At last I could stand it no longer. I dared not open the door, but I seized one corner of the dry-goods box, drew myself up, and hobbled to the window, regardless of the pain. Going straight for the town, a quarter of a mile away, were a dozen men on horseback. I could see by their trail that they had passed within fifty yards of where I was.



CHAPTER IX

More of a strange Christmas: I make Kaiser useful in an odd Way, together with what I see from under the Depot Platform.

I think Kaiser was the best dog that ever lived. When I looked out of the window, what with seeing the men and with the pain which shot through my leg from my ankle, I sank down on the floor in a kind of faint. How long I lay there I know not, but when I came to Kaiser was standing over me licking my face. When he saw me open my eyes and move he uttered a sort of a whine, half like a cry and half like a little laugh, and began wagging his tail. I put my arms around his neck and drew myself up so that I was sitting on the floor. At this he began to bound about and bark as if he would say, "Cheer up, Jud; this is bad luck, but we will get through yet!"

The pain in my ankle was half killing me, and suddenly it drove me desperate. I seized my foot in my hands, drew it up into my lap, and gave it a wrench that was like to break it off. I felt something crack inside, and half the pain stopped. "I've fixed it!" I cried to Kaiser, and tried to get up, thinking I could walk; but I went down in a heap, and saw that, though it was better, I was still far from walking. The ankle was swelled to twice its right size; but I felt sure that it must now improve.

I made Kaiser stop his fuss and pulled open the door. I could just make out the horsemen going along the grade almost to the town. I crawled to the hay, and thought a long time. In the first place, I knew the fires were all out and that the new snow had covered all traces of any life about the town. The robbers would find the place deserted and would go to work upon the safe. How long it would take them to open it I did not know, but one of the many things I now regretted was that, while fooling around with my tunnel, I had neglected to take out and hide the tools that were in Beckwith's blacksmith shop, as I had intended to do; for with these I did not think it would take the men long to break into the safe.

After they had got the money two things might happen: they might take it and return west, in which case they would be almost sure to stop at Mountain's and discover me; in fact, the only thing I could not understand was why they had not stopped as they went in. I knew how much mercy I could expect from Pike and the kind of men that were with him.

The other course that they might take after getting the safe open was to stay in town for several days or even weeks; and in this case I should simply starve and freeze to death where I was. The reasons that made it seem likely that they would stay awhile were that there was no danger, plenty of food and fuel, and comfortable places to live and sleep. At first thought I saw one reason against it, and that was that there was no liquor in the town; and I knew they were the kind of men who would prize liquor higher than food. Then I remembered that, though the contents of the saloons had been shipped away when they were closed, I had heard there was a barrel of whiskey in the cellar of Fitzsimmons's grocery store; and I knew, of course, that they would find it. I thought again of my detestable tunnel, for if I had not had my mind on it so much the barrel might have occurred to me and I could have disposed of it somehow.

I thought a long time, and this was the amount of it: That in any case I had best get back to town if I could. If I reached there while they were at work on the safe, I might be able to slip in unseen and hide somewhere till they were gone; and even if they did not go for some days, I might manage to keep out of sight and live after a fashion. Anything seemed better than staying where I was.

I was half dead from thirst, and it seemed that no harm could now come from a little fire; so I soon had one started and some snow melting in an old tin can. The drink and the warmth revived me a good deal, and I decided to start immediately to crawl to the town. I thought with good luck I might make it in four hours. It was now probably eleven o'clock. I left my skees and started out. Kaiser bounded around me in the greatest delight, barking and throwing up a cloud of snow. But before I had gone twenty rods I sank half fainting with the pain of dragging my ankle. Poor Kaiser whined and licked my face. When I revived a little, I crept back and threw myself on the hay again, ready to die with despair.

I lay there half an hour in the greatest mental and physical pain; then an idea that drove it all away struck me like a flash. I sat up and drew the skees to me on the floor, and placed them parallel and about ten inches apart. Then I took one of the legs of the stove and pounded a board off of the dry-goods box. It was four feet long and a foot or more wide. I beat some nails out of the box, and then placed the board lengthways on top of the skees and nailed it firmly. This made me a sled, low but long and light.

I had on under my coat a jacket of coarse, strong cloth. This I took off and cut and tore up into strips, knotted them together, and made two stout ropes five or six feet long. I fastened one end of each of these to the front of the skees. Then I let out Kaiser's collar two or three holes, tied the other ends of my ropes to each side of it, making them precisely like harness traces, and pushed out of the door and sat down on my new sled. I had like to have forgotten the letter on the door, but drew myself up and got it and put it in my pocket. There was a monstrous red skull and cross-bones on the outside of it.

If you think I did not have a time teaching that dog to draw me, then you are mistaken. The poor animal had not the least notion what I wanted of him, and kept mixing up his legs in the traces, coming back and bounding around me, and doing everything else that he shouldn't. I coaxed, and tried to explain, and worked with him, and at last boxed his ears. At this he sat down in the snow and looked at me as much as to say, "Go ahead, if you will, and abuse the only friend you have got!" At last I got him square in front, and, clapping my hands suddenly, he jumped forward, jerked the sled out from under me, and went off on the run with the thing flying behind.

I lay in the snow with my five wits half scared out of me, expecting no less than that he would be so terrified that he would run to Track's End without once stopping. But I made out to do what I could, and called "Kaiser! Kaiser!" with all the voice I had. Luckily he heard me, got his senses again, and stopped. He stood looking at me a long time; then he slipped the collar over his head and came trotting back, innocent as a lamb, without the sled.

There seemed to be nothing to do but to crawl to the sled, so I started, with Kaiser tagging behind and not saying a word. I think he felt he had done wrong, but did not know exactly how. The crawling pained my ankle somewhat, but not so much as before, and I got to the sled at last. I saw that it was near the trail which the men on horseback had made, and this gave me an idea: perhaps Kaiser would follow that. I pushed on over, and as soon as he saw the trail he pricked up his ears, began to sniff at the snow and look toward the town. I hitched him up again, headed him the right way, took a good hold, and shouted, "Sic 'em, Kaiser!" He started off like a shot and ran till he was quite out of breath.

After he had rested and I had petted and praised him, we went on. He understood now what was wanted, and made no further trouble. We soon got up on the grade, and found it much smoother. Indeed, the horses had left a very good road, and by sitting well back on my odd sled, so that the board would not plow up the snow, it was not at all hard for Kaiser to draw me. We were soon near enough to the town, so that I began to tremble for fear of being seen. My eyes were troubling me a good deal; it was snow-blindness, but, as I had never heard of it, I was frightened, not knowing what to think.

I could see the horses standing in a bunch in the open square between the depot and town, but the men were nowhere in sight, and I doubted not they were hard at work on the safe. After a good deal of labor I managed to get Kaiser to turn off to the south until the railroad buildings were between us and the town. Then I struck out straight for the water-tank, and in a few minutes was up to it.

The space below the tank was inclosed, making a round, dark room filled with big timbers. One of my keys fitted the door, and I opened it, put Kaiser and the sled inside, and shut the door. The poor dog thought this was poor payment for his work, but I could not trust him loose. I picked up a narrow piece of board and broke it to the right length for a crutch, and so managed to hobble along upright to the end of the station platform. This was three or four feet from the ground, and beneath it were a lot of ties, old boxes, and other rubbish. I crawled under and around to the side next to the town, and peeped over a log of wood.

The horses were standing in a huddle with their heads together, and I did not pay much attention to them. A little to one side I saw a big pile of blankets, bed-clothing, and other things taken from the hotel and stores; and on top of it all my guns and other weapons. I expected that they would take the guns, but was surprised at their bothering with the other stuff. I could hear no sounds of their working on the safe. All at once the door of Taggart's store opened and they came out carrying a lot of rope and other things. Then I saw that they were not the men I had thought, after all, but a band of Sioux Indians.



CHAPTER X

A Townful of Indians: with how I hide the Cow, and think of Something which I don't believe the Indians will like.

When I saw what my visitors were I do not know if I was relieved or more frightened. I saw that I need no longer worry about the safe being robbed, but that seemed to be almost the only thing in their favor over the Pike gang. I knew, of course, that they had no ill feeling against me, and probably had no intention of harming any one; but, on the other hand, I well understood that if I should appear and try to stop their plundering the town they would not hesitate to kill me. By their dress I recognized them as Sioux from the Bois Cache Reservation, fifty or seventy-five miles north, because I had seen some of them during the fall while they were on their way to visit some of their relatives a hundred or more miles south at the Brule Agency. I supposed they were going for another such visit, and had blundered on the town. These Bois Cache Indians I knew were a bad lot; many of them had been with Little Crow in the great Sioux Massacre in Minnesota in 1862, when hundreds of settlers were killed.

They came directly to the pile of things near their horses, and put down the rope; and then they started off in all directions looking for more plunder. Two of them came to the depot and walked about on the platform over my head. I flattened out on the ground and scarcely breathed, expecting every minute that they would look under. I heard them talking and trying the windows. I thought they were going away; then there was a sound of breaking glass, and I heard them tramping about inside. Then they came out and went over to the pile again. I peeped out and saw that they had the two Winchesters which I had hidden in the depot. Another came from the town with a shot-gun which he had found somewhere. I had no doubt that they would find and carry off every weapon there was, and leave me with nothing except the small revolver which I had in my pocket.

For an hour I lay there under the platform watching the Indians plunder the town. They already had much more in their pile than they could possibly carry away with the horses they had. Suddenly I saw that their plan most likely was to get everything they wanted together in the open square and then to burn the town, carry off what they could, and come back after the rest later on. Of course this put me in a great fright, but, though I racked my brain as never before, I could think of no way to prevent it.

Soon I heard a great pounding, and suspected that they were breaking into the Headquarters barn, which I always kept locked, just out of force of habit. In another minute I knew I was right, as I heard a loud squawking of the chickens. Up from the direction of the barn and high over the roofs of the town I suddenly saw a bird soar, which I took to be a prairie chicken, or some sort of game bird, though where it came from I could not guess. Then, as it lit on the chimney of the blacksmith shop, and began a great cackling, I saw that it was only Crazy Jane. I could not help laughing, in spite of my troubles, and said out loud, "Ah, it takes somebody smarter than an Indian to catch her!"



The sight of Crazy Jane and the sharp way she outwitted the savages did me good and made me wonder if I could not do as well; still I could think of nothing. Just then the Indians came out with the other chickens in grain-sacks, and leading Dick and Ned and Blossom. The horses they stood with their own, but I was horrified to see that they acted as if they were going to butcher the cow. One of them pointed a gun at her head and another began to flourish a knife. It looked as if they had got it into their savage heads that they wanted fresh beef and were going to slaughter the poor animal on the spot.

To watch these preparations was, I think, the hardest thing I had to bear that day. She was a patient, gentle heifer, and I could not bear to think of seeing her butchered by a lot of villainous savages with less intelligence than she had herself. If I had had a gun or any fit weapon, I verily believe that I should have rushed out and defended her. But just before they began, one of their number came out of Fitzsimmons's store and called to them, and they all trotted over. The store was on the east side of the street.

At the instant that the last of them disappeared in the door I rolled out from under the platform and began to hobble across the square. My intention was to get behind the stores on the west side of the street; and I had a wild notion of saving the cow in some way, I did not know how. It was a foolhardy thing to do, but I got behind the first store without being seen. But I was no nearer the cow, who was a little ways from the side of Fitzsimmons's, and I dared not go there. She saw me, however, and I held out my hand and said, "Come, bossy!" and she came over. I took her by the horn and led her along behind the buildings, knowing no more than a fool what I should do with her. Just then I came to the sloping outside cellar-door behind a store. The Indians had cleaned the snow off of it, but had not succeeded in getting in, as it was fastened with a padlock. I tried my keys. One of them opened it. The stairs were not steep, and I led the cow down and closed the door above us. The Indians had walked and ridden everywhere in the square and back of the stores, so I thought it would be hard for them to follow the cow's tracks. Nevertheless, the next moment I hurried back and with an old broom brushed lightly our trail behind the buildings; then returned to the cellar.

I rested a few minutes till my ankle felt better, then I crept up the inside stairs to the store and peeped out the front window. Four or five of the Indians were standing where the cow had been, looking in all directions. After a while they all went back into Fitzsimmons's store and I slipped down and out the door by which I had got in, locked it, and made my way behind the buildings to the bank and went in. Here the Indians had not disturbed anything, there being nothing to their taste; but when I looked out a crack in the boards over the window I saw the whole eleven of them at the end of the street holding a powwow over the disappearance of their fresh beef. I thought it would be a good time to test my great pet, the tunnel, so I hobbled boldly through and entered the hotel.

The first thing I saw was Pawsy in her old place over the dining-room door. She did not seem to like Indians any better than she did wolves. Everything which had not been carried off was in the greatest confusion. The Winchester which had been under the counter was gone. I stood with my crutch looking at the wreck, when, without hearing a sound, I saw the knob of the front door turn and the door push open. With one bound like a cat I went through the open door of the closet under the stairs.

I had no time to close the door, and stood there pressed against the wall and trying not to tremble. It was dark in the closet, and that was my only hope. Three of the Indians filed by. They all wore moccasins, and their step was noiseless. They were talking, and passed on through into the kitchen and outdoors. I think they were looking for the cow, and took this as the best way to get to the barn. I pressed back farther in the closet and waited. Soon they came back, and again passed me, and went on out of the front door. I got out and crawled up-stairs, thinking to find a better hiding-place and wishing heartily that I was back under the platform. I looked out of an upper window and saw them all at the farther end of the street again. By-and-by they went into Fitzsimmons's store.

Though I did not take my eyes off the store for two hours I saw no more of the Indians, and by this time it was so dark that I could no longer see them if they did come out. I began to hear a strange noise, and opened the window slightly and listened. It was the Indians shouting and singing. Then it dawned upon me that they had found the whiskey and that they were all getting drunk in Fitzsimmons's cellar.

This, of course, gave me a new cause of dread, for, if a sober Indian is bad, a drunken one is a thousand times worse. I felt sure that they would now set the town on fire through accident even if they did not intend to do so. The fiendish howling constantly grew worse and was soon almost as bad as that of the wolves ever was. I still could think of nothing to remedy matters. By this time it was pitch-dark. I determined to have a look at them, anyhow. It occurred to me that probably they had begun at the whiskey before the cow disappeared, and that this had helped to make their search unsuccessful.

I went down and out the back door of the hotel and crept along the rear of the buildings till I came to Fitzsimmons's. The yelling and whooping of those savages was something blood-curdling to hear. There was a window for lighting the cellar close to the ground in the rear foundation-wall. A wide board stood in front of it, but I dug the snow away, pushed this board a little to one side, and looked in. They seemed to be having a free fight, and many of them were covered with blood. A smoking kerosene lamp stood on a box, and around this they surged and fought and howled. As I looked the lamp was knocked to the floor and blazed up. One of the Indians fell on it and smothered the flames, and the struggling and diabolical yelling went on in the dark.

As suddenly as the plan of making the skee sled had flashed upon me came another plan for driving every Indian out of town. I jumped up and ran away as fast as a poor crutch and a leg and a half could carry me.



CHAPTER XI

I give the savage Indians a great Scare, and then gather up my scattered Family at the end of a queer Christmas Day.

How I ever got along through the darkness and snow on my crutch I scarce know, but in less time than it takes to say I tumbled in at the back door of the hotel. I went directly into the kitchen and felt about till I found a knife, which I put in my pocket. Then I stumped on into the office, leaned against the counter, and lit the wall lamp, took it out of its bracket, and made my way somehow to the cellar-door. I left my crutch and fairly slid down the stairs, holding the lamp in both hands above my head. Once down I set it on a small box, dropped on the cellar bottom, and drew over to me the largest pumpkin in the pile against the wall. What I thought to do was to make the most diabolical jack-lantern that ever was, and scare the drunken savages out of what little wit they had left.

I took the pumpkin in my lap, and with the knife cut out the top like a cover. Then with my hands I dug out the seeds and festoons of stuff that held them. Then I turned up one side and plugged out two eyes and a long nose. I was going to make the corners of the mouth turn up, as I had always done when making jack-lanterns at home, but just as I started to cut it came to me that it would look worse if they turned down; so thus I made it, adding most hideous teeth, and cutting half of my fingers in my haste. Then I gave the face straight eyebrows and a slash in each cheek just as an experiment, and looked around for a candle.

I could see nothing of the kind, nor could I remember ever having noticed one about the house. For a moment I knew not what to do; then my eyes rested on the lamp, and I asked myself why that would not do as well as a candle, or even better, since it gave more light. The hole in the top was not big enough to take in the lamp, but I cut it out more, and with half a dozen trials, and after burning all the fingers I had not already cut, I got the lamp in. The cover was now too small for the opening, but I grabbed another pumpkin and slashed out a larger one and clapped it into place. If I had had time I believe I should have been frightened at the thing myself, it was that hideous and unearthly-looking; but I did not have, so I took it under one arm, though it seemed half as big as a barrel, and pulled myself up-stairs.

In another minute I was outdoors and hobbling along as fast as I could. The howling of the red beasts in the cellar still came as loud as ever. I got to the window, dropped on my knees, and took away the board. They did not yet have a light, and were struggling and caterwauling in the dark like, it seemed, a thousand demons. But I say I had the worst demon with me.

The lamp was burning well. I set the thing on the ground, square in front of the window, with the horrible face turned in and looking down into the darkness. Then I rolled out of the way.

I had truly thought that those savages had been making a great noise before, but it had been nothing to the sound which now came from the cellar. Such another shrieking and screaming I never heard before nor since. I would not have believed that any lot of human beings could make such an uproar. Then I heard them fighting their way up the stairs and go squawking and bellowing out the front door of the store.

When I heard the last one go I seized up the pumpkin, took it on one shoulder, and with my stick went hippety-hopping out through the alley and along the sidewalk after them. They were going away in the darkness for their ponies like the wind. I went to the end of the walk and, holding the lantern in both hands, raised and lowered and waved it at them. Not once did they stop their howls of terror, and I could hear and partly see them tumbling onto their ponies in all ways and plunging off through the drifts to the west like madmen. I longed to be on Dick's back with my lantern to chase them, but I knew not where Dick was, and my ankle had already borne too much, as it told me plainly. I got back to the hotel as best I could, put up the lamp in its place and sat down to rest.

But though I needed rest, I needed food more; so I started the fire and looked about for something to eat. I soon found that the Indians had left nothing except a few crusts of bread and some frozen eggs. But I boiled the eggs and made out a sort of a meal. As I finished I heard a yowl which I thought I knew, and, sure enough, when I looked up, there was the cat still on the door.

This set me to laughing, and I said: "I wonder was ever a family so scattered before on a Christmas night as is mine? There is Kaiser shut in under a water-tank; Blossom locked in the cellar of a grocery store; Crazy Jane, the hen, on top of the smoke-stack of a blacksmith shop; the rest of the chickens sacked up and scattered on the ground; Dick and Ned, the horses, I don't know where; Pawsy, the cat, on top of the door; and Jud himself, the head of the family, here eating what the Indians have left, with a hurt ankle and a smell of roasted pumpkin all through his clothes."

I had a good laugh over things, and then decided that I must do what I could for my scattered family, though my ankle seemed about ready to go by the board. So I first got down the cat and then lit the lantern and started out after Kaiser. Poor dog, he was beside himself to see me, and liked to have knocked me down in showing how glad he was.

As we started back Kaiser stopped and began to growl at something out on the prairie, and I looked, and after a time made out Dick and Ned. They were very nervous, and would not let me come up to them, but I toiled around them at last and started them toward their barn. I next looked after Blossom. I found her lying down, as comfortable as you please, chewing her cud and right at home in the cellar. She had made a meal out of the coarse hay which came out of a crockery bale, and I thought I would leave her for the night. So I took a big pitcher out of the bale and milked her then and there, and took it home, and Kaiser and Pawsy and I disposed of it without more to-do.

I was beginning to feel better about my family, and felt still more so when I found that Dick and Ned had gone into their stalls and had stopped their snorting, and only breathed hard when they saw me. Next I went after Crazy Jane; but though I coaxed and shooed, and threw chunks of frozen snow at her, while Kaiser barked his teeth loose, almost, it did no sort of good; she only looked at me and made a funny noise as a hen does when she sees a hawk. I could not climb up with my hurt ankle, so I had to leave her, much against my will. The chimney, I thought, was a good deal exposed for a sleeping-place in winter, but there was no wind and I didn't have much fear but that she would come out all right.

I had like to have forgotten the other chickens; they never popped into my mind till I was back in the hotel, but I dragged myself out after them. I found the poor things stuffed in three sacks, as if they had been turnips, lying on the snow. I knew I could not carry them, and felt that I could scarce drag them even; so I hit upon the plan of taking a bit of rope from the pile of plunder and hitching Kaiser to the sacks, and so in that way we got them, one by one, to the barn at last and let them out, all cramped and ruffled. Kaiser was so proud of his work that he set up a bark which started the broncos into another fit of snorting.

I think if there had been one more member of my family lost that I could have done nothing for it that night, my ankle was in such a state. I tried bathing it in hot water, and before I went to bed I had it fairly parboiled, which seemed greatly to relieve it. I was too tired to go across the drawbridge to my room, so I stretched out on the lounge in the office, not much caring if all the robbers in Christendom came. But I could not help wondering at my strange Christmas; and half the night I heard the wolves howling round the blacksmith shop and looking up (I knew) at Crazy Jane; but I thought they might as well howl around the gilt chicken on a weather-vane for all the good it would do them.



CHAPTER XII

One of my Letters to my Mother, in which I tell of many Things and especially of a Mystery which greatly puzzles and alarms me.

Here I am going to put in the letter which I wrote to my mother a week from the next day after my strange Christmas, to show that I did write her long letters every Sunday, as I have said; though of course it was many weeks before she got this or the others:

TRACK'S END, Sunday, January 2d.

MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,—I have written you so much bad news since I have been in this dreadful place that I am very glad to send you some good news at last, and that is that my ankle, of which I wrote you last Sunday, is all well. I kept up the hot-water applications and by the next morning it was so much better that I could walk on it. I hope I may not turn it again.

I don't know as there is much other good news to write, except that it is good news, and maybe quite strange news, that I am still alive at all in such a place. I am getting along better with the cooking, though I am beginning to long for some fresh meat. The cow still gives a good mess of milk, and I now get three or four fresh eggs a day; thanks to the warm food which I give the hens, I guess. I do not believe that Crazy Jane has laid an egg since her night on the chimney, and I'm almost afraid she caught cold, as she has not had a genuine fight with another hen since. Kaiser and the cat and Dick and Ned are all well and in good appetite. I have heard rather less of the wolves of late, and I still think it would be easier to get the Man in the Moon to come to this town than any of those Indians. But the outlaws I still fear very much. Oh, something I ought to have written you last week! I mean this: I got a letter from them that day out at Mountain's, but I had no time to read it Christmas and the next day I forgot I had it till after I had put your letter in the post-office. This is what was in it:

CITISENS TRACK'S END,—We will Rob your bank and burn your town if we don't get the small some we ask for. If adoing it we kill anyboddy it wun't be our fawlt. Leave the Munny as we told you to and save Bludd Shedd.

PIKE AND FRIENDS.

I look for them any time. My only hope is that the weather will be too bad for them to travel; but of course there must be some good weather. The snow is already so deep that it will be very hard for them to do much on horseback. The street is full, and it is very deep north, east, and south. The ground is almost bare for half a mile to the west, however; and they could come in on the grade. Of course they can come on snow-shoes at any time and go everywhere. I cannot even hope to keep out of having trouble with them. I have made no answer to this letter, and can't make up my mind whether it would be best to do so or not.

I kept up work all the week on the fortifications, when the weather would permit; for there has been another great blizzard, the worst of the winter so far. I even worked all day yesterday, though it was New-Year's. Monday morning I again started all of my fires, but I found that in three of the buildings there was not enough coal to last long. So I hitched up Ned and Dick on an old sleigh of Sours's and took a good lot to each place from the sheds at the railroad. It was a lucky thing I did so, too, because it snowed more Tuesday night and began to blizzard Wednesday and kept it up till Friday without once stopping; and it would now be impossible to drive anywhere near the coal-sheds.

I have got up a plan to do what I want to do without using much coal; I smother the fires, all except the one in the hotel, with stove griddles laid on them, and it makes a great smoke without much fire. The guns and ammunition I have disposed of here and there, in good places for me in case of attack, but hard to find for other folks. One I keep standing by my bed's head, but nobody would be apt to look there for either gun or bed, I hope. I take in my drawbridge always the minute I cross.

The last blizzard has helped me a good deal. The street is now so full that the first-story doors and windows of the hotel and bank and most of the other buildings are covered. Not a bit of daylight gets into the hotel office, and I am writing this by lamplight, though the sun is bright outdoors. The hotel can now only be entered by the back door, which I have strengthened with boards and braces. I have also boarded up the second-story windows, as they are now not much above the level of the drifts.

My tunnel might now be much higher and I am going to make it so that I can stand up straight all the way through. This is the only way there is to get into the bank now, unless you were to pound off the planks I have nailed over the upper windows, or shovel the snow away below. I drew over lumber from the yard the day I had the team hitched up for the coal. There are plenty of nails at Taggart's. The blacksmith tools which would be good to break open a safe with I have buried in the snow. I have not yet carried out the plan I told you about which might save me in case the town is burned. It is a big job, but I am going at it as soon as I can. There is much other work which I want to do. There is a large tin keg of blasting-powder at Taggart's which it seems as if I ought to use somehow. Sometimes I wish I had a cannon, but I don't know as it would be much use to me.

I had a vast deal of work Monday and Tuesday carrying back the things those savage Indians lugged out in the square. I fastened up all of the buildings which they had torn open and straightened up things in the stores as best I could. Fitzsimmons's was in the worst confusion, and I could not do much with it. The cellar was such a wreck of barrels and boxes and crates and everything you can think of, all broken open and the things thrown everywhere, that I only looked down and gave it up then and there.

As soon as I can get around to it I mean to build some more tunnels to some of the other houses. I think I ought to draw up a list of regular hours for getting up, fixing the fires, climbing the windmill tower to look with the field-glass, and such-like things, as I used to hear Uncle Ben tell was the way they did when he was in the army. I mean to go out every good day and take some target practice with my rifle.

I wish I could close this letter here, and I would do so if it were going to you so that you would get it before you get others, or before you know that you are never to get others from me, if that is to be, as I fear it may. Oh, if I only had it to do over again, how quick I would take the chance to go away from this horrid place! If I live to get away I will never come here again. So I must tell you what little I can of this other matter.

I am not here in Track's End alone. What it is that is here I do not know. How long it has been here I do not know. Where it stays, what it does, where it goes, I do not know. I have looked over my shoulder twenty times from nervousness since I began this letter.

Last Monday night I hung a piece of bacon on a rafter in the shed back of the kitchen, after cutting off a slice for breakfast the next morning. I kept it there because it is a cool place and handy to the kitchen. Tuesday morning it was gone. I had left the outside door shut, and it was still shut in the morning. The door between the kitchen and shed was locked. I could see no tracks or marks of any kind.

Wednesday morning the thumb-piece of the latch on the depot door was pressed down. I don't think I left it that way. A pail by the back door in which I had thrown some scraps which I was saving for the chickens was tipped over. I think some of the meat rinds were gone. The blizzard began that morning.

Thursday morning the blizzard was still going on. I noticed nothing unusual.

Friday morning a quilt and a blanket had been stolen from a bed in the hotel. Another quilt was drawn from the bed and lay on the floor. I think the window (it had not yet been boarded up) at the foot of the bed had been raised. The snowbank outside is high. The blizzard was still blowing.

Yesterday morning I saw nothing wrong, but I thought about it a good deal during the day. I remembered of hearing strange sounds at night from the first of my being here alone. I had thought it wolves, owls, jack-rabbits, or something like that.

Last night I decided to watch. The storm had stopped and the night was very still, but it was cloudy and dark and a flake of snow fell once in a while. I put on the big fur coat and sat on a box just inside the woodshed door, which was open on a crack. At about eleven o'clock I heard a faint noise at the barn as if something were in the yard at the side trying to get in at one of the windows. I swung my door open a little more, it creaked and I saw something dark go across the yard and over the fence. There was no sound that I could hear. I could not see that it touched the ground. It went behind a haystack by the fence. There was instantly another glimpse of it as it passed beyond the stack, going either behind or through the shed under which the men stood that night when Pike shot Allenham. I was not sure if I saw it the other side of there or not, but I could not see so well beyond the shed. The motion was gliding; I heard no footstep, nor sound of wings, nor anything. It snowed some more in the night. This morning I could find nothing wrong except that a clothes-line beyond the shed was broken. It had hung across the way which what I saw must have gone. Its ends were tied to posts at least seven feet from the ground, and if I remember aright, it has all the time been drawn up so that it did not sag at all. It was snapped off as if something had run against it.

I must close now and do up my work for the night. I only ask that I may live to see you all again. If I do not, then may this reach you somehow.

Your Dutiful Son, JUDSON PITCHER.



CHAPTER XIII

Some Talk at Breakfast, and various other Family Affairs: with Notes on the Weather, and a sight of Something to the Northwest.

It was on the morning of Tuesday, January 25th, as I sat at breakfast with Pawsy in her chair at one end and with Kaiser at the other, drumming on the floor for another bit of bacon, that I said to myself:

"It is just one month to-day since I clapped eyes on a human being; and the ones I saw then were not very good humans, being thieving and drunken Indians." And when I said this I had not forgotten (when had it been once out of my mind, waking or sleeping?) what I saw on New-Year's night; but I knew not if I were to count that as human or what.

I remember that Sunday night after I finished the letter to my mother which I put in the last chapter, how I found it darker than I expected when I went out, and how I ran along the snowbanks with my heart thumping like to split, and threw the letter in the top of the post-office door (the rightful opening was long before buried under the snow) and then shot back to the hotel, not daring to look behind me or even stop to breathe. I was well ashamed of myself, at the time, but I could not help it.

On that night it was even nine o'clock before I could get up courage to go to the barn and feed the stock. I think I was in a greater state of terror than on the night after the battle with the wolves. I walked the floor, back and forth, on tiptoe and listened; and the less there was to hear, the more I heard. At last I, after a fashion, put down my fright, and ventured out to the barn; but even then I could not whistle; I tried, but my lips would not stay puckered.

I went to bed as soon as I could, and though I thought I should never get to sleep, I did at last. What my dreams were, or how many times I sat up in bed with a start, are things I do not like to think about. But notwithstanding this, I felt better in the morning and went at the work as hard as I could.

But though, as I say, up to the 25th of January (and even beyond) I had no further glimpse of the mysterious visitor, I saw evidence of its presence often enough.

Night after night the scrap-pail by the back door was rummaged and something taken from it, and once a chicken was missing from the barn. The only way that anything could get in was through a window into the hay-loft seven or eight feet above the drift. After I missed the chicken I nailed this up and lost no more. I thought there were a few scratches on the side of the barn below the window, but I could tell nothing from them. Almost every night it either snowed or drifted, or both, so there was almost no hope of ever finding tracks of any kind on the ground. One morning I found the windmill at the station thrown into gear and running full tilt, but the lever which controlled it may have slipped. Two or three times I thought I heard the windlass of the well near the barn creak, but I tried to make myself believe that it was only the wind.

You may be sure that my sleep was very light, and I often heard Kaiser growling and barking late at night in the hotel. I never had the courage to sit up and watch again. I may have been more cowardly than I should have been; I leave that to the reader to say. One night I lay awake listening to the wolves howling up at the north end of the town. Suddenly their cry changed and they swept the whole length of the street like the wind, and much faster than they usually went when simply ranging for prey. They may have been chasing a jack-rabbit.

Another night they howled so long right in front of the building I was in that I put down my foolish fears and got up and fired at them, hoping to scare them away and maybe get another skin for my coat. One fell, and the others made off at a great rate. I watched the one on the snow till I was sure he was dead, and I heard nothing more of the others that night. In the morning there was neither hide nor hair of the dead wolf.

But the work I had to do kept my mind off of my terror a good deal, and saved me, I really believe, from going stark mad. I will tell about my great system of tunnels presently, but before I began it I did much else. One of the first things was to make a long, light sled for Kaiser to draw, and also a harness for him. The materials and tools for the one I got from the wagon-repair shop attached to Beckwith's blacksmith shop, and the same for the other from the harness shop, where I kept up one of my fires. I was always handy with all kinds of tools, inheriting a love for them from my father; besides, I had worked with him in the shop at home a good deal, and had thus become a fairly good mechanic for my age. I could handle a plane or a drawshave or a riveting-hammer, or even an awl, for the matter of that, with any of them.

I used this dog rig chiefly for taking over ground feed from the depot to the barn for the horses and cow; but Kaiser learned to enjoy the work of dragging the sled so much that I soon came to use him nearly always in good weather in making my rounds to look after the fires or patrol the town. He would whisk me along on top of the frozen drifts at such a rate that it would nearly take my breath away sometimes. I practised with the skees till there was no danger of turning my ankle again, and would sometimes run races with him on them; but he could beat me all hollow unless there was a good, stiff load on the sled.

Another thing that I made was a pair of leather spectacles, something which my mother had used often to tell me I needed when I was small and could not see something that was plain as a pikestaff. My spectacles were made out of a strip of black leather two inches wide which went over my eyes and around my head, with two slits through which I could look. These I wore on the dazzling bright days and was troubled no more by snow-blindness, which had made my eyes so painful the day I came back from Mountain's.

It was about New-Year's that I began to spend my evenings in noting down in the hotel register what had happened during the day. I did this chiefly so that when I came to write to my mother Sunday I would forget nothing; and I am very glad now that I did so, for without the register and the letters (both of which I now have) about some things, especially dates, I might go wrong in writing this account. Besides, in the past, it has been much satisfaction when I have related any of the incidents of my winter at Track's End and some person, to show how smart he was, has tried to cast doubt on my word—it has been much comfort to me, I say, in such cases to have the register and letters to show him, with it all set down in black and white.

Thus it comes I know that Pawsy caught a mouse in the barn on Wednesday, January 12th, at about half-past seven o'clock in the morning, while I was milking the cow. I think it was the only mouse at Track's End that winter, for I never saw or heard any other. There were no rats in the Territory then anywhere, unless it may have been at Yankton, or at some of the old Red River settlements about Pembina.

Pawsy was a good hunter, and several times caught a snowbird, though I boxed her ears for this; and on Friday, the 21st, I found her near Joyce's store trying to drag home a jack-rabbit. She must have caught it by lying in wait, but I marveled how she killed the monstrous creature. But she was, indeed, one of the largest and strongest cats I ever knew. I would have trusted her to whip a coyote in a fair fight. I got three jacks in January myself with the rifle, and found them very good to eat; but the first one, after skinning it, I left overnight in the shed, and in the morning it was gone. That day I went to Taggart's and got two good bolts and put them on the shed door.

Getting my meals I found very hard work, but I made out better than you might think, since my mother had taught me something about cooking. At first I neglected getting regular meals, snatching a bite of anything that I could lay my hands on; but I soon saw that this would not do if I were to keep in good health and strength. My boarders, too, were great hands to complain if they did not get their meals regularly. You might have thought that cat and dog were paying good money for their board, the way they would mew and whine if a meal were late. I took very good care of the chickens, giving them plenty of warm food, so from about Christmas I got a dozen or more eggs each week. The cow, too, I fed well on ground feed and hay, with pumpkins and sometimes a few potatoes, and she gave me a fair quantity of milk all winter; and on the eggs and milk, together with potatoes, bacon, and salt codfish, I and my boarders managed to live tolerably well.

Pie I missed very much, and cookies and apple dumplings and such things, all of which my mother used to make very freely at home, and never keeping them hid. I looked longingly at the pumpkins, and once fetched a quantity of ginger from Joyce's, vowing I would attempt pumpkin pie; but I never got up my courage. Bread, also, I never attempted, though I got a package of yeast from the store and looked at it many times. The place of this was taken by pancakes, which I made almost every day, big and thick, which with molasses went very well; though a good cook, as like as not, would have said they were somewhat leathery.

There was not an apple in town, nor any kind of fresh fruit, but there were dried apples and prunes, and canned fruit and vegetables, especially tomatoes. Of the canned things I liked the strawberries best, and ate many, though they tasted somewhat of the tin. There were plenty of crackers in the stores, and some dry round things, dark-colored, which called themselves gingersnaps; I took home a large package in great glee, thinking I had made a find; I ate one of them by main strength and gave the rest to the cow. Butter I made several times, with fair success, though it was not like mother's, being more greasy.

Fresh meat I missed very much, though the few jack-rabbits I got helped out, and were good eating, as I have said, and smelled as good as anything could while cooking. Some other fresh meat I had also, as you shall see directly. Once I made up my mind to have some chicken. There was one hen who was very fat and never, I was sure, laid an egg. I took the hatchet, which was sharp enough, and went to the barn, intending to behead her, having it all planned how I should cook her for my Sunday dinner. When I got to the barn the hen seemed to know what I intended, and she looked at me with one eye, very reproachful, and I went back to the house with my hatchet and never made any more plans for fried chicken.

There was much bad weather in January. Often I noticed that this was the way of it: It would snow for one day, blizzard for three, and then for two be still, steady, bitter cold. On these latter the thermometer would often go over forty degrees below zero, with the sun shining bright and the sky blue; but with a frightful big yellow-and-orange sun-dog each side of the sun, morning and evening, like two great columns; and sometimes there would be a big orange circle around the sun all day, with much frost in the air.

Some of the nights were light, almost, as day with the northern lights flaming up from behind Frenchman's Butte all over the whole sky, and all colors and shapes. On these nights the horses (they had been wild ponies once) would stamp about in the barn, and Kaiser would growl in his sleep. When I rubbed the cat's back it would crack and sparkle. The wolves seemed to howl more and differently on these nights, and once I went to the station, thinking the fire there needed fixing, and I heard the telegraph instrument clicking fit to tear itself to pieces. Often the next day after the northern lights would come the storm.

It was on the very day that I had said to Kaiser and Pawsy at breakfast (that is, January 25th) that it was a month since I had seen any human being, that I was at the depot after a load of ground feed, and in looking to the northwest thought I saw something moving. It did not take me long to go up the windmill tower. It was not past ten o'clock in the forenoon, so the light for looking toward the northwest was good, though of course, as the sun was shining, the snow was pretty dazzling. But I could still only make out that something was moving south or southwest. It was impossible to tell if it were men or horses or cattle. So I went down as fast as I could, jumped onto the sled, and the next minute Kaiser had me at the hotel, where I got the field-glass and went back.

Up the tower I scrambled for another look. The snow was so dazzling that the glass did less good than you might suppose, but with it I could soon tell that it was a party of men on horseback following either another party or a drove of cattle or horses. The band ahead swung gradually about and came toward Track's End. The ones behind seemed to be trying to cut them off, but they failed to do it. On they came, and in ten minutes I could see that it was either cattle or horses that were being chased by twenty or twenty-five men on horseback. The cattle were following a low, broad ridge where the snow was less deep, and which spread out west of the town, making less snow there also, as I have mentioned before. I thought there was something peculiar about the riding of the men; I watched closely, and then I saw they were Indians.

My first thought was that it was daylight and no jack-lantern would scare them away. I saw I must depend on harsher measures. In almost no time I had got over town, locked the barn, shut Kaiser in the hotel, run through my tunnel to the bank so as to be on the west side of town, and stood peeping out a loophole with two fully loaded Winchesters on a table beside me.



CHAPTER XIV

I have an exciting Hunt and get some Game, which I bring Home with a vast deal of Labor, only to lose Part of it in a startling Manner: together with a Dream and an Awakening.

I had not had my eyes to the loophole ten seconds when I found out something more about the coming invaders; what I had taken for cattle were buffaloes, a thing which surprised me very much, for they were even then extremely scarce. There were about a dozen of them, and they were coming on all in a bunch and throwing up the snow like a locomotive.

I saw that the buffaloes would follow the swell of ground and that it would bring them in close to town, and perhaps right across the square between the stores and the depot. But I did not believe that they could ever flounder through the drifts to the south and east, so it seemed as if the hunters would overtake them so near that they would probably stay and again take possession of the town. I think I should rather have seen the outlaws coming. I decided to fire at them and see if I could not drive them off. But it was not necessary. I think some of them must have been the same Indians that called on me Christmas Day, and went away so suddenly, without stopping to say good-by.

I am sure of this, because when still a good half-mile from town they stopped and began circling around, and waving their guns in the air, and making all sorts of strange motions. I suppose they were trying to drive away the evil spirit which they thought was in the place, and which I had had in the pumpkin lantern, and which had also been in Fitzsimmons's barrel. Then one of them who had been sitting still on his horse rode a little forward and got off, and I could see a thin ribbon of blue smoke arising. I suppose he was the medicine-man of the tribe making medicine to frighten the evil spirit; or rather, perhaps, to get up their own courage to face it. This kept up for half an hour. The buffaloes in the mean time had walked slowly along till they were not much more than a hundred yards away, and stood looking at the houses in the greatest wonder; the first they had ever seen, it is safe to say.

But it appeared that the Indian's medicine did not work any better than white men's medicine sometimes does; for they began very slowly to go back the way they had come. I could see them stop often, and circle around and, I suppose, hold long talks; but they could not get up their courage to venture closer to the place where the awful spirit with the flaming eyes and the fiery teeth had looked down upon them and chased them with his terrible limping gait. At last they passed entirely out of sight.

My next thought was, of course, to try getting a buffalo myself, since I needed fresh meat as badly as the Indians, or worse. But by this time they had drawn back some distance and were out of range for any but a very good marksman, a thing which I was not. I should have to follow them, which I decided to do quick as a flash. Through the tunnel I rushed and out to the barn. In another minute I brought out Dick saddled and bridled. He had not been beyond a small yard for a month. He began to jump like a whirlwind. How I ever got on with my gun I don't know, but I think I must have seized the horn of the saddle and hung to it like a dog to a root, and some of his jumps must have thrown me up so high that I came down in the saddle. Anyhow, I found myself riding away straight south as if I were on a streak of chain-lightning.

This would not do, so I pulled with all my strength and tried to turn him. I might as well have tried to turn a steamboat by saying "haw!" and "gee!" to it. But the pulling on the big curb-bit made him mad and he stopped and began to buck. I hung on with all hands and legs, and at last he bucked his head around in the right direction, and then I yelled at him, making the most outlandish noise I could, and he started across the square and straight for the buffaloes as if he had been shot out of a gun. You may see the exact course we took, and where the buffaloes were, by looking at my map. This map I have drawn with great care and much hard labor, spoiling several before I got one to suit me. I hope every one who reads this book will look at the map often, since it shows the lay of the land very well, I think, and just where everything happened.

When Dick saw the buffaloes I think he knew what was up, because he began to act more reasonable. They saw me coming and stopped and looked back surprised. I thought they were going to wait, but they soon galloped on. I saw I must go to one side if I wished to get within range, and turned to the right. In a few minutes I came up abreast of them and within easy range, but I soon found that though I could guide my horse I could not stop him, pull as hard as I might. I could not even make him stop and buck again. He was going straight toward the north pole, and I thought it would not take him long to get there. One way to stop him came to me. It was a rash plan, but I saw no other.

Ahead and a little more to the right was a mighty bank of snow in the lee of a little knoll. It sloped up gradually and did not look dangerous. I turned him full into it. At the third jump he was down to his chin, and I had gone on over his head. When at last I struck I went down a good ways beyond my chin; in fact my chin went down first, and if any part of me was in sight it must have been my heels. All I knew was that I was hanging to my gun as if it were as necessary as my head.

Why the breath of life was not knocked out of me I don't know, but it wasn't, and I kicked and thrashed about till I got my head and shoulders to the surface, with a peck of snow down the back of my neck. I looked for the buffaloes, and there they stood in blank astonishment, wondering, I guess, if I always got off of a horse that way. I ran my sleeve along the barrel of my rifle, rested it over a lump of frozen snow and fired at the nearest one, which was standing quartering to me. I saw the ball plow up the snow beyond and to the left. They all started on. As mine turned his side square to me I fired again. He went down with a mighty flounder. The others rushed away. I waded nearer and finished him with one more shot.

Dick was still aground in the snow, snorting like a steam-engine, but by the time I had tramped the drift down and got him out he was over his nonsense and carried me back to the barn quite decently. I was all for skinning and dressing my buffalo. To Taggart's I went and got some good sharp knives, and, taking Kaiser and the sled, started back. I don't think I ever worked so hard in my life as I did at that job. It was not very cold, which was one good thing. Every minute I expected the wolves, and I did not have long to wait either. Before three o'clock they came howling along the trail the buffaloes had made, and I had to stop and fire at them every few minutes to keep them off. I am sure they were not so hungry as usual or I never could have kept them back at all. Twice I killed one when I shot, but I dared not go up and get them, and they were soon devoured by the others. The pack kept growing larger as others came over from the timber north of the Butte.

At last I got off the hide and loaded it on the sled. I wanted to take all of the meat, but it made too big a load, and I had to be satisfied with two quarters. I even had to give up taking the head, which was a fine large specimen. A little after four o'clock as the sun began to sink low the wolves became bolder, and I knew it was not safe to stay longer. The load was more than Kaiser could pull, so I saw I must take hold and help him. I fired five or six shots at the wolves as fast as I could pump them up, seized the rope and off we went. We were not ten rods away when the whole pack was upon the carcass fighting and tearing at it. They kept up the hideous battle all night and howled so much that it seemed as if their throats must be worn raw.

Once back home I set at my regular work tired enough. But the fires were all low and I expected a day or two more of good weather, and the ease with which the Indians and buffaloes had got down from the north made me fear more than ever the coming of the outlaws from the west. I still had little hope of ever getting out of the place alive, but I could only work on and do all I could for my safety.

I laid the quarters of meat on some boxes in the shed and bolted the door. I was so tired I think I must have slept sounder that night than for a long time. In the morning I found that the shed door had been forced open, one of the bolts being torn off and the other one broken. Even the hinges were bent. A big piece of the best part of each quarter was gone. I could not tell if it had been torn off or haggled off with a dull knife. It might even have been gnawed off; I could not tell.

I looked for tracks of the robber with, as the saying is, my heart in my mouth; but to no purpose. Although it had neither snowed nor blown during the night, a deep layer of frost, like feathers made out of the thinnest ice, had settled everywhere toward morning and I could find nothing.

That this new reminder of my unknown enemy brought on another attack of terror I need hardly say; but it was daylight and I conquered it better. The worst feeling I had to fight with was that whatever the thing was, it might be looking at me as I moved about town. I thought I saw eyes peering at me, sometimes of one kind, sometimes of another, out of every window, through every crack, over every roof, around every corner, from behind every chimney; even the tops of the freshly made snowbanks, blown over like hoods, were not free from them; and when I looked out on the prairie I expected to see something coming to catch me. I could scarce tell if I were more afraid on top of the drifts or under them in my tunnels, for here I constantly expected to meet something, or look back and see eyes. I think the loneliness and the strain of the expected robbers must have half turned my mind. If I had known what to look for and dread I think I should not have cared so much, but, not knowing, I imagined everything and became more terrified about I knew not what than were the Indians at my pumpkin lantern. Sometimes I was sorry that I had driven the Indians away; and there were times when I thought I should be glad to have the Pike gang come, just for company.

Three days after the buffalo hunt, in the night, I thought the gang had come indeed; I was not more frightened at any time while I was at Track's End than I was that night. I had gone to bed as usual in the empty building, taking in my drawbridge and closing both windows behind me. The northwest wind had died away at sundown, and the night was still and the sky becoming cloudy. I looked for an east wind the next day and probably snow later.

What hour I woke up I knew not, but it must have been about midnight. I know I awoke gradually, because I had a long dream before doing so. I thought a giant was shouting at me from a grove of green trees on a hillside; it kept up for a long time, deep, hoarse shouts which fairly shook the earth; I could not see him, but seemed to know what he was. I was not frightened, but stood in a meadow listening. Then there was a crash of a tree falling on the hillside, and the giant's shouts came twice as loud, and I awoke and fought the bed-clothes off my head and knew it was Kaiser barking.

At first this did not startle me, since he often barked in the hotel at night, sometimes at the wolves, and other times, I had reason to think, at the thing which prowled in the night. The next instant I realized that his barks were much louder and that he was nearer. I started up and saw that a dull, flickering light was coming through the cracks in the boards over the window and moving on the wall. I thought of northern lights, then saw that it was on the north wall and not on the south. I leaped to the window and peeped out a crack and saw that there was a great fire somewhere; the snow was lit up like day almost, and I could see black cinders floating above the barn.

I got into such of my clothes as I had taken off and rushed to the side window. Here the light did not come much, but I could see Kaiser standing with his feet on the hotel windowsill and his head and shoulders out the window. He had smashed through the glass, as he had that day when the wolves came. Not once did he stop his terrific barking.

I pushed up my window and seized the drawbridge. I started to put it across, as I had done so many times before, but I was so excited and in such a foolish fright that it slipped out of my hands and fell between the buildings. I stood a full minute unable to move. The lower part of the hotel window was divided into two panes, and Kaiser had broken one of them. I could see that he had cut himself, and I was afraid of doing likewise. But there was no other way to get out. I put on my mittens and got out of my window, clinging to the upper sash and standing on the outside sill. Then, with a prodigious step, I landed on the other sill, seized the opening regardless of the jagged glass, crouched down and plunged into the room head first. Kaiser had drawn back as he saw me coming, but as I shot into the room he bounded in front of me, and we rolled over together there on the floor in the darkness. I was half dazed, but knew I smelled smoke, and heard the crackling of a great fire.



CHAPTER XV

The mysterious Fire, and Something further about my wretched State of Terror: with an Account of my great System of Tunnels and famous Fire Stronghold.

Once I said, when I told of how I found myself helpless at Bill Mountain's, that I thought Kaiser the best dog that ever lived; here I may say I know it. Though he got in my way and made me turn a few somersets in the dark, he may have saved Track's End from destruction.

When I got to my feet I felt my way across the room and through the hall to a room in the southeast corner of the hotel, where there was a loophole in the boards over the window. Through this I saw that the livery stable was a pillar of fire.

How long I stood there at the loophole staring I know not; I think I did not move or scarcely breathe. It was a large building, the second story packed with hay; and below there were stored many wagons, some farm machinery, and a quantity of lumber and building material, all things that would burn well. Everything was ablaze, the roof fell in as I looked, and the flames and sparks and smoke reached up like a vast column, it seemed to the very clouds.

At last I saw it was no time for idleness, so I turned away and went down-stairs. As I started to pull open the back door it came to me suddenly that Pike and his men must have come. I reached behind the desk and got Sours's Winchester. Then I went out, leaving Kaiser behind, much to his disappointment. The heat struck my face like a blast from a furnace, and the light dazzled my eyes. I crept very cautiously over the snowbank behind Hawkey's and Taggart's till I came to Fitzsimmons's. Here the heat almost scorched my face, and I saw that the paint on the building was beginning to blister. I peered everywhere for signs of the men, but saw nothing. I crept around the corner of the building and looked across the square, but there was no sign of human life. I expected nothing less than that the whole town would be burned up; but I was helpless.

Finally I ran across the square and, leaving my rifle on the ground, scrambled up the windmill tower. It was truly a beautiful sight, as I knew despite my fears. The sky was covered with thick, low-hanging clouds, and save for the fire, the night was pitch-dark. The whole town lay below me, half lit up like day, half inky shadows. Even at this distance I could feel the heat, and the sullen roar and crackling of the flames never stopped. But though I shaded my eyes and peered everywhere among the houses and across the prairie, I could make out no living thing.

Cinders were falling all over town, but there seemed to be little fire left in them when they alighted. The roofs were mostly flat and covered with tin, though the depot, the Headquarters barn, and a few others were of shingles. Suddenly a cinder unusually large fell on the depot roof and lay there blazing. I hurried down the tower, and hauled a ladder which I had noticed the day the Indians came from beneath the platform, thinking I might climb up and put out the fire with snow. There was no water to be had anywhere except from the well back of the hotel. But the flame died out, and I dragged the ladder across the square. It occurred to me that it would be no great loss to me should the depot burn. I could not know the good thing that was later to come out of it.

It was so hot that I could not go behind Fitzsimmons's, so I dragged my ladder across the drifts of the street and through between the hotel and Hawkey's. When I came out in the rear of these I was startled to find a small blaze on the barn roof. I hurried to the barn with my ladder, got it in place, and then with pails of water from the well I managed to put it out. Once more it caught, and once the roof of the shed where Pike shot Allenham blazed up; but I dashed water on the fires and saved both buildings.

At last the stable fire began to die down. The current of air from the northeast had become stronger, and the column of smoke was swaying more and more to the southwest. Just as daylight began to appear in the east the last remaining timber of the stable fell, and, though there was a great cloud of sparks and still much heat, I saw that unless a strong east wind should spring up there was no longer danger that the town would be consumed. By this time I was cold and stiff, my face scorched by the fire, and my clothes frozen with the water from the pailfuls I had carried. I went into the hotel.

Kaiser was so glad to see me that he reared up and put his forepaws on my shoulders. I was patting and praising him, when suddenly the question, What caused the fire? flashed into my mind. There had been no trace of Pike. From the windmill tower I had been unable to see any trail leading from the way he would come. There was no explanation except that it must have been caused by the same thing that had made me so much other trouble. Till it was broad daylight I paced up and down the office floor, unable to stop. For two days I thought of little else, and brooded on it till I was half sick.

It seems to me as I look back at it that every time I got fairly desperate through lonesomeness or pure fright I went and dug a snow tunnel. I was as bad as a mole for tunnels; and I meant to tell about my system before this; but so many things keep popping into my mind, what with my memory and with the old hotel register and the letters to my mother lying spread out before me, that I have not once got around to mention any of them except the first, which connected the hotel and the bank, directly across the street. I was so taken up with this that soon after New-Year's I decided to build some others.

I was keeping up at that time five fires (or smokes) besides the one in the hotel, to wit: one in the harness shop and one in Joyce's, both at the north end of the street and opposite each other; one in the bank; one in Townsend's store at the south end of the street on the west side, and one in the depot out across the square in front of the south end of the street. There was a chance for a good tunnel to all of these except to the depot; here the northwest wind had swept across the square and the ground in some places was almost bare.

But the street between the houses was filled up pretty much like a bread tin with a loaf, and starting from the north side of my first tunnel I began another and ran it straight up the street to between the harness shop and Joyce's, and here I ran side tunnels to each of these. The snow was rather low in front of Joyce's at first, and was not enough above the sidewalk to give me room, but the sidewalk here was high, being made of plank, as were all the walks in town; so I went under it by getting down on my hands and knees, and, as the building had no underpinning, I went on under and up through a trap-door in the floor. I got a good many things to eat from Joyce's, such as canned fruit and the like; but I always wrote down on a piece of paper nailed on the wall everything I got from any store, so that in the spring, if I were still alive, I could pay for it, or, if it were food, Sours could, since I was, of course, still working for him and it was his place to pay for my keep.

South from the first tunnel I next ran another and curved it into Townsend's store. This was a fine, high tunnel; and it would have done your heart good to have seen Kaiser whisk about through all of them, filling the air with snow from waving his tail, just like a great feather duster, and oftentimes barking at the top of his voice. "Be still, sir," I would say to him; "you will disturb the neighbors," at the which he would bark the louder. I often wondered what a stranger on top of the drifts would have thought to have heard the dog's noise beneath his feet.

It always seemed warm and comfortable in the tunnels, if they were made of snow; this you noticed particularly on a blizzardy day, since, of course, no wind whatever got into them. Indeed, on a windy day I doubt not a snow tunnel would be warmer than a house without a fire. But though Kaiser delighted in the tunnels, Pawsy would have nothing to do with any of them at all except the one which led from the woodshed to the barn.

This I made last. I got into it from a shed window, which I cut down and fitted with a rough door. It went into the barn through a small door in the corner, which was in halves, like a grist-mill door. I opened only the lower half, and this tunnel I used mainly in bad weather. I had only just finished it the day before the fire. It was the day after the fire, when I was feverish for some way to get rid of my scare, that I decided to go to work on my place of retreat in case the town was burned.

I had thought about building something of the kind for a long while, but could not seem to get it planned out in my mind just to suit me. The burning of the livery stable, of course, set me thinking harder than ever. The place had to be, of course, something that would not burn and some place that could not be found. The only thing that wouldn't burn was the snow, but in case of fire I knew that it would melt for some distance from the buildings. I had just had an example of this. Besides, there had to be a way to get into it which could not be seen either before or after the fire, and this entrance must be from a building so that I would not have to expose myself in going to it. The place must also be where I could stay a few days if I had to. A dozen times I thought I had got the whole thing planned out, and once I wrote about it to my mother, but I always found that something was weak about the plan somewhere. But I now concluded that I had struck on the right thing at last.

A hundred feet back of the next building to the north of the one in which I had my bedroom was a small barn where the man who owned the place had kept a cow. It was so small that I always thought he must have measured his cow, like a tailor, and built the barn to fit. Fifty feet back (east) of this barn was a haystack. Before the snow came the top of it had been taken off so it was left about four or five feet high and the shape of a bowl turned wrong side up. It was in the lee of the barn, and the snow had piled up over it in a great drift so that you would never once have guessed that there was such a thing as a haystack within half a mile. It was, maybe, a hundred feet from the Headquarters barn to this stack, with four or five or more feet of snow all the way. My idea was to tunnel from the barn to the stack, dig out some hay on the south side and have a snug room half made of hay and half of snow.

There was no underpinning beneath the Headquarters barn (most of the buildings in town simply stood on big stones a few feet apart) and the space where it should have been was filled in with a wide board and banked outside with hay. Under Ned's manger I sawed out a piece of this board big enough to crawl through, and hung it on leather hinges at the top, concealed by the manger. I then dug through the hay and had a clear field for my tunnel straight to the stack.

I ran my tunnel, or rather burrow, as it was small and low, a little too much east, and missed the haystack by about three feet, but I probed for it with a long, stiff wire and soon found it. I carried in a hay-knife and cut me out a little room like an Esquimau's house, high enough to sit in and wide and long enough so that I could stretch out comfortably in it. The hay had been wet and was frozen, so there was no danger of its caving down on me. As the stack was all covered with snow no wind could get in, and I knew it would always be warm enough to be comfortable with plenty of clothes and blankets. I took in a buffalo-robe and some things of that sort and left them there. I also cached a box of food there, consisting of dried beef, crackers, and such things; enough, I calculated, to last three days. I could hardly tell what to do about water, but at last tried the plan of chopping ice into small pieces and putting them into some of Mrs. Sours's empty glass fruit-jars. My notion was that in case I was imprisoned there I could button a can inside of my coat and thus thaw enough of the ice to get a drink.

I was very well pleased with what I called my fire stronghold. I could enter from a hidden place in the barn, and could get into the barn through the tunnel from the hotel, which connected with the whole tunnel system. I knew if every house in town burned that it would not melt the snow around the stronghold; and I thought if I were in it when the barn burned I could push down the snow where it melted along the tunnel so that it would not be noticed.

In short I was so tickled over my Esquimau house that I took Kaiser the first night it was done and slept in it; and though it was one of the coldest nights we were comfortable. I heard the wolves sniffing about on the roof, but we were getting used to wolves. I didn't know that we were going to have to sleep under snow again before spring; and in less comfortable quarters.



CHAPTER XVI

Telling of how Pike and his Gang come and of what Kaiser and I do to get ready for them: together with the Way we meet them.

Here, now, I must tell of how the outlaws came to Track's End, and of the fight we, that is to say, Pike and his gang on the one side and I, Judson Pitcher, on the other side, had that day.

I may speak in prejudice, though I mean to be fair, when I say that I believe them to have been as bad a gang of cutthroats as you could well scare up. Though I fought them all as best I could I make no bones of saying that I should ten thousand times rather have been at home blowing the bellows, or doing anything else.

I was very lucky with these villains and was not caught away from home flat on my back, as I had been by those other scoundrels, the Indians; if I had not been lucky I should not now be here to tell the tale. Those fellows meant no good to me nor to anybody else. It would have been no bad thing if they could all have been hanged by the neck.

They came, then, to Track's End to rob, and to murder if needs be, on Saturday, February 5th. My good luck consisted in this: The evening before, just as the sun was about to go down, I saw them at Mountain's from the windmill tower with Tom Carr's field-glass. I had gone up on purpose to have a look about, as I did two or three times every day when the weather was so I could see. For three days the weather had been much better than at any time before, and it had even thawed a little; so I was not much surprised when I saw horses coming up to the shack from the west. I made out seven men all told, and some extra led horses. I could see that the men went into the shack and that many of the horses lay down. By this I knew they were tired, and guessed that the gang would probably stay there that night and rest. I was surprised that they had got through on horses at all. I stayed on the tower till it was so dark that I could not see any more. The longer I stayed the louder my heart thumped.

I knew they might, after all, come that night, either with the horses or on snow-shoes, so I did what I could to get ready for them. The fires were all going well, and I lit several lamps about town. I wished a thousand times for the population I was pretending I had. I thought if I could have even one friend just to talk to perhaps my heart wouldn't act quite so unreasonably. But after a while it tired out and quieted down. My knees got stronger and more like good, sensible knees that you don't have to be ashamed of. I took a look at all the guns and wiped them up. I locked and bolted everything except the doors or windows which led into the tunnels. There wasn't anything more I could do except wait and try to keep that crazy heart of mine a little quiet.

I knew that whenever or however they came they would be most likely to come in on the grade, so I thought the best place to wait was in Townsend's store, as they would have to come up facing the back of it. The windows were planked up; but I knew that there were no windows in town, or even sides of houses, either, which would stop a bullet from a good rifle. I calculated if they came in the night it would probably be about one or two o'clock, and if they waited till morning I could look for them when it began to get light.

I went over to Townsend's early in the evening and sat down close to a back window in the second story. I had Kaiser with me. I think he was gradually getting the thing through his head, because he had stopped wagging his tail and begun to growl once in a while. I thought I could trust him to hear any sound for three or four hours, and I tried to sleep, but I couldn't. Every few minutes I went up a short ladder and put my head out the scuttle in the roof to look and listen. I heard a good deal, but except for the wolves away off it was all in my ears. About midnight by the stars I went to sleep in my chair before I knew it.

When I woke up I gave a great jump. It seemed as if I had been asleep a week; and it certainly had been several hours. Kaiser was sitting on the floor beside my chair. I knelt down and threw my arms around his neck and gave him such a prodigious hug that it must have hurt him. "We will do the best we can!" I said to him.

From the roof I could see a faint light in the east. The wind was fresher from the northwest and it was drifting a little; this was good. I scolded myself for having slept so long. I knew if they had come that I should not have been ready for them.

I hurried around and fixed the fires. I drank a cup of coffee at the hotel, but couldn't eat anything. I think if I had had outlaws every day that my keep wouldn't have cost Sours very much. I was back at Townsend's in a jiffy. It was getting red in the east now, and the moon, which had shone all night, was about down. It was light enough so I could see pretty well by this time; but I heard the crunching of the crust by the horses' feet before I could see them at all. Then I saw the whole gang coming on a dog-trot along the grade, two abreast, with one ahead, seven pleasant neighbors coming to call on me at Track's End. I let them come as near as they deserved to come to any honest town and then fired a shot in front of them. I tried to see if the bullet skipped on the snow, but the smoke got in my eyes.

Anyhow, they stopped pretty quick, and stood all in a bunch, talking. "Maybe you don't like to be shot at," I said out loud. I don't know how it was, but my heart was doing better. I thought I would wait and see before I did any more shooting.

They talked a few minutes; then one of them got off his horse, handed his gun and belt to one of the others, took off his big fur coat, pulled out a white cloth and waved it and came walking very slowly toward the town. This seemed fair enough; I had heard my Uncle Ben tell about flags of truce in the war. I waved my handkerchief out of the port-hole and then waited three or four minutes as if we in the houses were talking it over; then I walked boldly out the back door. Kaiser wanted to go along, so I let him.

The man walked very slowly, and I did the same, but we came up within a few steps of each other at last. This was out not very far from the water-tank. I had expected it was Pike himself, and, sure enough, it was, wearing a leather jacket with the collar turned up.



"It's you, is it, Jud?" said he in a kind of sneering tone. (It seemed strange to me to hear a man's voice, I had been so long alone.)

"Yes, it's me," I answered. "What do you want?"

"I sort of thought these here Track's Enders might send out a full-grown man to talk to me about such an important matter," he went on.

"I was man enough to catch you a couple of times and it was only your good luck that you weren't hung up here in Track's End by the neck," I said, a little put out by the way he spoke, because I was almost as big as he was.

"Oh, well, no matter. Now you—"

"I'll tell you the reason I was sent out," I broke in, just thinking of something.

"What is it?"

"I can say all there is to say as well as anybody, but I'm a poor shot, so it was decided that if I didn't get back it wouldn't make much difference in the matter of shooting you fellows down if you come any nearer."

He pulled his collar down and looked at me over his crooked nose. Kaiser began to growl, but I poked him in the ribs with my foot to let him understand that there was a flag of truce on and he must behave himself. I guess Pike didn't like it, because this sounded as if we couldn't trust him, but he didn't say anything.

"Well," he broke out, "there's no use of us standing here and talking. We've come after that $5,000, and you fellers know it."

"We told you all we had to say about that in the letter."

"Then we'll bust that safe and burn your town," he said, like a savage.

"Go ahead and try it," I answered. "We're ready for you."

His face, which had looked black as night all the while, now turned white with rage.

"We'll try it fast enough and we'll do it fast enough, too," he cried, with some prodigious oaths, bad enough for any pirate. "Look here; I ain't got any gun with me, and I s'pose you ain't, if you're any man at all. But you're as near your gun as I am mine, hey?"

"Yes," I said.

"Then this here flag of truce is ended right now. When I get hold of my gun I shoot, and you're welcome to do the same!"

He turned and started back on the run. So there was nothing for me but to face about and do the same.



CHAPTER XVII

The Fight, and not much else: except a little Happening at the End which startles me greatly.

It seems a good deal to believe, but I actually half think that Kaiser had begun to get hold of the fine points of a flag of truce, and that he understood it was ended. What makes me have this idea is that I think he must have taken after Pike at first, though I wasn't doing much looking back just then, being busy at something more important; but anyhow he wasn't with me till I was halfway to the store, when he passed me with a great bark and went on tearing up the snow a few steps ahead. I wish he had got ahead sooner, as I think I ran faster trying to keep up with him; but as it was I don't know but he saved my life.

Either Pike got back before I did, or one of his cutthroats fired for him; I know not, probably the latter, but the shot was for me and well aimed, so well that I guess the bullet went where I was when it started. Thus it was: Kaiser was ahead, and reared up and threw himself at the store door, which, being unlatched, flew open; it stopped him a little, and I, being close behind, went down over him and into the store head first, as if I had been fired out of a cannon; and at that instant the bullet I spoke of struck the open door halfway up. I slammed the door shut, grabbed my rifle, stuck the muzzle through the port-hole, and pumped three shots out of it without once trying to aim.

Then, without taking breath, I ran out the front by way of the tunnel to the bank, and so up-stairs, where with another rifle I pumped out two more shots, and then looked. The men had left the grade and were coming full tilt out around the water-tank and graders' carts, their horses rearing and floundering through the drifts. I fired twice, aiming carefully each time, but I don't think I hit. I saw they would soon be out of range. Again I dropped my gun, ran down-stairs and through tunnel No. 1 to the hotel and up-stairs to a corner window, double planked up, and giving me the range on the square and the foot of the street. I was there first, with the hammer of my Winchester back, and with Kaiser behind me wishing, I know, that dogs could shoot.