Track's End Page 16

  CHAPTER XIII

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

  It was on the morning of Tuesday, January 25th, as I sat at breakfastwith 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 tomyself:

  "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 anddrunken Indians." And when I said this I had not forgotten (when hadit been once out of my mind, waking or sleeping?) what I saw onNew-Year's night; but I knew not if I were to count that as human orwhat.

  I remember that Sunday night after I finished the letter to my motherwhich I put in the last chapter, how I found it darker than I expectedwhen I went out, and how I ran along the snowbanks with my heartthumping like to split, and threw the letter in the top of thepost-office door (the rightful opening was long before buried underthe snow) and then shot back to the hotel, not daring to look behindme 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 courageto go to the barn and feed the stock. I think I was in a greater stateof terror than on the night after the battle with the wolves. I walkedthe floor, back and forth, on tiptoe and listened; and the less therewas to hear, the more I heard. At last I, after a fashion, put down myfright, and ventured out to the barn; but even then I could notwhistle; I tried, but my lips would not stay puckered.

  I went to bed as soon as I could, and though I thought I should neverget to sleep, I did at last. What my dreams were, or how many times Isat 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 thework as hard as I could.

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

  Night after night the scrap-pail by the back door was rummaged andsomething 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 thehay-loft seven or eight feet above the drift. After I missed thechicken I nailed this up and lost no more. I thought there were a fewscratches on the side of the barn below the window, but I could tellnothing from them. Almost every night it either snowed or drifted, orboth, so there was almost no hope of ever finding tracks of any kindon the ground. One morning I found the windmill at the station throwninto gear and running full tilt, but the lever which controlled it mayhave slipped. Two or three times I thought I heard the windlass of thewell near the barn creak, but I tried to make myself believe that itwas only the wind.

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

  Another night they howled so long right in front of the building I wasin 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. Onefell, and the others made off at a great rate. I watched the one onthe snow till I was sure he was dead, and I heard nothing more of theothers that night. In the morning there was neither hide nor hair ofthe 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 tellabout my great system of tunnels presently, but before I began it Idid much else. One of the first things was to make a long, light sledfor Kaiser to draw, and also a harness for him. The materials andtools for the one I got from the wagon-repair shop attached toBeckwith's blacksmith shop, and the same for the other from theharness shop, where I kept up one of my fires. I was always handy withall 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, andhad thus become a fairly good mechanic for my age. I could handle aplane or a drawshave or a riveting-hammer, or even an awl, for thematter of that, with any of them.

  I used this dog rig chiefly for taking over ground feed from the depotto the barn for the horses and cow; but Kaiser learned to enjoy thework of dragging the sled so much that I soon came to use him nearlyalways in good weather in making my rounds to look after the fires orpatrol the town. He would whisk me along on top of the frozen driftsat such a rate that it would nearly take my breath away sometimes. Ipractised with the skees till there was no danger of turning my ankleagain, and would sometimes run races with him on them; but he couldbeat me all hollow unless there was a good, stiff load on the sled.

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

  It was about New-Year's that I began to spend my evenings in notingdown in the hotel register what had happened during the day. I didthis chiefly so that when I came to write to my mother Sunday I wouldforget nothing; and I am very glad now that I did so, for without theregister 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 ofthe incidents of my winter at Track's End and some person, to show howsmart he was, has tried to cast doubt on my word--it has been muchcomfort to me, I say, in such cases to have the register and lettersto show him, with it all set down in black and white.

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

  Pawsy was a good hunter, and several times caught a snowbird, though Iboxed her ears for this; and on Friday, the 21st, I found her nearJoyce's store trying to drag home a jack-rabbit. She must have caughtit by lying in wait, but I marveled how she killed the monstrouscreature. But she was, indeed, one of the largest and strongest cats Iever 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 themvery good to eat; but the first one, after skinning it, I leftovernight in the shed, and in the morning it was gone. That day Iwent to Taggart's and got two good bolts and put them on the sheddoor.

  Getting my meals I found very hard work, but I made out better thanyou might think, since my mother had taught me something aboutcooking. At first I neglected getting regular meals, snatching a biteof anything that I could lay my hands on; but I soon saw that thiswould not do if I were to keep in good health and strength. Myboarders, too, were great hands to complain if they did not get theirmeals regularly. You might have thought that cat and dog were payinggood money for their board, the way they would mew and whine if a mealwere late. I took very good care of the chickens, giving them plentyof warm food, so from about Christmas I got a dozen or more eggs eachweek. The cow, too, I fed well on ground feed and hay, with pumpkinsand sometimes a few potatoes, and she gave me a fair quantity of milkall 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 a
nd apple dumplings and suchthings, all of which my mother used to make very freely at home, andnever keeping them hid. I looked longingly at the pumpkins, and oncefetched a quantity of ginger from Joyce's, vowing I would attemptpumpkin pie; but I never got up my courage. Bread, also, I neverattempted, though I got a package of yeast from the store and lookedat it many times. The place of this was taken by pancakes, which Imade almost every day, big and thick, which with molasses went verywell; though a good cook, as like as not, would have said they weresomewhat leathery.

  There was not an apple in town, nor any kind of fresh fruit, but therewere dried apples and prunes, and canned fruit and vegetables,especially tomatoes. Of the canned things I liked the strawberriesbest, and ate many, though they tasted somewhat of the tin. There wereplenty of crackers in the stores, and some dry round things,dark-colored, which called themselves gingersnaps; I took home a largepackage in great glee, thinking I had made a find; I ate one of themby main strength and gave the rest to the cow. Butter I made severaltimes, with fair success, though it was not like mother's, being moregreasy.

  Fresh meat I missed very much, though the few jack-rabbits I gothelped out, and were good eating, as I have said, and smelled as goodas anything could while cooking. Some other fresh meat I had also, asyou 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 herfor my Sunday dinner. When I got to the barn the hen seemed to knowwhat 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 moreplans for fried chicken.

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

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

  It was on the very day that I had said to Kaiser and Pawsy atbreakfast (that is, January 25th) that it was a month since I had seenany 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 didnot take me long to go up the windmill tower. It was not past teno'clock in the forenoon, so the light for looking toward the northwestwas good, though of course, as the sun was shining, the snow waspretty dazzling. But I could still only make out that something wasmoving south or southwest. It was impossible to tell if it were men orhorses or cattle. So I went down as fast as I could, jumped onto thesled, and the next minute Kaiser had me at the hotel, where I got thefield-glass and went back.

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

  My first thought was that it was daylight and no jack-lantern wouldscare them away. I saw I must depend on harsher measures. In almost notime 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 oftown, and stood peeping out a loophole with two fully loadedWinchesters on a table beside me.