Show UP LITTLE SMOKY IS I A Perverse Pack HorseA Bear Spared Moralizing by H I ILu LEY September 12 1882 Editors Herald Should there ever be an honorable honor-able society of trail makers inau gerated your correspondent has certain cer-tain accidental claims he would submit for consideration as entitling entit-ling membership These claims are embodied in a trip from Vienna i to the head of Little Smoky About three weeks ago Mr Ed Pinnej a I prominent livery man of Vicuna being about to make this trip and wishing to impart an elementot respectabiiity to the expedition proposed to your corresponded to accompany him mentioning as an inducement that the salmon being in season we should probatfly see plenty of bears He stated the distance dis-tance was between twenty and thirty miles I discovered after we were under way that he had never been over this route but had come in by the way of Hailey last year when he vas lost for three davs davsur Our directions were to go down Big Smoky to the mouth of Little Smoky and to follow it up These seemed definite enough but neither of us knew which of the many branches was Little Smoky and after trying several that we had to abandon took the wrong one i It would be tedious to tell the 1 number of game trails we followed until we naturally avoided them and tae divides we crose Suflicipnt that we were seven days 11 making a distance rf thirty miles and that most of the time although we knew we were in Idaho somewhere were in a manner lost Our outfit consisted con-sisted of three horses provisions a Ballard rifle and revolver Everything Every-thing seemed unpropitious for the trip the country was on fire and the third day out Mr Finney met with an accident He Lad wrenched his foot some days before and through some awkwardness on his part the colt he wa leading trod on this member and stood there seemingly undecided which way to move ibis no doubt was very pairifut but could not possibly justify the extreme expressions indulged in-dulged in winch included the hurse and foot and country and the man who struck it I seized the opportunity in the interest of morality to administer a sharp reproof and to recommend the exercise of that patient fortitude which distinguished Livingstone in his explorations and am pained to record these efforts were not received re-ceived in the proper spirit just the reverse Finney became more violent in his objurgations threatened threat-ened to shoot the colt and even went so far as to intimate that if I did not dry up he would take a shot at me Knowing the remorse re-morse sure to follow such hasty proceedings pro-ceedings I deemed it politic to reserve re-serve my labors Our pack animal was continually getting into trouble through a disposition to make shortcuts short-cuts A little learning is a dangerous danger-ous thing and this horses rudimentary rudimen-tary knowledge of geometry came near proving fatal in one instance In making one of these cutsoff he encountered a porphyry dyke he could not possibly get over He turned square up the hill and slipped He was a hardy beast and made a superequine effort to regain his footing but it was no use the pack turned and away he went I have seen the rich merchant stand surrounded by his weeping family while the fiery element swept away the accumulations of years the sum of ten thousand persuasions per-suasions and as many prevarications and he made no sign evinced no emotion He was probably insured I thought of this as I watched the net results of a life of hardships except an album and a few articles of no monetary value go end over end through the perversity of this beast to certain damage and more than probable destruction He went endwise first und then side wise and then over and over and I by the merest luck brought up against a jutting rock where he lay trembling and groaning and utterly humiliated We cut the pack loose and got him up the flour was now self rising the sugar and coffee inseparably in-separably united One evening we noticed under the shadow of a giant fir the high I mound of a grave some poor prospector pros-pector who had found sleep It i seemed a dreary place to be buried in no tears would water the sod above him none but the hardiest I I variety of flowers could spring from it The incription read Here lies i I the body of Patsy Marley killed by a bear June 4 1881 age unknown I un-known an old Salt Laker In I youth we are tau ht to speak kindly of the dead perhaps from ant an-t old superstition that they have power for evil or more likely as moderately i moder-ately high authority has it the last act being in most cases so much the i best it partially redeems the others Poor Patsy I knew him well by sighthis mere lineaments that once seen are hard to forget I had seen him in the arena after the arduous j ar-duous duties of his profession j when he was declared victor in his struggle with Mr Oren and later 1 less than two months ago in Bullion Bul-lion and knew from this circumstance circum-stance that some one of an incendiary incen-diary temperament had gone to all this trouble for sensational purposes i Whenever we approached the streams signs of bears were plentiful plenti-ful bears with inflammation of the i bowelsbut up toV the fifth day f V V S grouse was the only game we had seen AVe were climbing a steep trail and the horses began to show signs of fear and uneasiness Finney looked up and saying here is your bear pointed him out There he sat less than seventyfive yards above us one of the baldfaced species and of good size Occasionally Occasion-ally he would throw up his paw either in playful remonstrance or to brush off a fly He had evidently just returned from a successful fish ing excursion and was feeling comfortable com-fortable With his tongue lolling and teeth showing he seemed to be laughing at us but his smile was I not reassuring Finney untimbered his rifle and got off his horse but II taking in the situation at a glance I commanded him for Gods sake to not shoot The horse I rode was a borrowed one and a pet Six jumps would bring the bear onto him and 1 could not bear the tidings tid-ings back that through an agressive act of mine nis bones were left to bleach on the hillside his body all clawed up I hope 1 am not actuated ac-tuated by an unbecoming vanity in mentioning this incident for of course the constantly recurring recur-ring emergencies incident to a mountaineer life are of a char acer that might neyer arise in the grocery business and only in the field of journalism when the enterprising reporter becomes overzealous over-zealous in domestic affairs stimulate stimul-ate a decision of character but I have thought this episode might I find a modest place not in the category of those mythical legends which prompt to heroic deeds jut by the side of the hatchet and those tales which inculcate the higher and nobler attributes of moral courage and a tender regard for the feelings of others The morning of the sixth day we crossed a divide and came down onto on-to another little system of streams We had decided to take across the country anti try and strike the road tj t Hailey < ur ammunition was getting low Finney missed a grouse four times and virtually the fifth he hit it in the head As a hunter and guide he was a failure We found a trail that had been cut sometime some-time before and we soon sighted a cabin opposite the mouth of the gulch we were going down We were on Littl Smoky and camped that night at some warm springs Finney had been here before The next morning we went up Carrie Leonard Creek to the Climax Mine The trip was over and I might have made it worse I might have told you of frowning cliffs and towering cnigs and hinoke curtained sunsets but there is a limit to everything These have Been adverted to If its relation should restrain any who may feel a disposition to go up the wrong forkit is not told in vain H |