Part 1 (1/2)

Rocky Mountain Boys.

by St. George Rathborne.

CHAPTER I

COMRADES OF THE TRAIL

”We must be pretty nearly there now, Tom, I take it!”

”I reckon we'll sight the dugout inside of half an hour or so, Felix; if the description, and the little chart old Sol Ten Eyck gave me, are correct.”

”Well, I'll sure be glad when we arrive, because this pack is getting heavier, it seems to me, every hour now. One thing certain, Chum Tom, we'll go out of this part of the country a heap lighter than we're coming in; with all this good grub swallowed up after two months roughing it. Been three days on the trail now, since Frazer turned us loose out of his big bull-boat.”

They were two pretty well-grown boys, the one tall and slender; while the other, whom he called Tom, seemed stockily built, with the ruddy hue of perfect health on his sun and wind tanned cheeks.

Tom was really Tom Tucker, and the taller young hunter, Felix Edmondson.

Besides repeating rifles of a modern make, and such ordinary accompaniments as ditty bags and hunting knives, the lads were carrying heavy packs on their backs, to each of which were also strapped a pair of snow-shoes, proving that they antic.i.p.ated staying around the foothills of the great Rocky Mountains, for some time at least, and were prepared for getting around when several feet of snow covered the ground.

They were in a region not a great distance from the border of that Wonderland which Uncle Sam has transferred into a grand playground, known far and wide as the Yellowstone Park. In fact, a range of the Rocky Mountains towered almost above them as they looked up, standing out against the blue afternoon sky like a rock-ribbed barrier.

Around them lay the great forest that in many places grows at the base of the giant uplifts that are well called the back-bone of the continent. It was a wild region, seldom pressed by the foot of man; save when some Indian or trapper chose to pursue his calling--the ”primeval wilderness,” Felix was fond of calling it, in his humorous way.

Felix was a city-bred boy who had ambitions to take up his father's profession later in life, and s.h.i.+ne as a surgeon. But not being very strong, it was under this parent's wise advice that he was now knocking off for a year from his studies, and getting in the great Outdoors all he possibly could, in order to build himself up, so as to have a good foundation for the hard work that lay before him.

And he was succeeding wonderfully, since there is nothing better under the sun to change a weakly boy into a st.u.r.dy man than this free life of the Wild West. If proof of this statement were needed, it could be demonstrated in the life of Theodore Roosevelt himself, who took the same course of treatment.

As for Tom Tucker, he had always lived pretty much in the open ever since his father bought that Wyoming cattle range with its herds.

Between times Tom had attended school, so that he was far from being ignorant; the fact of his great love of reading also put him in touch with what was going on in the world, whether in the line of scientific discoveries, exploration, or the constant change in the map of nations.

The two lads were really cousins, and it was while Felix was paying a long promised lengthy visit to the home of the other that this trip to the foothills of the Rockies was discussed and decided on.

Just at present the one great ambition in the life of the city lad was to bag a genuine grizzly bear. He had done considerable hunting of smaller game, having spent two seasons in the woods, one up in Maine, and the other in Canada. While he had more than one deer to his credit, besides wildcats, and even a wolf, Felix had conceived a desire to come face to face with the most dreaded wild animal of the American wilds, the grizzly.

So they had organized this expedition, being taken in a bull-boat as far on the way as was possible; and after that manfully shouldering their heavy packs. Under such conditions they did not cover many miles a day, which accounted for their being so long on the road.

But as Tom Tucker had said, they were now pretty near the end of their trail, and he fervently hoped that ere darkness descended they would have reached the goal of all their ambitious progress.

An old trapper with whom Tom had spent part of a season in another part of the big game country, had a dugout up here, in which he used to hibernate winter after winter, sometimes with a tried and true companion, often absolutely alone; content to live his simple life under the shadow of the mighty Rockies, and take his toll of the fur-bearing animals that frequented this favored region.

Tom had a rude map of the country, as well as directions, how to find the dugout when he got there. And here the two boys antic.i.p.ated putting in about two months of the late fall and early winter, doing a little trapping, just for fun, and considerable hunting besides.

Naturally they expected having a glorious time, as what boy, with a love for the woods and the chase, would not?

The leaves had long since turned a russet brown, and any day now they might expect the first snow of the season to fall. It was a time when the bracing air was filled with a tonic which Felix needed more than anything else in the wide world; and as his lungs filled with its life-giving qualities, the boy from the Far East was never tired of telling how different he was feeling from the conditions of a few months back.

As they struggled onward, hoping at almost any minute now to sight their goal, the two boys exchanged remarks concerning the matters that were naturally uppermost in their minds.

”You said that Old Sol hadn't been up here for several seasons now, didn't you, Tom?” the taller lad was asking.

”Why, yes,” the other replied, ”you see, the old fellow isn't as strong as he used to be, and does his hunting nearer his sister's home. Fact is, she won't let him come up here any more; and there are a lot of youngsters in her family, too, that Sol has become interested in. So he's satisfied to keep around there, if only they let him take a week now and then in the woods, with a comrade. That's how I came to know him, and often we spent some mighty fine days together. He taught me about all I know of trapping, and lots besides about the habits of big game animals. I'm itching to make use of some of the things that Old Sol handed down to me.”