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TRACK'S END
Being the Narrative of Judson Pitcher's Strange Winter Spent There As
Told by Himself and Edited
by
HAYDEN CARRUTH
Including an Accurate Account of His Numerous Adventures, and the
Facts Concerning His Several Surprising Escapes from Death Now
First Printed in Full
Illustrated by Clifford Carleton
With a Correct Map of Track's End Drawn by the Author
[Illustration: KAISER AND I FIGHTING THE TIMBER-WOLVES
--see page 63]
Harper & Brothers
New York and London
M - C - M - X - I
Copyright, 1911. by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published September, 1911
TO
E. L. G. C.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Something about my Home and Track's End: with how I
leave the one and get acquainted with Pike at the
other. 1
II. The rest of my second Night at Track's End, and part of
another: with some Things which happen between. 12
III. A Fire and a Blizzard: with how a great many People go
away from Track's End and how some others come. 22
IV. We prepare to fight the Robbers and I make a little
Trip out to Bill Mountain's House: after I come back I
show what a great Fool I can be. 32
V. Alone in Track's End I repent of my hasty Action: with
what I do at the Headquarters House, and the whole
Situation in a Nutshell. 43
VI. Some Account of what I do and think the first Day
alone: with a Discovery by Kaiser at the End. 52
VII. I have a Fight and a Fright: after which I make some
Plans for the Future and take up my Bed and move. 61
VIII. I begin my Letters to my Mother and start my
Fortifications: then I very foolishly go away, meet
with an Accident, and see Something which throws me
into the utmost Terror. 69
IX. More of a strange Christmas: I make Kaiser useful in an
odd Way, together with what I see from under the Depot
Platform. 79
X. A Townful of Indians: with how I hide the Cow, and
think of Something which I don't believe the Indians
will like. 88
XI. I give the savage Indians a great Scare, and then
gather up my scattered Family at the end of a queer
Christmas Day. 97
XII. One of my Letters to my Mother, in which I tell of many
Things and especially of a Mystery which greatly
puzzles and alarms me. 105
XIII. Some Talk at Breakfast, and various other Family
Affairs: with Notes on the Weather, and a sight of
Something to the Northwest. 115
XIV. I have an exciting Hunt and get some Game, which I
bring Home with a vast deal of Labor, only to lose Part
of it in a startling Manner: together with a Dream and
an Awakening. 128
XV. The mysterious Fire, and Something further about my
wretched State of Terror: with an Account of my great
System of Tunnels and famous Fire Stronghold. 141
XVI. Telling of how Pike and his Gang come and of what
Kaiser and I do to get ready for them: together with
the Way we meet them. 153
XVII. The Fight, and not much else: except a little Happening
at the End which startles me greatly. 162
XVIII. After the Fight: also a true Account of the great
Blizzard: with how I go to sleep in the Stronghold and
am awakened before Morning. 171
XIX. I find out who my Visitor is: with Something about him,
but with more about the Chinook which came out of the
Northwest: together with what I do with the Powder, and
how I again wake up suddenly. 185
XX. What the Outlaws do on their second Visit: with the
awful Hours I pass through, and how I find myself at
the End. 203
XXI. After the Explosion: some cheerful Talk with the
Thieves, and a strange but welcome Message out of the
Storm. 210
XXII. The last Chapter, but a good Deal in it: a free Lodging
for the Night, with a little Speech by Mr. Clerkinwell:
then, how Kaiser and I take a long Journey, and how we
never go that Way again. 220
ILLUSTRATIONS
KAISER AND I FIGHTING THE TIMBER-WOLVES _Frontispiece_
READING THE OUTLAWS' LETTER, DECEMBER SIXTEENTH 30
MY FAMILY AND I AT A MEAL, TRACK'S END 56
MAP OF TRACK'S END 64
THE BOIS CACHE INDIANS LOOTING THE TOWN ON
CHRISTMAS DAY 91
MY MEETING WITH PIKE, TRACK'S END, FEBRUARY
FIFTH 158
THE INDIAN GETTING MY RIFLE IN THE STRONGHOLD 183
PIKE HANDCUFFING ME IN THE DRUG STORE, MARCH
NINETEENTH 205
MR. CLERKINWELL GIVING ME HIS WATCH AND CHAIN 229
NOTICE
Should any reader of this History of my life at Track's End wish to
write to me, to point out an error (if unhappily there shall prove to
be errors), or to ask for further facts, or for any other reason, he
or she may do so by addressing the letter in the care of my
publishers, Messrs. Harper & Brothers, who have kindly agreed promptly
to forward all such communications to me wheresoever I may chance to
be at the time.
I should add that my hardships during that Winter at Track's End did
not cure me of my roving bent, though you might think the contrary
should have been the case. Later, on several occasions, I adventured
into wild parts, and had experiences no whit less remarkable than
those at Track's End, notably when with the late Capt. Nathan Archway,
master of the _Belle of Prairie du Chien_ packet, we descended into
Frontenac Cave, and, there in the darkness (aided somewhat by Gil
Dauphin), disputed possession of that subterranean region with no less
a character than the notorious Isaac Liverpool, to the squeaking of a
million bats. And I wish hereby to give notice that no one is to put
into Print such accounts of that occurrence as I may have been heard
to relate from time to time around camp-fires, on shipboard, and so
forth, since I mean, with the kind help of Mr. Carruth, to publish
forth the facts concerning it in another Book; and that before long.
JUDSON PITCHER.
LITTLE DRUM, FLAMINGO KEY, _July_, 1911.
TRACKS END
TRACK'S END
CHAPTER I
Something about my Home and Track's End: with how I leave the one and
get acquainted with Pike at the other.
When I left home to shift for myself I was eighteen years old, and, I
suppose, no weakling; though it seems to me now that I was a mere boy.
I liked school well enough, but rather preferred horses; and a pen
seems to me a small thing for a grown man, which I am now, to be
fooling around with, but I mean to tell (with a little help) of some
experiences I had the first winter after I struck out for myself.
I was brought up in Ohio, where my father was a country blacksmith and
had a small farm. His name was William Pitcher, but, being well liked
by all and a square man, everybody called him Old Bill Pitcher. I was
named Judson, which had been my mother's name before she was married,
so I was called Jud Pitcher; and when I was ten years old I knew every
horse for a dozen miles around, and most of the dogs.
It was September 16th, in the late eighteen-seventies, that I first
clapped eyes on Track's End, in the Territory of Dakota. The name of
the place has since been changed. I remember the date well, for on
that day the great Sisseton prairie fire burned up the town of Lone
Tree. I saw the smoke as our train lay at Siding No. 13 while the
conductor and the other railroad men nailed down snake's-heads on the
track. One had come up through the floor of the caboose and smashed
the stove and half killed a passenger. Poor man, he had a game leg as
long as I knew him, which was only natural, since when the rail burst
through the floor it struck him fair.
I was traveling free, as the friend of one of the brakemen whom I had
got to know in St. Paul. He was a queer fellow, named Burrdock. The
railroad company set great store by Burrdock on account of his
dealings with some Sioux Indians. They had tried to ride on top of
the cars of his train without paying fare, and he had thrown them all
off, one by one, while the train was going. The fireman told me about
it.
Burrdock was taking me out to Track's End because he said it was a
live town, and a good place for a boy to grow up in. He had first
wanted me to join him in braking on the railroad, but I judged the
work too hard for me. If I had known what I was coming to at Track's
End I'd have stuck to the road.
Perhaps I ought to say that I left home in June, not because I wasn't
welcome to stay, but because I thought it was time I saw something of
the world. Mother was sure I should be killed on the cars, but at last
she gave her consent. I went to Galena, from there up the Mississippi
on a packet to St. Paul, and then out to Dakota with Burrdock.
The snake's-heads delayed us so that it was eleven o'clock at night
before we reached Track's End. Ours was the only train that ran on the
road then, and it came up Mondays and Thursdays, and went back
Tuesdays and Fridays. It was a freight-train, with a caboose on the
end for passengers, "and the snake's-heads," as the fireman said. A
snake's-head on the old railroads was where a rail got loose from the
fish-plate at one end and came up _over_ the wheel instead of staying
down _under_ it.
Track's End was a new town just built at the end of the railroad. The
next town back toward the east was Lone Tree; but that day it burned
up and was no more. It was about fifty miles from Track's End to Lone
Tree, with three sidings between, and a water-tank at No. 14. After
the fire the people all went to Lac-qui-Parle, sixty miles farther
back; so that at the time of which I write there was nothing between
Track's End and Lac-qui-Parle except sidings and the ashes of Lone
Tree; but these soon blew away. There were no people living in the
country at this time, and the reason the road had been built was to
hold a grant of land made to the company by the government, which was
a foolish thing for the government to do, since a road would have been
built when needed, anyhow; but my experience has been that the
government is always putting its foot in it.
When I dropped off the train at Track's End I saw by the moonlight
that the railroad property consisted of a small coal-shed, a
turntable, a roundhouse with two locomotive stalls, a water-tank and
windmill, and a rather long and narrow passenger and freight depot.
The town lay a little apart, and I could not make out its size. There
were a hundred or more men waiting for the train, and one of them took
the two mail-sacks in a wheelbarrow and went away toward the lights of
the houses. There were a lot of mules and wagons and scrapers and
other tools of a gang of railroad graders near the station; also some
tents in which the men lived; these men were waiting for the train
with the others, and talked so loud and made such a disturbance that
it drowned out all other noises.
The train was left right on the track, and the engine put in the
roundhouse, after which Burrdock took me over town to the hotel. It
was called the Headquarters House, and the proprietor's name was
Sours. After I got a cold supper he showed me to my room. The second
story was divided into about twenty rooms, the partitions being lathed
but not yet plastered. It made walls very easy to talk through, and,
where the cracks happened to match, as they seemed to mostly, they
weren't hard to look through. I thought it was a good deal like
sleeping in a squirrel-cage.
The railroad men that I had seen at the station had been working on an
extension of the grade to the west, on which the rails were to be laid
the next spring. They had pushed on ten miles, but, as the government
had stopped making a fuss, the company had decided to do no more that
season, and the train I came up on brought the paymaster with the
money to pay the graders for their summer's work; so they all got
drunk. There were some men from Billings in town, too. They were on
their way east with a band of four hundred Montana ponies, which they
had rounded up for the night just south of town. Two of them stayed to
hold the drove, and the rest came into town, also to get drunk. They
had good luck in doing this, and fought with the graders. I heard two
or three shots soon after I went to bed, and thought of my mother.
Some time late in the night I was awakened by a great rumpus in the
hotel, and made out from what I heard through the laths that some men
were looking for somebody. They were going from room to room, and soon
came into mine, tearing down the sheet which was hung up for a door.
They crowded in and came straight to the bed, and the leader, a big
man with a crooked nose, seized me by the ear as if he were taking
hold of a bootstrap. I sat up, and another poked a lantern in my
face.
"That's him," said one of them.
"No, he was older," said another.
"He looks like he _would_ steal a dog, anyhow," said the man with the
lantern. "Bring him along, Pike."
"No," said the man who had hold of my ear, "he ain't much more'n a
boy--we're looking for grown men to-night."
Then they went out, and I could feel my ear drawing back into place as
if it were made of rubber. But it never got quite back, and has always
been a game ear to this day, with a kind of a lop to it.
Sours told me in the morning that they were looking for the man that
stole their dog, though he said he didn't think they had ever had a
dog. Pike, he said, had come out as a grader, but it had been a long
time since he had done any work.
I took a look around town after breakfast and found forty or fifty
houses, most of them stores or other places of business, on one street
running north and south. There were a few, but not many, houses
scattered about beyond the street. Some of the buildings had canvas
roofs, and there were a good many tents and covered wagons in which
people lived. The whole town had been built since the railroad came
through two months before. There was a low hill called Frenchman's
Butte a quarter of a mile north of town. I climbed it to get a view of
the country, but could see only about a dozen settlers' houses, also
just built.
The country was a vast level prairie except to the north, where there
were a few small lakes, with a little timber around them, and some
coteaux, or low hills, beyond. The grass was dried up and gray. I
thought I could make out a low range of hills to the west, where I
supposed the Missouri River was. On my way back to town a man told me
that a big colony of settlers were expected to arrive soon, and that
Track's End had been built partly on the strength of the business
these people would bring. I never saw the colony.
When I got back to the hotel Sours said to me:
"Young man, don't you want a job?"
I told him I should be glad of something to do.
"The man that has been taking care of my barn has just gone on the
train," continued Sours. "He got homesick for the States, and lit out
and never said boo till half an hour before train-time. If you want
the job I'll give you twenty-five dollars a month and your board."
"I'll try it a month," I said; "but I'll probably be going back myself
before winter."
"That's it," exclaimed Sours. "Everybody's going back before winter. I
guess there won't be nothing left here next winter but jack-rabbits
and snowbirds."
I had hoped for something better than working in a stable, but my
money was so near gone that I did not think it a good time to stand
around and act particular. Besides, I liked horses so much that the
job rather pleased me, after all.
Toward evening Sours came to me and said he wished I would spend the
night in the barn and keep awake most of the time, as he was afraid it
might be broken into by some of the graders. They were acting worse
than ever. There was no town government, but a man named Allenham had
some time before been elected city marshal at a mass-meeting. During
the day he appointed some deputies to help him maintain order.
At about ten o'clock I shut up the barn, put out my lantern, and sat
down in a little room in one corner which was used for an office. The
town was noisy, but nobody came near the barn, which was back of the
hotel and out of sight from the street. Some time after midnight I
heard low voices outside and crept to a small open window. I could
make out the forms of some men under a shed back of a store across a
narrow alley. Soon I heard two shots in the street, and then a man
came running through the alley with another right after him. As the
first passed, a man stepped out from under the shed. The man in
pursuit stopped and said:
"Now, I want Jim, and there's no use of you fellows trying to protect
him." It was Allenham's voice.
There was a report of a revolver so close that it made me wink. The
man who had come from under the shed had fired pointblank at Allenham.
By the flash I saw that the man was Pike.