CHAPTER XX
COMING OF THE CHINOOK
After many days the scout came back alone to his ranch, and we rode together on the open plains to look for missing cattle. We found cows and calves dying without food or drink, and a young steer that had fallen through the ice, frozen in the river. We hauled it ashore with our lariats and, after dragging the carcass back to the cabin, skinned and butchered it; the way Indians used to cut up buffalo. We took out the tongue, short-ribs, boss-ribs, shoulders and hams, briskets and belly-pieces. There was no waste; we used the entrails for eating, saving the hide for tanning, also the brains and liver; the tissue was used for sinew.
Then another blizzard came with more snow, intense cold, and a gale from the north. That night as we sat by the stove, the side of our bodies towards the fire was warm, the other numb with cold. Whenever we opened the door, the cold air formed a cloud of steam, which shot along the floor and made a fall of snow on the threshold. Then the roof began to crack, and loud reports came from ice in the river. I heard the booming of a bursting tree, and then of a water-filled hollow. The scout said:
“Those are signs of more bad weather. My friend Bear Paw, who lives near the mountains, says it is over forty years since we had a moon with such bad storms. Before they came, he saw a mysterious ball of fire hang over the forest. Bear Paw keeps tribal records on buffalo skins: deaths of chiefs, cold winters, summers of drought and of plenty.”
It was a dreary time when our oil gave out; I could neither read nor write. There were only six hours of daylight, with darkness for the remaining eighteen.
Big gray wolves and packs of coyotes driven by hunger came close to the ranch. One night I heard them feasting on the carcass of a cow not far from our cabin. Finally they became so bold we made baits of poisoned meat and placed them on the hills, dragging the bloody head of the steer behind our horses to lead them to the baits.
I saw sun dogs in the sky, shining dimly, like great crosses of light near the sun. Then shadows appeared over the Rocky Mountains, strange “snow banners,” or cloud-shaped drifts in the sky, stretching out from the summits of the high peaks, waving and shimmering in the rays of the sun—a sign that a powerful norther was raging over the mountains. The light dry snowdust, being driven by the wind up the flanks of the high peaks, was carried over them and into the sky, each peak having its own snow banner, all pointing the same way, all gleaming and waving against the blue sky.
That night a nor’wester came roaring over the plains, with a whirling wind that sought to lift the roof and terrible gusts, which struck the walls like a battering-ram, until the cabin swayed and trembled.
The scout sat dejected by the fire. He was filled with gloom; and when I wakened towards midnight he was still there, with his head bowed. I heard him pray earnestly and in a low voice to the Sun:
“Father, have pity and help us.
I am praying for my people.
The Indians starve and are cold.
Break up the clouds and shine upon us.
Take what I say and send the Chinook.
Father, the Sun, have pity and help my people.”
At last came a day with signs of better weather. At dawn the sky was vivid green with clouds of pink and gold; and at midday water was dripping from the roof and the thick frost melted from the windows.
Then on Kutenai I went forth to hunt, following the tops of the ridges. I saw tracks of a wolf pack, and the large round footprints of a pair of Rocky Mountain lions, with marks where their long tails dragged in the snow. But I had no luck. The traveling was bad; the low places and gullies were choked with snow, and the plains covered with huge drifts, following one another like billows of the ocean, with smaller waves on top. The bright sun was blinding on the white surface snow, and the air filled with particles of floating ice. My horse’s hoofs rang on the icy crust; sometimes it bore our weight; at others his feet broke through. One moment his hind quarters were down, at another he seemed to be standing on his head. Once he slipped on an ice-covered hill and turned a complete somersault. I flew over his head and landed safely in a snowdrift. The only game I saw was a bunch of antelope. But they were feeding on the bare summit of a ridge with no cover near, and I had no way of stalking them. After that I turned back because the sun was getting low.
I remember well how the cabin looked that night, after my trip on the snowy wastes. Our table was covered with a cloth of bright red; the steam rising from a bountiful supper of rib-roast; the glow of the firelight over all, and the glistening of frost-covered windows.
Then the south wind rose and the river was covered with mist. Misty clouds hung along the horizon, and I saw two rainbows at a distance from the sun. Banks of heavy clouds settled low over the Rocky Mountains, with another great bank higher up. In the west the sky became as black as ink and the color of indigo at the zenith. The wind went down and there came a strange stillness.
Suddenly, from out of the west I heard a dull roar, like the roll of distant thunder. “Listen!” cried the scout. “The Chinook! At last! Good-Old-Man comes from the mountains to run out over the plains.”
I looked towards the Rockies and saw dense clouds of snow swept into the air by the force of a mighty wind. It passed the foothills and came swiftly over the plains, like banks of driven fog. Then the gale struck us carrying masses of melting snow, which covered us from head to foot. In a few minutes the temperature rose forty degrees.
A Chinook wind occurs on the east side of the Rocky Mountains, whenever a well-developed cyclonic storm passes over the northern part of the United States. It blows from the direction of the country occupied by the Chinook Indians. It is not a wind from the Japanese Current of the Pacific Ocean, as is commonly believed. It is a “descending wind” that flows over the Rocky Mountains, following the low pressure on the eastern side, which draws it down the mountains to the plains. Thus the wind is compressed and has capacity for holding heat. When the Chinook blows, precipitation ceases, clouds disappear and the air is dry.
That Chinook blew for three days. It went down in the evening after the sun, but came again in the morning, melting the snow as if by magic. In a few hours as much snow had melted as by a gentle thaw of many days.
Our river was a wonderful sight. It became a raging torrent that whirled and foamed and burst its icy covering. The huge drifts of snow that filled the valleys and were piled along the river banks looked yellow and shrunken and lost their graceful curves. The cowhouse and other sheds were flooded. In the night the air was filled with strange sounds—the running and dripping of water, the slipping and sliding of melting snow and ice.
For days we were storm-bound, because of the floods and the force of that mighty wind. Finally the grass-covered summits of the ridges appeared—the first time in many weeks. Then we gave cattle and horses their last feed of hay at the ranch, and drove them forth to pasture on the hills.