CHAPTER V. THE START FOR THE ROCKIES.

“Great Blue Bells of Scotland!”

Mountain Jim Bothwell uttered the exclamation as he gazed at the immense pile of baggage labeled H. D. Ware.

“Say, who is H. D. Ware, anyhow? He goin’ to start a hotel hereabouts? When’s the wagons comin’ for all this truck?”

“That’s my camping equipment,” struck in “H. D. Ware,” looking rather red and uncomfortable under the appraising blue eye of Mountain Jim.

“Young feller,” spoke Jim solemnly, “you’d need an ocean liner to transport all that duffle. We ain’t goin’ to sea; we’re goin’ inter the mountains. What you got in there, anyhow?”

[46]

“Dingbats,” said Ralph quietly, a mischievous smile playing about his mouth.

“Dingbats? Great Bells of Scotland, what’s them?”

“The things that the sporting goods catalogues say no camper should be without,” exclaimed Ralph; “we told him, but it wasn’t any good.”

“Well, my mother said I was to have every comfort,” said poor Hardware, crimsoning under the guide’s amused scrutiny. “When we were camping in Maine——”

“When you were camping in Maine, I don’t doubt you had a cook——”

Hardware nodded. He had to admit that, like most wealthy New Yorkers, his parents’ ideas of “a camp” had been a sort of independent summer hotel under canvas.

“Well, young fellow, let me tell you something. From what the professor here wrote me, you young fellers came up here to rough it. I’m goin’ to see that you do. The cooking will mostly be[47] done by you and your chums; your elders will—will eat it, and that’ll be sufficient punishment for them.”

“But—but I’ve just engaged a lad to aid with the cooking and help out generally,” struck in the professor.

“That’s all right,” responded Mountain Jim airily, eying Jimmie, whose clothes, since they had been dried by the agent’s cook stove, looked worse than before, “that kid seems all right, and he can take his turn with the others. In the mountains it’s share and share alike, you know, and no favors. That’s the rule up this way.”

The boys looked rather dismayed. Already the standards of the city were being swept aside. Evidently this mountaineer looked upon all men and boys as being alike, provided they did their share of the work set before them.

Ralph, alone, whose wild life on the Border had already done for him what the Rockies were to perform for his companions, viewed the guide[48] with approval. He knew that out in the wilderness, be it mountain or plain, certain false standards of caste and station count for nothing. As Coyote Pete had been wont to say in those old days along the Border, “It ain’t the hide that counts, it’s the man underneath it.”

“First thing to do is to sort out some of this truck and see what you do need and what you don’t,” decided Mountain Jim presently. “Most times it’s the things that you think you kain’t get along without that you kin, and the things you think you kin that you kain’t.”

“That’s right,” agreed Ralph heartily. “Daniel Boone, on his first journey into Kentucky, managed to worry along on pinole and salt, and relied for everything else on his old rifle and flint and steel.”

“Never heard of the gentleman,” said Mountain Jim, “but he must uv been a good woodsman. Now let’s get to work and sort out this truck.”

[49]

Ruthlessly the travelers’ kits were torn open, and it was amazing, when Mountain Jim got through, what a huge pile of things that he declared unnecessary were heaped upon the depot platform. As for poor Hardware’s “dingbats,” a new kind of compass and a hunting knife that met with Jim’s approval, alone remained.

“All this stuff can stay here till you get ready to come back,” said Jim; “the station agent will look after it and see that it is put in the freight shed.”

But it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Out of the rejected “Dingbats” a fine hunting suit, axe, knife and compass were found for Jimmie, who, indeed, stood sadly in need of them. When the boy had retired to the station agent’s room and dressed himself in his new garments, the change in him was so remarkable, when he reappeared, as to be nothing less than striking. In the place of the ragged looking Bowery boy, they saw a well set-up lad in natty[50] hunting outfit. A trifle emaciated he was, to be sure, but “We’ll soon fill him out with hard work and good grub,” declared Mountain Jim, who had been told the boy’s story, and who had warmly praised his heroism in rescuing Persimmons.

The latter had also changed his wet garments and was in his usual bubbling spirits when they were ready, in Ralph’s phrase, to “hit the trail.” This was not till nearly noon, however, for the rejection of the superfluous “Dingbats,” of which even Ralph and the professor were found to have a few, had occupied much time. Then, after hearty adieus to the station agent, who had incidentally been the recipient of a generous gratuity from the professor, they mounted their ponies and, with Mountain Jim in the lead, started on their long journey into the wilds. Jimmy, whose circus experience had taught him how to ride, was mounted on one of the pack[51] animals, for, such had been Mountain Jim’s ruthless rejection of “Dingbats,” only a tithe of the expected “pack” remained.

Up the trail they mounted at an easy pace under the big pines that shook out honey-sweet odors as the little cavalcade passed beneath them. At the summit of the rocky cliff that towered above the depot, the trail plunged abruptly into a dense, black tunnel of tamarack, pine and Douglas firs.

As the horses’ hoofs rang clear on the rocky trail and echoed among the columnular trunks that shot up on every side like the pillars of some vast cathedral roof, Mountain Jim broke into dolorous song:

“Hokey pokey winky wang;

Linkum, lankum muscodang;

The Injuns swore that th-e-y would h-a-n-g

Them that couldn’t keep w-a-r-m!”

[52]

Over and over he sang it, while the shod hoofs clattered out a metallic accompaniment to the droning air.

“Can we ride ahead a bit?” asked Ralph after a while, for the monotony of keeping pace with the pack animals and the constant repetition of Mountain Jim’s song began to grow wearisome.

“Sure; go ahead. You can’t get lost. The trail runs straight ahead. The only way to get off it is to fall off,” said Jim cheerfully, drawing out and filling with black tobacco a villainous-looking old pipe.

“Don’t get into any trouble,” warned the professor, who had been provided with a quiet horse, and who was intent, as he rode along, on a volume dealing with the geological formation of the Canadian Rockies.

“We’ll be careful! So long! Come on, boys,” shouted back Ralph, as he struck his heels into his pony.

Off they clattered up the trail, the rocks ringing[53] with their excited voices till the sound died away in the distance. Jimmie alone remained behind. He felt that his duty as general assistant demanded it. When the last echo of the ponies’ hoofs had died out, Mountain Jim turned to the professor with a profound wink.

“I can see where we have our hands full this trip, professor,” he remarked, as they ambled easily along.

The professor looked up from his book and sighed.

“Really, I wonder my hair is not snow white,” he said mildly. “But surely that is a fine specimen of Aethusa Cijnapium I see yonder!”

“Oh, that,” said Mountain Jim, gazing at the feathery plant indicated, which grew in great profusion at the trail side, “that’s ‘fool’s parsley.’”

“O-h-h!” said the professor.

He might have said more, but at that instant from the trail ahead, came a series of shouts[54] and yells that made it appear as if a troop of rampant Indians was on the war-path. The sharp crack of a rifle sounded, followed by silence.