[Illustration: SHOOTING THE CATTLE.]
_ROUGHING IT SERIES._
GEORGE IN CAMP:
OR,
LIFE ON THE PLAINS.
BY HARRY CASTLEMON,
AUTHOR OF “THE GUNBOAT SERIES,” “THE FRANK NELSON SERIES,” “THE BOY
TRAPPER SERIES,” &C.
[Illustration]
PHILADELPHIA:
PORTER & COATES.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FAMOUS CASTLEMON BOOKS.
=GUNBOAT SERIES.= By HARRY CASTLEMON. Illustrated. 6 vols. 16mo.
Cloth, extra, black and gold.
FRANK THE YOUNG NATURALIST. FRANK ON A GUNBOAT. FRANK IN THE
WOODS. FRANK BEFORE VICKSBURG. FRANK ON THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI.
FRANK ON THE PRAIRIE.
=ROCKY MOUNTAIN SERIES.= By HARRY CASTLEMON. Illustrated. 3 vols.
16mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold.
FRANK AMONG THE RANCHEROS.
FRANK AT DON CARLOS’ RANCHO.
FRANK IN THE MOUNTAINS.
=SPORTSMAN’S CLUB SERIES.= By HARRY CASTLEMON. Illustrated. 3 vols.
16mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold.
THE SPORTSMAN’S CLUB IN THE SADDLE.
THE SPORTSMAN’S CLUB AFLOAT.
THE SPORTSMAN’S CLUB AMONG THE TRAPPERS.
=GO-AHEAD SERIES.= By HARRY CASTLEMON. Illustrated. 3 vols. 16mo.
Cloth, extra, black and gold.
TOM NEWCOMBE. GO-AHEAD. NO MOSS.
=FRANK NELSON SERIES.= By HARRY CASTLEMON. Illustrated. 3 vols.
16mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold.
SNOWED UP. FRANK IN THE FORECASTLE. BOY TRADERS.
=BOY TRAPPER SERIES.= By HARRY CASTLEMON. Illustrated. 3 vols. 16mo.
Cloth, extra, black and gold.
THE BURIED TREASURE; OR, OLD JORDAN’S HAUNT.
THE BOY TRAPPER; OR, HOW DAVE FILLED THE ORDER.
THE MAIL-CARRIER.
=ROUGHING IT SERIES.= By HARRY CASTLEMON. Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth,
extra, black and gold.
GEORGE IN CAMP.
_Other Volumes in Preparation._
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by
PORTER & COATES,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Among the Texans Page 5
CHAPTER II.
A Neighborhood Row 19
CHAPTER III.
Ned’s Experience in Camp 30
CHAPTER IV.
A Discontented Boy 49
CHAPTER V.
The Clerk’s Ruse 70
CHAPTER VI.
A Frontier Hotel 87
CHAPTER VII.
Zeke’s Letter 109
CHAPTER VIII.
Ned’s New Horse 128
CHAPTER IX.
A Visit from the Raiders 150
CHAPTER X.
The Two Friends 172
CHAPTER XI.
Gus Hears from Home 192
CHAPTER XII.
A Narrow Escape 215
CHAPTER XIII.
George has Company 236
CHAPTER XIV.
Good and Bad News 257
CHAPTER XV.
What Happened at the Rancho 282
CHAPTER XVI.
Caught at Last! 304
CHAPTER XVII.
Conclusion 325
GEORGE IN CAMP;
OR,
LIFE ON THE PLAINS.
CHAPTER I.
AMONG THE TEXANS.
“I don’t like the way things are going at all, and I just wish those two
people were back where they came from. They have turned the ranche
upside down since they have been here, and now I begin to feel as though
they were the masters, and that I have no more rights than a tramp who
had dropped in to beg a night’s lodging!”
The speaker, a sturdy, broad-shouldered youth, about fifteen years of
age, was sitting on the porch in front of the house in which he lived,
busily engaged in mending a broken bridle with an awl and a piece of
waxed-end. His name was George Ackerman, and he was one of the boys whom
we introduced to the notice of the reader in the concluding volume of
the “Boy Trapper Series,” and of whose adventures and exploits we
promised to say something more than we said then. We find him now at his
home in Texas, where he had been born, and where he had always lived,
with the exception of the two years he had passed in a distant city
attending school. He was dressed, as all the boys and men in that
country were dressed, for hard work; and he had done a good deal of it
during his comparatively short life—not because it was necessary, but
because he had been brought up to it. His father was very wealthy—no one
knew how many horses and cattle he owned—and he had left a property
worth between thirty and forty thousand dollars a year.
If money is what makes people happy, one would suppose that George
Ackerman ought to be one of the happiest boys in the world; and so he
was, up to the time his only parent died, which was about a year and a
half previous to the beginning of our story. He had everything a boy
could possibly wish for—good health, a kind and indulgent father, a
comfortable and happy home, and all the other aids to complete happiness
so dear to the heart of most boys, and for which Bob Owens and Dan Evans
so impatiently longed—such as horses, dogs, jointed fish-poles and
breech-loading guns. He had made a start in business for himself, and
was thought by the boys of his acquaintance to be pretty well off in the
world. He began when he was only nine years old, by herding cattle for
his father at forty dollars a month, taking his pay in young stock which
he selected himself. These increased in numbers and value during the two
years he was away at school, and now he was the owner of three hundred
head of cattle which he had paid for by his own labor, and which he
could have sold any day for twenty dollars apiece. He had a herdsman of
his own and colts enough to mount all the cronies he had left at school,
and who had faithfully promised to visit him at no distant day in his
far-away home. It was two years and more since he parted from those same
cronies, and not one of them had ever been to see him. He never heard
from them now. His correspondents had dropped off, one after the other,
until he had not a single one remaining. His father was gone, too, and
poor George felt much as he would have felt if he had been dropped
suddenly on Robinson Crusoe’s lonely island, without even a man Friday
to keep him company.
It is true, that there were plenty of people around him. His Uncle John
and Cousin Ned lived in the same house with him, and there were a score
or more of men, Americans and Mexicans, employed on the ranche as
house-servants and herdsmen. He had four playmates close at hand—that
is, two of them lived five miles east of him and the others eight miles
west—and they were jolly fellows and he liked to be in their company.
The time never hung heavily on his hands, for he was very industrious,
and could always find something useful to do; but still he was lonely
and homesick every hour in the day. The old house was not the same now
that it was during his father’s lifetime. Uncle John had built additions
to it, rearranged the inside of it to suit himself, and filled it with
the most expensive furniture, such as had never been seen in the wilds
of Texas before.
Uncle John and his son, who dressed as fashionably now as they did when
they came from the States, and who took as much pains with their toilet
as a couple of city dandies would have done, were very much pleased with
the new order of things. They seemed to have been made for no other
purpose than to idle away their time on the luxurious sofas and
easy-chairs with which the old rancho was now so plentifully supplied;
but George, with his heavy cowhide boots, coarse clothing and
sun-browned face and hands, was sadly out of place among them.
Uncle John Ackerman lived somewhere in the state of Ohio. He was a poor
man, and, up to the time of the death of his only brother, George’s
father, was obliged to work hard for his living. That sad event, which
brought so much sorrow and trouble to George, was the making of Uncle
John, for the time being. It took him and his scapegrace of a son from a
life of toil and placed them just where they had always wanted to be—in
a position to live without work. Uncle John was made his nephew’s
guardian and the executor of his brother’s will, and to him the property
was left in trust, to be cared for and managed for George until the
latter became of age, when it was to be turned over to him, less a
certain sum, which Uncle John was at liberty to keep in payment for his
services. If George died before reaching his majority, Ned Ackerman,
Uncle John’s son, was to be the heir.
As soon as the terms of the will were made known, Uncle John and Ned
hastened to Texas, and took up their abode at the rancho. At first,
everything passed off smoothly. George could see nothing to admire in
either one of his relatives, whom he had met but once before; but still
he did not absolutely dislike them, until Ned began to show, both by
words and actions, that he considered himself the lawful master of the
ranche and everything belonging to it, and that George had no rights
that he or his father were bound to respect. One change after another
was introduced, in spite of all the rightful owner could say or do to
prevent it, until at last the old house was so changed in appearance,
both inside and out, that George could hardly recognise it as his home.
Then he grew angry and almost made up his mind that he would strike out
for himself, and live on the prairie, with his cattle and his herdsman,
as a good many of the early settlers had done before him.
But the fact that his cousin Ned was gradually crowding him to the wall,
and usurping the place that George himself ought to have held in the
house, was not the only thing that troubled the young rancheman. That
was bad enough, but it was accompanied by something worse. If he was
snubbed and kept in the background by his relatives while at home, he
was treated but little, if any, better by the people, both young and
old, who lived in the settlement, and that was what hurt him. He was
acquainted with almost every farmer and rancheman in the county, and,
until lately, he had always been very popular among them; but when Uncle
John and his son arrived his troubles began. The neighbors would have
nothing whatever to do with the newcomers. They would not even notice
them when they met them on the highway, and it was not long before they
began to extend the same treatment to George himself.
The young cattle-herder could not imagine what it was that caused this
change, until one day, while he was riding to Palos, to purchase some
supplies for himself and his hired man, he met one of his young friends,
who, instead of stopping to talk with him, as he usually did, simply
bowed and put spurs to his horse, as if he were in a hurry to pass by
him; but George reined his own nag across the trail and stopped him.
“Now, Hank Short,” said he, “I want to know what you mean by such work
as this? What’s the reason that you and the other fellows never come to
see me any more, and that you take pains to pass me in this fashion? Do
you take me for a horse-thief?”
This, according to a Texas boy’s way of thinking, was the worst term of
reproach that could be applied to anybody. In Nantucket, if they want to
convey the impression that a man is utterly detestable, they say he is
mean enough to “mix oil.” In Massachusetts, he will “rob a hen-roost,”
and in Texas, he will “steal horses.”
“Everybody in the settlement seems to have gone back on me since my
father died,” said George, bitterly, “and I don’t know what to think of
it. Now, Hank, you can’t go by here until you tell me what I have done
to make all the folks angry at me. As soon as I know what it is, I will
try to make amends for it.”
“You haven’t done anything,” was Hank’s reply. “We don’t take _you_ for
a horse-thief!”
“Then why do you——Eh? You don’t take _me_ for a horse-thief! What do you
mean by that?”
“Well, I—you know——” faltered Hank, “those northern relations of yours
sling on a good many frills, and folks who wear store clothes and boiled
shirts are not wanted in this country. We’re afraid of them.”
“Whew!” whistled George.
He looked steadily at his friend for a moment, then down at the ground,
and finally he reined his horse out of Hank’s path and went slowly on
his way toward Palos. It was all plain enough to him now. Uncle John and
Ned wore store clothes and boiled shirts, and the settlers took them for
horse-thieves and treated them accordingly. That was the English of it,
and George wondered why he, knowing the customs of the country and the
habits and opinions of the people as well as he did, had not been smart
enough to see it without asking any questions. This was what he thought
at first, and then he suddenly grew so angry that he could scarcely
control himself. He drew up his horse with a jerk, faced about in his
saddle and called after his friend.
“Look here, Hank,” he shouted, shaking his fist in the air, “you may
tell those people who shun my relatives because they would rather wear
good clothes than shabby ones, and who go back on me because I live with
them—you can tell those people that we are just as good as they dare be
any day and just as honest!”
“All right,” was Hank’s response.
“And bear another thing in mind,” cried George, growing angrier every
minute, “and that is, I am boy enough to make you, or any fellow like
you, who says anything against them take back his words. I am going to
stand by them, no matter what happens.”
“I haven’t said anything against them,” answered Hank. “I think too much
of you to do that. I’ll talk to you the next time I see you. Perhaps you
will be better natured then.”
This reply completely disarmed George, who promptly turned about,
intending to ride up to his friend and take back every harsh word he had
uttered; but Hank touched his horse with his spurs as soon as he ceased
speaking, and was now almost out of earshot. So George was compelled to
face about again and go on his way toward Palos, without making things
straight with his friend.
“Hank is a good fellow, that’s a fact,” said he to himself, “and I might
have known that he wouldn’t say a word that he thought would offend me.
But here’s one thing I can’t understand,” continued George, growing
angry again. “If the settlers don’t want anything to do with Uncle John
and Ned, is that any reason why they should give me the cold shoulder?
If they don’t want to come to our rancho, they might at least treat me
civilly when they meet me away from home. This is the strangest world I
ever saw or heard of. If I should walk into Foxboro’, where Uncle John
came from, with these clothes on, folks would look at me suspiciously,
lock their back doors and keep an eye on their smoke-houses. He and Ned
came into the country, dressed as I suppose all city folks dress, and
every body is down on them, and ready to take them for anything in the
world but an honest man and boy.”
Yes, it is a fact that Uncle John and Ned had been received by the
settlers in about as cordial and friendly a manner as a couple of
ragged, ill-looking tramps would be received if they suddenly made their
appearance in the streets of some retired village in New England. It was
just the sort of reception that these rough frontiersmen always extend
to people of that stamp. This may seem like a strange statement, but it
is nevertheless true. If you want to be certain of it read the following
paragraphs, which have been condensed from a recently published book[1]
written by two men who have spent long years in the wilds of which we
write.
Footnote 1:
Two Thousand Miles in Texas on Horseback; by McDanield and Taylor.
“The men who follow this business of stock raising are peculiar. They
are a stalwart, sinewy race, bronzed and bearded, and always go armed to
the teeth; but they wear their weapons just as other people wear coats
and vests, mainly because it is fashionable. A more peaceably-disposed
people I never saw; and they seem to vie with one another in hospitality
to the stranger. They are nearly all young or middle-aged men. To subdue
the wilderness and stand guard over the watch-towers of civilization, do
not belong to the old; and yet I see a few strong old men here whose
heads are as white as if a hundred winters had sprinkled their snows
upon them—old men youthful in everything except years. They are a sharp,
quick and intelligent people, and there are some who are evidently of
superior education. These are doubtless stray young gentlemen whom a
restless spirit of adventure decoyed from their homes in the old states,
finally stranding them on the shores of this far-away country. They are
appreciated here, for these rough frontiersmen dearly love to have
educated and sensible young men settle among them. But let no
pin-feather youth think that he can come here and be made a lion of at
once. A pretentious, foppish young fellow would be heavily discounted by
them, in spite of all his book learning and elegance of manner. He must
have a good store of common sense and understand how to adapt himself to
the situation. He must throw on no airs, for these frontiersmen are
nearly all men of as much sharpness of wit as boldness of heart. They
have seen a good deal of the world and quickly detect the spurious. The
newcomer must show a heart for honest, manly work, be companionable,
bear himself toward all respectfully and courteously, and he will soon
find that he has a noble army of friends around him who will always be
glad to advance him, and who will feel proud of him as one of
themselves.
“I have often thought of my first appearance among those frontier people
with considerable amusement. When a boy, almost beardless and just from
the schools, I came on horseback to San Saba, wearing a nice silk hat,
carrying a silver-headed cane, and dressed as young gentlemen generally
dress in the best communities of the older states. The old frontiersmen
looked upon me with almost intolerable scorn, and there was some serious
talk of hanging me as a suspected horse-thief, for no other reason in
the world than because I was well-dressed, well-educated and decidedly
well-behaved, though rather a reserved young fellow.
“One old chap, rough and bearded, and to my eye quite a monster in
appearance, actually talked of this within my hearing. The look of scorn
he cast upon me was sublime. I was quick to perceive the drift of
things; and as the Indians were then stealing and scalping at a great
rate, I threw aside my nice clothes, and silver-headed cane, put on a
rough suit and went Indian hunting with the frontiersmen, sleeping with
them in their houses, in the woods and on the prairie. They soon grew
fond of me, and I have never been in a country where I had so many warm
friends; but they never ceased to joke me about my three-story hat and
silver-headed cane. Had I not thrown aside these articles it is not at
all impossible that I might have been hanged.”
* * * * *
This was the kind of people among whom Uncle John and Ned lived now.