79CHAPTER IXMore of a strange Christmas: I make Kaiser useful in an odd Way, together with what I see from under the Depot Platform.
I think Kaiser was the best dog that ever lived. When I looked out of the window, what with seeing the men and with the pain which shot through my leg from my ankle, I sank down on the floor in a kind of faint. How long I lay there I know not, but when I came to Kaiser was standing over me licking my face. When he saw me open my eyes and move he uttered a sort of a whine, half like a cry and half like a little laugh, and began wagging his tail. I put my arms around his neck and drew myself up so that I was sitting on the floor. At this he began to bound about and bark as if he would say, “Cheer up, Jud; this is bad luck, but we will get through yet!”
The pain in my ankle was half killing me,80and suddenly it drove me desperate. I seized my foot in my hands, drew it up into my lap, and gave it a wrench that was like to break it off. I felt something crack inside, and half the pain stopped. “I’ve fixed it!” I cried to Kaiser, and tried to get up, thinking I could walk; but I went down in a heap, and saw that, though it was better, I was still far from walking. The ankle was swelled to twice its right size; but I felt sure that it must now improve.
I made Kaiser stop his fuss and pulled open the door. I could just make out the horsemen going along the grade almost to the town. I crawled to the hay, and thought a long time. In the first place, I knew the fires were all out and that the new snow had covered all traces of any life about the town. The robbers would find the place deserted and would go to work upon the safe. How long it would take them to open it I did not know, but one of the many things I now regretted was that, while fooling around with my tunnel, I had neglected to take out and hide the tools that were in Beckwith’s blacksmith shop, as I had intended to do; for with these I did not think81it would take the men long to break into the safe.
After they had got the money two things might happen: they might take it and return west, in which case they would be almost sure to stop at Mountain’s and discover me; in fact, the only thing I could not understand was why they had not stopped as they went in. I knew how much mercy I could expect from Pike and the kind of men that were with him.
The other course that they might take after getting the safe open was to stay in town for several days or even weeks; and in this case I should simply starve and freeze to death where I was. The reasons that made it seem likely that they would stay awhile were that there was no danger, plenty of food and fuel, and comfortable places to live and sleep. At first thought I saw one reason against it, and that was that there was no liquor in the town; and I knew they were the kind of men who would prize liquor higher than food. Then I remembered that, though the contents of the saloons had been shipped away when they were closed, I had heard there was a barrel of whiskey in the cellar of Fitzsimmons’s grocery82store; and I knew, of course, that they would find it. I thought again of my detestable tunnel, for if I had not had my mind on it so much the barrel might have occurred to me and I could have disposed of it somehow.
I thought a long time, and this was the amount of it: That in any case I had best get back to town if I could. If I reached there while they were at work on the safe, I might be able to slip in unseen and hide somewhere till they were gone; and even if they did not go for some days, I might manage to keep out of sight and live after a fashion. Anything seemed better than staying where I was.
I was half dead from thirst, and it seemed that no harm could now come from a little fire; so I soon had one started and some snow melting in an old tin can. The drink and the warmth revived me a good deal, and I decided to start immediately to crawl to the town. I thought with good luck I might make it in four hours. It was now probably eleven o’clock. I left my skees and started out. Kaiser bounded around me in the greatest delight, barking and throwing up a cloud of snow. But before I had gone twenty rods I sank half fainting with83the pain of dragging my ankle. Poor Kaiser whined and licked my face. When I revived a little, I crept back and threw myself on the hay again, ready to die with despair.
I lay there half an hour in the greatest mental and physical pain; then an idea that drove it all away struck me like a flash. I sat up and drew the skees to me on the floor, and placed them parallel and about ten inches apart. Then I took one of the legs of the stove and pounded a board off of the dry-goods box. It was four feet long and a foot or more wide. I beat some nails out of the box, and then placed the board lengthways on top of the skees and nailed it firmly. This made me a sled, low but long and light.
I had on under my coat a jacket of coarse, strong cloth. This I took off and cut and tore up into strips, knotted them together, and made two stout ropes five or six feet long. I fastened one end of each of these to the front of the skees. Then I let out Kaiser’s collar two or three holes, tied the other ends of my ropes to each side of it, making them precisely like harness traces, and pushed out of the door and sat down on my new sled. I had84like to have forgotten the letter on the door, but drew myself up and got it and put it in my pocket. There was a monstrous red skull and cross-bones on the outside of it.
If you think I did not have a time teaching that dog to draw me, then you are mistaken. The poor animal had not the least notion what I wanted of him, and kept mixing up his legs in the traces, coming back and bounding around me, and doing everything else that he shouldn’t. I coaxed, and tried to explain, and worked with him, and at last boxed his ears. At this he sat down in the snow and looked at me as much as to say, “Go ahead, if you will, and abuse the only friend you have got!” At last I got him square in front, and, clapping my hands suddenly, he jumped forward, jerked the sled out from under me, and went off on the run with the thing flying behind.
I lay in the snow with my five wits half scared out of me, expecting no less than that he would be so terrified that he would run to Track’s End without once stopping. But I made out to do what I could, and called “Kaiser! Kaiser!” with all the voice I had.85Luckily he heard me, got his senses again, and stopped. He stood looking at me a long time; then he slipped the collar over his head and came trotting back, innocent as a lamb, without the sled.
There seemed to be nothing to do but to crawl to the sled, so I started, with Kaiser tagging behind and not saying a word. I think he felt he had done wrong, but did not know exactly how. The crawling pained my ankle somewhat, but not so much as before, and I got to the sled at last. I saw that it was near the trail which the men on horseback had made, and this gave me an idea: perhaps Kaiser would follow that. I pushed on over, and as soon as he saw the trail he pricked up his ears, began to sniff at the snow and look toward the town. I hitched him up again, headed him the right way, took a good hold, and shouted, “Sic ’em, Kaiser!” He started off like a shot and ran till he was quite out of breath.
After he had rested and I had petted and praised him, we went on. He understood now what was wanted, and made no further trouble. We soon got up on the grade, and found it86much smoother. Indeed, the horses had left a very good road, and by sitting well back on my odd sled, so that the board would not plow up the snow, it was not at all hard for Kaiser to draw me. We were soon near enough to the town, so that I began to tremble for fear of being seen. My eyes were troubling me a good deal; it was snow-blindness, but, as I had never heard of it, I was frightened, not knowing what to think.
I could see the horses standing in a bunch in the open square between the depot and town, but the men were nowhere in sight, and I doubted not they were hard at work on the safe. After a good deal of labor I managed to get Kaiser to turn off to the south until the railroad buildings were between us and the town. Then I struck out straight for the water-tank, and in a few minutes was up to it.
The space below the tank was inclosed, making a round, dark room filled with big timbers. One of my keys fitted the door, and I opened it, put Kaiser and the sled inside, and shut the door. The poor dog thought this was poor payment for his work, but I could not trust him loose. I picked up a narrow87piece of board and broke it to the right length for a crutch, and so managed to hobble along upright to the end of the station platform. This was three or four feet from the ground, and beneath it were a lot of ties, old boxes, and other rubbish. I crawled under and around to the side next to the town, and peeped over a log of wood.
The horses were standing in a huddle with their heads together, and I did not pay much attention to them. A little to one side I saw a big pile of blankets, bed-clothing, and other things taken from the hotel and stores; and on top of it all my guns and other weapons. I expected that they would take the guns, but was surprised at their bothering with the other stuff. I could hear no sounds of their working on the safe. All at once the door of Taggart’s store opened and they came out carrying a lot of rope and other things. Then I saw that they were not the men I had thought, after all, but a band of Sioux Indians.
88CHAPTER XA Townful of Indians: with how I hide the Cow, and think of Something which I don’t believe the Indians will like.
When I saw what my visitors were I do not know if I was relieved or more frightened. I saw that I need no longer worry about the safe being robbed, but that seemed to be almost the only thing in their favor over the Pike gang. I knew, of course, that they had no ill feeling against me, and probably had no intention of harming any one; but, on the other hand, I well understood that if I should appear and try to stop their plundering the town they would not hesitate to kill me. By their dress I recognized them as Sioux from the Bois Cache Reservation, fifty or seventy-five miles north, because I had seen some of them during the fall while they were on their way to visit some of their relatives a hundred or more miles south at the Brulé Agency. I supposed they were going89for another such visit, and had blundered on the town. These Bois Cache Indians I knew were a bad lot; many of them had been with Little Crow in the great Sioux Massacre in Minnesota in 1862, when hundreds of settlers were killed.
They came directly to the pile of things near their horses, and put down the rope; and then they started off in all directions looking for more plunder. Two of them came to the depot and walked about on the platform over my head. I flattened out on the ground and scarcely breathed, expecting every minute that they would look under. I heard them talking and trying the windows. I thought they were going away; then there was a sound of breaking glass, and I heard them tramping about inside. Then they came out and went over to the pile again. I peeped out and saw that they had the two Winchesters which I had hidden in the depot. Another came from the town with a shot-gun which he had found somewhere. I had no doubt that they would find and carry off every weapon there was, and leave me with nothing except the small revolver which I had in my pocket.90
For an hour I lay there under the platform watching the Indians plunder the town. They already had much more in their pile than they could possibly carry away with the horses they had. Suddenly I saw that their plan most likely was to get everything they wanted together in the open square and then to burn the town, carry off what they could, and come back after the rest later on. Of course this put me in a great fright, but, though I racked my brain as never before, I could think of no way to prevent it.
Soon I heard a great pounding, and suspected that they were breaking into the Headquarters barn, which I always kept locked, just out of force of habit. In another minute I knew I was right, as I heard a loud squawking of the chickens. Up from the direction of the barn and high over the roofs of the town I suddenly saw a bird soar, which I took to be a prairie chicken, or some sort of game bird, though where it came from I could not guess. Then, as it lit on the chimney of the blacksmith shop, and began a great cackling, I saw that it was only Crazy Jane. I could not help laughing, in spite of my troubles, and said out91loud, “Ah, it takes somebody smarter than an Indian to catch her!”
THE BOIS CACHE INDIANS LOOTING THE TOWN ON CHRISTMAS DAY
THE BOIS CACHE INDIANS LOOTING THE TOWN ON CHRISTMAS DAY
The sight of Crazy Jane and the sharp way she outwitted the savages did me good and made me wonder if I could not do as well; still I could think of nothing. Just then the Indians came out with the other chickens in grain-sacks, and leading Dick and Ned and Blossom. The horses they stood with their own, but I was horrified to see that they acted as if they were going to butcher the cow. One of them pointed a gun at her head and another began to flourish a knife. It looked as if they had got it into their savage heads that they wanted fresh beef and were going to slaughter the poor animal on the spot.
To watch these preparations was, I think, the hardest thing I had to bear that day. She was a patient, gentle heifer, and I could not bear to think of seeing her butchered by a lot of villainous savages with less intelligence than she had herself. If I had had a gun or any fit weapon, I verily believe that I should have rushed out and defended her. But just before they began, one of their number came out of Fitzsimmons’s store and called to them,92and they all trotted over. The store was on the east side of the street.
At the instant that the last of them disappeared in the door I rolled out from under the platform and began to hobble across the square. My intention was to get behind the stores on the west side of the street; and I had a wild notion of saving the cow in some way, I did not know how. It was a foolhardy thing to do, but I got behind the first store without being seen. But I was no nearer the cow, who was a little ways from the side of Fitzsimmons’s, and I dared not go there. She saw me, however, and I held out my hand and said, “Come, bossy!” and she came over. I took her by the horn and led her along behind the buildings, knowing no more than a fool what I should do with her. Just then I came to the sloping outside cellar-door behind a store. The Indians had cleaned the snow off of it, but had not succeeded in getting in, as it was fastened with a padlock. I tried my keys. One of them opened it. The stairs were not steep, and I led the cow down and closed the door above us. The Indians had walked and ridden everywhere in the square93and back of the stores, so I thought it would be hard for them to follow the cow’s tracks. Nevertheless, the next moment I hurried back and with an old broom brushed lightly our trail behind the buildings; then returned to the cellar.
I rested a few minutes till my ankle felt better, then I crept up the inside stairs to the store and peeped out the front window. Four or five of the Indians were standing where the cow had been, looking in all directions. After a while they all went back into Fitzsimmons’s store and I slipped down and out the door by which I had got in, locked it, and made my way behind the buildings to the bank and went in. Here the Indians had not disturbed anything, there being nothing to their taste; but when I looked out a crack in the boards over the window I saw the whole eleven of them at the end of the street holding a powwow over the disappearance of their fresh beef. I thought it would be a good time to test my great pet, the tunnel, so I hobbled boldly through and entered the hotel.
The first thing I saw was Pawsy in her old place over the dining-room door. She did not94seem to like Indians any better than she did wolves. Everything which had not been carried off was in the greatest confusion. The Winchester which had been under the counter was gone. I stood with my crutch looking at the wreck, when, without hearing a sound, I saw the knob of the front door turn and the door push open. With one bound like a cat I went through the open door of the closet under the stairs.
I had no time to close the door, and stood there pressed against the wall and trying not to tremble. It was dark in the closet, and that was my only hope. Three of the Indians filed by. They all wore moccasins, and their step was noiseless. They were talking, and passed on through into the kitchen and outdoors. I think they were looking for the cow, and took this as the best way to get to the barn. I pressed back farther in the closet and waited. Soon they came back, and again passed me, and went on out of the front door. I got out and crawled up-stairs, thinking to find a better hiding-place and wishing heartily that I was back under the platform. I looked out of an upper window and saw them all at95the farther end of the street again. By-and-by they went into Fitzsimmons’s store.
Though I did not take my eyes off the store for two hours I saw no more of the Indians, and by this time it was so dark that I could no longer see them if they did come out. I began to hear a strange noise, and opened the window slightly and listened. It was the Indians shouting and singing. Then it dawned upon me that they had found the whiskey and that they were all getting drunk in Fitzsimmons’s cellar.
This, of course, gave me a new cause of dread, for, if a sober Indian is bad, a drunken one is a thousand times worse. I felt sure that they would now set the town on fire through accident even if they did not intend to do so. The fiendish howling constantly grew worse and was soon almost as bad as that of the wolves ever was. I still could think of nothing to remedy matters. By this time it was pitch-dark. I determined to have a look at them, anyhow. It occurred to me that probably they had begun at the whiskey before the cow disappeared, and that this had helped to make their search unsuccessful.96
I went down and out the back door of the hotel and crept along the rear of the buildings till I came to Fitzsimmons’s. The yelling and whooping of those savages was something blood-curdling to hear. There was a window for lighting the cellar close to the ground in the rear foundation-wall. A wide board stood in front of it, but I dug the snow away, pushed this board a little to one side, and looked in. They seemed to be having a free fight, and many of them were covered with blood. A smoking kerosene lamp stood on a box, and around this they surged and fought and howled. As I looked the lamp was knocked to the floor and blazed up. One of the Indians fell on it and smothered the flames, and the struggling and diabolical yelling went on in the dark.
As suddenly as the plan of making the skee sled had flashed upon me came another plan for driving every Indian out of town. I jumped up and ran away as fast as a poor crutch and a leg and a half could carry me.
97CHAPTER XII give the savage Indians a great Scare, and then gather up my scattered Family at the end of a queer Christmas Day.
How I ever got along through the darkness and snow on my crutch I scarce know, but in less time than it takes to say I tumbled in at the back door of the hotel. I went directly into the kitchen and felt about till I found a knife, which I put in my pocket. Then I stumped on into the office, leaned against the counter, and lit the wall lamp, took it out of its bracket, and made my way somehow to the cellar-door. I left my crutch and fairly slid down the stairs, holding the lamp in both hands above my head. Once down I set it on a small box, dropped on the cellar bottom, and drew over to me the largest pumpkin in the pile against the wall. What I thought to do was to make the most diabolical jack-lantern that ever was, and scare the98drunken savages out of what little wit they had left.
I took the pumpkin in my lap, and with the knife cut out the top like a cover. Then with my hands I dug out the seeds and festoons of stuff that held them. Then I turned up one side and plugged out two eyes and a long nose. I was going to make the corners of the mouth turn up, as I had always done when making jack-lanterns at home, but just as I started to cut it came to me that it would look worse if they turned down; so thus I made it, adding most hideous teeth, and cutting half of my fingers in my haste. Then I gave the face straight eyebrows and a slash in each cheek just as an experiment, and looked around for a candle.
I could see nothing of the kind, nor could I remember ever having noticed one about the house. For a moment I knew not what to do; then my eyes rested on the lamp, and I asked myself why that would not do as well as a candle, or even better, since it gave more light. The hole in the top was not big enough to take in the lamp, but I cut it out more, and with half a dozen trials, and after burning all the99fingers I had not already cut, I got the lamp in. The cover was now too small for the opening, but I grabbed another pumpkin and slashed out a larger one and clapped it into place. If I had had time I believe I should have been frightened at the thing myself, it was that hideous and unearthly-looking; but I did not have, so I took it under one arm, though it seemed half as big as a barrel, and pulled myself up-stairs.
In another minute I was outdoors and hobbling along as fast as I could. The howling of the red beasts in the cellar still came as loud as ever. I got to the window, dropped on my knees, and took away the board. They did not yet have a light, and were struggling and caterwauling in the dark like, it seemed, a thousand demons. But I say I had the worst demon with me.
The lamp was burning well. I set the thing on the ground, square in front of the window, with the horrible face turned in and looking down into the darkness. Then I rolled out of the way.
I had truly thought that those savages had been making a great noise before, but it had100been nothing to the sound which now came from the cellar. Such another shrieking and screaming I never heard before nor since. I would not have believed that any lot of human beings could make such an uproar. Then I heard them fighting their way up the stairs and go squawking and bellowing out the front door of the store.
When I heard the last one go I seized up the pumpkin, took it on one shoulder, and with my stick went hippety-hopping out through the alley and along the sidewalk after them. They were going away in the darkness for their ponies like the wind. I went to the end of the walk and, holding the lantern in both hands, raised and lowered and waved it at them. Not once did they stop their howls of terror, and I could hear and partly see them tumbling onto their ponies in all ways and plunging off through the drifts to the west like madmen. I longed to be on Dick’s back with my lantern to chase them, but I knew not where Dick was, and my ankle had already borne too much, as it told me plainly. I got back to the hotel as best I could, put up the lamp in its place and sat down to rest.101
But though I needed rest, I needed food more; so I started the fire and looked about for something to eat. I soon found that the Indians had left nothing except a few crusts of bread and some frozen eggs. But I boiled the eggs and made out a sort of a meal. As I finished I heard a yowl which I thought I knew, and, sure enough, when I looked up, there was the cat still on the door.
This set me to laughing, and I said: “I wonder was ever a family so scattered before on a Christmas night as is mine? There is Kaiser shut in under a water-tank; Blossom locked in the cellar of a grocery store; Crazy Jane, the hen, on top of the smoke-stack of a blacksmith shop; the rest of the chickens sacked up and scattered on the ground; Dick and Ned, the horses, I don’t know where; Pawsy, the cat, on top of the door; and Jud himself, the head of the family, here eating what the Indians have left, with a hurt ankle and a smell of roasted pumpkin all through his clothes.”
I had a good laugh over things, and then decided that I must do what I could for my scattered family, though my ankle seemed102about ready to go by the board. So I first got down the cat and then lit the lantern and started out after Kaiser. Poor dog, he was beside himself to see me, and liked to have knocked me down in showing how glad he was.
As we started back Kaiser stopped and began to growl at something out on the prairie, and I looked, and after a time made out Dick and Ned. They were very nervous, and would not let me come up to them, but I toiled around them at last and started them toward their barn. I next looked after Blossom. I found her lying down, as comfortable as you please, chewing her cud and right at home in the cellar. She had made a meal out of the coarse hay which came out of a crockery bale, and I thought I would leave her for the night. So I took a big pitcher out of the bale and milked her then and there, and took it home, and Kaiser and Pawsy and I disposed of it without more to-do.
I was beginning to feel better about my family, and felt still more so when I found that Dick and Ned had gone into their stalls and had stopped their snorting, and only breathed103hard when they saw me. Next I went after Crazy Jane; but though I coaxed and shooed, and threw chunks of frozen snow at her, while Kaiser barked his teeth loose, almost, it did no sort of good; she only looked at me and made a funny noise as a hen does when she sees a hawk. I could not climb up with my hurt ankle, so I had to leave her, much against my will. The chimney, I thought, was a good deal exposed for a sleeping-place in winter, but there was no wind and I didn’t have much fear but that she would come out all right.
I had like to have forgotten the other chickens; they never popped into my mind till I was back in the hotel, but I dragged myself out after them. I found the poor things stuffed in three sacks, as if they had been turnips, lying on the snow. I knew I could not carry them, and felt that I could scarce drag them even; so I hit upon the plan of taking a bit of rope from the pile of plunder and hitching Kaiser to the sacks, and so in that way we got them, one by one, to the barn at last and let them out, all cramped and ruffled. Kaiser was so proud of his work that he set up a bark104which started the broncos into another fit of snorting.
I think if there had been one more member of my family lost that I could have done nothing for it that night, my ankle was in such a state. I tried bathing it in hot water, and before I went to bed I had it fairly parboiled, which seemed greatly to relieve it. I was too tired to go across the drawbridge to my room, so I stretched out on the lounge in the office, not much caring if all the robbers in Christendom came. But I could not help wondering at my strange Christmas; and half the night I heard the wolves howling round the blacksmith shop and looking up (I knew) at Crazy Jane; but I thought they might as well howl around the gilt chicken on a weather-vane for all the good it would do them.
105CHAPTER XIIOne of my Letters to my Mother, in which I tell of many Things and especially of a Mystery which greatly puzzles and alarms me.
Here I am going to put in the letter which I wrote to my mother a week from the next day after my strange Christmas, to show that I did write her long letters every Sunday, as I have said; though of course it was many weeks before she got this or the others:
Track’s End,Sunday, January 2d.
My Dear Father and Mother,–I have written you so much bad news since I have been in this dreadful place that I am very glad to send you some good news at last, and that is that my ankle, of which I wrote you last Sunday, is all well. I kept up the hot-water applications and by the next morning it was so much better that I could walk on it. I hope I may not turn it again.106
I don’t know as there is much other good news to write, except that it is good news, and maybe quite strange news, that I am still alive at all in such a place. I am getting along better with the cooking, though I am beginning to long for some fresh meat. The cow still gives a good mess of milk, and I now get three or four fresh eggs a day; thanks to the warm food which I give the hens, I guess. I do not believe that Crazy Jane has laid an egg since her night on the chimney, and I’m almost afraid she caught cold, as she has not had a genuine fight with another hen since. Kaiser and the cat and Dick and Ned are all well and in good appetite. I have heard rather less of the wolves of late, and I still think it would be easier to get the Man in the Moon to come to this town than any of those Indians. But the outlaws I still fear very much. Oh, something I ought to have written you last week! I mean this: I got a letter from them that day out at Mountain’s, but I had no time to read it Christmas and the next day I forgot I had it till after I had put your letter in the post-office. This is what was in it:107
Citisens Track’s End,–We will Rob your bank and burn your town if we don’t get the small some we ask for. If adoing it we kill anyboddy it wun’t be our fawlt. Leave the Munny as we told you to and save Bludd Shedd.
Pike and Friends.
I look for them any time. My only hope is that the weather will be too bad for them to travel; but of course there must be some good weather. The snow is already so deep that it will be very hard for them to do much on horseback. The street is full, and it is very deep north, east, and south. The ground is almost bare for half a mile to the west, however; and they could come in on the grade. Of course they can come on snow-shoes at any time and go everywhere. I cannot even hope to keep out of having trouble with them. I have made no answer to this letter, and can’t make up my mind whether it would be best to do so or not.
I kept up work all the week on the fortifications, when the weather would permit; for there has been another great blizzard, the worst of the winter so far. I even worked all day yesterday, though it was New-Year’s. Monday morning I again started all of my fires,108but I found that in three of the buildings there was not enough coal to last long. So I hitched up Ned and Dick on an old sleigh of Sours’s and took a good lot to each place from the sheds at the railroad. It was a lucky thing I did so, too, because it snowed more Tuesday night and began to blizzard Wednesday and kept it up till Friday without once stopping; and it would now be impossible to drive anywhere near the coal-sheds.
I have got up a plan to do what I want to do without using much coal; I smother the fires, all except the one in the hotel, with stove griddles laid on them, and it makes a great smoke without much fire. The guns and ammunition I have disposed of here and there, in good places for me in case of attack, but hard to find for other folks. One I keep standing by my bed’s head, but nobody would be apt to look there for either gun or bed, I hope. I take in my drawbridge always the minute I cross.
The last blizzard has helped me a good deal. The street is now so full that the first-story doors and windows of the hotel and bank and most of the other buildings are covered. Not109a bit of daylight gets into the hotel office, and I am writing this by lamplight, though the sun is bright outdoors. The hotel can now only be entered by the back door, which I have strengthened with boards and braces. I have also boarded up the second-story windows, as they are now not much above the level of the drifts.
My tunnel might now be much higher and I am going to make it so that I can stand up straight all the way through. This is the only way there is to get into the bank now, unless you were to pound off the planks I have nailed over the upper windows, or shovel the snow away below. I drew over lumber from the yard the day I had the team hitched up for the coal. There are plenty of nails at Taggart’s. The blacksmith tools which would be good to break open a safe with I have buried in the snow. I have not yet carried out the plan I told you about which might save me in case the town is burned. It is a big job, but I am going at it as soon as I can. There is much other work which I want to do. There is a large tin keg of blasting-powder at Taggart’s which it seems as if I ought to use110somehow. Sometimes I wish I had a cannon, but I don’t know as it would be much use to me.
I had a vast deal of work Monday and Tuesday carrying back the things those savage Indians lugged out in the square. I fastened up all of the buildings which they had torn open and straightened up things in the stores as best I could. Fitzsimmons’s was in the worst confusion, and I could not do much with it. The cellar was such a wreck of barrels and boxes and crates and everything you can think of, all broken open and the things thrown everywhere, that I only looked down and gave it up then and there.
As soon as I can get around to it I mean to build some more tunnels to some of the other houses. I think I ought to draw up a list of regular hours for getting up, fixing the fires, climbing the windmill tower to look with the field-glass, and such-like things, as I used to hear Uncle Ben tell was the way they did when he was in the army. I mean to go out every good day and take some target practice with my rifle.
I wish I could close this letter here, and I111would do so if it were going to you so that you would get it before you get others, or before you know that you are never to get others from me, if that is to be, as I fear it may. Oh, if I only had it to do over again, how quick I would take the chance to go away from this horrid place! If I live to get away I will never come here again. So I must tell you what little I can of this other matter.
I am not here in Track’s End alone. What it is that is here I do not know. How long it has been here I do not know. Where it stays, what it does, where it goes, I do not know. I have looked over my shoulder twenty times from nervousness since I began this letter.
Last Monday night I hung a piece of bacon on a rafter in the shed back of the kitchen, after cutting off a slice for breakfast the next morning. I kept it there because it is a cool place and handy to the kitchen. Tuesday morning it was gone. I had left the outside door shut, and it was still shut in the morning. The door between the kitchen and shed was locked. I could see no tracks or marks of any kind.
Wednesday morning the thumb-piece of the112latch on the depot door was pressed down. I don’t think I left it that way. A pail by the back door in which I had thrown some scraps which I was saving for the chickens was tipped over. I think some of the meat rinds were gone. The blizzard began that morning.
Thursday morning the blizzard was still going on. I noticed nothing unusual.
Friday morning a quilt and a blanket had been stolen from a bed in the hotel. Another quilt was drawn from the bed and lay on the floor. I think the window (it had not yet been boarded up) at the foot of the bed had been raised. The snowbank outside is high. The blizzard was still blowing.
Yesterday morning I saw nothing wrong, but I thought about it a good deal during the day. I remembered of hearing strange sounds at night from the first of my being here alone. I had thought it wolves, owls, jack-rabbits, or something like that.
Last night I decided to watch. The storm had stopped and the night was very still, but it was cloudy and dark and a flake of snow fell once in a while. I put on the big fur coat113and sat on a box just inside the woodshed door, which was open on a crack. At about eleven o’clock I heard a faint noise at the barn as if something were in the yard at the side trying to get in at one of the windows. I swung my door open a little more, it creaked and I saw something dark go across the yard and over the fence. There was no sound that I could hear. I could not see that it touched the ground. It went behind a haystack by the fence. There was instantly another glimpse of it as it passed beyond the stack, going either behind or through the shed under which the men stood that night when Pike shot Allenham. I was not sure if I saw it the other side of there or not, but I could not see so well beyond the shed. The motion was gliding; I heard no footstep, nor sound of wings, nor anything. It snowed some more in the night. This morning I could find nothing wrong except that a clothes-line beyond the shed was broken. It had hung across the way which what I saw must have gone. Its ends were tied to posts at least seven feet from the ground, and if I remember aright, it has all the time been drawn up so that it did not sag114at all. It was snapped off as if something had run against it.
I must close now and do up my work for the night. I only ask that I may live to see you all again. If I do not, then may this reach you somehow.
Your Dutiful Son,Judson Pitcher.
115CHAPTER XIIISome Talk at Breakfast, and various other Family Affairs: with Notes on the Weather, and a sight of Something to the Northwest.
It was on the morning of Tuesday, January 25th, as I sat at breakfast with Pawsy in her chair at one end and with Kaiser at the other, drumming on the floor for another bit of bacon, that I said to myself:
“It is just one month to-day since I clapped eyes on a human being; and the ones I saw then were not very good humans, being thieving and drunken Indians.” And when I said this I had not forgotten (when had it been once out of my mind, waking or sleeping?) what I saw on New-Year’s night; but I knew not if I were to count that as human or what.
I remember that Sunday night after I finished the letter to my mother which I put in the last chapter, how I found it darker than I expected when I went out, and how I ran along the snowbanks with my heart thumping116like to split, and threw the letter in the top of the post-office door (the rightful opening was long before buried under the snow) and then shot back to the hotel, not daring to look behind me or even stop to breathe. I was well ashamed of myself, at the time, but I could not help it.
On that night it was even nine o’clock before I could get up courage to go to the barn and feed the stock. I think I was in a greater state of terror than on the night after the battle with the wolves. I walked the floor, back and forth, on tiptoe and listened; and the less there was to hear, the more I heard. At last I, after a fashion, put down my fright, and ventured out to the barn; but even then I could not whistle; I tried, but my lips would not stay puckered.
I went to bed as soon as I could, and though I thought I should never get to sleep, I did at last. What my dreams were, or how many times I sat up in bed with a start, are things I do not like to think about. But notwithstanding this, I felt better in the morning and went at the work as hard as I could.
But though, as I say, up to the 25th of117January (and even beyond) I had no further glimpse of the mysterious visitor, I saw evidence of its presence often enough.
Night after night the scrap-pail by the back door was rummaged and something taken from it, and once a chicken was missing from the barn. The only way that anything could get in was through a window into the hay-loft seven or eight feet above the drift. After I missed the chicken I nailed this up and lost no more. I thought there were a few scratches on the side of the barn below the window, but I could tell nothing from them. Almost every night it either snowed or drifted, or both, so there was almost no hope of ever finding tracks of any kind on the ground. One morning I found the windmill at the station thrown into gear and running full tilt, but the lever which controlled it may have slipped. Two or three times I thought I heard the windlass of the well near the barn creak, but I tried to make myself believe that it was only the wind.
You may be sure that my sleep was very light, and I often heard Kaiser growling and barking late at night in the hotel. I never had the courage to sit up and watch again. I118may have been more cowardly than I should have been; I leave that to the reader to say. One night I lay awake listening to the wolves howling up at the north end of the town. Suddenly their cry changed and they swept the whole length of the street like the wind, and much faster than they usually went when simply ranging for prey. They may have been chasing a jack-rabbit.
Another night they howled so long right in front of the building I was in that I put down my foolish fears and got up and fired at them, hoping to scare them away and maybe get another skin for my coat. One fell, and the others made off at a great rate. I watched the one on the snow till I was sure he was dead, and I heard nothing more of the others that night. In the morning there was neither hide nor hair of the dead wolf.
But the work I had to do kept my mind off of my terror a good deal, and saved me, I really believe, from going stark mad. I will tell about my great system of tunnels presently, but before I began it I did much else. One of the first things was to make a long, light sled for Kaiser to draw, and also a harness119for him. The materials and tools for the one I got from the wagon-repair shop attached to Beckwith’s blacksmith shop, and the same for the other from the harness shop, where I kept up one of my fires. I was always handy with all kinds of tools, inheriting a love for them from my father; besides, I had worked with him in the shop at home a good deal, and had thus become a fairly good mechanic for my age. I could handle a plane or a drawshave or a riveting-hammer, or even an awl, for the matter of that, with any of them.
I used this dog rig chiefly for taking over ground feed from the depot to the barn for the horses and cow; but Kaiser learned to enjoy the work of dragging the sled so much that I soon came to use him nearly always in good weather in making my rounds to look after the fires or patrol the town. He would whisk me along on top of the frozen drifts at such a rate that it would nearly take my breath away sometimes. I practised with the skees till there was no danger of turning my ankle again, and would sometimes run races with him on them; but he could beat me all hollow unless there was a good, stiff load on the sled.120
Another thing that I made was a pair of leather spectacles, something which my mother had used often to tell me I needed when I was small and could not see something that was plain as a pikestaff. My spectacles were made out of a strip of black leather two inches wide which went over my eyes and around my head, with two slits through which I could look. These I wore on the dazzling bright days and was troubled no more by snow-blindness, which had made my eyes so painful the day I came back from Mountain’s.
It was about New-Year’s that I began to spend my evenings in noting down in the hotel register what had happened during the day. I did this chiefly so that when I came to write to my mother Sunday I would forget nothing; and I am very glad now that I did so, for without the register and the letters (both of which I now have) about some things, especially dates, I might go wrong in writing this account. Besides, in the past, it has been much satisfaction when I have related any of the incidents of my winter at Track’s End and some person, to show how smart he was, has tried to cast doubt on my word–it has121been much comfort to me, I say, in such cases to have the register and letters to show him, with it all set down in black and white.
Thus it comes I know that Pawsy caught a mouse in the barn on Wednesday, January 12th, at about half-past seven o’clock in the morning, while I was milking the cow. I think it was the only mouse at Track’s End that winter, for I never saw or heard any other. There were no rats in the Territory then anywhere, unless it may have been at Yankton, or at some of the old Red River settlements about Pembina.
Pawsy was a good hunter, and several times caught a snowbird, though I boxed her ears for this; and on Friday, the 21st, I found her near Joyce’s store trying to drag home a jack-rabbit. She must have caught it by lying in wait, but I marveled how she killed the monstrous creature. But she was, indeed, one of the largest and strongest cats I ever knew. I would have trusted her to whip a coyote in a fair fight. I got three jacks in January myself with the rifle, and found them very good to eat; but the first one, after skinning it, I left overnight in the shed, and in the morning122it was gone. That day I went to Taggart’s and got two good bolts and put them on the shed door.
Getting my meals I found very hard work, but I made out better than you might think, since my mother had taught me something about cooking. At first I neglected getting regular meals, snatching a bite of anything that I could lay my hands on; but I soon saw that this would not do if I were to keep in good health and strength. My boarders, too, were great hands to complain if they did not get their meals regularly. You might have thought that cat and dog were paying good money for their board, the way they would mew and whine if a meal were late. I took very good care of the chickens, giving them plenty of warm food, so from about Christmas I got a dozen or more eggs each week. The cow, too, I fed well on ground feed and hay, with pumpkins and sometimes a few potatoes, and she gave me a fair quantity of milk all winter; and on the eggs and milk, together with potatoes, bacon, and salt codfish, I and my boarders managed to live tolerably well.123
Pie I missed very much, and cookies and apple dumplings and such things, all of which my mother used to make very freely at home, and never keeping them hid. I looked longingly at the pumpkins, and once fetched a quantity of ginger from Joyce’s, vowing I would attempt pumpkin pie; but I never got up my courage. Bread, also, I never attempted, though I got a package of yeast from the store and looked at it many times. The place of this was taken by pancakes, which I made almost every day, big and thick, which with molasses went very well; though a good cook, as like as not, would have said they were somewhat leathery.
There was not an apple in town, nor any kind of fresh fruit, but there were dried apples and prunes, and canned fruit and vegetables, especially tomatoes. Of the canned things I liked the strawberries best, and ate many, though they tasted somewhat of the tin. There were plenty of crackers in the stores, and some dry round things, dark-colored, which called themselves gingersnaps; I took home a large package in great glee, thinking I had made a find; I ate one of them124by main strength and gave the rest to the cow. Butter I made several times, with fair success, though it was not like mother’s, being more greasy.
Fresh meat I missed very much, though the few jack-rabbits I got helped out, and were good eating, as I have said, and smelled as good as anything could while cooking. Some other fresh meat I had also, as you shall see directly. Once I made up my mind to have some chicken. There was one hen who was very fat and never, I was sure, laid an egg. I took the hatchet, which was sharp enough, and went to the barn, intending to behead her, having it all planned how I should cook her for my Sunday dinner. When I got to the barn the hen seemed to know what I intended, and she looked at me with one eye, very reproachful, and I went back to the house with my hatchet and never made any more plans for fried chicken.
There was much bad weather in January. Often I noticed that this was the way of it: It would snow for one day, blizzard for three, and then for two be still, steady, bitter cold. On these latter the thermometer would often go125over forty degrees below zero, with the sun shining bright and the sky blue; but with a frightful big yellow-and-orange sun-dog each side of the sun, morning and evening, like two great columns; and sometimes there would be a big orange circle around the sun all day, with much frost in the air.
Some of the nights were light, almost, as day with the northern lights flaming up from behind Frenchman’s Butte all over the whole sky, and all colors and shapes. On these nights the horses (they had been wild ponies once) would stamp about in the barn, and Kaiser would growl in his sleep. When I rubbed the cat’s back it would crack and sparkle. The wolves seemed to howl more and differently on these nights, and once I went to the station, thinking the fire there needed fixing, and I heard the telegraph instrument clicking fit to tear itself to pieces. Often the next day after the northern lights would come the storm.
It was on the very day that I had said to Kaiser and Pawsy at breakfast (that is, January 25th) that it was a month since I had seen any human being, that I was at the depot after126a load of ground feed, and in looking to the northwest thought I saw something moving. It did not take me long to go up the windmill tower. It was not past ten o’clock in the forenoon, so the light for looking toward the northwest was good, though of course, as the sun was shining, the snow was pretty dazzling. But I could still only make out that something was moving south or southwest. It was impossible to tell if it were men or horses or cattle. So I went down as fast as I could, jumped onto the sled, and the next minute Kaiser had me at the hotel, where I got the field-glass and went back.
Up the tower I scrambled for another look. The snow was so dazzling that the glass did less good than you might suppose, but with it I could soon tell that it was a party of men on horseback following either another party or a drove of cattle or horses. The band ahead swung gradually about and came toward Track’s End. The ones behind seemed to be trying to cut them off, but they failed to do it. On they came, and in ten minutes I could see that it was either cattle or horses that were being chased by twenty or twenty-five men on127horseback. The cattle were following a low, broad ridge where the snow was less deep, and which spread out west of the town, making less snow there also, as I have mentioned before. I thought there was something peculiar about the riding of the men; I watched closely, and then I saw they were Indians.
My first thought was that it was daylight and no jack-lantern would scare them away. I saw I must depend on harsher measures. In almost no time I had got over town, locked the barn, shut Kaiser in the hotel, run through my tunnel to the bank so as to be on the west side of town, and stood peeping out a loophole with two fully loaded Winchesters on a table beside me.