Track's End Page 21

  CHAPTER XVIII

  After the Fight: also a true Account of the great Blizzard: with how Igo to sleep in the Stronghold and am awakened before Morning.

  So that is the true history of the fight, just as it all happened atTrack's End, Territory of Dakota, on Saturday, February 5th; and thus,through good luck and being well intrenched behind my fortifications,and having plenty of Winchesters, I beat off the cutthroat outlaws andheld the town. If they had waited one day longer for their coming theywould have waited a good while longer; for the next day there camesuch a blizzard as I had never seen before nor since, which roaredwithout ceasing six days, lacking twelve hours; and for two weeks morethe weather stayed bad, and seemed to have relapses, as they say of aperson sick. No robbers could have come through it, but the ones thathad come got back to their headquarters through the first of it, as Ihave good reason to know.

  And for almost six weeks after the fight I lived regularly and withoutmuch disturbance, with Kaiser and the other animals for company by dayand the howling of the wolves and my own thoughts by night. If thethoughts had given me no more trouble than the wolves I should havebeen happy, for I think I had got so that I could not sleep unlessthere was a wolf howling somewhere about in the neighborhood. Theloneliness, the dread of the outlaws coming back, the mystery of whator who was in or near the wretched town besides myself, all kept withme and made me wish ten thousand times that I had never heard of theplace, or of any place except home.

  Though of course I did not keep so miserable all the while. There wasplenty of work to be done, and I kept at it most of the time. My eyesoon got well. The day after I beat off the outlaws and had a littlerecovered from the work and strain of that and of the strange startthe disappearance of the saddle gave me, I found so many thingswaiting to be done that I scarce knew what to turn my hand to first.But I had thought the poor pony in the tunnel deserved to be got outbefore anything else was done; and this I attended to an hour afterthe robbers had gone. I went out half expecting to find it gone, too,with its saddle; but it was not.

  It was quite tired out and stood hanging its head. To get it out theway it had tumbled in would take a great amount of shoveling in thehard snow, I soon saw, so I decided I would try to lead it through thetunnel and on out by way of the hotel, though it seemed an odd thingto do. So I put a halter on it and tried that plan, and though itsback scraped a little in places, what with me ahead and with Kaiserbehind barking a good deal, we got it along and into the office andthen on through the storeroom and kitchen and out to the barn. Dickand Ned were much excited by the new arrival, and so for that matterwas Blossom; and Crazy Jane was like to have cackled her head off. Thepoor things were the same as I, half dead from lonesomeness.

  Then I straightened up things about town which had been put out oforder by the fight, fixed the fires again and cleaned up the guns. Ididn't forget to go up the windmill tower several times to have a lookfor the outlaws, but I saw no more of them. Another thing I did wasto lay some big slabs of frozen snow over the hole in the tunnel wherethe pony fell through, and it was a good thing I did this or I believethe blizzard would have gone near to filling the whole tunnel system.As it was it piled on more snow and covered all trace of the robbers'charge on the street.

  I think it would not be possible for me to make you understand what ablizzard that was, which began the next day and kept up for the bestpart of a whole week. All day and night it roared and pushed at thewindows and drove the snow in every crack and hole; here piled it upand there swept it away clean down to the ground. Not once did I goout beyond the tunnels. The fire at the depot I let go out, and theothers I kept up more to have something to do than for any use theywere, because I knew no outlaws could ever come in such a storm.

  While the blizzard lasted I had a hard time to find enough to do tokeep my mind off of my troubles. In an old recipe-book, which I foundin the closet under the stairs, it told how to tan skins, so I begantanning my wolf-skins. I whittled out some puzzles, too, and made aleather collar for Pawsy; but she would not wear it. I forgot to saythat after the fight I found her in her old place over the door. Itaught Kaiser some tricks, too, and gave the cat a chance to improveherself in the same way, but she refused the opportunity.

  I did some reading, too, during these days. There was little to readin the Headquarters House, but among Tom Carr's things I found a bookby Doctor Kane, telling of his life in the arctic regions, and this Ienjoyed a great deal, feeling that I was in a country not much warmer,and that I must be more lonely than he was, since he always had humancompanions, while I had not one. In Mr. Clerkinwell's rooms over thebank I found some other books, all with very fine leather covers. Someof these I took the liberty of borrowing, but was very careful ofthem. One was _The Pilgrim's Progress_, and I liked most of itexceedingly, especially the fight in the king's highway whichChristian had with Apollyon. Another book was a story, veryentertaining, by Charles Dickens, about little Pip and the convictwho came back from Australia; I felt very sorry for Pip when he had togo out on the wet marshes so early, he being so little and the marshesso big.

  There was another thing that I tried to amuse myself with, beingnothing less than music. I found an old banjo belonging to Tom Carrand an accordion which Andrew had left behind. The banjo I could notdo much with, but when I saw the accordion I said to myself that if Icould blow the bellows in my father's forge, I ought to be able towork an accordion. So I went at it, hammer and tongs, and soon couldproduce a great noise, though mighty dismal, I think, and maybe whatyou would (had you heard it) have called heartrending, since wheneverI started up Kaiser would point his nose to the ceiling and howl, verysad indeed. I think when one of our concerts was going on that could aguest have arrived at the Headquarters House he would have thought hehad found a home for lunatics and not a hotel for an honest travelerwho could pay his way.

  During the blizzard also I drew up in black and white a programme foreach day which I decided I must follow out when the weather becamebetter; though I had lived up to most of it from the first. Thus itwas:

  Five o'clock--Get up, start fire in hotel and make cup of coffee.

  Five-thirty--Inspect fires in bank and three stores.

  Six o'clock--Feed horses and cow and chickens, and milk cow.

  Six-thirty--Get breakfast for self and Kaiser and Pawsy (whichincluded washing the dishes, a hard job).

  Seven-thirty--Inspect depot fire and climb windmill tower and lookover country with glass.

  Eight o'clock--Finish work at barn; and for two hours suchmiscellaneous work as might be doing, as tunnels or otherfortifications.

  Ten o'clock--Windmill mounting again; miscellaneous work for twohours.

  Noon--Dinner for family and work at barn.

  One-thirty--Inspection of fires and windmill mounting; followed bymiscellaneous work.

  Three o'clock--Windmill mounting; miscellaneous work.

  Four-thirty--Final daylight inspection of country from windmill;miscellaneous work.

  Six o'clock--Supper and work at barn.

  Eight o'clock--General inspection of fires and town, includingobservation from windmill for lights or fires.

  Nine o'clock--Bed.

  This system I followed out pretty closely whenever the weather was atall fair. When there was no miscellaneous work I would practise on theskees, shoot at the target, or something of this sort. Quite often ondays when the weather would allow (though there were few enough ofthem) I would go up around and beyond the Butte on a little hunt. Igot several jack-rabbits and three more wolves. One of the wolves Ileft outside the shed, forgetting it. In the morning it was gone.There were not many thefts, however, and the shed was not broken intoany more; though, to be sure, I had made the door twice as strong asit was before, and kept everything about town carefully and stronglylocked, especially the buildings where the guns and ammunition were.

  During the worst storms I used to sleep on the lounge in the hoteloffice, but at other times I always retired to the other build
ing andtook in the drawbridge. Two or three times, just for a change, I tookKaiser and slept in the fire stronghold. Kaiser and Pawsy stillremained as much company for me as they had been from the first. WhatI should ever have done in that solitude without them I don't know.The great bushy wag of Kaiser's tail, and the loud purr of the cat,were the two things that cheered me more than anything else. I dobelieve that cat to have had the loudest purr of any cat that everlived. A young tiger need not have been ashamed of it. And as for thegrand wave and flourish of Kaiser's tail, it is beyond alldescription.

  On one of my rabbit-hunting trips, about a week after the bigblizzard, I very foolishly got both of my feet frost-bitten and paidthe full penalty. The day seemed not quite so cold, and I did not puton the heavy pair of woolen stockings which I commonly wore outside ofmy shoes and inside of my overshoes. I crouched behind a snowbankbeyond the Butte for some time waiting for a rabbit which I saw tocome within range, something which he did not do, and was sointerested in this that I did not notice what was happening to myfeet. But what had happened was quite plain enough when I got home anda great ache set up in my toes. I got the dish-pan full of snow andthrust my feet in, to draw out the frost gradually; but this did notsave me.

  Two days later I was fairly laid up. One whole day I could scarcecrawl about the hotel office and keep the fire going. I could not getto the barn to feed the animals, though they were suffering for foodand water; and what I called my war-fires in the other buildings Iknew were out. My feet were much swollen, and the pain and the worrymust have brought on a fever, and I lay on the lounge all dayexpecting nothing less than a fit of sickness; and what will become ofme? I asked myself. I had no appetite for food, which alarmed me verygreatly. I remember no day of my life at Track's End which seemeddarker to me.

  Toward night I fell asleep, and awoke with Kaiser licking my face andwhining. I remembered that I had seen in the pantry a package ofboneset, an herb by which my father set great store, holding it asovereign remedy for all common complaints. I roused up, and byclinging to the back of a chair hobbled after it, and steeped myself alarge mugful, very hot, and I believe it did me good. Be this as itmay, as the saying is, I was better the next day, and managed to feedthe poor, hungry creatures at the barn; and the day after I was ableto start the fires. But for a week my feet were very painful, and Isuffered much.

  It was a little more cheerful as the days began to get longer asFebruary went on, and in the latter part of the month I thought theweather seemed to grow slightly better on the whole. For three daysafter the big blizzard the thermometer had stood from forty toforty-five below zero each morning, and it did not get up much higherat any time during the day. On the last two days of February it thaweda little in the afternoon, and on March 2d the snow was soft enough soI could make snowballs to throw at Kaiser; but it soon turned coldagain.

  There were northern lights many nights, flaming all over the heavens,like long swords, and on the night of February 15th there were somemore prodigious than I would believe were possible had I not seen themwith these eyes. They hung, wavering and trembling, over the wholenorthern sky almost to the zenith, like the lower edges of vast,mighty curtains, swaying and moving, now here, now there, and with allcolors, yellow, violet, scarlet, blood red, as if the whole heavenswere going to burn up, the thing being so marvelous that had I notseen lesser displays before I should have thought the world were at anend, no less, and have died, I do believe, of terror. As it was Istood in the snow by the barn gazing till my feet were like blocks ofice and I knew not if I were in Track's End or in the moon. Kaiser atfirst barked at the sight, then growled, then whined, and next ranyelping away to the shed, where I found him crept beneath a bench.Never in my life before nor since have I seen anything to equal theheavens that night. Early on the morning of February 24th I saw abeautiful mirage. I could see plainly, high in the air, the timberand bluffs along the Missouri, and the Chain-of-Lakes and coteaux. Itlasted for a full half-hour.

  THE INDIAN GETTING MY RIFLE IN THE STRONGHOLD]

  It happened on the night of March 14th that I took it into my head tosleep another night in the stronghold with Kaiser, and so broughtabout one more startling thing. It seemed that I must always be doingsomething instead of staying content with things as they were. It hadbeen thawing a little for several days and I was beginning to wonderif I could not hope for such weather that the train might get throughbefore long and release me from the awful place; though I knew thesnow was packed in the cuts all along the line to the east like ice,and that it would take a great thaw to make any impression on it.

  About nine o'clock I left the hotel, after carefully lockingeverything, and went through the tunnel to the barn with Kaiser, myrifle, and the lantern. I locked all the doors behind me, and then wecrawled through the small door under Ned's manger, and that I fastenedalso. In the stronghold I rolled up in a blanket and the buffalo-robewith Kaiser beside me. I left the lantern burning in the tunnel justbeyond my feet at the edge of the stack. Kaiser barked at somethingwhen we first got in; later I heard wolves sniffing about on the roof;then we both went to sleep.

  Some time in the night I awoke; what woke me I suppose I shall neverknow. But when I awoke I sat up suddenly as if I had never beenasleep. I was face to face with the worst-looking creature I had everseen in my life, black and blear-eyed and ugly, on his hands and kneesin the tunnel beyond the lantern drawing my gun toward him by thestock. Then Kaiser sprang up like any wild beast; but I held him backby the collar.