A Woman Tenderfoot | Page 9

had been crossing it for the past hour," I was feminine
enough to gasp.
"Oh, yes, them's forks of it; but the main stream's on ahead, and it's
mighty treacherous, too," was the calm reply.
When we reached the Snake River, there was no doubt that the others

were mere forks. Fortunately, Joe Miller and his two sons live on the
opposite bank, and make a living by helping people escape destruction
from the mighty waters. Two men waved us back from the place where
our driver was lashing his horses into the rushing current, and guided
us down stream some distance. One of them said:
"This yere ford changes every week, but I reckon you might try here."
We did.
Had my hair been of the dramatic kind that realises situations, it would
have turned white in the next ten minutes. The water was over the
horses' backs immediately, the wagon box was afloat, and we were
being borne rapidly down stream in the boiling seething flood, when
the wheels struck a shingly bar which gave the horses a chance to half
swim, half plunge. The two men, who were on horseback, each seized
one of the leaders, and kept his head pointed for a cut in the bank, the
only place where we could get out.
Everything in the wagon was afloat. A leather case with a forty dollar
fishing rod stowed snugly inside slipped quietly off down stream. I
rescued my camera from the same fate just in time. Overshoes, wraps,
field glasses, guns, were suddenly endowed with motion. Another
moment and we should surely have sunk, when the horses, by a
supreme effort, managed to scramble on to the bank, but were too
exhausted to draw more than half of the wagon after them, so that it
was practically on end in the water, our outfit submerged, of course,
and ourselves reclining as gracefully as possible on the backs of the
seats.
Had anything given away then, there might have been a tragedy. The
two men immediately fastened a rope to the tongue of the wagon, and
each winding an end around the pommel of his saddle, set his cow pony
pulling. Our horses made another effort, and up we came out of the
water, wet, storm tossed, but calm. Oh, yes--calm! After that, earth had
no terrors for me; the worst road that we could bump over was but an
incident. I was not surprised that it grew dark very soon, and that we
blundered on and on for hours in the night until the near wheeler just
lay down in the dirt, a dark spot in the dark road, and our driver, after
coming back from a tour of inspection on foot, looked worried. I mildly
asked if we would soon cross Snake River, but his reply was an
admission that he was lost. There was nothing visible but the twinkling

stars and a dim outline of the grim Tetons. The prospect was excellent
for passing the rest of the night where we were, famished, freezing, and
so tired I could hardly speak.
But Nimrod now took command. His first duty, of course, being a man,
was to express his opinion of the driver in terms plain and
comprehensive; then he loaded his rifle and fired a shot. If there were
any mountaineers around, they would understand the signal and
answer.
We waited. All was silent as before. Two more horses dropped to the
ground. Then he sent another loud report into the darkness. In a few
moments we thought we heard a distant shout, then the report of a gun
not far away.
Nimrod mounted the only standing horse and went in the direction of
the sound. Then followed an interminable silence. I hallooed, but got
no answer. The wildest fears for Nimrod's safety tormented me. He had
fallen into a gully, the horse had thrown him, he was lost.
Then I heard a noise and listened eagerly. The driver said it was a
coyote howling up on the mountain. At last voices did come to me from
out of the blackness, and Nimrod returned with a man and a fresh horse.
The man was no other than the owner of the house for which we were
searching, and in ten minutes I was drying myself by his fireplace,
while his hastily aroused wife was preparing a midnight supper for us.
To this day, I am sure that driver's worst nightmare is when he lives
over again the time when he took a tenderfoot and his wife into
Jackson's Hole, and, but for the tenderfoot, would have made them stay
out overnight, wet, famished, frozen, within a stone's throw of the very
house for which they were looking.

IV.
WHICH TREATS OF THE IMPS