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Two Wyoming Girls and Their Homestead Claim: A Story for Girls

by Caroline Louise Marshall · English · Gutenberg #32383 · 336,890 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Two Wyoming Girls and Their Homestead Claim: A Story for Girls

Author: Caroline Louise Marshall

Illustrator: Ida Waugh


        
Release date: May 15, 2010 [eBook #32383]
                Most recently updated: January 6, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32383

Credits: Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
        produced from images generously made available by The
        Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO WYOMING GIRLS AND THEIR HOMESTEAD CLAIM: A STORY FOR GIRLS ***




Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)









 TWO WYOMING GIRLS
 And Their Homestead Claim

 A Story for Girls

 BY

 MRS. CARRIE L. MARSHALL

 Author of "The Girl Ranchers," Etc.

 ILLUSTRATED BY IDA WAUGH

 THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY
 PHILADELPHIA MDCCCXCIX




 COPYRIGHT 1899 BY THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY




 [Illustration: THE FLAMES REACHED TOWARD ME GREEDILY
 (Page 63)]




CONTENTS


 CHAP.                                       PAGE

 I     I GO ON AN ERRAND                       7

 II    THE WILL OF THE WATERS                 23

 III   AT THE MOUTH OF THE SHAFT              37

 IV    A PLOT FOILED                          44

 V     AN EXCITING EXPERIENCE                 57

 VI    A VISIT FROM MRS. HORTON               68

 VII   SURMISES                               77

 VIII  "BEST LAID PLANS"                      92

 IX    AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT             108

 X     RALPH AND I GO BLACKBERRYING          118

 XI    THE CATTLE BRAND                      130

 XII   ON THE TRAIL OF A WILDCAT             145

 XIII  JOE DISAPPEARS                        158

 XIV   AT THE STORAGE RESERVOIR              172

 XV    CHASED BY WOLVES                      183

 XVI   A SLEEPLESS NIGHT                     194

 XVII  A QUEER BANK                          207

 XVIII A VITAL POINT                         227

 XIX   MR. HORTON MAKES US A VISIT           240

 XX    GUARD MAKES A MISTAKE                 253

 XXI   A FRIEND IN NEED                      261

 XXII  AN OPEN WINDOW                        273

 XXIII ALONE ON THE CLAIM                    284

 XXIV  HUNTING FOR GUARD                     294

 XXV   GUARD'S PRISONER                      304

 XXVI  MR. HORTON CAPITULATES                316




TWO WYOMING GIRLS




CHAPTER I

I GO ON AN ERRAND


A fierce gust of wind and rain struck the windows, and Jessie, on her
way to the breakfast table, dish in hand, paused to listen.

"Raining again!" she exclaimed, setting the dish down emphatically.
"It seems to me that it has rained every day this spring. When it
hasn't poured here in the valley, it has more than made up for it in
the mountains."

"You are more than half right," father said, drawing his chair up to
the table. "Is breakfast ready, dear? I am going to work in the mines
to-day, and I'm in something of a hurry."

"Going to work in the mines!" Jessie echoed the words, as, I am sure,
I did also. I was sitting in the corner dressing little Ralph, or, to
be strictly accurate, trying to dress him. No three year-old that ever
lived could be more exasperating than he sometimes was during that
ordeal or could show a more pronounced distaste for the bondage of
civilized garments.

Jessie made haste to dish up the breakfast, but she inquired: "Do you
remember, papa, what that old miner who was here the other day told us
about mines in the wet season? About what was liable to happen
sometimes, and did happen here once, a good many years ago?"

"I don't know that I do," father answered, glancing toward Ralph and
me, to see if we were ready. As we were anything but that, he
continued; "I guess I won't wait for you children."

"Don't, please!" I exclaimed, "Ralph is a perfect little buzz-saw this
morning. Keep still, Ralph!"

"Me want to do barefoot! Me want to wade in 'e puddle!" cried the
child, pulling one soft little foot out of the stocking that I had
just succeeded in getting upon it.

"Ralph!" I cried, angrily: "I've a good notion to spank you!"

"Don't, Leslie!" father interposed, mildly; "I remember so well how I
liked to wade in the mud-puddles when I was a little shaver; but it's
too early in the season, and too cold for that sort of sport now. So,
Ralph, my boy, let sister dress you, and don't hinder."

Ralph always obeyed father's slightest word, no matter how gently the
word was spoken; so now he sat demurely silent while I completed his
toilet.

"What was it that your friend, the miner, said, Jessie?" father asked,
as Jessie took her seat and poured out his coffee.

"He said that there had been so much rain on the mountains, and that
the Crusoe mines were on such a low level that there was some danger
of an inrush of water, like that which ruined the Lost Chance, before
we came here."

"I recollect hearing something about the Lost Chance," father said,
going on with his breakfast indifferently. "There may have been water
crevices in it. The accident was probably caused by them--and
neglect."

"I don't see how it could be all due to neglect," Jessie persisted.
"The miner said that the springs and rivers were all booming full,
just as they are now. People never thought of danger from the water,
because it was so often warm and dry in the valley--as it is, you
know, often, even when it is raining hard on the mountains. The miner
said that the men went on with their work in the mine, as usual,
until, one afternoon, the timbered walls of the tunnels slumped in
like so much wet sand. What had been underground passages became, in a
moment, underground rivers, for the water that had been held back and
dammed up so long just poured in in a drowning flood. He said that the
rainfall seeped through the bogs up on the mountains, and fed
underground reservoirs that held the water safely until they were
overtaxed. When that happened the water would burst out, finding an
outlet for itself in some new place. The only reason that any one of
the force of thirty men usually employed in the mine escaped was that
the accident occurred just as they were putting on a new shift. I
remember very well what he told us."

"I see that you do," father responded, with a thoughtful glance at her
earnest face, "but I reckon he rather overdid the business. These old
miners are always full of whims and forecasts; they are as
superstitious as sailors."

"What he told was not superstition; it was a fact," replied Jessie,
with unexpected logic.

Father smiled. "Well, anyway, don't you get to worrying about the Gray
Eagle, daughter. It's rather damp these days, I admit, but as safe as
this kitchen."

"Do you really think so, papa?" Jessie asked, evidently reassured.

"Well, perhaps not quite as safe," father answered, with half a smile.
"It's a good deal darker for one thing, you know, and there are
noises--"

He lapsed into that kind of listening silence that comes to one who is
striving to recall something that has been heard, not seen, or felt,
and I was about to insist upon a further elucidation of those
subterranean sounds when the door opened and a man, whom father had
hired for the day, put in his head:

"Say, Mr. Gordon, I can't find a spade anywhere," he announced.

"Well, there!" father exclaimed, with a disturbed look, "our spade was
left at the mine the last day that we worked there."

"That's too bad!" the man, who was a neighbor, as neighbors go on the
frontier, said regretfully. "I can go back home and get mine, but the
team's hitched up; it's stopped raining, an' there's a load of posts
on the wagon. Seems 'most a pity for me to take time to go an' hunt up
a spade, but I reckon I'll have to do it. I never saw the man yet that
could dig post holes without one."

"Oh, no, Reynolds, don't stop your work for that; I'll have to bring
mine down; it's about as near to get it from the Gray Eagle as to go
to one of the neighbors; you just go on with your work."

Reynolds withdrew accordingly, and, as the door closed upon him,
father said:

"I'm anxious to earn every dollar I can to help fence that wheat
field, before Horton's cattle 'accidentally' stray into it. I was out
to look at it this morning. The field looks as if covered with a green
carpet, it's coming up so thick. I count it good luck to be able to
get Reynolds to go on with the fence-building while I work in the
mine, for I can exchange work to pay him, while the pay that comes
from the mine is so much cash."

"And when we get our title clear, won't I shoo Mr. Horton's cattle to
the ends of the earth!" I said, resentfully, for we all understood
well enough that the reason that father was so anxious to earn money
was to pay for the final "proving up" on his homestead claim, as well
as to build fences. "I'm teaching Guard to 'heel' on purpose to keep
track of those cattle," I concluded, audaciously, for father didn't
approve of a policy of retaliation.

"Horton's cattle are not to blame," he said now, but the shadow that
always came over his patient face at the mention of our intractable
neighbor settled heavily upon it as he spoke.

"I know the cattle are not to blame," I retorted, with a good deal of
temper. "I just wish that their master himself would come out and
trample on our corn and wallow in our wheat field, instead of driving
his cattle up so that they may do it; I'd set Guard on him with the
greatest pleasure."

"Now, now, Leslie, you shouldn't talk so!" father remonstrated gently.

But here Jessie, whose disposition is much more placid than mine,
broke in, abruptly:

"I don't blame Leslie for feeling so, father. Only think, we've been
on this place nearly five years, and we've never yet raised a crop,
because Mr. Horton's cattle, no matter where they may be ranging,
always get up here just in time--the right time--to do the most
damage. The other neighbors' cattle hardly ever stray into our
fields, and when they do the neighbors are good about it. Think of the
time when Mr. Rollins's herd got into the corn field and ate the corn
rows down, one after another. Mr. Rollins came after them himself, and
paid the damage, without a word of complaint. Besides, he said that it
shouldn't happen again; and it didn't. When has Mr. Horton ever done a
thing like that?"

"He's been kept busy other ways," father said, and his voice had none
of the resentment that Jessie's expressed. "The last time that his
cattle got in here I went to see him about it, and he said that the
field was a part of the range, being unfenced, and that any lawyer in
the United States would sustain him in saying so. He was quite right,
too--only he was not neighborly."

"Neighborly! I should say not," Jessie exclaimed, with a lowering
brow. "His horses have trampled down our garden and girdled all our
fruit trees, even to the Seckel pear that mother brought from
grandfather's."

"I know; it is very trying," father said, stifling a sigh; "but it can
do no good to dwell on these things, daughter. An enemy of any kind
does you more injury when he destroys your peace of mind, and causes
you to harbor revengeful feelings, than he can possibly achieve in any
other way. We must keep up our courage, and make the best of present
circumstances, bad as they sometimes are. A change is bound to come."

"Me wants more breakfuss," Ralph broke in, suddenly, extending his
empty milk-cup toward me, his chief servitor. I refilled it from the
pitcher beside me, and as I absently crumbled bits of bread into it I
sought enlightenment. "I never quite understood, father, why Mr.
Horton is so spiteful toward us."

"It is easily understood, Leslie. He wants this homestead claim, and
hopes to weary us into giving it up."

"He can find plenty of other claims," I argued.

"Yes; but not such as this. This is an upper valley, as you know, and
just above our claim five mountain streams join the main river as the
fingers of a hand join the palm, the main river being the palm. Every
square foot of our claim can be irrigated, and it takes in about all
of the valley that is worth taking--enough to control the water rights
for all the land below us. That is the reason why Horton is trying so
hard to dislodge us. He would like to be able to make the ranchmen on
the lower ranches come to his terms about the water."

"But the law regulates the water rights," said Jessie.

"It is supposed to do so, and does it, after a fashion, but no human
laws have ever yet been able to satisfactorily regulate a mean man. It
would be a great misfortune to the ranchmen below if Horton were to
get a title to this place; he likes to make people feel his authority,
and one effective way of doing that would be to worry people about the
water supply, just when they needed it most, of course. I feel now
that our danger of losing the place is past. It has been a hard
struggle to bear up against nearly five years of such sly, petty
persecutions. Horton is careful not to oppose us openly. When he's
found out, as he is occasionally, it always appears that he has been
careful to keep within the letter of the law. Well, as Leslie says,
we'll get our title clear, and then the wind will be out of Mr.
Horton's sails. I've been afraid to make a move, or to do anything
except curl down and study the homestead laws all this time. If I had
come to an open rupture with him he might have gone down to the land
office and told some story of his own invention to the agent that
would injure me greatly, for land agents are only too ready to believe
evil of land claimants, it seems to me. Now my notice for offering
final proof is in one of the papers; it must be published three times,
and the period of publication must not range over more than three
months at the outside, so you see, at the farthest, if our proof is
accepted, we shall have a deed to this place within three months. I do
not see how we can fail to get it; we have complied with all the
requirements."

"Yes," Jessie assented, gravely. "We have two cows, two horses, a cat,
a dog, a clock, some chairs, some dishes, a table, a stove, and some
poultry."

Father smiled, the slow, serious smile that had replaced his cheery
laugh since mother's death two years before. "You are well posted on
homestead laws, daughter," he said, rising from the table. "Where's my
coat, Leslie, did you get it mended?"

For answer I took down a worn, light, gray coat from a nail behind the
kitchen door.

"Look at that!" I said, pointing proudly to a very conspicuous patch
on the elbow of one sleeve. An older seamstress would have felt,
perhaps, that the patch asserted its existence almost too defiantly;
it seemed almost to vaunt itself, but conscious of the rectitude of my
intentions, if not of my work, I raised my face, expectantly, awaiting
the praise that I felt to be my due. I was not disappointed. Father
held the garment up to the light and examined the mending with
critical approval.

"That's what I call a good job, my little girl," he said heartily, but
Jessie, glancing at the proof of my housewifely skill, as evidenced by
the coat, laughed.

"'A tear may be the accident of a moment,'" she quoted, "'but a patch
is premeditated poverty.' And such a patch! You could see it a mile
away. Really, Leslie, it looks like Jeremiah Porlock's cattle brand."

I felt my face crimsoning with indignation, but was happily prevented
from making the retort that sprang to my lips, as father murmured
ruefully:

"Dear, dear, what a pity that Joe left the spade! It will just about
spoil my whole forenoon to be obliged to stop and bring it down.
However, there's no help for it."

"Yes, there is, papa," I cried, springing to my feet. "I'll go up with
you and bring it back."

It was characteristic of father's gentleness toward us his motherless
young daughters, that he had not once thought of the possibility of
either of us acting, in this instance, as his substitute.

"It's a long walk," he objected, looking at me doubtfully.

"Long! Why, papa, I've taken longer walks than that, lots of times. It
isn't above a mile and a half; I could run every step of the way!"

"Me, too," proclaimed Ralph, descending from his high chair in such
haste that he fell sprawling on the floor. Disdaining, on this
occasion, to weep for an accident that, under ordinary circumstances,
would have opened the flood-gates of woe, he scrambled to his feet:
"Me do wiv 'oo, 'Essie!" A battered old hat of Joe's was hanging on
the wall, within reach of his chubby hand; he snatched it down and set
it quickly on his head, pulling down the wide brim until his brown
curls and the upper part of his rosy little face were completely
extinguished. "Me ready, 'Essie," he said. He was a comical little
figure. Papa took him in his arms and kissed him. Then he set him
gently on his feet again; "You can't go with sister to-day, my boy."

"'Ess," Ralph declared, with unusual persistence, "Me do!"

"No," father reiterated. He opened the door, and we slipped out,
followed for some distance along the trail by the deserted youngster's
ear-splitting shrieks. Father halted once, looking irresolutely at me
as a peculiarly heart-rending outburst came to our ears. "I could
easily carry him up there," he said, with a somewhat sheepish look,
"but I suppose you couldn't fetch him home?"

"Come along, father," I retorted, slipping my hand under his arm.
"Jessie will have Ralph consoled before you could get back to the
house, and, when we started, you were in some doubt as to whether I
could carry a spade home from the mine."

"That's true," father confessed. "But hasn't the boy got a pair of
lungs, though? I doubt if I was ever able to yell like that. I dare
say it's partly owing to the climate; it's very healthy."




CHAPTER II

THE WILL OF THE WATERS


Crusoe was the generic name of the collection of rough shanties that
clustered about and among the various shaft-houses. Not all of the
mines had attained to the dignity of shaft-houses and regular hours,
many of them, indeed, being mere prospect-holes, but all were named,
and a student of human nature might have accurately gauged the past
experience or present hopefulness of their respective owners by some
of the curious freaks of nomenclature.

The shaft-house of the Gray Eagle was the last but one at the upper
extremity of the ravine along which Crusoe straggled. Father and I,
hurrying past the cabins, had nearly reached it, when a loud call from
the open doorway of one of the larger cabins brought us to a halt.

"There's old Joe!" father said, glancing at the individual who had
shouted; "I was in hopes that I could slip past without his seeing
me."

"No such good luck as that," I said, with what I felt to be
uncharitable impatience; "I almost believe that Joe sits up nights to
watch for you. It's a shame, too, for him to try to work in the mines.
Just look at him!"

"I've looked at him a good many times, Leslie, dear, but he would be
in a ten times worse position if I were to tell him that I am old
enough to take care of myself. Since the day I was born he has spent
his life in watching over me."

From all accounts that was strictly true. The white-wooled old negro
who, in his shirt sleeves, now came limping down the pathway toward
us, had once been a slave on grandfather Gordon's estate. When freedom
came to all the slaves, old Joe--who was young Joe then--declined to
accept of any liberty, or to follow any occupation that might take him
away from his master's oldest son, Ralph Gordon, our father. The
negro's mission in life, as he understood it, was simply to keep an
eye on the young man, for the young man's good. The flight of years
did not lessen his sense of responsibility any more than it did his
devotion, which was immeasurable. But, curiously enough, he seemed to
prefer, on the whole, not to reside with the object of his adoration.
It was enough for him if he could but hover around in father's
vicinity, and this he did with such tireless persistency that in all
the changes, the shifting scenes of his Western life, the one thing
that father owned to being absolutely sure of was, that no matter
where he went, or how quietly, the place that knew him presently
became familiar also with the white wool and shambling figure of old
Joe.

"I 'clar ter goodness!" groaned Joe, reaching us at last, and hobbling
on beside us, "I didn' 'low fur t' wuck ter-day; my rheumatiz is tuck
dat bad!"

"Don't work, then, Joe; the mine is as wet as a sponge. You'll be the
worse to-morrow for going into it," remonstrated father, kindly.

"No; I reckons I's wuck ef yo' does; hit ain' out o' place, noway,
fur me ter crope inter a hole like dat; but w'at fur yo' keep w'alin'
at wuck in de mine? 'Pears like a gen'leman might fin' more fittin'
kine o' wuck dan dat."

"The kind of work neither makes nor unmakes one, Joe," returned
father, good-humoredly; "but I'm not going to do this sort of work
much longer. I'm calculating on opening up the ranch in fine shape,
with your help, when I get the title to it."

"W'en yo' 'low fur ter git dat titull?"

"In about three months. You'll have to come and live with us then,
Joe, so as to be on hand to help us."

"Yes," the old man assented, with unexpected readiness, "I 'spect I
shall. I'se mighty good farmer, yo' knows, Mas'r Ralph. Hit goin' take
nigh a week ter tell all dat I knows erbout raisin' ob watermillions
an' goobers. Yo' 'low dat goobers grow in dish yer kentry, Mas'r
Ralph?"

"Yes, indeed. Why not?" father returned, cheerily, evidently glad of
old Joe's implied willingness to take up his abode with us.

We presently entered the shaft-house. Rutledge, the mine
superintendent, was standing by the shaft, and the hoisting-cage, with
its first load of ore from the dump below, was moving slowly upward.

"You're late," was his greeting.

"A trifle late," father returned, pleasantly, adding, "you can dock my
day's wages for it if you like."

"I know that without you telling me, but I shouldn't like," Rutledge
said, crossly. We all knew him slightly, and I had thought him a
pleasant young gentleman, but he was looking sullen to-day, almost
angry, it seemed to me. We stood there waiting, and the cage had
reached the surface and automatically dumped its load before Rutledge
spoke again.

"I thought you weren't coming, in spite of your promise," he then
said, looking toward father. "No one could have blamed you if you had
shown the white feather--"

"Say, yo' heah me!" broke in old Joe, suddenly and savagely, his voice
quivering with indignation. "Ole Cunnel Gordon's son ain' one o' de
kine w'at done breaks promises, ner yit w'at's a-showin' w'ite
fedders. Ef yo's lookin' fer dat kine of a man, git a lookin'-glass
an' study de face dat yo' sees in hit, den maybe yo' fine 'im!"

Rutledge smiled, although he still scowled disapproval.

"That's all right, Joe; there are no cowards around the Gray Eagle
shaft-house, but I couldn't blame any one for keeping out of the mine
to-day--not but what it's safe enough, as far as I can see--I've just
been down."

For an instant his words startled and thrilled me. Could it be that
there was so much danger in working in the mine then? I glanced at
father. He was just stepping into the cage, and his face was as serene
as if Rutledge's discourse had been of some possible disturbance in
the moon. The look of displeasure on Rutledge's face deepened as I
caught hold of one of the ropes and swung myself lightly into the
cage, following father and Joe. Delaying the signal for descent,
Rutledge said:

"While it may be safe enough down there, it isn't exactly like a
lady's parlor, Gordon--not to-day, anyway."

"Oh, Leslie is just going down on an errand," father explained. "But,
Leslie, perhaps you had better wait here and let me send the spade up
to you."

"And make you walk from your tunnel clear back to the hoisting cage
again!" I remonstrated. "Why, Mr. Rutledge, I've been down lots of
times, you know, and I'm not at all afraid."

The superintendent had looked relieved when he heard that my stay in
the mine was likely to be a short one. I wondered, inconsequently, as
the cage started on its downward passage, if he had thought that I was
going down on a tour of inspection. There would have been nothing for
him to fear from any one's inspection; he was a good superintendent.
"Don't stay long, Miss Leslie," he called down after us. I could no
longer see his face, but his voice sounded anxious, and father
remarked:

"Rutledge seems quite uneasy, somehow."

"Dese yer minin' bosses, dey knows dey business," muttered old Joe.
"Dey knows dat de rheumatiz hit lays in wait, like a wile beas'
scentin' hits prey. 'Spect's Mas'r Rutledge he hate fur ter see a
spry young gal like Miss Leslie git all crippled up, same's a ole
lame nigger."

"Yes; it must be that he feared Leslie would get the rheumatism,"
father said, in a lighter tone. Old Joe's explanations and reasons for
things were always a source of unfailing delight to him. The cage
reached the bottom of the shaft and we stepped out. By the light that
was always burning at the tunnel's mouth father and Joe each selected
a miner's lamp from the stock in a corner, and, as father was lighting
his, he said: "You had better carry a lamp, too, Leslie." I picked one
up while father slipped the bar of his under his cap band. Then he
glanced at my big hat. "You'll have to carry yours in your hand,
child; there's no room for so small a thing as a miner's lamp on that
great island of straw that you call a shade hat."

The Gray Eagle was a quartz gold mine. Tunnels drifted this way and
that, wherever deposits of the elusive metal led them; sometimes they
even made turns so sharp as to almost double back on themselves. I was
glad to see that the point where father and Joe halted, at last, to
pick up the tools that they had thrown down when they quit work in the
mine, was within sight of the twinkling yellow star that marked the
location of the hoisting cage. The place seemed less eerie somehow,
with this means of escape signaled in the darkness. I had been, as I
told Mr. Rutledge, in the mines a good many times, but never had its
darkness seemed so impenetrable, so encroaching, as on this morning.

"It seems to me that our lamps don't give so much light as usual, or
else what they do give does not go so far," I remarked to father as I
lingered beside him a few moments, watching him work.

He was using a drill on the face of the rock wall in front of him. He
suspended operations now to say: "I noticed that myself. The air is
thick and damp; the light is lost much as it is in a fog." Then he
called my attention to an object lying on the ground at his feet.
"There's the spade; I guess you'd better be going back with it, dear;
Reynolds will be needing it."

Accordingly, with the spade in one hand and the lamp in the other, I
started to retrace my steps to the hoisting cage. The sound of the
drill that father was now plying vigorously followed me, becoming
muffled, rather than fainter in the distance as I proceeded. From the
various tunnels, branching off to the right and left, came the sound
of other drills, and, occasionally, the plaintive "hee-haw" of one of
the half-dozen or more little Andalusian mules used in hauling the
loaded cars to and from the ore dumps near the hoisting cage. With all
these sounds I was more or less familiar, but to-day, underneath them
all, it seemed to me that there were others, myriads of them. To my
lively young fancy the silence teemed with mysterious noises; low
groans and sighing whispers that wandered bodiless through dark
tunnels, dripping with a soft, unusual ooze. Knowing that Reynolds was
in a hurry for the spade I hastened along, listening and speculating,
until coming opposite one of the side extensions I was suddenly taken
with the whim to see if its walls were as damp as those of the tunnel
that I was then standing in. I turned into it accordingly, but stopped
doubtfully after a few yards. Holding the lamp aloft I looked
inquiringly along the walls. Damp! I understood now why my father wore
a coat, a circumstance that had already impressed itself upon my mind
as being very unusual among these underground workers. The water was
almost running down the sides of the rocky tunnel, and the light of my
lamp was reflected back at me in a thousand sliding, mischievous
drops.

"Where does it all come from?" I thought, laying my hand on the face
of the rock before which I stood. My hand had touched it for a single
heart-beat, no more, when I felt the color go out of my face, leaving
me with wide, staring eyes, while I stood trembling and ghastly white
in the breathless gloom. Like one suddenly bereft of all power of
speech or motion I stared mutely at the black wall before me. I had
felt the rock move!

Standing there in that awful darkness, hundreds of feet underground, I
understood what had happened, what was happening, and, dumb with the
horror of that awful knowledge, stood motionless. All the stories that
I had ever heard or read of sudden irruptions of water in mines, of
dreadful cavings-in, flashed into my mind, and then, breaking the
paralyzing trance of terror, I turned and ran toward the main tunnel.
I tried to utter a warning shout as I ran, but my stiffened lips gave
forth no sound. Happily, as I reached the main tunnel, the light at
the foot of the shaft was in direct range with my vision, and between
the shaft and myself I plainly saw a man hastening toward it. He was
wearing a light gray coat. A quick glance toward the spot where I had
left father and Joe showed nothing but darkness. They had both left.
The hoisting cage was down, and, as I raced toward it, the man in the
gray coat scrambled in. Even in my terror and excitement I was
conscious of an unreasonable, desolate sense of desertion when I saw
that. Yet, underneath it all a lingering fragment of common sense told
me that father would believe me, by this, safe above; he had told me
to go--and I had not obeyed him.

Behind me, as I ran, arose a shrill and terrible chorus, a crashing of
timbers, yells and shrieks of men, the terrific braying of the
Andalusian mules, and above all, a new sound; the mighty voice, the
swelling roar of imprisoned waters taking possession of the channels
that man had inadvertently prepared for them. I reached the hoisting
cage so nearly too late that it had already started on its upward
journey, when, seeing me, one of its occupants reached down, caught
both my upstretched hands and swung me up to a place by his side. It
chanced, providentially, that the cage was at the bottom of the shaft
when the inrush of waters came, and it had been held there for a
brief, dangerous moment while the men nearest the shaft fled to its
protection. It rose slowly upward, not too soon, for in an incredibly
short time an inky flood rolled beneath it; rolled beneath, but seemed
to keep pace with it as it arose. The water was coming up the shaft.




CHAPTER III

AT THE MOUTH OF THE SHAFT


Rutledge was standing by the windlass as the cage drew slowly up into
the light. The men sprang out, not forgetting to lift me out with
them, and the superintendent craned his neck, looking down into the
black hole from which we had ascended. "Keep back!" he shouted, as
some of the men crowded about him. "Keep back; the water is coming up
the shaft. We'll soon have a spouting geyser, at this rate. How many
of you are there?" He glanced over the group and answered his own
question, in an awed voice: "Seven--and the girl--God help us! Only
seven!"

I had been so blinded by the fierce white glare of sunlight, following
on the darkness of the shaft, and so dazed by the awful nature of the
calamity that had befallen us that at first I comprehended almost
nothing. The events of the day recorded themselves automatically upon
my mind, to be clearly recalled afterward. In a numb, dazed way I saw
a man in a light gray coat creep stiffly from the cage, last of all,
and, as he staggered away up the dump, I took a step toward him,
looked in his face, and recoiled with a wild, heart-broken cry.

The wearer of the coat was old Joe. Facing around, I looked on the
rescued men, my heart beginning to beat in slow, suffocating
throbs--my father was not among them.

For a moment I was quite beside myself. Like one gone suddenly mad, I
sprang at the negro, and, seizing his arm, shook it furiously, crying:

"Father, father--where is my father? What have you done with my
father?"

The old man began to whimper, "I ain' done nuffin'! I wish't I had! I
wish't hit was me dat done gone to respec' dat ole Watkin's Lateral,
den I'd 'a' been drownded, an' he wouldn't!"

"Watkin's Lateral?" echoed one of the men who had so narrowly
escaped. "Was Gordon in there? That's where the water burst through
first. I thought that some one might have gone in there to test the
walls, and they'd given way."

"You are probably right, Johnson. Not but what the walls would have
caved in, just the same, whether they were struck or not."

Little heed as I paid, at the moment, to what was going on or being
said, yet it all impressed itself upon my mind, to be recalled
afterward, and afterward I knew that this last observation of Mr.
Rutledge's was intended to exonerate father from any charge of
carelessness in going into that place at just that time. But every
employee of the Gray Eagle knew that Watkin's Lateral--a long,
diagonal passage, with which the main tunnel was connected by a number
of side extensions--was a treacherous place in which to work at all
times, and must, of necessity, have been trebly so this morning.
Loosing my frenzied hold of old Joe, I crouched to the ground, while
Joe sank down on the dump, covering his face with his gnarled old
hands. "He made me tuck an' put on his coat, he did, an' tole me fur
t' start fur home; I was dat racked wid de misery in my back!" he
moaned.

The men were again clustering about the shaft. I got up and went and
stood beside them. A hollow roar came up from the depths into which we
gazed. The black water had risen, and risen, until, touched by a ray
of sunlight, it threw back at us a sinister, mocking gleam, as the eye
of a demon might. And father was down there in that black grave! That
was my one coherent thought as, after the first wild look, I suddenly
grasped one of the ropes of the cage that still swung above the
shaft's mouth, and swung myself aboard. My reckless hand was on the
starting lever when Mr. Rutledge, with a cry, and a spring as quick as
my own had been, landed beside me. He snatched my hand from the lever.
"Are you mad?" he asked, sternly, "What are you going to do?"

"I am going down to my father; I am going to bring him up!" I cried
wildly.

As though the words had held a charm to break the spell of silence,
they were followed by a babel of groans, of outcries and entreaties.
It seemed that all the surface population of Crusoe were already on
the spot; all, and especially the women, were wild to go to the rescue
of the doomed men below. Doomed! Ah, they were past that now--all of
them--all! It was this solemn thought that suddenly calmed me, that
made me yield quietly to Rutledge's guiding hand as he drew me from
the cage. "There are men here," he said. "Stand back, all of you
women." He took his place in the cage again; then he looked around on
the assembled men.

"Dick," he said, signalling out a square-built Scotch miner, "stand
beside the hoist, and do exactly as I tell you."

"I wull that!" returned the miner, taking the station indicated.

"I'm going down as far as the water will allow," Rutledge explained.
"Who comes with me?" A dozen men volunteered instantly. Rutledge
selected two who stepped into the cage beside him.

"There may be fire-damp--gas," the Scotchman said, warningly.

"I know; there is, probably; I'll look out for that. Lower away!"
Rutledge had lighted one of the miner's candles which was suspended by
a cord from a crack in the bottom of the cage. We above leaned over
that dreadful well and watched the tiny flicker of light as the cage
swung down and down toward the sinister eye that came steadily up as
it went down. The tiny flame burned bravely for a space, then it went
out as suddenly as if snuffed out by invisible fingers while the water
below moved and sparkled as it might have done if the owner of the
demoniac eye had laughed. "Choke damp!" said the Scotch miner
succinctly, and began hoisting up.

I was crouching on the ground with my face hidden on Joe's shoulder
when the cage came up again. The men sprang out silently, and the hush
on the waiting throng seemed to deepen.

"We will set the pumps at work as soon as it can be done; that is the
only thing left for us to do," I heard Rutledge say, and his voice
sounded far away to my reeling senses as it might have sounded had I
heard it in some dreadful vision of the night. Then he came and knelt
down beside me; he took my hands in a close grasp. "Go home, Leslie,"
he said, "go home and do not come back. We will do all that can be
done."

Not many hours thereafter the pumps were at work, lifting the water
out of the mine--a Herculean task, but not so long a one, or so
hopeless, as had been anticipated by many. Soon fresh mounds of earth
began to appear in the lonely little hillside cemetery; mounds beneath
which the rescued bodies of the drowned miners were reverently laid.
Among them was one where father lay peacefully sleeping by mother's
side, and leaving him there at rest, we turned sadly away to take up
again the dreary routine of our every-day life.




CHAPTER IV

A PLOT FOILED


It was a full month after the mine accident, and things had settled
back as nearly into the old routine as was possible with the head of
the household gone. I doubt if Jessie and I could have carried the
burden of responsibility that now fell upon our unaccustomed shoulders
had it not been for Joe. The day after father's funeral he walked
quietly into the kitchen with the announcement:

"I'se come ter stay, chillen! Whar yo' gwine want me ter drap dis
bun'le?"

The bundle was done up in a handkerchief--not a large one at that--and
it contained all of Joe's worldly possessions. Jessie gave him the
little bed-room off the kitchen, and there Joe established himself,
to our great satisfaction. He was not less reticent than usual, but
there was immense comfort to us, even in Joe's silence. The only
explanation that he ever gave as to his intentions was contained in
the brief declaration:

"Yo's no 'casion fur t' worry yo'se'ves no mo', chillen; I'se come ter
tek holt."

And take hold he did. Early and late the faithful black hands were
toiling for the children of the man whom he had so devotedly loved.

On this particular morning Jessie and I were seated in the kitchen
busily employed in doing some much-needed mending, when I dropped my
work and said to Jessie: "I believe something is taking the chickens,
Jessie."

Jessie glanced at the garment that I had let fall, a torn little dress
of Ralph's. "Do you?" she said.

"Yes; I'm sure there are not so many as there should be."

"Don't you count them every night?"

"Yes, I do; but they should be counted oftener. At mid-day, too, I
should say." I submitted this proposition deferentially, but with a
covert glance at the clock; it was nearly twelve, and I did so dislike
mending.

"Very well," Jessie said, "count them a dozen times a day if you think
best, of course."

The elation with which I arose to comply with this generous permission
was tempered somewhat by a little haunting sense of meanness. "Still,"
I reasoned, "when one's home depends on such things as cats, dogs, and
chickens, one cannot take account of stock too often. Besides, Jessie
likes to mend, at least I've never heard her say she does not, but I
have heard her say that she doesn't like to tend poultry."

When I re-entered the house, after conscientiously enumerating every
pair of yellow legs on the place, and finding, somewhat to my chagrin,
that the tally was the same as that of the previous evening, I found
Jessie sitting at the table with her face hidden in her hands. Afraid
that she was crying I at first pretended not to notice. We had more
than enough cause for tears. I picked up the discarded little dress
and, in a spasm of repentance, murmured ostensibly to Ralph, who was
playing near the table, but really for Jessie's benefit: "Sister is
going to mend the pretty blouse that you tore on the oak bush after
she gets this dress done."

"'En w'en oo' puts it on me, me do in 'e oak bush an' tear it adain,"
the child declared, cheerfully.

"You naughty boy!"

"'Es; me notty boy," with which announcement he went and leaned
against Jessie's knees. Jessie looked up; she was not crying, but her
face was haggard with pain.

"I've got a dreadful toothache," she said, and then I remembered that
she had been very restless during the night. "I'm afraid I shall know
no peace until it is out," Jessie went on, "and it's half a day's
journey to a dentist."

"And Joe has taken both the horses to go up into the Jerusalem
settlement after that seed-corn, and he can't get back before
to-morrow night!" I exclaimed, in consternation. As I sat looking at
her with eyes more tearful than her own there came to our ears the
welcome sound of wheels, and a wagon stopped at the gate. I sprang up
and ran to the door, with some faint hope, for the moment, that Joe
had returned. It was not Joe who was sitting immovable on the seat of
the light wagon that was drawn up before the gate, but my astonishment
would not have been so great if it had been. The small, bronzed-faced,
wiry individual who sat still, calmly returning my inquiring gaze was
none other than our persevering enemy, Mr. Jacob Horton. I did not
fancy our caller, but thinking that he would not have called if he had
not some reason for so doing, I walked out and down the path toward
him, saying, "Good morning, Mr. Horton."

"Mornin', Miss Leslie. Folks all well?"

"Not very well; at least, Jessie isn't. She's got a dreadful
toothache."

"Toothache, eh? That's bad. Nothin' like yankin' out fur an achin'
tooth. That's my experience, and you may pass it along to Miss Jessie
for what it's worth."

"I don't know what good it will do her if I do," I replied, rather
irritably, for Jessie was sobbing now, and the sound hurt me almost
as much as a physical pain could have done.

"Why, the good it will do is that that old nigger of yours--Joe, you
call him--will tackle up, she'll tie on her bunnet, hop into the
wagon, and away for Dr. Green's office in Antonito, and she'll set as
still as a mouse while the doctor yanks out that tooth; that's the
good it'll do."

"Yes, that might all be if Joe wasn't away with the team."

"Wal', that does rather spoil my program. Goin' to be gone all day,
is he?"

"Yes; maybe for two or three days. He's gone up to the Archer
settlement on the Jerusalem trail."

"Oh, has he? Wal', now!"

Mr. Horton had been sitting all this time with the reins in one hand,
his hat in the other. He now replaced the hat on his head and stood
up. He remained standing so, motionless, for more than a minute,
gazing steadfastly at his horses' ears, while his brow puckered and
his small eyes narrowed like those of a person in deep thought.
Finally he exclaimed:

"Say, I tell you how we'll fix it. You all get in here with me and
come over to my house. Maria, she'll be sure to think of something to
ease that tooth the minute she claps eyes on ye; then, in the mornin',
she or I'll take ye over to the doctor's office, and bring ye home
afterward. Hey, what do you say, Miss Jessie?" for Jessie had by this
time come out of the gate, with Ralph clinging to her hand.

Jessie, the pain of her aching tooth dulled for the moment by sheer
amazement, said that he was very kind. She said it almost timidly. We
had had so little reason hitherto to look for any neighborly kindness
at Mr. Horton's hands.

"Then ye'll go?" Mr. Horton insisted.

Jessie looked inquiringly at me. Her face was swollen and her eyes red
with crying.

"Yes, Jessie, do go. There's no knowing when Joe will be back, and
you--"

"Why, you'd better all come," Mr. Horton interposed again. "There's
two seats in the wagon--plenty of room. Here, where's the little
shaver's hat? Get your hat and climb in here, youngster."

Ralph, who was enterprising and fearless, obeyed without protest.
Peremptorily declining Mr. Horton's invitation to sit with him, he
took his station on the back seat, and from that vantage urged his
sisters to make haste.

"Come, 'Essie, us yeady."

Jessie ran in and got her hat, tossed her old coat over her shoulders
without stopping to put her arms in the sleeves, and, by aid of the
wheel, mounted to the seat beside Ralph. I, too, had put on my hat,
but waited to secure the windows, and then to get the door-key. Mr.
Horton, sitting silent on the front seat, observed my proceedings with
interest; "You're awful careful, ain't ye?" he said, at length, and,
in spite of his friendliness, it seemed to my sensitive fancy that
there was a sneer in his voice. However, that did not greatly trouble
me, for, from my slight speaking acquaintance with him before this, I
had come to believe that he never spoke without one, so I replied,
cheerfully:

"Yes; I guess I am careful enough."

I had locked the door, and was approaching the wagon when Mr. Horton
asked:

"Where's your dog--you've got one, ain't ye?"

"Guard? Yes, he's with Joe. Why?"

I stopped short as I suddenly realized what Joe's absence for the
night meant.

"Why, I can't go, Jessie; I shall have to milk both the cows
to-night!"

"Oh, that's true!" groaned Jessie. She started up.

"I'm sorry we have detained you at all, Mr. Horton, but Leslie can't
stay here alone all night, and the cows must be milked. Come, Ralph,
we must get out."

As Ralph slid obediently off his seat, Mr. Horton laid a detaining
hand on his arm. Ralph wriggled himself loose, looking defiant.

"Wait!" Mr. Horton urged. "It's too bad for you to have to keep on
sufferin' all night, Miss Jessie, when you might be helped."

"Oh, I know it!" Jessie moaned, sinking back on the seat and covering
her face with her hands.

"I've never had the toothache myself, but I know it must be dreadful.
By the way, where are the cows?" Mr. Horton stood up and looked around
as if he might spy them in the tree-tops or anywhere. "I do'no--I
wisht' 'twas so I could spend the time--" he muttered reflectively.
Then, suddenly: "How long will it take ye to milk 'em? I might wait."

"Oh, no! No indeed! I couldn't think of asking you to do that on my
account!" I exclaimed, feeling very grateful, nevertheless, for the
interest he displayed. "The cows haven't come up yet; besides, it
would do no good to milk them now, at noon, for this evening," I
explained, although Mr. Horton, being a cattleman, should have known
that without my telling him.

"I've thought what I can do," I said, after a moment. "You and Ralph
go with Mr. Horton, Jessie, and after the chores are done this
evening I'll slip over to Crusoe to Mrs. Riley's." Mrs. Riley being
the kindly Irish-woman with whom old Joe usually boarded when working
in the mines.

"That's a good plan," Jessie said. "I couldn't bear to leave you here
alone all night."

Mr. Horton had seemed considerably nonplussed when he found that I was
not coming with him; he now brightened visibly, remarking: "Yes, you
can do that; lonesome work for a young gal stayin' alone all night; no
tellin' what might happen," and then, with that curious fatality that
so often induces people to say exactly the wrong thing for their
purpose, he added: "I should 'a' thought your nigger would 'a' left
the dog here to purtect you young women whilst he was gone. But
niggers is always thoughtless, and yourn is no exception."

Inwardly resenting both the tone and words, I instantly resolved, in a
spirit of loyalty to Joe, to remain where I was that night. Why should
I not, indeed? I had never spent a night alone in my life, but I would
let Mr. Horton know that I was not afraid to do it--I would let
him know afterward--just at present I nodded my head in apparent
acquiescence with his views, and bidding good-by to the trio, walked
away toward the corral, intent on beguiling them into the belief,
should they look back, that I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of
the cows in order that I might the sooner get away myself. In the
silence that followed upon the last faint rumble of their disappearing
wheels I thought of something else. Something that made my blood run
cold with a sickening apprehension of the calamity that had so nearly
befallen us. A moment more and, the numb fit of terror passed, I was
dancing down the corral path, saying jubilantly to myself: "Oh, ho,
Mr. Horton! But it isn't left alone! The homestead isn't left alone.
I'm here, I'm here!"

Jessie was half crazed with pain, no wonder that she had forgotten,
but why should it have escaped my mind, until almost too late, that,
under the homestead laws, the laws by which we hoped to obtain a title
to this beautiful valley ranch, the house must not be left untenanted
for a single night, until the deed to it was in the claimant's
possession. We had heard so much about the homestead laws from poor
father that we accounted ourselves quite able to comply with them
all--yet--how nearly we had come to leaving the house vacant that
night!

And it was Mr. Horton, of all others, who had urged us to do so, and
he understood the homestead laws; no one better.

The thought of our narrow escape was still with me when, towards
evening, I heard the tinkle of old Cleo's bell, coming musically down
the mountain side, and went out to the corral to let down the bars.
"After all," I thought, looking back at the house as I stood waiting
by the bars, "it might not have been a complete success for Mr. Horton
if he had got us all away from home for the night. The house and
furniture would be pretty good proof to the land agent of the honesty
of our intentions."




CHAPTER V

AN EXCITING EXPERIENCE


I had never been left entirely without human companionship before,
not even for a night, and I soon began to wonder at the amount of
loneliness that can be compressed into a few hours. Before the
afternoon was half spent I was mentally reviewing the history of
Robinson Crusoe, and was feeling an intense sympathy for that
resourceful castaway.

I lingered over my evening tasks, and, sooner than seemed possible,
dusk came and night was at hand, so at last I reluctantly closed and
made fast the kitchen door. Reluctantly, for to-night, this common and
necessary precaution seemed, somehow, to cut me adrift from all chance
of human aid, and by this time my mind was running on wild tales of
bandits, of lonely camps, and the far sweep of the cattle ranges
where, in darkened hollow or at the foot of shadowy buttes, great
gray wolves lay in wait for their midnight prey, indifferent as to
whether the prey consisted of cattle or cattleman.

Still, I am sure that I was not really cowardly; it was only the
unusual situation that set me thinking of these things. Father's light
rifle hung in its accustomed place over the kitchen fireplace, and, as
a last precaution, I took it down, and, after ascertaining that it was
properly loaded, put it near the head of the bed, within reach of my
hand. To be expert with firearms is almost a matter of course for
girls on Western ranches, and I was an unusually good marksman. As it
would, to my fancy, but intensify the emptiness and loneliness of the
house if I were to light a lamp, I decided to go straight to bed
without a light, and, if possible, forget my troubles in sleep. But I
had hardly reached this sensible conclusion when I became convinced
that I was thirsty. It is not in the least probable that I should have
even thought of needing a drink if it had not suddenly occurred to me
that there was no water in the house. I had used it all, and had
neglected to fill the pail again. There is no surer provocative of
thirst than the knowledge that there is no water to be had, and, as I
thought the matter over, my lips grew dry and my throat parched. It
was unendurable. In desperation I slipped on the shoes that I had just
taken off, and, taking the empty pail from the kitchen sink, unlocked
the door and made a hurried trip to the spring, a few rods west of the
house.

Returning with a brimming pailful, and disdaining to acknowledge, even
to myself, that my knees were shaking, I set the pail on a chair by
the bed-room window. I was determined to have water close at hand, in
case my thirst became torturing during the night. The cat was mewing
plaintively on the kitchen doorstep. I re-opened the door and let her
in, then re-locked the door and, disrobing, crept quickly into bed.
Curled down snugly under the blankets I was almost dozing when a
sudden recollection caused me to laugh softly to myself, there in the
darkness. In spite of my terrible thirst I had entirely forgotten to
take a drink after the water was at hand. "I'll get up after a while
if I find that I can't get along without it," I told myself, sleepily,
and with the sense of amusement still upon me, I was far away into
dreamland.

I suppose that very few people have escaped the unpleasant, breathless
sensation of awakening suddenly and completely under the spell of some
unknown challenge, a warning of some impending danger passed by the
alert mind to the slumbering senses of the body. I had slept far into
the night when I awoke, seemingly without cause, to find myself
sitting upright in bed, listening intently. For a moment I heard
nothing but the soft padded foot-fall of the cat as, stealing from her
place on the foot of the bed, she moved restlessly about the room. "It
must have been her springing off the bed that awoke me," I thought,
nestling back into the pillows again. I closed my eyes, but opened
them quickly as a soft rustling outside of, and almost directly
underneath the bed-room window, came to my ears.

The window-shade was pulled down, but it was hung several inches below
the top of the window, which had been left open for ventilation.
Through this uncurtained space the moonlight streamed into the room;
by its light I saw the cat retreating into a corner farthest from the
window, her tail swelled out like that of a fox, her hair bristling,
and her yellow eyes glaring vindictively. She disliked strangers, and
commonly resented their presence in just this manner. I wondered, as
my eyes followed the cat's movements with growing apprehension, if
she would act this way because of the vicinity of any large prowling
animal. I was sure now, as I crouched tremblingly under the blankets,
that the increasing noise that I heard was not made by any harmless
midnight prowler. If it had been, the cat, being a great hunter, would
have shown an eager desire to get outside the window, instead of away
from it. Accustomed to the knowledge that there were wild animals in
plenty up on the mountain slopes and in the encircling forests above
us, and having abundant reason to know that they often made stealthy
visits to the valley settlements at night, I soon reasoned myself into
quietude. Whatever the beast might be, I was in no personal danger;
the cows were safe in the high-walled corral, and the poultry-house
securely locked. Reassured, as I recalled these facts, I did not get
up to make any investigation as to the cause of the noise. "If it's a
bear, it isn't mine," I told myself, drowsily; "as Joe says, 'I ain'
los' no bear 'roun' yer.'"

I was half asleep again when a curious sensation, as of a bright light
playing over my closed eyelids caused me to open them suddenly. Then I
bounded out of bed, uttering a scream that might, I should think, have
been heard a mile. A broad sheet of yellow flame was streaming up
beside the house and over the uncurtained window space. Obeying an
impulse as irresponsible as the one that had caused that useless
scream, I seized the loaded rifle at my bedside, and sent a bullet
whistling and crashing through the window panes. The impression that
some prowling wild animal was about was probably still strong upon me,
and, in any case, the shot was not without effect. My shriek and the
report of the rifle rang out almost at the same instant. Following
them came a cry, a smothered oath, and the sound of running footsteps.
Throwing down the yet smoking gun, I ran to the window, tore down the
obstructing shade with one sweep of my impatient hand, and leaned
forward, scanning the hillside. The flames reached toward me greedily
through the opening that my bullet had made, but, although their hot
breath half blinded me, I saw a man running swiftly for the shelter of
the hillside pines. I glanced toward the rifle--I was a good shot,
then. "Thou shalt not kill," I said aloud, but it had occurred to me
also, that the gun was not loaded. An instant more and I was throwing
water on the fire from the pailful beside the window ledge. After all,
as I soon found, the bullet had done more apparent harm than the fire,
for the heap of inflammable rubbish underneath the window was quickly
drenched and the fire extinguished. To make all doubly secure,
however, I reloaded the gun and with that faithful friend in hand
brought water and poured over the rubbish until it ceased even to
smoke. The heap was composed of pine needles, pine cones, and resinous
pitch pine, and once fairly started would have set the house on fire,
past all saving, in a very short time. When the blackened pile was so
thoroughly drenched that I could poke around in the ashes with my bare
hands I gave up pouring water on it, went back into the house, locked
the door, tacked a heavy blanket up over the dismantled window, and,
shivering with cold and excitement, again crept into bed. As I lay
with my finger on the trigger of the rifle, with its muzzle trained on
the window, I was surer of nothing than that there was no more sleep
for me that night. But, soothed by the sensation of returning warmth,
and by the feeling of security that the touch of the rifle gave, I
closed my eyes--not to sleep, but the better to think. Sleep! I could
not sleep. Nevertheless--

The sunlight was pouring into the adjoining room when I again opened
my eyes. Night with its terrors was a thing of the past. I heard the
imprisoned cows lowing for their milk-maid and realized with a pang of
self-reproach that I had slept later than I ought. Sitting up in bed
I looked around, blinking sleepily. The light from the window was
effectually excluded by the thick blanket, and my slumber had been
so peaceful that I had scarcely stirred; my relaxed hand had merely
dropped away from the trigger of the rifle lying beside me. The cat
was in her old place at my feet, and I smiled to see her trying to
thrust an inquisitive paw into the muzzle of the gun. Finding the hole
too small for that purpose she wriggled around lazily until she had
brought an eye to bear on the cavity that she seemed to suspect might
contain a mouse. When I had dressed and gone outside I was filled with
wonder at the narrowness of the escape that the house had had. There
had been no rain for weeks; scarcely a drop, indeed, since the
dreadful accident that had left us fatherless--and everything was as
dry as tinder. Once started, a fire would have devastated the whole
valley. In the retrospect the danger that we had escaped seemed even
more terrifying than in the hurry and excitement of the fire itself.
And--how came that heap of combustible stuff under the window? Who was
that man whom I had seen running up the hillside as if pursued by the
furies?

The morning's chores done, I procured broom and rake and set about
clearing away the unsightly heap from under the window. I was
raking industriously, when my eye was suddenly attracted by a small
glittering object near the outer edge of the pile. Stooping, I picked
it up. It lay in the hollow of my hand, and I stood looking at it for
a long, long time. "All things come to him who waits." The origin of
the fire was no longer a mystery, but there were other things. We had
suffered nearly five years of petty, relentless persecution, and had
never, never by any chance, been able to produce any direct evidence
against our enemy. The wind sweeping through the pine boughs on the
hillside above had, to my fancy, the sound that a great fire makes; a
great fire that, rioting unchecked, leaves suffering and death in its
wake. "Much harm would have been done to others besides us if I had
not been here to put the fire out," I thought, gravely regarding the
thing in my hand. "Much harm; and the law punishes any one convicted
of setting a fire, here in the mountains in a dry time, very
severely." Then I went into the house to put the glittering trifle
safely out of sight.




CHAPTER VI

A VISIT FROM MRS. HORTON


I had not looked for Jessie and Ralph to return before night, but the
article that I had found was scarcely hidden when, chancing to glance
down the road, I saw Mr. Horton's team, with the light wagon attached,
trotting briskly toward the house.

Only Jessie, Ralph, and Mrs. Horton were in the wagon, and it startled
me at first to observe that Ralph was driving. My astonishment changed
to amusement as they drew nearer, and I saw that Mrs. Horton's capable
hands held a firm grip of the lines, just far enough behind Ralph's
not to deprive him of the glory of the idea that he was doing all the
driving.

"'Oo! 'oo, dere!" he called imperiously, bringing the horses--with
Mrs. Horton's help--to a standstill before the gate. Jessie sprang
out and turned to lift the little driver to the ground, while we
all began talking at once. But our mutual torrent of questions was
abruptly checked by the contumacious conduct of that same small
driver, who deeply resented Jessie's invitation to him to come off his
perch. "Me is doin' tek care of 'e 'orses," he declared, scowling
defiance at his sister. "Mis 'Orton, 'oo dit out if 'oo p'ease!"

No better description of Mrs. Horton could be given than to say that
she was all that her husband was not--the dearest soul. She laughed as
she surveyed the conceited little fellow and then said seriously: "How
in the world am I to get out if you don't get out first and help me
down?"

Ralph was unprepared for this emergency, but the objection appeared to
him reasonable; he slid slowly off the seat--he was so short that it
seemed a long time before his tiny toes touched the bottom of the
wagon-box--and began climbing laboriously down, over the wheel. When
he had at length reached the ground Mrs. Horton stood up and with the
reins held securely in one hand she gained the hub of the near wheel.
From that vantage she reached down to meet Ralph's upstretched mite of
a hand, and so was gallantly assisted to alight.

To my delight Mrs. Horton announced that she had come to spend the day
with us. She led the team to the barn and we proceeded to unharness
them without assistance from their late driver, who had already
forgotten his intention and his dignity in a romp with his friend and
playmate, the cat.

"I suppose your tooth stopped aching and you decided not to have it
out," I said to Jessie, as we were helping Mrs. Horton.

"No," Mrs. Horton explained, cheerfully; "by the best of luck, Dr.
Green chanced to be passing our house last night, soon after Jake
brought Jessie. We called him in, and as he had his forceps--toothers,
my little brother used to call them--with him, he had that aching
tooth out in no time."

"I'm afraid it hurt you dreadfully, didn't it, Jessie?" I inquired,
sympathetically.

"Not so much as I thought it would; not so much as the aching did,"
Jessie replied. "People are so cowardly about such things!" she added,
and the sly look that Mrs. Horton bestowed on Jessie's sister behind
her back, awoke a suspicion in my mind that, perhaps, Jessie herself
had betrayed some shrinking dread before the operation took place.

"How glad I am that you didn't have to go clear over to Antonito," I
said. "You wouldn't have been home for hours yet, and Mrs. Horton
wouldn't have been making us a visit."

"And Mrs. Horton would a good deal rather be making you a visit than
driving these horses to Antonito, I can tell you!" said that lady.
"They're quiet as lambs until it comes to cars and engines, and the
sight of them scares them both nigh to death, and the railway track
runs along right beside the highway for a mile before you get into
Antonito. I'd have been obliged to drive Jessie over, for the hired
man is gone, and Mr. Horton met with an accident to one of his hands
last night, and couldn't have driven."

"An accident! How did it happen?" I inquired, with feigned
carelessness.

"Why, I declare, I can hardly make out how it did happen!" exclaimed
Mr. Horton's wife, with a troubled look. "There, Jessie, that's hay
enough to last them a week, and I don't expect to stay that long. You
see," she went on, slipping the harness deftly off the nigh horse, and
tossing it down on the pile of hay, "nothing would do Jake last night
but he must go up to the north pasture to salt the cattle. I told him
there was no need--they were salted only last Sunday--but go he would,
and go he did. It got to be so late before he came back that I got
real uneasy about him. It's a good bit to the north pasture, but I
knew it ought not to keep him out so very late. Why, it was after
twelve o'clock when he came in at last, with his clothes torn, and his
hand done up in his handkerchief and just dripping with blood! Jessie
and Ralph had gone to bed, hours before, and I was thankful that she
wasn't up to see it, for it fairly scared me, and I'm not a mite
nervous, generally. I expect I was the more scared because of Jake's
way of taking it. He's as steady as iron, most times, but last night
he was all kind of trembly and excited. He tried to explain to
me how the accident took place, but I couldn't make out hardly
what he did mean. It appears, though, that he was coming home
along the ravine--where it's always dark, no matter how bright the
moonlight--and he jabbed his hand, as he was walking fast, up against
a sharp jack oak stub--at least, he thought it must have been some
such thing--and he got an awful cut. You wouldn't believe, if you
didn't see it with your own eyes, that a stub of any kind could make
such a wound! There's a long, slanting cut clean through the palm of
his hand. I wanted him to let me look in it for splinters, but he's
real touchy about it; wouldn't even let me bathe it," she concluded
sadly.

Everybody liked Mrs. Horton, and a good many things that her husband
did would have been less easily condoned by their neighbors if she had
been as little of a favorite as he, and one of the things that people
liked best, while finding it most incomprehensible, was that she
believed in him and his good intentions most implicitly.

"I don't see how he could possibly have run against an oak stub in a
ravine," observed Jessie, musingly. "Oaks, and especially jack oaks,
grow only on the dry hillsides." Jessie is very observing when it
comes to a question of the flora of a country, and what she said was
true, as Mrs. Horton hastened to admit.

"I never thought of it before, but I believe that's so," she said. "It
might have been something else, but Jake himself said that there
wasn't any other kind of wood that he knew of, tough enough and hard
enough to make such a cut as that."

Having cared for the horses we three started for the house. "Did you
have a good bed at Mrs. Riley's?" Jessie now asked, bestowing direct
attention on me for the first time. We were just entering the house,
and before I could reply Jessie cried out in surprise at the
unfamiliar aspect of the bed-room, where the heavy quilt still
excluded the daylight from the window.

"Why, what is that for?" she asked, perceiving the cause of the
semi-darkness.

I had purposely refrained from telling my story until now. Now I told
it, to the consternation of my auditors. Jessie could scarcely credit
the evidence of her senses, and Mrs. Horton said feelingly:

"Thank God that you have a brave heart and good sense, Leslie! If you
hadn't thought of that clause in the homestead law in time, and had
gone away last night, I tell you this settlement would have been in
mourning this morning! Seems to me that I just couldn't bear for you
children to lose this place now--this place that your poor pa had set
his heart on! And to think that such an accident should take place so
near the time of your proving up makes it so much the worse, for, if
the house had gone, I don't believe you could have got your title. No,
not if you had taken down a dozen witnesses to testify to the burning.
The law is strict. I doubt if the agent would have the power to give
you a deed unless there was a house standing on the land at the moment
that the deed was issued, no matter if he wanted to ever so badly."

She was full of sympathy and kindness, poor soul, and, listening to
her exclamations and condolences, I was sorry for her. Jessie was
right: there were no jack oaks in the ravine down which Mr. Horton
must have passed on the way from the north pasture to his home.




CHAPTER VII

SURMISES


Mrs. Horton and Jessie walked around the house to the bed-room window,
and stood surveying the pile of rubbish beneath it, wondering greatly
why a fire should break out in that place.

"The only way I can account for it is that a spark from the chimney
must have fallen into this pile and set it afire," Mrs. Horton
observed, turning bits of the pile in question over with the toe of
her shoe. "I'm not blaming you, Leslie, but it is true that young
folks can't be too careful with fire. I wouldn't be a mite surprised
now, if you just filled the kitchen stove full of dry stuff and set it
off when you built a fire to get your supper."

"Leslie always does use lots of kindling," interposed Jessie, who was,
it must be admitted, more careful about small savings than I.

"You may depend on it, then, that that's just how it happened," Mrs.
Horton went on, while I remained silent. "You see, when you start a
fire like that, lots of live sparks are carried up the chimney, and
it's just a mercy that there are not more houses burned than there are
on account of it. I say it for your good, Leslie, when I say that I
hope this will be a lesson to you; you've had a narrow escape. My! but
it makes me shudder to think of it!"

As she stopped talking to shudder more effectively I ventured to make
an observation that, it was strange, had occurred to neither Jessie
nor herself:

"It took that spark--supposing the fire was started by a spark from
the chimney--a long time to fall, didn't it? It was after twelve when
the fire broke out, and I had supper at six, besides--" but there I
checked myself. The more I thought the matter over, the more desirable
it seemed that I should keep to myself the dreadful certainty that I
felt in regard to the origin of the fire. If people liked to believe
that it was caused by some negligence or carelessness of mine, it
would only complicate matters, beside robbing them of a comfortable
conviction, for me to tell that I had had no fire on the previous
evening. Yet such was the case. I had made my solitary meal of bread
and milk.

"What a girl you are, to be sure!" Mrs. Horton exclaimed, in genuine
admiration, as we turned back into the house. "Now, why couldn't
Jessie or I think of that! Twelve hours to fall! No, it would have
been six hours falling, wouldn't it? You said the fire broke out about
midnight. Well, you can think of more things and keep more quiet about
them than any ten men that ever I saw. When I think of anything I like
to tell of it, and I expect likely that's the reason that I never
think of real smart things; I don't hold on to them long enough; I
pick them before they're ripe."

Jessie went to the stove and lifted a lid to peep inquiringly into the
fire-box. "I'm not so sure that the fire wasn't started as Mrs. Horton
says," she declared. "This stove holds fire for a long time, you
know, Leslie. A gust of wind might have come up and made such a draft
that the embers started to burning again."

"If all the world were apple-pie, and all the sea were ink, and all
the trees were bread and cheese, what should we have to drink?" was my
not irrelevant thought. In strict accordance, however, with the
character for sagacity that Mrs. Horton had just given me, I said
nothing; but Mrs. Horton assented to the proposition with energy
enough for both. Ralph was giving unmistakable signs of sleepiness.
Mrs. Horton sat down and took him on her lap; the small head drooped
on her shoulder while she went on to the creaking accompaniment of the
old rocking chair. "I've just thought of another way in which that
fire might have been started"--she evidently had it upon her
conscience to furnish a satisfactory solution of the mystery--"I have
been noticing that you keep matches in that china saucer over the
mantel-piece, and it's right alongside the window-sill. Now, girls, I
don't want to seem to find fault with any of your arrangements; but I
do like an iron match safe, with a heavy lid, better myself; then
there's no danger of their getting out, and you can't be too careful
about such things. Suppose, now, that one of those mountain rats that
are always prying around, getting into every crack and crevice that
they can wedge themselves into--suppose one of them had come into the
house, and crept out again with a lot of matches--they'll eat
anything--and suppose that rat went through the rubbish pile and
rubbed against--"

But this line of reasoning proved too much for Jessie, who, with good
cause, prided herself upon her housekeeping.

"There isn't a hole big enough for a rat to crawl through in the
house!" she declared, with some warmth.

The rooms were all lathed and plastered. Mrs. Horton looked around.
"One might come in at a window," she suggested, with less confidence.

Knowing the truth, and having in my possession the means of proving
it, if need be, I took a somewhat wicked pleasure in this game of wild
conjecture. It was, at all events, a satisfaction to be able to veto
this last proposition.

"There were only two windows open, Mrs. Horton, and they were open
only a few inches at the top," I said.

"A rat might climb up the side of the window, and come in that way,"
was the reply to this. "But"--her face suddenly brightening as a new
solution of the mystery flashed upon her mind--"I don't think it was a
rat, after all, and I'll warrant I know now just how it happened. Last
night was Wednesday night, you know, and they always have those
dancing-parties out at Morley's tavern, beyond the Eastern Slope, of a
Wednesday night. Lots of those Crusoe miners go to them, and they all
smoke. Now what'll you chance that as one of them was coming
home--they have to go right past here--he didn't light a match for his
cigar, and when he was through with it, fling the match right down
against the house, or, maybe, he threw the stub of a cigar down?"

"It might be, I suppose," Jessie admitted, rather reluctantly. She was
evidently disposed to abide by her own theory of reviving embers and
falling sparks.

"Oh, I'm well-nigh sure, now that I think of it, that that was the way
it happened," Mrs. Horton insisted, pausing to brush Ralph's damp
curls back from his forehead. "You see, I wouldn't feel so positive
that it was done in just that way if it wasn't for an experience that
we had, here in the valley a long spell ago."

"You refer to the time when the great forest was burned?" Jessie
inquired rather absently. She had seated herself at the sewing machine
and was busily running up the seams of Ralph's new kilt.

"Yes; that's the time. It was before you came here. And the fire was
set in the way I spoke of. A couple of young men--they weren't much
more than boys--came up from town, and they were just at that age when
they thought it a smart thing to be able to smoke a cigar without
turning sick after it. They were staying at the hotel, and one day
they went with a party from there up to see the marble quarries.
There'd been an awful dry spell; it had lasted for weeks, and
everything was just as dry as touch-wood. There were notices posted
all along the roads and trails, forbidding folks building camp-fires,
or anything of that kind. The boys, after they had been to the
quarries, started home ahead of the others, and on foot. I don't
reckon that they'd got above a quarter of a mile from the quarries
when they pulled out some cigars and matches, intending, of course, to
have a smoke. Well, they had it, but it wasn't just the kind they'd
expected. First one, then the other, threw down their lighted matches,
after they'd got their cigars to going. The wind was blowing hard in
their faces and toward the quarry, as it happened, and the next thing
they knew they heard a great roaring, and as they said afterward, two
pillars of flame seemed to spring right out of the ground, one on
either side of the trail, and to reach so high that they almost
touched the tree-tops. In less time than I'm taking in telling of it
they had reached the tree-tops, and then the two little pillars of
fire became a great blazing ocean of fire up in mid-air. You know how
'tis with pine needles and cones; they make a blaze as if the end of
the world had come. No wonder the poor boys were scared! It was right
in the thickest part of the woods, and what with the fire roaring away
before the wind on either side of them, and the clouds of smoke and
sparks roaring away above the burning tree-tops, it must have been an
awful sight. They were in no particular danger themselves, because the
fire was going away from them, but as they stood there, blistering in
the heat, they thought of their parents--their parents, who were right
in the path of the flames, and in the way they acted up to that
thought, you may see the difference in folks. One of them--Dick Adams,
his name was--pulled his hat down over his eyes, shook out his
handkerchief and tied it over his mouth to save his lungs, and said
to the other, 'If anything happens to our folks we are the ones to
blame for it; come on and help;' and with that he gave a leap down the
trail as if he would overtake the fire itself. But the other boy, he
wasn't made of that kind of stuff. He just turned and ran the other
way, and folks did say that he never stopped running until he reached
town, twenty miles away. When poor Dick, blackened with grime and
smoke, with his hair singed and his burnt shoes dropping off his feet,
staggered into the open space about the quarry, there were the folks,
and even the horses, all safe. They hadn't started when they saw the
fire coming, and so, knowing that they were safe where they were, they
stayed. The fire swept past them on either side, and all they had to
do was to wait till the trail got cool enough to travel over. There
was no great damage done after all, though a great many trees were
destroyed, but so were acres and acres of underbrush, and that was a
big help to stockmen. Dick was pretty well done up, but he didn't
care for any more cigars, and his father paid the fine that the
township's trustees assessed against him, cheerful on that account,
though he said he was sorry he couldn't save the timber. Now, Leslie,"
she concluded her story, abruptly, "if you'll just move those hats a
little I'll lay the baby on the bed."

After I had complied, and Ralph's head was on a pillow instead of her
arm, she came to Jessie's side and stood regarding her work
thoughtfully.

"You're real spry on the machine, aren't you?" she at length remarked,
admiringly. "Now me, I'm as slow!" She looked around the room and
continued, with seeming irrelevance: "I s'pose the furnishings must
have cost you a good deal?" Her tone was very gentle.

"Yes," Jessie returned, comprehending her meaning with the quick
intuition that grief gives. "Yes; they did."

"Well, he's at rest. You can visit his grave. They're worth all they
cost and more, but I was thinking now if you felt like taking in a
little sewing to help along until--"

"Why, I'd like to do it, dear Mrs. Horton!" Jessie interrupted,
looking up with sparkling eyes. "I've never thought of it before, but
if I could get it to do I would be so glad! Every little toward the
proving up is just so much gained."

"That is what I was thinking. I can let you have quite a little work
myself, and I know there are others who will be glad of a chance to
get sewing done. I declare, I'm glad I thought of it! It will be so
nice for you to do something to help out right here at home. And," she
went on, her kind eyes shining, "maybe you can learn to be a
dressmaker--"

"No, no!" interposed Jessie, who had her future comfortably mapped out
in her mind. "I mean to be a teacher."

"Do you? That's a good, respectable trade, too, and a teacher you
shall be if I can do anything to help you get a school."

Jessie smiled up at her gratefully. Mrs. Horton might not, perhaps,
have great influence in educational circles, but the highest authority
among them could not have had a kinder heart. But something that Mrs.
Horton had said set me thinking of quite another matter.

"If you were here so long ago," I observed, suspending my task of
shelling peas, and looking earnestly at our visitor, "why didn't Mr.
Horton take up some land? He could have taken anything, almost then,
and I--we--I have sometimes thought that he kind of wanted this
place," I concluded, weakly.

Mrs. Horton's gentle face flushed; she was really fond of her husband,
who, to be sure, was very careful not to let any knowledge of his
underhanded doings come to her ears.

"To tell the truth, Leslie," she said, "I've thought now and again
myself that Jake was looking after this place. It's a beautiful place;
there isn't another as pretty in the valley, but when we first came
here folks were not thinking of taking up land--no, indeed. Cattle
ranges were what they were after, and they couldn't abide the settler
that put up fences. No; Jake let his chance of taking the place slip,
and your father took it up; and that was right; he wasn't a cattleman,
and he needed the land to work. Don't you fret about Jake's wanting
it. He don't need it, for one thing, for we're real well to do, if I
do say it, and it would be a pretty unneighborly thing for him to
grudge the place to you now. You see, Jake's ways are different. He
makes folks think, often, I make no doubt, that he's set on getting
things when he isn't, really. I expect he'd feel quite hurt if you
were to lose this place."

"Unless he got it himself," was my silent amendment.

"We could buy the ranch where we are," Mrs. Horton went on, "and I
wish Jake was willing to do it; I'm like your father was; I want a
home of my own, but Jake says he doesn't like that place as well as he
does another that he has in mind."

"What place is that?" asked Jessie.

"I don't know, really, Jake's no hand to talk over business matters
with me; no hand at all, and so I don't worry him. I just let him take
his own gait." And a very bad gait it was, if she had but known it,
poor woman!

No more was said about the land, the remainder of the day passed
pleasantly, and it was nearly night-fall when Mrs. Horton again
climbed into the wagon-seat and headed the horses toward home.
Good-bys had been exchanged when, suddenly, she drew in the restless
horses to say: "You tell old Joe, when he comes back, how that fire
got started; tell him that he must be more careful, these dry times,
how he lets such a lot of dry stuff get lodged against the house."
And, with that admonition, she was gone.




CHAPTER VIII

"BEST LAID PLANS"


Joe came home the next day, and his indignation, when Jessie told him
of the fire, and of the manner--presumably--in which it originated,
was nearly as scorching as the fire itself. Nothing in the whole
affair seemed to rouse his wrath to such a pitch as did her recital of
the theories that she and Mrs. Horton had evolved to account for the
threatened disaster.

"W'at sort of fool talk dat?" he inquired, contemptuously, when Jessie
had concluded.

"Why, Joe, the fire must have started in some such way!" Jessie
insisted.

"Honey, yo's done got a forgibbin' sperrit; yo' not only forgibs yo'
inimy, like what de Bible say fur ter do, but yo' eben furgits dat yo'
has one!"

"Oh, Joe! Surely you cannot think that it was the work of an
incendiary?"

"Ob a 'cindery? No, hit ain' dat."

"What do you think, then, Joe?"

"W'at I t'ink? Some low-down sneak sot hit afire. Dat's w'at I t'ink.
An' I wouldn' hab ter hunt long afore I done laid my han's on him,
neider." Jessie looked so shocked, and so cast down, that, chancing to
catch the old man's eye, I shook my head at him warningly. Joe
understood. His beloved master Ralph's tactics had been those of
silence and Joe was willing to follow them to the end. But he muttered
scornfully: "'Cindery? Dat a likely idee; w'en I nebber lef' a heap o'
stuff like dat ag'in' nobody's house en all my life! Look like I'd go
fur ter doin' hit now, w'en dish yer house hole my own fambly!"

He seated himself in the corner with a bit of harness that he had
brought up to the house to mend, in his hand, but presently he began
searching anxiously for some mislaid tool.

"What have you lost, Joe?" I asked.

"W'y I ain' right shore as I done los' anyt'ing, chile, but de needle
an' t'read w'at I put in dis cheer, ag'in' I wanted 'em, 'pear to hab
crope away some'ers; likewise dat ar leetle case knife w'at I cuts
leather wiv'. Dey's gone, an' I doan see dat chile Ralph 'round'
nowhere's."

Just at this point the door was pushed a little farther open and a
cheerful voice proclaimed: "Here me is, Doe!"

The voice was followed by its owner, little Ralph, but such a curious
spectacle the boy presented that the occupants of the room stared at
him a moment in amazed silence. Jessie was the first to recover her
power of speech and remonstrance:

"Ralph! Oh, what have you been doing, you naughty, naughty boy!"

It was evident that the little trespasser had not realized that his
recent occupation had been in any way objectionable. His lips began to
quiver, but he stood his ground manfully.

"Me isn't a notty, notty b'y, Jeppie. Me is a yittle 'orse, an' 'ese
are 'e yittle 'orse's ley bells."

"Sleigh bells! Didn't you know any better than to pull up all of
Joe's cantaloupes and string them on to threads--how you could do it I
can't imagine--to hang around your shoulders?"

"Dey isn't 'antelopes, Jeppie; dey's ley bells."

"How did you do it? Oh, you naughty--"

"Me did it wiv Doe's little knife an' Doe's needle an' t'read; an' me
hurted me's han's, me did."

The recollection gave him the excuse that he was longing for. The
string to one of his odd sets of sleigh-bells broke as he started
across the room, with outstretched arms, for Joe, and he left a trail
of small, hard, green melons as he ran. "Doe!" he cried, as the old
man lifted him tenderly to his breast, "me hurted me han's!" The howl
of anguish with which he repeated the statement was partially
smothered by reason of the sufferer's face being buried in Joe's neck.
"Jeppie say me is notty, notty b'y!" he continued, sobbing.

"Miss Jessie," the old man said, with dignity, looking disapprovingly
at his young mistress over the boy's shaking shoulders, "yo' means
well, honey; I ain' a doubtin' ob dat, but yo' done got er heap ter
learn 'bout managin' chillen. Yo's done hurted pore little Ralph's
feelin's mighty bad!"

"His feelings ought to be hurt!" Jessie persisted, indignantly. "A boy
who is old enough to do such a piece of mischief as that is old enough
to know better. And, Joe, it isn't right for you to encourage him in
it."

"Honey, hit ain' likely, now, is hit, dat any one has dish yer pore
little feller's good more at heart dan I has, now is hit?"

"No, Joe, it isn't."

"Berry well, den; now yo' listen at me. Ef I had a t'ought ob hit w'en
I was a plantin' dem dere little yeller seeds I'd put out a patch on
purpose for dis chile ter 'a' had fur a marble quarry, or fur
sleigh-bells, or w'atebber he tuck a notion fur. But I didn't t'ink of
hit, an' de chile did. Dat's all!"

It was utterly useless to argue against such self-abnegation as this,
but Jessie could not forbear saying: "Think of the trouble you have
taken with that melon patch. You've scoured the whole valley, high
and low, for tin cans to cover the vines when a frost was threatened,
and you've spent days in hoeing and weeding them."

"And dere ain' a purtier patch ob melons, er a more promisin' one, in
de whole State, ef I does say hit!" Joe declared with pride.

"Don't be too sure of that, Joe. You haven't seen it since Ralph has
been over it."

Joe shifted the child's position, so that the tear-stained little
white face rested against his own, to which it formed a wonderful and
beautiful contrast. "W'at melons dese yer little han's been a-pullin'
up ain' no loss t' nobody," he said; "an' I wants de chile t' 'joy
hisself."

A subsequent examination of the melon patch established the truth of
Joe's words. At the moment, however, the idea that Ralph gathered was
that he had done a rather commendable thing than otherwise. "Shall me
pull up 'e rest of 'em?" he asked hopefully, snuggling closer to the
black face. Joe stole a sheepish look at Jessie, whose eyes were
dancing with amusement.

"Not jess yit, wouldn't go fur t' pull 'em, honey, chile. Wait twell
dey's growed 'bout as big as er coffee-cup, an' den jess bring yo'
little toofies tergedder on de inside o' one of 'em. Yo's et oranges,
an' yo's squalled hard w'en dey was gone, 'cause dere wan't no mo' of
'em. But yo' won't look at a orange when yo' kin git a cantaloupe."

"Den me lets 'em drow," Ralph declared magnanimously, and it is but
fair to the child to say that he kept his word.

"Come and gather up all your sleigh-bells, then, Ralph," Jessie
admonished him.

Climbing down from Joe's lap he set about the clearance, awkwardly
enough. The abbreviated skirt of his little dress was about half
filled--he had made a kind of bag of it by gathering the folds tightly
in one hand while he picked up melons with the other--when there came
a knock at the door. Dropping the spoil that he had already secured,
Ralph ran across the room to admit the caller, the melons rolling in
every direction. Joe glanced at them apprehensively, and then gave his
undivided attention to the harness mending.

The visitor who entered the room on Ralph's hospitable invitation was
our near neighbor, Caleb Wilson. Mr. Wilson glanced at the array of
hard little spheres on the floor and laughed.

"I'll bet a cent you've been up to mischief, youngster," he said,
nodding to me as I handed him a chair.

He looked smilingly at Ralph, who retreated to Joe's side, and made no
answer.

"Ralph, do you hear Mr. Wilson?" Jessie sternly inquired.

"'Ess; me hears him."

"Why don't you answer him, then?"

"'Tause he didn't ask me nuffin'."

Joe's sombre face lighted up; his white ivories gleamed out suddenly
like a flash of sunlight through a storm cloud. To Joe's mind few
people had a right to question the doings of a Gordon, of any age or
degree, and Mr. Wilson was not one of the favored few. Our genial
neighbor laughed.

"That's right, my little man; I didn't. I made a statement, and you
seem to be sharp enough already to see the difference."

He had been carrying a covered tin pail in his hand. He now set it on
the floor beside his chair, while Jessie, who had it much at heart
that her little brother must be properly trained, remarked:

"Ralph has been very naughty."

"He'll come out all right; don't you go to worrying about him, Miss
Jessie," Mr. Wilson admonished her, cheerfully. "He's nothing but a
baby, anyway," he continued, "but what even a baby can want of all
those little green knobs of cantaloupes is more'n I can tell, but
seeing 'em calls to my mind a fruit speculation of mine, last summer."

"I thought you were a cattleman?" I interrupted, involuntarily.

Mr. Wilson glanced down at the pail beside his chair. "Well, I am,
Leslie, but a cattleman doesn't have to be sensible all the time. I
had a kind of spell last summer when I wasn't sensible, and while it
was at its height I got hold of a pile of young tomato plants and set
'em out. You see, as everybody else, pretty nigh, is in the cattle
business, too, there ain't much fruit raised around here, and so I
'lowed I'd be able to dispose of my tomato crop to good advantage.
Along in August the crop was ready to market, and it was a hummer, no
mistake. The construction gang and the engineers were working on the
big storage reservoirs out beyond Turtle Shell Buttes then, just as
they are now. There's a lot of men employed there and I knew that
there was the place to go with my tomatoes."

"What, away out on the plains, beyond the valley? That must be twenty
miles away," Jessie remarked, as Mr. Wilson paused to chuckle over
some amusing reminiscence.

"It's all of that; maybe more. But you must remember that driving
over the plains is like driving over a level floor. Distance doesn't
count for much when the roads are always smooth and even. Well; one
afternoon Tom and I filled the bottom of the wagon-box with a soft bed
of fresh alfalfa hay and then we piled tomatoes in on top of it till
they came clean up to the edge of the top bed. Of course if the roads
had been rough it ain't likely that even a cattleman would 'a' thought
of taking such a load in that way; as it was, I reckon there wasn't a
tomato smashed in transit. I didn't get quite as early a start as I'd
'lowed to, so it was just noon when I reached the camp."

"I should have thought that you would lose the way," I said. My mind
had conjured up a vivid picture of the far stretches of unfenced
plains that lay between our mountain-walled valley and the great water
storage system where a single lake already sparkled like a white jewel
on the gray waste of plains. "There are wolves, too," I added,
suddenly.

"Yes; there are wolves, but they don't eat tomatoes. And, as for
losing the road, all that I had to do was to follow it; it stretches
out, plain as a white ribbon on a black dress. As I said, it was noon
when I reached camp. All hands had struck work and gone to dinner, so
I thought I'd wait till they got through before I sprung the subject
of tomatoes on them.

"There ain't a tree nor a shrub bigger than a soap weed within a mile
of the reservoirs, and as I didn't want to set and hold the horses all
the time, I unhitched 'em and tied 'em to the wagon-box; one on each
side. I knew that they wouldn't eat the tomatoes, and, as there was
plenty of horse feed in camp, I 'lowed to buy their dinner when I run
on to some one to buy it of. It turned out, though, that the horses
didn't understand about that; they had a scheme of their own, and they
worked it to good advantage.

"I strolled off, and pretty soon I got mighty interested in lookin' at
the works; it's a big enterprise, I tell you! I was gone from the
wagon a good deal longer than I'd laid out to be, and I don't know as
I'd 'a' woke up for an hour or two, but I heard a fellow laughin' over
that way and so I went over to see what was goin' on. Well, I found
out." Mr. Wilson paused impressively and glanced around at us. Joe was
listening with such absorbed attention that his work had slipped
unheeded from his hands and Ralph had again secured the harness needle
and was awkwardly re-stringing his imitation sleigh bells. "What was
it?" I asked.

"Why, you see, I'd plumb forgot about the alfalfa hay, but the horses
had remembered, and they nosed through the fruit until they come to
it, and they hadn't lost a minute's time, either. When the hay'd given
out in one place they'd worked through at another until they struck
bed rock again. The whole load was just a mass of tomato jam; the
juice was running out of the box in a stream, and the horses were red
with it from hoof to forelock. There wasn't a bushel of whole fruit
left. I jerked out the tailboard and dumped the mess on the ground,
while about forty men stood around just yellin' and hootin' with
delight. They got more pleasure out of it than they could possibly 'a'
got from eatin' the tomatoes. The cook came out of his little tent
alongside the big dining tent, to see what the racket was about, and
when he got his eyes on the fruit he was powerful mad. He said he'd
'a' given a dollar and a half a bushel for the load. He wanted me to
promise to come with another load the next day, but I'd had enough of
fruit raisin'--'specially when the horses did the heft of the
raisin'--I wouldn't 'a' faced that yellin' crowd again for a hundred
dollars. No, sir! I come right straight home, and I sent word 'round
among the neighbors to come and help themselves to all the tomatoes
they could lug home; what they didn't take the frost did, and that was
the end of my experiment in fruit raising."

"It was just too bad!" I exclaimed, feeling that I ought to say
something sympathetic.

"Oh, I don't know," returned our neighbor, in his comfortable way. "It
was all my fault. A man's got to keep his wits about him, no matter
what he undertakes to do, and I left mine at home that day. My wife'll
think I'm lost, wits and all, if I stay much longer, that's a fact."

He rose to his feet, and, after bidding us a cordial farewell, started
for the door. Then the pail on the floor caught his eye to remind him
that his intractable wits had again strayed. "Well, I declare for it!
I come nigh forgetting what I stopped for. Seems like a good way to
come for milk, doesn't it? We had company come unexpected, and nothing
would do Sarah but I must ride over here and ask you for some milk.
Condensed milk is good enough for us, but Sarah says it ain't good
enough for company."

Jessie had already taken the pail and started for the pantry; when she
re-appeared with it filled, she said, demurely:

"I thought that you said you were a cattleman, Mr. Wilson."

"Oh, bless you! Don't you know the old saying about a shoemaker's
wife? Lots of folks that can count their cattle by the thousand head
would be glad if they could be sure of as much nice milk and butter
as you girls get off your two cows, Miss Jessie. It's management, you
see."

"You mean want of management, don't you?" returned Jessie, smiling.

Mr. Wilson's jolly laugh floated back to us as he went down the walk
toward the horse that was waiting for him at the gate, and then I
roused myself to observe that Joe was again hunting for his tools. He
presently rescued them from Ralph's destructive little hands, and set
to work, only pausing the while to remark:

"I reckons dat ar watah sto'age camp gwine be a 'mighty good place fur
to sell we all's melon crap at."




CHAPTER IX

AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT


The Hortons' place was some five miles below ours, if one followed the
main road, but they were often passing the house on their way to and
from the little country store and post-office. So it was not
surprising that Mrs. Horton should reappear in a few days with a large
bundle of sewing of her own for Jessie to do, and the intelligence
that she had interviewed several of the neighbors, some of whom had
said that they would gladly employ Jessie.

"You are so good, Mrs. Horton," Jessie exclaimed gratefully. "It will
be a real help to us if we are able to earn a little in this way."

"Maybe you won't feel so anxious to do it when you see what I've
brought," the good woman said, as she proceeded to untie her bulky
bundle. "You see," she explained, "Jake nearly tore the coat from his
back when he went up to salt those cattle the other night. He seems,
from what I can make out, to have had a regular circus with himself,
and I'm so busy, what with the housework and being obliged to do all
the trading--for Jake never will go to the store if he can get out of
it--I've had no time to mend it. I put it right in here with the other
things, hoping that you or Leslie wouldn't mind mending it for me."

My very spine seemed to stiffen at the idea of mending the clothing
that had been torn while its wearer was making a futile attempt to
burn our house, but Jessie, knowing nothing of all this, and naturally
trustful, replied tranquilly:

"Certainly, we will, Mrs. Horton, if you think we can do it well
enough."

"Oh! anybody can do it well enough. If I had my way with it I'd put it
into the stove and have done with it," she announced frankly. "It's
seen its best days. But it appears to me that the longer Jake wears a
thing the better he likes it. What a figure he would have made in the
days of Methuselah, to be sure!"

She shook the coat out and laid it on the table. Jessie turned it
over, examining some gaping rents, evidently of recent make. Finally,

"Here's a button gone," she said. I felt my face grow white, while
Mrs. Horton explained placidly:

"Yes; and that's a pity, for the buttons are worth more than the coat.
They're quite curious, if you'll notice. I never saw any like them
before he got that coat. I think myself that that little brass leaf
stuck on to the front of them looks fussy on a man's coat buttons, but
Jake thinks they're so tasty. He was wonderfully put out when he found
that he'd lost one of them. The land sake, Leslie!" she broke off
suddenly as her glance fell on me. "Are you sick, child? Why, you are
as pale as a sheet! Isn't she, Jessie?"

Jessie, glancing up from the tattered coat, in alarm, confirmed this
statement, and they were both anxiously inquiring if I felt sick, and
how long since the attack came on, and if I hadn't better go right to
bed, when a diversion was created by the entrance of Joe. Joe had the
weekly county paper open in his hand; he could read a little in a
halting and uncertain fashion, but did not often trouble himself to do
it. "There must have been something of special interest to him in this
issue," I thought, and was not left long in doubt as to what it was.

"Heah we is!" he exclaimed, gleefully, extending the paper toward
Jessie; "heah's our third and las' notice ob provin' up!"

"Oh, is it there?" cried Jessie, seizing the paper, and running her
eye quickly over the item indicated by Joe's stubby black finger. Mrs.
Horton, brushing her husband's cherished coat from the chair where
Jessie had dropped it to the floor, seated herself, leaning forward in
anxious attention, and even Ralph, abandoning a furtive attempt to put
the cat in the water-pail, came and leaned against her knees, while
Jessie read aloud:

    "Before the United States Land Office at Fairplay, Chico
    County, on August 30th, 18--, will appear, viz.: Ralph C.
    Gordon, who enters Homestead claim, No. 4571, for the W. 1-2,
    W. 1-4, Section 34, and S. 1-2 Section 33, Township 22 S.,
    Range 68 W.

    "Ralph C. Gordon names the following witnesses to prove his
    continuous residence upon, and cultivation of said land,
    viz.:

    "W. H. Wright, S. H. Stearns, C. L. Wilson, all of Chico
    County.

                    "W. W. BAYARD, Register."

We all listened to the reading with breathless interest. When it was
concluded Mrs. Horton observed: "Wright, Stearns, and Wilson, they're
your witnesses, are they?"

"Yes; father selected them, you know," Jessie replied.

"They're good men, all of them, but, I declare, I wish that your pa
had thought to put Jake on, too! It would have given me a good excuse
to go down with you when the day comes. Not but what I mean to go
anyhow, for that matter. Well, now, your date is set. It wasn't set
before, was it?"

"No; the other notices read: 'On a day to be hereinafter named, etc.'"

"August 30th," Mrs. Horton repeated, musingly; "let's see, this is the
15th. You've got two weeks and a day yet to wait. It don't give a
great amount of time to get money in, but it's a relief to know when
it's coming off, isn't it?"

Joe had been sitting in his corner, saying nothing, but, just at this
point, I saw him roll his eyes scornfully at our neighbor, and
wondered if it could be that the old man was jealous of her openly
expressed interest in the little family to which he laid prior claim.
"Yes," Jessie said, replying to Mrs. Horton's question: "It is a great
relief, and, after all, we've done about all that we can to make ready
for it."

"I'm not doubting that, still, I wish, now that we've thought of it,
that you did have time to earn a little more by sewing. How much are
the witnesses' fees?"

"Six dollars each; it will take eighteen dollars for that alone,"
Jessie told her.

"Eighteen dollars! and I don't suppose you can have much more than
that on hand!" Mrs. Horton's face lengthened. "I wish I had it to lend
you," she remarked, at last. "You could pay me in sewing; but Jake--"

We had heard of Mr. Horton's views on the money question. He always
ran bills at the store because, he said, a woman couldn't be trusted
with ready cash. "Give a woman her head and she'll spend all a man has
on knick-knacks!" was an observation with which even his chance
acquaintances were unduly familiar. How often, then, must his poor
wife have heard it.

Pitying her halting effort to give a good excuse for not having the
sum needed--when they were so wealthy--and still loyally shield her
tyrant, I said: "I'm sure the witnesses will not be at all hard on us;
they will be willing to wait a little if necessary, don't you think
so, Jessie?"

But before Jessie could reply, Joe interposed: "Mr. Wilson, he done
say he goin' gib me a chance for to wuck for him w'en I wants to;
mebbe I goin' want ter wuck out dem witness fee; no tellin'."

This was ambiguous, but we well understood that the old man did not
like to talk of business matters before strangers--as he regarded
every one outside the immediate family.

"Your first notice came out along in the spring, didn't it?" Mrs.
Horton inquired.

"In April," Jessie replied, and was silent, a dreamy look in her eyes,
while I vividly recalled the stormy day when father came back from a
visit to the post-office with the paper containing the first notice in
his hand. I heard the April rain beating against the window panes
while father told us children--for Jessie and I were children then; it
was so long ago, measured by heart-beats, oh! so long ago--that our
notice was out and the witnesses named.

Joe broke a little silence by remarking: "Dere's ten acres ob as fine
w'eat as ebber growed out doahs, a waitin' to be cut an' threshed
atwixt dat day an' dis."

"Ten acres!" Mrs. Horton echoed. "What a help that'll be to you! I do
hope you'll get it taken care of all right."

"I'se goin' tek keer ob hit; yo' needn't fur to fret about dat. I'se
goin' at hit, hammer an' tongs, day arter to-morry mornin'."

"Why not to-morrow?" Jessie inquired eagerly; "Leslie and I can help
you."

"I reckons dere can't nobody help me much w'en I'se done got a broken
reaper to wuck with."

"Oh, that's too bad! How long will it take to get it fixed?" Jessie
asked.

"I'se done get hit fixed to-morry, sure, den--we see."

"Leslie and I will help you," Jessie repeated. "The wheat is worth
more than any sewing that we can do. If we can get it marketed it will
pay up all our bills, nearly, won't it, Joe?"

"I spec' maybe hit will, honey," Joe returned, grinning complacently.
"Doan you chillen fret about nothin'," he continued earnestly. "Dem
bills all goin' be paid up, clean to de handle."

I confess that I felt far less sanguine than he appeared to be on that
point.

"Isn't it a mercy that our corn and wheat have been let to grow in
peace this year?" I said, after Mrs. Horton had taken her leave. "It's
the first year since we have been here that such a thing has
happened."

"I hope it will be the last year that we will have to try raising a
crop without a fence," Jessie replied. For our fence building had
stopped abruptly with the digging of some post holes on that day in
April. Pumping the water out of the mine had been an expensive piece
of work, and all the valley people who had lost relatives in the
accident, many who had not, indeed, had come gallantly to the Gray
Eagle's aid when that task was undertaken. Because of the aid that we
had furnished, our fence was still unbuilt.




CHAPTER X

RALPH AND I GO BLACKBERRYING


"Chillen's, dere's lots ob blackberries on de hill above de w'eat
fiel'," Joe stopped to remark, as he was about starting for the
blacksmith shop with the reaper, the next morning.

"They'll have to stay there as far as I'm concerned," returned Jessie,
who was busily engaged in sewing up the gaping rents in Mr. Horton's
coat; "I haven't time to gather them."

"Me do det 'em!" exclaimed Ralph, starting up from the floor, where he
had been vainly trying to fasten some paper boots on Guard's paws.
Guard did not object, but, when a boot was, after much trouble,
partially secured, he took it in his mouth and calmly pulled it off.
"Me do dit 'ackburries yite now," reiterated Ralph.

"No," said Jessie, "Ralphie can't go."

Thus summarily enjoined, Ralph began to roar, as a matter of course.
Joe, who had already started to climb into the reaper seat, came back
and looked in at the door, the better to look reproachfully at us.

"I doan like dish yer sperrit ob money-gettin'," he declared,
frowning. "Denyin' a little chile all his innercent pleasures fo' de
sake ob scrapin' a few censes togedder!" he exclaimed severely.

Jessie laughed, with a suspicious little catch in her voice; it was
hard to be misunderstood, if only by blundering, faithful old Joe. "I
really must not spare time to go with him, Joe," she said in
self-defense, "but perhaps Leslie had better go. It will do you good,
dear," she added, mindful of my inexplicable paleness on the preceding
day.

"I don't need being done good to, Jessie, but evidently Ralph does, so
I'll take him out," I said, while old Joe nodded approvingly.

"Dat's right; dat's right, honey, chile," he declared, and again
betook himself to the waiting team and reaper. Freed from the danger
of being compelled to wear boots, Guard had gone outside and placed
himself by the doorstep, where he was, to all appearances, peacefully
dozing when Joe started. But, before the team had turned the shoulder
of the nearest hill, he arose, stretched himself lazily, and trotted
slowly down the road after them.

Soon after Joe's departure, Ralph and I, baskets in hand, started for
the blackberry patch. Ralph's basket was a little toy candy pail,
which he assured Jessie he should bring to her "filled way up on 'e
top wiv burries." The blackberry vines grew along the upper edge of
the wheat field. We stopped when fairly above the field to admire the
square of yellow grain spread out below us, the bended heads of wheat
nodding and swaying in the light breeze, and the tall stalks now and
then rippling in soft, undulating waves, as if a gentle wind had moved
over a sea of gold. Next to the wheat stood the corn in file after
file, the leaves rustling and the tasseled heads held bravely aloft.
Green uniformed soldiers of peace and plenty they seemed to me,
bidding defiance to want and famine. I might better say that I stopped
to admire the grain fields, for Ralph had no æsthetic enthusiasm. His
one desire was to reach the "'ackburry" patch and begin stuffing them
into that little red mouth of his.

"Tum on, 'Essie," he said, tugging at my hand impatiently as I
lingered. "Me's so hungry."

"Yes; it must be half an hour at least since you had breakfast," I
replied unfeelingly, but turning my back on the fields nevertheless
and hastening on.

There were, as Joe had said, lots of blackberries, as we found on
reaching the spot. I helped Ralph to fill his little bucket and he
trudged along at my side, eating steadfastly, but sometimes suspending
even that fascinating employment to cling to my skirts and shrink
closer to me as we came upon a particularly luxuriant cluster of
vines. They were so tall and arched so high above his sunny little
head, and the prickly vines extended away and away in vistas that
must have seemed so endless to his small stature that it was no wonder
if he felt somewhat overawed at times.

We were well up on the hillside, and the fields below us were hidden
from our view, when he suddenly announced that it was time to go home.

"Oh, no, Ralph," I said, "see, sister hasn't got her basket nearly
full yet. Here's some nice large berries; let me fill your bucket
again."

"No; 'eys sour. Me don't like 'ackburries any more!"

"I don't wonder!" I thought, recalling the number of times that I had
filled the small bucket, and he had emptied it, but I remained
discreetly silent. The little fellow had been humored so much since
father's death--and, perhaps, before--that the moment he was opposed
he cried, so now he began to whimper forlornly: "Me 'ants to do home,
'Essie!"

"What for, dear?"

"Me's s'eepy."

That appeared very probable, too, but I disliked to return with a
half-filled bucket when the berries were so abundant and fairly
begging to be picked. Looking around, inquiringly, I saw, under a
clump of bushes at some little distance, an inviting carpet of cool
green grass. Taking the child in my arms I carried him over and laid
him down on the grass, putting my apron under his head for a pillow.
"There, Ralph, isn't that nice? I'll stay right close by you and you
can sleep here in the bushes like the little birds."

Ralph smiled sleepily, nestling his head closer into the impromptu
pillow. "'Ess," he murmured drowsily, "'is nice; now me is a yittle
yay bird." He meant no reflection on himself in the comparison. His
acquaintance with jay birds was limited, but he recognized them when
he met them, and considered them very good fellows. The cool breeze
fanned him; the leaves rustled, their airy shadows playing over his
face, and Ralph was sound asleep almost as soon as his drowsy eyes
closed. I watched him for a moment and then hastened back to my
chosen corner of the blackberry patch and resumed picking.

Unconsciously, as I worked, I pressed in among the tall vines until at
length the recumbent little figure on the grass was quite hidden from
sight. That did not really matter, for I was easily within call. No
sound coming from that quarter I gradually became more and more
absorbed in my task. It would be very nice, I thought, to carry a
brimming bucket full of berries down to the house on my return. Once
or twice I suspended operations to stand still and listen under the
startled impression that I had heard some unusual noise. Convinced
each time that there was nothing; that I was mistaken, I continued
picking, but I remember that I did glance up once at the cloudless
sky, wondering, in an idle way, why I should have heard thunder.

The bucket was quite full and I was backing carefully out from a thick
cluster of canes, having a respectful regard for their sharp thorns,
when, suddenly, the air was rent with a wild shriek, coming from the
direction of the grassy plot where I had left Ralph. Shriek after
shriek followed. I had heard those high piercing notes too many times
to be left in an instant's doubt; the shrieks were his. Tearing my way
out of the bushes, regardless now of thorns and scratches, I bounded
into the open. The scene that presented itself, when I could get a
view of what was going on, almost took away my breath. The entire
hillside, and the fields below, were literally swarming with cattle.
Not the tame domestic herds of peaceful Eastern meadows, but the wild,
long-horned, compactly built, active, and peculiarly vicious beasts
known in Western parlance as "range stock."

Ralph had been awakened, none too soon, perhaps by the trampling of
hoofs, perhaps by the low bellowing that I had absently attributed to
unseen thunder clouds. However it was, he had started up, as he
afterward sobbingly expressed it, "To make 'e bad tows do away, so 'ey
not hurt 'Essie."

In pursuance of this design he had advanced toward the foremost of
them, shouting and waving his big straw hat in one hand, while
attempting to wave my apron in the other. The apron was long and he
was short, and the effort to wave it in self-defense resulted in his
becoming wound up in it, falling, and rolling bodily down the
hillside, in the face of some half dozen wild-eyed steers, who were
coming up it. It was then that he screamed, and I appeared on the
scene at the very instant that one of the steers, awakening from what
appeared to be a momentary trance of surprise, advanced toward the
screaming little bundle, bellowing and pawing the ground. The immense
black head, crowned with a pair of great horns, curving like a Turkish
scimiter, and with a point as keen, was lowered; the savage animal was
on the very verge of charging on the helpless child, when my screams
drew his attention toward me. He paused, lifted his head, stared at
me, and, retreating a step or two, began pawing the ground again, at
the same time sending forth a hoarse challenge which seemed to
proclaim his readiness to engage me and all my race in a hand to horn
conflict if need be. His bit of bovine bravado had given me time to
reach Ralph. I caught him up and thrust him behind me. Clutching my
skirt tightly, he brought his scared little face into view for an
instant to exhort me. "Don't 'e be 'fraid, Essie, me knock 'e pie out
o' 'at bad tow if her touches 'oo!" Then he shrank back, creeping
under the friendly shelter of the blackberry canes until he was, as I
afterward found, quite lost to view. It all took place so quickly that
I had scarcely time to realize the danger before I was called upon to
act. If I had turned to run, in the first instance, the great beast
would have been upon me, and, in less time than it takes to tell it, I
should have been ground and trampled out of human semblance. As I
stood my ground he hesitated, challenged again, and, as others of the
herd started toward him, charged.

In spite of the signal service that it rendered me, I cannot
conscientiously recommend a twelve-quart tin bucket, filled with
blackberries, as a reliable weapon of defense. There would be only
about one chance in a hundred, I should think, of its proving useful
in just the way that mine did. When the steer charged I was, in fact,
quite wild with terror; it was instinct alone that prompted me to
attempt a defensive use of any article in my hands, and if that
article had been a feather duster I should have made the same use of
it. The lowered head and sweeping horns were within six feet of me
when I threw blackberries, pail and all, full in the creature's face,
at the same time giving frantic voice to the wild, high-pitched,
long-drawn cry that the cow-boys use in rounding up their cattle. The
blackberries did not trouble him; what did trouble him was that, by
one chance in a hundred, the handle or bail of the bucket caught on
the tip of one horn, and, as feeling it and, perhaps, bewildered by
the rattle of tinware, the steer threw up his head, the bucket slid
down the horn, lodging against the skull, and wholly obscuring one
eye. Undaunted by this mishap the steer backed off, lifting his head
high, shaking it and bellowing; then suddenly he lowered it, grinding
head and horns into the ground, with the evident intention of
pulverizing the strange contrivance rattling about his forehead. The
attempt resulted in his getting his nose into the trap where only a
horn had been before. Maddened with fright he took to his heels,
careering down the hillside, and through the fields at top speed,
followed by all the herd.

I had retreated, of course, the instant that I had discharged the
bucket at my foe, and was cowering under the canes beside Ralph when
the finale came.




CHAPTER XI

THE CATTLE BRAND


We were saved, but my heart swelled with grief and anger, as, creeping
out from our shelter, I stood up and looked down on what had so lately
been a field of waving grain, ripe for the harvest.

Torn, trampled, beaten into the earth, scarcely a stalk was left
standing, and the corn field was in no better shape. Poor little
Ralph, with a dim, childish comprehension of the calamity that had
befallen us, was crying bitterly. Lifting him to my shoulder I started
toward the house, the desolated fields were out of sight behind us,
when Jessie came hurrying up the trail.

"What has happened?" she inquired anxiously. "I thought I heard Ralph
scream, and I am sure I heard you giving the round-up call; I thought
I heard cattle, too." She took Ralph, who was still crying, from my
shoulder and carried him in her arms. "Don't cry, precious," she said.
"Tell sister what has frightened you?"

"'Essie frowed all 'e 'ackburries at 'e bad tow, an' 'e bad tows
walked all over our pitty torn 'talks, so 'ey don't 'tan' up no more,"
he sobbed incoherently. Jessie looked at me with dilating eyes. We
were by this time entering the house, where I was not surprised to
find Mrs. Horton again awaiting us, for I had already observed the
Horton equipage in the front yard.

"Leslie!" Jessie was exclaiming, as we crossed the threshold. "Don't
tell me that the cattle have been in our fields; it isn't possible!"

"I guess it is," I said recklessly, unreasonably resenting our
neighbor's placid face. "If you find it hard to believe, just go and
look for yourself. There isn't a stalk of grain left standing," and I
proceeded to give the details of my late adventure and experience.

Jessie seemed like one dazed. She sank into a chair, holding Ralph,
who was willing, for once, to be held tightly in her arms, and spoke
never a word.

"What I want to know," cried Mrs. Horton, her face fiery with
indignation, "is, whose cattle were they? It's a low shameful, mean,
trick; I don't care who did it! Oh, to think of all you've had to
suffer, and of all that those fields of grain stood for to you, and
then to think--I don't feel as if I could hear it!" she broke off,
abruptly, her voice choking. I, avoiding her eyes, looked out of the
window through which I saw, indeed, only the trampled fields,
invisible to any but the mind's eye from that window.

"I hope you can collect damages," Mrs. Horton broke out again; "and I
guess you can if you can prove the ownership of the cattle. Did you
notice the brand?"

Feigning not to have heard the question, I still gazed silently out of
the window, but Mrs. Horton was not to be put off so easily; she
repeated the inquiry, her voice suddenly grown sharp with anxiety.
"Did you notice the brand, Leslie?"

"Yes."

"Well?"

She would not be put off, and, for a wicked moment, my heart was hot
against all that bore her husband's name.

"The brand was, 'R, half-circle, A,'" I said, and bolted out of the
house to hide myself and my boiling indignation in the hayloft, but,
as I went, I heard Mrs. Horton sobbing out an explanation to Jessie:

"Jake started out early this morning, long before sun-up, it was, to
drive the cattle from the upper range to the north pasture--he said. I
told him I was afraid that he couldn't handle such a big bunch
alone--there's nigh three thousand of them, if there's a dozen--but he
thought that he could, and they must have got away from him after
all!"

Jessie made no comment, but lying at full length in the seclusion of
the hayloft, I thought of the relative positions of the upper range,
where Mr. Horton's cattle usually grazed, and the north pasture, and
knew that, in order to reach our fields, the herd must have "strayed"
at least five miles out of their proper course.

I was still lying in the hayloft when, as my ears informed me, Mrs.
Horton came out, climbed soberly into her wagon, and drove away. With
my eyes shut I still seemed to see her drooping head and shamed face.
I had so far recovered my reason by this time that I could feel for
her; she believed in her husband. He would soon be able to convince
her that what had occurred was due to an unavoidable accident; the
cattle had broken away from their one herder, and she would expend her
indignation on the fact that he had attempted to drive them alone,
and--she would try to make him pay damages. She would fail. One did
not need an intimate acquaintance with her husband to know that.

The sound of approaching wheels aroused me from my unhappy
meditations. Joe was returning. I sprang up, slid down the ladder, and
went out into the yard to meet him. Mr. Wilson, the ranchman, who was
to be one of our witnesses, was with him. Joe had found him at the
blacksmith shop, and, as his homeward route led past our house, had
invited him to ride with him. The two were talking earnestly as the
horses stopped before the barn door. Mr. Wilson had been away from
home for some weeks, and we had been somewhat worried lest he should
not return in time for our proving up. Evidently Joe had just been
telling him this, for, as I came near them, he was saying in his
hearty way: "No, sir; your young ladies needn't 'a' been a mite
worried for fear of my not getting around in time. I was bound to come
when they wanted me, and wife's been keeping me posted about their
notice. I told her I'd leave whatever I had on hand and come in time,
whether or no." He was a large man. Joe had resigned the reaper seat
to him and had ridden home himself standing on one of the cross-bars.
He was slowly and cautiously backing down from the high seat as I
stopped beside the reaper. When his feet were fairly on the ground he
turned to greet me: "Why, what's been happening to you, little girl?
Joe, you didn't tell me that one of your young ladies was sick!"

Joe had begun unharnessing the team; he was tying up the lines, but
dropped them as Mr. Wilson spoke, and came around to my side; just
then, too, Jessie joined us; she stood with one hand on old Joe's
shoulder, while I again told of the incursion of cattle on our fields.
I think that she feared some terrible outburst of rage from the old
man who had toiled so faithfully in those fields, and had taken such
honest pride in the rich promise of an abundant harvest. If so, her
fears were groundless. Joe's sole remark, as he went on with the work
of caring for the horses, was:

"Mought jess as well a' spared de trouble ob gettin' de reaper fixed,
hit 'pears."

Instinctively, I felt that he was so sure, he understood so well by
whose agency the ruin had been wrought that he disdained to ask a
question. What had taken place was simply a thing to be borne, like
martyrdom.

But Mr. Wilson was not committed to a policy of silence; he had a
good deal to say, and what he said was directly to the point.

"Crops plumb ruined, you say, Miss Leslie?"

"Oh, yes; entirely; I think the whole herd must have been there; not
feeding quietly so much as tearing through--"

"You say the whole herd? Know of any herd, now, that you could spot?"

"It was Mr. Horton's herd; we all know his brand."

"R, half-circle, A; yes. Now, young folks,"--he paused to roll his
eyes impressively from one to the other of us--"I'll tell you what you
want to do about this affair. You want to keep still; to keep still!"

"And be ruined!" cried Jessie, her eyes flashing.

"And not be ruined! There's where the fun's going to come in, Miss
Jessie. S'pose you go to work now to try to prove malicious mischief
on the part of Horton in driving his cattle into your fields, for
that's what he's deliberately done, no doubt of that, why all he's got
to do is to take his stand on the law and say that you had no
business to sow grain on the range and expect cattle to keep out of
it; you've no title to this place, and your grain fields are not even
fenced. Horton's got the law on his side, you may be sure of that, but
he hasn't got the right, and some day he'll find it out; he'll find it
out to his cost, no matter what the law says, now you mark my words!"

"There hasn't been a year since we've been here that Mr. Horton's
cattle--always Mr. Horton's cattle--haven't destroyed our crops,"
Jessie said, her voice trembling.

"And it has always been an 'accident,'" I added, "but I did think that
maybe there would be no such accident this year; it couldn't have
occurred at a time when it would be more effective."

"No, you may count on that; that's just the reason why it hasn't taken
place before this. Now, the rest of us folks around here don't propose
to see you two girls and that purty little orphan boy drove off of
this place that you've tried so hard and so bravely to keep, but
we've all got to sing low until you get your title. Then, Mr. Man, let
that--well, I won't call names--just let Mr. Horton try his little
games and he'll find that there are laws that will fit his case. The
reasons that that man hasn't landed in the penitentiary before this
are, first, that the Lord was mighty lenient toward him when he went a
courtin' and induced that good woman to become his wife; second, he's
so sly. There's never been a time yet when a body could produce
direct, damaging evidence against him. It's all 'accident.'"

I thought of that small shining object that I had picked up in the
rubbish the morning after the fire was set under our window. It would
have been hard, indeed, to produce more damaging or convincing
evidence than that, but Mr. Wilson had just been enjoining a strict
silence in regard to Mr. Horton and his works upon us, so I kept the
thought to myself.

"Your father was a good man," Mr. Wilson continued. "He had one big
advantage over Horton from the start--he was able to hold both his
tongue and his temper even when Horton, by his acts, kept him so
short-handed that he was unable to build the fence that would have
saved his crops and so helped to defeat Horton. The fencing will cost
about three hundred dollars. When I sold off that big bunch of steers,
two years ago, I offered to lend him money to fence his claim, but, no
sir, he wouldn't touch a cent--seemed to have a kind of prejudice
agin' borrowing money, even of me. Another thing about Horton is,"
went on our friend, who seemed to have made an exhaustive study of his
subject, "that he must brag about what he's going to do before he does
it. That's how every one knows, in reason, that he is the one who has
made you all this trouble. He hasn't scrupled to say that he's bound
to have this place, by hook or by crook, whatever happens--and so he
looks out for it that things happen. But there is one thing that I
will say for him, and it's kind of curious, too--let him once be
fairly and squarely beaten, so that there's no way but for him to own
up to it, and you needn't ask for a better or more faithful friend
than he is; but he's like--" Mr. Wilson lifted his hat and scratched
his grizzled head, casting about for a simile; his eye fell on Guard.
"Why, he's like a bull-dog, you might say--he'll hang on until beaten,
and then he's yours to command ever after."

Jessie was greatly cast down; she looked at Guard and accepted the
simile mournfully.

"There's no hope of our ever being able to do anything that will make
him admit himself beaten," she said, "so, I suppose, we must resign
ourselves to enduring his enmity as best we can."

"I ain't calculating on his keeping up this racket after you get your
title," Mr. Wilson declared, hopefully; "he's dead set on getting this
land now. He's made his brags that he would have it, but when it's
once passed out of his reach, he'll kind of tame down, I'm thinking.
Now, about your fences," he continued, with a sudden, cheery change of
tone: "they're going up. Don't you worry about the loss of your crop,
but Joe, you just whirl in and go to plowing those fields again for
fall wheat; nothing better for raising money on than fall wheat; and
by the time it's sprouted, we'll have it fenced, snug and tight; we
will, if I have to mortgage my farm to do it! But I shan't have to do
that. I can raise the money for you somehow."

Jessie was sitting on the wagon-tongue. She looked gratefully up into
the ranchman's weather-beaten face.

"I think you're just awful good, Mr. Wilson, but--would it be right
for us to let you lend us the money when we know how opposed poor
father was to anything of that kind?"

This was a vital question. I leaned forward, awaiting the answer,
while Jessie listened with parted lips, as she might if our good
neighbor had been some ancient oracle, whose lightest word was law.
Mr. Wilson regarded us steadfastly for a moment, then scratched his
head again.

"Well," he said slowly, at last, "I s'pose, setting aside all
questions of circumstances, that when the Bible said: 'Honor thy
father and thy mother in the days of thy youth,' it meant to reach
clean down to the things that your parents wanted you to do--or not to
do--whether they was alive to see it done or not. I do s'pose that
that was what it means, and your father he was sure set against
borrowing."

Stooping, he picked up a straw, and began biting it meditatively,
while we two pondered his plain interpretation of a very plain text.
Suddenly he dropped the straw, and looked at us with a brightening
face:

"Why, say, you can give a mortgage on your own land, when you get your
title, and your father, nor the Bible, nor nobody else, would say
there was anything wrong in your neighbor's helping you out, if so be
that you couldn't lift the mortgage when the time come. Not that
there'll be any danger of that, with the price that wheat always
brings in this grazing country."

He went away shortly after, leaving us much comforted. Joe had housed
the un-needed reaper in the shed and was examining the plow before he
had been gone an hour. Some bolts needed tightening and Jessie offered
her services as assistant.

"We'll get ahead of Mr. Horton yet!" she exclaimed, hammering away at
the head of the bolt that she was manipulating, under Joe's direction,
as vigorously as though it might have been the head of the gentleman
in question.




CHAPTER XII

ON THE TRAIL OF A WILDCAT


Joe went at the plowing the next morning and kept at it with dogged
perseverance for several days. Jessie and I, busy with the sewing, at
first paid little attention to him, but after a few days the look of
settled exasperation on his sable countenance, as he returned to the
house at the close of his day's work, drew my attention.

"Joe," I said to him one morning, as he was about starting for the
field, "what is the matter? You look discouraged."

"I ain' discouraged, so my looks is deceivin', den; but I is kine o'
wore out in my patience."

"Why; what about?"

"Hit's dat 'ar Frank horse; nothin' gwine ter do him, but he mus' stop
in de furrer, ebbery few ya'ahds, an' tun aroun' in de ha'ness ter
look at me. 'Pears like he can' be satisfy dat I knows my own
business, but he's got to obersee hit. Hit done gets mighty worrisome
afore de day's out," he concluded with a heavy sigh.

"Why don't you whip him for it?" demanded Jessie indignantly.

"W'ip nuffin'! Hes a saddle hoss; he's nebber been call' on fer to do
such wuck afore, an' he doan know what hit means."

"I guess if he attended to his business he'd find out in time," Jessie
insisted. But Frank, whatever other faults he had, had none under the
saddle; he was, moreover, old Joe's especial pet. One of the work
horses had died during the preceding winter, which was the reason that
this one was called upon to perform labor that he evidently regarded
with distrust, if not active disapproval.

So now the old man replied to Jessie's observation with unusual
sharpness:

"De whole worl' is plum' full ob plow hosses, so fur's I kin see. Yo'
done meets 'em on de road, and in de chu'ch and de town meetin's, and
on de ranches; yes, sir; yo' kin fine a plow hoss twenty times a day
where yo' meets up wid a saddle hoss once in six mont's w'at is a
saddle hoss, and not a saw-hoss wif a bridle on. Ef somebody's got fer
to poun' dat Frank fer to make him drag a plow aroun', hit'll be
somebody odder dan me w'at does hit! I done cut dem wicked ole clumsy
blinders, w'at is a relict ob ba'barism, ef dere ebber was one, offen
his bridle, so's 't dem bright eyes ob his'n kin see w'ats goin' on
aroun' him, an' now I ain' gwine spile a good saddle hoss ter make a
poor plow hoss. Hit's too much like tryin' ter make a eagle inter a
tame ole goose," the old man concluded soberly.

"Well, then, I suppose we'll have to give up the fall plowing, just on
account of Frank's whims!" Jessie retorted, nettled.

"No," Joe returned patiently; "I'se done gwine ter keep at hit, we's
get hit done somehow; if not dis year, den de nex'. I 'clar fur hit,
sometimes I done been tempted fur t' hitch one ob de cow beasts up
along o' Bill an' tryin' de plowin' dat way."

"Isn't there some way of making Frank keep straight without whipping
him?" I asked, my sympathies being about equally divided between man
and horse.

"Oh, yes! I done thought a hun'nerd times dat ef dere was only some
small, active boy w'at would ride him whilst I--"

I sprang to my feet, tossing aside the pieces of gingham that were
destined to form a new shirt for Mr. Horton: "Here am I, Joe, take
me!"

"You!" Joe's mild eyes looked me over, and gleamed approvingly. "You
is little, you is active, an' yo' has de bravest heart, and de
unselfishest sperrit--" he said, half soliloquizing, until I
interposed, laughingly:

"Come, now! Stop calling me names and say that I'll do!"

"Dat yo' will, honey, chile, but I nebber thought ob askin' yo' to do
sech wuck as dat! Hit ain' fittin' nohow!"

"Fitting! Anything is fitting that is honest, and will help us out,
Joe. Still, I am rather glad that the fields are quite out of sight
from the road."

"Dat's w'at dey is. Come on, den. Frank gwine wuck like a hero, now,
'cause he done think hit's saddle wuck w'at he's a doin'."

"And I'll work all the harder at the sewing," Jessie said, smiling
approval of this novel arrangement, and hastily rescuing Mr. Horton's
unfinished shirt from Guard, who had been trying to utilize it for a
bed. "There, now, see that!" she added, looking at me reproachfully.
"How could you be so careless, Leslie? Guard has been lying on Mr.
Horton's new shirt!"

"It is new, and Mr. Horton has never worn it, so I don't think it will
contaminate Guard," I retorted, perversely, as I turned to follow Joe,
who had already started for the fields.

With me perched upon his back, the long, awkward, pulling lines
discarded, and his movements directed by a gentle touch of the bridle
reins against the side of his neck, Frank worked, as Joe had said he
would, like a hero. The other horse, being of a meek and quiet spirit,
had made no trouble from the outset; he was content to follow Frank's
lead, so we got on famously with the plowing from the day that I was
installed as postillion.

"I always supposed that plowing was such a monotonous kind of
business," I remarked to Joe one day, taking advantage of the
opportunity offered by his stopping the team to wipe away the
perspiration that was streaming down my face. For the day was very
warm, and we had been working steadily.

"If mon'tonus means hot, honey chile, I reckons yo's right," responded
Joe. "Yo's purty face is a sight to behole; red as a turkey cock's
comb, hit is, an' dat streaked wif dirt dat dey doan nuffin' show
natteral but yo' eyes."

"One good thing, Joe, I can't look any dirtier than I feel," I replied
wearily, and with a longing glance toward the river that rippled
silver-white and cool at the foot of the hill beneath us. Joe saw the
glance.

[Illustration: WE GOT ON FAMOUSLY WITH THE PLOWING (Page 150)]

"Hol' on, honey," he exclaimed, as I was about starting the team
again. "Dere's de lines looped up on the back band; I'll jess run
'em out an' finish up dish yer bit alone."

"Do you think you can?" I asked, wavering between a longing to rest
and my sense of duty.

"T'ink I kin? Dat's good, now! Yo' run along down to de ribber an' hab
a good paddle afore hit gits too late."

Accordingly I slid off of Frank's back while Joe, gathering in the
slack of the lines, clucked encouragingly to him to go on. Instead of
doing that the horse wheeled around in the furrow until he had brought
my retreating figure into view, then stopped and gazed inquiringly
after me.

"Joe," I called back, halting, "maybe I'd better not leave."

"Yo' jess run right erlong, Miss Leslie, honey; dis hoss gwine ter go
all right jess soon's he make up he mine whar yo' is gwine."

Glancing back again presently, I found that Joe was right. Frank was
working with promising sedateness.

It was deliciously cool down underneath the shadow of the cliff, on
the banks of the shallow, bright river. Guard had followed me from the
field; he, too, enjoyed the cool water and proceeded to make the most
of it. After I had bathed my hot face and hands I sat on the bank and
watched him as he splashed about, making sudden, futile darts at the
tiny fish that swarmed around him when he was quiet, and went
scurrying away like chaff before the wind, the instant that he moved.
I had just risen to my feet, intending to start to the house, when
Guard suddenly sprang out of the water with a growl. At the same
instant the direful squawking of a frightened chicken broke on my
ears. The squawking, close at hand at first, receded rapidly.
Evidently some animal had caught one of our flock of poultry and was
making off with its prize.

There was a wildness of rocks and gnarled cedar trees on the steep
mountain slope above us, just beyond the bend in the river, and toward
this wild quarter, judging by the outcries--fast lessening in the
distance--the animal, whatever it might be, was bearing its prey. I
was drenched with a shower of water drops as Guard shot past me,
taking the trail with an eager yelp, while I, no less eager, and with
as little reflection, ran after him. The dog had cleared the
underbrush on the river bank, as I rushed out, and was racing across
the little interval, or clear space between the river bank and the
first jumble of rocks where the abrupt rise of the mountain slope
began. Just in front of him, so close it seemed the next leap would
surely enable him to seize the creature, glided, rather than ran, so
swift and stealthy was the motion, some large animal, bearing a white
chicken in its mouth. A tiny trail of white feathers drifted backward
as the animal ran, while the helpless white wings beat the air
frantically on either side of the unyielding jaws.

The poor chick might be badly hurt, but it could still squawk and
struggle. Indignation gave me renewed strength. I ran forward,
shouting, "Sic him, Guard, sic him!" and the next instant my foot
caught under a projecting root and I fell headlong to the ground. It
really seemed for a blank space as if my fall must have jarred the
earth. There was a whirling dance of stars all about my head; the
ground rolled and heaved underneath me; sky, earth, and trees swam
together, joining that whirling dance of stars. It must have been a
full minute before I was able to sit up and weakly wonder what had
happened. It all came back to me as a cold, moist nose touched my hand
and a sympathetic whimper broke the silence. I turned on Guard
reproachfully.

"Why did you leave that thing to come back to me, sir? You could have
caught it if you had kept right on after it, and you might have known
I'd get along all right without your help. Now, do you go and find it,
sir!" and I pointed imperatively, if rather vaguely, towards the
jumble of rocks. The chicken's cries had ceased; there was now nothing
to guide the dog, even if he understood, which I, having great faith
in his intelligence, believed he did. He ran along the trail for a
few yards, stopped, gave a joyful bark, and came running back to me
with a stick in his mouth.

I had been trying to teach him to retrieve, and my order, "go find
it," suggested that pastime to him. When he laid the stick at my feet,
wagging his tail and looking up in hopeful anticipation of the praise
that he felt to be his due, I could not find it in my heart to
withhold it. Besides, the chicken thief was, no doubt, safe in his
lair at this time, so, abandoning the hopeless pursuit, we made our
way homeward.

When Joe came in, and I related our adventure to him, he said: "Yo'
may t'ank yo' sta'hs, Miss Leslie, dat yo' done got dat tumble w'en
yo' did! Dat feller wif de black coat, trimmed in yeller, was a
lynx--dat's his'n's dress ebbery time--an' I'd 'a' heap rudder meet up
wif a mountain lion, any day, dan one 'o' dem ar! Land, chile! Ef hit
had 'a' been me, down dar by de ribber, I'd 'a' helt Guard to keep him
still, an' I'd 'a' kep' out o' sight. Dat's w'at I'd 'a' done, honey."

"Do you recollect, Leslie," Jessie chimed in, "what Mrs. Loyd told us
about her encounter with a lynx, last year? She said that she was in
the house one day, when she heard a great outcry among her chickens,
right close at hand, in the yard. She ran to the door, and there was a
great lynx, chasing the chickens around. The minute the door was
opened, they ran toward it, and into the house. The lynx was right
behind them, but it stopped as the chickens crowded around her, and
she seized the broom and struck at it. Instead of running, it stood
its ground and showed its teeth, bristling up and growling. She
dropped the broom and sprang into the house, slamming the door shut
just as the lynx hurled itself against it. She said that she was
almost scared to death. She locked the door, and scrambled up into the
loft--she said that she was afraid the cat would take a notion to
break in at one of the windows--and the creature stayed outside and
killed chickens as long as he pleased, while she stayed up there,
trembling, until her husband came home. She said that the next time a
bob-cat wanted one of her chickens it could have it, for all of her."

"I would hate to have Guard get hurt," I said, looking affectionately
at our follower.




CHAPTER XIII

JOE DISAPPEARS


The plowing was done--had been done for some days, indeed--and the
time set for our offering final proof was close at hand. But Jessie
and I, going about our household tasks with sober faces, had hardly a
word to say to each other.

We had looked forward to this coming day with such eager expectation,
but now that it was so near, we shrank with dread from facing it. A
trouble so great as, under the circumstances, to deserve to be ranked
as a calamity, had befallen us. Joe was gone. He had left us without a
sign, at the time, of all others in our whole lives, when we most
needed him. On the evening of the day that the plowing was done he had
retired, as usual, to his little room off the kitchen, and when we
awoke in the morning he was gone. That was all. But it was enough. It
was a fact that seemed to darken our whole world. It was not alone
that we missed his help; we had believed in his fidelity as one
believes in the fidelity of a mother, and he had left us without a
word of explanation or regret.

The subject was so painful that, by tacit consent, we both avoided it.
It would have been better, I think, to have expressed our views
freely, for, as we could dwell on nothing else, we seldom spoke at
all, and that added to the gloom of the situation.

Joe had been gone several days, and we had been silently struggling in
the Slough of Despond, when I awoke one morning filled with a new and
ardent resolution, which I proceeded to carry into instant execution.

Jessie was always the first one up. I heard her moving about in the
kitchen, and, making a hasty toilet, joined her there. She was
grinding coffee in the mill that was fastened securely to the
door-jamb. It was, I believe, the noisiest mill in existence; its
resonant whi-r-rr was like that of some giant grist-mill. Jessie
suspended operations as I drew near to remark:

"You're up early, Leslie."

"Yes; I've thought of something, and--"

"It's the early thought that is caught, same's the early worm," my
sister remarked, unfeelingly. Then she added: "Excuse me a minute,
Leslie, I must get this coffee ground, and can't talk against the
mill."

When the coffee was in the pot on the stove, she turned to me again:

"Now what have you thought of that is so wonderful?"

"It isn't wonderful, Jessie. It's sensible."

"It amounts to the same thing."

"Not in this case. First, I think we ought to stop grieving over Joe's
desertion."

Jessie's bright face clouded instantly:

"It is cruel!" she protested.

"I don't feel as if we ought to say that, Jessie. Joe has been a good,
true, faithful friend to us, and he loved father; we, ourselves, loved
father no more than Joe did--"

"Why, Leslie!"

"It is true, Jessie. I feel it, someway, and I am not going to blame
Joe any more; not even in my own thoughts. It does no good, and it
makes us very unhappy. Let's try to be cheerful again, Jessie, and
make the best of it."

"We must make the best of it whether we are cheerful or not."

"Very well, then; one of the first things that we must do, if we are
to depend on our own efforts, is to market that cantaloupe crop."

"What, you and I, Leslie?" Jessie sat down with the bread knife in one
hand and a loaf of bread in the other, the better to consider this
proposition.

"Just you and I, Jessie. We cannot afford to hire an agent, supposing
that one was to be had for the hiring, which is by no means likely.
We've been eating the melons for days; they are just in their prime,
and I know that Joe counted on making quite a little sum on his
cantaloupe crop, but if we wait now, hoping for his return, the melons
will be ruined; they will be a total loss."

"You needn't offer any more arguments, Leslie. I'm glad you thought
of it; it's a pity that I never think of any such thing myself
until the procession has gone by. Now let me see, have I got your
morning thoughts in order? First, Charity. Toward Joe. Second,
Resignation--all capitals--Toward Joe. Third, Labor. For ourselves.
Is that right?"

"Yes; if you like to put it that way."

"You shall have it any way you please, Leslie dear, and I will help
you."

"After breakfast, then, we will harness up the team and drive the
wagon into the melon patch, then--we will fill it."

"Yes, and what then?"

It was like taking a plunge into cold water. I am sure that I was not
intended for a huckster, but I managed to respond with some show of
courage:

"Why, then I will drive over to the store and sell what I can, and
then I will go about among the neighbors with the rest."

"Will you?" Jessie breathed a sigh of relief. "That will be
enterprising, anyway. I should dreadfully hate to drive about peddling
melons myself, but there's such a difference in people about things of
that sort."

Jessie is so exasperatingly prosaic, at times, that she makes me feel
either like crying, or like shaking her. On this occasion I was
fortunately hindered from doing either by Ralph, who suddenly
appeared, demanding to be "dwessed." After breakfast we harnessed
the horses--we could either of us do that as well, and quicker than
Joe--then we drove into the enclosure where the olive-tinted little
spheres lay thick on the ground and proceeded to fill the wagon-box.
The patch was small, but the melons grew in great profusion, and it
did not take long. Within a couple of hours I was traveling along the
highway, perched upon the high spring seat of the wagon-box, with
Guard beside me. Guard was, according to my idea, very good company,
and it was, moreover, desirable that he should learn to ride in a
wagon and to conduct himself properly while doing so. It was a very
warm morning and as the sweet, cloying odor of my wagon load of
produce assailed my nostrils, I could not but think of the famous
couplet, "You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, but
the scent of the roses will hang round it still!" My route through
the settlement might be traced, I fancied, by the fragrance that
the melons exhaled.

My first stop was at the store where I disposed of a satisfactory
quantity of melons, but after leaving the store the business dragged
wearily, and I found myself obliged to take promises to pay in lieu of
money from the women of the household when the masculine head chanced
to be absent. They always explained, quite as a matter of course, that
"he" had left no money with them. It appeared to me, as I patiently
booked one promise after another, that "he" could not have kept
hired help very long if their wages consisted of nothing more
tangible--after the matter of food and lodging was eliminated--than
those that fell to the lot of "his" womenfolk. I had observed, with
some annoyance, when I first started out, that one of the wagon
wheels had a tendency to make plaintive little protests, as if it
objected to being put to any use. I could by no means fathom the
reason for it, but by mid-afternoon the protest had grown into a
piercing shriek. A shriek that even Guard shrank from with an
indignant growl.

Less than one-fourth of my load yet remained unsold. I was most
anxious to clear it all out, but that ear-piercing sound was becoming
maddening. "The wagon must be conjured," I thought, recalling some of
Joe's fancies. Coming to a place at last, where two roads met, I
halted the team and sat considering the question of a return home or a
trip to Crusoe, which place I had not yet visited, when the sight of a
horseman far down the left-hand road decided me to go in that
direction. The horseman was well mounted and going at a good pace. "I
don't care!" I told myself, recklessly, "I'm going to overtake him and
make him take some of these melons if I have to pay him for doing it."

But there was no occasion for my hurrying the horses. When the man on
ahead caught the sound of my rapidly-advancing shriek he promptly drew
up beside the roadway and awaited my approach, and then I saw that the
rider was Mr. Rutledge. He recognized me at the same moment and
exclaimed:

"Why, Miss Leslie, is that you?"

"Yes," I said, meekly, but I felt my face grow red, and was conscious,
in spite of my good resolutions, of a sudden resentment against Joe.
Why had he left me to do such work as this?

Mr. Rutledge, drawing close to the wagon, ran an inquiring eye over my
merchandise.

"Been buying melons?" he asked, adding: "I didn't know that there was
anything of the kind for sale in the valley."

The observation did not seem to require an answer, and I was silent
while he reached into the box and selected one of the smaller melons
and held it up laughingly, as if defying me to retake it.

"Findings is keepings!" he said, gayly.

[Illustration: HE DREW UP BESIDE THE ROADWAY (Page 166)]

"Also, pilferings," I returned, triumphantly. After all, I should not
be compelled either to urge a sale or to offer a bribe.

"Call it pilfering if you have the face to, but in return for this bit
of refreshment I am going to give you some advice."

"Well?"

"The next time that you take your colored attaché's place as teamster,
make sure that he has greased your wagon wheels. You may not have
observed it, but their protests against moving are simply diabolical."

"Oh, is that what causes that noise?" I asked, leaning down from the
seat the better to peer at the wheels in question.

"Certainly; Joe should not have allowed you to go out with them in
such shape."

The laughter had died out of my heart and my voice, but a stubborn,
foolish pride held my tongue. I could not tell the mining
superintendent, who would have been one of the best of customers,
that the melons were for sale, or that Joe had left us. "If I tell
him that Joe is gone," ran my foolish thought, "he will understand
that I am peddling melons." Gathering up the lines, I started the
horses quickly, lest he should ask where I got my load. Mr. Rutledge
drew his horse aside, waiting for me to pass.

"Be sure to tell Joe about the wheels, when you see him!" he called
after me, as the complaining shriek again rent the air.

"Yes," I returned, "I will;" and added to myself: "When I see him."

In my anxiety to escape questioning I had forgotten that a person who
is riding in a wagon whose wheels need oiling cannot shake off a
well-mounted horseman so easily. Underneath the weird outcry of the
wheels the steady pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat of the black horse's hoofs came
to my ears, and I glanced back to see Mr. Rutledge close to the hind
wheel. Unless he stopped entirely he must of necessity be close at
hand. The road that Mr. Rutledge must take in order to reach the
mining camp branched off from the one that we were following, at a
little distance, and I understood very well that, considering the
distance, he did not think it civil to gallop on ahead of me. But
suppose he should yet ask me where the melons came from--just suppose
it. Should I tell a lie, or should I tell him that I was not even
acting as teamster to oblige another? I took up the whip--then I
dropped it back into its socket. I had always known myself for, in my
quiet way, rather a proud girl, but--it--but--it was not this kind of
pride, and I had never before felt myself a coward. Because Mr.
Rutledge was a gentleman, was it any worse that he should know--

I drew in the reins sharply, and the team came to a standstill. The
sudden cessation of that fearful noise called to mind a line or two
that Jessie is fond of quoting: "And silence like a poultice comes, to
heal the blows of sound."

Mr. Rutledge again halted his horse, and turned on me an inquiring
look. My throat was dry and husky, and my voice sounded strange in my
own ears as I said, in answer to the look:

"I wanted to tell you, Mr. Rutledge, that we raised these melons
ourselves, and we are trying to sell them."

"Are you?"

His tone was very gentle. He regarded me and my dusty, wayworn outfit
silently for a space, then he said, this time with no laughter in his
voice:

"I take off my hat to you, Miss Leslie"--he suited the action to the
word--"and I thank you for teaching me anew the truth of the old
saying: 'True hearts are more than coronets, and simple worth than
Norman blood.'"

He replaced his hat with a sweeping bow, touched the black horse
lightly with a spurred heel, and was gone. The tears were in my eyes
as I watched the little swirl of dust raised by his horse's hoofs
settle back to place. I had not deserved praise, but it was something
to feel that others understood how hard and distasteful was this
bitter task, and I was glad to remember that he had not added to my
humiliation by offering to buy my melons. I meant to sell them all
before returning home now, and I did, but it was a long day's work,
and when I reached home I had only five dollars to show for it. "He"
had been chiefly absent from home, and I had booked many promises.

Jessie and Ralph met me at the gate as I drove up. Jessie was
interested and anxious.

"Why, you have sold all the melons!" Jessie exclaimed, glancing into
the wagon-box, and narrowly escaping being knocked over by Guard, as
he sprang down from the seat. "You have had good luck, Leslie."

"Good luck doesn't mean ready money in this case, Jessie, and that is
what we need. There's just about one more load of melons, and
to-morrow we'll take them out to the storage camp."

"That may be a good plan," Jessie admitted reflectively, "but it's a
long drive."

"Yes, we must get an early start, and we must not forget to oil the
wagon wheels," I said, but I did not mention my meeting with Mr.
Rutledge.




CHAPTER XIV

AT THE STORAGE RESERVOIR


By nine o'clock the next morning we were on our way to the
water-storage camp, twenty miles away across the plains.

The wagon-box was piled high with the last of our cantaloupe crop.
Jessie and I had risen at daylight to pull them. We had been careful
to leave a vacant space in the front of the wagon, and this, fitted up
with his favorite little chair and plenty of blankets, made a snug
harbor for Ralph. The little fellow was wild with excitement and
pleasure at the prospect before him. There was room, besides, in the
harbor for a well-filled lunch basket, a jug of water, and, if he
became tired of walking, for Guard. The dog trotted on beside the
wagon, alert and vigilant, until we were well outside of the valley,
when, intoxicated, perhaps, by the sight of such boundless miles over
which to chase them, he gave himself up to the pursuit of prairie
dogs. An entirely futile pursuit in all cases, but Guard seemed unable
to understand the hopelessness of it until some miles had been covered
and he was panting with fatigue. The wary little creatures always kept
within easy reach of their burrows, a fact which Guard did not
comprehend until he had scurried wildly through a half-dozen prairie
dog towns in succession. But when the conviction did force itself upon
him their most insistent and insolent barking was powerless to arrest
his further attention. He had learned his lesson.

I had put the rifle and a well-filled cartridge-belt into the wagon
thinking that I might get a shot at a jack-rabbit or cotton-tail, but
Guard's experience impressed me as likely to be mine also should I
attempt to kill such small game with a rifle, and I left the gun
untouched.

The plains were gray with dust and shimmering in the heat. Clouds of
the pungent alkali dust were stirred up by the horses' feet and by the
wagon wheels--we had oiled the wheels after an extravagant fashion,
I'm afraid, for I do not remember that Joe ever used up an entire jar
of lard, as we did, for that purpose--and our throats were parched,
our faces blistered, and our eyes smarting before half the distance to
the camp was passed over. The wind, what little there was of it,
seemed but to add waves of heat to the torturing waves of alkali dust.
Ralph, after whimpering a little with the general discomfort, curled
down in his nest and dropped off to sleep, but there was no such
refuge for Jessie and me.

"It's a dreadful thing to be poor!" Jessie exclaimed, at last. There
was a desolate intonation in her voice, and my own spirits drooped.
The horses dropped into a slow walk.

"We shall have one advantage over Mr. Wilson, whatever happens,"
Jessie presently continued.

"How is that?" I inquired. It did not look, at the moment, as if we
were ever destined to have the advantage of any one.

"We shall not find the men at dinner; they will have had their
dinners and gone to work again."

"We may find them at supper," I said, giving Frank an impatient slap
with the lines. The blow was a light one, but it took him by surprise,
and, as was his wont, he stopped and looked back inquiringly,
seemingly anxious to know what was meant by such a proceeding. Jessie
snatched up the whip, and I laughed as I invited Frank to go on.
"Don't strike him, please, Jessie! You don't understand Frank, and he
doesn't understand the meaning of a blow; he thinks, when he is doing
his work faithfully and gets struck, that it must have been an
accident, and he stops to investigate."

"Dear me! How much you know--or think you do--about horses," Jessie
returned wearily. "You're worse than old Joe." She dropped the whip
back into its socket with a petulant gesture. "I'm sorry we started,
Leslie. Here we've been on the road six or eight hours--"

"A little over three hours, Jessie."

"Well, we're not in sight of the promised land yet, and I'm nearly
roasted; I shall just melt if we keep on this way much longer."

"Me is melted; me is all water!" cried Ralph, waking up suddenly, and
immediately giving way to forlorn tears. The tears plowed tiny furrows
through the dust that clung to his moist cheeks, and had settled in
grayish circles underneath his eyes. Jessie looked down at the piteous
little figure and her own ill-temper vanished.

"Come up here and look round, you poor hot little mite!" she
exclaimed, extending one hand and a foot as a sort of impromptu
step-ladder. Ralph clambered up with some difficulty and looked around
as directed, but the prospect did not have an enlivening effect on
him.

"Where is we?" he demanded, turning his large, dust-encircled eyes on
each of us in turn.

"On the plains," I responded briefly. I was driving; the load was
heavy, and the horses, worn with fatigue and the heat, lagged more and
more; therefore my anxiety grew, and I had no time to waste on
trivialities.

"One need not ask why it never rains here, though," I suddenly
observed, "for behold! Jessie, there is the thing that makes rain
unnecessary."

A glimmer of white had been, for some minutes, slowly growing on the
horizon. I had thought at first, that it must be a mirage, but it kept
its place so steadily, without that swift, undulating, gliding motion
that these familiar plains spectacles always present that I presently
became convinced that the white glimmer was a lake, and so that we
were within a few miles of our objective point.

"Sure enough, that's the lake!" Jessie exclaimed, after a long look.
"Well, that's some comfort," was her conclusion. Ralph stood up on the
seat between us and looked, too:

"Me wants a dwink!" he cried, after making quite sure that the white
shimmer in the distance was that of water.

Jessie slid off the seat and got hold of the water-jug and tin-cup,
then she tried to fill the cup, but the result was disastrous.

"You'll have to stop the horses, Leslie, I shall spill every drop of
water at this rate."

As the wagon came to a standstill, and while Ralph was drinking, Guard
suddenly appeared from his place underneath the wagon--he had thus far
declined all invitations to ride--and putting his fore feet on the
front hub, looked up, whining beseechingly:

"Dard wants some water, too," Ralph said.

"He's got to have it, then," I declared, and climbed quickly out of
the wagon.

"I hope you don't intend to let him drink out of the cup!" Jessie
exclaimed.

"No; hand me the jug, and I'll pour the water into his mouth."

"Oh, he can't drink in that way!"

"Just hand me the jug and see." She complied, and Guard justified my
faith in his intelligence by gulping down the water that I poured into
his open mouth, very carefully, scarcely spilling a drop.

In the end we decided to get out and eat our lunch in the shade of
the wagon, especially as Ralph was plaintively declaring:

"Me so hundry!"

"We'll give the horses a chance to eat while we're selling the
melons," I remarked, as much for Frank's benefit as anything else, for
he had turned his head, and was watching us with reproachful interest,
as we sat at our meal. He must have thought us very selfish.

Lunch over, we climbed back into the wagon again, after re-packing the
basket. Guard also signified his willingness to ride, now, and we went
on, much refreshed by the brief stop and the needed lunch which had
hardly lost its consolatory effect when, between one and two o'clock,
we drew up before the door of the cook's tent, on the eastern bank of
the great water-storage reservoir. The cook was busy, but signified,
after a hasty inspection, that our load was all right.

"Better take it in," he added, nodding toward one of the three men who
were lounging about in the vicinity. I suppose that this friendly
young gentleman must have been the commissary clerk, or something of
that sort. He called a man to take care of our horses, and chatted
with us pleasantly, while another man unloaded the melons. He urged us
to come into the dining-tent and let the cook "knock us up a dinner,"
but this we declined on the plea that we had already dined, and were
extremely anxious to take the homeward road as soon as possible.

"It's so late, you see," Jessie observed, consulting father's big
silver watch, which she carried.

"We have already been here some time; how late is it, Jessie?" I
asked.

"Why, it's nearly four!" Jessie made the statement in a tone of
dismay, adding: "How late it will be before we get home!"

"I can drive home a great deal faster than we came," I said.

"How far have you got to go?" inquired the clerk, who had told us that
his name was Phillips.

"Twenty miles."

"That's a good bit; but it's a moonlight night."

"Dear me! We don't care if it is," Jessie returned, rather crossly;
"we want to get home."

"You'll get home all right," Mr. Phillips assured her, easily. "I'll
have Tom put your horses in at once and here's the money for your
load." He counted out a fascinating little roll of bills, adding, as
he tendered the amount to Jessie, who promptly pocketed it, "I hope
you'll excuse my saying that you appear to be a plucky pair of girls.
If you've anything more to market--" Jessie shook her head:

"There was a reason; we were obliged to sell the melons," she ended,
lamely. The horses, fed, watered, and evidently greatly refreshed,
were, by this time, on the wagon. Mr. Phillips helped us in, and,
while doing so, his glance fell on the rifle lying under the seat. He
took up the gun and ran his eye over it approvingly.

"Either of you shoot?" he inquired.

"My sister shoots pretty well," Jessie told him, adding: "We really
must be starting, and we are a thousand times obliged to you for your
kindness."

"And particularly for buying the melons," I could not forbear saying.

Mr. Phillips laughed: "The boys will say that it was you who conferred
the obligation, when it comes to sampling those melons," he said. I
had gathered up the lines when he added, suddenly: "Wait!" I waited,
while he stepped back into the tent. He re-appeared directly, carrying
a half dozen big mallards and a couple of jack-rabbits: "You'll let
me make you a present of these, won't you?" he asked, smiling,
persuasively, as he tossed them into the wagon-box. "I was out hunting
this morning, and I had good luck, as I always do." We thanked him
heartily for his gift and drove off feeling not only a good deal
richer, but much happier than when we had started out.




CHAPTER XV

CHASED BY WOLVES


The horses trotted along briskly for a few miles, but they were tired
from two days of hard work, and, in spite of their eagerness to reach
home, their pace slackened. I did not urge them. It would be, as Mr.
Phillips had said, a moonlight night; the rays of the rising moon were
already silvering the deepening dusk. Ralph was again asleep in his
snug harbor, with Guard lying quietly beside him.

"The cows will be waiting at the corral bars when we get home," Jessie
remarked once, "but it is going to be so light that we can do the
chores nearly as well at midnight as we could at mid-day, so there is
really no need of hurrying. We've had good luck to-day, haven't we,
Leslie?"

"Yes," I answered, "we have," but I spoke absently. I was listening to
again catch a sound that had just reached my ears; faint, far off,
but welcome; it was one that we seldom heard in that mountain-guarded
valley where our days were passed.

"Did you hear that, Jessie?"

"What?"

"The whistle of a locomotive engine; there it is again! How far off it
seems!"

"Sound travels a long way over these plains; there's nothing to
intercept it--but I didn't hear it."

"Listen. It will sound again, perhaps, when the train reaches another
crossing. It must be way down on the Huerfano. There, didn't you hear
that?"

"Yes; do keep still, Guard."

Guard, aroused from his nap, was sitting up and looking around with an
occasional low growl.

"Seems to me that they must have railway crossings pretty thick down
on the Huerfano," Jessie remarked, after a moment's silence. "That
makes three whistles--if they are whistles--that we've heard within
as many minutes."

"That's true, Jessie--I hadn't thought of that. It may not be an
engine. It sounds louder, instead of diminishing as it would if--keep
still, Guard! What in the world is the matter with you!"

For answer, Guard, with every hair on his back erect and standing up
like the quills of a porcupine, got up, and wriggled himself under
the seat on which we were sitting, making his way to the end of the
wagon-box, where he stood with legs braced to keep himself steady, his
chin resting on the edge of the tailboard, and his eyes fixed on the
darkening roadway over which we had just passed. Every now and then
he gave a low, sullen growl, and, even from where we sat, and in the
increasing gloom we could see that his white fangs were bared.

"How strangely Guard acts!" exclaimed Jessie, with a sudden catch in
her voice, and a dawning fear of--she knew not what--in her eyes.
At that instant the sound that I had taken for the far-off, dying
whistle of a locomotive, came again to my ears; nearer, more distinct,
in increasing volume--a weird, melancholy call--a pursuing cry. The
lines were in my hands, and at that instant the horses suddenly sprang
forward, faster, faster, until their pace became a tearing run, and
then some words of my own, spoken weeks before, flashed into my mind,
bringing with them a mental illumination.

"There are wolves!" I had said. I was conscious of an effort to steady
my voice, to keep it from shaking, as I thrust the lines into Jessie's
hands. "Try to keep the horses in the road, Jessie; do not check them.
I am going back there by Guard."

"What for?" Jessie's tones were sharp with apprehension, and again, as
if in explanation, came that pursuing chorus. I sprang over the back
of the seat, and knelt in the bottom of the wagon-box, securing the
rifle and cartridge-belt. Jessie, holding the lines firmly in either
hand, shifted her position to look down on me. Her face gleamed white
in the dusk as she breathed, rather than spoke: "Wolves, Leslie?"

"Yes." I had the gun now and staggered to my feet. "Watch the horses,
Jessie." Jessie nodded.

Ralph, roused by the rapid motion, had awakened. He struggled to a
sitting posture. "What for is us doin' so fas'?" he inquired, with
interest.

Jessie made no reply, but she put one foot on his short skirt, holding
him in place. Some intuition told him what was taking place, perhaps,
what might take place. Clasping both chubby hands around Jessie's foot
to steady himself, he sat in silence, making no complaint. The brave
spirit within his baby body had risen to meet the crisis as gallantly
as could that of any Gordon over whose head a score of years had
passed.

Reaching the end of the wagon, I crouched down beside Guard, with
rifle poised and finger on the trigger, waiting for the pursuing
outcry to resolve itself into tangible shape. I had not long to wait.
Dusky shadows came stealing out from either side of the roadway.
Shadows that, as I strained my eyes upon them, seemed to grow and
multiply, until, in less time than it takes to tell it, we were close
beset by a pack of wolves in full cry. The terrified horses were
bounding along and the wagon was bouncing after them, at a rate that
threatened momentarily to either shatter the wagon or set the horses
free from it, but Jessie still kept them in the road. A moment more
and the wolves were upon us, and had ceased howling; their quarry was
at hand. I could see their eyes flaming in the darkness, and with the
rifle muzzle directed toward a couple of those flaming points, I
fired. There was a terrific clamor again as the report of the gun died
away, and a score or more of our pursuers halted, sniffing at a fallen
comrade. But one gaunt long-limbed creature disdained to stop for such
a matter. He kept after the wagon. Guard was young and, moreover, this
was his first experience with wolves. He had stopped growling, but
his eyes seemed to dart fire, and as the wolf that had outstripped its
mates sprang up, with gnashing teeth, hurling himself at the tailboard
in a determined effort to spring into the wagon, Guard attempted to
spring out and grapple with him. I was leaning against the dog, ready
to meet the wolf's closer approach with a bullet, and, in consequence,
I felt the impetus of his leap before he could accomplish it. The gun
dropped from my hand with a crash as I threw both arms around Guard,
intent on holding him in the wagon. I was so far successful that his
leap was checked; he fell across the tailboard, his head and forelegs
outside. My grip about his body tightened as I felt him slipping. I
pulled back mightily, and had the satisfaction of tumbling backward
with him into the wagon-box, but not before he had briefly sampled the
wolf. The creature's savage head and cruel eyes appeared above the
tailboard, even as I dragged at Guard, who, not to be deterred by my
interference, made a vicious lunge at the enemy, and fell back with
me, his mouth and throat so full of wolf-hair and hide that he was
nearly strangled. But that particular wolf had drawn off. I regained
my feet and admonished Guard: "Stay there, sir! Stay right there!" I
gasped, and again secured the gun. The wolves, on each side of us now,
were running close to the front wheels and to the galloping horses,
and one was again trying to leap into the box from the rear. The rifle
spoke, and he fell motionless on the road, at the same instant I heard
Ralph saying, imperatively: "Do away! Do away I tells 'oo!" I looked
around. Ralph was on his knees--no one could have kept footing in that
wagon-box just then--a pair of wolves were leaping up wildly beside
the near wheel, making futile springs and snaps at him, and just
then he lifted something, some dark object from the bottom of the
wagon-box, and hurled it at them with all the power of his baby hands.
Whatever the object was, its effect on the wolves was instantaneous.
The pack had not stopped to look at the wolf brought down by my
second shot, but they all stopped, snarling and fighting over Ralph's
missile. A few took on after us, and then Ralph threw another; they
stopped again at that, and then I saw that the child was throwing out
the game that Phillips had given us. With another command to Guard to
remain where he was, I crept back to the pile of game yet remaining,
and tossed out what was left. Then I crept on to Jessie.

"Can you slow the horses down?" I shouted in her ear. "The wolves will
not follow us again; they have got what they were after."

The horses knew me, and by dint of much pulling and many soothing
words I had them partially quieted, but it took so long to gain even
that much control over them that the wolves were far out of sight and
sound behind us when I at length ventured to look back. The horses
were walking at last, but it was a walk so full of frightened starts
and nervous glances that it threatened at any moment to break into a
run. By the moonlight Jessie and I looked into each others' white
faces, and, with Ralph cuddled between us, clung together for a
breathless instant of thanksgiving. Then--"'Ose dogs was hundry,"
Ralph observed, philosophically, adding, as an afterthought: "Me
hundry, too; is we mos' 'ome, 'Essie?"

"We'll be there soon," I answered, tremulously. We saw or heard
nothing more of the wolves, which were of that cowardly species--a
compromise between the skulking coyote and the savage gray wolf, known
as "Loafers." A loafer very seldom attacks man, but he will, if
numerous enough, run down and destroy cattle--sometimes horses. In
this instance it was undoubtedly the scent of the game in the wagon
that attracted them. Once attracted and bent on capture, they are as
fiercely determined as their gray cousins, and but for the fortunate
accident of Ralph's using a duck for a projectile they would have kept
up the chase until the horses were exhausted, and they were able to
help themselves.

It was after nine when we reached home, and never had home seemed
a dearer or safer place. The chores all done, Ralph asleep in his
little crib, and Guard sleeping the sleep of the just on the kitchen
doorstep, Jessie and I sat down by the table to eat a belated supper,
and count our hard-won gains. The melon crop was all sold, and it had
netted us forty dollars.




CHAPTER XVI

A SLEEPLESS NIGHT


It was close upon the beginning of another day before Jessie and I got
to bed, but, late as it was, I could not sleep.

Our pressing financial problem was so constantly in my thoughts that
now, in my weariness, I found myself unable to dismiss it. We had
collected some money, but not enough--not enough! I turned and tossed
restlessly. Now that the time for proving up was so close at hand an
increasing terror of failure grew upon me. It did not seem to me that
I should be able to endure it if we were obliged to give up our home.
Forty dollars! In the stillness of the night that sum, as I reflected
upon it, dwindled into insignificance. I reviewed all of our monetary
transactions that I could think of, and, adding up the sum total, half
convinced myself that we must have made a mistake in the counting that
evening.

"I'm quite sure that there's more than forty dollars," I told myself,
turning over my hot pillow in search of a cooler side, and giving it a
vigorous shake. "I'm quite sure! There's the money for Mr. Horton's
mending, that was forty cents; and Miss Jones's wrapper was two
dollars; and that setting of eggs that I sold to Jennie Speers--I
don't remember whether they were two dollars or only fifty cents. Oh,
dear! And there was Cleo's calf; that was--I don't remember how much
it was!"

The longer I remembered and added up, and remembered and subtracted,
the less I really knew. By the time that my fifth reckoning had
reduced our hoard to twenty-seven dollars I would gladly have gotten
up and counted the money again, but Jessie had it in charge and I did
not know where she kept it. It was small consolation in the desperate
state of uncertainty into which I had worked myself to reflect that I
had only myself to blame for this. Being a somewhat imaginative young
person, I had reasoned that if burglars were to break into the house
and demand to know the whereabouts of our hidden wealth it might be
possible for Jessie, who knew, to escape, taking her knowledge
with her, while I, who did not know, might safely stand by that
declaration. It was rather a far-fetched theory, but Jessie had
willingly subscribed to it. If not actually apprehensive of robbery,
she was, perhaps, more inclined to trust to her own quiet temper,
in a case of emergency, than to my warmer one. At the same time she
understood very well that I had an unusual talent for silence. It was
this talent that induced me to stay my hand late that night just as I
was on the point of rousing Jessie and asking her where she had put
the money. She was sleeping soundly and she was very tired.

"I'll count it all over the first thing in the morning," I thought;
and with the resolution, dropped off to sleep.

It was very late when I awoke. Ralph was still sleeping, but Jessie
had risen, and was moving quietly about the house. Above the slight
noise that she made I heard distinctly the pu-r--rr of falling
water, and knew that it was raining heavily. With the knowledge, the
recollection that Joe had gone came back to me with an unusual sense
of aggravation. Joe had always done the milking, and it had not rained
since he left. Dressing noiselessly, in order not to disturb Ralph, I
went out into the kitchen. Jessie looked up as I entered. "I'll help
you milk this morning, Leslie," she said. "It's too bad for you to
have to putter around in the rain while I'm dry in the house."

"There's no use in our both getting wet," I returned, ungraciously.
"You'd much better finish getting breakfast and keep watch of Ralph.
If he were to waken and find us both gone he'd probably start out a
relief expedition of one in any direction that took his fancy. He'd be
glad of the chance to get out in the rain."

"Who would have thought of its raining so soon when we came home last
night. There wasn't a cloud in sight."

"There's none in sight now; we're inside of one so thick that we
can't see out. I dare say we'll encounter more than one rain-storm
'while the days are going by'; but it would be handy if Joe were here
this morning."

"Yes, indeed! I only hope Joe's conscience acquits him, wherever he
is."

"Oh, I am sure it does--if he has a conscience--for I suppose that's
what you would call his feeling obliged to worry about us," I said, in
quick defence of the absent friend whose actions I might secretly
question, but of whom I could not bear that another should speak
slightingly.

I put on my old felt hat and took up the milk-pail. Jessie was busy
over something that she was cooking in a skillet on the stove, but she
glanced up as I opened the door, and a dash of rain came swirling in.

"Why, Leslie Gordon! Are you going out in this storm dressed like
that? Here, put on my mackintosh."

I had forgotten all about wraps, but a shawl or cape would have been
better than the long mackintosh that Jessie insisted upon buttoning
me into. It was too long; the skirts nearly tripped me up as I started
to run down the path to the corral, and when I held it up it was
little protection.

The corral where the cows were usually penned over-night was behind
the barn. As I came in sight of it a feeling of almost despair swept
over me. The corral bars were down, and the cows were gone! I hung
the milk-pail bottom-side up on one of the bar posts. The raindrops
played a lively tattoo on its resounding sides, while I dropped the
mackintosh skirt, regardless of its trailing length, and stood still,
trying to recollect that I had put up the bars after we had finished
milking on the previous evening. Search my memory as I might,
however, I could not find that I had taken this simple but necessary
precaution, and, if I had forgotten it, it was useless to suppose that
Jessie had not.

"It's just my negligence!" I remarked, scornfully, to my drenched
surroundings; "just my negligence, and now I shall have to hunt for
those cows, and in this rain that shuts everything out it will be like
looking for a needle in a haymow."

I took down the pail, seeming to take down an entire chorus of singing
water witches with it, and retraced my steps to the house. Even this
simple act was performed with some difficulty, for again I stepped on
the mackintosh and nearly fell.

"You've been very quick with the milking, and breakfast's all ready,"
Jessie remarked, cheerfully, as I entered, and then, catching sight of
the empty pail, she exclaimed, "Why, what's the matter?"

When I told her, she said, reproachfully, "Leslie, of course I
supposed that you would put up the bars after we had finished milking
last night!"

I am afraid that I was cross as well as tired: "Why, 'of course,'
Jessie? Why is it, can you tell me, that there is always some one
member of a family who is supposed, quite as a matter of course, to
make good the short-comings and long-goings of all the others? To
straighten out the domestic tangles, to remember, always remember,
what the others forget; to be good-tempered when others are
ill-tempered; to--"

Jessie laid a brown little hand on my shoulder, checking the torrent
of my eloquence; she laid her cheek against my own for a passing
instant.

"That's all easily answered, Leslie dear. The some one that you
describe is the soul of a house. When a house has the misfortune not
to have such an one in it, it has no soul; the other members are
merely forms, moving forms, with impulses."

I knew that she meant to compliment me, but I would not appear to know
it.

"I suppose, then," I returned, with affected resentment, "that I am a
form with impulses. One of the impulses just now is to eat breakfast."

"Me hundry; me eat breakfuss, too," proclaimed a shrill, familiar
voice at my elbow. I had already taken my seat at the table.

"Eat your breakfast, Leslie," said Jessie; "I'll dress Ralph. After
breakfast, perhaps, I had better go with you after the cows?" She
spoke with some hesitation. As a matter of fact, she does not begin to
know the cattle trails as I know them.

"No," I said; "I'll go alone, Jessie; I can find them much quicker
than you could."

"They may not have gone far." Jessie advanced this proposition
hopefully.

"Far enough, I'll warrant. I believe there's nothing that a cow likes
so well as to chase around on a morning like this; especially if she
thinks some one is hunting for her."

"You can take one of the horses--" Jessie began, and, in the irritated
state of my mind, it was some satisfaction to be able to promptly veto
that proposition.

"Oh, no, indeed! I shall have to go on foot. It seems you turned them
out to pasture last night. I think you must have forgotten how hard it
is to catch either of the horses when they are both let out at once."

My sister had the grace to blush slightly, which consoled me a good
deal. I hoped that, either as a soul or a form with impulses, she
remembered that father or Joe had never made a practice of letting
both horses out at once. When one was in the barn, his mate in the
pasture could be easily caught. Otherwise, the catching was a work of
labor and of pain. Once, indeed, when both had been inadvertently
turned out together, father had been obliged to hire a cowboy to come
with his lariat and rope Jim, the principal offender. When Jim, with
the compelling noose about his neck, had been led ignominiously back
to the stable, father had told us never to let them out together
again, a warning that Jessie evidently recalled now for the first
time.

"Dear me, Leslie! I'm dreadfully sorry!" she exclaimed, lifting Ralph
into his high chair; "I just meant to save a little work, and I guess
I've brought on no end of it!"

"Perhaps not; we'll leave the barn door open. It's so cold that they
may go in of their own accord after a while." And that was what they
did do, along in the afternoon, when it was quite too late for them to
be of any service that day.

My hasty breakfast finished, I got up from the table. "I am going
right away, Jessie; it will never do to let the cows lie out all day."

"No," Jessie assented. She was waiting on Ralph. I had thrown the
mackintosh over a chair near the stove. I had had enough of that, but
I must wear something. Picking up the big felt hat, I went into the
next room and looked into a closet where a number of garments were
hanging. Back in the corner, partially hidden under some other
clothing, I caught a glimpse of a worn gray coat--the coat that father
had loaned Joe on that fatal morning months ago. The rain dashed
fiercely against the window panes as it had on that morning, too, and
the sad, dull day seemed to grow sadder and grayer. With a sudden,
homesick longing for father's love and sympathy, I took down the coat.
Tears sprang to my eyes at sight of the big, aggressive patch on the
left sleeve. Father had praised me for that bit of clumsy workmanship
at which Jessie had laughed. I resolved to wear the coat. "I shall
feel as if father were with me," I thought, as I slipped it on. Going
out at the front door I did not again encounter Jessie, but as I
passed the kitchen windows I saw her glance up and look at me with a
startled air.

It was still raining heavily and I started out on a fast walk.
Crossing the foot-bridge below the house I ascended the hill on the
other side. The cattle always crossed the river without the aid of the
foot-bridge, however, and took this route to the upper range, where
they were pretty sure to be now. I hoped that the pursuit would not
lead me far among the hills. While thus in the open the situation was
not unpleasant; I rather enjoyed the feeling of the rain drops in my
face. Just as I gained the crest of the hill beyond the river I heard
some one shouting, and, looking back, saw Jessie. She was out in the
yard in the rain calling and waving the apron that she had snatched
off for the purpose. With the noise of the rain and the rushing river
it was impossible to make out what she was saying. I was sure, though,
that she merely wished to remonstrate with me for not wearing the
mackintosh. I waved my hand to let her know that I saw her, and then
hurried on down the farther slope of the hill. I walked fast for a
long distance without coming upon any trace of the cattle, and then I
fell gradually into the slower pace that is meant for staying. As I
did so my thoughts again reverted to the money-counting problem that
had vexed me over night. In the re-assuring light of day it did not
seem so entirely probable that Jessie had been so mistaken in her
count, and it did not so much matter that I had forgotten after all to
ask her where the money was kept.




CHAPTER XVII

A QUEER BANK


In spite of obliterating rain, there were plenty of fresh cattle
tracks along and by the side of the trail. It did not necessarily
follow that any of the tracks were made by our cattle, still, they
might have been, and with this slight encouragement, I hurried along,
getting gradually higher, and deeper into the mountains. As I went I
reflected bitterly on the perversity of cow nature. A nature that
leads these gentle seeming creatures to endure hunger, thirst, and
weariness, to push for miles into a trackless wilderness, if by so
doing they can put their owners to trouble and expense. It was not
often that our cattle ranged so far away from home, and it was with a
little unconfessed feeling of dismay that, pausing to take stock of my
surroundings, I suddenly discovered that I was close upon the Hermit's
cave, and no signs of the strays yet. At the same time I made another
discovery as comforting as this was disquieting. Guard, whom I had
forgotten to invite to accompany me, was skulking along in the
underbrush beside the trail, uncertain whether to show himself or not.
When I spoke to him he bounded to my side. "Guard," I said, looking
down at him thoughtfully, "it's raining harder than ever, and the wind
is blowing; now that you are with me, I think we will just stop in the
cave until the storm abates a little." Guard's bushy tail was wet and
heavy with rain, but he wagged it approvingly, and toward the cave
we started. There was a green little valley over the ridge, and I
resolved when the storm slackened, to climb up and have a look into
it. If the cattle were not there I should be compelled to give over
the hunt for that day.

A sudden lull in the storm was followed by a blacker sweep of clouds
and a resounding peal of thunder, the prelude to a pitiless burst of
hail-stones. Pelted by the stinging missiles, and gasping for breath
as I struggled against the rising wind, I made for the cave with Guard
close at my heels, and dashed into the gloomy cavern without a thought
of anything but shelter.

The entrance to the cave was merely a large opening in a pile of
rocks close beside the cattle trail, and the cave itself was famous
throughout the valley solely because of its imagined history and its
actual equipment. Because of its nearness to the trail there was
little danger of its becoming a lair for wild beasts. People said that
the spot had been the dwelling place of a man, educated and wealthy,
who had chosen to live and die alone in the wilderness. How they came
to know this was never quite clear, for the furnishing of the cave was
there, offering its mute history to the first venturesome hunter who
had penetrated these wilds years and years ago, just as it was offered
to the curious to-day. The educational theory could probably be traced
to the torn and yellowing fragments of a book that lay on the rude
table opposite the cavern entrance. How many inquisitive fingers had
turned its baffling pages, how many curious eyes had vainly scanned
them in the course of the slow moving years in which the cavern held
its secret? The book was written in a language quite unknown to us
simple folk. For the theory of wealth the rusty, crumbling old
flint-lock musket, leaning against the wall beside the table, was
silver mounted and heavily chased. Beside the table was a rude bench
made from a section of sawed pine. That was all, but impressive
legends have been handed down, from one generation to another, on less
foundation than the cave furnished to our valley romanticists. It was
not even odd to us that no one in all these years had stolen or
desecrated the pathetic mementos of a vanished life. People on the
frontier have a great respect--a respect not necessarily enforced with
lock and key--for the belongings of another. The mountings of the gun
were of solid silver, but I doubt if even Mr. Horton could have
justified himself to himself in taking it. I had been in the place
once or twice and had turned over the untelling leaves with reverent
fingers, but I had never felt any inclination to linger within the
gloomy walls; the sunlight on the cattle trail outside had greater
allurements, but now, beaten by the hail, I rushed in headlong, and in
doing so nearly fell over the body of a man lying outstretched on the
stone floor, just within the entrance. The man was evidently sleeping,
and very soundly, for my tumultuous rush roused him so little that he
merely turned on one side, sighed, and again relapsed into deepest
slumber. I stood in my tracks, trembling, undecided whether to dash
out into the storm or run the risk of remaining in the cavern. The
fierce rattle of the hail beating on the rocks outside decided me to
do the latter. Noiselessly, step by step, I stole backward into the
darkness of the cavern. My backward progress was checked at last by
the corner of the table against which I brought up. I glanced down at
it. It was laden with a regular cowboy equipment of spurs, quirt,
revolver, cartridge-belt, and the too common accompaniment of a
bottle of whiskey. If the sleeping man on the floor were called
on to defend himself for any cause he need not suffer for want
of ammunition. I had less fear of his awakening since seeing the
half-emptied bottle, but far greater fear of what he might do when
he did awake.

Surely, there never was a wiser dog than Guard! He had not made a
sound since our entrance, although he had certainly cocked a
disdainful eye at the recumbent figure on the floor as we passed
it. Now, in obedience to the warning of my uplifted finger, he
crept silently to my side. He watched my movements with an air of
intelligent comprehension as I quietly took possession of the bottle,
revolver, and cartridge-belt, and then followed me without a sound as
I stole breathlessly into the deepest recess of the cavern. The rocky
roof sloped down over this recess, until, at its farthest extremity,
there was scarcely room for a person to crouch under it, close to the
wall, and it was so dark that I could barely make out the form of the
dog crouching beside me. Safe hidden in the darkness, I determined to
rid the sleeping man of at least one of his enemies. Pulling the cork
from the bottle, I poured its contents on the rocks, thereby, as I
found, running imminent risk of a sneeze from Guard, who rolled his
head from side to side in distress as the pungent liquor penetrated
his nostrils. The danger passed, luckily, without noise. We crouched
in perfect silence, waiting for the hail-storm to pass. It was too
violent to be of long duration, yet I could not tell, after some
minutes of anxious listening, when it ceased, for the hail was
followed by a fresh deluge of rain. It was comfortable in the
cavern--warm and dry. The man, as his regular breathing testified,
slept soundly, and I thought, while I waited, that I, too, might as
well make myself easy. Softly pulling off the wet coat, I turned the
dryest side outward, and, rolling it into a compact bundle, placed it
under m

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