Tenting To night
M >> Mary Roberts Rinehart >> Tenting To nightTENTING
TO-NIGHT
_A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the Cascade
Mountains by_
MARY ROBERTS RINEHART
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
=The Riverside Press Cambridge=
1918
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
COMPANY (COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE)
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY MARY ROBERTS RINEHART
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published April 1918_
[Illustration: _Chiwawa Mountain and Lyman Lake_]
CONTENTS
I. THE TRAIL 1
II. THE BIG ADVENTURE 10
III. BRIDGE CREEK TO BOWMAN LAKE 24
IV. A FISHERMAN'S PARADISE 39
V. TO KINTLA LAKE 50
VI. RUNNING THE RAPIDS OF THE FLATHEAD 63
VII. THE SECOND DAY ON THE FLATHEAD 71
VIII. THROUGH THE FLATHEAD CANON 80
IX. THE ROUND-UP AT KALISPELL 90
X. OFF FOR CASCADE PASS 100
XI. LAKE CHELAN TO LYMAN LAKE 111
XII. CLOUDY PASS AND THE AGNES CREEK VALLEY 129
XIII. CANON FISHING AND A TELEGRAM 142
XIV. DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE 150
XV. DOUBTFUL LAKE 158
XVI. OVER CASCADE PASS 167
XVII. OUT TO CIVILIZATION 180
ILLUSTRATIONS
CHIWAWA MOUNTAIN AND LYMAN LAKE _Frontispiece_
TRAIL OVER GUNSIGHT PASS, GLACIER NATIONAL PARK 2
_Photograph by Fred H. Kiser, Portland, Oregon_
THE AUTHOR, THE MIDDLE BOY, AND THE LITTLE BOY 6
LOOKING SOUTH FROM POLLOCK PASS, GLACIER NATIONAL PARK 14
_Photograph by Kiser Photo Co._
LAKE ELIZABETH FROM PTARMIGAN PASS, GLACIER NATIONAL PARK 22
_Photograph by A. J. Baker, Kalispell, Mont._
A MOUNTAIN LAKE IN GLACIER NATIONAL PARK 36
_Photograph by Fred H. Kiser_
GETTING READY FOR THE DAY'S FISHING AT CAMP ON BOWMAN LAKE 40
_Photograph by R. E. Marble, Glacier Park_
THE HORSES IN THE ROPE CORRAL 44
_Photograph by A. J. Baker_
BEAR-GRASS 56
_Photograph by Fred H. Kiser_
A GLACIER PARK LAKE 60
_Photograph by A. J. Baker_
STILL-WATER FISHING 68
_Photograph by R. E. Marble_
MOUNTAINS OF GLACIER NATIONAL PARK FROM THE NORTH FORK OF THE
FLATHEAD RIVER 74
_Photograph by R. E. Marble_
THE BEGINNING OF THE CANON, MIDDLE FORK OF THE FLATHEAD RIVER 82
_Photograph by R. E. Marble_
PI-TA-MAK-AN, OR RUNNING EAGLE (MRS. RINEHART), WITH TWO OTHER
MEMBERS OF THE BLACKFOOT TRIBE 96
_Photograph by Haynes, St. Paul_
A HIGH MOUNTAIN MEADOW 100
_Photograph by L. D. Lindsley, Lake Chelan_
SITTING BULL MOUNTAIN, LAKE CHELAN 112
_Photograph by L. D. Lindsley_
LOOKING OUT OF ICE-CAVE, LYMAN GLACIER 126
_Photograph by L. D. Lindsley_
LOOKING SOUTHEAST FROM CLOUDY PASS 132
_Photograph by L. D. Lindsley_
STREAM FISHING 144
_Photograph by Haynes, St. Paul_
MOUNTAIN MILES: THE TRAIL UP SWIFTCURRENT PASS, GLACIER NATIONAL
PARK 152
_Photograph by A. J. Baker_
WHERE THE ROCK-SLIDES START (GLACIER NATIONAL PARK) 156
_Photograph by A. J. Baker_
SWITCHBACKS ON THE TRAIL (GLACIER NATIONAL PARK) 160
_Photograph by Fred H. Kiser_
WATCHING THE PACK-TRAIN COMING DOWN AT CASCADE PASS 174
A FIELD OF BEAR-GRASS 182
_Photograph by Fred H. Kiser_
TENTING TO-NIGHT
I
THE TRAIL
The trail is narrow--often but the width of the pony's feet, a tiny path
that leads on and on. It is always ahead, sometimes bold and wide, as
when it leads the way through the forest; often narrow, as when it hugs
the sides of the precipice; sometimes even hiding for a time in river
bottom or swamp, or covered by the debris of last winter's avalanche.
Sometimes it picks its precarious way over snow-fields which hang at
dizzy heights, and again it flounders through mountain streams, where
the tired horses must struggle for footing, and do not even dare to
stoop and drink.
It is dusty; it is wet. It climbs; it falls; it is beautiful and
terrible. But always it skirts the coast of adventure. Always it goes
on, and always it calls to those that follow it. Tiny path that it is,
worn by the feet of earth's wanderers, it is the thread which has knit
together the solid places of the earth. The path of feet in the
wilderness is the onward march of life itself.
City-dwellers know nothing of the trail. Poor followers of the
pavements, what to them is this six-inch path of glory? Life for many of
them is but a thing of avenues and streets, fixed and unmysterious, a
matter of numbers and lights and post-boxes and people. They know
whither their streets lead. There is no surprise about them, no sudden
discovery of a river to be forded, no glimpse of deer in full flight or
of an eagle poised over a stream. No heights, no depths. To know if it
rains at night, they look down at shining pavements; they do not hold
their faces to the sky.
[Illustration: _Trail over Gunsight Pass, Glacier National Park_]
Now, I am a near-city-dweller. For ten months in the year, I am
particular about mail-delivery, and eat an evening dinner, and
occasionally agitate the matter of having a telephone in every room in
the house. I run the usual gamut of dinners, dances, and bridge, with
the usual country-club setting as the spring goes on. And each May I
order a number of flimsy frocks, in the conviction that I have done all
the hard going I need to, and that this summer we shall go to the New
England coast. And then--about the first of June there comes a day when
I find myself going over the fishing-tackle unearthed by the spring
house-cleaning and sorting out of inextricable confusion the family's
supply of sweaters, old riding-breeches, puttees, rough shoes,
trout-flies, quirts, ponchos, spurs, reels, and old felt hats. Some of
the hats still have a few dejected flies fastened to the ribbon,
melancholy hackles, sadly ruffled Royal Coachmen, and here and there the
determined gayety of the Parmachene Belle.
I look at my worn and rubbed high-laced boots, at my riding-clothes,
snagged with many briers and patched from many saddles, at my old brown
velours hat, survival of many storms in many countries. It has been
rained on in Flanders, slept on in France, and has carried many a
refreshing draft to my lips in my "ain countree."
I put my fishing-rod together and give it a tentative flick across the
bed, and--I am lost.
The family professes surprise, but it is acquiescent. And that night, or
the next day, we wire that we will not take the house in Maine, and I
discover that the family has never expected to go to Maine, but has been
buying more trout-flies right along.
As a family, we are always buying trout-flies. We buy a great many. I do
not know what becomes of them. To those whose lives are limited to the
unexciting sport of buying golf-balls, which have endless names but no
variety, I will explain that the trout do not eat the flies, but merely
attempt to. So that one of the eternal mysteries is how our flies
disappear. I have seen a junior Rinehart start out with a boat, a rod,
six large cakes of chocolate, and four dollars' worth of flies, and
return a few hours later with one fish, one Professor, one Doctor, and
one Black Moth minus the hook. And the boat had not upset.
June, after the decision, becomes a time of subdued excitement. For
fear we shall forget to pack them, things are set out early. Stringers
hang from chandeliers, quirts from doorknobs. Shoe-polish and disgorgers
and adhesive plaster litter the dressing-tables. Rows of boots line the
walls. And, in the evenings, those of us who are at home pore over maps
and lists.
This last year, our plans were ambitious. They took in two complete
expeditions, each with our own pack-outfit. The first was to take
ourselves, some eight packers, guides, and cooks, and enough horses to
carry our outfit--thirty-one in all--through the western and practically
unknown side of Glacier National Park, in northwestern Montana, to the
Canadian border. If we survived that, we intended to go by rail to the
Chelan country in northern Washington and there, again with a
pack-train, cross the Cascades over totally unknown country to Puget
Sound.
We did both, to the eternal credit of our guides and horses.
The family, luckily for those of us who have the _Wanderlust_, is four
fifths masculine. I am the odd fifth--unlike the story of King George
the Fifth and Queen Mary the other four fifths. It consists of the head
of the family, to be known hereafter as the Head, the Big Boy, the
Middle Boy, the Little Boy, and myself. As the Big Boy is very, very
big, and the Little Boy is not really very little, being on the verge of
long trousers, we make a comfortable traveling unit. And, because we
were leaving the beaten path and going a-gypsying, with a new camp each
night no one knew exactly where, the party gradually augmented.
First, we added an optimist named Bob. Then we added a "movie"-man,
called Joe for short and because it was his name, and a "still"
photographer, who was literally still most of the time. Some of these
pictures are his. He did some beautiful work, but he really needed a
mouth only to eat with.
(The "movie"-man is unpopular with the junior members of the family just
now, because he hid his camera in the bushes and took the Little Boy
in a state of goose flesh on the bank of Bowman Lake.)
[Illustration: _The Author, the Middle Boy, and the Little Boy_]
But, of course, we have not got to Bowman Lake yet.
During the year before, I had ridden over the better-known trails of
Glacier Park with Howard Eaton's riding party, and when I had crossed
the Gunsight Pass, we had looked north and west to a great country of
mountains capped with snow, with dense forests on the lower slopes and
in the valleys.
"What is it?" I had asked the ranger who had accompanied us across the
pass.
"It is the west side of Glacier Park," he explained. "It is not yet
opened up for tourist travel. Once or twice in a year, a camping party
goes up through this part of the park. That is all."
"What is it like?" I asked.
"Wonderful!"
So, sitting there on my horse, I made up my mind that sometime _I_ would
go up the west side of Glacier Park to the Canadian border.
Roughly speaking, there are at least six hundred square miles of
Glacier Park on the west side that are easily accessible, but that are
practically unknown. Probably the area is more nearly a thousand square
miles. And this does not include the fastnesses of the range itself. It
comprehends only the slopes on the west side to the border-line of the
Flathead River.
The reason for the isolation of the west side of Glacier Park is easily
understood. The park is divided into two halves by the Rocky Mountain
range, which traverses it from northwest to southeast. Over it there is
no single wagon-road of any sort between the Canadian border and Helena,
perhaps two hundred and fifty miles. A railroad crosses at the Marias
Pass. But from that to the Canadian line, one hundred miles, travel from
the east is cut off over the range, except by trail.
To reach the west side of Glacier Park at the present time, the tourist,
having seen the wonders of the east side, must return to Glacier Park
Station, take a train over the Marias Pass, and get out at Belton. Even
then, he can only go by boat up to Lewis's Hotel on Lake McDonald, a
trifling distance. There are no hotels beyond Lewis's, and no roads.
Naturally, this tremendous area is unknown and unvisited.
It is being planned, however, by the new Department of National Parks to
build a road this coming year along Lake McDonald. Eventually, this
much-needed highway will connect with the Canadian roads, and thus
indirectly with Banff and Lake Louise. The opening-up of the west side
of Glacier Park will make it perhaps the most unique of all our parks,
as it is undoubtedly the most magnificent. The grandeur of the east side
will be tempered by the more smiling and equally lovely western slopes.
And when, between the east and the west sides, there is constructed the
great motor-highway which will lead across the range, we shall have,
perhaps, the most scenic motor-road in the United States--until, in the
fullness of time, we build another road across Cascade Pass in
Washington.
II
THE BIG ADVENTURE
Came at last the day to start west. In spite of warnings, we found that
our irreducible minimum of luggage filled five wardrobe-trunks. In vain
we went over our lists and cast out such bulky things as extra
handkerchiefs and silk socks and fancy neckties and toilet-silver. We
started with all five. It was boiling hot; the sun beat in at the
windows of the transcontinental train and stifled us. Over the prairies,
dust blew in great clouds, covering the window-sills with white. The Big
Boy and the Middle Boy and the Little Boy referred scornfully to the
flannels and sweaters on which I had been so insistent. The Head slept
across the continent. The Little Boy counted prairie-dogs.
Then, almost suddenly, we were in the mountains--for the Rockies seem to
rise out of a great plain. The air was stimulating. There had been a
great deal of snow last winter, and the wind from the ice-capped peaks
overhead blew down and chilled us. We threw back our heads and breathed.
Before going to Belton for our trip with the pack-outfit, we rode again
for two weeks with the Howard Eaton party through the east side of the
park, crossing again those great passes, for each one of which, like the
Indians, the traveler counts a _coup_--Mount Morgan, a mile high and the
width of an army-mule on top; old Piegan, under the shadow of the Garden
Wall; Mount Henry, where the wind blows always a steady gale. We had
scaled Dawson with the aid of ropes, since snowslides covered the trail,
and crossed the Cut Bank in a hailstorm. Like the noble Duke of York,
Howard Eaton had led us "up a hill one day and led us down again." Only,
he did it every day.
Once, in my notebook, I wrote on top of a mountain my definition of a
mountain pass. I have used it before, but because it was written with
shaking fingers and was torn from my very soul, I cannot better it. This
is what I wrote:--
A pass is a blood-curdling spot up which one's
horse climbs like a goat and down the other side
of which it slides as you lead it, trampling ever
and anon on a tender part of your foot. A pass is
the highest place between two peaks. A pass is not
an opening, but a barrier which you climb with
chills and descend with prayer. A pass is a thing
which you try to forget at the time, and which you
boast about when you get back home.
At last came the day when we crossed the Gunsight Pass and, under Sperry
Glacier, looked down and across to the north and west. It was sunset and
cold. The day had been a long and trying one. We had ridden across an
ice-field which sloped gently off--into China, I dare say. I did not
look over. Our horses were weary, and we were saddle-sore and hungry.
Pete, our big guide, whose name is really not Pete at all, waved an airy
hand toward the massed peaks beyond--the land of our dreams.
"Well," he said, "there it is!"
And there it was.
* * * * *
Getting a pack-outfit ready for a long trip into the wilderness is a
serious matter. We were taking thirty-one horses, guides, packers, and
a cook. But we were doing more than that--we were taking two boats! This
was Bob's idea. Any highly original idea, such as taking boats where not
even tourists had gone before, or putting eggs on a bucking horse, or
carrying grapefruit for breakfast into the wilderness, was Bob's idea.
"You see, I figure it out like this," he said, when, on our arrival at
Belton, we found the boats among our equipment: "If we can get those
boats up to the Canadian line and come down the Flathead rapids all the
way, it will only take about four days on the river. It's a stunt that's
never been pulled off."
"Do you mean," I said, "that we are going to run four days of rapids
that have never been run?"
"That's it."
I looked around. There, in a group, were the Head and the Big Boy and
the Middle Boy and the Little Boy. And a fortune-teller at Atlantic City
had told me to beware of water!
"At the worst places," the Optimist continued, "we can send Joe ahead
in one boat with the 'movie' outfit, and get you as you come along."
"I dare say," I observed, with some bitterness. "Of course we may upset.
But if we do, I'll try to go down for the third time in front of the
camera."
But even then the boats were being hoisted into a wagon-bed filled with
hay. And I knew that I was going to run four days of rapids. It was
written.
It was a bright morning. In a corral, the horses were waiting to be
packed. Rolls of blankets, crates of food, and camping-utensils lay
everywhere. The Big Boy marshaled the fishing-tackle. Bill, the cook,
was searching the town for the top of an old stove to bake on. We had
provided two reflector ovens, but he regarded them with suspicion. They
would, he suspected, not do justice to his specialty, the corn-meal
saddle-bag, a sort of sublimated hot cake.
I strolled to the corral and cast a horsewoman's eye on my mount.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY KISER PHOTO CO.
_Looking south from Pollock Pass, Glacier National Park_]
"He looks like a very nice horse," I said. "He's quite handsome."
Pete tightened up the cinch.
"Yes," he observed; "he's all right. He's a pretty good mare."
The Head was wandering around with lists in his hand. His conversation
ran something like this:--
"Pocket-flashes, chocolate, jam, medicine-case, reels, landing-nets,
cigarettes, tooth-powder, slickers, matches."
He was always accumulating matches. One moment, a box of matches would
be in plain sight and the next it had disappeared. He became a sort of
match-magazine, so that if anybody had struck him violently, in almost
any spot, he would have exploded.
Hours went by. The sun was getting high and hot. The crowd which had
been watching gradually disappeared about its business. The two
boats--big, sturdy river-boats they were--had rumbled along toward the
wilderness, one on top of the other, with George Locke and Mike Shannon
as pilots, watching for breakers ahead. In the corral, our supplies
were being packed on the horses, Bill Shea and Pete, Tom Sullivan and
Tom Farmer and their assistants working against time. In crates were our
cooking-utensils, ham, bacon, canned salmon, jam, flour, corn-meal,
eggs, baking-powder, flies, rods, and reels, reflector ovens, sunburn
lotion, coffee, cocoa, and so on. Cocoa is the cowboy's friend.
Innumerable blankets, "tarp" beds, and war-sacks lay rolled ready for
the pack-saddles. The cook was declaiming loudly that some one had
opened his pack and taken out his cleaver.
For a pack-outfit, the west side of Glacier Park is ideal. The east side
is much the best so far for those who wish to make short trips along the
trails into the mountains, although as yet only a small part,
comparatively, of the eastern wonderland is open. There, one may spend a
day, or several days, in the midst of the wildest possible country and
yet return at night to excellent hotels.
On the west side, however, a pack-outfit is necessary. There is but one
hotel, Lewis's, on Lake McDonald. To get to the Canadian line, there
must be camping facilities for at least eight days if there are no
stop-overs. And not to stop over is to lose the joy of the trip. It is
an ideal two to three weeks' jaunt with a pack-train. A woman who can
sit a horse--and every one can ride in a Western saddle--a woman can
make the land trip not only with comfort but with joy. That is, a woman
who likes the outdoors.
What did we wear, that bright morning when, all ready at last, the cook
on the chuck-wagon, the boats ambling ahead, with Bill Hossick, the
teamster, driving the long line of heavily packed horses and our own
saddlers lined up for the adventure, we moved out on to the trail?
Well, the men wore khaki riding-trousers and flannel shirts,
broad-brimmed felt hats, army socks drawn up over the cuff of the
breeches, and pack-shoes. A pack-shoe is one in which the leather of the
upper part makes the sole also, without a seam. On to this soft sole is
sewed a heavy leather one. The pack-shoe has a fastened tongue and is
waterproof.
And I? I had not counted on the "movie"-man, and I was dressed for
comfort in the woods. I had buckskin riding-breeches and high boots, and
over my thin riding-shirt I wore a cloth coat. I had packed in my warbag
a divided skirt also, and a linen suit, for hot days, of breeches and
coat. But of this latter the least said the better. It betrayed me and,
in portions, deserted me.
All of us carried tin drinking-cups, which vied with the bells on the
pack-animals for jingle. Most of us had sweaters or leather
wind-jammers. The guides wore "chaps" of many colors, boots with high
heels, which put our practical packs in the shade, and gay silk
handkerchiefs.
Joe was to be a detachable unit. As a matter of fact, he became detached
rather early in the game, having been accidentally given a bucker. It
was on the second day, I think, that his horse buried his head between
his fore legs, and dramatized one of the best bits of the trip when Joe
was totally unable to photograph it.
He had his own guide and extra horse for the camera. It had been our
expectation that, at the most hazardous parts of the journey, he would
perch on some crag and show us courageously risking our necks to have a
good time. But on the really bad places he had his own life to save, and
he never fully trusted Maud, I think, after the first day. Maud was his
horse.
Besides, when he did climb to some aerie, and photographed me, for
instance, in a sort of Napoleon-crossing-the-Alps attitude, sitting my
horse on the brink of eternity and being reassured from safety by the
Optimist--outside the picture, of course--the developed film flattened
out the landscape. So that, although I was on the edge of a canon a mile
deep, I might as well have been posing on the bank of the Ohio River.
On the east side of the Park I had ridden Highball. It is not
particularly significant that I started the summer on Highball and ended
it on Budweiser. Now I had Angel, a huge white mare with a pink nose, a
loving disposition, and a gait that kept me swallowing my tongue for
fear I would bite the end off it. The Little Boy had Prince, a small
pony which ran exactly like an Airedale dog, and in every canter beat
out the entire string. The Head had H----, and considered him well
indicated. One bronco was called "Bronchitis." The top horse of the
string was Bill Shea's Dynamite, according to Bill Shea. There were
Dusty, Shorty, Sally Goodwin, Buffalo Tom, Chalk-Eye, Comet, and
Swapping Tater--Swapping Tater being a pacer who, when he hit the
ground, swapped feet. Bob had Sister Sarah.
At last, everything was ready. The pack-train got slowly under way. We
leaped into our saddles--"leaped" being a figurative term which grew
more and more figurative as time went on and we grew saddle-weary and
stiff--and, passing the pack-train on a canter, led off for the
wilderness.
All that first day we rode, now in the sun, now in deep forest.
Luncheon-time came, but the pack-train was far behind. We waited, but
we could not hear so much as the tinkle of its bells. So we munched
cakes of chocolate from the pockets of our riding-coats and went grimly
on.
The wagon with the boats had made good time. It was several miles along
the wagon-trail before we caught up with it. It had found a quiet harbor
beside the road, and the boatmen were demanding food. We tossed them
what was left of the chocolate and went on.
The presence of a wagon-trail in that empty land, unvisited and unknown,
requires explanation. In the first place, it was not really a road. It
was a trail, and in places barely that. But, sixteen years before, a
road had been cleared through the forest by some people who believed
there was oil near the Canadian line. They cut down trees and built
corduroy bridges. But in sixteen years it has not been used. No wheels
have worn it smooth. It takes its leisurely way, now through wilderness,
now through burnt country where the trees stand stark and dead, now
through prairie or creek-bottom, now up, now down, always with the
range rising abruptly to the east, and with the Flathead River somewhere
to the west.