Just think of Bushy as she grew older as a very little girl with fluffy
hair that stood on end all the time. Her father kept it cut pretty
short because there was no one to comb it for her but himself, and
often he had to leave her asleep in the morning, and he would not see
her until he came home at night and found her in bed again.
Mr. Sukolt knew there was danger in allowing Bushy to handle her little
revolver like a plaything, but then, too, he knew there was a greater
danger in her not knowing how to use it.
“Never point the weapon at anything you would not care to kill,” was
his daily instruction, and it grew to be a second nature to handle it
carefully and skilfully. She would play all day at shooting marks,
cutting off leaves of trees, hitting nail-heads and picking flies off
the log walls, and although Mr. Sukolt sometimes came home expecting
to hear she was hurt, he would say that such an anxiety was nothing
to compare with what he would feel if he did not know that she had
made the use of the revolver as natural to her as it is for a boy to
whistle.
It was a bright, beautiful summer morning when Mr. Sukolt called Bushy
to him and said: “It is my turn to take the tools to be sharpened.
There are so many of them that I shall be obliged to wait several
hours, and will not be back until late. I would take you with me, but I
must carry the tools on Ned, and then, who would be housekeeper if you
went along; Tom is away, and I would have no supper if the housekeeper
went, would I?”
“All right,” said Bushy, perfectly delighted when her father made
it look as if she were a necessity. Her little heart swelled with
great pride to think she could hold up her “end of the line,” as Tom
expressed it.
“If anything should happen that you are called upon to protect
yourself, will you be afraid, dear?”
Bushy, not quite understanding her father’s anxiety, filled the hut
with her merry peal of laughter, then, climbing on his knee, she wound
her arm about his neck, and taking her revolver from the table where it
lay said: “See that knot in the log, Padre?” Her father nodded. Without
a word more she raised the revolver and fired, hitting the knot in
the centre. Few men could handle a weapon with deadlier aim than this
little girl who knew nothing but what she had learned in camp life.
“I wish,” said Mr. Sukolt to Shanks an hour later, “that you would go
back to the shanty and bring Bushy over, I have a foolish foreboding
of evil to-day. Let her play about the mine, and if I don’t get back
before dark you take her home and stay with her until I come.”
Mr. Sukolt rode off with the tools, and Shanks soon had Bushy at the
mine. One of Bushy’s great pleasures was to ride up and down in the
bucket, but it was not often she was allowed to do it. This day one of
the miners named Mac took her with him every time he made the trip. Mac
was a Southerner, who did not believe in the slaves being made free,
and on more occasions than one Mr. Sukolt had cautioned him to keep his
opinions to himself.
“You know that you are the only Southern man in camp,” he said, “and
not a favorite at that. I will not be responsible for the actions of
the miners if you air your rash ideas, especially when I am not here
and the men have had anything to drink.”
The only soft spot in Mac’s heart was for Bushy, and this day the two
were inseparable.
“I like you,” said Bushy, as Mac carefully lifted her out of the bucket
for the twentieth time. “Why does Padre say he’s afraid something will
happen to you when he’s away?”
“Oh, because I’m hot-headed and quick-tempered,” replied Mac, as he
took her hand and they went to the tool-house for a load of stuff to
be lowered into the mine.
It was nearly five o’clock when a great helloing and cheering brought
out all the workers from below to greet the freight wagons just arrived
from the States. They carried food, ammunition, tools, clothing, etc.,
that had been sent for by Mr. Sukolt. All the letters to the miners
were brought in this way, too. The mail was directed to the nearest
town, and these freight-men would stop and bring it to the camp. It was
a rule made by Mr. Sukolt that the mine should shut down for an hour
whenever the wagons arrived, that the men might read all their letters
without interruption, and on this day it was so late that Shanks
ordered work stopped for the night.
It was still light, and the miners, between indulging in drink that one
of the drivers had brought along to treat the boys with, and the good
news from home, had become hilarious and noisy. Shanks had told Bushy
to sit on a box by one of the wagons and stay there until he could get
his coat and take her home.
How the mob started Shanks could not explain any more than could any
of the others, for, like all mobs, it seemed to be a creature of very
mysterious evolution.
“Lynch him!” cried one of the miners.
About thirty infuriated men, some in dust-covered mining clothes,
others from the trains still with their whips in hand, circled about a
man who was talking loudly and excitedly.
This troubled movement and shouting filled Bushy’s heart with fear. She
stood on the box and looked over the heads of the crowd of men that
would first advance, then retreat, push, yell, and shout at intervals,
“Hang him! hang him! lynch him!”
“I tell you again I am glad of it; it serves him right!” cried the
voice of Mac in hot angry tones.
Then a wave passed over that crowd something like the movement and
swirl of a cyclone, after which came a lull that showed Mac, erect
against a great pine-tree, held so by a lariat that had been passed
twice around the trunk, crossing him over chest and arms holding him
helpless.
“Say that again if you dare!” called out one of the leaders. There was
a growl from the crowd and the men drew closer.
“No, I was thoughtless,” exclaimed Mac, now realizing his danger.
“Bah! hang the coward! Anybody who is glad Lincoln is dead, should
be dead too,” yelled out the driver who had brought up the news of
Lincoln’s assassination, and at the same time he threw over one of the
branches of the tree another lariat. The crowd grew more excited, even
those who had not been so active before now falling in with the largest
party, which was for lynching Mac.
When Bushy saw the rope go over the branch she knew what that meant,
for six months before she and her father had come across a man near the
blacksmith’s who had been lynched for stealing horses. Over his head on
a pine board was written in big letters, “Bill, the horse-thief--to be
cut down at nine o’clock to-morrow.” Bushy had not been able to sleep
well for a month afterward--that man’s face seemed to haunt her. That
was the first time she had heard the word “lynch,” and when the miners
cried “Lynch him!” the picture of this other man came again before her.
“We don’t know how it came about,” explained Shanks to Mr. Sukolt
afterward; “but when Walt turned to untie Mac, and the crowd pressed
forward to help at the lynching, there sat Bushy on Mac’s shoulder. She
had climbed up like a cat, and, with her feet slipped behind the ropes
that crossed Mac’s chest, she braced herself, and, throwing her left
arm about his head clinched her hand on his blue shirt; then, with eyes
like sparks of fire, she faced us, with revolver raised and ready to
fire.
“Well it was a shock to the crowd greater than if we had all been
struck by lightning--we knew Bushy’s shot was sure go. Then, who would
hurt a hair of her head! ‘I like Mac,’ was all she said, ‘and I’ll sit
here till the Padre comes.’ The men swore and laughed and whistled, and
finally went back to the wagons, sobered and thoughtful. ‘Come, Bushy,
get down, and we will let Mac go this time, eh, boys?’ I said, and they
replied in a body, ‘Yes, Bushy, you have saved us from doing a foolish
thing.’ But Bushy, to my surprise, never changed her attitude and
checked my approach with ‘Go ’way, Shanks; you talked loud, too.’ That
was a blow I did not expect. She did not trust me any more than the
others, and there she sat until you came, keeping her eye on everybody
who went near the tree.”
When Mr. Sukolt arrived he understood the situation at once, and,
jumping from his horse, ran to the tree, took Bushy in his arms, and,
turning to the men, cried in an angry voice, “Bushy, point out the
leader of this mob!” But Bushy lay still, white and limp, and her
revolver had dropped at last to the ground. She had fainted.
For three weeks she was quite ill--brain fever, Shanks said. When she
went to the mine next time Mac was not there, and to her frightened
question, “Did they kill him?” Tom replied:
“The Padre was so angry when you fainted and he thought you might die,
that he ordered Mac set at liberty at once; then, pointing to his
horse, said, ‘Take him and all your belongings and leave the camp.’ He
is prospecting now, and he says if he ever strikes a rich mine he will
give you every bit of gold that comes out of it.”