OLD JOE RIGGS.
It was Sunday, the eighth day after Jack had taken that memorable trip
so near unto death. In the warm sunshine at Rock Creek camp the major
part of the day had been passed by the young hunter in writing up his
journal, carefully jotting down all the incidents of latest development,
even to the extra spread given in his honor to himself and three
imaginary guests. He, being present, had a good meal, but the "invited"
guests had to feast by proxy. The menu started with a hambone soup, and
a nice broiled mountain trout, captured in a big hole where Pony and
Rock Creek join forces. Winter trout being so great a luxury, Jack
forgot his table etiquette and asked for a second portion, and being
refused, he made a fierce onslaught upon the piece de resistance, no
more and no less than a blue grouse roasted before the fire, as they
roasted turkeys in the days of the Pilgrim Fathers. Jack used one of the
metal joints of the cleaning rod belonging to his rifle as a spit, and
as he turned the bird slowly and basted it with venison fat he wondered,
if his guests could really drop in for a moment, what they would say
about his culinary efforts. The bird was stuffed with real sage
dressing; not quite so good as mother used to make, as the mountain sage
is a trifle stronger. When finished the grouse was garnished with
juniper berries and spruce buds, these being the winter food of the
grouse. There was a distinct flavor of the juniper in the meat. Then
came an entree of young elk brains and another of Big Horn kidney stew.
Jack was shy on vegetables of any kind, except Rock Creek baked beans,
cooked all night in a Dutch oven sunk in the hot ashes of the camp fire;
two kinds of bread, baking powder and sour dough, the first being hot
biscuit, the latter nice big slices of cold white bread, never free from
the name it bears. Stewed prunes and baked apple dumpling constituted
the pastry, while black coffee in a tin cup and sparkling Rock Creek
water served for liquids.
Jack had finished the "dishes," the last rattle of tin plates, pans, cup
and skillets had re-echoed from the depths of the "china" closet, and he
had settled himself for a chat with his pipe, when Chiquita bounded into
camp all excitement and panting for breath.
"Colorow gone Sulphur Springs. Take 'em many ponies" (counting forty
with her fingers). "All Utes except old men and Yamanatz go too. Mebbe
so come back with bullets, powder, bacon, flour," and she stopped to
breathe.
Jack contemplated, and while he did so Chiquita cast wistful eyes at the
remains of the midday banquet. The longing expression was not a new one
to Jack. He knew from experience that Chiquita was a good eater, in fact
all Indians had that failing, so he motioned the belle of the village to
a seat on the end of a log near by and proceeded to dish her up a square
meal. He knew that Yamanatz would be coming along soon, so he reserved
some odds and ends for him. When Chiquita had advanced far enough so she
could have time between mouthfuls--not bites--to answer, Jack gave
utterance to his thoughts.
"Colorow's ponies make pretty big track in snow--make heap big trail.
Mebbe so good for two sleeps on high mountain where wind blow."
Chiquita understood and stopped her struggles, with a rib of venison in
one hand and a grouse wing in the other, long enough to articulate:
"Chiquita comprehends. White man follow Utes; white man leave Chiquita
and Yamanatz to go Sulphur Springs, mebbe so Denver City."
Her smiles were gone, but not her appetite, as she renewed her attacks
on the remnant counter. Jack replied:
"Mebbe so Jack be gone four moons. Come back when honeysuckle on
mountainside and cactus on plain in bloom. Will Chiquita and Yamanatz go
then with Jack to Blazing-Eye-by-Big-Water?"
Jack decided to get out of the Ute country while the scalp was yet on
his head and not dangling at the belt of any warrior, or braided into
the make-up of any tepee pole. Just then the clatter of two ponies down
the trail caused him to look around. In a moment or two the willows
parted and Yamanatz, accompanied by a white man, whom Jack recognized as
old Joe Riggs, entered the camp. To Jack's greeting of "How?" the
newcomers both made response. Joe inquired as to the condition of Jack's
feet, and upon being assured that those necessary adjuncts to a man's
safety on Rock Creek were in fairly good order, the cattleman suggested
the opportunity presented for Jack to make an attempt to connect with
civilization.
Old Joe Riggs was known from the Cache le Poudre to the Rio Grande; to
cowman, miner, prospector and goods store folks. Old Joe was a part and
parcel of the main range. Forty-niners had bunked with him and
fifty-niners had divided buffalo steaks with him, while sixty-niners
from Missouri allowed old Joe could rock a cradle or shovel tailings
from the sluice boxes, and seventy-niners found him as ready to take his
turn at the drill or windlass as the best of them. In appearance old Joe
was a weird, uncanny being that made the creeps run up and down one's
crupper bone. Seated upon a chair in a room full of average-sized
people, Joe appeared a dwarf. His anatomy seemed to rest on the ends of
his shoulder blades, while his knees formed the hypothenuse of an
inverted right-angle triangle. When standing he overtopped every man in
a regiment of six-footers. His arms swung listlessly to his knees from
the shoulder socket, as if lacking in elbow joints, terminating in hands
fashioned more after the talons of an eagle than those of a human being.
His nose was also like the beak of that fierce bird, while his chin
retreated from his underlip in a direct line to the "Adam's apple." High
cheek bones and protruding forehead caused the deep sunken orbital
spaces to appear sightless, except for the nervous batting of his
eyelids. His shoulders were broad, but being thin chested, he was short
on lung capacity, which caused a most extraordinary mixture of guttural
whispers and shrill wheezes every time he tried to talk. His strength
was prodigious, and on more than one occasion he had won his drink by
taking hold of the chines of a full barrel of liquor, raising it from
the ground to his lips and drinking his fill from the bunghole. The most
startling of all, though, was his wardrobe, and it was an open secret
that Joe had his surname thrust upon him by reason of the various rigs
in which he was clad. As the winter season approached and Joe got cold,
he would appropriate any and all old garments he could find lying around
loose; old pants, overalls, shirts, vests and socks which others had
cast away as useless. These he would patch and sew together where
necessity demanded, lengthening or widening, and pull one garment on
over another. In this semi-annual outfitting he would appear one day
with overalls reaching just below the knees, the pair under them
revealing their "frazzled" ornamentations for a foot or more. The next
day, as like as not, he would find an old pair of red drawers, and these
would go on right over the last pair of overalls. When the spring came
and warm weather got the best of his clothes, Joe proceeded to divest
himself of a lot of useless and uncomfortable rags, for by that time
they could not be called garments.
Joe at the present time was conducting a vest-pocket ranch on the sunny
slopes of the cedar-treed hills rising from the Grand River tributaries
and in what were termed "warm holes," being little areas of sage-brush
covered mesas found upon the banks of the streams. These miniature parks
were quite fertile in bunch and even buffalo grass, and varied from five
acres to a whole section in extent. His herd of cattle consisted of two
heifers, six old cows and ten three-year-old steers. This constituted
the nucleus of an expectant million-dollar stock farm. It represented
more than the average fortune accumulated by constant and attentive
prospecting for forty years.
Joe's hint at the opportunity of connecting with God's country struck
Jack as a coincidence upon which there might turn a contingency, so he
reasoned with himself: "Why does Joe think I might want to get away from
the Indians? Does he think I will desert my camp outfit and provisions?
Besides, what is the old trapper to do when he returns?"
These questions were immediately answered by the cattleman just the same
as though Jack had asked the information point blank, a proceeding which
added to the weirdness of Joe's presence, and the most uncanny feature
of it was the total inability of the hearer to locate whence came the
sound that emanated from that sepulchral living cadaver. No lips moved
in unison with a voice, nor even did the gleaming teeth, just visible
through the parted mouth, open or close as if responsive to any oral
exertions. The sound came from everywhere. Joe was a heaven-born
ventriloquist.
"Yer needn't be slow about gittin' away from Rock Creek ef yer want ter
go. 'Taint nothin' ter me. That ther' trapper ain't comin' back 'til
ther beaver gets to usin' thar cutters on the trees a-buildin' dams, an'
then he won't cum back ef thar's goin' to be trubble. He tol' me that
ther day afore he struck out, savvey?"
Jack did not need to have the cabin fall on him nor an upheaval of the
earth to realize that the trapper had "cut loose" from the Rock Creek
possibilities. There was an ominous silence for a couple of minutes. One
thing was certain in the minds of the two white men, alone, as they
were, far from aid of any sort in the event of an uprising, and the
thought uppermost in both their minds was as patent to each other as if
branded in letters of fire--the trapper had deserted the tenderfoot.
As soon as this thought had coursed through Jack's brain other thoughts
surged one upon another in quick succession. Was it a frontier
conspiracy in which both white and red men were equally interested? Was
it a put-up job between the trapper and Joe and the Indians--merely a
coincidence in the commission of the trade? Perhaps the trapper had sold
the camp outfit and Joe had come to take possession. This last thought
made his heart sick, for he knew only too well that he could make no
resistance except that which would end in a tragedy. Again the
supernatural mind-reading Joe proclaimed himself in a few disjointed
sentences, but to Jack they were most welcome in their honesty of
purpose and implication of the trapper as a coward.
"I reckon yer might be calkerlatin' on what yer would do with this yere
plunder," said Joe, as he pointed at the camp outfit, the provisions and
the furs hanging on the side of the cabin. Continuing in that monotonous
sing-song of gutturals and whispers, he allowed the plunder belonged to
Jack, for the trapper had acknowledged as much.
"That trapper got 'skeered' of Colorow and lit out. Mebbe yer don't know
it, but the Utes don't like him any too much, and when Colorow said
'Vamoose' yer pardner left yer to yer own cogitashuns. He tol' me that
nothin' in the camp belonged to him; thet 'twas all your'n except the
traps and harness. 'Taint likely he'll come back 'til next March, so ef
yer don't want ter stay 'til then yer'll have to git a move on yerself.
Thet trail won't stay open an hour on the high divide, but yer can
rastle a couple Ute cayuses through ten feet of snow like a hot bullet
goin' through a piece of ham fat, and onct on the other side of the
divide it will be an easy trail to Kremling's, at the mouth of the Big
Muddy. Yer don't need ter take much along. Yer will be out but one
night, and mebbe yer will git ter the old hunter's cabin about forty
mile from here 'fore that. Ef yer don't ther is a good campin' ground on
the crik in a big pocket five miles this side."
It did not take long to make a trade. Jack reserved his six-shooters,
blankets and three or four fine cat and fox skins. Joe gave him a good
Indian pony, a silver watch, and the balance in money for the
provisions, rifle, ammunition and other paraphernalia, except the
remaining furs, traps and cooking utensils, which were the legitimate
belongings of the trapper.
But the awful perils of a trip over an unknown trail in midwinter rose
up as a barrier between Jack and civilization. The night had come on and
Yamanatz, with Chiquita, as silent witnesses to the exchange of
chattels, sat beside the camp fire. Grotesque shadows wavered and
wandered back and forth in and out of the gloom as Jack replenished the
disappearing embers with new fuel preparatory to a pow-wow in which the
final arrangements were to be completed concerning his escape from Rock
Creek, his return later when the winter passed, when Yamanatz should
conduct him to the great gold deposit. It was a matter of a hundred
miles to the nearest ranch in Middle Park, before reaching which was a
"divide," the top of which soared far above the surrounding hills, and
then came the Gore, or Park range, split by the Grand River into an
impassable canon, along whose steep side ran the old Ute trail, up, up,
until it crossed the snow-covered summit beyond timber line, and thence
descended by serpentine and circuitous windings to the southern entrance
of the Park. From there to the ranch on the Troublesome was open level
country, across which was comparatively easy traveling. The other pass
over the Gore range, which was used by the trapper and Jack when they
made their incoming trip to Rock Creek, was already closed by snow as
far as travel by horses was concerned, and for that matter the Ute trail
was closed, except for being opened by the band of Indians and thirty or
forty ponies bucking their way through to Sulphur Springs.