A NIGHT OF ADVENTURE
Because in this story of Snap's life there are so many adventures I
don't want my boy readers to go away with the idea that life out West
is all fun and frolic, for of course I know, as well as anyone, that,
to a hot-blooded English boy, roughing it, and facing dangers which
he just manages to overcome, are fun and frolic. In the summer, the
cowboy has a pretty idle time of it. If he is a fisherman, and there
are trout-streams handy, he may while away the hours with a rod, but
the rivers of the plains on which he and his cattle live are oddly
enough very destitute of fish. Up in the hills, in the tarns and
mountain streams, there is plenty of lovely _Salmo fontinalis_, or
Canadian trout, strong and game fish, which take a fly as well as
their English cousins, and make a really good fight before the angler
manages to land them, bright bars of quivering purple and gold, on
the grass at his feet. There are, too, towns sometimes near enough
to attract the 'boys,' who think nothing of a fifty-mile ride across
the prairie, and in these a good deal of the money advanced by
parents at home is apt to be spent on billiards (of a very poor
quality), gambling, and worse.
Luckily the autumn 'round-up' necessitates everyone's presence on the
ranche, and from that time until summer there is constant, and
occasionally severe, work to be done.
Snap found the worst time was from Christmas, when the really hard
weather set in, until March. Luckily, the Rosebud people had laid in
a very large supply of hay for winter use. Nares's rule was, 'Get in
as much as can possibly be needed for the worst winter men ever saw,
even though you may not want a quarter of it.'
And it was well in Snap's first year that such ample provision had
been made, for not only did the snow fall continuously for many days,
but it packed, thus preventing the beasts from getting at the
sun-dried, self-cured prairie hay below. In the bitterest weather
Snap and the other men had to go out and feed; had to visit the
different bands sheltering in the coulees and hollows of the
foot-hills; look alter the young and the feeble; get the beasts out
of the timber, where, if left alone, they would shiver and starve
rather than face the bitter wind which drove them back from the
feeding-ground on the bare lands below; keep an eye on the coyotes
and wolves; and perform a hundred other duties which required
strength and hardihood, and which were certain either 'to kill a boy
or make a man,' as Wharton put it.
Nature must have meant Snap for a cowboy. His long, lean figure,
broad shoulders, and red-brown skin made him look a typical cowboy,
almost before he was one. Enduring as a wolf, he made up by
staying-power what he lacked in muscles, and day by day these
developed through constant use.
The severe weather had brought down other beasts from the hills
besides the patient oxen. Now and again, as Snap went his rounds, he
saw in the snow a track into which both his own feet would go without
destroying its outline. Sometimes, after following this track for a
while, he would find patches of blood on the trail, and then a dead
steer, torn by the huge claws and mangled by the teeth of 'old
Ephraim,' as the trappers used to call the grizzly. If the beast had
been killed some time, there would be other tracks near--wolf and
coyote--showing that others had finished what the fierce king of the
forest had begun. A dose of arsenic hid in the flesh that was left
would generally enable the cowboys to cry quits with the wolves, and
go some way towards compensating for the death of the steer by the
acquisition of three or four handsome skins, but the grizzly himself
never touched a 'doctored carcase.'
When Christmas came round it brought letters for Snap which kept his
imagination busy all day. One was from the Admiral, another from the
little mother, and a third from the guardian. The Admiral's
accompanied a pair of field-glasses which had belonged to the dear
old fellow for ages, and through which he had looked over many a
stormy sea and sunny land. Through them he had seen the edges of all
the world, the ports of every country, the shattered, shot-torn
rigging of the enemy's fleet, and perhaps the powdered faces of many
a European prima donna. 'Now,' he wrote, 'they are no good to me.
Even these glasses won't help you to see through a London fog, and
it's hardly respectable for the Chairman of the 'Company associated
for the Culture and Civilisation of Puffin Islands' to be seen at a
theatre. So, Snap, I send them to you. I wish I could look through
them, my boy, and see you tending the cattle on a thousand hills.'
So the old gentleman was the director of a company, and Snap, knowing
him well, thought that the shareholders in that company were luckier
than their director, for, if downright honesty would insure the
payment of a dividend by Puffin Islands, Puffin Islands, under the
command of the Admiral, would pay. Poor old gentleman, it was a
change to him, trudging into the City through sludge and fog to talk
about guano and its prospects, instead of with gun and spaniel
pottering about Fairbury coverts on the off chance of a 'cock.'
Then there was a letter from the 'mother,' concealing the miserable
life she and her gallant old brother were leading in a dingy London
back-street--a letter full of thanks to Snap for looking after her
'other two boys' on the way out, and regretting that the three could
not be all together. She sent Snap what she imagined would be useful
Christmas presents, and the tears came into his eyes as he thought of
the weary hours which she must have spent stitch-stitching in the
gloom of a London parlour to make those useless white robes for him.
For, indeed, they were useless. Two of them were night-shirts--linen
night-shirts!--to sleep in in a country where, if you touched an axe
out of doors, the cold made it cling to your hand until either the
skin came away on the axe or you put axe and hand together into hot
water to thaw and dissolve partnership. He treated them very
reverently at first, but, long after, Snap confessed that they had
been very useful '_as overalls_, with a pudding-bag used as an
extempore night-cap, _for stalking wild-fowl in the snow-time_.'
Then there was a long letter from his guardian, reminding Snap that,
'had he only been advised by him, he might now be occupying an
honourable position in commerce or the law, and making his way to a
fair competency in his maturer years.'
'Yes,' muttered Snap, 'and supping on blue pills, with a breakfast of
black draught, or (if very well) only Eno, to follow. No, thank you,
my worthy relative,' muttered the boy. 'I prefer these "Arctic
solitudes and uncultured men," as you civilly call them, to a
solicitor's office, any day.'
Snap's guardian fell into a common error. Civilised himself, he
couldn't understand the beauties of barbarism. Snap could; and of
the two, barbarism and civilisation, thought barbarism the better
horse.
The odd thing that Christmas was that there was no letter from Frank
or Towzer, to whom Snap had already written more than once. Later
on, Snap got a letter, but, as we will ourselves visit the other boys
shortly, it is unnecessary to refer further to that here.
The Admiral's glasses nearly led Snap into a bad scrape, though the
glasses were in no way to blame for it. As he stood trying them from
the door of the ranche-house one morning, he said to Wharton, who was
beside him:
'Dick, I believe I can see a band of cattle making up towards the
line.'
'Like enough,' replied Dick, 'for there is, maybe, some little feed
up that way; but you had better turn them, if you can, we don't want
to lose any that way.'
'What way, Dick?'
'Why, if they get on the line the train may catch them before we do,
and the C.P.R. won't stop for a beast or two; the "cow-catcher"' (a
great iron fender in front of the engine) 'will just pick them up and
chuck them off the rails in heaps.'
'The deuce,' muttered Snap, 'then I'd better go; the boys are out,
and if the silly brutes go on as they are going now they'll just
about get on to the line by the time the passenger train comes along.'
So saying, Snap threw his big Mexican saddle on his pony and started
in pursuit, although it was already late in the day.
It soon became evident that his guess had been a correct one. He had
lost sight of the beasts for a while, it is true, as they had passed
through a thin belt of timber which temporarily hid them from him,
but their tracks led straight on for the line. Still, there was lots
of time, and, after all, the cattle would not be such fools, he
thought, as to climb on to the line itself, where, of course, there
could be no feed.
But they did. When Snap next saw them there were about two dozen
beasts wandering aimlessly up 'the track' itself, towards the great
trestle-bridge which spans the canyon (or gully) of the 'Elk Horn
Crik.' The line here runs along a cutting in a hillside, and Snap,
leaving his pony below, climbed painfully up to the level of the line.
Once up there, his work was only begun. Do all that he would, he
could not get the beasts to leave their perilous pathway. They would
not let him get up to them, but steadily jogged on in front of him
towards the trestle-bridge. Having tried in vain to get round them,
Snap looked at his watch. He had still nearly twenty minutes to
spare before the train was due. If he could run the brutes up to the
trestle-bridge they would never try to cross that, and he would be
able to turn them down the bank, which, terribly steep as it was, was
in places just practicable for the sure-footed, prairie-reared cattle.
So he pressed on, driving the cattle against time, as the dark grew
ever darker, and the train nearer and nearer to the bridge. At last
he thought as he ran that he could hear it far away in the hills, a
low, distant, rattling noise, heard plainly for a moment, and then
lost again as some high ground was brought by a twist of the line
between him and it. The trestle-bridge, however, was in sight, and
in another minute he had the satisfaction of seeing the stupid beasts
trot up to it, stop, and then, first one, then another, turned and
scrambled in headlong fashion down the bank. All except one. One
perverse brute, a thorough Texan, 'all horns and tail,' would not
follow his companions, but elected to try the bridge.
Perhaps my readers do not know what a trestle-bridge is. To
understand the story, it is necessary that they should do so. A
trestle-bridge, then, such as the one before Snap, is a bridge of
timber, the beams laid at right angles to the line, and each beam
about two feet from its neighbour. Across the beams run the iron
rails, and between the beams is nothing at all but emptiness. The
whole bridge is supported on a huge scaffolding, which rises from the
sides of the canyon crossed, and in some cases these bridges are as
much as 150 yards from end to end, and 250 feet above the stream
which generally races along below. To walk over these bridges by
daylight requires a clear head and steady nerves, for, though it is
easy enough to stride from beam to beam for a few yards, it becomes
more difficult as you proceed: the light gleams off the water below,
flickers through the open spaces and dazzles you, while the sight of
the vast profound underneath, and the knowledge that one false step
will send you whirling between those beams to eternity, has not a
steadying effect upon you.
These bridges are, most of them, very narrow, and on the one in
question there was but a single line, the shunting station
immediately preceding the bridge, which was not considered equal to
the weight of two trains at the same time. And on this bridge the
black Texan steer had elected to ramble. Clever as a goat, it
stepped from beam to beam; then, as the light flickered up into its
eyes, it grew nervous and stopped, afraid to come back, and afraid to
go on.
Again Snap heard the warning rattle of the coming train amongst the
hills, a faint whistle, and then again silence. He had saved all the
herd but one. Should he leave that one?
'No, I'm blowed if I will,' muttered the boy, setting his teeth and
feeling just as stubborn as the steer in front of him. 'That train
won't be up for another quarter of an hour--you can hear it coming
for miles on a frosty night like this,' he argued, and boldly enough
he started on to the bridge, stepping freely from beam to beam.
The steer, seeing him coming, moved slowly on, trembling in every
limb, but still determined not to be headed.
'Confound the brute,' thought Snap, 'I shouldn't wonder if he means
me to follow him across the Rockies. I will head him, though!'
Just then the steer made a false step. One leg went just short of
the beam on to which it had intended to step. It lurched forward,
and for one moment Snap thought it had gone over into the abyss. But
it recovered itself somehow, and stood trembling in every limb, and
bellowing piteously in its fear.
Then, unfortunately, Snap himself looked down through the ribs of
that skeleton bridge. It was getting dusk now, and he could not see
very clearly; but below he could hear the roll of waters amongst the
boulders, he could see the tops of trees far below him, and
occasionally a white flash of foam where the river dashed against a
black rock. He didn't like it, 'you bet,' as he said afterwards, 'he
did not like it,' and the more he looked the less he liked it.
For some reason, unexplained, his knees at this juncture acquired an
unhappy knack of knocking together, and grew weak and uncertain.
With a start he pulled himself together. This would not do at any
price. There was another hundred yards of bridge to traverse, and he
hardly thought, if the train was 'on time,' that he would be able to
coax that steer across before the train reached the bridge.
At that moment a roar sounded behind Snap--the roar and rattle of a
huge engine, and then a piercing shriek from the steam-whistle--such
a shriek, so shrill, so wailing, that it sounds among the lone peaks
of the Rockies like the cry of some tortured spirit.
Snap's heart turned to stone in that awful minute, as the red light
rounded the bluff not a hundred yards from the head of the bridge,
and rushed towards him. Then the blood came back to his cheek, and
the strength to his arm. Death was staring him in the face. Unless
he DID something, he had not ten seconds to live. He would have
raced for the other end of the bridge, but his brain was keener now
than ever in his life before, and he knew human speed would avail him
nothing in the time allowed him. In another few seconds the
cow-catchers would sweep him off the track and hurl him down, down,
rushing through the air over that narrow edge to the sharp, wet rocks
below. The rails themselves were so near the edge of the bridge that
a man could not stand outside the rails and escape. The foot-board
of the train would sweep him down, or the wind from the engine blow
him into space. There was only one thing to be done, and with a
muttered prayer he did it. Dropping on his knees in the middle of
the track, he seized a beam with both hands, lowered himself through
the opening, and hung by his hands, dangling over the depth below.
If he let go it meant death. His muscles were strong, his grip
desperate, but could he hold on when the timbers rocked beneath the
great mass of wood and iron which was even now upon them?
It was all like a horrible nightmare. He could see and hear
everything so plainly, and think so clearly and so fast. Far down
below he heard a great tree crack with the frost; looking up, he
could see the Texan steer stupefied with terror. Then the bridge
rocked and his hands almost lost their grip; a blaze of lurid light
flashed in his eyes and blinded him; a breath as of a furnace licked
his face for one moment and made him sick with horror; two or three
great, bright sparks of fire dropped past him, down, down, into the
darkness; there was a dull thud, and a mass of broken limbs was shot
out into the dark night to fall with a faint splash into the river
below; and then the train had passed, and Snap hung there
still--saved from the very jaws of death.
Then, and not till then, the full horror of the thing came upon him.
Then, and not till then, pluck, and coolness, and strength deserted
him. He had held firm to the beam when it shook like a leaf in the
blast, now he tried to draw himself up and he could not. He, Snap
Hales, to whom the horizontal bar in the gymnasium at school had been
a favourite plaything, could not, to save his life, draw himself up
to his chin, and for a moment his fingers began to let go and he
thought of dropping down, that he might have done with the struggle
and be still.
Then he tried again. He felt that if he failed this time he would
never succeed afterwards; his strength was all going fast, and inch
by inch he dragged himself up with desperate effort, until at last he
lay with a gasp half-fainting along the bars.
A long blood-curdling howl from somewhere in the mist-filled gorge
beneath brought him to himself. Was it possible, he thought, that
they had smelt the fresh blood already? Only five seconds more of
indecision--a little less strength to regain his position upon the
bridge--and his own shattered body might have made a meal for those
grim and hungry scavengers! It was a horrible thought, and as he
stepped clear of those dangerous timbers Snap looked up thankfully at
the bright stars and beyond.
It was now dark save for the starlight; but that, reflected from the
snow, was already bright enough to travel by. Later on, when the
night was undisputed mistress of the earth, it would be light enough
to read a letter on the prairie.
Unfortunately for Snap, he was likely to see a good deal of a
Canadian winter night before he got home to the cheerful fire in the
ranche-house. Misfortunes, they say, never come singly. In this
instance the proverb was justified, for on looking for his pony Snap
found it had broken away from the tree to which he had tied it, and
had gone back towards home.
Snap was not only disgusted, but puzzled. A tramp home after his
recent experiences was not quite what he would have chosen, and that
the old 'Cradle' should have played him such a trick passed his
understanding.
Just then a cry which reverberated amongst the great pines, and
seemed to fill the forest with horror, explained the mystery. It was
the cry of the hungry mountain lion seeking his prey by night. Snap
glanced at the pine to which his horse had been tied. Yes, thank
goodness, his rifle was there! it had not been strapped to his
saddle; and as the boy got hold of his weapon confidence returned to
him. If only he could get clear of the forest on to the open prairie
he had no fear of the cowardly, sneaking brute behind him.
He tried to sing as he walked, to show his confidence and scare the
beast with the sound of the human voice. But it was no good, he
could not sing in that forest. Its awful silence rebuked him: the
cold stars looked down, it seemed to him, in stony scorn, and his
voice seemed so little and insignificant amongst all these mighty
children of mother Nature.
Now and again the ice upon some stream, or the frozen limbs of some
great tree, cracked like a loud rifle-shot. All else was still,
except now and again for the voice of the red beast sneaking behind
the boy somewhere in the shadows, still following, still afraid to
attack.
The silence and lifelessness of a North American forest in winter is
very impressive. The snow which covers the ground is lighter than
swansdown, drier than sand. It falls unheard, it gives place to the
foot without a sound. The birds are gone, or if not gone have
hidden. The bear has made him a bed in some hollow tree or cave, and
sleeps silently in the silent wood. The squirrel chatters no longer;
he, too, has retired to his little granary in some hollow trunk. The
rabbit and the weasel are still restlessly wandering about as usual,
but both have changed their coats, and assumed a white covering to
match the snows amongst which they live. Almost everything sleeps:
trees in their robes of snow, the bear in his cave, the streams in
their bonds of ice; even the winds are still. Nothing stirs.
If you have ever made a long walk at night by yourself over some
lonely road or moor you may know that feeling which grows upon you,
that some one is following you, that you can hear other footsteps
than your own behind you. If this state of mind occurs to those who
walk alone in England, where silence is really unknown and solitude
impossible, where there are no mysteries (and very few, alas! of the
beauties) of nature left, you can imagine how anxiously Snap kept
gazing into the forest round and behind him for the owner of that
awful voice, about which there could be no mistake, which was not the
mere creation of any fancy.
At last he could see the edge of the open prairie, and, breaking into
a run, he gained it. It was not a wise thing to do, for if anything
will encourage a wild beast to attack, it is the appearance of flight
in a man. And so it was in this case. As Snap gained the open he
looked back, and as he did so, saw the long snake-like figure of the
mountain lion come in long bounds across the snow.
As the boy faced about, the great reddish brute paused for a moment,
crouching, its belly almost on the snow, for the last rush; its ears
flattened back, its yellow eyes ablaze with murder, and its white
fangs gleaming in the starlight. But a foe in the open can always be
tackled and fought outright, and the flash of the good Winchester was
redder than the anger in the wild beast's eyes, and the sharp, clear
ring of the little rifle was a more unerring presage of death than
even the scream of the mountain lion.
Over and over the great beast rolled, dyeing the snow with his blood,
and Snap, standing beside him, guessed him at a good ten feet six
inches from the tip of his snout to the tip of his tail.
Having skinned the panther (for in the West this animal is called
indifferently mountain lion, catamount, panther, and a good many more
names), Snap once more plodded homewards, utterly worn out with
fatigue and excitement.
The sound of his rifle had attracted the notice of old Wharton, who
now rode towards him, leading a spare pony for his use. Although
there was much to tell, the two rode home almost in silence, for the
spell of the night was upon them, and, besides, their whole minds
were absorbed in the wonderful spectacle before them.
[Illustration: IN THE WOOD]
Suddenly great flames of rosy red had risen from behind the distant
mountains, and reached like the fingers of some great hand across the
heavens. The whole sky was full of the rosy light, the stars had
turned white and pale. The great spokes of flame seemed to tremble
with heat, like the hot air round a chimney on a day in June; then
gradually they grew paler and almost died out, only to flash out
again directly in brighter glory. It was the Aurora Borealis!