A BERRYING PARTY
One afternoon as Jack was up on the side of the mountain gathering
saddle horses he saw far off over the prairie a waggon and two riders
coming toward the ranch. He did not know who it could be. Since the
horse roundup had left, no strangers had been seen. Soon after he
had unsaddled, the team came in sight over the hill, and at length
it was near enough for him to recognise that one of the riders was a
woman, and that there were two people in the waggon. A little later,
the party reached the barn and proved to be Mr. and Mrs. Powell and
Charley and the little girl. They had come over to visit Mr. Sturgis.
Mr. Powell wanted to kill some meat, and Mrs. Powell said that she
had determined to come with him and to ask Mrs. Carter if she would
not go up on the mountains with her, berrying. The visitors were
made welcome. While they were attending to the horses, Jack said to
Charley, "How are the wolf puppies getting along? Have they got tame
yet?"
"No," said Charley, "I can't do nothing with them. They're just as
afraid of me now as they were the day we got them; but there's
something mighty queer about them. With mother and Bess they're right
tame; they seem to like to see them, and they take meat out of their
hands, and like to have their heads patted and to be scratched. But
just as soon as I get near the cage, they all huddle together on the
other side of it, and if I go around to that side they run away to
the other. Same way with father. They seem to be afraid of a man, but
they don't mind a woman a mite. Two or three times I've been going
to kill them all, but Bess begged so hard for me to keep them that I
haven't done anything. She says she reckons she can make 'em right
tame, but that won't do no good if they're always scared of a man."
"Maybe they haven't forgotten that you and your father caught 'em,"
said Jack.
"Maybe they haven't," said Charley; "anyhow they're awful afraid of
father and me; they're doing right well, though, growing big and
sleek and handsome. They make friends with the dogs too. Often I see
one of the dogs with his nose close up to the bars of the pen, and
the puppies all standing there smelling at him and wagging their
tails. I believe some day I'll put on one of Bessie's dresses and go
down there and see if they won't be friendly with me. Let's ask Hugh
what we can do to tame them." As the boys walked to the house they
overtook Hugh and put this question to him.
"Well, I don't know," said Hugh. "I've seen mighty few tame wolves.
Fact is, I don't know that I ever saw any, but I've talked with men
that claimed to have had 'em, and they all said that it wan't no use
to try to tame 'em without you caught 'em when they was little bits
of fellows; a good deal smaller than these were when we caught 'em.
I did know one man that had a wolf that he said followed him round
just like a dog, but he caught that one when it was a little mite of
a thing, before it had its eyes open. You might try starving these of
yours, Charley; not give 'em anything to eat for three or four days,
and then take some food down to 'em and make 'em take it out of your
hand; that might make 'em lose that shyness, but I don't know as it
would. Anyhow, it's worth trying. But I expect they'd make a heap o'
noise nights while you were starving 'em; might cut your sleep short
a little bit."
"I believe I'll try that, Hugh," said Charley, "when we get back.
They'll be kind o' used to being fed by Tom while we're away, and
maybe they'll strike up some sort of a friendship with him, and
that'll make it easier for me when we get back."
"It does seem kind o' curious," said Hugh, "that they should have
taken to the gal that way."
"Yes, indeed," said Charley; "they're just as friendly with her as
can be. You ask her to tell you about how they act."
The three sat down on the grass near the kitchen door, and Charley
called to his sister, who came out and sat down with them.
"Tell me about them wolf puppies of yourn, Sis," said Hugh; "Charley
says you've made 'em right tame to you, but they won't come near
him. How did ye do it?"
"Why, I don't know, Mr. Hugh," said Bess. "I used to go down and sit
by the pen and watch them, and at first when I did that, they'd all
crowd over to the opposite side and watch me, but after I'd been
doing it a little while they seemed to kind o' get used to me and
forget that I was there. They'd walk round and keep trying to get
out, and sometimes they'd play with each other, just like puppies,
and sometimes they'd get angry and get to fighting. Sometimes, when
Charley was away, I used to take their food down to them, and at last
I got into the way of handing them bits of meat in my fingers. At
first they wouldn't touch it, but after a while they got so they'd
take it, and they've been getting tamer ever since. I can put my hand
into the cage now and pat them and there isn't one of them that will
snap at me."
"Sho," said Hugh, "you must have a mighty good way with animals."
"That's so," said Charley; "she has. Two years ago she took a bucking
colt that we had, that nobody could ride without getting all jarred
up, and commenced to fool with it, and now it's her saddle horse, the
one she rode when she came up to-day."
"Sho," said Hugh; "didn't it hurt you when he bucked with you, Sis?"
"Why, no, he never did buck. The first time I got on him he went off
as quiet as could be. But I didn't try to ride him for quite a while,
until after I'd made friends with him. Then when he got right tame,
I used to take him up to the horse block and get on it and pat him
all over, and at last one day I jumped on him and sat there for a
little while and then jumped off, and did this for a good many days,
and then I tried riding him a little way."
"See there now," said Hugh, "that's what it is to understand how to
treat an animal. If we had a few girls like you, Bess, working the
horses on these prairies, there wouldn't be so many of 'em mean to
ride."
Before supper was ended that evening it had been agreed that
all hands should spend the next day on the mountain, gathering
raspberries, which grew there in great abundance. It was arranged
that the women should make an early start, and with Joe as driver
should go up by the waggon road, while the others, on saddle horses,
should ride up by the short trail. They would lunch and spend the day
on the heights, returning in time for supper in the evening, with
their berries.
By nine o'clock next morning, those who had climbed the mountain by
the trail were scattered out through the raspberry patch, hard at
work filling their buckets with the delicious fruit. An hour or two
later the waggon arrived, and by midday all the pails were filled.
When Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Powell began to unpack their lunch, Hugh
said to them, "If you'll wait half an hour before calling people to
eat, I'll bring you something that you haven't seen for a long time,
and that maybe will help you out with your drinking, if not with your
eating." He called Jack and Charley to follow, and taking a couple
of gunny sacks in his hand, strode off through the timber. The three
climbed briskly the tall rocky hill, and emerging from the forest
on to the slope above, found themselves standing at the edge of a
deep and narrow gorge, in the bottom of which still lay a snowdrift.
"Now," said Hugh, "let's jump down there and fill these sacks with
this snow, and take it back to the women. I know Mrs. Carter fetched
a jug of cream along, and a lot of sugar, and if we take them back
some of this clean snow, maybe she can make some ice-cream. How would
that go with the berries, eh?"
"First class," said both the boys. Jumping down into the snow they
scraped away the dusty surface and partly filled the sacks with clean
white snow. Then Hugh shouldered the heavier of the two, and Charley
Powell the lighter one and they made their way down the hill to the
party again.
When Mrs. Carter saw the snow she declared at once that she would
give them ice-cream for their lunch, and before long all hands were
enjoying the unusual luxury.
Toward the middle of the afternoon the party separated again, the
waggon carrying the women back by the road, while the others began
slowly to saddle up to return by the trail. Bess was the first to
mount, and set out down the mountain, closely followed by Shep, the
ranch dog, which seemed to have taken a great fancy to her. The
others followed, but had not overtaken the little girl when suddenly
they heard Shep bark furiously, and Bessie's voice calling eagerly,
"Oh, hurry, hurry! Here's a bob-cat up in a tree."
Jack was the first to arrive on the scene, to find Bess sitting on
her horse, pointing up into a big pine, at the foot of which Shep
stood looking up in great excitement, barking angrily at a wildcat
that was perched among the branches, half way up the tree. Jack's
first impulse was to shoot the brute, but before he did so, he had a
thought, and jumping off his horse he walked up to Bessie and said,
"Wouldn't you like to shoot it, Bessie? Take my gun if you would."
By this time Hugh and Charley were there, and the latter was about to
shoot at the cat with his pistol, but Hugh said, "Hold on, boy; let's
see whether Bessie don't want to kill it."
Bess said, "I'd like real well to shoot it, Jack, if you'll let me.
I don't like bob-cats. This spring, one of 'em carried off one of my
setting hens, and all the little chickens died."
"Well," said Hugh, "you better hop off and shoot it; it's liable not
to stay there much longer."
Bessie jumped to the ground and took the rifle.
Jack said to her, "Draw it down just as fine as you can, and try to
shoot him just back of the shoulder and low down."
The little girl put the gun to her shoulder as if she were used to
it, and in a moment it rang out, and the wildcat, jumping far out
from the branches, fell to the ground and was at once pounced on by
Shep. When they walked up to it, it was quite dead. "Now," said Jack,
"we'll take him to the ranch and skin him, and you can take the hide
home with you when you go."
"Yes," said Hugh, "it'll make you a nice mat, only it's a pity the
fur's so thin; it ain't begun to get good yet. Two months from now
it will be right thick and warm, but the winter coat hasn't hardly
started yet."
Bess felt very proud of her shot and wanted to have the wildcat tied
on behind her saddle, but Charley said, "No, I'm afraid it might make
that horse buck, and I don't want to get you thrown off on this side
hill." Finally Hugh took the cat, and they went on to the ranch.
When they reached the house Jack and Charley skinned the cat and
pegged the hide out on the grass to dry. After this had been done,
Jack took Bess and Charley and showed them the calf elk, which was
now quite big and had lost its summer coat and its spots. Bess
admired it greatly. "It isn't nearly as pretty," she said, "as the
young antelope, and it carries its head in a clumsy way, but it seems
strong and graceful, and isn't it tame?"
"Yes," said Jack, "it's tame enough, and it looks nicely enough, but
it's a stupid beast; it seems to have no sense, and not to care for
anything except just eating. I like even my ducks better than this
elk. Let's go and try to find them; they wander about so that I
never know just where they are; but maybe we can find them somewhere
along the brook." After a good deal of searching and calling, the
ducks were discovered a long distance down the brook. They were now
as large as old birds, and fully feathered, and were pretty, graceful
little creatures. Charley declared that the small ones were teal, for
he had killed some like them the fall before.
"Yes," said Jack, "they're teal all right enough; I looked them up in
my Uncle Will's bird book. They're what the book calls cinnamon teal.
It's a kind of duck that we don't have in the east; it only lives out
here in the Rocky Mountains and toward the Pacific Ocean."
That night Bess had a fine time telling the story of how the bob-cat
had been killed. It had been started from near to the trail by the
dog, which followed it so fast that it ran up a tree almost before
Bess saw it. Then she had called to the others.
As Jack was going to bed that night Mr. Sturgis shook hands with him
and said: "It was very nice of you, Jack, to let the little girl
shoot that bob-cat, instead of doing it yourself. I like to see a boy
do a thing of that kind."