2 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
[Jtjly 3, 1897. 
Shi Mv^^t^w^ S^^^t- 
SHEEP AND SNOWSHOES.— III. 
A Winter Hunt on the Summit of the Rockies. 
The Start for the Mountains. 
The morning after our arrival at the agency dawned 
fair, brilliantly fair as morning can be nowhere else in all 
the world. The air was keen and stimulating as some 
strange elixir, nor could it be believed that this was the 
same medium breathed in the stupefying cities. A strange 
exhilaration filled the heart, the feet liardly felt the snow 
carpet which they trod. Distance was no more. The 
storm was gone, and the sky was imposingly bright and 
luminous. Bej^ond us, seemingly but a very little way, 
lay the mountains which we had come so far to see, and 
-which now we for the first time beheld in the four days of 
our stay in the country. There they lay, these mountains, 
serried range and peak reaching back and alwavs upward, 
mass and mass of them, like the low and crowded moun- 
tains of the southern Rockies, btit with a fabric now and 
then shot full of great towering peaks that sprung boldly 
above tbe maze of lower summits, in a way not seen in the 
lower portions of the Rocky range. Between us and the 
mountains lay no long swelling series of foothills, but the 
plain ran clean to the edge of the peaks, which swept up- 
right above them imperially bold. A great garment of 
white lay over all the prospect, and against this high light 
we could see the deep shadows of the sides opposite the 
blinding sun. A faint pink still lurked on the higher 
peaks as -we looked, but for a wonder— and indeed for 
almost the only time on our trip-— there was not a single 
storm cloud playing on the summit of any of the dozen 
high peaks. The wonderful and stirring panorama for the 
time lay before us as thougii to tempt and fascinate us into 
pursuit of its meaning. We uplifted our eyes. 
It being now obvious that we were to have at least a 
brief stretch of passable weather, we hurried on our last 
preparations for our start. Our sled came up to the door 
of Maj. Steell's residence, and there we packed and un- 
packed and arranged our load. Near the door of the 
house was the protected box in which Maj. Steell keeps 
his thermometer— for in this part of Montana even a ther- 
mometer needs protection. As we passed by we took a 
casual look into the bos, and were startled to see that the 
self registering thermometer had reached the point of 15° 
below zero, and was even then but a degree or so above 
that mark. The air was so bright and still that it seemed 
absolutely impossible it should be so cold. 
Schultz warned me that if I intended to make any 
photographs at the agency, it would be wise to do so at 
once, while the sun was shining, so I set about getting a 
few portraits of the party and outfit, with very pleasing 
success, as it proved when we reached the development of 
the pictures. In this connection, so long as I have been 
so particular already in describing our outfit, I should say 
that I got a new camera purposely for this trip, choosing 
that recommended by the best amateur photographer I 
know, Dr. Fuller, of Chicago; a 5X7 long-focus Premo, 
which I got of the Photo Stock Co., of Chicago, With this 
machine I could take pictures at long range or short range, 
on glass or film. By unscrewing the front half of the lensj 
and pulling out the back bellows of the box, I had an in- 
strument not to be surpa«!sed for long-range mountain 
views, and with the short box and ordinary lens I could 
make as good portraits and camp scenes as one could ask. 
It is a comfort to have a good tool, for it gives good results 
and I did not regret the labor of taking the camera in with' 
me. McChesney had a smaller camera, a little Bullseye 
Eastman machine, using films, with which he was singu- 
larly fortunate also, getting some of the best of our views. 
He made all Ms exposures as snap-shots, his machine not 
having a time device in the shutter. My own elaborate 
instrument had a time shutter with pneumatic release, so 
that I could make an exposure of any length I liked. I 
tbink I would have had still better results if the time shut- 
ter had been ofl" my camera; and in this connection I want 
to say a word which I believe will be of great service to 
anyone contemplating photography in the mountains during 
winter: Time the exposure as short as you dare to make it, 
and then give it half that time; you will still be slow 
enough. Nearly all the best plates and the best film (East- 
man) are made so fast that they need little time even in 
the latitude, say, of Chicago. In preliminary practice at 
Chicago with my camera we found the twenty-fifth of a 
second long enough for the middle of the day on open 
subjects (this with the Eastman film). I got a little book 
showing a table of exposures marked for all sorts of sea- 
sons, subjects and hours of the day, and to this book I 
gave serious study, for I wanted to make no errors. I think 
the tables therein given are very useful and accurate for 
ordinary regions, but it is without doubt true that the 
light in the Rockies during winter is actinically about 20 
per cent, faster than the light at even the same season in 
the eastern part of the United States. I studied my tables 
the best I could, and knowing from earlier experience in 
the winter imountains that the pictures should be made 
fast, I allowed yet a little for the rapidity of the light be- 
yond what the tables told me. Even then I dared not 
make my pictures fast enough, and though I got beautiftil 
j)ictures, in very many cases we had to restrain the nega- 
tives in developing, and in other cases I killed good views 
by giving too much time. This, in spite of the fact that I 
never went over a quarter of a second even in badly lighted 
scenes. If I had set my shutter right up to the one hun- 
dredth of a second I would have had a better lot of pic- 
tures. You can't make an exposure too fast for the winter 
light in the middle of the day in the Rocky Moxmtains. I 
had only a few glass pl&teB along, on which I wished to 
make some good portraits, and this work I entrusted to a 
professional photographer who happened to be at the res- 
ervation at the time we did this work. He set the shutter 
at one second, the day being very duU and overcast, and 
the hour so late as 3:30 P. M. The pictures were made out 
of doors, but there was no glare nor any visible shadow on 
the snow. Result: a set of portraits overtimed at least four 
times too much! While I have no reason to complain of 
the pictures I got on this tiip, I think if I were going to 
make such pictures again in that country, I would make 
everything straight instantaneous, bright day or dull. The 
gnow adds very much to the intensity of the light, and the 
whole atmosphere is unspeakably luminous and clear. It 
is certainly a lovely country for photographing purposes. 
At last our pictures were all made, the last of these being 
a shot or two at Maj. Steell himself, and his hospitable 
home; then we piled on top our loaded sled and pulled 
out on the serious beginning of our journey. Hardly had 
we gotten under way before the storm shut down again, 
the mountains disappeared instantly, and the whole face 
of the plains became a moving mass of grayish white. 
We were on the plains in winter. 
Boak, our teamster, proved himself a good man with a 
horse outfit, and he clung to the winding trail which was 
to take us into the valley of the Two Medicine. The eoing 
was slow and bad, the snow, of course, getting deeper and 
deeper, as we approached the edge of the high country. 
It was about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, perhaps, when 
we got so far along as the ranch of old John Monroe, 
whom we found to be somewhat of a character. He is a 
half-breed, of a Blackfoot mother, his father being old 
Hugh Monroe, one of the old-time characters of the West, 
who died not many yeara ago at a very advanced age. 
John Monroe himself is some sixty years old, as near as he 
can figure it, and is living on the Blackfoot reservation 
with his third wife, a Oree woman. John is a tall, straight, 
white-haired man, knotted and gnarled, but on foot or on 
snowshoes he is a fast one, and hard to follow, even for a 
young and active man. We found it a trifle difficult to 
talk with him, for his language is a good deal of a mixture. 
With his wife he speaks Cree, of course, and at the agency 
he speaks the best Piegan he can muster, which, they say, 
isn't very good. He makes a sort of bluff at a little 
English, but pieces this out with about equal portions of 
very bad French. When he wants to pay something very 
impressive and very important to you, he uses all four or 
five of his languages at once or in alternation, and the 
result is a little bit conftising. 
Some time within the next two hours we arrived at 
Hunter Powell's ranch, and stopped for a time to give the 
team a rest. Here we met Powell, and also Campbell 
Monroe, John's son, who speaks very much better English 
than hia father, and who is also married to a Cree woman. 
A Possible Bear Den. 
Both Campbell Monroe and Hunter Powell confirmed 
the stories we had heard of tbe presence of sheep in the 
Two Medicine country, and Campbell Monroe set at least 
one member of the party clear on edge by saying that he 
had that week seen what he took to be the den of a bear 
on the mountain side just above the lake where we would 
be encamped. He said that he had found a little round 
hole in the show, with some brush sticking out about it in 
a spot or two, and that a faint steam was coming up from 
the hole. Old John and everybody else said that this was 
very likely the den of a bear. Campbell had not molested 
the spot, as he said he did not care to do this alone; and 
everybody there said it was a most unwise thing to stir up 
a bear in his den, as he was sure to fight then, and was far 
more dangerous than under any other circumstances. I 
ofiered Campbell Monroe $10 if he would come up and 
show us the hole, and he said he would come early the 
next week (which he never did). Powell thought he 
could come pretty near to finding the place, as from the 
description he believed it to be near a den he had once 
found in the rocks during the fall, a place which he 
thought was regularly used by bears for denning up, 
and to which he thought he could get without much 
trouble. 
I thought I was going to get my grizzly then sure, and 
when I said so old Boak began a most dreadfhl string of 
prophecies about the folly of tackling a bear in his hole. 
But Billy Jackson said it would be the simplest thing in 
the world to get the bear out of that, if we really got his 
den and found him home. "If he's in there we'll get him 
out all right," said Billy. "Yes," said Boak, "ef he's in 
there he'll come out by hisself without no urgin', an' he'll 
make the snow fly where he lands, too, you kin gamble 
on that. About then you fellers '11 wish't you was up a 
tree, an' you can't git to no tree, 'neither. You just try a 
bear fight on snowshoes onct an' you'll git enough mighty 
quick, I tell ye. Woof! Won't he come a-boilin' up 
through the roof o' his snow house when you fellers stir 
him up! But I don't think ary one of you is a-goin' to tackle 
it, so I guess they ain't no danger. If any of you do, why 
I'll be back here with the team in about two weeks an' I'll 
take the remains out to the railroad then." 
There was one more ranch between Powell's place and 
the lower Two Medicine Lake, and as this was only about 
four or five miles above Powell's, we made it in about an 
hour. We stopped then at the last habitation on the re- 
servation on that side, the ranch of a man by the name of 
Cook, who lives there with his Indian family. We were 
still some eight or ten miles from our intended camping 
place, but the way was doubtful and the weather was very 
threatening, the cold growing intense as night approached; 
so Schultz thought it would be best to stop at Cook's for 
the night, in spite of our anxiety to finally get under the 
lodge roof. 
Morning dawned fair and clear and veiy cold, so that 
we could get a good notion of the icy realm that lay ahead 
of us. Schultz took the field glasses, and went out for a 
look at the mountains. He pointed out to us a distinct 
trail made by sheep far up on a distant mountain side, 
probably six or eight miles away. When the snow is 
heavy on the mountains it is possible to see the game 
trails at very great distances, and this in a way makes the 
hunting very much easier than when there is no snow, 
and the game itself must be sighted before the hunter has 
much notion of where it is. 
Cook's ranch lies right at the foot of a sharp ridge which 
runs up some hundreds of feet above his little valley. 
Once on top of this ridge, as we learned, the snow would 
be either so thin or eo hard packed that the team could 
get along all right, and we could travel rapidly almost to 
the Two Medicine Eake. This we were glad to hear, for 
we had now been five days in getting this far, not more 
than twenty-five or thirty miles from our start at the rail- 
road, and time was shoii for the two city men. But to get 
to the top of the ridge was not so simple as it seemed. It 
was easy for us men, who put on our snowshoes and went 
up with no trouble but a general shortness of breath; but 
the poor horses had a more serious time of it. The extent 
of the rise was evident when we got to the top, for below 
us Cook's ranch house seemed like a little toy affair. Yet 
above us there was still another ridge, and beyond us, over 
where we intended to camp, ;^rose the white mountains, 
their feet now seen to be wrapped in black and dense pine 
timber, while above the timber line the peaks rose bare 
and glittering. 
As we struck the top of our ridge and found a bit of easy 
sledding for the team we made good time, and soon we got 
to a place where we seemed to look right off over the edge 
of the world, a sharp valley intervening between us and 
the mountain range across the lake. 
We were now all feeling in great spirits and perfect 
health, and were overjoyed to think ourselves so nearly 
and so easily within reach -of our hunting grounds. I 
fancy there are very few big game regions m America 
where one can get sheep and goats within so short a 
march from the railroad. Yet the Great Northern railroad 
runs directly over the range of mountains that now lay 
before us, and the road was less than six miles from where 
we then stood. Our friends said that the railroad did not 
seem to disturb the game a great deal, and it is a fact that 
some of the best sheep and goat country is within five 
miles of the tracks, though not within five miles of a 
station or an available trail. This, it should be remem- 
bered, was on one of Uncle Sam's game preserves. We 
were advised that not half a dozen Indians of the Black- 
feet ever did much hunting in these mountains. 0-to-faD- 
mi was about the best and most eager hunter of them all, 
his personal preference being for sheep, of which he killed 
a great many at times. O-to-ko-mi had a way of plow- 
ing through the snow somehow until he got up to the tops 
of the mountains, where the snow and ice- were hard 
enough to render snowshoes unnecessary. He did well 
enough on the shoes, however, though not of very great 
experience at shoeing, and soon proved himself a man of 
great endurance and power. Though not a tall man, he 
was well developed and muscular, and a harder man to 
follow all day on the hunt one does not often meet. Mc- 
. Chesney was on the shoes for the first time in his life that 
morning, and was of course meeting the awkward experi- 
ences which are part of learning the trade, but he took to 
it kindly enough to assure his success in the work ahead. 
Of course a man who first puts on the webs feels as a cat i 
does with walnut shells on its feet. He steps very far and 
hard, and puts his feet down hard, flapping them down 
rather than letting them slide forward and drop of them- ^ 
selves; but it takes some pluck to face the Rockies as a 
novice on the webs, and McChesney was as good a begin- 
ner on the shoes as one would be apt to meet. He came 
out at the end of the trip, of course, entitled to tell his 
friends in the East a few things about the business of 
actual snowshoeing under conditions perhaps as severe as' 
obtain in any country. 
The Descent to the Lake. 
At noon we paused on top of the high ridge, where I 
made my pictures. Our leaders sent couriers ahead to spy 
out the descent into the valley of the Two Medicine. It 
was all right on top of the high ridge, but we had to get 
down again now, and between us and the lake lay a strip 
of timber where the snow was soft and probably 5 or 6ft. 
deep, 80 that it was obvious that if we got through at all it 
was going to be a bit of a task. "Oh," said Boak, "all you ] 
need is plenty of faith. A man can drive a team o' horses =j 
anywheres on earth if he only has faith," a statement i 
which seemed to me to offer a key to some sorts of West- j 
ern driving of a somewhat pyrotechnic sort which it haa \ 
been my fortune to witness at odd times in the past. j 
When we stopped at the end of sled navigation, Hunter | 
Powell rode on ahead and soon was out of sight far below \ 
us in the heavy timber. It was chilly work waiting around 
in the cold, so I left the others of the party and started on 
down across countiy to the lake alone, it being but a few ' 
miles ftirther to the place which was pointed out as our 
probable camping spot. 
In the Hunting Country. 
From the edge of the lake I had a view of the circle of . 
great mountains, which came down close on every hand, i 
The lake I saw to be about three-quarters of a mile wide i 
and a couple of miles or more in length, the upper end of it 
seeming to run directly up against a wall of abrupt moun- 
tains. The big mountain at the head of the view across 
the lake we had been watching for a long time, and I knew 
it to be called Rising Wolf Mountain, after John Monroe's 
father, Hugh Monroe, whose Indian name was the equiva- 
lent for "Wolf-getting-up." Bold and wUd enough this 
magnificent peak seemed as I looked at it, and wild enough ' 
the wilderness about, with its terrible silence and its im- 
passive and uninviting front. Yet all around were other . 
peaks, and it is proof enough of the character of the country 
to say that only one mountain of all these about the lake 
had ever been given a name. 
It was growing dusky when at last Boak appeared on 
the white surface of the frozen lake, and we knew that we 
were at last safe, with our camp supplies, within reach of 
our main camp and on the edge of our hunting grounds. 
We got as far toward the head of the lake as we could, 
and set about finding a place to put up our lodge. As 
though to drive us away, the weather now grew colder, 
and a storm of wind and snow set in. 
The Bulldlna: of the Winter Camo. 
The task of making camp was by no means as simple 
as might be thought. In the first place, we had to get 
fifteen poles, each about 16 to 20ft. long, and such poles do 
not grow all in a bunch in any forest. We needed to be 
near the lake for water, and we needed to have something 
of the forest for a shelter. It was evident we would have 
a hard run for it if we got into camp that night. 
Billy and Schultz at length decided upon the spot for 
our lodge, and we all fell to work with our snowshoes to 
clean off the snow from the ground. This again sounds 
easy, but is not easy by any means. The snow was 3 or 
4ft. deep at that point, and matted in with frozen boughs; 
and roots, and we needed to dig a hole rather more than 
15ft. across and clear down tobed-rock. We dag and dug and 
chopped and chopped, and threw out blocks and chunks; 
of snow and ice, and at last developed the interesting fact 
that we were on top of a sheet of ice, this being in a part 
of the overflow of a little preek that came down to the lake 
near by, but which was entirely concealed under the snow. 
As there was no water, and as the ice was but about a foot 
thick, we concluded not to surrender our claim, but went 
on digging. Billy thought we would not have time to puts 
up the lodge that night, but would have to make a shelter 
by throwing the lodge cover over a pole, sleeping under it 
the best we could. It was not a very cheerful prospect. 
The night was coming on very cold, and the snow began 
