READING THE OUTLAWS’ LETTER, DECEMBER SIXTEENTH
READING THE OUTLAWS’ LETTER, DECEMBER SIXTEENTH
In a little while the new street commissioner and I left the others at a game of cards and started out to go to the hotel. There was a strong northwest wind, and the fine snow was sifting along close to the ground. I noticed that the rails were already covered in front of the depot. The telegraph wire hummed dismally. We were plowing along against the wind when we heard a shout and31looked up. Over by the old graders’ camp there were three men on horseback, all bundled up in fur coats. One of them had a letter in his hand which he waved at us.
“Let’s see what’s up,” I said to Andrew, and we started over. At that the man stuck the letter in the box of a broken dump-cart, and then they all rode away to the west.
When we came up to the cart I unfolded the letter and read:
To Prop. Bank of Track’s End and other Citizens And Folks:
The Undersined being in need of a little Reddy Munny regrets that they have to ask you for $5,000. Leave it behind the bord nailed to the door of Bill Mountain’s shack too mile northwest and there wunt be no trubble. If we don’t get munny to buy fuel with we shall have to burn your town to keep warm. Maybe it will burn better now than it did last fall. So being peecibel ourselves, and knowinghow very peecibelyou all are, it will be more plesent all around if you come down with the cash. No objextions to small bills. We knowhow few there are of youbut we don’t think we have asked for too much.
Yours Respecfully,D. Pike,and numrous Frends.
This is poetry but we mean bizness.
32CHAPTER IVWe prepare to fight the Robbers and I make a little Trip out to Bill Mountain’s House: after I come back I show what a great Fool I can be.
The next minute I was back in the depot reading this letter to the others. When I had finished they all looked pretty blank. At last Jim Stackhouse said:
“Well, I’d like to know what we’re going to do about it?”
Tom Carr laughed. “If they come it will be the duty of the street commissioner to remove ’em for obstructing the car lines,” he said.
I don’t think Andrew understood this joke, though the rest of us laughed, partly, I guess, to keep up our courage.
“Well,” went on Carr, “there’s one thing sure–we can’t send them five thousand dollars even if we wanted to; and we don’t want to very much. I don’t believe there is a33hundred dollars in the whole town outside of Clerkinwell’s safe.”
“What do you suppose there is in that?” asked Baker.
“There might be a good deal and there might not be so much,” said Carr. “I heard that he saved $20,000 out of the failure of his business back east and brought it out here to start new with. He certainly didn’t take any of it away with him, nor use much of it here. He might have sent it back some time ago, but it hasn’t gone through the express office if he did.”
“Nor it hasn’t gone through the post-office,” said Frank Valentine. “I guess it’s in the safe yet, most of it.”
“Very likely,” answered Carr. “But even if it is I don’t believe Pike and those fellows would know enough to get it out unless they had all day to work at it; and what would we be doing all that time?”
“Shooting,” said Jim Stackhouse; but I thought he said it as if he would rather be doing anything else. I didn’t know so much about men then as I do now, but I could see that Tom Carr was the only man in the lot that could be depended on in case of trouble.34
“Well, how are we fixed for things to shoot with?” went on Carr.
“I’ve got a repeating rifle,” answered Valentine. “So have you, and so has Cy. I guess Sours left some shooting-irons behind, too, didn’t he, Jud?”
“Yes; a Winchester and a shot-gun,” I replied.
“There are some other shot-guns in town, too,” continued Valentine. “But I guess the best show for us is in Taggart’s hardware store. When he went away he left the key with me, and there’s a lot of stuff boxed up there.”
“Go and see about it and let’s pull ourselves together and find out what we’re doing,” said Carr. “I think we can stand off those fellows all right if we keep our eyes open. I suppose they are up at the headquarters of the old Middleton gang on Cattail Creek, the other side of the Missouri. The men that went through here with that pony herd last fall were some of them, and the ponies were all stolen, so that Billings sheriff said. I guess Pike has joined them, and I should think they would suit each other pretty well.”35
In a little while Valentine came back and said he had found a dozen repeating rifles, and that he thought there were more in some of the other boxes. There was also plenty of cartridges and some revolvers and shot-guns.
“That fixes us all right for arms,” said Carr. “Before night we must organize and get ready to defend the town against an attack if it should come; but I think the next thing is to send a letter out to Mountain’s house and put it where they will look for the money, warning them to keep away if they don’t want to be shot.”
“Yes,” answered Valentine, “that will be best. Write ’em a letter and make it good and stiff.”
Tom went into the back room and soon came out with a letter which read as follows:
Track’s End,December16.
To D. Pike and Fellow-thieves,–You will never get one cent out of this town. If any of you come within range you will be shot on sight. We are well armed, and can carry out our share of this offer.
Committee of Safety.
“I guess that will do,” said Tom. “There isn’t any poetry in it, but I reckon they’ll36understand it. Now, Jud, what do you say to taking it out and leaving it on Mountain’s door?”
“All right,” I answered; “I’ll do it.”
“Probably Jim had better go along with you,” said Carr. “I don’t think any of them are there, but you can take my field-glass and have a look at the place when you get out to Johnson’s.”
We all went to dinner, and by the time Jim and I were ready to start the sky had clouded over and threatened snow. I said nothing, but slipped back into the hotel and filled my pockets with bread and cold meat. I thought it might come handy. It was so cold and the snow was so deep that we had decided to go on foot instead of horseback, but we found it slow work getting along. Where the crust held us we made good time, but most of the way we had to flounder along through soft drifts.
At Johnson’s we took a long look at Mountain’s with the glass, but could see no signs of life. It began to snow soon after leaving here, and several times we lost sight of the place we were trying to reach, but we kept on37and got there at last. The snow was coming down faster, and it seemed as if it were already growing dark.
“It isn’t going to be very safe trying to find our way back to-night,” said Jim. “Let’s see what the prospect for staying here is.”
We pushed open the door. It was a board shanty with only one room, and that half full of snow. But there was a sheet-iron hay stove in one end and a stack of hay outside. I told Jim of the food which I had brought.
“Then we’ll stay right here,” he said. “It’s ten to one that we miss the town if we try to go back to-night. Our tracks are filled in before this.”
We set to work with an old shovel and a piece of board and cleaned out the snow, and then we built a fire in the stove. We soon had the room fairly comfortable. The stove took twisted hay so fast that the work did more to keep us warm than the fire.
We divided the food for supper, leaving half of it for breakfast. It made a pretty light meal, but we didn’t complain. I wondered what we should do if the storm kept up the next day, and I suppose Jim thought of the38same thing; but neither of us said anything about that. I sat up the first half of the night and fed the fire, while Jim slept on a big dry-goods box behind the stove, and he did as much for me during the last half.
It was still snowing in the morning. We divided the food again, leaving half of it for dinner, which left a breakfast lighter than the supper had been. We were a good deal discouraged. But soon after noon it stopped snowing and began to lighten up. It was still blowing and drifting, but we thought we might as well be lost as to starve; so we left the letter behind the board on the door and started out.
We got along better than we expected. The wind had shifted to the northwest, so it was at our backs. We passed Johnson’s deserted house and finally came within sight of the town through the flying snow. We were not twenty rods from the station when suddenly Jim exclaimed:
“Why, there’s a train!”
Sure enough, just beyond the station was an engine with a big snow-plow on it, with one freight-car and a passenger-car. A dozen39men with shovels stood beside it stamping their feet and swinging their arms to keep from freezing. There were faces at the car-windows, and Burrdock and Tom Carr were walking up and down the depot platform. We came up to them looking pretty well astonished, I guess.
“When I got to the Junction yesterday I got orders to take another train and come back here and get you folks,” said Burrdock in answer to our looks. “Just got here after shoveling all night, and want to leave as soon as we can, before it gets to drifting any worse. This branch is to be abandoned for the winter and the station closed. Hurry up and get aboard!”
Jim and I were both too astonished to speak.
“Yes,” said Tom Carr, “we were just starting after you when we saw you coming. We’re going to take Sours’s horses and the cow in the box-car. I just sent Andrew over after them–and the chickens, too, if he can catch them.”
I don’t know how it was, but my face flushed up as hot as if it had been on fire. I felt the tears coming into my eyes, I was in that state of passion.40
“Tom,” I said, “who was left in charge of Sours’s things?”
“Why–why, you were,” answered Tom, almost as much astonished as I had been a moment before.
“Who gave you authority to meddle with them?” I said.
“Nobody. But I knew you wouldn’t want to leave them here to starve, and I did it to save time.”
“They’re not going to starve here,” I said, getting better control of my voice. “Call Andrew back this minute. You’ve neither of you the right to touch a thing that’s there.”
“But surely you’re going with the rest of us?” said Tom.
“No, I’m not,” I answered.
Tom turned and started toward the town.
“Now, don’t make a fool of yourself, young man,” said Burrdock. “This here town is closed up for the winter. You won’t see the train here again before next March.”
“The train won’t see me, then, before next March,” I said. “Jim, are you going with the rest of them?”41
“Well, I’m not the fellow to do much staying,” he answered.
I turned and started for the hotel; Burrdock muttered something which I didn’t catch. I saw Andrew going toward the train, but without any of the animals. Tom came down the street and met me. He held out his hand and said:
“Jud, I admire you. I’d stay with you if I could, but the company has ordered me to come, and I’ve got to go. But it’s a crazy thing for you to do, and you’d better come along with us, after all.”
“No,” I said, “I’m going to stay.” (It was a foolish pride and stubbornness that made me say it; I wanted to go already.)
“Well, good-by, Jud.”
“Good-by, Tom,” I said.
He walked away, then turned and said:
“Now, Jud, for the last time: Will you come?”
“No, I won’t!”
In another minute the train rolled away, with Tom standing on the back platform with his hand on the bell-rope ready to pull it if I signaled him to stop.42
But I didn’t. I went on over to the Headquarters House. It was beginning to get dark; and the snow was falling again. The door was stuck fast, but I set my shoulder against it and pushed it open. The snow had blown in the crack and made a drift halfway across the floor. I put my hand on the stove. It was cold, and the fire was out.
43CHAPTER VAlone in Track’s End I repent of my hasty Action: with what I do at the Headquarters House, and the whole Situation in a Nutshell.
When I came to think of it afterward I thought it was odd, but the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw that the fire had gone out was that perhaps there were no matches left in the town. I ran to the match-safe so fast that I bumped my head against the wall. The safe was almost full, and then it struck me that there were probably matches in half the houses in town, and that I even had some in my pocket.
I went over and peeped out of one corner of a window-pane where the wind had come in and kept back the frost. The snow was driving down the street like a whirling cloud of fog. I could hardly see the bank building opposite. An awful feeling like sinking came over me as I realized how matters stood; and44the worst of it was that I had brought it upon myself. I rushed into the dining-room and looked out of a side window to see if the train might not be coming back; but there was only the whirlwind of snow. I went back in the office and threw myself on a lounge in one corner.
If any one says that I lay there with my face in a corn-husk pillow and cried as if I were a girl, I’m not going to dispute him. If any girl thinks that she can cry harder than I did, I’d like to see her try it. But it, or something, made me feel better, and after a while I could think a little. But I could not get over knowing that it was all my own fault, and that I might be riding away on the train with friends, and with people to see and talk to. I realized that it was all my quick temper and stubbornness which was to blame, and remembered how my mother had told me that it would get me into trouble some day. “If Tom hadn’t come at me so suddenly,” I said out loud, with my face still in the husk pillow, “I’d have agreed to it. Dear old Tom, he meant all right, and I was a fool!”
When at last I sat up I found it was so dark45that I could hardly see. The wind was roaring outside, and I could feel fine snow against my face from some crack. I was stiff and cold, and just remembered that I had not had above a quarter of a meal all day. I thought I heard a scratching at the door, and opened it. Something rushed in and almost upset me; then I knew it was Kaiser, Sours’s dog. I was never so glad to see anything before. I dropped down on my knees and put my arms around his neck and hugged him, and for all I know I may have kissed him. I guess I again acted worse than a girl. I remember now that Ididkiss the dog.
I got up at last and felt around till I found the match-safe, and lit the wall lamp over the desk. I thought it made it so I could actually see the cold. Kaiser seemed warm in his thick coat of black hair, and wagged his tail like a good fellow. I don’t know why it was, but I thought I had never wanted to talk so badly before. “We’re glad they’re gone, aren’t we, Kaiser?” I said to him; then I thought that sounded foolish, so I didn’t say anything more, but set to work to build the fire.46
When I went to the shed at the back door for the kindling-wood I found another friend, this time our cat, a big black-and-white one. I don’t think I was quite so foolish about her as I had been about the dog, but I was glad to see her. After the fire was started I got a shovel and cleared the snow out of the office. Outside it was already banked halfway up the door, and the storm was still raging.
As I turned from putting some coal on the fire I happened to see the hotel register lying on the desk. Another foolish notion seized me, and I took up the pen and as well as I could with my stiff fingers headed a page “December 17th,” and below registered myself, “Judson Pitcher, Track’s End, Dakota Territory.” I think the excitement must have turned my brain, because I seemed to be doing silly things all the time.
But I managed to stop my foolishness long enough to get myself some supper; which I guess was what I needed, because I acted more sensibly afterward. Everything in the house was frozen, but I thawed out some meat, and ate some bread without its being thawed, and boiled a couple of eggs, and had a47meal which tasted as good as any I ever ate, and with enough left for Kaiser and the cat, who was named Pawsy, though I can’t imagine where such a name came from.
The office was by this time quite comfortable. I had brought a small table in from the kitchen and eaten my supper close to the stove. Though it was pitch-dark outside, it was not yet six o’clock, and as I felt calmer than I had before, I sat down in front of the fire to consider how matters stood. I think I realized what I was in for better than before, but I no longer felt like crying. If I remember aright, it was now that I gave the first thought to Pike and his gang.
“Well,” I said, speaking out loud, just as if there was somebody to hear me besides a cat and a dog, “I guess Pike won’t do much as long as this storm lasts. But after that, I don’t know. Maybe I can hide if they come.” I thought a minute more and then said: “No, I won’t do that–I’ll fight, if I have a chance. They won’t have any way of knowing that I am here alone, and if I can see them first I’ll be all right.” That is what Isaid; but I remember that I felt pretty doubtful about it48all. I think I must have been trying not to let Kaiser know that I was afraid.
After a while I fell to thinking of home and of my mother. When I thought of how she would worry when she didn’t hear from me, it gave me an idea of leaving Track’s End and trying to make my way east to civilization. It seemed to me that with a few days of good weather I ought to be able to get through if no more snow came; though I had no idea how far I might have to go, since for all I knew Lac-qui-Parle might also be abandoned; and, even if it were not, I knew that it had no trains and that I would probably have to travel overland to the other side of the Minnesota line before I could reach a settlement with any connection with the outside world. I was before long very gloomy thinking about my troubles; then I happened to remember the horses and cow about which I had tried to quarrel with poor Tom Carr, and I put on my overcoat and went out to look after them.
I thought the wind would carry me away, and I had to shovel ten minutes by the light of a lantern half blown out before I could get the door open. But when I did get in I found49them glad to see me; and I was glad to see them. And while shoveling away the snow I had shoveled away my fit of the blues; and from that day to this I’ve taken notice that the best way to get rid of trouble and feelings you don’t want is to go to work lively; which is a first-class thing to remember, and I throw it in here for good measure.
The cow mooed at me, and even the horses whinnied a little, though they were not what you might call children’s pets, being broncos, and more apt to take a kick at you than to try to throw you a kiss. The chickens had gone to roost and didn’t have much to say. They refused to come down for their supper, but the horses and the cow were very glad to get theirs. Then I milked the cow, told them all good-night, made everything about the barn as snug as I could, and shouldered my way through the storm to the house. I found both Kaiser and Pawsy wide awake and waiting for me. I don’t think they liked the house being so deserted and lonesome. I gave them both some of the warm milk, and took a share of it myself.
I was beginning to realize that I was tired50by this time, and sat down in a big chair before the fire. The stove was a round, cast-iron one, shaped a good deal like a decanter. It burned soft coal, and, as it was going well, and was warm enough in the room, I threw the door open, making it seem very like a fireplace. I was over the excitement of the day, and fell to looking at the situation again. This is the way I made it out, to wit:
First, that I was alone, except for the animals, and in charge of a whole town; that it was very improbable (as the blizzard still held) that any train would or could get through very soon–perhaps not before spring.
Second, that the animals consisted of one large, shaggy, black dog (breed uncertain) named Kaiser; one large black-and-white cat named Pawsy; one cow named Blossom; two bronco horses, one named Dick, the other Ned; twenty-two hens and one rooster, without any particular names except that I called one of the hens Crazy Jane.
Third, that there was enough hay in the barn for the horses and cow, though other feed would be short unless I could find more about town somewhere; that I ought to be able to51scare up enough food for myself by going through the stores, though some kinds might be short; that there was plenty of coal.
Fourth, that there were guns of all kinds, and probably a good supply of ammunition.
Fifth, that there might be $20,000 in a safe across the street.
Sixth, that there was a gang of cutthroats somewhere about who wanted the money, and would come after it the minute they knew I was alone; and might come sooner.
By this time I was sleepy; so I covered up Kaiser on one end of the lounge, the cat on the other, put out the lamp, and went up-stairs and popped into bed.
52CHAPTER VISome Account of what I do and think the first Day alone: with a Discovery by Kaiser at the End.
I woke up with a start in the morning, thinking that it was all a bad dream; then I knew it wasn’t, and wished it were; and next I was very glad to hear the blizzard still roaring as hard as ever, which may seem odd to you. But the fact is that I had thought a long time after I went to bed and had decided on two things–first, that I was safe from the robbers as long as the storm lasted, and, second and more important, that I had a plan which might serve to keep them away for a while at least after the storm stopped. I got up and looked out of the window, but I might as well have looked into a haystack for all I saw. I could not even see the houses on the other side of the street.
I went down, said good-morning to the cat and dog, and started the fire. It was colder;53I peeped at the thermometer through the window, and saw it was a dozen degrees below zero. I found the stock at the barn all right and cheerful; the chickens were down making breakfast of what I had given them for supper, all except Crazy Jane, who had finished eating and was trying to get out of the barn, maybe thinking that she could make a nest in a snowbank, or could scratch for angleworms.
After I had finished the barn-work I went in and got breakfast. I started a fire in the kitchen and got a better meal than I had the night before. I went down cellar after some potatoes, and noticed that there were a plenty of them; with squashes, pumpkins, and other vegetables; all of which I knew before, but I observed that such things looked different to me now. I couldn’t count much on the pumpkins because I didn’t know how to make pumpkin pie, but I knew that the cow would be very glad to get them without their being made into pie. “It would be funny,” I said, out loud, as if there were somebody to hear, “if cows should find out some day that pumpkins are better in pies and farmers should have54to fix them that way before they would eat them.”
I found that I felt much better about the situation than I had the night before, though, of course, I still wished with all my heart that I was out of it all, and thought every minute what a fool I was to have acted the way I did. But there were so many things to do that I did not have time to worry very much, which I believe was all that kept me from going crazy.
After breakfast I decided that the first thing I had best do was to look up the gun question. I found Sours’s rifle in a closet. It was not loaded, but there was a box of cartridges on a shelf, and I wiped out the barrel and filled the magazine. It was fifteen-shot and forty-five caliber, and seemed like a good gun. I stood it under the counter in the office and out of sight behind an old coat. In the drawer of the desk was a revolver. It was a thirty-eight caliber, and pretty big to carry, but I thought it might be handy to have, so I stuffed it in my pocket.
Taggart’s hardware store was two doors toward the railroad from the hotel, but the sidewalk was so covered with snow, and the55wind swept down the street with such fury, that it seemed next to impossible to get there. But I was anxious to see about the weapons, so I went out the back door and crept along close to the rear of the buildings till I reached it.
The door was locked, but I could see through a window that a box had been recently broken open; but, as there were no guns in sight, I concluded that the men had probably carried them over to the depot. I tried to see this through the driving snow, but could not, so I did not dare to start out to find it, knowing how easy it is to become confused and lost in such a storm.
As I stood back of the store I thought once that I heard the whistle of a locomotive; then I knew of course it was only the wind. “It’ll be a long time before you hear any such music as that,” I said to myself. There was nothing which would have sounded quite so good to me.
I was glad to get back to the house, where I could draw a breath of air not full of powdered snow. I spent some time calking up cracks around the windows, where the snow blew in. While I was doing this it suddenly flashed into56my mind, what if I should lose track of the days of the month and week? I thought I would write down every day, and got a piece of paper to begin on, when I noticed a calendar behind the desk. I took the pen and scratched off “December 17,” which was gone, and which was the beginning of my life alone in Track’s End; and the first thing every morning after that while I stayed I marked off the day before; and so I never lost my reckoning. Though, indeed, I was soon to wake up in another and worse place than Track’s End; but of this I will tell later. I had very foolishly forgotten to wind the clock the night before, and it had stopped, and I had no watch by which to set it; but I started it, and trusted to find the clock at the depot still going, as it was an eight-day one.
MY FAMILY AND I AT A MEAL, TRACK’S END
MY FAMILY AND I AT A MEAL, TRACK’S END
I soon found myself hungry, and took it for granted that it was dinner-time. The meals seemed pretty lonesome, because I had been used to having a great deal of fun with Tom Carr and the others at such times, much of it about my poor cooking. Kaiser and Pawsy appeared willing to do what they could to make it pleasant; and this time I put a chair57at one end of the little table, and the cat jumped up in it and began to purr like a young tiger, while the dog sat on the floor at the other end and pounded the floor with his tail like any drummer might beat his drum. I also began to get them into the bad practice of eating at the same time I did; but I had to have some company.
It must have been two hours after dinner, and I was moving my bed down into a little room between the office and kitchen, when I first saw that the fury of the wind was beginning to lessen. The sky began to lighten up, and from the front door I could soon catch glimpses of the railroad windmill. I saw that I must start the plan I had thought of the night before for keeping off the Pike gang without any delay. My idea was that I must not let them know that I was alone, and if possible make them think that there were still a good many people in town. I doubted if they had known the morning they left the letter that we were then reduced to six. I could not see how they should know it, and I felt sure that if they had known it they would have made an attack upon the bank.58
My plan, then, was to build and keep up fires in several other houses, so that if they came in sight they would see the smoke and think that there was still a good-sized population. I went first across the street to the bank building. The lower part of it was locked, but I went up the outside stairs and found everything in Mr. Clerkinwell’s rooms as we had left it. There were also inside stairs, and I went down and soon had a good fire going in the lower room, and as I came out I was pleased to see that it made a large smoke.
I next went to the north end of the street, where stood a building which had been a harness shop. It was locked, but I could see a stove inside; so I broke a back window, reached in with a stick, and shot back the bolt of the rear door, and soon had a good smoky fire here, too. I decided that one more would do for that day, and thought the best place for that would be in the depot. The wind had now pretty well abated, and the snow was only streaming along close to the ground.
The depot was locked, but again I got in by breaking a window. There were the guns as I expected–five new Winchesters like Sours’s.59
There were also a lot of cartridges, and three large six-shooters, with belts and holsters. It was half-past three by the clock, which was still going. I clicked at the telegraph instrument, but it was silent. I remembered that Tom had told me that the line had gone down beyond Siding No. 15, which was the first one east from Track’s End. Everything made me think of Tom, and I looked away along the line of telegraph-poles where I knew the track was, down under the snow; but I could see no train coming to take me out of the horrible place.
I soon had another fire going. After that I hid two of the rifles in the back room and carried the others over to the hotel. I climbed to the top of the windmill tower and took a look at Mountain’s house with the field-glass, but could see nothing. I walked around town and looked in each of the houses with an odd sort of feeling, as if I half owned them. Kaiser went with me, and was very glad to get out.
It was just after sundown when I got back to the door of the hotel. Up the street in front of the harness shop I saw a jack-rabbit sitting up and looking at me. Kaiser saw60him, too, and started after him, though the dog ought to have known that it was like chasing a streak of lightning. I stood with my hand on the door-knob watching the rabbit leave the dog behind, when suddenly I saw Kaiser stop as another dog came around Frenchman’s Butte. They met, there was a little tussle, which made the snow fly; then I saw Kaiser coming back on a faster run than he had gone out on, with the other dog close behind.
“That’s a brave dog I’ve got!” I exclaimed. I saw some other dogs come around the Butte, but I didn’t look at them much, I was so disgusted at seeing Kaiser making such a cowardly run. On he came like a whirlwind. I opened the door and stepped in. He bolted in between my legs and half knocked me over. I slammed the door shut against the other dog’s nose. The other dog, I saw, was a wolf.
61CHAPTER VIII have a Fight and a Fright: after which I make some Plans for the Future and take up my Bed and move.
I don’t know if the door really struck the wolf’s nose or not, when I slammed it shut, but it could not have lacked much of it. Poor Kaiser rushed around the stove, faced the window, and began to bark so excitedly that his voice trembled and sounded differently than I had ever heard it before. I must have been a little excited myself, as I stopped to bolt the door, just as if the wolf could turn the knob and walk in. When I stepped back I met the wolf face to face gazing in the window, with his eyes flaming and mouth a little open. He was gaunt and hungry-looking. The rest of the pack were just coming up, howling as loud as they could.
I ran to the desk and got the rifle; then I dropped on one knee and fired across the room62straight at the wolf’s throat. He fell back in the snow dead; and, of course, there was only a little round hole in the window-pane. Everything would have been all right if it had not been for a mean spirit of revenge in Kaiser, for no sooner did he see his enemy fall back lifeless than with one jump he smashed through the window and fell upon him savagely. He had not seen the rest of the pack, but the next second half a dozen of them pounced on him. I dared not fire again for fear of hitting him, so I dropped my gun, seized an axe which I had used to split kindling-wood, and ran forward. There was a cloud of snow outside, and then the dog tumbled back through the window with one of the wolves, and they rolled over and over together on the floor.
I got to the window just as a second wolf started to come through the broken pane. I struck him full on the head with the axe, and he sank down dead, half outside and half inside. The others that pressed behind stopped as they saw his fate and stood watching the struggle on the floor through the window.
Kaiser was making a good fight, but the wolf was too much for him, and soon the dog63was on his back with the wolf’s jaws at his throat. This was more than I could stand, and I turned and struck at the animal with my axe. I missed him, but he let go his hold, snapped at the axe, and when I started to strike again he turned and jumped through the window over his dead companion and joined the howling pack on the snow-drift in front of the house.
I seized the gun again and rested it across the dead wolf, firing full at the impudent rascal who had come in and made Kaiser so much trouble. It was a good shot, and the wolf went down in the snow. I pumped up another cartridge, but the wolves saw that they were beaten, and the whole pack turned tail and ran off as fast as their legs could carry them. I took two more shots, but missed both. The wolves went around Frenchman’s Butte, never once stopping their howling.
As soon as they were out of sight I had a look at Kaiser. I found him all blood from a wound in his neck, and one of his fore legs was so badly crippled that the poor beast could not bear his weight on it. I got some warm water and washed him off and bound up his64throat. When I was done I heard a strange yowl, and, looking about, spied Pawsy clinging on top of the casing of the door which led into the dining-room, with her tail as big as a bed-bolster. I suppose she had gone up early in the wolf-fight, not liking such proceedings. She was still in the greatest state of fright, and spat and scratched at me as I took her down.
I next swept up the dog and wolf fur and cleaned the floor, and after I had got the place set to rights nailed a board over the broken window and carried the three dead wolves into the kitchen, where, after supper, I skinned them, hoping that some day their hides would go into the making of a fur overcoat for me; something which I needed.
MAP OF TRACK’S END
MAP OF TRACK’S END
I don’t know if it was the excitement of the fight, or the awful stillness of the night, or what it was, but after I had finished my work and sat down in the office to rest I fell into the utmost terror. The awful lonesomeness pressed down upon me like a weight. I started at the least sound; dangers I had never thought of before, such as sickness and the like, popped into my mind clear as day,65and, in short, I was half dead from sheer fright. There was not a breath of wind outside, or a sound, except once in a while a sharp crack of some building as the frost warped a clapboard or sprung out a nail; and at each crack I started as if I had been struck. The moon was shining brightly, but it was much colder; the thermometer already marked twenty degrees below zero.
Suddenly there came, clear and sharp, the savage howling of a pack of wolves; it seemed at the very door. I jumped out of my chair, I was so startled, and stood, I think, a most disgraceful picture of a coward. Kaiser rose up on his three sound legs and began to growl. At last I got courage to go to the window and peep out, with my teeth fairly chattering. I could see them up the street, all in a bunch, and offering a fine shot; but I was too frightened to shoot. After a while they went off, and it was still again. I wondered which was worse, their savage wailing or the awful stillness which made the ticking of the clock seem like the blows of a hammer. I wished that there might come another blizzard.
But at last I got so I could walk the floor;66and as I went back and forth I managed to look at things a little more calmly. The first thing I decided on was that I must no longer, in good weather at least, sleep in the hotel. It was easy to see, if the robbers came in the night and found nobody in the other houses, that they would come straight to the hotel. I made up my mind to take my bed to some empty house where they would be little likely to look for any one, or where they would not be apt to look until after I had had warning of their coming.
Another thing which I decided on was that I must keep up two or three more fires, and get up early every morning to start them. I saw, too, that I ought to distribute the Winchesters more, and board up the windows of the bank, and perhaps some of the other buildings, leaving loopholes out of which to shoot. Still another point which I thought of was this: Suppose the whole town should be burned? I wondered if I could not find or make some place where I would be safe and would not have to expose myself to the robbers if they stayed while the fire burned, as they probably would. I thought of the cellars, but67it did not seem that I could make one of them do in any way.
My fright was, after all, a good thing, because it made me think of all possible dangers, and consequently, as it seemed, ways to meet them. It was at this time that the idea of a tunnel under the snow across the street from the hotel to the bank occurred to me; but I was not sure about this. Still, some way to cross the street without being seen kept running in my mind. In short, I walked and thought myself into a much better state of mind, and, though I still started at every sound, I was no longer too frightened to control myself.
When it came bedtime I decided to follow out my plan for sleeping away from the hotel without delay. There was an empty store building to the north of the hotel. It was new, and had never been occupied. I had often noticed that one of the second-story windows on the side was directly opposite one in the hotel, and not over four feet away. I carried up the ironing-board from the kitchen, opened the hotel window, put the board over for a bridge, stepped across and entered the vacant building.68
I thought I had never seen a place quite so cold before; but I carried over the mattress from my bed, together with several blankets, and placed them in a small back room in the second story. The doors and windows of the first story were all nailed and boarded up, and it seemed about the last place that you would expect to find any one sleeping. I left the dog and cat in the hotel, took one of the rifles with me, and pulled in my drawbridge. I almost dropped it as I did so, for at that instant the wolves set up another unearthly howling. I got into bed as quick as I could. They went the length of the street with their horrible noise; and then I heard them scratching at the doors and windows of the barn. I could have shot them easily in the bright moonlight; but I remember that I didn’t do so.
69CHAPTER VIIII begin my Letters to my Mother and start my Fortifications: then I very foolishly go away, meet with an Accident, and see Something which throws me into the utmost Terror.
The next day, the nineteenth of December, was Sunday. I had been left alone (or, rather, let me say the truth, I had like a fool refused to go) on Friday, which seems in this case to have been unlucky for me, however it may ordinarily be. I woke up early, half cramped with the weight of the bed-clothes, I had piled on so many; but I was none too warm, either. I put out my drawbridge and got back to the hotel and started the fire. Outside the thermometer stood close to thirty-five degrees below zero, but the sun was rising bright and dazzling into a clear, blue sky.
Kaiser’s leg was no better, and Pawsy was still nervous and kept looking at the windows70as if she expected wolves to bolt in head-first; and I did not blame her much. It seemed to me that the wolves had howled most of the night. I only wished that the timber beyond Frenchman’s Butte and the coteaux and the Chain of Lakes were a hundred miles away, for without them there would have been no wolves, or nothing but little prairie wolves or coyotes, which, of course, don’t amount to much.
As soon as my own fire was started I went about town and got the others going; this I called “bringing the town to life.” As I stood at the depot and watched the long columns of smoke from the chimneys it scarcely seemed that I was the only inhabitant of the town. After I had had breakfast and done up the work at the barn, I sat down in the office and was glad enough that it was Sunday. I suddenly thought of a way to spend the day, and in ten minutes I was at something which I did every Sunday while I stayed at Track’s End.
This was to write a letter to my mother, stamp and direct it, and drop it in the slot of the post-office door. Of course it would not go71very soon, but if nothing happened it would go some time; and, I thought, if I am killed or die in this dreadful place, the letters may be the only record she will ever have of my life here.
I accordingly set to work and wrote her a long letter, telling her fully everything that had happened so far, but without much of my fears for the future. I told her I was sorry that I had got myself into such a scrape, but that, now being in, I meant to go through it the best I could.
The next morning, Monday, I began work on my fortifications, by which name I included everything that would help to keep off invaders. I started two more fires, one in Townsend’s store, at the south end of the street, and the other in Joyce’s store, at the north end of town and nearly opposite the harness shop. I made another visit to Taggart’s, and found some barrels of kerosene, which I needed, and more ammunition. Still another thing was a number of door-keys, so that I made up a string of them with which I could unlock almost every door in town. In Joyce’s, besides groceries and such things, I found a buffalo overcoat, which I took the72liberty of borrowing for the winter. It was so large for me that it almost touched the ground, but it was precisely what I needed, and, I think, once saved my life; and that before long.
I kept at the fortification-work for four days pretty steadily, though I did not use the best judgment in picking out what to do first. I was fascinated, boy-like, with the tunnel idea, when, I think, with the knowledge I then had, it would have been wiser to have paid more attention to some other things; but, as luck would have it, it all came out right in the end. I boarded up a few of the windows, but not many, and did nothing whatever at providing a secret retreat in case of fire, though I had a plan in mind which I thought was good. Worst of all, I left the Winchesters about here and there without any particular attempt at hiding them. But I kept at the tunnel hammer and tongs.
There were two front windows in the hotel office. At one of these the snow came only a little above the sill, which was the one where the wolf had come in; but the other was piled nearly to the top. It was even higher against73the bank front opposite, and at no place in the street between was it less than four feet deep. Both buildings stood almost flat on the ground. I took out the lower sash of the window in the hotel and began work. I made the tunnel something over two feet wide and about four high, except where the drift was no more than this, where I did not think it safe to have the tunnel over three feet high. The snow was packed remarkably hard, and, as it all had to be carried out through the office in a basket and emptied in the street, it was slow work. But at last, on Thursday evening, it was done, and Kaiser and I passed through it; but nothing could induce the cat to come nearer than the window. I was very proud of my work, and went through the tunnel twenty times with no object whatever.
The next morning I ought to have gone at other fortification-work, but instead I thought up the foolish notion that I ought to go out to Bill Mountain’s to see if Pike had got our letter and had left any in reply. It was Friday, the day before Christmas, and I thought that the holiday would be more satisfactory if I knew about this; though, to tell the truth, I had not74worried much about the gang’s coming since I had been so taken up with the tunnel. I had been so careless that I might have been surprised twenty times a day.
It was a pleasant morning, and not very cold. Andrew had left behind a pair of skees, or Norwegian snow-shoes–light, thin strips of wood, four inches wide and eight or ten feet long–and, though I had never been on them but once or twice, I determined to use them in going. I fixed the fires well, made everything snug about town, gave the stock in the barn some extra feed, put on my big overcoat, with a luncheon in one pocket and Sours’s revolver in the other, and started. Kaiser’s leg was still a little stiff, but I let him go along.
I think I fell down three times before I got out of town; it was as many as this at least; and outside of town, there being more room, I fell oftener. But I soon began to improve and get along better. I decided to follow the railroad grade west, as it was most of the way higher than the prairie, and the snow on it was smoother.
When I got opposite Mountain’s I found the grade some ten or twelve feet above the75prairie, but it looked a very easy matter to slide down on the skees. I had seen Andrew go down the steep side of Frenchman’s Butte. I accordingly slid, went wrong, fell, turned my ankle, and found myself on the hard snow at the bottom unable to stand on my feet.
I lay still some time thinking that perhaps my ankle might get better; but it got worse. It was still almost half a mile to Mountain’s, but it was over two miles back to town. I felt that I might be able to crawl the half-mile, so I started, with the skees on my back. I hope I may never again have to do anything so slow and painful. Kaiser was prodigiously excited, and jumped around me and barked and said as plainly as words that he would like to help if he could. But, though I thought a hundred times that I should never reach there, I kept burrowing and floundering along and did accomplish it at last. It was far past noon. The sky had clouded over. I saw a new letter behind the board, but could not rise up to get it. I pushed open the door, crawled to the heap of hay by the stove, and lay on it, more miserable, it seemed, than ever before.76
I scarcely stirred till I noticed that it was beginning to get dark. Then I crept to the door and looked out; the snow was falling fast and in big flakes. I shut the door and crawled back to the hay. There seemed to be nothing to do. I knew I could not keep up a hay fire, even if I could start one. Besides, I had a sudden fear that some of the Pike gang might visit the shanty to look for an answer to their letter, and I thought if I simply lay still I might escape, even if they did come. I ate part of my luncheon, and gave Kaiser part. Then I drew my big overcoat around me as best I could, made the dog lie close up to me on the hay, and tried to sleep.
My ankle pained me a good deal, and the bed was not comfortable. I thought as I lay there that my mother and father and all the folks at home must then be at the church for the Christmas-tree; and I could see the lights, and the bright toys on the tree, and all the boys and girls I knew getting their presents and laughing and talking; and the singing and the music of the organ came to me almost as if I had been there. Then I thought of how, if I were home, later I should hang up my stocking77and find other gifts in it in the morning, and of what a pleasant time Christmas was at home.
Every few minutes a sharp twinge of pain in my ankle would bring me back to my deplorable condition there in that deserted shack sunk in the frozen snow, and I would be half ready to cry; but, with all my thinking of both good and bad, I did at last get to sleep. Once, some time in the night, I woke up with a jump at a strange, unearthly, whooping noise which seemed to be in the room itself, but at last I made it out to be an owl to-whooing on the roof. Again I heard wolves, very distant, and twenty times in imagination there sounded in my ears the tramp of Pike’s horses.
When morning came I crawled to the door again. There were six inches of soft, new snow, but the sun was rising clear, and there were no signs of a blizzard. I got back to the hay and for a long time rubbed my ankle. I thought it was a little better. I ate the rest of the food and called myself names for ever having left the town. The fires, I knew, were out, and everything invited an attack of the robbers, while I lay crippled in a cold shack two miles away, on the road along which they78would come and go. I had been in no greater terror at any time since my troubles began than I was now on this Christmas morning.
Perhaps it was nine o’clock when I noticed that Kaiser was acting very peculiarly. He stood in the middle of the room with his head lowered and a scowl on his face. Then I saw the hair on his back slowly begin to rise; next he growled. I told him to hush, and waited. I could hear nothing, but I knew there must be good cause for his actions.
At last I could stand it no longer. I dared not open the door, but I seized one corner of the dry-goods box, drew myself up, and hobbled to the window, regardless of the pain. Going straight for the town, a quarter of a mile away, were a dozen men on horseback. I could see by their trail that they had passed within fifty yards of where I was.