Part 16

The Grand Teton, now so wretchedly mis-named, is to my mind the most magnificent of mountains. Its situation, its isolation from neighbors, its great height, its vast hollows and chasms, many of them filled with perpetual snow, and its lofty, bare, inaccessible peak, always impress me with a sense of grandeur, majesty, and beauty, such as I have never found in any other mountain.

About this time Lanahan abandoned all activity except looking for Indians, poisoning our minds against Harrington, and attempting the "horse-wrangling" each morning. He would start out alone quite early, and after blundering about in a most inefficient way, and getting all the nervous horses thoroughly excited and scared, would call some of the other men to his assistance, and then proceed himself to get the packs in as great confusion as possible before the horses were brought in, the one or two that he had caught meantime having escaped.

The next night, before we crossed the divide into Jackson's Hole through Trail Creek Canyon, we had a very heavy thunder-storm, and in the intervals between the peals we could hear Lanahan's vociferous invocations to the various saints he relied upon for protection, his appeals mingling with the damning he was getting from his tent-mates for the disturbance he created. He was so much demoralized by the storm, and by the chance of overtaking the Indians, who were evidently not far ahead of us, that he endured all this abuse with perfect meekness, and did not recover his usual intrepid bearing until the next noon, when he resumed his ostentatious superintendence of the outfit.

Our first camp after crossing the divide was at Fighting Bear Creek, and was made memorable by killing a two-year-old bull elk, the toughest of his race; but fresh meat had become so desirable that his india-rubber qualities were not unfavorably criticized until we got something better.

A man coming down the valley told us that the band of Indians had divided, most of them going south, and ten or twelve men and squaws northward, in the direction we were to take. This somewhat reassured Lanahan, though he strongly advised staying where we were for a time, and then striking east into the Gros Ventre Mountains, where he knew of great quantities of game. The stranger also told us of the disappearance of Mr. Robert Ray Hamilton from his new ranch at the upper crossing of Snake River.

We made our permanent camp directly under the peak of the Grand Teton, on the east side. It was in a little park surrounded by pines. Cottonwood Creek, a beautiful sparkling stream, flowed through it, and above us were the grand mountain masses, feeding from their snow-clad sides the chain of little lakes along their bases, which in turn replenish the mighty Snake River during all the rainless summer months. I have never seen so delightful a camping-ground, nor one which supplied so completely every requisite for comfort and sport. Our hunting adventures during the next ten days in this camp were not remarkable, though we might have killed a large amount of game had we desired. There were a great many antelope out on the prairie, and every morning we could see some in the park. I once aroused the curiosity of a solitary buck to the point of coming up within thirty yards of me by concealing myself in the sage-brush and waving about my wide-brimmed hat on the end of my rifle. We found antelope liver the choicest delicacy to be had in the Rockies, and this fact perhaps led us to kill one or two more of these graceful and interesting creatures than we should otherwise have done.

It was hardly late enough for the bull elk to come down from the high ranges to join the cows and calves. Two large bands of these ranged between us and Jackson's Lake, about fourteen miles north. We could have shot some of these almost daily, but one of the men, contrary to our orders, having gone out and killed two calves soon after our arrival, Hanna and I agreed, after he had shot one cow, not to fire at anything except bulls, and we were guiltless of the blood of any more elk during our stay. One day, near Jackson's Lake, Harrington and I came to a salt-lick in the woods, which we approached quietly, thinking game might be there. When we reached the edge, we saw a big cow elk standing among the trees on the other side of the open space, and directly after, another one lying down in the high grass near the first, only her head and neck being visible. She saw us, but did not stir. Keeping perfectly still and looking closely, we discovered seven or eight more, but none with horns. Finally, stepping forward, thinking we had seen them all, a great number jumped up, going out like a covey of quail. Some had been lying down in the high grass within twenty yards of us, and could not have known of our presence. They made a great noise and crashing as they scurried off, and we could only guess at their numbers, but there must have been thirty or forty.

There were not many bears about here. We saw the tracks of several very big ones, but only four living ones. One of these disappeared before we could get a shot, and the other three, an old cinnamon with two well-grown cubs, we found at the top of one of the lower peaks of the Grand Teton near camp. It had taken Hanna and me three hours' hard climbing to get near the summit, where we expected to find some of the bull elk we had heard whistling, and the tracks of which we saw fresh and plentiful as we ascended.

We were moving very quietly along the game trail, Hanna ahead, when he suddenly stopped and pointed about seventy-five yards in front, where we saw the two cubs playing on some rocks overhanging a deep gulch. We fired nearly simultaneously. My cub dropped dead, while Hanna's, badly wounded, started up the mountain howling his best. It was not ten seconds before the mother appeared, not fifteen yards ahead of us, charging down the trail looking as big as a horse and growling savagely. Hanna, being a step in front of me, fired, and the bear dropped, but was up in an instant and came straight on. He shot again, and again she dropped, but was up like a rubber ball. The third time the cartridge failed to explode. The bear turned a little out of the trail, evidently bewildered, but as vicious as ever. As she passed me, within ten feet, I shot, and the ball pierced the heart, but it required two more of the 45-90 bullets to kill her. She was one of the long-legged greyhound kind, but quite fat; and, judging from the impression she made on a small tree she ran against and clawed like an angry cat, she would have badly damaged any man she might have met. Her jaw had been shattered by Hanna's first shot; the second had traversed her body, and there were two through her heart. Her vitality was really astonishing. We got the wounded cub, but the other had rolled down the gulch; and as we could not reach him without a long detour, we left him behind. We skinned the two animals and packed their hides to camp on our backs, finding the loads very heavy before we reached there.

Porcupines were very plentiful, as they are in most parts of the Rockies, and grow to a great size. They sometimes fall victims to bears, which manage to turn them over and get at the unprotected parts, eating everything but the quill-covered skin. In one day's hunt I saw the remains of three that had been thus treated. Bears also dig up the nests of yellow-jackets for the larvae they contain; and we came upon a nest so lately rifled that many of its former occupants were still buzzing angrily about.

After pleasant days spent at this camp, we packed up and started north to go through the Yellowstone Park. As we were passing out of Jackson's Hole, we looked back and had a superb view of the great valley with the Snake River winding through it, the bare ranges of the Gros Ventre Mountains, and the towering snow-capped rocky peaks of the Tetons--a wonderful picture.

The day after leaving Marymere ranch, we saw, as we were making camp, three Indians watching us from a distant hill. Lanahan's consternation was extreme, and he declared that we must take turns watching through the night. As nobody paid much attention to him, except to encourage his going personally, he loaded his rifle, put on his cartridge-belt full of ammunition, and started out after supper ostensibly to guard us, but we felt sure to conceal himself somewhere in safety from the impending attack, which would have been welcome if it had bereaved us of him. Next morning he intimated that the savages had been prowling about, and that we owed the protection of our scalps to his vigilance. This idea of his was strengthened by the appearance, while we were breakfasting, of a Lemhi Indian on a beautiful pony. He could not or would not speak any English, and Harrington conversed with him in the sign-language, to our great interest, as we had never seen it used before.

Our journey to the Lower Geyser basin was unmarked by anything startling, though Lanahan was much discomposed one night by two men who had come down from the Stinking Water and camped near us. He was so convinced that they were in league with Harrington that he "watched" the horses all night. At the basin we started the outfit back to Boise with Lanahan and Mason, and joined our families, who were awaiting us. We heard afterward that Lanahan was a prey to the liveliest terrors while in the Park, and paid a man $10 to watch the horses the two nights before he got out of Harrington's reach. We have never heard of Lanahan since, but his memory will ever be green.

Dean Sage.

Blacktails in the Bad Lands

One bright, cold November day I started from a ranch on the Little Missouri, in western Dakota, with the set purpose of getting venison for the ever hungry cow-boys. They depended solely upon me for their supply of fresh meat; and as for some time I had shot nothing, I had been the subject of disparaging comment for several days, and the foreman, in particular, suggested that I should stay at home and kill a steer, and not chase all the black-tails into the next county.

So I stole off this time with an almost guilty conscience, and plunged at once into the dense brush of the river-bottom. In the thicket I startled a Virginia deer, but knew it to be one only by the waving salute of its white flag. I also passed a tree in one of the forks of which I had, at another time, found an old muzzle-loading rifle, rusted, worn, and decaying, a whole history in itself, and beyond, not two hundred yards away, an Indian's skull with a neat round hole through the crown.

The Keogh stage road crossed the river near by, and I found out that the place was the scene of the last Indian deviltry in this section. It was the old story. A man, while looking for the stage-horses, was shot; a second, hearing the report, went out to see what it meant, and was in turn killed; while a third, with perhaps a little more experience, jumped on the only horse left at the station and fled for his life, with half a dozen Indians in full cry in pursuit.

I walked on along the old trail taken by the lucky fugitive, and up out of the river-valley to a level plateau above. From the top could be seen in the distance several big buttes, and a dark pine-tree, which was to be my objective point for the day's hunt. To the right, as I stepped briskly forward, was a large washout, cut deep into the clay soil, broken and irregular, with sage-brush scattered here and there along its sides and bottom. At the head of the washout I spied some yellow long-horned Texas cattle, and gave them a wide berth. I had had some pleasing experiences of their habits, and did not care just then to be stamped flat.

To the left, a few hundred yards away, was a long valley leading to the river and far out into the prairie, wooded in patches, with small pockets at intervals along the sides, filled with low brush. Here at other times I had jumped whitetails from their daytime naps, and once had had a running shot at a large prairie-wolf. Bearing all this in mind, I veered over toward the valley, and had not gone far when I saw in the distance a black-tail buck come skipping out of it, and moving with high, long bounds, as is the way of its kind when frightened or going at speed.

These bounds, by the way, are very curious: the animal lands on all four feet at once, in such a small area that a sombrero would cover the four footprints. On a few occasions, when very badly frightened, I have seen them run level, like a race-horse; but that gait is so unusual as hardly to be considered characteristic of this deer. The deer in question, after a few long jumps, settled down into a trot, then into a walk, and finally stopped and looked about. He did not see me, however, and when he again moved off there was a man jogging quietly along in his wake.

Taking advantage of every little hollow to keep from his sight and make a spurt, I soon reduced the distance between us, and arrived at the further edge of the plateau just in time to see him disappear in some broken country. Continuing cautiously on to where I had last seen him, it became apparent that he had determined upon some definite course, for his tracks led as straight as the nature of the ground would permit to what I knew was the head of a large coulee which ran into the valley from which he had come into view.

As the soil was very hard and dry, and his tracks difficult to follow, I soon determined to leave them and cut straight for the coulee below the point toward which he had been headed, thinking it likely that he would continue his course down the coulee, at least for a short distance. I ought to be able to write that "events turned out exactly as calculated," but they did not. I ran with a fair burst of speed to the edge of the coulee, and when, after quietly watching for twenty minutes, no deer appeared, my mind went back to the foreman's remark about killing a steer.

However, it remained for me to go up to the point where it was probable the buck entered the coulee. I accordingly did so, hunting every inch of the way, and looking for sign and whatever else might turn up. I saw nothing, however, but two grouse that startled me, as they always do, but especially when my nerves are strung up as they were just then. What course the buck had taken, was now the question. Doubling back to my old conclusion that he had gone straight, I went out of the coulee, and followed on the line he had gone. At first it led over another small plateau, then it dipped down again into some more bad lands, cut up and broken with picturesque red scoria hills covered with straggling twisted cedar-trees.

About this time my ardor for this particular buck had begun to subside, and he was now anybody's game. Being somewhat tired as well, I climbed to the top of a round clay butte, sat down, and lighted a pipe. I had been smoking for about ten minutes, enjoying the mysterious scenery and thinking what course it would be best to take, when again my buck loomed up for a few seconds in the distance, and once more walked quickly out of sight. This was a great surprise and pleasure, and the pace at which I set out in pursuit would have rejoiced the heart of a messenger boy. I ran as fast as I could, stopping to peer over every rise in the land, and was soon rewarded by a most interesting sight. The buck had come upon another, fully as large if not larger than himself, and they were exchanging greetings across a small washout, each extending his nose and smelling the other. They would sniff a minute and then turn their heads about, flap their long gray ears, and wiggle their short black tails, acting as if they were old friends.

It seems a great pity to shoot such noble creatures; but unfortunately this thought rarely comes at the right time for the deer. Given, a man having killed nothing for several days, unmercifully guyed by all the cow-boys, and add to that a long and lively chase after constantly vanishing venison,--when, then, the man gets within shooting distance, it is hardly at such a time that his kindly instincts will suggest the propriety of letting the poor beasts escape.

As for myself, with every muscle and nerve at tension from an exciting chase, and mind fairly satisfied of game well earned, it would have taken more self-denial than I pretend to possess not to shoot, especially since we had been living on pork for some time. When fresh meat is plentiful in camp, it is to a real sportsman no sacrifice to let the does and fawns escape, or to shoot them merely with the deadly kodak; but on this day the shack really had to have meat--those lordly heads, too.

There is always a strong desire, when one comes upon game, to shoot at once; but it is a good plan, if possible, to rest and get one's breathing apparatus into proper shape. It is most exasperating, not to say cruel, to wound a deer and have him get away; and there is a good chance of this happening if, before your hand steadies and your head clears, you begin to open fire.