Track's End Part 12

"How did you come here?" I went on.

"Other Indians," he said. "Long sleep--gone when wake up."

I thought I saw through the whole thing.

"Did you see face--all fire--looking at you down in cellar?"

He only gazed at me out of his little black eyes. I guessed that he had drunk more than the others and had gone to sleep before the bad spirit looked in at the window, and so had not seen it and had been left behind.

"Did you see barn burn--big fire?" I asked.

He made not a sound in reply to this.

"Give me the gun," I said.

He gave his head a little shake and jerked out a sharp grunt.

"Give it to me and I give you another to-morrow."

He made not a movement or sound. I could see that he had no intention of giving it up.

"Do you live in cellar?" I asked. He made the sound that seemed to mean yes. I remembered that I had not gone down into Fitzsimmons's cellar after the Indians went away because things were in such confusion that I saw I could do nothing with them. Since that I had had no occasion to go into the store at all. I had no doubt that he had stolen everything I had missed, but had been unable to get a gun before, because I had kept them very carefully under lock and key. I thought from his looks that he had probably lived princ.i.p.ally on the liquor in the cellar, with the groceries that were in the store and what meat he had stolen from me. I could feel that it was getting colder in the stronghold, and guessed that he had broken open the tunnel, either purposely, after hearing Kaiser bark, or by accident when walking over it, as the thaw had weakened the roof a good deal.

"Want to get out," I said. "Go first!"

He pressed back close to the wall of the tunnel. "You go--take dog,"

he said. I made Kaiser go ahead, took the lantern and followed, saying "Come" to the Indian. He did so, simply stooping down, though I crawled on my hands and knees. Sure enough, the tunnel was broken down near the barn. We got out through the hole and went across the drifts to the open place back of the hotel. I tried again to get the gun away from him, but he hung on to it tighter than ever. I asked him if he were hungry, and he forgot to grunt and said "yes."

I brought out some food for him, and he stood in the shed and ate it like a hungry wolf. He gave a satisfied grunt when he got through, and I once more tried to get him to let me have the gun, but he hung to it without even a grunt, and started in the direction of the Fitzsimmons building. I went with him, as I could not understand how he had gone in and out for so long without my seeing some traces of it.

He stalked on in silence, his moccasins not making a sound on the hard snow. There was a well with a high curb a few feet behind the Fitzsimmons building and directly opposite the window through which I had shown the jack-lantern. There was now a big bank of snow as high as the well curb from it to the building. He stepped over in the well curb, and, without looking back, disappeared through a hole in the side of it where he had pried off some of the boards. He had borrowed one of my ideas and made a tunnel between the well and window.

I went back to the hotel, and though I did not like the notion of his having the gun, there was a great load gone from my mind. I saw that every mysterious happening could be explained by the presence of the Indian. I made no doubt he had set the livery stable on fire by using matches when visiting it to find something to steal. A few sounds and part of the glimpse I got of him that night when I watched in the shed would have to be charged to my imagination; but I guess it could stand it. I had to laugh at myself when I remembered how I had thought I heard strange noises before the Indians came at all.

I think I slept better the rest of the night (though it was only a few hours) than I had for a long time, notwithstanding the shock I got when I sat up and saw the Indian, when my heart, instead of beating too much, just stood still and didn't beat at all.

I saw nothing of the Indian the next morning, and after breakfast went to the Fitzsimmons store. I took the lantern and went down cellar.

Everything was still in the greatest disorder. Boxes of groceries had been broken open, and empty cans were scattered everywhere. The missing saddle lay in one corner. I looked about for the Indian, and at first thought he was gone. But at last I found him half in a big box turned on its side, rolled up in blankets, some of which he had stolen from the bed in the hotel. One was a horse-blanket which I was sure came from the livery stable, so I now felt certain that he had been responsible for the fire. He was sound asleep. I poked him with my foot, but he did not move. I instantly knew that he had been drinking more of the whiskey and was sleeping off its effects. I picked up a hatchet, knocked off the spigot, and let the contents of the barrel run on the ground.

I took my lantern and started for the cellar-stairs. I glanced back at the Indian, and just as I did so he moved one foot a trifle and I saw something under it. I went back and looked closer and saw that it was the stock of my rifle, of which I had not once thought that morning. I instantly decided that I must get it away from him.

I stood my lantern in line with the foot of the stairs, knelt down and very slowly and cautiously began to pull the gun from beneath the Indian. He was lying on it full length, and I knew there was vast danger of waking him. He was much larger than I, and I made no doubt three times as strong. I fairly held my breath as the weapon slowly yielded to my efforts. I got it perhaps a third of the way out when it stuck fast, caught, perhaps, on some of the Indian's clothing. I pulled as hard as I could. It disturbed him, and he moved his feet, and then with one arm threw off the blanket from his shoulders. Like a flash I made up my mind to have that gun regardless of anything.

I jumped forward, and with my knees and hands rolled that savage over as if he had been a log of wood, grabbed the rifle, and started for the stairs. I s.n.a.t.c.hed at the lantern, but missed it and knocked it over. The flame wavered for an instant and went out. Up the stairs in total darkness I swarmed on all fours, dragging the gun by the muzzle, so that had the hammer caught on anything I am sure the bullet had gone clean through my body. I slammed the door at the top, scrambled out a side window where I had got in, and ran across the drifts to the hotel like a scared coyote, sitting down in the office weak as a cat.

I expected no less than that he would follow me, but he did not, and I question if he roused up further from his drunken stupor. Looking back I see what a coward I showed myself; but it seemed quite natural at the time.

It was this day, March 15th, that there began the big thaw. I could not hope spring had come to stay, and that there would be no more winter weather, but it gave me hope that a train might get through. I needed hope of some kind to keep up my spirits, because I felt that with a little good weather I could look for the Pike gang again. If I could have been sure that the train would come first I should have been gladder to see the thaw than anything else in the world; as it was I wished it might hold off till I could feel that spring had come in earnest.

The 15th was warm, but the snow melted very little. The next morning came the chinook. It was straight from the northwest, where all the blizzards had come from, but it was warmer than any south wind. All day it blew, and the s...o...b..nks disappeared as if they were beside a hot stove. Before night there was a hole in the roof of tunnel No. 3.

When I went to bed there were patches of bare ground and pools of water in the square.

The next morning the chinook was still blowing. It had been eating away at the s...o...b..nks all night. I saw the top of the stronghold haystack from my bedroom window. Tunnel No. 1 had caved in. All day the wind kept up. By night the tunnel system was nothing but a lot of gaping cuts in the snow. The drifts had settled so much that the windows and doors were exposed, and it would soon be possible to ride on horseback along the street.

I had never seen a chinook wind before, of course, but Tom Carr had told me about them. This one was a strong, steady wind sweeping all day and all night straight from the northwest, and seemed to blow right through the drifts. I had rather have seen the snow going in any other way, because I knew this wind only followed the valley of the Missouri River and I was afraid that it did not reach far enough east to thaw out the cuts on the railroad so that the longed-for train could get through. But on the other hand it of course covered all of the country between Track's End and the outlaws' headquarters, and I knew that there was now nothing to hinder their coming; and I was afraid that if they did come I could not keep them off. This day the Indian came out for the first time. I tried to talk with him some more, but could not get much out of him. He cast some very black looks at me, as I supposed for my taking away the gun and, more important, probably, knocking the spigot off of that barrel.

This night I felt sure the outlaws would come again, and I did not go to bed at all. I stayed all night in Townsend's store, thinking to give them as warm a reception as I could. The next morning, the 18th, the chinook had stopped, but it was still thawing, though not so fast.

There was scarcely any wind, but the sun was warm. I tried to take a nap after dinner, but I was too nervous. The prairie was half bare.

The little drifts were all gone and the big ones had shrunk to little ones. There was a good deal of snow in the street yet, but it would be easy to ride through it. I walked about all day trying to think of what was best to do. I knew that I could not keep awake another night.

At last I decided to try putting the Indian on guard part of the night. He had said (I thought that was what he meant) that the outlaws had stolen ponies from his tribe, and I concluded he could have no love for them, even if he had none for me. I found him in the store, but he was still sullen about the spigot.

"Want you to watch to-night for robbers," I said to him.

He only looked at me, so I repeated it, and added: "I will give you rifle, shoot if they come."

At this he grunted and said, "All right." He waited a moment and seemed to be thinking; then suddenly he raised his left hand tightly shut above his head, looked at it with half-closed eyes, and said, "Ugh! scalp 'em!"

It made my blood run cold to see that big savage standing there within arm's-length gloating over an imaginary scalp, knowing as I did that he would probably enjoy scalping me quite as much. But I said nothing except to make him understand that he could go to bed if he wanted to, and I would wake him when it was time. I thought I would stay up as long as I could myself.

Twenty times that day I climbed the windmill tower and looked one way for the outlaws and the other for the train, but got no sight of either. The track was mostly bare as far as I could see, but I knew that even if the chinook had reached so far east many cuts around where Lone Tree had been and west even as far as the last siding, No.

15, would still be half full of snow and ice which would need a vast deal of shoveling and quarrying before any train could come through.

It was growing colder, and after the sun went down it began to freeze.

I thought I could easily sit up till midnight, and after it was dark began patrolling the sidewalk like a policeman. The Indian had gone to sleep in his cellar. There was an east wind which felt as if it might bring snow. I was getting so tired that I could scarce drag my feet and was having another fit of the shivers thinking about the outlaws, when suddenly, as I stood in front of Taggart's, something popped into my head which I had not thought of for almost three months. This was the big can of powder inside the store.

I forgot my shivers and ran to the hotel for the lantern. Then I had another look at the powder-can. It was like any tin can, only big, almost, as a keg. There was an opening in the top with a cover which screwed on. I was wondering if there was not some way that I could put the can under the floor of the bank and blow up the robbers if they tried to open the safe. I felt that the chances for beating them off again in a fight, with no fortifications, were very slim. You may think it strange that I felt so sure the robbers would come again, after having been beaten off once. I was not certain of it, of course, but I knew Pike was not a man to give up easily, and that he must have fully understood how much the snow helped to defeat them. I knew that since the weather had moderated a spy might have come in the night and discovered that I was alone and how defenseless the town was.

I had heard of fuse, but it happened that I had never seen any in my life. I remember I thought it must be white and soft like the string of a firecracker. So I began to rummage through all the drawers and boxes for fuse. One of the first things I came across was a coil of black, stiff, tarry string, but I threw it to one side and went on looking for fuse. After I had hunted half an hour and found none, I gave up. As I stood there thinking, a good deal discouraged, my eye lighted on the black coil again. My curiosity made me pick it up, and on looking at one end closely I thought I could see powder. I cut off about six inches of it and touched one end to the lantern flame. There was a little fizz of fire and I stood holding it in my hand and wondering what it was doing inside, when suddenly there was a bigger fizz at the other end and a streak of fire shot down inside my sleeve to my elbow. I concluded that I had found some fuse.

In five minutes I had the powder and fuse in the bank. Then the hopelessness of putting it under the floor dawned upon me. I looked under the building and found a solid square of stones laid up beneath where the safe stood to keep the floor from settling. Everywhere else the water was six inches deep. I went back into the bank. Eight or ten feet in front of the safe was a high counter running straight across the room. Under it was a waste-basket, a wooden box of old newspapers, a spool-cabinet for legal papers, a copying-press, and some other stuff.

I stood the can of powder in the waste-basket. It was a good fit, with room enough around the outside to stuff in some paper to hide it. Then I put the basket in the box of newspapers. I cut the fuse in two in the middle, unscrewed the cover and put the ends of the two pieces down in the powder, balancing the copying-press on top to hold them in place. I covered the whole thing up with newspapers. Then I brought an auger from Taggart's and bored a hole a little above the floor through the side of the building, and right on through the side of the building to the south, which stood so close that it almost touched the bank. There was nothing to either except a one-inch board and a thickness of lath and plastering. I pa.s.sed the two lines of fuse through the two holes, and into the other building, which was a drug store. In the other building I tied a loose knot in the ends of the fuse and left it lying on the floor behind the counter and covered with a door-mat.

Ten minutes later I had my Indian ally posted on the platform of the depot with his gun.

"If pony thieves come, shoot at them," I said to him. "I'll get up and shoot at them too."

"All right, me shoot," he said; "take plenty scalp."

I went back to the drug store feeling better. There were now two chances for defeating the outlaws if they came; to beat them off, or blow them up with the powder. I lay down on the floor back of the counter with my head on the door-mat. The windows were boarded up, and I felt sure that even if they came they would never find me here.

I woke up three hours later, as I had that first night six months before in the Headquarters House, with Pike hold of my ear, and a man pushing a smoky lantern in my face.

CHAPTER XX

What the Outlaws do on their second Visit: with the awful Hours I pa.s.s through, and how I find myself at the End.