head to foot over the prospect of meetingMr. Coyote face to face! If he showed fight I'd snatch my six-shooterfrom its holster (forgotten was its faithless performance in WildBasin!) and show him I was not to be trifled with. Of course, I'd aimto hit him where the shot would do least damage to his fur; it would bemore valuable for marketing. Just then I heard the clank of the trap chain. Heart pounding, handstrembling, I shakily drew my gun, and cautiously advanced. Around thecorner of a bowlder I came upon a large coyote, with a black striperunning along his back, squatting in an old game trail, apparentlylittle concerned either at my presence or at his own dilemma. As Istumbled toward him, he faced about, and without taking his eyes offme, kept jerking the trap which was wedged between a root and abowlder. Twenty feet away I stopped, and with what coolness I couldcommand in my excitement, took aim and fired. The bullet only ruffledthe heavy fur at his shoulder. Determined to finish him next shot, Iedged nearer. My target refused to stand still--he sprang the fulllength of his chain again and again, striving to dislodge the trap. Finally it jerked free and he was off like a rabbit, despite hisdragging burden, leaping logs or scuttling beneath them, zigzaggingalong the crooked trail, dodging bowlders, tree limbs and my frequentbut ineffective fire. For I madly pursued him though hard put to keepup his pace. Suddenly the trap caught again and jerked its victim to an abrupt stop. He whirled about and faced me defiantly, eyes blazing, fangs bared. Ireloaded my revolver, aimed--fired, aimed--fired again and again, untilthe cylinder was empty, without once hitting him. I began to think that, like old Tom, he led a charmed life. Just thenhe jerked loose, and once more the chase was on. I reloaded mysix-shooter and fired on the run, shouting excitedly. He ran on withtireless, automatic motion, apparently as unperturbed as he wasimpervious to bullets. All at once I discovered my belt empty--I had exhausted my cartridges!Disgusted, I shoved my gun back into its holster, and, picking up astout club, ran after the coyote. Several times I was close enough tohit him, but he deftly dodged or else sprang forward beyond reach. Once when the trap caught and prisoned him an instant, I swung my club, sure of ending the race, but it collided on a limb overhead and wentwide of the mark! Again I overtook the coyote as he struggled throughhindering bush, and, reaching forward, swung my bludgeon with all mymight and fell headlong upon him! I gave a terrified yell; my batteredhat flew off; I dropped my club. The coyote was out of sight before Igained my feet! Suddenly we popped out of the forest on the edge of a cañon; its sideswere smooth and almost bare. On this open ground, my quarry gained onme by leaps and bounds. I spied a rock-slide below--great slabs thathad slid down from the cliff above--between openings amply large toadmit almost any animal. Once the coyote reached that slide, he wouldescape. Panting loudly, I sprinted forward to overtake him. The trap chain wedged unexpectedly, the coyote changed ends, and cameup facing me. I could not put on brakes quickly enough and skiddedalmost into him. He sprang at my throat. As he launched upward Iglimpsed his flaming eyes and wide-open, fang-filled mouth. I do notknow what saved me; whether my desperate effort to reverse succeeded, whether I dodged, or whether the restraining trap chain thwarted him. As it was, his teeth grazed my face, leaving deep, red scars across mychin. .. . His was the handsomest skin that adorned the walls of mycabin when that dream eventually became a reality. I did not sell theskin as purposed--not, however, because my bullets had ruined it formarketing! [Illustration: I glimpsed his flaming eyes and wide-open, fang-filledmouth. ] In common with all small boys, I was the hero of my dreams, and in myfancy saw myself growing into a magnified composite of Nimrod, RobinHood, Kit Carson, and Buffalo Bill, all molded into one mighty man whodwarfed the original individuals! I confess reality was retarding mygrowth considerably. It looked as though Kit Carson would go unrivaledby me as a trapper; certainly the shades of Nimrod and Robin Hood hadno cause to be uneasy lest I win their laurels from them, and as forBuffalo Bill--both the Buffalo and the redskins, whose scalps hadalways dangled in fancy from my belt in revenge for their plaguing mymother on her brave drive with my sick father across those longunsettled miles, were far beyond my puny vengeance. The Parson told me that the Utes, a nomadic tribe, had once roamed themountains and valleys around Estes, but that it was not generallybelieved that they had permanent settlements here. It was thought theymade temporary or seasonal camp when hunting or fishing was at itsheight, and that they used the alpine valley as a vast council chamberwhen they met to discuss inter-tribal matters. Certain it is, Ipuzzled over curious, dim, ghostly circles, or rings, in the valleys, where neither grass nor any other vegetation had gained root even afterall these years. The old-timers told me these had been made by theIndians banking dirt around their lodges. A few scattered tepee framesstill stood, here and there, in sheltered groves along the river. Occasionally I picked up arrowheads--once upon a high-flung ledge Icame upon a score or more. How my imagination soared! Here, no doubt, an Indian had stood, in eagle-feathered war bonnet and full regalia, guarding this pass; he had been wounded sore unto death, he fell! Hisbones, and all his trappings, the wooden shaft of his arrows, haddisintegrated and disappeared. Only these bits of flint enmeshed inthe clinging tendrils of Indian tobacco, or kinnikinic, were left totell the tale of his heroism. Of course, I didn't give up hunting or trapping or even my hope offinding a gold mine, altogether. I continued to exercise mysix-shooter, though repeated failures to find my mark made it easy forme to depend more and more on my camera for "shots. " I still inspectedmy trapline, with mental resolutions against trailing trap-maddenedcoyotes. My trip over the Divide gave me a keener appreciation of winter uponthe heights. When, from the window of our snug log cabin, I looked uptoward Long's Peak, and saw the clouds of snow dust swirling about itshead, I pictured just what was happening up there far more accuratelythan I could ever have done before I had that experience. I madefrequent trips above timberline, sometimes to find arctic gales thatfilled the air with icy pellets which penetrated like shot, cutting myface; gales that drove the cold through the thickest, heaviest clothesI could put on; gales that blew the snow about until it enveloped me ina cloud-like veil, making vision impossible. On such days, retreat wasthe only possible, if not valorous, course. To have remained wouldhave been foolhardy, for blinded and buffeted by the storm, I mighteasily have stepped off a precipice with less fortunate consequencesthan had attended my experience on my journey over the Divide. But sometimes, the conditions on the heights were astonishing. Once Ileft our valley chill and gloomy, all shut in by lowering clouds, andclimbed up toward the hidden summits of the peaks, to emerge above theclouds into bright, warm sunshine. Another day, at an altitude oftwelve thousand feet, I found it only twelve below freezing, while, atthe same time, as I learned later, it was twenty-four degrees belowzero at Fort Collins, a town forty miles away on the plains. Strangefreak of weather! The explanation lay in the difference between thewinds that blew over the respective sections, a blizzardly north windwas sweeping over the low, exposed plains, while up on thepeak-encircled heights a balmy "chinook" gently stirred from the west. Mountaineers know that as long as the west wind blows no severe stormis to be feared. It is the chill east wind that comes creeping up thecañons from the bleak plains and prairies of the lowlands, which bringthe blizzards. One rare, windless day upon the heights, my little hay-making friend, the cony, greeted me with an enthusiastic "squee-ek. " He was sunninghimself upon a rock and looked so sleek and plump I knew his harvesthad been bountiful. He lay gazing off into space, apparentlycontemplating the Divide. But when, a few minutes later, a beady-eyedweasel challenged my right of way, I wondered whether little"Squee-ek's" thoughts were so remote as those distant peaks! In bothstorm and sunshine, I saw weasels abroad on the heights. They werebold, fearless little cutthroats, approaching within a few feet tostare at me wickedly. I saw them below timberline pursuing snowshoerabbits many times their size. Occasionally I came across fox tracks. These sly fellows seemedindifferent to cold or wind. They stalked the ptarmigan abovetimberline, and the grouse that had migrated up the slopes to winter, below it, and accounted for the death of many. One moonlit night, as Iprowled upward, I heard an unearthly, uncanny squall. I couldn't helpthe shiver that ran down my spine. All the pent-up anguish and tormentin the world broke forth in that sound. But perhaps it was only hisfoxy protest because his prey had outfoxed him. But by far the most interesting mountain-top dwellers were the Bighornsheep, which adopted those frigid regions as a winter resort. I hadoften wondered about those lofty-minded animals I had tracked over inthe Wild Basin country. Were they still on those wind-blown heights?It seemed incredible that they could stand a whole winter of suchbitter buffeting. Yet, on the days when I climbed above thetimberline, no matter the weather, they were always there, contentedlyfeeding on the sweet, early-cured tufts of grass that the raging alpinegales kept uncovered. It was fascinating to watch them; neither wildwinds nor blinding snow seemed to disconcert them; their thick woolcoats were impervious to the keenest, most penetrating blasts. True, on terribly stormy days they sought the shelter of giant upthrusts ofrock, towering cliffs or sky-piercing spires that faced eastward, awayfrom the prevailing winds. There they probably stayed for days at atime, as long as the worst storms prevailed. Such days I did not dareventure upon the heights, but I often found signs of their bedding downamong similar crags. And such nerveless or nervy creatures as they were! From the top of acliff, one day, I watched a band of them go down a nearly perpendicularwall. I could not follow, though I did go part way down to where thewall bulged outward. There the ledges had crumbled away, leavingsheer, smooth rock. It did not seem possible that anything could godown that smooth face. But half a dozen sheep in succession made thedescent safely, as I watched, breathless, from above. They seemed todefy the laws of gravitation in walking over the rim rock; for, insteadof tumbling headlong as I feared, they went skidding downward, bouncing, side-stepping, twisting and angling across the wall likecoasters on snow; they could not stop their downward drop, but theycontrolled their descent by making brakes of their feet, and takingadvantage of every small bump to retard their speed. By foot pressurethey steered their course for a shelving rock below. One afteranother, in quick succession, they shot down, struck the shelf andleaped sidewise to a ledge a dozen feet beneath. In spite of theirefforts to retard their speed, they had gained tremendous momentumbefore reaching the ledge and landed with all four feet bunched beneaththem. It seemed that their legs would surely be thrust through theirbodies. Their heads jerked downward, their noses threatened to beskinned on the rock! Yet that rough descent neither disabled norunnerved them. They recovered their balance instantly and trotted awayaround a turn of the wall. One young ram thought to escape by leaving the cliff and making his wayacross a steep, snowy slide to another crag. In places he struck softsnow and plunged heavily, breaking his way through. Midway betweencrags, however, he came to grief quite unexpectedly. An oozing springhad overflowed and covered the rocks with a coating of ice. Then snowhad blown down from above and covered it. The ram struck this at topspeed, and a moment afterward was turning somersaults down the slope. A hundred feet below he nimbly recovered his balance and proceeded onhis way, carrying his head haughtily, as though indignant at my burstof laughter. Part way down the cliff I found the tracks of the big ram leader of theband. I had long since named him "Big Eye, " which an old trapper hadtold me was the Indians' expression for extraordinary eyesight. Notthat "Big Eye" was exceptional in this respect, not at all! Every oneof his band possessed miraculous eyesight. But he was always alert andwary. It was unbelievable that he could detect me such a long way off, around bowlders, through granite walls, in thick brush, but it seemedto me he did. No matter how carefully I concealed my approach, healways discovered me. This day he had left his band and had turnedaside upon an extremely narrow shelf and made his way out of sight. Ifollowed his tracks, curious to learn where he had gone. Many placeshe had negotiated without slacking his speed, whereas I was forced tomake detours for better footing, to double back and forth, andgenerally to progress very slowly. Apparently he was not muchfrightened, for his tracks showed that he had frequently halted to lookbehind him. So intent was I upon overtaking him, that I ran into a flock ofptarmigan and nearly stepped on one of the "fool hens" before it tookwing and got out of the way, so utterly did it stake its safety on itswinter camouflage. The whole flock had been sitting in plain sight buttheir snow-white coats made them hardly distinguishable from theirbackground. They faded into the landscape like an elusive puzzlepicture. In summer they had depended on their speckled plumage, solike the mottled patches of sand and snow and grass and granite whereonthey lived, to protect them. They certainly put their trust in nature! Around a turn, I came upon the old Patriarch. He was standing with hisback to the wall, facing out and back, for here the ledge he had beenfollowing pinched out, and even he, champion acrobat of the cliffs, could neither climb up nor find a way down. For several minutes wefaced each other, ten yards apart. I had heard that mountain sheepnever attack men, and that even the big leaders never use theirmassive, battering ram heads to injure anyone. With this in mind Imoved up to within ten feet when a movement of his haughty head stoppedme. Somehow in his action was the suggestion that he might forgettradition. One bump of his huge head would knock me overboard. Therewas nothing but space for a hundred feet below, then sheer wall forseveral hundred feet more. Arrogantly he faced me, unflinchingly; his eyes of black and gold neverwavering; statuesque, his heroic body set solidly upon his sturdy legs, his regal head high, his lodestone feet secure upon the sloping rock, he was a handsome figure. He outweighed me about three pounds to one;so the longer I looked at him, the less desire I had to crowd. Atlength I mustered up courage to try him out. Slowly, an inch at atime, I edged forward, talking quietly--assuring him that my intentionswere good, and that I merely wanted to learn how near a fellow might gowithout his lordship's taking exceptions. Suddenly he stiffened; half closed his eyes and lowered his head. Atthe same instant he shifted his feet as though to charge. As I backedcarefully away, I recalled again that his kind had never harmed anyone, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and left him in undisputedpossession of the ledge. On many a windy winter day thereafter, I saw "Big Eye" and his band. Always I laughed a bit at my experience upon the ledge. The ramappeared so dignified, so quiet, so harmless! Still, I had no fault tofind with my retreat that day. One day there came a change over the world. Signs of spring camecreeping up the valley. The pussy willows put on their silvery furs, the birches and elders unfurled their catkin tassels. Bands of deerand elk began to drift back into the valley; the Bighorn eagerlyforsook the heights. The few coyotes that had remained throughout thewinter were joined by more of their kin; fresh bobcat tracks appeareddaily. The mountain lions that had trailed the deer and elk down towarmer climes, returned close on their heels as their red recordstestified. On my rambles I often came upon the scenes of their kills;deer, elk and even wary sheep were their victims. The wet, clinging, spring snows lent themselves readily as recordingtablets for the movements of all the woods folk. Not far from theproposed site of my dream cabin, the story of a lion's stalk wasplainly told by tracks. He had climbed to the top of a rock that stoodten feet above the level floor of the valley, a huge bowlder that hadrolled down from a crag above, torn its way through the ranks of thetrees and come to rest at last in the grassy meadow. There he lay inwait for the slowly advancing, grazing deer. As they approached the rock, the band had split; a section passing oneither side of the bowlder. Out and down the lion had leaped--ten feetout and as far down. His momentum had overthrown his victim which hadregained its feet and struggled desperately. The turf was torn up forthirty feet beyond the rock. I found only the tracks of the hind feetof the lion; it was not hard to imagine that, his front claws werefastened in the shoulders of his prey, and that his terrible teeth hadreached an artery in his victim's neck. Many such slaughters the softsnow revealed! Aroused by them, I determined to revenge the shy, innocent deer family. At every opportunity, I have taken toll of thelion tribe. As soon as the first new grass painted the meadows palegreen, the sheep flocked down from their lofty winter resort: thesunshine in the hemmed-in valley was hot; they still wore their heavywinter coats, they grew lazy; hours on end they lay dozing, or movingtranquilly about, feasting on the succulent young shoots. For six orseven months, --it was at least that long ago since my discovery oftheir uprising migration in Wild Basin--they had been living on driedfare--unbaled hay--with no water to wash it down, for there were noflowing springs about their airy castles. Snow was the only moistureto be had. I was all eagerness to "shoot" them with my camera! I had watched themso often I felt we were at least acquainted. But out of respect fortheir tremendous dignity, I decided to keep my plans secret from them, to approach under cover, to creep forward cautiously, soundlessly. Tomy dismay, as soon as I got within a quarter of a mile of them, somebusybody of a sentinel would see me, and if I continued advancing, nomatter how stealthily, the flock would move away. It seemed offish, not to say unfriendly; time and again I tried the same tactics, withthe same result. I was disappointed and puzzled. I came to the conclusion that I had presumed too much on our previousfriendship, that such regal creatures could not be expected tocapitulate after a brief winter's acquaintance. I would visit them intheir little valley, learn their peculiarities--who would do less togain a friend worth while--and gain their confidence. Accordingly, every day I strolled casually in plain sight, over toward their feedingground. They gradually lost their nervousness at my advances andeventually let me come within a hundred feet of them. One morning, after several weeks of this chivalrous conduct, I set outwith my camera, to spend the day with them. Not that they had extendedan invitation, but they unconsciously invited me. There werethirty-two of them, including two huge old rams, grazing at the edge ofthe valley. I approached them from the windward side, so they would bedoubly sure of my identity, for I knew that with their telescopic eyesthey would recognize me while I was still a long way off. I halted first while about a hundred yards distant. Pausing a fewmoments, I advanced again, until I cut the distance between us in half. I affected the utmost indifference--I lay down to rest, I got up andprowled about. They left off feeding, and bunched together, the waryold rams on the far side of the flock. They gallantly let the ladiesand children be first to meet me! For an hour the game went on. Little by little I cut the distance tothirty feet. Some of them even forgot themselves so much as to liedown and doze, others were discourteous enough to resume feeding, but acanny few continued to watch my every movement sharply. Several timesI tried to circle round them; each time they edged away towards themountain slopes. At last they bunched together beside a jutting rockand made such a beautiful picture, I could no longer control my desireto photograph them. Setting my camera at forty feet, I again slowlyadvanced. At thirty feet, the sheep still being quiet, I shortened therange. My greediness threatened to be the end of me! Below my subjects was a smooth rock slope. Having set my camera fortwenty-five feet, I ventured across it. If I could only reach the edgeof that sloping rock before they took fright what a wonderful pictureI'd get! Slowly, inch by inch I crept toward them. My eyes were gluedto the finder, my finger trembled at the button, all at once, I steppedout, on nothing! Boy and camera turned over in midair and alighted, amid a shower of cones, in the top of a young spruce tree. After the first instant of astonishment, my exasperation grew. I hadlost my first chance at getting a photograph of the sheep--most likelythe best chance I'd ever have, too. Maybe ruined my camera, myclothes, and my hide! My disposition was past mending. My secondsurprise belittled my first. For when I looked about, expecting thesheep to have vanished, there they all were, crowding forward, andpeering over the edge of the rock, in friendly solicitude! How oftenthe unpremeditated exceeds our fondest plans! The picture I finallymade far excelled the one I had first counted on! After my fall, the game was taken up again. The sheep moved higherwhenever I came too near them. Sometimes I dropped to all fours andgave an imitation of a playful pup; stopping to sniff loudly at achipmunk's hole or to dig furiously with both hands. The sheep crowdedforward appreciatively. Evidently they had a weakness for vaudeville. No acrobat, no contortionist, ever had a more flatteringly attentiveaudience. I laughed at my foolishness, but the sheep were courteouslygrave. Toward noon the band set off for a steep cliff, where each day theytook their siesta. The two old rams led the way. After makingpictures of them silhouetted against the sky, I circled the cliff andhid at the end of a ledge. I counted on getting a good photograph whenthe old leaders surmounted the crag and marched forward at the head oftheir single-file column. To deceive them, I built a dummy at the spotwhere they turned aside upon the ledge. Coat and cap and camera casewent into the sketchy figure, and after it had been propped in place toblock the downward retreat, I hurried around the point and hid in somebushes behind a granite slab, first setting my camera, well camouflagedwith stones, atop the rock, and focusing it toward the point where thesheep would pass in review. Minutes passed. Not a sheep rounded thepoint! More waiting. I sallied forth to reconnoiter. The sheep werefeeding peacefully in the valley below. They had knocked down thedummy, trampled over it, and retreated along the ledge the way they hadcome! The joke was on me, but it had been a glorious day for all that. Iretrieved the remains of my down-trodden dummy and started home. Ihalted midway down to the valley to study some queer records in thesand. Surely a crazy man had made them! What would a stranger havethought if he had happened upon that grotesque trail? But a stranger_had_ been there. On the heels of my crazy trail were the tracks of amountain lion. He had been stalking me! From my experience with these sheep I made some naïve deductions andwrote them in my notebook. From it, lying open before me now, Itranscribe these boyish but none the less accurate observations: "Mountain sheep have all-seeing eyes--therefore, one keeps in the openat all times and never attempts stalking them under cover. If you do, you are acting suspiciously, and they will treat you in the samemanner. " "They will not permit you to approach from above them. They are loftyminded; so keep your place beneath them. " "If sheep are in the open, and on level ground, they will not permit anear approach. " "Keep in the open, below them, permit them to retreat to the rocks. Ifthese rocks give way to sheer cliffs the sheep will feel at home. Theywill then permit you to approach quite near. " "Sheep are tremendously curious. Take advantage of this fact and offerthem something in the way of entertainment. If you want to get on withsheep, make a fool of yourself. " As spring advanced, the ewes left the flock and sought safety among thecliffs where they raised their young in partial concealment. Whiletheir lambs were yet mere infants, a week old or so, they hid themamong the rocks. Instinctively the youngsters lay low, remainingimmovable until their mothers returned from feeding near by, to claimthem. Eagles hovered high overhead, waiting to drop like plummets uponthe helpless babies. These great birds accounted for many a bleatinglittle lamb's passing. Lions, likewise, visited the heights and tooktoll of mothers as well as of offspring; even bobcats pounced uponthem. Sometimes coyotes or wolves surprised partly grown sheep, thathad brashly ventured too far from sheltering rocks. While returning home one day I stumbled upon a very young sheep. Theyoungster lay low, like a wounded duck. Several times I walked withina few feet of him, coming closer each time until at length he sprang upand fled in terror. He took refuge by climbing an almost perpendicularcliff wall. Camera in hand, I followed as best I could. Fifty feetup, he came to a point where even his nimble feet could find noadequate footing. His retreat ended. He scrambled to a little juttingpoint not much larger than a hand's breadth, and took refuge there withall four feet bunched together. Carefully I worked up toward him. Several times he bleated for hismother and shifted his position. Every moment I feared he would losehis footing and plunge down the rock face. Twenty feet below I stoppedbecause I could climb no higher. Carefully I turned about and facedthe wall, hugging it as closely as possible. Holding the camera atarm's length, and pointing it straight up, I sprung the shutter. Theclick, slight as it was, startled the lamb. He leaped several feet toanother nub of rock, teetered precariously several seconds, thensuddenly his pedestal broke off. Sheep and rock dropped straighttoward me. To avoid the rock, I sprang sideways. The sheep plungeddown upon me as the rock hurtled past. Together we revolved, thatsheep and I, the camera being abandoned in midair to shift for itself. Together the struggling youngster and I struck the rock, slid andbounded outward, turning over as we fell, first one on top, then theother, until at length I clutched a bush growing out of a crevice inthe slide and stopped myself; but the lamb continued his bouncing falldown the mountain. In all, he must have rolled three hundred feetbefore he stopped, his feet sticking up out of the brush like the legsof an overturned bench. [Illustration: Sheep and rock dropped straight toward me. ] It was some time before I was able to walk. But as quickly as possibleI went to the rescue of that sheep because I had caused his downfall. He was still breathing, but unable to stand. With great effort, for hewas heavy and I was shaking from my fall, I carried him down to thestream and soused him in its icy water. He revived at once. Thecamera had smashed to pieces before it finished its bouncing flightdown the mountain. After all, it was a great experience, and though it cost me my camera, some of my hide and most of my clothes, I wouldn't have missed it forall Kit Carson's priceless furs! CHAPTER SIX A LOG CABIN IN THE WILDS--PRIMITIVE LIVING At last, that long-anticipated day dawned, when my dream cabin became areality. High upon a shoulder of Twin Sisters Mountain, a thousandfeet above the floor of the valley, where Parson Lamb's ranch stood, overlooking the ruins of Kit Carson's own cabin, I built it. Acrossthe valley, towered Long's Peak and its lofty neighbors. Forty milesof snowcapped peaks were at my dooryard, and beyond, toward the risingsun, hazy plains stretched away to the illimitable horizon. Betweenits craggy shoulder and the main body of the mountain, lay anunsuspected, wedge-shaped valley, down which a little brook wentgurgling. There ancient spruce and yellow pine and quaking aspens grewin sheltered luxuriance. "Silent valley, " I named it, though "Peaceful, " or "Hidden, " or "Happy"might have fitted it as well. About eighty years previously, as Icalculated by the age of the new trees since sprung up, fire had burnedover Silent Valley. Many of the fire-killed trees were still standing, sound to the heart. These solid, seasoned trunks, I cut for the logsof my cabin walls. The Parson, almost as excitedly happy as I, lent mea team to drag them to the spot where the house was to stand. Theywere far too heavy for me to lift, so I had to roll them into place byan improvised system of skids. Construction was a toilsome work; I wasnot skilled at it, I handled my ax awkwardly, and squandered muchenergy in "lost motion. " But how I sang and shouted at the task!Never could Kit Carson nor any other pioneer have exulted at hisbuilding as I did! No wonder the deer paused in the aspen trails andpeered timidly out from their leafy retreat in amazement! No wonderthose sages, the mountain sheep, watched from the cliffs above withsharp, incredulous eyes. Never before had the ring of an ax echoed inSilent Valley! [Illustration: Never before had the ring of an ax echoed in SilentValley!] My cabin grew, as fast as young shoulders and eager hands could buildit. Log walls snugly chinked, and log rafters boarded and sodded; twowindows, "lazy" windows we maligned them, because they lay down insteadof standing, one sash above the other, and opened by sliding past eachother. The few dollars I had saved from my original stake and madefrom the sale of hides, I spent, extravagantly, it seemed then, forboards to make a door and lay a floor. That lumber cost nine dollarsper thousand feet on the job, and had to be hauled eleven miles from alocal sawmill--an exorbitant price that made a lasting impression on mythrifty mind and left my old leather pouch flat. That same lumbersells to-day for fifty-two dollars a thousand! Shades of Kit Carson!How fortunate I lived near your time! Built-in furniture is nothing new, "we pioneers" always used it! Fromthe odds and ends of planks left from the door and floor, I built awall seat, a chimney corner, a shelf cupboard and a bunk. My scantyfurnishings were all homemade--a rough, pine-board table, which servedfor kitchen, dining and library purposes, and a bench which I always"saved, " using the floor before the hearth instead. "Aunt Jane"insisted on giving me a featherbed to put on the rough slats of mybunk, and some pieced quilts; I used my camp blankets for sheets. Shegave me, too, a strip of old rag carpet she had brought from herEastern home. The crowning architectural feature of my mansion was the cornerfireplace, raised of the native granite bowlders. With what care Iselected the stones!--choosing those most richly encrusted with greenlichens, fitting each into its place, discarding many, ranging afar forothers to take their place. Chimney building is a job for an artisan, and even then much of a gamble. Imagine my delight, then, when, thelast stone in place, I built a fire on my hearth, and it roared like afurnace, and all the smoke went up, and out, the chimney! Later, theeddying winds sometimes shot prankishly down it and playfully chasedthe smoke back into the room, but this only blackened the stones, giving my fireplace an air of antiquity. My open fire was cook stove as well as heater. I added to my campingutensils a Dutch oven, an iron pot with a heavy, deep-rimmed, tight-fitting iron lid, and a tin basin. My furnishings were complete! Long evenings I sat on the floor before my hearth, dreaming. SometimesI read, but the windy days outdoors, tramping and climbing, left merelaxed and drowsy. I possessed, perhaps, a dozen books; among them"Treasure Island, " which I read over and over, with my door bolted. Myimagination gave piratical significance to the sighing of the pinetrees and the scampering of the pack rats over my roof. Yes, my dream cabin was come true. There it stood on its loftyvantage, watching over me as I fared forth on my explorations, waitingfaithfully for my return, never reproaching me for my absence, its snugwalls always ready to welcome me like sheltering arms, its quicklyblazing hearth cheering me like a warm, loving heart. So high was itperched, that I could see it, while on my excursions, from many milesaway. It was a beacon to my wandering spirit, a compass and a guide tomy wandering feet. From it, as my knowledge of woodcraft, which I came to know was nothingmore than common sense and resourcefulness applied to outdoor living, increased, I ranged farther and farther, into the wilder, more remoteregions, which, except for an occasional trapper, no other white manhad ever penetrated. The country around my homestead, Long's Peak, andthe adjacent mountains, which have since been made a part of RockyMountain National Park, is itself exceptionally high and rugged. There, in a comparatively small area, are more than sixty peaks overtwelve thousand feet high, Long's, of course, being over fourteenthousand feet. As the years passed my wanderings took me along theContinental Divide, from the Wyoming line at the north to the southernboundary of Colorado. The vastness of the Rocky Mountains is beyond comprehension, theysprawl the length of the continent. No one can hope to see all theirbeauty, all their grandeur and awesomeness in a single lifetime. Fromthe crest of the Divide, north, west, and south, stretches a world ofrugged peaks. Range on range, tier on tier, like the waves of asolidified ocean in a Titanic storm they roll away to the distanthorizon shore. Always, as a boy, that compelling panorama fascinated me. On pleasant, sunny days, those rugged slopes, from a distance, looked safe andplushy, for all the world like deerskin; the dark green cañonsmysteriously beckoned to me, the myriad lakes sparkled knowingly, intimately, the swift brooks chattered incessantly, urging action, adventure. On stormy days, when violent winds swept over the Divideand hid the heads of the peaks beneath the scuttling clouds, thatoverwhelming vista, with its tremendous, deep-gashed cañons, itstowering, forbidding cliffs, still challenged even while it repelled me. To explore every mile, vertical and horizontal, of that uncharted seaof peaks! That was my boyish ambition! that was what led me westward, that was what lured me on and on! And my field of exploration waslimitless--one peak conquered, there was always another just beyond, alittle higher, a little harder, waiting to be climbed. The wilder theregion the greater was its fascination for me. No matter howdifficult, how slow my progress, it never became tedious--there wasalways the unexpected, the mysterious, as a guarantee against monotony. Timberline always interested me and those vast, naked plateaus above itnever ceased to move me to wonder--miles and miles of great, granitedesert, up-flung into space. The very tip-top of the world. I used tomarvel that so much of the earth was waste. It was an everlastingenigma. Timberline was not all grotesque trees with bleak winds foreverscourging them. In late summer, it was a veritable hanging garden. Sweet blue and pink forget-me-nots hid in the moss of its bowlders, Edelweiss starred its stony trails. King's crown, alpine primrose, andmany other flowers nodded a gracious welcome. And just below it, what a riot of bloom there was! I had learned, oftto my inconvenience, that the higher the altitude the greater theprecipitation. Around and just below timberline are many lakes, andmiles of marshy, boggy land. On those first winter excursions to theheights I marveled at the deep snowdrifts banked in the heavy Englemannforests just below timberline. Long after the last white patch hadmelted or evaporated from the exposed slopes, these sheltered driftswould lie undiminished and when summer really came, they gave birth toscores of trickling rills. Vegetation sprang up in that moist, needle-mulched soil as luxuriant as any in the tropics. From the timethe furry anemone lifted its lavender-blue petals above the dwindlingsnow patch, until the apples formed on the wild rose bushes and thekinnikinic berries turned red, it was a continuous nosegay. Indianpaintbrush, marigolds, blue and white columbines as big as my hand andnearly as high as my head, fragile orchids, hiding their heads in thedusky dells, thousands of varieties I never knew or learned. Some fewI recognized as glorified cousins of my Kansas acquaintances. Thedenser towering spruce forests sheltered them, conserved the moisture, and scattered their needles over their winter beds. In spite of the Parson's experienced advice on my first trips, boylike, I ladened myself with blanket roll, cooking utensils and an unnecessaryamount of food. I soon found, however, that besides tiring me early inthe afternoon and robbing me of my zest for scenery, my pack limitedthe scope of my operations, for with it I did not dare attempt manyprecipitous slopes where a single slip might land me in eternity. Ifound, too, that without it I could practically double the length of aday's journey, and arrive at the end of it still fresh enough to enjoythings. So I soon simplified my camp equipment. Campfires took theplace of blankets, a pocketful of raisins, a few shelled peanuts, somesweet chocolate bars provided satisfying feasts. Eventually, when Ibecame adept at snaring game, I made a spit of twigs and roasted thegame over hot coals. Sometimes this primitive method of camping was inconvenient, but it waslots of fun. It was pioneering! What boy has not wished himselfRobinson Crusoe? Somehow, in this way I retrieved that early frontierperiod passed before my birth. So I met the challenge of themountains, met whatever emergencies arose, with such resourcefulness asI could muster; made my own way with what ingeniousness I possessed, and lived off the land. Indians could do no more! Having given up my gun, I learned other, and for me, at least, morereliable methods of taking game for food. Setting snares was anintriguing sport, but when I did not have time for it, I resorted to amore primitive method, stone-throwing. Of course there were days whenneither of these methods succeeded, when the meal hour had to bepostponed, while I whetted my appetite, rather superfluously, with moremiles of tramping. I was surprised to find I could go foodless forseveral days and still have strength to plod ahead and maintain myinterest in the scenery. The cottontail of the Rockies is the commonest and easiest source ofmeat, not only to the camper, but to the rabbit's cannibalisticneighbors. He is a sort of universal food--a sort of staff of life tothe animal world. But for him famine would stalk the big killers. Fortunately for himself and for his preying foes, he is most prolific, and holds his own, in numbers at least, despite man and beast. Occasionally some ravaging disease carries his kind off by thethousands, then starvation faces those dependent on him for food. Thekillers have to seek other hunting grounds, frequently far from theirhome range, and often they become gaunt and lank, driven to takedesperate chances to save themselves from starvation and death. As you can easily imagine, it keeps Bunny Cottontail moving to outwithis many enemies. He has no briar patches in that rugged country, though the jumper thickets might serve as such, so he lives beneath therocks, usually planning a front and back door to his burrow. In thisway he has a private exit when weasels or bobcats make their uninvitedvisitations. A whole Rooseveltian family of bunnies live in congesteddistricts. Learning this, I usually set a number of snares in theirrunways, or at likely holes beneath the rocks. Part of the game of making nature yield one a living is keeping an eyeout at all times for possible food supplies. If a rabbit scurriedacross my path, I marked the spot of his refuge. If he dodged beneatha certain slab, I set my snare there. Then I poked about, hoping toscare him into the snare. I did not always succeed in this, though, for my stick could not turn the corners of his burrow, and he oftenappeared out of some other exit, laughing at my stupidity, no doubt. Sometimes, when very hungry, I tried smoking him out. The stone porchof his burrow usually sloped, so a small smudge started at its lowerside would travel up-hill, into the tunnel. Mr. Rabbit, thinking thewoods were on fire, would make a dash for the open and fall victim tothe snare. But despite the fact that rabbits are credited with littlewit, I have often known them to nose aside my traps and escape. Cottontails I found up to eight or nine thousand feet, but even higherI ran across their cousins, the snowshoe. He quite excelled me inmanipulating his "webs"--his tremendous hind feet with long, clawliketoes, covered with stiff and, I judged, waterproof hairs. He made hisway nimbly over the soft, deep snow, while I on my webs oftenfloundered and fell. Like the ptarmigan and the weasel, the snowshoerabbit changed to a white coat for winter. In the spring, he wasbluish, though underneath he still retained his arctic snowiness. Inthe fall, with good taste and a sense of the fitness of things, he puton a tan coat, and then, as the winter snows began to drift, he oncemore donned his ermine robes. Grouse were plentiful, except during the winter months. Usually Ifound them between six thousand and nine thousand feet altitude, but asthe fall coloring painted the mountain slopes, and the juniper berriesripened, they moved to the higher, exposed wind-swept cliffs. Abovetimberline were the ptarmigan, always easy targets for a well-aimedstone. Rabbits, grouse and ptarmigan were all available and filling, but themost abundant and most easily caught food in all the Rockies at thattime were the mountain trout. When I was a boy, every stream, even asfar down as the plains, was alive with them. Like salmon, they swamupstream till they came to rapids or cataracts which they could notleap. Those in the lakes were exceptionally large, but too well fed tobe interested in my bait. In the valleys were deep pools made bybeavers' dams and in these the trout "holed up" for the winter. Fishing through the ice was common sport years ago. I remember thatone of Jim Oss's neighbors brought a mess of trout to him when he gavehis homesteading dance in January. With fish so abundant and unwary, and fishermen few, fishing was easy. It took me only five or tenminutes to catch all the trout I could use. Usually a few feet ofline, a hook, and a willow or aspen rod, was all I found necessary. Sometimes I used bait--grasshoppers, bugs or worms. Campfire cooking is an art comparatively primitive and elementary, butit requires experience and intelligence to master. Like mostaccomplishments worth learning, it takes application, and a world ofpatience. Since I did not carry any utensils with me, I invariablyroasted or broiled the game I cooked, using hot rocks like the Indians. I heated stones in my campfire, dug a shallow hole, and when the stoneswere hot lined it with them, then put in my meat, covering it with ahot flat stone. From time to time, I renewed the cooled first stonesfor fresh ones, hot from the fire. Sometimes I intensified that heatof my "fireless" by covering its top with moss or with pine needles. If I decided to broil my bunny or grouse, I got out my short fishingline and tied one end of it to a limb of a tree or to a tripod which Imade by fastening three poles together, setting them over the fire. The other end I fastened to a green stick, three or four feet long, which I skewered into the meat. Then I gave my "broiler" a spin whichwound up the line. When it was twisted tight, it reversed itself, unwinding, and so revolving my cookery, exposing all sides to the fire. Of course it gradually lost its spin, then I gave it another twirl. Given plenty of time, over a slow fire of glowing coals, my bird wouldbe done to a queen's taste--a much too delicious dish to waste on anyking! During dry, warm weather, I raked pine or spruce needles together for abed, but in the winter I used green pine or spruce boughs, puttingheavy, coarse ones on the bottom, planting their butt ends deeps in thesnow. Upon these I placed smaller twigs, which gave "spring" to mycouch, and finally I tufted it with the soft, tender tips of thebranches. Never have I rested better on mahogany beds than I did onsuch pungent bunks! Lying there, physically weary, mentally relaxed, drowsily gazing into my campfire, I lived over the day's adventures, and would not have changed places with any man alive! I found making camp in temperate weather was no task at all. It waswhen it was cold or wet that the real test of my woodcraft came. Ilearned that the first requisite in camp-making was the selection of asuitable camp site. It had to be chosen with thought of theaccessibility to fuel and water. It had to be sheltered from the wind, which was not always easy to manage in high altitudes, for though theprevailing winter wind in the Rockies blows from the west, it swirlsand eddies in the cañons, coming from most unexpected and unwelcomedirections and often from all points of the compass in turn. Usuallyready-made camps, overhanging cliffs, were available. When they werenot, my ingenuity rose to the occasion and I thatched together twigs ofwillow or birch, or even spruce or pine, though the latter were stifferand more difficult to fit tightly together. Beginning at the bottom, Iworked upward, lapping each successive layer over the one beneath, asin laying shingles, and pointing the tips of the leaves or needlesdownward, so they would shed water. Sometimes I had difficulty in starting my fire. If there had beendaily showers for weeks, and the needles and the deadwood, as well asthe ground itself, were soaked, or if in winter the deadwood wereburied beneath snow and the dead limbs of standing trees difficult tobreak off, it was a discouraging task. Sometimes after what seemedlike eons of struggling, I would get a sickly little flame flickering, when, puff! along would come a blast of wind and smother it out withsnow. I did learn eventually that pitch knots were so rich in gum orresin that they would always catch fire, and so I shaved off splinterswith my trusty hunting knife and used them for tinder. One night as Ilighted a candle in my cabin, it came to me that a piece of it would behandy to tuck in my pocket for emergencies. Ever afterwards I carriedseveral short, burned-down ends along on my excursions. I discoveredthat one of these stubs, set solidly on the ground and lighted, wouldstart my fire under the most adverse conditions. But for them I wouldhave had many a cold camp. I had read of the Eskimo igloos and I tried to make them. But the snowat hand in my mountains was never packed hard enough to freeze solid sobuilding blocks could be cut from it. It is blown about and driftedtoo much. I did get an idea from "Buck" in Jack London's "Call of theWild, " that I adapted. On winter explorations I always carriedsnowshoes, even though not compelled to wear them at the outset. Thesemade handy shovels. When ready to make camp I selected a snowdriftthree or four feet deep, and with my web shovel dug a triangular hole, about seven feet long on each side. In the angle farthest from thewind I built my fire. It soon assisted me in enlarging the corner. Opposite it, I roofed over my dugout with dead limbs, thatching themwith green boughs, and finally heaping the excavated snow over all. Ihad a practically windproof nest which a little fire would keep snugand warm. True I had to fire up frequently throughout the night, for abig blaze is too hot in a snow-hole, but I soon learned to rouse up, put on more fuel, and drop back to sleep, all in a few minutes. But the smoke nuisance in my early dugouts was terrible. Pittsburghhad nothing on me! Many a morning I crawled out smelling like a smokedham, my eyes smarting, my throat sore and dry. Years later, my ramblesled me to Mesa Verde and the kivas of the cliff dwellers. Thoseprimitive people built fires deep underground, with no chimneys orflues to conduct the smoke outside. They ingeniously constructed coldair passages down to the floor of the kivas near the fire bowl. Thesefed the fires fresh air, causing the smoke to rise steadily and passout through a small aperture in the roof. I tried this, and to mydelight, found it rid me of the strangling plague. I had discarded my gun, but my camera was with me always. Frequentdashing showers are common in the mountains. Often, too, I had tocross swollen streams, and sometimes got a ducking in transit. Matches, salt and camera plates were ruined by wetting, so I had tocontrive a waterproof carrier for them. I hit upon a light rubberblanket, which added practically no pounds or bulk to my pack, and init wrapped my perishables. It saved them more often than not, but evenit could not protect them in some predicaments. There, was no month of the year I didn't camp out. Naturally I wascaught in many kinds of weather. In severe storms I learned to stickclose to camp, lying low and waiting for the furies to relent. In theearly days, as in my first camp, I attempted to return home at once, but traveling over the soft, yielding snow only sapped my strength andgot me nowhere. I learned that by remaining inactive by my campfire, Iconserved both food and energy and had a far better chance to reach theshelter of my cabin without mishap. Being young and inexperienced, I was the recipient of much free advice, the most common being warnings about the imminent weather or theoncoming winter. Most of these prognosticators used the cone-storingsquirrels or the beavers, working busily on their dams and houses, asbarometers. But I found the old adage that only fools and newcomerscould forecast weather to hold true in the mountains. I got so Ididn't believe in signs. I saw the squirrels and the beavers makepreparation for winter every fall. I took each day, with its vagaries, as it came and made the best of it. Returning from one of my midwinter trips to the wilds, one day Icoasted down a very steep slope and shot out of the woods into a littleclearing--a snug log cabin stood there, buried in snow up to its eyes. In a snow trench, not far from the door, an old trapper was choppingwood. As I burst upon the scene he dropped his ax and stared at me. Then he found words. "See all fools ain't dead yit, " he observed with a grin. Then, as Istarted on he yelled after me. "But I bet they soon will be!" [Illustration: "See all fools ain't dead yit, " he observed. ] So I spent the days of my boyhood--tramping, climbing, exploring! Wasever another mortal so fortunate as I in the realization of his dreams?Was ever another lad so happy? CHAPTER SEVEN GLACIERS AND FOREST FIRES When I first came West, with my imagination fired by the reminiscenttales of my mother and my father, and our pioneer neighbors, I lookedonly for mountains made of gold, for roaming buffaloes and skulkingsavages, for fierce wild beasts and mighty hunters. That the mountainswere golden only in the sunset, and the Indians and bison alive only inthe immortal epics of the frontier, somehow did not disappoint me. Sowonderful were those rocky upheavals in the reality, so intriguing werethe traces of redskin and buffalo, I forgot my fantasticmisconceptions. To my enthusiastic youth, everything wasextraordinary, alluring, primitively satisfying. Parson Lamb said thebig game were gone, but there were enough left to give me many a thrill. Naturally, at first, I saw only the more obvious wonders of the wilds, but as time passed I discovered other sources of interest, hithertounheard of. High and dry upon the meadows and lower mountain sideswere smooth, round bowlders, undoubtedly water-worn. The granite wallsof many of the cañons I climbed were curiously scored--here and therewere inlaid bands of varying colored stone. Running out from theloftier ranges were long, comparatively narrow heaps of earth, whichresembled giant railroad fills as flat on top as though they had beensliced off by a titanic butcher knife. They were covered with forests, and small, jewel-like lakes were set in their level summits. At thefoot of Long's and many other peaks were more lakes, with slick, glazed, granite sides. The water in them was usually greenish andalways icy. There were immense, dirty "snowdrifts" that neverdiminished, but appeared to be perpetual. Following my trapline or trailing the Big-horn or watching the beaver, I noticed these things and wondered about them. How came thosebowlders, round and polished, so far from water? What made thosescratches upon those granite cliffs? What Herculean master-smith fusedthose decorative belts into their very substance? What engineer builtthose table-topped mounds? Who had gouged out the bowls for those icylakes? Why were some snowdrifts perennial? I puzzled over theseconundrums, until, bit by bit, I solved them. The answers were moreamazing than anything else I encountered in the wilds. I learned that those sand-coated drifts were not drifts at all, butglaciers, probably the oldest living things in the world. For theywere alive, moving deposits of ice and snow, the survivors of the iceage. Eons ago, they and their like had gouged out the huge bowls whichlater became lakes, had gashed the earth and scoured its cañon walls, leaving in their wakes those square-topped dumps or moraines; debris, once solid granite, now ground into rocks and sand and gravel by theirslow-moving, irresistible force. Most of the glaciers I found were upon the eastern slope of the Divide. This is because the prevailing winter winds are from west to east. Glaciers are formed by thawing of the exposed snow on top of the hugedeposits, the water trickling down through the moss, and freezingsolidly. Gradually, through continued thawing and freezing, the wholedrift is changed into a field of ice. The first sign of movement comeswhen the mass of ice breaks away from the cliffs at its upper edges. There is an infinitesimal downward sagging, as with incredibledeliberation it moves on with its cargo of rock and sand. But, slowlyas it moves, its power is overawing. A glacier is the embodiment ofirresistible force. Its billion-ton roller cuts a trench through thevery earth, with cañon-like walls; these latter turn upon their masterand imprison him. It tears immense granite slabs from the cliffs andcarries them along. It grinds granite into powder. I have seen wateremerging from glaciers, milk-white with its load of ground-up rocks. By setting a straight line of stakes across the ice, I measured themovements of some glaciers. Some progressed several feet in a year, others traveled scarcely more than a few inches. All moved farthestnearest the center; for, as is true of streams, there the friction ofthe side walls does not retard them. They varied in width from ahundred feet to half a mile, in depth from forty to a hundred feet. During my first years in the Rockies, the winters were severe, withheavy snows, and the summers unusually rainy. The low temperature andgreat precipitation prevented the usual amount of thawing on theglaciers. But there came a season as arid as any in the Sahara desert. "It's miserable droughty, " grieved the Parson one day when I met him ontop of Long's Peak. "Springs are going dry and the streams areterrible low. See that drift down there?" Standing on Long'sovertowering summit he pointed down the Divide. "The one with blackrock at its edge. Well, sir, I've never seen that drift so smallbefore--not in all the thirty years I've watched it. The glaciers willbe opening up with all this hot weather! the crevasses'll widen andsplit clear down to the bowels of the earth. Wal; it's an ill windthat blows no good. This drought will make it easy for the tenderfootto get a good look into 'em. " I took the Parson's tip and next day packed a horse and started forArapahoe glacier which lies south of Long's Peak. On the second dayout, having taken my pack-horse as far up as possible, I unpacked him, hobbled him and turned him loose to crop what grass he could find. Then I set up camp. Camp made, I began the last lap of my climb up the glacier. Along theway, below snowbanks, wild flowers grew head-high, but in the woodsbeside the game trails they were scarce and stunted. As I ploddedslowly up the steep slope I heard loud reports, as though some one weresetting off heavy blasts. They echoed and reëchoed among the cliffs. A roaring stream dashed frothily down the slope, rocks rolled past. Iclimbed a pinnacle overlooking the glacier and looked down upon it. The Parson was right. All the snow which ordinarily hid the icysurface was melted away. The glacial ice lay uncovered. Its surfacewas split by numberless yawning crevasses. Water drenched their sides. Every little while ice would break away, and then reports, similar tothe ones I had heard on my way up, would nearly deafen me. I climbed gingerly down and edged out upon the glacier, testing eachfoothold. I peeped into the crevasses, and dropped stones or chunks ofice into them to sound their depths. I ventured into a shallow crackand followed it until it pinched beneath a wall of solid ice. Then Itried another, a larger one. Gaining a little courage by theseexplorations, I ventured yet farther and climbed down into one of thedeeper crevasses. Water showered down upon me, from melting wallsabove. I crept on down until I was about fifty feet below the top ofthe glacier. I paused; before me gaped a dark cavern fenced off byheavy icicles as large as my body. I peered through this crystallattice into the darkness beyond. From somewhere came the tinkle ofwater, I decided to investigate. A stream pouring into the crevassefrom above, had washed down a stone. Using it for a sledge, I set towork to break into that barred vault. I shattered one of the glassybars and crawled inside. A ghostly blue light filled the place. Withlighted candle I moved away from the entrance, turned a corner andplunged into the blackest darkness I have ever experienced. The silence was eerie, frightening. Just then it was shattered by amuffled report, followed almost at once by another that seemed to rendmy cavern walls asunder. Bits of ice dropped about me. I suddenlyremembered a number of things I wanted to do outside, I turned andsought the guarded cavern of the ghastly light. I mistook the way andturned aside into a blind alley for a moment. I grew panicky--my fleshwent clammy--but that momentary delay no doubt saved my life. As Ireached the opening, there came a rending crash, a splintering of ice, and broken blocks came hurtling into the crevasse just outside mycavern door. An inrush of air snuffed out my candle. My hands trembled as I relighted the candle. Ice still bombarded theopening. Somewhere water splashed. Before I had descended into thecrevasse I had been perspiring freely, for the sun shone hot upon thesurface of the glacier; now I was shivering, my feet were soaked withice water, a dozen little streams trickled down from the cavern roof. I would soon be warm in the hot sun outside; then. .. I discovered thecrevasse was blocked with ice. I lost my head and shouted for help. There were none to hear. Ipushed against the barriers. I pulled myself together and began tosearch for a passage among the blocks of ice. The candle gave a feeblelight. Without waiting to feel my way, I edged into a crack, wriggledforward and stuck tight. Cold sweat oozed as I wiggled backward intothe cavern again. I had difficulty relighting the candle. Again andagain I attempted to squeeze out among the pieces of broken ice; Iclimbed up the smooth wall, lost my footing and tumbled back. At lastI found a larger opening among the ice blocks and squeezed into it likea rabbit into a rock pile. I knew I must hurry because these jumbledpieces would soon be solidly cemented together when the water pouringover them froze. I surged desperately against the pressing ice, held my breath andsqueezed my way through into the sunshine at last--safe. Late thatevening I reached my camp, my interest in glaciers chilled. Since that experience I have usually looked long before leaping into acrevasse and then have not leaped. The next morning I broke camp. I had had enough of close-ups ofglaciers. I followed the crest of the Continental Divide northward, satisfied with such distant views of those treacherous juggernauts ascould be had from the rim rocks. That was how I came to be camped at timberline above Allen's Park whenthe big forest fire set the region south of it ablaze. From my loftystation I watched a thunder shower gather around Long's Peak and movesouthward, tongues of lightning darting from it venomously. It wasperhaps ten miles wide. It circled Wild Basin, then faced eastwardtoward the foothills, its forked tongues writhing wickedly. Those tothe south struck repeatedly; I counted three fires they started, buttwo of these the shower extinguished; the third was miles beyond theedge of the rain, and began spreading even as I watched. Smoke soonhid the doomed forest, filling the cañon and boiling out beyond it. Everywhere in the mountains, I had found burned-over forests; ancienttrees that had stood for centuries, had endured drought, flood, stormand pestilence, only to be burned at last by a fiendish flash and left, charred skeletons of their former green beauty. I hurried down from the heights as the fire spread upward along bothsides of the gorge. Upon a bare, rocky ridge, several miles north, inside the edge of the shower limits, I deposited my pack and turnedthe horse homeward, alone. I hoped that I might be able to put out thefire before it spread too far. As I hurried in its direction I saw two deer standing in a littleopening watching the smoke intently. They showed no fear, merelycuriosity. But as I approached closer to its smouldering edge, I metbirds in excited, zig-zagging flight. Along a brook I found fresh beartracks. Bruin had galloped hastily from the danger zone. The fire was confined to the heavy timber near the bottom of a cañon, but was licking its way up both slopes, the backfire eating slowlydownward while the headfire leaped upward. Trees exploded into giantsparklers. The heat of the approaching flames caused the needles toexude their sap, combustion occurred almost before the actual firetouched them. Black acrid smoke arose visible a hundred miles out onthe plains. Not a breeze stirred where I stood, but the fire seemed fanned by astrong wind, that swayed it back and forth. It did not travel in a setdirection; one moment it raced westward, paused, smoldered, then burstforth again, running southward. A little later a flood of flame wouldcome toward the east. These scattered sorties cut narrow swathsthrough the forest, flaming lanes that smoldered at the edges, widenedand combined. The smoke cloud grew denser. My eyes streamed with tears, my throatburned, I began to cough. I descended the ridge to cross the cañon--inthe bottom I found little smoke and fairly good air. Flocks of panic-stricken birds veered uncertainly about. They wouldflee the fire, encounter dense smoke, and turn straight back toward theflames. They circled and alighted at the bottom of the gorge. Nosooner safely there, then they'd take wing again and flutter back intothe trees near the fire. Many dropped, overcome by the smoke, wholeflocks disappeared into the roaring flames to return no more. Theylost all sense of direction, all instinct for self-preservation. But the birds were not alone in their distress; the animals, too, wereon the move. Down the slopes came deer, does with their young, buckswith tender, growing horns. To my surprise, they paid no attention tome. Whether they were unable to get my scent because of the fumes ofburning woods, or whether the fire filled them with a greater fear, Icould not decide. A coyote trotted calmly down a game trail, eyed mefor a moment, and went on his way toward safety. He was the only oneof the wild folk able to keep his wits about him. Occasionally one of the deer would break away from the refugees, headup or down without apparent reason, the rest of the band instantlyfollowing his lead. In less than a minute all would return. Theyfeared to desert their usual haunts in time of trouble. The smokerobbed them of their sense of smell, the noise of the fire was too loudfor their usually alert, big ears to catch the smaller, significantsounds. As their confusion grew their terror mounted; they bundlednervously away in all directions, rushing back together, headingupstream toward the fire, and leaping wildly over smoldering needles ofthe forest floor. The fawns were deserted, their mothers dashed about frantically asthough unable to recognize their own offspring; they snorted wildly torid their noses of the biting fumes that robbed them of scent. A fawnstopped within a few feet of me and stared about with luminous, innocent eyes. Its hair was singed and its feet burned. It lifted itsleft hind foot and stared at it perplexed; then I saw between itsdainty, parted hoofs a burning stick. Other animals passed. A badger waddled slowly down the trail, pausingto grin at me comically. Two beavers splashed downstream, followingthe water, diving through the deeper pools and lumbering through theshallows of the brook. Other animals crashed through the woods, but Icould not recognize them. A little brook sizzled down through the burning land. I stopped and, cupping my hands, scooped up some water and drank thirstily. The firstswallow nearly strangled me, it was saturated by the fumes of theburning forest. I drank on nevertheless; it was wet and cooling to myparched throat. I soused my head in the brook and soaked myhandkerchief in case of need. A faint breeze sprang up. Circling the fire, I moved up the slope, with the wind at my back. The needle-carpeted forest floor was asmoldering mass--the squirrels' hidden hoards were afire. Young trees, just starting from those stored-up nurseries were destroyed by tens ofthousands. On raced the head fire, setting the dead trees and stumps furiouslyaflame, touching the needles of the living trees with swift, feverishfingers, igniting insidious spot-fires as it went. Its self-generateddraft roared thunderingly. It snatched up countless firebrands andsent those flaming heralds forth to announce its coming to thetrembling forest beyond. As it topped the cañon walls it seemed toleap beyond the clouds that hovered overhead and burn asunder the veryheavens. Of a sudden I was enveloped by one of its serpentine arms. It writhedeverywhere around me, hissing, striking at my face, singing my hair, scorching my frantic hands that would ward it off. My eyes could notface that venomous glare. My lungs were choked by its searing breath. I found a stick and, feeling my way with it, fled, like the beaver, tothe brook for sanctuary. That flaming serpent pursued me. Its breathgrew more acrid, more deadly. I coughed convulsively, strangled, stumbled, fell: when I regained my feet, I was dazed, confused. But Iretained consciousness enough to know I must keep moving. I must reachthe fire's immemorial enemy and enlist the aid of that watery ally toescape it. I took leaps over the ground, but blindly, with no suchbrilliant eyes as my relentless foe. The memory of that race for life is still vividly terrifying; blinded, choking, crashing into trees, falling, struggling to my feet, fightingon and on and on, for what seemed endless hours. In reality it was--itcould only have been--a few moments. I plunged into the brook andsubmerged my burning clothes, my tortured body. I hurried on as fastas I could, downstream, halting now and then to dive beneath thegrateful waters of the deeper pools, but never stopping, until, staggering, gasping, sobbing, I reached the safety of the cañon. [Illustration: The memory of that race for life is still vividlyterrifying. ] CHAPTER EIGHT THE PROVERBIAL BUSY BEAVER It was my boyish ambition to find some corner of those rocky wildswhere no human being had ever set foot and to be the first person tobehold it. What boy has not felt that Columbus had several centuries'advantage of him: that Balboa was a meddlesome old chap who mightbetter have stayed in Spain and left American oceans to American boysto discover? Oh! the unutterable regret of youthful hearts that theGolden Fleece and the Holy Grail and other high adventures passedbefore their time! In searching for my virgin wilderness, I saw many spots that bore notrace of human existence, wild enough, remote enough, calm enough, tojustify my willing credulity. But I had another notion which even my young enthusiasm had toacknowledge was in error. I fancied that the animals in such a spot asI have described, unwise to the ways of man, having had no experienceto teach them fear and caution, would be gentle and trusting, andapproachable. I was doomed to disappointment. I found that no matterhow remote the region, how primeval its forests or how Eden-new itsstreams, its beasts were furtive, wary, distrustful. But after all, though these ideas, like many of my other youthfuldreams, did not "pan out" in following them up, I found other leadswhich yielded rich experiences. When I first came to the mountains, the beavers were extremely wild. Rarely did I glimpse one or even see signs of their activities. True, all along the streams were deserted beaver homes, merely stick frameswith most of the mud plaster fallen off, and through the meadows were asuccession of dams which might easily have flooded them for milesaround. No doubt large colonies had once lived there. Once in a whileI found a fallen aspen, with the marks of a beaver's keen chisels uponit. But as for the beaver's renowned industry--it wasn't! "I thought beavers were busy animals, " I complained to the Parson. "I've heard industrious folks called beavers all my life. I don't seehow they got their reputation. Why, it wouldn't be hard for me to bebusier'n these beavers!" The old man laughed. "Now, you're rather hard on the little critters, " he defended. "They're not so indolent, considering their chances. " Then he went onto explain. A horde of trappers, he said, had followed Kit Carson's successful tripinto the region in 1840. They visited every stream and strung traps inall the valleys. Beaver fur was taken out by pack-train load. Intwenty years the trappers had reaped the richest of the harvest; in tenyears more they had practically "trapped out" all the beavers. Theyleft only when trapping ceased to be profitable; and even so, the earlysettlers had found some small profit in catching a few beavers everywinter. The survivors, my old friend said, were wiser if sadder animals thanthose the first trappers found. Many beavers had maimed or missingfeet, reminders of the traps that caused their trouble. They desertedtheir ponds, neglected their dams and houses and sought refuge in holesin the banks of streams. Their tunnels entered the bank under water, thus making it difficult to locate their runways, or to set traps afterthe discovery of the runways. So that was the reason for the beavers scarcity and wariness! Few werethe chances they gave me, on my early rambles, to observe their habits. But just when it seemed they were doomed to suffer the fate of thebuffalo, Colorado and a few other states woke up to the fact thatbeavers were threatened to be classed with the dodo, and feeblemeasures were taken to protect them. Slowly their numbers increased, they returned to their normal habits of living, and rebuilt their damsand houses. Down in the valley below my cabin, within a few rods of the spot wherethe ruins of Kit Carson's cabin still stand, are two small streamsalong which I early found numerous traces of beaver. At the confluenceof these streams were dams and houses that were not entirely deserted;for occasionally the beavers did some repair work. Since they werewithin five minutes' walk of my cabin I visited them frequently duringall seasons of the year. Five times I saw the beavers return to theold home site, repair the dams and rebuild the houses. Four times Isaw them forced to desert their home, once because a fire burned thesurrounding trees which were their source of food, the other times toelude trappers. I discovered that this colony consisted of a trap-maimed old couple andtheir annual brood. The male had lost a portion of his right hindfoot, his mate had only a stump for her left front one. I early dubbedthem Mr. And Mrs. Peg, and came to have a real neighborly affection forthem. Their infirmities made it easy for me to keep track of them, andto keep up with their social activities. Neighborly interest must bekept alive by the neighbors' doings, you know! They certainly showed no inclination to become dull from overwork!About the time the ice on their pond began to break up, they would taketheir youngsters and start upon their summer vacation. Upon a numberof occasions I found their familiar tracks along the streams eight orten miles below their home site; once more than fifteen miles away. Ontheir rambles they met other beaver families, and stopped to visit; theyoung people of the combined families played and splashed about, whiletheir more sedate elders lay contentedly basking in the sun. But late August or early September always saw Mr. And Mrs. Peg backhome; usually without their youngsters. Those precocious paddlers hadset up homes for themselves or had wedded into other tribes. The oldcouple at once set to work, toiling night and day, taking no time offfor rest. They repaired their dam to raise the water to the desiredlevel, replastered their house inside and out with mud, and in additioncut down a number of aspen trees, severed their trunks into lengthsthey could handle, and brought both trunks and limbs down into thepond. They towed the heavy green wood down first and piled it in thedeep water near their house, the rest they piled upon these until theirlarder was full. They ate the whole of the smaller limbs of the aspen, but only the bark of the larger boughs and trunks. They used the woodfor house and dam construction. Trappers have told me that the streams beaver live in are poor fishingplaces because the furry inhabitants eat the fish. By carefulobservation, I proved to my own satisfaction at least, that quite theopposite is true. For the deep ponds made by the dams they build areliterally spawning pools for the trout, breeding grounds andhatcheries. They are also pools of refuge, to which the fish flee toelude the fisherman, and in their warmer depths the finny tribe "holeup" when the streams are frozen over in winter. I have lain motionlessupon a bowlder overlooking a beaver-inhabited stream and watched largetrout lazing about almost within reach of a preoccupied paddler, apparently in no alarm over his nearness. Neither paid the other "anymind. " I am sure that beavers eat neither fish nor flesh. Which reminds me that early in my mountain experience I happened uponan old trapper's log cabin and stopped to visit him. Mountainhospitality generously insists that guests be fed, no home or hut istoo poor to provide a bite for the chance visitor. Upon this occasionI was handed a tin plate with some meat on it. "Guess what it is, " my host urged. I tasted the meat, examined it, smelled it and tried to make out whatit was. It tasted somewhat like venison, yet not quite the same. Ithad something the flavor of cub-bear steak broiled over a campfire, butit was sweeter and not so strong. I guessed wrong several times beforethe trapper informed me. "Beaver tail, " he laughed, pleased at outwitting me. Still chuckling he went outside to a little log meat house and returnedwith a whole beaver tail for my inspection. The tail was about teninches in length, nearly five inches wide at the broadest part andperhaps an inch thick. The skin that covered the tail was dark incolor and very tough, suggestive of alligator skin. The meat of thebeaver tail was much prized by explorers and trappers, and visitors, such as I, were often given this meat as a special treat. The old fellow talked at length about the wise ways of the beaver hehad caught. Though I made note of a number of his observations forfuture reference, I was skeptical of their authenticity. As yearspassed and I talked with many men, I found that their observationsvaried greatly. They were not always unprejudiced observers, theirobservations were colored by their personal point of view, underdiverse conditions. I early learned that trappers and hunters, as a rule, are not realnature students. They are killers, and killers have not the patienceto wait and watch, to take painstaking care and limitless time in thestudy of an animal. They will spend only a few minutes watching ananimal that a man without a gun might study for days, or even weeks. They are prone to snap judgment. Then their over-active imaginationssupply ready misinformation for missing facts. "A beaver has as many wives as he can git, " my host informed me as wesat before his fire. "There's some that don't have many, and aginthere's some that have a lot, and that's the reason we find some pondswith only a little house an' others with mighty big ones. " A Brigham Youngish sort of conception of beaver domestic economy! That same summer another trapper in Middle Park, not many miles fromthe first, gave me his version of a beaver's domestic life. "Don't think they mate at all, " he told me; "they're always working tobeat time or else they're wanderin' off somewhere lookin' up goodcuttin' timber and dam sites. " Now, I am sure that Mr. And Mrs. Peg were mated, and for life. Indeed, I believe all beavers mate for life. They are by nature domestic, home-loving and industrious, and provident, storing up food for thewinter, making provision against the time food will be scarce becauseof snow and ice. They have the coöperative instinct and often combinetheir efforts, constructing a house large enough for the whole colonyin the deepest water of the pond, all joining in the harvesting ofgreen aspen or cottonwood. Every fall I watched Mr. And Mrs. Peg at their repairs. Their tribeincreased as the years passed, and the shielding laws of the stateprotected them. I called their group the "Old Settlers" colony. [Illustration: Every fall I watched Mr. And Mrs. Peg at their repairs. ] One fall the Old Settlers abandoned their pond and constructed anentirely new dam above it, thus solving a number of problems. Sand andgravel carried down by the swift little stream had settled in the stillwater of the pool and almost filled it. The ever-increasing familyoutgrew the old house. All the near-by aspens had been cut; thisnecessitated the dragging of trees too great a distance before theycould be pushed into the water and floated down. Coyotes had surprisedand killed a number of the Old Settlers' kin as they worked on the longportage to the stream, and I am sure that the moving of their home waspartly to overcome this danger. Then it was they earned the title, "Busy Beaver"! How they worked!That was before the days of ubiquitous automobiles and the beavers hadnot become nocturnal in their habits. They swarmed everywhere. Certain ones were detailed to inspect the dam, make necessary repairsand maintain the water at the same level all the time. Others workedat the new house, piling sicks and mud into a heap. It grew, the damwas raised, so the water was maintained within a few inches of the topof the unfinished wall. Occasionally I caught a glimpse of someworkers in the deep water or near the shores of the ponds; they weredigging safety-firsts, water escapes for emergency use. These canalsled from the house to either bank and connected with tunnels that hadtheir openings concealed beneath the surface of the water. Thus, should their pond be drained suddenly, they could escape by the canalsto their emergency homes beneath the bank. Other beavers worked in the aspen grove, felling trees and cutting theminto lengths that could be pushed or pulled or rolled to the bank andfloated down the stream. Their work was impeded by the jamming of thelogs in a narrow rocky neck down which they had to be skidded into thewater. Then the engineers decided upon the construction of a canal around therocky falls. They started digging at a point upstream, beyond thetroublesome neck, swung outward, away from the water to the fringe ofaspens, then back again to the stream below the rocks. In all thecanal was two hundred feet long, about two feet wide and averagedfifteen inches deep. For a time all other work was suspended, andnight and day the whole population toiled on the canal. Apparentlyeach beaver had his own section to dig, and each went about his work inhis own way. With tooth and claw they worked. Often they cut slidesor runways down the sides of the canal giving them roads up which theycarried their loose dirt. For thirty-seven nights they toiled in the dry ditch, then turned waterin, and completed the work of deepening the canal. This transportationsystem saved them much labor and delay, and provided a safe route toand from the grove, for they could dive into the water when theirenemies attacked. I suspected Mr. And Mrs. Peg directed the storing away of that wood, for it was piled in the deep water beside the house, now risingmajestically several feet about the level of the pool, just as theyalways did theirs. The green wood was almost as heavy as the water, and required little weight to force it under. Thus they always hadsome food in their icebox, where they could reach it handily when thepool froze over. I have observed other beavers on larger streams comeout of their tunnels in the banks and find food along the shoresthroughout the winter months. But the smaller the stream the closerthe beaver sticks to his pond. This I believe is a matter of safetyfor beavers are slow travelers, and if they venture far from their poolthey fall easy prey to such enemies as bobcats, coyotes, wolves andmountain lions. One day while following one of the small tributaries of the St. VrainRiver south of Long's Peak, I heard a loud explosion just ahead of me, and when I emerged from the fringing woods I discovered two men busydynamiting the largest of the three beaver dams in the valley. "Mining didn't pan out much, " one of them replied in answer to myquestion, "so we callated we'd take sum beaver fur to tide us over thewinter. " They were prospectors, out of grub, up against starving or getting ajob in the foothills town below, until with their golden promises, theycould again talk some sympathetic listener out of a grub stake. Notcontent with obtaining beaver by the usual but slower method oftrapping, they had decided to blow up the dam, drain the pond and shootthe animals as they sought to escape. Their rifles lay ready to theirhands. For hours I lingered, to see what luck they would have. They set offthree heavy charges before the dam was shattered. When the water wasnearly drained out--it took but a few minutes--they grabbed their guns. Not a beaver did any of us see. They then set a charge of powder against the house and blew a gapinghole in its side--but there was nobody home! Evidently all had escapedby the canal in the bottom of the pond to the tunnel beneath the bank. The men would not admit defeat, but set about to dig the beavers out ofthe bank. Darkness saw their task unfinished so they camped for thenight at the entrance of the tunnel; they piled heavy stones at itsmouth hoping to trap the animals within. Next morning I watched them resume their work, feeling sympathy for thebeavers, but not daring to interfere. Shortly after noon the questended quite unexpectedly. The diggers had discovered a hidden exitthat was concealed among the willows, the beavers had followed thecanal, which could not be drained, to their refuge tunnel in the bank;and when their enemies destroyed the tunnel, they had used the hiddenexit, and had in all probability made good their retreat during thenight. As more people settled in the valleys, there was an inevitableoverlapping of claims. The settlers claimed both the water and theland, and they had government deeds to back them up in their claims. But the beaver had prior rights, and gamely adhered to them. A feudarose that is still unsettled between the Old Settlers and thenewcomers. In my rambles I continually came upon homesteaders strivingto drain the valleys and raise grass for their cattle, whilesimultaneously the beavers were working to maintain high water. Manyof them lost their lives for their cause, but rarely did they forsake ahome site once established. In the same sections, where thehomesteaders had used aspen for their fence posts, the beavers, nodoubt mistaking them for trees, cut them down. Sometimes their pluckand persistence won them the admiration of their enemies. In mostcases they won out. One day, far up near the headwaters of the Cache la Podre River inColorado, I came upon a rancher trying to drain a number of beaverponds to secure water for irrigation; it was a very dry season andwater was scarce. During the day he tore gaps in the dams, during thenight the beavers repaired the breaks. When after opening the dams therancher hurried down to his fields to regulate the flow of water, thebeavers, even in the daytime, would swarm forth and plug up the holes. Finally in desperation, the man set traps in the gaps he had opened inthe dams. He caught a few beavers and decided that his troubles wereover. But the survivors met the emergency. They floated material downfrom above and wedged it into the breaks, without going near the traps. At this stage of the struggle an old prospector came down from thehigher mountains, driving his burros ahead of him. Hearing of therancher's predicament, he suggested his own panacea for all troubles, dynamite. Enthusiastically, the rancher accepted his proposal. Soonthe dams were in ruins. A mile below where the dams had been destroyed an irrigation ditchtapped the river and carried a full head to the green fields. I sawthe rancher standing in the middle of the field, water flowing allabout him. He looked upstream and chuckled, then leaned triumphantlyon his shovel handle. For a long time, he leaned thus, lost in dreamsof prosperity. Suddenly he awoke and hurried along his supply ditch. Barely a tricklewas coming down it. The beavers had dammed the intake. I once worked for a rancher who had a homestead on the North Fork ofthe St. Vrain River, which heads south of Long's Peak. He had justfinished clearing a patch of ground to raise "truck" on. "We've got to get rid of some beaver, " he told me the very first day. He shouldered his shovel and walked down to the dam that sprawledacross the meadow for several hundred feet. "I cut her loose, " he informed me on his return. "She'll soon dry outso we can put in the crop. " Next morning, whistling happily, he started out for the meadow. Hiswhistle died away as he caught sight of the water in the pond. It wasas high as usual. The beavers had repaired the break. Day after day he cut the dam, night after night, the beavers repairedit. He trapped five of them before they became "trap-wise. " Afterthat they either turned the traps over or covered them with mud. Aftertrying a number of ruses to frighten them away, the man hung a lightedlantern in the break he had opened in the dam. The next morning hiswhistle piped, merrily, the break was still open. But his joy wasshort-lived, for on the following night the beavers constructed a newsection of dam above the break, curving it like a horseshoe. "Hope they appreciated my givin' 'em light to work by, " he laughed; andgave up the contest. Beavers seem to possess sagacity in varying degrees. The old animalsare wise according to their years; the stupid and lazy die young. Theyadapt themselves quickly to changed conditions; they outwit theirenemies by sheer cunning, never in physical combat; rarely do theydefend themselves--and not once have I known one to take the offensiveside of a fray. Watching them waddling along, one wonders how theyaccomplish their great engineering feats in so short a time. Ofcourse, they can move more rapidly in water than on land, but I suspectits "everlasting teamwork" that accounts for their achievements. Theyare prolific and, unlike the bees, drones are unknown to them. Coöperative industry--there lies the secret. I was absent from my cabin for more than a year; and upon my return atonce visited the Old Settlers. Like any other thriving community, theyhad made several improvements--two new ponds and houses had been built. Tracks in the edge of a small new pond showed that my pioneer friends, Mr. And Mrs. Peg, had removed to a new home. Whether the increasingnumber of beavers in the larger pond got on the old folks' nerves, I donot know; but whatever the reason, they were living alone. I walkedrapidly toward their home, instead of approaching slowly and givingthem a chance to look me over. As I neared the edge of the road, oneof them, I presume Pa Peg, smote the water a mighty whack with histail. Both disappeared. I watched for their reappearance, for I knewthat they were watching me from their concealment among the willows. Isang, whistled, called to them to come out--that I was their old friendreturned. My persistence was at last rewarded. Shyly they came to thesurface, watching me sharply the while, diving at my slightestmovement, reappearing on the farther shore, cautious and canny as ever. It was spring. Within a few weeks after my homecoming the Pegs wouldpermit my near approach as they had done before I went away. Thoughthey worked mostly at night, they did venture out in daytime. If theywere working at separate tasks, the first to discover me would thumpthe ground or give the water a resounding whack. One morning Daddy Peg was missing from the pond. Downstream I pickedup his tracks and discovered that he was hastening away from home. Asit was springtime, I was not concerned lest he was deserting hisfaithful wife. It was his habit to leave home when Mrs. Peg was"expecting. " I knew he'd come waddling back in a few weeks to give thebabies their daily plunge. Sure enough, Mrs. Peg came forth with four midgets in fur; a happy, romping family that splashed about the pool for hours at a time. Likeall their kin, they had been born with their eyes open and were much"perter" then other animal infants. They swam, and ate, and took thetrail at once. If Mrs. Peg showed fear of anything, the youngsterstook quick alarm, and forever afterward shunned the object. Of me, Mrs. Peg took little notice, merely giving me the right of way if Iintruded on one of her trails, or stopping work to watch me curiouslywhenever I came near. The beaver babies accepted me as a friend, permitted me to sit or stand near them as they played. One morning, as I approached the pool, I discovered the four youngstersin great agitation. They were not playing. They swam aboutrestlessly, circled the pool, visited the dam, swam out to their house, dived inside it, only to reappear almost at once. I searched aroundthe pond, and found their mother's fresh tracks leading toward theaspen grove. Near it she had been overtaken by a coyote. In vain I tried to catch the motherless waifs, but they eluded me. Iwent home, made a rude sort of dip-net from an old sack, and returnedto the pool. During my absence a strange beaver mother with a brood of five babieshad visited the pool where the orphans lived. She immediately adoptedthe wee bereft babies. Shortly the pool was merry with the rompings ofthe combined families. CHAPTER NINE MOUNTAIN CLIMBING Mountain climbing is the reverse of the general rule of life in thatthe ascent is easier than the descent, and much safer. Most climbersunderestimate the time required to make a chosen trip, and, startingout with the day before them, ascend at their leisure, making frequentand unnecessarily long stops to rest, drinking in the beauty of theprospect from each rise attained, forgetting to allow themselvessufficient time for the even more difficult descent. Consequently thereturn trip is crowded on the edge of darkness, a dangerous conditionon any trail any time, but especially hazardous when the climber isweary and, therefore, not alert. It is impossible for him to see theslight footholds or handholds on which he must put his trust, andweight. One day, as a boy, I came to grief because I was so absorbed by theinteresting things about me that I took no note of the passing of timeor of the altitude to which I had climbed. From my camp at Bear Lake Ihad followed the old Flattop trail to the Divide, from which I couldsee a hundred miles or more in all directions; to the north themountains of Wyoming peeped through purple haze; eastward, thefoothills dropped away to the flat and endless prairies, with gleaminglakes everywhere. West and south, my own Rockies rose, tier on tier, to snowy heights. Gay and fragrant flowers beckoned my footsteps offthe trail; friendly conies "squee-eked" at me from their rocky lookoutposts; fat marmots stuffed themselves, making the most of their briefsummer. A buck deer left off polishing his new horns on a scragglytimberline tree to look at me. Overhead an eagle swept round and roundin endless circles. From the rim of the cañon, between Flattop and Hallett, I viewed thespot where I had blundered over the edge of the snow-cornice on the wayto the dance. Beneath lay Tyndall glacier, its greenish ice exposed bythe summer thaw. I circled the head of the cañon and climbed to thetop of Hallett. From my eerie height, I got an eagle's view of theworld below--a hazy, hushed world where the birds called faintly, thebrooks murmured quietly and even the wind spoke in whispers. From nearby came the crash of glacier ice; falling rocks that thundered down thecliffs. All the afternoon I traveled along the crest of the Divide, wanderingsouthward, away from familiar country into a new maze of peaks andglaciers, deep cañons and abrupt precipices. Suddenly a gale of windstruck me, blinded me with penetrating snow. In that instant, withoutpreliminary or warning, summer changed to winter, and forced me off theheights. It was impossible to thread my way back over the route I hadcome; for it twisted in and out, around up-flung crags and cliffs. My compass showed that the wind was driving eastward, the direction inwhich I wanted to go; so I headed down wind, secure in the thought thatI would soon be off the roof of the world. Lightning and heavy thunderaccompanied the snowstorm, the clouds came down and blotted out theday; twilight descended upon the earth. A band of mountain sheep started up from their shelter behind anupthrust rock and ran ahead of me. I followed them, partly becausethey ran in the direction I was going, and partly because they are aptto select the safest way down the cliffs. But they turned aside the moment they were out of the wind, swung up ona protected ledge and there halted to wait out the storm. My compasshad gone crazy. A dozen times I tried it out. It would point adifferent direction whenever I moved a few steps. However, the compassmattered little; the chief thing that concerned me was getting down offthe roof of the world. Snow swirled down the cliffs, plastering rocks and ledges until bothfootholds and handholds were hidden. Still I had to go down, there wasnothing else to do. The hardy sheep, with their heavy coats, couldwait out the storm. But night, with numbing cold, and treacherousdarkness in which I'd dare not move, would soon o'ertake and vanquishme. For an hour the ledges provided footing. By turning about, twistingand doubling, there was always a way down. Of a sudden the cloudsparted; a long bar of sunshine touched the green forest far below me, focused for a moment upon a single treetop, then vanished as though theshutter of a celestial camera has snapped shut. At last I came to a ledge beneath which the sheer cliff dropped awayinto unfathomable snowy depths. After short excursions to right andleft I discovered that a section of the cliff had split off and droppedinto the cañon, leaving only sheer rock walls that offered nothing inthe way of footholds. Irresolutely, I faced back the way I had come. Overhead the wind roared deafeningly; the snow came piling down. Nohope of retracing my steps. I was tired; that upward climb would beslow and tortuous, would require great strength and endurance. I facedabout and began a thorough, desperate search for a downward route. Istood marooned in the cañon wall shaped like a crude horseshoe. At itstoe water had leaped down and eroded a slight groove in the solid rock. This was my only chance. It was not inviting, but I had noalternative. It led me down a hundred feet, then tightened into a sortof chimney. Just below I could see the swaying top of a big tree. Firewood must be near at hand! Wider ledges must lay close beneath! Fifty feet down the chimney, just as it deepened into a comfortablegroove with rough, gripable sides, I came to a sudden halt, for therock was broken away; the cleft bottom of the chute overhung the cliffbelow. Sweat streamed down my face, in spite of the cold wind. Visions of a leaping campfire died out of my mind. The Engelmann spruce swayed toward me encouragingly, as though offeringto help me down. But its top was many feet from the wall. There wasan abandoned bird's nest in it; a little below that was a dead limbwith a woodpecker's incision at its base. By leaning out I could see, a hundred feet or more below the bottom of the swaying tree. In my extremity I shouted, even as I had done in the glacier crevasse, though there was no one to hear. The echo came back sharply. "Theremust be another wall angling this one, " I thought. "It's got to be done, there's no other way. " I spoke the words outloud to boost my courage. The tip of the old spruce rose to almost my level; but there was thatintervening gulf between it and the rock on which I stood. How widewas that gulf, I wondered. Five feet? Ten? Too far! A score of times I surveyed the tree-top, tried to estimate thedistance, sought a foothold in the cramped rock chute, and worked intoposition for the leap. No sharpshooter ever aligned his sights more carefully than I did myfeet. My coat was buttoned tightly, cap pulled down. When at last Iwas all set, I hesitated, postponed the jump and cowered back againstthe wall. A dozen times I made ready, filled my lungs with deepbreaths, stretched each leg out to make sure it was in working order, but every time my courage failed me. Suddenly resolute, not giving myself chance to think, I tensed, filledmy lungs, leaned away from the rock, and launched headlong. As my body crashed into the treetop my fingers clutched like talons, myarms clasped the limbs as steel bands. I was safe in the arms of thatcenturies-old spruce. Never since that day have I taken such a chance. The thought of it, even now, sends cold, prickly chills along my spine. That time trouble came out of a clear sky, but sometimes a bit ofinnocent curiosity betrays one. Thus one day, with sunshine overheadand peaceful murmurs below, I stood upon a rock spire upthrust from theslope of Mount Chapin, watching a band of Bighorn sheep abovetimberline. The Fall River road now runs past the spot where they werefeeding. When I climbed up toward them, they gathered close together, some of them scrambling up rocks for vantage points, all watching meinterestedly. They were not excited. They moved away slowly at mynear approach, stopping now and then to watch me or to feed. Forseveral hours I kept my position below them; sometimes edging close toone of them, keeping in sight at all times, and being careful not tomove quickly. The band worked its way to the foot of the steeper slopes, above thetree line, hesitated, eyed me, then started up a narrow little passagethat led up between two cliffs. A rock-slide cluttered this granitestair. Stable footholds were impossible for the loose rocks slippedand slid, rolled from beneath the sheep's feet and bounded down theslope. Of a sudden something frightened the Bighorn, just what I had no timeto learn. Instantly every one of those nineteen sheep was in fullflight up the rock-slide. They bounded right and left, tacked acrossit, turned, scrambled up, slipped back, tumbled, somersaulted, butalways regained their balance and made steady headway. They seemed to have lost their wits, for they scattered, each selectinghis own route, all striving with great exertion to make speed up thesteep slope. A barrage of stones fell all about me. Dust-puffs dotted the slide. Then the whole thing seemed to move downward, like the rapids of ariver, dashing rock spray everywhere. The air was filled with flyinggranite, as hurtling rocks struck and exploded into smoky fragments. Bits, the size of wine-saps, scattered like birdshot; larger pieces, the size of bushel baskets and barrels, bounded and danced, leaped awayfrom the slope, out into space, and dropped like plummets. Hugebowlders (sleeping Titans that they were) stirred, roused themselves, and came crashing down, plowing through the forest below, furrowing theearth and cutting a swath through the trees as clean as a scythethrough grass. What was first merely the metallic clink of rollingstones changed to a steady bombardment, and then into a sullen, ominousroar as the giant bowlders got under way. For me the scene had changed abruptly; a moment since I had beenfollowing the wild sheep with ready camera, stalking them, entertainingthem with antics, occasionally hiding for a moment to excite them. Nowpandemonium reigned. The first few stones I dodged; then they came toothick to be avoided. I dived headlong behind a bowlder, partly buriedin the slide. Like a rabbit I hid there, clinging as the stones hailedabout me, afraid to lift my head. Rocks struck close, filling my eyeswith gritty dust, choking me. Then a giant slab came grindingdownward. I could hear it coming, its slow thunder drowned out allother sounds. The whole mountain heaved. My rock fort shook, flingingme backward amidst a deluge of smaller stones. Over and over I rolled, with the loosened rocks, fighting frantically every instant. Inside a few short, busy seconds the giant slab shot past, my bowlderhad halted it for only a second. As I leaped aside I was pelted by ascore of stones, battered, bruised, knocked half unconscious, eyesfilled with sharp, cutting grit. At last I gained the outer edge ofthe whirlpool, where the movement was less rapid, where only thesmaller stones trickled down. Dazed, bleeding and breathless, I wasflung aside, too blinded to see and too stunned to avoid theprojectiles shooting my way. The slide lessened; its roar diminished; only occasional rocks camedown. Then came silence, vast, still and awesome after the uproar. But it was broken by the belated descent of tardy stones, loath to beleft behind. Miniature slides started, hesitated and scattered. Like a battered bark I lay half submerged at the edge of the slide. Mycap was gone, my camera lost, my clothes torn; in a score of places Iwas scratched or bruised. I crawled farther from the danger line, found a trickle of water below a melting snowbank, where I drank andlaved my bruises. At length I started down the mountain, safe, but notsound; somewhat wiser, thrilled tremendously at the experience that hadcome unannounced. It is always thus in mountain climbing--the unexpected is the rule! The habit of estimating time by the number of miles to be traveled goesby the board in mountain work. A mile stood on end ceases to be a mileand becomes a nightmare. Trail miles, or those that stretch across themountain tops, are not even related to the miles of straight, smoothhighway of the lower levels. A new unit of measurement should becreated for alpine climbers, to conform to the haughty attitude of themountains. At times, upon the crest of the Continental Divide, and atan altitude of from ten to twelve thousand feet, I have covered fromthree to five miles in an hour. And again, while breaking a snowtrail, creeping up treacherous glacier ice, or edging along the ledges, I have often reversed the digits, taking several hours to gain a singlemile. Then, too, no trip is taken twice under the same conditions. Themountains are never the same: the weather, the wind, snow or rainconditions may alter decidedly the footing upon their slopes. Thus aclimb that was accomplished on the first of June in one year withoutserious obstacles may, on the same date another year, be found to beimpossible. Experienced mountaineers intuitively know when to proceed, or to turn back; and though they may not be able to explain why theyabandon or continue a trip, they "feel" their actions imperative. So climbing tests a man's judgment, his physical endurance, and trieshis soul. It brings out his true character. The veneer of conventionwears through inside a few miles of trail work and reveals theindividual precisely as he is, often to his shame but usually to hisglory. Thus a silent, backward boy one day became a hero by divingheadlong across smooth ice to rescue a trio of climbers who had losttheir footing and had started to slide across a glacier. Again, upon acertain climb, two husky men who gave promise of conquering the ascentwithout trouble, turned out to be the weakest of weaklings, abusing allthe party, demanding all the guide's help for themselves. "You can't never tell how fur a toad'll jump!" the Parson saiddisgustedly as he heard the tale of these two huskies who had turnedbabies; "nor which way neither. " One of the things which I have found most helpful on hard climbs, ismental preparation. If there are certain, lurking dangers to beovercome, I have found it a decided help to admit the facts freelybefore attempting the climb; picturing as far as it can be done thesituations that may arise. In this way it is possible, to a certaindegree, to anticipate emergencies before they happen and to prepare forthem. It also helps one to act with imperative promptness. It is less easy to prescribe for physical preparation. Equipment mustvary with needs and these are as varied as the climbers themselves. However, I have found that it is well to dress lightly, for thispermits freedom of movement. Personally I prefer light, low shoes thatreach just above the ankle, the soles studded with soft-headed hobnails, not the iron ones. A change of socks is sometimes a life-saver, for frequently the footing leads through ice water or soft snow. Numbfeet are always clumsy and slow, and dangerous besides. I have foundit best to wear medium-weight wool underclothes and just enough outergarments to keep one warm. A staff is a handicap on rockwork, buthelpful on glaciers or other ice climbing. On the mountain tops, as well as upon the highways, speed is dangerous. Haste on a mountain brings grief of various kinds, nausea, needlessexhaustion, injuries. Never sprint! Climb slowly, steadily, like asober old packhorse. You will make better time, and reach the summitin condition to enjoy your achievement. I came to distrust, and to test out, every rung in my rocky ladders. Ifound that even the most secure-appearing "stepping stones" were oftenrotten and treacherous, weathered by the continual freezing and thawingof the moisture in its seams. Often a mere touch was sufficient toshatter them, but sometimes it was not until I put my weight upon them, holding to a shrub or an earth-buried bowlder the while, that they gaveway. I learned, too, that the wise selection of a route up and down is thecrucial test of a good guide. In such selection there are no rules;for every climb presents problems particularly its own, and what workedout well on the last climb may turn out to be dangerous on the next. Thus, on one ascent of the cliffs of Black Cañon, my companionsuggested that we follow a "chimney, " a water-worn crack that offeredconvenient toe-holds. We ascended by the selected route withoutdifficulty. But an hour later, when a similar ascent confronted us, weselected the same sort of route and came to grief, finding our wayblocked by an overhanging wall impossible to surmount. The actual climbing of difficult places becomes a habit, so far as thephysical effort is concerned, leaving one free to inspect theprecipices above, and to feel out, instinctively, the possible routesto the top. The selection of a way up difficult places calls for the sixth sense, instinct, which cannot always be acquired by experience. Wild animalspossess this "instinct" to a great degree; but human beings are not sounerring. One man may be blest with it, but another, with equalexperience, will be unreliable. There is no accounting for the widedifference in their accuracy, it exists--that is all we know. There are times when even with this guiding instinct, one comes togrief; though I have noted that grief came to me most often when I wastired, less alert, and more prone to take chances or needless risks. Sometimes, under stress of haste to get off a dangerous place beforedarkness overtook me, I have had to leap without looking. No climbermay expect to survive many such reckless steps. It is the rule of themountains that you look--then do not leap. In most of life'sexperiences we may make a mistake and, if wise, profit by it. But inmountain climbing the first mistake is liable to be the last. Mountain climbing is a game, a big game; divided as are other sportsinto minor and major divisions. The minor climbs include the lesserpeaks, safe, well-marked trails that lead to comfortable night camps:the major division includes almost everything from peeping into anactive volcano to getting imprisoned in a glacier crevasse. Colorado offers wide variety of experience in both divisions. It hasforty-odd peaks above fourteen thousand feet, with hundreds of othersalmost as high, yet unknown and unmapped. The peaks that are mostwidely known, and most often climbed are Pike's Peak near ColoradoSprings and Long's Peak in the Rocky Mountain National (Estes) Park. Pike's has long been easily accessible by way of the famous cog road, and more recently an automobile road has reached its top. But Long'shas no royal road to its summit. Only a foot trail partly encircles it. There are many other than these two peaks to challenge the climber. The Flattops, in western Colorado, are not necessarily low or smooth, though flat. The San Juan Mountains are extremely rough and rugged. The Sangre de Christo Range is at once rarely beautiful and forbidding. The Never-summer and Rabbit Ear ranges invite exploration, and thegreat Continental Divide has no peers. Every mountain offers its peculiar attractions and difficulties. Allmountains entice the brave-hearted and the adventurous. Occasionallymen lose their lives in conquering them and not infrequently women dieheroically scaling their slopes. Long's Peak was early the objective of experienced mountain climbers. For a number of years it defied all efforts to scale it. From 1864 to1868 a number of unsuccessful attempts to reach the top failed. In thesummer of 1868 a party in charge of W. N. Byers, who had led the firstunsuccessful party, reached the top. Since that time each year hasseen an increasing number of successful climbers. Most climbers go insmall parties, for large ones (more than five) are dangerous. Dogs aredangerous companions on a climb, because they start rock-slides. As a boy I lived at the foot of this forbidding Sphinx, climbed itevery month in the year, and thus came to know its mighty moods, theterrific fury of its storms, the glory of its outlook. Miss Carrie J. Welton lost her life upon the Peak in 1884. She gaveout near the top and her guide, Carlyle Lamb, son of the Parson, madeheroic efforts to save her. But he, too, became exhausted and had toleave her alone while he went for help. But when help arrived, Miss Welton was dead, having perished fromexhaustion and cold. Other casualties have occurred on this towering mountain. A boy lefthis parents in camp at the foot of the Peak and disappeared. Late inthe summer, as the snowbanks diminished, his body was found, lying atthe base of the three-thousand-foot precipice. One man was killed bythe accidental discharge of a pistol. A doctor was killed bylightning. In January, 1925, occurred a double tragedy. Miss AgnesVaille perished near the spot where Miss Welton lost her life, andunder similar conditions. Herbert Sortland, member of the rescueparty, became lost and perished in the storm that was raging over theheights. His body was found many weeks afterward within a few minutes'walk of home. CHAPTER TEN MODERN PATHFINDERS Back on the farm of my childhood, the names of Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, Buffalo Bill and other renowned frontiersmen were ever on the lips ofmy parents. Their reckless bravery that took no thought of self, theirdiplomatic cunning that cleverly kept the Indians friendly, theirunlimited resourcefulness, equal to the most unprecedented emergencies, were the subjects of many a heroic tale. When I came West, no matterhow far I penetrated into remote regions, if there were trapper orprospector about, I found the immortal fame of these intrepidpathfinders had traveled into those mountain-guarded wildernesses. They became the heroes of my boyish dreams, the patterns of my conduct, the inspiration of my ideals. I seized upon every written wordconcerning them and plowed through thick, poorly-printed volumes on thefrontier for one brief sentence about these gallant scouts. I longedto emulate their fearless, immortal deeds. They left an indelibleimpress upon my character, even as they had upon the romantic annals oftheir country. My growing familiarity with the Rocky Mountain region opened up onetrail in which I could follow their footsteps. Tourists were findingout the country, guides were in demand. In the early days, before thecreation of the National Park, guides were unlicensed. Any experiencedold-timer or climber could take parties up the Peak or on other alpinetrips. I began guiding by taking occasional visitors up Long's. Ifurnished my horse, and on most trips, supplies, wrangled thepack-horses, made camp, cooked the meals, and gave invaluable adviceand "first aid" all for the munificent wage of five dollars a day!That sum made the replacement of climb-shattered cameras, thepurchasing of a few coarse, cheap garments, and the acquiring of aMontgomery Ward library, all such riches, possible. The work afforded none of the opportunities for fame and glory that hadlurked in the trails of my heroes; I did not creep stealthily from awagon train in the dead of night to thwart the redmen in a fiendishmassacre; I was not compelled to kill game to furnish food for mycharges; I did not have to find fords across wide, deep and treacherousunknown rivers, and steer panic-stricken cattle or heavily laden oxenacross them. But even though the work lacked the glamour of thepioneers' primitive, golden day, it was not without engrossinginterests. It was filled with drama, relieved by comedy, sometimesfraught with tragedy. Yes; styles in guides have changed since Bill Cody scouted the plains, even as they have changed since I piloted my first party up Long'sPeak. A new breed has sprung up since the people have made such wideuse of their National Parks. Not only the modern guides outwit thesavage elements, but, under the National Park administration, they arerequired to have a fund of general information, especially nature lore, to be able to identify the thousands of varieties of wild flowers, thebirds, animals and trees; to conduct field classes in geology, and toexplain every phenomenon of weather and climate. Such a guide musthave the patience to answer numberless questions. All this in additionto watching his charges, as a nurse watches her patients, feeling theirpulses, so to speak, and taking their physical and moral temperatures. He must keep up their morale with entertaining yarns, he must restraintheir too ambitious experience, must protect them from their ownfoolhardiness. He must have the charity to forbear deriding theirstupidity. He must be as courageous and resourceful as the old-timeguides, though his trials may not be so spectacular. A guide soonplumbs a man's character and fathoms its weakness and its strength. As a boy guide I trailed far into the wilds with hunting parties, andcamped through the summers with fishermen, geologists, explorers andmountain climbers. The reaction of individuals to the open spaces hasever been interesting to me. I have seen voluble women silent beforethe awesome beauty. I have seen phlegmatic business men moved totears. There was no way of anticipating people's reactions. Nearly all climbers dread the altitude of the high country. It is the"Old Man of the Sea" to most "tenderfeet. " It has as many forms as theclouds and changes them as readily. It pounces upon the innocent butnot unsuspicious wayfarer in the form of nosebleed, short wind, earache, balky watches, digestive troubles, sleeplessness andoversleeping. As guide one day for the wife of a well-known geologist, I secured anew idea regarding altitude. We were to spend the day abovetimberline, where we hoped to identify the distant mountain ranges, observe the wild life close at hand and collect flower specimens. Weleft the valley at dawn, let our horses pick their way slowly upward. We halted occasionally to watch a scampering chipmunk or to explain ourharmless errand to a scolding squirrel. Near the timberline we emerged into a little grassy glade beside arushing stream. Far above and deep below us grew a dense forest ofEngelmann spruce. In the glade stood a detached grove of perhaps adozen trees, dead and stripped almost bare of limbs and bark. My lady stopped abruptly and stared at these. She shook her headsadly, murmuring to herself. At last she spoke: "Isn't it too bad?" she grieved. I agreed sympathetically, then peered about to learn the cause of oursudden sadness. The lady pointed to the dead trees, wagged her head, and said: "Isn't it too bad the altitude killed them?" There were green trees a mile farther up the mountain above the deadones in the glade. Yet my lady insisted that the altitude had singledout and killed the little grove in the midst of the forest--so we letit go at that. Of course, some persons really are affected by altitude, but weariness, lack of muscular as well as mental control, often creates altitudinousillusion. Of this condition I had an example while guiding a party ofthree women and one man to the top of Long's Peak. We climbed abovetimberline, headed through Storm Pass, and finally reached Keyholewithout a single incident to mar the perfect day. The ladies were new, but plucky, climbers; the man rather blustery, but harmless. Beyond Keyhole lies rough going, smooth, sloping rocks and the "Trough"with its endless rock-slides that move like giant treadmills beneaththe climber's feet. The pace I set was very slow. The man wanted togo faster, but I called attention to Glacier Gorge below, the color ofthe lakes in the cañon, in short, employed many tactics to divert himfrom his purpose. My refusal to travel faster excited him, he became extremely nervousand made slighting remarks regarding my guiding ability that ruffled meand embarrassed the ladies. Hoping to convince him of his error, Ispeeded up. He remonstrated at once, but when I slowed down to ourcustomary pace he still objected, saying we'd never reach the topbefore dark. Suddenly he developed a new notion. Climbing out upon a ledge helifted his arms and poised, as though to dive off the cliff. "Guide, " he called, his voice breaking, "I must jump. " After some confusion we were on our way again, the man within clutch ofmy hand. All progressed without further trouble until we reached thetop of the trough, where we halted to rest and to look down into WildBasin, memorable scene of my first camp! My charge craftily escaped myclutches, walked out on a promontory, and again threatened to jump. Secretly I hoped he would carry out his threat. Before we began scaling the home stretch, I tried to persuade theerratic idiot to remain behind, but he refused. However, we all madethe top safely. He relapsed into glum silence, which I hoped wouldlast until we were safely off the peak. But as we stood near the brinkof the three-thousand-foot precipice overlooking Chasm Lake, we werestartled to hear his voice once more, raised to high pitch. "I must jump over, I've got to jump, " he screamed. He waved his arms wildly, as though trying to fly. The ladies beggedme not to approach him lest he totter from his precarious perch. Summoning all the authority I could command, I ordered him to come downoff the rock. My commandment unheeded, next I humored him and tried tocoax him back upon the pretext of showing him something of specialinterest. But he stood firm, mentally at least, if not physically. Pushing the ladies ahead, I hurried on toward the trail. As I started, I waved good-by, and shouted: "Go on, jump. Get it over with, coward!" He turned back from the edge, swearing vengeance against me. Inabusing me, however, he forgot his obsession to jump. During the summer of my experience with the man who wanted to jump, Iguided a party of three men who behaved in a totally different, but inquite as unexpected, manner. They were three gentlemen from New York, who wished to make a night climb up Long's Peak. It was a beautifulmoonlight night. Our party left the hotel at the foot of the Peak ateleven o'clock. Proceeding upward through the shadowy, moon-fleckedforest, we sang songs, shouted, listened to the far-away calls of thecoyotes in the valley below, and from timberline saw the distant lightsof Denver. At one o'clock we reached the end of the horse trail. Intwo hours the horses had covered five miles and had climbed upthirty-five hundred feet. We were on schedule time. Though the sunwould gild the summit of the Peak soon after four in the morning, wewould arrive sufficiently ahead of it, to watch it rise. All at once my troubles began. The three men wanted to race acrossbowlderfield. It was sheer folly and I told them so, and why, butfailed to convince them. They raced. They kidded me for being slow, dared me to race them, and gibingly assured me that they would wait forme on top and command the sun not to rise until I got there. They would have their little joke. They waited for me at Keyhole andwe moved slowly along the shelf trail beyond. On that they racedagain, but not far, for the steep slope of the trough with its slipperystones stood just beyond. Right there they insisted on eating theirlunch, an untimely lunch hour for there was hard climbing yet to do. Not satisfied with emptying their lunch bags, they drank freely of someice water that trickled out from beneath a snowbank. I got them going at last and we had gone only a short way when two ofthem fell ill. They felt they just had to lie down, and did so, andbecame thoroughly chilled, which added to their pangs of nausea. Afterawhile we proceeded very slowly. No longer their song echoed againstthe cliffs. They broke their pained silence only to grumble at oneanother. Midway of the rock-slide of the trough, they stopped, and like balkymules, refused to go forward or turn back. In vain I urged them tostart down, assuring them the lower altitude would bring relief. Thesick men didn't care what happened; they craved instant relief by deathor any other instantaneous method, as seasick persons always do. Theirmore fortunate friend looked at them in disgust, as those who haveescaped the consequences of their deeds often look at those who havenot. He upbraided me for not keeping them from making fools ofthemselves. I knew argument with him would be futile in hisquarrelsome frame of mind. I kept still. His sick companions crawledbeneath an overhanging rock, and lay shivering and shaking, toomiserable to sleep. Presently he joined them, sputtering at me as theauthor of all their troubles. His sputterings grew intermittent, ceased. He was audibly asleep. After a long time one of his pals demanded. "Who in the ---- proposed this ---- trip anyway?" The conduct of these men was not unique. Most climbers start outexuberantly, burn up more energy than they can spare for the first partof the trip, and find themselves physically bankrupt before they'vereached their goal. The rarefied air of the high country seems to makethem lightheaded! The most disagreeable character to have in a party, as in other situations, is the bully, or know-it-all, who spoilseveryone's fun. A guide is a trifle handicapped in handling suchpeople, in that his civilized inhibitions restrain him from pushingthem off the cliffs or entombing them in a crevasse. I was too smallto do them physical violence anyway, so I had to resort to more subtleweapons, the most effective being ridicule. If a joke could be turnedon the disturber he generally subsided. The rest of the crowd wereprofuse in their expressions of gratitude to me for such servicerendered. Such an individual was once a member of a fishing party I guided toBear Lake. The trip was made on horseback and we hadn't gone a milebefore he urged his horse out of line and raced ahead, calling to somekindred spirit to follow. They missed the turn and delayed the wholeparty more than an hour while being rounded up. "Lanky, " as the party dubbed him out of disrespect, blamed me for theirgetting lost, but dropped behind when he saw the half-suppressed mirthof the others. Along the way were many inviting pools, andoccasionally we saw a fisherman. "Lanky" soon raised the question oftrying out the stream, but was outvoted by the others. He was inclinedto argue the matter, but we rode up the trail, leaving him to follow orfish as he desired. At Bear Lake at that time was a canvas boat, cached twenty steps duewest of a certain large bowlder that lay south of the outlet. The boatwas small, would safely hold but two persons. As it was being carriedto the water, "Lanky" appeared and insisted on having the first turn init. To this the others agreed, much against my wishes. To save theothers from the annoyance of the fellow, I went out with him in theboat. The trout were too well fed to be interested in our flies, though"Lanky" and I paddled around and across, and tempted them with a dozenlures. My passenger became abusive and blamed me for wasting a good fishingday by bringing the party to the lake. In the midst of his tirade theboat tilted strangely. For a few minutes he shamefully neglected mewhile he gave his whole attention to righting it. By sundown the party had caught a few small fish, and were ready toquit. They had gladly let "Lanky" monopolize the boat so as to bespared his society. To "Lanky's" disgust we had caught only twosix-inch fish. Just as we started for the shore he made a farewellcast. Something struck his spinner; his reel sang, his rod bent, and he stoodup in the boat, yelling instructions at me. The rest of the party quitfishing to watch him land the fish. The trout was a big one, and game, but we were in deep water with plenty of room. From the shore cameexcited directions: "Give him more line!" "Reel him in!" "Don't lethim get under the boat!" "Head him toward the shore!" "Lanky" turneda superior deaf ear. After a tussle of ten minutes a two-pound trout lay in the boat, and"Lanky" raised an exultant yell in which the cliffs of Hallett joined. Now, indeed, was justice gone astray, when the one disagreeable memberof the party had the only luck. When the last triumphant echo died away, I picked up his prize, inspected it critically, held it aloft for the others to witness. "I'ma deputy warden, " I snapped at him disgustedly, "and you don't keepsmall ones while I'm around. " With that I tossed the trout into thelake. Just as I finished, the boat mysteriously upset, and "Lanky" and Ifollowed the fish. The early trips I made with parties were mostly short ones for game orfish, but as more and more visitors came each succeeding summer, longertrips became popular. From fishing, the summer guests turned to trailtrips, camping en route and remaining out from five to ten days. Tocross the Continental Divide was the great achievement. Everyonewanted to tell his stay-at-home neighbors about trailing over the crestof the continent, and snowballing in the summer. The route commonly chosen was the Flattop trail to Grand Lake, wherecamp was pitched for a day or two; then up the North Fork of the GrandRiver (known farther south as the Colorado River) to Poudre Lake, whereanother camp was made. From here they made a visit to Specimen, amountain of volcanic formation which rises from the lake shore. Thispeak has ever been the home of mountain sheep. One can always count onseeing them there, sometimes just a few stragglers, but often bands ofa hundred or more. However interesting the day's experience had been, the climax cameafter camp was made, supper served and cleared away, when a big bonfirewas lighted and all sat about it talking over the happenings of theday, singing and putting on stunts. In the tourists' minds the guideand the grizzly were classed together; both were wild, strange andsomewhat of a curiosity. Nothing delighted them more than to get theguide to talking about his life in the wilds. Most of them looked uponhim as a sort of vaudeville artist. When several parties were out on the same trip they all assembledaround a common campfire. The guides were given the floor, or ground, and they made the most of the occasion. Such competition as there was!Each, of course, felt obliged to uphold the honor of his party andout-yarn his fellows. Their stories grew in the telling, each morelurid than the last. There were thrilling tales of bear fights; ofbattles with arctic storms above timberline; of finding richgold-strikes and losing them again. At first the guides stuck to authentic experiences. But as the demandoutgrew their supply, they were forced to invention. They had no meanimaginations and entranced their tenderfoot audiences with theirthrilling tales. Around the campfires of primitive peoples havestarted the folklore of races. These guides were more sophisticatedthan their rustic mien hinted, the points of their yarns more subtlethan the city dwellers suspected. One evening I reached the Poudre Lake camp at dusk, to find two otherparties ahead of mine. The others had finished supper and weregathered around the campfire, with North Park Ned the center ofattraction. "I was camped over on Troublesome crick, an' havin' a busy time withcookin', wranglin' the hosses and doin' all the camp work. Thefellers, they was all men, were too plumb loco to help, everything theytouched spelt trouble. They admired to have flapjacks, same as we et, for supper, an' they watched jest how I made 'em, an' flipped 'em inthe frypan. Then they wanted to do the flippin'. " Ned chuckled quietly to himself and went on: "I hadn't realized afore that a tenderfoot with a pan of hot, smearyflapjacks is as dangerous as he is with a gun. He's liable to cutloose in any direction. He ain't safe nowhere. One of them I had outwas called Doctor Chance; guess he got his name cause other folks tookchances havin' him round. Well, Chance was the first flipper. I'dshowed him the trick of rotatin' the frypan to loosen the jacks so'tthey wouldn't stick an' cause trouble. The doctor got the hang offlippin' 'em 'an did a good job 'til he wanted to do it fancy. Theplain ordinary flip wasn't good enough for him, no siree. He wanted todo it extra fancy. Instead of a little flip so's they'd light batterside down, the doctor'd give 'em a double turn an' they'd come down inthe pan with a splash. He got away with it two or three times; then hegot careless--flipped a panful without loosen'n 'em proper--them jacksstuck at one edge, flopped over and come down on doc's hands. We hadto stop cookin' and doctor the doctor. "Then another one of 'em thought he'd learnt how from watchin' the doc, so I set back an' let 'im have all the rope he wanted. It was theirparty, an' they could go the limit so far as I was concerned. But thenew guy slung 'em high, wide an' crooked as a sunfishin' bronc. Firstthing I knowed there was a shower of sizzlin' flapjacks rainin' where Iset, an' I had to make a quick getaway to keep from bein' branded forlife. Then he heaved a batch so high they hit a dead limb over thefire an' wrapped aroun' it. "It was then the next feller's turn, and he started in, while NumberTwo shinned up the tree to get the jacks off en the limb. Number Fourhadn't came to bat yet, so the performance was due to last some time. I got up on a big rock, outta range. "Number Two was in the tree; Number Three flippin'; Number Four was arollin' up his sleeves an' gettin' ready for his turn. The third chefwas sure fancy! He juggled them cakes just like a vodeville artistdoes. Of a sudden he cuts loose a batch that sailed up high an'han'some, turned over an' cum down on the back of Four's neck--himbein' entertained at the time by the feller in the tree. " Ned had acquitted himself well, his story had the tang of reality init, and he told it with rare enthusiasm. He was so clever, in fact, that the younger guides, including myself, decided not to enter thestory contest that night. But there was one in camp who did nothesitate; Andrews was his name. I had not seen this man on the trailbefore, so listened as eagerly as the others to what he had to offer. "Remember the mountain sheep we saw on Flattop?" Ed recalled as he putaside his pipe. "Well, them wild sheep always has interested me. They're plumb human some ways, I reckon. They sure got a whale of abump of curiosity, an' they beat country kids in town when it comes tostarin' at strange sights. Reckon there ain't nuthin' short of aneighbor that's got more curiosity than them sheep. The old rams gitso wise they live two or three times as long as the foolish ones thatdon't never seem to learn nothin'. "Ole Curiosity, up in back on Specimen, is the biggest ram I ever saw. He's sure curious, an' smart along with it. If trouble shows up aroundSpecimen, why Old Curiosity just ain't home, that's all, but hid awaysomewheres in the cliffs. An' once when there was shootin' he wentover to another mountain till the hunters was gone. That there ole ramgot so famous that the fellers used to devil the life outta him. They'd make a show of takin' their gun up the mountain jest ter see theold feller hide out. "One day I was guidin' a party up toward Lulu Pass. We was down in adeep gully, with high walls. All to onct I looked up an' saw a bunchof sheep. They hadn't seen us yet on account of our bein' in theaspens. I flagged the party an' told 'em to watch. "Guess some one was after the sheep, for they was in a hurry to gitacross the gully. One at a time they jumped off the cliff an' landedin the sand along the river. Must have been fifty feet anyhow, maybemore; but that didn't phase 'em. Of a sudden out walked Ole Curiosity, lookin' as big as a house, with circlin' horns three feet long. Theole feller jumped last; and jest as he jumped I rode out of the woods. " Ed eyed the circle of eager faces; his listeners tensed and leanedforward breathlessly. Then he continued: "When the ole ram was about halfway down he seen me. An' what do youreckon he did?" His hypnotized audience were too spellbound to hazard a guess. "He turned aroun' and went back. " The story of the ram that turned back is still told around thecampfires of the Rockies, and it has not grown leaner in therepetitions. But the old-time guides are giving way to younger ones, more scientific but not so entertaining. The Indians who have turnedguides are unexcelled when it comes to following trails that are dim, or in tracking down runaway horses. Indians have a subtle sense ofhumor, even during the most serious situations. "Injun not lost, traillost, " one said when adrift in the woods. To prevent "trails from getting lost, " the Park Service requires all topass examinations on packing, making camp, handling horses, first aid, familiarity of the region and general aptness for the calling beforegranting them a license entitling them to conduct parties on the peaksand trails of Rocky Mountain National Park. When the firstsuperintendent was giving these examinations he invited me to assisthim. In order to focus the attention of the would-be guides upon certainimportant essentials, the questions started out by asking: "What is the first consideration of a guide?" "What is the second consideration of a guide?" The answer expected to the first, of course, was the safety of theparty, and to the second the comfort of the party. The superintendent and I strolled about the room where a dozen or moreyoung fellows were laboriously writing out their answers. One chap inparticular attracted my attention, for he was from the woods, a bigstrapping fellow with clear eyes, and an eager, honest face. I peeped over his shoulder. Beneath "What is the first considerationof a guide?" he had written in unmistakable brevity: "HAM. " Beneath"What is the second consideration of a guide?" in a clear, legible handwas the kindred word: "BACON. " CHAPTER ELEVEN OFF THE TRAIL That same youthful ambition to emulate the early explorers and discovernew worlds which had led me West also tempted my boyish feet off thebeaten, man-made trails. I was told that trails were the safe, thesure routes into and out of the wilds, but their very existenceproclaimed that other men had been there before me. I was not thefirst on those narrow, winding high roads. I preferred the game trailsto them, but I liked better still to push beyond even those faintguides, into the unmarked, untracked wilderness. There I found thelast frontier, as primitive as when bold Columbus dared the unknownseas, and my young heart thrilled at such high adventure. Late one fall, I climbed high above timberline on the Long's Peaktrail, and, following my adventurous impulse, left the cairn-markedpathway and swung over to the big moraine that lay south. From its topI peeped into the chasm that lies between it and the Peak, then angleddown its abrupt slope to a sparkling waterfall, and, following alongthe swift, icy stream above it, was climbing toward Chasm Lake, when aneerie wail rose from the gorge below. Somewhere down there a coyotewas protesting the crimes committed against his race. His yammeringnotes rose and fell, ascending and descending the full run of thescale, swelled into a throaty howl and broke into jerky, wailing yapslike a chorus of satyrs. The uninitiated could never have believed allthose sounds came from one wolfish throat; it seemed that it must bethat the entire pack, or at least half a dozen animals, raised thatwoeful lamentation. Facing, first one way and then another, I tried to locate thebrokenhearted mourner. But Long's sheer, precipitous face and thelofty cliffs around me formed a vast amphitheater about which echoesraced, crossing and recrossing, intermingling. For a full minute thecoyote howled, his sharp staccato notes rising higher and higher, theechoes returning from all directions, first sharply, then blurred, faint, fainter. The higher the sounds climbed the gorge the longerwere the intervals between echoes, for the cañon walls sloped back andwere wider apart toward the top. I counted seven distant echoes of asingle sharp bark before it trailed off into numberlessindistinguishable echoes. The varying angles and heights of the wallsaltered their tones, but just as they reached the top they came inuniform volume, and then overflowed the lower north rim and were lost. For ten minutes that coyote howled, and I tried to locate him by thesound. I knew it would be impossible to sight him for his dun-coloredcoat blended perfectly with the surrounding bowlders. At last Idecided he was due west of me. Cautiously I started toward him, but assoon as I moved he materialized from the jumbled pile of slide rock ahundred feet north of where I stood. The echoes had fooled mecompletely. I wondered then, and many times since, why he howled withme so near. He surely saw me. Was lie familiar with the echoes of thegorge? Did he know their trickery? Did he lift his voice there toconfound me? He is somewhat of a ventriloquist anywhere, perhaps heliked to howl from that spot because the abetting echoes deluded himinto thinking his talent was increasing and he excelled all his rivalsin the mysterious art! Or perhaps like some singers I have known, heenjoyed the multitudinous repetition of the sound of his own voice!After more than a score of years I am no nearer a solution of theriddle. Twenty miles from the spot where the music-fond coyote sang, near theheadwaters of the Poudre River, I rode one day in pursuit of a pair ofmarauding wolves. As soon as they discovered me tracking them, theytook to an old game trail that climbed several thousand feet in tenmiles distance and headed toward the timberline. From their tracks Icould tell the country was strange to them, for animals, like men, areuneasy in unfamiliar surroundings. Somewhere a prospector set off a blast. The sound rolled around andechoed from all about. The wolves were startled at the repeatedreports, as they thought them, and at sea as to the direction fromwhich they came; so they hid away in a dense new growth of Engelmannspruce. When I rode in sight with rifle ready across my saddle, theylay low, no doubt fearing to blunder into an ambush if they took flight. A campbird sailed silently into the tops of the young trees and peeredcuriously downward. Its mate winged in and together they hopped fromlimb to limb, descending toward the concealed animals, and conversingin low tones of their discovery. My horse stopped at my low command; I raised my rifle and fired intothe undergrowth beneath the trees. The wolves sprang out at a run, with lightning bounds, crossed a small opening and disappeared into theheavy forest beyond. I continued firing at them, without effect. Justbefore they vanished into the spruces, I fired a final salute. To myastonishment, they turned tail and came racing back, straight towardme, but glancing back fearfully as they came. For a foolish instant Ithought they meant to attack, then the reason for their action dawnedon me. A sharp echo of each shot had been flung back by a cliff beyondthe grove. The fleeing animals on nearing the cliff had mistaken theseechoes for another pursuer. They feared the unseen gun more than thegun in the open. [Illustration: They turned tail and came racing back, straight towardme. ] I killed them from the saddle. An echo had betrayed them. But theywere in unfamiliar country. I doubt if they would have been misled athome, for animals are commonly familiar with every sight, sound andscent of their home range, and wolves are uncannily shrewd. Thus I learned that the same phenomenon that had confounded me deceivedthe animals. Echoes make an interesting study and add mystery to themountains. But animals, and most woodsmen, have a sixth sense uponwhich they rely, an intuitive faculty we call instinct. It is moreinfallible than their conscious reasoning or physical senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. It leads them unerringly throughunblazened forests, during blinding storms or in the darkness of night. It helps them solve the enigma of echoes, and sometimes when thevagrant breezes trick their sensitive noses, and bring scents to themfrom the opposite direction of their sources, it senses the deception, and, setting them on the right path, delivers them from their enemies. I suppose I must have had this instinct to some degree or I wouldsurely have been lost in those mountain mazes. Not that anticipationof such a possibility would have deterred me--it would really haveadded allurement to the adventure. As it was, I did get lost, butalways succeeded in finding my way home again. But even with this instinct, people are often lost in the high countryof the Rockies. Mountain trails twist and turn, tack and loop aroundunscalable cliffs. Let a stranger step off a trail for a moment topick a flower blooming in the shade of the surrounding woods, and, unless he be an outdoor man, he is liable to be confused as to thetrail's location when he tries to return to it. The sudden changingweather of high altitudes also causes the climber to lose his way. Asky which at sunrise is as innocently blue as a baby's eyes, may beovercast by lowering clouds by noon, or even sooner. A fog may settlebelow the summits of the peaks, and cloak all objects more than a fewyards distant, distorting and magnifying those mistily discernible. Aturn or a detour to survey the vicinity and attempt to get one'sbearings almost invariably brings disaster. A fall that dazes one evenfor a few minutes is liable to befuddle one as to direction and causeone to lose one's way. Few persons lost in the mountains travel in a circle. The typographyof the country prevents them, high ridges confine them to limitedareas. They are as apt to travel in one direction as in the opposite, but they may usually be looked for and found in a shut-in valley orcañon. I was lost one day within a mile of home, almost in sight of the homebuildings, upon a slope I knew well. It came about through myfollowing a band of deer on my skis. The day was windy the snowblowing about in smothering clouds. I came upon the deer in a cedarthicket. At my approach they retreated to a gully and started up theslope. The snow grew so deep that after floundering in it a few yards, they deserted the gully, tacked back close to me, and cut around theslope about level with my position. I gave chase on skis, which almostenabled me to keep up with them. When they altered their direction andheaded down hill, I easily outran them. Soon I was in their midst, buthad difficulty in keeping my balance. All at once the animals indulged in queer antics. One lay upside down, his feet flailing the air; another stood on his head in space; two doeson my left whirled round and round as though dancing with a phonographrecord for a floor. The next instant I joined their troupe. In theflash that followed I remembered seeing the tops of small trees beneathme, remembered my skis whipping across in front of my face. In their panic to escape me, the deer's instinct had deserted them, andthey had dashed full speed across a slope where a spring overflowed andfroze, and the ice was coated with snow. When I regained my feet I was lost. Everything was unfamiliar. I setmy course toward a prominent thumb of rock, but when I reached it, ithad either changed its shape or moved. The whole valley was strange. After skiing for several hours, I topped an utterly foreign ridge. Below me were houses. I coasted down to the nearest that had smokerising from its chimney. A neighbor, living just a mile from home, came to the door. Then I realized where I was, and recognized the"strange" valley, the "unfamiliar" ridge and my neighbors' houses. Ihad traveled in a ten-mile circle. The fall with the deer hadn'texactly dazed me--I wasn't unconscious--but it had jarred shut thewindow of my memory, and though almost at my own door, there was"nobody home. " The best example of storm causing one to lose one's way is theexperience of Miss Victoria Broughm, the first woman to climb Long'sPeak alone. She started one September morning from a hotel at the footof the Peak, taking a dog as her companion. She tethered her horse atbowlderfield, where horses are usually left, and without difficulty, ordelay, made the summit. Just as she reached the top, a storm struckthe mountain and, inside of a few minutes, hid the trail. PluckilyMiss Broughm worked her way down, tacking back and forth, mistaking theway but making progress. She was afraid to trust the dog to guide her. Late in the evening she descended the trough, a steep rock-filled gullythat extends far below the timberline. The trail goes only part waydown this slide, then tacks across to Keyhole. In the storm she couldnot distinguish the cairns that marked the turn-off, and continued ondown the trough far below the trail and was lost. That evening when she did not return to the hotel, a searching partyset out to find her. But a terrific hundred-mile gale was raging uponthe heights. The searching party found it almost impossible to battletheir way above the timberline and after many ineffectual attempts, they returned, nearly frozen, without tidings of the lost girl. William S. Copper, Carl Piltz and myself set out at midnight for thePeak. The wind that met us at the timberline halted our horses, evenjolted them off the trail. Just above the timberline my horse prickedhis ears toward a sheltered cove and gave a little whinny. We hurriedforward hoping to find Miss Broughm. But only her horse was there, dragging its picket rope. We proceeded to bowlderfield. The night was moonless and half cloudy. The wind shrieked among therim rocks and boomed against the cliffs. Our lantern would not staylighted. Time and again we crept beneath a rock slab and relighted itonly to have it snuffed out the instant we emerged into the wind. Across the rocks we crept, crouching like wary wrestlers. When suddenblasts knocked us off our feet, we dropped flat and clung to the rocks. But even with all our caution we were toppled headlong at times, orbowled over backward as the wind struck us. It was after three in the morning when we reached Keyhole, the pass inthe knifelike ridge that separates bowlderfield from Glacier Gorge. The wind forced up the slope from below tore through Keyhole like waterthrough a fire hose. One at a time we attempted to crawl through, butit hurled us back. Together, each holding to his fellow, we bracedagainst the side walls, clung to little nubs on the floor, and edgedforward an inch at a time. Even so we were blown back like so muchchaff. We dropped back down below Keyhole and, creeping beneath some rocks, waited for daylight. No matter how far we crawled beneath the jumbledslabs the wind found us out. We shivered, all huddled together forwarmth, and waited for dawn to light our way and to calm the hurricane. At daybreak we managed to get through Keyhole and made our way to thetrough, where we separated, Cooper and Piltz following the trail to thetop while I descended the trough toward Glacier Gorge. We had agreedto watch for silent signals, since it was impossible to hear even theloudest calls more than a few feet. In a little patch of sand not much larger than my hand, I discovered ahuman footprint, with a dog's track imposed upon it. I wigwagged to mycompanions, received their answering signal, and went on down thetrough, whistling to the dog and shouting his name though I could nothope he would hear me above that gale. I searched beneath every likelyslab as I went. Suddenly the dog appeared atop a huge rock. He howled in answer to mycall; the wind blew him off his post and he disappeared. I hastenedforward; then paused. What would I find beneath the rock? ResolutelyI started to crawl beneath it--and met Miss Broughm coming out. Shewas cold, her lips were blue and cracked, but she had not given uphopes or lost her courage. With her hair blowing like the frayedremnants of a flag, she stood beside the bowlder and smiled a brave iftwisted smile. She was too cold to walk unaided, so as soon as theothers came up, we all supported her and started upon the return trip. We reached the hotel between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning withour lost lady still smiling wanly but rapidly recovering the use of herlimbs. She retired for a few hours and reappeared in time forluncheon, little the worse for her night out on top of the world. A compass is limited in its usefulness partly because it is sometimes, though rarely, affected by mineral deposits and goes wrong, but mostlybecause a lost person seldom thinks he is lost and traveling in thewrong direction, but instead doubts the accuracy of the compass. Atmost he will admit he is off the trail, but he does not think that issynonymous with being lost. His tracks will record the uncertainty ofhis mind, wavering, haphazard, indefinite, but he will not admit, evento himself, that he is lost. There are a few general rules followed by searchers for lost people. If the proposed destination or general direction in which theydisappeared is known, the rescuers take the trail and track them. Every trail, even across windswept bare rocks high above thetimberline, as is the Long's Peak trail, has occasional deposits ofsoft sand in which footprints may be imprinted. And as I have saidbefore, the area which must be searched is restricted by confiningcliffs and ridges. A lost person who cannot find his way back over thetrail he has come, shows wisdom in following down a stream which willeventually bring him to habitations in the valley below. Whether or not searching parties start out at once for the unfortunateclimber depends on the character of the country he was bound for. Ifhis goal is the summit of a high, bleak peak like Long's; or a glacier, it is imperative to start at once as the temperature above thetimberline is often below freezing, even during the summer months. Butif the country is not so menacing, the searchers delay, hoping the lostperson, like Bo Peep's sheep, will come home unsought, as indeed hegenerally does. Most of the lost are found, but a few persons have vanished never to beseen again. The Reverend Sampson disappeared supposedly somewherealong the Continental Divide between Estes Park and Grand Lake, andthough parties made up of guides, rangers and settlers searched formore than a week, they found no trace of the missing man. I was in thetown of Walden, North Park, late one fall when a woodsman came downfrom the mountains west of the Park with some human bones he had foundnear the top of the Divide. By the marks on its barrel, the rustyrifle lying near the bones was identified as one belonging to a man whohad been lost while on a hunting trip thirty years before. One moonlight night I had an extraordinary and ludicrous experiencewith a lost person, though at the time it seemed only exasperating. Ihad stepped outside my cabin to drink in the "moonshine" on my superboutlook. Across the valley, as clearly as in daylight. Long's Peakand its neighbors stood out. The little meadow brook shimmered like asilver ribbon. I walked out to Cabin Rock, a thousand feet above thevalley, and sat down. Coyotes yip-yipped their salutations to thesailing moon. The murmur of the little brooks rose to my ears, subdued, distant. I listened for each familiar night sound as one doesfor the voices of old friends. I sat entranced, intoxicated with thebeauty of the hour, refreshing my soul, at peace, content. A strange cry startled me from my reverie, a human cry, faint, asthough far off. "Help!" Then a pause. "H-e-l-p!" Then more urgently: "H-E-L-P!" For a few minutes I sat still upon my crag, puzzling. Some one hasstumbled into a bear trap, I thought, or been injured in a fall. Aftermarking the locality from which the calls came, I ran down my zigzagtrail, and hastened down the valley toward the spot whence the crieshad come. Whenever I came to the open, parklike clearings, I stoppedto listen. The floor of the wide valley had been burned over scores ofyears before, and a new growth of lodge-pole pines covered it. Thesetrees were of nearly uniform height, about fifteen feet, and in placestoo dense to permit of passage. Three miles were covered in record time. Then, thinking that I must beclose to the spot from which the calls had come, I climbed an upthrustof rock, searched the openings among the trees near by, and listenedintently. I shouted; no reply. For perhaps ten minutes I waited. Then from far up the valley, close below my cabin, the distressingcalls were repeated. "He's certainly not crippled, " I thought. "He's traveled nearly as faras I. " I set off at a run, for I know every little angle of the woods in thevicinity. But when I arrived, breathless and panting, there was noanswer to my shouts. I gave up the chase in disgust, and started upthe trail toward my cabin. I decided some one was having fun with me. Midway up the trail to my cabin, I heard the cries again, agonized, fearful. They came from across the valley, toward the west. Headingfor the peaks! I must stop him! It certainly sounded serious. I'dhave to see it through. I hurried across the valley, shouting at intervals, stopping to listenand to look for the person in distress. There was no answer, no one insight. As I reached the steep slope, leading upward to the high peaks, I heard terrified, heart-rending cries, southward, toward the spot fromwhich the first call had come. It was strange, and maddening, that Icould hear him so distinctly, yet he could not hear me. He wascertainly deaf or very stupid, for he continued calling for help, whenhelp was pursuing him and yelling at the top of its lungs. Again calls. This time straight south of my position. It was ariddle; annoying, yet interesting. Never in my mountain experience hadI encountered such a mystifying situation. However, with grimdetermination, but little enthusiasm, I turned south. My curiosity wasaroused. I wanted to see what sort of fool ran around in dizzy circlesyelling for help, yet not waiting for an answer to his supplications, nor acknowledging my answering shouts. I was in prime condition, and well warmed up with ten miles of travel. My endurance was too much for the will-o'-the-wisp. As, for the secondtime, I neared the spot from which he had first called, he shatteredthe silence with lusty appeals, then broke cover within a hundred yardsof where I followed, hot on his trail. He looked able-bodied andgoodness knows he'd been active, so I withdrew into the shadows of athicket to watch what he would do. After his outcry, he kept mumbling to himself--his words wereinaudible--lost his voice--don't wonder! Some rooter he'd make at afootball game while he lasted! After muttering a minute, he stoppedand listened intently, as though expecting an answer. Good heavens!He thinks he can be heard! He moved on, staggering crazily, stumbling, stopping to look at the shining peaks; then going on aimlessly. "Loco, " I decided. I circled ahead of him and concealed myself behind an old stump. Iwanted to hear what he was saying. Twice he had crossed the road thatran down the valley, the only road in that vicinity. From Cabin Rock Ihad seen a tent beside it. As he came toward me, I stepped from behind the stump. "What in time ails you?" I roared. He stared at me and walked completely around me before saying a word. "Huh, " he grunted then. "Where'd you come from?" I explained with considerable emphasis that I had come from almostevery point of the compass. "Will you tell me why in Sam Hill you are yelling for help when it's aslight as day?" I demanded hotly. "I'm lost, " he said meekly. "Lost!" I yelled. He nodded shamefacedly. "Went fishing and couldn't find my camp again, " he confessed. I recalled the tent beside the road, I'd seen from Cabin Rock. It wasthe only camp, on the only road in the vicinity. "Why in thunder didn't you follow the road?" "Didn't know which way to go, " he defended. "There's the Peak!" I gibed, pointing upward; "plain as day. Your campis straight east of it--didn't you know that?" He winced, but did not answer. "Couldn't you see the Peak?" I insisted. "You couldn't help butrecognize it. " "Yes, " he admitted. "I saw the Peak, but I thought it was in the wrongplace. " CHAPTER TWELVE DREAMERS OF GOLDEN DREAMS What with my hunting, trapping, exploring, cabin-building and guiding, my boyish dreams of striking it rich and sending home trainloads ofglittering nuggets to my parents, who had been frustrated by illness intheir trek across the plains to the golden mountains of Colorado, beganto fade into the background. I was engrossed in getting acquaintedwith my wild neighbors, in learning their habits and customs, and intrying to photograph them in their natural habitat. Moreover there wasno rich gold ore in the vicinity of my cabin. Though I was greatlydisappointed in this fact at the time, I have since become reconciledto it. After seeing the naked, desolate, scarred-up country aroundCentral City, Cripple Creek, Ouray and other mining localities, I amthankful that no such madness will ever tempt men to despoil thebeauties of the region around Estes Park. But if there was no paying gold in the vicinity, there were plenty ofprospectors. The slopes above the Parson's ranch were "gophered" allover by them. There were miles of outcrop showing and all bore tracesof gold. Every summer some wanderer came probing among the countlessholes sure he'd find riches where others had failed. The mostpersistent one was called "Old Mac" who returned repeatedly. Late onefall he took up his quarters in a log cabin belonging to a miningcompany. The cabin stood near Long's Peak trail, at an altitude ofabout ten thousand feet. There they had cached some left-oversupplies. Old Mac, forever dreaming, stumbled on to the cache anddecided to take up his residence there. Through October and November I saw Old Mac frequently as he potteredabout the mine or picked up ore samples from the dump. He staked halfa dozen claims, marked their locations, and dug some new holes to testthe mineral. In December, when deep snows came, I left the region. When I returned in the spring the snow lay deep and undisturbed aboutthe old cabin. Evidently Old Mac had got out before winter set in. However, I shouted his name, more in the spirit of talking to myselfthan of expecting a reply. I was surprised to hear a faint reply. From inside the cabin came a creaking as though some one were gettingout of bed. Then the door opened and the old man, blinking owlishly, stood before me. His long white hair was unkempt and tangled. Heyawned and stretched like a bear emerging from its winter hibernation. "Came up to bring them papers?" he asked, expectantly. I recalledthen, when I last saw him in December, that he had asked to borrow someDenver papers that contained information about the Reno gold rush. Ihad forgotten about them. I explained and apologized. "What sort of a winter have you put in?" I asked by way of divertinghim. He looked at me in a sort of maze. "Winter?" he mumbled perplexed. "It's sure settin' in like it meantbusiness. But I'm plannin' to start a tunnel--got a rich vein I wantto uncover--think come spring I'll have her where somebody'll want tobuild a mill an'----" "But you told me you were going to Reno, " I recalled. "Yep; I am, come spring, " he earnestly assured me. "Do you know the date?" I shot at him. He looked at me sheepishly. "No-o-o, don't reckon I do, " he admitted, scratching his head and eyingme quizzically. I waited. "Must be about Christmas, ain't it?" he guessed at length. It was the eighth of May! Old Mac was a typical prospector. They are all queer, picturesquecharacters, living in a world of golden dreams, oblivious to everythingbut the hole they are digging, the gold they are sure to find. Theyhave a fanatical, unshakable, perennial faith in every prospect holethey open, no matter how many have been false leads. They areincorrigible optimists, the world's champion hopers. Unkempt, unhurried, dreaming, confiding, trustful, superstitious, they wanderthe length of the Rockies, seeking the materialization of their goldenvisions. They are seekers, far more concerned with finding gold thanwith digging it out. Like hunting dogs, their interest ceases with thecapture of their quarry. They do not care whether the region they propose to search has beenscientifically tested and thought to contain gold. They adhere to theminer's adage, "Gold is where you find it"; and they seem to have someoccult power of divination for they have uncovered fabulous fortunes inregions which, like Cripple Creek, had been declared "barren of gold. "Yet, as the old settlers say, "Prospectors never get anything out oftheir finds. " Having struck it rich, they take to the trail again, tosearch endlessly, to probe ceaselessly, with patient faith, theinscrutable hills. In addition to their seemingly occult power of divining the location ofearth's hidden treasure, these rugged old men of the mountains possessa mysterious means of learning news of gold strikes. Let a bonanzastrike be made and every prospector in the region will be on his way tothe new camp within a few hours. "How did you know that gold had been struck at Caribou?" I asked an oldman whom I met on the trail, driving his pack burro ahead of him, hurrying considerably for a prospector. He looked at me, scratched his head, spanked the burro and started on. No doubt regretting his discourteous silence, he turned, "I knowed theywas agoin' to, " he told me. Nearly every prospector has a little pack burro, that seems to absorball the patient philosophy of its master. To his shaggy burden-bearer, he gives his last flapjack, tells his golden dreams, confides thelocation of rich veins of ore, and turns for comfort when the falselead plays out. The knowing animal provides that rarest ofcompanionship, a sympathetic, silent, attentive listener. Most of the prospectors I have met on the trails were old men, workingalone, but two do sometimes cast their lot together, and becomepartners. The story I heard told once around a campfire, of two old prospectorswho were always quarreling, is characteristic. Many times theyseparated, each to go his own way; sometimes they merely set upseparate camps a few yards apart, refusing to speak or to take anynotice of each other. Thus they bickered, fought and made up, close toforty years. They staked claims wherever they discovered promisingoutcrop. They were familiar with a hundred miles of ragged mountainranges. After all those years, old and failing, they fell out over some trivialthing and separated for good. One traveled north, the other south. Both struck fine mineral that promised to make their dreams come true. But neither was content. Each wanted the other's companionship and yeteach feared that pride would keep his poor partner from accepting hisadvances. They grew morose, and finally both blew up their holdings toconceal their riches and headed back along the Divide to meet, face toface, the partner they had deserted. Prospectors are philosophers, without hurry or worry. They meet eachsituation as it arises calmly, and let to-morrow take care of its own. When food and dynamite give out, they make a pilgrimage to the foothilltowns and with alluring tales of leads, lodes and veins of hiddentreasure soon to be revealed--just as soon as they have time to do alittle more development work--they secure another grub stake and are ontheir way to high country again. They always find willing listeners, for the heart of many a less daring, conservative business man is inthe hills. The listeners are easily inveigled into staking these oldbeggars, hypnotized and hypnotizing with dreams, and do it again andagain, gambling on the next strike being a lucky one. The man whofurnishes a grub stake shares half and half with the prospector heequips. No matter how little they have, prospectors will share with anyone whocomes their way. Their hospitality is genuine, though perforcelimited. They invite you first, and learn who you are and what yourbusiness may be later. One day I was picking my way down the bogs and marshes of Forest Cañon. All at once it narrowed, boxing up between high walls. To go on I hadeither to climb the walls or back-track for some distance. I electedto climb. After the struggle up the face of the rock I sat down torest. "No one within miles, " I panted as I sat down. "Don't look like there's ever been anyone here, " I added as I recalledthe way I had come. "What ya take me fur?" Ten feet away, standing motionless beside an old stump, stood acadaverous fellow whose rags suggested the moss that hung from thetrees. "Hungry?" he shot at me before I recovered from my surprise. "Camp'sright hyar. " He led the way with all the poise of a gentleman. But his camp! Beside an old tunnel that plunged beneath the side wallof the cañon was a lean-to. Upon green boughs were spread a singlepair of ragged blankets. His campfire still smoldered. Upon its coalswere his only culinary utensils, an old tin bucket, in which simmeredhis left-over coffee, and a gold pan containing a stew. The pan hadseen better days--and worse ones, too, for one side of its rim wasgone, and the bottom had been cleverly turned up to form a new one, making it semi-circular with a straight side. "Prospectin'?" my host ventured, eying me dreamily. "No, lookin', " I told him. "Humph. " Then, "Hope you find it. " But his curiosity ended there. "Say, if you're wantin' ter see sum'thin' good, looka that. " He tossed over a piece of quartz. "Got er whole mountain uf it, " he jerked his head toward the tunnel. He lowered his voice, glanced around, beckoned me to follow, and ledthe way inside his mine. At the edge of the darkness he halted, returned to the entrance andpeered about. Then he leaned close that none might hear, and whisperedthe secret; the old, old secret no prospector ever keeps. Not thatprospectors have anything to keep! Another time, in the rough region west of Ypsilon Mountain, I came upona lean, wiry little old man leading a burro. He jerked at the leadrope in vain attempt to hurry the phlegmatic animal. "Com' on, durn ye, " he squeaked as he tugged at the rope. "Don't yeknow we're tracin' the float? Lead's right close now. " But the burro was of little faith. He had lost his youthfulenthusiasm. He carried all his master's possessions (except his goldendreams) on his back, but his pack was light. So engrossed was the old man that he passed within fifty yards of whereI sat without seeing me. He was oblivious to everything but what mightlie hidden on the mountainside. The float would lead to a bonanzastrike, a mill would be built to handle the ore, a town would springup--his town, named in his honor as the discoverer of the lead! Hemumbled of these things as he worked. Sometimes he paused, lookingabstractedly at the peaks above, without apparently seeing them at all. He babbled incoherently of leads, floats, lodes and veins. His actions were like those of a dog puzzling out the faint trail of arabbit that had crossed and crisscrossed its own trail until nothingcould track it down. Somewhere on the mountain above was the source ofthe float. The old man edged up the slope, tacking back and forthacross the line of scattered quartz. He located the vein at last bytrenching through a carpet of spruce needles. He set up camp and started digging, so I dropped down the cañon towardsthe Poudre River. But a week later, upon my return, he was stillthere. He had located his claim and staked his corner. His locationnotice, laboriously written with a blunt pencil, was fastened to atree. The burro lay in philosophical contemplation in the grass besidethe stream; while his master sat beside the shallow hole that perhapsmarked the beginning of a mine. His pose was that of a sentinel. Hewatched the hole with an expectant air, as though from it somethingimportant would presently emerge, and he was waiting to pounce upon it. Years later when I passed that way again, the hole was no deeper, butthe frayed remnants of the location notice flapped in the breeze. Only once in a quarter of a century have I seen a prospector hurry. Itwas while I was guiding a party of Eastern folks across the Rabbit Earrange that we met a gangling fellow named "Shorty, " by way of contrast. I say he was hurrying, because he held a straight course across themountains without paying heed to numberless diverting leads heordinarily would have "sampled. " Shorty was heading for Central City, where mining had been in fullblast for forty years. He had no burro, he had cached his tools at thescene of his last camp. He had had a dream that revealed to him thelocation of a rich vein, right in the midst of miles of mines, butunsuspected and undiscovered. Every prospector has dreams by day aswell as by night. My party "loaned" Shorty some grub and watched him disappear toward theMecca of his dreams. Just before he left, Shorty confided to us thathis dream vein lay just below a big bowlder and above some tall trees;that he knew the vein was right there--and it was. To my cabin one day, came Slide-Rock Pete, who dwelt in a realm ofunreality. Pete was superstitious after the manner of his tribe. Heknew all the luck signs, all the charms (good or bad), and he hadconjured up counter-charms against ill omens. As he approached mycabin a visiting cat, a black one, crossed his path. Pete promptlyturned around three times in the opposite direction to that in whichthe cat had gone and calmly entered, secure in his belief that he hadbroken pussy's dark spell. He was afflicted with rheumatism, whichprevented him from prospecting. At length he figured out the cause ofhis trouble and a cure for it. It wasn't dampness, or rainy weather, he told me, but came from camping near mineral deposits. If he chancedto pitch his camp near mineral, especially iron, it caused his"rheumatics" to "come on. " For protection he bought a compass with which we went over proposedcamp sites. If the compass showed variation or disturbance, heabandoned the site. And once when the compass was out of order, hecamped, unconsciously, at a spot where there was iron. Then as hisrheumatism developed he found that his watch had stopped. Later whenhis aches at last left him, his watch started ticking of its ownaccord. His watch was so sympathetic that it couldn't bear to run whenhe couldn't walk! But when he felt good, it was so joyous it ran aheadto make up for lost time. Then he set it right by squinting at the sun! No matter what queer beliefs prospectors have they are neverdisgruntled. I had camped near the old Flattop trail at a spot where, sometimebefore, I had cached some food supplies. It was early in September. No wind reached the bottom of the cañon where I slept beside my fire. I awoke at the sound of a voice and sleepily I opened my eyes. No onewould be traveling at night--surely I had been dreaming. But no--therewas movement. "If I kin git the hole ten feet deeper before snow flies, I'll havesomething to show that ole skinflint at the lake. " I sat up wondering. Then I remembered the voice. It was old Sutton, aprospector I had known for many years--one of the typical, plodding, babbling old fellows who live only in their dreams. My camp was in the shelter of small spruces while my visitor stood inthe open. Playfully I picked up an empty tin can and tossed it intothe air, that it might fall close beside him. At the fall of the can, the man spun around suddenly, and, walking over to it, prodded it withthe stick he carried. "Gosh dern!" he exclaimed; "funny how things happen. " He stood in silence, looking down at the can. Then I dropped another close to him. He muttered somethingunintelligible. The third and fourth cans made him hop around like asurprised robin beneath an apple tree, with fruit pelting the groundnear it. At length he hobbled off, talking to himself about a new leadhe had found, without solving the mystery of the tin cans dropping froma clear night sky. CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE CITY OF SILENCE For days I had been on the trail, or, rather, off it, for there were notrails in the high country through which I was traveling, exceptingthose made by game. I was hungry. The region lacked charm. It isdifficult for a boy to appreciate scenery on a two-day-old emptystomach, which he has been urging up mountains and joggling downvalleys. Had the bunnies been more accommodating and gone into theirholes so I could snare them or smoke them out, or the grouse had beenless flighty when I flushed them, and remained near enough so I couldreach them with my stones, I might have stretched my food supply overthe extended time of my unexpectedly prolonged travels. But no suchgood luck attended me on that excursion. The very first day I slippedoff a foot-log while crossing a saucy little mountain brook and bruisedmy shin, tore my trousers and injured my camera. Like most small boys, I regretted that gratuitous bath. I began to wonder if Slide-Rock Petewas so crazy after all. Now the clouds were pinning themselves up to dry on the pointed summitsof the peaks, and were already beginning to drip on the world below. Darkness threatened to set in early. I knew I ought to stop and makecamp while it was still light enough to see, but I kept on going, hoping something might turn up. My empty stomach growled itsdisapproval, but I stubbornly ignored its protests. While my betterjudgment, my stomach and myself were all three arguing, I thought Iglimpsed a building, far down on the slope below. Too excited to say"I told you so" to my companions, I quickened my steps and headedtoward it. "A prospector! If he has any grub at all he'll share it, and I'll be protected from this downpour. " By that time the celestiallaundresses were emptying out their wash tubs and sloshing water allover the earth. When I drew near the shack, I discovered it was one of a group ofstraggling houses scattered along the sides and bottom of the gulch. Asettlement! It was dark by then, yet not a light could I see. "Mustgo to bed with the chickens, " I mused. "I hope they won't mind beinggotten up to give a wayfarer shelter and a bite to eat. " On my way down the slope, I passed two or three log cabins but thesewere silent, apparently empty, and I hastened on to the main groupwhich faced on the single, grass-grown road that ran along the bottomof the gulch, intending to knock at the first which showed signs oflife. I walked the length of the sprawling road, looking sharply ateach house, listening for voices, a chance word or a peal of laughter. Not a sound greeted my ears except the thud of rain upon sod roofs, thedrip of water through stunted, scraggly trees. Here was something queer; I thought of Slide-Rock Pete and his luckcharms. I regretted more than ever that I had not got a single bunny. I felt the need of a rabbit's foot. Shaking myself to shed rain and forebodings, I crossed the street andknocked boldly upon the door of the nearest house. There was noresponse. Again I knocked, louder and more insistently. My raps cameechoing back emptily. I knocked again. A door, creaking on rustyhinges, swung slowly inward, but no one peered out, inviting me toenter. I backed away from the yawning cavern, blacker than thestarless night, into the open road. A little saw-whet owl, seeking, asI was, supper, swooped by on muffled wings, and sawed wood, sayingnothing. I jeered back at him, and felt my courage rising. I steppedup resolutely to the next house and beat upon its door. There wasinstant commotion, a rattling of pans, the clink of dishes as thoughsome one hurried to the door. Straightening up and facing the doorexpectantly, I smiled in anticipation of a hospitable welcome. Thenthe sounds ceased. My courage oozed away--an unreasonable fear creptover me. I lost my desire for food and rest--I would as soon haverested in a grave. Once more I stood in the rutted street, searching its brief length fora human form. I had the feeling that the inhabitants of the town weresomewhere about, that they had just stepped out, leaving their doorsunlocked against their early return. Perhaps there was a dance or acelebration of some sort in the neighboring village. Strange some onedidn't stay behind. The sudden eerie notes of a coyote caused my hair to lift--why couldn'tthe brute respect the silence? The wind stirred uneasily, doors bangedabout me. The uncanny spell of the place overcame my last shred ofcourage--my feet started down the road of their own volition. I foundmyself breathing hard, running fast. I jerked to a standstill, laughing sheepishly at my fears--ashamed. Then I faced about, determined to stay. Something touched my elbows. I sprang ten feet and whirled, on thedefensive. A dark, horned form stood before me. My muscles tensed foranother sprint, I held my breath. The thing moved; I made out theoutline of a burro. I breathed again, relieved. Here at last wassomething alive, something natural in this desert of silence. I wishedthe animal would bray, but he only nosed my pockets suggestively. Ilaid my hand upon him gratefully, and found he too was in sore straits, his coat as ragged as my own, his sides corrugated like a hugewashboard. My spirits rose, my forebodings were forgotten. "Hello, " Icalled joyfully. "What are you doing here?" Again he smelled my pockets, wagging his great ears the while, thenwaited expectantly. "Sorry, pal, " I apologized. The little beggar's attitude expressed such dejection I laughed. "Never mind, old fellow. We'll go find something. There must besomebody here. " I started out to renew my search and he followed at my heels. So, together, we wandered down the street on a tour of investigation. Hiscoat was so black that often I could not distinguish him from thedarker shadows that filled the street. At every door he crowdedforward expectantly, focusing his long ears as though to catch thefirst longed-for salutation. Nearly every door was ajar. The log cabins were small, two or threerooms at the most, and easily searched. Their owners had apparentlytaken only their most portable and necessary possessions, for nearlyevery cabin contained something of value, bed springs, bunks, suspendedby wire from the rafters, tables, chairs, dishes, cooking utensils, even miners' tools. One had a row of books upon its stone mantel. When we came to the one where sounds had answered my knocking, I pausedbefore the door, hesitating to intrude. That first creepy feelingstole over me. I put my hand on the burro's neck. I jerked thelatchstring and pushed open the door. The room was dark and silent. When I struck a match, there was a rapid scurrying of rats, darting forshelter. My burly bodyguard never once left my side. He waited patiently for myreport, when I emerged from each cabin, and accepted with philosophicalresignation my decision to postpone further search till daylight. Early next morning I was up and out, further to explore the village. No one had returned home, there was no doubt now that it was deserted. In one of the cabins I found some salt which I divided with the burro. Another yielded a little flour. I prepared a sticky mixture of flourand water, seasoned with salt, and cooked it in one of the fireplaces. When baked, it had the firmness of granite, but my appetite had acutting edge, and the burro, no more particular, accepted the hardtack, and crunched it greedily. After breaking our fast, to say nothing of our teeth, we continuedour--yes, excavations; for out of the dust and neglect of years ofdesertion, we dug the history of a buried past, of a forgottencivilization, where men had worked, women had loved and sacrificed, andlittle children had laughed and played. [Illustration: Out of the dust of years, we dug the history of a buriedpast. ] One of the houses had evidently held the post office, for in it was asmall cabinet holding a few pieces of uncalled-for mail addressed tovarious persons. There were unopened letters and papers, bearing thepostmarks of towns back East; there were packages, showing marks oflong journeys, still intact, their cords still tightly knotted. Manyof the letters had been forwarded from other Western post offices, andhad followed the men to whom they were addressed to this, then alive, town named Teller. The postmaster had apparently been a notary public. His book ofrecords lay dusty on the shelf, near what had been the post office. Upon it, too, were filed copies of mining claims. "The Grizzly King, ""Decoration Day, " "Lady Forty, " "Queen Victoria, " "Tom Boy, " "LastChance, " "Deep Water, " "Black Mule, " "Hope Ever, " fantastic, picturesque names, suggesting many a tale of romance and adventure, revealing the hopes and fears of daring hearts. Something of these was hinted at in an open letter lying on the floorof one of the cabins. It was worn thin where it had been creased, asthough its owner had long carried it around in his pocket, the betterto read and reread it. The wind had pried into it, leaving it spreadopen for the next intruder's convenience. Somehow, I felt those frankspirits would not mind my reading it: Dear Fred: Hope you strike it rich in Teller, the new town you wrote about. Mostanything out there would beat what we have here. Corn is all dried upin Iowa, and there's little to live on. Quite a lot of the neighborshave "pulled up stakes" and moved to Kansas. Ten wagons left lastweek, following the road west which so many have taken for better orworse. The last and smallest cabin in the town was as clean and tidy as thoughits owner might have been gone but a few days. Upon the table was aworn and frayed little book, weighted down by a rough piece of ore, asort of diary, and yet it seemed to be written to some one. I copiedextracts from it into my own notebook: My dear Katherine--I believe I've struck it rich at last. There was arush up here three months ago, and I came in soon as the news reachedCheyenne. Must have been several hundred in the race to get herefirst--about twenty of us won out. I filed on several claims and triedto hire men to help me do assessment work; but no one would work forwages. Everyone is raving crazy, bound to strike it rich, and workingdouble shift to hold as many claims as possible. Katy, dear, it's been a month since I started this letter. Things havesettled down here now, and the fly-by-nights have vanished. Butthere's a few of us sticking to our holes with the notion if we go deepenough they'll pan out rich. But there's no way of. .. They came for me to help with a poor fellow who got hurt when histunnel caved in on him. Guess he'll make a die of it too. Seemsterrible, just when he thought he had struck a bonanza, to be killedthat way. Makes me lonesome to think how things turned out for him. I've got a secret cache straight west of my cabin, forty-eight steps. Under a big rock I've hid a buckskin sack with the golddust anotherfellow and I panned from a bar in the Colorado river. It's not so verymuch; but it'll help out in a pinch. Kate, this camp's played out. I'm quitting, disgusted. After all thehard work here there's nothing rich; just low-grade stuff that won'tpay freighting charges. Maybe if we had a mill--but there's no usetalking mill, when every fellow here is in the same fix--on his lastlegs. We got to get out or starve; we're all living on deer and wildsheep, but its getting so we can hardly swallow it much longer. I'lllet you know as soon. .. It was unfinished. The sides of the gulch were "gophered" with prospect holes, most ofthem very shallow, with little mounds of dirt beside them, like thegraves of dead hopes. Occasionally a deeper hole had picked samplesfrom the ore vein it followed piled near its opening. Likewise, outside, some of the cabin doors were little heaps of choice ore whichhopeful owners had brought in against the time when shipments would bemade, or an ore mill set up near by. I had chanced upon an abandoned mining town, left forever as casuallyas though its residents had gone to call upon a neighbor. There aremany such in the mountains of Colorado. During the early gold rushes, when strikes were made, mining towns sprang up overnight, and laterwhen leads played out or failed to pan out profitably, or rumor of aricher strike reached the inhabitants, they deserted them to try theirluck in new fields of promise. Often they were eager to be the firstones in on the new finds and left without preparation or notice, trailing across mountains and through cañons, afoot, each anxious to bethe first man on the ground, to have his choice of location, to stakehis claim first. They could not carry all their household goods ontheir shoulders, nor pack them on a burro's back, and to freight themover a hundred miles of mountain trails cost more than the purchase ofnew goods in the new town. So they departed with only such necessitiesas they could carry, and abandoned the rest to pack rats and chancewanderers such as I. So these towns, born of their high hopes, died, as their dreamsflickered out, and were abandoned when new hopes sprung up in theirbreasts. I forgot my hunger in unraveling the mysteries of the silent village, but my companion showed no such inclination. Being a pack burro, andhaving a prospector for a master, he had come to look upon tragedy witha philosophical eye. No doubt he had seen deserted towns before, andbeen the innocent victim of the desertion. He grew bored as I lingeredover letters and the other evidence of bygone days and nudged mefrequently to remind me of our original object in searching the cabins. At last he protested with a vigorous, "Aww-hee-awwhee, a-w-w-h-e-e--"Remembering his loyalty of the night before, to appease him I left offrummaging in those dust-covered cabins. "All right, pal, I'll come. We'll leave this grave-yard right away andtry our luck at fishing. " He seemed to understand for he capered about like a playful puppy. I knew of several small streams below the town, alive with trout. Iheaded for the nearest one, the burro plodding patiently behind, silent, expectant. The smell of smoke, coffee, and other camp odors came up the trail tomeet us. Soon we came abruptly in sight of two prospectors who wereeating a belated breakfast. "Reckon you better have a bite with us, " invited one of the men as heset the tin-can coffee pot upon the coals of their fire. "Thet thar burro bin a pesterin' you?" asked the second man, fixing theburro with a searching gaze. "Oh, no!" I denied, remembering my debt to the animal. "We put in thenight together, and he even ate some of my hardtack this morning, " Iended laughing. "He's the tarnationist critter, always a galavantin' roun', an' agittin' inter somebody's grub. " The burro chose to overlook these insults and drew near the fire, unostentatiously. The old prospector slipped him part of his breakfast. "Which way you headin'?" asked the first man, plainly puzzled because Icarried neither gun nor mining tools. "To climb Arapahoe peak. " "Climb the peak, " he repeated, much mystified. "What's the idear?" the second wanted to know. "Goin' way off tharjes' to git up a mountain, when thar's plenty right hyar, higher onestoo?" He indicated the ranges to the east. "Any place up that way to get out of the rain?" I asked, for the cloudswere dropping again with the threat of gathering storm. The men exchanged glances. Abruptly the small one got to his feet andled the burro out of sight among the willows. The other man faced me. "Better take a friend's advice and keep outen there, " he swept a grimyhand westward. "What's up?" "Better do your climbin' round hyar, " he replied suggestively. "But I want to climb Arapahoe; I have heard the Indians used it for asignal mountain and. .. " He beckoned me to follow, and led the way into the grove mysteriously. At length he stopped, peered about uneasily, then whispered. "There's an ole cabin up yonder"--he faced toward Arapahoe--"that'sha'nted. " "Haunted?" my interest quickening, my fears of the depressing nightforgotten. He nodded--dead earnest. "Are you sure about that? Did you ever see the, the----" His look silenced me. "Ole feller died up thar, " he declared; "nobody knows how. " His tonewas awesome. I made a move down the trail, thanking him for the meal. "Wouldn't go, if I wus you, " he persisted, following me as far as hiscamp. Then, as I took the unused trail that led down toward North Park, hecalled after me: "Remember, I've warned you!" Fishing was good in the stream a few miles below their camp, and I soonhad all the trout I wanted and was on my way to the round dome ofArapahoe peak, jutting above some clouds that were banked against itslower slope. Through the willow flats and a dense forest of spruce, the way led up between parallel ridges over a game trail, deeply wornand recently used. I was right upon a log wall before I knew it. ThenI circled and saw that the wall was part of an old cabin built in alittle opening of the forest. A section of the roof had fallen in and the fireplace had lost part ofits chimney; the slab door had a broken hinge, and swayed uneasily onthe one remaining, and the dirt floor bore no traces of recenthabitation. Having gathered wood for the night, for I had no blankets and must keepthe fire burning, I broiled several trout for my supper. How Irelished that meal! Supper over, I climbed upon a cliff behind the cabin and watched themoon rise silently above a ridge to the eastward, and listened to thefaint clamor of the coyotes far below. Shadows crept closer to thecliffs as the moon climbed higher, while from the peaks above came themoaning of the wind. Never had been such a night! It was late when I went inside the old cabin, and the fire had burnedlow. I put on fresh wood, removed my shoes, and stretched out beforethe comforting blaze. I was asleep almost instantly. From time totime, as had become my habit, I roused enough to feed the fire; thenquickly dropped off to sleep again. Just when, I am not sure, but I think about midnight, I awoke with astrange feeling that an unseen presence was in the room. Theprospector's warning came to me vaguely, and I tried to rouse up tolisten, but I dropped back to sleep almost immediately. Later, coming awake suddenly as though some one had shaken me, I sat upand, rubbing my eyes to open them, glanced around, but the interior ofthe cabin was dark, only the stars sparkled close above the brokenroof. I yawned expansively, rolled nearer the low fire, and fellasleep. The next I knew I heard a thud close to my head, and I was wide awakeupon the instant. I lay still, trying to convince myself that therewas nothing in the cabin but myself; when a hot breath struck my face. I got up on end--so did my hair. I started for the door. A bulky shadow moved between it and myself. I postponed going in thatdirection for the moment and, turning, felt my way to a dark cornerback by the fireplace. From the corner across the hearth came a faintsound. Thinking the time propitious for a prompt exit, I felt my wayalong the wall, turned the corner and made for the door. Unfortunately, my uninvited guest had the same thought, for as I sprangfor the opening, I bumped into him, and the creaky slab door bangedshut, leaving the cabin blacker than ever. An idea shot through my head. If the visitor, whatever it was--ha'ntor otherwise--wanted the location near the door, it could have it. Farbe it from me to be discourteous. I groped my way back to thefireplace, stumbling over my wood as I went. I had a fleeting notionto fling fresh wood on the fire which had almost burned out. Again Icollided with my dusky visitor. I hesitated no longer. I would vacate the cabin instantly, for goodand all, without stopping to gather up my few belongings. Across thedirt floor I dashed, grabbed the creaky door and jerked it open. But before I could dart through I was shoved aside. In panic I soughtthat exit, but was buffeted about, and finally knocked headlong on theground. Thoroughly scared, I leaped to my feet, ready to run. Standing a few feet in front of me, big ears thrust forwardinquiringly, was the friendly burro of the night before. CHAPTER FOURTEEN BEARS AND BUGBEARS In my childish estimation, bear stories rivaled the tales of mad goldrushes, thundering bisons and savage Indians. No chore was so hard norso long but that I managed to complete it in time to take my place inthe fireside circle and listen to accounts of those huge animals thatlived in the Rocky Mountains and were fiercer than any other bears inthe world. "Ursus horribilis, " my father called them, and a deliciouslittle shudder would run down my back at the sound of the words. Therewas talk, too, of hunters who had tracked these monsters to their lairsand overcome them. Early I decided that when I went West, I wouldbecome, besides other things, a mighty bear hunter. The cows I droveto pasture were "ursus horribilis" (how I reveled in those words!)fleeing before me, and I was stalking them through the wilds with rifleupon my arm, and pistol and hunting knife in my belt! I planned todiscard the ragged overalls and clumsy "clodhoppers" of the farm, assoon as I reached the mountains, for smoke-tanned, Indian-made buckskinsuit and moccasins, all beaded and fringed. I wondered if the Indianswore coonskin caps like Davy Crockett--I felt it absolutely necessarythat I should have one to wear to meet my first bear. My first venture into the woods below the Parson's ranch I remembervividly, because I was filled with eager, yet fearful anticipation. Iexpected to meet a grizzly around every bowlder. I kept wondering howfast a bear could run; I halted frequently beside trees, for Iremembered my father's saying grizzlies did not climb, so I planned toshin up the tallest tree in the woods should one come in sight. In mydreams back on the farm, my only fear had been lest all the grizzliesbe killed before I reached the Rockies; barring such dire calamity, Ihad never had a doubt of my prowess. But somehow, when at last I foundmyself alone in the dark forest, it seemed the better part of valor topostpone the actual encounters until I should become more skillful withmy old black-powder rifle. So obsessed was I by the thought of bearsthat on my first excursions into the wilds, a rock never rolled down aslope nor dropped from a cliff, a crash sounded in a thicket, but thatI was sure a bear was mysteriously responsible. I dreamed of them, dayand night, until they became bugbears, grizzly bugbears! Considering my long-avowed intentions, my first camp alone in the WildBasin country was not entirely unfortunate, for there, that firstexciting afternoon, I met a bear face to face. Of course, I gave himthe right of way. Was I not the intruder and he the rightful resident?Though years have elapsed since I dropped my rifle and sped in instantflight down the mountain side toward camp, I still like to think thatmy marvelous speed discouraged "ursus horribilis" and, therefore, heturned tail. During my first summer in the mountains, I saw bears several times, ineach instance going about their business and making no move to attackme. After these glimpses of them I gathered courage and decided topostpone my career as a hunter no longer. Bears were the objectives ofmy hunting expeditions, but they always succeeded in eluding me. Manytimes in stalking them I came upon fresh tracks showing they had brokeninto flight at my approach. One day I turned homeward, empty-handed, and learned later I had been within gunshot of one without catchingsight of him. Gradually my respect for them grew. The one I had watched stalk themarmot increased my admiration of their cunning. I eventually learnedthat they are extremely alert and agile, despite their seemingly stupidlumbering about, that they employ keen eyes and sensitive ears andhigh-power noses to the best advantage. As my respect for them grew, my ambition to become a mighty hunter of them gave way to a desire tolearn more about them, to observe them in their natural state and studytheir habits. Just as they had inspired the most heroic dreams of mychildhood, so they came to interest me more than any other animal ofthe wilds. To the south of the Parson's ranch lay a wild, rugged region, which Icalled the "bad lands" on account of its jungle of woods, streams, swamps and terminal moraines, where bowlders of all sizes had beendeposited by an ancient glacier. Through this tangle it was impossibleto move without making noise, for a fire had swept over it and younglodge-pole trees had sprung up so close together that it was impossibleto move without crashing into them. It was while on hands and knees inone of these thickets of new growth that I came upon bear tracks. Thetracks were the largest I had even seen, so I gripped my gun tightlyand peered about warily. The tracks pointed west, so I headed east, crashing through the trees ponderously, giving an occasional yell tohelp the bear keep out of my way. I had gone about a hundred yards and was congratulating myself on myescape, when, to my horror, I discovered fresh tracks paralleling mine. Altering my course I went on, shouting vigorously, but with lessconfidence of scaring the bear out of the region. In this extremity I recalled a bit of advice the Parson had given me. "Don't ever let on you're afraid, " he cautioned me one day, "because ifyou do the animal may turn on you. " With this in mind I faced about, took up the bear's trail, and withready rifle, followed it. I kept looking behind me, to the right andto the left. The wind was blowing snow off the high peaks above and itmade the tracks easily followed, for it kept them fresh. They turnedaside, angled off, tacked and came back close to their first line. Around and around I trailed. A dozen times I stopped with my heart inmy mouth, the rifle at my shoulder, but my alarm was occasioned by someother denizen of the wilds. Twice deer crashed away and left me rootedfast; and once, a cock grouse took the air from a rock just above myhead, and nearly precipitated a stampede. Finally I gave up the chase and started home, still watching warily forthe bear. Better to guard against attack I climbed a little ridge thatoverlooked the irregular openings through which I had been trailing;and up there, paralleling my course, were bear tracks. Bruin had beencraftily looking me over from his higher position. I at once advisedthat bear, by every means at my command, that he was no longer beinghunted, and I made tracks for home as fast as my legs would let me, watching warily, or bearily, in all directions. The Parson laughed heartily when I told of my experience that night astogether with Aunt Jane we sat before the glowing fire of his hearth. Despite Aunt Jane's gentle excuses for me, I felt ashamed anddetermined to return next day and take up the bear's trail. Runningaway from an unseen bear was ludicrous, not to say cowardly. But Icomforted myself with the assurance that even the Parson might have noother chance to run, if the bear saw him first! The "bad lands" became the scene of many a hide-and-seek game, with theanimals slipping silently away as I blundered along behind, puzzlingout their trails, and imagining I was stalking them unawares. My manyfailures, while discouraging, were fruitful of experience, for Ilearned to hunt up-wind, thus discounting the high-power noses of thebears and muffling to some extent my clumsy movements from the deer. Repeated trips into that rough region informed me that one or two bearslived there, and that though they often left it to explore some otherregion, they eventually returned to their own home range. In tracingtheir movements I kept a sort of big-game Bertillon record; onlyinstead of taking finger-prints, as is done with criminals, I measuredfootprints sketching them in my notebook, noting any slight peculiaritythat would distinguish one track from another, and thus made positiveidentification possible. I was compelled to get my information concerning the bears' movementsmostly from their tracks, for they were far too crafty to be seen "inperson"! They evidently moved on the assumption that vigilance was theprice of life. They used their wits as well as their keen senses, seemed to reason as well as to have instinct. Moreover they made useof other animals for their own defense. They were ever alertlywatching the significant movements of their neighbors, for signals ofdangers beyond the range of their own senses. The quiet retreat of afox or coyote apprised them of something unusual in the wind; thesudden up-winging of magpies and jays warned them of the approach of anenemy. They distinguished between the casual flight of birds and theirflying when bound toward a kill of mountain lion or other beasts ofprey. They were tuned-in on every animal broadcasting station on theirrange. I learned that contrary to the lurid tales of the early explorers andhunters, they were peace-loving, deeming it no disgrace to run awayfrom danger and leaving the vicinity as soon as man appeared in it. True, their curiosity sometimes tempted them to circle back and watch aman from some secure retreat, and at such times they slipped assilently from one thicket to another as a fox, sampling the air fortell-tale odors, standing erect to watch and listen. Bit by bit, as I learned more about them, I came to revise my early, gory opinion of them. My impression had been formed chiefly from talesof Lewis and Clark's expedition; when they made their memorable tripacross the continent, grizzlies were not afraid of men because thearrows of the Indians were ineffective against them. Whenever foodattracted them to an Indian camp they moseyed fearlessly among thetepees, helping themselves to it and scattering the redskins. Theirattempts thus to raid white men's camps gave rise to blood-curdlingstories of their savagery, and their fearless, deadly attacks on men. These tales, while pure fiction, led to the belief that all bears werebad and should be killed, at every opportunity; and ever since Lewisand Clark saw the first one, men with dogs and guns, traps and poisonhave been on their trail. While I do not believe bears guilty of themany offenses charged them, I am sure that they had been the "life ofthe party" at many a camp, having been led out of their retirement bytheir small-boy curiosity. In the region where first I followed a bear, or where it followed me, there ranged two of these animals, each recording a different track anddisplaying individual traits which I came to recognize. The smallertrack had short claws that left their prints in the sand or softplaces. In following this track I found that the maker was inclined tobe indolent; that if the digging after a chipmunk was hard he left thejob unfinished and sought easier sources of food. Thus the black bearthat frequented the "bad lands" loafed across his range, living by theeasiest means possible and rarely exerting himself. Twice whenBlackie's trail crossed that of other black bears, the tracks showedthat all stopped to play, romping much as children romp and showing asociable disposition. It was usually late in November before the blackbear denned up for the winter, commonly adapting the shelter beneathsome windfall to make a winter home by enlarging and improving it andperhaps by raking in some dead pine needles. At the approach of fall Blackie left off distant wanderings, conservedenergy by little exertion, and thus waxed fat. In the thickest of therough jumble I found two of his deserted winter dens to which he neverreturned, and once in midwinter I found him out, asleep beneath somebrush over which the snow had drifted. It was the thread of risingsteam from a tiny hole above the den that first attracted my attentionto it, but my nose gave me additional information. Blackie's tracks showed he had unusually large feet for his pounds, soI called him "Bigfoot. " There was a marked difference betweenBlackie's and the other tracks I found in the "bad-lands. " The othertracks were those of a grizzly, a fact I determined after collectingevidence for several years, and by sight of the animals themselves. There was a wide difference, too, in the actions of these animalswhenever anything unusual happened. Blackie, commonly, ran awaywithout waiting to learn what had caused the alarm. The grizzlydisplayed extreme caution, usually standing erect on his hind feet, remaining motionless, watching for silent signals of other animals andthe birds, swinging his head slowly from side to side, training hishigh-power nose in all directions, cocking his ears alertly as acoyote. When he located the enemy he slipped away noiselessly, followed a trail with which he was familiar and left the vicinity, perhaps traveling ten or twenty miles before stopping. Unlike Blackie, too, the grizzly was a prodigious worker. No job wastoo big for him. Often he spent an hour or more in digging out a tinytitbit such as a chipmunk, and several times in his pursuit of a marmothe excavated in rockslides holes large enough for small basements. Daily he traveled many miles, foraging for food as he moved, sometimeseating swarms of grasshoppers, or stowing away bushels of grass orother greenery, or uprooting the ground for dogtooth violets of whichhe was very fond. Such spots, when he had finished his rooting, resembled a field which the hogs had plowed up. In one respect the black bear and the grizzly were alike: they neverseemed to have enough to eat, but had the insatiable appetites ofgrowing boys; never showing any signs of being finicky, but devouringeverything edible. Ants, hoppers, chipmunks, marmots and rabbits, comprised their fresh meat; while roots, shoots, bulbs, grass, berriesand practically everything growing served for vegetables. They bothwere inordinately fond of honey. Early one fall the grizzly left hishome range and headed for the foothills. More than twenty miles awayhe found a bee tree, an old hollow cedar which he tore open. Hedevoured both bees and honey, then went lumbering home. Mountain lionsmade frequent kills about the region, leaving the carcasses of deer, cattle, horses and burros, which the bears located with their noses orby the flight of birds, and gorged themselves; afterward lying down insome retreat and sleeping long, peaceful hours. It was because of their scavenger habits that they came to be blamedfor killing the animals upon which they fed. But not once did I findevidence that they had killed anything larger than a marmot. Thegrizzly was always working industriously, from dawn to dark, or atnight; while Blackie dallied, even though making a "bear living. " Hepreferred to go empty rather than to work for food. Three winters in succession the grizzly climbed to a den in an exposedspot on the northern slope of Mount Meeker. It was a low openingbeneath a rock, the entrance to which was partially stopped with looserubble, raked from inside the cave, and every fall he renovated it bychinking the larger cracks and by pawing together loose bits of rockfor a bed. As fall approached, his tracks led to it; apparently henapped inside occasionally to try it out. His ultimate retirement forwinter hibernation depended upon the weather and the food supply; ifthe fall were late, with plenty of food, he would still be about thewoods as late as December, while one fall when snow came early anddeep, and so made food unavailable, he disappeared at the end ofOctober. The grizzly had many individual traits. Not once in the years Ifollowed him, did he show any desire for others of his kind. Hepreferred being alone. His play consisted chiefly of elaboratestalkings of easily captured animals. If his hunger was appeased for atime he would turn to hunting grasshoppers. Marking the spot where onehad alighted he would steal forward and pounce upon it as though itwere an animal of size and fighting ability. Again he would take greatpains to waylay a chipmunk, lying motionless while the unwary littlespermophile ventured closer and closer, then, with a lightning-likeslap of a huge paw, he would reduce his victim to the general shape andthinness of a pancake. Though the grizzly was somewhat awkward in appearance he could movewith amazing speed, and his strength was incredible. From glimpses Ihad of him I estimated his weight at six hundred pounds, but he couldmove the carcass of a cow or horse twice that heavy. Once on CabinCreek, not many miles from his accustomed haunts, a lion killed ahorse. As he approached the kill, the grizzly circled warily aroundit, stood erect to sniff and listen, and growled warningly, informingall would-be intruders that it was his. When he had eaten his fill, hedragged the carcass nearly a hundred yards uphill over fallen timber, into a thicket, where he covered it against the prying eyes of birds, thinking, I presume, that they would signal other animals of itslocation. The date of his emergence from his den in the spring, like his holingup in the fall, depended upon the weather. Commonly though, hehibernated about one-third of the year. When he came out after hislong sleep he was very thin, the great layers of fat he had taken careto put on before denning up were gone. One year I followed his tracksthe day he came out to learn what he first ate, and was surprised tofind that he scarcely ate at all. Instead of being ravenous, as I hadsupposed he would be, he seemed to have no appetite, and barely tasteda green shoot or two, and a little grass. His claws had grown out overwinter and the tough soles of his feet soon shed off so that, thoughborn to the wilds, he became a tenderfoot. Upon two occasions I found the tracks of this "bad lands" grizzly farfrom home; once he was at the edge of a snowbank near Arapahoe glacier, where he had gone for a frozen grasshopper feast; and another time, some years later, beyond Ypsilon Mountain, in an old sheep trail thatled toward the headwaters of the Poudre River. He was more than thirtymiles from home and still going. Experience with men has made the few surviving grizzlies of the Rockiescrafty, and they are instinctively wary. Their habits have been muchthe same wherever I have had opportunity of observing them. Theirextreme caution would perhaps lead one to believe them cowards, butnothing is farther from the truth, for they are fighters of first rank, and show unrivaled courage as well as lightning-like speed andprodigious strength in combat. A fighting grizzly is a deadlyantagonist, never giving up, determined to win or die. When a grizzly turns killer, as occasionally one of them does, you maydepend upon it, there are extenuating circumstances, and anyfair-minded jury would exonerate him of blame. When his home rangebecomes settled up and the sources of his natural food are destroyed, he is forced to seek new haunts and to eat such food as his newlocation affords. It is not strange that, constricted in his range byranchers and cattlemen, with no opportunity to seek food according tohis instinctive habits, he sometimes turns cattle killer. His action brands him at once as a bad bear, a killer and his infamyquickly spreads the length of the mountains. He is blamed for thekills of mountain lions, and the death of stock killed by chance. Heis hunted, becomes a fugitive from justice, and is kept so continuouslyon the move that he has to prey on cattle because he is not given timeto forage in his former manner. Persecution sharpens his faculties; heeludes his pursuers and their dogs, poisoned bait and traps, with ashrewdness that puts their so-called intelligence to shame. It was my rare privilege one day to witness the chase of an accused"killer" by a dog pack. I was near timberline in the Rabbit Earmountains when first I heard their distant baying and caught sight ofthem far down a narrow valley, mere moving specks. Close behind thesesmall dots were larger ones, men on horseback. A mile ahead of thepack a lone object galloped into an opening and, as I focused myglasses, stood erect, listening. It was a grizzly. He paused but amoment, then tacked up the side of the mountain, crossed the ridge, dropped into a parallel valley, and doubled back the way he had come. Occasionally I caught a glimpse of him as he ambled along, seeminglywithout haste, yet covering the ground at surprising speed. Abruptly he left this second valley and recrossed the ridge to thefirst, taking up the trail he had been on when the pack disturbed him. The riders were still upon the ridge when the dogs recrossed it andstarted baying up the first valley. When the fresh scent led them backover the grizzly's first trail, they hesitated, confused, disagreeingamong themselves as to the course to follow: and while the dogsdelayed, the bear abandoned the lower ridges and timbered valleys andheaded toward the cliffs. Here the going was slow. Sometimes hefollowed old, deep-worn game trails, but more often he chose his ownway. He climbed up the face of a cliff, following narrow ledges. Atthe top, he turned and angled back, arriving at the base of the wallagain, but some distance from the place where he had climbed up, andwhere he crossed his own trail, he swung back and forth repeatedly. Half an hour later, the pack came howling to the cliff, and beganseeking a way up. They scattered, swung back and forth along theledges, crossed and recrossed the grizzly's tracks, but seemed unableto follow the way he had gone, before they finally circled the cliffand picked up his trail again. The bear's ruse had succeeded, by it hegained several minutes' lead on his pursuers. The grizzly emerged above timberline near where I sat and gallopedstraight for a pass that overlooked the deep cañons, dark forests androcky ridges on the other side of the range. Just before he gained it, three of the dogs broke cover and gave tongue, wildly excited at thesight of their quarry, and instantly hot on his trail. The bear coollykept his same gait, until just short of the pass, at the top of asteep, smooth incline between two huge rock slabs, he halted and facedabout, waiting for them to come up. When the dogs, panting and spentfrom running, dashed up, he had got his wind and was ready for them. The three dogs rushed pell-mell up the steep rock. With a deafeningroar, the grizzly struck out right and left. Two of the dogs ceasedhowling and lay where they fell, the third turned tail and fled. Thebear, stepping over the dead bodies of his vanquished foes, leisurelyproceeded through the pass and down into the wild country beyond. I have watched other grizzlies under similar conditions, and they haveall shown the same shrewd, cool, craftiness. They appear to reason, toplan; their actions indicate forethought, premeditation. They seem tohave not only the marvelous instinct of the animal world, but also analmost human power to think. They conserve their energy, bide theirtime, choose their position and, in short, set the stage to their ownadvantage. They have an instinct for the psychological moment--itseems at times that they evolve it out of the chaos of chance. The Parson said, "You never can tell what a bear will do, " and I, forone, believe him. The oddest performance of an individual bear I eversaw took place over on the banks of the Poudre River. Rambling throughthe forest I came, late one evening, upon the camp of two trappers. They were making a business of trapping and had extensive trap-linesset throughout the region, mostly for beavers, minks, bobcats andcoyotes, but some for bears too. In a narrow, dry gulch, one of themhad found fresh bear tracks--he thought of a medium-sized blackbear--leading up to the scattered, bleached bones of a cow. Tracksabout the skull indicated that the bear had rolled it about, much as apuppy worries a bone. One day the trapper found the skull hidden insome juniper bushes, and reasoned that the bear returned from day today, played with it, then hid it away. So he returned to camp, got atrap and set it by the beast's toy. I was eager to learn the outcome of this action, so I gratefullyaccepted the trappers' invitation to stay over with them. Next day, Iwent along when they visited the trap. To our astonishment, the skullwas gone and the trap still set. It was easy to trace the culprit for his tracks revealed that his leftfront foot was badly twisted, its track pointing in, almost at rightangles, to the tracks of the other three feet, with the clawmarksalmost touching the track of the right front foot. We followed histrail till we came to a sandy stretch upon which that bear had heldhigh carnival. He had rolled the skull about, punted it with his goodright paw, and leaped upon it, in mimic attack, as though it were a fatmarmot. Then, playtime over, he had carried it a considerable distanceand cached it beneath some logs. The trapper returned to camp for another trap, and set it and the firstnear the skull, concealing the traps cleverly in depressions scoopedout in the sand, and covering their gaping, toothed jaws with loose, pine needles. Then he scattered a few pine cones about, and placeddead tree limbs near the traps in such a way that in stepping over themthe bear would be liable to step squarely upon the concealed pan of oneof them. Three times the bear rescued the precious cow skull, each time avoidingthe traps. At last in desperation, the trapper took two more traps tothe gulch and vowed that he'd pull up stakes and leave the bear aloneif he did not get him with the set he purposed making. With boyish interest, I accompanied him to the gulch, carrying one ofthe traps for him. We left the traps a short distance from where thebear had concealed the old skull, while the trapper looked the groundover and decided to set the traps where the skull was hidden, for thespot was ideal for the purpose. On two sides logs formed a barrier andbeyond them was a huge bowlder, the two forming a natural little cove. He expected the bear to approach his plaything from the unobstructedside. The trapper had further plans. Close beside the logs grew a stuntedpine tree with wide-spreading limbs near the ground. In its crotch heplaced the cow's skull, higher than the bear could reach, and fastenedit there with wire. Then, after setting the traps in a semi-circlearound the tree, just below the skull, and concealing them carefully, we returned to camp, jubilantly confident of catching Mr. Bruin. Three times we visited the set and found things undisturbed. Wedecided the bear had forsworn his toy and run away. However, Ilingered at the camp in hope that the matter would yet come to adecisive end. Some days later, when we visited the gulch again, we came upon asurprise. From a distance we missed the skull from the tree. So wehastened forward, keeping a sharp eye out for the bear which we feltcertain was in a trap and lying low. At the set we stopped short. Thetwo traps nearest the open space had been carefully dug up and turnedover, and lay "butter side down. " The bear had climbed into the tree, wrenched his plaything free, and dropped it to the ground. Tracks inthe sand showed that after climbing down he had cautiously placed hisfeet in the same tracks he had made when he advanced toward the tree. He had carried the skull a hundred yards from the traps and hidden itagain; but there were no signs that he had stopped to play with it. The trapper was as good as his word; and after recovering from hisastonishment, he sprung the traps, and we carried them back to camp. "Some smart, that ole twisted-foot bear, " the trapper told his partner. "He's smart enough to live a hundred years--an' I'm willin' to let him. " No campfire is complete without bear stories, and it was around onethat I heard the funniest bear story imaginable. A lone trapper was caught one day in a trap of his own making, aponderous wooden coop calculated to catch the bear alive by dropping aheavy log door in place at the open end. This door was on a triggerwhich a bear, in attempting to steal the bait, would spring. As this tale was told, the trapper had just completed his trap and wasadjusting the trigger, when the heavy door crashed down, pinning himacross the threshold, with his legs outside. The door caught on asection of log in the doorway, and saved him from broken legs, but hewas a helpless prisoner. In struggling to free himself, he kicked over a can of honey he hadbrought along for bait, and the sticky fluid oozed over his thrashinglegs. Four hours he lay, imprisoned, shouting at intervals, with thehope that some wandering prospector or trapper might hear him. Insteada bear came his way, tempted by the scent of the much-loved honey. The bear loitered near by some time, no doubt wary of the presence ofman, but at last his appetite overcame his caution, and he startedlicking up the honey. Almost frantic with fear, dreading the gash oftearing teeth, the man lay quiet, while the animal licked the smearsoff his trembling legs. Fortunately for the trapper, the bear was notout for meat that day; so, after cleaning up the sweet, he went hisway. The relieved and unharmed man was rescued shortly afterward. The only serious injury I have suffered from a wild animal wasinflicted inside the city limits of Denver, Colorado's largest city andcapital. The beginning of this story dated back to the time when Idiscovered that another grizzly had intruded into the "bad lands" of mybears. The first announcement of the strange bear's arrival was itstracks, together with those of two tiny cubs. This was in May, whileyet the snowbanks lingered in that high country. Across the miles of fallen timber I lugged a steel bear trap and set itin a likely spot beside the frozen carcass of a deer. Afterwards Iinspected it every day, though, to do so, I had to cross boggy, roughcountry, fretted over with fallen logs. I always found plenty of beartracks--it was typical bear country--and there were many signs of theiractivities: old logs torn apart, ant hills disturbed, and lush grasstrampled. The first week in June, I made a surprising catch--three grizzly bearsand a fox. A mother grizzly had stepped into my trap, and her twocubs, of about fifteen pounds each, had lingered near by, until, growing hungry, they had ventured to their mother, and one had beencaught in a coyote trap set to protect the bait. The fox had beencaught before the bear's arrival. Mrs. Grizzly, frantic over herpredicament, had demolished everything within her reach, tearing thered fox from its trap, literally shredding it, apparently feeling itwas to blame for her misfortune. Her struggles soon exhausted her, for it was a warm day, and when Idiscovered her she was about spent, and easily dispatched. The cubs, very small, helpless and forlorn, howled lustily for theirmother. I decided to tie their feet together, and their mouths shut. With ready cord, I dived headlong upon a cub, caught him by the scruffof the neck, lifted him triumphantly--then dropped him unceremoniously, the end of a finger badly bitten. I was compelled to return to mycabin for a sack, because the amount of tying required to render thecubs really harmless seemed likely to choke them to death before I gotthem home. It required about an hour's lively tussle to get the twoyoung grizzlies stowed safely in the sack. But I learned that havingthem sacked was no guarantee of getting them home. If "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, " a bear at home, chained up, is worth the whole Rockies' full in the woods. The old grizzly's hide, paws included, must have weighed fifty pounds;the cubs, sacked, thirty--a total load of 80 pounds to carry out overrocks and fallen trees, through bog and willows. With this load on myback, I struggled to my feet and started, picking my way slowly, circling logs and avoiding soft spots. The first half mile was thebest, after that things thickened up, the bog deepened, the bearswanted to get out and walk. Where the stream emerges from between a wide moraine and MeekerMountain, it is not broad, nor very deep, but it is exceedingly coldand swift, and the only crossing was a beaver-felled aspen, which laytop-foremost toward me, presenting an array of limbs that served asbanisters. About midway over the limbs gave out, leaving the smoothaspen trunk as a foot-log. Many times I had crossed this withoutmishap, so I had no qualms about tackling it now. Deliberately I edgedalong, stepping slowly, carefully, progressing nicely until aboutmidway. Just then one of the cubs sank his teeth into my back. Ijerked away, twisted, tottered, half regained my balance, then pitchedheadlong into the icy water of the beaver pond beneath. For a moment there was a grand mêlée. The cubs did not like the icewater any more than I. They squirmed and clawed, fought free of thesack, and lightened my load considerably. I spent a busy hour catchingand sacking them again. It required six hours to transport those cubs four miles! And I'm surethey were as thankful as their ferry when the trip ended at my cabin. From the first week in June until the middle of December, they grewfrom fifteen pounds to forty each. Although they were interestingpets, their keep became a problem. Such appetites! They could neverget enough. They weren't finicky about the quality of their food; butoh, the quantity! Then, too, I couldn't leave them and go on longtrips. So I decided to part with them. The City of Denver sent a representative to see me, for they wantedsome grizzlies to show eastern tourists. It was with the feeling that I was betraying the cubs, however, that Ifinally took them to Denver. They were so obedient and well-behavedthat I hesitated to deliver them into unknown hands. They knew theirnames, Johnny and Jenny, as well as children knew theirs. At commandthey would stand erect, walk about on their hind feet, whining eagerlyfor some treat, looking for all the world like funny, little old men. At the Denver City Zoo we were welcomed by the keeper, Mr. Hill, whocourteously invited me to spend the day with him, and entertained me bytaking me into many of the cages, permitting me to feed some of theanimals, and telling me interesting tales of happenings at the Zoo. When we returned to the large inclosure surrounding the cage of thelarger and fiercer animals, Mr. Hill asked me to assist in transferinga brown bear and a black bear to the cage where my pets were to behoused. These other bears were over a year old and more than doublethe size of Johnny and Jenny. The brown bear went willingly enoughinto the new cage, and we expected the black bear to follow, but whenhe reached the cage door, he stopped. Gently we urged him forward, buthis mind was made up--he had gone as far as he intended and washomesick for his old cage. The keeper was tactful, and unobtrusivelytried to maneuver the bear into the cage without exciting his obstinacyfurther, but he wouldn't yield. At last it came to a show down. Wehad the option of forcing the bear into the cage, or letting him goback. "You go inside and snub the rope around the bars, " the keeper directedme. "I'll boost from behind--we'll show him a trick or two. " A crowd had collected outside the heavy iron fence. Suggestions wereabundant. No young man ever had so much advice in so short a time. However, we were too busily engaged to profit by what we were told. The keeper boosted the bear--and I took up the slack in the rope; butstill the bear balked, though three times we double-teamed against him. Then, suddenly, he let go all holds and lunged through the doorway, charging headlong upon me and sank his teeth into my left knee. Thebite and the force of his unexpected charge knocked me backward intothe corner. Instantly the bear was on top of me, growling, biting andstriking. With my uninjured leg I kicked out savagely and thrust him away, sliding him back across the slippery concrete. Again he charged, andonce more I kicked him off. Outside the iron fence women were screaming and men trying futilely toenter, but the fence was ten feet high and the sharp iron points of itspickets were discouraging--and the gateway was locked against intruders. At this juncture the keeper rushed to another cage where he kept aniron bar for just such emergencies, but the bar was away from home thatday. At this crisis, Johnny and Jenny arrived, Jenny collided with the barsof the cage and staggered back, dazed. But Johnny found the open cagedoor, and charged the black bear ferociously. The black bearoutweighed my little grizzly three to one, but Johnny struck hissensitive snout, forcing him into a corner, and followed up, strikingwith both paws, lunging in and taking furry samples of his hide. Within a few seconds the black bear was climbing the side of the cageand howling for help. He gained the shelf near the roof. Johnny, unable to climb, sat below, growling maledictions in bear language, daring him to come down and fight it out. But the black bear had hadmore than enough. He stuck to the safety seat, whimpering with painand fright. Thus, limping and reluctant, I took leave of my pets. The ambulancehad arrived to rush me to the hospital where my knee was to be treated. As long as I could see them, they looked after me, wondering at mydesertion. CHAPTER FIFTEEN ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK It had been my boyhood dream to find a region unspoiled by man, wild, primitive. When I saw that rugged wilderness called the Rockies I was sure I hadfound it. Miles and miles of virgin forest, innocent of ax and saw;miles and miles of fertile valleys, yet to feel the touch of plow;miles and miles of unclaimed homesteads with never the smoke of asettler's chimney! Deer and elk, sheep and bear roamed the forests, beavers preëmpted the valleys, trout spashed and rippled the waters ofthe lakes and rivers. Yes, this was purely primeval, natural, uncivilized. But the old-timers did not agree with me. Parson Lamb, whose nearestneighbor was ten miles away, complained that the country was beingspoiled. "It's gotten so nowadays you can't see a mountain 'thout craning yourneck around some fellow's shack; cabins everywhere cluttering up thescenery. " I recalled my father's chuckling about the pioneers always moving on assoon as a country got settled up. Surely the Parson was having hislittle joke! One day when I was out looking for Mr. And Mrs. Peg, I ran upon an oldtrapper. "Huh!" he said, "won't be long till they won't be no critters atall. They ain't enough now to pay for trap-bait. Game ain't what it useterbe in these parts, I tell you, sonny. I'm goin' ter pull up stakes fora real game country!" To me, lately from the thickly settled prairies of Kansas, practicallydestitute of game, their fears seemed unfounded. I thought theyexaggerated, and could not understand their point of view. But I cameto understand. I lived to see even greater changes take place, in thetwenty-five years I wandered through the country, that Parson Lamb hadwitnessed from the day he hewed his way through the forest, that hemight get his covered wagon into the valley, to that night when I fellacross his threshold after pushing my bicycle over Bald Mountain. For even as I rambled and camped, a subtle change was taking place soslowly that for some time I was unaware of it. I saw fewer animals ina day's journey. At first, when I missed bands of deer or wild sheep, or some familiar bear, from their usual haunts, I assumed that they hadshifted their range to more distant mountains. All at once I realizedthat for a long time I had not come upon a single elk nor even thetracks of one. I was startled. I made far excursions into the moreremote regions, to verify my assumption that the game had merelyretreated from the more settled parts. From the tops of lofty peaks, Ilooked down upon countless valleys with the hope that somewhere, surely, I would find them. I saw only a few stragglers. The wilds were like an empty house where once had lived happy children, where there had been music and laughter, shouts and romping, but nowremained only silence, freighted with sadness. A great lonelinesssurged over me. Despite the grumbling complaints of the old settlers, I had taken for granted that the country would always stay as I hadfound it, that other boys would have it to explore, and that it wouldthrill them even as it had thrilled me. I awoke at last to thedistressing truth that few of the easily accessible spots wereunspoiled, that forests were falling, that the game was almost gone. I set out to see what could be done about it. I found others asconcerned as I. Not only those in the immediate vicinity, but men ofvision far removed from the scene. It seemed that similar conditionshad arisen elsewhere and that far-sighted men had evolved a remedy. Back in 1872, Congress had set aside the Yellowstone region as anational park, guaranteeing the preservation of its wonders for alltime. Not only that, but the harassed and hunted game in the countrysurrounding it had by some subtle instinct sensed its immunity tohunters, and had fled to it for sanctuary--grizzly bears migrated to itfrom long distances and found refuge. I recalled how scarce thebeavers were when first I searched the valleys for them, and how, afterthe State had passed laws for their protection, they had multiplied. Here was the solution of the problem--protection; and the mostpermanent and effective protection could be procured by getting thegovernment to preserve it as a National Park. But, just as nearsightedand self-interested individuals opposed and tried to thwart thebuilding of the first transcontinental railroad, so there were personswho could see no reason for setting aside this region as a NationalPark, men who had for years cut government timber without restriction, or who had grazed livestock without hindrance, or who still hoped tostrike rich mineral deposits in the proposed area to be reserved. Fortunately, the men of vision prevailed, and in 1915, Congress createdthe Rocky Mountain National Park, setting aside 400 square miles ofterritory, most of it straddling the Continental Divide, and as wildand primitive as when the Utes first hunted in it. Thus thesnow-capped peaks and the verdant valleys, the deep-gashed cañons andthe rushing rivers, the age-old glaciers and the primeval forests arepreserved forever from exploitation. In administering the National Parks, the government takes intoconsideration that they are the property of the whole people, not justof those residing in adjacent or near territory. Not only does itconsider them as belonging to the present generation, but to posterity. With this in mind, it has formulated certain general principles ofadministration applicable to all parks and has adopted special policiesadapted to the peculiar needs of individual parks. For instance, ithas found that in order to protect the visitors and insure theircomfort, and convenience, it is necessary to have certain regulationsof hotel management and transportation facilities. It has found itimpossible to hold many individual concerns responsible for theenforcement of these regulations, so it has adopted the policy ofgranting concessions to one large company equipped to render theservice required. Such a concern conducts its business undergovernment jurisdiction, and is required to abide by the governmentregulations. The transportation companies, for example, are requiredto run their cars on regular schedule, at reasonable and approvedrates. Their books are audited by the government, and they pay acertain percentage of their earnings to it. As funds are available roads and trails are developed, enablingthousands to enjoy the last frontier. And it is amazing, how, in thisshort time, wild life has increased within the borders of the park. Beavers have returned, their dams and houses are along every stream;deer and elk straggle along the trails to welcome wide-eyed visitors;upon the promontories curious, friendly mountain sheep are regalsilhouettes against the sky. Here boys and girls of every land may explore even as I explored--and, with their trusty cameras for guns, shoot more game than Kit Carsonever trapped! THE END