On A Donkey's Hurricane Deck Part 35

"Come down," he said to me with a grim smile. "I'm boss here now."

I slid off the roof, and c.o.o.nskin, to the man's surprise, appeared from his lofty perch; then we introduced ourselves. While I thanked the hunter for his kind offices and welcomed him to breakfast, c.o.o.nskin began to prepare the meal. Our guest explained that he was a bee-hunter.

"When the bear meets the bee-hunter searchin' for a bee tree, brother Bruin says, 'Ahem! Excuse me, but I'm workin' this 'ere side of the trail, you just take t'other side.' Then the bee-hunter says: 'Pardon, my friend, Mr. Bear, but I'm workin'

both sides of this particular trail, just throw up your paws.'"

The bee-hunter chuckled over the practical joke played on him, and said as it came from a tenderfoot he'd take it in good part; but if it had been a backwoodsman that played such a game he'd settle with the bear and the man in the same fas.h.i.+on. His words and manner startled me.

The bee-hunter rose from the log and drawing his knife, dropped on his knee, and began to skin the bear as if he thought he owned it.

"You needn't bother about skinning it for us," I said, "we're quite satisfied that you killed it."

The man eyed me. "This bear belongs to me, if ye want to know," he said.

"How is it your bear?" c.o.o.nskin asked, when he came to announce breakfast. "You shot it, but in our cabin."

"That don't make no difference, and I don't intend arguing the question," came the positive retort; "I say he's mine--who says he hain't?"

I suddenly felt a bee in my bonnet. "The 'ayes' have it," I said.

That stopped the debate, but I could see blood in c.o.o.nskin's eye when he ushered us to breakfast. Before we had finished, my nervy valet asked our guest if he played poker. "Ya-a-as, some," the hunter drawled. "If there's money in it, I'll jine ye in a game."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Through thickets, tangled roots and fallen trees._"]

What could c.o.o.nskin have in mind, to challenge this rough mountaineer to a game of cards? He had often boasted of his skill at poker. Now he cleared the table and brought forth the cards he had carried way from Iowa, and motioning the bee-hunter to a seat, the two cut for the deal. From my seat, beside c.o.o.nskin, I discovered a little round mirror hanging on the wall behind the hunter opposite; it was the one my valet had purchased in Denver.

Where he sat he could see the hunter's hand reflected in the gla.s.s. I felt if he were detected in this underhand game it would go ill with both of us; so put both revolvers in my belt, and kept mum. That was an interesting game.

"Lend me some change," said c.o.o.nskin. I threw him my bag of silver. Then he added: "Pod, you count out the matches here for chips and act as banker." So I was drawn into the game. The first few hands were very ordinary, and caused no excitement. But finally the bee-hunter, arched his eyebrows; I knew he must have a fine hand or a bluff, in store for his tenderfoot opponent. He bet heavily, but c.o.o.nskin raised the ante every time. Suddenly what had been in c.o.o.nskin's mind all the time was revealed. "Lend me fifty dollars," said he to me, and to the bee-hunter added: "I'll lay this roll of bills against the bear skin, and call you."

"I'll go ye," said the bee-hunter. When both men lay down their hands, I had taken down the mirror and hid it in my pocket.

"Beaten by four jacks! I be d----d!" the outraged mountaineer exclaimed, pounding his fist on the table and regarding his four ten-spots with grim disfavor. c.o.o.nskin grinned from ear to ear as he swept in the money. Said he, "Mac A'Rony, Cheese, Damfino and Skates--I swear by them every time. Whenever I get that hand I'm billed to win."

"So yer travelin' on them jacks," remarked the defeated partner.

"No, not exactly," c.o.o.nskin returned as he rose from his seat.

"The jacks I'm traveling with are out doors; these are their tin-types."

The bee-hunter looked chagrined enough, but he took the thing as a matter of course, apparently never dreaming that he had been actually buncoed by a boy tenderfoot. Presently he rose, and shouldering his rifle, made his departure without thanking us for our hospitality. I hoped sincerely he would find his bee tree, and harvest a rich reward. I told c.o.o.nskin he was a brick. He accepted his winnings modestly, and fell to finis.h.i.+ng the task of skinning the bear. It was a fine skin. After salting it, and wrapping it in gunnysacks, I packed our luggage while c.o.o.nskin saddled the donkeys.

Shortly after noon we reached the road that was already familiar to us, and five hours later arrived in Florisant.

It was sundown when we went into camp. I had lost three days, but I had been fully compensated by the pleasures of angling and bear-hunting.

Next day we were off for Leadville in good season. My animals seemed to be in fine traveling form; by sunset we arrived in South Park. It was Sat.u.r.day. There we enjoyed the hospitality of a deserted, floorless cabin, where, sheltered from the wind, we could eat without swallowing an inordinate amount of sand. Close by was a fine spring, so we resolved to remain until Sunday afternoon. We were awakened at dawn by a bevy of magpies perched on the tent; c.o.o.nskin was so annoyed that he crept to the door and shot the chief disturber, in spite of the bad luck promised him by a popular legend.

South Park is one of three great preserves in Colorado. There once roamed buffalo, deer, elk, antelope and wolves, while on the mountains bordering the valley were quant.i.ties of mountain sheep.

A few deer, sheep and bear are said to be still found in that section. Coyotes are heard nightly, and the evening we trailed out of the Park a traveler with a prairie schooner said he had seen two gray wolves.

Our afternoon trip through the Park was a painful one. Mosquitoes attacked us from every quarter, and it was mosquito netting, pennyroyal and kerosene alone that saved our lives. When we consider that Mosquito Pa.s.s, the highest pa.s.s of the Rockies, 13,700 feet, was named after a mosquito we may derive some idea of the size of the insect.

It was late in the night, when, after brief stops at two sheep ranches run by Mexicans, and another at a small settlement, we entered the canyon. It required two days of hard climbing to cross Western Pa.s.s. The snow-capped peaks of the range looked grand and beautiful, and the noisy streams in the canyons leading from the summit on both sides were stocked with trout.

The morning we trailed out of the canyon into the Arkansas Valley was clear and lovely. After traveling some distance up the valley, the smoke of the Leadville smelters burst into view, and a mile beyond the city itself could be seen nestling against the towering mountains.

This famous mining camp gave us royal welcome. The report in the papers that Pye Pod would lecture that evening drew an enthusiastic throng, applauding and crowding closely about the donkeys, all eager for the chromos that c.o.o.nskin sold while I talked.

Next morning we crossed the valley and pitched camp on the banks of Twin Lake, two lovely sheets of water at the mouth of the canyon leading to Independence Pa.s.s.

This pa.s.s is one of the loftiest of the Continental Divide--that snowy range from which the rivers of Western America flow east or west through undisputed domains. Trailing up, the ascent gradually became very precipitous and the trail a severe trial. Over this pa.s.s, climbed the overland stages and freighting wagons with their four and eight-horse teams. It was, in ante-railroad days, a popular route, and the now deserted cabins of Independence once composed a lively mining camp. Although the trail was kept in good order, yet wagons and teams frequently toppled over the narrow trail, and mules, horses and pa.s.sengers met their death on the rocks below.

We men walked to relieve our animals and arrived at the summit at sundown. Looking backward, for six or seven miles the view surpa.s.sed in grandeur any scene of the kind I had ever viewed. The stream appeared to be spun from liquid fleece from the mountain sides, and tumbled and foamed over the rocks and fallen trees in its bed until it looked like a strand of wool in a hundred snarls.

While resting, a heavy snow squall descended, and drove us on across the pa.s.s into the western canyon for shelter. This canyon surpa.s.sed in grandeur and size the other. Knowing our sure-footed steeds would keep the trail much better than we, c.o.o.nskin and I got in the saddle, but more than once I nearly went over Mac's head.

When we had proceeded only a mile below the summit, the trail became particularly narrow and rocky. To the right, protruded from the bank a great boulder, and to the left sloped a deep and sheer precipice, to which only the roots and stumps of trees could cling. Here my valet dismounted; I should have done likewise. Mac considered a moment whether or not to descend further, then made a sudden dive, shying from the declivity and striking the rock on our right, and was jarred off his feet, falling with me over the edge of the trail.

Down and over we rolled toward the yawning gulf some forty feet before we caught on a stump and stopped. That was a dreadful moment for me. For a time I lay still, not daring to excite Mac.

Carefully I extricated myself from my perilous position, and held my donkey's head down till c.o.o.nskin got the ropes from Damfino's pack and came to my relief. In time the other three donkeys pulled Mac A'Rony up on to the trail.

We pitched camp and Sunday morning continued down the trail, which soon presented difficulties still more discouraging. The numerous springs had necessitated corduroy roads often hundreds of feet in extent. But these had been so long in general disuse that the logs had rotted away in places.

Frequently c.o.o.nskin and I dismounted and repaired the corduroy breaches, with fallen trees, thereby losing much time. By dark my outfit had made but three miles. In the darkness of evening we came to the empty cabins of old Independence, whose single inhabitant called to us from his doorway as we pa.s.sed.

At last we arrived at an old-time stage-house. It was now temporarily tenanted by fishermen from Aspen, who asked us to spend the night with them. I accepted; soon my animals were feeding on the fresh gra.s.s bordering a spring nearby, and c.o.o.nskin and I seated at the hot repast our hosts had quickly provided.

The house was large, with a high roof and a dirt floor. A great fire blazed in the center, lending comfort to the cozy quarters.

The anglers had spread their blankets in one end of the shack, and we pitched our tent in the other and soon fell to sleep, while the fishermen likely continued to swap "lies" till a late hour. The last remarks I heard almost made me cry.

"I don't think it would do for me to go to h.e.l.l, pa," said the lad of the party.

"Why?" queried the sire.

"Oh," said the boy, "the light would hurt my eyes so, I couldn't sleep."

Getting an early morning start, we trailed down and out of the long canyon into Roaring Fork Valley, and at four o'clock arrived in Aspen, a famous silver camp of early days. A crowd soon gathered, and I had no sooner announced a street lecture for that evening than the news began to spread all over town. Here supplies must be bought, some business transacted under my advertising contract, and Mac shod. For the first time that jacka.s.s kicked the blacksmith. When I reprimanded him, he claimed the man had pounded a nail in his hoof almost to the knee, and added, for the smith's benefit, "Shoe an a.s.s with a.s.s's shoes, but set them with horse sense." Which I thought sound philosophy.

At the appointed hour and place for my lecture the street was choked with an eager audience. c.o.o.nskin had been instructed to have the donkey there, saddled and packed, by eight sharp. They failed to appear. So impetuous and enthusiastic were the crowding, cheering citizens that I mounted a block and began to talk.

Suddenly, I was interrupted by a shout, "The donkeys are coming," and at once the crowd became so hilarious that I had to cease speaking till my outfit arrived. "Mac A'Rony!--Mac A'Rony!--Damfino!--Cheese!" echoed and re-echoed, as a number of boys ran to meet the donks. It occurred to me that c.o.o.nskin might soon have his hands full, so I hastened to his side. But, ere I arrived my handsome Colt's revolver was stolen from its holster, buckled to Mac's saddle horn. As c.o.o.nskin was riding Cheese and trailing the others he could not guard against the theft, but I blamed him for not heeding my instructions always to leave the guns at my headquarters. It was the only article lost by theft on my journey. The four marshals on duty hoped to recover the revolver, and forward it to me, but I never received it.

When I had finished my lecture, Judge S---- pa.s.sed his hat and handed me a liberal collection. And as my outfit trailed out of town toward Roaring Fork, a young man wheeled up with us and gave me a silver nugget scarf pin. In Aspen, as in Leadville, I disposed of many photos.

It was a fine evening. I was promised a smooth trail through to Glenwood Springs. We were to travel ten miles that night, and hence would need to sleep late next day. So I advised c.o.o.nskin to set the alarm clock, just purchased, for ten a. m.