A HOME RANCH.
Tom was surprised at the interior of the dugout. From the outside it
didn't look large enough to accommodate more than three or four men, but
there were bunks for eight, and there was ample room for the cooking
stove, a dilapidated affair which looked as though it might have come
from somebody's scrap-pile and left one of its legs behind it. But there
was plenty of "draw" to it, as Monroe came in with his arms full of
buffalo chips, filled the stove full, and touched a match to them. On
each side of the stove was a blanket, which on being raised proved to
conceal little cupboards devoted to various odds and ends. One contained
books and magazines, a whip or two, and several pairs of spurs, and in
the other were to be found the dishes from which the inmates had eaten
breakfast, all neatly washed and put away. Tom was surprised at the air
of neatness that everywhere prevailed.
"Oh, you won't find all dugouts like this one," said Monroe. "Some of
them are so dirty that you can't find a place to spread your blanket.
Mr. Parsons' cook did this work, and all the ole man does is to sit
outside and smoke."
"Here comes the ole man now," said Stanley, who had ascended to the top
of the stairs and was looking out over the prairie. "He has got a small
drove of cattle with him, so we shall have some corral duty to do
to-night."
"And I believe he has more than twenty-five head with him," said Mr.
Kelley, who dropped everything and came to Stanley's side. "He's got
fifty if he's got one. Boys, I guess you had better go out there. They
are tired most to death, and we might let them come in and get some
supper."
Although the two cowboys had ridden all of fifty miles that day, there
was no objection raised to this arrangement. Without saying a word they
buckled on their belts containing their revolvers, shouldered their
saddles and bridles, and went out behind the hay racks. When they came
within sight a few minutes later, they were going at full speed to meet
their employer and his cattle.
"Now, maybe you are able to see something off there, but I can't," said
Tom, after he had run his eyes in vain over the horizon. "I can't see a
single thing."
"Can't you see that long line that looks like a pencil-mark off there?"
said Mr. Kelley, trying in vain to make Tom see the object at which he
was looking. "Well, it's there plain enough. When you have been on the
plains as long as I have, you'll notice all little objects like that
one, and, furthermore, you will want to know what makes them. It will be
two hours before they come up, and you sit down here on the bench and
watch it. I will go down and get some supper."
Tom seated himself on the bench beside the door and tried hard to make
out the approaching line of cattle, but could not do it. Finally he was
called to supper, and went down saying that he would give his eyes a
little rest and then maybe he could see them; but he couldn't do it now.
"Supposing you were in a line of march and had a scout out there where
those men are, and he should begin riding in a circle, what would you
say?" asked Mr. Kelley.
"I wouldn't say anything," exclaimed Tom. "I wouldn't know what he
meant."
"He would mean that there was danger close at hand, and you had better
be gathering your cattle up," said Mr. Kelley. "And if they were
scattered as far apart as those cattle are, you would want a small
battalion of men to answer your orders."
"What would be the danger?"
"From Cheyennes, of course."
"Good gracious! Do they ever come out and threaten a whole ranchful of
cattle?"
"Certainly they do. But they are all right now. They haven't had any
grievance for a long time, and they are as trustworthy as Indians ever
get to be. I wouldn't put any faith in them, however. I'd have been
worth half a million dollars if it hadn't been for those pesky
redskins."
"Did they steal from you?" asked Tom.
"Yes, they stole me flat, but I got away with my life, and that is
something to be thankful for. Now, go out and see if you can find those
cattle."
Tom obediently went, and whether it was from the long rest his eyes had
had or from some other reason, he distinctly made out a long "pencil
line" on the horizon. By watching it closely he finally made out that in
certain places the line was interrupted, and finally decided that that
was the place where some of the cattle had strayed more than they ought
to; and he was confirmed in this idea when he saw a solitary figure move
up and turn them in toward the centre. As Mr. Kelley, having finished
his dishes, came out and sat down on the bench to enjoy his smoke, he
finally made out the two horsemen who rode around the outskirts of the
herd and gradually disappeared.
"It won't be long now before the old man will be along," said he. "You
will see that he won't ride through the drove, but will come around it.
If he should try riding through it, he would have a stampede on his
hands that would do your heart good to see."
"Are they as wild as that?" asked Tom, who told himself that he was
learning something about the cowboy's business the longer he talked with
Mr. Kelley.
"You just bet they are. If you should go among them on foot, you would
either stampede them or else they would charge upon you and gore you to
death. That's the reason we always use horses in tending cattle."
In about half an hour two horsemen were seen riding around the outskirts
of the herd. They took a wide circle, so as not to frighten the cattle,
and finally drew a bee-line for the dugout. Mr. Kelley remarked that
they were the ones he was expecting, dived down the stairs, and in a few
minutes the rattling of dishes was heard as he proceeded with his
preparations for a second supper. The horsemen were hungry, or else
their animals were, for they occupied much less time in coming in than
the cowboys who relieved them, and in short order they were near enough
for Tom to distinguish their faces. Tom took a long look at the man who
was going to befriend him. He knew who he was, for there was the cut of
a leader about him; and when the man rode up and swung himself from his
horse with a "How are you, Tom?" it proved to him that Stanley and
Monroe had told him something about him.
"Howdy?" shouted a voice from the dugout; and Mr. Kelley stuck his head
up through the door. "We're still on hand, like a bad dollar bill. How
many cattle have you got out there?"
"Sixty-five; and pretty good luck, too, seeing that they have been
stampeded more than forty miles. Where did you pick up this youngster?"
added Mr. Parsons, giving Tom's hand a hearty squeeze. "I certainly do
not remember seeing him before."
"No, he's a tender-foot. As he didn't know what else to do, he came out
here for somebody to grub-stake him."
"Ah!"
"Everyone who knows him has gone back on him," continued Mr. Kelley,
"and so he has come out here to see if you won't stake him for a gold
mine."
"M-m-m!"
"And as he cured me of the dumb ague by giving me a pitcher of
ice-water, I thought I would bring him along."
"Aha!" said the ranchman, who had kept a firm hold of Tom while his
right-hand man was speaking. "You claim to be a doctor, do you? Well, we
must do something for you. I was a little older than you are when I went
into the mountains to seek for a gold mine, and, unfortunately for me, I
found it. I smell bacon. Is supper ready yet?"
Mr. Kelley made some sort of incoherent reply which Mr. Parsons and his
man understood, for they dived down the doorway, leaving Tom standing
alone.
"Unfortunately he got it," Tom kept repeating to himself. "I don't see
what there was unfortunate about it, unless he was cheated out of it. If
I had as many cattle as he has got out there, and as many men to obey my
orders, I should look upon myself as remarkably fortunate."
Tom did not have any opportunity to talk further with Mr. Parsons that
night, for as soon as he had eaten supper he went to bed and was soon
sleeping soundly. Tom felt the need of slumber, and when he thought he
could do so without disturbing anybody, he slipped quietly down the
stairs. There sat Mr. Kelley fast asleep on his dry-goods box, holding
in his hand the copy of a newspaper about a fortnight old, and which he
had been trying to read by the aid of the smoky candle that gave out
just light enough to show how dark it was; and as everybody else felt
the need of slumber, and gave over to the influence of it wherever they
happened to be, Tom threw off his boots and tumbled into his bunk. Once
during the night he was aroused by somebody coming in and informing Mr.
Kelley that it was twelve o'clock; then there was a stir of changing
watches and the camp became silent again. Or no; it wasn't silent. Just
after the watches had been changed (for men had to keep track of the
cattle during the night and see that nothing happened to stampede them)
Tom was treated to a wolf serenade. It began faint and far off, and then
all on a sudden broke out so fiercely that it seemed as if the pack had
surrounded the cabin and were about to make an assault upon it.
"What was that?" asked Tom, starting up in alarm.
"It's the pesky coyotes," said Monroe, who was taking off his boots.
"We're always glad to hear them, for then we know that there is nothing
else about."
"What else do you think might be about?" said Tom, wondering how any
lone hunter could find any consolation in such a dismal serenade.
"Indians," said the cowboy shortly. "Good-night."
After that Tom did not sleep very soundly, for at times it seemed to him
that some of the fierce animals had come to the door, which stood wide
open all this while, and were about to come in. Once he was sure he
heard them on top of the cabin, but the others slept on and paid no
attention to it, and finally Tom became somewhat accustomed to it. He
did not think he had closed his eyes at all in slumber, but when he
awoke to a full sense of what was going on, he found that there were
only two men left in the cabin, Mr. Parsons and his cook. The former sat
on the edge of his bunk pulling on his boots, and the cook was busy with
his frying-pan.
"Hallo, youngster!" said Mr. Parsons cheerfully. "You'll have to get up
earlier than this if you're going to strike a gold mine. Why, it must be
close on to six o'clock."
"I was awfully tired last night, and the wolves kept me awake," said
Tom. "I don't see how anybody can sleep with such a din in his ears."
"The time may come when you will be glad to hear them. If there are any
Indians around, you won't hear them; just the minute the Indians break
loose the wolves all seem to go into their holes; but when the Indians
are whipped, they are out in full force."
Tom noticed that the men seemed to be in a hurry, and he lost no time in
packing his outfit. He ate breakfast when Mr. Parsons did, sitting down
to it without any invitation from anybody, swallowed his coffee and
pancakes scalding hot, saddled his horse, and rode away, leaving the
cook to straighten affairs in the dugout; and all the while it seemed to
him that he hadn't had any breakfast at all. He couldn't see anything of
the cattle; but Mr. Parsons put his horse into a lope and proceeded to
fill his pipe as he went.
"I suppose you know your cattle have gone this way, don't you?" said
Tom.
"Of course I do," answered Mr. Parsons, taking a long pull at his pipe
to make sure it was well lighted. "They are ten miles on the way nearer
home than we are, and we have got to make that up."
"Do you always drive your cattle into the mountains in winter?"
"Yes, sir. We have had some blizzards here that would make your eyes
bung out if you could have seen them, and I would be penniless to-day if
my cattle had been caught in them. Some of the cattle ahead of us have
been driven forty miles by a blizzard that struck us last fall, and I
have just succeeded in finding them. If my neighbor hadn't been as
honest as they make them, I wouldn't have got them at all. It would be
very easy for him to round them up and brand them over again, and then
tell me that if I could find an arrow brand in his herd I could have
them."
"How far does your nearest neighbor live from you?"
"Just a jump--fifteen or twenty miles, maybe."
Fifteen or twenty miles! None nearer than that! Tom had found out by
experience that distances didn't count for anything on the prairie.
"You said last night, in speaking of your gold find, that, unfortunately
for you, you got it," Tom reminded him. "I would like to know what you
meant by that. Were you cheated out of it?"
Mr. Parsons replied, with a laugh, that he was not cheated out of it,
but, on the whole, it didn't much matter. He took a party of experts up
there, and, after working over the mine for a week or more, they gave
him twenty thousand dollars for it, of which five thousand went to him
and the balance to his employer. That made him lazy--too lazy to go to
work. He spent three thousand dollars in grub-staking men to look up
claims for him until the end of the year, when he found out that he
wasn't making anything by it, so he took the balance of his money and
went into the cattle business.
"That gave me my start," said Mr. Parsons in conclusion. "In four years
I had made up the money I had spent, and vowed I never would go into it
again; but here I am talking of sending you to the mountains."
"Do you think you are not going to make anything by it?"
"Well, yes," said Mr. Parsons, with another laugh. "But I have got to do
something to help you. You ride pretty well, and I should think you
ought to go into the cattle business."
"Who will take me? Will you?"
"Well, no; I can't. I have had to discharge some parties, not having
work for them to attend to, and I don't know how I could use you. I will
tell you this much: when you come back in the spring, I will give you a
show."
"Thank you," replied Tom. "That's the first encouragement I have had.
But you say it took you four years to make up the money you had spent.
I'm not going to stay here four years."
"You aint? What are you going to do?"
"I am going to look for that nugget that Elam Storm has lost."
"Oh, ah!" said Mr. Parsons, the expression on his face giving way to one
of intense disgust. "Well, you'll never find it."
"Why not? The edge of Death Valley is just crowded with men who haven't
given up all hopes of finding it."
"Crowded! Young man, I wonder if you know how big Death Valley is?
Crowded! Now and then you'll find a man who still has that nugget on the
brain, but if the man who hid it himself, not more than two years ago,
can't find it, I think it is useless for others to try. There have been
landslides in all the canyons that run through there till you can't
rest. I'll tell you what I'll do: if you will find that nugget, I will
give you ten thousand dollars for it. That's a better offer than I made
you a while ago. And you may keep the nugget besides. If you are around
when anybody else digs it up, I will give you five thousand dollars."
There was something in this offer that completely shut off all
discussion of the finding of Elam Storm's nugget. Mr. Parsons did not
refer to the matter again, and neither did Tom; but the latter still
clung to the hope of finding the gold. The nugget was there, or why
should so large a number of men be on the lookout for it? And if he
_should_ happen to strike it, he would be a rich man. During all his
rides he kept that one thought in his mind, and nothing could shake it
out. There was one thing that ought to have opened Tom's eyes, and that
was that no nugget of gold had been struck in that country for miles
around. The nearest place at which any had been found was at Pike's
Peak, and that was over two hundred miles away. But Tom didn't know
that, and the only thing that kept the cowboys from telling him of it
was the fact that when he was in the mountains he would think he was
doing something, but if he knew there was no gold to reward his search,
he would give up in despair.
It took our party five days to make the journey between the dugout and
headquarters, for the cattle were slow of movement, and, besides, they
were allowed to graze on the way. About ten o'clock a fierce winter
wind, which made Tom bundle his overcoat closer about him and pull his
collar up about his ears, sprung up from over the prairie, and the
cattle ceased feeding and struck out for a canyon about a mile wide
which opened close in front of them. Along this they held their way for
five miles and better, until it finally emerged into a broad natural
prairie, large enough, Tom thought, to pasture all the cattle in the
country, and went to feeding with one of the herds. The air was soft and
balmy, and Tom's overcoat was resting across the horn of his saddle. Mr.
Parsons pulled up his horse and gazed around him with a smile of
satisfaction.
"These cattle are all mine, Tom," said he. "Every horn and hoof you see
here has been paid for, and if you want to get in the same way, I will
give you a chance when you come back to me in the spring. Monroe, you
and Stanley might as well go out and see if you can find anything of
that bronco. Tom wants to go away, and we must fit him out early in the
morning."
This was bringing the matter squarely home to Tom. He was to go away in
the morning! He looked up at the mountains, and they seemed so large and
he so small by comparison that he shuddered while he thought of getting
bewildered in some of those canyons, and lying down and dying there and
nobody would know what had become of him. But Mr. Parsons didn't
discourage him. He was made of sterner stuff. He looked up and said with
an air of determination:
"Yes, I want to get off. The sooner I get to work the sooner I shall be
doing something to earn my living."
"That's the idea," said Mr. Parsons. "Stick to that and you will come
out all right. Now, let's go home."
Tom waved his hand to the two cowboys, who galloped away in one
direction, while he and Mr. Parsons held down the valley, making a wide
circuit to get out of reach of the grazing cattle. After going in a lope
Mr. Parsons drew up his horse and began to talk seriously to Tom. He
told him plainly of the dangers and sufferings which would fall to his
lot if he endeavored to carry out his plan, but he did not try to turn
him from his purpose. On the contrary, he tried to warn him so that when
the dangers came he would be prepared to meet them half-way. He kept
this up until the home ranch appeared in view, and then he stopped, for
he didn't want the cowboys to hear what he was saying.
This home ranch was not a dugout. There was a neat cabin to take the
place of it, and Tom thought some of the cowboys had used an axe pretty
well by the way they fashioned the logs and put them together. There
were half a dozen hay-racks out behind the house, protected from
wandering cattle by rail fences, and there wasn't a thing on the porch,
no saddles, bridles, and riding whips, all such things having been put
into a cubby-hole in the rear of the house. But it so happened that the
cook, who had got there first, had peeled off his coat, and was engaged
in straightening things out.
"I never did see such a mess as these fellows leave when I go away for
five minutes," said he. "I can't find a thing where it ought to be,
though I have hunted high and low for that carving-knife."
Tom took his seat at Mr. Parsons' side while he filled up preparatory to
a smoke. There were one or two little things that he wanted to speak to
him about.