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[171] 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.”
[172]
“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.”
[173]
“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.”
[174]
“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?”
[175]
“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[176] 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.[177] 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[178] 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............