Pluck on the Long Trail

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We had climbed old Pilot Peak! The top was flat and warm and dry, so we
could sit. The sky was close above; around about was nothing but the
clear air. East, west, north and south, below us, were hills and valleys
and timber and parks and streams, with the cloud-shadows drifting
across. We didn't say one word. The right words didn't exist, somehow,
and what was the use in exclaiming when we all felt alike, and could
look and see for ourselves? You don't seem to amount to much when you
are up, like this, on a mountain, near the sky, with the world spread
out below and not missing you; and a boy's voice, or a man's, is about
the size of a cricket's chirp. The silence is one of the best things you
find. So we sat and looked and thought.

But on a sudden we did hear a noise--a rattling and "Hee-haw!" And here,
from a different side, came Apache again. He had got past those
bowlders, somehow. With another "Hee-haw!" he trotted right up on top,
in amidst us, where he stood, with a big sigh, looking around, too.

This was the chance for us to map out the country ahead, on the other
side of the pass. So we took a good long survey. It was a rough country,
as bad as that which we had left; with much timber and many hills and
valleys. Down in some of the valleys were yellow patches, like hay
ranches, and forty or fifty miles away seemed to be a little haze of
smoke, which must be a town: Green Valley, where we were bound! Hurrah!
But we hadn't got there, yet.

Major Henry made a rough sketch of the country, with Pilot Peak as base
point and a jagged, reddish tip, over toward the smoke, as another
landmark. Our course ought to be due west from Pilot, keeping to the
south of that reddish tip.

We had a little lunch, and after cleaning up after ourselves we saluted
the old peak with the Scouts' cheer, saying good-by to it; and then we
started down. We discovered that we could go around the bowlder-field,
as Apache had done. When we struck the snow-patch slope we obliqued over
to our trail up, and began to back track. Back-tracking was the safe
way, because we knew that this would bring us out. Down we went, with
long steps, almost flying, and leaving behind us the busy conies and the
tame ptarmigans, to inhabit the peak until we should come again. We
even tried not to tramp on the flowers. (Note 57.)

Through the maze of rock masses we threaded, and along the grassy ledge,
and entered the bush draw. By the sun it was noon, but we had plenty of
time, and we spread out in the draw, taking things easy and picking
berries. We didn't know but what we might come upon some grouse, in
here, too, for the trickle from that snow-bank drained through and there
was a bunch of aspens toward the bottom. But instead we came upon a
bear!

I heard Red Fox Scout Ward call, sharp and excited: "Look out, fellows!
Here's another bear!"

That stopped us short.

"Where?"

"Right in front of me! He's eating berries. And I see another,
too--sitting, looking at me."

"Wait!" called back Fitz, excited. "Let 'em alone. I'll get a picture."

That was just like Fitzpatrick. He wanted to take pictures of everything
alive.

"Yes; let 'em alone," warned Major Henry, shouting.

For that's all a bear in a berry-patch asks; to be let alone. He's
satisfied with the berries. In fact, all a bear asks, anyway, is to be
let alone, and up here on the mountain these bears weren't doing any
harm.

"Where are you?" called Fitz.

"On this rock."

Now we could see Scout Ward, with hand up; and over hustled Fitz, and
over we all hustled, from different directions.

They were not large bears. They looked like the little brown or black
bears, it was hard to tell which; but the small kind isn't dangerous.
They were across on the edge of a clearing, and were stripping the
bushes. Once in a while they would sit up and eye us, while slobbering
down the berries; then they would go to eating again.

Fitz had his camera unslung and taken down. He walked right out, toward
them, and snapped, but it wouldn't be a very good picture. They were too
far to show up plainly.

"I'll sneak around behind and drive them out," volunteered little Jed
Smith; and without waiting for orders he and Kit started, and we all
except Fitz spread out to help in the surround. Fitz made ready to take
them on the run. Nobody is afraid of the little brown or black bear.

Jed and Kit were just entering the bushes to make the circuit on their
side, when we heard Apache snorting and galloping, and a roar and a
"Whoof!" and out from the brush over there burst the burro, with another
bear chasing him. This was no little bear. It was a great big bear--an
old she cinnamon, and these others weren't the small brown or black
bears, either: they were half-grown cinnamon cubs!

How she came! Kit Carson and Jed Smith were right in her path.

"Look out!" we yelled.

Kit and little Jed leaped to dodge. She struck like a cat as she passed,
and head over heels went poor little Jed, sprawling in the brush, and
she passed on, straight to her cubs. They met her, and she smelled them
for a moment. She lifted her broad, short head, and snarled.

"Don't do a thing," ordered Major Henry. "She'll leave."

So we stood stock-still. That was all we _could_ do. We knew that poor
little Jed was lying perhaps badly wounded, off there in the brush, but
it wouldn't help to call the old bear's attention to him again. In the
open place Fitzpatrick the Bad Hand stood; he was right in front of the
old bear, and he was _taking pictures_!

The old bear saw him, and he and the camera seemed to make her mad.
Maybe she took it for a weapon. She lowered her head, swung it to and
fro, her bristles rose still higher, and across the open space she
started.

"Fitz!" we shrieked. And I said to myself, sort of crying: "Oh, jiminy!"

We all set up a tremendous yell, but that didn't turn her. Major Henry
jumped forward, and tugged to pull loose a stone. I looked for a stone
to throw. Of course I couldn't find one. Then out of the corner of my
eye, while I was watching Fitz, too, I glimpsed Red Fox Scout Van Sant
coming running, and shooting with his twenty-two. The bullets spatted
into the bear's hide, and stung her.

"Run, Fitz!" called Van Sant. "I'll stop her."

But he didn't, yet. Hardly! That Fitz had just been winding his film. He
took the camera from between his knees, where he had held it while he
used his one hand, and he leveled it like lightning, on the old
bear--and took her picture again. That picture won a prize, after we got
back to civilization. But the old bear kept coming.

We all were shouting, in vain,--shouting all kinds of things. Red Fox
Scout Van Sant sprang to Fitz's side, and again we heard him say: "Run,
Fitz! Over here. Make for the rock. I'll stop her."

It was the outcrop where Ward had been. Fitz jumped to make for it. He
hugged his camera as he ran. We thought that Van Sant would make for it,
too. But he let Fitz pass him, and he stood. The old bear was coming,
crazy. She only halted to scratch where a twenty-two pellet had stung
her hide. Van Sant waited, steady as a rock. He lifted his little rifle
slowly and held on her, and just as she was about to reach him he
fired.

"Crack!"

Headfirst she plunged. She kicked and ripped the ground, and didn't get
up again. She lay still, amidst a silence, we all watching, breathless.
Beyond, Fitzpatrick had closed his precious camera as he ran, and now at
the rock had turned.

"Shoot her again, Van!" begged Scout Ward.

"I can't," he answered. "That was my last cartridge. But she's dead. I
hit her in the eye." And he lowered his rifle.

Then we gave a great cheer, and rushed for the spot--except Major Henry;
he was the first to think and he rushed to see to little Jed Smith.
Fitzpatrick shook hands hard with Red Fox Scout Van Sant and followed
the major.

Yes, the old bear was stone dead. Van Sant had shot her through the eye,
into the brain. That was enough. Ward and I shook hands with him, too.
He had shown true Scouts' nerve, to sail in in that way, and to meet the
danger and to be steady under fire.

"Oh, well, I was the only one who could do anything," he explained. "I
knew it was my last cartridge and I had to make it count. That's all."

Then we hurried down to where the Major and Fitz and Kit Carson were
gathered about little Jed. Jed wasn't dead. No; we could see him move.
And Fitz called: "He's all right. But his shoulder's out and his leg is
torn."

Little Jed was pale but game. His right arm hung dangling and useless,
and his right calf was bloody. The whole arm hung dangling because the
shoulder was hurt; but it was not a fractured collarbone, for when we
had laid open Jed's shirt we could feel and see. The shoulder was out of
shape, and commencing to swell, and the arm hung lower than the well
arm. (Note 58.)

We let the wound of the calf go, for we must get at this dislocation,
before the shoulder was too sore and rigid. We knew what to do. Jed was
stretched on his back, Red Fox Scout Ward sat at his head, steadying him
around the body, and with his stockinged heel under Jed's armpit Major
Henry pulled down on the arm and shoved up against it with his heel at
the same time. That hurt. Jed turned very white, and let out a big
grunt--but we heard a fine snap, and we knew that the head of the
arm-bone had chucked back into the shoulder-socket where it belonged.

So that was over; and we were glad,--Jed especially. We bound his arm
with a handkerchief sling across to the other shoulder, to keep the
joint in place for a while, and we went at his leg.

The old bear's paw had cuffed him on the shoulder and then must have
slipped down and landed on his calf as he sprawled. The boot-top had
been ripped open and the claws had cut through into the flesh, tearing a
set of furrows. It was a bad-looking wound and was bleeding like
everything. But the blood was just the ordinary oozy kind, and so we let
it come, to clean the wound well. Then we laid some sterilized gauze
from our first-aid outfit upon it, to help clot the blood, and sifted
borax over, and bound it tight with adhesive plaster, holding the edges
of the furrows together. Over that we bound on loosely a dry pack of
other gauze.

We left Jed (who was pale but thankful) with Red Fox Scout Ward and went
up to the bear. Kit Carson wanted to see her. She was still dead, and
off on the edge of the brush her two cubs were sniffing in her
direction, wondering and trying to find out.

Yes, that had been a nervy stand made by Scout Van Sant, and a good
shot. Fitzpatrick reached across and shook his hand again.

"I don't know whether I stopped to thank you, but it's worth doing
twice. I'm much obliged."

"Don't mention it," laughed Van Sant.

Then we all laughed. That was better. There isn't much that can be said,
when you feel a whole lot. But you _know_, just the same. And we all
were Scouts.

Somehow, the big limp body of the old mother bear now made us sober. We
hadn't intended to kill her, and of course she was only protecting her
cubs. It wasn't our mountain; and it wasn't our berry-patch. She had
discovered it first. We had intruded on her, not she on us. It all was
a misunderstanding.

So we didn't gloat over her, or kick her, or sit upon her, now that she
could not defend herself. But we must do some quick thinking.

"Kit Carson, you and Bridger catch Apache," ordered Major Henry. "Fitz
and I will help Scout Van Sant skin his bear."

"She's not my bear," said Scout Van Sant. "I won't take her. She belongs
to all of us."

"Well," continued Major Henry, "it's a pity just to let her lie and to
waste her. We can use the meat."

"The pelt's no good, is it?" asked Fitz.

"Not much, in the summer. But we'll take it off, and put the meat in it,
to carry."

They set to work. Kit Carson and I started after the burro. He had run
off, up the mountain again, and we couldn't catch him. He was too
nervous. We'd get close to him, and with a snort and a toss of his ears
he would jump away and fool us. That was very aggravating.

"If we only had a rope we could rope him," said Kit. But we didn't.
There was no profit in chasing a burro all over a mountain, and so, hot
and tired, we went back and reported.

The old bear had been skinned and butchered, after a fashion. The head
was left on the hide, for the brains. At first Major Henry talked of
sending down to camp for a blanket and making a litter out of it. We
would have hard work to carry Jed in our arms. But Jed was weak and sick
and didn't want to wait for the blanket. Apache would have been a big
help, only he was so foolish. But we had a scheme. Scouts always manage.
(Note 59.)

We made a litter of the bear-pelt! Down we scurried to the aspens and
found two dead sticks. We stuck one through holes in the pelt's fore
legs, and one through holes in the pelt's hind legs, and tied the legs
about with cord. We set little Jed in the hair side, facing the bear's
head, turned back over; the Major, the two Red Fox Scouts, and Kit
Carson took each an end of the sticks; Fitzpatrick and I carried the
meat, stuck on sticks, over our shoulders; and in a procession like
cave-men or trappers returning from a hunt we descended the mountain,
leaving death and blood where we had intended to leave only peace as we
had found it.

Apache made a big circuit to follow us. The two cubs sneaked forward, to
sniff at the bones where their mother had been cut up--and began to eat
her. We were glad to know that they did not feel badly yet, and that
they were old enough to take care of themselves.

But as we stumbled and tugged, carrying wounded Jed down the draw, we
knew plainly that we ought to have let that mountain alone.

[Illustration: "LIKE CAVE-MEN OR TRAPPERS RETURNING FROM A HUNT WE
DESCENDED."]

CHAPTER XVIII

FITZ THE BAD HAND'S GOOD THROW

That green bear-pelt and Jed together were almost too heavy, so that we
went slow and careful and stopped often, to rest us. The sun was setting
when at last we got down to camp again--and we arrived, a very different
party from that which had gone out twelve hours before. It was a sorry
home-coming. But we must not lament or complain over what was our own
fault. We must do our best to turn it to account. We must be Scouts.

We made Jed comfortable on a blanket bed. His leg we let alone, as the
bandage seemed to be all right. And his shoulder we of course let alone.
Then we took stock. Major Henry decided very quickly.

"Jed can't travel. He will have to stay here till his wounds heal more,
and Kit Carson will have to stay with him. I'd stay, instead, because
I'm to blame for wasting some men and some time; but the general passed
the command on to me and I ought to go as far as I possibly can. We'll
fix Kit and Jed the best we're able, and to-morrow we'll hustle on and
make night marches, if we need to."

This was sense. Anyway, although we had wasted men and time, we were now
stocked up with provisions; all that bear meat! While Fitzpatrick and
Red Fox Scout Ward were cooking supper and poor Jed looked on, two of us
went at the meat to cut it into strips for jerking, and two of us
stretched the pelt to grain it before it dried.

We cut the meat into the strips and piled them until we could string
them to smoke and dry them. We then washed for supper, because we were
pretty bloody with the work of cutting. After supper, by moonlight, we
strung the strips with a sailor's needle and cord which the Red Fox
Scouts had in their kit, and erected a scaffolding of four fork-sticks
with two other sticks laid across at the ends. We stretched the strings
of meat in lines, back and forth. Next thing was to make a smudge under
and to lay a tarp over to hold the smudge while the meat should smoke.
(Note 60.)

Pine smoke is no good, because it is so strong. Alder makes a fine sweet
smoke, but we didn't have any alder, up here. We used aspen, as the next
best thing at hand. And by the time we had the pelt grained and the meat
strung and had toted enough aspen, we were tired.

But somebody must stay awake, to tend to Jed and give him a drink and
keep him company, and to watch the smudge, that it didn't flame up too
fierce and that it didn't go out. By smoking and drying the meat all
night and by drying it in the sun afterward, Major Henry thought that it
would be ready so that we could take our share along with us.

If we had that, then we would not need to stop to hunt, and we could
make short camps, as we pleased. You see, we had only four days in which
to deliver the message; and we had just reached the pass!

This was a kind of miserable night. Jed of course had a bed to himself,
which used up blankets. The others of us stood watch an hour and a half
each, over him and over the smudge. He was awful restless, because his
leg hurt like sixty, and none of us slept very well, after the
excitement. I was sleepiest when the time came for us to get up.

We had breakfast, of bear steak and bread or biscuits and gravy. The
meat we were jerking seemed to have been smoked splendidly. The tarp was
smoked, anyhow. We took it off and aired it, and left the strips as they
were, to dry some more in the sun. They were dark, and quite stiff and
hard, and by noon they were brittle as old leather. The hide was dry,
too, and ready for working over with brains and water, and for smoking.
(Note 61.)

But we left that to Kit. Now we must take the trail again. We spent the
morning fussing, and making the cabin tight for Jed and Kit; at last
the meat had been jerked so that our share would keep, and we had done
all that we could, and we were in shape to carry the message on over the
pass and down to Green Valley.

"All right," spoke Major Henry, after dinner. "Let's be off. Scout
Carson, we leave Scout Smith in your charge. You and he stay right here
until he's able to travel. Then you can follow over the pass and hit
Green Valley, or you can back-track for the Ranger's cabin and for home.
Apache will come in soon and you'll have him to pack out with. You'll be
entitled to just as much honor by bringing Jed out safe as we will by
carrying the message. Isn't that so, boys?"

"Sure," we said.

But naturally Kit hated to stay behind. Only, somebody must; it was
Scouts' duty. We all shook hands with him and with wounded Jed (who
hated staying, too), and said "Adios," and started off.

Apache had not appeared, and we were to pack our own outfit. We left Jed
and Kit enough meat and all the flour (which wasn't much) and what other
stuff we could spare (they had the bearskin to use for bedding as soon
as it was tanned) and one rope and our twenty-two rifle, and the
Ranger's fry-pan and two cups, and we divided among us what we could
carry.

"Now we've got three days and a half to get through in," announced Major
Henry. We counted the days on the trail to make sure. Yes, three days
and a half. "And besides, these Red Fox Scouts must catch a train in
time to make connections for that Yellowstone trip. We've put in too
much time, and I think we ought to travel by night as well as by day,
for a while."

"Short sleeps and long marches; that's my vote," said Fitz.

"Don't do it on our account," put in the Red Fox Scouts. "But we're
game. We'll travel as fast as you want to."

So we decided. And now only three Elk Scouts, instead of six, and two
Red Fox Scouts, again we took the long trail. In the Ranger's cabin
behind was our gallant leader General Ashley, and in this other cabin by
the lake were Jed Smith and Kit Carson. Thus our ranks were being
thinned.

We followed the trail from the lake and struck the old Indian trail
again, leading over the pass. About the middle of the afternoon we were
at the pass itself. It was wide and smooth and open and covered with
gravel and short grass and little low flowers like daisies. On either
side were brownish red jagged peaks and rimrock faces, specked with
snow. The wind blew strong and cold. There were many sheep-tracks, where
bands had been trailed over, for the low country or for the summer
range. It was a wild, desolate region, with nothing moving except
ourselves and a big hawk high above; but we pressed on fast, in close
order, our packs on our backs, Major Henry leading. And we were lonesome
without Kit and Jed.

Old Pilot Peak gradually sank behind us; the country before began to
spread out into timber and meadow and valley. Pretty soon we caught up
with a little stream. It flowed in the same direction that we were
going, and we knew that we were across the pass and that we were on the
other side of the Medicine Range, at last! Hurrah!

We were stepping long, down-hill. We came to dwarf cedars, and buck
brush, showing that we were getting lower. And at a sudden halt by the
major, in a nice golden twilight we threw off our packs and halted for
supper beside the stream, among some aspens--the first ones.

About an hour after sunset the moon rose, opposite--a big round moon,
lighting everything so that travel would be easy. We had stocked up on
the jerked bear-meat, roasted on sharp sticks, and on coffee from the
cubes that the Red Fox Scouts carried, and we were ready. The jerked
bear-meat was fine and made us feel strong. So now Major Henry stood,
and swung his pack; and we all stood.

"Let's hike," he said.

That was a beautiful march. The air was crisp and quiet, the moon
mounted higher, flooding the country with silver. Once in a while a
coyote barked. The rabbits all were out, hopping in the shine and
shadow. We saw a snowshoe kind, with its big hairy feet. We saw several
porcupines, and an owl as large as a buzzard. This was a different world
from that of day, and it seemed to us that people miss a lot of things
by sleeping.

Our course was due west, by the North Star. We were down off the pass,
and had struck a valley, with meadow and scattered pines, and a stream
rippling through, and the moonlight lying white and still. In about
three hours we came upon sign of another camp, where somebody had
stopped and had made a fire and had eaten. There were burro tracks here,
so that it might have been a prospectors' camp; and there was an empty
tin can like a large coffee can.

"I think we had better rest again," said Major Henry. "We can have a
snack and a short sleep."

We didn't cook any meat. We weren't going to take out any of the Red Fox
dishes, but Fitz started to fill the tin can with water, to make soup in
that. It was Red Fox Scout Ward who warned us.

"Here," he objected. "Do you think we ought to do that? You know
sometimes a tin can gives off poison when you cook in it."

"And we don't know what was in this can," added Van Sant. "We don't want
to get ptomaine poisoning. I'd rather unpack ten packs than run any
risk."

That was sense. The can _looked_ clean, inside, and the idea of being
made sick by it hadn't occurred to us Elks. But we remembered, now, some
things that we'd read. So we kicked the can to one side, that nobody
else should use it, and Fitz made the soup in a regulation dish from the
Red Fox aluminum kit. (Note 62.)

We drank the soup and each chewed a slice of the bear-meat cold. It was
sweet and good, and the soup helped out. Then we rolled in our blankets
and went to sleep. We all had it on our minds to wake in four hours, and
the mind is a regular clock if you train it.

I woke just about right, according to the stars. The two stars in the
bottom of the Little Dipper, that we used for an hour hand, had been
exactly above a pointed spruce, when I had dozed off, and now when I
looked they had moved about three feet around the Pole Star. While I lay
blinking and warm and comfortable, and not thinking of anything in
particular, I heard a crackle of sticks and the scratch of a match. And
there squatting on the edge of a shadow was somebody already up and
making a fire.

"Is that you, Fitz?" asked Major Henry.

"Yes. You fellows lie still a few seconds longer and I'll have some tea
for you."

Good old Fitz! He need not have done that. He had not been ordered to.
But it was a thoughtful Scout act--and was a Fitz act, to boot.

Scouts Ward and Van Sant were awake now; and we all lay watching Fitz,
and waiting, as he had asked us to. Then when we saw him put in the
tea--

"Levez!" spoke Major Henry; which is the old trapper custom. "Levez! Get
up!" (Note 63.)

Up we sprang, into the cold, and with our blankets about our shoulders,
Indian fashion, we each drank a good swig of hot tea. Then we washed our
faces, and packed our blankets, and took the trail.

It was about three in the morning. The moon was halfway down the west,
and the air was chill and had that peculiar feel of just before morning.
Everything was ghostly, as we slipped along, but a few birds were
twittering sleepily. Once a coyote crossed our path--stopped to look
back at us, and trotted away again.

Gradually the east began to pale; there were fewer stars along that
horizon than along the horizon where the moon was setting. The burro
tracks were plain before us, in the trail that led down the valley. The
trail inclined off to the left, or to the south of west; but we
concluded to follow it because we could make better time and we believed
that the railroad lay in that direction. The Red Fox Scouts ought to be
taken as near to the railroad as possible, before we left them. They had
been mighty good to us.

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