Читать книгу The Untamed American Spirit: Historical Novels & Western Adventures - Emerson Hough - Страница 81

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Alex allowed the boys to sleep late next morning, and the sun was shining warmly when at length they turned out of their tent and went down to the river for their morning bath. Heartily as they had eaten the night before, they seemed still hungry enough to enjoy the hearty breakfast which Moise had ready for them at the fire.

“Well, Alex, what’s the programme for to-day?” asked Rob; “are we going on down, or shall we stop for a hunt?”

“Whichever you like,” answered Alex. “We’re maybe getting into heavier water now, so I suppose we ought to be a little more careful about how we run down without prospecting a little.”

“How would it be for some of us to go down along the bank and do a little scouting?” asked John.

“A very good plan,” agreed Alex, “and Moise might do that while we others are doing something else.”

“Oh, you mean about our hunt,” broke in Rob. “Now, we were speaking about bears and sheep. We don’t want to break the game laws, you know.”

“Let me see your map, Mr. Rob,” said Alex. “I told you we’d talk over that after a while.”

“What’s the map got to do with game laws, Alex?”

“A great deal, as I’ll show you. You see, in all this upper country the laws made down at Ottawa and Edmonton govern, just as if we lived right in that country. We keep the game laws the same as any other laws. At the same time, the government is wise, and knows that men in this far-off country have to live on what the country produces. If the people could not kill game when they found it they would all starve. So the law is that there is no restriction on killing game — that is, any kind of game except beaver and buffalo — north of latitude 55°.”

“Well, what’s that got to do with our hunt?” asked Rob.

“I was just going to explain, if you will let me see your map. As near as I can tell by looking at the lines of latitude on it, we must have been just about latitude fifty-five degrees at the place where we started yesterday. But we have been running north very strongly thirty or forty miles. While I can’t tell exactly where we are, I’m very positive that we are at this camp somewhere north of fifty-five degrees. In that case there is no law against our killing what we like, if we let the beaver alone; for of course, the buffalo are all gone from this country long ago.”

“Now, I wouldn’t have thought of that,” said Rob, “and I’m very glad that you have figured it out just that way. We agree with you that a fellow ought to keep the game laws even when he is away from the towns. In some of the States in the earlier days they used to have laws allowing a man to kill meat if he needed it, no matter what time of year. But people killed at all times, until there wasn’t much left to kill.”

“It ought to be a good hunting country here,” went on Alex, “for I don’t think many live here or hunt here.”

“Well,” said Rob, with a superior air, “we don’t much care for black bear. Grizzlies or bighorns — ”

“Have you never killed a bighorn?”

“No, none of us ever has. They have plenty of them up in Alaska, and very good ones, and white sheep also, and white goats sometimes, and all sorts of bears and moose and things. We’ve never hunted very much except when we were on Kadiak Island. We can all shoot, though. And we’d like very much to make a hunt here. There isn’t any hurry, anyway.”

“S’pose you’ll got some of those sheep,” ventured Moise, “he’ll be best for eat of anything there is — no meat better in the world than those beeghorn.”

“Well,” said John, “why don’t we start out to get one? This looks like a good country, all right.”

“That suits me,” added Rob. “Jess, do you want to go along?”

Alex looked at Jesse before he answered, and saw that while he was tall for his age, he was rather thin and not so strong as the other boys, being somewhat younger.

“I think Mr. Jess would better stay in camp,” said he. “He can help Moise finish drying his fish, and maybe they can go down and have a look at the rapids from the shore. We others can go over east for a hunt. I’ve a notion that the mountains that way are better.”

“It looks like a long way over,” said Rob. “Can we make it out and back to camp to-day?”

“Hardly; I think we’ll have to lie out at least one night, maybe more, to be sure of getting the sheep.”

“Fine!” said John; “that suits me. We wouldn’t need to take along any tent, just a blanket and a little something to eat — I suppose we could carry enough.” He looked so longingly at Moise’s pots and pans that everybody laughed at him once more.

“All right,” said Alex, “we’ll go.”

The old hunter now busied himself making ready their scant supplies. He took a little bag of flour, with some salt, one or two of the cooked fish which remained, and a small piece of bacon. These he rolled up in a piece of canvas, which he placed on his pack-straps. He asked the boys if they thought they could get on with a single blanket, and when they agreed to this he took Rob’s blanket, folded it, rolled it also in canvas, and tied it all tight with a rope, the ends of his tump-strap sticking out, serving him for his way of packing, which was to put the tump-strap across his head.

“It’s not a very big bundle,” said he. “You young gentlemen need take nothing but your rifles and your ammunition. I don’t need any blanket for a night or so. What little we’ve got will seem heavy enough before we get up there in the hills.”

“Now, Moise, listen,” he added. “You’re to stay in this camp until we get back, no matter how long it is, and you’re not to be uneasy if we don’t come back for two or three days. Don’t go out in the boats with Mr. Jess until we get back. Give him three meals a day, and finish up drying your trout.”

“All right,” answered Moise, “I’ll stay here all summer. I’ll hope you get beeg sheep.”

Alex turned, and after the fashion of the Indians, did not say good-by when he left camp, but stalked off. The two boys, rifle in hand, followed him, imitating his dignity and not even looking back to wave a farewell to Jesse, who stood regarding them rather ruefully.

They had a stiff climb up the first ridge, which paralleled the stream, when the boys found their rifles quite heavy enough to carry. After a time, however, they came out at the top of a high plateau, where the undergrowth was not very thick and tall spruces stood more scattered. They could now see beyond them some high, bare ridges, that rose one back of the other, with white-topped peaks here and there.

“Good sheep country,” said Alex, after a time. “I think good for moose, and maybe caribou, too, lower down.”

“Yes, and good for something else,” cried Rob, who was running on a little in advance as the others stopped. “Look here!”

“There he goes in his moccasins,” said Alex. “Grizzly!”

“Yes, and a good big one, I should think,” said Rob. “Not as big as a Kadiak bear; but see, his foot sinks a long way into the ground, and it’s not very soft, either. Come on, Alex, let’s go after him.”

Alex walked over and examined the trail for a little while.

“Made yesterday morning,” he commented, “and traveling steadily. No telling where he is by this time, Mr. Rob. When an old white-face starts off he may go forty miles. Again, we might run across him or some other one in the first berry patch we come to. It seems to me surer to go on through with our sheep hunt.

“There’s another thing,” he added, “about killing a big bear in here — his hide would weigh fifty to seventy-five pounds, very likely. Our boats are pretty full now, and we’re maybe coming to bad water. There’s good bear hunting farther north and east of here, and it seems to me, if you don’t mind, that it might be wiser for us to hunt sheep here and bear somewhere else.”

“That sounds reasonable,” said John. “Besides, we’ve never seen wild bighorn.”

“Come ahead then,” said Rob, reluctantly leaving the big bear trail. “I’d just like to follow that old fellow out, though.”

“Never fear,” said Alex, “you shall follow one just as big before this trip is over!”

Alex now took up his pack again, and began to move up toward the foothills of the mountains, following a flat little ravine which wound here and there, at no place very much covered with undergrowth. At last they reached the edges of bare country, where the sun struck them fully. By this time the boys were pretty tired, for it was far past noon, and they had not stopped for lunch. John was very hungry, but too brave to make any complaint. He was, however, feeling the effects of the march considerably.

“Well,” said he, as they finally sat down upon a large rock, “I don’t see any signs of sheep up in here, and I don’t think this looks like a very good game country. There isn’t anything for the sheep to eat.”

“Oh yes,” rejoined Alex; “you’ll find a little grass, and some moss among the rocks, more often than you would think. This is just the kind of country that bighorns like. You mustn’t get discouraged too soon on a hunt. An Injun may be slow to start on a hunt, but when he gets started he doesn’t get discouraged, but keeps on going. Sometimes our people hunt two or three days without anything to eat.

“But now since you mention it, Mr. John,” he added, “I’d like to ask you, are you sure there are no signs of game around here?”

Both the boys looked for a long time all over the mountain-slopes before them. Rob had his field-glasses with him, and these he now took out, steadily sweeping one ridge after another for some time.

“I see, Alex!” he called out, excitedly. “I know what you mean!”

“Where are they?” called John, excitedly.

“Oh, not sheep yet,” said Rob, “but just where they’ve been, I think.”

“Look, Mr. John,” said Alex, now taking John by the arm and pointing across the near-by ravines. “Don’t you see that long mark, lighter in color, which runs down the side of that mountain over there, a mile or two away, and up above us?”

“Yes, I can see that; but what is it?”

“Well, that’s a sheep trail, a path,” said Alex. “That’s a trail they make coming down regularly from the high country beyond. It looks to me as though they might have a watering place, or maybe a lick, over in there somewhere. It looks so good to me, at least, that I think we’ll make a camp.”

They turned now, under the old hunter’s guidance, and retraced their steps until they found themselves at the edge of timber, where Alex threw down his bundle under a tall spruce-tree whose branches spread out so as almost to form a tent of itself. He now loosened his straps and bits of rope from about the bundle, and fastened these about his waist. With remaining pieces of twine he swung up the package to the bough of the tree above the ground as high as he could reach.

“We don’t want any old porcupine coming here and eating up our grub. They almost gnaw through a steel plate to get at anything greasy or salty,” he explained. “We’ll call this camp, and we’ll stop here to-night, because I can see that if we go up to that trail and do any waiting around it will be too late for us to get back home to-night.”

Although no game had as yet been sighted, the confidence that it was somewhere in the country made the boys forget their fatigue. They followed Alex up the mountain-slopes, which close at hand proved steeper than they had looked for, keeping up a pretty fast pace, until finally they got almost as high up as the trail which Alex had sighted. This latter lay at some distance to the right of their present course, and a high, knife-edged ridge ran down from the hills, separating the hunters from the mountain-side beyond. Alex now turned to his young companions and said in a low tone:

“You’d better stay here now for a little while. I’ll crawl up to the top yonder and look over. If you see me motion to you, come on up to where I am.”

Rob and John sat down on a near-by rock and watched the hunter as he cautiously ascended the slope, taking care not to disengage any stones whose noise might alarm any near-by game. They saw him flatten out, and, having removed his hat, peer cautiously over the rim. Here he lay motionless for some time, then, little by little, so slowly that they hardly noticed he was moving, he dropped down over the rim, and, looking down over his shoulder, motioned to them to come on up.

When the boys joined Alex at the edge of the ridge they were pretty much out of breath, as they had hurried in the ascent. “What is it, Alex?” hissed John, his eyes shining.

“They’re over there,” said the hunter, quietly. “Five sheep, two good ones — one a very fine ram. Do you want to have a look at them? Be very careful — they’re up at the top of the slope, and haven’t come down over the trail yet. Be careful, now, how you put your heads over.”

The two boys now slowly approached the crest, and, almost trembling with excitement, peered over. Alex following, laid a hand on John’s leg and another on Rob’s shoulder, for fear they would make some sudden movement and frighten the game. When at length the boys crawled back from the ridge they were very much excited. “What’ll we do now, Alex?” asked John. “They’re too far off to shoot.”

“Wait,” said Alex; “they’re going to come on down the trail. I think they water at some spring in the mountain, although I don’t know. In fifteen or twenty minutes they’ll be pretty close to us — inside of two hundred yards, at least, I should think.

“Now listen,” he continued to the boys, “and mind what I tell you. There are two rams there, and if we get them we need nothing more. I’ll not shoot unless I need to. Rob, you’ll take the ram which is farthest to the right, at the time I tell you to fire, and you, Mr. John, will take the other ram, no matter whether it’s the big one or the little one. Let the ewes alone. And whatever you do, don’t shoot into the flock — wait until each of you can see his animal ready for a distinct shot. If either of you misses, I’ll help him out — there’s three or four hundred yards of good shooting all up that mountain face. Now mind one thing; don’t have any buck fever here! None of that, do you hear me?”

Alex spoke rather sternly this time, but it was with a purpose. He saw that the hands of both the boys were rather trembling, and knew that sometimes when a man is in that nervous condition a sharp word will have the effect of quieting and steadying him.

Rob looked at him quickly, and then smiled. “Oh, I see,” said he.

They were all talking in low whispers, so that they might not be overheard by the game, if it should come closer. “It’s no disgrace to have buck fever,” said Alex, in his low tone. “Injuns even get excited, and I’ve known old hunters to get buck fever right in the middle of a hunt, without any reason they could tell anything about. But now, when you’re steady enough, we’ll all crawl up once in a while and have a look.”

He kept a steadying hand on both the boys when a few minutes later they approached the rim of the ridge once more. By this time the sheep, which had not in the least taken alarm, were advancing rather steadily down the narrow path on the steep mountain face. The biggest ram was in advance, a stately and beautiful game creature, such as would have made a prize for the most experienced of hunters. It was all Rob could do to keep from an exclamation of delight at seeing these rather queer creatures so close at hand and unsuspicious of the hunters’ presence.

Alex pulled them down once more, and sternly admonished them to be quiet. “Wait now,” he whispered, “one minute by the watch.”

When the minute, which seemed an hour in length, had elapsed, Alex put his finger on his lips for silence and motioned to each boy to see that his rifle was ready. Then cautiously they all pushed up once more to the edge of the ridge.

This time they saw all five of the sheep standing closely bunched together, two or three of them with their heads down. There seemed to be a slight moist place among the slate rocks where perhaps some sort of saline water oozed out, and it was this that these animals had visited so often as to make a deep trail on the mountain-side. Alex shook his head as Rob turned an inquiring glance at him, and the boys, who by this time were steady, did not shoot into the huddled band of sheep.

They lay thus for what seemed a long time, eagerly watching the game animals which were unconscious of any hunters’ presence. One of the sheep, a yearling, began to jump up and down, bouncing like a rubber ball in its sportive antics, which almost made John laugh as he watched it. Turning to look at this, the smaller ram paced off to the right, followed now by the larger ram. Both creatures now, as if they had some sense of danger, stood with their majestic heads raised, looking steadily about and apparently scanning the air to catch the taint of danger. Thus they offered a good mark to the riflemen.

“Shoot!” whispered Alex, quickly; and almost as he spoke two reports rang out.

At the report of Rob’s rifle the lesser ram, which was the one that stood to the left, fell as though struck by a hammer, shot through the shoulders and killed at once. The larger ram, which had fallen to John’s lot, was not struck beyond a slight singe of the bullet along the hair of its back. It sprang, and with incredible speed began to make its way up the opposite slope. The ewes also scattered and ran. Alex was on the point of using his rifle, when again John’s piece rang out, and this time the great ram, hit fair by the bullet, fell and rolled over and over until it reached the bottom of the slope quite dead.

Both of the boys sprang to their feet and gave a wild whoop of exultation. They were trembling now, although they did not know it, and jabbered excitedly as they started on down the slope to their game. Alex followed slowly, calmly filling his pipe and smiling his approval.

“That’s good work for young hunters,” said he. “I couldn’t have done better. Mr. John, you missed your first shot. Do you know why?”

“I know,” said Rob. “He didn’t allow for shooting downhill. A fellow nearly always shoots too high when he shoots at anything away down below him.”

“Quite right,” nodded Alex, “and a very common fault in mountain hunting.”

“Well, I got him the next time,” said John. “If you can see where your bullet goes you can tell how to shoot the next shot.”

“They’re two magnificent sheep,” said Alex, admiringly, “and we’ve got to take out both these heads, for they’re too good to leave in the mountains. I suppose now we will have to do a little butchering.”

He drew his great knife from his belt, and now in very skilful way began to skin, clean, and dismember the sheep, doubling back the half-disjointed legs and the hams and shoulders and throwing the separated pieces of meat on the skins, which were spread out, flesh side up, on the ground. He took out the shoulders and hams of each sheep and split the remainder of the carcass, detaching the ribs along the spine with blows of his heavy bladed knife. After a little he rolled up the meat of each sheep in its own hide, lashed it firmly with thong, and made it into two packs. The heads he next skinned out, showing the boys how to open the skin along the back of the neck, and across the head between the horns. He asked for their smaller and keener knives when it came to skinning out the ears, eyes and nostrils, but removed the scalp from each sheep without making a cut which showed through the skin.

“Now,” said he at last, “when we get the meat trimmed off these skull-bones you’ll have a couple of sheep heads that many a hunter would give hundreds of dollars to kill for himself. They are going to be awkward to carry, though, I’ll tell you that.”

“How much would one of these rams weigh, Alex?” asked Rob.

“The biggest one a couple of hundred pounds, maybe,” said Alex. “The green head, this way, might make fifty of that, I don’t know. We’ll have to make two trips down to the bivouac, that’s one thing sure. Maybe we can lighten the heads by trimming out to-night.”

“I’ll tell you, Alex,” said Rob; “if you can take one of the meat packs we’ll take one of the heads between us. It’s downhill from here to where we left the blankets.”

“All right,” answered Alex. “I could carry a couple of hundred pounds down here, I suppose, but there’s plenty of time, as we aren’t more than a mile from camp. So come ahead.”

Proceeding in this way they finally did get all their meat down to the little bivouac they had made under the spruce-trees. They were very tired but happy by this time, and hungry as well, for now evening was closing down.

“I’ll show you how to make a fire now,” said Alex, “because you will see that we aren’t over sand or gravel in this camping place, as we are on the river.”

He scraped away the bed of spruce needles and loose soil until he got down to the moist and sandy layer, with some rocks here and there projecting through.

“That’ll do, I think,” said he. “We won’t build a big fire, and we’ll have rocks under and around it all we can. You always want to remember that a forest fire is a terrible thing, and nearly always they come from careless camp-fires. You know the earth itself burns in a forest like this. Never allow a fire to get away, and never leave it burning. These are laws which we have to follow up here, or we get into trouble.”