The Voyage of the Rattletrap Part 14

Half a mile farther on we came to the Thunder b.u.t.te Creek which we had sought. The water was almost blood-red, which 'Gene told us came from the gold stamp-mills on its upper course. If the water had been gray it would have indicated silver-mining.

Just beyond we met the Deadwood Treasure Coach. It was an ordinary four-horse stage, without pa.s.sengers, but carrying two guards, each with a very short double-barrelled shot-gun resting across his lap. The stage was operated by the express company, and was bringing out the gold bricks from the mines near Deadwood.

"I suppose," said Ollie, musingly, "if anybody tried to rob the coach, those fellows would shoot with their guns?"

"Oh no," replied Jack. "Oh no; they carry those guns to fan themselves with on hot days." But Ollie did not seem to be misled by this astonishing information.

As we went on the road grew constantly more mountainous.

Sometimes the trail ran along ledges, and sometimes near roaring streams and waterfalls, and the great pine-trees were everywhere.

We pa.s.sed two grizzly old placer-miners working just off the trail, and stopped and watched them "pan out" a few shovelfuls of dirt. They were rewarded by two or three specks of gold, and seemed satisfied. 'Gene told us afterward that one of them was an old California '49er, who had used the same pan in every State and Territory of the West.

It was a little after noon when we drove into Deadwood--the last point outward bound at which the Rattletrap expected to touch. It was a larger town than Rapid City, and was wedged in a little gulch between two mountains, with the White Wood Creek rushing along and threatening to wash away the main street. We noticed that the only way of reaching many of the houses on the mountain-side was by climbing long flights of stairs. We drove on, and camped near a mill on the upper edge of town.

In the afternoon we wandered about town, and, among other places, visited the many Chinese stores. We also clambered up the mountain-sides to the two cemeteries, which we could see far above the town. It seemed to us that on rather too many of the head-stones, (which were in nearly every case boards, by-the-way) it was stated that the person whose grave it marked was "a.s.sa.s.sinated by" so-and so, giving the name of the a.s.sa.s.sin; but these were of the old days, when no doubt there were a good many folks in Deadwood who left the town just as well off after they had been a.s.sa.s.sinated. "Killed by Indians" was also the record on some of the boards. Ollie was greatly interested in the Chinese graves, with dishes of rice and chicken on them, and colored papers covered with curious characters--prayers, I suppose. We climbed on up to the White Rocks, almost at the top of the highest peak overlooking Deadwood, and had a good view of the town and gulch below, and of the great Bear b.u.t.te standing out alone and bold miles to the east. We were tired, and glad to go to bed as soon as we got back to the wagon.

The next day we decided to visit Lead City (p.r.o.nounced not like the metal, but like the verb to lead). Here were most of the big gold mines, including the great Homestake Mine. It was only two or three miles, and we drove over early. It was a strange town, perched on the side of a mountain, and consisted of small openings in the ground, which were the mines, and immense shed-like buildings, which contained the ore-reducing works. The noise of the stamp-mills filled the whole town, and seemed to drown out and cover up everything else. We soon found that there was no hope of our getting into the mines.

"They'd think you were spies for the other mines, or something of that sort," said a man to us. "n.o.body can get down.

n.o.body knows where they are digging, and they don't mean that anybody shall. They may be digging under their own property exclusively, and they may not. For all I know, they may be taking gold that belongs to me a thousand feet, more or less, under my back yard."

"If I had a back yard here," said Jack, after we had pa.s.sed on, "I'd put my ear to the ground once in a while and listen, and if I heard anybody burrowing under it I'd--well--I'd yell scat at 'em."

We found no difficulty in getting in the stamp-mills, and a man kindly told us much about them.

"The Homestake Mills make up the largest gold-reducing plant in the world," said the man. "Where do you suppose the largest single stamp-mill in the world is?" We guessed California.

"No," he said; "it's in Alaska--the Treadwell Mill."

We decided that the stamp-mills were the noisiest place we were ever in. There were hundreds of great steel bars, three or four inches in diameter and a dozen feet long, pounding up and down at the same time on the ore and reducing it to powder. It was mixed with water, and ran away as thin red mud, the gold being caught by quicksilver. The openings of the shafts and tunnels were in or near the mills, and there were the smallest cars and locomotives which we had ever seen going about everywhere on narrow tracks, carrying the ore. Ollie walked up to one of the locomotives and looked down at it, and said:

"Why, it seems just like a Shetland-pony colt. I believe I could almost lift it."

The engineer sat on a little seat on the back end, and seemed bigger than his engine. As we looked at them we constantly expected to see them tip up in front from the weight of the engineer. There was also a larger railroad, though still a narrow gauge, winding away for twenty miles along the tops of the hills, which was used princ.i.p.ally for bringing wood for the engines and timbers for propping up the mines.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Flying Cord-Wood]

We were walking along a connecting shed, and happened to look out a window, when we saw a four-foot stick of cord-wood shoot up fifty feet from some place behind us, and after sailing over a wide curve, like a "fly-ball," alight on a great pile of similar sticks on the lower ground, which was much higher than an ordinary house, and must have contained thousands of cords.

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Jack. "Wish I could throw a stick of wood like that fellow."

Another and another shot after the first one in quick succession. Sometimes there were two almost together, and we noticed the bigger and heavier the stick the higher and farther it was shot. We saw some almost a foot in diameter soaring like straws before the wind.

"What a baseball pitcher that man would make!" went on Jack, enthusiastically. "Think of his arm! Look at that big one go--it must weigh two hundred pounds!"

"Let's get out of this shed and investigate the mystery," I said.

Outside it was all clear. The narrow-gauge wood railroad ended on the edge of the steep hill overlooking the mills. Down this was a long wooden chute, or flume, like a big trough, which for the last thirty or forty feet at its lower end curved upward.

Men were unloading wood from a train at the upper end. Each stick shot down the flume like lightning, up the short incline at the end, and soared away like a bird to the pile beyond and below the shed. A little stream of water trickled constantly down the chute to keep the friction of the logs from setting it on fire.

"That's the most interesting thing here," said Jack. "I'd like to send the Blacksmith's Pet down the thing and see what he would do. I'll wager he'd kick the wood-pile all over the town after he alighted."

We spent nearly the whole day in wandering about the stamp-mills. The great steam engines which operated them were some of the largest we had ever seen.

"And think," observed Jack, "of the fact that all of this heavy machinery, including the big engines and the locomotives and cars, and, in fact, everything, was brought overland on wagons, probably most of it nearly three hundred miles. No wonder people got to driving such teams as Henderson's."

Toward night we returned to Deadwood by the way of Central City. Here were more great mines and mills, but they did not Seem to be so prosperous, and part of the town was deserted, and consisted of nothing but empty houses. Just as the sun set we drove in through the Golden Gate, and east anchor at our old camp near the mill.

The next morning was wintry again, with snowflakes floating in the air. The ground was frozen, and the wind seemed to come through the wagon-cover with rather more freedom than we enjoyed.

"It's time we began the return voyage," said Jack. "We're a long way from home, and we won't get there any too soon if we go as fast as we can and take the shortest out." So we started that afternoon.

The shortest cut was to return to Rapid City, and then, instead of going south into Nebraska, to go straight east, through the Sioux Indian Reservation, crossing the Missouri at Pierre, and then on across the settled country of eastern Dakota to Prairie Flower, over against the Minnesota line.

We followed the same road between Deadwood and Rapid City, with the exception that we turned out in one place, and went around by Fort Meade. Here we found a beautiful camping-place the first night near a little stream and great overhanging rocks, and not far from Bear b.u.t.te. We reached Rapid late the next night, which was Sat.u.r.day, and stopped at the old camp near the mill-race. Here we stayed over Sunday, but Monday noon saw us under sail again. As we went through the town we stopped at the freighter's camp, and told 'Gene Brooks good-bye, and then drove away across the wide rolling plain to the east.

'Gene had warned us that we had a lonesome road before us to Pierre, one hundred and seventy miles, nearly all of it across the reservation.

"You'll follow the old freight trail all the way," he said, "but you may not see three teams the whole distance, because since the railroad got nearer it isn't used. You'll find an old stage station about every fifteen or seventeen miles, with probably one man in charge. You may see a horse-thief or two, or something of that sort. S'ciety ain't what it ought to be 'round a reservation gen'rally."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Deserted Ranch]

Just before the sun sank behind the mountains, which lay like low black clouds to the west, we came to a little ranch standing alone on the prairie. The door was open, and it seemed to be deserted, though there was a rude bed inside. There was a good well of water, and we decided to camp near it for the night, especially as the gra.s.s was good. There was no other house in sight. Bedtime arrived, and no one came to the ranch.

"I think I'll just sleep in that house tonight," said Jack, "and see how it seems. I'll leave the door open, so as not to have too much luxury at first."

So he went to bed in the shanty, taking Snoozer along, and leaving the wagon to Ollie and me.

We must have been asleep three or four hours when I was awakened by the loud barking of a dog. I started up and began unfastening the front end of the cover. Just then I heard the pony snort in terror; and then followed a shot from a gun and the sound of horses galloping away. As I put my head out, Jack called, excitedly:

"Some men were trying to get the pony. They'd have done it, too, if Snoozer hadn't barked and scared them away."

I was out of the wagon by this time, and found the pony trembling at the end of her picket-line as near the wagon as she could get. Snoozer kept barking as if he couldn't stop.

"Did they shoot at you, Jack?" I asked.

"No, I guess not. I think they just blazed away for fun. They went off toward the Reservation. Some of Gene's poor s'ciety, I suppose."

It took half an hour to get the frightened pony and indignant dog quieted; and perhaps it was longer than that before we again got to sleep.

XII: HOMEWARD BOUND

"Snoozer shall have a pancake medal."

This was the first thing Ollie and I heard in the morning, and it was Jack's voice addressing the hero of the night before.

We speedily rolled out, and agreed with Jack that Snoozer must be suitably rewarded, he seemed fully to understand the importance of his action in barking at the right moment, and for the first morning on the whole trip he was up and about, waving his bushy tail with great industry, and occasionally uttering a detached bark, just to remind us of how he had done it. He walked around the pony several times, and looked at her with a haughty air, as much as to say, "Where would you be now if it hadn't been for me?"

"He shall have a pancake," continued Jack--"the biggest and best pancake which the skilful hand of this cook can concoct."