Pluck on the Long Trail Part 25

"It'll be plumb dark before we get to that cabin," grumbled the beaver man. "This ain't any way to treat a fellow who's been stuck and then burnt. I'm tired o' sittin' on this hoss with my toes out."

"Well, you can get off and let this other man ride. I'll hobble you and he can lead you," said the Ranger.

"What's the matter with the burro?" growled the beaver man. He wasn't so anxious to walk, after all.

Sure! We knew that the Ranger was waiting, so while some of us led up Apache, others bandaged the general's ankle tighter, to make it ride easier and not hurt so much if it dangled. Then we lifted the general, Scout fashion, on our hands, and set him on Apache.

Now something else happened. Red Fox Scout Ward stepped forward and took the lead rope.

"I'm going," he announced quietly. "I'm feeling fine and you other fellows are tired. Somebody must bring the burro back, and the general may need a hand."

"No, I won't," corrected the general.

"But the burro must come back."

"It's up to us Elk Scouts to do that," protested Major Henry. "Some of us will go. You stay. It's dark."

"No, sir. You Elk men have been traveling on short rations and Van Sant and I have been fed up. It's either Van or I, and I'll go." And he did.

He was bound to. But it was a long extra tramp.

We shook hands with the general, and gave him the Scouts' cheer; and a cheer for the Ranger.

"Ain't we ever goin' to move on?" grumbled the beaver man.

"I may stay all night and be back early in the morning," called Ward.

"Of course."

They trailed away, in the dimness--the Ranger ahead leading the beaver man, Red Fox Scout Ward leading Apache. And we were sorry to see them go. We should miss the plucky Ashley, our captain.

CHAPTER XVI

A BURRO IN BED

When I woke in the morning Fitz was already up, building the fire, according to routine, and Red Fox Scout Van Sant was helping him. So I rolled out at once, and here came Red Fox Scout Ward with the burro, across the mesa, for the camp.

He brought a little flour and a few potatoes and a big hunk of meat, and a fry-pan. He brought a map of the country, too, that he had sketched from information from the Ranger. That crack beside Pilot Peak, where the sun had set, was a pa.s.s through, which we could take for Green Valley. It was a pa.s.s used by the Indians and buffalo, once, and an old Indian trail crossed it still. The general sent word that if we took that trail, he would get the goods we had left cached.

"Now," reported Major Henry, when we had filled for a long day's march, "I'll put it to vote. We can either find that cache ourselves, and take the trail from there, as first planned, or we can head straight across the mountain. It's a short cut for the other side of the range, but it may be rough traveling. The other way, beyond the cache, looked pretty rough, too. But we'd have our traps and supplies,--as much as we could pack on Apache, anyhow."

"I vote we go straight ahead, over the mountain, this way," said Fitz.

"We'll get through. We've got to. We've been out seven days, and we aren't over, yet."

We counted. That was so. Whew! We must hurry. Kit and Jed and I voted with Fitz.

"All right. Break camp," ordered Major Henry.

He didn't have to speak twice.

"That Ranger says we can strike the railroad, over on the other side, Van, and make our connections there," said Red Fox Scout Ward to his partner. "Let's go with the Elks and see them through that far."

That was great. They had come off their trail a long way already, helping me, it seemed to us--but if they wanted to keep us company further, hurrah! Only, we wouldn't sponge off of them, just because they had the better outfit, now.

We policed the camp, and put out the fire, through force of habit, and with the burro packed with the squaw hitch (Note 55), and the Red Foxes packed, forth we started, as the sun was rising, to follow the Ute trail, over Pilot Peak. The Red Fox Scouts carried their own stuff; they wouldn't let us put any of it on Apache, for they were independent, too.

Travel wasn't hard. After we crossed the gorge the top of the mesa or plateau was flat and gravelly, with some sage and gra.s.s, and we made good time. We missed the general, and we were sorry to leave that cache, but we had cut loose and were taking the message on once more. Thus we began our second week out.

The forest fire was about done. Just a little smoke drifted up, in the distance behind and below. But from our march we could see where the fire had pa.s.sed through the timber, yonder across; and that blackened swath was a melancholy sight. We didn't stop for nooning, and when we made an early camp the crack had opened out, and was a pa.s.s, sure enough.

Red Fox Scout Van Sant and I were detailed to take the two rifles and hunt for rabbits. We got three--two cottontails and a jack--among the willows where a stream flowed down from the pa.s.s. The stream was swarming here with little trout, and Jed Smith and Kit Carson caught twenty-four in an hour. So we lived high again.

Those Red Fox Scouts had a fine outfit. They had a water-proof silk tent, with jointed poles. It folded to pocket size, and didn't weigh anything at all; but when set up it was large enough for them both to sleep in. Then they had a double sleeping bag, and blankets that were light and warm both, and a lot of condensed foods and that little alcohol stove, and a complete kit of aluminum cooking and eating ware that closed together--and everything went into those two packs.

They used the packs instead of burros or pack-horses. I believe that animals are better in the mountains where a fellow climbs at ten and twelve thousand feet, and where the nights are cold so he needs more bedding than lower down. Man-packs are all right in the flat timber and in the hills out East, I suppose. But all styles have their good points, maybe; and a Scout must adapt himself to the country. We all can't be the same.

Because the Red Fox Scouts were Easterners, clear from New Jersey, and we were Westerners, of Colorado, we sort of eyed them sideways, at first. They had such a swell outfit, you know, and their uniform was smack to the minute, while ours was rough and ready. They set up their tent, and we let them--but our way was to sleep out, under tarps (when we had tarps), in the open. We didn't know but what, on the march, they might want to keep their own mess--they had so many things that we didn't. But right away a good thing happened again.

"How did Fitzpatrick lose his arm?" asked Scout Van Sant of me, when we were out hunting and Fitz couldn't hear.

"In the April Day mine," I said.

"Where?"

"Back home."

He studied. "I _thought_ the name of that town sounded awfully familiar to me," he said.

When we came into camp with our rabbits, he went straight up to Fitz.

"I hear you hurt your arm in the April Day mine," he said.

"Yes. I was working there," answered Fitz. "Why?"

Van Sant stuck out his hand. "Shake," he said. "My father owns that mine--or most of it. Ever hear of him?"

"No," said Fitz, flushing. "I'm just a mucker and a sorter. My father's a miner."

"Well, shake," laughed Van Sant. "I never even mucked or sorted, and you know more than I do about it. My father just owns--and if it wasn't for the workers like you and your father, the mine wouldn't be worth owning.

See? I'm mighty sorry you got hurt there, though."

Fitz shook hands. "It was partly my own fault," he said. "I took a chance. That was before your father bought the mine, anyway."

Then he went to cooking and we cleaned our game. But from that time on we knew the Red Fox Scouts to be all right, and their being from the East made no difference in them. So we and they used each other's things, and we all mixed in together and were one party.

We had a good camp and a big rest, this night: the first time of real peace since a long while back, it seemed to me. The next morning we pushed on, following up along the creek, and a faint trail, for the pa.s.s.