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.
So that is the true history of the fight, just as it all happened at
Track's End, Territory of Dakota, on Saturday, February 5th; and thus,
through good luck and being well intrenched behind my fortifications,
and having plenty of Winchesters, I beat off the cutthroat outlaws and
held the town. If they had waited one day longer for their coming they
would have waited a good while longer; for the next day there came
such a blizzard as I had never seen before nor since, which roared
without ceasing six days, lacking twelve hours; and for two weeks more
the weather stayed bad, and seemed to have relapses, as they say of a
person sick. No robbers could have come through it, but the ones that
had come got back to their headquarters through the first of it, as I
have good reason to know.
And for almost six weeks after the fight I lived regularly and without
much disturbance, with Kaiser and the other animals for company by day
and the howling of the wolves and my own thoughts by night. If the
thoughts had given me no more trouble than the wolves I should have
been happy, for I think I had got so that I could not sleep unless
there was a wolf howling somewhere about in the neighborhood. The
loneliness, the dread of the outlaws coming back, the mystery of what
or who was in or near the wretched town besides myself, all kept with
me and made me wish ten thousand times that I had never heard of the
place, or of any place except home.
Though of course I did not keep so miserable all the while. There was
plenty of work to be done, and I kept at it most of the time. My eye
soon got well. The day after I beat off the outlaws and had a little
recovered from the work and strain of that and of the strange start
the disappearance of the saddle gave me, I found so many things
waiting to be done that I scarce knew what to turn my hand to first.
But I had thought the poor pony in the tunnel deserved to be got out
before anything else was done; and this I attended to an hour after
the robbers had gone. I went out half expecting to find it gone, too,
with its saddle; but it was not.
It was quite tired out and stood hanging its head. To get it out the
way it had tumbled in would take a great amount of shoveling in the
hard snow, I soon saw, so I decided I would try to lead it through the
tunnel and on out by way of the hotel, though it seemed an odd thing
to do. So I put a halter on it and tried that plan, and though its
back scraped a little in places, what with me ahead and with Kaiser
behind barking a good deal, we got it along and into the office and
then on through the storeroom and kitchen and out to the barn. Dick
and Ned were much excited by the new arrival, and so for that matter
was Blossom; and Crazy Jane was like to have cackled her head off. The
poor things were the same as I, half dead from lonesomeness.
Then I straightened up things about town which had been put out of
order by the fight, fixed the fires again and cleaned up the guns. I
didn't forget to go up the windmill tower several times to have a look
for the outlaws, but I saw no more of them. Another thing I did was
to lay some big slabs of frozen snow over the hole in the tunnel where
the pony fell through, and it was a good thing I did this or I believe
the blizzard would have gone near to filling the whole tunnel system.
As it was it piled on more snow and covered all trace of the robbers'
charge on the street.
I think it would not be possible for me to make you understand what a
blizzard that was, which began the next day and kept up for the best
part of a whole week. All day and night it roared and pushed at the
windows and drove the snow in every crack and hole; here piled it up
and there swept it away clean down to the ground. Not once did I go
out beyond the tunnels. The fire at the depot I let go out, and the
others I kept up more to have something to do than for any use they
were, because I knew no outlaws could ever come in such a storm.
While the blizzard lasted I had a hard time to find enough to do to
keep my mind off of my troubles. In an old recipe-book, which I found
in the closet under the stairs, it told how to tan skins, so I began
tanning my wolf-skins. I whittled out some puzzles, too, and made a
leather collar for Pawsy; but she would not wear it. I forgot to say
that after the fight I found her in her old place over the door. I
taught Kaiser some tricks, too, and gave the cat a chance to improve
herself in the same way, but she refused the opportunity.
I did some reading, too, during these days. There was little to read
in the Headquarters House, but among Tom Carr's things I found a book
by Doctor Kane, telling of his life in the arctic regions, and this I
enjoyed a great deal, feeling that I was in a country not much warmer,
and that I must be more lonely than he was, since he always had human
companions, while I had not one. In Mr. Clerkinwell's rooms over the
bank I found some other books, all with very fine leather covers. Some
of these I took the liberty of borrowing, but was very careful of
them. One was _The Pilgrim's Progress_, and I liked most of it
exceedingly, especially the fight in the king's highway which
Christian had with Apollyon. Another book was a story, very
entertaining, by Charles Dickens, about little Pip and the convict
who came back from Australia; I felt very sorry for Pip when he had to
go out on the wet marshes so early, he being so little and the marshes
so big.
There was another thing that I tried to amuse myself with, being
nothing less than music. I found an old banjo belonging to Tom Carr
and an accordion which Andrew had left behind. The banjo I could not
do much with, but when I saw the accordion I said to myself that if I
could blow the bellows in my father's forge, I ought to be able to
work an accordion. So I went at it, hammer and tongs, and soon could
produce a great noise, though mighty dismal, I think, and maybe what
you would (had you heard it) have called heartrending, since whenever
I started up Kaiser would point his nose to the ceiling and howl, very
sad indeed. I think when one of our concerts was going on that could a
guest have arrived at the Headquarters House he would have thought he
had found a home for lunatics and not a hotel for an honest traveler
who could pay his way.
During the blizzard also I drew up in black and white a programme for
each day which I decided I must follow out when the weather became
better; though I had lived up to most of it from the first. Thus it
was:
Five o'clock--Get up, start fire in hotel and make cup of coffee.
Five-thirty--Inspect fires in bank and three stores.
Six o'clock--Feed horses and cow and chickens, and milk cow.
Six-thirty--Get breakfast for self and Kaiser and Pawsy (which
included washing the dishes, a hard job).
Seven-thirty--Inspect depot fire and climb windmill tower and look
over country with glass.
Eight o'clock--Finish work at barn; and for two hours such
miscellaneous work as might be doing, as tunnels or other
fortifications.
Ten o'clock--Windmill mounting again; miscellaneous work for two
hours.
Noon--Dinner for family and work at barn.
One-thirty--Inspection of fires and windmill mounting; followed by
miscellaneous work.
Three o'clock--Windmill mounting; miscellaneous work.
Four-thirty--Final daylight inspection of country from windmill;
miscellaneous work.
Six o'clock--Supper and work at barn.
Eight o'clock--General inspection of fires and town, including
observation from windmill for lights or fires.
Nine o'clock--Bed.
This system I followed out pretty closely whenever the weather was at
all fair. When there was no miscellaneous work I would practise on the
skees, shoot at the target, or something of this sort. Quite often on
days when the weather would allow (though there were few enough of
them) I would go up around and beyond the Butte on a little hunt. I
got several jack-rabbits and three more wolves. One of the wolves I
left outside the shed, forgetting it. In the morning it was gone.
There were not many thefts, however, and the shed was not broken into
any more; though, to be sure, I had made the door twice as strong as
it was before, and kept everything about town carefully and strongly
locked, especially the buildings where the guns and ammunition were.
During the worst storms I used to sleep on the lounge in the hotel
office, but at other times I always retired to the other building and
took in the drawbridge. Two or three times, just for a change, I took
Kaiser and slept in the fire stronghold. Kaiser and Pawsy still
remained as much company for me as they had been from the first. What
I should ever have done in that solitude without them I don't know.
The great bushy wag of Kaiser's tail, and the loud purr of the cat,
were the two things that cheered me more than anything else. I do
believe that cat to have had the loudest purr of any cat that ever
lived. A young tiger need not have been ashamed of it. And as for the
grand wave and flourish of Kaiser's tail, it is beyond all
description.
On one of my rabbit-hunting trips, about a week after the big
blizzard, I very foolishly got both of my feet frost-bitten and paid
the full penalty. The day seemed not quite so cold, and I did not put
on the heavy pair of woolen stockings which I commonly wore outside of
my shoes and inside of my overshoes. I crouched behind a snowbank
beyond the Butte for some time waiting for a rabbit which I saw to
come within range, something which he did not do, and was so
interested in this that I did not notice what was happening to my
feet. But what had happened was quite plain enough when I got home and
a great ache set up in my toes. I got the dish-pan full of snow and
thrust my feet in, to draw out the frost gradually; but this did not
save me.
Two days later I was fairly laid up. One whole day I could scarce
crawl about the hotel office and keep the fire going. I could not get
to the barn to feed the animals, though they were suffering for food
and water; and what I called my war-fires in the other buildings I
knew were out. My feet were much swollen, and the pain and the worry
must have brought on a fever, and I lay on the lounge all day
expecting nothing less than a fit of sickness; and what will become of
me? I asked myself. I had no appetite for food, which alarmed me very
greatly. I remember no day of my life at Track's End which seemed
darker to me.
Toward night I fell asleep, and awoke with Kaiser licking my face and
whining. I remembered that I had seen in the pantry a package of
boneset, an herb by which my father set great store, holding it a
sovereign remedy for all common complaints. I roused up, and by
clinging to the back of a chair hobbled after it, and steeped myself a
large mugful, very hot, and I believe it did me good. Be this as it
may, as the saying is, I was better the next day, and managed to feed
the poor, hungry creatures at the barn; and the day after I was able
to start the fires. But for a week my feet were very painful, and I
suffered much.
It was a little more cheerful as the days began to get longer as
February went on, and in the latter part of the month I thought the
weather seemed to grow slightly better on the whole. For three days
after the big blizzard the thermometer had stood from forty to
forty-five below zero each morning, and it did not get up much higher
at any time during the day. On the last two days of February it thawed
a little in the afternoon, and on March 2d the snow was soft enough so
I could make snowballs to throw at Kaiser; but it soon turned cold
again.
There were northern lights many nights, flaming all over the heavens,
like long swords, and on the night of February 15th there were some
more prodigious than I would believe were possible had I not seen them
with these eyes. They hung, wavering and trembling, over the whole
northern sky almost to the zenith, like the lower edges of vast,
mighty curtains, swaying and moving, now here, now there, and with all
colors, yellow, violet, scarlet, blood red, as if the whole heavens
were going to burn up, the thing being so marvelous that had I not
seen lesser displays before I should have thought the world were at an
end, no less, and have died, I do believe, of terror. As it was I
stood in the snow by the barn gazing till my feet were like blocks of
ice and I knew not if I were in Track's End or in the moon. Kaiser at
first barked at the sight, then growled, then whined, and next ran
yelping away to the shed, where I found him crept beneath a bench.
Never in my life before nor since have I seen anything to equal the
heavens that night. Early on the morning of February 24th I saw a
beautiful mirage. I could see plainly, high in the air, the timber
and bluffs along the Missouri, and the Chain-of-Lakes and coteaux. It
lasted for a full half-hour.
[Illustration: THE INDIAN GETTING MY RIFLE IN THE STRONGHOLD]
It happened on the night of March 14th that I took it into my head to
sleep another night in the stronghold with Kaiser, and so brought
about one more startling thing. It seemed that I must always be doing
something instead of staying content with things as they were. It had
been thawing a little for several days and I was beginning to wonder
if I could not hope for such weather that the train might get through
before long and release me from the awful place; though I knew the
snow was packed in the cuts all along the line to the east like ice,
and that it would take a great thaw to make any impression on it.
About nine o'clock I left the hotel, after carefully locking
everything, and went through the tunnel to the barn with Kaiser, my
rifle, and the lantern. I locked all the doors behind me, and then we
crawled through the small door under Ned's manger, and that I fastened
also. In the stronghold I rolled up in a blanket and the buffalo-robe
with Kaiser beside me. I left the lantern burning in the tunnel just
beyond my feet at the edge of the stack. Kaiser barked at something
when we first got in; later I heard wolves sniffing about on the roof;
then we both went to sleep.
Some time in the night I awoke; what woke me I suppose I shall never
know. But when I awoke I sat up suddenly as if I had never been
asleep. I was face to face with the worst-looking creature I had ever
seen in my life, black and blear-eyed and ugly, on his hands and knees
in the tunnel beyond the lantern drawing my gun toward him by the
stock. Then Kaiser sprang up like any wild beast; but I held him back
by the collar.