It is wonderful, the sagacity of the horse or ox. They know more than we usually think they do. Let one be associated (yes, that's the word, associated) with them for a season alone. Their characteristics come to the front and become apparent, without study. Did I talk to my friend Bobby? Indeed, I did. There were but few other animate things to talk to. Perhaps one might see a small bird flit across the vision or a chipmunk, or hear the whirr of the sudden flight of the grouse, but all else was solitude, deep and impressive. The dense forest through which I was passing did not supply conditions for bird or animal life in profusion.
"You are a naughty lad, Bobby," I said, as I turned his head eastward to retrace the mile or so of the truant's run.
We were soon past our camping ground of the night before, and on our way up the mountain. Bobby would not be led, or if he was, would hold back, till finally making a rush up the steep ascent, would be on my heels or toes before I could get out of the way. "Go ahead, Bobby," I would say, and suiting action to words seize the tail with a firm grasp and follow. When he moved rapidly, by holding on I was helped up the mountain. When he slackened his pace, then came the resting spell. The engineering instinct of the horse tells him how to reduce grades by angles. So Bobby led me up the mountain in zig-zag courses, I following always with the firm grasp of the tail that meant we would not part company, and we did not. I felt that it was a mean trick to compel the poor brute to pull me up the mountain by his tail, supperless, breakfastless, and discontended. It appeared to me it was just cause to sever our friendship, which by this time seemed cemented closely, but then I thought of the attempted abandonment he had been guilty of, and that perhaps he should submit to some indignities at my hand in consequence.
By noon we had surmounted all obstacles, and stood upon the summit prairie—one of them, for there are several—where Bobby feasted to his heart's content, while I—well, it was the same old story, hard tack and cheese, with a small allotment of dried venison.
To the south, apparently but a few miles distant, the old mountain, Rainier of old, Tacoma by Winthrop, loomed up into the clouds full ten thousand feet higher than where I stood, a grand scene to behold, worthy of all the effort expended to attain this view point. But I was not attuned to view with ecstasy the grandeur of what lay before me, but rather to scan the horizon to ascertain, if I could, what the morrow might bring forth. The mountain to the pioneer has served as a huge barometer to forecast the weather. "How is the mountain this morning?" the farmer asks in harvest time. "Has the mountain got his night cap on?" the housewife inquires before her wash is hung on the line. The Indian would watch the mountain with intent to determine whether he might expect "snass" (rain), or "kull snass" (hail), or "t'kope snass" (snow), and seldom failed in his conclusions, and so I scanned the mountain top that day partially hid in the clouds, with the forebodings verified at nightfall, as will be related later.