OCR Text |
Show AMONG THE WHISTLING MARMOTS. fit rati r Animals That Infest tha J jwery Olympic Slenntains. After lanch -we passed through a beautiful beauti-ful piece of bottom land, teeming vrith flowers, red and yellow monthly musk, fringing the banks of the etream where it ispread out orer tha meadow in a dozen different eh annels. Charlie wanjed to stop and take up ISO acres. Vat Campbell told hlxa "Too much plenty snow in winter," and after ra-inly trying to drink the creek dry we passed on. Another turn brought us to the base of a steep, bare, stony mountain. moun-tain. Skirting this and elimbing over some big rocks, we suddenly came into a loTely grass country. Like the prairie in t he sum-nsr, sum-nsr, every oonceiTable flower seemed to bloom and blossom in the grass; the place was ablaze with red. blue, yellow and white. We must haTe passed through 500 or 600 acres of it, and erery here and there a rippling rip-pling stream ran widely through it. The place was a perfect paradise, and, thank goodness! we had got out of the dark valley, and stood in the bright, warm sunshine. We were now close to the headoftheQuil-cene, headoftheQuil-cene, and we eagerly pressed on. Presently we met a dog, and close after him his master, mas-ter, whe turned out to be Mr. Ransom, go-ing go-ing from the head of the Dungenesa to Fort Townsend. He gave us cheerful account-of account-of the elk, and also kindly took a letter into town for us. At 5:30 we camped under Sentinel rocfc, about a mile from the divide. This rock Btands boldly out alone, like a massive fortress, guarding the entrance to the valley of the Dungeness. Suddenly the mountain sides seemed to be alive with men whistling to one another, when and one would turn sharp round only to hear another and ashriller whew! on the other side; and soon we saw lots of animals, about the size of a fox, with long bushy tails, running about from rock to rock, sometimes lying down, but more often of-ten sitting bolt up, erect, like a ferret does. We shot a couple of small ones that night and afterward shot several more, larger one. Campbell called them whistling doss and declared they were good to eat, butths smell was enough for us. Their odor is peculiar, but not fragrant. They have two long teeth in front like a beaver, and feet almost shaped like a squirrel's feet. 1 believe their right name is mountain beaver. Wherever we went afterward in the mountains, as long as there was grass, we sp.w these whistling dogs, as we got to call them. I liked to see them; they seemed to make the placa cheerful and lively, and were very amusing to watch. In winter they have long burrows under the snow, and their coats get a dark gray; in summer sum-mer they are yellow. Their skins should make good fur, and I think would pay for 'n'ing trapped in the winter months. Our altitude t his night wag5,"45Q feeC7auvi tv6 christened the place "Stony Camp," from the terribly stony ground we had to sleep on. The night was warm until aboyiM a, m., when Jt go fearfully cold, and we were almost frozen. -Whatcom Reveille. |