Crooked Trails Part 9

The tents were up and the supper cooking, when the wind hauled and blew furiously into our haven. The fires were scattered and the rain came in blinding sheets. The tent-pegs pulled from the sand. We sprang to our feet and held on to the poles, wet to the skin. It was useless; the rain blew right under the canvas. We laid the tents on the "grub" and stepped out into the dark. We could not be any wetter, and we did not care. To stand in the dark in the wilderness, with nothing to eat, and a fire-engine playing a hose on you for a couple of hours--if you have imagination enough, you can fill in the situation. But the G.o.ds were propitious. The wind died down. The stars came out by myriads. The fires were relighted, and the ordinary life begun. It was late in the night before our clothes, blankets, and tents were dry, but, like boys, we forgot it all.

Then came a river--blue and flat like the sky above--running through rushy banks, backed by the ma.s.ses of the forest; anon the waters rushed upon us over the rocks, and we fought, plunk-plunk-plunk, with the paddles, until our strength gave out. We stepped out into the water, and getting our lines, and using our long double blades as fenders, "tracked" the canoes up through the boil. The Indians in their heavier boats used "setting-poles" with marvellous dexterity, and by furious exertion were able to draw steadily up the grade--though at times they too "tracked," and even portaged. Our largest canoe weighed two hundred pounds, but a little voyager managed to lug it, though how I couldn't comprehend, since his pipe-stem legs fairly bent and wobbled under the enormous ark. None of us by this time were able to lift the loads which we carried, but, like a Western pack-mule, we stood about and had things piled on to us, until nothing more would stick. Some of the backwoodsmen carry incredible ma.s.ses of stuff, and their lore is full of tales which no one could be expected to believe. Our men did not hesitate to take two hundred and fifty pounds over short portages, which were very rough and stony, though they all said if they slipped they expected to break a leg. This is largely due to the tump-line, which is laid over the head, while persons unused to it must have shoulder-straps in addition, which are not as good, because the "breastbone," so called, is not strong enough.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 47 THE INDIANS USED 'SETTING-POLES']

We were getting day by day farther into "the beyond." There were no traces here of the hand of man. Only Jimmie knew the way--it was his trapping-ground. Only once did we encounter people. We were blown into a little board dock, on a gray day, with the waves piling up behind us, and made a difficult landing. Here were a few tiny log houses--an outpost of the Hudson Bay Company. We renewed our stock of provisions, after laborious trading with the stagnated people who live in the lonely place. There was nothing to sell us but a few of the most common necessities; however, we needed only potatoes and sugar. This was Jimmie's home. Here we saw his poor old mother, who was being tossed about in the smallest of canoes as she drew her nets. Jimmie's father had gone on a hunting expedition and had never come back. Some day Jimmie's old mother will go out on the wild lake to tend her nets, and she will not come back. Some time Jimmie too will not return--for this Indian struggle with nature is appalling in its fierceness.

There was a dance at the post, which the boys attended, going by canoe at night, and they came back early in the morning, with much giggling at their gallantries.

The loneliness of this forest life is positively discouraging to think about. What the long winters must be in the little cabins I cannot imagine, and I fear the traders must be all avarice, or have none at all; for there can certainly be absolutely no intellectual life. There is undoubtedly work, but not one single problem concerning it. The Indian hunters do fairly well in a financial way, though their lives are beset with weakening hardships and constant danger. Their meagre diet wears out their const.i.tutions, and they are subject to disease. The simplicity of their minds makes it very difficult to see into their life as they try to narrate it to one who may be interested.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 48 TRYING MOMENTS]

From here on was through beautiful little lakes, and the voyagers rigged blanket sails on the big canoes, while we towed behind. Then came the river and the rapids, which we ran, darting between rocks, b.u.mping on sunken stones--shooting fairly out into the air, all but turning over hundreds of times. One day the Abwees glided out in the big lake Tesmiaquemang, and saw the steamer going to Bais des Pierres. We hailed her, and she stopped, while the little canoes danced about in the swell as we were loaded one by one. On the deck above us the pa.s.sengers admired a kind of boat the like of which had not before appeared in these parts.

At Bais des Pierres we handed over the residue of the commissaries of the Abwee-Chemun to Jimmie Friday, including personally many pairs of well-worn golf-breeches, sweaters, rubber coats, knives which would be proscribed by law in New York. If Jimmie ever parades his solemn wilderness in these garbs, the owls will laugh from the trees. Our simple forest friend laid in his winter stock--traps, flour, salt, tobacco, and pork, a new axe--and accompanied us back down the lake again on the steamer. She stopped in mid-stream, while Jimmie got his bundles into his "bark" and shoved off, amid a hail of "good-byes."

The engine palpitated, the big wheel churned the water astern, and we drew away. Jimmie bent on his paddle with the quick body-swing habitual to the Indian, and after a time grew a speck on the reflection of the red sunset in Temiscamingue.

The Abwees sat sadly leaning on the after-rail, and agreed that Jimmie was "a lovely Injun." Jimmie had gone into the shade of the overhang of the cliffs, when the Norseman started violently up, put his hands in his pockets, stamped his foot, said, "By George, fellows, any D. F. would call this a sporting trip!"

THE SOLEDAD GIRLS

"TO-NIGHT I am going down to my ranch--the Soledad--in my private car,"

said the manager of the Mexican International Railroad, "and I would like the Captain and you to accompany me."

The Captain and I were only too glad; so in process of time we awoke to find our car sidetracked on the Soledad, which is in the state of Coahuila, Mexico. The chaparral spread around, rising and falling in the swell of the land, until it beat against the blue ridge of the Sierra Santa Rosa, miles to the north. Here and there the bright sun spotted on a cow as she threaded the gray stretches; a little coyote-wolf sat on his haunches on a near-by hill-side, and howled protests at his new-found companions; while dimly through the gray meshes of the leaf-denuded chaparral we could see the main ranch-house of the Soledad.

We were informed at breakfast by the railroad manager that there was to be that day a "round-up," which is to say, a regular Buffalo Bill Show, with real cowboys, ponies, and cattle, all three of them wild, full of thorns, and just out of the brush.

The negro porters got out the saddles of the young women, thus disclosing their intention to ride ponies instead of in traps. We already knew that they were fearless horseback-riders, but when the string of ponies which were to be our mounts was led up by a few Mexicans, the Captain and I had our well-concealed doubts about their being proper sort of ponies for young girls to ride. We confided in an imperturbable cowboy--one of those dry Texans. He said: "Them are what we would call broke ponies, and you fellers needn't get to worryin'

'bout them little girls--you're jest a-foolin' away good time."

Nevertheless, the broncos had the lurking devil in the tails of their eyes as they stood there tied to the wire fencing; they were humble and dejected as only a bronco or a mule can simulate. When that ilk look most cast down, be not deceived, gay brother; they are not like this.

Their humility is only humorous, and intended to lure you on to their backs, where, unless you have a perfect understanding of the game, the joke will be on you. Instantly one is mounted, the humility departs; he plunges and starts about, or sets off like the wind, regardless of th.o.r.n.y bushes, tricky ground underfoot, or the seat of the rider.

The manager's wife came out of the car with her little brood of three, and then two visiting friends. These Soledad girls, as I call them, each had a sunburst of yellow hair, were well bronzed by the Mexican sun, and were st.u.r.dy little bodies. They were dressed in short skirts, with leggings, topped with Tam o' Shanters, while about their waists were cartridge-belts, with delicate knives and revolvers attached, and with spurs and _quirts_ as accessories. They took up their men's saddles, for they rode astride, except the two visitors, who were older and more lately from Chicago. They swung their saddles on to the ponies, showing familiarity with the _ladigo_ straps of the Texas saddles, and proudly escaping the humiliation which alights on the head of one who in the cow-camps cannot saddle his own "bronc." Being ready, we mounted, and followed a cowboy off down the road to the _rodeo-ground._ The manager and Madam Mamma rode in a buckboard, proudly following with their gaze the galloping ponies which bore their jewels. I thought they should be fearful for their safety, but after more intimate inspection, I could see how groundless was such solicitude.

I must have it understood that these little vaquero girls were not the ordinary Texas product, fed on corn-meal and bred in the chaparral, but the much looked after darlings of a fond mother. They are taken South every winter, that their bodies may be made lithe and healthy, but at the same time two or more governesses crowd their minds with French, German, and other things with which proper young girls should be acquainted. But their infant minds did not carry back to the days when they had not felt a horse under them. To be sure, in the beginning it was only a humble donkey, but even before they knew they had graduated to ponies, and while yet ten years old, it was only by a constant watch that they were kept off unbroken broncos--horses that made the toughest vaqueros throw down their hats, tighten their belts, and grin with fear.

From over the hills came the half-wild cattle, stringing along at a trot, all bearing for the open s.p.a.ce in the waste of the chaparral where the _rodeo_ occurred, while behind them followed the cowboys--gay desert figures with brown, pinched faces, long hair, and shouting wild cries.

The exhilaration of the fine morning, the tramp of the thousands, got into the curls of the three little Misses Golden-hairs, and they scurried away, while I followed to feast on this fresh vision, where absolutely ideal little maids shouted Spanish at murderous-looking Mexican cow-punchers done up in bright sc.r.a.pes and costumed out of all reason. As the vaqueros dashed about hither and thither to keep their herds moving in the appointed direction, the infants screamed in their childish treble and spurred madly too. A bull stands at bay, but a child dashes at him, while he turns and flees. It is not their first _rodeo,_ one can see, but I should wish they were with mamma and the buckboard, instead of out here in the brush, charging wild bulls, though in truth this never were written. These bulls frequently charge men, and a cow-pony turns like a ball off a bat, and a slippery seat in the saddle may put you under the feet of the outraged monarch of the range.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 49 THE HALF-WILD CATTLE CAME DOWN FROM THE HILLS]

Driving down to the _rodeo-ground,_ we all stood about on our ponies and held the herd, as it is called, the young girls doing vaquero duty, as imperturbable of mien as Mr. Flannagan, the foreman. So many women in the world are afraid of a dairy cow, even gathering up their skirts and preparing to shriek at the sight of one eating daisies. But these young women will grow up and they will be afraid of no cow. So much for a Soledad education.

The top-ropers rode slowly into the dust of the milling herd, scampered madly, cast their ropes, and came jumping to us with a blatting calf trailing at their ropes' end. Two men seized the little victim, threw him on his back, cut a piece out of his ear with a knife, and still held him in relentless grip while another pressed a red-hot branding-iron on his side, which sizzled and sent up blue smoke, together with an odor of burned flesh. The calves bawled piteously. There was no more emotion on the faces of the Soledad girls than was shown by the brown cowboys. They had often, very often, seen this before, and their nerves were strong.

Some day I can picture in my mind's eye these young girl vaqueros grown to womanhood, and being such good-looking creatures, very naturally some young man will want very badly to marry one of them--for it cannot be otherwise. I only hope he will not be a thin-chested, cigarette-smoking dude, because it will be a sacrilege of nature. He must undoubtedly have played forward at Princeton or Yale, or be unworthy.

As we stood, a ma.s.sive bull emerged from the body of the herd, his head thrown high, tail stiff with anger, eye rolling, and breath coming quick. He trotted quickly forward, and, lowering his head, charged through the "punchers." Instantly a small Soledad girl was after him, the vaqueros reining back to enjoy the strange ride with their eyes. Her hat flew off, and the long curls flapped in the rushing air as her pony fairly sailed over the difficult ground. The bull tore furiously, but behind him swept the pony and the child. As we watched, the chase had gone a mile away, but little Miss Yellowcurls drew gradually to the far side of the bull, quartering him on the far side, and whirling on, headed her quarry back to her audience and the herd. The rough-and-ready American range boss sat sidewise in his saddle and thought--for he never talked unnecessarily, though appreciation was chalked all over his pose.

The manager and madam felt as though they were responsible for this wonderful thing. The Mexican cowboys snapped their fingers and eyes at one another, shouting quick Spanish, while the American part of the beholders agreed that it was the "limit"; "that as a picture," etc.; "that the American girl, properly environed "; "that this girl in particular," etc., was a dream. Then the bull and the girl came home; the bull to his fellows, and the girl to us. But she didn't have an idea of our admiration, because we didn't tell her; that would have been wrong, as you can imagine. Ten years will complicate little Miss Yellowcurls. Then she could be vain about such a thing; but, alas! she will not be--she will have forgotten.

THE END