The Ascent of Chief Mountain 



tell us little more than legends of it. Several 

 Bloods from across the Canadian border de- 

 clared that the boundary line ran, not where 

 the white men had marked it on the prairie 

 with their insignificant piles of stones, but 

 through the deep cleft in the Chief's wall, 

 where the Great Spirit himself had placed it; 

 thus giving to the Bloods, who knew it best, 

 their proper share of the mountain. And, 

 getting warmer in their enthusiasm, they re- 

 minded Billy of their standing challenge to 

 his tribe, the Piegans — fifty horses to anyone 

 who should run around that wall, small as it 

 seemed, in half a day. 



For our part it was hard to realize even on 

 that cold September morning that the long 

 dreaming was over and the reality before us. 

 It took all the straining of the pack ponies on 

 the wet lead-ropes to remind us that we were 

 at last climbing the foothills of the great peak. 

 Our presence there, far from breaking the long 

 enchantment, surrendered us bodily to it, and 

 Billy, riding over the successive slopes before 

 us, swaying in the saddle with the hawk-like 

 motion of the prairie Indian, seemed a fit am- 

 bassador to lead us to his king. As the day 

 passed, the clouds gradually lightened; and 



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