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Show AMONG THE WHISTLING MARMOTS. Strang Animals That. Infest the Flowery Olympic. Mountains. After lunch vre passed through a beautiful beauti-ful piece of bottom land, teeming with flowers, red and yellow monthly musk, fringing the banks of the stream where it spread .out orer the meadow in a dozen different obannels. Charlie wanted to stop and take tip 160 acres, but Campbell told him "Too much plenty snow in winter," and after vainly 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 climbing over some bijt rocks, we suddenly came into a lovely grass country. Like the prairie in the summer, sum-mer, every conceivable flowor seemed to bloom and blossom in the grass; the place was ablaze with red, bine, yellow and white. We must have passed through 500 or 600 acres of it, and every 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 head of the Quil-cene, Quil-cene, and we eagerly pressed on. Presently we met a dog, and close after him his master, mas-ter, who turned out to be Mr. Ransom, going go-ing from the head of the Dungeness to Fort Townsend. He gave us cheerful accounts of the elk, and also kindly took a letter into town for ns. At 5:30 we camped under Sentinel rock, about a mile from the divide. This rock stands 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 a shriller whewl 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 thnt night and afterward shot several more, larger ones. Campbell called them whistling doys, and declared they were good to eat, but the 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. I believe their right name is mountain beaver. Wherever we went afterward in the mountains, as long as there was grass, we saw these whistling dogs, as we got to j call them. I liked to see them; they seemed to make the place 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 j make good fur, and I think would pay for being trapped in the winter months. Our altitude this night was 5,450 feet, and we christened the place "Stony Camp," from the terribly stony ground we had to sleep on. The night was warm until about 4 a, m., when it gos fearfully cold, and we were almost frozen. Whatcom Reveille. |
