says he'd bet a yearlin' ag'in a sack of terbaccer that it were some
derned tenderfoot bug-hunter who'd been out to the Petrified Forest an'
gone an' lost hisself, an' now was a bellerin' around like a dogie
calf. The cook he lowed 'twan't no bug-hunter, 'cause that was the
crack of a forty-five, an' them bug-hunter fellers ginerally packed a
little short twenty-two to stand off the Injuns, an' we all laughed at
this, fer the night we got the steers shipped the cook went up town an'
got full as a goat, an' tried to run a 'sandy' over a meek-looking
tenderfoot, who wan't a harmin' nobody; but he wan't near so meek as he
looked, an' fust thing the _cocinero_ knowed he war a gazin' in to one
of them same little twenty-twos, an' I'm blessed if the stranger didn't
take his forty-five away from him an' turned him over to the sheriff to
cool off--but I guess you all know about that.
"We could soon hear the 'chug chug' of a pony's feet, an' then a voice a
hollerin'. We all gave a yell, and in a few minutes a man named Hart
rode into camp. We all knowed him. He was a sheep man with a ranch over
on the 'tother side of the Petrified Forest. He was nearly froze an'
half crazy with excitment, an' 'twas some minutes afore we could git him
to tell what was a hurtin' him.
"'Boys,' he says, 'for God's sake git up an' help me find my wife an'
chillun.'
"An' then he told us he had been away from his ranch all the day before,
at one of his sheep camps over on the Milky Holler. When he left in the
mornin' his wife tole him she'd hitch up the hosses to the buckboard
after dinner an' take the kids an' drive down to the railroad station
an' git the mail, an' git back in time for supper. You know it's 'bout
eight miles down to the station at Carrizo.
"Comin' home at night in the wust of the storm, Hart had found the shack
empty, his wife not home yit an' the hosses gone. Thinkin' that the
storm had kept 'em, he waited an hour or two, when he got so blamed
oneasy he couldn't wait no longer, but saddled up his hoss an' drug it
for the station. When he got there they told him his wife had left 'bout
an hour by sun, an' they hadn't seen nothin' of her sence, although they
had begged her not to start back, an' the wind a-blowin' like it was.
'Twas then about as dark as the inside of a cow, and leavin' the men at
the station to foller him, Hart struck out across the prairie, ridin' in
big circles, and tryin', but without no luck, to cut some 'sign' of the
buckboard and hosses. You know, fellers, how them sandy mesas are about
there, and, between the driftin' sand and the snow, every mark had been
wiped out slick and clean. Then he pulled his freight for the ranch,
thinkin' mebbeso she'd got back while he were away; but nary a sign of
them was there about the place. He struck out agin, makin' big circles,
and firin' his six-shooter and hollerin' like an Apache Injin, all the
time a-listenin' an' a-prayin' fer some answer. Then he heerd our shots
and thought sure he'd found her, fer she always carried a gun when she
went out alone, and he jist hit the high places till he ran onto our
camp and he war sure disappointed when he seen us an' not her.
"'Tain't no use for to tell you that we got a move onto ourselves.
You've all seen the Cimarron Kid git a move on an' tear round and just
bust hisself to get out to the herd in the mornin' to relieve the last
guard, along in the fall when the boss was pickin' out men for the
winter work. Well, that was the way we all tore round, an' as everybody
kep' up a night hoss (you all know what a crank that feller Wilson was
'bout night hosses; he'd make every man keep one up if he had the whole
cavyyard in a ten-acre field), we soon had a cup of coffee into us an'
was ready to ride slantin'. Pore Hart was so nigh crazy that he couldn't
say nothin', an' 'twas hard to see a big, strong feller as he was all
broke up like.
"By this time 'twas gettin' daylight in the east an' we struck out,
scatterin' every way, but keepin' in sight an' hearin' of each other.
'Bout two miles from camp I ran slap dab onto the buckboard, with one of
the hosses tied up to the wheel, an' 'tother gone. The harness of the
other hoss laid on the ground, an' from the sign, she had evidently
unharnessed the gentlest hoss of the two, an' got on him, with the kids,
an' tried to ride him bareback. I fired a couple of shots, which brought
some of the other boys to me, an' we follered up the trail, step by
step, 'cause 'twas a hard trail to pick out, owin', as I said, to the
sand an' snow.
"Pretty soon we come to where she had got off the hoss an' led him for a
ways; then we found the tracks of the kids; an' we judged they'd all got
so cold they had to walk to git warm; an' all that time my fingers an'
ears was tinglin' an achin', they was so cold, an' what was them pore
kids an' that little woman goin' to do, when a big, stout puncher like
me was shiverin' an' shakin' like a old cow under a cedar in a norther?
"Bimeby we struck the hoss standin' there all humped up with the cold,
the reins hooked over a little sage bush. I sent one of the boys back
with the hoss, an' tole him to hitch up to the buckboard an' foller on,
fer I knowed shore we'd need it to put their pore frozen bodies on when
we found 'em.
"Here we saw signs where she'd tried to build a fire, but, Lord
A'mighty, you know how hard it is to find anything to burn round that
there Petrified Forest country, an' she only had three or four matches,
an' nothin' to make a fire catch with. Then she started on ag'in, an' I
judged she'd got a star to go by, 'cause she kep' almost straight north
to'ds the railroad. By the trail, she was a-carryin' the youngest kid, a
boy 'bout two years old, an' leadin' the other, which was a little gal
'bout five.
"Right here, fellers, she showed she was fit to be the wife of a man
livin' in such a country. She knowed mighty well that she'd be follered,
an' that her trail would be hard to find, so what does she do but tear
pieces out of the gingham skirt she had on, an' hang 'em along on a sage
brush here, an' a Spanish bayonet there, so's we could foller faster.
When we struck this sign an' seed what sh'd done, one of the boys says,
says he, 'Fellers, ain't she a trump, an' no mistake?' An' so she shore
was.
"We jist turned our hosses loose along here, an' one of us would lope
ahead an' cut for sign, an' as soon as he found it, another would cut in
ahead of him, an' in that way we trailed her up, right peart. We soon
ran the trail down to the edge of the big mesa back of the Carrizo
station.
"If you remember, it's quite a cliff there, mebbeso two hundred feet
down; sort of in steps, from two to six feet high. We seen where she
jumped over the fust ledge an' helped the young ones down. She worked
her way down the rocky cliff that way, step by step, an' it must 'a'
been a job, too, in the dark, an' as cold as she was. Two of us went on
down the cliff, an' I sent the other boys around with the hosses, to a
break, where there was a good trail.
"Right here I began to think that p'raps she's been saved, after all.
'Twas only a mile from the foot of the mesa to the station at Carrizo,
an' in plain sight from where we were.
"Me an' Little Bob, who was with me, was so sure that she was all right
that we quit follerin' the trail an' jist got down the cliff anywhere we
could. When we got to the bottom an' clear of the rocks, we set out to
cut for her trail ag'in, when Little Bob says, says he, 'There she is,
Jack.'
"Lord, how my heart jumped into my mouth. Seemed as if I could most
taste it. I looks where Bob was a-p'intin', and shore enough, there she
were a-sittin' on a rock with the little boy in her lap, an' the little
girl a-leanin' up ag'in her an' a-lookin' into her face.
"We both gave a yell an' started to'ds her, but she never paid no
'tention to us, which seemed to me mighty queer like. But we were a
little to one side of her, an' I thought mebbe she were so tired she
didn't notice us. Bob he got up to her fust, an' walked up an' put his
hand on her shoulder to shake her, but, fellers, you all know how 'twas,
the pore little woman an' the two young ones were dead.
"Little Bob was so skeert that he couldn't do nothin', but I fired all
the shots in my six-shooter, an' the balance of the outfit soon came up
to us.
"Wilson he had a little more savvy than the rest of us, an' rode back
an' met pore Hart, who had got off to one side, an' tells him sort o'
kindly like, what we'd found; an' I reckon that Jim never had no harder
job in all his life.
"Hart says, says he, 'Jim, old man, you take 'em inter town as tenderly
as you kin, an' make all the arrangements for the funeral, an' I'll
follow you in tonight.'
"'Course Jim swore we'd all do everything we could, an' Hart rode off
to'ds his ranch without comin' nigh the place where his little family
was a restin' so peaceful an' quiet.
"Say, fellers, that was the pitifullest sight I ever seed, an' I've seed
some sad work in the days when old Geronimo an' his murderin' gang of
government pets used to range all over the country.
"'Twas easy enuff to read the whole thing now. She'd come to the edge of
the mesa an' seen the lights in the station house, for they get up 'bout
four o'clock every mornin' to get breakfast for the section men.
Climbin' down the cliff had used her up, an' knowin' she was so clost to
help, she had set down on a big flat rock at the bottom to rest a minute
before starting to walk the mile from the foot of the mesa to the
station. To set down, as cold and tired as she was, meant sleep, an' to
sleep was shore death that night, an' she went to sleep an' never woke
up no more.
"The little boy was cuddled up ag'in her under her shawl, with the
peacefullest look on his little face you ever see, an' the little girl
was a-leanin' on her lap an' a-lookin' up into her face, with the big
tears frozen on her cheeks, an' so natural that it was hard to believe
she was dead.
"One of the boys went over to the station an' got two wagon sheets and
some blankets, an' when the buckboard came we rolled 'em up as carefully
an' softly as we could. They was so stiff we had to leave the little
feller where he was, but the girl we rolled up separate.
"Now, say, boys, that was a hard thing to do, for a bunch of rough
cow-punchers, if you hear me. Hookey Jim he'd been through a yellow
fever year down in Memphis once, an' he was more used to such things, so
he sort of bossed the job.
"I ain't ashamed to say I bawled like a baby, fellers. Mrs. Hart was
awful good to us boys, even if her husband was a sheep man. No puncher
ever went there without gettin' a good square meal, no matter when it
was; an' when Curly Joe got sick over at the 'Rail N' ranch, she jist
made the boys fetch him over to her place, an' she nussed him like his
own mammy would have done.
"After we got 'em packed on the buckboard, Wilson sent the rest of the
outfit back to camp, an' him an' me rode on into town, leavin' Shorty
French to drive the team in. We met everybody in town out on the road to
hunt for Mrs. Hart, for the word had got round that she had got lost;
an' everyone that could leave had turned out on the search.
"'Twas a sorrowful place that day, an' the next. Everybody in town knew
an' loved the little woman, an' her awful death made it seem more
pitiful an' sad. They made one coffin an' put her an' the two chillun
into it, one on each arm, an' they looked so sweet an' peaceful, like
they was only asleep--an', anyway, that's what he read from the book at
the grave--that they was only asleep.
"You fellers all know how everybody in town was at the funeral, an' how
one of the men in town had to say a little prayer at the grave, 'cause
there wasn't no parson, they all bein' away off in Afriky an' Chiney
a-prayin' an' a-singin' with niggers an' Chinees, an' not havin' no time
to tend to their own kind of people to home, who p'raps needed prayin'
for jist as much as the heathen in Chiney.
"Then two sweet little girls sung a hymn 'bout 'Nearer my God to Thee,'
an' when they got to the second verse everybody was a-cryin' an' the
little girls jist busted out too, an' couldn't finish the song for a
long time.
"An', boys, that's about all there is to tell."
I glanced around the dugout. The fire had burned low and I guess the
most of them were glad; for, in the uncertain light, I could see
moisture on more than one sunburned cowboy cheek, and my own eyes were,
as one of them quaintly put it, "jist a-spillin' clean over with tears."
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CAMEL HUNTIN'
By permission _The Breeder's Gazette_, Chicago, Ill.
"Did any of yez ever go camel huntin'?" asked the cook, who had been
listening to some tales of bear and lion hunting that had been going the
rounds of the men about the chuck wagon.
"Camel hunting?" cried the horse-wrangler, a look of astonishment on his
face. "What on earth do you mean by camel hunting? We ain't none of us
ever been to Afriky."
"Camel huntin' is jest what I said," replied the knight of the dish-rag,
flourishing that useful article in the air as he mopped off the lid of
the chuck box.
"Do you mean sure enough camels, camels with humps on 'em like what we
seen at the circus in Albuquerque las' fall?" queried another doubting
one.
"Faith an' I do that," answered the cook; "an' what's more, I didn't
have to go to no Afriky to hunt 'em neither."
"Whar did ye find any camels hereabouts, 'ceptin in a circus?" asked
"Tex," an old-time puncher who had followed the chuck wagon for thirty
years.
"Right here in Arizony, me lads," said the cook, with an affirmative nod
of his red head.
"Gee!" and the wagon boss looked incredulous. "Camels in Arizony! Who
ever heard tell of any of them critters down this-a-way?"
Pat by this time had finished his after-dinner work, and while the team
horses were eating their grain, he sat down to peel a panful of potatoes
in readiness for the evening meal.
"Tell us about them there camels, Pat," begged one of the boys.
"Sure," with a grin, "I don't mind givin' yez a little bit of
enlightenment on the subject of camels, seein' as none of yez ever heern
tell of thim before now. When I first came to Arizony, ye know I was a
sojer in the regular army, in the Sixth Cavalry, the gallopin' Sixth,
they called it in them days."
"Aw, give us a rest, Pat, about your army days, an' tell us about them
camels," for the Galloping Sixth and its adventures was an old story to
the boys.
"Well," he resumed, "we was scoutin' down the Santy Cruz valley, west of
Too-sawn, a lookin' for old Geronimo and his murderin' gang. One night
we was camped in a little openin' in the mesquites, wid guards out on
all sides ag'in a surprise, when somethin' stampeded every hoss in the
herd an' left us plumb afoot, exceptin' them the guards was a-ridin'.
Next morning when the captain asked the sargint of the guard what made
'em stampede, he sort of grinned an' looked sheepish like.
"'Captain,' ses he, 'ye'll not be after thinkin' me a dirty liar, but,
sor, by the blissid Saint Patrick I'd be willin' to swear that the
animiles that set them there crazy hosses off like a bunch of skeered
sheep were nothin' less nor camels--camels, sor, with two humps an' long
necks on 'em; the same as I be seein' in the maynageries whin I were a
lad.'
"'Camels, sargint?' sez the captain, lookin' sort o' puzzled like. 'Do
ye surely mean what ye be a-sayin'?'
"'That I do, sor,' sez the sargint, 'an' the men on guard with me will
bear me out--at least them that glimpsed them.'
"Then the captain he sort of grins an' sez, 'That's all right, sargint;
I'd plumb forgot there used to be a lot of camels herabouts on these
deserts, an' 'twas probably some of thim.'
"Then the captain, he bein' a fine old sojer man, with no frills or
grand airs with the men when out on a scout, tells the sargint that
before the war Jeff Davis (that same Jeff, by the way, what was
Prisident of the Confideracy, he bein' then Secretary of War) gits a
fancy that camels was the very trick for usin' out West, for packin'
stuff for the troops. So old Jeff he gets Uncle Sam to send 'way off to
Afriky an' import a lot of thim an' sint them out to Texas an' Arizony
on the deserts.
"But the packers couldn't get used to them, an' besides, they stampeded
ev'ry horse an' mule in the entire southwest with their queer ways an'
ungainly looks. So one day the quartermaster at Yuma he turns out a lot
of thim with a 'Good-bye to yez, an' God bless yez, an' here's hopin' we
niver meet ag'in,' slappin' the nearest one with a halter shank to sort
of hasten him on his way. They took to the deserts like a duck to water,
an' the captain said 'twas doubtless one of thim that the sargint
seed."
"How about huntin' of 'em, Pat?" asked an interested listener. "You sure
didn't stop to hunt camels then, did you?"
"Hunt camels thin!" snorted the cook with disgust. "By the powers 'twas
precious little opportunity we had for camel huntin' thim days, with old
Geronimo onto his job ev'ry day from sun-up to dark. No, my son, 'twas
ten years or more later whin I went camel huntin'. I was workin' for the
M. C. outfit, up to Williams, an' they had a contract to deliver some
beef steers to the Injun agent at the Moharvey reservation down below
the Needles on the Big Colorado. We'd had an elegant summer for rain,
an' the desert was covered with grass an' water. So the old man decides
to trail them across the country, an' we takes the herd an' struck off
down the mountain towards the head of the big Chino Valley an' then on
west till we struck the Bill William's fork of the Big Colorado down
which we was to drift till we reached the main river.
"We started with a young moon, an' by the time we hit the Bill William's
fork the job of night herding was a plumb picnic, so far as the steers
went. We had them all as do-cile as a bunch of trained pigs; an' what
with the grand feed to handle them on we'd never yet lost a single one
of them nor had a stampoodle of any kind.
"We bedded them oxen down one night in a great open valley after an easy
day's drive. There was only five of us, four with the steers, an' me,
cook an' horse-wrangler, we havin' everything on four pack mules, which
I drove with the remuda.
"That night Billy St. Joe asked me if I wouldn't take his guard for
him, he bein' about sick all day with nuralgy. So when I was called
along about midnight to spoon them for two hours I jumps an' was soon
joggin' around the bunch, which was all a-lyin' down as decent as one
could wish fer. 'Twere hard to keep awake, an' I reckon I must 'a' been
a-noddin' in the saddle, for, the first thing I knowed there was a snort
an' a cracklin' of horns an' hocks, an' away went me steers like the
very old divil himself was behind them.
"I pulled meself together, slapped old Shoestring down the hind leg with
me quirt, an' put spurs after them, hopin' to turn them. Old Shoestring
snorted an' kept them sharp ears of his workin' an' looking' back over
his shoulder like, as if he was a-feered too. I hadn't been sidin' them
fer more than a hundred yards when, hearin' a snortin' an' a gruntin'
behind me, I takes a look meself over me shoulder, an' such a sight as
me eyes did get.
"'Twas sure no wonder them steers was a-runnin away, fer right behind us
was three great figures with long necks an' humps on their backs like
two water kegs a-settin' up there. They wasn't gallopin', nayther was
they trottin', but jist a-shufflin' along over the ground like ghosties,
an' every once in a little while one of them gives a grunt an' a gurgle
which sent them oxen wild with terror. Hangin' to these creatures was
long strings of somethin' more like a lot of ragged clothes than
anything else, an' what with the flutterin' an' wavin' they resembled a
lot of animated scarecrows.
"When we first set out on our race with thim ugly divils a-follerin' of
us, the three night horses tied up in camp, takin' wan look an' sniff
of them teeterin' figgers a-puffin' an' a-gruntin' in our rear, jist
quit the flats wid the rest of the live stock, an' as we tore along we
picked up every mother's son of the other horses, them all bein'
foot-loose, an' a-hangin' round with the pack mules.
"By the blissed saints, but me an' that Shoestring horse was havin' a
lovely ole time of it all by ourselves, for, with the night horses gone,
thim lads back in camp had nothin' to do but set there an' lave it to me
to hang an' rattle with them. Thim shufflin' monsters behind didn't seem
to want to git past us, but jist kep' at the heels of the drags, an'
it's mesilf's a-tellin' ye that every toime I'd take wan hasty glimpse
of thim 'twould be the cold chills I'd be after havin', an' me a-cursin'
the night I ever took Billy St. Joe's guard fer him.
"What wid the fear in his heart, an' good work wid me 'pet makers', I
makes out to git old Shoestring up clost to the leaders. I'd also
managed to get me slicker untied from the back of me saddle an' was
wavin' it in their faces, hopin' by thim means to git the bunch turned
an' millin', an' maybe thim lost sowls that was a-follerin' us wud leave
us in peace an' quiet.
"Thim three saddle horses a-runnin' an' rompin' an' snortin' in the
midst of the steers wasn't helpin' matters, ayther. Iv'ry toime wan of
the stake ropes what was a-draggin' after thim struck the hocks of a
steer he'd give a wild beller of fright, and thin the entire bunch wud
put on a few extra bursts of speed, an' thim preambulatin' scarecrows
behind wud do a little more gruntin' an' gurglin' an' make matters all
the worse.
"'Bout this time old Shoestring, bein' occupied principally wid lookin'
over his shoulder an' takin' stock of those wanderin' hoboes behind,
failed to notice a big ole badger hole like an open coal hole in a city
sidewalk, an' steps wan of his front legs square into it an' turns a
hand-spring, landin' in a bunch of _cholla_ cactus, wid me under him.
Whin I come to my sinsis, which was some minutes after, I finds meself
afoot on the desert an' it just a-gittin' gray in the east.
"Barrin' a big gash across me cheek, where I digs me face into the
ground as me old Shoestring lit, I was none the worse for the fall,
'ceptin' of coorse a large an' illigant assortment of _cholla_ barbs in
me anatemy. Comes daylight I limps back to camp, for I were in no fix
for ridin' till I'd lain fer two mortal hours flat on me stummick on a
saddle blanket--an' me as naked as a Yuma Indian kid in July--whilst
Billy St. Joe done a grand job of pullin' them divilish cactus barbs
from various an' prominent portions of me system. Thim infernal things
stuck out of me carcas till, as one of the byes remarked, 'I was more
porcupine than human.'
"'What skeered your cows, Pat?' says Jim, the boss, as I come cripplin'
into camp. 'Sure an' if I knowed I'd tell ye,' sez I. They was all
a-lyin' that ca'm an' peaceful as wan could well wish fer. Thin up they
hops an' immigrates. Me an' old Shoestring we busted out after 'em, an'
as we tore along I glimpsed a bunch of hairy, wobbly-legged monsters
a-follerin' us, a-groanin' an' a-gurglin' like a lot of hobgoblins from
hell,' sez I.
"'Git out' sez Jim; ''twas aslape ye were, ye an' old Shoestring both,
an' he had a bad dream an' bucked ye off into a cholla'.
"'Not on yer life,' sez I, mad enough to fight a grizzly between the
grin on his face an' the stingin' of the cactus barbs in me back.
"The boys managed to get the horses rounded up, an' all the steers
together by noon, but too late to move camp that day. That afternoon Jim
sez, 'Git yer gun, Pat, an' come wid me.' So I saddles up me pony, slips
me Winchester into me scabbard, an' him an' me rides off from camp.
"'What's up?' sez I.
"'Nothin', sez he, 'only over here a ways I struck the curiousest tracks
I ever seen in all me life; an' me a-knowin' the sign of every critter
that ever walks on legs in this here country.' We soon struck the trail
Jim had seen an' it sure were a new one on both of us. So we follows it
up, feelin' it was our juty, as law-abidin' citizens, to run down an'
kill all such disorderly, outlandish creatures that was a-runnin' at
large. 'Twan't long before we comes to a ridge a-lookin' out over a
little valley, an' leadin' our horses we footed it fer the top of the
ridge, an' peekin' over we seed down in the middle of the flat three
hungry lookin' yaller divils. ''Tis me wanderin' rag-bags what skeered
the herd last night,' sez I, triumphant like--after Jim accusin' me of
goin' to sleep on guard an' dreamin' things.
"'I reckon you're right,' sez Jim, with a grin on his mug.
"They was a dirty yaller color, an' what wid the bare spots all over
thim, like sheep wid the scab, Jim sez they looked more like a lot of
mangy coyotes than anythin' he iver seen in all his life. ''Twas sure no
fault wid thim steers that they all gits up an' stampoodles whin such a
bad-smellin', evil-lookin' lot of monsters come a-driftin' down on top
of them,' sez he.