none ever returned; and the band played and the people cheered until at
last some one came for Little Duke, the flower of the flock. He, like
the others, was led into the ring to be teased and tantalized, tortured
and tormented until, crazy with pain and blind with fury, he would rip
horse after horse open in his mad rage to get at the toreador who was
goading him on with pricks from a long spear. And yet the blood-thirsty
Mexicans yelled for more.
But all things must come to an end; and Billy thought that it was high
time for this particular fight to come to an end right here. He had
heard a bellow of rage from Little Duke, followed by a groan of agony.
This was too much for Billy. When a friend called for help he could not
stay away; so with one bound he was out of his stall and bang! against
the little door that separated him from the arena. This gave way with a
crash, and with a rush and a plunge Billy bounded into the ring.
The first thing he saw when clear of splinters and dust was a huge
ampitheatre packed from the lowest to the highest row of seats with
people, until the faces made a human curtain. In the arena lay
disemboweled horses and slaughtered bulls. In the very center stood
Little Duke, bleeding from a hundred wounds, but still unsubdued and
defending himself nobly. There he stood with head erect, eyes blazing,
and nostrils quivering, ready to kill the first man or horse that
attacked him.
In a twinkling Billy took in the situation, and before the audience
or fighters knew what had happened, Billy had tossed one toreador to
one side, nearly breaking his back; had put another to flight; and then
made straight for the horseman who had so cruelly tortured Little Duke.
Just then an attendant opened a door, the man and horse escaped, and
the ring was cleared.
Billy, going back to see how badly Little Duke was hurt, licked his
nose in sympathy, and told him to brace up, for the fight was over for
that day. This pathetic scene seemed to touch even the hard hearts of
the Mexicans. They began to bid for the ownership of the goat and to
cheer and cheer until they could have been heard many blocks from the
amphitheatre.
At last Billy, perceived that he and his friend were standing alone in
the centre of the big ring with every eye upon them. The next thing he
noticed was that a little stubby-tailed yellow dog was circling round
and round them, barking in great glee. The fight was over and Stubby
had come to congratulate them.
Here ends the great bull-fight of the ninth of May, nineteen hundred
and four.
_The Escape._
An hour after the bull-fight was over, Billy and Stubby could have been
seen running first down one street, then down another, then through an
alley, and lastly through the suburbs, leaving a cloud of dust behind
them. They were running away from their master and his men who were
trying to drive them back to the farm, but Billy and Stubby decided
they did not want to return since all their friends, the bulls, but
Little Duke whose life Billy had saved, had been killed.
They kept running until they were sure they could not be overtaken and
then they stopped for breath and to decide where they wanted to go
next. While nibbling the leaves from a bush, Billy, chancing to look
up, saw straight ahead of him, looming up above trees and housetops, a
high mountain out of which a column of smoke was curling like a black
plume against the clear, blue sky.
“Look! Stubby, see what a big bon-fire there is on that mountain.”
“That isn’t a bon-fire,” said Stubby. “That is a volcano and
its name is Popocatapetl. It sounds as if they were saying,
poke-a-cat-with-a-paddle. I expect someone at sometime poked a cat with
a paddle on that mountain and that is how it got its name, something
after the manner of the Indians who give their children the name
of the first thing the mother sees after they are born. I suppose
the chiefs Blackhawk and Whitehorse got theirs in that way, as for
Mud-in-the-face, some one must have thrown mud in the mother’s face at
the critical moment.”
“Oh Stubby! You are too funny for anything. Where did you learn so
much?”
“Oh! from listening to what the people were saying round me when I was
out with my master.”
“You are a very observing dog and it would be a good thing if more
people followed your example, then they would learn a great deal even
if they never went to school.”
“How far do you suppose it is to that volcano?” asked Stubby.
“I’m sure I don’t know. I have given up guessing distances in this
locality or in any mountainous country. That reminds me, did you ever
hear the story of the joke on the Englishman who came to Colorado
Springs and started to walk to the mountains he saw back of the hotel,
thinking he could reach them and return before breakfast? I know you
have for every one has.”
“Go ahead and tell it. I want to hear it.”
“These mountains proved to be over a hundred miles away, though they
looked only five. So the next day when he went for a walk, coming to
a little stream, that one could easily step over, he instead sat down
and commenced taking off his shoes and stockings to the surprise of his
friend who was with him who asked what he was doing.”
“I was fooled on your distances yesterday, but I won’t be to-day. This
may look like a narrow stream, but if I try to step over, it will
broaden out and prove to be a river, so I’m getting ready to wade
across.”
This story made Stubby roll over on his back and fairly howl with
mirth, not only because it was funny but because he had heard it told
a hundred times and no two people had told it in the same way, and he
wanted to hear how Billy would tell it.
The cunning Stubby took good care not to let Billy know that he had
ever heard the story before, for good friends as they were, Billy might
not like to be made fun of, besides his horns were sharp.
Stubby’s rolls and laughter were cut short by hearing a great clatter
of horses’ hoofs on the hard road behind them.
“Hurry and hide, Billy. It must be a party of Mexicans racing on their
way home from the Bull-fight.”
Stubby was right. They were Mexican cow-boys out on a lark. When they
saw Billy’s head sticking above the bushes, one said in broken Spanish,
“Now for some fun,” at the same time unfastening his lasso from the
pummel on his saddle where it always hung and with a twirling tongue,
uttered this cry “Cha-r-r-r-ah!” He swung the lasso three times round
his head and as he did so the loop widened and lengthened until with a
hissing sound it descended, encircling Billy’s neck and the next second
he was jerked over the bush he was hiding behind and dragged at a fast
run after the cow-boy who was spurring his pony to catch up with those
who were ahead.
“Well! Carlos, what have you there?” called one of the boys, when he
saw him dragging Billy behind him.
“I’ve got a dandy billy-goat. Now you fellows see what you can lasso
and when we get back to the ranch we will raffle off what we catch or
cook them for supper.”
“Good for you Carlos. That will be sport. There, I see something now
I’m going to lasso,” meaning Stubby, who was following after Billy as
fast as he could, for he would have followed Billy into the jaws of
death, if need be.
Poor Stubby was very much surprised to feel a rope tighten around his
neck and the next minute to feel himself lifted from the ground to the
saddle before the cow-boy where he was held as they galloped on in
their mad race toward the ranch where the cow-boys lived.
It is astonishing what some cow-boys can do with a lasso and how expert
they may become in its use.
Presently, one of the boys spied a big turkey-buzzard sitting on top of
a cactus-plant and with a whoop like an Indian, he was after it.
Before Mr. Buzzard had time to spread his wings and fly, he felt
something hot twist around his neck, and the last thing he heard in
this world was a merry laugh go up from the cow-boys at the idea of
lassoing instead of shooting birds.
The cow-boy was going to throw his buzzard away but the others told him
to bring it along as every one was to show, when he got back, what he
had caught with his lasso.
Soon a terrible squealing was heard just ahead where one of the
cow-boys had ridden, and when the others caught up to him they found he
had succeeded in lassoing a brown and sandy-colored pig.
“Good for you Jake. Now we will have some roast pork and goat chops for
supper and we will throw the bones to the turkey-buzzard.”
They did not know then that the big buzzard’s neck was broken.
They were now so near the ranch, it began to look as though some of
the boys would fail to find anything to lasso, and they had agreed
that those who had not succeeded in getting anything by the time they
reached the ranch should clean and cook whatever had been caught.
“Well, I’ll be switched if I’ll do that,” said a great, tall cow-boy.
“I’ll find something or die.”
As he said this, his eyes detected a gray something sneaking away
behind some rocks, so he gave chase, not knowing what it was going to
be. When this gray object heard his pony’s hoofs on the stone, it got
frightened and left its hiding place behind a great boulder and took
to its heels. Whizz! went the lasso, but instead of catching the wolf,
for that is what it was, it coiled around the boulder, and the wolf had
several leaps and strides the advantage. His failure to catch the wolf
the first time, only made the cow-boy the more determined to have it at
all costs in the end, and then the chase began: Over the rocks, round
clumps of cacti, across ditches, the cow-boy steadily gaining, until
with one long, mighty sweep of his arm the lasso stretched out and fell
over the gray wolf’s head and he was captured.
Then like Billy, he was made to trot along behind the cow-boy’s pony
until they came into the corral at the ranch. Once there, the cow-boys
threw their saddles and bridles up on pegs in the stable and turned
their ponies loose in the corral with a bunch of alfalfa to feed on.
And now for the fun of seeing the boys, who failed to lasso anything,
clean and cook the pig and goat. A coin was tossed to see which should
be killed first. The head stood for the goat and the tail for the pig.
The coin was flipped and up came tail so it was poor piggy’s fate to be
killed first.
While two of the boys went to get a big iron kettle to boil water to
scald him with, so they could scrape the bristles off, the others
thought they would have some fun teasing Billy, but little did they
suspect that their goat was the same goat they had seen that afternoon
at the Bull-fight, clear the entire ring of horses, riders and
toreadors, or they would not have been so anxious to tease him.
Billy bleated to Stubby to stay near him as he was going to watch his
chance to jump the wall of the corral and make his escape before they
had time to kill him and cut him up into goat chops.
“I am going to appear very gentle until they take this lasso off my
neck and then we will see ‘Who is who and what is what.’”
Stubby barked back “All right, I will watch you and if you get into a
fight, I will help you by biting the legs of whoever bothers you.”
“Say, Sam, that is too nice a looking goat to cut up into chops. I say
we keep him and turn him loose with our goats on the range. Come here
Mr. Billy and I will take the lasso off your neck.” He walked up to
Billy and slipped the lasso off, giving his whiskers a parting pull.
That settled it. Billy’s docility disappeared in a minute and before
the cow-boy had taken a step he felt something sticking into him as if
he had sat down on two darning needles and these needles were pushing
farther and farther into him and urging him along at a fast trot until
he felt a sudden boost and he found himself sitting on top of the
corral wall, while the black goat landed on the other side followed
by a little stubby-tailed yellow dog and both disappeared down a deep
ravine and were lost sight of, and what is more, no one followed them
or tried to bring them back.
[Illustration]
_The Volcano._
As soon as Billy and Stubby were sure they were not being followed they
stopped to rest and to form new plans.
“Stubby, what in the world are you carrying in your mouth?”
Dropping it so that he could answer, Stubby replied, “A nice, large
piece of beef.”
“Beef! Where did you get any beef, I should like to know.”
“Well, you see I can’t live on grass and roots as you can and as I was
pretty hungry, I took my chance of getting stoned and stole this piece
as we ran by the smoke-house. Didn’t you notice the little house in the
clump of bushes near the side of the corral wall?”
“No, I did not see it, or know that you were behind me until just now,
for you did not bark, and I expected I would have to wait awhile for
you to join me, but now I see that you had your mouth so full you could
not bark. You go ahead and make a good supper of your steak and I will
make mine of these tender, green leaves.”
As they ate they talked of their future and Billy said he was getting
tired of Mexico as it had too much sand, cacti and other stickly plants
and not enough water and grass.
“Now, I say, we get out of it as soon as we can, but how we are going
to do that is a puzzle to me, for it seems to me the further we
travel south from California the hotter it gets, and I say instead of
traveling south as we have been doing, that we change our course and
keep to the west. In that way we will come to the Pacific coast.
“When we get there we can follow the shore until we come to some
town or city where we can take an ocean steamer and be carried away
anywhere. Who cares where? just so that we get away from this hot,
dusty country. Besides, I am very anxious for another ocean voyage and
always have been since Day and I came from Constantinople.
“My! Stubby, how I should like to see my sweet little sister and dear
father and mother again. And would it not be strange if we should
happen to get on a ship bound for Boston? I can tell you, if we should
have such luck I would not let the grass grow under my feet until I was
back on the farm again.”
“I believe you are homesick,” said Stubby.
“You’re right I am.”
“Well, I don’t blame you for I, too, would be homesick if I had ever
had a home with a sister and dear parents in it, but you see I have
never known what it was to have a home or any one to care for me.”
“Just see how that old volcano is smoking now, and what a bright
reflection it throws on the sky above it!”
“It is due west from here. What do you say to our going to the top of
it and seeing what a volcano really does look like at close range? It
may be our only chance to see one for they don’t have any in the United
States.”
“Say we do, and perhaps, it is so high, we can see the ocean from its
top. We shall then be able to see how far we have to travel before
reaching the coast.”
“That is a good idea and we will follow it out. Now let us lie down
here and spend the night and start early in the morning before the sun
gets too hot.”
Ten minutes later they were both asleep with Stubby curled up under
Billy’s nose. He always got as close to him as possible for company.
It took our travelers several days to reach the volcano and its summit,
and those days were days of hardships, with little to eat or drink, and
both were looking tired and thin when we met them again within a few
feet of the opening of the crater.
“Billy, I think sight-seeing is pretty hard work, especially when you
have to walk all the way and nearly die of thirst and hunger. These hot
cinders and hardened lava are burning and cutting my feet all to pieces
and I wish I had hoofs like yours.”
“Well, if you wish you had my hoofs, I wish I had your short hair,
for I am almost suffocated with my long coat, besides the air in this
altitude is hard to breathe. One gets out of breath so easily and feels
as if there was nothing to the air. Phew! what’s that terrible odor? It
smells as if a whole factory of sulphur matches had gone off at once.
Hark! What is that rumbling noise? It sounds like thunder, but it can’t
be that for the sky is without a cloud and is as blue as blue can be.
Say, Stubby, did you feel the earth shake then? If we were down on the
level I should think it were an earthquake. Gracious! did you hear that
explosion and feel the earth shake again? We had better get out of
this.”
Just then the smoke rolled away for a minute and they saw they were
within a few feet of the top so they decided they would not give up,
bad as the sulphur and smoke were, until they had taken one peep into
the crater.
This one peep nearly cost Stubby his life, for just as he had crawled
to the very brink and was looking down, down, down into the very bowels
of the earth where lava was boiling and steam hissing, an extra whiff
of sulphur arose from the boiling, seething mass below which choked
and strangled him so he could not move.
[Illustration]
Billy had jumped back barely in time to escape it and was just starting
on a run down the cone away from this dangerous place when he heard
a little whine and saw Stubby drop over on his side as if dead. With
a bound Billy was back, and grabbing him by the nape of his neck, as
a cat carries her kittens, he carried him down the volcano’s side to
safety.
It took Stubby a long while to come to and when he did so he found his
poor little torn and bleeding feet as well as his nose resting in the
cool sands of a little stream, and all he had to do, if he wanted a
drink, was to stick out his tongue and let the water run through his
mouth.
“Well, Stubby, are you feeling better?” he heard Billy say when he
tried to open his eyes to see where he was.
“How in the world did I get here? Can you tell me that? for I had given
up the hope of ever getting off that hot volcano again.”
“Indeed, I can, for I carried you every step of the way in my mouth,
and when I got here I thought every tooth in my head would drop out,
and instead of the little light weight dog I started with, I thought I
was carrying an elephant, you got so heavy.”
“Billy, old fellow, you are a brick. That’s what you are.”
The next day Stubby was all right, and noticing that this little stream
flowed toward the west, they followed it for two reasons. One, because
they thought it would eventually run into the ocean; and the other,
because they were afraid to leave it for fear of not finding any more
water, and it was impossible to travel in this dry, hot country without
having lots of water.
This little stream proved a perfect godsend to them as it quenched
their thirst, cooled their aching feet and bodies and saved them many a
long climb as it always kept its course and flowed straight on.
Had they followed the mountain trail it would have led them up hill
and down and over many stones and brambles. Now, when they came to a
precipice that shut off their path by its steep side they took to the
stream and either waded or swam around it. In this way they reached
the seashore days before they had expected to and with happy eyes they
looked over the peaceful, blue bosom of the Pacific Ocean.
“Stubby, I feel as if I had escaped from prison to get out of that
lonesome country full of insects, snakes and centipedes. Oh! how
refreshing this salt breeze smells.”
“Yes, but I smell something sweeter to doggie nostrils and that’s the
smell of frying meat. There must be a fisherman’s cottage around that
bend. Good-bye, I’m off for some of it, and I mean to have some, even
if I have to steal it from the red hot stove.”
“Don’t be in such a hurry and I’ll go with you.”
“No, you had better stay here. You are so big they will see you, while
I am little and so near the color of the sand that I can sneak in and
not be seen, and after finding out who lives there and getting a piece
of meat, I will come back and tell you all about it.”
“Very well, but bring me back a bunch of carrots or a cabbage if you
find any for I am as tired of eating leaves as you are of going without
meat.”
Stubby crept cautiously round the bend and then laid down behind a bush
out of sight so that he could watch and see who lived in the house. On
the doorstep sat a stoop-shouldered man smoking a stubby pipe, while
in front of him on the sand played three or four little children,
bare-headed, bare-footed, with only faded calico slips on.
Through the open door Stubby could see the wife and mother leaning over
the stove cooking, yes, he knew it by the smell, the selfsame steak he
was longing for. He sneaked cautiously and quietly round to the back
of the cottage and there--Oh, be joyful--he spied the remnants of the
heifer that had been killed so that the family could have a taste of
fresh meat, which was as great a treat to them as to Stubby, for they
generally lived on salt meat and fish, which the father caught, for he
was a fisherman, and took to a little town ten miles up the coast for
shipment to large cities.
After Stubby had eaten all he wanted of the fresh meat he ran back to
Billy and told him there was a small garden of vegetables back of the
cottage where he could go as soon as it was dark and have a feast.
The tired, sleepy heads of the fisherman and his family had hardly
touched their pillows when a large, black goat could have been seen in
the midst of a vegetable garden, eating cabbages, turnips and lettuce,
while a little yellow dog sat on a brown speckled rock and licked his
chops after a meal of fresh beef and cold boiled potatoes he had found
just inside the kitchen door, nicely chopped for breakfast.
Presently Stubby gave a sudden, sharp bark of alarm which made Billy
throw up his head to see what was the matter, when what should he see
but the rock Stubby was sitting on, walk off with four legs with a
queer flat head sticking out from one side. Stubby jumped off in a
hurry and was nearly bitten in two by a quick snap of the jaws of this
queer looking beast, bird or fowl. They did not know which to call it
as they had never before seen or heard of a snapping turtle, and that
is what this was. Stubby had taken its shell for a large stone, as it
had its head and feet drawn in out of sight when he jumped upon it.
This turtle was a huge one that the fisherman had caught the day before
and was going to take to town in the morning to sell to a hotel-keeper
to make turtle soup of.
The next morning Billy and Stubby kept out of sight until the fisherman
had loaded his wagon with fish, vegetables and his turtle, and had
started on his way to town. Then they ran out of their hiding place and
followed him, taking great care to keep out of sight and in this way
they soon came to the seaport town and followed him down to the wharf.
When they reached the town they both walked under the wagon so that
people would think that they belonged to the fisherman and would let
them alone.
When they arrived at the wharf where lay a vessel ready to sail for San
Francisco, the fisherman got off his wagon to unload and then, for the
first time, he spied Billy and Stubby who were still under it and he
was very much surprised to see them there I can tell you.
One of the sailors said, “What will you take for your goat?”
Without letting on that Billy was not his or that he had never laid
eyes on him before, he said, “Well! as he is pretty fine, big goat, I
can’t let you have him for less than five dollars.”
“All right. It’s a go,” said the sailor, who had lots of money at
present, having just received his pay and not having had a chance to
spend it.
“And what will you take for the dog?” asked another.
“Well, I don’t know as I care to sell him,” said the fisherman,
thinking if he held off they would give him more money.
“You can’t expect to get much for him,” said another. “He is too
tarnation homely.”
“That’s a matter of taste,” drawled the fisherman. “Looks ain’t
everything in this world, and you can’t find a smarter rat dog along
this coast.”
He threw this remark in for he knew it would catch the sailor as the
ships are always infested with rats.
“Well, I’ll give you a dollar for him.”
“No, I couldn’t think of selling him so cheap,” and he climbed into his
wagon, as if he were going off and did not care to part with him.
“I’ll give you two dollars and a half, and not a cent more.”
“I don’t care to sell him, but as he has cleaned out all the rats at my
place I guess I’ll let you have him.”
The sailors gave him the money for the goat and the dog, and he drove
off a happy man, but he did not let the grin show on his face until he
was out of sight of the sailors.
Now this was a great streak of luck for Billy and Stubby, and was just
what they wanted, so they followed their new masters on board without
giving any trouble and by night their ship had sailed out of port and
was on her way to San Francisco.
_An Unexpected Trip._