Part 7 (1/2)

In other regions hunters could go out safely in pairs or even alone, carrying supplies enough for the season in a canoe, and drifting down-stream with a canoe-load of pelts to the fur post But the reat quantities of supplies had to be taken Thatcavalcades of pack-horses, which Blackfeet were ever on the alert to stauards had to accompany the pack-train Out of a party of a hundred trappers sent to the mountains by the Rock Mountain Company, thirty were always crack rifle-shots for the protection of the company's property One such party, properly officered and kept froame from a valley Two such bands of rival traders keen to pilfer each other's traps would result in ruin to both

That is the way the clash came in the early thirties of the last century

All winter bands of Rocky Mountain trappers under Fitzpatrick and Bridger and Sublette had been sweeping, two hundred strong, like foraging bandits, from the head waters of the Missouri, where was one mountain pass to the head waters of the Platte, where was a second pass much used by the mountaineers Summer came with the heat that wakens all the mountain silences to a roar of rampant life Su down theover the precipices in a Niagara of snow, and the swollen torrents shouting to each other in a thousand voices till the valleys vibrated to that grandest of all music--the voice of ahts of the wind-swept peaks; and the hunters of the ga the furs cached during the winter hunt

Then the cavalcade set out for the _rendezvous_: grizzledhair and unkempt beards and bronzed skin, men who rode as if they were part of the saddle, easy and careless but alith eyes alert and one hand near the thing in their holsters; long lines of pack-horses laden with furs cli trail like a spiral stair, crawling along the face of cliffs barely wide enough to give a horse footing, skirting the sky-line between lofty peaks in order to avoid the detour round the broadened bases, frequently swi torrents whose force carried the slopes, for the long slopes werea water-course, for mountain torrents take short cuts over precipices; packers scattering to right and left at the fording-places, to be rounded back by the collie-dog and the shouting drivers, and the old bell- after the bolters with her ears laid flat

Not a sign by the way escaped thetorrent is clear and sparkling and cold as chalacial strealacial silts; and while gahts in summer, the animals prefer the snow-line and avoid the chill of the iceddown from the source of that stream when he passes back this way in the fall Ah! what is that little indurated line running up the side of the cliff--just a displace of the earth that winds in and out a the devil's-club and painter's-brush andhas been going up and down here to a drinking-place,” says the s lie ripped open and scratched where bruin has been enjoying a dainty s; but the bear did not ularly Neither has the bighorn er above tree-line, resting in the high, rasses and sunny reaches and larch shade

Presently the belled leader tinkles her way round an elbow of rock where a strea-place In the soft mould is a little cleft footprint like the ace of hearts, the trail of thefar up at the snow-line where the stream rises

Then the little cleft e, where the cataract falls like wind-blownher little kid to take the leap, and hohen she scented human presence she went jump--jump--jump--up and up and up the rock wall, where thethe kid; and how the kid leaped and fell back and leaped, and cried as pitifully as a child, till theit up, out of very sympathy went away

Then another tells how he tried to shoot a goat running up a gulch, but as fast as he sighted his rifle--”drew the bead”--the thing juot above danger and away And some taciturn oracle coht to try to shoot goat except from above or in front”

Every pack-horse of the s like stanchions and blowing his sides out in a balloon when the irths may be, before every cli And at every stop the horses cohted, or try to scrape the things off under soht falls swiftly in thetheh the ainst the endless reaches of hts With the purpling shadows co the roar of ed h--u--s--h--!

Mountaineers take no chances on the ledges after dark It is dangerous enough work to skirt narrow precipices in daylight; and sunset is often followed by a thick

These are the clouds that one sees across the peaks at nightfall like banners How does it feel benighted a detour round the base of athe saddle of rock between two peaks The sky-line rounded the convex edge of a sheer precipice for three e above blackness--seven thousand feet the h I think it was nearer five The guide's horse displaced a stone the size of a pail from the path If a man had slipped in the same way he would have fallen to the depths; but when one foot slips, a horse has three others to regain hi

But down--down--doent the stone, bouncing and knocking and echoing as it struck against the precipice wall--down--down--down till it was no larger than a spool--then out of sight--and silence! The mountaineer looked back over his shoulder

”Always throw both your feet over the saddle to the inner side of the trail in a place like this,” he directed, with a curiousin his words

”What do you do when the clouds catch you on this sort of a ledge?”

”Get off--knock ahead with your rifle to feel where the edge is--throw bits of rock through the fog so you can tell where you are by the sound”

”And when no sound comes back?”

”Sit still,” said he Then to add emphasis, ”You bet you sit still!

People can say what they like, but when no sound comes back, or when the sound's ives you chills!”

So the es after dark Thehobbled on the lee side of a roaring camp-fire that will drive the sand-flies and ether, onbut the sky

If a sharp crash breaks the awful stillness of a ht, the trapper is unalarreat rock loosened by the day's thaw rolling doith a landslide If a shrill, fiendish laugh shrieks through the dark, he pays no heed It is only the cougar prowling cattishly through the under-brush perhaps still-hunting the hunter The lonely call overhead is not the prairie-hawk, but the eagle lilting and wheeling in a sort of dreary enjoy before the sunrise has drawn the tented shadows across the valley therass as they travel off in a way that sets the old leader's bell tinkling

The rounds early in May They seldoust Threea thousand miles! Three hundred miles a month! Ten miles a day! It is not a record that shoell beside our modern sixty miles an hour--a thousand miles a day And yet it is a better record; for if our latter-day fliers had to build the road as they went along, they would o