CHAPTER XIV
STATION-MASTER McGUIRE
Thenew station agent at Plainfield saw the sun rise on the morrow of his first night on the plains. He had watched it sinking in the sage-covered Sahara on the previous evening with a feeling of loneliness, and now he welcomed the return of day with all the enthusiasm of his youthful nature. He almost enjoyed the novelty of preparing his own breakfast, of bread, bacon, and black coffee. A long freight lumbered by, and the conductor, hanging low from the corner of the way-car, dropped off a delay report, and the operator scanned it eagerly. When the caboose had dropped from the horizon he sat down and told Omaha how a dragging brake-beam had ditched a car of ore and he was glad, for it gave him something to do and an opportunity to show his usefulness; but he didn’t send that over the wire. He busied himself putting things to rights in his bachelor home, and itwas noon before the day had seemed fairly begun. When the west-bound passenger train came by the express car gave up a full kit of tools to the station-master. An axe, a hammer, a saw, a pick and shovel, and a case of eggs. The Union Pacific Company was liberal with the men who helped them to open the great trail across the plains, and helped them to keep it open. McGuire watched the train, as he had watched each and every train that had come and gone since his arrival, until the rear car sank below the level of the plain. When he prepared his supper his little friend, the ground squirrel, came and sat in the door and ate crumbs. When the shadows began to creep across the plain from the east the agent sat by the door of his hut and watched the twilight deepen on the dreary plain. Between him and the glow in the west that marked the spot where the sun went down, he saw the same gaunt shadow that he had seen limping across the face of the sun on the previous evening. Still farther away he saw a horse outlined against the pink sky. Its rider sat, a bunchy, bareheaded being, that mightbe half man and half bear. The agent could make out that the horseman wore a blanket and feathers, and that he was gazing at the little station. McGuire had been aiming at the coyote when the Indian came up out of the west, where all things seemed to come from, if we save the sun, and now, to show the skulking Sioux that he was armed, he let go at the wolf. It was a long shot, but the boy had aimed well, having the pink sky beyond, and the wolf leaped high and fell dead, only a thousand feet from the Sioux. The Indian having marked the performance of the marksman, turned his horse’s head and rode slowly away to the north. The agent knew that the Government troops had been battling with the Sioux over on Pole Creek, and made no doubt that this was a scout from the dangerous tribe. He would have reported the incident to Omaha, but he was afraid of being laughed at over the wire by the other operators along the line. Sitting there in the twilight he began to wonder what he should do if this Indian came back with a few dozen or a few hundred followers. He could bar the doorand kill a few while they stormed the station, but when they had kindled a fire under the shack he must surely perish in the flames. It was not a pretty picture, and he determined to go to work at once upon a more substantial fortification. He dreaded the dreary darkness of the house, and so sat in the twilight until the gold faded from the sunset and the little brown mouse went away to bed. “God takes care of the little squirrel,” mused McGuire, “and he’ll take care of me as well;” and he too went to bed, but not to sleep. He lay awake planning how best to fortify the place. After dwelling upon, and then dismissing, many schemes, he decided to dig a tunnel from beneath the floor of the shed, under the railroad track and across to the water tank. If the Sioux came he could make a hard fight and then take to the tunnel and hide in the tank, for they would not be apt to burn that, having their eyes upon the burning station, watching for the agent to come out and be killed. His first plan was to dig out the tunnel without disturbing the surface of the ground, but that would take too long. He would work fromthe top, making a short section each day and covering the ditch over with boards and dirt as he went along, so that if any Sioux should come scouting about they might not know of the tunnel. Away off to the west he heard a wolf howl. The cry of the coyote was answered by another nearer the station, and by another and yet another still farther away. Presently he heard a low scratching on the outer shed door, and, after a long time, he fell asleep.
The sun was shining when the agent woke. The brown squirrel was sitting in the centre of the room, waiting for his breakfast.
When McGuire had made breakfast the squirrel came and ate from the agent’s hand. Having finished his morning meal and reported the through freight on time, the station-master got out his pick and shovel and began his tunnel. First he made a trap door in the floor of the shed and excavated a place to drop into. Going out he measured off the distance to the tank. It was sixty feet, and he set himself the task of doing twenty feet a day and covering up the sign.
On the second morning he was stiff and lame, and his hands were so sore that he could scarcely close his fingers on the pick handle, but he worked on, and at night had the tunnel completed under the track. At the close of the third day he went into the shed, dropped to the mouth of the tunnel, crawled through, and came out in the base of the water tank that was boarded up from the ground to the tank proper. Before retiring he carried a goodly supply of cartridges and stored them in the framework of the tank near the top, and then sat down to watch the sunset. The same glory flooded the west, and when the sun was down the same gaunt shadows came and stood in the gloaming, only more of them. They had begun to scent the food supply at the station and so grew less timid. The agent had by this time determined that it was only a waste of ammunition to shoot the hungry brutes, and when he showed no fight the wolves came so near that he could have reached them with a stone. Far away he thought he heard the roar of an approaching train. The muffled sound grew louder, butlooking where the two shining threads of steel drew close together, and dipped down into the desert, he could see no break on the horizon. Sweeping the plain with his eager eyes he saw a black something coming out of the north-west. It looked like a low black cloud just rising from the earth. The strange sound grew louder, and the agent thought of the sudden storms of which he had read, but the quiet sky gave no sign of storm. Already he could see a big star burning in the west. The growling cloud came nearer with each passing moment, but still lay close to the sage-brush. It grew broader but no higher, and in its wake a gray fog arose, like the mist that hangs over a swamp on a summer’s morning. Higher and higher the gray cloud rose, trailing behind the black one, like the smoke from a locomotive. In a little while it covered the whole west and shut out the light from the far pink sky. The wolves, lifting their heads, listened to the roar of the advancing cloud. The darkness deepened as the roar of the cloud increased. The agent, with his rifle resting on his arm, stood and stared down theplain. A moment later the head of the cloud swept across the track just below the water tank. It looked like a regiment of cavalry riding the desert. It must be so, for he could hear hoofs rattling over the rails and cross-ties. Now the agent observed that they were riderless horses,—horses with horns,—and realized that this was no cloud, but a band of buffalo. He could see neither the beginning nor the end of the herd, and raising his rifle he began pumping lead into the flying band. With a great crash one of the animals drove its head against the base of the water tank and then lay still while the drove galloped past. The roar of ten thousand feet beating the desert, the wild snorts of the wounded brutes, and the mad rush of the flying mass, so excited the agent that he ran forward firing as he went into the dark and roaring flood. Presently the noise began to die down, and the agent, standing in a cloud of dust, knew that the end had come and that the dark cloud was vanishing down the desert.
When the dust had fallen McGuire found a fine calf that had driven its poor head againstthe tank and broken its neck. There was not a scratch upon its hide, so all his bullets had gone wide of the mark or had been carried away under the shaggy coats of the wild cattle. Here was fresh meat for the agent, but before he could remove the animal’s robe the hungry wolves were pressing about in the twilight. They grew so bold that McGuire was obliged to take what he could carry and fly for the house. Before he could reach the door the wolves were snapping and fighting over the feast. Their howls and cries brought a great band, and when they had finished with what was left outside they came clawing at the shed door, demanding the agent’s share. It was many hours before he could find relief from the din in unquiet dreams.