Besides the cactus, another form of vegetation which began
to attract more and more of Ollie's attention was the red
tumbleweed. Indeed, Jack and I found ourselves interested in it
also. The ordinary tumbleweed, green when growing and gray when
tumbling, had long been familiar to us, but the red variety was
new. The old kind which we knew seldom grew more than two feet in
diameter; it was usually almost exactly round, and with its
finely branched limbs was almost as solid as a big sponge, and
when its short stem broke off at the top of the ground in the
fall it would go bounding away across the prairie for miles. The
red sort seemed to be much the same, except for its color and
size. We saw many six or seven feet, perhaps more, in diameter,
though they were rather flat, and not probably over three or four
feet high.
The first one we saw was on edge, and going at a great rate
across the prairie, bounding high into the air, and acting as if
it had quite gone crazy, as there was a strong wind blowing.
"Look at that overgrown red tumbleweed!" exclaimed Jack. "I
never saw anything like that before. Jump on the pony, Ollie, and
catch the varmint and bring it back here!"
Ollie was willing enough to do this, and the pony was willing
enough to go, so off they went. I think if the weed had had a
fair field that Ollie would never have overtaken it, but it got
caught in the long grass occasionally, and he soon came up to it.
But the pony was not used to tumbleweed-coursing, and shied off
with a startled snort. Ollie brought her about and made another
attempt. But again the frightened pony ran around it. Half a
dozen times this was repeated. At last she happened to dash
around it on the wrong side just as it bounded into the air
before the wind. It struck both horse and rider like a big
dry-land wave, and Ollie seized it. If the poor pony had been
frightened before, she was now terror-stricken, and gave a jump
like a tiger, and shot away faster than we had ever seen her run
before. Ollie had lost control of her, and could only cling to
the saddle with one hand and hold to the big blundering weed with
the other. Fortunately the pony ran toward the wagon. As they
came up we could see little but tumbleweed and pony legs, and it
looked like nothing so much as a hay-stack running away on its
own legs. When the pony came up to the wagon she stopped so
suddenly that Ollie went over her head. But he still clung to the
weed, and struck the ground inside of it. He jumped up, still in
the weed, so that it now looked like a hay-stack on two legs. We
pulled him out of it, and found him none the worse for his
adventure. But he was a little frightened, and said:
[Illustration: Studying Botany]
"I don't think I'll chase those things again, Uncle Jack--not
with that pony."
"Oh, that's all right, Ollie," said Jack. "I'm going to
organize the Nebraska Cross-Country Tumbleweed Club, and you'll
want to come to the meets. We'll give the weed one minute start,
and the first man that catches it will get a prize of--of a
watermelon, for instance."
"Well, I think I'll take another horse before I try it,"
returned Ollie.
"Might try Old Browny," I said. "If he ever came up to a
tumbleweed he would lie right down on it and go to sleep."
"Yes, and Blacky would hold it with one foot and eat it up,"
said Jack. "Unless he took a notion to turn around and kick it
out of existence."
We looked the queer plant over carefully, and found it so
closely branched that it was impossible to see into it more than
a few inches. The branched were tough and elastic, and when it
struck the ground after being tossed up it would rebound several
inches. But it was almost as light asa thistle-ball, and when we
turned it loose it rolled away across the prairie again as if
nothing had happened.
"They're bad things sometimes when there is a prairie tire,"
said Jack. "No matter how wide the fire-break may be, a blazing
tumbleweed will often roll across it and set tire to the grass
beyond. They've been known to leap over streams of considerable
width, too, or fall in the water and float across, still
blazing. Two years ago the town of Frontenac was burned up by a
tumbleweed, though the citizens had made ah approved fire-break
by ploughing two circles of furrows around their village and
burning off the grass between them. These big red ones must be
worse than the others. I believe," he went on, "that tumbleweeds
might be used to carry messages, like carrier-pigeons. The
next one we come across we'll try it."
That afternoon we caught a fine specimen, and Jack securely
fastened this message to it and turned it adrift:
"Schooner Rattletrap, September --, 188-: Latitude.
42.50; Longitude, 99.35. To Whom it may Concern: From Prairie
Flower, bound for Deadwood. All well except Old Blacky, who has
an appetite."
The night after our stop by the unfinished house we again
camped on the open prairie, a quarter of a mile from a settler's
house, where we got water for the horses. This house was really a
"dugout," being more of a cellar than a house. It was built in
the side of a little bank, the back of the sod roof level with
the ground, and the front but two or three feet above it.
"I'd be afraid, if I were living in it, that a heavy rain in
the night might fill it up, and float the bedstead, and bump my
nose on the ceiling," said Jack.
Ir had been a warm afternoon, but when we went to bed it was
cooler, though there was no wind stirring. The smoke of our
camp-fire went straight up. There was no moon, but the sky was
clear, and we remarked that we had not seen the stars look so
bright any night before. The front of our wagon stood toward the
northwest. We went to bed, but at two o'clock we were awakened by
a most violent shaking of the cover. The wind was blowing a gale,
and the whole top seemed about to be going by the board. We
scrambled up, and I heard Jack's voice calling for me to come
out. The cover-bows were bent far over, and the canvas pressed in
on the side to the southwest till it seemed as if it must burst.
The front end of the top had gone out and was cracking in the
wind. I crept forward, and us I did so I felt the wagon rise up
on the windward side and bump back on the ground. I concluded we
were doomed to u wreck, and called to Ollie to get out as fast us
he could. I supposed a hard storm had struck us, but as I went
over the dash-board I was astonished to see the stars shining us
brightly as ever in the deep, dark sky. Jack was clinging to the
rear wagon wheel on the windward side, which was all that had
saved it from capsizing. He called to me to take hold of the
tongue and steer the craft around with the stern to the gale. I
did so, while he turned on the wheel.
[Illustration: When the Winds are Breathing Low]
As it came around the loose sides of the cover began to flutter and
crack, while the puckering-string gave way, and the wind swept
through the wagon, carrying everything that was loose before it,
including Ollie, who was just getting over the dash-board. He was
not hurt, but just then we heard a most pitiful yelping, as Jack's
blankets and pillow went rolling away from where the wagon had
stood. It was Snoozer going with them. The yelping disappeared in
the darkness, and we heard frying-pans, tin plates, and other camp
articles clattering away with the rest. The Rattletrap itself had
tried to run before the gale, but I had put on the brake and
stopped it. The three of us then crouched in front of it, and
waited for the wind to blow itself out. We could see or hear
nothing of the horses. There was nota cloud in sight, and the
stars still shone down calmly and unruffled, while the wind cut and
hissed through the long prairie grass all about us. It kept up for
about ten minutes, when it began to stop as suddenly as it had
begun. In twenty minutes there was nothing but a cool, gentle
breeze coming out of the southwest. We lit the lantern and tried
to gather up our things, but soon realized that we could not do
much that night. We found the unfortunate Snoozer crouched in a
little depression which was perhaps an old buffalo wallow, but
could see nothing of the horses. We concluded to go to bed and
wait for morning.
When it came we found our things scattered for over a quarter of a
mile. We recovered everything, though the wagon-seat was broken.
The horses had come back, so we could not tell how far they had
gone before the wind.
"I've read about those night winds on the plains," said Jack, "and
we'll look out for 'em in the future. We'll put an anchor on
Snoozer at least."
This intelligent animal had not forgotten his night's experience,
and stuck closely in the wagon, where he even insisted on taking
his breakfast.
The road we were following was gradually drawing closer to the
Niobrara, and we began to see scattering pine-trees, stunted and
broken, along the heads of the canyons or ravines leading down to
the river. There was less sand, and we made better progress. The
country was but little settled, and game was more plentiful. We got
two or three grouse. We went into camp at night by the head of
what appeared to be a large canyon, under a tempest-tossed old
pine-tree, through which the wind constantly sighed. There was no
water, but we counted on getting it down the canyon. A man went by
on horseback, driving some cattle, who told us that we could find a
spring down about half a mile.
"Can we get any hay down there?" I asked him. "We're out of feed
for the horses, and the grass seems pretty poor here."
"Down a mile beyond the spring I have a dozen stacks," answered the
man, "and you're welcome to all you can bring up on your pony.
Just go down and help yourselves."
We thanked him and he went on. As soon as we could we started
down. It was beginning to get dark, and grew darker rapidly as we
went down the ravine, as its sides were high and the trees soon
became numerous. There was no road, nothing but a mere
cattle-path, steep and stony in many places. We found the spring
and watered all the horses, left Blacky and Browny, and went on
after the hay with the pony, Jack leading her, and Ollie and I
walking ahead with the lantern. It seemed a long way as we
stumbled along in the darkness, all the time downhill. "I guess
that man wasn't so liberal as he seemed," said Jack. "The pony
will be able to carry just about enough hay up here to make Snoozer
a bed."
We plunged on, till at last the path became a little nearer
level. It crossed a small open tract and then wound among bushes
and low trees. Suddenly we saw something gleam in the light of
the lantern, and stopped right on the river's bank. The water
looked deep and dark, though not very wide. The current was swift
and eddying.
"We've passed the hay," I said. "Ir must be on that open flat
we crossed."
We went back, and, turning to the right, soon found it. I set
the lantern down and began to pull hay from one of the stacks,
when the pony made a sudden movement, struck the lantern with her
foot, and smashed the globe to bits.
"There," exclaimed Jack, "we'll have a fine time going up
that badger-hole of a canyon in the dark!"
But there was nothing else to do, and we made up two big
bundles of hay and tied them to the pony's back.
"She'll think it's tumbleweeds," said Ollie.
"If she's headed in the right direction I hope she will,"
answered Jack.
We started up, but it was a long and toilsome climb. In many
places Jack and I had to get down on our hands and knees and feel
out the path. The worst place was a scramble up a bank twenty
feet high, and covered with loose stones. I was ahead. The heroic
little pony with her unwieldy load sniffed at the prospect a
little, and then started bravely up, "hanging on by her
toe-nails," as Ollie said. When she was almost to the top she
stepped on a loose stone, lost her footing, went over, and rolled
away into the darkness and underbrush. Jack stumbled over a
little of the hay which had come off in the path, hastily rolled
up a torch, and lit it with a match. By this light we found the
pony on her back, like a tumble-bug, with her load for a cushion
and her feet in the air, and kicking wildly in every direction.
While Ollie held the torch, Jack and I went to her rescue, and,
after a vast deal of pulling and lifting, got her to her feet
just as the hay torch died out. Again she scrambled up the bank,
and this time with success. We went on, found the other horses,
and were soon at the wagon. We voted the pony all the hay she
wanted, and went to bed tired.
The next day, the ninth out from Yankton, though it was a
long run, brought us to Valentine, the first town on the railroad
which we had seen since leaving the former place. Before we
reached it we went several miles along the upper ends of the
canyons, down a long hill so steep that we had to chain both hind
wheels, forded the Niobrara twice, followed the river several
miles, went out across the military reservation, which was like a
desert, saw six or eight hundred negro soldiers at Fort Niobrara,
and finally drove through Valentine, and went into camp a mile
west of town. On the way we saw thousands of the biggest and
reddest tumbleweeds, and two or three new sorts of cactus. The
colored troops surprised Ollie, as he had never seen any before.
"It's the western winds and the hot sun that's tanned those
soldiers," said Jack. "We'll look just that way, too, before we
get back."
Ollie was half inclined to believe this astonishing statement
at first, but concluded that his uncle was joking.
[Illustration: Sad Result of Dishonesty]
We went into camp on the banks of the Minichaduza River, a
little brook which flows into the Niobrara from the northwest.
All night it gurgled and bubbled almost under our wheels. A man
stopped to chat with us as we sat around our camp-fire after
supper. We told him of our experience in getting the hay the
night before. He laughed and said: "Ever steal any of your horse
feed?"
"We haven't yet," answered Jack. "We try to be reasonably
honest."
"Some don't, though," replied the man. "Most of 'em that are
going West in a covered wagon seem to think corn in the field is
public property. A fellow camped right here one afternoon last
fall. He was out of feed, and took a grain sack on one arm and a
big Winchester rifle on the other, and went over to old Brown's
cornfield. He took the gun along not to shoot anybody, but to
sort of intimidate Brown if he should catch him. Suddenly he saw
an old fellow coming towards him carrying a gun about a foot
longer than his own. The young fellow wilted right down on the
ground and never moved. He happened to go down on a big prickly
cactus, but he never stirred, cactus or no cactus. He thought
Brown had caught him, and that he was done for. The old man kept
coming nearer and nearer. He was almost to him. The young fellow
concluded to make a brave fight. So he jumped up and yelled. The
old man dropped his gun and ran like a scared wolf. Then the
young fellow noticed that the other also had a sack in which he
had been gathering corn. He called him back, they saw that they
were both thieves, shook hands, and went ahead and robbed old
Brown together."
The man got up to go. "Well, good-night, boys," he said.
"Rest as hard as you can tomorrow. You'll strike into the Sand
Hills at about nine o'clock Monday morning. Take three days'
feed, and every drop of water you can carry; and it you waste any
of it washing your hands you're bigger fools than I think you
are."