I had seen something of Interstate Park and now I was to have a glimpse
of the old life which had been there before the region was set aside;
the life and times which had caught my imagination.
Long Buck Sanderson lived in the country south of the road which is the
main artery through the reservation. By his advice I returned along this
road until we came again to Kanawauke Lakes where the Scout Headquarters
are located. Here he directed me into a country road which ran south and
we followed this for two or three miles till we came to a sort of hamlet
with a tiny primitive schoolhouse and a horrible gasoline station. Of
all the atrocities committed by the automobile, the killing of children,
the maiming of pedestrians, this was the worst. It would have been the
quaintest little hamlet in the world, but for that ungodly gas station.
Sandyfield is the name on the schoolhouse.
This place was Buck Sanderson’s market town. He lived in a remote
suburb, as one might say, and that was at a place another couple of
miles south called Rattlesnake Gulch. To reach Rattlesnake Gulch you
must leave your car to the tender mercies of Sandyfield, but you could
almost carry Sandyfield away in a Ford. From this sequestered hamlet you
have to hit the trail southwest for Rattlesnake Gulch. There is really
no visible trail most of the way. And Rattlesnake Gulch has no other
habitations except the primitive cabin of Buck Sanderson; or rather, I
should say, _had_ none, for even that homely abode is no more.
We had almost reached Sandyfield and I was preparing to part from my
chance acquaintance when it jumped into my head to ask him what he had
meant by saying that if he had what really belonged to him he might own
one of them contraptions--meaning an automobile.
“I reckon three thousand would buy one,” he said.
“It would certainly buy a better one than mine,” I observed. “Did
somebody cheat you out of three thousand dollars?” I asked. For I
suspected that he might have had some differences with the government in
the matter of taking over his property in the public interest, though to
be sure his real estate holdings in Rattlesnake Gulch could not have
been worth three hundred dollars, to say nothing of three thousand. I
should say three dollars would have been a fair price.
“You come ’long daown ter my cabin, mister,” he said, “and I’ll tell
yer, an’ show yer. Mebbe yer kin tell me along ’baout my little gal.
Guess yer a lawyer, mebbe, huh?”
I told him no, I was an author, but that if he had anything interesting
to show or tell me, I would be glad to follow him. He did not vouchsafe
me any further information but started down into the woods, and after
making sure that my car would be safe I followed him.
I have often wondered why I did this upon such slight provocation and
with a destination elsewhere. I suppose there is a little of the spirit
of adventure left in me. For one thing the old man captivated me.
Perhaps also the name of Rattlesnake Gulch fascinated me. At all events,
I was in for it before I knew it and the machinery of the weirdest chain
of happenings I have ever heard of was set going.
Our way led down through a dense wood and up a rugged height and through
a wild pass between hills. Beyond this he showed me where the White Bar
Trail crossed our path, that trail of the Boy Scouts which inscribes an
erratic oblong course about the region and is met at intervals by spoke
trails, as they are called, which converge in a rambling way toward
Scout Headquarters at the lakes. Old Buck did not take the Scouts very
seriously.
All the way he was telling me a queer story. “Me’n Mink lived daown here
till he got possessed,” the old man said. “Mink, me’n him was pardners.”
“You mean dispossessed--put out?” I suggested.
“They can’t put me outer here nor him neither if he was here,” he said.
“I got title ter my place ’long as I live. When I go it re-verts.”
“You mean it’s taken over as part of the reservation?”
“My little gal goes ter the Home then.”
“That’s your----”
“She’s my granddaughter, she’s a orphant, she’s my son’s little gal.”
“Well,” I laughed, “I think you’ll live to be a hundred.”
He made no comment upon that, only trudged along ahead of me through the
woods, following a sort of path of least resistance, verging here and
there the easiest way; one could hardly call it a trail.
“So that’s the way they do with the old settlers, hey?” I said. “Let
them stay in their old homes as long as they live----”
“We can’t rent or sell though,” he said.
“Well, I shouldn’t think you’d want to,” I observed. “It’s just the idea
of home, of the old homes of your people, that the state is thinking
about, I suppose. But wouldn’t your granddaughter have the place
when--if she were old enough, I mean?”
“She ain’t like ter be old enough,” said he. “Fifteen, that’s all she
is.”
“You’re mighty lucky to have her,” I observed. He stopped short, quite
disregarding my last remark and appeared to be listening. “Yer hear
footsteps?” he asked me.
“No,” I laughed; “you know what you said about my ears. Why, did you
hear someone?”
It seemed to me that the silence of the woods was as that of a grave. An
unseen bird flitted from one limb to another, causing a quick rustling
of leaves as if it had been startled. I could hear a drowsy locust
humming his monotonous little solo. He ceased just as I began listening,
which is an uncanny way they have.
“I guess nobody but you ever comes through here,” I said.
“Mink, he’s like to come back,” he said as he moved on.
“And how long since Mink went away?”
“That’s long ago; he got _po_ssessed--him.”
“Yes, tell me about that.”