"In Lauterbach hab' ich mein Strumf verlor'n,Und ohne Strumf geh' ich nicht heim;Ich gehe doch wieder zu Lauterbach hinUnd kauf' mir ein Strumf für mein Bein."
Now and then a couple drew aside and sat down a moment to rest. But soon they were back on the floor again, whirling and laughing and stamping their feet, and raising clouds of dust from the rough plank floors to their scarlet faces.
Out of doors there was less noise, but no lack of fun. Smudge fires burned in a wide circle about the house to repel the hungry mosquitos that, with high, monotonous battle-songs, stormed the smoky barrier between them and the inner circle of horses and oxen feeding from wagon-boxes. Nearer the building, and set about the carefully raked yard on barrels and boxes, were Jack-o'-lanterns made of pumpkins, that gave out the uncertain, flickering light of tallow dips through their goggle-eyes and grinning mouths.
In and out among the wagons, fires, andlanterns the children were playing hide-and-go-seek, screaming with excitement as they scampered in every direction to secrete themselves, or lying still and breathless as the boy who was "it" hunted them cautiously, with one eye searching for moving shadows and the other fixed upon the wagon-wheel that was the goal. On being sent out of the house to give the dancers room, the boys had raised a joyous clamor over their banishment, and begun a game of crack-the-whip; while the girls, not wishing to soil their clothes, had walked to and fro in front of the house, with their arms around each other, and watched the dancing. But when the Swede boy, who was chosen for the snapper, was so worn and breathless with being popped from the end of the rushing line that he could run no longer, boys and girls had joined in playing tag and blindman's-buff and, afterward, hide-and-go-seek.
The little girl was with them. But, so far, in spite of her white dress, which made her an easy prey, she had not been caught. The boys who had taken their turns at the wheel had caught other boys whom she did not know; and had always managed to find and, with much struggling, kiss the particular girls they favored. No matter how conspicuously she had hidden, they had always passed her by. As a result, after two or three disappointments, shehad not taken the trouble of running to cover, but had either lingered just within the sitting-room to watch the dancing, or hung wistfully about the yard, somewhere near the colonel's son.
"Frenchy's" brother was now guarding the goal, and the little girl was ambushed behind the very straw-pile that concealed the colonel's son. It was an occasion that she had looked forward to and secretly brought to pass, yet, as she knelt close beside him, she could not think of one of the polite things she had planned to say to him that night. Their proximity struck her dumb, while he was silent through fear of being discovered. So they cowered together, speechless and restive, until the Swede boy tore by in an unsuccessful race for the wagon-wheel. Then the colonel's son darted out from behind the straw, and she remained regretfully looking after his blue-clad form.
All at once her meditations were rudely interrupted. "Frenchy's" brother, skulking here and there on the lookout for a bright, telltale apron, came round the pile and pounced upon her. "Forfeet! forfeet!" he cried, dragging her out into the middle of the yard.
She tried to pull away from him, and twisted her head so that her face was out of reach. "You stop," she cried hotly; "you jus' stop!"
The struggle was sweet to him, however, andhe only laughed at her angry commands and fought harder than ever for his due, striving at every turn to pin her arms down so that she could not resist. The boys ran up to urge him on, and the girls hopped up and down in their enjoyment of the scuffle.
But he was not able to win in the contest. The little girl was a match for him. What she lacked in strength she made up in nimbleness, and she stood her ground fiercely, wrestling on until, with a quick, furious wrench, she freed herself from his hold and bolted toward the kitchen.
"Frenchy's" brother pursued her. But, once inside, she was safe, for he dared not enter and scramble across the couch to where she had sought refuge by a window. So he turned back toward the goal. "I get you yet," he shouted, wiping his damp face on his shirt sleeve.
The other children gathered about him and taunted him with his failure. To right himself in their eyes he set after one of the Dutchman's girls, who shook off her wooden shoes and fled frantically in circles to evade him. But he succeeded in catching her and taking a forfeit from one of her sun-bleached braids, after which he went to the wagon and sat down on the tongue to rest.
The game went on. It was the Swede boy'sturn at the goal, and he put his hands over his face and began to count as the children scattered. "Tane, twanety, thirty, forty, feefty," he chanted, "seexty, saventy, eighty." As he told the numbers he stealthily watched the kitchen window where the little girl stood.
The neighbor woman's boy, who was in hiding under the wagon and almost at his feet, saw him peeking through his fingers and jumped out to denounce him. "King's ex, king's ex!" he cried, holding up one hand. "It's no fair; he's looking."
"Ay bane note," declared the Swede boy, stoutly, wheeling about; "yo late may alone."
"You are, too," persisted the other, springing away to hide again.
The Swede boy once more resumed his chanting, and the little girl, as she leaned from her vantage-point to listen, wished that she might return to the yard and take part in the game. But "Frenchy's" brother, though tired with his struggles, was still sitting menacingly on the wagon tongue, and she dared not leave her cover.
Suddenly the sight of a slat sunbonnet, hanging on a nail beside her, suggested a means of circumventing him. She took it down and put it on, tying the strings under her chin in a hard double knot. The long, stiff pasteboard slats buried her face completely, and nobody butLuffree, with his sharp muzzle, could have reached her cheeks to kiss them. So she sallied bravely into the yard.
The Swede boy had been counting slowly in the hope that she would hide, and when he saw her approaching he paused a moment, expecting "Frenchy's" brother to renew the attack. But the figure on the tongue never moved, even when the little girl, with a saucy swish of her skirts, paused daringly near it. So he sang out his last call:
"Boshel of wheat, boshel of raye,Who ain't radey, holer 'Ay.'"
"I," shouted the little girl, whisking triumphantly away, and the Swede boy began to count again.
She entered the house, going in at the sitting-room. He followed her movements as she threaded her way through the dancers toward the empty granary, and saw her sunbonnet pass the bedroom window and the open kitchen door. Then once more he sent out the last call. This time there was no response. So, after a hasty examination of the wagon, he began to creep about with an impressive show of hunting.
Often he came upon a new calico dress trailing in a dusty place, but passed its wearer by as if he had not seen her. He surprised thecolonel's son curled up in a box beneath a Jack-o'-lantern, and distanced him to the wagon. Then he went on searching for a girl, and the boys, clustered about the wheel, watched him as he sneaked through the yard. Finally, when he judged that enough time had passed to warrant it, he made a wider search that brought him close to the granary door.
His courage almost failed him as he passed in front of it, and he was glad when the delighted squeals of two girls, who were running toward the goal, gave him an excuse to delay his entrance. But when the girls had tapped the wheel, he bounded back and, spurring himself on, stepped within the dark room, where, in a far corner, he caught a faint glint of white.
He walked toward it timidly. It moved, and he stood still. "Yo there?" he asked, at last, his throat so dry that he could scarcely find the words. A subdued giggle answered him. He recalled how kind and comrade-like she had been to him three months before when they had caught gophers together, and his spirits rose. "Yo there?" he asked again.
Suddenly she came from her corner and attempted to pass him. Emboldened by the darkness, he put out his arms and stopped her, and she laughed gaily up at him. He laughed shyly back and dropped her arms. She made no effort to get away. He stood still, awkwardly cracking his knuckles.
"Why don't you fight!" she demanded. He did not reply, but shuffled his feet and cracked his knuckles harder than ever. The music of a waltz floated in to them over the babble of the kitchen, and he turned his head that way as if to listen. As he did so she crept past him, her eyes sparkling with fun from the depths of the bonnet. When he turned back to look at her, she was gone.
He followed her out and paid no attention to the jeering inquiries of the other children. And as the colonel's son began to count from the wagon-wheel he walked slowly past the teams and smudges, and across a strip of backfire beyond, to the high, dry grass, where he lay on his back for the rest of the evening, looking sadly up at the stars.
The little girl sought a hiding-place, too, behind a hay-stack on the other side of the house. The colonel's son had seen her run that way, and as he sounded the final challenge his voice had a victorious ring. He began a second mock hunt. But it was a short one, for, fearful that he might stumble upon one of the Dutchman's younger brood, he first penetrated the outer darkness to find a boy, and then ran round the house in the direction taken by the little girl.
He came upon her unexpectedly as he circled a stack. She was crouching in plain sight against the hay, her face still hidden in the recessesof the bonnet. He rushed up to her and took her by the shoulders. "I've got you!" he said, but so low that the neighbor woman's daughter, who was just a few steps away behind a fanning-mill, could scarcely hear him.
"Y-e-e-s," stammered the little girl. She drew back and looked down, all her assurance supplanted by a wild desire to get away.
"Going to let me have my forfeit?" he whispered, shaking her a little.
The sunbonnet drooped until its wide cape stood up stiffly above her curls. "I hate that old French boy," she said.
The colonel's son moved closer, and a wisp of brittle grass in her hands crackled in a double grasp. She glanced up at him swiftly, as she felt his touch, and this time there was a nearing of the white frock to the suit of blue. "Well,—if—if—you've got t'," she added.
But the colonel's son, as he bent over her with all the gallantry of his nine years, had to learn by experience what "Frenchy's" brother had divined at a glance: the sunbonnet was in the way.
He was equal to the emergency, however, and hesitated only for a moment. Then he put his hand into his trousers pocket and took out his clasp-knife. He could hear some one at the goal calling him, and there was a rattle of dishes in the house, where the music had ceased for amoment, that told him the plates were being passed for supper. He knew that in a moment either the chaplain or the boys would be searching for him.
She heard the calls and clatter, too; yet she did not move except to raise her head until the bonnet strings were in plain sight under her dimpled chin. When he saw them, he straightened his knife out with a click and leaned once more toward her.
The fiddle was playing the opening strains of the supper dance now, and a hundred voices were singing with it; so the neighbor woman's daughter, who had been peering from behind the fanning-mill, hurried away to the house. And thus it came about that no one but a vagrant night-hawk, perched high on the top of the stack, remained near enough to hear the sawing sound of a dull knife-blade, making its way through cloth.
Inthe early morning hours, as the gray team jogged homeward past the deserted school-house, the big brothers and their mother discussed the wedding, the dancing, and the supper. But the little girl, snugly wrapped in a quilt on the hay behind, lay still and silent, and only smiled when the night breeze from the west bore to her ear the clear notes of the departing bugle blowing a sweet retreat.
EVERY morning a cloud appeared in the east, rushed westward across the northern sky, and vanished beyond the "Jim." Every afternoon it came up in the west again, swept back toward the east, and went out of sight in the Big Sioux. If a herd chanced to be grazing too near its path as it approached, they were scattered right and left in wild confusion by a shrilltoot!toot! that could be heard at the farm-house. But when the way was clear the cloud traveled swiftly and silently, stringing itself, on sunny days, to a low white ribbon, or, if the air was damp and the heavens were gray, separating itself, from river to river, into many dark coughs of dense, high-sailing smoke.
For three months it had been crossing the plains as regularly as the sun itself. Before that it had loitered, attended, so the biggest brother said, by a great company of rough men carrying shovels and picks. It was this company, stray members of which, worn andgrimy, had visited the farm-house now and then and talked in broad brogue, that had kept the little girl and the herd south of the reservation road throughout the early spring; and it was not until the men had dispersed and the cloud had begun its daily trips from horizon to horizon that she was permitted to ride northward on the pinto to see it go by.
The youngest brother went with her, mounted upon a skittish, bald-faced pony, and they halted together, near the low embankment that divided the prairie, to wait for the engine. But when it hurtled past, a screaming thing of iron and flying sparks, both the pinto and the pony, despite their riders' curbing, retreated so precipitately from the track that neither she nor the youngest brother caught more than a glimpse of the flying train, for their mounts ceased running only when the barn-yard was reached. Then the old mare came to a stop, blowing and trembling so wildly that she could scarcely keep her legs, while the bald-face kicked and snorted about among the granaries and pens in a perfect paroxysm of terror.
It was not long, however, before the pinto completely lost her fear of the engine, and would eat quietly near the embankment while the little girl lay flat on the ties to listen for a first faint rumble, or waved at the people inthe cars. The flock, too, became so familiar with the track that they soon had a contempt for it, a feeling that they retained even after a dozen of their number had been mangled on its rails; but the cattle always kept it at a respectful distance, and only Napoleon ever showed the train enough hostility to shake his stubby horns angrily at it or charge toward it as it shot away over the plains. The herd was allowed, therefore, to feed along the railroad in the custody of the little girl.
But now, for nearly three weeks, the Swede boy had kept guard over the grazing stock, and the little girl had not even seen the cloud above the distant train. For she was ill: so ill that the neighbor woman, who shared the long night watches beside the canopied bed with the biggest brother and his mother, shook her head in the seclusion of the kitchen, and told herself that the little girl would never be well again.
The family were beginning to have the same awful thought, and had sent a telegraphic summons from the new station, ten miles away, to a physician in Sioux Falls. To them a cloud far heavier and darker than the engine's breath was hanging, day and night, over the farm-house, shutting out all sunshine, hope, and happiness.
One warm afternoon, while the little girl was riding the cultivator mare up and down in theIndian corn, she had suddenly been seized with a chill. That night a fever followed, and for a week she grew steadily worse. Her mother gave her every home remedy known to be good for malaria, and at the end of the second week moved her to the canopied bed, where an ever waving fan cooled her hot cheeks. It was here, almost at the end of the third week of her illness, that the Sioux Falls doctor found her.
She was tossing from side to side, murmuring in a delirium that had possessed her for days. Her face showed a scarlet flush against the white pillow-slip. The biggest brother, who scarcely left her bedside to rest or eat, was placing cold cloths upon her forehead and wetting her lips. White through his tan, he hung over her in an agony of fear, only lifting his eyes, now and then, to turn them sorrowfully upon his mother, seated opposite.
The little girl did not know of the doctor's arrival. As he hurried into the sitting-room, she was thinking of the floating cloud. Now it was pursuing her as she fled from it on a fleet pony; now it was stooping groundward, a huge, airy monster, to offer her a cake of ice; again it was sweeping over her, quenching the deadly fire that consumed her, and leaving her on the damp, green bank above the mooring-place of the bull-boat. She lay very still with her cool thoughts, her eyes, wide and lustrous, fixedupon the blue canopy overhead. But when, a moment later, the fever burned more hotly again, and the cloud changed to a blinding, blistering steam that enveloped her, she sat up and fought with her hands, and cried aloud for the biggest brother.
The doctor caught her wrists and gently put her back. One glance at her parched lips and brown tongue had told him what was the matter, and as he opened a valise and took out some medicines he answered the inquiring looks of the family. "Typhoid," he said. "She's a very sick child. But I think we may be able to pull her through."
With her mother and the big brothers looking on mournfully, the first step was taken toward aiding her. One by one her curls, so long her mother's pride and care, were snipped off close to her head; and when at last they lay on the bed in a newspaper, a little heap of soft, yellow tangles, there was sobbing all about in the sitting-room, and even the doctor, accustomed to sad sights, could not keep the tears from chasing down his cheeks and into his brown beard.
She looked pitifully thin and altered, shorn of her bright halo; yet at once she grew quieter, and when she was gently lowered into the brimming wash-tub and then laid between sheets wrung from cold water, she closed her eyes gratefully and ceased her outcries.
The doctor, collarless and with his shirt-sleeves rolled up, worked over her all day. The little girl's mother and the neighbor woman assisted him, and the big brothers sat on the bench in front of the house, so as to be within easy call. But when twilight came, and everything possible had been done for his patient's comfort, the doctor, who was tired with his long ride and the day's strain, went into the little girl's room and took a much-needed sleep.
"Keep up your courage," he said cheerily to the biggest brother, as he left him at his post by the little girl; "her years of outdoor life will help her rally. I have hope; but wake me at once if you note any decided change."
The evening hours passed slowly. In the sick-room the little girl's mother was resting on the lounge, which had been pulled close to the canopied bed. The neighbor woman dozed in the kitchen, beside the table where was spread the untasted supper. The eldest and the youngest brothers were stretched, still dressed, on their beds in the attic. The house was noiseless, and dark everywhere except in the sitting-room. There, on the high clock-shelf, the same tall lamp that, nearly seven and a half years before, had burned like a beacon and lighted the coming of the stork, now, turned low, shone upon the faithful biggest brother and the suffering little girl.
Shortly after ten o'clock an interruptioncame to the silence. A gentle knocking was heard at the hall door, and, on going out, the neighbor woman found a cattleman who had recently moved into the Territory from northern Texas standing on the stone step. Having heard that morning from the Swede boy that the little girl was dangerously ill, he had ridden down to proffer the services of himself and his swift horse Sultan. And when the neighbor woman told him that there was small hope of the little girl's recovery, he stabled his animal, and prepared to remain all night.
As he came out of the barn, after having tied Sultan in a vacant stall, he found that, unknown to the family, another anxious watcher was lingering about. A tow head was suddenly thrust from behind the partly open door, and a hand halted him by catching appealingly at his sleeve. "She bane bater?" asked a low, timid voice.
The cattleman turned, half startled, and shook his head as he replied, "I reckon she's a lot worse," he said. He walked on, but paused again at the smoke-house. The tow-head was just behind, and the cattleman could hear the sound of chattering teeth; so he whipped off his overcoat and tossed it back. When he entered the hall the chattering had stopped, and the coat had disappeared into the shadow of a granary.
After the cattleman settled himself upon the bench in the kitchen, the house fell into quiet once more; and it was not until midnight that the hush was broken. Then the biggest brother, having moved the curtains of the canopied bed and turned up the lamp, discovered what he felt to be the dreaded change in the little girl, and uttered a frightened exclamation.
Her face, so long flushed with fever, was blanched and wan. Her eyes were entirely closed, and their long lashes lay on her cheeks. Her arms were outspread and relaxed, her palms open. Her breathing was so faint that he had to bend his ear to her lips to hear it. He was certain that the end was near, and hastened to call his mother and summon his brothers and the doctor. They were joined in the sitting-room by the neighbor woman and the cattleman.
It was apparent to all that a change for the worse had taken place in the little girl. Yet the doctor, who hurried to her side, watch in hand, betrayed neither satisfaction nor alarm as he bent above her; and the group about him could only wait in suspense.
Suddenly there came a sigh from the pillow, and the little girl opened her eyes. For a week she had recognized no one. Now she looked about at the faces turned upon her, and a faint smile curved her lips. It brought a cryof joy from her mother. "Oh, pet lamb," she said, "the doctor's here, and he's going to make my baby well."
A shade passed over the little girl's face, and she glanced from her mother to the doctor. "I'm really not a baby," she said in a weak voice, but with something of the old spirit; "my mother jus' says that. I'll be seven in June."
The doctor nodded, and smiled back at her. His fingers were still at her wrist, and his face wore a worried expression. The cattleman leaned and whispered a question in his ear, and he replied out loud. "I can't tell," he said. "She may and she may not."
The little girl's eyes closed. The doctor poured out a stimulant, and put the glass to her mouth. When he lifted her head, she drank it, and her breath came in longer and heavier respirations. No one spoke.
All at once a sound of scratching at the front door, followed by whining, startled her so that she looked up once more, and her lips moved. "That's Luffree," she said. Her mother began to smooth her head tenderly, and it brought a new thought to the little girl. "'Monia'll give me curly hair," she added, and closed her eyes again.
The family watched her hopelessly, for to them the doctor's silence had only one meaning; but the cattleman, standing behind theeldest brother, could not bear the wordless waiting. He felt that if she would rouse and continue to speak, death would be delayed. So he called to her pleadingly.
"Little gal!" he said huskily; "little gal!" She stirred wearily, and her lids fluttered as if she were striving to lift them. "Little gal," he went on; "I want ye t' fight this out. Don't ye let no ol' typhoid gityou. An' when ye git well, ye jus' come to see me, an' ye kin hev anything on th' whole ranch." She turned her face toward him. "Anything on th' whole ranch," he repeated, his voice breaking. She moved one hand till it found one of her mother's, then she lay very still.
The biggest brother dropped to his knees beside the bed and crouched there. The youngest brother began to weep, leaning against the eldest. The neighbor woman crept away toward the kitchen, her face buried in her apron. The cattleman turned his back. The mother clung prayerfully to the transparent hand. And so passed a long and despairing five minutes.
But at its end the doctor uttered an ejaculation of surprise and pleasure, and sprang to his feet. At the same time he raised a warning finger and motioned all toward the kitchen. They obeyed him and retreated, remaining together in troubled impatience until he came among them.
"I can't be absolutely certain," he said, his face alight with happiness, "but I believe you can all go to bed with safety. Things seem to have turned our way: her skin is soft and moist, her temperature is down, and, better than anything else, she's asleep."
As a full realization of the good news broke upon them, all save the biggest brother sat down to talk it gratefully over. But he dashed out of doors to voice his joy, and, as he bounded up and down the yard, half laughing and half crying, he caught up a muffled figure that was lurking in the rear of the kitchen and swung it high into the air.
Duringthe weeks that followed, while the little girl was slowly fighting her way back to a sure hold on life, there often came into her mind, vaguely at first and then more clearly, the promise that the cattleman had made her the night they thought she was dying. "Ye kin hev anything on th' whole ranch," had been his exact words; and in the intervals when, having gratified an appetite that was alarming in its heartiness, she sat in the sun with the dogs about her, or drove with her mother in the new buckboard, she pondered them exultantly and with a confidence that was absolute.
However, it was not until she was so well that she was again saying pert things to theeldest brother, and so strong that she was once more tending the herd, that she determined to pay the cattleman a visit and remind him of his agreement. Aware that the family would oppose her acceptance of a gift from a neighbor, she made her preparations for the trip in secret, and quietly left the farm-house one Sunday afternoon, taking with her a bridle and a gunny feed-bag half filled with oats.
She had chosen a Sunday for several reasons: she was always relieved on that day of the task of herding, the youngest brother taking her place; her mother invariably spent it in writing long letters that traveled across land and sea to far-away England; and the eldest and biggest brothers puttered it away in the blacksmith-shop, where there were farm implements to mend, hoes to sharpen, and picket-ropes and tugs to splice. Usually it was the lonesomest day of the week to the little girl; but this Sunday proved to be an exception.
She was careful not to disturb the household as she set off, and when she passed the cattle, which were feeding in the river meadows, she crept round them as slyly as an Indian, so that the youngest brother, who was fashioning willow whistles, should not see her. Once having gained the straight road that led across the railroad track toward the cattleman's, she took off her hat and made faster progress.
But the way was long, and, still weak from her recent sickness, she was easily tired. When only two thirds of the distance was traveled it was so late that the night-blooming flowers were unfolding their chalices, as white and glimmering as the little girl's Sunday apron, to let the crape-winged moths drink their sweetness. Migrant birds were already speeding above her, to fly till dawn, and they veered from their course as they saw her hurrying along beneath them. Wild creatures that had been sleeping during the day came from their holes to seek food and timidly watched her hasten past. And all along, out of the tall, brittle grass, the busy lightning-bugs sprang up with their lanterns to help the dim stars light the way.
It was dusk on the plains before she looked in, through a tangle of corn and young cottonwoods, upon the low shanty, in front of which sat the cattleman in his shirt-sleeves, thoughtfully chewing a quid. The growl of a dog at his feet discovered her to him at the same moment, and, as he squinted in the half-light at her thin little form and cropped head, she seemed like some strange prairie fay coming, light-footed, out of the gloom to meet him.
"Hi thar!" he called, rising up as the little girl threaded the corn and cottonwoods. She was breathless with walking, and did not answeras she crossed the yard, shielding herself with the bridle and the feed-bag from the dog, bounding boisterously against her. "Wal, what on airth!" exclaimed the cattleman when she halted before him.
As she glanced up, he took on the forbidding height and glowering aspect of her first school-teacher. But she summoned heart. "How d' ye do?" she said, nodding at him cordially.
"What're ye doin' up here?" he demanded. "Ye lost? Come in! come in!"
"Oh, no," answered the little girl, following him into the shanty.
He lighted a lantern, and, turning it upon her, eyed her anxiously. She looked even thinner, paler, and more eerie than she had in the yard. "Sit down," he said, motioning her to a bench. But he remained standing, his hands shoved far into the top of his wide, yellow, goatskin "chaps," his quid rolling from side to side. "W'y, I thought you 's a spook," he laughed, "er a will-o'-th'-wisp—one. Want a drink er somethin' to eat? Got lots o' nice coffee. Guess y' 're petered."
"No, I'm not," she declared. And as he turned from the stove, where he had put the coffee on to boil, she got up and stepped toward him. "I—I—called to get somefing," she faltered, resuming, in her trepidation, a babyishpronunciation long since discarded for one more dignified.
"Ye did?" queried the cattleman.
"Yes," she continued. "You 'member the night I 'most died?" He acquiesced silently. "Well, you told me then that if I'd get well you'd give me anyfing on your ranch."
The cattleman started as if he had been stung, and, wheeling about, took out his quid and threw it on the flames, so that he might be better able to cope with the matter before him.
"And so," the little girl went on, "I fought I'd come to-day."
The cattleman rubbed his chin. "I see; I see," he said.
"I couldn't get here sooner," she explained, "'cause I didn't ride."
"Oh, ye didn't?" he said. Then, noting the bridle and bag, "What ye got them fer?" he asked.
"I didn't want to use yours," she replied.
"Mine?" The cattleman was puzzled.
"Yes: I brought this," she went on, holding up the bag, "to catch him wiv; and this," holding up the bridle, "to take him home wiv."
"Him?" questioned the cattleman, more puzzled than ever.
The little girl saw that she would have to make herself more clear. "Why, yes," she said. "You promised me anyfing I wanted ifI'd get well; now I'm well, so I've come to—to—get Sultan."
The cattleman sat down, amazement and consternation succeeding each other on his face. Until now he had forgotten the compact made with her, and which he was in honor bound to keep. Recalling it, he realized that it meant the loss of his best horse.
He was silent for a while, thinking hard for a means of escape from his dilemma. When he spoke at last he was smiling good-naturedly. "Ye're right," he said, rubbing his hands briskly over the long hair of the breeches; "I did say that very thing. An' I'm a man o' my word. But it seems to me," and he leaned forward confidently, "thet ye ain't made exac'ly the best pick thet ye could." The little girl sat up with a new interest. "Now I've got sunthin' here," continued the cattleman, "thet'll jes make yer eyes pop." He got up, went to a box that, nailed against the wall above the stove, served him for a cupboard, and took out a long, slender package. "Ye've got more horses than ye can shake a stick at," he began again; "ponies an' plow teams an' buggy nags, but ye ain't got nuthin' like what I'm 'bout to show ye."
Slowly and impressively he began to undo the package, keeping one eye covertly on the little girl all the while. She was beside him,rigid with expectancy. When many thicknesses of thin brown paper had been unrolled, he stepped back, unwrapped a last cover, and, with a proud wave of his hand, revealed to her delighted gaze a big, thick, red-and-white candy cane.
"Now, what do ye think o' that?" he demanded.
An exclamation of wonder came from her parted lips. She moved nearer without answering.
"As I said," he went on, "y' 've got all kinds of horses; but when in yer life hev ye hed anything like this?" He laid it gently on the table, and folded his arms solemnly. "Thet came all the way from Yankton," he said, as if recounting the history of some famous work of art. "I bought it down thar of a feller, an' paid some little money fer it." He did not add that she was in his thoughts when he bought it. "Now I'm going out to hitch up an' take ye home," he continued. "While I'm gone, ye make up yer mind which ye want—" He started for the door, but paused half-way. "—which ye want," he repeated, lowering his voice, "Sultan—er thetbeautifulcane?"
When he was gone the little girl stole closer to the table and gazed rapturously down. Never in her life, as the cattleman truly said, had she seen anything like it. No horse, on aprairie overrunning with horses, could compare with it. She put out her hand and touched its crooked head, almost reverently, with one small finger.
The cattleman harnessed a span of fat mules at the barn, and led them into their places on each side of a wagon tongue. All the while he talked out loud to himself, with occasional guffaws of hearty laughter and sharp commands to the team. Despite his merriment, however, he peered back at the shanty uneasily from time to time; so that it was a full quarter of an hour before the mules were hitched to the whiffletrees and ready for their journey. Then he climbed to the seat and circled toward the door.
She was not in sight when he brought up with a loud whoa, and getting down, the lines in one hand and a black-snake in the other, he advanced to the sill and looked in. "Any passengers goin' south?" he cried cheerily, cracking the whip.
"Me," answered a voice from behind the table, and the little girl, fagged but blissful, came forward smilingly, a long, brown-paper package clasped tightly to her breast.
IT was the little girl who discovered that the badgers were encroaching upon the big wheat-field that stretched westward, across the prairie, from the farm-house to the sandy bank of the Vermillion. In bringing the cattle home from the meadows one night, along the cow-path that bordered the northern end of the grain, she allowed several to stray aside into the field, which was now faintly green with its new sprouting. And as she headed them out, riding her pony at full gallop, she saw a fine shorthorn suddenly pitch forward with a bellow and fall. She checked her horse and waited for the animal to rise again. But it could not—it had snapped a fore ankle in a freshly dug badger hole.
The shorthorn was a favorite and, as befitted her good blood, carried across her dewlap the string of silver sleigh-bells that in wintertime tinkled before the pung. So the news of her injury was received with sorrow at the farm-house; and when, later in the evening,the little girl's big brothers went down to the field to put the heifer out of her misery, they vowed that the last feeble jingle of her bells should be the death-knell of the badgers.
They found that the burrowing host, driven out of their former homes either by an unlooked-for seepage or the advent of a stronger animal, had been attracted to the field because the harrow had so recently broken and softened the fallow, and had dug so rapidly since the planting of a few weeks before, that the north end, perforated every three or four feet, would be utterly useless, that year at least, for either the harvester or the plow. Each family had dug two tunnels that slanted toward each other and met at the nest. And since the tunnels of one family often crossed those of another, the ground was treacherously unstable. The outlying, unplowed land also bore, mile upon mile, marks of the ravages of an army of badgers; but the north end of the wheat-field was the concentration camp.
The badgers had thrived in their new home, for on one side was a grassy rise where the eggs and young of the plover and prairie-chicken could be found; and, on the other, a gully led down to the sloughs that yielded succulent roots and crawling things. The little girl's big brothers saw that the animals were so abundant that shot, traps, or poison would not avail—onlya thorough drowning-out would rid the grain-land of the pest.
The attack was planned for the following day. It would be timely, since four feet beneath the surface were the newly born, half-blind litters that could be wiped out by a flood. Some of the old badgers would, undoubtedly, escape the deluge and get past the dogs, but they would be driven away to hunt other ground for their tunneling.
The next afternoon, when the farm wagon, creaking under its load of water-barrels and attended by the dogs, was driven down to the badger holes in the field, the little girl went along. Drownings-out were exciting affairs, for the badgers always gave the pack a fine tussle before they were despatched; and she was allowed to attend them if she would promise to remain on the high seat of the wagon, out of harm's way.
When the team had been brought to a standstill on the cow-path, she watched the preparations for the drowning from her perch.
Two holes were found that slanted toward each other. One big brother, armed with two or three buckets of water, stationed himself at the hole nearer the wagon; and another, similarly armed, guarded the farther hole. The pack divided itself, half remaining at each outlet, and barked itself hoarse with anticipation.
At last all was in readiness, and, at a word, the water was poured—bucketful after bucketful—down the tunnels. Then a big brother sprang to the horses' heads to prevent their running when the fight began, another jumped into the wagon to refill the pails and hand them down, and the dogs, leaping excitedly, closed about the holes. The little girl watched breathlessly and clung fast to the seat.
For a moment there was no sign of anything. Suddenly from the nearer hole bounded a female, the refuse of her nest clinging to her dripping hair. Whirling and biting furiously on all sides, she growled in fear and rage as she defied the pack. There was a quick, fierce fight that was carried a rod before it ended; then, amid a din of yelping, the badger met a speedy death.
The little girl climbed down from the wagon, and ran to the hole out of which the badger had come. From her seat she had spied a small, gray bit of fur in the debris lying about it, and guessed what it was. She reached the hole none too soon; for the dogs, having been drawn off their prey, were coming back, whining and limping and licking their chops. She caught up the little, half-drowned thing and climbed hastily into the wagon again, as the pack, scenting it, pursued her and leaped against the wheels.
The baby badger came very near to going the way of superfluous kittens when the little girl's big brothers saw what she had, and was saved only through her pleading. She begged to keep and tame him, and promised to thwart any desire of his to burrow indiscriminately about the house and garden. So she was finally permitted to take him home, snugly wound up in her apron, and revive him with warm milk.
Thefirst time that he saw the world he viewed it from a subterranean standpoint, his birthplace being a round, soft, warm pocket far below the level of the growing wheat. True, his horizon was somewhat limited, since the pocket was of small dimensions. Nevertheless, it was wide to him; and he spent several days in surveying the top and sides of his home with his weak, little, blinking eyes before he ventured to crawl about. Then it was necessary for his mother to lift him from his cozy bed in the midst of his brothers and sisters and give him a sharp pinch on the neck with her teeth to make him start.
The pocket was reached by a tunnel that had been well begun and then abandoned by an industrious but timid pocket-gopher. This timidity and industry had been taken advantage of when the badgers began their colonization of the wheat-field, and the pocket and a secondtunnel completed; so that the result was a comfortable residence and, finally, an ideal nursery. But in all probability he and his brothers and sisters did not realize how cozily Providence had placed them until that dreadful day.
It was when they were having their regular romp with their mother that the first indication of trouble came. His father, who had been sitting at the mouth of the tunnel gossiping with a neighboring fox, rushed down wildly to the little family, and fairly fell over them in an effort to escape by the second tunnel beyond. The fierce barking of the dogs was heard. Then the great flood of water swept down upon them from both tunnels, lifting them all in a struggling, suffocating mass to the top of the pocket.
His mother, the instinct of self-preservation overcoming her parental love, started madly for a tunnel, and, in swimming against the floating ruins of her nest, pushed him before her up the opening and into the full light of day. There, blinded by the sunlight and exhausted, he lost consciousness, and lay unnoticed, partly hidden beneath the feathers and grass that had made his bed, until the little girl saw him.
Herewarded her for his first meal by turningon his back with his legs in the air and grunting contentedly. He was of a grizzled gray color, soft, fat, clumsy, short of limb and thick of tail, and displayed, in spite of his few weeks, a remarkably fine set of claws on his fore feet. These he alternately thrust out and drew in, as she petted him, and curled up his long, black-and-white nose. The little girl thought him the nicest pet she had ever had, and soon fell a willing slave to his wheedling grunts.
He was christened "Badgy," and spent the first month of his new life in a warmly padded soap-box in the farm-house kitchen. But by the end of that time he had outgrown the box, and, the weather being warmer, was given the empty potato-bin in the cellar. When he was big enough to run about, he spent his days out of doors. Early in the morning he was called from the bin by the little girl, who opened the cellar doors and watched him come awkwardly up the steps, ambitiously advancing two at a time and generally falling back one. After his breakfast of meat and bread and milk he enjoyed a frolic, which consisted of a long run in a circle about the little girl, while he grunted for joy and lack of breath. When he was completely worn out with play, he rolled over on his back and had a sleep in the sun.
Badgy learned to love the little girl; and it was found, after he had lived in the potato-binfor a while, that she was the only person he would follow or meet amicably; all others were saluted with a snarl and a lifting of the grizzled hair. So the household came to look upon him in the light of a worthy supplanter of the Indian dogs as a protector for her. He accompanied her everywhere over the prairie, keeping close to her bare feet and grunting good-naturedly at every swaying step. If they met a stranger, he sprang before her, his hair on end, his teeth showing, his claws working back and forth angrily. When a Sioux came near, he went into a perfect fit of rage; and not an Indian ever dared lay hands upon him.
It was this hatred for redskins that one night saved the herd from a stampede. Badgy had been playing about the sitting-room with the little girl, and trying his sharp claws on the new rag carpet, when he suddenly began to rush madly here and there, snapping his teeth furiously. A big brother grasped the musket that stood behind the door, thinking that he had gone mad. But the little girl knew the signs, and, shielding him, begged them to go out and look for the Indians she felt certain were near. Sure enough, beyond the tall cottonwoods that formed the wind-break to the north of the house were the figures of a dozen mounted men, silhouetted against the sky. They were moving cautiously in the directionof the wire cattle-pen; but as a big brother challenged them with a halloo and followed it with a musket shot, they wheeled and dashed away. The last glimpse of their ponies showed them apparently riderless; which proved to the little girl's big brothers that the marauders were from the reservation to the west.
The summer was at its full and the wheat-fields of the Vermillion River Valley were all but ready for the harvester before Badgy began to feel a yearning for his own kind and the freedom of the open prairie. Then he often deserted his little mistress when they were walking about in the afternoon, or sneaked away after his morning nap in the sun. The first time he disappeared she mourned disconsolately for him all day. But late in the afternoon, as she sat looking across the grain, waiting for him hopelessly, she forgot her loss in watching a most curious thing happening in the wheat. Away out in the broad, quiet field there was a small, agitated spot, as if a tiny whirlwind were tossing the heads about. The commotion was coming nearer and nearer every moment. Now it was a quarter of a mile away—now it was only a few rods—now it was almost on the edge. The little girl scrambled to her feet, half inclined to run, when out of the tall stalks rolled Badgy, growling at every step and wagging his tired head from side to side!
Often, after that, he did not come home until late at night, when she would hear him snarling and scratching at the cellar doors, and creep out to let him in. Her big brothers at last warned her that there would come a day when Badgy would go, never to return. So she fitted a collar to his neck and led him when she went out, and kept him tied the rest of the time. This restriction wore upon him and he grew noticeably thin.
One morning, after having been carefully locked in the cellar the night before, he did not respond to the little girl's call from the doors. She went down to the bin, half fearing to find him dead. He was not there. She ran about the cellar looking for him. He was nowhere to be found. She returned to the bin to search there again. As she looked in, she caught sight of a great heap of dirt in one corner. She jumped over the side and ran to it, divining at once what it meant. Sure enough, beyond the heap was a hole, freshly dug, that led upward—and out!
The little girl sat back on the heap of dirt and pathetically viewed the hole. It was not that he would not come back—she knew that he would. But he had made her break her promise that there was to be no burrowing. She resolved to say nothing about the hole, however; and, after closing it completely witha stone, started off on the prairie in search of him, his chain in her hand.
When she came back late, she found him in the bin and gave him a good scolding. He answered it with angry grunts, and to punish him she locked him up supperless. But it was probably no hardship, for he was an adept in foraging for frogs and water-snakes.
He was in his place next morning, and came scrambling to the cellar doors when she opened them. But the following morning he did not answer her call, and she discovered, on going into the bin, that there was a second big heap of dirt near the first. She plugged the hole, resolving, as before, to keep his misdeeds a secret.
For six weeks this alternate digging and plugging went on. Sometimes Badgy burrowed himself out in one night, sometimes he would not succeed in reaching the top by the time the little girl called him. And since he emerged under cover of the vacant coal-shed and kitchen that were built against the house as a lean-to, his depredations were not discovered by any of the other members of the family. Once, indeed, he was nearly caught, for he came out directly in front of the kitchen door. But judicious trampling by the little girl soon reduced the soft pile of dirt he had left at the opening to hard ground again.
One day the little girl's mother found that a spool of thread dropped on the north side of the room rolled to the south side. She pointed out the phenomenon to the little girl's big brothers. They declared that the south foundation must be giving way. An investigation from the outside led them into the shed, where they found the ground perforated with countless holes. Then they went into the cellar to examine further. There the phenomenon was explained and the culprit brought to light. Badgy had undermined the house!
The little girl waited in the garden for him that night, and answered his grunt of friendly recognition by cuffing him soundly on the ear. Then, relenting, she took him in her arms and wept over him. Inside, she knew, they were plotting to kill him. They had declared that he should not live another day. And, as she sobbed, her mind was searching out a plan to save him. Wherecouldshe hide him?
She sat with him held close in her lap for a while, watching his enemies within. Then she started on a long detour, with the new haystack as her destination. He kept close to her heels, snarling wearily. A few days before she had made a cave in the stack, which stood between the barn and the chicken-house. The cave was on the side nearest the coop, and she decided to conceal him in it and fasten him there by hischain. When she had found a stake-pin and a large stone, she led him in and drove the pin its full length to make sure that he should not get away. Then she went back to the house to secure his pardon from the family council gathered about the supper table.
She found it a hard task. Her big brothers urged Badgy's total uselessness as well as his growing love to burrow, forgetting how bravely he had always stood between his mistress and any real or fancied danger. The little girl cried bitterly as she begged for his life, and vainly offered the entire contents of her tin bank, now carefully hoarded for two years, to help repair the damage he had done. She was finally put to bed in an uncontrollable fit of grief.
When she was gone, the memory of her tear-stained face melted her brothers' wrath. They even laughed heartily over Badgy's disastrous industry; and at last, relenting, they decided that he should live, provided he could be kept out of further mischief. The little girl heard the good news early in the morning and was overjoyed. She declared that Badgy should be good for the rest of his days, and she spent the afternoon fixing up the new quarters in the cave.
For the first few nights Badgy was chained in order to wean him from the old to the new home, his chain being made so short that hecould not dig far into the ground under the stack. This wore upon him so that he grew cross, thinner than ever before, and generally disheveled. The little girl saw that another week of such confinement would all but kill him; while if he were shut up in the cave unchained he would undermine the stack. She feared, however, to give him his entire freedom; so she set to work to puzzle out a scheme that would solve the problem.
At last she hit upon an idea that seemed practicable. She would tie up his fore feet so that he could not dig! Then he could go unchained in the cave, with only the door of it—the top of a big dry-goods box—to restrict his movements. Aided by her mother's scissors, some twine, and a piece of grain sacking, she put the idea into instant execution.
Badgy did not like the innovation at all. He squirmed about so when the little girl was tying up his feet that she made slow progress. And when she was done, he tried vainly to pull off his new stockings with his sharp teeth, grunting hisdisapprovalat every tug. He worked himself into a perfect fury as he bit and tore, and finally rolled clumsily to the back of the cave, where he lay growling angrily.
Pleased with her success, the little girl left him. But she had failed to reckon with Badgy's nature, and her plan was doomed.
It was now early autumn,—the time when Nature tells the badgers that they must provide themselves with a winter retreat,—and Badgy could no more have kept from burrowing than he could have resisted eating a frog. So when the dark came on, he went to work, close to the door of the cave, burrowing with might and main, his long nose loosening the dirt for his fore feet to remove. He worked so fast that it was only a few minutes before his claws came though his stockings. Then he redoubled his efforts, and dug on, and on, and on.
Early in the morning, after having burrowed down for a time, then along a level, and, finally, on an upward slant, as instinct directed him to do, he came through the crust of the earth. He climbed out of his burrow and sat upon his haunches at its mouth to rest a moment. As he did so, he heard a sound above him and looked up to see what had caused it. Over his head were several perches on which sat a number of sleepy fowls. He was in the chicken-house!
He grunted in surprise, and at the sound one of the chickens uttered a long, low, warning note that awakened the others. As they moved on their perches, Badgy eyed them, twisting his head from side to side. The loose dirt clinging to his snout and breast fell off with his heavy breathing, and his stockings hung ragged and soiled about his front legs.
Suddenly there was another and a louder cry of danger from a chicken, following a slight noise near the door of the coop. Badgy looked that way to see what was coming, and through a hole in the sod wall made out the evil face of a mink, peering in. It came closer, and there were more cries from the chickens overhead, for they had recognized the approach of their mortal enemy. In a moment his long, shining body had come through the hole, and he had paused, crouching, to reconnoiter before making a spring.
Badgy watched him, his nose curling angrily, his claws working back and forth. Then, as the mink crept stealthily forward, measuring the distance to a pullet on a lower perch, the badger ambled toward him, snarling furiously, his teeth snapping and his eyes glowing red with hatred.
The fight was a fierce one, and the cries of the two animals as they twisted and bit aroused the whole barn-yard. The chickens set up a bedlam of noise, flying about from perch to perch and knocking one another off in their fright. But Badgy and the mink fought on, writhing in each other's hold, the mink striving to get a death-grip on Badgy's throat, while he tried as hard to rend the mink's body with his teeth and claws.
Suddenly, in the midst of the struggle, the door of the coop was thrown open and a man'sfigure appeared. The animals ceased fighting instantly, and the mink, letting go his hold, disappeared down the hole that Badgy had dug. But Badgy, surprised at the intrusion, only stared at the newcomer, and grunted a cross greeting as the light of a lantern was flashed upon him, sitting there crumpled and bloody.
Nextmorning, when the little girl went out to the haystack, she could not find Badgy. Instead, as she pulled aside the door that closed the entrance to the cave, a strange animal shot out and away before she could catch a glimpse of it. This puzzled her; when she went into the cave she found a great heap of dirt that troubled her still more. She saw that in spite of his stockings, Badgy had dug himself out. She hunted for the hole that she knew would tell her where he had come through to the surface again, but she could not find it.
She began to run here and there, calling him. There was no answering grunt. She thought of the potato-bin, and flew to the cellar to see if he had not returned to his old home, but he was not there.
That night he did not return, nor the next day, nor the next. No one could tell her where he had gone. For he had disappeared as completely as if the earth in which he had loved to dig had swallowed him up.
Whenever she spoke of him in the house among the family, there was an exchange of glances between her mother and the eldest brother. But she never saw it,—and it was just as well that she did not.