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TWO WYOMING GIRLS
And Their Homestead Claim
A Story for Girls
BY
MRS. CARRIE L. MARSHALL
Author of "The Girl Ranchers," Etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY IDA WAUGH
THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA MDCCCXCIX
COPYRIGHT 1899 BY THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY
[Illustration: THE FLAMES REACHED TOWARD ME GREEDILY
(Page 63)]
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I I GO ON AN ERRAND 7
II THE WILL OF THE WATERS 23
III AT THE MOUTH OF THE SHAFT 37
IV A PLOT FOILED 44
V AN EXCITING EXPERIENCE 57
VI A VISIT FROM MRS. HORTON 68
VII SURMISES 77
VIII "BEST LAID PLANS" 92
IX AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT 108
X RALPH AND I GO BLACKBERRYING 118
XI THE CATTLE BRAND 130
XII ON THE TRAIL OF A WILDCAT 145
XIII JOE DISAPPEARS 158
XIV AT THE STORAGE RESERVOIR 172
XV CHASED BY WOLVES 183
XVI A SLEEPLESS NIGHT 194
XVII A QUEER BANK 207
XVIII A VITAL POINT 227
XIX MR. HORTON MAKES US A VISIT 240
XX GUARD MAKES A MISTAKE 253
XXI A FRIEND IN NEED 261
XXII AN OPEN WINDOW 273
XXIII ALONE ON THE CLAIM 284
XXIV HUNTING FOR GUARD 294
XXV GUARD'S PRISONER 304
XXVI MR. HORTON CAPITULATES 316
TWO WYOMING GIRLS
CHAPTER I
I GO ON AN ERRAND
A fierce gust of wind and rain struck the windows, and Jessie, on her
way to the breakfast table, dish in hand, paused to listen.
"Raining again!" she exclaimed, setting the dish down emphatically.
"It seems to me that it has rained every day this spring. When it
hasn't poured here in the valley, it has more than made up for it in
the mountains."
"You are more than half right," father said, drawing his chair up to
the table. "Is breakfast ready, dear? I am going to work in the mines
to-day, and I'm in something of a hurry."
"Going to work in the mines!" Jessie echoed the words, as, I am sure,
I did also. I was sitting in the corner dressing little Ralph, or, to
be strictly accurate, trying to dress him. No three year-old that ever
lived could be more exasperating than he sometimes was during that
ordeal or could show a more pronounced distaste for the bondage of
civilized garments.
Jessie made haste to dish up the breakfast, but she inquired: "Do you
remember, papa, what that old miner who was here the other day told us
about mines in the wet season? About what was liable to happen
sometimes, and did happen here once, a good many years ago?"
"I don't know that I do," father answered, glancing toward Ralph and
me, to see if we were ready. As we were anything but that, he
continued; "I guess I won't wait for you children."
"Don't, please!" I exclaimed, "Ralph is a perfect little buzz-saw this
morning. Keep still, Ralph!"
"Me want to do barefoot! Me want to wade in 'e puddle!" cried the
child, pulling one soft little foot out of the stocking that I had
just succeeded in getting upon it.
"Ralph!" I cried, angrily: "I've a good notion to spank you!"
"Don't, Leslie!" father interposed, mildly; "I remember so well how I
liked to wade in the mud-puddles when I was a little shaver; but it's
too early in the season, and too cold for that sort of sport now. So,
Ralph, my boy, let sister dress you, and don't hinder."
Ralph always obeyed father's slightest word, no matter how gently the
word was spoken; so now he sat demurely silent while I completed his
toilet.
"What was it that your friend, the miner, said, Jessie?" father asked,
as Jessie took her seat and poured out his coffee.
"He said that there had been so much rain on the mountains, and that
the Crusoe mines were on such a low level that there was some danger
of an inrush of water, like that which ruined the Lost Chance, before
we came here."
"I recollect hearing something about the Lost Chance," father said,
going on with his breakfast indifferently. "There may have been water
crevices in it. The accident was probably caused by them--and
neglect."
"I don't see how it could be all due to neglect," Jessie persisted.
"The miner said that the springs and rivers were all booming full,
just as they are now. People never thought of danger from the water,
because it was so often warm and dry in the valley--as it is, you
know, often, even when it is raining hard on the mountains. The miner
said that the men went on with their work in the mine, as usual,
until, one afternoon, the timbered walls of the tunnels slumped in
like so much wet sand. What had been underground passages became, in a
moment, underground rivers, for the water that had been held back and
dammed up so long just poured in in a drowning flood. He said that the
rainfall seeped through the bogs up on the mountains, and fed
underground reservoirs that held the water safely until they were
overtaxed. When that happened the water would burst out, finding an
outlet for itself in some new place. The only reason that any one of
the force of thirty men usually employed in the mine escaped was that
the accident occurred just as they were putting on a new shift. I
remember very well what he told us."
"I see that you do," father responded, with a thoughtful glance at her
earnest face, "but I reckon he rather overdid the business. These old
miners are always full of whims and forecasts; they are as
superstitious as sailors."
"What he told was not superstition; it was a fact," replied Jessie,
with unexpected logic.
Father smiled. "Well, anyway, don't you get to worrying about the Gray
Eagle, daughter. It's rather damp these days, I admit, but as safe as
this kitchen."
"Do you really think so, papa?" Jessie asked, evidently reassured.
"Well, perhaps not quite as safe," father answered, with half a smile.
"It's a good deal darker for one thing, you know, and there are
noises--"
He lapsed into that kind of listening silence that comes to one who is
striving to recall something that has been heard, not seen, or felt,
and I was about to insist upon a further elucidation of those
subterranean sounds when the door opened and a man, whom father had
hired for the day, put in his head:
"Say, Mr. Gordon, I can't find a spade anywhere," he announced.
"Well, there!" father exclaimed, with a disturbed look, "our spade was
left at the mine the last day that we worked there."
"That's too bad!" the man, who was a neighbor, as neighbors go on the
frontier, said regretfully. "I can go back home and get mine, but the
team's hitched up; it's stopped raining, an' there's a load of posts
on the wagon. Seems 'most a pity for me to take time to go an' hunt up
a spade, but I reckon I'll have to do it. I never saw the man yet that
could dig post holes without one."
"Oh, no, Reynolds, don't stop your work for that; I'll have to bring
mine down; it's about as near to get it from the Gray Eagle as to go
to one of the neighbors; you just go on with your work."
Reynolds withdrew accordingly, and, as the door closed upon him,
father said:
"I'm anxious to earn every dollar I can to help fence that wheat
field, before Horton's cattle 'accidentally' stray into it. I was out
to look at it this morning. The field looks as if covered with a green
carpet, it's coming up so thick. I count it good luck to be able to
get Reynolds to go on with the fence-building while I work in the
mine, for I can exchange work to pay him, while the pay that comes
from the mine is so much cash."
"And when we get our title clear, won't I shoo Mr. Horton's cattle to
the ends of the earth!" I said, resentfully, for we all understood
well enough that the reason that father was so anxious to earn money
was to pay for the final "proving up" on his homestead claim, as well
as to build fences. "I'm teaching Guard to 'heel' on purpose to keep
track of those cattle," I concluded, audaciously, for father didn't
approve of a policy of retaliation.
"Horton's cattle are not to blame," he said now, but the shadow that
always came over his patient face at the mention of our intractable
neighbor settled heavily upon it as he spoke.
"I know the cattle are not to blame," I retorted, with a good deal of
temper. "I just wish that their master himself would come out and
trample on our corn and wallow in our wheat field, instead of driving
his cattle up so that they may do it; I'd set Guard on him with the
greatest pleasure."
"Now, now, Leslie, you shouldn't talk so!" father remonstrated gently.
But here Jessie, whose disposition is much more placid than mine,
broke in, abruptly:
"I don't blame Leslie for feeling so, father. Only think, we've been
on this place nearly five years, and we've never yet raised a crop,
because Mr. Horton's cattle, no matter where they may be ranging,
always get up here just in time--the right time--to do the most
damage. The other neighbors' cattle hardly ever stray into our
fields, and when they do the neighbors are good about it. Think of the
time when Mr. Rollins's herd got into the corn field and ate the corn
rows down, one after another. Mr. Rollins came after them himself, and
paid the damage, without a word of complaint. Besides, he said that it
shouldn't happen again; and it didn't. When has Mr. Horton ever done a
thing like that?"
"He's been kept busy other ways," father said, and his voice had none
of the resentment that Jessie's expressed. "The last time that his
cattle got in here I went to see him about it, and he said that the
field was a part of the range, being unfenced, and that any lawyer in
the United States would sustain him in saying so. He was quite right,
too--only he was not neighborly."
"Neighborly! I should say not," Jessie exclaimed, with a lowering
brow. "His horses have trampled down our garden and girdled all our
fruit trees, even to the Seckel pear that mother brought from
grandfather's."
"I know; it is very trying," father said, stifling a sigh; "but it can
do no good to dwell on these things, daughter. An enemy of any kind
does you more injury when he destroys your peace of mind, and causes
you to harbor revengeful feelings, than he can possibly achieve in any
other way. We must keep up our courage, and make the best of present
circumstances, bad as they sometimes are. A change is bound to come."
"Me wants more breakfuss," Ralph broke in, suddenly, extending his
empty milk-cup toward me, his chief servitor. I refilled it from the
pitcher beside me, and as I absently crumbled bits of bread into it I
sought enlightenment. "I never quite understood, father, why Mr.
Horton is so spiteful toward us."
"It is easily understood, Leslie. He wants this homestead claim, and
hopes to weary us into giving it up."
"He can find plenty of other claims," I argued.
"Yes; but not such as this. This is an upper valley, as you know, and
just above our claim five mountain streams join the main river as the
fingers of a hand join the palm, the main river being the palm. Every
square foot of our claim can be irrigated, and it takes in about all
of the valley that is worth taking--enough to control the water rights
for all the land below us. That is the reason why Horton is trying so
hard to dislodge us. He would like to be able to make the ranchmen on
the lower ranches come to his terms about the water."
"But the law regulates the water rights," said Jessie.
"It is supposed to do so, and does it, after a fashion, but no human
laws have ever yet been able to satisfactorily regulate a mean man. It
would be a great misfortune to the ranchmen below if Horton were to
get a title to this place; he likes to make people feel his authority,
and one effective way of doing that would be to worry people about the
water supply, just when they needed it most, of course. I feel now
that our danger of losing the place is past. It has been a hard
struggle to bear up against nearly five years of such sly, petty
persecutions. Horton is careful not to oppose us openly. When he's
found out, as he is occasionally, it always appears that he has been
careful to keep within the letter of the law. Well, as Leslie says,
we'll get our title clear, and then the wind will be out of Mr.
Horton's sails. I've been afraid to make a move, or to do anything
except curl down and study the homestead laws all this time. If I had
come to an open rupture with him he might have gone down to the land
office and told some story of his own invention to the agent that
would injure me greatly, for land agents are only too ready to believe
evil of land claimants, it seems to me. Now my notice for offering
final proof is in one of the papers; it must be published three times,
and the period of publication must not range over more than three
months at the outside, so you see, at the farthest, if our proof is
accepted, we shall have a deed to this place within three months. I do
not see how we can fail to get it; we have complied with all the
requirements."
"Yes," Jessie assented, gravely. "We have two cows, two horses, a cat,
a dog, a clock, some chairs, some dishes, a table, a stove, and some
poultry."
Father smiled, the slow, serious smile that had replaced his cheery
laugh since mother's death two years before. "You are well posted on
homestead laws, daughter," he said, rising from the table. "Where's my
coat, Leslie, did you get it mended?"
For answer I took down a worn, light, gray coat from a nail behind the
kitchen door.
"Look at that!" I said, pointing proudly to a very conspicuous patch
on the elbow of one sleeve. An older seamstress would have felt,
perhaps, that the patch asserted its existence almost too defiantly;
it seemed almost to vaunt itself, but conscious of the rectitude of my
intentions, if not of my work, I raised my face, expectantly, awaiting
the praise that I felt to be my due. I was not disappointed. Father
held the garment up to the light and examined the mending with
critical approval.
"That's what I call a good job, my little girl," he said heartily, but
Jessie, glancing at the proof of my housewifely skill, as evidenced by
the coat, laughed.
"'A tear may be the accident of a moment,'" she quoted, "'but a patch
is premeditated poverty.' And such a patch! You could see it a mile
away. Really, Leslie, it looks like Jeremiah Porlock's cattle brand."
I felt my face crimsoning with indignation, but was happily prevented
from making the retort that sprang to my lips, as father murmured
ruefully:
"Dear, dear, what a pity that Joe left the spade! It will just about
spoil my whole forenoon to be obliged to stop and bring it down.
However, there's no help for it."
"Yes, there is, papa," I cried, springing to my feet. "I'll go up with
you and bring it back."
It was characteristic of father's gentleness toward us his motherless
young daughters, that he had not once thought of the possibility of
either of us acting, in this instance, as his substitute.
"It's a long walk," he objected, looking at me doubtfully.
"Long! Why, papa, I've taken longer walks than that, lots of times. It
isn't above a mile and a half; I could run every step of the way!"
"Me, too," proclaimed Ralph, descending from his high chair in such
haste that he fell sprawling on the floor. Disdaining, on this
occasion, to weep for an accident that, under ordinary circumstances,
would have opened the flood-gates of woe, he scrambled to his feet:
"Me do wiv 'oo, 'Essie!" A battered old hat of Joe's was hanging on
the wall, within reach of his chubby hand; he snatched it down and set
it quickly on his head, pulling down the wide brim until his brown
curls and the upper part of his rosy little face were completely
extinguished. "Me ready, 'Essie," he said. He was a comical little
figure. Papa took him in his arms and kissed him. Then he set him
gently on his feet again; "You can't go with sister to-day, my boy."
"'Ess," Ralph declared, with unusual persistence, "Me do!"
"No," father reiterated. He opened the door, and we slipped out,
followed for some distance along the trail by the deserted youngster's
ear-splitting shrieks. Father halted once, looking irresolutely at me
as a peculiarly heart-rending outburst came to our ears. "I could
easily carry him up there," he said, with a somewhat sheepish look,
"but I suppose you couldn't fetch him home?"
"Come along, father," I retorted, slipping my hand under his arm.
"Jessie will have Ralph consoled before you could get back to the
house, and, when we started, you were in some doubt as to whether I
could carry a spade home from the mine."
"That's true," father confessed. "But hasn't the boy got a pair of
lungs, though? I doubt if I was ever able to yell like that. I dare
say it's partly owing to the climate; it's very healthy."