Hamlin Garland - The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop

Winter in the upper heights of the Bear Tooth Range is a glittering desolation of snow with a flaming blue sky above. Nothing moves, nothing utters a sound, save the cony at the mouth of the spiral shaft, which sinks to his deeply buried den in the rocks. The peaks are like marble domes, set high in the pathway of the sun by day and thrust amid the stars by night. The firs seem hopeless under their ever-increasing burdens. The streams are silenced – only the wind is abroad in the waste, the tireless, pitiless wind, fanged like ingratitude, insatiate as fire.

But it is beautiful, nevertheless, especially of a clear dawn, when the shadows are vividly purple and each rime-wreathed summit is smit with ethereal fire, and each eastern slope is resplendent as a high-way of powdered diamonds – or at sunset, when the high crests of the range stand like flaming mile-stones leading to the Celestial City, and the lakes are like pools of pure gold caught in a robe of green velvet. Yet always this land demands youth and strength in its explorer.

King Frost's dominion was already complete over all the crests, over timber-line, when young Captain Curtis set out to cross the divide which lay between Lake Congar and Fort Sherman – a trip to test the virtue of a Sibley tent and the staying qualities of a mountain horse.

Bennett, the hairy trapper at the head of the lake, advised against it. "The snow is soft – I reckon you better wait a week."

But Curtis was a seasoned mountaineer and took pride in assaulting the stern barrier. "Besides, my leave of absence is nearly up," he said to the trapper.

"Well, you're the doctor," the old trapper replied. "Good luck to ye, Cap."

It was sunrise of a crisp, clear autumn morning when they started, and around them the ground was still bare, but by noon they were wallowing mid-leg deep in new-fallen snow. Curtis led the way on foot – his own horse having been packed to relieve the burdens of the others – while Sergeant Pierce, resolute and uncomplaining, brought up the rear.

"We must camp beside the sulphur spring to-night," Curtis said, as they left timber-line and entered upon the bleak, wind-swept slopes of Grizzly Bear.

"Very well, sir," Pierce cheerily replied, and till three o'clock they climbed steadily towards the far-off glacial heights, the drifts ever deepening, the cold ever intensifying. They had eaten no food since dawn, and the horses were weak with hunger and weariness as they topped the divide and looked down upon the vast eastern slope. The world before them seemed even more inhospitable and wind-swept than the land they had left below them to the west. The air was filled with flying frost, the sun was weak and pale, and the plain was only a pale-blue sea far, far below to the northeast. The wind blew through the pass with terrible force, and the cold nipped every limb like a famishing white wolf.

"There is the sulphur spring, sir," said Pierce, pointing towards a delicate strand of steam which rose from a clump of pines in the second basin beneath them.

"Quite right, sergeant, and we must make that in an hour. I'd like to take an observation here, but I reckon we'd better slide down to camp before the horses freeze."

The dry snow, sculptured by the blast in the pass, made the threadlike path an exceedingly elusive line to keep, and trailing narrowed to a process of feeling with the feet; but Curtis set his face resolutely into the northeast wind and led the way down the gulch. For the first half-mile the little pack-train crawled slowly and hesitatingly, like a bewildered worm, turning and twisting, retracing its way, circling huge bowlders, edging awful cliffs, slipping, stumbling, but ever moving, ever descending; and, at last, while yet the sun's light glorified the icy kings behind them, the Captain drew into the shelter of the clump of pines from which the steam of the warm spring rose like a chimney's cheery greeting.

"Whoa, boys!" called Curtis, and with a smile at Pierce, added, "Here we are, home again!"

It was not a cheerful place to spend the night, for even at this level the undisturbed snow lay full twelve inches deep and the pines were bowed with the weight of it, and as the sun sank the cold deepened to zero point; but the sergeant drew off his gloves and began to free the horses from their packs quite as if these were the usual conditions of camping.

"Better leave the blankets on," remarked the young officer. "They'll need 'em for warmth."

The sergeant saluted and continued his work, deft and silent, while Curtis threw up a little tent on a cleared spot and banked it snugly with snow. In a very short time a fire was blazing and some coffee boiling. The two men seemed not to regard the cold or the falling night, except in so far as the wind threatened the horses.

"It's hard luck on them," remarked Curtis, as they were finishing their coffee in the tent; "but it is unavoidable. I don't think it safe to try to go down that slide in the dusk. Do you?"

"It's dangerous at any time, sir, and with our horses weak as they are, it sure would be taking chances."

"We'll make Tom Skinner's by noon to-morrow, and be out of the snow, probably." The young soldier put down his tin cup and drew a map from his pocket. "Hold a light, sergeant; I want to make some notes before I forget them."

While the sergeant held a candle for him, Curtis rapidly traced with a soft pencil a few rough lines upon the map. "That settles that water-shed question;" he pointed with his pencil. "Here is the dividing wall, not over there where Lieutenant Crombie drew it. Nothing is more deceptive than the relative heights of ranges. Well, now take a last look at the horses," he said, putting away his pencil, "and I'll unroll our blankets."

As they crawled into their snug sleeping-bags Curtis said again, with a sigh, "I'm sorry for the ponies."

"They'll be all right now, Captain; they've got something in their stomachs. If a cayuse has any fuel in him he's like an engine – he'll keep warm," and so silence fell on them, and in the valley the cold deepened till the rocks and the trees cried out in the rigor of their resistance.

The sun was filling the sky with an all-pervading crimson-and-orange mist when the sergeant crawled out of his snug nest and started a fire. The air was perfectly still, but the frost gripped each limb with benumbing fury. The horses, with blankets awry, stood huddled close together in the shelter of the pines not far away. As the sergeant appeared they whinnied to express their dependence upon him, and when the sun rose they turned their broadsides to it gratefully.

The two men, with swift, unhesitating action, set to work to break camp. In half an hour the tent was folded and packed, the horses saddled, and then, lustily singing, Curtis led the way down upon the floor of the second basin, which narrowed towards the north into a deep and wooded valley leading to the plains. The grasp of winter weakened as they descended; December became October. The snow thinned, the streams sang clear, and considerably before noon the little train of worn and hungry horses came out upon the grassy shore of a small lake to bask in genial sunshine. From this point the road to Skinner's was smooth and easy, and quite untouched of snow.

As they neared the miner's shack, a tall young Payonnay, in the dress of a cowboy, came out to meet them, smiling broadly.

"I'm looking for you, Captain."

"Are you, Jack? Well, you see me. What's your message?"

"The Colonel says you are to come in right off. He told me to tell you he had an order for you."

A slouching figure, supporting a heap of greasy rags, drew near, and a low voice drawled, weakly: "Jack's been here since Friday. I told him where you was, but he thought he'd druther lay by my fire than hunt ye."