March 12, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
409 
this hard work for a long July day beats me. 
We all got to the summit, though the horse 
wrangler was somewhat behind the rest. Go¬ 
ing back was easier and everybody seemed jolly 
and satisfied. I believe most people like to ac-„ 
complish something. Something done is a rest 
and satisfaction. 
One fall I was out with a party which con¬ 
sisted of George Bird Grinnell, Newell Martin 
and Ashbel Barney, all of New York. We had 
an exciting time with an old she grizzly and two 
cubs, but they got away. Mr. Barney killed a 
fine billy goat, and then the party decided they 
would take the scalp of one of the highest moun¬ 
tains in this vicinity. Mount Gould, so far as 
we knew, had never had a human foot upon its 
summit. 
Why do people want to climb mountains? It 
sometimes a man had to ride far and fast. 
All this shows the effects of mind over mat* 
ter. Let a hunter work hard all day at moun¬ 
tain climbing, and along toward evening near 
camp, worn out, discouraged and peevish, taking 
a last look around before making a final plunge 
for camp, rest his tired eyes upon a bunch of 
fat .mountain sheep. Instantly that man is trans¬ 
formed. His step is as light as a creeping cata¬ 
mount, and his eye glows like a cat’s in the 
dark. He is not the same man who a few 
moments before cursed his luck and condemned 
the country. He climbs the mountain and ap¬ 
proaches the game as though he w'ere a lover 
going to call on his sweetheart, and if he kill, 
he will dress and yank a 200-pound sheep for 
a mile down the mountain, then cut off fifty or 
seventy-five pounds and go into camp along about 
bed time with a whoop and a yell. Tired? Not 
able ground that at some future time may be 
badly wanted by speculators for town sites, 
water rights, plants and all kinds of money¬ 
making schemes if only a monopoly can be got 
of some favored spot. 
We panned the dump of an old well. We 
went for the bars of the river bed. We also 
dug up some bed rock at every likely place 
where placer gold would be likely to gather, but 
not a color could we raise. 
The inspector gazed at the lime, shale and 
sand stone cliffs, and then at the poverty-stricken 
gravel. “Jack,” said he, “I have hunted for 
diamonds in the Panhandle of Texas, I have 
prospected for gold in the sandhills of the 
Platte and I once looked for water in Death 
Valley, but this search is more barren than any 
of them. Do you think we could find a color 
of game?” 
NORRIS’ CABIN BETWEEN THE LAKES. A BIG BILLY GOAT. 
Photo by John Jay White, Jr. 
is the hardest work known, natural or invented, 
and when you reach the top, tired, worn out, 
hungry and mad, there is nothing to do but get 
down the best way you can. Of course you get 
a grand view, but a balloon would be a great 
deal easier and save time, and in the matter of 
safety the two trips would be about a standoff. 
One day we walked and climbed for Mount 
Gould, crossing the main divide of the Rockies. 
In some places where climbing was dangerous 
we had to use a rope. Just as the sun went 
down'and we were all done up, we reached the 
top. While we were building a monument to 
show future ambitious mountain climbers that 
some fanatics had been there before them, it 
grew dark. I shall never forget the task of 
getting down off that mountain. However, I 
followed the instinct of the hunter, who often 
does things and cannot tell you how or why he 
does them, and we got down without serious 
mishap. 
A 3 A. m., when the moon went down, we 
were caught on a vertical cliff about two miles 
from camp, most of it perpendicular. I was 
tired, worn out and dead for sleep. Was our 
party exhausted, beat and discouraged? Not by 
any means. They were like a lot of boys on a 
picnic, voted they had had a splendid day. and 
there on a vertical ledge with only fire wood 
enough to make a crow’s nest they wanted me 
to spin yarns of the whiskey trading days when 
a bit of it; he is too happy. ’Tis a grand game 
country, the scenery and co.oring are better than 
those of the Alps, and he is full of hope for 
the future and without regrets for the past. 
Last fall I was out with a United States min¬ 
eral inspector for Montana. We were to ex¬ 
amine the placer deposits of a claim on the 
Swift Current. We panned in the old workings 
where rumor has it that the owner of the claim 
put in four ounces of gold, although the leather- 
head he hired to wash and clean up the alleged 
placer run only recovered two ounces. 
This is quite easily worked. A man having 
a claim that he wislies to prove up on, hires sev¬ 
eral men, a few sluice boxes with riffles do not 
cost much, and a pick and shovel is- all the 
machinery required. The men work all day, 
and at night the prospector comes along with 
an ounce or two of gold dust, and when all is 
dark and silent and none to gaze on his reck¬ 
less act, he dumps an ounce or two of virgin 
gold dust, or placer gold, into the head box. 
Lie will not lose it unless the boys steal it 
or some pumpkin-head in cleaning up lets it 
get away through gross ignorance; but these 
men are valuable in proving up on a claim, and 
the affidavit of several honest working men who 
shoveled gravel into a sluice box and afterward 
helped clean up a handsome wad of go’d dust, 
goes a long way in establishing a right to valu- 
The pick and shovel were thrown into the 
wagon box. The old cayuses were hooked to 
the wagon and within twenty-four hours that, 
inspector was looking upon nine fat mountain 
sheep and one of them 'was a large ram. He 
still roams the plateau and mountains of St. 
Mary’s, for the inspector was a vile shot, and 
though he was close enough to powder burn 
them, they all ran away and the inspector got 
sick—mentally sick—getting to camp at about 
II P. M. 
Lie tore off his clothing and barked his shins on 
the windfalls and down timber we encountered. 
Lie was hatless and almost shirtless, and all the 
time he was “kicking himself” for missing the 
ram. Next morning he looked at the moun¬ 
tains, at me, and then at himself. “Munroe,” 
says he, “I don’t seem to be able to pan either 
your game or gold; let’s go home.” 
At one time when this region was a part of 
the Blackfoot Indian Reservation, some men who 
were more enthusiastic than practical discovered 
surface copper. There is a little copper here, 
of course, but it is what practical mining men 
call specimen copper and occurs in small rich 
stringers, which are of no permanence. 1 hey 
are likely to disappear at any time. 
Many people seem to think that an indian 
reservation always contains things of exceptional 
value—rich lands, valuable mines, immense herds 
