CHAPTER XX
OFF FOR A HUNT IN THE MOUNTAINS
It was still dark when the boat started, and except Jack, Hugh, and Mr.James, all the passengers promptly disposed themselves to sleep for atime. The captain had promised to stop at Hope and let the two huntersoff, and their bags and blankets were all piled near the gangplank tobe rushed off at a moment's notice. In little more than an hour theboat whistled, slowed down, and drew up close to the bank; the wheelwas reversed until the boat lay up close to the wharf, the gangplankwas run out, Hugh and Jack shook hands with Mr. James and ran ashore,each carrying his bag and gun, while two of the deck-hands followedwith their rolls of blankets, tossed them to them on the ground, andthen rushed back. The gangplank was drawn in, the boat whistled andstarted up, soon disappearing around a bend.
Meanwhile, two white men and two Indians had approached them andaccosted Hugh. The older of the two white men introduced himself asJohn Ryder, with whom Mr. Hunter had communicated the day before.
"Your animals are all ready, Mr. Johnson," he said; "and all we have todo is to buy provisions and pack the loads and start."
"Well," said Hugh, "that's just exactly what we want; and the sooner weget off the better it will please Mr. Danvers, here, and me. Where areyour animals, and where can we get something to eat, and what time willthe stores be open?"
"If you will come with me," said Ryder, "I will show you the hotel andthe animals; and as soon as you have had your breakfast we can buy oursupplies and start. These Indians here will carry up your things."
"Very good," said Hugh, "they may as well take the blankets to thecorral, wherever that is; and we'll take the bags and guns with us."
Ryder conducted them to the hotel where, as yet, no one was awake; andthen, followed by Hugh and Jack went to the corral where there werea dozen horses. The outfit seemed a good one; the animals strong andfat. Ryder proposed to take six pack animals, three with saw bucks,and three with aparejos. Hugh and Jack looked over the riggings, whichseemed in good order; and then they all returned to the hotel. Aftera talk with Ryder it was arranged that they should take Ryder, a boyto wrangle the horses, and an Indian who professed to know the huntingcountry. These with the six packs would make eleven animals.
"It's more than I counted on taking," said Hugh, "but perhaps it'sbetter to take a horse or two extra rather than sit around for two orthree days and fuss over it. We won't save in money and we'll losequite a little time."
By ten o'clock the provisions had been purchased and made up intoconvenient packs. Ryder was to furnish a tent and cook-outfit, andgot the things together at the corral. Then Hugh, Jack, and Ryder andhis assistant in a very short time packed all the horses except thosewhich were to carry the provisions. These were taken down to the storeand left there, and before noon the packed train, with Ryder in thelead, went out of Hope and struck up across the divide between Nicolumeand the head of the Skagit River. For some distance they followed theold wagon road which leads up between high steep mountains, throughbeautiful scenery. The cedars and firs were grand, the mountainstowered high and were streaked with white dykes, and the gulches andravines where deciduous trees grew, were bright with the red of themountain maples. Toward night they reached a place called Lake House, acabin on the edge of a wide meadow--marshy with some standing water andsurrounded by willows and alders. Here Jack set up his rod and caughta few fairly good trout weighing nearly half a pound apiece, and manylittle ones which he threw back. Hugh came up to see how he was gettingalong; and soon they went back to the camp together.
In the morning everything was wet, for there had been a very heavydew. They got off in good season and after stopping once or twice totighten, as the ropes grew dry, they went on and made good time.
During the morning they passed two or three pack trains, the animalsof which were loaded with long boxes whose contents neither Hugh norJack could guess; but at the first opportunity they asked Ryder, whoexplained to them what these boxes contained.
"You see," he said, "it seems that every Chinaman, when he dies wantsto go back and be buried in his own country; and they make arrangementsbefore they die that they shall be taken back. I believe one Chinamanhere has the contract of sending back all British Columbian Chinese,and he sublets the job, it being understood that the varioussubcontractors will deliver the bodies at certain specified places.Sometimes a Chinese is shipped soon after he dies, sometimes not forthree or four years. They seal them up in zinc cases about six feetlong and two feet wide and put these cases in crates of wood. Thesethey pack lengthwise of the horse, making for them a sort of platformwhich rests on an aparejo. The long cases project forward from thehorse's neck and back over his hips, and are pretty hard on theirbacks; but they ride well enough after the ropes have been thrown overthem."
Not long after leaving the Lake House the wagon road came to an end,and then for a while the trail followed down the Skagit River. Allday the way led through the mountains, and all day the trail keptclimbing higher, so that when they camped that night Ryder said thatthe altitude was about five thousand feet. All day long every one wasbusy hurrying the horses along, and no time was taken for hunting. Thatnight there was a heavy frost, and when they awoke the next morning,it was very cold. Five of the horses were lost, and it took some timeto recover four of them, and then they moved on, leaving one behind,which, however, turned up later and was brought along. This also was aday of climbing, for they passed over a mountain about seven thousandfeet high. Several times Jack and Hugh heard the familiar call of thelittle chief, or rock hare, so familiar an inhabitant of the slide rockof all the mountains of the main divide.
That night they camped on a creek called Whipsaw, and as there was nograss at the camp for the horses, they were turned out to the mountainside to feed. After they had got into camp, Ryder told Jack that on thecreek, a couple of miles below the trail, there was a deer lick; andsuggested that they should go down and try to kill a deer, as freshmeat was needed. They went down and found a spot where animals hadevidently been at work gnawing and licking the saline clay; but, thoughthere were abundant signs all about, no deer were seen.
The next day after passing through a beautiful open country dottedwith great pines, whose cinnamon-colored trunks rose fifty to sixtyfeet from the ground without a branch, they reached Alison's on theSmilkameen. Here they stopped for a little while. Mrs. Alison, a veryintelligent and kindly woman, took great pride in showing Jack and Hughthe children's pets--a great horned owl, a sparrow hawk just from thenest, some attractive green-winged teal and mallards caught young, anda tame magpie which talked remarkably well and spoke the names of twoof the children--"Alfreda" and "Caroline"--very plainly.
Keeping on down the river, they camped below Alison's. The way down theriver was beautiful, for on either hand rose high, steep, slide rockmountains, marked with sheep and goat trails, criss-crossing in everydirection. Here and there along the stream stood an Indian cabin.
"I tell you, son," said Hugh, "We're in a game country now, or what hasbeen a game country. In times past there have been a heap of sheep onthese mountain sides here. You see their trails running everywhere. Ofcourse, when a sheep trail is once made in the slide rock it lasts justabout forever, unless there is some slip of rock on a mountain side andthe rocks roll down and cover it up."
That night the Indian, Baptiste, confirmed what Hugh had said. Ryderinterpreted for him, saying that sheep and goats were plenty near hereand that to-morrow they would hunt.
"In spring," Baptiste said, "when ploughing the land, I often see goatsfar down on the cliffs close to the river, but as summer advances andit grows warm and the flies become troublesome, the goats graduallywork up to the tops of the mountains. There they paw holes in theearth, in which they stand and stamp; and sometimes wallow and roll toget rid of the flies."
"All right," said Hugh, "we will see what Baptiste can show usto-morrow."
"The way that Indian talks," he added, "s
ounds to me just like Kutenai.I have heard a lot of Kutenais talk in the Blackfeet camps, andelsewhere, and I would like to know if this Baptiste is a Kutenai."
"I guess not," said Ryder; "he's a Smilkameen."
"Ask him," said Hugh, "if the Smilkameens and Kutenais are relations."
The answer, given through Ryder, was "No."
"Ask him," said Hugh, "if their languages are alike."
Baptiste replied: "Yes, the two languages are not quite the same, butthey sound alike." He added: "In the same way the tongue spoken by theOkanagan Indians is much like my language."
Hugh shook his head and said: "That may be so, but I don't feel a bitsure about it. Often it's very hard to make an Indian understand whatyou're trying to get at, even if you can speak his own language; butafter it has to go through two or three interpreters there's a bigchance of a misunderstanding somewhere."
"Well, Hugh," said Jack, "what shall we do to-morrow? Go on fartheror stop here and hunt? I understand that Baptiste says that there areplenty of goats hereabouts, and if we want some we can easily get them."
"Well," said Hugh, "we need some meat and we might just as well stophere for a day if you think best and see whether we can kill a kid ortwo, or a dry nanny. You know I don't think much of goat meat; andyet, of course, it's meat, and good for a change from bacon. I'll askBaptiste what the prospects are."
Calling up Ryder, Hugh had begun to question Baptiste, when, out of thedarkness, another Indian stepped up to the fire and saluted the whitemen in pretty fair English. A little talk with him developed that hewas Tom, a brother of Baptiste. After a few questions Baptiste and Tomboth agreed that there was every opportunity to kill goats here. Tomsaid that in the early summer he often saw them from the trail, as hewas travelling back and forth. It was finally decided that they shouldstop here for one day and make a hunt and then proceed to the sheepcountry.
The next morning Baptiste, Tom, Hugh, and Jack started on foot up asmall creek which came out of the hills near Baptiste's house. The waywas steep and narrow and they had followed the stream up two or threemiles before any pause was made. Two or three times the glass revealedwhite objects, which close observations showed to be weather-beatenlogs. Suddenly Tom stopped and declared that he saw a goat. The whitemen all looked through their glasses and declared that it was a stump,but after going a little further and looking at it again it appearedthat the white men had been looking at the wrong object, and thatTom's goat was lying on the ledge in plain sight. After going a littlefarther along another goat was discovered high on the hillside, alittle below the first and quite close to it. They were six or sevenhundred yards away and close to the creek. To approach them it would benecessary to go up the stream to a point well above them, and then toclimb the mountains on which they were, get above them, and then comedown behind a point which would apparently be within shooting distanceof them.
Before they reached the point where the creek must be crossed, Hughsaid to Jack: "Now, son, you go with Tom and try to get these goats,and I will take Baptiste and go farther up the stream and climb thathigh hill you see. I may get a shot there, and you have a good chancehere."
Jack crossed the stream with Tom and they tugged up the side of themountain, which was very steep and much obstructed by fallen timber.Two or three times Jack had to sit down and puff for breath, for itwas nearly a year now since he had done much in the way of climbingstiff mountains, but Tom seemed tireless. At last Tom declared thatthey had climbed high enough above the goats to make it safe to workalong the mountain side to the point above them. The hillside was moreor less broken with ravines and all of these were rough with sliderock and fallen timber. They had just reached the edge of one of thesegulches and had stopped for a moment's rest when the highest of thegoats, which they could now see below them, came running up out of thetimber from below to where the other goat was lying. This one got up,and it was then seen that there were four goats, two old ones and twokids; and all began to move up the mountain side. Evidently somethinghad frightened them. They had not seen Jack or Tom, nor smelt them, butwere looking down into the valley. They moved off along the mountainside going up diagonally, and Jack and Tom watched them until theydisappeared behind some ledges. Then the two set off after them as hardas they could go. It was pretty wild travelling across the gulches,but when they came out onto the ledges where the goats had gone, thefooting was easier and the going better. They followed the ledges forsome little distance, keeping to a goat trail. In this trail were seennow and then tracks where something had just passed along, but therewere no hoof marks. The trail was too hard for that, but every now andthen a place would be seen where some animal had stepped on a stone andpartly turned it over, or where the moss was knocked from a stone wherea hoof had struck it but a very short time before. They kept along thetrail, passing through some low timber and presently came out againonto the ledges, and there--hardly forty feet away from them stoodthree goats. One of them was clambering up a little ravine and justabout to disappear behind the rocks, the other two, a mother and herkid, stood on a rock, looking up the mountain side.
"Shoot!" said Tom, "Shoot!" Jack fired two shots at the nearest goatand kid, and both of them fell off the rock they had been standing onand began to roll down the hillside.
Tom gave a wild whoop of joy and shouted, "Good shoot! Good shoot!" andthen asked Jack if he wanted to kill the other, but Jack said "No,"these two were enough, and they started down the hill to get the game.The animals had rolled a long way, but at length they found them,took off the skins, and took what meat they needed. Tom went down thestream, and cutting some long shoots of a tough shrub, he worked themback and forth, partly splintering them, and made from them two ratherstiff ropes which he tied together with a knot. With these he made up apack of the skins and meat, put the load on his back, and they startedfor the camp. When they reached the trail down the valley they sat downfor some time and waited for Hugh and Baptiste; but, as they did notcome, after some hours' waiting, Tom took his pack on his back and theywent on to the camp. While they were waiting, Jack inquired of Tom asto the names of the sheep and goats, and Tom said, as nearly as Jackcould make out, that in the Smilkameen tongue, the male mountain sheepwas called "_shwillops_," while the ewe was called "_yehhahlahkin_."The goat in Smilkameen was called "_shogkhlit_," while the Port HopeIndians called goat "_p'kalakal_."
Tom said that farther on, in the country to which they were going,there were many sheep.
An hour after Jack and Tom had reached camp, Hugh and Baptistereturned, bearing the skin of a two-year-old male goat, which had beenkilled on the other side of the mountain they had climbed. It had beena hard tramp and a long stalk.
That night as they talked about game and hunting, Baptiste said that atthe head of the Okanagan Lake caribou were very plenty. The distancefrom where they were would be about eighty or ninety miles.
The next morning while Jack was preparing the goat skins for packingup, he was much surprised to find the ears of the goats full of woodticks. In one of the ears he counted no less than twenty ticks, andsome of them were so deep down in the ear that when he was skinning thehead he saw the ticks as he cut off the ears. He wondered whether thismight not account in some part at least for the apparent inattention ofgoats to sounds. He asked Baptiste about this, but got no particularlysatisfactory answer to his question; and he thought perhaps the Indiandid not understand him, but Baptiste did say distinctly that sometimesticks got into ears of human beings and made them deaf.
While Jack was attending to his goat skins, Hugh and Tom went off toanother mountain to look for sheep. A little bunch of seven were foundlying down in an excellent position. There was no wind and a carefulstalk was made; but just as the two got up to within shooting distancea light breeze began to blow from them to the sheep, and at the veryinstant that Hugh was pulling his trigger at a ram that was lying down,the bunch smelt them and sprang to their feet. It was too late forHugh to hold his fire, and instead of killing the ram he cut a l
ittletuft of hair from the brisket. In an instant the whole bunch of sheepwere out of sight. Hugh came into camp much depressed and related hisadventure to Jack.
"I expect, son," he said, "that that Indian thinks you can shoot allaround me. All the way coming home, after I missed that sheep, hekept telling me what a good and careful shot you were. He said he hadtaken out many white men to hunt, but he never saw anybody that shot asstraight and as carefully as you."
Jack laughed and said: "He little knows the difference between you andme, Hugh, in matters of shooting. Anybody could have hit those goats,for they gave me all the time there was, and they weren't more thanforty yards away. It was like shooting at the side of a barn."
"Well," said Hugh, "of course if I had known that those sheep weregoing to jump up, I could easily have fired quicker but I thought I hadall the time there was and I intended to shoot so that that ram wouldnever get up; but I never could explain it to that Indian, you bet."
"Oh," said Jack, "he will have plenty of time to see you shoot lateron, I expect."
The next morning the train was packed early and they started on.Baptiste led the way, Jack followed him, and Hugh and Tom came behind.Ryder brought up the rear and watched the animals. An hour or twoafter, two blue grouse were startled from the trail and flew up intothe tall trees where they stood on the great limbs with outstretchednecks.
"Hugh," said Jack, "give Tom an idea of your shooting."
"Why, what's the use," said Hugh, "wasting two cartridges on thosebirds. This kid meat is good enough."
"No," said Jack, "I want to have Tom see you cut those birds' headsoff."
"Well," said Hugh, "all right, if you wish me to." Drawing his horse alittle out of the trail, but not dismounting, he fired two shots whichbrought down the two grouse. Tom was sent for them, brought them in,and found that in each case the bullet had cut off the bird's neck. TheIndian looked at the birds rather solemnly and then at Hugh, and thenshook his head as if he could not understand how the man who could missthe sheep the day before should have been able to make these two shots.Jack laughed at him and said: "Good shot, eh, Tom?" Tom declared thatthe shot was good.
One day's journey brought the party to the Ashnola Country, a region ofhigh rounded hills, over which farther back from the river rose stillhigher peaks and precipices of rocks. It is a country of beautifulscenery and abounded in game. A large lick, where animals had beenlicking and gnawing the earth until great hollows had been dug in it,was seen; and farther along as they travelled up the trail on the southside of the creek they saw a number of sheep working down on to a cutbank, which was evidently a lick. Before the sheep were noticed theyhad seen the party and there was then no opportunity to hunt them.The animals were only three or four hundred yards away and were notalarmed. Later in the day, on another cut bank, another band of fifteensheep was seen at a lick and might have been easily approached but theparty did not stop. All these sheep were ewes and lambs. That nightthe train climbed pretty well up a mountain and came on a little benchseven or eight hundred feet above the main stream, where they camped.The country seemed to be full of sheep, for Jack, going out to look forwater, came across a band on a grassy hillside, but too far off to beshot at.
The camp was a pleasant one in a little group of pines with water notfar off, and the hillsides covered with admirable grazing for theanimals. After supper, Baptiste and Tom told them that three or fourmiles back in the hills were high rocky peaks where many sheep wereto be found, and it was determined that the next day they should visitthese hills. The Indians said that it was possible to get up there withhorses, but that the trail was steep and hard. Jack and Hugh, aftertalking the matter over and counting up the days and realizing that twodays later it would be necessary for them to start back to the coast,determined that instead of taking their animals they would carry theirblankets on their backs and would visit these hills, camp there, andhave a look at the country, and then would return to camp and thence toHope.
The next morning they were off early, accompanied by the two Indians,while Ryder was left to look after the animals.