xv.] A VISITOR. what kind of beings we were. 215 The rifle was near me under the sleeping bags, just where we had put it when the thunderstorm was coming on. I instantly seized it, but the lock was so choked by the dry earth that the lever refused to work. Frantically I pulled away to try and get a cartridge in, but it was no use. The goat, deeply engrossed in my movements, took a step aside to see more distinctly what I was at. Then Ben came to my assistance and between us we got the breech open and the cartridge in. The goat, by this, had strolled down into the gully close by, and when we advanced to the edge, we saw him going at his best speed up the rocks about 300 yards away. I chanced a running shot and saw the ball knock up the stones near his tail. With the feeling that we had been insulted by that goat we slung our packs on our backs. Ben, having loaded himself with galena, could not take his share of the camp things, so between cameras, instruments, cooking utensils, &c., my pack weighed, as I found by putting the things together on a subsequent occasion, forty-two lbs. All the hard angular items in it made it a very tiresome one to carry, especially when descending the steep moraine where the foot hold was loose. We had to ascend about 1,000 feet to the col, and as we went, we looked out for H.'s belt and knife that he had thrown down on the spot where we waited for him three days before, when he went off to hunt the goat. We had some difficulty in finding the place, but the sketch I had taken helped us, and by consulting it we got the true line to the spot and found the knife. Then we toiled up the snow slopes, and on reaching the col, found that a bear had slept there on the snow the evening before; there was an exact cast of his form and his footprints leading to and fro. I suppose the heat of the valley, or possibly the shots he heard, sent him upwards to this very airy situation for his night's slumbers. When we came near to the place where we saw the marmots, H. shot one and I shot another, so we were well off for supper, and then commenced the descent to our tent on the river flat below. We had to cross a cascade, and as it was now late in the day, the stream was swollen to its utmost. The trail led us to a place where we could not cross without going into water above our boots, which Ben and I did, but H., wishing to get across dry, clambered down to a lower pool, where a log offered a possible chance of getting over. H., with the utmost confidence, sprang on to the log, which instantly revolving on its axis, precipitated him, pack, marmot, rifle, and all, into the cascade, and the worst of it was that he had on him, slung by a strap, our mountain aneroid, and it never went again. Fortunately he escaped being rolled by the torrent over a fall of 100 feet; so beyond the xv.] . ARRIVAL AT GLACIER. 217 wetting and the damage to the aneroid, and some skin off his elbows and nose, he was nothing the worse. On reaching our tent we found the river so high that had we wished to proceed to "Glacier" before nightfall we could not have done so; we therefore lit the fire, and made a good supper of stewed marmot. On the morning of the 24th, at 7 A.M., we left our tent, packed up on the home side of the river, and taking our knapsacks, walked down to "Glacier," which we reached at 9. Later in the day Ben returned with Charlie and the cayuse, and fetched down the camp. As we had now carried packs on our shoulders for ten consecutive days, and had had no leisure to work up observations, we determined to take two days rest. And there being nothing on hand in which Ben could help us, we said good-bye, and he returned to Illecellewaet. CHAPTER XVI. “The broad column which rolls on, and shows More like the fountain of an infant sea Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes BYRON. Last ascent in Selkirks.—Golden City.-Up the Columbia.-Lake Windermere.-Across the Rockies. DEVELOPING photographs in the wine cellar and plotting out mountains, glaciers, and streams on our map, was now the order of the day. Part of the 25th was devoted to this work, and then we walked up to make some observations on the glacier. On August 13th we had taken up a large auger, bored a series of holes, and set up a row of poles across the glacier to test its motion. We should have visited them before now but that we had no spare day to do so. On gaining the top of the moraine we found that all the poles had fallen, owing to the surface-melting of the ice under the powerful summer sun. By cutting steps, we gained the surface of the ice, and found the CH. XVI.] MOVEMENTS OF THE GLACIER. 219 lower parts of the holes, and were able to set up a few of the rods again. The motion in twelve days seemed to be-No. 1 pole, near moraine, 7 feet; No. 2, further out, 10 feet: centre of glacier, 20 feet. The snout of the glacier showed evidence of retreat, for there were two rows of boulders in front of it. The outer one, about sixty feet from the ice, seemed to have been dropped the previous year; the inner row during the present year. As a test like that used in the valley of the Rhone glacier, I tarred some of the boulders in closest proximity to the ice. The retreat from these marks may be observed by future travellers. When we were coming down the Asulkan valley on the previous day, we had noticed in some mud the footprints of a very large bear, which Ben pronounced to be a "silvertip." When he was going up to fetch the tent, he saw that the beast had traversed this same track again. It was therefore evident that it was the habit of the animal to come down to pick berries and return up the valley. Accordingly we determined to try for a last chance at a bear. There was a gentleman staying at Glacier who had come each year for twenty years to hunt in the American mountains and prairies, so he and I determined to go up the valley in the evening and lie in ambush for the beast; he had his favourite Winchester, and I took our Henri-Martini. |