After we got back to the Rattletrap we promised ourselves
plenty of Sport the next day watching the freighters with their
long teams and wagon trains. Jack could not recover from his
first glimpse of Henderson.
"Rather a neat little turnout to take a young lady out
driving with," he said, after we had gone to bed. "Twenty-two
oxen and four wagons. Plenty of room. Take along her father and
mother. And the rest of the family. And her school-mates. And the
whole town. Good team to go after the doctor with if somebody was
sick--mile and a half an hour. That trotting-cow man at Yankton
ought to come up here and show Henderson a little speed. Still, I
dare say Henderson could beat Old Browny on a good day for
sleeping, and when he didn't have Blacky to pall him along."
But we got small sight of the trail the next day, as the rain
we had left behind came upon us again in greater force than ever.
It began toward morning, and when we looked out, just as it was
becoming light, we found it coming down in sheets--"cold, wet
sheets," as Ollie said, too. The horses stood huddled together,
wet and chilled. We got on our storm-coats and led them up to a
house a sort distance away, which proved to be Smith's ranch.
There we found large, dry sheds, under which we put them and
where they were very glad to go. Once back in the cabin of the
Rattletrap, we scarcely ventured out again.
It certainly wasn't a very cheerful day. We would not have
minded the rain much, because we were dry enough; but the cold
was disagreeable, and we were obliged to wear our overcoats all
day. We could watch the road from the front of the wagon, and saw
a number of freighters go by, usually with empty wagons, as it
soon became too muddy for those with loads. We saw one
fourteen-ox team with four wagons, and another man with twelve
oxen and three wagons. There were also a number of mule teams,
and we noticed one of twelve mules and five wagons, and several
of ten mules and three or four wagons. With these the driver
always rode the nigh wheel animal--that is, the left-hand rear
one.
"I'm going to put a saddle on Old Blacky and ride him after
this," said Jack. "Bound to be in the fashion. Wonder how
Henderson is getting along in the mud? A mile in two hours, I
suppose. Must be impossible for him to see the head oxen through
this rain."
The downpour never stopped all day. We tried letter-writing,
but it was too cold to hold the pen; and Jack's efforts at
playing the banjo proved equally unsuccessful. We fell back on
reading, but even this did not seem to be very satisfactory. So
we finally settled down to watching the rain and listening to the
wind.
When evening came we shut down the front of the cover and
tried to warm up the cabin a little by leaving the oil-stove
burning, but it didn't seem to make much difference. So we soon
went to bed, rather damp, somewhat cold, and a little dispirited.
I think we all stayed awake for a long time listening to the
beating of the rain on the cover, and wondering about the weather
of the morrow.
When we awoke in the morning it did not take long to find out
about the weather. The rain had ceased and the sky was clear, but
it was colder. Outside we found ice on the little pools of water
in the footprints of the horses. We were stiff and cold. Some of
us may have thought of the comforts of home, but none of us said
anything about them.
"This is what I like," said Jack. "Don't feel I'm living
unless I find my shoes frozen in the morning. Like to break the
ice when I go to wash my face and hands, and to have my hair
freeze before I can comb it."
But we observed that he kept as close to the camp-fire which
we started as any of us. We went up to Smith's to look after the
horses. While Jack and I were at the sheds Ollie stayed in the
road watching the freight teams. A big swarthy man, over six feet
in height, came along, and after looking over the fence at
Smith's house some time, said to Ollie:
[Illustration: Effect of a Dog on a Mexican]
"Do you s'pose Smith's at home?"
"Oh, I guess so," answered Ollie.
"I'd like to see him," went on the man, with an uneasy air.
"Probably you'll find him eating breakfast," said Ollie.
"I don't like to go in," said the man. "Why not?"
"I'm--I'm afraid of the dog."
"Oh!" replied Ollie. "Well, I'm not. Come on," and he stalked
ahead very bravely, while the man followed cautiously behind.
"He's a Mexican," said Smith in explanation afterwards. "All
Mexicans are afraid of dogs."
"That's a pretty broad statement," said Jack, after Smith had
gone. "I believe, if there was a good reward offered, that I
could find a Mexican who isn't afraid of dogs. Though perhaps
it's the hair they're afraid of; Mexican dogs don't have any, you
know."
"Don't any of them have hair?" asked Ollie.
"Not a hair," answered his truthful uncle. "I don't suppose a
Mexican dog would know a hair if he saw it."
"I think that's a bigger story than Smith's," said Ollie.
It was Sunday, and we spent most of the day in the wagon,
though we took a long walk up the valley in the afternoon. The
first thing Ollie said the next morning was, "When are we going
to see the buffaloes?"
Smith had been telling us about them the evening before. They
were down-town, and belonged to a Dr. McGillicuddie. They had
been brought in recently from the Rosebud Indian Agency, and had
been captured some time before in the Bad Lands.
We followed the trail, now as deep with mud as it had been
with dust, meeting many freighters on the way, and found the
buffaloes near the Deadwood stage barn.
"See!" exclaimed Ollie; "there they are, in the yard."
"Don't say 'yard,'" returned Jack; "say 'corral,' with a
good, strong accent on the last syllable. A yard is a corral, and
a farm a ranch, and a revolver a six-shooter--and a lot more.
Don't be green, Oliver."
"Oh, bother!" replied Ollie. "There's ten of 'em. See the big
fellow!"
"They're nice ones, that's so," answered Jack. "I'd like to
see the Yankton man we heard about try to milk that cow over in
the corner."
[Illustration: Post-Mortem on a Grizzly]
After we had seen the buffaloes we wandered about town and
jingled our spurs, which were quite in the fashion. We
encountered a big crowd in front of one of the markets, and found
that a hunter had just come in from the mountains to the west
with the carcass of the biggest bear ever brought into Rapid
City. Some said it was a grizzly, and others a silvertip, and one
man tried to settle the difficulty by saying that there wasn't
any difference between them. But it was certainly a big bear, and
filled the whole wagon-box. Ollie sidled through the crowd and
asked so many questions of the man, who was named Reynolds, that
he good-naturedly gave Ollie one of the largest of the claws. It
was five inches long.
At noon we went down to the camp of the freighters on the
outskirts of town, near Rapid Creek. There must have been fifty
"outfits"--Jack said that was the right word--and several hundred
mules, as many oxen, and a few horses. The animals were, most of
them, wandering about wherever they pleased, the mules and horses
taking their dinner out of nosebags, and the mules keeping up a
gentle exercise by kicking at one another. It seemed a hopeless
confusion, but the men were sitting about on the ground, calmly
cooking their dinners over little camp-fires. One man, whom we
had got acquainted with in the morning at Smith's, asked us to
have dinner with him, and made the invitation so pressing that we
accepted. He had several gallon's of coffee and plenty of bacon
and canned fruit, and a peculiar kind of bread which he had baked
himself.
[Illustration: 'Gene Starts a Cook-Book]
"I'm a-thinking," he said, "there ain't enough sal'ratus in
that there bread; but I'm a poor cook, anyhow."
The bread seemed to us to be already composed chiefly of
saleratus, so his apology struck us as unnecessary. He very
kindly wrote out the receipt on a shingle for Jack, but I stole
it away from him after we got home and burned it in the
camp-fire; so we escaped that.
"Your pancakes are bad enough," I said to him. "We don't care
to try your saleratus bread."
Jack was a good deal worked up about the loss of his receipt,
and experimented a long time to produce something like the
freighter's bread without it; but as Snoozer wouldn't try the
stuff he made, and he was afraid to do so himself, nothing came
of it.
We enjoyed our dinner with the man, however, and Jack added
further to his vocabulary in finding that the drivers of the ox
teams were called "bullwhackers," and those of the mules and
horses "muleskinners."
In the afternoon we climbed the hill above our camp. It gave
us a long view off to the east across the level country, while
away to the west were the mountain-peaks rising higher and
higher. It was still cold, and the raw northeast wind moaned
through the pines in a way that made us think of winter.
We went to bed early that night, so as to get a good start
for Deadwood the next day. We brought the horses down from the
ranch in the evening, blanketed them, and stood them out of the
wind among some trees.
"Four o'clock must see us rolling out of our comfortable beds
and getting ready to start," said Jack, as we turned in. "We must
play we are freighters."
Jack planned better than he knew; we really "rolled out" in
an exceedingly lively manner at three o'clock. We were sleeping
soundly at that hour, when we were awakened by the motion of the
wagon. Jack and I sat up. It was swaying from side to side, and
we could hear the wheels bumping on the stones. The back end was
considerably lower than the front.
"It's running down the bank!" I cried, and we both plunged
through the darkness for the brake-handle. We fell over Ollie and
Snoozer, and were instantly hopelessly tangled. It seemed an age,
with the wagon swaying more and more, before we found the handle.
Jack pushed it up hard, we heard the brake grind on the wheels
outside; then there was a great bump and splash, and the wagon
tilted half over and stopped. We found Ourselves lying on the
side of the cover, with cold water rising about us. We were not
long in getting out, and discovered that the Rattletrap was
capsized in the mill-race.
"Old Blacky did it!" cried Jack, as he danced around and
shook his wet clothes. "I know he did. The old sinner!"
We got out the lantern and lit it. Only the hind end of the
wagon was really in the race; one front wheel still clung to the
bank, and the other was up in the air. Ollie got in and began to
pass things out to Jack, while I went up the hill after the
horses. Jack was right. Old Blacky was evidently the author of
our misfortune. He had broken loose in some manner, and probably
begun his favorite operation of making his toilet on the corner
of the wagon by rubbing against it. The brake had carelessly been
left off, he had pushed the wagon back a few feet, and it had
gone over the bank. I soon had the harness on the horses, and got
them down the hill. We hitched them to the hind wheel with a long
rope, Jack wading in the water to his waist, and pulled the wagon
upright. Then we attached them to the end of the tongue, and
after hard work drew it out of the race. By this time we were
chilled through and through. Our beds and nearly everything we
had were soaking with water.
"How do you like it, Uncle Jack?" inquired Ollie. "Do you
feel that you are living now?"
Jack's teeth were chattering. "Y--yes," he said; "but I won't
be if we don't get a fire started pretty quick."
There were some timbers from an old bridge near by, and we
soon had a good fire, around which we tramped in a procession
till our clothes were fairly dry. The wind was chilly, and it was
a dark, cloudy morning. The unfortunate Snoozer had gone down
with the rest of us, and was the picture of despair, till Ollie
rubbed him with a dry corner of a blanket, and gave him a good
place beside the fire.
By the time two or three hours had elapsed we began to feel
partially dry, and decided to start on, relying on exercise to
keep ourselves warm. We had had breakfast in the meantime, and,
on the whole, were feeling rather cheerful again. We opened the
cover and spread out the bedding, inside and outside, and hung
some of it on a long pole which we stuck into the wagon from the
rear. Altogether we presented a rather funny appearance as we
started out along the trail, but no one paid much attention to
us. The freighters were already astir, and we were constantly
passing or meeting their long trains. Among others we passed
Eugene Brooks, the man with whom we had taken dinner. We told him
of our mishap, and he laughed and said:
"That's nothing in this country. Something's always happening
here which would kill folks anywhere else. You stay here awhile
and you'll be as tough as your old black horse."
Brooks had an outfit of five spans of mules and two wagons.
We stayed with him a half-hour, and then went on. As we could not
reach Deadwood that day, he advised us to camp that night where
the trail crossed Thunder Butte Creek, a branch of La Belle
Fourche.
The trail led for the most part through valleys or along the
sides of hills, and was generally not far from level, though
there was, of course, a constant though hardly perceptible rise
as we got farther into the mountains. We camped at noon at Elk
Creek, and made further progress at drying our household effects.
We pressed on during the afternoon, and passed through the town
of Sturgis, where we laid in some stores of provisions to take
the place of those spoiled by the water, and also a quantity of
horse-feed. Later we congratulated ourselves on our good-luck in
doing this.
As the afternoon wore away we found ourselves getting up
above the timber-line. The mountains began to shut in our view in
all directions, and the valleys were narrowing. As night drew
nearer, Jack said:
"Seems to me it's about time we got to this Thunder Butte
Creek. 'Gene said that if we passed Sturgis we'd have to go on to
that if we wanted water."
We soon met a man, and inquired of him the distance to the
desired stream. "Two miles," he replied, promptly. We went on as
much as a mile and met another man, to whom we put the same
question. "Three miles," he answered, with great decision.
"That creek seems to be retreating," said Jack, after the man
had gone on. "We've got to hurry and catch it, or it will run
clean into Deadwood and crawl down a gold mine."
It was growing dark. We forged ahead for another mile, and by
this time it was quite as dark as it was going to be, with a
cloudy sky, and mountains and pines shutting out half of that. I
was walking ahead With the lantern, and came to a place where the
trail divided.
"The road forks here," I called. "Which do you suppose is
right?"
"Which seems to be the most travelled?" asked Jack.
"Can't see any difference," I replied. "We'll have to leave
it to the instinct of the horses."
"Yes, I'd like to put myself in the grasp of Old Blacky's
instinct. The old scoundrel would go wrong if he knew which was
right."
"Well," I returned, "come on and see which way he turns, and
then go the other way." (Jack always declared that the old fellow
understood what I said.)
He drove up to the forks, and Blacky turned to the right.
Jack drew over to the left, and we went up that road. We
continued to go up it for fully three miles, though we soon
became convinced that it was wrong. It constantly grew narrower
and apparently less travelled. We were soon winding along a
mountain-side among the pines, and around and above and below
great rocks.
"We'll go till we find a decent place to camp, and then stop
for the night," said Jack. We finally came to a little level
bench covered with giant pines, and we could hear water beyond. I
went on with the lantern, and found a small stream leaping down a
gulch.
"This is the place to stop," I said, and we soon had our camp
established, and a good fire roaring up into the tree-tops. Ollie
found plenty of dry pine wood, and we blanketed the horses and
stood them under a protecting ledge. It was cold, and the wind
roared down the gulch and moaned in the pines, but we scarcely
felt it below. We finished drying our bedding and had a good
supper. Jack got out his banjo and tried to compete with the
brook and the pines. We went to bed feeling that we were glad we
had missed the road, since it had brought so delightful a
camping-place.
Ollie was the first to wake in the morning. It was quite
light.
"What makes the cover sag down so?" he asked. Jack opened his
eyes, reached up with the whipstock and raised it. Something slid
off the outside with a rush.
"Open the front and you'll see," answered Jack.
Ollie did so, and we all looked out. The ground was deep with
snow, and it was still falling in great feathery flakes. Old
Blacky was loose, and looked in at us with a wicked gleam in his
eyes.