The Voyage of the Rattletrap Part 8

The camp was near another railroad station called Eli. We had been gradually working north, and were now not over three or four miles from the Dakota line; but Dakota here consisted of nothing but the immense Sioux Indian Reservation, two or three hundred miles long.

The next morning Jack complained of not feeling well.

"What's the matter, Jack?" I asked.

"Gout," answered Jack, promptly. "I'm too good a cook for myself. I'm going to let you cook for a few days, and give my system a rest."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Dark Doings of the Cook]

This seemed very funny to Ollie and me, who had been eating Jack's cooking for two or three weeks. The fact was that the gouty Jack was the poorest cook that ever looked into a kettle, and he knew it well enough. He could make one thing--pancakes--nothing else. They were usually fairly good, though he would sometimes get his recipes mixed up, and use his sour-milk one when the milk was sweet, or his sweet-milk one when it was sour; but we got accustomed to this. Then it was hard to spoil young and tender fried grouse, and the stewed plums had been good, though he had got some hay mixed with them; but the flavor of hay is not bad. We bought frequently of "canned goods"

at the stores, and this he could not injure a great deal.

We did not pay much attention to Jack's threat about stopping cooking. He got breakfast after a fashion, mixing sour and sweet milk as an experiment, and though he didn't eat much himself, we did not think he was going to be sick. But after walking a short distance he declared he could go no farther, and climbed into the cabin and rolled upon the bed.

Ollie and I ploughed along with the sand still streaming, like long flaxen hair, off the wagon-wheels as they turned. In a little valley about ten o'clock Ollie shot his first grouse. We saw more antelope, and met a man with his wife and six children and five dogs and two cows and twelve chickens going east. He said he was tired of Nebraska, and was on his way to Illinois. At noon we stopped at Merriman, another railroad station. Jack got up and made a pretence of getting dinner, but he ate nothing himself, and really began to look ill.

We made but a short stop, as we were anxious to get out of the worst of the sand that afternoon. We asked about feed and water for the horses, and were told that we could get both at Irwin, another station fifteen miles ahead. We pressed on, with Jack still in the wagon, but it was almost dark before we reached the station. We found a man on the railroad track.

"Can we get some feed and water here?" I asked of him.

"Reckon not," answered the man.

"Where can we find the station agent?"

"He's gone up to Gordon, and won't be back till midnight."

"Hasn't any one got any horse-feed for sale?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: No Horse-Feed]

"There isn't a smell of horse-feed here," said the man. "I've got the only well, except the railroad's, but it's 'most dry.

I'll give you what water I can, though. As for feed, you'd better go on three miles to Keith's ranch. It's on Lost Creek Flat, and there's lots of haystacks there, and you can help yourself. At the ranch-house they will give you other things."

We drove over to the man's house, and got half a pail of water apiece for the horses. They wanted more, but there was no more in the well. The man said we could get everything we wanted at the ranch, and we started on. The horses were tired, but even Old Blacky was quite amiable, and trudged along in the sand without complaint.

Jack was still in the wagon, and we heard nothing of him. It was cloudy and very dark. But the horses kept in the trail, and after, as it seemed to us, we had gone five miles, we felt ourselves on firmer ground. Soon we thought we could make out something, perhaps hay-stacks, through the darkness. I sent Ollie on the pony to see what it was. He rode away, and in a moment I heard a great snorting and a stamping of feet, and Ollie's voice calling for me to come. I ran over with the lantern, and found that he had ridden full into a barbed-wire fence around a hay-stack. The pony stood trembling, with the blood flowing from her breast and legs, but the scratches did not seem to be deep.

"We must find that ranch-house," I said to Ollie. "It ought to be near."

For half an hour we wandered among the wilderness of hay-stacks, every one protected by barbed wire. At last we heard a dog barking, followed the sound, and came to the house. The dog was the only live thing at home, and the house was locked.

"Well, what we want is water," I said, "and here's the well."

We let down the bucket and brought up two quarts of mud.

"The man was right," said Ollie. "This is worse than the Sarah Desert."

"Fountains squirt and bands play 'The Old Oaken Bucket' in the Sarah Desert 'longside o' this," I answered.

It was eleven o'clock before we found the wagon. We could hear Jack snoring inside, and were surprised to find Snoozer on guard outside, wide awake. He seemed to feel his responsibility, and at first was not inclined to let us approach.

We unharnessed the horses, and Ollie crawled under the fence around one of the stacks of hay and pulled out a big armful for them.

"The poor things shall have all the hay they want, anyhow,"

he said.

"I'm afraid they'll think it's pretty dry," I returned, "but I don't see what we can do."

Then I called to Jack, and said: "Come, get up and get us some supper!"

After a good deal of growling he called back: "I'm not hungry."

"But we are, and you're well enough to make some cakes."

"Won't do it," answered Jack. "You folks can make 'em as well as I can."

"I can't. Can you?" I said to Ollie. He shook his head.

"You're not very sick or you wouldn't be so cross," I called to Jack: "Roll out and get supper, or I'll pull you out!"

"First follow comes in this wagon gets the head knocked off 'm!" cried Jack. "Besides, there's no milk! No eggs! No nothing! Go 'way! I'm sick! That's all there is," and something which looked like a cannon-ball shot out of the front end of the wagon, followed by a paper bag which might have been the wadding used in the Cannon. "That's all! Lemme 'lone!" And we heard Jack tie down the front of the cover and roll over on the bed again.

"See what it is," I said to Ollie.

He took the lantern and started. "Guess it's a can of Boston baked beans," he said. "Oh, then we're all right," I replied.

He picked it up and studied it carefully by the light of the lantern.

"No," he said, slowly, "it isn't that. G--g, double o--gooseberries--that's what it is--a can of gooseberries we got at Valentine."

"And this is a paper bag of sugar," I said, picking it up.

"No gout to-night!"

I cut open the can and poured in the sugar. We stirred it up with a stick, and Ollie drank a third of it and I the rest. Then we crawled under the wagon, covered ourselves with the pony's saddle-blanket, and went to sleep. But before we did so I said:

"Ollie, at the next town I am going to get you a cook-book, and we'll be independent of that wretch in the wagon."

"All right," answered Ollie.

VIII: ON THE ANTELOPE FLATS

The next morning the condition of the tempers of the crew of the Rattletrap was reversed. Jack was feeling better and was quite amiable, and inclined to regret his bloodthirsty language of the night before. But Ollie and I, on our diet of gooseberries, had not prospered, and woke up as cross as Old Blacky. The first thing I did was to seize the empty gooseberry can and hit the side of the wagon a half-dozen resounding blows.

"Get up there," I cried, "and 'tend to breakfast! No pretending you're sick this morning."

"All right!" came Jack's voice, cheerfully. "Certainly. No need of your getting excited, though. You see, I really wasn't hungry last night, or I'd have got supper."