244 
J 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 35, 1897. 
of Ms own, in which I could no more stop him than I 
could have stopped a locomotive. Seeing I could not do 
anything hy getting hold of the side of the headstall, and 
was only tiring myself trying to check him, I sat down and 
began to ride it out, urging the runaway as hard as I could 
across a certain muddy fiat which lay below a risky hill 
down which he had run at full speed. I knew he could 
not last forever on that sort of going, but he did pretty 
well for a mile or so until Billy Kipp, realizing what was 
up, pushed his horse into the race, and after a good little 
run swung up by my side and caught the horse by the 
broken side of the bridle, which had been all the time 
quite beyond my reach. There was some sport to this little 
ride, for all in all I think that was the worst country I ever 
rode over, and where the snow was not melted away it 
was extremely dangerous, being literally honeycombed 
with badger holes, of which I have never seen so many at 
any part of the plains. It is astonishing how careful and 
expert the cow horses are at evading these holes, and of 
course the way to ride is to pay no attention to the holes, 
but to trust it all to the horse. Where a hole is covered 
with the snow, neither horse nor man can guard against 
it. Billy cautioned me against riding too fast across snow- 
covered country, and said he had often had falls in such, 
riding. Ordinarily, however, the cowboys of that region 
cut loose, snow or no snow, and take their chances. They 
told me that Billy Kipp was about the best cow-puncher 
on the reservation. I am promised a visit from Joe Kipp 
and Billy some time this fall, when they come in with a 
train of cattle, and I hope they will bring my cow horse 
along, so I can give him a turn down the Boulevard, where 
the badger holes are not so thick. 
Plans for a Goat Hunt. 
Our party was now somewhat scattered, Schultz at his 
ranch, Billy Jackson gone home, and the rest of us at Joe 
Kipp's ranch, near the railroad, where we had a good visit 
with Bear Chief, who came in to call on us. Time was 
getting short, and I was very uneasy about being away 
from home so long; but word came in t'lat there was to be 
a council of the Indians at which we must be present. 
Schultz was, moreover, much troubled over the fact that 
McChesney had not yet killed a head of game, and urged 
him to make one more try, going into the mountains nearer 
the summit and by way of the railroad a little further to 
the west. Here he was sure he could get a goat and per- 
haps a sheep. McChesney was due at home, in Troy, N. 
Y., but wired home and learned that he could strain things 
and be out four or at most five days more. So we hurriedly 
■faade it up that we would all make a rush trip after goats 
near the summit, it seeming a shame to leave when we 
were so close to success in getting a specimen of this rare 
animal, and that, too, during the winter season, when it is 
more difficult to get one even under legal surroundings. 
The result of it all was that we threw together a light out- 
fit, and at midnight pulled out for the mountain again, 
taking the west-bound train, which happened to be de- 
layed some hours. It was morning when we reached the 
summit of the range, at the little station called Summit, 
where we went in order to pick up Joe Kearney, a guide 
better acquainted than any of us, except Boak, with that 
part of the mountain. Scott, the trapper who was to have 
gone with our party for the whole trip, was away on his 
trapping line, and was not expected back for some time; 
but Kearney was in and was willing to go with us. We 
stopped at the section house for breakfast, that being the 
only hotel and the only house, with one or two exceptions. 
Here there was a very cross woman in charge, who didn't 
seem to care whether we lived or died, so reckless and so 
wretched was her cooking, and so proud and disdainful 
her demeanor. Out in Montana women are scarcer than 
they are in some other places in the world, so they at 
times get awfully stu ck on themselves, they say. Anyhow, 
this woman was clearly above our class, and wanted us to 
know she realized it. Poor Schultz had to bear the brunt of 
things, and when he came to buy a few supplies of her she 
robbed him to the queen's taste and he didn't dare chirp. 
The dialogue was something like this: 
Woman — "Lessee, 131bs. ot beef at ten cents is a dollar 
ninety, aint it?" 
Schultz— "Yessem." 
"An 41bs. o' sugar at ten cents is ninety cents." 
"Yessem." 
"An' 201bs. o' flour at five cents is a dollar fifty, uh?" 
"Yessem," said Schultz. Then she soaked him in mak- 
ing change and left him with sweat on his forehead. Oh! 
that was an awful woman! 
We intended to hunt, of course, on the reservation, 
which, so nearly as we could trace the line, was on that 
side of the mountains on which the waters ran to the 
east. This would have left our hunting grounds only eight 
or ten miles from us, perhaps, had it been possible to cross 
the ridge of mountains which lay between us and the 
place where we expected to get at our game. Kearney, 
"however, declared that it would be impossible to get over 
this ridge, easy as it looked to us from a distance, because 
the whole front of the mountains was a sheet of ice, and 
the climb was far steeper than it appeared. He said the 
best way would be to go down the west side of the slope 
and ascend Ole Creek by a gradual rise until we got near 
its headwaters and could then cross the summit to the 
places we wanted to get at, some bold, bare mountains 
where the goats were most apt to be found. This would 
takQ us into a point which was far on ahead of us when 
we were in on the Upper Two Medicine country, and 
which we could not have reached from there at that season 
of the year. Schultz was not familiar with this country, but 
Boak had been across it, and Kearney knew it well. 
How to March and Camp in Winter. 
We now were getting things down to a hard-pan hunt- 
ing basis. We had no team to haul supplies, and could 
not take any pack animal along. It was necessary that we 
carry absolutely all our supplies on our own backs. We 
could not even take a tent, and were forced to face the 
weather with only such shelter as we could make in the 
woods with our own hands. Of blankets we could not 
take full supply, and of grub we could take only a limited 
amount, of course, as a man cannot pack much more than 
about 401bs. or so in this mountain work on showshoes; or 
at least only a hardened mountain man can do much bet- 
ter than that. McChesney had never carried a pack on 
the trail, so Schultz cut him down to a light load, dividing 
his sleeping bag and allowing him but the scantiest of 
pp^eonal pluader. We all well knew that a pack which 
starts light grows heavy on the trail. There were now 
five in our party, Boak also going with us, and showing 
himself a singularly plucky man for one so handicapped 
by age and infirmity. One of the pleasantest memories of 
the trip is that which I have of Boak in camp our first 
evening on the goat trail. He had gotten into camp very 
tired with his pack and his snowshoes, but still alive 
enough to sing. He laid aside his hat, and th^ steady fall 
of the snow had still further whitened his rumpled hair. 
He had gone to the creek to get some water, and managed 
to break through the ice and get wet. As he stood up to 
his waist in the snow as he scrambled up the bank, and 
swore melodiously and fluently, he made a unique and 
striking figure. 
We made a long, long march the first day out, and before 
we went into camp we were favored enough of fortune to 
see our first game, a big white nanny goat and a kid, 
which stood high above us on some rocks about a quarter 
of a mile away, and looked down at us rather unconcern- 
edly, as though they did not care much one way or the 
other about us, though finally they turned away and 
slowly walked up over the crest of rocks and disappeared. 
This sight of game, the first goats McChesney or I had 
ever seen, put us in good spirits, and at supper we talked 
of what would happen when we got up into our hunting 
grounds and had followed this rare white game into its 
final fastnesses in the heart of the Eockies. Boak and 
Schultz freely ofiered bets that McChesney and I would 
both kill goats, and I took a little wager with him, hoping 
I should surely lose, though I knew the time M'as very 
short for us to make our hunt. W^e spent our first night 
up near the head of Ole Creek, under a brush shanty 
which we built at some expense of labor, but which proved 
to be good enough for tired men to sleep under. The night 
was naturally a trifle cold, somewhere around zero I pre- 
sume, though the snow had softened a little during the 
day and made the shoeing none of the best. By morning 
the crust had hardened again, and we pushed on up into 
the mountains with less trouble. It was now getting 
toward the spring season, and the Chinook blew at times, 
so that the shoeing was execrable with the close-webbed 
shoes. Kearney had his home-made "bear paw" shoes 
along, and he did very well with them. How on earth he 
ever managed to navigate in his rig of full length rubber 
hip boots was more than I could see, but he said the snow 
always wet him through in any other rig. Indeed, he got 
wet anyhow, for in this work one is under the snow now 
and then as well as on top of it. The nice pictures you 
see in the magazines about fellows skimming daintily 
along on top of the snow without mussing themselves up in 
the least are studies made for the most part in the atelier 
of the artist and not in the workshop of nature. Every- 
body got wet, everybody got tired, and everybody but 
Boak got hot and testy, as hunters often do in camp, 
though they never do in stories. 
Snow-SUdes. 
In the morning of our second day after goats, we crossed 
two trails of interest: one the trail of a mountain lion, and 
one the trail of a enow-slide. Shep, our dog, firmly de- 
clined to run the Hon trail, which was no surprise to me, 
for he had once refused to run a lynx trail for me over on 
the Two Medici-ne country. He was a cheerful dog, but a 
good deal of a bluff as a lion-killer, much to our disgust. As 
to the snow-slide, it looked nasty enough, and Kearney com- 
forted us by remarking that it was just getting to be the 
season when the slides would begin to run. We saw long, 
bare spaces on each mountain side about us, where the 
rocks, trees and earth had been torn out in long grooves, 
miles in length, by the ripping slides of the heavy snows. 
I presume there are few actual dangers in the mountain 
worse than the snow-slides, and I have noticed that all 
mountain men are very respectful in speaking of them. 
There is no animal in the Rockies which a man needs to 
really dread, and he need fear little what may befall him, 
even in the winter time, if he goes to his work properly 
fitted for it; but the snow-slide is something against which 
one cannot guard, which gives no warning; which leaves 
no possibility of escape, and which is certain death, in al- 
most every instance to the man who is caught by it. As 
we got further into the steep and sharp-faced mountains 
where we expected to find our goats, we saw more and 
more "dead-snow" slides— great heaps of snow, sometimes 
thrown into lumps and balls as large as a house, and lying 
perhaps half-way across the creek bottoms, into which the 
mass had rushed in its wild flight. Sometimes the snow 
comes down so deep, that it runs up on a tree trunk hke 
so much water in a wave. Then, as the main body of 
snow rushes on down, the surface sinks with the wave, 
leaving the mark a score or two score feet above one's 
head as he looks up the tree trunk. This wave of 
snow may roll clear across the valley at the foot of the 
mountain side, and dash far up the side of the opposite 
mountain, then to settle back and subside like agitated 
waters, at last becoming quiet. Eocks and trees go with 
such a slide, and there is no escapo from it if one is un- 
lucky enough to be near it. 
In our country the slides seemed to have been started 
for the most part by the melting of the snow on the bare, 
black rocks at the rims of the peaks. The water trickling 
down under the snow would finally start a little of it to 
sinking, settling, and then to sliding, and what began in 
little, ended in large slips of the heavy covering of snow 
which lies over these mountains — a covering whose im- 
mensity is something which is not expressed in simple 
figures. C)ne needs to see a valley full of a snow-slide in 
order to appreciate it at its real worth. We had such a 
little affair just about a quarter of a mile from where we 
were camped. When we looked at a few of these things, 
and studied the bold and icy peaks, which crowded in 
around us in this wild corner of the world, we were almost 
ready to concur with the mountain men, who said that we 
were now having a touch of about as hard hunting as any 
game of the mountains could offer. 
Habits of the Mountain Goat. 
It was on March 28, 1 believe, that we first got into the 
ridges where we were to hunt, and on that day McChesney 
went with Kearney up into some stiff country which 
promised well for goats. When you hunt sheep in winter 
you want open and bare country where the grass can be 
reached, but the goats seem to prefer to winter on the 
roughest, barest, iciest rocks they can find. A goat is a 
natural blame fool, and so it always sticks its Avhite hide 
against a black rock whenever it can, so that a hunter can 
see it a couple of miles. If it would keep on the snow it 
would be far more difficult to detect. The goat seems to 
pick out these rocks because they carry a few spears of 
dried grasses and an occasional bunch of the short,^dry 
moss on which it feeds. Both the goat and the sheep will 
eat pine top browse, and the first goat tracks we saw were 
among the forest trees at the foot of a high 
scarp of rocks, to which the animals retired after feeding. 
It is the habit of the mountain Billy, when resting, 
to lie out on a rock about 1,000ft. out in the 
air somewhere and waggle his whiskers in content 
while he stares on down the mountain side in search of 
any possible enemy. He never seems to care about what 
is going on above him, for usually there isn't any above. 
Indeed, he is not built for looking up, but for looking 
down. His head is set on the middle of his front, like a 
buffalo's, and if he wants to look up-hill he has to sit down 
to do it. If the hunter gets up close to him, he does not 
seem to be much afraid of either the man or his dog, if he 
happens to have one along. The trappers usually take 
along dogs on their winter trips, but no old hunter or trap- 
per will ever let a dog go after a goat. The big, white, 
stupid animal which lies or squats out there on the rocks, 
apparently indifferent of its fate and too lazy to move, is 
quick as lightning with its head and neck, though so tired 
in its legs. It never takes trouble to run from a dog, but 
waits till it comes up, and then with a rake of its long, 
black, needle-pointed horns impales the dog at once. The 
hunter then shoots the goat, and afterward anathematizes 
himself for doing it. The fiesh he will not touch, and the 
hide he cannot sell. Therefore, the tone of the mountain 
hunter in speaking of the white goat is one of amusement 
and contempt. He thinks it the most stupid and worth- 
less of all animals, and cannot see why anybody should 
take the trouble to kill it. He says, what is obviously 
true, that all there is to goat hunting is the climbing. If 
you are game enough to get up to where the goats are, you 
can easily kill them if you care to. For the mountain 
sheep the hunter has far more respect. _ He prizes it as a 
grand game animal in every way, cunning, swift and wUd, 
good in the chase and good in camp after the chase. One 
must climb for the sheep, too, but we had found that he 
need not climb in country so forbidding and dangerous as 
this which was now pointed out to us as the winter home 
of this curious, white-robed freak of the moimtains, which 
we wanted to interview upon his own doorsill. 
Troubles of Winter Cllmblner. 
As we separated for our hunt I took a look at the wild 
peak on which McChesney and Kearney were to hunt, 
and mentally concluded they would have their work cut 
out for them that day if they got to the country which 
was described as most likely to produce game. But soon 
all thought of my companions was lost in concern over 
the immediate surroundings into which Schultz and I 
were plunged. We passed on beyond the peak which 
was to be hunted by the others, and tried the ascent of 
the next mountain beyond, which seemed to be fairly 
easy in its approaches. We went up for an hour or so 
over timbered country, much of the time on our hands 
and knees, for the shoes would not hold on so steep grades. 
Sometimes the crust would hold us up for a time, but as 
the sun began to strike our side of the mountains the 
snow softened, and our ascent became threefold more dif- 
ficult. We did not walk, but wallowed, plunging in up to 
our waists, sometimes lying panting for some minutes be- 
fore we could get out and go ahead. All the time we 
wormed on around the side of the mountain as we went 
up, and at length we struck a place where a big snow-slide 
had come down, and where the masses of snow lay in a 
huge jagged frozen stairway. Up over this winter cause- 
way we clambered joyfully a long way, taking off our 
snowshoes and climbing from lump to lump of the frozen 
snow. I could not help thinking of the persistence of 
man, the hunting animal. We had no business at all to 
be in there hunting these animals at that season of the 
year, yet here we were, climbing right over the top of the 
terrors of the Eockies, the snow-slides, and all for a shot 
at an animal which we couldn't eat if we got it. Yet it 
should be observed that, so lar as any danger from snow- 
slides is concerned, the safest place one can get is on top 
of a "dead" slide, for there will not be a second slide where 
the snow has once slipped. 
Our frozen slide lasted us till we got a good big start up 
our mountain, reaching a point from which we could see 
a vast panorama of white peaks all about us. On ahead 
lay a wild-looking region into which it did not seem any 
human being could ever penetrate, so cold and forbidding 
were the high bare peaks. Into this wild country our side 
canon led, but we were not to^ venture so far away from 
our camp, which, rude as it was, was a very interesting 
place at that time. We attempted only to get up to the 
top of our peak, cross it, and then descend to camp upon 
the opposite side. We thought we might find some goat 
country up on top of our mountain. 
We were not, however, destined to make the summit of 
our peak. Our snow-slide led us up a long way, and then 
we forsook it and tried a long, bare slope which took us 
within 200yd8. of the upper rim rock. Here we left the 
open slope, where the snow was underlaid with sheer ice, 
and got over to the timber again, for Schultz said the snow 
might start down that smooth slope any moment if we 
went plunging around out there. Very often our feet 
would touch and slip on the ice that underlaid the snow, 
But when we got the timber we found the ascent so steep 
that we could not make it, the snow not being hard enough 
to support us without the shoes and the pitch being too 
steep to get up with them. We wallowed around fora while 
and balled up, and finally sunk down in the snow to rest, 
as we had done a hundred times before during the climb 
to where we were. Our resting place was directly below a 
big rock and a little clump of trees which grew above it on 
the mountain side. Just beyond this rose the sharp rock 
face which we wanted to get over. Along the face of this, 
in tne warming sun which shone fiercely down upon the 
flashing sheet of white and the face of the black rocks 
above it, we could see tiny trills of water running where 
the direct rays had reached the ice and snow of the crest. 
Schultz did not miss the situation in any detail, and at last 
said: "I'm dead leery of this place, here. We'd better get 
down out of here as quick as we can. She's liable to turn 
loose any minute." 
Now I do not like to get within a couple of hundred 
yards of anything I want and then turn back from it, and 
SO perhaps was influenced more by impulse tbaa by jud^ 
