stampede. Badgy had been playing about the sitting-room with the little
girl, and trying his sharp claws on the new rag carpet, when he suddenly
began to rush madly here and there, snapping his teeth furiously. A big
brother grasped the musket that stood behind the door, thinking that he
had gone mad. But the little girl knew the signs, and, shielding him,
begged them to go out and look for the Indians she felt certain were
near. Sure enough, beyond the tall cottonwoods that formed the
wind-break to the north of the house were the figures of a dozen mounted
men, silhouetted against the sky. They were moving cautiously in the
direction of the wire cattle-pen; but as a big brother challenged them
with a halloo and followed it with a musket shot, they wheeled and
dashed away. The last glimpse of their ponies showed them apparently
riderless; which proved to the little girl's big brothers that the
marauders were from the reservation to the west.
The summer was at its full and the wheat-fields of the Vermillion River
Valley were all but ready for the harvester before Badgy began to feel a
yearning for his own kind and the freedom of the open prairie. Then he
often deserted his little mistress when they were walking about in the
afternoon, or sneaked away after his morning nap in the sun. The first
time he disappeared she mourned disconsolately for him all day. But late
in the afternoon, as she sat looking across the grain, waiting for him
hopelessly, she forgot her loss in watching a most curious thing
happening in the wheat. Away out in the broad, quiet field there was a
small, agitated spot, as if a tiny whirlwind were tossing the heads
about. The commotion was coming nearer and nearer every moment. Now it
was a quarter of a mile away--now it was only a few rods--now it was
almost on the edge. The little girl scrambled to her feet, half inclined
to run, when out of the tall stalks rolled Badgy, growling at every step
and wagging his tired head from side to side!
Often, after that, he did not come home until late at night, when she
would hear him snarling and scratching at the cellar doors, and creep
out to let him in. Her big brothers at last warned her that there would
come a day when Badgy would go, never to return. So she fitted a collar
to his neck and led him when she went out, and kept him tied the rest of
the time. This restriction wore upon him and he grew noticeably thin.
One morning, after having been carefully locked in the cellar the night
before, he did not respond to the little girl's call from the doors. She
went down to the bin, half fearing to find him dead. He was not there.
She ran about the cellar looking for him. He was nowhere to be found.
She returned to the bin to search there again. As she looked in, she
caught sight of a great heap of dirt in one corner. She jumped over the
side and ran to it, divining at once what it meant. Sure enough, beyond
the heap was a hole, freshly dug, that led upward--and out!
The little girl sat back on the heap of dirt and pathetically viewed the
hole. It was not that he would not come back--she knew that he would.
But he had made her break her promise that there was to be no burrowing.
She resolved to say nothing about the hole, however; and, after closing
it completely with a stone, started off on the prairie in search of
him, his chain in her hand.
When she came back late, she found him in the bin and gave him a good
scolding. He answered it with angry grunts, and to punish him she locked
him up supperless. But it was probably no hardship, for he was an adept
in foraging for frogs and water-snakes.
He was in his place next morning, and came scrambling to the cellar
doors when she opened them. But the following morning he did not answer
her call, and she discovered, on going into the bin, that there was a
second big heap of dirt near the first. She plugged the hole, resolving,
as before, to keep his misdeeds a secret.
For six weeks this alternate digging and plugging went on. Sometimes
Badgy burrowed himself out in one night, sometimes he would not succeed
in reaching the top by the time the little girl called him. And since he
emerged under cover of the vacant coal-shed and kitchen that were built
against the house as a lean-to, his depredations were not discovered by
any of the other members of the family. Once, indeed, he was nearly
caught, for he came out directly in front of the kitchen door. But
judicious trampling by the little girl soon reduced the soft pile of
dirt he had left at the opening to hard ground again.
One day the little girl's mother found that a spool of thread dropped on
the north side of the room rolled to the south side. She pointed out the
phenomenon to the little girl's big brothers. They declared that the
south foundation must be giving way. An investigation from the outside
led them into the shed, where they found the ground perforated with
countless holes. Then they went into the cellar to examine further.
There the phenomenon was explained and the culprit brought to light.
Badgy had undermined the house!
The little girl waited in the garden for him that night, and answered
his grunt of friendly recognition by cuffing him soundly on the ear.
Then, relenting, she took him in her arms and wept over him. Inside, she
knew, they were plotting to kill him. They had declared that he should
not live another day. And, as she sobbed, her mind was searching out a
plan to save him. Where _could_ she hide him?
She sat with him held close in her lap for a while, watching his enemies
within. Then she started on a long detour, with the new haystack as her
destination. He kept close to her heels, snarling wearily. A few days
before she had made a cave in the stack, which stood between the barn
and the chicken-house. The cave was on the side nearest the coop, and
she decided to conceal him in it and fasten him there by his chain.
When she had found a stake-pin and a large stone, she led him in and
drove the pin its full length to make sure that he should not get away.
Then she went back to the house to secure his pardon from the family
council gathered about the supper table.
She found it a hard task. Her big brothers urged Badgy's total
uselessness as well as his growing love to burrow, forgetting how
bravely he had always stood between his mistress and any real or fancied
danger. The little girl cried bitterly as she begged for his life, and
vainly offered the entire contents of her tin bank, now carefully
hoarded for two years, to help repair the damage he had done. She was
finally put to bed in an uncontrollable fit of grief.
When she was gone, the memory of her tear-stained face melted her
brothers' wrath. They even laughed heartily over Badgy's disastrous
industry; and at last, relenting, they decided that he should live,
provided he could be kept out of further mischief. The little girl heard
the good news early in the morning and was overjoyed. She declared that
Badgy should be good for the rest of his days, and she spent the
afternoon fixing up the new quarters in the cave.
For the first few nights Badgy was chained in order to wean him from the
old to the new home, his chain being made so short that he could not
dig far into the ground under the stack. This wore upon him so that he
grew cross, thinner than ever before, and generally disheveled. The
little girl saw that another week of such confinement would all but kill
him; while if he were shut up in the cave unchained he would undermine
the stack. She feared, however, to give him his entire freedom; so she
set to work to puzzle out a scheme that would solve the problem.
At last she hit upon an idea that seemed practicable. She would tie up
his fore feet so that he could not dig! Then he could go unchained in
the cave, with only the door of it--the top of a big dry-goods box--to
restrict his movements. Aided by her mother's scissors, some twine, and
a piece of grain sacking, she put the idea into instant execution.
Badgy did not like the innovation at all. He squirmed about so when the
little girl was tying up his feet that she made slow progress. And when
she was done, he tried vainly to pull off his new stockings with his
sharp teeth, grunting his disapproval at every tug. He worked himself
into a perfect fury as he bit and tore, and finally rolled clumsily to
the back of the cave, where he lay growling angrily.
Pleased with her success, the little girl left him. But she had failed
to reckon with Badgy's nature, and her plan was doomed.
It was now early autumn,--the time when Nature tells the badgers that
they must provide themselves with a winter retreat,--and Badgy could no
more have kept from burrowing than he could have resisted eating a frog.
So when the dark came on, he went to work, close to the door of the
cave, burrowing with might and main, his long nose loosening the dirt
for his fore feet to remove. He worked so fast that it was only a few
minutes before his claws came though his stockings. Then he redoubled
his efforts, and dug on, and on, and on.
Early in the morning, after having burrowed down for a time, then along
a level, and, finally, on an upward slant, as instinct directed him to
do, he came through the crust of the earth. He climbed out of his burrow
and sat upon his haunches at its mouth to rest a moment. As he did so,
he heard a sound above him and looked up to see what had caused it. Over
his head were several perches on which sat a number of sleepy fowls. He
was in the chicken-house!
He grunted in surprise, and at the sound one of the chickens uttered a
long, low, warning note that awakened the others. As they moved on their
perches, Badgy eyed them, twisting his head from side to side. The loose
dirt clinging to his snout and breast fell off with his heavy breathing,
and his stockings hung ragged and soiled about his front legs.
Suddenly there was another and a louder cry of danger from a chicken,
following a slight noise near the door of the coop. Badgy looked that
way to see what was coming, and through a hole in the sod wall made out
the evil face of a mink, peering in. It came closer, and there were more
cries from the chickens overhead, for they had recognized the approach
of their mortal enemy. In a moment his long, shining body had come
through the hole, and he had paused, crouching, to reconnoiter before
making a spring.
Badgy watched him, his nose curling angrily, his claws working back and
forth. Then, as the mink crept stealthily forward, measuring the
distance to a pullet on a lower perch, the badger ambled toward him,
snarling furiously, his teeth snapping and his eyes glowing red with
hatred.
The fight was a fierce one, and the cries of the two animals as they
twisted and bit aroused the whole barn-yard. The chickens set up a
bedlam of noise, flying about from perch to perch and knocking one
another off in their fright. But Badgy and the mink fought on, writhing
in each other's hold, the mink striving to get a death-grip on Badgy's
throat, while he tried as hard to rend the mink's body with his teeth
and claws.
Suddenly, in the midst of the struggle, the door of the coop was thrown
open and a man's figure appeared. The animals ceased fighting
instantly, and the mink, letting go his hold, disappeared down the hole
that Badgy had dug. But Badgy, surprised at the intrusion, only stared
at the newcomer, and grunted a cross greeting as the light of a lantern
was flashed upon him, sitting there crumpled and bloody.
* * * * *
NEXT morning, when the little girl went out to the haystack, she could
not find Badgy. Instead, as she pulled aside the door that closed the
entrance to the cave, a strange animal shot out and away before she
could catch a glimpse of it. This puzzled her; when she went into the
cave she found a great heap of dirt that troubled her still more. She
saw that in spite of his stockings, Badgy had dug himself out. She
hunted for the hole that she knew would tell her where he had come
through to the surface again, but she could not find it.
She began to run here and there, calling him. There was no answering
grunt. She thought of the potato-bin, and flew to the cellar to see if
he had not returned to his old home, but he was not there.
That night he did not return, nor the next day, nor the next. No one
could tell her where he had gone. For he had disappeared as completely
as if the earth in which he had loved to dig had swallowed him up.
Whenever she spoke of him in the house among the family, there was an
exchange of glances between her mother and the eldest brother. But she
never saw it,--and it was just as well that she did not.
XI
A TRADE AND A TRICK
A THIN column of blue smoke was ascending into the quiet April air from
a spot far out upon the prairie. Against the eastern sky, now faintly
glowing with the coming dawn, it stood forth, uniting the gray heavens
and the duller plains, as straight and clear as a signal-fire. It gave
warning of an Indian camp.
The family at the farm-house, called from their breakfast by the baying
of the dogs, gathered bareheaded about the kitchen door and watched the
mounting pillar, striving to make out any crouching figures at its base.
But no hint of the size of the redskin company could be gained; and,
when the biggest brother had climbed from the lean-to to the ridge-pole
of the roof and his mother had peered from the lesser height of the
attic window, they could not even catch a glimpse of the top of a tepee,
of a skulking wolf-dog, or of the shaggy coat of a grazing pony.
After her mother and the three big brothers had returned to the table,
the little girl, whom the barking had called from a bowl of grits and
skimmed milk and a wash-pan of kerosene in which her chilblained feet
were soaking, struggled to the top of the rain-barrel at the corner of
the house and anxiously eyed the rising smoke. Fresh in her mind was the
murder of the Englishman at Crow Creek, whose full granaries and fat
coops had long tempted roving thieves from the west; and the slaying of
the Du Bois family on the James, just a few miles away. Many a winter's
evening, about the sitting-room stove, and often in the twilight of
summer days, sheltered by her mother's skirts, she had heard these
stories, and that other, almost within her own memory, terrible and
thrilling to frontier ears,--the massacre of the Little Big Horn.
The big brothers always laughed at her fright and at the idea of any
possible danger; yet they taught her to know an Indian camp-fire, the
trail of an Indian pony, and the print of moccasined feet, and told her,
if she ever met any braves on the plains, to leave the herd to take care
of itself and ride home on the run. So, remembering only their warnings
and forgetting their confident boasting and how sure and awful was the
punishment meted out from the forts to erring wards of the nation, her
days were haunted by prowling savages that waited behind every hillock,
ridge, and stack; and she cried aloud in her sleep at night when, on
dream-rides, there was ever an ugly, leering face and a horrid,
clutching hand at her stirrup.
But if the big brothers did not share her fear of the Indians, yet they
guarded well the farm-house and barn when the Sioux passed in their
pungs in winter or on fleet ponies during the summer months. And when,
that morning, the fire marked the near-by camp, there was no scattering
to the thawed fields where the plows stood upright in the furrows. The
eldest brother busied himself in the handy sorghum patch; the youngest
rounded up the cattle and sheep and drove them south just across the
reservation road to the first bit of unturned prairie; and the biggest
got out the muskets and loaded them, and leashed the worst-tempered dogs
in the pack.
And so the morning passed. In the sorghum patch the eldest brother
placidly dropped seed. Across the road the youngest lay on his back
beside his herd pony. And, inside, by a window, the biggest sat and
watched the smoke, now a wavering spiral in the light breeze that fanned
the prairie; while their mother, knowing that the best way to receive an
Indian is with corn-cakes and coffee, stood over the kitchen stove. But
the little girl kept her sentinel place on the rain-barrel until the
sun veered her shadow from the side of the house to the earth bank
piled against it. Then she climbed down and, running to the sod barn,
saddled, bridled, and mounted the swiftest horse in the stalls and
careered back and forth between house and stable like an alert scout.
When noon came and the cow-horn summoned the family to the dinner-table,
not a sign of an Indian, beyond the smoke, had been seen. So, by the end
of the meal, it was decided that a visit should be paid the camp to see
how many braves composed it, and why they did not move on. The biggest
brother volunteered to make the ride, and, when he started off, the
little girl, whose horse had been fretfully gnawing the clapboarding at
the corner of the kitchen, also mounted and followed on behind, riding
warily.
They skirted the corner of the freshly turned potato-field and wheeled
into the reservation road behind the herd. But scarcely had they gotten
half-way to the stony rise that bordered the eastern end of the
potatoes, when they saw, coming over its brow and also mounted, an
Indian. He was riding fast toward them, and they reined and stood still
till he cantered up.
"Hullo," said the biggest brother, noting the fine army saddle and the
leather bridle with its national monogram in brass as the redskin
brought his horse to its haunches.
"Hullo," answered the Indian. His eyes had an anxious look in them as he
glanced from one to the other.
"What you want?" The biggest brother nodded toward the smoke.
The Indian waited a moment, hitching his blanket impatiently as he tried
to find an English word with which to reply. Then, failing, he suddenly
slipped from his horse to the ground, threw himself flat upon his face,
and began, with much writhing, to breathe heavily, as if in great pain.
"Somebody's sick," said the biggest brother, and, without waiting, he
clapped his heels against his horse's sides and set off toward the camp.
The little girl came after, cantering just in advance of the redskin,
whom she watched stealthily from the corner of her eye.
A mile out to the east the trio halted for a moment on a low ridge and
looked down a gentle slope upon the camp. It was pitched where the
reservation road crossed a ravine, and at its center, beside a rivulet,
was a fire of buffalo-chips from which the smoke steadily arose. About
the fire, and before two tepees, sat a half-dozen braves, five in
government blankets, with their black mops bound back, the sixth in
flannel shirt, leather breeches tucked into high boots, and a broad felt
hat over his long hair. South of the fire, in the ravine, several
horses, closely hobbled, were cropping the new grass; and between them
and the tepees, lying half under a light road wagon, was an animal
stretched flat and covered with blankets.
"It's that horse," said the biggest brother. The Indian behind him
grunted and rode ahead down the slope, and, at his approach, the circle
about the camp-fire stood up.
As the face of the Indian wearing the wide hat was turned toward them,
the little girl gave a joyful cry and whipped her horse with her rope
reins. The army saddle and the monogrammed bridle were no longer a
mystery, the camp was no longer to be feared,--for the unblanketed brave
was the troop's scout from the reservation, the half-breed, Eagle Eye!
The next moment he was explaining how, returning from Sioux Falls, where
for a fortnight he had been winning admiration for his military
appearance, his feats on horseback, and his skill with the rifle, he had
fallen in with the party of Indians, which was coming back from a trip
beyond the Mississippi. After a long, hard ride together the day before,
they had been forced to go into camp in the ravine because the blue-roan
mare which one of them was driving had suddenly lain down and refused to
rise. And she had remained stretched out since, and was breathing deep
and painfully.
When the biggest brother rode over to where she lay, he saw at once
that she was sorely stricken with pneumonia, and that only prompt
attention would be of any use. Her great brown eyes were wide and
starting with agony, her delicate nostrils were distended and dry, and
her iron-gray sides were heaving.
"You've got to get her out o' here, Eagle Eye," said the biggest
brother, as he and the little girl leaned over the panting animal;
"she'll go in no time on this wet ground. Suppose we make a _travee_ and
haul her home."
The Indians received the offer, which Eagle Eye interpreted for them,
with many signs of pleasure; and in a moment had taken down the
cottonwood lodge-poles cut the previous day, and brought straps and
ropes. But it was mid-afternoon before the rude litter was finished. Two
poles were fastened to the hind axle of the wagon, the width of the
wheels apart; across them other poles were roped after having been
chopped into short lengths; and on top of these were laid some buffalo
robes, blankets, and straw. Then the mare, too sick to resent handling,
was half lifted and half rolled into place. When the journey to the
farm-house was made, the tough Indian pony between the shafts was helped
in the hauling by a plow team from the barn.
The _travee_ was untied from the wagon at the stable, and the three big
brothers helped the Indians to drag it into a roomy stall, the little
girl looking on all the while sympathetically. Then her mother, the
biggest brother, and Eagle Eye poulticed the throbbing chest, put
compresses on the silky neck, and poured one hot drink after another
down the reluctant throat of the blue mare.
They worked until midnight. But when the next day broke, chill and
drizzily, the horse seemed worse instead of better, and the Indians, who
had slept with their guns on their arms at the heads of their saddled
ponies, prepared to go. They seemed so anxious to set off that the big
brothers were suspicious that they had stolen the animal and were
expecting pursuit. The fact that she had no saddle-marks on her mottled
back, and that they had cumbered themselves with a wagon, bore out the
belief. The eldest brother spoke his mind to Eagle Eye, but the
half-breed only said that Black Cloud, who claimed to own her, wished to
sell her to the brothers.
"I shouldn't wonder," sneered the eldest brother; "she'll be ready for
the pigs by noon. I wouldn't take her as a gift,--and you can tell 'em
so."
Eagle Eye turned to Black Cloud and repeated the answer. It was met with
the look that had named him, and a mumbled threat that was lost on the
white men.
The little girl had been standing by and had heard the conversation. She
suddenly started for the house, and, when she came flying back a moment
later, she had her tin savings-bank grasped tightly in one fist.
Stopping in front of the scout, she held it out to him.
"Eagle Eye," she panted, "tell Black Cloud I'll give him all this for
the sick horse--two whole dollars."
Again the half-breed turned to the glowering Indian. But this time the
evil, dusky face lighted, and, after consulting with the other Indians,
he took the bank from Eagle Eye and turned out and counted its contents.
"He thanks the white papoose," said Eagle Eye, returning the empty bank
to the little girl, "and the pony is yours."
Happy over her trade, the little girl rushed away to the sick horse,
while the eldest brother, enraged at her interference yet not daring to
stop the bargain, mentally promised to give her a lesson later.
"If the mare lives," he said aside to the biggest brother, "you bet
these thieves'll even things up."
The evening of things came sooner than he expected. For at sundown,
after the Indians had departed, the swift horse ridden to their camp by
the little girl was nowhere to be found!
But, angry as the farm-house felt over the theft, the big brothers knew
that it would be worse than foolhardy to try to recapture their animal.
And the trade seemed likely to be fair in the end, after all,--for at
midnight the family saw that the blue mare was getting well!
* * * * *
SHRIEKS of laughter from behind the barn, following strange, rapid
thumps upon the bare ground, led the three big brothers in that
direction one May morning, and, on turning the corner, they found the
little girl leaning convulsively against the old straw stack for
support, while in front of her, blinded by a big, red handkerchief, and
with a long bolster full of hay across her dappled withers, was the blue
mare, making stiff, wild plunges into the air, with arched back and head
held low. For the little girl was breaking her to ride!