Cattle-Ranch to College Part 4

"Up the river near Fort Stevenson. Got a coal mine up there, you know,"

the narrator answered. "Well, I kept a pretty sharp lookout for hostiles--and all the Indians are hostile around Fort Stevenson--but up to the time I'm going to tell you about I didn't see any. I followed the old trails made by the buffalo and deer across the prairie, and did my best to cover up my own tracks--wore moccasins till the cacti cut 'em too much, then shifted to boots. Of course boots made a much clearer print and would give me away sure if they were seen."

"Why?" whispered Tenderfoot Green to Casino.

"Because, you chump," retorted Casino, "the Indians never wear boots, so they know right away when they see marks of heel and sole that a white man has been that way. See?"

Worth continued, without noticing this whispered colloquy: "I was getting nearer and nearer the river every minute, and I knew that when I got there my chances of getting through all right would be better, for the brush and banks would afford the cover that the prairie lacked."

His hearers nodded their heads understandingly, and even Tenderfoot Green seemed to take in the situation.

"The wind was getting pretty keen, and I was afraid it would snow; if it did, I knew my trail would be as plain as a column of smoke in a clear sky, so I hustled for the river at a good pace. In spite of my hurry, though, I managed to keep a sharp lookout for Indians. As I topped every rise I took a good survey of everything in view, and it was well I did, for about dusk I reached the crest of a low hill, and on glancing over saw an Indian village. It lay directly in my path, not far from the river. It was still too light to attempt to go round it, so I lay down behind some sage brush and watched what was going on. The village, which contained about fifty tepees, was placed within easy distance of the river and was well supplied with cottonwood."

"Used the cottonwood for fuel, I suppose?" broke in Green.

"Yes, and the green bark to feed the horses on in heavy snowy weather,"

volunteered Mackenzie.

"Excuse me, Mr. Worth," apologized Tenderfoot, "I didn't mean to interrupt."

"That's all right," said Worth. "A lot of squaws were busy doing men's work, as is the way of the poor things, sc.r.a.ping hides that were staked on the ground, mending buffalo-skin tepees, pounding berries, carrying wood and water. Some were busy with easier jobs, such as making deerskin clothes and ornamenting moccasins with beads. I could see only a few bucks; the others were probably off on a hunt. There was danger in that, for if they found my trail on their way back to camp they would of course follow it, and then--well, I should be lucky to come out of it alive."

The listening men began to show signs of impatience. All this was an old story to them; they wanted to hear the end of the tale, and how he came to be in such a plight.

"Well, to make a long story short," said Worth, beginning to realize that he was telling much that was obvious to most of his hearers, "while I lay there, planning and idly watching the Indian camp, the hunting party was actually returning. Suddenly I felt the weight of a man on my back. I struggled and fought, and finally threw him off. Jumping to my feet, I faced two savages who had come in advance of the main party and had stolen on me unawares. Both now rushed at me, but I dodged one and tripped the other. Before I could finish the man I had thrown, the first was at me again. Loaded as I was by my pack, I was soon f.a.gged. My gun had been taken by the redskin when he fell on me. Why he didn't use it on me I cannot understand--perhaps I didn't give him time. Now both of them jumped for me, and try as I might I could not dodge or disable them. I had already begun to fear that the game was up, when I saw a whole bunch of Indians, the rest of the hunting party, coming along the trail.

"There wasn't any use fighting a mob like that, so I stopped struggling, let my captors hold me, and waited for whatever might come.

"The redskins crowded around me, and I thought that my time had come.

"'Stev'son, you come in,' says one brave. 'Hoss, pony, you got 'em?'

calls out another big scowling savage. I shook my head.

"Then I caught sight of a face I knew--old Chief Looking Gla.s.s. (I warmed him up with coffee once when he was near frozen to death. Indians will do most anything for a cup of coffee.) He pushed forward through the crowd and shook hands with me. I could see he was trying to get his men to separate and leave us, but it wasn't any sort of use; they pressed around, and it was very evident that they wanted my pack.

Looking Gla.s.s finally started alone towards the camp, calling to his braves to come along, but this plan didn't work at all; for the minute he got out of sight over the brow of the hill the thieving gang began to strip me. There was no use resisting; they were too many for me. Before I knew where I was I was stark naked, except for a few rags. Even my boots were yanked off. We were almost in the village by this time, for I had been pulled and pushed over the crest and down the slope of the hill. My tormentors then left me and began to divide my outfit, so I crawled off, shivering and sore, anxious to get out of sight as soon as possible."

"Wasn't it cold?" said Tenderfoot Green.

"Rather," said Mr. Worth, a grim smile showing on his weather-beaten face. "A man does not go tramping across the bare prairie in weather like this dressed in a few rags, bare-footed, and feel as if he was in a hot spring. It was fully as cold as it is now, and this is a pretty sharp day." He shivered at the mere remembrance, while his listeners gave a general laugh at the simplicity of the question.

"Where did you get your blanket and moccasins?" asked Green, anxious to divert the crowd's attention.

He pointed at the articles that Worth seemed to be guarding with unnecessary care.

"These here blanket and moccasins saved my life," continued the latter.

"As I was pushing along I heard a woman's voice calling. I turned and saw a squaw running after me with a blanket and a pair of moccasins in her hands. 'Looking Gla.s.s blanket and moccasins,' she said, as she handed them to me. Then she turned timidly and ran back to the camp.

"It was almost dark now, and growing colder every minute. I put on the moccasins, wrapped the blanket around me, though it smelled strong of Indian, and set out at a dog-trot in the direction of a wagon trail. If I could reach that I might be lucky enough to strike a white man's camp or a freighter's outfit, and then I should be all right.

"I travelled all that night, keeping in the right direction by a sort of instinct that my knowledge of the lay of the land gave me. It was a pretty tough journey though, I can tell you. I had to fight hard to keep off the sleepy feeling that comes before freezing, and for hour after hour I dragged myself along numb and aching with the cold, but hoping against all reason and probability that I might run across some of the boys before it was too late. Toward daybreak I must have got kinder lonely, for I lost track of things, and only came to myself in the freighters' camp that I had run into half asleep."

He paused here, and John saw that his eyes were half closed and his head nodding. The ordeal had told on even his st.u.r.dy health.

In a thick, sleepy voice he added: "Ask Jim White; he knows the rest--he brought me in."

Jim White could add little to the story. Worth came into his camp, he explained, more dead than alive and "clean out of his head." He and his partner had cared for him and brought him to town as fast as the teams could go.

John's father was taken over to his own shack, where his wife greeted him like one come back from the dead. Under her good nursing he recovered from his terrible experience in a marvellously short time and became again his own st.u.r.dy self. The frontiersman must of necessity be possessed of an iron const.i.tution, for he must be able to endure hardships of all kinds--intense heat and piercing cold, hunger and thirst, fatigue and pain, that would either kill an ordinary man outright or cripple him for life.

It was with inward dread that the little family watched its head start off again, after a few weeks' stay in town. Outwardly, however, cheerfulness, almost indifference, was manifested. This time he went with a party which was going in the same direction; the danger was, consequently, not so great. Then, too, the cold weather kept the Indians pretty close to their own camps, and as the locations of these were generally known, they could be easily avoided.

The boys' hearts were gladdened by the news that, perhaps, the home shack would be abandoned in the spring, when their father returned. If so, the whole family would "hit the trail" to the north and west.

Up to this time the Worth boys had been town dwellers, though in these days Bismarck could hardly be dignified even by the name of village.

John and Ben, in common with the few other boys, had enjoyed the comparatively tame pleasures afforded by the town and the surrounding prairie. All large game had been driven west, and only prairie dogs, gophers, coyotes, and occasionally wolves remained; these and the birds the boys used to shoot at day after day with their ever-ready revolvers.

The sport in the river was not all that could be wished for either, for the water was muddy and the bottom was full of quicksands. And if summer lacked diversions, winter was a still more uninteresting season, in that the pleasures were fewer and the discomforts greater.

It was therefore with great glee that John and Ben looked forward to this pilgrimage. A hilly country was to be visited, where game of all sorts abounded, where clear streams were plenty, and where new sports of all kinds were in prospect. Marvellous tales of trapping beaver, and hunting antelope, bear, and even buffalo, were brought in by hunters, so the boys were wild to enjoy these new pleasures.

The Government was trying to confine the Indians to the reservations that had been set apart for them, but the redskins had been accustomed to roam over the country at will, to follow the game wherever it went, to make war upon each other whenever they felt like it or needed horses; so they resented any attempt to interfere with their entire freedom, and turned fiercely on their white foes wherever they found them, singly or in camps and settlements. The Government, in order to better protect its citizens, erected at intervals outposts garrisoned by troops.

There being no railroads across the continent at this time, goods of all kinds had to be carried in wagons from the nearest railroad station to the fort or point of distribution. The supply of fuel, too, was a matter of great importance. It was in the main a treeless country and wood was scarce. The early prospectors and pioneers had noticed the outcroppings of coal from the deep-cut river banks, but little advantage was taken of this store of fuel till the forts were established and the little steamboats began to ply up and down the Missouri loaded deep with skins and buffalo hides.

Mr. Worth was one of the first to see the value of these coal veins, and he was a leader in developing the mineral resources of the section. He opened and worked mines as near the different outposts as possible and at convenient points for the supply of coal to the river boats.

The Eastern railroads were stretching their long steel arms westward, and they also needed to be supplied with food for their furnaces.

Mr. Worth had contracted with these coal consumers to open mines which, when in good running order, were to be turned over to them to work. In order to do this it was necessary to travel from place to place, starting the work at intervals along the proposed line so as to be ready when the "steel trail" actually reached them. It was this contract that made it necessary for them to give up the home shack at Bismarck and to journey into hostile country. Mr. Worth could not return to the settlement to his family; the family must therefore come to him in the wilds.

Much of the long winter was spent by the boys in talking over the good times they were going to have when they reached the new country. At times a trapper would come in to get a stock of supplies, and John and Ben listened eagerly to every word he said about his experiences. These tales were old stories to most of the men of the little town, who paid no attention to such commonplace matters, but Charley Green, like the boys, was seeking information, and he drank in every word as eagerly as they.

Much of Green's ignorance had disappeared, though "Tenderfoot" was still his nickname, and by that he would be called as long as he lived there.

He had changed outwardly as well. The Eastern pallor had given place to a good, healthy, bronzed tint, his eye was clear and his hand steady; he had lost weight but had gained in endurance. His gay, expensive outfit of clothes had been succeeded by the more sober and serviceable apparel of the plains: wide, heavy felt hat, flannel shirt, rough trousers with protecting leather overalls or chaps, and high boots. He had learned enough about Western ways to avoid making many blunders, and took a joke at his expense good naturedly when he did occasionally betray himself.

It was not considered polite in Bismarck to inquire anything about a man's past--that was his own business. It was not necessary for a man to give his pedigree and family name in order to be received into the society of his fellows. It was not his past that concerned them, but his present. "Lariat Bill" was quite as good for all practical purposes as his real name, perhaps better, for it was descriptive and identified him at once. In accordance with this unwritten law, no one asked what Charley Green's idea was in leaving the civilization and culture of Boston for the wild, free, albeit rough, life of the plains; but rumor had it that he came there with the intention of going into ranching. If so, he was wise beyond his generation, for unlike most of his fellows he looked before he leaped.

Tenderfoot and the two boys had struck up quite a friendship. It was quite natural, therefore, knowing as he did the Worths' plans, for him to say one day, towards the end of the winter: "Do you suppose, John, that your dad would take me along on his mining expedition?"

"I dunno," said John, "you'll have to ask the governor when he comes back. I guess he would."

"You see," continued Tenderfoot, "I'm about as tired of this place as you are, and I want to see a little of the country. I guess I could earn my salt as a mule-wrangler anyway."

So it was decided that the young Easterner was to go with the Worths if the head of the house consented.

The dreary winter was beginning to give way to the soft south winds. The snow was fast disappearing and buffalo gra.s.s was showing brightly green here and there. The boys had an unusually bad attack of spring fever, for the long-looked-for time of the pilgrimage was drawing near.

Their father might be expected any day, and then--their delight and antic.i.p.ation could not be put into words.