Bushy was back at Great Pine Mine three weeks after Christmas and was
settling down to every-day housekeeping again.
“Halloo! What are you two old fellows talking about, that you stop
short the minute I come in,” said Bushy as she stood in the doorway
with her arms loaded down with the fresh pine-boughs she had gathered,
with which to make the supper-fire.
“About you, Puss.”
The wood tumbled in a heap at her feet. Something in her father’s
voice told her that all was not well. She put her arms, still fragrant
with the perfume of the pine, about his neck, and asked: “Are you ill,
Padre? Have I been so long getting the wood for the fire? Oh, I have
found a new bird to-night and could not come in till I had learned to
sing his song. I fooled him, too. He thought I was his mate calling,
and came so close that I caught him. Here he is,” she exclaimed as she
drew from her breast a frightened bird that gladly escaped through the
door when tossed up to amuse her father. “I know that I am a naughty
little woman, but you don’t mind, do you?” Then she hugged him tight.
“Look out, chicken,” cried Tom, throwing out his long arms and pulling
Bushy to one side; “don’t touch your father’s foot; it is hurt.”
“Oh, Padre! why didn’t you tell me? I did hurt you, didn’t I?”
She fell on her knees before him and began to examine the foot.
“A rock in the mine got loosened some way,” said Tom, “and as we were
coming out to-night it fell, grazing your father’s head and mashing his
foot. We ought not to complain, Mr. Sukolt, for an inch to the left and
it would have been your brains instead of blood we left there.”
“Who dressed it?” inquired Bushy, noticing that it was bandaged.
“I did the best I could, but what I was suggesting was that you go for
Shanks, who is at the blacksmith’s. He was a surgeon before he came to
the mines, and, I think, ought to see this foot; I fear the bones are
broken; the flesh is so cut I can’t make anything out.”
By the time Tom had finished his sentence Bushy was half dressed for
the journey. She was sitting on the shanty floor winding strips of
coffee-sack about her feet and legs, for the night was bitterly cold.
Tom got down to assist her.
“Now, you two are so quick you don’t give me time to think,” said her
father, watching them as they hurried through the preparations. “I wish
some one besides Bushy could do this. Look here, Tom, don’t you think
it possible to manage Ned?”
“It’s no use, Padre, to lose time that way,” spoke up Bushy; “he threw
Tom yesterday, and you know he acts as if Old Nick himself were in him
when any one else gets on his back. It’s an awful nuisance, and I’m
going to break him of it if I have to break his neck, so there! but it
won’t do to try now, with your foot mashed like that. Wrap your shawl
about my head, Tom, please, and then tie it in a knot behind. There,
that’s the way; now I am ready. Do you think I can take the short cut?”
“Oh, how the snow blows!” exclaimed Mr. Sukolt. “I don’t think it wise,
Bushy; the bridge at the ravine might be snowed over. Tom, come here
quick and loosen the bandage. I fear I cannot stand the pain, it”----
Mr. Sukolt bent over, tried to move his foot, and fainted.
“Don’t leave him, Tom,” screamed Bushy. “I can saddle Ned myself,” and,
giving one tearful look at her father, she took from the wall Ned’s
bridle and went out.
At last all was ready; buckling about her waist the belt that carried
two revolvers, and drawing on her thick mitts, she jumped on Ned and
away they went.
Through the cold wind and blinding snow they ran, up one hill, down
another--Ned knew the way to the blacksmith’s and so did Bushy. There
was no fear. On, on they sped, until they came to the point where she
must take the short cut or the longer route.
“I’ll do it,” said Bushy aloud--she often talked to Ned as if he were
a boy companion. “We’ll make an hour by going this way, so on with
you, old fellow, and no falls, no stumbles, for we can’t afford any
accidents to-night, with the Padre lying so white and still in the
shanty.”
Ned shortened his long strides and began to pick his way over a
snow-drift, when in the quiet that fell about them a faint bark, way,
way off in the distance was heard. Ned stood stock still, raised both
ears straight up, turned his head toward the west, then toward the
east, and listened. Bushy’s heart beat so loud she could hear it go
thump, thump, against her ribs.
“Padre mio! not wolves, not wolves!” she murmured. “Oh, Ned, Ned, you
can never take me through a pack of wolves!” Another bark, and another
and another came more distinctly to their ears. Ned gave one snort and
plunged forward so suddenly he almost unseated Bushy, but she grabbed
the pommel, regained a firm seat, took up the reins and cried: “Go it,
Ned! we are in for a race for life or death. On with you! but if you
stumble you will never have Bushy to ride you any more.”
There was no need to urge Ned; he was running as fast as he could.
“If they come in sight I’ll try to shoot the head one; it always
makes a break in their running, for they are a cowardly lot without a
leader,” thought Bushy.
Finally Ned struck a long stretch of road that circled a mountain.
“Now they will come in sight before we get around this,” thought Bushy,
and so they did. Nearer and nearer came the pack, with their fiendish
yelling and howling that frightened poor Ned until he became almost
unmanageable.
“Whoa! whoa! Ned. They are gaining on us. I’ve got to kill one or we
are lost. Whoa! there’s a good fellow! Whoa!”
Bushy braced herself well, as Ned slackened into a steady run without
the irregular strides he made in his wild dash; then, turning and
taking aim, she held on to the back of the saddle with her left hand,
and when the wolves gained so that they were in range of her revolver
she fired.
I have told you before that Bushy was a good shot, and this time her
aim was not false; the leader of the pack fell, and the others went
tumbling over him. It caused a halt, as Bushy had thought it would. The
greedy animals, imagining that something, perhaps Bushy herself, had
tumbled off for their hungry mouths to devour, made a decided halt.
Bushy fired again and killed a second, which Tom afterward told her was
a very foolish thing to do. She might need her ammunition, he said, and
it was only a waste to kill two at one halt, when there was no possible
hope of ever killing them all.
Ned needed but one word of encouragement to stretch his legs again to
their utmost. But soon came another danger in the form of a broken
bridge ahead of them. You remember Mr. Sukolt mentioned the bridge over
the ravine. It was not drifted over, as he feared it would be, but
gone; and Ned was going at a madder speed then ever and the wolves were
barking louder and were quite close.
Bushy saw that of the two evils she must select the lesser, and that
was to try to make Ned jump the fissure. There was no time to check Ned
if she wanted to, and if she could have done it it would be to throw
the two in the teeth of the starving animals already at their heels. It
seemed death, try either way, but she screamed: “Oh, Ned, Ned, Ned,
jump, jump for Padre’s sake, jump!” She gave him one quick stroke with
her bare hand--she had lost her mittens--and Ned at the word “jump”
pricked up his ears and looked about, for he knew what that meant. He
had jumped many a wide place for Bushy before, but nothing like this.
He saw the space and gave a wild long leap that landed him on the other
side, but on the very edge, and there he balanced for a minute, as if
he were going to the bottom after all.
I don’t know how it happened, but Bushy swung off and pulled hard on
the bridle and some way helped Ned keep his footing, and they were
saved. I don’t suppose it could ever be done again, and I am sure Bushy
would never attempt it. The new leader of the band of wolves went
headlong into the opening and down to the very bottom, where he was
dashed to pieces. The others stopped on the edge and howled. Bushy,
with half-frozen hands, reached the blacksmith’s, and, leaving Ned
there--for he was badly sprained--she took a new horse and, joined by
Shanks, went the long way back to Great Pine Mine.
Bushy’s mad run had made the time much shorter than it would have been
otherwise, so Shanks was with Mr. Sukolt in time to prevent any very
bad results from the delay in setting the foot.
The miners to this day tell about Bushy’s ride, and say General
Putnam’s break-neck plunge down the rocks with the British after him
was nothing compared to Bushy’s leap with the pack of howling wolves at
her heels.
[Illustration: “OH, NED, NED, NED, JUMP, JUMP FOR PADRE’S SAKE, JUMP!”]