706 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. ii, 1911. 
the far side for two or three hours without re¬ 
sult, but upon returning Jack suddenly stopped 
and said: "See dose ewes?’ I could not at 
first see them, but finally on looking closely where 
he pointed, 1 saw, seventy-five yards ahead, just 
the horns and eyes of a ewe and the wooly top- 
knot and eyes of a lamb, peeking at us over the 
round top of the ridge- across the snow. The 
high wind carried our scent quartering past them 
so that they were not seriously alarmed, but as 
we approached they fled down into a small canon 
and up the other side, stopping now and then to 
look at us, and trotting along at a moderate pace. 
Upon topping the opposite ridge, perhaps 1,000 
yards away, they suddenly fell into the line of 
our scent. It was astonishing to see them spring 
away instantly as if electrified, going like race 
horses straight up the backbone of the ridge, 
down over the end and out of sight. About half 
an hour later we got back to Napoleon, who in¬ 
formed us that about twenty-nine minutes and 
fifty-nine seconds before the lamb and ewe had 
come past him, just touching the high spots. 
This particular range was especially favored 
by rock ptarmigan, and we would frequently run 
on to flocks of ten or fifteen of them, flying up 
ahead of us clucking wildly and scattering in 
every direction, many of them now almost snow 
white, with but a few gray feathers to be seen 
here and there. 
Back to camp at 1 p. M. and caught a splendid 
mess of trout in thirty minutes, using coachman 
and royal coachman flies, while Jack and Na¬ 
poleon packed up, and soon we all took the trail 
around the edge of the mesa flanking this range 
of icy peaks to gain a new point at the northerly 
end of the range. We were trotting along 
through the stunted shrubs far below snow line 
without thought of game, and just approaching 
a low basin running away from the range out 
into the plain ; I in the lead with the three pack 
horses behind me, Jack and Napoleon in the 
rear, when suddenly, 100 yards in front of me, 
two splendid rams sprang up. 
I flung off my heavy mittens and pulled my 
rifle from my holster as I dismounted. By this 
time the pack horses were up all around me and 
the rams flying at full speed. Before I could get 
away from the pack horses, with a chance to 
shoot, the rams were 250 yards away, going 
through the low brush with their white rumps 
showing at every bound. I banged away as stead¬ 
ily as possible, and thought that one of them 
limped as he disappeared over the hill at the 
far side. “Ride the horses; ride the horses!" 
yelled Jack, and following his word we were hard 
after them. Almost instantly our horses were 
mired to their bellies in the wet bottom which 
filled this depression. Floundering back, we 
turned and hurried up toward the hills to pass 
around the marshy spot, and then went on the 
dead run, cutting up across the mesa to head 
the rams before they could get into the hills. My 
own horse, “Roany,” once a famous Indian race 
horse and still the pet horse of old Tyee Jimmy, 
was not new at this game and seemed to know 
exactly what was wanted. The way he covered 
the ground, passing rocks and marmot holes and 
climbing all the time that he sped along, leav¬ 
ing Jack far in the rear, was certainly marvelous. 
I came out upon a high point facing a washed- 
out coulee perhaps 200 feet deep, and sprang off, 
sitting down to fill my magazine as Jack came 
up and yelled: “There they come, up out of 
the other side.” There were the two rams 
sure enough, 300 yards away and going at top 
speed across the snow, but whether I touched 
either of them only they know, and they will 
not tell. Wewentback to Napoleon very slowly and 
very much cast down, and all sat around for some 
time explaining to each other just how it all 
happened. This is the way it goes in big-game 
hunting. You toil incessantly, using every pos¬ 
sible bit of skill, going into every sort of likely 
place without result, and then when wholly un¬ 
prepared, right in the common highway, you fall 
down over the game. 
Late in the afternoon we came out upon the 
h : gh and wind-swept end of the range, and I 
TEN MINUTES FOR LUNCHEON. 
saw at some distance what appeared to be an 
enormous boneyard, two or three hundred acres 
in extent, covered with white bleaching bones, 
but upon approaching closer we discovered that 
it was only a little forest of stunted pines which 
had been all blown down at some time by a tre¬ 
mendous wind, and in this high altitude had not 
rotted, but simply bleached out white and dry. 
A little further on we found another little forest 
of stunted pines which had not yet blown down, 
and here we made our camp, the wind still blow¬ 
ing such a gale that we had to tie the fire down 
and lay a rock on each dish to keep it from blow¬ 
ing away. 
Sept. 15.—I hope I will get a chance to in¬ 
crease my life insurance before I spend another 
night like last night. The wind, which was very 
high when we went to bed, kept on getting 
higher, and finally began to pull up the steel pins 
with which my small silk tent was fastened down. 
It^was pitched right in the lee of a rugged little 
pine on the edge of the forest. Jack and Na¬ 
poleon had taken a tent fly and made for them¬ 
selves a small tepee a dozen yards away, more in 
the shelter of the forest, so they d'd not get the 
full force of the blast. 
I called Jack and we got out and drove all the 
steel pins down again, and I crawled back into 
my wolfskin robe. But the God of Winds appar¬ 
ently resented our puny efforts, and gathering his 
icy breath, blew more and more fiercely down 
along the backbone of the range, until it seemed 
as if nothing an inch high could stand against 
it for an instant. My tent blew loose altogether, 
and Jack and I had all we could do to hold it 
down and pile enough rocks on it to keep it from 
leaving the country. The night was clear and 
very cold, and the stars, which shone brilliantly, 
looked somehow like little specks of glittering 
ice. 
Pondering whether to try again to crawl under 
the tent, I said to Jack: “If that tree blows 
down, do you think it would kill me?” “Oh, 
yass,” said he. “Do you think it will blow 
down?” I asked him. “Well, I guess not,” said 
Jack, starting back for his tepee. This decided 
me, and I pulled out my wolfskin robe and fol¬ 
lowed him into the tepee for the rest of the 
night, where I lay awake thinking of that little 
white boneyard of dead forest which we had 
seen, and wondering if we would look like that 
in a few years. But the Wind God was appeased, 
and decided to let it go this time at giving us 
a good scare, if we would not let it happen again, 
which we will not. 
To-day Jack and I decided to go around to the 
mesa above where the rams came out of the low 
country yesterday. We cut the track of one of 
them early in the day and trailed back on it to 
where it had parted from the other ram, not far 
above where I had shot at them, but could dis¬ 
cover no further traces of them, although we 
followed the tracks of both rams for several 
miles all day. 
The weather has cleared and that fierce wind 
died out. Late in the afternoon we found the 
horns and backbone of a big ram in a little valley 
below the glaciers; possibly an old fellow who 
had been wounded and gone in there to die, or 
maybe just a patriarch who had become too weak 
to travel fast and been caught by a cougar or a 
bear. 
Sept. 16.—The weather very threatening this 
morning, big wind and snow squalls and rain. 
“Looks bad,” said Jack; “we better hustle.” And 
we did hustle, around through the bottom coun¬ 
try again, up across the big glacial moraine, at 
a sharp trot all the time, pitching down a thou¬ 
sand feet, zig-zagging back and forth across the 
sliderock into Big Creek valley at noon in a thick 
rain. As we trotted along up Big Creek I saw 
one of the curious harlequin ducks, brilliantly be¬ 
daubed with colors, feeding right in the swift 
foaming waters of this trout stream, and studied 
him with much interest through the glasses; the 
first wild harlequin I had ever seen alive, al¬ 
though a duck hunter for twenty-five years both 
East and West. 
Jack desired that we should turn off Big Creek 
for a short distance to look for a camp of Chil- 
cotin Indians, in order that he might get more 
moccasins. We found the Indian trail readily 
enough, and soon came within sound of the camp 
