By permissionAmerican Forestry Magazine.
"The trouble with this here forest service business nowadays is, that they're sendin' out, from the effete and luxurious East, a lot of half-baked kids, what never seen a mountain in all their lives, don't know whether beans is picked from trees or made in a factory at Battle Creek, an' generally ain't got savvy enough to find their way home after dark.
"Now here's this kid we've drawed in the last deal; nice enough boy, I reckon, but who's goin' to play nursey to him up in these here hills?" The speaker glared at his companion as if defying him to meet his charges against the newcomer and his kind.
"But he's got eddication, Jack," replied his listener, "an' that's what counts in these days. We got into the service in them good old days when it was a case of ability to ride a pitchin' bronc, rope a maverick, chase sheep herders off the earth, shoot the eyes out of a wildcat at forty yards an' all them things. Nowadays they picks 'em out by their brand of learnin' an' not by their high-heeled boots."
"Howsomever," he continued, "there's some of themthat makes good in spite of their eddicational handicap. Over on the Sierra last fall we was all a-settin' in camp one Sunday afternoon when the phone rings like they was trying to wake the dead with it. The old man gits up to answer it. When he says, sort of startled-like, 'Fire, where?' we all pricks up our ears. 'Twas a mighty dry time an' every one was a-prayin' for rain, for we'd been fightin' fire for the last month and was all in.
"We had a fire lookout station up on top of a high peak an' a man, with the best glasses money could buy, a-sittin' there who could see all over the range for fifty miles.
"We had a fire lookout station on top of a high peak"
"Say, people got so they was afraid to make a campfire anywheres in them hills, an' the rangers swore they had to go behind a tree to light their pipes, lest he'd see the smoke an' send in a fire call.
"'Shut-eye,' said the old man, meaning the lookout, 'Shut-eye says there's a big smoke a-comin' out of the cañon below Gold Gulch to the left of Greyback Peak, an' I reckon we'd better be a-movin' that way.'
"It didn't take us long to saddle up, slap a pack onto a couple of mules, an' hit the trail. 'Twas a good ten-mile over a rough country, an' it was mighty nigh dark afore we gets to where we could see smoke a-boiling out of the cañon over a ridge ahead of us.
"We was all old-timers at the work, 'ceptin' a young feller fresh from the Yale Forestry School, what had come out for a sort of post-graduate course in forestry, an' some of them boys was seein' to it he got it all right.
"He had all the fixin's them fellers bring along with them, fancy ridin' panties, a muley saddle, a wind bed an'a automatic six-pistol, one of them things what, after she once gits to shootin', you jist got to throw her into the creek to stop her goin'.
"'Bout two miles from the ridge where we reckoned we'd git our first view of the fire we meets up with Hank Strong an' his wife. You know, Hank's woman is just about as crazy to go to a fire as a boy to the circus, an' she always comes in mighty handy to start a camp, take care of the boys' horses an' the packs while we're a-workin'.
"Generally she'd make up a big pot of coffee and fetch it out to the line. Once she comes a-ridin' along carryin' a pot full an' a bear skeered her hoss—but that's nothin' to do with this yarn.
"Hank says that there's also a big smoke comin' up from the vicinity of Granite Basin, an' the old man he says some one better go over there an' see what's goin' on. Thar's a chap named Brown a-livin' in the Basin, an' the Super, he's afraid, mebbe so he'd get caught in the fire an' be singed some, the Basin bein' in the allfiredest lot of chapparal brush you ever see.
"This feller Brown, he's a sort of pet of them boys over that a-way, him bein' a lunger an' not able to do much but draw funny pictures for the Sunday supplements. Seems he broke down back East an' comes West to try an' git over it.
"There he sets a-drawin' pictures for them funny papers an' sendin' 'em in regular, while he ses he's jist a-walkin' around to beat the undertaker.
"Nobody else is a-livin' in the basin, there bein' nothin' but a little old cabin, what a bee-man put up once, an'a few hives of bees Brown bought along with the cabin. 'Them bees is jist to teach me habits of industry,' ses Brown, when some of the boys asked him if he calculated to git rich on the output of them hives.
"The old man he reckons he can't spare any of us old hands to go over there, an' so he says to the young tenderfoot: 'Son,' he says, 'do you reckon you can make it over there in the dark and find out what's doin' in Granite Basin an' come back an' let us know?'
"The boy he ses he reckoned he could, only he didn't know the trail all the way. Then Hank's wife she speaks up an' says she can go along as far as the top of the mountain, an' show him the trail down into the basin.
"It sort of hacked the kid to have a woman show him the trail, but the old man said it were the very idee, an' so she an' the boy struck off, leavin' us to take care of the fire ahead.
"There wa'n't but one way into the basin an' that was down a graded trail about two miles long from top to bottom that the bee man had made to git in and out on.
"The lower part of this basin was one great mass of brush, an' as thick as the hair on a dog's back, so you couldn't git through it only where the brush had been cut out.
"When they gits to the top an' could see over the basin there wa'n't any doubt but there was a fire all right an' it was mighty plain that if Brown wa'n't already out of there it was time he was startin'.
"Hank's wife were a-dyin' to go down with him, but the kid he ses, 'This here's my job, please,' and bluffed her out.
"'You look out you don't get cut off on the trail,' she warns him, 'the way that fire's a-eatin' along the side of the basin, it's a-goin' to reach the trail inside of an hour, an' there ain't no other way out 'ceptin' a foot path what goes up the side of the basin back of the cabin, but it's more like a ladder than a trail an' you can't take your hoss there a-tall.'
"Down into the basin goes the boy, while instead of goin' back to the outfit the woman stopped there on a little point of rock where she could look all over the basin an' waited to see what'd happen.
"Brown slep' out under a big ole oak-tree, an' as he gits near the cabin the kid he lets out a yell or two to wake him an' finds Brown settin' up in bed sort of half-dazed, what with the yellin' an' onnatural brightness of the skies all abouts.
"Inside of five minutes they was a-ridin' for the trail up the mountain with Brown a-settin' behind on the kid's horse. But it were too late. When they reached the foot of the trail they could see where 'bout half way up the whole blamed mountain was afire. Nothin' could pass through it an' live, so there wa'n't nothin' to do but go back an' try to get out on the foot trail.
"Brown he begs the kid to go an' leave him an' save hisself. 'I'm only a worn-out shell, anyhow,' he ses, 'an' it's jist a question of time till it's all over for me an' I cash in, but you got something to live for ahead of you.'
"But the kid wouldn't stand for it.
"'Don't you talk to me 'bout leavin' you here like a rat in a trap,' ses he, 'we'll make it up that trail all right;jist you hang onto me and we'll make the hoss pack us as far as he can go, an' then we'll take it afoot. If it comes to a showdown I can carry you easy enough.'
"So they rides the hoss up the trail till where it runs into a cliff 'bout twenty feet high. Here thar was a ladder to git up the cliff, an' the kid he strips off the saddle, takes his water bag, an' turns his hoss to shift fer hisself. Time they gits up that ladder pore Brown he were all in an' had to lie down on the ground a-coughin' fit to kill hisself.
"This trail was jist a foot trail cut through the chapparal, an' the smoke an' heat was already a-rollin' down onto 'em where they was like a blast from a furnace. The kid he wets their handkerchiefs from his water bag an' they each tied 'em about their faces to sort of protect 'em a little.
"The boy, he looks mighty anxiouslike at them big high walls of flames a-comin' down toward 'em, an' fairly forced Brown to git on his back 'pick-a-back' like you'd take a little kid, an' started slowly up the trail.
"Foot by foot he climbed to'rd the top. Sometimes the smoke got so thick they had to lie down a minute clost to the ground to git their breath, sometimes the wind dropped big blazin' brands onto 'em an' set their clothes afire, an' he'd have to stop an' rub it out with his hands.
"Every time he took a look up to'rds the top, he'd see the fire a-comin' closter an' closter to the trail. Pore Brown he tried to help him some by walkin', but between the excitement an' the smoke gittin' into his lungs, it were too much for him, an' he dropped down helpless as a newborn baby.
"The kid, he takes a survey of things an', little as heknowed 'bout fires in the chapparal, he seen mighty plain, that they were at the critical pint, an' if they didn't git past the next hundred feet mighty soon, the fire would cut 'em off, an' it would be good-bye gay world to 'em both.
"Then he hears a moan from Brown an', lookin' round, sees him lyin' flat on the ground with one hand clapped over his mouth, an' tricklin' between his fingers was a stream of blood. Didn't take him but a second to know it were a hemorrhage; beats all what them fellers do learn at them colleges, don't it?
"Brown were a-workin' away with one hand at the little pocket in his shirt an', in his eagerness an' excitement, the button wouldn't come open. The boy jumped to his side, tore the button loose, an' pulled from the pocket a little tobacco sack with something in it. Brown he holds out one hand palm up, an' nodded to the boy to open the sack, which he did, an' then poured out into his hand a little pile of common table salt. You know them lunger-fellers most of 'em carries a little sack of salt agin' jist such emergencies. Brown he throwed his head back an' swallowed every grain of it an', bimeby, the blood stopped running so hard. He struggled to his feet, then waved his hand to'rd the top an', with a beseechin' look in his eyes, tried to git the kid to savvy that he was to go on an' leave him to die.
"But the boy he wa'n't made of that sort of stuff. He's jist about skeered to death at the sight of the blood, but he pulls hisself together, grabs Brown in his arms agin, an' grits his teeth for another fight for their lives.
"Finally, he comes to a place where, about ten feet ahead, the fire was clean acrost the trail. He puts Brown down for a minute, pulls off his coat, lays it on the ground, an' pours over it what water was left in his water bag. Then he wraps Brown's head an' shoulders in the coat an', grabbing him up in his arms, agin makes a last dash through the smoke an' fire.
"Seems like he hears a woman's voice above the roar of the fire an' he sort of wonders is he gittin' a little loco with it all. Next he knows he's a-drawin' in big gulps of air that ain't full of smoke, an' there's a woman a-walkin' longside of him, steadyin' him as he staggers under his load an' a-rubbin' out, with a wet gunny sack, the places where his an' Brown's clothes are a-smokin'.
"It all appears as a horrible dream to him, an' fust thing he knows, he don't know nothin', for he's gone an' keeled over in a dead faint. Don't laugh, you fool; didn't you ever work at a fire till it seemed as if your lungs was a-goin' to bust an' your heart was a-beatin' like a cock patridge on a log?
"Then he gits a quart or more of cold water slap in the face, opens his eyes, an' there's Hank's wife a-standin' over him. Clost by was Brown, alive an' apparently uninjured. She knowed if he got through a-tall he's bound to come out right about there and was a-watchin' for him.
"When we comes along 'bout three hours later, we finds the boy and the woman hard at work, back-firin' along the old stage road an' the fire pretty well under control on that side.
"Say, that kid were a sight to look at. He ain't got no more eyebrows or lashes than a rabbit, an' that there curly mop of his was singed an' scorched like the rats had been a chawin' onto it."
"And Brown?" asked Jack.
"Oh, Brown, why he come through all right. Saw a lot of his funny pictures in the Sunday supplement last week. 'Peared like the fire done him good."
By permissionNational Wool Growers' Magazine
"Take him, Bob; take him, boy." The woman pointed to a coyote skulking in the sage brush a hundred yards from the camp wagon beside which she stood. The dog raced toward the animal which turned and stopped, a nasty snarl coming from its lips, teeth bared, every hair of its mane erect. Almost as large as a full grown wolf it outweighed the dog by many pounds.
Surprised at the coyote's hostile attitude the Airedale stopped for a moment, then advanced cautiously, realizing that this coyote differed somewhat from those he had met before.
Instantly the coyote flew at the dog, burying its keen teeth deep in his left leg, leaping quickly back to avoid a clinch, its jaws snapping like castanets. The dog, though taken by surprise, fought with all the fury of his breed, but being only a pup was manifestly overmatched. Realizing the dangerous character of the coyote, the woman seized the camp axe standing at the front wheel of the wagon and ran to the aid of her protector.
The coyote tore loose from the dog's grip and jumped at her as she came nearer. She swung the axe as the animal raised in the air, missed its head by six inches, and, before she could gather herself for another blow, it sank its fangs deep into her bare arm. Encouraged by her presence the dog fastened himself to the animal's hindquarters, but shaking him loose it lunged at her again. She stood her ground, thrusting the axe at the brute in an endeavor to keep it at bay. Meantime the door to the camp wagon opened, a boy about fifteen jumped to the ground, in his hand a heavy automatic pistol. As the coyote sprang at the woman's body he thrust the weapon under her arm almost in the animal's face, and the shot that followed blew half its ugly head away.
As the beast sank to the ground the woman dropped the axe, ran to the wagon, picked up a rope hobble that lay on the tongue, tied it around her arm above the wound and, with a short piece of stick, twisted the improvised tourniquet until it sank deep into the white flesh. The boy, the while uttering those strange inarticulate sounds of the deaf and dumb, wrote a few words upon the slate that hung from his neck by a leather thong and handed it to the woman. "The signal—shoot the signal," she read.
She seized the automatic the boy had used, raised it above her head, fired two quick shots, waited a moment, and fired two more. As she listened there came through the still cold air an answer, sharp and staccato as the spark from a wireless.
Then, and not until then, did the woman relax and sink to the ground as if dead.
The physical disabilities of the boy had given him a keenness and comprehension far beyond his years. Heclambered into the wagon, drew from its scabbard a heavy rifle, jumped to the ground and repeated the signal three times. Could his ears have served him he would have heard the answering shots, this time much nearer.
No rider in a Wild West relay race ever quit his pony with greater speed than did Jim Stanley as he reached his camp, where with one quick glance he realized what had happened. As he dropped beside his wife she opened her eyes, grasped his hand and struggled to rise. The boy ran to the wagon returning quickly with a small box, the well known red cross on its black shining side proving it to be a "first aid kit." The woman smiled faintly. Away back in the mountains the forest ranger's wife had once showed her the box the government furnished all its rangers, and when the lambs were shipped in August she coaxed Stanley to bring one back. He rather laughed at the idea, but to please her, bought one and, with a woman's foresight, it had always been kept in the camp wagon.
The prevalence of rabies among the coyotes was the one live topic in every sheep and cattle camp all over the range country and, realizing the serious nature of the wound, the man took the box from the boy, opened it and seized the booklet which told briefly what to do in such an emergency.
The pressure of the tourniquet was lessened, causing the wound to bleed freely, a most valuable aid to its cleansing, and in a few minutes it had been well washed with hot water, flooded with a strong solution of carbolic acid and bound tightly with one of the bandages from the box.
In the meantime, the man had decided on his course.At a sign from him the boy mounted the horse Stanley had ridden into camp and rode rapidly off across the range. While he was gone, Stanley outlined his plans to his wife. With good luck they could intercept the auto stage, that passed down the road every day, at a point some thirty miles distant. From there it was seventy-five miles to town which they would reach that night in time to catch the midnight train to the nearest Pasteur institute.
"But the sheep, Jim?" and the woman looked anxiously out on the range. "We can't leave them all alone, you better let me make the ride by myself and you stay here, for I can get through all right."
Stanley shook his head. "Not for all the sheep in the world would I let you go alone." He kissed her cheeks.
"But Jim," she pleaded, "it's too much to risk and I'll make it without a bit of trouble."
The boy was just turning the point of a little hill near camp driving before him the two horses hobbled out the night before. Stanley pointed to him. "Dummy can turn the trick all right enough, he's the best herder in this whole range for his age, and he'll get 'em through if any one can. He's only a boy, but he has a lot of good horse-sense and if the weather holds out he'll work the herd from here to the winter range and not lose a sheep."
"But we'll take the team with us; how can he move camp?" and she glanced at the big roomy camp wagon.
"That saddle pony of mine will carry all the grub and bedding he'll need and the wagon can stand right here till some of us can get back and haul it away."
The man hung a nose bag full of oats on each horse,saddling them as they ate, and while he was getting out the pack outfit, food, and other supplies for the boy, she was writing his instructions on the slate, supplemented by many signs and motions which he read as easily as the written words. He was to stay in this camp two or three days longer, then pack the pony with his camp outfit and drift the sheep slowly toward the winter range seventy-five miles below.
"Take plenty of food," she wrote, "for it may be ten days before some one gets out to relieve you. You know the way, don't you?"
Dummy nodded eagerly. He had come up with the sheep in the spring and knew every camp and bed-ground on the trail.
"Don't you worry about him," Stanley told his wife, when she again spoke of the danger of leaving the boy all alone. "He's short two good ears, that's sure, but he more than makes up for them in gumption and common-sense. If it don't come on to storm, he'll make it through all right and by the time he gets there I'll have a man ready to relieve him, if I'm not there myself."
"And if it does storm," he continued, "he'll probably do just about as well as any one else, for out here, if it comes on a blizzard, all the best man in the world could do would be to let the sheep drift before it till they strike shelter."
Fifteen minutes later, the boy watched them ride out of sight, over a ridge near camp. As the two figures were lost to view he turned toward the wagon and took a short survey of his surroundings. Out on the range twelvehundred ewes were peacefully grazing with no hand but his to guide and protect them; what a chance to show the stuff in him! Deep down in his heart he hoped that the man who was to come out from the railroad to relieve him would be delayed for many days. It would give him a chance to make good and show his worth.
"Out on the range 1200 ewes were grazing"
For three days Dummy led an uneventful life. The dog was recovering from his wounds, the sheep were doing well, and he had shot another rascally coyote that came skulking about the camp one evening.
On the fourth day the sky was overcast with heavy clouds that seemed threatening and, as the feed near camp was about gone, he decided it was time to be moving. In two hours he was off, the dog limping along by his side, the herd slowly grazing their way across the range.
As a precautionary measure he led the pack horse lest old "Slippers" take it into his head to desert him. That night Dummy made camp under the lee of some small hills where a few scattered cedars offered fire-wood and shelter. The sun had set in an angry sky, there was a strange feeling in the air, and the sheep seemed to sense an approaching storm.
He bedded them down in the most sheltered spot he could find, set up his little miner's tent close to a cedar and, after cooking his supper, took the dog into the tent, tied the flaps and slept as only a tired boy of his age can sleep.
The tent was lit with the dim gray of early dawn, when the dog's cold nose on his face awoke him, and he was soon outside, opening up the fire hole he had carefully coveredthe night before. The wind was blowing a gale while overhead the sky was that dull leaden color that in the range country means snow.
Late that afternoon he worked the sheep toward a line of low cliffs that cut across the prairie and bedded them down in their lee, finding for himself a snug overhanging shelf of rock, under which he placed his camp outfit, and cooked his first meal since daylight.
Dummy dared not hobble out his horse in such a night, but after giving him a small feed of grain he had brought from the wagon, staked the animal in a little grassy wash near camp.
By dark the snow began to fall heavily and he knew that for him and his woolly companions the morrow would be full of new troubles.
Lost to all sounds of the storm, the lad sat before the little campfire under the overhanging rock and watched the snow drive before the wind. With the confidence of one born and raised amid such conditions, Dummy rather enjoyed the prospect of a struggle against the elements. His parents were Basques from the Spanish Pyrenees, a sturdy dependable race that for centuries have been sheepherders in their own land. Every winter, from the open ranges of the West, come tales of "basco" sheepherders facing death in the storms, rather than desert their herds. Their devotion to their woolly charges, good judgment in handling them and loyalty to their employers' interests, even unto death, is recognized all over the western range country, until the name "basco" stands for the best in sheepherders.
From such as these sprang this boy, deaf and dumbfrom his birth. His father and his uncle were among the best herders in the state, and from a child he had been used to the rough life of a sheep camp. Deficient as he was in two vital senses, the remaining ones had been developed until his ability to grasp and understand things about him seemed almost uncanny. It was this knowledge of the boy's breeding and peculiarities that made Stanley feel he would take the best possible care of the sheep left in his charge.
When Dummy opened his eyes the next morning, the air was so full of snow driving before a fifty-mile gale that he could not see a hundred feet from camp. He cooked his breakfast, fed Slippers the last of the grain, and waited for the storm to break, realizing that until it did it would be folly to leave the shelter of the cliffs.
The sheep were getting restless and hungry and occasionally small bunches drifted out into the storm in search of feed, but after buffeting with the wind for a few moments were glad to come back. About noon there came a lull in the gale and the snow came straight down almost in clouds. The sheep were uneasy over the change, and even Slippers seemed to sense some new danger.
Suddenly with a roar the wind swept upon them from a new direction so that they were now exposed to its full fury, whereas, before, they had been sheltered by the cliffs.
The sheep tried to face it, but the fierce wind was too much for them, and they slowly drifted before the gale across the snow-covered range.
All that day Dummy struggled along behind the herd tired, cold, hungry, and almost blinded by the frozen tears, leading the pack horse lest he lose him. As for controllingthe movements of the sheep, he did nothing for they could travel in but one direction, and that was away from the arctic blast which grew in strength as the day wore on. Wherever there was a sign of anything eatable upon which the hungry animals could feed, they ate even the woody stems of the sage or the dry yellow fibre-like leaves of the Yuccas that here and there showed above the snow.
The short winter day began to wane, and darkness was slowly creeping across the white cover that lay over the land. All sense of direction and time had long since left the lad, but he struggled on, the dog limping along at his side.
Just as the last signs of daylight faded away the sheep stopped moving, and he was unable to start them again. He wrapped the lead rope of his horse about a sage bush as best he could, then worked his way through the herd looking for the cause of their stopping. Stumbling and falling over snow-hidden rocks and bushes, he found himself almost stepping off into empty space over a cliff, where the snow had built out from its edge in such a manner as to conceal its presence, and, even as he threw himself back from the step he was about to take, he saw several sheep walk blindly out into the semi-darkness and disappear into the depth below.
The loss of these roused into action every drop of his basco blood. In the dim light he could just make out where the edge of the cliff lay and, carefully working his way along it, beat the stolid mass of animals back from the danger. By this time it was almost dark and he turned back to find his horse, but after half an hour's search gave it up and returned to the herd, hoping the animal might bewith them somewhere. He stumbled around in the snow for some time before he came up with the tail enders of the herd slowly working their way through a break in the cliff down which the leaders had evidently gone. He found the herd huddled up in the shelter of the cliff and eagerly looked through them for the pack horse with its precious burden of food and bedding, but without success.
Once he stumbled over several soft objects in the dark which he made out to be some of the sheep that had fallen over the cliff. When he finally realized that the pack horse was gone, he knew where he could at least get his supper and breakfast, and after starting a fire skinned out a hind quarter of one of the fallen sheep and soon had some of it roasting. Fortunately for the boy, he found piled against the cliff a lot of poles that had evidently been part of an old corral, which made it possible for him to keep the fire going all night and over which he huddled dropping off to sleep only to be awakened by his numbed limbs and body.
Eagerly Dummy peered through the falling snow the next day as the gray dawn came slowly into the east. The snow sweeping over the cliff from above had formed a drift that almost completely shut the sheep in as if with a fence and he knew there was no possibility of leaving the shelter where he was until the sky cleared off enough for him to get his bearings. Even then he doubted if it would be possible for the sheep to travel, so deep was the snow.
About noon the snow stopped falling, and Dummy worked his way up to the top of the cliff from which as far as he could see there was but a broad expanse of snow-covered range.
To his left the view was cut off by a small hill that stood close to the cliff. He went over to it and from its top saw below him in the open plain a small board shack with a rough shed stable near it.
Instantly he remembered that, as they passed up with the sheep in the spring, a man and his wife were busy building the shack preparatory to taking up the land about it for dry farming purposes. Eagerly he watched the house for signs of occupancy, but as there was no smoke coming from the chimney, he decided it was empty. Two things interested him, however. One, the fact that the plowed field near the house, being on a slight elevation, was blown almost clear of snow, and the other, there was something half hidden by the house which looked mightily like a stack of hay, although it scarcely seemed that this could be true.
In the field, which covered perhaps forty acres, he saw the possibility of finding a little feed for the sheep until the snow should settle enough to allow them to travel and, if the stack really was hay or any rough feed, his troubles were over for the present at least.
As the lad turned back to camp he realized only too well the difficulty of moving the herd until the snow settled, it being fully eighteen inches deep on the level, and everywhere there were drifts many feet high through which the sheep in their weakened condition could not make their way.
But it was less than half a mile at the most from the camp to the shack, and he was sure he could work the sheep to the field where there would be some pickings that would keep them from starving.
As he suspected, he found the place deserted, and thestack proved to be fodder of some description surrounded by a strong fence. The shed, which had a small door hanging on one hinge and about half open, was as dark as a cellar and, as he stepped inside, the nose of his lost horse was fairly pushed into his face, and but for his infirmity he could have heard the most gladsome nickering and whinnying to which a lone hungry horse ever gave tongue. A few threads of canvas on the door post told the story of the trap the animal had walked into. Looking for food and shelter, he had squeezed through the half open door, but, once inside, the wide pack striking it on one side and the door post on the other, held him a prisoner.
Quickly the boy removed the pack, then, armed with the camp shovel and axe, went to investigate the stack. It looked more like weeds than anything else and when he grabbed a handful it was rough and harsh and pricked his hands. It was green, however, and the horse ate it greedily.
With the finding of his horse the lad's spirit rose and he set to work to move the sheep over. Between the camp and the house there was a deep wash which the drifting snow had almost filled, while elsewhere there was fully eighteen inches. With the pack-saddle on the horse, the lash rope for traces, and an old sled, evidently used by the farmer to haul water, he started to break a trail through which the sheep could make their way, the shovel being used on the drifts. With a little coaxing he got them started through this narrow lane, and eventually the whole bunch was inside the field eagerly gnawing every eatable thing in sight.
About half an hour before dark that evening a longstring of pack horses, with a rider in the lead and another following, came ploughing through the snow up to the cliff above where the sheep had been bedded. Two of the horses carried ordinary camp packs, the rest were loaded with hay, three bales to the horse. At the edge of the cliff the leader pulled up while every animal stopped in its tracks.
"If we can't see anything of the sheep from here we might just as well give it up for the night," he called back to his companion. "Come on up and have a look."
For a few minutes they both sat gazing out into the plain below, across which the evening shadows were slowly trailing. As far as they could see there was but a white unbroken sheet of snow, the only living thing visible being half a dozen ravens cawing hoarsely as they drifted into the distance.
The second man pulled out his pipe, loaded, and lit it.
"Jim," he queried, "do you know what night this is?"
"I reckon I do," and Stanley's voice choked. "It's Christmas eve, an' I been a-thinkin' an' a-thinkin' all afternoon of that poor little chap out here a-fightin' his way through a storm, the like of which this range ain't seen in twenty years. Don't seem possible he's pulled through, although I'd back Dummy to make it and save his herd if any kid could."
Suddenly he turned his head and sniffed.
"Seems like I smell smoke, and cedar smoke at that," he said eagerly. "Don't you git it, Bob?"
"Which way's the wind?" and Bob blew a cloud of smoke into the frosty air.
"What there is comes from the direction of that therelittle hill," pointing to the very hill on which Dummy had stood.
The instant they topped it, each caught sight of the dry farmer's place, the haystack, the sheep in the field and knew they had found that for which they sought.
"You know the place?" asked Bob, as they hurried down.
"I do for a fact," Stanley grinned, "last time I passed this-a-way the old digger what built that shack an' taken up the dry farm was cuttin' an' stackin' Russian thistles. When I laughed at him for a fool he said he ain't raised nothing' else, an' up North Dakota way they used to put 'em up for roughness when the crops failed, an' he's seen many an old Nellie pulled through a hard winter on 'em."
Ten minutes later the two rode up to the shack. A line of scattered fodder from the stack to the shed showed what the boy had been doing. Bob picked up a handful of the stuff: "Roosian thistles by all that's holy," was his comment, "an' whoever before heerd tell of them tumble weeds a-bein' good for anything to eat."
As he spoke the lad came round the corner of the shed in which "Slippers" had been comfortably stabled and fed.
What with smoke from campfires, and the charcoal he had smeared over it to save his eyes, his face was as black as Toby's hat, but to Stanley it was the face of a hero. Uttering those strange guttural sounds, waving his arms towards the sheep, his dark eyes shining with pride and joy the boy ran to Stanley as a child to its father.
The man, too overwhelmed and happy to speak, grabbed the lad close to his heart, stroking the tousled head andpatting tenderly the dirty cheeks down which the child's tears were now cutting deep trails in their extra covering while, as he realized the boy could hear not a word of the praise and thanks he was showering on him for his pluck and fidelity the tears came to his own eyes nor did he try to stop them.
In the shack that night the boy, worn out by his exposure and the reaction, dropped into his bed the instant supper had been eaten and was fast asleep in ten seconds.
The two men smoked in silence before the little fireplace in the corner.
"Do you reckon we could make a stab at some sort of a Christmas tree an' kinda s'prise the kid in the morning?" Stanley glanced toward the figure asleep on the floor.
"Jest what I was a studyin' over," was Bob's reply. "These here bascos make a heap of such holidays an' Dummy he'd be the tickledest kid ever, if he was to find something like Christmas time a settin' by his bed when he wakes up in the morning."
Bob knocked the ashes from his pipe and put it away.
"There's a bunch of piñons and cedars down along the wash," he said, "sposin' I take the axe an' git a little branch, or the tip of a piñon an' we set her up here by his bed? What kin we dig up to put onto it that's fittin' for such a thing?"
"For a starter I got them nine silver cart wheels the store keeper give me in change," was Stanley's quick response. Bob was already going through his pockets.
"Here's a handful of chicken feed, that'll help some," handing the change to Stanley, "yep, an' a paper dollar thepostmaster gimme. Reckon the kid'll know what it is? I been skeert I'd use it fer a cigarette paper."
Stanley started for the two kyacks lying in the corner.
"You hustle out an' git the tree," said he, "an' I'll see what else I can scare up in the packs. I know there's a couple of apples an' a orange I throwed in with the grub when we was packin'."
An hour later the two men stood by the boy's bed, their faces fairly shining with the true Christmas spirit over their efforts to make an acceptable Christmas tree out of such scanty material. On the floor at his head stood a small piñon tree top held erect by several stones. Both men had exhausted their ingenuity to find things with which to decorate it and on its branches hung the oddest lot of plunder that ever old "Santy" left on his rounds.
"I'll never miss them spurs," said Bob pointing to an almost new pair he had recently bought, "an' Dummy, he's been just daffy about 'em."
"Same with that new knife," said Stanley. "I jist bought it to be a doin' somethin' an' I know Dummy ain't got one that'll cut cold butter."
In nine separate little packages wrapped in newspaper the silver dollars were swinging at the end of pieces of thread from a spool in Bob's "war bag," the loose silver had been placed in two empty tobacco sacks each hanging pendant from the tip of a limb, while three unbroken packages of chewing gum, two apples and one rather dilapidated orange swung from other branches.
Stanley picked up the boy's slate. "Less' see," he asked, "what's Dummy's real name?"
"Pedro," answered Bob, busy making down their bed on the floor.
Painstaking and slowly, he wrote:
TO PEDROA MERRY CHRISTMAS.YOU ARE SURE SOME SHEEP MAN.
Then he propped the slate against the tree in plain sight of the lad's eyes when he woke.
"Beats hell how a man's eyes gits to waterin' this cold weather." Stanley wiped his eyes rather furtively as he turned toward their bed.
"Same here," replied Bob, blowing his nose with more than usual vigor. "Somethin' sure does act onto 'em."
"Bang, bang, bang!" went three shots in the night air. Sounds like some feller's a huntin' a warm place to sleep," said Little Bob Morris, one of three men who were sitting in front of the fireplace in the snug little dugout at the winter horse camp of the X bar outfit.
"Open the door, Bob, and show 'em a light," said one of the others. In a few minutes, with a wild "whoo-pee," a mounted figure rode out of the darkness and the boys were shaking hands with "Hog-eye" Jackson, who had a pair of eyes that, as one man put it, "didn't track," one being blue, the other black, and both so badly crossed that he looked both ways at once.
After supper had been cooked and the dishes put away, the boys gathered about the fireplace for a smoke.
"I hain't been out this a-way since the time me and Little Bob here was a huntin' for a dead Chinee," said Jackson, with a look about the room.
"Huntin' for a dead Chink?" said Grimes. "What ye mean by that?"
"Ain't you never heard tell about the Chinee what died over in Williams and was stoled away from the joss housewhere the other Chinks had him laid out?" said Jackson, with a look of surprise.
"Nary a hear," replied the two boys, "le's have it."
"'Bout two years ago, along in the fall," Jackson began, "after we had shipped the last steers from Williams, a Chinese laundryman there died one night, and was laid out in the little room where the Chinamen of the town kept their joss. The day following there was a tremendous squalling among the heathen, for during the night Ah Yen had disappeared from the coffin, and not a trace of him could be found. The coffin was there all right; it stood just where they left it the night before, surrounded by paper prayers, burning punk sticks, and all the other things used by the heathens to frighten away the devils which are supposed to be lyin' in wait for the spirit of a diseased celestial. But punk or no punk, devils or no devils, Ah Yen was gone, of that there was no doubt. The city marshal and the sheriff both came to investigate and question, the town was scoured, old stables and lofts searched, but still, 'no catch 'em.' After a couple of days' work the sheriff said: 'I'm danged if I'm not clear stumped. The Chink was plum dead, that's a sure thing, so he didn't git up and walk away, and if he was hauled off by some one, they didn't leave any sign that I can find, and, anyhow (which to him was the most convincing thing of all), what'd any one want for to steal a dead Chinaman, I'd like to know?'
"There was a doctor livin' over on Cataract cañon that fall, a sort of lunger chap, and when some one suggested that perhaps he had packed the Chink off for dissectin'purposes (Ah Yen bein' six feet tall and the best specimen of a Chinaman I'd ever seen), the sheriff, just to make a sort of showin' to the other Chinks, sent me—I bein' a deputy sheriff at that time—to make a sort of scout round and see what I could pick up.
"We dropped into his camp, but nothin' doin', and after prowling around for a day or two I went back to town. The next day Scotty Jones got on a tear and shot up the burg pretty plenty, and in tryin' to ride his horse into a Front Street saloon got a load of buckshot into his countenance. This made so much excitement that by the time the coroner's jury got done with the inquest the loss of Ah Yen's remains had become a matter of past history.
"Meantime the Chinks raised a powerful rookus over the loss of the body of Ah Yen, he bein' a sort of high muck-a-muck among them, but even the offer of a $100 reward for the body didn't get any clews to the disappearance."
"I remember hearin' something about it," said Grimes, "but I was down in the Tonto basin that fall a-huntin' some hosses we lost on the spring work, and never before did hear jist what happened."
"An' didn't they never find out what went with the Chink?" queried Russel, who was a newcomer in the country.
"Well," said Jackson rather evasively, "so fur as I know nobody's ever yit claimed the reward."
"Le's change the subject," said Grimes, lighting his pipe with a long pine sliver. "Hog-eye, where you been sence I seen you last fall a year ago over on the Tonto steer round up?" he asked of the newcomer.
"Me?" said Jackson, with a start, blowing a cloud of smoke skyward. "Oh, I been a driftin' about pretty promiscous like sence then. When we come to ship the last of the steers that fall, old Mose, the Spur boss, axed me if I wanted to go back to Kansas and help take care of 'em where the outfit was going to winter 'em. Well, me not being sure of a winter's job here, and likely to have to ride the chuck line before spring, I reckons I'd best nab the job whilst it was open, so I took it."
"How long did you last on the cornstalk job?" asked Russel.
"Oh, I hung and rattled with it till about April, and then I begins to git oneasy and sort of hankering for the range agin. One day I was in town for some grub and other plunder and goes down to the depot to see the train come through, and me a wishin' to God I was a goin' off in her, no matter which-a-way she was pointed. When number two comes along, who should drop off but old Pickerell, who used to live out here on the cañon and take tourists out and show 'em the sights. Pick were powerful glad to see me and he sed, ses he, 'What be ye a doin' here, Jackson?'
"'I'm a doin' of the prodigal son act,' ses I.
"'Come again,' ses he, lookin' sort of mystified like.
"'I'm a-feedin' a bunch of hawgs and steers out here on a farm,' ses I, 'where I ain't seen the sun shine but twicet in four months.'
"Pickerell, he laughed sort of tickled like, an' ses to me, 'Why don't you quit and go back to Arizony, where the sun shines all the time?'
"'I'm a goin' to,' ses I, 'just as shore as next pay daycomes.' I didn't like to tell him that I was flat busted count of goin' into K. C. with a load of hawgs an' meetin' up with a bunch ofamigoswhat worked me for a sure enough sucker. They gits all mydineroan' leaves me locked up in a little old room where we went to git a drink."
Hog-eye sighed and sucked vigorously at his pipe, while the boys grinned at each other and waited to hear the rest of the story, which was evidently hanging on his lips.
"Well, go on Hog-eye, tell us the rest. Might as well 'fess up and feel better," said High-pockets encouragingly.
"I reckon so," replied Jackson with a chuckle, as if there was some pleasure in the memories of the past. "You see, after talkin' a few minutes with Pick he up and makes me an offer to go back east, where he was a runnin' a show what were a part of a street carnival outfit and a-makin' all kinds of money. He wanted me to rig up in a 'Montgomery Ward outfit,' big hat, goatskin chaps, spurs an' gloves, with stars and fringe like them fellers in the movie outfits gits onto 'em, an' sort of loaf round the door and git people excited an' toll 'em into the show. So I hits the high places back to the farm, and tells the granger feller to git him a new cornstalk pusher to take my place prettypronto. When he comes I strikes out for the place back in Illinoy where Pick sed he'd be showin' an' waitin' for my arrival.
"Pick he pays me forty beans a month, an we sleeps on our round-up beds in one of the tents. He shore had a mess of plunder inside the big tent. They was a Navajo squaw weavin' blankets, a couple of loafer wolves, some coyotes, wildcats, badgers, a lot of rattlers, centipedes andtarantulas, and a whole box full of them heely monsters. Besides this, he had a lot of glass cases in which he had a bunch of them stone axes,metates,manostones, arrow-heads, and all that sort of plunder which they digs up from them prehistoric ruins all over this country out here.