The Young Alaskans in the Rockies Part 20

John protested at this. "Well, Rob has got his bear, but, you see, Jess and I haven't had a shot yet--though I don't suppose that is why Rob is willing to go."

"No, that isn't the reason," commented Rob, quietly.

Uncle d.i.c.k thought for a time. "Well, I'll tell you what we'll do,"

said he, at length. "We'll stay at least one more day and hunt here to-morrow. Then if we don't have any luck to-morrow we'll run on down and have a look at the Columbia, and if she isn't too bad we'll stop at some good country below--say on Nagel Creek, down the bend."

"That seems fair," a.s.sented John; and Jesse also said he would vote the same way.

"How about you, Leo?" inquired Uncle d.i.c.k.

"Me not 'fraid of any water," replied the courageous Indian. "I like stay here. Most best grizzlum country of anywhere. Down below too much timber. Plenty black bear, not so much grizzlum. Not many place where you'll get grizzlum now. This plenty good place."

"Agreed," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "I think you all reason pretty well, and am convinced that we could spend another day here to good advantage. And now, Rob, since you got your bear, I think I'm going to send you down to camp in the morning for Moise and George. They can carry down the hide and some of the other stuff which will have to go down."

"All right," said Rob. "I'm not afraid. The only risky place is on the snow-slide at the side-hill. Then you go right down in the creek-valley and follow that to the camp."

"Very well. That will leave the other two boys to make a hunt to-morrow, and if they have as good luck as you have had we certainly will have more hides in camp."

With this arrangement already made, they at length turned to the little tent, where their blankets and the big hide of the bear made some sort of a bed for them.

At an early hour of the morning they had finished their breakfast, and Rob was ready to take the trail back to the camp.

"Well, so-long, Rob," said John. "We're going to try to kill as big a bear as you got. You're not afraid to go back through the woods, are you?"

"Certainly not," said Rob; "I have my ax, and my compa.s.s, and my match box, and a little something to eat, besides my rifle. I might be able to get clear through to the railroad or back to Tete Jaune if I had to. But I'll not have to. So-long."

"That's good boy," said Leo, approvingly, after Rob left and as they saw his st.u.r.dy figure trudging steadily onward toward the shoulder of the mountain.

"They're all good boys," replied Uncle d.i.c.k. "I'm going to make hunters out of all of 'em. And now, just as a part of their education, they'll all help us to flesh out this bear-hide."

Jesse, hunting around on the side of the mountain, found a bit of coa.r.s.e stone which John and he used as a whetstone to sharpen up their knives. They knew well enough that work on the coa.r.s.e surface of a bear-hide dulls a knife very quickly. It was an hour or two before their leader was satisfied with the preparation of the big hide.

"I wish we had more salt," said he; "but as it happens Moise has put in a little tin of pepper, and pepper is very good to use around the ears and nose of a fresh bear-hide. The main thing is to flesh the hide carefully, and to skin out all the thick parts around the ears and nose very carefully indeed. Then you dry the hide--not in the bright sunlight, but in the shade--and never let it get near a fire.

Some hides get grease-burned from bad fles.h.i.+ng and bad drying. I think this one'll do all right, though, for we made a pretty good job at sc.r.a.ping it down."

"Plenty all right now," said Leo. "Go hunt."

"Which way next, Leo?" inquired John.

Leo pointed up the valley. "Plenty slide farther up. S'pose we stay here three, four days, get plenty grizzlum. Best tam late in day.

Maybe-so get 'um now, maybe-so not. Don't know."

"Yes," said John; "it's too bad we have to start back to camp in just the best part of the day. But we've agreed to do that, so all we can do is to do our best. I suppose bears do sometimes come out before evening?"

"Once in a while," said Uncle d.i.c.k, "a bear will come out on the slide just to look around, as I've told you. There are no absolute rules about it. They don't like the sun any too well, but sometimes there is a heap of snow on a slide, usually near the foot of it, and I've seen two or three bears at once come out and lie down on the snow to get cool. Then sometimes they like to go out where they can get a bare rock to scratch themselves against. Besides that, I don't suppose all the bears get hungry at just the same time, and come out on the slide when they hear a dinner-bell ring. Take it all in all, grizzly hunting is about as hard to cla.s.sify as anything you'll find. It's one thing that would make a man believe in luck, good or bad. Anyhow, we'll go and try our luck."

On their way up the valley they had to wade their little stream once more, but at this hour of the day it was not very wide or deep, although it certainly was very cold.

"Me know one slide," said Leo, after a time, "very old slide, not steep. Plenty gopher on that slide. Dig in dirt. Grizzlum he like eat gopher. Sometam he come there and dig gopher most all day. Maybe-so ketch 'um grizzlum there."

"That's mighty well reasoned, Leo," said Uncle d.i.c.k, approvingly. "You see, boys, why Leo is such a successful grizzly-hunter--he is a good observer, and he knows the habits of animals, and why animals have such or such habits. To be a good hunter you've got to be a good student."

When at last they had reached the upper end of the flat valley in which the many branches of their little creek wandered tricklingly, Leo pulled up alongside a dead log and signified that they would stop there for a time while observing the slides on each side of the valley. From this point they had an excellent view of a great mountain series opening out beyond. And as they were commenting on the beauty of this prospect there came to them one of the experiences of mountains which not very many men have known.

They heard a heavy, rumbling sound, yet faint, like thunder in the distance. Then slowly they saw a spot on one side of the valley, some four or five miles distant, grow misty and white, as though a heavy cloud were forming.

"Look yonder!" exclaimed Uncle d.i.c.k. "That's a snow-slide, boys, and lucky enough we are that we're not under it. It's a big one, too."

They sat silent, listening to the dull voice of the avalanche. The great ma.s.s of snow which lay on the steep mountainside had begun to loosen at the rim-rock as the snow melted and began to trickle under the edges. Gradually the surface of the ground, moistened under the snow this way, began to offer less and less hold to the snow which was piled above it. Little by little the upper region of the snow-field began to drop and settle down, growing heavier and heavier on the supporting snow beneath, until finally, under the increasing weight above, it had given way along the whole surface of the mountain, a half-mile or more in extent.

It chanced that at the foot of the slide--that is to say, at the edge of the valley--there was a tall cliff, or rock wall, and over this precipice all the ma.s.s of snow now was pouring, driven with such mighty force against this wall of rock at its foot that it broke into fine particles more like mist than snow. In a vast cascade it poured down and out over the valley, making one of the most wonderful spectacles a man could see anywhere in the mountains.

"There are rocks and trees going down in that cloud of snow, very likely," said Uncle d.i.c.k, "but you can't see them. That's how Leo gets his bear-hunting country made for him--eh, Leo?"

Leo grinned, but sat watching the snow-slide more indifferently than the others, the work of the great forces of nature being accepted as a matter of course in his philosophy. The others, however, could not repress their wonder. The slide ran for several minutes, sometimes subsiding and then breaking out in full force again, as the vast ma.s.s of snow, dammed up by the edge of the rock wall, would from time to time a.s.sume such proportions that the snow behind it finally drove it forward over the brink. Thus in successive cascades it ran on, until at last it died away in a faint dribble of thin white. Silence once more reigned in the valley. With their gla.s.ses they could now plainly see a vast ma.s.s of white choking the upper valley almost entirely across.

"Now, boys," said their leader, "there is something in this mountain work besides just hunting bear. The people who live in the lowlands don't always stop to think very much where their rivers come from and what keeps them up. Here you have seen the birth of a river, or a part of a river. That ma.s.s of packed snow will lie there nearly all summer, just melting a little bit at times, and feeding this stream which runs right past us here. Still farther back in the mountains you'll see the glaciers--great ice-fields which never thaw out completely.

These are the upper sponges of the mountains, squeezed each year by the summer sun. That is why the rivers run and keep on running."

"It's wonderful to me," said Jesse. "I'm glad we saw that--and glad, too, that we weren't camped right where it came down."

"Yes," a.s.sented his uncle. "In that case there would have been no possible help for us. But good hunters in the high country always take care not to pitch their camp where a slide can possibly come down on them. We wouldn't have been more than so many straws under that ma.s.s of snow and rocks."

They sat for some time in the bright morning sun, their wet clothing gradually becoming dryer upon them as they moved about a little now and then, or resumed their wait with Leo on the log. The young Indian sat motionless, apparently indifferent to all discomforts, and with no interest in anything except the controlling impulse of the hunt. His keen eye roved from time to time over all the faces of the slides near them in the valley, especially the one directly in front of them at the right. Presently they noted that he was gazing intently for some time at one spot, although he said nothing.

"Do you see anything, Leo?" asked John, idly.

"Yes, see 'um four bears, grizzlum," said Leo, quietly.

At once all the others started into interest. "Where are they, Leo?"

demanded Jesse. "I can't see them."

"Four grizzlum," reaffirmed Leo, quietly. "Up high. Up high, two; more low, two."

Indeed, at last they saw that the hunter was not mistaken. There were four bears all at once on the surface of the slides, but they were almost concealed by the tall vegetation which in places had grown upon it.

"He'll go dig pretty soon now," said Leo. "Ketch 'um gopher."

"You're mistaken, Leo," said Uncle d.i.c.k, "about two of those bears. I can see them all plainly with the gla.s.ses now, and those lowest down in the brush are black bears. The upper ones are grizzlies, and mighty good ones, too."

"Oh, ho!" said Leo. "No see 'um good at first. Yes, two black bear--he won't go close to grizzlum. Him scare' of grizzlum. Me no like 'um black bear there. S'pose we go after grizzlum, them little black bear, he'll ron off and scare grizzlum."

They sat watching the bears from their place in the middle of the valley. The largest one began to advance deliberately toward the middle of the slide, where they could see little heaps of yellow earth thrown up by the burrowing gophers. The bear would look at these idly and paw at them curiously now and then, but it was some time before he began to dig in earnest.

The second grizzly, lower down on the slide, went earnestly to work, and apparently was interested in something which he thought was underneath a certain large rock. They later found that this rock must have weighed three or four hundred pounds at least, although they saw where the bear, putting his mighty forearm under it, had rolled it out of its bed as easily as though it had been a pebble. There is no animal in the world more powerful for its size than the mountain grizzly.

Leo continued to express his dislike of the little black bears.

"S'pose grizzlum ketch plenty gopher, he stay sometam. We heap shoot 'um. But me no like 'um black bears. No get around 'um; they ron off sure."