CHAPTER XIII HUSHA THE BLACK RAM

Cal or “Grizzly” Hosmer was brought into the car, introduced and persuaded to eat some dinner. He knew Mr. Mackworth and Sam Skinner and he and his friends held a reunion. Then the talk passed to the plans for the next day. When these had been discussed the bear hunter arose to take his leave. Followed to the rear platform by Sam Skinner and the boys, a final pipe was proposed by Skinner and the two old hunters took possession of a couple of chairs.

It was decidedly cool for the boys but, anxious to miss no possible bit of hunting or mountain lore, they hurried to their stateroom, donned their new cloth Jersey jackets and, returning, perched themselves on the rail near the men. The moon was just appearing above the Eastern range.

“So you youngsters air agoin’ huntin’ fur sheep an’ goats in a airyplane?” began Hosmer at once.

“Yes, sir,” replied Frank. “What do you think about it?”

“Think about it?” repeated the bear hunter sucking hard on his pipe. “What license hev I got to think about it? I ain’t never seen one o’ ’em, nor never had no notion I would.”

“Well,” explained Frank, “we can go wherever we like in it—high or low—and stay in the air practically as long as we like.”

“That ought to help some,” said Hosmer, “fur there is sure many a place them critters’ll go whar they ain’t no man kin foller ’em.”

“That’s it,” exclaimed Phil. “Do you know any such places?”

“Do I know any such places?” laughed Hosmer. “Say, Sam,” chuckled Grizzly, “do we know any places whar a goat kin go that a man can’t foller ’em?”

“Well, some,” answered Skinner also laughing. “An’ comin’ down to tacks,” added Sam, “I reckon there’s a sight more such places than where you can go.”

“Show us the hardest,” exclaimed Frank. “That’s all we want to know.”

Hosmer, who had been relighting his pipe stopped suddenly as if struck with an idea. His chuckle died out and his face became serious.

“There ain’t no grizzly in the Selkirk country ’at kin go whar I can’t foller him, and hev,” he explained. “But as fur sheep an’ goats, let ’em git the wind o’ ye an’, mainly, it’s all off. They’re the tantalizinest critters ’at ever growed in these parts. But if that airyplane kin fly anywhere, I almost wisht—”

“You wish what?” asked Phil sliding from his seat on the railing.

“I almost wisht I had the nerve to go in it and hev jist one look down on Baldy’s Bench from the sky.”

“Baldy’s Bench?” exclaimed Frank. “What’s that and where?”

“How’d that be, Skinner?” went on Hosmer, turning to Sam.

“Baldy’s Bench?” repeated Sam. “I’ve heard of a lot of goat and sheep benches, but I don’t know as I ever heard of that one.”

“Well,” went on Hosmer, “I calc’late mebbe that’s so. ’Tain’t very handy and ’tain’t hunted much. Cause why? Cause ever’ one knows ’tain’t no use. But onless I’m mistook, allowin’ that there’s kings o’ animals, ef the king o’ all the sheep in these Rockies don’t live up on Baldy’s Bench, I miss my guess.”

“What makes you think so?” asked Frank excitedly.

“What makes me think so? Well, for one thing,” replied Hosmer, “I’ve seen him.”

“Oh,” interrupted Skinner arousing himself. “You mean Old Indian Chief? I remember now.”

“Sure, some calls him that,” answered the bear hunter. “But ef ye ever laid eyes on him he’ll always be Ol’ Baldy to ye. I reckon he’s the biggest an’ oldest Bighorn in the world. I know he’s the curiousest critter ’at ever clumb a precipice.”

“Maybe it’s Husha the Black Ram!” exclaimed Frank as he caught Phil’s arm.

“Ye must ’a’ heerd that from some Kootenai Injun,” said Hosmer at once. “That’s one o’ their pet names fur any Bighorn they can’t git.”

“Ever hear of Koos-ha-nax, the mighty Indian hunter who set out to kill the king of all the mountain sheep?” continued Frank breathlessly.

“Sure,” answered Hosmer, “an’ in twenty yarns more or less. Ye mean about Koos bein’ kind of a brother to the ol’ ram?”

“That’s it,” said Phil drawing nearer the speaker. “Did you ever see him?”

Hosmer laughed, struck his old friend Sam on the knee and then subsiding, slowly relit his bubbling pipe.

“I kin see that someone has been a stringin’ you lads. But ’tain’t surprisin’. All Injuns kind o’ sing that story. But ye kin take it from me—’tain’t no man a livin’, white ur red, ’at could ever ’a’ clumb whar I’ve seen Ol’ Baldy go. There ain’t nothin’ to the Injun part o’ that yarn.”

“But you do think there may be a king of the sheep?” asked Frank.

“Like as not. An’ I reckon they is o’ the elks an’ moose, too.”

“And Old Baldy may be the king of the mountain sheep?”

“Why not? He sure looks the part—ur did. Like as not he’s dead now. I ain’t been near the bench in—mebbe seven ur eight year.”

“Looks the part! What do you mean by that?” eagerly inquired Phil.

“Sam,” said Hosmer, “gimme a pipe o’ that smokin’ o’ yourn—it smells like reg’lar tobacco. I see I got to tell these boys about Baldy.” As he emptied his odorous pipe and refilled it with some of Sam’s tobacco—which, by the way, came from Mr. Mackworth’s private stock—the two boys sank on the floor at Grizzly’s feet.

“They ain’t agoin’ to be no start to it like a book story,” began Hosmer between puffs, “because they wasn’t no special beginnin’ to what I seen Ol’ Baldy do to a couple o’ lions—us only seein’ the end o’ it. So long as ye don’t know the lay o’ the land, it’s hard to tell ye whar the Bench is. Mr. Mackworth ain’t never been to it an’ he’s hunted ’bout as fur as the next one ’round here. Most gin’rally we all work up the Elk River Valley, huntin’ the hills right an’ left along the river till we git to the Fordin’ an’ then foller up that stream ur Goat Crick to head waters. Well, ef ye take Goat Crick trail to Norboe Mountain, an’ that’s better’n sixty mile from here, an’ then turn north ye kin git to the Bench by goin’ about forty mile furder north. An’ it’s some goin’ I’ll promise ye,” continued Hosmer. “That’s why we customary turned south at Norboe an’ worked the Herchmer’s.”

“Pretty high mountains, eh?” asked Frank.

“Not so high in the way o’ peaks, but gin’rally high,” went on the hunter inhaling the fragrance of his new tobacco like a perfume and contentedly crossing his legs, one of which he swung back and forth placidly. “It’s all good game country but a lot o’ folks don’t know it. The only deestrict ’at’s at all like the Bench ’at I know of is Old Crow’s Nest Mountain whar the C. P. cuts through the Rockies over on the divide. It stands out on a knob o’ ground that’s kivered with lodge pole pines. Them jack trees, seein’ ’em from a good ways off, reaches out like a blanket. An’ the Bench is punched right up through the middle o’ the blanket like a big choc’late drop, bare an’ brown. When the snow’s on it, it’s a picter. Raisin’ above them green jack pines, it’s so glarin’ white ye’d think it wuz sugar, but it ain’t; ain’t nothing sweet about it either in the way o’ bus’ness sich as mine. Ye’d think, lookin’ at the Bench over them long rollin’ stretches o’ green pine from the next range, that ye could walk up one side o’ it an’ down the other like them Egyptian pyrimids, bein’ nothin’ but big handy steps. Sich they air, but not fur men when ye come up to ’em; them steps is fifty an’ a hundred feet high. An’ they’s landin’s back o’ each o’ ’em. But how air ye goin’ to git on ’em? They is sheep trails up some o’ ’em but in most places not even them. They is places on the bench ’at the sheep jist nacherly walks up the walls an’ I seen ’em do it. Ye can’t foller ’em,” asserted Hosmer, “an’ ye don’t need to try. Therefore and hence,” he continued authoritatively, “ye kin rest assured they is a plenty o’ sheep thar, ur was, eight year ago.”

The boys were brimming with happiness. Nothing could be better suited to their desires.

“I suppose you call it the Bench because of those steps?” suggested Phil. “The sheep live on these steps I suppose, movin’ around the mountain to keep in the sun.”

“I call it the Bench,” continued Hosmer, “because it is—the top bein’ flattened off as I calc’late. It kind o’ looks like a dome an’ purty nigh a peak from the foot o’ the mountain. But ef ye see it fur enough off on a clear day, ye’ll see the top is a big bench slopin’ toward the east, as I reckon, ’though they ain’t no range over east whar ye kin git a look at it. My own idee is that there’s a sort o’ flat summit there or mebbe a sort o’ purtected basin whar the real climbers o’ them sheep go. Leastwise they don’t hang around much on the steps.”

“Couldn’t a man get up there if he was a good climber?” asked Phil, who had Koos-ha-nax and Old Indian Chief in mind.

“Fur be it from me to say positive what any man kin do ur can’t. There may be places whar a man could git his toes in here and there but I ain’t never found ’em.”

“But there might have been a trail years ago that a man could use, even if it’s gone now?” persisted Phil.

“Considerin’ what the snow an’ ice does to the rocks, that’s strickly possible,” conceded “Grizzly.” “But, if I ever seen a mountain ’at you’d say was nonassessible I reckon it’s the Bench.”

“But Old Baldy,” exclaimed Frank, “tell us about him.”

“I ain’t seen Baldy but once,” went on the talker, “but I’d heerd o’ him often from the Kootenai Injuns. They didn’t make no doubt about him bein’ the king o’ the Bighorns an’ I kind o’ agreed with ’em when I seen him. The biggest ram I ever killed stood 41 inches high an’ weighed 320 pounds. Ef Ol’ Baldy don’t weigh 500 pounds and stan’, horns to hoofs, near five feet, I’m mistook bad.”

“But why is he called Baldy?” Phil asked quickly.

“Because he is,” replied Hosmer, “is, ur wuz, fur like enough he’s dead now. Baldy is, ur wuz, the Black Ram all right; his horns when I seen him wuz black as new coal—and big! I’ll never swear ’at I could span ’em with my two arms. Sheep as a rule is sort o’ brown-black lookin’; one ur the other as depends. I reckon Baldy had been reg’lar black but bein’ mighty old accordin’ to the rings on his horns he wuz gray like mostly all over, makin’ him look sort o’ ghost like. That is exceptin’ his head where he wuz plum’ bald. From his horns to his muzzle he hadn’t a speck o’ hair an’ the skin o’ his face, though it wuz flabby and wrinkled, wuz kind o’ pinkish-cream like. That, him bein’ gray all over, wouldn’t ’a’ looked so unusual like ef it hadn’t ’a’ been fur two black marks on his face. I couldn’t never figger out whether it wuz hair still a growin’ there ur disfiggerments o’ the skin. But the ol’ ram, an’ I never made no doubt but it was him the Kootenais call Husha, has a mark ye’ll know if ye ever see him. From the crown o’ his horns to his muzzle they is a black stripe jist like a streak o’ paint an’ as reg’lar. Acrost from eye to eye is another stripe and them two makes a black cross; ’at’s the first thing I saw—a black cross on his ol’ pinkish, wrinkled face.”

“And?” exclaimed Frank eagerly as Hosmer fondled his pipe a moment.

“Well,” resumed the story-teller, “to git to facks, I wuz lion huntin’ one winter with Jack Jaffray, havin’ a camp up back o’ Mt. Osborne. We wuz workin’ on snowshoes an’ had been out o’ camp about twenty-four hours down near Baldy’s Bench, the weather bein’ fine an’ the snow hard. We had a notion about lions gittin’ out o’ the timber on to the sheep trails fur food and the Bench seemed a likely place. This wuz in April an’ they had been enough sun to start some o’ the snow up on the Bench over on the east side. They wuz great clean patches o’ rock whar the steps had been swept clean by slides.

“That meant the sheep trails might be clear in the sunniest part o’ the east side. It was purty hard walkin’ in the timber so we got clost as we could to the Bench an’ crawlin’ over the snow kivered rocks worked around to east’ard. It wasn’t long before we come acrost lion signs an’ fresh ones, too. Out o’ the timber them lions had come, fur they wuz two, jist ahead of us an’ on the same bus’ness. That looked good fur we had the wind o’ ’em—”

“You mean mountain lions?” asked Frank edging still nearer.

“What’d you think? African?” retorted Hosmer. “But, no jokin’, don’t think Rocky Mountain lions is pet Malteses. We knowed this all right. So we kept our eyes open. Fin’ly we got up to the Bench and findin’ footin’ we took off our snowshoes an’ crawled up on the first ledge ur step. We could see the lions had jist done the same thing. We wuz trailin’ single file, me in front, an’ at the first bend I come on a picter ’at’ll be hard to furgit. The point o’ the next shelf above us had broke off, likely by snow ur ice, and they wuz a slice gone out o’ the face o’ the Bench. It made a precipice above us not less ’an fifty feet high an’ the slice fallin’ out made a kind o’ plateau mebbe two hundred feet long endin’ in a wall at the other end.

“Close to the wall wuz two as fine painters as I ever seen. We measured ’em later on—one o’ ’em nine feet from tip to tip. They wuz crouched fur business all right, their long yellow winter hair on end an’ their bellies on the rocks. Side by side, their long heavy tails beatin’ the rocks, they wuz weavin’ for’ard like snakes. An’ at the fur end o’ the plateau wuz what they wuz lookin’ fur—a herd o’ about twenty sheep a lyin’ in the sun.

“The sheep must hev got there over the trail we wuz follerin’. They had wind o’ no danger yit but they was trapped. O’ course it wasn’t as bad as that ’cause there wuz me an’ Jack behind the big cats but the sheep didn’t know that. I hadn’t no sooner give Jack the signal afore he caught my arm an’ p’inted up’ard. Fur a minute them painters went out o’ my mind. It was another picter ’at beat the first one. Right on the edge o’ the cliff ur precipice and no less ’an fifty feet above us, stood Ol’ Baldy. We seen him well an’ I’m tellin’ ye he looked as big as a cow. What we seen Ol’ Baldy seen too. He was standin’, his four feet in a p’int together, his big horns a reachin’ out like he was agoin’ to fly and that black cross o’ his hangin’ over the aidge o’ the rocks. An’ it was a warnin’ fur them crawlin’ lions, but they didn’t know it no more’n we did.

“‘There he is,’ whispered Jack to me. ‘Ye can’t mistake him. That’s Ol’ Baldy that ye’ve heerd about.’

“‘An’ I reckon that’s his tribe,’ I whispered. ‘Ye kin bet he’s goin’ to hev a few less subjecks in about a minute.’

“‘He’s on guard,’ said Jack.

“‘I reckon so,’ I said. ‘But he’d better be down here whar the doin’s is goin’ to come off.’

“Then we lost sight of Ol’ Baldy fur a minute. Them innocent, sleepin’ sheep had got wind ur warnin’ o’ the danger nigh ’em an’ in about two seconds they wuz all on their feet, backed together in a bunch an’ facin’ the lions. But them lions wasn’t disturbed. I reckon they seen they had ever’thing their own way. They jist laid their heads flatter on the rocks an’ a cat sneakin’ a bird wasn’t no easier nor quieter than they wuz.

“‘They’re a pickin’ ’em out,’ explained Jack, kind o’ excited and out o’ breath. Now all the rams was in front o’ the bunch but they knowed they had no chance; fur the herd was backin’ closter an’ closter to the wall behind ’em. We had good shoulder shots on both them animals,” explained Hosmer, “but, somehow, though we wuz a kneelin’ with our rifles all ready, we didn’t shoot. We was kind o’ charmed I reckon, watchin’ the big cats git closter an’ closter to their meat. They wa’n’t a sound from the sheep and then we seen the lions git ready fur business. Fur a minute they lay like logs an’ then you could see ’em drawin’ together in a bunch fur to spring for’ard. Their tails was flat on the rocks an’ I wuz just thinkin’ to myself, ‘now I’ll see how fur a lion kin really jump,’ when somethin’ happened. I thought it was the lions in the air. An’ it wuz one of ’em, but the other one, he never made no jump.

“They was a streak acrost the face o’ that cliff; a rush like a rock tore loose and then a heavy crunch ’at made my heart stop beatin’. Ol’ Baldy, straight as a arrer, had throwed hisself from that cliff. An’ them horns o’ his, like a railroad engine bumpin’ ag’in a loaded car, had broke one o’ the lion’s backs so clean that the painter never moved ag’in. An’ I couldn’t move. I jist kind o’ gasped. It seemed like a man committin’ suicide. But don’t you believe it. Ol’ Baldy rolled over an’ lay still not more’n two seconds. Then he got on his feet, tremblin’ like, wabbled a little, shook his head and with a snort like an engine whistle wuz on the other lion’s flank.

“The second lion had jumped an’ sunk his jaws in the neck o’ the biggest ram. An’ that wuz his mistake. When Ol’ Baldy snorted the lion dropped his victim an’ whirled about. A dozen trapped sheep wuz on him hoof an’ horn. Once ag’in he tried to face the herd when Ol’ Baldy, his head on the ground, shot under the painter. We couldn’t see what happened but we heerd it—it was like the rippin’ up of an ol’ blanket. With one sweep o’ his horn the old ram had killed the lion and the fight was over.

“We could ’a’ potted Ol’ Baldy an’ his whole tribe ef we’d wanted to, but we weren’t after sheep jist then. ‘An’ ef we ain’t goin’ to shoot,’ I says to Jack, ‘let’s give ’em plenty o’ room.’ We went back along the trail, let out a few yells, an’ when we come back, ever’ sheep had come out and gone wherever they belonged. Them two skins went to New York fur to be mounted fur specimens. They brung us a good price.”

For a few moments the boys sat in rapt silence.

“Mr. Skinner,” exclaimed Frank at last, “was it at Baldy’s Bench where you nearly lost your hat, the time you and Uncle Guy thought you saw Old Indian Chief and almost got him?”

The old hunter shook his head.

“Me and Mr. Mackworth never went north o’ Mt. Osborne,” he answered.

“Then,” exclaimed Frank, jumping to his feet, “Uncle Guy never saw the real king of the Bighorns. It’s Old Baldy, I’m sure. And I’m certain he’s yet alive and doin’ business. If he is, we’ll have him within a week.”