The Black Wolf Pack Part 6

My chest felt dry, hot and oppressed from forced and labored breathing, and had the buffalo discovered me I do not think I could have run another step. But the big brutes halted at the edge of the bank and seeing no one in sight walked around pawing and throwing up great clouds of dust and in their rage apparently daring me to come forth. Like a small boy when he hears a challenge from a gang of toughs, I decided that I did not want to fight and lay as quiet as possible among the sunflowers until I had regained my breath. When the buffalo wandered back to their original pasture land I, like a coyote, slunk away and consoled myself with the thought that although I had had my run for my money, at least, I had seen the death of the antelope even if I did miss again seeing the Wild Hunter "collar his game," as Big Pete would have called the act of securing it. Besides this I had a real exciting adventure with good red-blooded American animals and learned the lesson that large horned beasts which have not been taught to fear man are exceedingly dangerous to man.

CHAPTER VIII

Rising abruptly from the prairie was a frowning precipice a thousand or more feet high and above and beyond the top of this cliff, the mountains.

When Big Pete told me that his park was "walled in" he told me the mildest sort of truth; the prairie is the bottom of a wide canyon, in fact everything seems to indicate that the whole park had settled, sunk-"taken a drop" of a thousand or more feet; forming what miners would call a fault.

From the glaciers up among the clouds numerous streams of melted ice came das.h.i.+ng down the sides of the mountain range, fanciful cascades leaping without fear from most stupendous heights spreading out in long horse-tail falls over the face of the cliff, doing everything but looking real. At the foot of each of the falls there was a pool of deep water, in one or two instances the pools were smooth basins hollowed out of solid rock in which the water was as transparent as air and but for the millions of air bubbles caused by the falling water every inch of bottom could be plainly seen by an observer at the brink of the pool.

The trout in these basins were almost as colorless as the water itself (the light color of the fish is due to their chameleon-like power of modifying their hue to imitate their surroundings)-this mimicry is so perfect that after looking into one of these stone basins, the rounded smooth sides of which offered no shade or nook where a trout might hide, I was ready to declare the waters uninhabited but no sooner had my brown hackel or professor settled lightly on the surface of the pool than out from among the air bubbles a fish appeared and seized the fly.

My sprained ankle was now so much improved that upon discovering a diagonal fracture in the face of the cliff, which looked as if offering a foot hold, and feeling reckless, I determined to make the effort to scale the wall at this point.

If the giant "fault" is of comparatively recent occurrence, geologically speaking, it seemed reasonable that there would be trout in the streams above the cliff and the memory of the fact that Pete had reported that both Rocky Mountain sheep and goats were up there decided me to attempt to scale the wall by the fracture. It was a long, hard climb and more than once while I clung to the chance projections or dug my fingers into small cracks and looked down upon the backs of some golden eagle sailing in spirals below me, I regretted making the fool-hardy attempt, but when the top was reached and I saw signs of sheep and had a peep at a white object I took to be a goat, I felt repaid for my arduous climb.

The elevated prairie or table-land on which I found myself corresponded in every important particular with the park below; there were the same natural divisions of prairie and forests, the same erratic boulders, but on account of the difference in elevation there was a corresponding difference in plant life, and most interesting of all to me, there were the trout streams. The tablelands above the park were comparatively level in places where the stream ran almost as quietly as a meadow brook, but these level stretches were interrupted at short distance by foaming rapids, jagged rocks and roaring falls.

My angler's instinct told me that the biggest fish lurked in the deep pools, to reach which it was necessary to creep and worm myself over the open flats of sharp stones and patches of heather, but once on the vantage ground the swish of a trout rod sounded there for the first time since the dawn of Creation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: More than once while I clung to the chance projection ... I regretted making the fool-hardy attempt]

There was an audible splash at my first cast. My, how that reel did sing! Before I realized it, my fish had reached rapid water and taken out a dangerous amount of line; still I dared not check him too severely among the sharp rocks and swift waters, so I ran along the bank, stumbling over stones, but managing to avail myself of every opportunity to wind in the line until I had the satisfaction of seeing enough line on my reel to prepare me for possible sudden dashes and emergencies.

Ah! that was a glorious fight, and when at last I was able to steer my tired fish into shallow water I saw there were three of them, one l.u.s.ty trout on each of my three flies. I had no landing net so I gently slid the almost exhausted fish onto a gravel bar and as I did so I experienced one of those delightful thrills which comes to a fellow's lot but once or twice in a life-time. But it was not because I had captured three at a strike, for I have done that before and since, but I thrilled because they were not only a new and strange kind of trout, but they were of the color and sheen of newly minted gold. Never before had any man seen such trout.

I have since been informed that I had blundered on to water inhabited by the rarest of all game fish, the so-called golden trout, which has since been discovered and which scientists declare to be pre-glacier fish left by some accident of nature to exist in a new world in which all their original contemporaries have long been extinct.

Think of it! Fish which had never seen an artificial fly nor had any family traditions of experiences with them. It is little wonder that they would jump at a brown hackle, a professor or even a gaudy salmon fly. Why they would jump at a chicken feather! They were ready and eager to bite at any sort of bunco game I saw fit to play upon them. They were veritable hayseeds of the trout family, but when they felt the hook in their lips, the wisest trout in the world could not show a craftier nor half as plucky a fight. They would leap from the water like small-mouthed ba.s.s and by shaking their heads, try to throw off the hateful hook.

The constant vigorous exercise of leaping water-falls and forging up boiling rapids had developed these st.u.r.dy mountaineer trout into prodigies of strength and endurance. Even now my nerves tingle to the tips of my toes as in fancy I hear my reel hum or see the tip of my five ounce split bamboo bend so as to almost form a circle.

I fished that stream with hands trembling with excitement and had filled my creel with the rare fish before I began to notice other objects of interest. Suddenly I became aware of the presence of two birds hovering over and diving under the cold water. They were evidently feeding on some aquatic creature which my duller senses could not discern.

Although they were the first of the kind that I had ever seen alive, I at once recognized the feathered visitors to be water ouzels. The birds preceded me on my way along the water course towards camp, and were never quiet a minute. They would hop on a rock in mid-stream and bob up and down in a most solemn but comical manner for a moment before plunging fearlessly into the cold white spray of the falls or the swift das.h.i.+ng current, where they would disappear below the surface only to reappear once more on another rock to bob again.

A ducking did not trouble the ouzels, for as they came out of the water the liquid rolled in crystal drops from their feathers and their plumage was as dry as if it had never been submerged. The wilder and swifter the cold glacier water ran the more the birds seemed to enjoy it.

The nearer I approached the edge of the precipitous walls, enclosing the valley comprising Big Pete's park, the rougher grew the trail, and as I was picking my way I paused to gaze at the distant purple peaks and watch the sun set in that lonely land as if I was witnessing it for the first time. As my eyes roamed over the stupendous distance and unnamed mountains I felt my own puny insignificance, as who has not when confronted with the vastness of nature.

I turned from my view of the sunset to retrace my steps to the valley, and peeping over the top of a large boulder, saw seated upon an inaccessible crag directly in front of me, a gigantic figure of a man clad in a hunter's garb, and he was smoking a long cigar!

When I thought of Big Pete's description of how the Wild Hunter was wont to sit with his long legs dangling from some rock while he smoked one of those unprocurable cigars, and when I realized that the figure before me was fully sixty feet tall, I must confess to experiencing a queer sensation.

It was a shadowy figure yet it moved, arose, held out one hand, and a bird as large as the fabled roc alighted on the wrist of the outstretched hand.

A slight breeze sprang up, the white mists from the valley rolled up the mountainside and drifted away and the man and bird disappeared from view.

It was long after dark when I reached camp and was greeted by my friend and guide with "Gol durn your pictur tenderfut, if it hain't tuk you longer to get a pesky mess of yaller fish than it orter to kill a bar."

"Little wonder," thought I, "that the Wild Hunter used golden bullets in a land where even the fish's scales seemed to be of the same precious metal"; but I said nothing as I sat down to clean my "yaller trout."

CHAPTER IX

It was always interesting to me when I could get Pete's theories and his brand of philosophy on almost any subject and it was my intention that night at supper to lead up to the apparition I had seen on the cliffs that day. With a substantial supper tucked away I was in a better frame of mind to realize that the illusion I had seen was not uncommon in mountain districts. I recalled that I had read of, and seen pictures of, a particular illusion of this nature that is often present in the Hartz Mountains in Germany and I knew full well that the setting sun, the mist and the atmospheric condition had all contributed to throwing a greatly enlarged shadow of the real Wild Hunter onto the screen made by the mist very much as today a motion picture increases the size of the small film image when it is thrown on the movie screen.

I intended to get Big Pete's idea on the subject but I never did for I was not adroit enough to steer the conversation in that direction, for Big Pete seized my first statement and made it a subject for a veritable lecture.

"There was a smas.h.i.+ng lot of those trout up there, Pete. Bet I could have brought home all I could have carried if I had been a game hog," I said, as I stirred the fire with a stick and set the coffee pot nearer the flames to warm a second cup.

"You see, tenderfut, it's like this," he said, "when a man goes out to kill a deer for the fun of blood-spilling or to get th' poor critter's head to hang in his shack, he's nothing more than a wolf or butcher; hain't half as good a man as the one who never shot a deer, but goes back home and lies about it. The liar hain't harmed nothin' with his lies. His fairy stories don't hurt game an' they be interesting to the tenderfuts in the States. The real sportsman is the pot-hunter. Yes, that's jist what I mean, a pot-hunter-he's out 'cause the camp kettle is empty, and it's up agin him to fill it or starve. Now then, this fellow is not after blood; nor trophies, nor is he hunting for the market. It's self-preservation with him, that's what it is. He's an animal along with the rest of 'em and he knows he's got jest as much a right to live as tha' have and no more! He's hustling for his living along with the bunch, forcing it from savage nature, and I tell you boy, there is no greater physical pleasure in life than holding old Mother Nature up and just saying to her, 'You've got a living for me, ole' gal, and I'm going to get it.'

"Such talk pleases the old lady, makes her your friend 'cause she likes your s.p.u.n.k, and because of it she'll give you the wind of a grey wolf, the step of the panther, the strength of the buffalo and the courage of a lion. She is always generous with her favorites. Ah! lad, she kin make your blood dance in your veins, make fire flash from your eyes and give you the steady nerve necessary to face a she-grizzly when she is fightin' for her cubs."

"Why? 'cause you see, you are a grizzly yourself when the camp kettle is empty!" And Big Pete relapsed into silence, turned his attention to his tin platter, examining it carefully, and then with a piece of dough-G.o.d, carefully wiped the platter clean and contentedly munched the savory bit.

The reason, that being locked into Big Pete's park in the mountains struck me as being very serious, was because I realized that although the park was extensive it was completely surrounded by a practically unsurmountable barrier of rugged cliffs and mountains negotiable, as far as I knew, not even by the sure-footed mountain sheep and goats which we could occasionally see on the cliffs from the valley floor, but never saw in the park itself. I questioned Big Pete and found that he did not know of a trail up the cliffs.

"Though," he said, "there must be some sort of a one for that tha' Wild Hunter gits in an' out and brings his wolf pack along too. He knows a trail all right an' ef he knows it why it's up to us to find it, too."

"Maybe we can trail him," I suggested.

"Trail him! Me? With that wolf pack clingin' to his heels? Not while I'm alive!"

That was the last that was said about trailing the Wild Hunter for some time to come, but meanwhile we built a more or less open faced permanent camp and Big Pete initiated me into mysteries of real woodcraft, for it was up to us now to live on the land, so to speak.

Although hard usage had made havoc with my tailormade clothes, neither time nor the elements seemed to affect the personal appearance of my big companion; his buckskin suit was apparently as clean and fresh as it was on the day I first met him. There was no magic in this. Big Pete knew how to clamber all day through a windfall without leaving the greater part of his clothes on the branches, a feat few hunters and no tenderfoot have yet been able to accomplish.

As I have already said, Pete was a dude, but he was what might be called a self-perpetuating dude, who never ran to seed no matter how long he might be separated from the city tailor shops, for Pete was his own tailor, barber and valet, and the wilderness supplied the material for his costume.

In the camp he was as busy as an old housewife, and occupied his leisure time mending, st.i.tching and darning. Many a morning my own toilet consisted of a face wash at the spring, but my guide seldom failed to spend as much time prinking as if he expected distinguished visitors!

Instead of "Tenderfoot," Big Pete now called me "Le-loo," which I understand is Chinook for wolf and I took so much pride in my promotion that I would not have changed clothes with the Prince of Wales; I gloried in my wild, unkempt appearance!

Nevertheless, Big Pete announced that he was the Hy-as-ty-ee (big boss) and he forthwith declared that my costume was unsuitable for the approaching cold weather. There was no disputing that Big Pete was Hy-as-ty-ee and I agreed to wear whatever clothes he should make for me, and can say with no fear of dispute that if that ancient chump, Robinson Crusoe, had had a Big Pete for a partner in place of a man Friday, he would have never made himself his outlandish goatskin clothes and a clumsy umbrella.

From a cache in the rocks Pete brought forth a miscellaneous lot of trappers' stores, bone needles made from the splints of deer's legs, elk's teeth with holes bored through them, and odds and ends of all kinds.

Among his stuff was a supply of salt-petre and alum, and this was evidently the material for which he was searching for he at once preceeded to make a mixture of two parts salt-petre to one of alum and applied the pulverized compound to the fleshy side of the skins, then doubling the raw side of the hides together he rolled them closely and placed the hides in a cool place where they were allowed to remain for several days; when at length unrolled, the skins were still moist.

"Just right, by Gosh," he exclaimed, as he took a dull knife and carefully removed all particles of fat or flesh which here and there adhered to the hide. After this was done to his satisfaction we both took hold and rubbed, and mauled and worked the skins with our hands until the hides were as soft and as pliable as flannel. Thus was the material for my winter clothing prepared.