Latest / Around the Clock in Europe : A Travel Sequence / Through Glacier Park, Seeing America First with Howard Eaton-Mary Roberts Rinehart

Transcript

Through Glacier Park, Seeing America First with Howard Eaton-Mary Roberts Rinehart · Around the Clock in Europe : A Travel Sequence

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Forward and chapter one of Through Glacier Park, Seeing America
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: First with Howard Eton by Mary Robert's rhinehart This is
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Through Glacier Park, Seeing America First with Howard Eton by
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Mary Robert's rhinehart Ford. There are many to whom new
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: places are only new pictures. But after much wandering, this
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: thing I have learned, and I wish I had learned
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: it sooner. That travel is a matter not only of seeing,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: but of doing. It is much more than that. It
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: is a matter of new human contacts. It is not
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: of places but of people. What are regions but the
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: setting for life? The desert without its arabs is but
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: the place that God forgot to travel. Then is to do,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: not only to see. To travel best is to be
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: the sportsmen of the road, to take a chance, and
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: when to fill the glow of mussels too long unused
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: to sleep on the ground at night and find it
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: soft to eat, not because it is time to eat,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: but because one's body is clamoring for food to drink.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Where every stream and river is pure and cold, to
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: get close to the earth and see the stars. This
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: is Travel Chapter one the Adventurers. This is about a
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: three hundred mile trip across the Rocky Mountains on horseback
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: with Howard Eton. It is about fishing and cool nights
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: around a camp fire and long days on the trail.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: It is about a party of all sorts from everywhere,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: of men and women, old and young, experienced folk and
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: novices who had yielded to a desire to belong to
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: the sportsmen of the road. And it is by way
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: of being advice also your true convert must always preach.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: If you are normal and philosophical, if you love your country,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: if you like bacon or will eat it anyhow, if
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: you are willing to learn how little you count in
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: the eternal scheme of things. If you are prepared for
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: the first day or two to be able to locate
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: every muscle in your body and a few extra ones
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: that seem to have crept in and are crowding, go
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: ride in the Rocky mountains and save your soul. If
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: you are of the sort that must have fresh cream
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: in its coffee, and its stake rare, and puts its
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: hair up in curlers at night, and likes to talk
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: gossip in great empty places. Don't go, don't read this.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Sit in a moving picture theater and do your traveling.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: But if you go, it will not matter that you
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: have never ridden before. The horses are safe and quiet.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: The western saddle is designed to keep a cowpuncher in
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: his seat when his rope is around an infuriated steer
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: fall off. For the first day or two, dear traveler,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: you will have to be extracted. After that, you will
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: learn that swing of the right leg which clears the saddle.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: The slicker a camera, night clothing, soap, towel, tooth brush, blanket, sweater,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: fishing rod, fly hook comb, extra boots, and sunburn lotion,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: and enables you to alight in a vertical position and
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: without jarring your spine up into your skull. Now and then,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: the United States government does a very wicked thing its
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: treatment of the Indians, for instance, and especially of the
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Blackfeet in Montana. But that's another story. The point is
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: that to offset these lapses, there are occasional government idealisms.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Our national parks are the expression of such an ideal.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: I object to the word park, especially in connection with
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: a particular national reserve in northwestern Montana, known as Glacier Park.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: A park is a civilized spot connected in all our
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: minds with neat paths and clipped lawns. I am just
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: old enough to remember when it meant keep off the
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: grass signs. Also, and my childhood memories of the only
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: park I knew are inseparably connected with the one armed
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: policeman with a cane and an exaggerated sense of duty.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: There are no keep off the grass signs in Glacier Park,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: no gravel paths and clipped lawns. It is the wildest
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: part of America. If the government had not preserved it,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: it would have preserved itself no homestead, or would ever
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: have invaded its rugged magnificence or dared its winter snows.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: But you and I would not have seen it true.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: So far, most niggardly provision has been made. The government
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: offices are a two roomed wooden cabin. The National Warehouse
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: is a barn. To keep it up. To build trails
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: and roads, to give fire protection for its fourteen hundred
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: square miles of great forest with many millions of dollars
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: worth of timber, are provided. Thirteen rangers thirteen rangers an
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: annual allowance less than half of what is given to
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Yellowstone Park. With this difference too, that Yellowstone Park has
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: had money spent on it for thirty two years, while
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Glacier Park is in the making. It is one of
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: the merry little jests we put over now and then.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: For seventy five miles in the north of the park.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: There is no ranger, government property you see, and no protection.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: But no niggardliness on the part of the government can
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: cloud the ideal, which is the raison d'etra for Glacier Park.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Here is the last stand of the Rocky Mountain sheep,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: the Rocky Mountain goat. Here are antelope and deer, black
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: and grizzly bears, mountain lions, trout well, we are coming
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: to the trout. Here are trails that follow the old
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: game trails along the mountain side. Here are meadows of
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: june roses, true forgatme knots, larkspur, Indian paint brush, fireweed
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: that first plant to grow after forest fires. A thousand
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: sorts of fla growing beside snowfields. Here are ice and
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: blazing sun vile roads and trails of a beauty to
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: make you gas. A congressional committee went out to Glacier
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Park in nineteen fourteen and three of their machines went
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: into the ditch. They went home and voted a little
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: money for roads after that, out of gratitude for their lives.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: But they will have to vote more money, much more
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: money for roads. A government mountain reserve without plenty of
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: roads is as valuable as an automobile without gasoline. Nevertheless,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: bad roads or good or none, thirteen rangers or a thousand,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: seen from an automobile or from a horse, Glacier Park
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: is a good place to visit. Howard Eaton thinks so
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: last July, with all of the West to draw from,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: he took his first party through Glacier this year in June,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: with his outfit on a pack horse. He is going
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: to investigate some new trails, and in July he will
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: take a party of riders over them. Forty two people
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: set out with Howard Eaton last summer to ride through
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Glacier Park. They were of every age, weight and temperament.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: About half were women. But one thing they had in
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: common the philosophy of true adventure. Howard Eaton is extremely young.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: He was born quite a number of years ago. But
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: what is that He is a boy, and he takes
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: an annual frolic, And because it means a cracking good time,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: he takes people with him and puts horses under them,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: and the fear of God in their hearts, and bacon
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: and many other things, including beans in their stomachs. He
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: has taken foreign princes and many of the great people
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: of the earth to the tops of high mountains and
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: shown them grizzly bears and their own insignificance at one
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: and the same time. He is a hunter, a sportsman,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: and a splendid gentleman. And because equipment is always a
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: matter of much solicitude on the part of the novice,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: I shall tell tell you what he wears when on
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: his big horse he leads his long line of riders
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: over the trails. He wears a pair of serviceable trousers,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: a blue shirt, and a vest worn by Howard Eaton.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Believe me, they are real clothes. He has hunted along
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: the rockies from Alaska to Mexico. He probably knows Montana, Wyoming,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: and Idaho as well as any man in the country.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: When Howard Eaton first went west, he located in the
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: bad lands. Those were the buffalo days, and it was
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: then that he began taking his friends with him on
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: hunting trips. At first they went as his guests. Even
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: now they are his guests in the truest sense of
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: the word, by their own insistence. As the parties grew larger,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: they determined to help defray the cost of the expeditions.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Everyone who knows Howard Eaton knows that his trips are
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: not made for profit. Probably they barely pay for themselves.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: It is impossible to talk to him about money, save
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: as a meeting of exchange. It does not exist for him.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Life for him is twenty four hours in the open air,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: half of that time in the saddle long vistas, the
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: trail of game, the camp fire at night, and a
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: few hours of quiet sleep under the stars. Roosevelt's ranch
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: was near the Eaton ranch when it was in the
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: bad Lands. Roosevelt and Howard Eaton had taken many hunting
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: trips together titled Foreigners of all Sorts have come over
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: and hunted elk, deer and other game with him. He
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: has supplied museums, parks, and animal shows in every part
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: of America with game. He was and is a crack shot.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Of course, he says he always treated the Indians with respect.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: I always was a little shy when Indians were in
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: the same country with me, And once, when hunting, I
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: retired so fast that the boy said, I beat my
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: shadows six miles in fifteen minutes. In those days, the
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: town of Sentinel Butte consisted of a canvas saloon with
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: the sign Reverent C. A Duffy Best Wines, liquors and cigars.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: I had a fine chance to steal that sign, once,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: says Howard Eaton. But some folks are fools, and I
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: overlooked a bet. The Eaton boys, for there are three,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: left Pittsburgh and went west many years ago. Howard was
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: the first. He went in eighteen seventy nine. In eighteen
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: eighty four, Theodore Roosevelt went out to the same country.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: It was in nineteen o four when the Eatons left
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: the bad Lands and went toward the Big Horn Mountain. There,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: at the foot of Wolf Creek and in the center
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: of the historic battleground of the Eerapajos, Sioux, Crows, and Cheyennes.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: They established a new ranch at Wolf wyoming into Ford
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: and chapter one chapter two of Through Glacier Park, Seeing
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: America First with Howard Eaton by Mary Roberts Rheinhardt. This
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: liprivox recording is in the public domain. Chapter two fall
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: in the Rendezvous for the Eaton Party last summer, was
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: at Glacier Park station on the Great Northern Railway. Getting
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: to that point, remote, as it seemed, had been surprisingly easy,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: almost disappointingly easy. Was this then going to be the
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: borderland of civilization? To the last stronghold of the Old West?
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Over the flat country? With inquiring prairie dogs sitting up
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: to inspect us, The train of heavy pullman, diners and
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: club car moved steadily toward the Purple Drop curtain off
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: the mountains, west, always west now, And then we stopped
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: and passengers got on. They brought with them something new,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: rather electric. It was enthusiasm. The rest, who had been
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: eastern and greatly bored, roused and looked out of the
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: windows for the newcomers were telling fairy too, with wheat
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: for gold and farmers for princes, and backing everything with
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: figures they think in bushels over rather a large part
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: of America to day west, still west. An occasional cowboy
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: silhouetted against the sky thin range cattle, impassive Indians watching
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: the train go by a saw mill and not a
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: tree in sight over a vast horizon. Red raspberries as
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: large as strawberries served in the diner, and trout from
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: the mountains that seemed no nearer by mid day than
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: at dawn. Then at last at twilight Glacier Park station,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: and Howard eaten on the platform, and Old Chief, three
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: bears of the black Feet, wonderfully dressed and preserved at
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: ninety three. It was rather a picturesque party. Those who
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: had gone up from the eaten wrench in Wyoming, a
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: trifle of seven hundred miles, wore their riding clothes to
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: save luggage. Khaki was the rule, the women mostly in
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: breeches and long coats, with high laced shoes reaching to
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the knees, and soft felt hats. The men in writing
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: clothes with sombreros and brilliant bandanas knotted about their throats.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: One or two had rather overdone the part and were
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: the objects of good natured chaffing later on by the
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: guides and cowboys. Hi cried an urchin as we walked
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: about the streets of Billings, Montana, to stretch train tired mussels.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Here's the one O one ranch. Not very long before
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: I had been to the front in Belgium and in France.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I confess that no excursion to the trenches gave me
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: a greater thrill than the one that accompanied that. Start
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: the next morning from the Glacier Park Hotel to cross
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: the Continental Divide, for we were going to cross the Rockies.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Our route was three hundred miles long. It was over
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: six passes. And if you believe, as I did, that
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: a pass is a valley between two mountains, I am
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: here to set you right. A pass is a blood
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: curdling spot up which one's horse climbs like a goat,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: and down the other side of which it slides as
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: you lead it, trampling ever and anon on a tender
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: part of your foot. A pass is the highest place
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: between two peaks. A pass is not an opening, but
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: a barrier which you climb with chills and descend with
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: a prayer. A pass is a thing which you try
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: to forget at the time, and which you boast about
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: when you get back home. For I have made it clear,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: I think that a horseback trip through Glacier Park across
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: the Rockies and down the Pacific slope is a sporting proposition.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: It is safe enough. Howard Eaton has never had an accident,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: but there are times. Once having left the party to
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: make a side trip, my precious buckskin horse called gold
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Dollar was packed over. Now, gold Dollar was a real
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: horse with a beard. He was not a handsome horse.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Even when I was on him, no one would have
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: turned to admire. But he was a strong horse. And
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: on a trail up a switchback. Do you know what
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: a switchback is? Well, a mountain switchback bears about as
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: much relation to the home grown amusement park variety as
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: a stepmother to the real thing. On a switchback. He
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: was well behaved. He hugged the inside of the trail
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: and never tried to reach over the edge with a
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: half mile drop below to crop grass. He was not reckless.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: He was a safe and sane horse. He never cared
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: for me. But that is beside the question. So, having
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: temporarily left gold Dollar, I had to get back to him.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I had to go fifty miles to do it, and
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I was provided with a horse by the man who
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: holds the horse concession in the park. A horse a
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: death trap, a walking calamity, a menace. If companies who
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: carry my life insurance had seen me on that horse,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: they would have gone pale. He was a white horse,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: and he was a pack horse. Now, the way of
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: a pack horse is on the edge of the grave.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Because of his pack, he walks always at the outer
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: side of the trail. If his pack should happen to
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: hit the rocky wall, many unpleasant things would follow, including buzzards.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: So this beast, this creature, this steed of death, walked
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: on the edge of the precipice. He counted that moment lost,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: that saw not two feet dangling blithely over the verge
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: now and then the verge crumbled. We dislodged large stones
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: that fell for a mile or two with a sickening thud.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Once we crossed a snowfield which was tilted, he kept
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: one foot on the trail and gave the other three
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: a chance to take a slide. There was a man
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: riding behind me. When it was all over, he shook
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: my hand off. Then to cross the rocky mountains, forty
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: two of us and two wagons which had started early
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: to go by road to the first camp. Cowboys in
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: chaps and jinglingspurs timorous women who eyed rather askance the
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: blue and purple mountains back of the hotel, automobile tourists,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: partly curious and partly envious the inevitable photographer, for whom
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: we lined up in a semicircle, each one trying to
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: look as if starting off on such a trip was
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: one of the easiest things we did. And over all,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: the bright sun, a breeze from the mountains, and a
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: sense of such exhilaration as only altitude and the west
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: can bring, then a signal to fall in. For a
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: mile or two we went to abreast, past a village
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: of Indian teepees, past meadows scarlet with the Indian paintbrush,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: passed with condescension automobile buses loaded with tourists who craned
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: and watched. Then to the left and off the road.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: The cowboys and guides were watching us as we strung
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: out along the trail. They rode back and forth, inspecting saddles,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: examining store euro seeing that all were comfortable and safe.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: For even that first day, we were to cross Mount Henry,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: and there must be no danger of saddle slipping. Quite
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: without warning, we plunged into a rocky defile with a
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: small river falling in cascades. The shadow of the mountain
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: enveloped us. The horses forded the stream and moved sedately on.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Did you ever ford a mountain stream on horseback? Do it?
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Ride out of the hot sun into a brawling valley.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Watch your horse as he feels his way across the stream,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: eddying about his legs. Give him his head and let
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: him drink lightly, skimming the very surface of the water
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: with his delicate nostrils. Lean down and fill your own cup.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: How cold it is, and how clear, uncontaminated it flows
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: down from the snow covered mountains overhead. It is living.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: End of chapter two, Chapter three of Through Glacier Park,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Seeing America First with Howard Eaton by Mary Roberts Reinhardt.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter three,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: The Sporting Chance. The trail began to rise to the
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: tree covered bench. It twisted as it rose. Those above
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: called cheerfully to those below. We had settled to the
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: sedate walk of our horses, the pace which was to
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: take us over our long itinerary. Hardly ever, was it
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: possible during the days that followed to go faster than
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: a walk. The narrow, twisting trails forbade it now, and
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: then a few adventurous spirits sighting a meadow would hold
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: back until the others had got well ahead, and then
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: pushed their horses to the easy western lope. But such
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: joyous occasions were rare. Up and up the trail was safe,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: the grat easy. At the edge of the bench, we
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: turned and looked back. The great hotel lay below in
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: the sunlight. Leading to it were the gleaming rails of
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: the Great Northern Railway. We turned our horses and went
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: on toward the snow covered peaks ahead. The horses moved quietly,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: one behind the other. As the trail rose. There were
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: occasional stops to rest them. Women who had hardly dared
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: to look out of a third story window found themselves
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: on a bit of rocky shelf, with the tops of
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: the tallest trees far below. The earth as we had
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: known it was falling back and high overhead. Howard Eton,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: at the head of the procession, was sitting on his
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: big horse, silhouetted against the sky. The first day was
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: to be an easy one, twelve miles and camp twelve
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: miles said the experienced riders. Hardly a Sunday morning canter.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: But a mountain mile is a real mile, possibly the
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: measure from peak to peak. I do not know. I
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: do know that we were almost six hours making that
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: twelve miles, and that for four of it we let
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: our horses down a mountain side, over a vacillating path
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: of shale. Knees that up to that point had been
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: fairly serviceable, took to chattering. Riding boots ceased to be
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: a matter of pride, and emerged skinned and broken. The
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: horses slid and stumbled, and luncheon receded down and down
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: great granite cliffs of red and blue and yellow across
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: the valley, and no luncheon. Striped squirrels hiding in the shale,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: and no luncheon. A great glow of moving blood through
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: long stagnant vessels, deep breaths of clear mountain air, a
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: camera dropped on the trail, a stone in a horse's foot,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: and no luncheon. Two o'clock and we were down. The
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: nervous woman, who had never been on a horse before,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: was sensing her own saddle and looking back and up.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: The saddle tightened, she sat down and emptied her riding
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: boots of a few pieces of rock. Her silk stockings
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: were in tatters. I feel as though my knees will
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: never meet again, she said reflectively, But I'm so swollen
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: with pride and joy that I could shriek. That's what
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: it is, partly a sense of achievement, of conquering the unconquerable,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: of pitting human wits against giants and winning a sporting chance.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: You may climb peaks in a railroad coach and see
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: things as wonderful. But you are doing this thing yourself.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Every mile is an achievement, and after all it is
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: miraculously easy. The trails are good, the horses are steady
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: and sure footed. It is a triumph of endurance rather
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: than of courage. If you have got this far, you
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: are one of us, and you will go on, for
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the lure of the high places is in your blood.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: The call of the mountains a real call. The veneer,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: after all, is so thin. Throw off the impedimenta of civilization,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: the telephones, the silly conventions, the lights that pass for truth.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Go out to the west, ride slowly not to startle
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: the wild things. Throw out your chest and breathe. Look
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: out across green valleys to wild peaks, where mountain sheeps
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: stand impassive on the edge of space. Let the summer
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: rains fall on your upturned face and wash away the
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: memory of all that is faults and petty and cruel.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Then the mountains will get you. You will go back.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: The call is a real call. Above the timberline, we
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: rode along bare granite slopes. Erosion had been busy here.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: The mighty winds that sweep the crests of the rockies
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: had bared the mountain's breasts. Beside the trails, high cairns
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: of stone were piled so that during the winter snow
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: the rangers might find their way about. Remember this is
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: northwestern Montana. The Canadian border is only a few miles away,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: and over these peaks sweeps the full force of the
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: great blizzards of the Northwest. The rangers keep going all winter.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: There is much to be done. In the summer, it
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: is forest fires and outlaws. In the winter there are
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: no forest fires, but there are poachers after mountain sheep
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: and goats, opium smugglers, bad men from over the Canadian border.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Now and then a ranger freezes to death All summer,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: these intrepid men, on their sturdy horses go about armed
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: with revolvers. But in the fall snow begins early in September,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: sometimes even in August. They take to snow shoes with
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: a car being strung to his shoulders, matches in a
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: waterproof case, snow shoes, and a package of food in
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: his pocket. The Glacier Park ranger covers unnumbered miles patrolling
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: the wildest and most storm ridden country in America. He
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: travels alone. The imprint of a strange snowshoe on the
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: trail rouses his suspicion. Single handed, he follows the marks
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: in the snow. A blizzard comes, he makes a wikie
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: up of branches, lights a small fire, and plays solitaire
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: until the weather clears. The prey he is stalking cannot
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: advance either. Then one day the snow ceases, the sun
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: comes out over the frozen crust. His snowshoes slide down
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: great slopes with express speed. Generally he takes his man in.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Sometimes the outlaw gets the drop on the ranger first
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: and gets away. During the winter of nineteen thirteen, one
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: of these rangers was frozen to death. He was caught
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: in a blizzard, and he knew what was coming. When
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: at last he sat down beside the trail to wait
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: for death, he placed his snow shoes points upward in
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the snow beside him. He sat there, and the snow
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: came down and covered him. They found him the next
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: day by the points of his snow shoes. The snow
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: melts in the summer on the meadows and in the groves,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: but the peaks are still covered. And here and there
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: the trail leads through a snow field. The horses venture
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: out on it gingerly. The hot sun that blisters the
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: face seems to make no impression on these glacier like patches.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Snow on top and ice beneath. Flowers grow at their
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: very borders. Striped squirrels and whistling marmots, much like Eastern woodchucks,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: run about quite fearless, or sit up and watch the
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: passing of the line of horses and riders, so close
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: that they can almost be touched. Great spaces, cool, shadowy
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: depths in which lie blue lakes, mountain sides threaded with
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: white where from some hidden lake or glacier far above,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: the overflow falls a thousand feet or more, and over
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: all the great silence of the rockies. Nerves that have
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: been tightened for years slowly relax. There is not much talking.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: The horses move along slowly. The sun beats down. Some one,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: shading his eyes with his hand, proclaims a mountain sheep
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: or goat on a crag overhead. The word passes back
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: along the line, also a thrill. Then some wretched electrical
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: engineer or college youth or skeptical lawyer produces a pair
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: of field glasses and announces it to be a patch
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: of snow. Here and there we saw tourist goats, rocks
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: so shaped and situated as to defy the strongest glass.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: The guides pointed them out and listened with silent enjoyment
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: to the resulting acclamation. After that discovery, we adopted a
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: safe rule. Nothing was a goat that did not move.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Long hours we spent while our horses wandered on with
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: loose reins, Our heads lifted to that line just above
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: the timber, which is goatland, and the cry a goat,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: and the glasses and skepticy often undeserved. The first night
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: out of doors, I did not sleep. I had not
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: counted on the frosty nights, and I was cold. The
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: next day I secured from a more provident member of
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: the party woolen pajamas. Clad in those and covered with
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: all the extra portions off my wardrobe, I was more comfortable.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: But it takes woolen clothing and bed socks to keep
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: out the chill of those mountain nights. One rises early
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: with Howard Eaton's party, no matter how late the story
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: tellers have held the crowd the night before around the
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: camp fire, somewhere about five o'clock. Howard he is either
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Howard or Uncle Howard. To everybody comes calling among the
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: silent teapeas time to get up. He calls five o'clock
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: and a fine morning up with you, And everybody gets up.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: There are basins about Each one clutches his cake of
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: soap and his towel and fills his basin from whatever
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: lake or stream is at hand. There is plenty of
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: water in Glacier Park, and the camps are generally beside
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: a lake. The water is cold, it ought to be,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: being Glacier water, cold and blue. The air is none
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: too warm. A few brave spirits seek isolation and a
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: plunge bath. The majority are cowards. Now and then a
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: luxurious soul worried the cook for hot water. They tell
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: of a fastidious lady who carried a small tin pail
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: of water to the cook tent and addressed the cook
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: nervously as he beat the morning flapjacks with a savage hand.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Do you think she inquired, nervously, if if I put
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: this water on your stove it will heat? He turned
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: and eyed her. You see it's like this, lady, he said,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: My father was a poor man and couldn't give me
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: no education. Damned if I know, what do you think?
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Before one is fairly dressed with extra garments thrust into
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: the canvas warsack or duffel bag, which is e each
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: person's allowance for luggage. The tents are being taken down
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: and folded. The cook comes to the end of the
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: big tent. Come and get it, He yells, through hollowed hands,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Come and get it. Is repeated down the line of
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: teapeas that is the food call of an eaten camp.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Believe me it has. The butler's dinner is served madam
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: beaten forty ways for Sunday. There is no second call.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: You go or you don't go. The long tables under
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: the open end of the cook tent are laden with bacon, ham,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: fried eggs, flapjacks, round tins of butter, enameled cups of
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: hot coffee, condensed milk, sometimes fried fish for the cook
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: can catch trout. Where the most elaborately outfitted Eastern angler fells,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: the horses come in with a thudding of hoofs and
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: are rounded up by the men into the rope corral,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: watched by night herders. They have been grazing quietly all
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: night in mountain valleys. There is not much grass for them.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: By the end of the three hundred mile trip they
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: are a little thin, although in good condition. It is
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: the hope of the superintendent of the park and of
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: others interested, that the government will soon realize the necessity
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: for planting some of the fertile valleys and meadows with grass.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: There are certain grasses that will naturalize themselves there, for instance, clover,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: blue joint and timothy. Beyond the first planting, they would
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: need nothing further. And since much of the beauty of
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: this park will always be inaccessible by motor it can
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: never be properly opened up until horses can get sufficient grazing.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Sometimes at night, our horses ranged far for food, eight
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: miles even more. Again and again, I have watched my
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: own horse nosing carefully along a green bank and finding
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: nothing at all, not a blade of grass it could eat.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: With the second day came a new sense of physical
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: well being, And this in spite of a sunburn that
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: had swollen my face like a toothache. Already, telephones and
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: invitations to dinner, and tailor's fittings and face powder belonged
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: to the forgotten past. I carried over my saddle and
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: placed it beside my horse, and a kindly and patronizing
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: member of Howard Eaton's staff put it on and cinched
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: it for me. I never learned how to put the
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: thing on, but I did learn, after a day or two,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: to take it off, as well as the bridle and
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: the red hackamore, and then to stand clear while my
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: buckskin pony lay down and rolled in the grass to
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: ease his weary back. All the horses rolled stiff legged.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: If the saddle did not come off in time. They
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: rolled anyhow much to the detriment of cameras, filled glasses
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: and various impedimentas strapped thereon. End of chapter three, Chapter
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: four of Through Glacier Seeing America First with Howard Eaton
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: by Mary Roberts Rhinehardt. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: public domain. Chapter four. All in the game, Day after
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: day we progressed. There were bright days, and days when
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: we rode through a steady mist of rain. Always it
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: was worth while. What matters a little rain when there
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: is a yellow slicker to put on and no one
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: to care how one looks. Once riding down a mountain side,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: water pouring over the rim of my old felt hat
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: and pattering merrily on my slicker, I looked to one
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: side to see a great grizzly raise himself from behind
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: a tree trunk and standing upright, watch impassively. As my
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: horse and eye proceeded. I watched him as far as
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: I could see him. We were mutually interested. The party
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: had gone on ahead for a long time. Afterward, I
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: heard the crackling of small twigs and the heavy woods
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: beside the trail, but I never saw him again. It
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: is strange to remember how little animal life after all
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: there seemed to be. There was plenty, of course, but
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: our party was large. We had no chance to creep
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: up silently on the wildlife off the park. The vegetation
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: was so luxuriant in the valleys. Beyond an occasional bear
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: once or twice, the screaming of a mountain lion, and
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: the gophers and marmots, we saw nothing. There were not
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: many birds. We never saw a snake. It was too high.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: One day, riding along a narrow trail on a mountain side,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: the horse in front of mine stampeded, and for a
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: moment it looked like serious trouble. For a stampeding horse
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: on a two foot trail is a dangerous thing. It
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: developed that there was a wasp's nest there and the
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: horse had been stung. We all got by, finally by
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: lashing our horses and running past at a canter. Another time,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: working slowly up a mountain side, I told the chief
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: ranger of the park of having seen many Western horses
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: at the front in France. Do you remember any of
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: the brands, he asked. I did a diamond z a
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: flank brand on a black course in Eprith. That's curious,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: He commented, that man just ahead of us has shipped
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: a car load of Montana horses to the front, and
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: I believe that is his brand. We called to the
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: man ahead, and he halted up. We rode and demanded
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: his brand. It was the diamond Z. To be quite certain,
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: he showed it to me, registered in his note book.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: So there where we could see out over what seemed
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: unlimited space, where the earth appeared a vast thing, we
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: decided that, after all it was a small place. The
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: rocky mountains and Eprith having risen at five. By eleven o'clock,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: thoughts of luncheon were always obtrusive. People began stealthily to
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: consult watches and look ahead for a shady place to stop.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: By half past eleven we were generally dismounted in so Grove,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: and the pack train was coming up, with its clattering pans,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: its coffee pot, its cold boiled ham. Howard Eaton always
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: made the coffee. It was good coffee. Apparently nobody ever
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: thought of tea in the outdoors. It is coffee, strong, coffee,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: as hot as possible, that one craves. There was one
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: young woman in the party to whom things were always happening,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: not by her own fault. If there was a platter
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: of meat to be dropped, it fell in her lap.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: And so I remember that one day, the coffee, having
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: been made at a luncheon stop, the handle came off
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: of the coffee pot, and this same young woman had
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: an uncomfortable baptism. But it was all in the game.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Hot coffee, marmalade, bread and butter, cheese, sardines, and the
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: best ham in the world. That was luncheon. Often there
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: was a waterfall near where, for the mere holding out
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: of a cup, there was ice water to drink. The
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: horses were not unsaddled at these noonday stops, but having
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: climbed hard all morning, they were glad to stand in
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: the shade and rest. Sometimes we lunched on a ledge,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: where all the kingdoms of the earth seemed spread out
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: before us. We sprawled on rocks on green banks, and
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: relaxed muscles that were weary with much climbing. There was
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: much talk of a desultory sort. We settled many problems,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: but without rancor. The war was far away. Here were
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: peace and a great contentment, food and a grassy bank,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: and overhead the trail called us to New Vista's new effort.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: One young man was the party poet. He hit us
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: all off. Sooner or later, I have the ode. He
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: wrote to me, But modesty forbids that I give it.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: The poet having pocketed his pad and pencil, and the
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: amateur photographers having put up their cameras, the order to
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: start was given. The dishes were piled back in the
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: crates and strapped to the pack horses. The ruin of
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: the ham was wrapped up and tied on somewhere. Dark
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: glasses were adjusted against the glare, and we were off.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Sometimes our destination towered directly overhead, up a switchback of
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: a trail, where it was necessary to divide the party
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: into groups, so that no stone dislodged by a horse
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: need fall on some one below. Always at the head,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: riding calmly with keen blue eyes that are like the
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: eyes of aviators and sailors in that they seemed to
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: look through long distances, was Howard Eton. Every step of
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: the trail he tested first, he and his big horse,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: and I dare say many a time he drew a
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: breath of relief when the last timid woman had reached
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: a summit, or descended a slope, or forded a river,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: and nothing untoward had happened. There were days when we
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: reached our camping places by mid afternoon. Then the anglers
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: got their rods and started out for trout. There were
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: baths to be taken in sunny pools that looked warm
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: and were icy cold. There were rents and writing, clothes
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: to be mended, even whisper it. A little laundry work
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: to be done now and then by women, some of
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: them accustomed to the ministrations of a lady's maid at home.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: And there was supper and the camp fire. Charlie Russell,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: the cowboy artist, was the campfire star. To repeat one
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: of his stories would be desecration. No one but Charlie
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Russell himself, speaking through his nose, with his magnificent head
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: outlined against the firelight, will ever be able to tell
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: one of his stories. There were other good story tellers
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: in the party, and Howard Eaton himself could match them. All.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: One hundred miles from a railroad, we gathered around the
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: campfire in the evening in a great circle. There were,
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: you will remember, forty two of us, no mean gathering.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: The pine and bossom crackled and burned, and overhead, often
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: rising in straight walls around us for thousands of feet,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: where the snow capped peaks of the continental divide. Little
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: by little, the circle would grow smaller, until at last
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: only a dozen choice spirits remained for a midnight de
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: bac of anecdote, I have said that the horses ranged
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: wide at night. Occasionally they stayed about the camp. There
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: was one big horse that was belled at night now
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: and then toward dawn. He brought his ungainly body, his
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: tinkling bell, and his satellites the other horses into the
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: quiet streets of Teepee Town. More than once I have
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: seen an irate female, clad in pajamas and slippers with
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: flying braids, shoeing the horses away from her tent in
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: the gray, cold dawn, and flinging after them things for
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: which she vainly searched the next morning. End of chapter four.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Chapter five of Through Glacier Park, Seeing America First with
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Howard Eaton by Mary Roberts Reinhardt. This LibriVox recording is
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Chapter five running water and still pools.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Holidays are rare with me, so on those occasional days
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: when the party rested, I was up and away. I
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: happened to like to fish. The same instinct which sent
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: me as a child on my Granddant's farm, armed with
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: a carefully bent pin, an old cigar box full of worms,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: and a piece of twine to sit for hours over
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: a puddle in a meadow and fish for minnows. The
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: same ambition which took me on flying feet up the
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: hillside to deposit my prey, still wriggling in a water barrel,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: where for days I offered it food in the shape
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: of broken crackers, and wept to find eventually its little
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: silver belly upturned to the morning sky. That joy of
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: running water and still pools and fish is still mine.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: I cannot cast for trout. I do it, but my
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: technique sets the boat to rocking and fishermen to grinding
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: their teeth. But I had taken west with me a
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: fly hook and a trout rod, and I meant to
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: use them now and then. Riding along the trail, we
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: met people who drew aside to let us pass, and
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: who held up such trout as I had never dreamed of,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: or standing below a waterfall would be a silent fisherman,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: too engrossed to more than glance at our procession as
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: it wound along. But repeated early attempts brought me not
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: a single strike once in my ardor I fell into
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: an extremely cold lake and had to be dried out
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: for hours. I grew caustic about the trout. Then somebody
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: with the interest of the park at stake said that
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: he would make up a party and see that I
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: caught some trout. He would see that I caught something,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: he said, if he had to crawl into the lake
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: and bite my hook himself. So we went to Red
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: Eagle Lake. There are trout in that lake. There are
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: cutthroat trout weighing four pounds. I sat in a boat
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: with a man who drew one in. I saw two
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: college boys in their undergarments standing up to the waist
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: in ice water and getting more large trout than I
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: knew were in the world. I ate trout that other
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: people caught, but they were bitter in my mouth. I
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: threatened to ride up Glacier Park as being a fishing failure.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: The result was calamitous. Earnest eyed fishermen spent hours in
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: rowing me about. They imperiled my life, taking me into riffles.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: They made me brave, pneumonia and influenza, and divers other troubles.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: In the determination that I should catch a mammoth fish,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: and nothing happened, nothing whatever. Once a man in the
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: boat hooked a big one, and it ran under the boat.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: I caught the line and jerked the fish into the boat.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: That was the nearest I came to catching a large
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: cutthroat trout at Red Eagle Lake later on, but I
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: haven't come to that yet. I did catch some fish
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: at Red Eagle. I caught some dolly varden and rainbow trout.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: One of the earnest fishermen led me on foot over
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: several miles of rocky mountain scenery, stopping ever and anon
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: to show me where a large bear had just passed.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: The trail was fresh. Here were the stones he had
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: turned over for ants, the old trunks he had scratched
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: for grubs. Then we arrived at the foot of a waterfall.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: What a place it was. The water poured down in
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: clouds of spray, on which the afternoon sun painted a rainbow.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Tiny water oosels bathed and played in the pools in
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: shallow rocks, and here in deep holes there were trout
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: for the catching. The fishermen stationed me on a rock,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: waited my hook, told me to drop in about forty
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: feet of line and stand still. They would hook themselves.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: They did. I caught eight in fifteen minutes, but it
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: was not sport. It was as interesting as fish for
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: gold fish in an aquarium. I lay that night at
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Red Eagle in a tent on a bed built of
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: young trees driven into the ground and filled with bossom branches.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: A pack horse had carried up the blankets and pillows.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: It was a couch for a queen. In the forest.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: A mountain lion screamed like a woman, and at two
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning, one of the college boys got
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: up from the cook tent where he was sleeping, and
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: said he thought he would go fishing. As I looked back,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: that was a strange gathering at the fishing camp at
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: Red Eagle, so very far from anything approaching civilization. There
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: was a moving picture man and his outfit. There were
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: the two college men. There was the chief ranger of
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Glacier Park. There was a young couple from New England
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: who were tramping through the park, carrying their tent and
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: other things on their backs. They were very young and
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: very enthusiastic. I suspected them of being bright and groom
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: although I did not know. And the most vivid recollection
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: I have, as I've seen the young woman washing their
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: camp dishes in the cleanest soapious dish water I had
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: seen since I left home. And there was a cook
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: who is a business man in the winter, and who
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: made excellent soda biscuit and talked books to me. That
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: night around the camp fire, there were more stories told
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: the college boys. Pie way. The yell Pitcher was one
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: related many marvelous tales. They said they were true. I
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: hope so if they were, life is even more interesting
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: and thrilling a thing than I had believed. If they
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: were fiction. They had me beaten at my own game.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: The next day was lowering and cold. I spent the
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: morning trying to get fish, and retired sour and disappointed
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: when everyone else succeeded and I failed. Some time. I
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: am going back to Red Eagle Lake, and I shall
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: take with me a tin of coral colored salmon eggs,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: a trick I learned from George Locke on the Flathead
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: River later on. And then I intend to have my
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: photograph taken with strings of fish like bunches of bananas
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: around me. End of chapter five, Chapter six of through
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: Glacier Park, seeing America first with Howard Eaton by Mary
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: Roberts Reinhardt. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: Chapter six the call. As the days went on, there
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: was a subtle change in the party. Women who had
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: to be helped into their saddles at the beginning of
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: the trip swung into them easily. Waist bands were looser,
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: eyes were clearer, We were tanned. We were calm with
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: the large calmness of the great outdoors. And with each
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: succeeding day the feeling of achievement grew. We were doing things,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: and doing them without effort. To some of us, the
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: mountains had made their ancient appeal. Never again should we
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: be clear of them. To those of us who felt
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: all this inevitably, in the future would come times when
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: cities and even civilization itself would cramp. I have traveled
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: a great deal. The Alps have never held this lure
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: for me. Perhaps it is because these great mountains are
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: my own in my own country. Cities call, I have
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: heard them. But there is no voice in all the
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: world so insistent to me as the wordless call off
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: the Rockies. I shall go back. Those who go once
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: always hope to go back. The lure of the great
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: free spaces is in their blood. We crossed many passes.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Dawson Pass was the first difficult, rocky mountain pass I
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: had ever seen. There was a time when I had
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: thought that a mountain pass was a depression. It is not.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: A mountain pass is a place where the impossible becomes
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: barely possible. It is a place where wild game has,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: after much striving, discovered that it may get from one
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: mountain valley to another along these game trails. Men have
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: built new paths. Again and again, we rode through long
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: green valleys, the trail slowly rising until it had left
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: timber far below. Then at last we confronted a great
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: rock wall, a seemingly impassable barrier. Up this, by infinite windings,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: back and forward went the trail. At the top was
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: the pass. I'm getting right tired, said Charlie Russell, of
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: standing in a cloud up to my waist. Each new
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: pass brought a new vista of blue distance, of white peaks.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: Each presented its own problems of ascent or descent. No
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: too or alike. Mountain climbing is like marriage. Whatever else
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: it may be, it is always interesting. There was the
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: day we went over the cut Bank Pass with instruction
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: to hold our horses made so that our saddles would
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: not slip back. I shall never forget my joy at
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: reaching the summit, and the horror that foll when I
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: found I was on a rocky wall about twenty feet wide,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: which dropped a half mile straight down. On the other
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: side to a perfectly good blue lake, there was Triple Divide.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: There was the Peagan Pass, where, having left the party
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: for a time, I rode back to them on the
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: pack horse I have mentioned before, with my left foot
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: dangling over eternity Triple Divide. The trail had just been completed,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: and ours was the first party after the trail makers.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: I had expected to be the first woman on the
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: top of Triple Divide, But when I arrived, panting and
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: breathless and full of the exaltation of the moment, two
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: girls were already there, sitting on a rock. I shall
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: not soon recover from the indignant surprise of that moment.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: Perhaps they never knew that they had taken the laurel
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: wreath from my brow. Triple Divide is really the culminating
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: point of the continent. It is called Triple Divide because
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: water flows from it into the Gulf of Mexico, into
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: the Pacific Ocean, and into Hudson Bay. There was the
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: day when, on our way to Gunsight, we rode for
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: hours along a trail that heavy rains had turned into
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: black swamp. The horses struggled constantly mired. It was the
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: hardest day of the trip, not because of the distance,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: which was only thirty five miles, but on account of
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: the constant rocking in the saddle as our horses wallowed
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: out of one jackpot into another. Jackpots, I presume because
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: they are easy to get into and hard to get
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: out of. There was some grunting when at the end
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: of that day we fell out of our saddles, but
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: no complaining. That night, for the first time, the Eaton
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: party slept under a roof at Gunsight Chalet, on the
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: shores of a blue lake. The Blackfoot Glacier was almost overhead.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: It was the end of a hot July, but we
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: gathered around a fire that evening and crawled in under
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: heavy blankets to the quick sleep of fatigue. One pass
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: and we should be across the rockies and moving down
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: the Pacific slope. The moon came up that night and
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: shone on the ice caps of the mountains all around us,
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: on the glacier on the gun side itself, appropriately if
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: not beautifully named. As far up the mountain side as
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: the glacier, Our tired horses ranged for grass, and the
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: tiny fire of the herder made a red cloth that
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: disappeared as the night mist closed down. No come and
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: get it the next morning, but a good breakfast nevertheless,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: a frosty morning with the sun out, and the moving
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: picture man gone ahead to catch us as we climbed.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: There was another photographer who had joined the party. He
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: had been up at dawn on the chance of snapping
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: a goat or two. Late the next night, when after
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: a hard day's ride, we had reached civilization again at
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: Lake mac Donald and had dined and rested, the ambitious
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: young man limped into the hotel on foot for more
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: than twenty miles. He had tramped, carrying a heavy plate
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: camera and extra plates. The zeal of the artist had
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: made him careless. He left his horse untied, and it
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: promptly followed the others of the last part of that
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: trip of his afoot. I do not care to think
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: the trail, having scaled great heights below the Sperry Glacier
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: dropped sharply into the dense forest of the Pacific Slope.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: There were bears there. We saw seven at one time
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: the next day, six black and one silver tip on
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: the very trail he had covered, But he got the picture.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: Once over the crest of the gun sight, there was
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: a change in the air. It blew about us, warm
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: with the heat it had gathered in the South Pacific.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: Such animal life, as the altitude permitted, was out basking
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: in the sun. There were still snow fields in the shadows,
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: but they were not so numerous. The rocks threw back
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: the sun rays onto our burnt faces. The trail dipped, climbed,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: dipped again. Here on the ledge was a cry pack
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: train coming, and we halted to let pass by a
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: train of men on horseback and of laden little burrows,
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: tidy and strong. Climbing again, the trail was lost in
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: the shale, and arrows painted on the rocks gave us
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: the direction. Two lakes lay together below. One appeared from
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: our elevation rather higher than the other, rather higher. The
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: rock wall that separated them was fourteen hundred feet high
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: and vertical. As we began the last descent. The party
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: grew silent. It was the last leg of the journey.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: A day or so more, and we should be scattered
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: over the continent on whose spine we were so incontinently
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: tramping back to civilization, to porcelain bathtubs and coarse dinners
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: and facial massage, to stays and skirts, to roofs and servants,
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: and the vast impedimenta of living sperry, chalet and luncheon.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: No more the ham and coffee of rowwood fire, the
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: cutting of much bread on a flat stone. Here were tables,
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: chairs and linen. Alas there was a waitress who crumbed
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: the table and brought in dessert. Back indeed with a vengeance,
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: but only to the ways of civilization itself. All afternoon
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: we went on descending, always through the outriders of the
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: forest to the forest itself. Dusk came dusk in the woods,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: with strange soft paddings of unseen feet, with a gray light,
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: half religious, half fairy that only those who penetrate to
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: the hearts of the great forests can know. It makes
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: me think of death, some one said, in a low tone,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: Just a great shadow, no color, nothing real, and silence
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: and infinite distance. Then Lake mac Donald. We burst out
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: of the forest on a run. The horses had known,
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: by the queer instinct of horses that just ahead would
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: be oats and a corral and grass for the eating.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: They broke into a canter. The various things we had
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: hung to ourselves during the long, slow progress over the
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: mountain rattled and banged. We hung on in a kind
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: of mad exultation. We had done it. We had crossed
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: the continental divide, the Lewis Overthrust, whatever geographers chose to
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: call it. The trail led pasted, a corral, pasted, a
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: vegetable garden such as our eastern eyes had seldom seen,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: under trees, around a corner at a gallop. Then the
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: Glacier Hotel at Lake MacDonald, generally known as Lewis's. Soft
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: winds from the Pacific blew across Late MacDonald and warmed us.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: Great strawberries were ripening in the garden. Our horses got
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: oats all they could eat, and a pool in front
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: of the hotel. Lazy trout drifted about. There was good food. Again.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: There were people dressed in civilized raiment, people who looked
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: at us and our shabby riding clothes with a disdain
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: not unmixed with awe. There was fox trotting and one
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: stepping in riding boots with an orchestra. And that night
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: at Lewis's they gave Howard Eton a potlatch. A potlatch
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: is an Indian party. An Indian's idea of a party
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: is to give away everything he possesses and then start
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: all over again. That is one reason why our Indians
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: are so poor. To day, we sat in a great lobby,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: hung with Indian trophies and bear skins, sat in a
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: circle with Howard Eaton in the center. There were a
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: few speeches and some anecdotes. Then the potlatch went on.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: There were hot fried trout, sandwiches, and chips of dried meat,
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: buffalo and deer. I believe there was beer. After that
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: came the gifts. Everybody got something. Howard Eaton received a
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: waistcoat made of spotted hide, and the women got necklaces
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: of Indian beads. It was extraordinary, hospitable, lavish, and western.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: To have a party and receive gifts is one thing,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: But to have a party so you can give away
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: things is another. End of chapter six, Chapter seven of
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: through Glacier Park, Seeing America First with Howard Eaton by
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: Mary Roberts Reinhardt. This LibriVox recording. It is in the
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: public domain. Chapter seven. The black Marks. The visit to
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: the executive department of the Park was disappointing. I found
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: the superintendent's office in a two room framed shack, the
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: government warehouse and old barn five miles from a railroad too.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: That's management for you. Why old gentleman at Washington, who
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: arranged these things? Why not at Belton on the railroad
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: five miles away. The park extends to Belton. Inadequate appropriations,
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: the necessity for putting the entire heavy machinery of the
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: government in motion for the long distance control of the park,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: poor automobile roads, and insufficient rangers. These are the black
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: marks against us in Glacier Park. On every hand, the
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: enthusiasm of a most efficient superintendent must contend with these things.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: That marvels of trail making and road building in this
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: vast domain have been done with so little money and
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: encouragement is due primarily to the faith the men closely
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: connected with the park have had in its future. Doubtless,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: all these things will remedy themselves in time, but they
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: make the immediate problems of the park difficult to cope with.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: The chief ranger must live where he can. No building
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: erected by the superintendent must cost over one thousand dollars.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: It is not easy in that country of cheap wood
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: and dear labor to build a house of one thousand dollars.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: And there is always the difficulty of long distance supervision.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: In nineteen fourteen, the former Superintendent of National Parks, mister Daniels,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: spent a week in Glacier Park. Last year he was
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: at the entrance Glacier Park station for half a day
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: and not in the park at all. There are several parks,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: and it is easy to believe that mister Daniels found
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: it difficult to visit them all. But the method must
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: be wrong. It is Washington that must order and pay
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: for each bit of new trail and road building. If
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: Washington does not come to the park, the park cannot
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: go to Washington. There is something lacking inefficiency in a
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: system which depends on across the continent supervision. This year,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: I hope the Superintendent of National Parks will go out
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: to Glacier Park, not by automobile, but on a horse
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: and ride over his great domain. Then I hope he
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: will go back to Washington and arrange for enough rangers
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: to make the parks and to save its timber from
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: forest fires. Yellowstone Park has soldiers, it is not soldiers
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: but woodsmen, trail riders, rangers that are needed. Canada, in
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: this same country, has her Northwest mounted police. They want
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: real men out there, but the mountains take care of that.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: The weaklings don't stick. From just north of Glacier Park,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: when a band of twenty five cavalry men that I
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: met last year in Flanters, they were rangers, mountain riders
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: for weeks during the German invasion. They rode on skirmish
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: duty between the advancing Germans and the retiring armies. They
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: became famous where there were reckless courage and fine horsemanship needed.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: Those men were sent. If we ever have a war,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: we shall draw hard on the West for cavalry. Our
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: national parks should be able to send out trained skirmishers.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: Under present conditions, Glacier Park could furnish about a dozen.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: And now that we are criticizing, everyone may criticize the government.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: It is the English blood in US. Why is it
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: that with the most poetic nomenclature in the world, the Indian.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: One by one, the historic names of the peaks, lakes
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: and rivers of Glacier Park are being replaced by the
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: names of obscure government officials, professors in small universities, unimportant
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: people who go out there to the west and memorialize
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: themselves on government maps. Each year see some new absurdity.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: What names in the world are more beautiful than going
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: to the Sun and Rising Wolf? Here are almost a
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: dog Mountain, two Medicine Lake, Red Eagle. A few that
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: have survived. Every peak, every butte, every river and lake
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: of this country has been named by the Indians. The
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: names are beautiful and romantic. To preserve them in a
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: government reservation is almost the only way of prison serving
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: them at all. What has happened? Look over the map
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: of Glacier Park. The Indian names have been done away with.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: Majestic peaks, Towering buttes are being given names like this
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: Haystack Butte, Trapper Peak, Huckleberry Mountain, the Guard House, the
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: garden wall. One of the most wonderful things in the
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: Rocky Mountains is this garden wall. I wish I knew
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: what the Indians called it. Then there are Iceberg Lake,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: Florence Falls, Twin Lakes, Gunsight Mountain, Split Mountain, Surprise Pass,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: Peril Peak. That last was a dandy alliterative church, Butte
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: Statuary Mountain, Buttercup Park. Can you imagine the inspiration of
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: the man who found some flowery meadow between granite crags
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: and took away from it its Indian name and called
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: it Buttercup Park. The Blackfeet are the aristocrats among an
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: American Indians. They were the buffalo hunters, and this great
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: region was once theirs, to the mountains and lakes of
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: what is now Glacier Park. They attached their legends, which
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: are their literature. The white man came, and not content
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: with eliminating the Indians, he went further and wiped out
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: their history. Any government official, if he so desires, any
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: white man seeking perpetuation on the map of his country,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: may fasten his name to a mountain and go down
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: in the school geographies. It has been done again and
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: again it is being done now, and the lover of
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: the old names stands helpless and aghast. Is there no
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: way to stop this vandalism? Year after year goes by,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: and just as the people connected with the park are
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: beginning to learn new names for the peaks they are
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: again re christened. There must be seven goat mountains here,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: and there is a peak like Reynold's Peak or Renelle Mountain,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: and some others properly named for men intimately associated with
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: the region. But Reynolds's Indian name was Death on the Trail.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: When you have seen the mountain, you can well believe
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: that Death on the Trail would fit it well. There
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: are many others. Take an old peak that the Indians
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: have known as old Men of the Winds or red
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: top Plume, and call it Mount Thompson, or Mount Morgan,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: or Mount pin Show, or Mount Oberlin for Oberlin College presumably,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: or Mount Pollock after the wheeling stogey. I suppose there
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: is hardly a name in the telephone directory that is
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: not fastened as some wonderful peak in this garden spot
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: of ours. Not very long ago I got a letter,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: a pathetic letter. It said that a college professor from
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: an eastern college had been out there this summer and
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: insisted that one of the peaks be named for him
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: and one for his daughter. It was done here. Then
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: the government has done a splendid thing, and done it
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: none too well. It has preserved for the people of
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: the United States and for all the world a scenic
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: spot so beautiful and so impressive that I have not
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: even attempted to describe it. It is not possible. But
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: it has failed to open up the park properly. It
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: has been niggardly in appropriation. It has allowed its geographers
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: to take away the original Indian names of this home
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: of the Blackfeet, and so destroy the last trace of
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: a vanishing race. Were it not for the Great Northern Railway,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: travel through Glacier Park would be practically impossible. Probably the
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: Great Northern was not entirely altruistic, and yet I believe
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: that mister Lewis Warren Hill, known always as Lewis Hill,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: has had an ideal and followed it. Followed it with
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: an enthusiasm that is contagious, and with an inspiring faith.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: The Great Northern has built huge hotels in three places,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: and at a dozen other locations. Has built groups of
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: log houses Swiss fashion, so that it is possible to
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: follow the trails by day and to be comfortably housed
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: and fed each night. These hotels built by the Great
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: Northern are now owned and controlled by the Glacier Park
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: Hotel Company. At the entrance to the park is the
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: Glacier Park Hotel that cost half a million dollars and
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: is almost as large as the national capital at Washington.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: Like all the hotels and chalais in the park, it
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: is constructed largely of the huge trunks of the trees
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: of the Northwest. The Indians call the Glacier Park Hotel
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: the Great Log Lodge. There is everything from a store
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: to a swimming pool. Fifty miles away, in the very
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: heart of the park there is the new Many Glaciers Hotel.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: It also cost a half million dollars. There is an
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: automobile road leading to Many Glaciers. The chalais system, also
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: built by the Great Northern, has done more than anything
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: else to make the park possible for tourists. Automobile roads
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: and trails alike touch the chalais, and although I affirm
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: in my conviction that it is impossible to see the
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: park properly from an automobile, I realize that there are
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: many who will not take the more arduous and sportsmanly method.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: For them, then, a short trip of twelve or fifteen
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: miles each day takes them from chalet to Chalais. There
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: are chalets at two Medicine Lake, at Cutbank Canyon, at
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: Going to the Sun, at Saint Mary's Lake, at Gunsite Pass,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: at the Sperry Glacier, at Granite Park, and at Belton.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: There are inclusive and very moderate rates for various tours
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: to take up a certain number of days. A saddle
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: horse costs two dollars a day, a pack horse two
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: dollars a day. A guide who will furnish his own
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: horse and board himself five dollars a day. There are
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: our rates from chalet to Chalais, including a night's lodging
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: in comfortable beds, morning breakfast, evening dinner, and a carefully
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: packed luncheon, that are astonishingly cheap. For those who wish
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: to go even more simply, there are the tepee camps.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: There are three of these at Saint Mary's Going to
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: the Sun and many glaciers. They comprise a number of
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: Indian teepees grouped about a central cabin which includes a
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: kitchen provided with a range and cooking utensils. The teepees
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: themselves are wooden floored and each is equipped with two
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: single cot beds and bedding at all of the tepee camps.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: The charge for lodging is fifty cents per bed per night.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: The use of the range in cooking utensils is free.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: At the chalais nearby, hikers may purchase food at very
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: reasonable prices. It is, you see, possible to go through
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: Glacier Park without Howard Eaton. It is even safe, and
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: to those who have never known known Howard, highly satisfactory.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: But there would be something missing, that curious thing called personality,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: which could take forty two entirely different Blaise Feeble muscled
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: uncertain and defeat Easterners and mold them in a few
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: days into a homogeneous hole that took excursionists and made
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: them philosophers and sportsmen. He was hunting in Arizona. Later
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: on the party eight venison duck and mountain lion, which
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: tastes like veal. We have had several fights with grizzlies,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: he wrote. They are so strong that they have whipped
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: the hounds and carved them up some in each fight.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: Country pretty rough and considerable fallen timber, which delays us.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: I was kicked the other day by a horse when
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: almost up to a bear. The boys thought I had
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: a broken leg or two, so they let the bear escape.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: He was sending a writer off to the nearest post
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: office and wondering what was doing in the war. Has
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: Poort Arthur fallen yet? He inquired whimsically. A hunter who
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: puts the greenest tenderfoot at ease and teaches him without
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: apparently teaching at all. A host whose first thought is
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: always for his guests. A calm faced man with twinkling
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: blue eyes who is proud of his boys and his
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: friends all over the world. That is Howard Eaten, as
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: nearly as he can be put on paper. Wherever he
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: is when he reads this, hunting in Arizona or the
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: Jackson Hole country, or snowed in at the ranch at Wolf,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: I hope he will forgive me for putting him into
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: print in memory of those days when the entire forty
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: two of us followed him, like the Tale of a
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: Kite across the Great Divide. End of chapter seven. Chapter
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: eight of Through Glacier Park, Seeing America First with Howard
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: Eaton by Mary Roberts Reinhardt. This LibriVox recording is in
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Chapter eight bears it was the next
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: day that I made my first close acquaintance with bears.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: There are many bears in Glacier Park. Firearms are forbidden,
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: of course, and the rangers kill them only in case
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: of trouble. Naturally so protected, they are increasing rapidly they
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: find good forage where horses would starve. Mister Rawston, the
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: park supervisor, saw a she bear with three cubs last spring.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: There are no tame bears as in the Yellowstone. There
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: are plenty of animals, some fifty moose grays along the Flathead.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: Beavers have colonies in many of the valleys and industriously
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: build damps that deepen the fords. I remember one place
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: along the cut Bank trail where the first horses found
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: themselves above of the belly and water and confronting a
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: perpendicular bank, up which one or two scrambled as best
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: they could. The rest turned and, riding in the stream
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: for half mile detour made the trail again. That was
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: the work of beavers. There are coyotes of plenty, because
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: they kill the deer and elk. The rangers poisoned them
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: in the winter with strychnine. A few mountain lions remain,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: as one can make a whole night hideous a few
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: are sufficient. There is something particularly interesting about a bear.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: Perhaps it is because he can climb a tree. In
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: other words, ordinary subterfuges do not go with him. Reports
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: very He is a fighter, he is a craven, the
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: fact being, of course, that he is like all wild
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: animals and most humans, a bit of each. The trip
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: was over, and I had seen but one bear at
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: Lewis's that last Sunday, I voiced my disappointment. Soon after,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: I received word quietly that Frank Higgins, guide and companion
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: on many hunting trips to Stuart, Edward White and other hunters,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: had offered to show me some bears. He had horses
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: saddled under a tree when I went back, and two men,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: one of them a Chicago newspaper artist, were with him.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: We mounted and rode up the trail back of the hotel.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: I was dubious. For days. I had tried to see
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: bears and failed, and now to have them offered with
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: certainty by mister Higgins made me skeptical. I had an
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: idea that under his tall impassiveness he was having a
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: little fun at my expense. He was not. We went
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: out into the forest to where the hotel dumps its garbage.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: That was rather a blow at first, and there were
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: no bears, only a great silence and a considerable stench.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: We got off our horses, tied them and sat down
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: on a log. Almost immediately there was a distant crackling
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: of branches. One coming now, said Frank Higgins. Just sit quiet.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: The first bear, however, was nervous. He circled around us.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: I set my camera for one hundred feet and waited,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: but the creature, a big black, was shy. He refused
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: to come out. Mister Higgins went after him. He snarled.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: I looked after mister Higgins with a new respect, and
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: the Chicago newspaper man said he was perfectly satisfied with
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: the bear where he was, and that enough was enough.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: The bear suddenly took to a tree, climbing like a cat.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: He looked about the size of a grand piano. Urged
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: by mister Higgins, we approached the tree. Finally we stood
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: directly beneath. He growled. The bear, of course, not Frank Higgins,
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: but my courage was rising. Wild bear he was, but
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: he was a craven. I moved up the focus of
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: my camera and took his picture. We left him there
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: and went back to the log. All at once there
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: were bears in every direction, six in all. I moved
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: my camera to thirty feet and snapped another. They circled about,
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: heads turned toward us now, and then they stood up
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: to see us better. We were between them and supper.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: The newspaperman offered to sketch me with a bare background,
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: and he did now and then he would say, isn't
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: there one behind me? About twenty feet away? I would say,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: good lord, But he went on drawing. I have that
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: picture now. It is very good, but my eyes have
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: the look of a scared rabbit. Our friend still clung
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: in the tree. The other man had ridden back to
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: the hotel for camera films. Time went on and he
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: did not return. We made would be facetious remarks about
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: his courage from our own pinnacle. Almost an hour the
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: sketch was nearly finished, and twilight was falling. Still he
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: had not come. Then he appeared. He had taken the
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: wrong trail and had been riding those bare infested regions alone.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: He was smiling but pale. To visit bears in a
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: party is one thing. To ride alone with fleeting black
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: and brown figures skulking behind fallen timber is another. Not
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: for a long time, I think, will that gentleman forget
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: that hour or so when he was lost in the
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: forest with bears thick as autumnal leaves that strew the
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: brooks in Valombrosa. The poetic quotation is my own idea.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: What he said was entirely different. As a matter of fact,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: his own expression was hell, the place is full of them.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: At last, very quietly, mister Higgins got up. Here's a grizzly.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: He said, you might stand near the horses. We did.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: The grizzly looked the exact size of a seven passenger
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: automobile with a limousine top, and he had the same
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: gift of speed. The black bears looked at him, and
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: ran I looked at him and wanted to The artist
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: put away his sketch, and we strolled toward the horses.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: They had not objected to the black bears beyond watching
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: them with careful eyes. But now they pulled and flung
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: about to free themselves. Wherever he goes, a grizzly bear
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: owns his entire surroundings. He carries a patent of ownership.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: He could have the woods for all of me. The
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: black bears were in full retreat. A hound dog came
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: loping up the trail and caught the scent. In an
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: instant he was after them. Any hope I had ever
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: had of out running a bear died then and there
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: The dog was running without a muffler. One of his
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: frantic yelps changed to a howl as the rearmost bear
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: turned and swatted him. A moment and the chase was
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: on again. There is only one thing to do. If
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: a bear takes a sudden dislike to one, it is
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: useless to climb or to run. Go toward it and
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: try kindness. Ask about the children in a carefully restrained tone,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: make the Indian sign that you are a friend. If
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: you have a sandwich about you, proffer it. Then, while
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: the bear is staring at you in amazement, turn and
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: walk quietly away. It was growing dark. The grizzly, having
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: driven off the black bears, turned his attention to us.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: We decided that it was almost dinner time, and that
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: we did not care to be late. Anyhow. We had
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: seen enough bears. Enough is enough. We mounted and rode
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: down the trail. Not all game is as plentiful. As
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: bears in Glacier Park or thrife so well. With the
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: cutting up of the range, many of them have lost
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: their winter grazing grounds. Practically the last of the Rocky
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: Mountains sh sheep and goats are in Glacier Park. Last winter,
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: numbers of these increasingly rare animals were found dead by
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: the rangers. That is another thing the government will do eventually.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: It may never see that the Blackfeet Indians have a
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: square deal, but it will feed what is left of
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: the game. There is little of the Old West left.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: Irrigation wheat, the cutting up of the Indian reservations into
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: allotments the homesteader all spell the end of the most
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: picturesque period of America's development. Not for long then, the
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: cowpuncher in his gorgeous chaps, the pack train winding its
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: devious way along the trail. The boosting spirit has struck
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: the West. Settlements of one street and thirteen houses, eleven
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: of them saloons, are suddenly becoming cities. The railroads and
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: the automobiles, by obliterating time, have done away with distance.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: The Old West is almost gone. Now is the time
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: to see it, not from a train window, not if
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: you can help it from an automobile, but a foot
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: or on horseback, leisurely, thoroughly. End of chapter eight. Chapter
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: nine of Through Glacier Park, Seeing America First with Howard
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: Eton by Mary Roberts Rhinehardt. This LibriVox recording is in
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Chapter nine, Down the Flathead Rapids. The
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: trip was over. I had seen such things as I
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: had never dreamed of. I had done things which I
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: intended to relate at home, but I had caught no
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: fish to amount to anything. On a Monday night, I
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: was to take the train east. On Sunday came great
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: tales of the Flathead River. But I had only one
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: more day. How was it possible? It was possible. Everything
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: is possible to those Westerners. I could put on my
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: oldest clothes and fish the flat Head for twenty miles
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: or so. The following day, under the guidance of one
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: George Locke, celebrated trout, sleuth, then rod and fish and all.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: I could take the Great Northern Eastern Express at a
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: station and start on my three days journey home. I
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: did it. I can still see the faces of the
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: people in that magnificent club car. When a woman in
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: writing clothes stained and torn, wearing an old sweater and
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: a man's hat, and carrying a camera, a fishing rod,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: and a cutthroat trout weighing three and a half pounds
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: invaded their bared and elegant privacy. The woman was burned
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: to a deep series. She summoned the immaculate porter and
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: held out the trout to him. He was very dubious
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: about taking it. Thereupon, the woman put on her most
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: impressive manner and told him how she wished it placed
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: on the ice, and how the cook was to fix it,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: and various other details. It had been a day to live.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: For the Flathead River does not flow. It runs. It
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: is a series of rapids, incredibly swift, with here and
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: there a quiet pool. Attempts to picture the rapids as
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: we ran them were abortive. We reeled and wallowed, careened
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: and whirled, and always the fisherman guide was calm, and
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: the gentleman who engineered the party was calm, And I
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: pretended to be calm at the foot of each rapids
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: we fished. I was beginning to learn that twist of
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: the wrist that sends out the line in curves and
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: drops the fly delicately on the surface of the water,
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: as I learned, so that he did not close his
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: eyes each time I raised my rod. George Locke told
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: of the Easterner he had taken down the river some
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: time before. He wanted a lesson in casting, he said,
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: and I worked over him pretty hard. I told him
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: all I knew. Then after I told him all I knew,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: and he'd had all the fun with me he wanted.
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: He just stood up in the bow of the boat
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: and put out ninety feet of line without turning a
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: hair cast he could have cast from a spool of
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: thread in a boat. Behind us was a moving picture man.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: For weeks. He had always been just behind or just ahead.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: When the time came to leave the west, I missed
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: that moving picture man. He had come to be a
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: part of the landscape. I can still see him trying
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: to get past us down those rapids, going at lightning speed,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: to gain some promontory where he could set up his
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: weapon and catch our boat in case it upset or
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: did anything else worth recording. He had two pieces of
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: luck on that trip. I had hooked my first trout
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: and was busy trying to throw it in the boatman's
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: face when it escaped. He caught me at the exact
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: instant when the triumph of my face turned to a
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: purple rage. And later on in the day he had
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: the machine turned on me when I caught two trout
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: on two flies at the same time. Incidentally, I slipped
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: off the stone I was standing on at the same moment.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: He probably got that too. I caught twelve trout in
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: as many minutes from that same rock, and furnished the
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: luncheon for the party. I took back loudly everything I
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: had said against the fishing and Glacier park. I ate
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: more trout than anybody else, as was my privilege. If
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: there were nothing else to it, I would still go
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: back to the Montana Rockies for the fishing. In the
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: Flathead River. At noon we stopped for luncheon. The trout
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: was fried with bacon and coffee was made. We ate
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: on a little tongue of land around which the river
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: brawled and rushed. From the time we had left late MacDermott,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: we had seen no single human being. Mostly the river
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: ran through tall canyons of its own cutting. Always it
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: looked dangerous, generally indeed it was, But never once did
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: the boatman lose control. It reminded me of the story
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: Mark Twain told of the passenger who says to the
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: pilot something like this, I suppose you know where every
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: hidden rock and sunken tree and sambar is in this river,
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: to which the pilot replies, no, sir ee, but I
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: know where they ain't. The train swung on into the
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: summer twilight, past the ruins of old mining towns now
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: nothing but names, past brawling streams and great deep woods.
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: The large trout was cooked and served. It had been
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: worth the effort. There were four of us to eat it,
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: the moving picture man, the chief ranger of the park,
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: the gentleman from Saint Paul who had engineered the fishing trip,
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: and myself. At Glacier Park station, my wardrobe, which I
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: had not seen for weeks, was put on the train.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: They do you very well, as the English say in
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: the West. Everything was pressed, even my shoes had been
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: freshly polished. A crowd of people had gathered at the station.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: My supper companions left the train. There were many good byes.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: Then the train moved slowly off. I stood on the
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: platform as long as I could and watched the receding
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: lights behind the hotel rose the purple black silhouette of
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: the mountains, touched with faint gold by the lingering finger
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: of the sun. Stealthy coyotes had taken advantage off the
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: dusk to creep close to the track. A light glimmered
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: from a tent on the Indian Reservation, flat treeless country.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: A wagon drawn by tired horses range cattle that were
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: only shadows then night and the east the end end
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: of chapter nine recording by Laura Victoria. End of through
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: Glacier Park, Seeing America First with Howard Eaton by Mary
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: Roberts Reinhardt