Some Talk at Breakfast, and various other Family Affairs: with Notes
on the Weather, and a sight of Something to the Northwest.
It was on the morning of Tuesday, January 25th, as I sat at breakfast
with Pawsy in her chair at one end and with Kaiser at the other,
drumming on the floor for another bit of bacon, that I said to
myself:
"It is just one month to-day since I clapped eyes on a human being;
and the ones I saw then were not very good humans, being thieving and
drunken Indians." And when I said this I had not forgotten (when had
it been once out of my mind, waking or sleeping?) what I saw on
New-Year's night; but I knew not if I were to count that as human or
what.
I remember that Sunday night after I finished the letter to my mother
which I put in the last chapter, how I found it darker than I expected
when I went out, and how I ran along the snowbanks with my heart
thumping like to split, and threw the letter in the top of the
post-office door (the rightful opening was long before buried under
the snow) and then shot back to the hotel, not daring to look behind
me or even stop to breathe. I was well ashamed of myself, at the time,
but I could not help it.
On that night it was even nine o'clock before I could get up courage
to go to the barn and feed the stock. I think I was in a greater state
of terror than on the night after the battle with the wolves. I walked
the floor, back and forth, on tiptoe and listened; and the less there
was to hear, the more I heard. At last I, after a fashion, put down my
fright, and ventured out to the barn; but even then I could not
whistle; I tried, but my lips would not stay puckered.
I went to bed as soon as I could, and though I thought I should never
get to sleep, I did at last. What my dreams were, or how many times I
sat up in bed with a start, are things I do not like to think about.
But notwithstanding this, I felt better in the morning and went at the
work as hard as I could.
But though, as I say, up to the 25th of January (and even beyond) I
had no further glimpse of the mysterious visitor, I saw evidence of
its presence often enough.
Night after night the scrap-pail by the back door was rummaged and
something taken from it, and once a chicken was missing from the barn.
The only way that anything could get in was through a window into the
hay-loft seven or eight feet above the drift. After I missed the
chicken I nailed this up and lost no more. I thought there were a few
scratches on the side of the barn below the window, but I could tell
nothing from them. Almost every night it either snowed or drifted, or
both, so there was almost no hope of ever finding tracks of any kind
on the ground. One morning I found the windmill at the station thrown
into gear and running full tilt, but the lever which controlled it may
have slipped. Two or three times I thought I heard the windlass of the
well near the barn creak, but I tried to make myself believe that it
was only the wind.
You may be sure that my sleep was very light, and I often heard Kaiser
growling and barking late at night in the hotel. I never had the
courage to sit up and watch again. I may have been more cowardly than
I should have been; I leave that to the reader to say. One night I lay
awake listening to the wolves howling up at the north end of the town.
Suddenly their cry changed and they swept the whole length of the
street like the wind, and much faster than they usually went when
simply ranging for prey. They may have been chasing a jack-rabbit.
Another night they howled so long right in front of the building I was
in that I put down my foolish fears and got up and fired at them,
hoping to scare them away and maybe get another skin for my coat. One
fell, and the others made off at a great rate. I watched the one on
the snow till I was sure he was dead, and I heard nothing more of the
others that night. In the morning there was neither hide nor hair of
the dead wolf.
But the work I had to do kept my mind off of my terror a good deal,
and saved me, I really believe, from going stark mad. I will tell
about my great system of tunnels presently, but before I began it I
did much else. One of the first things was to make a long, light sled
for Kaiser to draw, and also a harness for him. The materials and
tools for the one I got from the wagon-repair shop attached to
Beckwith's blacksmith shop, and the same for the other from the
harness shop, where I kept up one of my fires. I was always handy with
all kinds of tools, inheriting a love for them from my father;
besides, I had worked with him in the shop at home a good deal, and
had thus become a fairly good mechanic for my age. I could handle a
plane or a drawshave or a riveting-hammer, or even an awl, for the
matter of that, with any of them.
I used this dog rig chiefly for taking over ground feed from the depot
to the barn for the horses and cow; but Kaiser learned to enjoy the
work of dragging the sled so much that I soon came to use him nearly
always in good weather in making my rounds to look after the fires or
patrol the town. He would whisk me along on top of the frozen drifts
at such a rate that it would nearly take my breath away sometimes. I
practised with the skees till there was no danger of turning my ankle
again, and would sometimes run races with him on them; but he could
beat me all hollow unless there was a good, stiff load on the sled.
Another thing that I made was a pair of leather spectacles, something
which my mother had used often to tell me I needed when I was small
and could not see something that was plain as a pikestaff. My
spectacles were made out of a strip of black leather two inches wide
which went over my eyes and around my head, with two slits through
which I could look. These I wore on the dazzling bright days and was
troubled no more by snow-blindness, which had made my eyes so painful
the day I came back from Mountain's.
It was about New-Year's that I began to spend my evenings in noting
down in the hotel register what had happened during the day. I did
this chiefly so that when I came to write to my mother Sunday I would
forget nothing; and I am very glad now that I did so, for without the
register and the letters (both of which I now have) about some things,
especially dates, I might go wrong in writing this account. Besides,
in the past, it has been much satisfaction when I have related any of
the incidents of my winter at Track's End and some person, to show how
smart he was, has tried to cast doubt on my word--it has been much
comfort to me, I say, in such cases to have the register and letters
to show him, with it all set down in black and white.
Thus it comes I know that Pawsy caught a mouse in the barn on
Wednesday, January 12th, at about half-past seven o'clock in the
morning, while I was milking the cow. I think it was the only mouse at
Track's End that winter, for I never saw or heard any other. There
were no rats in the Territory then anywhere, unless it may have been
at Yankton, or at some of the old Red River settlements about
Pembina.
Pawsy was a good hunter, and several times caught a snowbird, though I
boxed her ears for this; and on Friday, the 21st, I found her near
Joyce's store trying to drag home a jack-rabbit. She must have caught
it by lying in wait, but I marveled how she killed the monstrous
creature. But she was, indeed, one of the largest and strongest cats I
ever knew. I would have trusted her to whip a coyote in a fair fight.
I got three jacks in January myself with the rifle, and found them
very good to eat; but the first one, after skinning it, I left
overnight in the shed, and in the morning it was gone. That day I
went to Taggart's and got two good bolts and put them on the shed
door.
Getting my meals I found very hard work, but I made out better than
you might think, since my mother had taught me something about
cooking. At first I neglected getting regular meals, snatching a bite
of anything that I could lay my hands on; but I soon saw that this
would not do if I were to keep in good health and strength. My
boarders, too, were great hands to complain if they did not get their
meals regularly. You might have thought that cat and dog were paying
good money for their board, the way they would mew and whine if a meal
were late. I took very good care of the chickens, giving them plenty
of warm food, so from about Christmas I got a dozen or more eggs each
week. The cow, too, I fed well on ground feed and hay, with pumpkins
and sometimes a few potatoes, and she gave me a fair quantity of milk
all winter; and on the eggs and milk, together with potatoes, bacon,
and salt codfish, I and my boarders managed to live tolerably well.
Pie I missed very much, and cookies and apple dumplings and such
things, all of which my mother used to make very freely at home, and
never keeping them hid. I looked longingly at the pumpkins, and once
fetched a quantity of ginger from Joyce's, vowing I would attempt
pumpkin pie; but I never got up my courage. Bread, also, I never
attempted, though I got a package of yeast from the store and looked
at it many times. The place of this was taken by pancakes, which I
made almost every day, big and thick, which with molasses went very
well; though a good cook, as like as not, would have said they were
somewhat leathery.
There was not an apple in town, nor any kind of fresh fruit, but there
were dried apples and prunes, and canned fruit and vegetables,
especially tomatoes. Of the canned things I liked the strawberries
best, and ate many, though they tasted somewhat of the tin. There were
plenty of crackers in the stores, and some dry round things,
dark-colored, which called themselves gingersnaps; I took home a large
package in great glee, thinking I had made a find; I ate one of them
by main strength and gave the rest to the cow. Butter I made several
times, with fair success, though it was not like mother's, being more
greasy.
Fresh meat I missed very much, though the few jack-rabbits I got
helped out, and were good eating, as I have said, and smelled as good
as anything could while cooking. Some other fresh meat I had also, as
you shall see directly. Once I made up my mind to have some chicken.
There was one hen who was very fat and never, I was sure, laid an egg.
I took the hatchet, which was sharp enough, and went to the barn,
intending to behead her, having it all planned how I should cook her
for my Sunday dinner. When I got to the barn the hen seemed to know
what I intended, and she looked at me with one eye, very reproachful,
and I went back to the house with my hatchet and never made any more
plans for fried chicken.
There was much bad weather in January. Often I noticed that this was
the way of it: It would snow for one day, blizzard for three, and then
for two be still, steady, bitter cold. On these latter the thermometer
would often go over forty degrees below zero, with the sun shining
bright and the sky blue; but with a frightful big yellow-and-orange
sun-dog each side of the sun, morning and evening, like two great
columns; and sometimes there would be a big orange circle around the
sun all day, with much frost in the air.
Some of the nights were light, almost, as day with the northern lights
flaming up from behind Frenchman's Butte all over the whole sky, and
all colors and shapes. On these nights the horses (they had been wild
ponies once) would stamp about in the barn, and Kaiser would growl in
his sleep. When I rubbed the cat's back it would crack and sparkle.
The wolves seemed to howl more and differently on these nights, and
once I went to the station, thinking the fire there needed fixing, and
I heard the telegraph instrument clicking fit to tear itself to
pieces. Often the next day after the northern lights would come the
storm.
It was on the very day that I had said to Kaiser and Pawsy at
breakfast (that is, January 25th) that it was a month since I had seen
any human being, that I was at the depot after a load of ground feed,
and in looking to the northwest thought I saw something moving. It did
not take me long to go up the windmill tower. It was not past ten
o'clock in the forenoon, so the light for looking toward the northwest
was good, though of course, as the sun was shining, the snow was
pretty dazzling. But I could still only make out that something was
moving south or southwest. It was impossible to tell if it were men or
horses or cattle. So I went down as fast as I could, jumped onto the
sled, and the next minute Kaiser had me at the hotel, where I got the
field-glass and went back.
Up the tower I scrambled for another look. The snow was so dazzling
that the glass did less good than you might suppose, but with it I
could soon tell that it was a party of men on horseback following
either another party or a drove of cattle or horses. The band ahead
swung gradually about and came toward Track's End. The ones behind
seemed to be trying to cut them off, but they failed to do it. On they
came, and in ten minutes I could see that it was either cattle or
horses that were being chased by twenty or twenty-five men on
horseback. The cattle were following a low, broad ridge where the snow
was less deep, and which spread out west of the town, making less snow
there also, as I have mentioned before. I thought there was something
peculiar about the riding of the men; I watched closely, and then I
saw they were Indians.
My first thought was that it was daylight and no jack-lantern would
scare them away. I saw I must depend on harsher measures. In almost no
time I had got over town, locked the barn, shut Kaiser in the hotel,
run through my tunnel to the bank so as to be on the west side of
town, and stood peeping out a loophole with two fully loaded
Winchesters on a table beside me.