Wolfie had doctored himself, but the wound had got worse and worse, and at
last the old fellow, in awful, never-ending pain, had drunk himself
half-dead and completed the work with his trigger finger.
Meanwhile the weather had been growing gradually colder, and the wind
started to moan as I fastened the door from the outside, after quitting
that abode of death. The sky, too, was rapidly darkening, and Pete shook
his head up and down and stamped uneasily.
Mounting, I rode off; but I had not been going long when, away in the
distance, I heard the dismal, long-drawn howl of a prairie wolf, then
another, and another. Not till that moment did it flash upon me what an
all-round fool I was.
I had brought no revolver with me. It had started to snow, evening was
drawing in, and there were those gaunt brutes in the distance--yet I had
no protection against either the weather or the wolves. I touched up old
Pete, and we started to travel fast for home.
We had not gone more than a mile farther before a real, genuine blizzard
sprang up. How it came down! Waves, absolute waves of snow, whirred, cut,
and beat about my face, while the wind howled and shrieked dismally.
Then I did the worst, most foolish thing a man could have done. I tried to
guide old Pete! I steered him, and, though Pete knew better, he obeyed;
and so, between a good old horse and a fool of a young man, we made a fine
mess of it. We got lost, tangled up, with the snow whirling about us in
sheets. Every minute it got deeper and thicker, and at last poor old Pete
staggered, tried vainly to right himself, fell over, and collapsed.
Try as I would I couldn’t get him up, and--well, I fear I lost my nerve,
what with the blinding snow and the distant howl of those wretched wolves.
As the snow beat down upon me, piling up pitilessly over the now
stiffening form of the poor old horse, I thought it time to move on. To
stay where I was meant being frozen to death, to go on might mean the
same; but there was just a chance, and I stumbled forward and took the
chance.
Heaven only knows how long I ploughed and pushed through those awful
snow-drifts with the falling flakes eddying about me in clouds; I lost all
account of time. I went stumbling blindly forward until I seemed not to be
myself, but just some machine without feeling or hope, mechanically
pulling one foot before the other, and groping through the freezing dark.
I was just beginning to experience a drowsy, comfortable feeling,
when--bump!--the little sense left in me was nearly knocked out as my head
struck against something hard.
That deadly, comfortable feeling left me at once. I felt about in the
darkness and touched boards. It was a cabin! With my half-frozen hands I
hammered at the woodwork, and I shall never forget my feelings as a door
opened and I was pulled in out of the storm, the door banging to behind
me.
I couldn’t speak for a minute, and my eyes were blurred coming in from the
darkness and snow, but when they got accustomed to what little light there
was I didn’t feel I wanted to say much.
Before me was a giant. He must have stood a good six-foot-six, but all I
could see of his face was his eyes. He was masked in what was called in
those days a “storm-cap,” which completely hid the face of the wearer,
showing only the eyes. A long, heavy overcoat, with collar upturned,
reached to his ankles.
“Having arrived here, stranger,” he remarked, in an unpleasant, metallic
sort of voice, with a half laugh, “and it now being near Christmas Eve,
I’d be interested in knowing how you managed to bump up against this
building.”
This was not the sort of greeting one would have expected under the
circumstances, and the man’s language did not smack of the prairie, but I
was too weak after my exertions and too thankful to be out of the storm to
notice trifles, and so I told him as briefly as possible that I was lost,
and should be grateful if he would give me shelter for the night.
“Shelter?” said he. “Shelter? Yes, why not? All the shelter a man could
want. I wouldn’t turn a dog out such a night like this. Yes, stranger, you
can sleep here to-night, nice and quiet. I’ve nothing to give you to eat,
but there’s whisky here. Being nearly Christmas Eve, drink up, and
then--_go_ up!”
As he spoke he poured whisky from a demi-john into two tin mugs and picked
up a lantern. Then, for the first time, I saw there was a rough ladder, up
which he went to a room above.
Now all shacks, dug-outs, and cabins I had seen hitherto were of only one
storey. There was something uncanny about the man and the place, and tired
and knocked up as I was I did _not_ drink the whisky; I just wetted my
lips with it as my host’s feet clumped around above, and ere he descended
I carefully poured the contents of the tin cup into the ramshackle stove.
“Now, up you go and sleep the sleep you’ve asked for,” said he, when he
came down. “A merry Christmas to you!” With that he tossed off his whisky
at a gulp.
Up I went through the rough opening; it was not a trap-door, for there was
no flap to shut down. I found myself in a kind of loft, in which was a
wooden apology for a bed, heaped over with some evil-smelling blankets.
All this I saw by the light of a guttering candle stuck in the neck of a
cracked bottle. Though I was very, very weary, all thoughts of going to
sleep went out of my head. I distrusted that sinister-looking fellow
below.
Pulling my flask from my pocket, I look a long drink, and the neat spirit
gradually warmed me. Then I sat down in the semi-darkness to think.
Suddenly an inspiration came to me. Taking out my medicine-case I quickly
charged a syringe with whisky. This frail thing, in case of attack, was my
only weapon, with the exception of the cracked bottle holding the candle.
As I crouched there in the attic there came crowding into my memory
stories of lonely travellers lost on these plains who had left not even a
button to tell how or where they had gone. There had been talk during the
last month of at least three men, settlers near the Fort, who had
mysteriously vanished, leaving not the faintest clue to their whereabouts.
At first their disappearance had been put down to raiding parties of Utes,
but careful scouting by some of the best men disproved this theory.
Why should these thoughts come to me now? I asked myself, uneasily. Could
that villainous-looking giant below have had anything to do with the
disappearances? Lying prone, I peered cautiously through the trap,
striving to see what was going on below. Indistinctly I saw the big man
fill his tin cup three times and drain it off, muttering the while. Then,
struck by a sudden inspiration, I went back to the bed, pulled off my
coats, and heaped them up in a bundle on the bed to resemble as much as
possible a sleeping form. Next I took off my boots and hat and placed them
also in such a position, partly covered with the blankets, as to suggest
the idea that, worn out with fatigue, I had thrown myself down to sleep
fully clothed. Then I blew out the light and, keeping the bottle in my
hand, crept again to the opening by the ladder head.
What I saw made my blood, which was chilly already, go colder yet.
The big man was taking off his overcoat. He threw it to the floor, and
from his waist detached a belt from which dangled a heavy revolver and a
long bowie-knife. The latter he drew from its sheath, running his thumb
caressingly along the edge; then he laid it on the table.
Crossing the room he returned with an iron bar about three feet long. I
heard it ring as he dumped it down on the table near the knife.
Then, tossing off more whisky--this time from the demi-john--he snatched
up the bar and lantern and unsteadily approached the ladder. So my
half-formed suspicions were correct; he meant to murder me!
With my heart beating like a sledge-hammer, I silently crouched behind the
bed.
Never, if I live to be a hundred, shall I forget the next few minutes. He
emerged through the opening, tiptoed to the bed, swung up the bar, and
with a dull thwack brought it down just where my head might have lain.
Again and yet again he thrashed and beat the tumbled clothes. Then, as he
paused, from my place of concealment I squirted the whisky from the
syringe straight into his eyes. Dropping the bar, he staggered and rubbed
at his eyes, swearing horribly. As he reeled, half blinded, I sprang up
and brought the bottle down with all my strength on his head, at the same
time giving him a sideways push that sent him crashing through the opening
to the floor below.
[Illustration: “I SENT HIM CRASHING THROUGH THE OPENING TO THE FLOOR
BELOW.”]
I was trembling in every limb with excitement, but I managed to get my
boots, hat, and coats on.
Then I cautiously descended. I had no doubt that the fall had killed him,
but I felt no pity; it was either his life or mine. Greatly to my
surprise, however, the giant was still breathing. He lay huddled up at the
ladder-foot, with blood on and about him. I tied his hands with a rope,
and then, turning him on his chest, cut away the back part of his flannel
shirt collar with his own villainous bowie-knife. Next, taking the small
phial of vitriol from my case, I spilt a few drops on the back of his bare
neck. The awful burning partly restored his senses, and he moaned. I had
no compunction, but proceeded to tear the visored cap from his head.
I have never seen such a fiendish face in all my wanderings! The lower
part was covered with a thick jet-black beard and moustache, but the face,
taken altogether, was that of a murderer--the most horrible,
wolfish-looking visage I have ever gazed on. Like a cornered wolf, even as
he slowly revived he struggled and snapped to break the cords that bound
him, cursing savagely in his semi-drunken frenzy.
Many a man would have shot him out of hand with his own weapon; but I
could not bring myself to that. I had left an indelible mark on him,
however, that he would carry with him to the grave, and should we ever
meet again there could be no disguising those awful eyes and his enormous
proportions. But, unless I killed or disabled him, it was obviously unsafe
to remain in the cabin. The storm had now ceased, so taking the villain’s
revolver, and leaving him struggling to unfasten his bonds, I set out to
try to find my way to the Fort, hoping against hope that I should soon
sight some familiar landmark.
How long I blundered over the snow before I lost consciousness I do not
know, but I remember it flashed upon me once that this was the dawn of
Christmas Eve! Then I felt myself getting drowsier and drowsier.
When I recovered my senses it had to be explained to me how I came to be
in bed back at my old quarters at Fort Hayes, minus two toes, which I had
bequeathed to “Jack Frost” during my stroll over the snow-clad prairies.
A merciful Providence and three friendly Utes had found me and brought me
in. If it had not been for Black Cloud, one of the three Indians, and a
pretty big chief in his way, this story would never have been told. He was
the means of saving my life, and I thankfully presented him with the big
revolver I had taken from the rascal at the hut.
Guided by Black Cloud, some of the boys and scouts a few days later
located the spot where the Indians had found me unconscious, slowly
freezing to death. From there they hunted in all directions, and at last
found the two-storeyed hut--empty.
It was miles from the way I ought to have taken when I left the trapper’s
shack, which showed that trying to guide my poor old horse was the worst
thing I could have done.
Later, when the weather broke and I was able to get about, I got two of
the boys to ride over to the hut with me.
My tale had sent search-parties scouring the countryside to try to run the
would-be murderer down, but they never got him. What made the settlers and
the sheriff more than keen to catch him was the gruesome discovery the two
scouts and I made at the hut--three male skeletons, with their skulls
smashed in, roughly buried in the earth! I thought of the iron bar and
shuddered at my narrow escape.
Three years after I happened to stroll into a crowded court-house in San
Jaleta, Southern Texas. A man was on trial for the murder of a lonely
rancher, and seemed likely to be acquitted, for the evidence was too
slight to convict him. There was no doubt that the motive of the crime had
been robbery; and there was no doubt, when I’d had a good look at the
prisoner, as to who he was. He was clean-shaven now, but, nevertheless, I
remembered those awful eyes. Making my way to the front, I asked
permission to give evidence for the prosecution.
After I had told my story--although it took five men to master the
prisoner--the sheriff at last laid bare the scar on the neck where my
vitriol had branded him the night of the storm.
Some of the crowd in court were pretty well worked up over the manner in
which the lonely ranchman had been done to death, and the tale I told did
not help to calm them. That night the jail at San Jaleta was “held up” by
an armed mob, and when the sun rose it shone down on the body of a giant
dangling from a telegraph pole at the end of a lariat.
That’s my story, and every word of it is true. I am afraid it’s taken a
bit long in the telling, but I never hear the wind howling and moaning on
a Christmas Eve as it does to-night without thinking of that other
Christmas Eve on the Kansas plains so many years ago.
A White Woman in Cannibal-Land.