Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1895-01-04

Watch Dogs Of the Subterranean
Caverns Tell of a Mild Winter.
SURE SIGNS OF A MILD WINTER
How the Indians konw That the Coming
Three Months Are TO
Re Warm

! Miserable they.
Who, here entangled in the gathering lee.
Take their last look at the descending sun;
While. full OF death. and fierce with ten
fold frost
The long. long night incumbent Ger their
heads,
Falls terrible"
Like and unlike the geese whose
warning hiss and quacking saved an
Client Rome, the subterranean watch
dogs chained In the wind and ice cav
erns presided over by Old Probabilities
bay their discordant dissent to the
dreary winters advent and tell of the
approach of warmer weather. So say
the Yakima Indians. says the Yakima
Herald
However, even the Indians may not
at all times hear the protests of these
brothers of Cerberus. even though such
protest be made. 1t is only at one place
on the great Yakima reserve that old
Mother Earths outside crust is fissured
and scanned and cracked enough for the
| reverberating echoes to find vent. That
Is moo-moo (spring) away over on the
Ahtanum hills
a triangular background of sloping.
rock-ribbed mountains opens at the
v,
crystal waters of a mountain lake SPAR
kle in the MONDAY sun or shiver under
the silver sheen of cold and distant
moon. Fed by the SHOWS of the noun
tains Seeping and trickling through
numberless crannies in the sides of the
lonely sentinels of the plains beyond.
he sparkling waters How ever in; con-
stantly dripping. dropping. ripping in
OF
of the natural basin--which is never
filed For deep in the center of the Lii
| liputian ocean is an outlet. or inlet
rather; and through il the waters pour.
emptying into some dark cavern whose
reccsses are habitable only by members
of Lytton's Coming Race" the people
of our dreams, the fanciful sprites of
elfdom-and the watch-dogs of the
American Indian.
When winters SHOWS and ice and
| sleet and winds are to freeze the blood
of the puny mortal; when nature is to
hibernate for long and dreary months
when sleighbells are to tinkle and jim
| gle and chime on the frosty air. when
the precocious and fun-loving youth is
| to be permitted to enjoy himself with
skates and sled as only the small boy
be noticed at the moo-moo: its waters
| CONCEAL, its musical tinkling is slenced.
| its harmonies are mute. The dogs of
the under world are drowsily slumber-
ing, never waking nor disturbing the
silent halls of their home with deep
toned warning or the yell and howl of
anger and war. And when, for days
and days. and night after night, in the
clear November weather. the Indian
listener in the valley far below hears
In the rarified atmosphere no sound
from the heights above, no murmur
from the spring, no echo from the
mountain, he goes to his people with
the warning to bring out the heavy
bear skins, the double blankets; to con-
vey to the wigwam fresh and large
stores of bark and wood and chips,
that the campfire may always burn,
and the warmth and smoke of IL fill
the sloping walls before 1t finds an
egress 'twixt the crossed poles at the
apex 1t is then the woe-begone son of
the forest tells his white brother to
look to the furnaces and fires, and
shiveringly appreciates how
But, should the silent courier, who
waits with fear and hope for some first
faint sound from the moo-moo, hear the
rumble and roar of the deep-throated
baying, echoing and re-echoing. bound
ing and rebounding along the slopes of
the foothills; list to the tones of the
bubbling spring singing and laughing
in liquid notes; find valley and table
land resounding with the harmony he
longs to hear-then does he joyfully
shout: TT is the symbol of life: it is
the play of the great dogs in the cavern
1t is the warm breath of the Chinook
and he runs to tell his people that the
sun will shine and the sage grow green,
and the salmon run, and the traps be
full of game; for there is to be an open
winter. For the dogs in the under world
have felt the chinook. their bodies are
full of life, their blood is rich and red
and hot; and, fighting and playing and
baying. they roll and tumble about, and
the sound floats through the waters of
the moo-moo into the still air above, and
| the children of the Great Father are
! glad.
Here is comfort for the Yakima farm
err and the dweller in the city in this
winter of 1S9i-95, because the spring has
dubbed and the dogs have howled and
growled. and November chinooks have
swept the hill and the vale with their
moist and warming fragrance. There is
to be a mild and open winter; and only
bracing breezes that will make the blood
TO Jingle and instill an energy and a
spirit into the lazy plodder which shall
prompt him to new struggles, will cheer
the pushing, rustling resident of the
Sunshine City and the valleys al