BOY AND GIRL LIFE AT ERROLSTRATH RANCHE--THEIR PETS--THE
GIRLS ENCOUNTER A BIG PRAIRIE WOLF--JOE TO THE
RESCUE--DEATH OF THE FEROCIOUS BEAST
AS the months rolled on, the family, particularly the children, grew
more and more delighted with their new home in the wilderness. The boys
and girls had an abundance of leisure; for though their father exacted
the most prompt obedience, he was not a hard task-master. He allowed his
children every indulgence compatible with reason, and only certain
portions of the day were devoted to work. They all studied under their
father's personal supervision, for no schools had yet been established
in the settlement.
For the boys, there were the cows to be driven to and from their
pasture, morning and night, and it was their duty to milk them, too.
Then the horses were to be fed, and in season they worked in the large
garden, on which their father prided himself. The girls helped their
mother in every household duty, and relieved her of many cares as she
grew older. So the children of Errolstrath Ranche had a good time--a
much better time than generally falls to the lot of those families in
only moderate circumstances, as were the Thompsons.
Before they had resided on the ranche a year, the boys and girls had
become possessed of a variety of pets. Gertrude had a coon; Kate, an
antelope; Rob, a prairie dog; and Joe, an elk.
The antelope was caught when young by Joe, and the hounds, Bluey and
Brutus, under the following circumstances: Although one of the most
timid and swift of all the ruminants on the great plains, it is also one
of the most inquisitive. Whenever it sees something with which it is not
familiar, its curiosity overpowers its usual fear, and it will approach
very near to the object that has excited its attention. Now Joe had
learned from old Tucker, the trapper, just how the Indians act, when out
hunting the antelope, to draw the herd within range of their arrows. He
said that sometimes one or two of the savages would stand on their heads
and shake their legs in the air; then again, they would hold up a
blanket, no matter what color, and wave it slowly, when the herd, or at
least a number from it, would gradually walk toward the Indians who were
lying flat on the ground, and thus become easy victims to their swift,
unerring arrows.
It was this knowledge of the antelope's prominent characteristic that
enabled Joe to secure one for his favorite sister. He was out very early
one morning when he noticed a large herd with many kids among it, about
half a mile distant. He was well aware that his dogs, swift as they
were, would be no match for the beautiful creatures in a trial of speed,
so he resolved to resort to the Indian method. Ordering his hounds to
lie close, he tied his white handkerchief round his head, and taking off
his overalls, he began to move his body slowly backward and forward, at
the same time vigorously waving the overalls in the air. In a few
moments, just as he expected they would, he had the satisfaction of
seeing first one, then another, look up and gaze steadily at the
strange object. Presently, about half a dozen of the does with their
little ones by their sides, commenced to move cautiously towards him.
When they had approached sufficiently near, he started the hounds after
them, and after a short, lively chase they caught a fine kid, which, of
course, could not keep up with its mother. They captured it without
injury, for they had been trained not to mouth their game. As there were
a dozen cows on the ranch, there was an abundance of milk, with which
Kate used to feed her little pet from a bottle. The pretty creature
throve rapidly, and soon became as affectionate as a kitten, following
its mistress everywhere like a dog.
The big gray wolf, that ghoul of the great plains, understands full well
the inordinate curiosity of the antelope, and knowing that it is
impossible for him to catch one of the fleet animals by the employment
of his legs alone, he effects by cunning what he could never accomplish
by the best efforts of his endurance. The wicked old fellow, when he
discovers a bunch of antelopes in the distance, rolls himself into a
ball, like a badger, and tumbles about on the grass until some of the
deluded animals come near enough for him to spring on them.
Gertrude's coon was caught by both the boys, assisted by Bluey and
Brutus. They dug him out of his nest under the roots of a huge elm tree
near the cabin, one day in the early springtime, when the warm sun had
just begun to thaw him after his winter's hibernation. He was "'cute"
and mischievous as he could be, stealing anything on which he could get
his tiny paws. Whenever Gertrude called him,--his name was Tom,--he
would run to her as fast as he could, jump on her back, and sit on her
shoulders for an hour at a time, when she was sewing or doing something
which did not require her to move about. He lived on any scraps from the
table, always rolling his food in his paws before he ate it.
The prairie dog, the property of Rob, was accidentally captured by
Gertrude one morning when she and Kate were out gathering wild flowers.
She actually stumbled on him as she stooped to pick a sensitive rose.
The little creature had somehow become entangled in the convolutions of
the vine, and thus became an easy prey. It fought like a tiger at
first, and tried to bite with its sharp teeth everything that came near
it. It was soon tamed, however, and became a regular nuisance at times,
for it would run under your feet in spite of the many pinches it got by
being stepped upon. It tripped up the boys and girls a dozen times a
day, as it was allowed the freedom of the house and the dooryard.
Gertrude gave it to Rob, who had often expressed a desire to own one,
and had failed a hundred times, perhaps, to capture one by drowning it
out of its hole.
The elk was given to Joe by old Tucker, and in a short time grew to be
as big as a young mule. Joe broke him to harness, and used to drive him
hitched to a little cart which his father, with the boy's help,
improvised out of an odd pair of wheels and a dry-goods box. He was kept
in the corral with the cows and horses, and became very tame, but
sometimes attempted to use his sharp front hoofs too freely. He was
forbidden the precincts of the dooryard and the house, for he came near
cutting Kate in two once, all in play, but too rough a kind of affection
for a repetition of it to be allowed.
The wild raspberries grew in great profusion near every ledge of rock in
the vicinity of the ranche. About a mile and a half from the house,
however, there was a specially favored spot for them, where the vines
were more dense and the berries of large size and delicious flavor. In
the second week of June, the second year of their residence on the
creek, Rob, who had been up the valley herding the cows, reported that
evening, upon his return, that the berries were ripe and that there were
bushels of them.
The next morning, immediately after breakfast, Gertrude and Kate left
the house with a tin bucket each, intending to go up to the ledge and
gather raspberries. They were dressed lightly,--Kate in a white muslin
skirt, and her sister in a lawn. As the nearest way to the place where
the berries were to be found lay by a trail on the other side of the
Oxhide the girls crossed it near the cabin, and as there was neither log
bridge nor stepping-stones, they took off their shoes and stockings and
waded it. After reaching the other side and putting on their shoes and
stockings, they wandered slowly through a little flower-bedecked
prairie, beyond the margin of timber which fringed the creek, to make a
short cut to where the raspberries grew, for the Oxhide made a sweeping
curve to the northeast, nearly in the shape of half a circle.
Both loving flowers, they gathered great bunches of the sensitive roses,
anemones, and white daisies, growing everywhere in such profusion. This
occupation consumed a great deal of time, for they naturally loitered,
charmed by so much floral beauty around them. It was fortunate they did,
as the sequel will show, and they did not arrive at the ledge of rocks
until nearly ten o'clock--more than two hours after they had left home.
It was intensely hot, and after gathering their buckets full of the
delicious fruit, they sat down on a shelf of the ledge which projected
over the creek. They dabbled their bare feet in the stream as it flowed
in murmuring rhythm over the rounded white pebbles, while they ate their
lunch of cake brought from the ranche, and the red berries so sweet in
the wildness of their flavor.
Having satisfied their hunger, Kate said to her sister: "Gert, we ought
to fill up our buckets again. If we go home empty-handed, mother will
think we have been making pigs of ourselves."
"There's time enough for that yet," replied Gertrude. "This cool water
feels so delightful to my feet that I believe I could sit here and
dabble in it until dark. Don't you think it's delicious, Kate?"
"Yes," answered Kate, "but I want to get home before dinner, because Joe
said that he would go with me down to the village this evening. I am
going to ride his pony, and he will ride Rob's."
"Well," said Gertrude, "if we must, we must. Mother loves raspberries
so; they are her favorite fruit, you know; and if we did not take her a
bucketful back with us, I should never forgive myself, though perhaps
she would not say a word."
"Let us commence right now," imploringly said Kate. "I want to get back
as soon as I can."
Both girls rose languidly to do as they proposed, but there did not seem
to be much energy in their motions. Just as Gertrude had taken her pail
from its place in the rocks, their ears were greeted by a low growl,
which seemed to come directly from underneath the shelf on which they
had been sitting. They looked at each other, and their faces blanched as
another snarl and a howl, nearer than before, came to their ears, and
both recognized the familiar sound they had so often heard when lying in
bed at night, as that of a wolf. Those predatory brutes frequently made
their nightly rounds in the vicinity of the corral, trying to get at the
young calves, and they might be heard in the timber, watching for a
chance to secure some of the fowls shut up in their house of stone near
the barn.
Gertrude, who was really very brave under ordinary circumstances,
immediately stood still, and looking all around her, she suddenly met
the gaze of a large, gaunt she-wolf at whose side were standing six
little ones! Generally the wolf, like nearly all other wild animals,
will run instantly at the sight of a human being; but the maternal
instinct is so wonderful that, when they have young, they will die in
defending their offspring from any supposed danger. This instinct was
shown in this instance. The fierce animal had crept out of her den at
the sound of voices, and believing that her cubs were in jeopardy, she
made a frantic dash toward the now thoroughly frightened girls, who
hastily scrambled to the summit of the ledge.
Fortunately for them, the wolf is a poor climber, but with a savage
bound toward the base of the flat rock on which the girls had a moment
before been sitting, she arrived at it the same instant they had
succeeded in reaching an elevation of about twelve feet above the level
of the water.
Just as Kate, who was not as collected as her sister, was being dragged
up by Gertrude, the wolf made a desperate leap and snapped at her with
his terrible teeth, but failed. It succeeded, however, in catching her
skirt in its ponderous jaws, and tore it completely from her waist, and
she, almost feeling the hot breath of the infuriated brute, uttered a
loud scream and fell fainting in her sister's arms.
Less than three hundred yards above the ledge of rocks, in a beautiful
piece of prairie, Joe was herding the cattle, and Kate's cry, so full of
fear, fell piercingly on his ears. He was aware that his sisters were to
go berrying that morning, and he also knew that the sound could only
come from one of them. He was lying on the grass under the shade of a
big elm with the bridle-rein of his pony in his hand. Grasping his
rifle, which was at his side, in an instant he had mounted his animal,
and digging his heels into its flanks, fairly flew down the creek to
where his sisters were held at bay by the wolf. He arrived there in less
than three minutes after he heard the scream of alarm, and saw the wolf
still persisting in its vain efforts to reach the girls on the summit of
the ledge. Gertrude was almost paralyzed with fear, and Kate lay at her
feet in the swoon into which the action of the wolf had thrown her.
The enraged beast was too much occupied with the girls to notice that
its would-be victims had assistance so near at hand, and Joe, as
Gertrude saw her brother's approach, put his finger to his lips,
indicating that she must remain perfectly silent. He dismounted in a
second, and putting the loop of the reins over his left arm, dropped on
one knee, and taking careful aim, sent a ball crashing right through the
brain of the wolf, which instantly fell dead in its tracks.
Joe then rushed down to the creek and filled his hat with water. He then
climbed hurriedly up to the rocky steep again and threw the water into
Kate's face as she still lay prone on the ledge at her sister's feet.
Kate soon revived, and after staring around her for a few seconds in a
dazed way, she smiled and said:--
"Oh, Joe, you have saved us!" and rising to her feet, forgetful of her
wet face, she kissed him half a dozen times.
While his sisters were adjusting their dresses and recovering from their
terrible fright, Joe killed the young wolves with the butt of his rifle,
and then taking his knife from his belt commenced to skin the old one.
It did not require much time to perform the operation, for he had long
since become an adept at such work. He then threw the beautiful hide
over the withers of his pony, and walked home with his sisters.
Arriving at the cabin, the girls had much to tell about their wonderful
experience and lucky escape from the jaws of the wolf, which would
certainly have torn them to pieces if it had not been for Joe's timely
arrival.
The hide, which was an immense one, was first tacked to the side of the
stable, and when dried, Joe smoke-tanned it until it was as soft as a
piece of silk. He gave it to Kate as a memento of her awful experience
with its former owner. She used it as a rug at the side of her bed, and
often said that for a long time whenever she stepped on it, the scene in
which it played such an important part was brought vividly to her mind.