5io 



RECREATION 



mals are memories which send the red 

 blood tingling through my veins, and 

 cause me to dilate my nostrils and sniff 

 the air as if to catch the cool breeze 

 from the snows of the eternity. Why, 

 even the smell of frying bacon makes 

 me feel like a captive wild goose in a 

 barn yard, stretching its neck as it 

 listens to the honk of its brothers and 

 sees the triangular flock cleaving the 

 trackless free air, far, far above him. 

 Ah me ! it must be fine to be a goose 

 if one could only be certain of being a 

 wild one, but to know one is only a 

 tame, waddling old barnyard gander 

 is most depressing. 



It was during this lazy life that I 

 pieced together the hints I had heard 

 at the various shacks and mining settle- 

 ments, and the bits of information gath- 

 ered from Pete himself and learned that 

 Darlinkle's father, through blind luck, 

 or more than normal foresight, for a 

 mountain man, had retained shares in 

 the mines he had discovered and left 

 his son Pete possessed ,of an income 

 sufficient to realize the wildest dreams 

 of a trapper, and even big enough to 

 obtain some respect of the money wor- 

 shipping people of the Eastern cities. 



Pete said little about himself, and 

 made no inquiries about me, his whole 

 conversation consisting in talk about na- 

 ture, game, Indians, cliff-dwellers, 

 traps, birds, fishes and trees, and very 

 interesting it was to hear him talk in 

 his quaint manner about these things. 

 His language was that of the early 

 American only to be found now in iso- 

 lated spots, the mountains of Pennsyl- 

 vania, among the moonshiners of the 

 Appalachian range, and in equally fos- 

 silized spots in the Rocky Mountains. 

 Pete had added to his vocabulary bits 

 of slang selected from the choice terms 

 of prospectors, trappers and Indians, 

 and in his clear, healthy, but childish, 

 brain were stored romantic bits of 

 superstition from similar sources. 



One night, as Pete was cleaning and 

 oiling his long rifle, I could not help 

 wondering what the old gunsmith 

 [ins would have said if he had seen 



the stock to Big Pete's gun, for it fairly 

 blazed with gold, silver and mother of 

 pearl ornaments embedded in the pol- 

 ished wood. It is unnecessary to say 

 that the inlaying was Darlinkle's own 

 handiwork, and however much Mr. 

 Mullins might have been shocked at 

 the Mountain Man's taste, I felt as- 

 sured he could not help but admire the 

 dainty workmanship — one could pass 

 one's hand over the surface of the stock 

 without feeling the slightest unevenness 

 to mar the exquisite polish of the wood. 



Peter was an artist, but he belonged 

 to the savage school, whose expression 

 lies in intricate and complicated ornate- 

 ness, in place of classic simplicity of 

 line and form. 



We talked of firearms, and I turned 

 the conversation to the wild hunter, and 

 learned that back in the forties, while 

 trapping and prospecting, Pete's father 

 struck some rich pay dirt, staked out 

 his claim and worked it with a "pard/' 

 Later they sold out, and with a new 

 outfit started off prospecting again, and 

 at last drifted by an accident into the 

 park, the gateway to which was then, 

 as now, concealed by a high mesa, 

 whose water- worn sides had strewn the 

 base with a waste of fragments through 

 and over which the trail led to the nar- 

 row cleft which formed the gateway, 

 a gateway liable to be closed by the 

 first storm which should detach the 

 overhanging rock and precipitate it into 

 the trail, an accident which had evi- 

 dently already happened to many pieces 

 that lay scattered around. 



In the park both of the old prospec- 

 tors had seen the wild hunter's trail, 

 and followed it until it reached a swail, 

 where it was lost in the trail of some 

 wolves. They followed the wolf trail 

 until they reached a spot where the 

 wolves had scratched, rolled and cir- 

 cled on their track until it was so mixed 

 up they gave up in despair and went 

 back to camp. They had both heard 

 of the "Wild Plunter" and made up 

 their minds that he must be a pros- 

 pector who had discovered pay dirt 

 and was keeping it quiet by working 



