Some Account of what I do and think the first Day alone: with a
Discovery by Kaiser at the End.
I woke up with a start in the morning, thinking that it was all a bad
dream; then I knew it wasn't, and wished it were; and next I was very
glad to hear the blizzard still roaring as hard as ever, which may
seem odd to you. But the fact is that I had thought a long time after
I went to bed and had decided on two things--first, that I was safe
from the robbers as long as the storm lasted, and, second and more
important, that I had a plan which might serve to keep them away for a
while at least after the storm stopped. I got up and looked out of the
window, but I might as well have looked into a haystack for all I saw.
I could not even see the houses on the other side of the street.
I went down, said good-morning to the cat and dog, and started the
fire. It was colder; I peeped at the thermometer through the window,
and saw it was a dozen degrees below zero. I found the stock at the
barn all right and cheerful; the chickens were down making breakfast
of what I had given them for supper, all except Crazy Jane, who had
finished eating and was trying to get out of the barn, maybe thinking
that she could make a nest in a snowbank, or could scratch for
angleworms.
After I had finished the barn-work I went in and got breakfast. I
started a fire in the kitchen and got a better meal than I had the
night before. I went down cellar after some potatoes, and noticed that
there were a plenty of them; with squashes, pumpkins, and other
vegetables; all of which I knew before, but I observed that such
things looked different to me now. I couldn't count much on the
pumpkins because I didn't know how to make pumpkin pie, but I knew
that the cow would be very glad to get them without their being made
into pie. "It would be funny," I said, out loud, as if there were
somebody to hear, "if cows should find out some day that pumpkins are
better in pies and farmers should have to fix them that way before
they would eat them."
I found that I felt much better about the situation than I had the
night before, though, of course, I still wished with all my heart that
I was out of it all, and thought every minute what a fool I was to
have acted the way I did. But there were so many things to do that I
did not have time to worry very much, which I believe was all that
kept me from going crazy.
After breakfast I decided that the first thing I had best do was to
look up the gun question. I found Sours's rifle in a closet. It was
not loaded, but there was a box of cartridges on a shelf, and I wiped
out the barrel and filled the magazine. It was fifteen-shot and
forty-five caliber, and seemed like a good gun. I stood it under the
counter in the office and out of sight behind an old coat. In the
drawer of the desk was a revolver. It was a thirty-eight caliber, and
pretty big to carry, but I thought it might be handy to have, so I
stuffed it in my pocket.
Taggart's hardware store was two doors toward the railroad from the
hotel, but the sidewalk was so covered with snow, and the wind swept
down the street with such fury, that it seemed next to impossible to
get there. But I was anxious to see about the weapons, so I went out
the back door and crept along close to the rear of the buildings till
I reached it.
The door was locked, but I could see through a window that a box had
been recently broken open; but, as there were no guns in sight, I
concluded that the men had probably carried them over to the depot. I
tried to see this through the driving snow, but could not, so I did
not dare to start out to find it, knowing how easy it is to become
confused and lost in such a storm.
As I stood back of the store I thought once that I heard the whistle
of a locomotive; then I knew of course it was only the wind. "It'll be
a long time before you hear any such music as that," I said to myself.
There was nothing which would have sounded quite so good to me.
I was glad to get back to the house, where I could draw a breath of
air not full of powdered snow. I spent some time calking up cracks
around the windows, where the snow blew in. While I was doing this it
suddenly flashed into my mind, what if I should lose track of the
days of the month and week? I thought I would write down every day,
and got a piece of paper to begin on, when I noticed a calendar behind
the desk. I took the pen and scratched off "December 17," which was
gone, and which was the beginning of my life alone in Track's End; and
the first thing every morning after that while I stayed I marked off
the day before; and so I never lost my reckoning. Though, indeed, I
was soon to wake up in another and worse place than Track's End; but
of this I will tell later. I had very foolishly forgotten to wind the
clock the night before, and it had stopped, and I had no watch by
which to set it; but I started it, and trusted to find the clock at
the depot still going, as it was an eight-day one.
[Illustration: MY FAMILY AND I AT A MEAL, TRACK'S END]
I soon found myself hungry, and took it for granted that it was
dinner-time. The meals seemed pretty lonesome, because I had been used
to having a great deal of fun with Tom Carr and the others at such
times, much of it about my poor cooking. Kaiser and Pawsy appeared
willing to do what they could to make it pleasant; and this time I put
a chair at one end of the little table, and the cat jumped up in it
and began to purr like a young tiger, while the dog sat on the floor
at the other end and pounded the floor with his tail like any drummer
might beat his drum. I also began to get them into the bad practice of
eating at the same time I did; but I had to have some company.
It must have been two hours after dinner, and I was moving my bed down
into a little room between the office and kitchen, when I first saw
that the fury of the wind was beginning to lessen. The sky began to
lighten up, and from the front door I could soon catch glimpses of the
railroad windmill. I saw that I must start the plan I had thought of
the night before for keeping off the Pike gang without any delay. My
idea was that I must not let them know that I was alone, and if
possible make them think that there were still a good many people in
town. I doubted if they had known the morning they left the letter
that we were then reduced to six. I could not see how they should know
it, and I felt sure that if they had known it they would have made an
attack upon the bank.
My plan, then, was to build and keep up fires in several other houses,
so that if they came in sight they would see the smoke and think that
there was still a good-sized population. I went first across the
street to the bank building. The lower part of it was locked, but I
went up the outside stairs and found everything in Mr. Clerkinwell's
rooms as we had left it. There were also inside stairs, and I went
down and soon had a good fire going in the lower room, and as I came
out I was pleased to see that it made a large smoke.
I next went to the north end of the street, where stood a building
which had been a harness shop. It was locked, but I could see a stove
inside; so I broke a back window, reached in with a stick, and shot
back the bolt of the rear door, and soon had a good smoky fire here,
too. I decided that one more would do for that day, and thought the
best place for that would be in the depot. The wind had now pretty
well abated, and the snow was only streaming along close to the
ground.
The depot was locked, but again I got in by breaking a window. There
were the guns as I expected--five new Winchesters like Sours's.
There were also a lot of cartridges, and three large six-shooters,
with belts and holsters. It was half-past three by the clock, which
was still going. I clicked at the telegraph instrument, but it was
silent. I remembered that Tom had told me that the line had gone down
beyond Siding No. 15, which was the first one east from Track's End.
Everything made me think of Tom, and I looked away along the line of
telegraph-poles where I knew the track was, down under the snow; but I
could see no train coming to take me out of the horrible place.
I soon had another fire going. After that I hid two of the rifles in
the back room and carried the others over to the hotel. I climbed to
the top of the windmill tower and took a look at Mountain's house with
the field-glass, but could see nothing. I walked around town and
looked in each of the houses with an odd sort of feeling, as if I half
owned them. Kaiser went with me, and was very glad to get out.
It was just after sundown when I got back to the door of the hotel. Up
the street in front of the harness shop I saw a jack-rabbit sitting up
and looking at me. Kaiser saw him, too, and started after him, though
the dog ought to have known that it was like chasing a streak of
lightning. I stood with my hand on the door-knob watching the rabbit
leave the dog behind, when suddenly I saw Kaiser stop as another dog
came around Frenchman's Butte. They met, there was a little tussle,
which made the snow fly; then I saw Kaiser coming back on a faster run
than he had gone out on, with the other dog close behind.
"That's a brave dog I've got!" I exclaimed. I saw some other dogs come
around the Butte, but I didn't look at them much, I was so disgusted
at seeing Kaiser making such a cowardly run. On he came like a
whirlwind. I opened the door and stepped in. He bolted in between my
legs and half knocked me over. I slammed the door shut against the
other dog's nose. The other dog, I saw, was a wolf.