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KAISER AND I FIGHTING THE TIMBER-WOLVES
TRACK S
END
BEING THE NARRATIVE OF JUDSON PITCHER S
STRANGE WINTER SPENT THERE
AS TOLD BY HIMSELF
AND EDITED
BY
HA YD EN CAR RUTH
INCLUDING AN ACCURATE ACCOUNT
OF HIS NUMEROUS ADVENTURES, AND
THE FACTS CONCERNING HIS SEVERAL
SURPRISING ESCAPES FROM DEATH
NOW FIRST PRINTED IN FULL
ILLUSTRATED BY
CLIFFORD CARLETON
WITH A COKKECT MAP OF TRACK S
END DRAWN BY THE AUTHOR
HARPER & BROTHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
M-C-M-X-I
BOOKS BY
HAYDEN CARRUTH
THE ADVENTURES OF JONES. Illustrated. 16mo
THE RATTLETRAP. Illustrated. Poat 8vo
TilACK S END. Illustrated. Posb 8vo
HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER. 1911
E-Q
,7
T
Mi
TO
E. L. G. C.
M513169
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. Something about my Home and Track s End:
with how I leave the one and get acquainted
with Pike at the other r
II. The rest of my second Night at Track s End, and
part of another: with some Things which
happen between 12
III. A Fire and a Blizzard: with how a great many
People go away from Track s End and how
some others come 22
IV. We prepare to fight the Robbers and I make a
little Trip out to Bill Mountain s House:
after I come back I show what a great Fool
I can be 32
V. Alone in Track s End I repent of my hasty Ac
tion: with what I do at the Headquarters
House, and the whole Situation in a Nutshell 43
VI. Some Account of what I do and think the first
Day alone : with a Discovery by Kaiser at
the End 52
VII. I have a Fight and a Fright: after which I make
some Plans for the Future and take up my
Bed and move 61
VIII. I begin my Letters to my Mother and start my
Fortifications : then I very foolishly go away,
meet with an Accident, and see Something
which throws me into the utmost Terror . 69
IX. More of a strange Christmas : I make Kaiser use
ful in an odd Way, together with what I see
from under the Depot Platform .... 79
X. A Townful of Indians: with how I hide the Cow,
and think of Something which I don t be
lieve the Indians will like 88
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAOB
XI. I give the savage Indians a great Scare, and
then gather up my scattered Family at the
end of a queer Christmas Day .... 97
XII. One of my Letters to my Mother, in which I tell
of many Things and especially of a Mystery
which greatly puzzles and alarms me . . 105
XIII. Some Talk at Breakfast, and various other
Family Affairs : with Notes on the Weather
and a sight of Something to the Northwest 115
XIV. I have an exciting Hunt and get some Game,
which I bring Home with a vast deal of
Labor, only to lose Part of it in a startling
Manner: together with a Dream and an
Awakening 128
XV. The mysterious Fire, and Something further
about my wretched State of Terror: with
an Account of my great System of Tunnels
and famous Fire Stronghold . . . . 141
XVI. Telling of how Pike and his Gang come and of
what Kaiser and I do to get ready for
them: together with the Way we meet
them 153
XVII. The Fight, and not much else: except a little
Happening at the End which startles me
greatly 163
XVIII. After the Fight: also a true Account of the
great Blizzard: with how I go to sleep in
the Stronghold and am awakened before
Morning 171
XIX. I find out who my Visitor is: with Something
about him, but with more about the
Chinook which came out of the Northwest:
together with what I do with the Powder,
and how I again wake up suddenly . . . 185
XX. What the Outlaws do on their second Visit:
with the awful Hours I pass through, and
how I find myself at the End .... 203
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
XXI. After the Explosion: some cheerful Talk with
the Thieves, and a strange but welcome
Message out of the Storm 210
XXII. The last Chapter, but a good Deal in it: a free
Lodging for the Night, with a little Speech
by Mr. Clerkinwell: then, how Kaiser and
I take a long Journey, and how we never
go that Way again 220
ILLUSTRATIONS
KAISER AND I FIGHTING THE TIMBER-WOLVES Frontispuct
READING THE OUTLAWS* LETTER, DECEMBER
SIXTEENTH Facing p. 30
MY FAMILY AND I AT A MEAL, TRACK S END . $6
MAP OP TRACK S END * , 64
THE BOIS CACHE INDIANS LOOTING THE TOWN ON
CHRISTMAS DAY " 90
MY MEETING WITH PIKE, TRACK S END, FEBRUARY
FIFTH " 158
THE INDIAN GETTING MY RIFLE IN THE STRONG
HOLD " 182
PIKE HANDCUFFING ME IN THE DRUG STORE,
MARCH NINETEENTH " 204
MR. CLERKINWELL GIVING ME HIS WATCH AND
CHAIN " 228
NOTICE
OHOULD any reader of this History of my life at
vj Track s End wish to write to me, to point out
an error (if unhappily there shall prove to be errors),
or to ask for further facts, or for any other reason, he
or she may do so by addressing the letter in the care
of my publishers, Messrs. Harper & Brothers, who
have kindly agreed promptly to forward all such com
munications to me wheresoever I may chance to be
at the time.
I should add that my hardships during that Winter
at Track s End did not cure me of my roving bent,
though you might think the contrary should have
been the case. Later, on several occasions, I adven
tured into wild parts, and had experiences no whit less
remarkable than those at Track s End, notably when
with the late Capt. Nathan Archway, master of the
Belle of Prairie du Chien packet, we descended into
Frontenac Cave, and, there in the darkness (aided
somewhat by Gil Dauphin), disputed possession of
that subterranean region with no less a character than
the notorious Isaac Liverpool, to the squeaking of a
million bats. And I wish hereby to give notice that
no one is to put into Print such accounts of that oc
currence as I may have been heard to relate from time
to time around camp-fires, on shipboard, and so forth,
since I mean, with the kind help of Mr. Carruth, to
publish forth the facts concerning it in another Book;
and that before long.
JUDSON PITCHER.
LITTLE DRUM, FLAMINGO KEY, July, 1911.
TRACK S END
TRACK S END
CHAPTER I
Something about my Home and Track s End: with
how I leave the one and get acquainted with
Pike at the other.
A \ 7HEN I left home to shift for myself I was
* * eighteen years old, and, I suppose, no
weakling; though it seems to me now that I
was a mere boy. I liked school w r ell enough,
but rather preferred horses; and a pen seems
to me a small thing for a grown man, which I
am now, to be fooling around with, but I
mean to tell (with a little help) of some ex
periences I had the first winter after I struck
out for myself.
I was brought up in Ohio, where my father
was a country blacksmith and had a small
farm. His name was William Pitcher, but,
being well liked by all and a square man,
TRACK S END
everybody called him Old Bill Pitcher. I was
named Judson, which had been my mother s
name before she was married, so I was called
Jud Pitcher; and when I was ten years old I
knew every horse for a dozen miles around,
and most of the dogs.
It was September i6th, in the late eighteen-
seventies, that I first clapped eyes on Track s
End, in the Territory of Dakota. The name
of the place has since been changed. I re
member the date well, for on that day the
great Sisseton prairie fire burned up the town
of Lone Tree. I saw the smoke as our train
lay at Siding No. 13 while the conductor and
the other railroad men nailed down snake s-
heads on the track. One had come up through
the floor of the caboose and smashed the stove
and half killed a passenger. Poor man, he had
a game leg as long as I knew him, which was
only natural, since when the rail burst through
the floor it struck him fair.
I was traveling free, as the friend of one of
the brakemen whom I had got to know in St.
Paul. He was a queer fellow, named Burr-
dock. The railroad company set great store
by Burrdock on account of his dealings with
TRACK S END
some Sioux Indians. They had tried to ride
on top of the cars of his train without paying
fare, and he had thrown them all off, one by
one, while the train was going. The fireman
told me about it.
Burrdock was taking me out to Track s End
because he said it was a live town, and a good
place for a boy to grow up in. He had first
wanted me to join him in braking on the rail
road, but I judged the work too hard for me.
If I had known what I was coming to at
Track s End I d have stuck to the road.
Perhaps I ought to say that I left home in
June, not because I wasn t welcome to stay,
but because I thought it was time I saw
something of the world. Mother was sure I
should be killed on the cars, but at last she
gave her consent. I went to Galena, from
there up the Mississippi on a packet to St.
Paul, and then out to Dakota with Burrdock.
The snake s - heads delayed us so that it
was eleven o clock at night before we reached
Track s End. Ours was the only train that
ran on the road then, and it came up Mon
days and Thursdays, and went back Tuesdays
and Fridays. It was a freight-train, with a
3
TRACK S END
caboose on the end for passengers, "and the
snake s - heads," as the fireman said. A
snake s-head on the old railroads was where
a rail got loose from the fish-plate at one end
and came up over the wheel instead of stay
ing down under it.
Track s End was a new town just built at
the end of the railroad. The next town back
toward the east was Lone Tree; but that day
it burned up and was no more. It was about
fifty miles from Track s End to Lone Tree,
with three sidings between, and a water-tank
at No. 14. After the fire the people all w r ent
to Lac-qui-Parle, sixty miles farther back;
so that at the time of which I write there was
nothing between Track s End and Lac-qui-
Parle except sidings and the ashes of Lone
Tree; but these soon blew away. There were
no people living in the country at this time,
and the reason the road had been built was
to hold a grant of land made to the company
by the government, which was a foolish thing
for the government to do, since a road would
have been built when needed, anyhow; but
my experience has been that the government
is always putting its foot in it.
4
TRACK S END
When I dropped off the train at Track s
End I saw by the moonlight that the railroad
property consisted of a small coal-shed, a turn
table, a roundhouse with two locomotive stalls,
a water- tank and windmill, and a rather long
and narrow passenger and freight depot. The
town lay a little apart, and I could not make
out its size. There were a hundred or more
men waiting for the train, and one of them took
the two mail-sacks in a wheelbarrow and went
away toward the lights of the houses. There
were a lot of mules and wagons and scrapers
and other tools of a gang of railroad graders
near the station; also some tents in which
the men lived ; these men were waiting for the
train with the others, and talked so loud and
made such a disturbance that it drowned out
all other noises.
The train was left right on the track, and
the engine put in the roundhouse, after which
Burrdock took me over town to the hotel.
It was called the Headquarters House, and
the proprietor s name was Sours. After I
got a cold supper he showed me to my room.
The second story was divided into about
twenty rooms, the partitions being lathed but
5
TRACK S END
not yet plastered. It made walls very easy
to talk through, and, where the cracks hap
pened to match, as they seemed to mostly,
they weren t hard to look through. I thought
it was a good deal like sleeping in a squirrel-
cage.
The railroad men that I had seen at the
station had been working on an extension
of the grade to the west, on which the rails
were to be laid the next spring. They had
pushed on ten miles, but, as the govern
ment had stopped making a fuss, the com
pany had decided to do no more that season,
and the train I came up on brought the pay
master with the money to pay the graders
for their summer s work; so they all got
drunk. There were some men from Billings
in town, too. They were on their way east
with a band of four hundred Montana ponies,
which they had rounded up for the night just
south of town. Two of them stayed to hold the
drove, and the rest came into town, also to get
drunk. They had good luck in doing this,
and fought with the graders. I heard two or
three shots soon after I went to bed, and
thought of my mother.
6
TRACK S END
Some time late in the night I was awakened
by a great rumpus in the hotel, and made out
from what I heard through the laths that
some men were looking for somebody. They
were going from room to room, and soon
came into mine, tearing down the sheet
which was hung up for a door. They crowded
in and came straight to the bed, and the lead
er, a big man with a crooked nose, seized me
by the ear as if he were taking hold of a boot
strap. I sat up, and another poked a lantern
in my face.
" That s him," said one of them.
"No, he was older," said another.
"He looks like he would steal a dog, any
how," said the man with the lantern. " Bring
him along, Pike."
"No," said the man who had hold of my
ear, "he ain t much more n a boy we re
looking for grown men to-night."
Then they went out, and I could feel my
ear drawing back into place as if it were
made of rubber. But it never got quite back,
and has always been a game ear to this day,
with a kind of a lop to it.
Sours told me in the morning that they
7
TRACK S END
were looking for the man that stole their dog,
though he said he didn t think they had ever
had a dog. Pike, he said, had come out as a
grader, but it had been a long time since he
had done any work.
I took a look around town after breakfast
and found forty or fifty houses, most of them
stores or other places of business, on one
street running north and south. There were
a few, but not many, houses scattered about
beyond the street. Some of the buildings had
canvas roofs, and there were a good many
tents and covered wagons in which people
lived. The whole town had been built since
the railroad came through two months before.
There was a low hill called Frenchman s
Butte a quarter of a mile north of town. I
climbed it to get a view of the country, but
could see only about a dozen settlers houses,
also just built.
The country was a vast level prairie ex
cept to the north, where there were a few
small lakes, with a little timber around them,
and some coteaux, or low hills, beyond. The
grass was dried up and gray. I thought I
could make out a low range of hills to the
8
TRACK S END
west, where I supposed the Missouri River
was. On my way back to town a man told
me that a big colony of settlers were expected
to arrive soon, and that Track s End had
been built partly on the strength of the busi
ness these people would bring. I never saw
the colony.
When I got back to the hotel Sours said
to me:
"Young man, don t you want a job?"
I told him I should be glad of something
to do.
"The man that has been taking care of my
barn has just gone on the train," continued
Sours. "He got homesick for the States,
and lit out and never said boo till half an
hour before train-time. If you want the job
I ll give you twenty-five dollars a month and
your board."
"I ll try it a month," I said; "but I ll
probably be going back myself before winter."
"That s it," exclaimed Sours. "Every
body s going back before winter. I guess
there won t be nothing left here next winter
but jack-rabbits and snowbirds."
I had hoped for something better than
9
TRACK S END
working in a stable, but my money was so
near gone that I did not think it a good time
to stand around and act particular. Besides,
I liked horses so much that the job rather
pleased me, after all.
Toward evening Sours came to me and said
he wished I would spend the night in the barn
and keep awake most of the time, as he was
afraid it might be broken into by some of the
graders. They were acting worse than ever.
There was no town government, but a man
named Allenham had some time before been
elected city marshal at a mass-meeting. Dur
ing the day he appointed some deputies to
help him maintain order.
At about ten o clock I shut up the barn, put
out my lantern, and sat down in a little room
in one corner which was used for an office.
The town was noisy, but nobody came near
the barn, which was back of the hotel and out
of sight from the street. Some time after mid
night I heard low voices outside and crept to
a small open window. I could make out the
forms of some men under a shed back of a
store across a narrow alley. Soon I heard
two shots in the street, and then a man came
10
TRACK S END
running through the alley with another right
after him. As the first passed, a man stepped
out from under the shed. The man in pursuit
stopped and said:
" Now, I want Jim, and there s no use of you
fellows trying to protect him." It was Allen-
ham s voice.
There was a report of a revolver so close
that it made me wink. The man who had
come from under the shed had fired point-
blank at Allenham. By the flash I saw that
the man was Pike.
2
CHAPTER II
The rest of my second Night at Track s End, and
part of another: with some Things which hap
pen between.
I WAS too frightened at first to move, and
* stood at the window staring into the
darkness like a fool. I heard the men scram
ble over a fence and run off. Then I ran out
to where Allenham lay. He made no answer
when I spoke to him. I went on and met two
of the deputies coming into the alley. I told
them what I had seen.
"Wake up folks in the hotel," said one of
the men; then they hurried along. I soon
had everybody in the hotel down-stairs with
my shouting. In a minute or two they
brought in Allenham, and the doctor began to
work over him. The whole town was soon on
hand, and it was decided to descend on the
graders camp in force. Twenty or thirty
men volunteered. One of the deputies named
Dawson was selected as leader.
12
TRACK S END
"Are you certain you can pick out the man
who fired the shot ?" said Dawson to me.
" Yes," I answered. " It was Pike."
" If you just came, how do you happen to
know Pike ?" he asked.
" He pulled me up last night by the ear and
looked at me with a lantern," I said.
"Well," replied the man, "we ll take you
down and you can look at him with a lantern."
They formed into a solid body, four abreast,
with Dawson ahead holding me by the arm,
as if he were afraid I would get away. To tell
the truth, I should have been glad enough to
have got out of the thing, but there seemed to
be no chance of it. I was glad my mother
could not know about me.
We soon came up to the camp, and the men
lined out and held their guns ready for use.
Not a sound was to be heard except the loud
snoring of the men in the nearest tent, which
seemed to me almost too loud. There was a
dying camp-fire, and the stars were bright and
twinkling in a deep-blue sky; but I didn t look
at them much.
"Come, you fellows, get up!" called Daw-
son. This brought no answer.
13
TRACK S END
"Come!" he called louder, "roust up there,
every one of you. There s fifty of us, and
we ve got our boots on!"
A man put his head sleepily out of a tent
and wanted to know what was the trouble.
Dawson repeated his commands. One of our
men tossed some wood on the fire, and it
blazed up and threw the long shadows of the
tents out across the prairie. One by one the
men came out, as if they were just roused from
sleep. There was a great amount of loud talk
and profanity, but at last they were all out.
Pike was one of the last. Dawson made them
stand up in a row.
"Now, young man," said he to me, "pick
out the man you saw fire the shot that killed
Allenham."
At the word killed Pike started and shut his
jaws tightly together in the middle of an oath.
I looked along the line, but saw that I could
not be mistaken. Then I took a step forward,
pointed to Pike, and said :
"That s the man."
He shot a look at me of the most deadly
hatred; then he laughed; but it didn t sound
to me like a good, cheerful laugh.
14
TRACK S END
"Come on," said Dawson to him. Then he
ordered the others back into their tents, left
half the men to guard them, and with the rest
of our party went a little ways down the track
to where an empty box-car was standing on
the siding. "Get in there!" he said to Pike,
and the man did it, and the door was locked.
Three men were left to guard this queer jail,
and the rest of us went back to the Head
quarters House. Here we found that the
doctor s report was that Allenham would
probably pull through.
The next morning a mass-meeting was held
in the square beside the railroad station.
After some talk, most of it pretty vigorous, it
was decided to order all of the graders to leave
town without delay, except Pike, who was to
be kept in the car until the outcome of Allen-
ham s wound was known. It wasn t necessary
even for me to guess twice to hit on what would
be the fate of Pike if Allenham should die.
In two hours the graders left. They made
a long line of covered wagons and filed away to
the east beside the railroad track. They were
pretty free with their threats, but that was all
it amounted to.
TRACK S END
For a week Track s End was very quiet.
Allenham kept on getting better, and by that
time was out of danger. There was a good
deal of talk about what ought to be done with
Pike. A few wanted to hang him, notwith
standing that Allenham was alive.
"When you get hold of a fellow like him,"
said one man, "you can t go far wrong if you
hang him up high by the neck and then sort o
go off and forget him."
Others proposed to let him go and warn him
to leave the country. It happened on the day
the question was being argued that the wind
was blowing from the southwest as hard a
gale as I ever saw. It swept up great clouds
of dust and blew down all of the tents and
endangered many of the buildings. In the
afternoon we heard a shout from the direction
of the railroad. We all ran out and met the
guards. They pointed down the track to the
car containing Pike rolling off before the wind.
"How did it get away?" everybody asked.
"Well," said one of the guards, "we don t
just exactly know. We reckon the brake got
off somehow. Mebby a dog run agin the car
with his nose and started it, or something like
16
TRACK S END
that," and the man rolled up his eyes. There
was a loud laugh at this, as everybody under
stood that the guards had loosened the brake
and given the car a start, and they all saw that
it was a good way to get rid of the man inside.
Tom Carr, the station agent, said that, if the
wind held, the car would not stop short of the
grade beyond Siding No. 15.
"My experience with the country," said
Sours, "is that the wind always holds and
don t do much else. It wouldn t surprise me
if it carried him clean through to Chicago."
I went back to the barn and sat down in the
office. To tell the truth, I felt easier that Pike
was gone. I well knew that he had no love for
me. I sat a long time thinking over what had
happened since I had come to Track s End.
It seemed as if things had crowded one another
so much that I had scarcely had time to think
at all. I little guessed all the time for think
ing that I was going to have before I got away
from the place.
While I was sitting there on the bench an
old gentleman came in and asked something
about getting a team with which to drive into
the country. There was a livery stable in
17
TRACK S END
town kept by a man named Hunger and a
partner whose name I have forgotten; but
their horses were all out. The Headquarters
barn was mainly for the teams of people who
put up at the hotel, but Sours had two horses
which we sometimes let folks have. After
the old gentleman had finished his business he
asked me my name, and then said :
" Well, Judson, you did the right thing in
pointing out that desperado the other night.
I m pleased to know you."
My reply was that I couldn t very well have
done otherwise than I did after what I saw.
" But there s many that wouldn t have done
it, just the same," answered the old gentle
man. " Knowing the kind of a man he is, it
was very brave of you. My name is Clerkin-
well. I run the Bank of Track s End, opposite
the Headquarters House. I hope to hear fur
ther good reports of you."
He was a very courtly old gentleman, and
waved his hand with a flourish as he went out.
You may be sure I was tickled at getting such
words of praise from no less a man than a
banker. I hurried and took the team around
to the bank, and had a good look at it. It
18
TRACK S END
was a small, square, two-story wooden building,
like many of the others, with large glass win
dows in the front, through which I could see a
counter, and behind it a big iron safe.
I had given up sleeping in the house, with its
squirrel-cage rooms, preferring the soft prairie
hay of the barn. But when bedtime came
this night Mr. Clerkinwell had not returned, so
I sat up to wait for the team. He had told
me that he might be late. It was past mid
night when he drove up to the barn.
Good - evening, Judson," said he. "So
you waited for me."
" Yes, sir," I answered.
" Do you know if Allenham or any one is on
watch about town to-night ?"
" I think not, sir," I said. " I haven t seen
nor heard anybody for over an hour."
" Very careless, very careless," muttered the
old gentleman. Then he went out, and in a
moment I heard his footsteps as he went up
the outside stairs to his rooms in the second
story of his bank building. I put the horses
in their stalls, and fed and watered them, and
started up the ladder to the loft. What Mr.
Clerkinwell had said was still running in my
19
TRACK S END
mind. I stopped and thought a moment, and
concluded that I was not sleepy, and decided
to take a turn about town.
I left my lantern and went out to the one
street. There was not a sound to be heard
except the rush of the wind around the houses.
The moon was almost down, and the buildings
of the town and Frenchman s Butte made
long shadows on the prairie. There was a dull
spot of light on the sky to the southeast which
I knew was the reflection of a prairie fire a long
ways off; but there was a good, wide fire-brake
a quarter of a mile out around the town, so
there was no danger from that, even if it should
come up.
I went along down toward the railroad,
walking in the middle of the street so as not to
make any noise. The big windmill on the
water -tank swung a little in the wind and
creaked; and the last light from the moon
gleamed on its tail and then was gone. I
turned out across where the graders had had
their camp. Here the wind was hissing
through the dry grass sharp enough. I stood
gaping at the stars with the wind blowing
squarely in my face, and wondering how I
20
TRACK S END
ever came so far from home, when all at once I
saw straight ahead of me a little blaze of fire.
My first thought was that it was the camp-
fire of some mover on the fire -brake. It
blazed up higher, and lapped to the right and
left. It was the grass that was afire. Through
the flames I caught a glimpse of a man. A
gust of wind beat down the blaze, and I saw
the man, bent over and moving along with a
great torch of grass in his hand, leaving a trail
of fire. Then I saw that he was inside the fire-
brake.
In another moment I was running up the
middle of the street yelling " Fire!" so that to
this day it is a wonder to me that I did not
burst both of my lungs.
CHAPTER III
A Fire and a Blizzard: [with how a great many People
go away from Track s End and how some others
come.
IT was an even two hours fight between
* the town of Track s End and the fire;
and they came out about even that is, most
of the scattering dwelling-houses were burned,
but the business part of the town was saved.
There was no water to be had, nor time to
plow a furrow, so we fought the fire mainly
with brooms, shovels, old blankets, and such
like things with which we could pound it out.
But it got up to the dwellings in spite of us.
As soon as the danger seemed to be past, I said
to Allenham, who had had charge of the fire
brigade:
" I saw a man set that fire out there. Don t
you suppose we could find him ?"
"Pike, 111 bet a dollar!" exclaimed Allen-
ham. "We ll try it, anyhow, whoever it is."
22
TRACK S END
He ordered everybody that could to get a
horse, and soon we all rode off into the dark
ness. But though we were divided into small
parties and searched all that night and half the
next day, nothing came of it. I kept with
Allenham, and as we came in he said:
" There s no use looking for him any longer.
If he didn t have a horse and ride away out of
the country ahead of all of us, then he s down a
badger-hole and intends to stay there till we
quit looking. I ll wager he ll know better n
to show himself around Track s End again,
anyhow."
Toward night the train came in pushing
Pike s box-car ahead of it. Burrdock, who
had now been promoted to conductor, said he
had bumped against it about six miles down
the track. The little end door had been broken
open from the inside with a coupling-pin,
which Pike must have found in the car and
kept concealed. With the window open it was
no trick at all to crawl out, set the brake, and
stop the car. Nobody doubted any longer
that he was the one who had started the fire.
I may as well pass over the next month
without making much fuss about it here.
23
TRACK S END
Nothing happened except that folks kept
going away. After the fire nearly all of those
burned out left, and about the same time all of
the settlers who had taken up claims in the
neighborhood also went back east for the
winter, some of them on the train, but most
of them in white-topped covered wagons.
There was almost no business in town, and if
you wanted to get into a store you would
generally first have to hunt up the owner and
ask him to open it for you. I saw Mr. Clerkin-
well occasionally. He always spoke kindly
and wished me success. Then the great
October blizzard came.
Folks in that country still talk about the
October blizzard, and well they may do so,
because the like of it has never been known
since. It came on the twenty-sixth day of
October, and lasted three days. It was as
bad as it ought to have been in January, and
the people at Track s End, being new to the
country, judged that the winter had come to
stay, and were discouraged; and so most of
the rest of them went away.
It began to snow on the morning of the
twenty-fifth, with an east and northeast wind.
24
TRACK S END
The snow came down all day in big flakes, and
by evening it was a foot deep. It turned
colder in the night, and the wind shifted to the
northwest. In the morning it was blizzard-
ing. The air was full of fine snow blown be
fore the wind, and before noon you could not
see across the street. Some of the smaller
houses were almost drifted under. This kept
up for three days. Of course the train could
not get through, and the one telegraph wire
went down and left the town like an island
alone in the middle of the ocean.
The next day after the blizzard stopped it
grew warmer and the snow began to melt a
little, but it was another four days before the
train came. By the time it did come it
seemed as if everybody in town was disgusted
or frightened enough to leave. When the
second train after the blizzard had gone back,
there were but thirty-two persons, all told, at
Track s End. Only one of these was a wo
man, and she it was that was the cause
of making me a hotel - keeper on a small
scale.
The woman was Mrs. Sours, wife of my
employer. One morning, after every one had
25
TRACK S END
left the breakfast-table except her husband
and myself, she said to me:
"Jud, couldn t you run the hotel this win
ter, now that there are only three or four
boarders left, and them not important nor
particular, only so they get enough to eat?"
"I don t know, ma am," I said. "I can
run the barn, but I m afraid I don t know
much about a hotel."
" Do you hear the boy say he can do it,
Henry?" says she, turning to her husband.
"Of course he can do it, and do it well, too.
He always said his mother taught him how to
cook. That means I m a-going down on the
train to-morrow, and not coming back to this
wretched country till spring has melted off the
snow and made it fit for a decent body to
live in."
"Well, all right," said Sours. "You may
go; Jud and me are good for it."
"Mercy sakes!" cried Mrs. Sours, "do you
suppose I m going to leave you here to be
frozen to death, and starved to death, and
killed by the wolves that we already hear
howling every night, and murdered by In
dians, and shot by Pike and that wretched
26
TRACK S END
band of horse-thieves that the Billings sheriffs
who stopped here the other night was looking
for? No, Henry; when I go I am going to
take you with me/
Sours tried to argue with her a little, but it
did no sort of good, and the next day they
both went off and I was left in charge of the
hotel for the winter with three boarders Tom
Carr, the station agent and telegraph operator ;
Frank Valentine, the postmaster; and a Nor
wegian named Andrew, who was to take my
place in the barn. Allenham had gone before
the blizzard. Some others went on the same
train with Mr. Sours and his wife. We were
twenty-six, all told, that night.
The weather remained bad, and the train
was often late or did not come at all. On the
last day of November there were an even four
teen of us left. On the morning of that day
week Tom Carr came over from the station
and brought word that he had just got a tele
gram from headquarters saying that for the
rest of the winter the train would run to
Track s End but once a week, coming up
Wednesday and going back Thursday.
" Well, that settles it with me" said Harvey
13 27
TRACK S END
Tucker. "I shall go back with it the first
Thursday it goes."
"Same with me/ said a man named West.
"I know when I ve got enough, and I ve got
enough of Track s End."
Mr. Clerkinwell, who happened to be pres
ent, laughed cheerfully. He was by far the
oldest man left, but he always seemed the
least discouraged.
"Oh," he said to the others, "that s noth
ing. The train does us no good except to
bring the mail, and it can bring it just as well
once a week as twice. We were really pam
pered with that train coming to us twice a
week," and he laughed again and went out.
It was just another week and a day that
poor Mr. Clerkinwell was taken sick. He had
begun boarding at the hotel, and that night
did not come to supper. I went over to his
rooms to see what the trouble was. I found
him on the bed in a high fever. His talk was
rambling and flighty. It was a good deal
about his daugther Florence, whom he had
told me of before. Then he wandered to
other matters.
"It s locked, Judson, it s locked, and no-
28
TRACK S END
body knows the combination; and there
aren t any burglars here," he said. I knew he
was talking about the safe in the room below.
We all did what we could for him, which
was little enough. The doctor had gone away
weeks before. He grew worse during the
night. The train had come in that day, and I
asked Burrdock if he did not think it would be
best to send him away on it in the morning to
his friends at St. Paul, where he could get
proper care. Burrdock agreed to this plan.
Toward morning the old gentleman fell asleep,
and we covered him very carefully and carried
him over to the train on his bed. He roused
up a little in the car and seemed to realize
where he was.
" Take care of the bank, Judson, take good
care of it," he said in a sort of a feeble way.
" You must be banker as well as hotel-keeper
now."
I told him I would do the best I could, and
he closed his eyes again.
It was cold and blizzardy when the train
left at nine o clock. Tucker and West were
not the only ones of our little colony who took
the train ; there were five others, making, with
TRACK S END
Mr. Clerkinwell, eight, and leaving us six, to
wit: Tom Carr, the agent; Frank Valentine,
the postmaster; Jim Stackhouse; Cy Baker;
Andrew, the Norwegian, and myself, Judson
Pitcher.
After the train had gone away down the
track in a cloud of white smoke, we held a
mock mass-meeting around the depot stove,
and elected Tom Carr mayor, Jim Stack-
house treasurer, and Andrew street commis
sioner, with instructions to " clear the streets
of snow without delay so that the city s
system of horse-cars may be operated to the
advantage of our large and growing popula
tion." The Norwegian grinned and said:
" Aye tank he be a pretty big yob to put all
that snow away."
In a little while the new street commissioner
and I left the others at a game of cards and
started out to go to the hotel. There was a
strong northwest wind, and the fine snow
was sifting along close to the ground. I
noticed that the rails were already covered
in front of the depot. The telegraph wire
hummed dismally. We were plowing along
against the wind when we heard a shout and
30
HEADING THE OUTLAWS LETTER, DECEMBER SIXTEENTH
TRACK S END
looked up. Over by the old graders camp
there were three men on horseback, all bun
dled up in fur coats. One of them had a letter
in his hand which he waved at us.
" Let s see what s up," I said to Andrew,
and we started over. At that the man stuck
the letter in the box of a broken dump-cart,
and then they all rode away to the west.
When we came up to the cart I unfolded the
letter and read:
To PROP. BANK OF TRACK S END AND OTHER CITIZENS
AND FOLKS:
The Undersined being in need of a little Reddy
Mutiny regrets that they have to ask you for $5,000.
Leave it behind the bord nailed to the door of Bill
Mountain s shack too mile northwest and there wunt
be no trubble. If we don t get munny to buy fuel
with we shall have to burn your town to keep warm.
Maybe it will burn better now than it did last fall.
So being peecibel ourselves, and knowing how very
peecibel you all are, it will be more plesent all around
if you come down with the cash. No objextions to
small bills. We know how few there are of you but
we don t think we have asked for too much.
Yours Respecfully, D. PIKE,
and numrous Frends.
P.X. Thow somewhat short on reddy funs,
We still no how to use our guns.
This is poetry but we mean bizness.
CHAPTER IV
We prepare to fight the Robbers and I make a little
Trip out to Bill Mountain s House: after I come
back I show what a great Fool I can be.
next minute I was back in the depot
reading this letter to the others. When
I had finished they all looked pretty blank.
At last Jim Stackhouse said:
" Well, I d like to know what we re going to
do about it?"
Tom Carr laughed. "If they come it will
be the duty of the street commissioner to
remove em for obstructing the car lines," he
said.
I don t think Andrew understood this joke,
though the rest of us laughed, partly, I guess,
to keep up our courage.
"Well, 11 went on Carr, "there s one thing
sure we can t send them five thousand dol
lars even if we wanted to; and we don t want
to very much. I don t believe there is a
32
TRACK S END
hundred dollars in the whole town outside of
Clerkinwell s safe."
"What do you suppose there is in that?"
asked Baker.
"There might be a good deal and there
might not be so much," said Carr. " I heard
that he saved $20,000 out of the failure of his
business back east and brought it out here to
start new with. He certainly didn t take any of
it away with him, nor use much of it here. He
might have sent it back some time ago, but it
hasn t gone through the express office if hedid."
" Nor it hasn t gone through the post-office,"
said Frank Valentine. " I guess it s in the
safe yet, most of it."
"Very likely," answered Carr. "But even
if it is I don t believe Pike and those fellows
would know enough to get it out unless they
had all day to work at it ; and what would we
be doing all that time?"
"Shooting," said Jim Stackhouse; but I
thought he said it as if he would rather be
doing anything else. I didn t know so much
about men then as I do now, but I could see
that Tom Carr was the only man in the lot
that could be depended on in case of trouble.
3 33
TRACK S" END
" Well, how are we fixed for things to shoot
with?" went on Carr.
"I ve got a repeating rifle," answered
Valentine. "So have you, and so has Cy.
I guess Sours left some shooting-irons behind,
too, didn t he, Jud?"
"Yes; a Winchester and a shot-gun/ I
replied.
"There are some other shot-guns in town,
too," continued Valentine. "But I guess the
best show for us is in Taggart s hardware
store. When he went away he left the key
with me, and there s a lot of stuff boxed up
there."
"Go and see about it and let s pull our
selves together and find out what we re do
ing," said Carr. "I think we can stand off
those fellows all right if we keep our eyes open.
I suppose they are up at the headquarters of
the old Middleton gang on Cattail Creek, the
other side of the Missouri. The men that
went through here with that pony herd last
fall were some of them, and the ponies were all
stolen, so that Billings sheriff said. I guess
Pike has joined them, and I should think they
would suit each other pretty well."
34
TRACK S END
In a little while Valentine came back and
said he had found a dozen repeating rifles, and
that he thought there were more in some of
the other boxes. There was also plenty of
cartridges and some revolvers and shot-guns.
" That fixes us all right for arms, " said Carr.
" Before night we must organize and get
ready to defend the town against an attack if
it should come; but I think the next thing is
to send a letter out to Mountain s house and
put it where they will look for the money,
warning them to keep away if they don t want
to be shot."
"Yes," answered Valentine, "that will be
best. Write em a letter and make it good and
stiff."
Tom went into the back room and soon
came out with a letter which read as follows :
TRACK S END, December 16.
To D. PIKE and FELLOW-THIEVES, You will never
get one cent out of this town. If any of you come
within range you will be shot on sight. We are well
armed, and can carry out our share of this offer.
COMMITTEE OF SAFETY.
" I guess that will do," said Tom. "There
isn t any poetry in it, but I reckon they ll
35
TRACK S END
understand it. Now, Jud, what do you say
to taking it out and leaving it on Mountain s
door?"
" All right," I answered ; " I ll do it."
" Probably Jim had better go along with
you," said Carr. " I don t think any of them
are there, but you can take my field-glass and
have a look at the place when you get out to
Johnson s."
We all went to dinner, and by the time Jim
and I were ready to start the sky had clouded
over and threatened snow. I said nothing,
but slipped back into the hotel and filled my
pockets with bread and cold meat. I thought
it might come handy. It was so cold and the
snow was so deep that we had decided to go
on foot instead of horseback, but we found it
slow work getting along. Where the crust
held us we made good time, but most of the
way we had to flounder along through soft
drifts.
At Johnson s we took a long look at Moun
tain s with the glass, but could see no signs of
life. It began to snow soon after leaving
here, and several times we lost sight of the
place we were trying to reach, but we kept on
36
TRACK S END
and got there at last. The snow was coming
down faster, and it seemed as if it were already
growing dark.
" It isn t going to be very safe trying to find
our way back to-night," said Jim. " Let s see
what the prospect for staying here is. 1
We pushed open the door. It was a board
shanty with only one room, and that half full
of snow. But there was a sheet -iron hay
stove in one end and a stack of hay outside.
I told Jim of the food which I had brought.
" Then we ll stay right here, he said. " It s
ten to one that we miss the town if we try to
go back to-night. Our tracks are filled in
before this."
We set to work with an old shovel and a
piece of board and cleaned out the snow, and
then we built a fire in the stove. We soon had
the room fairly comfortable. The stove took
twisted hay so fast that the work did more to
keep us warm than the fire.
We divided the food for supper, leaving half
of it for breakfast. It made a pretty light
meal, but we didn t complain. I wondered
what we should do if the storm kept up the
next day, and I suppose Jim thought of the
37
TRACK S END
same thing; but neither of us said anything
about that. I sat up the first half of the night
and fed the fire, while Jim slept on a big dry-
goods box behind the stove, and he did as
much for me during the last half.
It was still snowing in the morning. We
divided the food again, leaving half of it for
dinner, which left a breakfast lighter than the
supper had been. We were a good deal dis
couraged. But soon after noon it stopped
snowing and began to lighten up. It was still
blowing and drifting, but we thought we might
as well be lost as to starve; so we left the
letter behind the board on the door and started
out.
We got along better than we expected.
The wind had shifted to the northwest, so it
was at our backs. We passed Johnson s
deserted house and finally came within sight
of the town through the flying snow. We
were not twenty rods from the station when
suddenly Jim exclaimed:
"Why, there s a train!"
Sure enough, just beyond the station was an
engine with a big snow-plow on it, with one
freight -car and a passenger -car. A dozen
38
TRACK S END
men with shovels stood beside it stamping
their feet and swinging their arms to keep
from freezing. There were faces at the car-
windows, and Burrdock and Tom Carr were
walking up and down the depot platform.
We came up to them looking pretty well
astonished, I guess.
"When I got to the Junction yesterday I
got orders to take another train and come
back here and get you folks," said Burrdock in
answer to our looks. "Just got here after
shoveling all night, and want to leave as soon
as we can, before it gets to drifting any worse.
This branch is to be abandoned for the winter
and the station closed. Hurry up and get
aboard!"
Jim and I were both too astonished to speak.
" Yes," said Tom Carr, " we were just start
ing after you when we saw you coming. We re
going to take Sours s horses and the cow in the
box-car. I just sent Andrew over after them
and the chickens, too, if he can catch them."
I don t know how it was, but my face flushed
up as hot as if it had been on fire. I felt the
tears coming into my eyes, I was in that state
of passion.
39
TRACK S END
"Torn," I said, "who was left in charge of
Sours s things?"
"Why why, you were," answered Tom,
almost as much astonished as I had been a
moment before.
"Who gave you authority to meddle with
them?" I said.
" Nobody. But I knew you wouldn t want
to leave them here to starve, and I did it to
save time."
"They re not going to starve here," I said,
getting better control of my voice. "Call
Andrew back this minute. You ve neither
of you the right to touch a thing that s
there."
"But surely you re going with the rest of
us?" said Tom.
" No, I m not," I answered.
Tom turned and started toward the town.
" Now, don t make a fool of yourself, young
man," said Burrdock. "This here town is
closed up for the winter. You won t see the
train here again before next March."
" The train won t see me, then, before next
March," I said. " Jim, are you going with the
rest of them?"
TRACK S END
" Well, I m not the fellow to do much stay
ing," he answered.
I turned and started for the hotel; Burr-
dock muttered something which I didn t
catch. I saw Andrew going toward the
train, but without any of the animals. Tom
came down the street and met me. He held
out his hand and said:
" Jud, I admire you. I d stay with you if I
could, but the company has ordered me to
come, and I ve got to go. But it s a crazy
thing for you to do, and you d better come
along with us, after all."
" No," I said, " I m going to stay." (It was
a foolish pride and stubbornness that made me
say it ; I wanted to go already.)
"Well, good-by, Jud."
"Good-by, Tom," I said.
He walked away, then turned and said:
"Now, Jud, for the last time: Will you
come?"
"No, I won t!"
In another minute the train rolled away,
with Tom standing on the back platform with
his hand on the bell-rope ready to pull it if I
signaled him to stop.
41
TRACK S END
But I didn t. I went on over to the Head
quarters House. It was beginning to get
dark; and the snow was falling again. The
door was stuck fast, but I set my shoulder
against it and pushed it open. The snow had
blown in the crack and made a drift half-way
across the floor. I put my hand on the stove.
It was cold, and the fire was out.
CHAPTER V
Alone in Track s End I repent of my hasty Action:
with what I do at the Headquarters House, and
the whole Situation in a Nutshell.
WHEN I came to think of it afterward I
thought it was odd, but the first thing
that popped into my mind when I saw that the
fire had gone out was that perhaps there were
no matches left in the town. I ran to the
match-safe so fast that I bumped my head
against the wall. The safe was almost full,
and then it struck me that there were prob
ably matches in half the houses in town, and
that I even had some in my pocket.
I went over and peeped out of one corner of
a window-pane where the wind had come in
and kept back the frost. The snow was driv
ing down the street like a whirling cloud of
fog. I could hardly see the bank building
opposite. An awful feeling like sinking came
over me as I realized how matters stood ; and
4 43
TRACK S END
the worst of it was that I had brought it upon
myself. I rushed into the dining-room and
looked out of a side window to see if the train
might not be coming back; but there was
only the whirlwind of snow. I went back in
the office and threw myself on a lounge in one
corner.
If any one says that I lay there with my
face in a corn-husk pillow and cried as if I
were a girl, I m not going to dispute him. If
any girl thinks that she can cry harder than
I did, I d like to see her try it. But it, or
something, made me feel better, and after a
while I could think a little. But I could not
get over knowing that it was all my own fault,
and that I might be riding away on the train
with friends, and with people to see and talk
to. I realized that it was all my quick temper
and stubbornness which was to blame, and
remembered how my mother had told me that
it would get me into trouble some day. " If
Tom hadn t come at me so suddenly," I said
out loud, with my face still in the husk pillow,
"I d have agreed to it. Dear old Tom, he
meant all right, and I was a fool!"
When at last I sat up I found it was so dark
44
TRACK S END
that I could hardly see. The wind was roar
ing outside, and I could feel fine snow against
my face from some crack. I was stiff and
cold, and just remembered that I had not had
above a quarter of a meal all day. I thought
I heard a scratching at the door, and opened
it. Something rushed in and almost upset
me; then I knew it was Kaiser, Sours s dog.
I was never so glad to see anything before. I
dropped down on my knees and put my arms
around his neck and hugged him, and for all I
know I may have kissed him. I guess I again
acted worse than a girl. I remember now
that I did kiss the dog.
I got up at last and felt around till I found
the match-safe, and lit the wall lamp over the
desk. I thought it made it so I could actual
ly see the cold. Kaiser seemed warm in his
thick coat of black hair, and wagged his tail
like a good fellow. I don t know why it was,
but I thought I had never wanted to talk so
badly before. " We re glad they re gone,
aren t we, Kaiser?" I said to him; then I
thought that sounded foolish, so I didn t say
anything more, but set to work to build the
fire,
45
TRACK S END
When I went to the shed at the back door
for the kindling-wood I found another friend,
this time our cat, a big black-and-white one.
I don t think I was quite so foolish about her
as I had been about the dog, but I was glad to
see her. After the fire was started I got a
shovel and cleared the snow out of the office.
Outside it was already banked half-way up
the door, and the storm was still raging.
As I turned from putting some coal on the
fire I happened to see the hotel register lying
on the desk. Another foolish notion seized
me, and I took up the pen and as well as I
could with my stiff fingers headed a page
"December lyth," and below registered my
self, "Judson Pitcher, Track s End, Dakota
Territory." I think the excitement must
have turned my brain, because I seemed to be
doing silly things all the time.
But I managed to stop my foolishness long
enough to get myself some supper; which I
guess was what I needed, because I acted
more sensibly afterward. Everything in the
house was frozen, but I thawed out some
meat, and ate some bread without its being
thawed, and boiled a couple of eggs, and had a
46
TRACK S END
meal which tasted as good as any I ever ate,
and with enough left for Kaiser and the cat,
who was named Pawsy, though I can t imag
ine where such a name came from.
The office was by this time quite comfort
able. I had brought a small table in from the
kitchen and eaten my supper close to the
stove. Though it was pitch-dark outside, it
was not yet six o clock, and as I felt calmer
than I had before, I sat down in front of the
fire to consider how matters stood. I think
I realized what I was in for better than before,
but I no longer felt like crying. If I remember
aright, it was now that I gave the first thought
to Pike and his gang.
" Well," I said, speaking out loud, just as if
there was somebody to hear me besides a cat
and a dog, " I guess Pike won t do much as
long as this storm lasts. But after that, I
don t know. Maybe I can hide if they come."
I thought a minute more and then said: " No,
I won t do that I ll fight, if I have a chance.
They won t have any way of knowing that I
am here alone, and if I can see them first I ll
be all right." That is what I said; but I
remember that I felt pretty doubtful about it
47
TRACK S END
all. I think I must have been trying not to
let Kaiser know that I was afraid.
After a while I fell to thinking of home and
of my mother. When I thought of how she
would worry when she didn t hear from me,
it gave me an idea of leaving Track s End
and trying to make my way east to civiliza
tion. It seemed to me that with a few days of
good weather I ought to be able to get through
if no more snow came; though I had no idea
how far I might have to go, since for all I
knew Lac-qui-Parle might also be abandoned;
and, even if it were not, I knew that it had no
trains and that I would probably have to
travel overland to the other side of the Minne
sota line before I could reach a settlement
with any connection with the outside world.
I was before long very gloomy thinking about
my troubles; then I happened to remember
the horses and cow about which I had tried to
quarrel with poor Tom Carr, and I put on my
overcoat and went out to look after them.
I thought the wind would carry jne away,
and I had to shovel ten minutes by the light of
a lantern half blown out before I could get the
door open. But when I did get in I found
48
TRACK S END
them glad to see me; and I was glad to see
them. And while shoveling away the snow I
had shoveled away my fit of the blues; and
from that day to this I ve taken notice that the
best way to get rid of trouble and feelings you
don t want is to go to work lively; which is a
first-class thing to remember, and I throw it in
here for good measure.
The cow mooed at me, and even the horses
whinnied a little, though they were not what
you might call children s pets, being broncos,
and more apt to take a kick at you than to try
to throw you a kiss. The chickens had gone to
roost and didn t have much to say. They re
fused to come down for their supper, but the
horses and the cow were very glad to get
theirs. Then I milked the cow, told them all
good-night, made everything about the barn
as snug as I could, and shouldered my way
through the storm to the house. I found
both Kaiser and Pawsy wide awake and wait
ing for me. I don t think they liked the house
being so deserted and lonesome. I gave
them both some of the warm milk, and took a
share of it myself.
I was beginning to realize that I was tired
4 49
TRACK S END
by this time, and sat down in a big chair before
the fire. The stove was a round, cast-iron one,
shaped a good deal like a decanter. It burned
soft coal, and, as it was going well, and was
warm enough in the room, I threw the door
open, making it seem very like a fireplace.
I was over the excitement of the day, and fell
to looking at the situation again. This is the
way I made it out, to wit:
First, that I was alone, except for the
animals, and in charge of a whole town; that
it was very improbable (as the blizzard still
held) that any train would or could get
through very soon perhaps not before spring.
Second, that the animals consisted of one
large, shaggy, black dog (breed uncertain)
named Kaiser; one large black-and-white cat
named Pawsy ; one cow named Blossom ; two
bronco horses, one named Dick, the other
Ned; twenty-two hens and one rooster, with
out any particular names except that I called
one of the hens Crazy Jane.
Third, that there was enough hay in the
barn for the horses and cow, though other feed
would be short unless I could find more about
town somewhere; that I ought to be able to
50
TRACK S END
scare up enough food for myself by going
through the stores, though some kinds might
be short ; that there was plenty of coal.
Fourth, that there were guns of all kinds,
and probably a good supply of ammunition.
Fifth, that there might be $20,000 in a safe
across the street.
Sixth, that there was a gang of cutthroats
somewhere about who wanted the money, and
would come after it the minute they knew I
was alone; and might come sooner.
By this time I was sleepy; so I covered up
Kaiser on one end of the lounge, the cat on
the other, put out the lamp, and went up-stairs
and popped into bed.
CHAPTER VI
Some Account of what I do and think the first Day
alone: with a Discovery by Kaiser at the End.
I WOKE up with a start in the morning,
" thinking that it was all a bad dream;
then I knew it wasn t, and wished it were; and
next I was very glad to hear the blizzard still
roaring as hard as ever, which may seem odd
to you. But the fact is that I had thought a
long time after I went to bed and had decided
on two things first, that I was safe from the
robbers as long as the storm lasted, and,
second and more important, that I had a plan
which might serve to keep them away for a
while at least after the storm stopped. I got
up and looked out of the window, but I might
as well have looked into a haystack for all I
saw. I could not even see the houses on the
other side of the street.
I went down, said good-morning to the cat
and dog, and started the fire. It was colder;
52
TRACK S END
I peeped at the thermometer through the
window, and saw it was a dozen degrees below
zero. I found the stock at the barn all right
and cheerful; the chickens were down making
breakfast of what I had given them for supper,
all except Crazy Jane, who had finished eat
ing and was trying to get out of the barn,
maybe thinking that she could make a nest
in a snowbank, or could scratch for angle
worms.
After I had finished the barn-work I went
in and got breakfast. I started a fire in the
kitchen and got a better meal than I had the
night before. I went down cellar after some
potatoes, and noticed that there were a plenty
of them; with squashes, pumpkins, and other
vegetables; all of which I knew before, but I
observed that such things looked different to
me now. I couldn t count much on the
pumpkins because I didn t know how to make
pumpkin pie, but I knew that the cow would
be very glad to get them without their being
made into pie. " It would be funny," I said,
out loud, as if there were somebody to hear,
" if cows should find out some day that pump
kins are better in pies and farmers should have
S3
TRACK S END
to fix them that way before they would eat
them."
I found that I felt much better about the
situation than I had the night before, though,
of course, I still wished with all my heart that
I was out of it all, and thought every minute
what a fool I was to have acted the way I did.
But there were so many things to do that I did
not have time to worry very much, which I
believe was all that kept me from going crazy.
After breakfast I decided that the first
thing I had best do was to look up the gun
question. I found Sours s rifle in a closet.
It was not loaded, but there was a box of
cartridges on a shelf, and I wiped out the
barrel and filled the magazine. It was fifteen-
shot and forty-five caliber, and seemed like a
good gun. I stood it under the counter in the
office and out of sight behind an old coat. In
the drawer of the desk was a revolver. It
was a thirty-eight caliber, and pretty big to
carry, but I thought it might be handy to have,
so I stuffed it in my pocket.
Taggart s hardware store was two doors
toward the railroad from the hotel, but the
sidewalk was so covered with snow, and the
54
TRACK S END
wind swept down the street with such fury,
that it seemed next to impossible to get there.
But I was anxious to see about the weapons, so
I went out the back door and crept along close
to the rear of the buildings till I reached it.
The door was locked, but I could see through
a window that a box had been recently broken
open; but, as there were no guns in sight, I
concluded that the men had probably carried
them over to the depot. I tried to see this
through the driving snow, but could not, so I
did not dare to start out to find it, knowing
how easy it is to become confused and lost in
such a storm.
As I stood back of the store I thought once
that I heard the whistle of a locomotive;
then I knew of course it was only the wind.
" It ll be a long time before you hear any such
music as that," I said to myself. There was
nothing which would have sounded quite so
good to me.
I was glad to get back to the house, where I
could draw a breath of air not full of powdered
snow. I spent some time calking up cracks
around the windows, where the snow blew in.
While I was doing this it suddenly flashed into
55
TRACK S END
my mind, what if I should lose track of the
days of the month and week? I thought I
would write down every day, and got a piece
of paper to begin on, when I noticed a calen
dar behind the desk. I took the pen and
scratched off " December 17," which was gone,
and which was the beginning of my life alone
in Track s End; and the first thing every
morning after that while I stayed I marked
off the day before; and so I never lost my
reckoning. Though, indeed, I was soon to
wake up in another and worse place than
Track s End; but of this I will tell later. I
had very foolishly forgotten to wind the clock
the night before, and it had stopped, and I had
no watch by which to set it ; but I started it,
and trusted to find the clock at the depot still
going, as it was an eight-day one.
I soon found myself hungry, and took it for
granted that it was dinner-time. The meals
seemed pretty lonesome, because I had been
used to having a great deal of fun with Tom
Carr and the others at such times, much of it
about my poor cooking. Kaiser and Pawsy
appeared willing to do what they could to
make it pleasant; and this time I put a chair
MY FAMILY AND I AT A MEAL, TRACK S END
TRACK S END
at one end of the little table, and the cat
jumped up in it and began to purr like a young
tiger, while the dog sat on the floor at the other
end and pounded the floor with his tail like any
drummer might beat his drum. I also began
to get them into the bad practice of eating at
the same time I did; but I had to have some
company.
It must have been two hours after dinner,
and I was moving my bed down into a little
room between the office and kitchen, when I
first saw that the fury of the wind was be
ginning to lessen. The sky began to lighten
up, and from the front door I could soon catch
glimpses of the railroad windmill. I saw that
I must start the plan I had thought of the
night before for keeping off the Pike gang
without any delay. My idea was that I must
not let them know that I was alone, and if
possible make them think that there were still
a good many people in town. I doubted if
they had known the morning they left the
letter that we were then reduced to six. I
could not see how they should know it, and
I felt sure that if they had known it they
would have made an attack upon the bank.
57
TRACK S END
My plan, then, was to build and keep up
fires in several other houses, so that if they
came in sight they would see the smoke and
think that there was still a good-sized popula
tion. I went first across the street to the bank
building. The lower part of it was locked,
but I went up the outside stairs and found
everything in Mr. Clerkinwell s rooms as we
had left it. There were also inside stairs, and
I went down and soon had a good fire going in
the lower room, and as I came out I was
pleased to see that it made a large smoke.
I next went to the north end of the street,
where stood a building which had been a
harness shop. It was locked, but I could see
a stove inside; so I broke a back window,
reached in with a stick, and shot back the bolt
of the rear door, and soon had a good smoky
fire here, too. I decided that one more would
do for that day, and thought the best place for
that would be in the depot. The wind had
now pretty well abated, and the snow was
only streaming along close to the ground.
The depot was locked, but again I got in by
breaking a window. There were the guns as I
expected five new Winchesters like Sours s.
58
TRACK S END
There were also a lot of cartridges, and three
large six-shooters, with belts and holsters.
It was half-past three by the clock, which was
still going. I clicked at the telegraph instru
ment, but it was silent. I remembered that
Tom had told me that the line had gone down
beyond Siding No. 15, which was the first one
east from Track s End. Everything made me
think of Tom, and I looked away along the
line of telegraph-poles where I knew the track
was, down under the snow; but I could see no
train coming to take me out of the horrible
place.
I soon had another fire going. After that I
hid two of the rifles in the back room and
carried the others over to the hotel. I climbed
to the top of the windmill tower and took a
look at Mountain s house with the field-glass,
but could see nothing. I walked around town
and looked in each of the houses with an odd
sort of feeling, as if I half owned them. Kaiser
went with me, and was very glad to get out.
It was just after sundown when I got back
to the door of the hotel. Up the street in
front of the harness shop I saw a jack-rabbit
sitting up and looking at me. Kaiser saw
R 59
TRACK S END
him, too, and started after him, though the
dog ought to have known that it was like
chasing a streak of lightning. I stood with
my hand on the door-knob watching the rabbit
leave the dog behind, when suddenly I saw
Kaiser stop as another dog came around
Frenchman s Butte. They met, there was a
little tussle, which made the snow fly; then I
saw Kaiser coming back on a faster run than
he had gone out on, with the other dog close
behind. &
"That s a brave dog I ve got!" I exclaimed.
I saw some other dogs come around the Butte,
but I didn t look at them much, I was so dis
gusted at seeing Kaiser making such a cow
ardly run. On he came like a whirlwind. I
opened the door and stepped in. He bolted
in between my legs and half knocked me over.
I slammed the door shut against the other
dog s nose. The other dog, I saw, was a wolf.
CHAPTER VII
I have a Fight and a Fright: after which I make some
Plans for the Future and take up my Bed and
move.
I DON T know if the door really struck the
wolf s nose or not, when I slammed it
shut, but it could not have lacked much of it.
Poor Kaiser rushed around the stove, faced
the window, and began to bark so excitedly
that his voice trembled and sounded differ
ently than I had ever heard it before. I must
have been a little excited myself, as I stopped
to bolt the door, just as if the wolf could turn
the knob and walk in. When I stepped back
I met the wolf face to face gazing in the win
dow, with his eyes flaming and mouth a little
open. He was gaunt and hungry - looking.
The rest of the pack were just coming up,
howling as loud as they could.
I ran to the desk and got the rifle; then I
dropped on one knee and fired across the room
61
TRACK S END
straight at the wolf s throat. He fell back in
the snow dead; and, of course, there was only
a little round hole in the window-pane. Every
thing would have been all right if it had not
been for a mean spirit of revenge in Kaiser, for
no sooner did he see his enemy fall back life
less than with one jump he smashed through
the window and fell upon him savagely. He
had not seen the rest of the pack, but the next
second half a dozen of them pounced on him.
I dared not fire again for fear of hitting him, so
I dropped my gun, seized an axe which I had
used to split kindling-wood, and ran forward.
There was a cloud of snow outside, and then
the dog tumbled back through the window
with one of the wolves, and they rolled over
arid over together on the floor.
I got to the window just as a second wolf
started to come through the broken pane. I
struck him full on the head with the axe, and
he sank down dead, half outside and half in
side. The others that pressed behind stopped
as they saw his fate and stood watching the
struggle on the floor through the window.
Kaiser was making a good fight, but the
wolf was too much for him, and soon the dog
62
TRACK S END
was on his back with the wolf s jaws at his
throat. This was more than I could stand,
and I turned and struck at the animal with my
axe. I missed him, but he let go his hold,
snapped at the axe, and when I started to
strike again he turned and jumped through
the window over his dead companion and
joined the howling pack on the snow-drift in
front of the house.
I seized the gun again and rested it across
the dead wolf, firing full at the impudent rascal
who had come in and made Kaiser so much
trouble. It was a good shot, and the wolf went
down in the snow. I pumped up another
cartridge, but the wolves saw that they were
beaten, and the whole pack turned tail and ran
off as fast as their legs could carry them. I
took two more shots, but missed both. The
wolves went around Frenchman s Butte, never
once stopping their howling.
As soon as they were out of sight I had a
look at Kaiser. I found him all blood from a
wound in his neck, and one of his fore legs was
so badly crippled that the poor beast could
not bear his weight on it. I got some warm
water and washed him off and bound up his
63
TRACK S END
throat. When I was done I heard a strange
yowl, and, looking about, spied Pawsy clinging
on top of the casing of the door which led into
the dining-room, with her tail as big as a bed-
bolster. I suppose she had gone up early in
the wolf - fight, not liking such proceedings.
She was still in the greatest state of fright,
and spat and scratched at me as I took her
down.
I next swept up the dog and wolf fur and
cleaned the floor, and after I had got the place
set to rights nailed a board over the broken
window and carried the three dead wolves
into the kitchen, where, after supper, I skinned
them, hoping that some day their hides would
go into the making of a fur overcoat for me;
something which I needed.
I don t know if it was the excitement of the
fight, or the awful stillness of the night, or
what it was, but after I had finished my work
and sat down in the office to rest I fell into
the utmost terror. The awful lonesomeness
pressed down upon me like a weight. I
started at the least sound; dangers I had
never thought of before, such as sickness and
the like, popped into my mind clear as day,
64
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*55^i\ |^r if/ s s ; s ^
* \ J?BS3 V ;\
^_^ \ x fe & " ^ m _
a
j DEPOT
TRACK 5 END
TRACK S END
and, in short, I was half dead from sheer fright.
There was not a breath of wind outside, or a
sound, except once in a while a sharp crack of
some building as the frost warped a clapboard
or sprung out a nail; and at each crack I
started as if I had been struck. The moon
was shining brightly, but it was much colder;
the thermometer already marked twenty de
grees below zero.
Suddenly there came, clear and sharp, the
savage howling of a pack of wolves; it seemed
at the very door. I jumped out of my chair, I
was so startled, and stood, I think, a most
disgraceful picture of a coward. Kaiser rose
up on his three sound legs and began to growl.
At last I got courage to go to the window and
peep out, with my teeth fairly chattering.
I could see them up the street, all in a bunch,
and offering a fine shot ; but I was too fright
ened to shoot. After a while they went off,
and it was still again. I wondered which was
worse, their savage wailing or the awful still
ness which made the ticking of the clock seem
like the blows of a hammer. I wished that
there might come another blizzard.
But at last I got so I could walk the floor;
65
TRACK S END
and as I went back and forth I managed to
look at things a little more calmly. The first
thing I decided on was that I must no longer,
in good weather at least, sleep in the hotel. It
was easy to see, if the robbers came in the
night and found nobody in the other houses,
that they would come straight to the hotel.
I made up my mind to take my bed to some
empty house where they would be little likety
to look for any one, or where they would not
be apt to look until after I had had warning of
their coming.
Another thing which I decided on was that I
must keep up two or three more fires, and get
up early every morning to start them. I saw,
too, that I ought to distribute the Winchesters
more, and board up the windows of the bank,
and perhaps some of the other buildings,
leaving loopholes out of which to shoot.
Still another point which I thought of was
this: Suppose the whole town should be
burned? I wondered if I could not find or
make some place where I would be safe and
would not have to expose myself to the robbers
if they stayed while the fire burned, as they
probably would. I thought of the cellars, but
66
TRACK S END
it did not seem that I could make one of them
do in any way.
My fright was, after all, a good thing, be
cause it made me think of all possible dangers,
and consequently, as it seemed, ways to meet
them. It was at this time that the idea of a
tunnel under the snow across the street from
the hotel to the bank occurred to me; but I
was not sure about this. Still, some way to
cross the street without being seen kept run
ning in my mind. In short, I walked and
thought myself into a much better state of
mind, and, though I still started at every sound,
I was no longer too frightened to control myself.
When it came bedtime I decided to follow
out my plan for sleeping away from the hotel
without delay. There was an empty store
building to the north of the hotel. It was
new, and had never been occupied. I had
often noticed that one of the second-story win
dows on the side was directly opposite one in
the hotel, and not over four feet away. I
carried up the ironing-board from the kitchen,
opened the hotel window, put the board over
for a bridge, stepped across and entered the
vacant building.
67
TRACK S END
I thought I had never seen a place quite so
cold before; but I carried over the mattress
from my bed, together with several blankets,
and placed them in a small back room in the
second story. The doors and windows of the
first story were all nailed and boarded up, and
it seemed about the last place that you would
expect to find any one sleeping. I left the
dog and cat in the hotel, took one of the rifles
with me, and pulled in my drawbridge. I
almost dropped it as I did so, for at that in
stant the wolves set up another unearthly
howling. I got into bed as quick as I could.
They went the length of the street with their
horrible noise; and then I heard them scratch
ing at the doors and windows of the barn. I
could have shot them easily in the bright
moonlight; but I remember that I didn t
do so.
CHAPTER VIII
I begin my Letters to my Mother and start my For
tifications: then I very foolishly go away, meet
with an Accident, and see Something which throws
rne into the utmost Terror.
THE next day, the nineteenth of Decem
ber, was Sunday. I had been left alone
(or, rather, let me say the truth, I had like a
fool refused to go) on Friday, which seems in
this case to have been unlucky for me, how
ever it may ordinarily be. I woke up early,
half cramped with the weight of the bed
clothes, I had piled on so many; but I was
none too warm, either. I put out my draw
bridge and got back to the hotel and started
the fire. Outside the thermometer stood close
to thirty-five degrees below zero, but the sun
was rising bright and dazzling into a clear,
blue sky.
Kaiser s leg was no better, and Pawsy was
still nervous and kept looking at the windows
69
TRACK S END
as if she expected wolves to bolt in head-first;
and I did not blame her much. It seemed to
me that the wolves had howled most of the
night. I only wished that the timber beyond
Frenchman s Butte and the coteaux and the
Chain of Lakes were a hundred miles away,
for without them there would have been no
wolves, or nothing but little prairie wolves or
coyotes, which, of course, don t amount to
much.
As soon as my own fire was started I went
about town and got the others going; this I
called "bringing the town to life." As I
stood at the depot and watched the long col
umns of smoke from the chimneys it scarcely
seemed that I was the only inhabitant of the
town. After I had had breakfast and done up
the work at the barn, I sat down in the office
and was glad enough that it was Sunday. I
suddenly thought of a way to spend the day,
and in ten minutes I was at something which I
did every Sunday while I stayed at Track s
End.
This was to write a letter to my mother,
stamp and direct it, and drop it in the slot of
the post-office door. Of course it would not go
70
TRACK S END
very soon, but if nothing happened it would go
some time; and, I thought, if I am killed or die
in this dreadful place, the letters may be the
only record she will ever have of my life here.
I accordingly set to work and wrote her a
long letter, telling her fully everything that
had happened so far, but without much of my
fears for the future. I told her I was sorry
that I had got myself into such a scrape, but
that, now being in, I meant to go through it
the best I could.
The next morning, Monday, I began work
on my fortifications, by which name I in
cluded everything that would help to keep off
invaders. I started two more fires, one in
Townsend s store, at the south end of the
street, and the other in Joyce s store, at the
north end of town and nearly opposite the
harness shop. I made another visit to Tag-
gart s, and found some barrels of kerosene,
which I needed, and more ammunition. Still
another thing was a number of door-keys, so
that I made up a string of them with which I
could unlock almost every door in town. In
Joyce s, besides groceries and such things, I
found a buffalo overcoat, which I took the
TRACK S END
liberty of borrowing for the winter. It was
so large for me that it almost touched the
ground, but it was precisely what I needed,
and, I think, once saved my life; and that
before long.
I kept at the fortification-work for four days
pretty steadily, though I did not use the best
judgment in picking out what to do first. I
was fascinated, boy-like, with the tunnel idea,
when, I think, with the knowledge I then had,
it would have been wiser to have paid more
attention to some other things; but, as luck
would have it, it all came out right in the end.
I boarded up a few of the windows, but not
many, and did nothing whatever at providing
a secret retreat in case of fire, though I had a
plan in mind which I thought was good.
Worst of all, I left the Winchesters about here
and there without any particular attempt at
hiding them. But I kept at the tunnel ham
mer and tongs.
There were two front windows in the hotel
office. At one of these the snow came only a
little above the sill, which was the one where
the wolf had come in ; but the other was piled
nearly to the top. It was even higher against
72
TRACK S END
the bank front opposite, and at no place in
the street between was it less than four feet
deep. Both buildings stood almost flat on the
ground. I took out the lower sash of the
window in the hotel and began work. I made
the tunnel something over two feet wide and
about four high, except where the drift was no
more than this, where I did not think it safe to
have the tunnel over three feet high. The
snow was packed remarkably hard, and, as it
all had to be carried out through the office in a
basket and emptied in the street, it was slow
work. But at last, on Thursday evening, it was
done, and Kaiser and I passed through it; but
nothing could induce the cat to come nearer
than the window. I was very proud of my
work, and went through the tunnel twenty
times with no object whatever.
The next morning I ought to have gone at
other fortification-work, but instead I thought
up the foolish notion that I ought to go out to
Bill Mountain s to see if Pike had got our letter
and had left any in reply. It was Friday, the
day before Christmas, and I thought that the
holiday would be more satisfactory if I knew
about this; though, to tell the truth, I had not
a 7?
TRACK S END
worried much about the gang s coming since I
had been so taken up with the tunnel. I had
been so careless that I might have been sur
prised twenty times a day.
It was a pleasant morning, and not very
cold. Andrew had left behind a pair of skees,
or Norwegian snow-shoes light, thin strips of
wood, four inches wide and eight or ten feet
long and, though I had never been on them
but once or twice, I determined to use them in
going. I fixed the fires well, made everything
snug about town, gave the stock in the barn
some extra feed, put on my big overcoat, with
a luncheon in one pocket and Sours s revolver
in the other, and started. Kaiser s leg was
still a little stiff, but I let him go along.
I think I fell down three times before I got
out of town; it was as many as this at least;
and outside of town, there being more room, I
fell oftener. But I soon began to improve and
get along better. I decided to follow the
railroad grade west, as it was most of the way
higher than the prairie, and the snow on it was
smoother.
When I got opposite Mountain s I found the
grade some ten or twelve feet above the
74
TRACK S END
prairie, but it looked a very easy matter to
slide down on the skees. I had seen Andrew
go down the steep side of Frenchman s Butte.
I accordingly slid, went wrong, fell, turned my
ankle, and found myself on the hard snow at
the bottom unable to stand on my feet.
I lay still some time thinking that perhaps
my ankle might get better; but it got worse.
It was still almost half a mile to Mountain s,
but it was over two miles back to town. I
felt that I might be able to crawl the half-mile,
so I started, with the skees on my back. I hope
I may never again have to do anything so
slow and painful. Kaiser was prodigiously ex
cited, and jumped around me and barked and
said as plainly as words that he would like to
help if he could. But, though I thought a
hundred times that I should never reach there,
I kept burrowing and floundering along and
did accomplish it at last. It was far past
noon. The sky had clouded over. I saw a
new letter behind the board, but could not
rise up to get it. I pushed open the door,
crawled to the heap of hay by the stove, and
lay on it, more miserable, it seemed, than ever
before.
75
TRACK S END
I scarcely stirred till I noticed that it was
beginning to get dark. Then I crept to the
door and looked out; the snow was falling
fast and in big flakes. I shut the door and
crawled back to the hay. There seemed to be
nothing to do. I knew I could not keep up a
hay fire, even if I could start one. Besides, I
had a sudden fear that some of the Pike gang
might visit the shanty to look for an answer
to their letter, and I thought if I simply lay
still I might escape, even if they did come.
I ate part of my luncheon, and gave Kaiser
part. Then I drew my big overcoat around
me as best I could, made the dog lie close up to
me on the hay, and tried to sleep.
My ankle pained me a good deal, and the bed
was not comfortable. I thought as I lay there
that my mother and father and all the folks at
home must then be at the church for the
Christmas-tree; and I could see the lights, and
the bright toys on the tree, and all the boys
and girls I knew getting their presents and
laughing and talking ; and the singing and the
music of the organ came to me almost as if I
had been there. Then I thought of how, if I
were home, later I should hang up my stocking
76
TRACK S END
and find other gifts in it in the morning, and of
what a pleasant time Christmas was at home.
Every few minutes a sharp twinge of pain in
my ankle would bring me back to my deplor
able condition there in that deserted shack
sunk in the frozen snow, and I would be half
ready to cry; but, with all my thinking of
both good and bad, I did at last get to sleep.
Once, some time in the night, I woke up with
a jump at a strange, unearthly, w r hooping
noise which seemed to be in the room itself,
but at last I made it out to be an owl to-whoo-
ing on the roof. Again I heard wolves, very
distant, and twenty times in imagination there
sounded in my ears the tramp of Pike s horses.
When morning came I crawled to the door
again. There were six inches of soft, new
snow, but the sun was rising clear, and there
were no signs of a blizzard. I got back to the
hay and for a long time rubbed my ankle. I
thought it was a little better. I ate the rest of
the food and called myself names for ever
having left the town. The fires, I knew, were
out, and everything invited an attack of the
robbers, while I lay crippled in a cold shack
two miles away, on the road along which they
77
TRACK S END
would come and go. I had been in no greater
terror at any time since my troubles began
than I was now on this Christmas morning.
Perhaps it was nine o clock when I noticed
that Kaiser was acting very peculiarly. He
stood in the middle of the room with his head
lowered and a scowl on his face. Then I saw
the hair on his back slowly begin to rise ; next
he growled. I told him to hush, and waited.
I could hear nothing, but I knew there must be
good cause for his actions.
At last I could stand it no longer. I dared
not open the door, but I seized one corner of the
dry-goods box, drew myself up, and hobbled
to the window, regardless of the pain. Going
straight for the town, a quarter of a mile away,
were a dozen men on horseback. I could see
by their trail that they had passed within
fifty yards of where I was.
CHAPTER IX
More of a strange Christmas: I make Kaiser useful in
an odd Way ^together with what I see from under
the Depot Platform.
T THINK Kaiser was the best dog that
* ever lived. When I looked out of the
window, what with seeing the men and with
the pain which shot through my leg from my
ankle, I sank down on the floor in a kind of
faint. How long I lay there I know not, but
when I came to Kaiser was standing over me
licking my face. When he saw me open my
eyes and move he uttered a sort of a whine,
half like a cry and half like a little laugh, and
began wagging his tail. I put my arms
around his neck and drew myself up so that I
was sitting on the floor. At this he began to
bound about and bark as if he would say,
11 Cheer up, Jud; this is bad luck, but we will
get through yet!"
The pain in my ankle was half killing me,
79
TRACK S END
and suddenly it drove me desperate. I seized
my foot in my hands, drew it up into my lap,
and gave it a wrench that was like to break it
off. I felt something crack inside, and half
the pain stopped. "I ve fixed it!" I cried to
Kaiser, and tried to get up, thinking I could
walk; but I went down in a heap, and saw
that, though it was better, I was still far from
walking. The ankle was swelled to twice its
right size; but I felt sure that it must now
improve.
I made Kaiser stop his fuss and pulled open
the door. I could just make out the horse
men going along the grade almost to the town.
I crawled to the hay, and thought a long time.
In the first place, I knew the fires were all out
and that the new snow had covered all traces
of any life about the town. The robbers
would find the place deserted and would go
to work upon the safe. How long it would
take them to open it I did not know, but one
of the many things I now regretted was that,
while fooling around with my tunnel, I had
neglected to take out and hide the tools that
were in Beckwith s blacksmith shop, as I had
intended to do ; for with these I did not think
80
TRACK S END
it would take the men long to break into the
safe.
After they had got the money two things
might happen : they might take it and return
west, in which case they would be almost sure
to stop at Mountain s and discover me; in
fact, the only thing I could not understand was
why they had not stopped as they went in.
I knew how much mercy I could expect from
Pike and the kind of men that were with him.
The other course that they might take after
getting the safe open was to stay in town for
several days or even weeks; and in this case
I should simply starve and freeze to death
where I was. The reasons that made it seem
likely that they would stay awhile were that
there was no danger, plenty of food and fuel,
and comfortable places to live and sleep. At
first thought I saw one reason against it, and
that was that there was no liquor in the town ;
and I knew they were the kind of men who
would prize liquor higher than food. Then I
remembered that, though the contents of the
saloons had been shipped away when they
were closed, I had heard there was a barrel of
whiskey in the cellar of Fitzsimmons s grocery
81
TRACK S END
store; and I knew, of course, that they would
find it. I thought again of my detestable
tunnel, for if I had not had my mind on it so
much the barrel might have occurred to me
and I could have disposed of it somehow.
I thought a long time, and this was the
amount of it: That in any case I had best get
back to town if I could. If I reached there
while they were at work on the safe, I might be
able to slip in unseen and hide somewhere till
they were gone; and even if they did not go
for some days, I might manage to keep out of
sight and live after a fashion. Anything
seemed better than staying where I was.
I was half dead from thirst, and it seemed
that no harm could now come from a little
fire; so I soon had one started and some snow
melting in an old tin can. The drink and the
warmth revived me a good deal, and I decided
to start immediately to crawl to the town. I
thought with good luck I might make it in four
hours. It was now probably eleven o clock. I
left my skees and started out. Kaiser bounded
around me in the greatest delight, barking and
throwing up a cloud of snow. But before I
had gone twenty rods I sank half fainting with
82
TRACK S END
the pain of dragging my ankle. Poor Kaiser
whined and licked my face. When I revived
a little, I crept back and threw myself on the
hay again, ready to die with despair.
I lay there half an hour in the greatest
mental and physical pain; then an idea that
drove it all away struck me like a flash. I sat
up and drew the skees to me on the floor,
and placed them parallel and about ten inches
apart. Then I took one of the legs of the
stove and pounded a board off of the dry-
goods box. It was four feet long and a foot
or more wide. I beat some nails out of the
box, and then placed the board lengthways
on top of the skees and nailed it firmly. This
made me a sled, low but long and light.
I had on under my coat a jacket of coarse,
strong cloth. This I took off and cut and tore
up into strips, knotted them together, and
made two stout ropes five or six feet long. I
fastened one end of each of these to the front
of the skees. Then I let out Kaiser s collar
two or three holes, tied the other ends of my
ropes to each side of it, making them precisely
like harness traces, and pushed out of the
door and sat down on my new sled. I had
83
TRACK S END
like to have forgotten the letter on the door,
but drew myself up and got it and put it in
my pocket. There was a monstrous red skull
and cross-bones on the outside of it.
If you think I did not have a time teaching
that dog to draw me, then you are mistaken.
The poor animal had not the least notion what
I wanted of him, and kept mixing up his legs
in the traces, coming back and bounding
around me, and doing everything else that he
shouldn t. I coaxed, and tried to explain,
and worked with him, and at last boxed his
ears. At this he sat down in the snow and
looked at me as much as to say, "Go ahead,
if you will, and abuse the only friend you have
got!" At last I got him square in front, and,
clapping my hands suddenly, he jumped for
ward, jerked the sled out from under me, and
went off on the run with the thing flying be
hind.
I lay in the snow with my five wits half
scared out of me, expecting no less than that
he \vi uld be so terrified that he would run to
Track s End without once stopping. But I
made out to do what I could, and called
" Kaiser! Kaiser!" with all the voice I had.
84
TRACK S END
Luckily he heard me, got his senses again, and
stopped. He stood looking at me a long time ;
then he slipped the collar over his head and
came trotting back, innocent as a lamb, with
out the sled.
There seemed to be nothing to do but to
crawl to the sled, so I started, with Kaiser
tagging behind and not saying a word. I
think he felt he had done wrong, but did not
know exactly how. The crawling pained my
ankle somewhat, but not so much as before,
and I got to the sled at last. I saw that it was
near the trail which the men on horseback
had made, and this gave me an idea : perhaps
Kaiser would follow that. I pushed on over,
and as soon as he saw the trail he pricked up
his ears, began to sniff at the snow and look
toward the town. I hitched him up again,
headed him the right way, took a good hold,
and shouted, "Sic em, Kaiser!" He started
off like a shot and ran till he was quite out of
breath.
After he had rested and I had petted and
praised him, we went on. He understood now
what was wanted, and made no further trouble.
We soon got up on the grade, and found it
85
TRACK S END
much smoother. Indeed, the horses had left
a very good road, and by sitting well back on
my odd sled, so that the board would not
plow up the snow, it was not at all hard for
Kaiser to draw me. We were soon near
enough to the town, so that I began to tremble
for fear of being seen. My eyes were troub
ling me a good deal; it was snow-blindness,
but, as I had never heard of it, I was fright
ened, not knowing what to think.
I could see the horses standing in a bunch
in the open square between the depot and
town, but the men were nowhere in sight, and I
doubted not they were hard at work on the
safe. After a good deal of labor I managed to
get Kaiser to turn off to the south until the
railroad buildings were between us and the
town. Then I struck out straight for the
water-tank, and in a few minutes was up to it.
The space below the tank was inclosed,
making a round, dark room filled with big tim
bers. One of my keys fitted the door, and I
opened it, put Kaiser and the sled inside, and
shut the door. The poor dog thought this
was poor payment for his work, but I could
not trust him loose. I picked up a narrow
86
TRACK S END
piece of board and broke it to the right length
for a crutch, and so managed to hobble along
upright to the end of the station platform.
This was three or four feet from the ground,
and beneath it were a lot of ties, old boxes, and
other rubbish. I crawled under and around
to the side next to the town, and peeped over a
log of wood.
The horses were standing in a huddle with
their heads together, and I did not pay much
attention to them. A little to one side I saw a
big pile of blankets, bed-clothing, and other
things taken from the hotel and stores; and
on top of it all my guns and other weapons.
I expected that they would take the guns, but
was surprised at their bothering with the
other stuff. I could hear no sounds of their
working on the safe. All at once the door of
Taggart s store opened and they came out
carrying a lot of rope and other things. Then
I saw that they were not the men I had
thought, after all, but a band of Sioux In
dians.
CHAPTER X
A Townful of Indians :" with how I hide the Cow, and
think of Something which I don t believe the
Indians will like.
A \ THEN I saw what my visitors were I do
not know if I was relieved or more fright
ened. I saw that I need no longer worry
about the safe being robbed, but that seemed
to be almost the only thing in their favor over
the Pike gang. I knew, of course, that they
had no ill feeling against me, and probably
had no intention of harming any one; but, on
the other hand, I well understood that if I
should appear and try to stop their plunder
ing the town they would not hesitate to kill
me. By their dress I recognized them as
Sioux from the Bois Cache Reservation, fifty
or seventy-five miles north, because I had
seen some of them during the fall while they
were on their way to visit some of their rela
tives a hundred or more miles south at the
Bride Agency. I supposed they were going
88
TRACK S END
for another such visit, and had blundered on
the town. These Bois Cache Indians I knew
were a bad lot ; many of them had been with
Little Crow in the great Sioux Massacre in
Minnesota in 1862, when hundreds of settlers
were killed.
They came directly to the pile of things
near their horses, and put down the rope ; and
then they started off in all directions looking
for more plunder. Two of them came to the
depot and walked about on the platform over
my head. I flattened out on the ground
and scarcely breathed, expecting every minute
that they would look under. I heard them
talking and trying the windows. I thought
they were going away ; then there was a sound
of breaking glass, and I heard them tramping
about inside. Then they came out and went
over to the pile again. I peeped out and saw
that they had the two Winchesters which I
had hidden in the depot. Another came from
the town with a shot-gun which he had found
somewhere. I had no doubt that they would
find and carry off every weapon there was,
and leave me with nothing except the small
revolver which I had in my pocket.
7 89
TRACK S END
For an hour I lay there under the platform
watching the Indians plunder the town. They
already had much more in their pile than they
could possibly carry away with the horses they
had. Suddenly I saw that their plan most
likely was to get everything they wanted to
gether in the open square and then to burn the
town, carry off what they could, and come
back after the rest later on. Of course this
put me in a great fright, but, though I racked
my brain as never before, I could think of no
way to prevent it.
Soon I heard a great pounding, and sus
pected that they were breaking into the Head
quarters barn, which I always kept locked,
just out of force of habit. In another minute
I knew I was right, as I heard a loud squawk
ing of the chickens. Up from the direction of
the barn and high over the roofs of the town
I suddenly saw a bird soar, which I took to be
a prairie chicken, or some sort of game bird,
though where it came from I could not guess.
Then, as it lit on the chimney of the black
smith shop, and began a great cackling, I saw
that it was only Crazy Jane. I could not help
laughing, in spite of my troubles, and said out
90
THE BOIS CACHE INDIANS LOOTING THE TOWN ON CHRISTMAS E
TRACK S END
loud, "Ah, it takes somebody smarter than
an Indian to catch her!"
The sight of Crazy Jane and the sharp way
she outwitted the savages did me good and
made me wonder if I could not do as well;
still I could think of nothing. Just then the
Indians came out with the other chickens in
grain-sacks, and leading Dick and Ned and
Blossom. The horses they stood with their
own, but I was horrified to see that they acted
as if they were going to butcher the cow. One
of them pointed a gun at her head and another
began to flourish a knife. It looked as if they
had got it into their savage heads that they
wanted fresh beef and were going to slaughter
the poor animal on the spot.
To watch these preparations was, I think,
the hardest thing I had to bear that day. She
was a patient, gentle heifer, and I could not
bear to think of seeing her butchered by a lot
of villainous savages with less intelligence
than she had herself. If I had had a gun or
any fit weapon, I verily believe that I should
have rushed out and defended her. But just
before they began, one of their number came
out of Fitzsimmons s store and called to them,
95
TRACK S END
and they all trotted over. The store was on
the east side of the street.
At the instant that the last of them dis
appeared in the door I rolled out from under
the platform and began to hobble across the
square. My intention was to get behind the
stores on the west side of the street; and I
had a wild notion of saving the cow in some
way, I did not know how. It was a fool
hardy thing to do, but I got behind the first
store without being seen. But I was no
nearer the cow, who was a little ways from the
side of Fitzsimmons s, and I dared not go
there. She saw me, however, and I held out
my hand and said, "Come, bossy!" and she
came over. I took her by the horn and led her
along behind the buildings, knowing no more
than a fool what I should do with her. Just
then I came to the sloping outside cellar-door
behind a store. The Indians had cleaned the
snow off of it, but had not succeeded in getting
in, as it was fastened with a padlock. I tried
my keys. One of them opened it. The stairs
were not steep, and I led the cow down and
closed the door above us. The Indians had
walked and ridden everywhere in the square
9
TRACK S END
and back of the stores, so I thought it would
be hard for them to follow the cow s tracks.
Nevertheless, the next moment I hurried back
and with an old broom brushed lightly our
trail behind the buildings; then returned to
the cellar.
I rested a few minutes till my ankle felt
better, then I crept up the inside stairs to the
store and peeped out the front window. Four
or five of the Indians were standing where the
cow had been, looking in all directions. After
a while they all went back into Fitzsimmons s
store and I slipped down and out the door by
which I had got in, locked it, and made my
way behind the buildings to the bank and
went in. Here the Indians had not disturbed
anything, there being nothing to their taste;
but when I looked out a crack in the boards
over the window I saw the whole eleven of
them at the end of the street holding a pow
wow over the disappearance of their fresh
beef. I thought it would be a good time to
test my great pet, the tunnel, so I hobbled
boldly through and entered the hotel.
The first thing I saw was Pawsy in her old
place over the dining-room door. She did not
93
TRACK S END
seem to like Indians any better than she did
wolves. Everything which had not been
carried off was in the greatest confusion.
The Winchester which had been under the
counter was gone. I stood with my crutch
looking at the wreck, when, without hearing a
sound, I saw the knob of the front door turn
and the door push open. With one bound like
a cat I went through the open door of the
closet under the stairs.
I had no time to close the door, and stood
there pressed against the wall and trying not
to tremble. It was dark in the closet, and that
was my only hope. Three of the Indians
filed by. They all wore moccasins, and their
step was noiseless. They were talking, and
passed on through into the kitchen and out
doors. I think they were looking for the cow,
and took this as the best way to get to the
barn. I pressed back farther in the closet
and waited. Soon they came back, and again
passed me, and went on out of the front door.
I got out and crawled up-stairs, thinking to
find a better hiding-place and wishing heartily
that I was back under the platform. I looked
out of an upper window and saw them all at
94
TRACK S END
the farther end of the street again. By-and-
by they went into Fitzsimmons s store.
Though I did not take my eyes off the store
for two hours I saw no more of the Indians,
and by this time it was so dark that I could no
longer see them if they did come out. I be
gan to hear a strange noise, and opened the
window slightly and listened. It was the
Indians shouting and singing. Then it dawned
upon me that they had found the whiskey and
that they were all getting drunk in Fitzsim
mons s cellar.
This, of course, gave me a new cause of
dread, for, if a sober Indian is bad, a drunken
one is a thousand times worse. I felt sure
that they would now set the town on fire
through accident even if they did not intend
to do so. The fiendish howling constantly
grew worse and was soon almost as bad as
that of the wolves ever was. I still could
think of nothing to remedy matters. By this
time it was pitch-dark. I determined to have
a look at them, anyhow. It occurred to me
that probably they had begun at the whiskey
before the cow disappeared, and that this had
helped to make their search unsuccessful.
95
TRACK S END
I went down and out the back door of the
hotel and crept along the rear of the buildings
till I came to Fitzsimmons s. The yelling and
whooping of those savages was something
blood-curdling to hear. There was a window
for lighting the cellar close to the ground in the
rear foundation- wall. A wide board stood in
front of it, but I dug the snow away, pushed
this board a little to one side, and looked in.
They seemed to be having a free fight, and
many of them were covered with blood. A
smoking kerosene lamp stood on a box, and
around this they surged and fought and
howled. As I looked the lamp was knocked
to the floor and blazed up. One of the In
dians fell on it and smothered the flames, and
the struggling and diabolical yelling went on
in the dark.
As suddenly as the plan of making the
skee sled had flashed upon me came another
plan for driving every Indian out of town. I
jumped up and ran away as fast as a poor
crutch and a leg and a half could carry me.
CHAPTER XI
I give the savage Indians a great Scare, and then
gather up my scattered Family at the end of a
queer Christmas Day.
IT O W I ever got along through the darkness
* * and snow on my crutch I scarce know,
but in less time than it takes to say I tumbled
in at the back door of the hotel. I went
directly into the kitchen and felt about till I
found a knife, which I put in my pocket.
Then I stumped on into the office, leaned
against the counter, and lit the wall lamp,
took it out of its bracket, and made my way
somehow to the cellar-door. I left my crutch
and fairly slid down the stairs, holding the
lamp in both hands above my head. Once
down I set it on a small box, dropped on the
cellar bottom, and drew over to me the largest
pumpkin in the pile against the wall. What
I thought to do was to make the most diabol
ical jack-lantern that ever was, and scare the
97
TRACK S END
drunken savages out of what little wit they
had left.
I took the pumpkin in my lap, and with the
knife cut out the top like a cover. Then with
my hands I dug out the seeds and festoons of
stuff that held them. Then I turned up one
side and plugged out two eyes and a long nose.
I was going to make the corners of the mouth
turn up, as I had always done when making
jack-lanterns at home, but just as I started to
cut it came to me that it would look worse if
they turned down; so thus I made it, adding
most hideous teeth, and cutting half of my
ringers in my haste. Then I gave the face
straight eyebrows and a slash in each cheek
just as an experiment, and looked around for a
candle.
I could see nothing of the kind, nor could I
remember ever having noticed one about the
house. For a moment I knew not what to do ;
then my eyes rested on the lamp, and I asked
myself why that would not do as well as a
candle, or even better, since it gave more light.
The hole in the top was not big enough to take
in the lamp, but I cut it out more, and with
half a dozen trials, and after burning all the
98
TRACK S END
fingers I had not already cut, I got the lamp
in. The cover was now too small for the open
ing, but I grabbed another pumpkin and
slashed out a larger one and clapped it into
place. If I had had time I believe I should
have been frightened at the thing myself, it
was that hideous and unearthly-looking; but I
did not have, so I took it under one arm,
though it seemed half as big as a barrel, and
pulled myself up-stairs.
In another minute I was outdoors and
hobbling along as fast as I could. The howl
ing of the red beasts in the cellar still came as
loud as ever. I got to the window, dropped
on my knees, and took away the board. They
did not yet have a light, and were struggling
and caterwauling in the dark like, it seemed,
a thousand demons. But I say I had the
worst demon with me.
The lamp was burning well. I set the
thing on the ground, square in front of the
window, with the horrible face turned in and
looking down into the darkness. Then I rolled
out of the way.
I had truly thought that those savages had
been making a great noise before, but it had
99
TRACK S END
been nothing to the sound which now came
from the cellar. Such another shrieking and
screaming I never heard before nor since. I
would not have believed that any lot of human
beings could make such an uproar. Then I
heard them fighting their way up the stairs
and go squawking and bellowing out the front
door of the store.
When I heard the last one go I seized up
the pumpkin, took it on one shoulder, and
with my stick went hippety-hopping out
through the alley and along the sidewalk after
them. They were going away in the darkness
for their ponies like the wind. I went to the
end of the walk and, holding the lantern in
both hands, raised and lowered and waved it
at them. Not once did they stop their howls
of terror, and I could hear and partly see them
tumbling onto their ponies in all ways and
plunging off through the drifts to the west like
madmen. I longed to be on Dick s back with
my lantern to chase them, but I knew not
where Dick was, and my ankle had already
borne too much, as it told me plainly. I got
back to the hotel as best I could, put up the
lamp in its place and sat down to rest.
100
TRACK S END
But though I needed rest, I needed food
more; so I started the fire and looked about
for something to eat. I soon found that the
Indians had left nothing except a few crusts
of bread and some frozen eggs. But I boiled
the eggs and made out a sort of a meal. As I
finished I heard a yowl which I thought I
knew, and, sure enough, when I looked up,
there was the cat still on the door.
This set me to laughing, and I said: "I
wonder was ever a family so scattered before
on a Christmas night as is mine? There is
Kaiser shut in under a water-tank; Blossom
locked in the cellar of a grocery store; Crazy
Jane, the hen, on top of the smoke-stack of a
blacksmith shop; the rest of the chickens
sacked up and scattered on the ground; Dick
and Ned, the horses, I don t know where;
Pawsy, the cat, on top of the door; and Jud
himself, the head of the family, here eating
what the Indians have left, with a hurt ankle
and a smell of roasted pumpkin all through
his clothes."
I had a good laugh over things, and then
decided that I must do what I could for my
scattered family, though my ankle seemed
101
TRACK S END
about ready to go by the board. So I first
got down the cat and then lit the lantern and
started out after Kaiser. Poor dog, he was
beside himself to see me, and liked to have
knocked me down in showing how glad he
was.
As we started back Kaiser stopped and be
gan to growl at something out on the prairie,
and I looked, and after a time made out Dick
and Ned. They were very nervous, and
would not let me come up to them, but I
toiled around them at last and started them
toward their barn. I next looked after
Blossom. I found her lying down, as com
fortable as you please, chewing her cud and
right at home in the cellar. She had made a
meal out of the coarse hay which came out of a
crockery bale, and I thought I would leave her
for the night. So I took a big pitcher out of
the bale and milked her then and there, and
took it home, and Kaiser and Pawsy and I
disposed of it without more to-do.
I was beginning to feel better about my
family, and felt still more so when I found that
Dick and Ned had gone into their stalls and
had stopped their snorting, and only breathed
TRACK S END
hard when they saw me. Next I went after
Crazy Jane; but though I coaxed and shooed,
and threw chunks of frozen snow at her, while
Kaiser bafked his teeth loose, almost, it did no
sort of good ; she only looked at me and made
a funny noise as a hen does when she sees a
hawk. I could not climb up with my hurt
ankle, so I had to leave her, much against my
will. The chimney, I thought, was a good
deal exposed for a sleeping -place in winter,
but there was no wind and I didn t have
much fear but that she would come out all
right.
I had like to have forgotten the other
chickens; they never popped into my mind
till I was back in the hotel, but I dragged my
self out after them. I found the poor things
stuffed in three sacks, as if they had been tur
nips, lying on the snow. I knew I could not
carry them, and felt that I could scarce drag
them even; so I hit upon the plan of taking a
bit of rope from the pile of plunder and hitch
ing Kaiser to the sacks, and so in that way we
got them, one by one, to the barn at last and
let them out, all cramped and ruffled. Kaiser
was so proud of his work that he set up a bark
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TRACK S END
which started the broncos into another fit of
snorting.
I think if there had been one more member
of my family lost that I could have done
nothing for it that night, my a^ikle was in
such a state. I tried bathing it in hot water,
and before I went to bed I had it fairly par
boiled, which seemed greatly to relieve it. I
was too tired to go across the drawbridge to
my room, so I stretched out on the lounge in
the office, not much caring if all the robbers in
Christendom came. But I could not help
wondering at my strange Christmas; and half
the night I heard the wolves howling round
the blacksmith shop and looking up (I knew)
at Crazy Jane; but I thought they might as
well howl around the gilt chicken on a weather-
vane for all the good it would do them.
CHAPTER XII
One of my Letters to my Mother, in which I tell of
many Things and especially of a Mystery which
greatly puzzles and alarms me.
IT ERE I am going to put in the letter which
* * I wrote to my mother a week from the
next day after my strange Christmas, to show
that I did write her long letters every Sunday,
as I have said; though of course it was many
weeks before she got this or the others :
TRACK S END, Sunday, January 26..
MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER, I have
written you so much bad news since I have
been in this dreadful place that I am very glad
to send you some good news at last, and that
is that my ankle, of which I wrote you last
Sunday, is all well. I kept up the hot-water
applications and by the next morning it was
so much better that I could walk on it. I hope
I may not turn it again,
s 105
TRACK S END
I don t know as there is much other good
news to write, except that it is good news, and
maybe quite strange news, that I am still
alive at all in such a place. I am getting
along better with the cooking, though I am
beginning to long for some fresh meat. The
cow still gives a good mess of milk, and I now
get three or four fresh eggs a day; thanks to
the warm food which I give the hens, I guess.
I do not believe that Crazy Jane has laid an
egg since her night on the chimney, and I m
almost afraid she caught cold, as she has not
had a genuine fight with another hen since.
Kaiser and the cat and Dick and Ned are all
well and in good appetite. I have heard
rather less of the wolves of late, and I still
think it would be easier to get the Man in the
Moon to come to this town than any of those
Indians. But the outlaws I still fear very
much. Oh, something I ought to have writ
ten you last week! I mean this: I got a
letter from them that day out at Mountain s,
but I had no time to read it Christmas and the
next day I forgot I had it till after I had put
your letter in the post-office. This is what was
in it:
106
TRACK S END
CITISENS TRACK S END, We will Rob your bank and
burn your town if we don t get the small some we ask
for. If adoing it we kill anyboddy it wun t be our
fa wit. Leave the Munny as we told you to and save
Bludd Shedd. p IKE AND FRENDS .
I look for them any time. My only hope is
that the weather will be too bad for them to
travel ; but of course there must be some good
weather. The snow is already so deep that it
will be very hard for them to do much on
horseback. The street is full, and it is very
deep north, east, and south. The ground is
almost bare for half a mile to the west, how
ever; and they could come in on the grade.
Of course they can come on snow-shoes at any
time and go everywhere. I cannot even hope
to keep out of having trouble with them. I
have made no answer to this letter, and can t
make up my mind whether it would be best to
do so or not.
I kept up work all the week on the fortifica
tions, when the weather would permit; for
there has been another great blizzard, the
worst of the winter so far. I even worked all
day yesterday, though it was New -Year s.
Monday morning I again started all of my fires,
107
TRACK S END
but I found that in three of the buildings there
was not enough coal to last long. So I hitched
up Ned and Dick on an old sleigh of Sours s
and took a good lot to each place from the
sheds at the railroad. It was a lucky thing I
did so, too, because it snowed more Tuesday
night and began to blizzard Wednesday and
kept it up till Friday without once stopping;
and it would now be impossible to drive anv-
where near the coal-sheds.
I have got up a plan to do what I want to do
without using much coal ; I smother the fires,
all except the one in the hotel, with stove
griddles laid on them, and it makes a great
smoke without much fire. The guns and
ammunition I have disposed of here and there,
in good places for me in case of attack, but
hard to find for other folks. One I keep
standing by my bed s head, but nobody would
be apt to look there for either gun or bed, I
hope. I take in my drawbridge always the
minute I cross.
The last blizzard has helped me a good deal.
The street is now so full that the first-story
doors and windows of the hotel and bank and
most of the other buildings are covered. Not
108
TRACK S END
a bit of daylight gets into the hotel office, and
I am writing this by lamplight, though the
sun is bright outdoors. The hotel can now
only be entered by the back door, which I have
strengthened with boards and braces. I have
also boarded up the second-story windows, as
they are now not much above the level of the
drifts.
My tunnel might now be much higher and I
am going to make it so that I can stand up
straight all the way through. This is the
only way there is to get into the bank now,
unless you were to pound off the planks I have
nailed over the upper windows, or shovel the
snow away below. I drew over lumber from
the yard the day I had the team hitched up
for the coal. There are plenty of nails at
Taggart s. The blacksmith tools which would
be good to break open a safe with I have
buried in the snow. I have not yet carried
out the plan I told you about which might
save me in case the town is burned. It is a
big job, but I am going at it as soon as I can.
There is much other work which I want to do.
There is a large tin keg of blasting-powder at
Taggart s which it seems as if I ought to use
109
TRACK S END
somehow. Sometimes I wish I had a cannon,
but I don t know as it would be much use to
me.
I had a vast deal of work Monday and
Tuesday carrying back the things those savage
Indians lugged out in the square. I fastened
up all of the buildings which they had torn
open and straightened up things in the stores
as best I could. Fitzsimmons s was in the
worst confusion, and I could not do much
with it. The cellar was such a wreck of
barrels and boxes and crates and everything
you can think of, all broken open and the
things thrown everywhere, that I only looked
down and gave it up then and there.
As soon as I can get around to it I mean to
build some more tunnels to some of the other
houses. I think I ought to draw up a list of
regular hours for getting up, fixing the fires,
climbing the windmill tower to look with the
field-glass, and such-like things, as I used to
hear Uncle Ben tell was the way they did
when he was in the army. I mean to go out
every good day and take some target practice
with my rifle.
I wish I could close this letter here, and I
no
TRACK S END
would do so if it were going to you so that you
would get it before you get others, or before
you know that you are never to get others
from me, if that is to be, as I fear it may. Oh,
if I only had it to do over again, how quick I
would take the chance to go away from this
horrid place! If I live to get away I will
never come here again. So I must tell you
what little I can of this other matter.
I am not here in Track s End alone. What
it is that is here I do not know. How long it
has been here I do not know. Where it stays,
what it does, where it goes, I do not know.
I have looked over my shoulder twenty times
from nervousness since I began this letter.
Last Monday night I hung a piece of bacon
on a rafter in the shed back of the kitchen,
after cutting off a slice for breakfast the next
morning. I kept it there because it is a cool
place and handy to the kitchen. Tuesday
morning it was gone. I had left the outside
door shut, and it was still shut in the morning.
The door between the kitchen and shed was
locked. I could see no tracks or marks of any
kind.
Wednesday morning the thumb-piece of the
in
TRACK S END
latch on the depot door was pressed down. I
don t think I left it that way. A pail by the
back door in which I had thrown some scraps
which I was saving for the chickens was
tipped over. I think some of the meat rinds
were gone. The blizzard began that morn
ing.
Thursday morning the blizzard was still
going on. I noticed nothing unusual.
Friday morning a quilt and a blanket had
been stolen from a bed in the hotel. Another
quilt was drawn from the bed and lay on the
floor. I think the window (it had not yet
been boarded up) at the foot of the bed had
been raised. The snowbank outside is high.
The blizzard was still blowing.
Yesterday morning I saw nothing wrong,
but I thought about it a good deal during the
day. I remembered of hearing strange sounds
at night from the first of my being here alone.
I had thought it wolves, owls, jack-rabbits, or
something like that.
Last night I decided to watch. The storm
had stopped and the night was very still, but
it was cloudy and dark and a flake of snow fell
once in a while. I put on the big fur coat
n?
TRACK S END
and sat on a box just inside the woodshed
door, which was open on a crack. At about
eleven o clock I heard a faint noise at the
barn as if something were in the yard at the
side trying to get in at one of the windows.
I swung my door open a little more, it creaked
and I saw something dark go across the yard
and over the fence. There was no sound that
I could hear. I could not see that it touched
the ground. It went behind a haystack by
the fence. There was instantly another
glimpse of it as it passed beyond the stack,
going either behind or through the shed under
which the men stood that night when Pike
shot Allenham. I was not sure if I saw it the
other side of there or not, but I could not see
so well beyond the shed. The motion was
gliding; I heard no footstep, nor sound of
wings, nor anything. It snowed some more
in the night. This morning I could find noth
ing wrong except that a clothes-line beyond
the shed was broken. It had hung across the
way which what I saw must have gone. Its
ends were tied to posts at least seven feet from
the ground, and if I remember aright, it has all
the time been drawn up so that it did not sag
113
TRACK S END
at all. It was snapped off as if something
had run against it.
^ I must close now and do up my work for the
night. I only ask that I may live to see you
all again. If I do not, then may this reach you
somehow.
Your Dutiful Son,
JUDSON PITCHER.
CHAPTER XIII
Some Talk at Breakfast, and various other Family
Affairs: with Notes on the Weather, and a sight
of Something to the Northwest.
IT was on the morning of Tuesday, January
25111, as I sat at breakfast with Pawsy in
her chair at one end and with Kaiser at the
other, drumming on the floor for another bit
of bacon, that I said to myself:
" It is just one month to-day since I clapped
eyes on a human being; and the ones I saw
then were not very good humans, being thiev
ing and drunken Indians. * And when I said
this I had not forgotten (when had it been
once out of my mind, waking or sleeping?)
what I saw on New- Year s night; but I knew
not if I were to count that as human or what.
I remember that Sunday night after I
finished the letter to my mother which I put in
the last chapter, how I found it darker than I
expected when I went out, and how I ran
along the snowbanks with my heart thumping
"5
TRACK S END
like to split, and threw the letter in the top of
the post-office door (the rightful opening was
long before buried under the snow) and then
shot back to the hotel, not daring to look be
hind me or even stop to breathe. I was well
ashamed of myself, at the time, but I could not
help it.
On that night it was even nine o clock before
I could get up courage to go to the barn and
feed the stock. I think I was in a greater
state of terror than on the night after the
battle with the wolves. I walked the floor,
back and forth, on tiptoe and listened; and
the less there was to hear, the more I heard.
At last I, after a fashion, put down my fright,
and ventured out to the barn; but even then
I could not whistle; I tried, but my lips would
not stay puckered.
I went to bed as soon as I could, and though
I thought I should never get to sleep, I did at
last. What my dreams were, or how many
times I sat up in bed with a start, are things I
do not like to think about. But notwith
standing this, I felt better in the morning and
went at the work as hard as I could.
But though, as I say, up to the 2 5th of
116
TRACK S END
January (and even beyond) I had no further
glimpse of the mysterious visitor, I saw evi
dence of its presence often enough.
Night after night the scrap-pail by the back
door was rummaged and something taken
from it, and once a chicken was missing from
the barn. The only way that anything could
get in was through a window into the hay-loft
seven or eight feet above the drift. After I
missed the chicken I nailed this up and lost
no more. I thought there were a few scratches
on the side of the barn below the window, but I
could tell nothing from them. Almost every
night it either snowed or drifted, or both, so
there was almost no hope of ever finding
tracks of any kind on the ground. One morn
ing I found the windmill at the station thrown
into gear and running full tilt, but the lever
which controlled it may have slipped. Two
or three times I thought I heard the windlass
of the well near the barn creak, but I tried to
make myself believe that it was only the wind.
You may be sure that my sleep was very
light, and I often heard Kaiser growling and
barking late at night in the hotel. I never had
the courage to sit up and watch again. I
117
TRACK S END
may have been more cowardly than I should
have been; I leave that to the reader to say.
One night I lay awake listening to the wolves
howling up at the north end of the town.
Suddenly their cry changed and they swept
the whole length of the street like the wind,
and much faster than they usually went when
simply ranging for prey* They may have
been chasing a jack-rabbit.
Another night they howled so long right in
front of the building I was in that I put down
my foolish fears and got up and fired at them,
hoping to scare them away and maybe get an
other skin for my coat. One fell, and the
others made off at a great rate. I watched
the one on the snow till I was sure he was dead,
and I heard nothing more of the others that
night. In the morning there was neither hide
nor hair of the dead wolf.
But the work I had to do kept my mind off
of my terror a good deal, and saved me, I
really believe, from going stark mad. I will
tell about my great system of tunnels pres
ently, but before I began it I did much else.
One of the first things was to make a long,
light sled for Kaiser to draw, and also a har-
TRACK S END
ness for him. The materials and tools for the
one I got from the wagon- repair shop attached
to Beckwith s blacksmith shop, and the same
for the other from the harness shop, where I
kept up one of my fires. I was always handy
with all kinds of tools, inheriting a love for
them from my father; besides, I had worked
with him in the shop at home a good deal, and
had thus become a fairly good mechanic for
my age. I could handle a plane or a draw-
shave or a riveting-hammer, or even an awl,
for the matter of that, with any of them.
I used this dog rig chiefly for taking over
ground feed from the depot to the barn for the
horses and cow; but Kaiser learned to enjoy
the work of dragging the sled so much that I
soon came to use him nearly always in good
weather in making my rounds to look after the
fires or patrol the town. He would whisk me
along on top of the frozen drifts at such a rate
that it would nearly take my breath away
sometimes. I practised with the skees till
there was no danger of turning my ankle again,
and would sometimes run races with him on
them; but he could beat me all hollow unless
there was a good, stiff load on the sled.
119
TRACK S END
Another thing that I made was a pair
of leather spectacles, something which my
mother had used often to tell me I needed
when I was small and could not see something
that was plain as a pikestaff. My spectacles
were made out of a strip of black leather two
inches wide which went over my eyes and
around my head, with two slits through which
I could look. These I wore on the dazzling
bright days and was troubled no more by
snow-blindness, which had made my eyes so
painful the day I came back from Mountain s.
It was about New- Year s that I began to
spend my evenings in noting down in the
hotel register what had happened during the
day. I did this chiefly so that when I came
to write to my mother Sunday I would forget
nothing ; and I am very glad now that I did so,
for without the register and the letters (both
of which I now have) about some things, espe
cially dates, I might go wrong in writing this
account. Besides, in the past, it has been
much satisfaction when I have related any of
the incidents of my winter at Track s End
and some person, to show how smart he was,
has tried to cast doubt on my word it has
I2O
TRACK S END
been much comfort to me, I say, in such cases
to have the register and letters to show him,
with it all set down in black and white.
Thus it comes I know that Pawsy caught a
mouse in the barn on Wednesday, January
1 2th, at about half-past seven o clock in the
morning, while I was milking the cow. I think
it was the only mouse at Track s End that
winter, for I never saw or heard any other.
There were no rats in the Territory then any
where, unless it may have been at Yankton, or
at some of the old Red River settlements
about Pembina.
Pawsy was a good hunter, and several times
caught a snowbird, though I boxed her ears
for this; and on Friday, the 2ist, I found her
near Joyce s store trying to drag home a jack-
rabbit. She must have caught it by lying in
wait, but I marveled how she killed the
monstrous creature. But she was, indeed, one
of the largest and strongest cats I ever knew.
I would have trusted her to whip a coyote in a
fair fight. I got three jacks in January my
self with the rifle, and found them very good
to eat; but the first one, after skinning it, I
left overnight in the shed, and in the morning
9 121
TRACK S END
it was gone. That day I went to Taggart s
and got two good bolts and put them on the
shed door.
Getting my meals I found very hard work,
but I made out better than you might think,
since my mother had taught me something
about cooking. At first I neglected getting
regular meals, snatching a bite of any
thing that I could lay my hands on; but
I soon saw that this would not do if I were
to keep in good health and strength. My
boarders, too, were great hands to complain
if they did not get their meals regularly. You
might have thought that cat and dog were
paying good money for their board, the way
they would mew and whine if a meal were
late. I took very good care of the chickens,
giving them plenty of warm food, so from
about Christmas I got a dozen or more eggs
each week. The cow, too, I fed well on
ground feed and hay, with pumpkins and
sometimes a few potatoes, and she gave me
a fair quantity of milk all winter; and on the
eggs and milk, together with potatoes, bacon,
and salt codfish, I and my boarders managed
to live tolerably well.
122
TRACK S END
Pie I missed very much, and cookies and
apple dumplings and such things, all of which
my mother used to make very freely at home,
and never keeping them hid. I looked long
ingly at the pumpkins, and once fetched a
quantity of ginger from Joyce s, vowing I
would attempt pumpkin pie; but I never got
up my courage. Bread, also, I never at
tempted, though I got a package of yeast
from the store and looked at it many times.
The place of this was taken by pancakes,
which I made almost every day, big and
thick, which with molasses went very well;
though a good cook, as like as not, would
have said they were somewhat leathery.
There was not an apple in town, nor any
kind of fresh fruit, but there were dried ap
ples and prunes, and canned fruit and vege
tables, especially tomatoes. Of the canned
things I liked the strawberries best, and ate
many, though they tasted somewhat of the
tin. There were plenty of crackers in the
stores, and some dry round things, dark-
colored, which called themselves gingersnaps;
I took home a large package in great glee,
thinking I had made a find ; I ate one of them
123
TRACK S END
by main strength and gave the rest to the
cow. Butter I made several times, with fair
success, though it was not like mother s, being
more greasy.
Fresh meat I missed very much, though
the few jack- rabbits I got helped out, and were
good eating, as I have said, and smelled as
good as anything could while cooking. Some
other fresh meat I had also, as you shall see
directly. Once I made up my mind to have
some chicken. There was one hen who was
very fat and never, I was sure, laid an egg.
I took the hatchet, which was sharp enough,
and went to the barn, intending to behead
her, having it all planned how I should cook
her for my Sunday dinner. When I got to
the barn the hen seemed to know what I
intended, and she looked at me with one eye,
very reproachful, and I went back to the
house with my hatchet and never made any
more plans for fried chicken.
There was much bad weather in January.
Often I noticed that this was the way of it : It
would snow for one day, blizzard for three, and
then for two be still, steady, bitter cold. On
these latter the thermometer would often go
124
TRACK S END
over forty degrees below zero, with the sun
shining bright and the sky blue; but with a
frightful big yellow-and-orange sun-dog each
side of the sun, morning and evening, like
two great columns; and sometimes there
would be a big orange circle around the sun all
day, with much frost in the air.
Some of the nights were light, almost, as
day with the northern lights flaming up from
behind Frenchman s Butte all over the w 7 hole
sky, and all colors and shapes. On these
nights the horses (they had been wild ponies
once) would stamp about in the barn, and
Kaiser would growl in his sleep. When I
rubbed the cat s back it would crack and
sparkle. The wolves seemed to howl more
and differently on these nights, and once I
went to the station, thinking the fire there
needed fixing, and I heard the telegraph in
strument clicking fit to tear itself to pieces.
Often the next day after the northern lights
would come the storm.
It was on the very day that I had said to
Kaiser and Pawsy at breakfast (that is, Janu
ary 2$th) that it was a month since I had seen
any human being, that I was at the depot after
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TRACK S END
a load of ground feed, and in looking to the
northwest thought I saw something moving.
It did not take me long to go up the windmill
tower. It was not past ten o clock in the
forenoon, so the light for looking toward the
northwest was good, though of course, as the
sun was shining, the snow was pretty dazzling.
But I could still only make out that something
was moving south or southwest. It was
impossible to tell if it were men or horses or
cattle. So I went down as fast as I could,
jumped onto the sled, and the next minute
Kaiser had me at the hotel, where I got the
field-glass and went back.
Up the tower I scrambled for another look.
The snow was so dazzling that the glass did
less good than you might suppose, but with it I
could soon tell that it was a party of men on
horseback following either another party or a
drove of cattle or horses. The band ahead
swung gradually about and came toward
Track s End. The ones behind seemed to be
trying to cut them off, but they failed to do it.
On they came, and in ten minutes I could see
that it was either cattle or horses that were
being chased by twenty or twenty-five men on
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TRACK S END
horseback. The cattle were following a low,
broad ridge where the snow was less deep, and
which spread out west of the town, making
less snow there also, as I have mentioned be
fore. I thought there was something peculiar
about the riding of the men ; I watched closely,
and then I saw they were Indians.
My first thought was that it was daylight
and no jack-lantern would scare them away.
I saw I must depend on harsher measures. In
almost no time I had got over town, locked
the barn, shut Kaiser in the hotel, run through
my tunnel to the bank so as to be on the west
side of town, and stood peeping out a loop
hole with two fully loaded Winchesters on a
table beside me.
CHAPTER XIV
I have an exciting Hunt and get some Game, which I
bring Home with a vast deal of Labor, only to
lose Part of it in a startling Manner: together
with a Dream and an Awakening.
I HAD not had my eyes to the loophole ten
* seconds when I found out something more
about the coming invaders; what I had taken
for cattle were buffaloes, a thing which sur
prised me very much, for they were even
then extremely scarce. There were about a
dozen of them, and they were coming on all in
a bunch and throwing up the snow like a loco
motive.
I saw that the buffaloes would follow the
swell of ground and that it would bring them
in close to town, and perhaps right across the
square between the stores and the depot.
But I did not believe that they could ever
flounder through the drifts to the south and
east, so it seemed as if the hunters would
overtake them so near that they would prob-
128
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ably stay and again take possession of the
town. I think I should rather have seen the
outlaws coming. I decided to fire at them and
see if I could not drive them off. But it was
not necessary. I think some of them must
have been the same Indians that called on me
Christmas Day, and went away so suddenly,
without stopping to say good-by.
I am sure of this, because when still a good
half-mile from town they stopped and began
circling around, and waving their guns in the
air, and making all sorts of strange motions.
I suppose they were trying to drive away the
evil spirit which they thought was in the place,
and which I had had in the pumpkin lantern,
and which had also been in Fitzsimmons s
barrel. Then one of them who had been
sitting still on his horse rode a little forward
and got off, and I could see a thin ribbon of
blue smoke arising. I suppose he was the
medicine-man of the tribe making medicine
to frighten the evil spirit; or rather, perhaps,
to get up their own courage to face it. This
kept up for half an hour. The buffaloes in
the mean time had walked slowly along till
they were not much more than a hundred
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TRACK S END
yards away, and stood looking at the houses
in the greatest wonder; the first they had
ever seen, it is safe to say.
But it appeared that the Indian s medicine
did not work any better than white men s
medicine sometimes does; for they began very
slowly to go back the way they had come. I
could see them stop often, and circle around
and, I suppose, hold long talks; but they
could not get up their courage to venture
closer to the place where the awful spirit with
the flaming eyes and the fiery teeth had looked
down upon them and chased them with his
terrible limping gait. At last they passed
entirely out of sight.
My next thought was, of course, to try
getting a buffalo myself, since I needed fresh
meat as badly as the Indians, or worse. But
by this time they had drawn back some dis
tance and were out of range for any but a very
good marksman, a thing which I was not. I
should have to follow them, which I decided to
do quick as a flash. Through the tunnel I
rushed and out to the barn. In another min
ute I brought out Dick saddled and bridled.
He had not been beyond a small yard for a
TRACK S END
month. He began to jump like a whirlwind.
How I ever got on with my gun I don t know,
but I think I must have seized the horn of the
saddle and hung to it like a dog to a root, and
some of his jumps must have thrown me up
so high that I came down in the saddle. Any
how, I found myself riding away straight
south as if I were on a streak of chain-
lightning.
This would not do, so I pulled with all my
strength and tried to turn him. I might as
well have tried to turn a steamboat by saying
" haw ! and " gee !" to it. But the pulling on
the big curb-bit made him mad and he stopped
and began to buck. I hung on with all hands
and legs, and at last he bucked his head around
in the right direction, and then I yelled at
him, making the most outlandish noise I
could, and he started across the square and
straight for the buffaloes as if he had been shot
out of a gun. You may see the exact course
we took, and where the buffaloes were, by
looking at my map. This map I have drawn
with great care and much hard labor, spoiling
several before I got one to suit me. I hope
every one who reads this book will look at
TRACK S END
the map often, since it shows the lay of the
land very well, I think, and just where every
thing happened.
When Dick saw the buffaloes I think he
knew what was up, because he began to act
more reasonable. They saw me coming and
stopped and looked back surprised. I thought
they were going to wait, but they soon gal
loped on. I saw I must go to one side if I
wished to get within range, and turned to the
right. In a few minutes I came up abreast
of them and within easy range, but I soon
found that though I could guide my horse I
could not stop him, pull as hard as I might.
I could not even make him stop and buck
again. He was going straight toward the
north pole, and I thought it would not take
him long to get there. One way to stop him
came to me. It was a rash plan, but I saw
no other.
Ahead and a little more to the right was a
mighty bank of snow in the lee of a little knoll.
It sloped up gradually and did not look
dangerous. I turned him full into it. At the
third jump he was down to his chin, and I
had gone on over his head. When at last I
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TRACK S END
struck I went down a good ways beyond my
chin; in fact my chin went down first, and if
any part of me was in sight it must have been
my heels. All I knew was that I was hang
ing to my gun as if it were as necessary as
my head.
Why the breath of life was not knocked out
of me I don t know, but it wasn t, and I kicked
and thrashed about till I got my head and
shoulders to the surface, with a peck of snow
down the back of my neck. I looked for the
buffaloes, and there they stood in blank aston
ishment, wondering, I guess, if I always got off
of a horse that way. I ran my sleeve along
the barrel of my rifle, rested it over a lump of
frozen snow and fired at the nearest one, which
was standing quartering to me. I saw the
ball plow up the snow beyond and to the
left. They all started on. As mine turned
his side square to me I fired again. He went
down with a mighty flounder. The others
rushed away. I waded nearer and finished
him with one more shot.
Dick was still aground in the snow, snorting
like a steam-engine, but by the time I had
tramped the drift down and got him out he
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TRACK S END
was over his nonsense and carried me back to
the barn quite decently. I was all for skinning
and dressing my buffalo. To Taggart s I
went and got some good sharp knives, and,
taking Kaiser and the sled, started back. I
don t think I ever worked so hard in my life as
I did at that job. It was not very cold, which
was one good thing. Every minute I ex
pected the wolves, and I did not have long to
wait either. Before three o clock they came
howling along the trail the buffaloes had
made, and I had to stop and fire at them every
few minutes to keep them off. I am sure they
were not so hungry as usual or I never could
have kept them back at all. Twice I killed
one when I shot, but I dared not go up and
get them, and they were soon devoured by
the others. The pack kept growing larger as
others came over from the timber north of
the Butte.
At last I got off the hide and loaded it on
the sled. I wanted to take all of the meat, but
it made too big a load, and I had to be satis
fied with two quarters. I even had to give
up taking the head, which was a fine large
specimen. A little after four o clock as the
TRACK S END
sun began to sink low the wolves became
bolder, and I knew it was not safe to stay
longer. The load was more than Kaiser could
pull, so I saw I must take hold and help him.
I fired five or six shots at the wolves as fast as
I could pump them up, seized the rope and off
we went. We were not ten rods away when
the whole pack was upon the carcass fighting
and tearing at it. They kept up the hideous
battle all night and howled so much that it
seemed as if their throats must be worn raw.
Once back home I set at my regular work
tired enough. But the fires were all low and I
expected a day or two more of good weather,
and the ease with which the Indians and
buffaloes had got down from the north made
me fear more than ever the coming of the
outlaws from the west. I still had little hope
of ever getting out of the place alive, but I
could only work on and do all I could for my
safety.
I laid the quarters of meat on some boxes
in the shed and bolted the door. I was so
tired I think I must have slept sounder that
night than for a long time. In the morning I
found that the shed door had been forced
TRACK S END
open, one of the bolts being torn off and the
other one broken. Even the hinges were bent.
A big piece of the best part of each quarter
was gone. I could not tell if it had been torn
off or haggled off with a dull knife. It might
even have been gnawed off; I could not tell.
I looked for tracks of the robber with, as
the saying is, my heart in my mouth; but to
no purpose. Although it had neither snowed
nor blown during the night, a deep layer of
frost, like feathers made out of the thinnest
ice, had settled everywhere toward morning
and I could find nothing.
That this new reminder of my unknown
enemy brought on another attack of terror I
need hardly say; but it was daylight and I
conquered it better. The worst feeling I had
to fight with was that whatever the thing was,
it might be looking at me as I moved about
town. I thought I saw eyes peering at me,
sometimes of one kind, sometimes of another,
out of every window, through every crack,
over every roof, around every corner, from
behind every chimney; even the tops of the
freshly made snowbanks, blown over like
hoods, were not free from them; and when I
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TRACK S END
looked out on the prairie I expected to see
something coming to catch me. I could
scarce tell if I were more afraid on top of the
drifts or under them in my tunnels, for here I
constantly expected to meet something, or
look back and see eyes. I think the loneliness
and the strain of the expected robbers must
have half turned my mind. If I had known
what to look for and dread I think I should not
have cared so much, but, not knowing, I im
agined everything and became more terrified
about I knew not what than were the Indians
at my pumpkin lantern. Sometimes I was
sorry that I had driven the Indians away;
and there were times when I thought I should
be glad to have the Pike gang come, just for
company.
Three days after the buffalo hunt, in the
night, I thought the gang had come indeed;
I was not more frightened at any time while
I was at Track s End than I was that night.
I had gone to bed as usual in the empty
building, taking in my drawbridge and clos
ing both windows behind me. The north
west wind had died away at sundown, and
the night was still and the sky becoming
10 137
TRACK S END
cloudy. I looked for an east wind the next
day and probably snow later.
What hour I woke up I knew not, but it
must have been about midnight. I know I
awoke gradually, because I had a long dream
before doing so. I thought a giant was shout
ing at me from a grove of green trees on a
hillside; it kept up for a long time, deep,
hoarse shouts which fairly shook the earth;
I could not see him, but seemed to know
what he was. I was not frightened, but stood
in a meadow listening. Then there was a
crash of a tree falling on the hillside, and the
giant s shouts came twice as loud, and I
awoke and fought the bed-clothes off my
head and knew it was Kaiser barking.
At first this did not startle me, since he
often barked in the hotel at night, sometimes
at the wolves, and other times, I had reason
to think, at the thing which prowled in the
night. The next instant I realized that his
barks were much louder and that he was
nearer. I started up and saw that a dull,
flickering light was coming through the cracks
in the boards over the window and moving
on the wall. I thought of northern lights,
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TRACK S END
then saw that it was on the north wall and
not on the south. I leaped to the window
and peeped out a crack and saw that there
was a great fire somewhere; the snow was
lit up like day almost, and I could see black
cinders floating above the barn.
I got into such of my clothes as I had taken
off and rushed to the side window. Here the
light did not come much, but I could see Kaiser
standing with his feet on the hotel window-
sill and his head and shoulders out the win
dow. He had smashed through the glass, as
he had that day when the wolves came. Not
once did he stop his terrific barking.
I pushed up my window and seized the
drawbridge. I started to put it across, as I
had done so many times before, but I was so
excited and in such a foolish fright that it
slipped out of my hands and fell between
the buildings. I stood a full minute unable
to move. The lower part of the hotel win
dow was divided into two panes, and Kaiser
had broken one of them. I could see that
he had cut himself, and I was afraid of doing
likewise. But there was no other way to
get out. I put on my mittens and got out
TRACK S END
of my window, clinging to the upper sash and
standing on the outside sill. Then, with a
prodigious step, I landed on the other sill,
seized the opening regardless of the jagged
glass, crouched down and plunged into the
room head first. Kaiser had drawn back as
he saw me coming, but as I shot into the
room he bounded in front of me, and we
rolled over together there on the floor in the
darkness. I was half dazed, but knew I
smelled smoke, and heard the crackling of a
great fire.
CHAPTER XV
The mysterious Fire, and Something further about my
wretched State of Terror : with an Account of my
great System of Tunnels and famous Fire Strong
hold.
I said, when I told of how I found
myself helpless at Bill Mountain s, that
I thought Kaiser the best dog that ever lived;
here I may say I know it. Though he got in
my way and made me turn a few somersets
in the dark, he may have saved Track s End
from destruction.
When I got to my feet I felt my way across
the room and through the hall to a room in
the southeast corner of the hotel, where there
was a loophole in the boards over the window.
Through this I saw that the livery stable was
a pillar of fire.
How long I stood there at the loophole
staring I know not; I think I did not move
or scarcely breathe. It was a large building,
the second story packed with hay ; and below
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TRACK S END
there were stored many wagons, some farm
machinery, and a quantity of lumber and
building material, all things that would
burn well. Everything was ablaze, the roof
fell in as I looked, and the flames and sparks
and smoke reached up like a vast column,
it seemed to the very clouds.
At last I saw it was no time for idleness, so
I turned away and went down-stairs. As I
started to pull open the back door it came to
me suddenly that Pike and his men must
have come. I reached behind the desk and
got Sours s Winchester. Then I went out,
leaving Kaiser behind, much to his disap
pointment. The heat struck my face like a
blast from a furnace, and the light dazzled
my eyes. I crept very cautiously over the
snowbank behind Hawkey s and Taggart s
till I came to Fitzsimmons s. Here the heat
almost scorched my face, and I saw that the
paint on the building was beginning to
blister. I peered everywhere for signs of
the men, but saw nothing. I crept around
the corner of the building and looked across
the square, but there was no sign of human
life. I expected nothing less than that the
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TRACK S END
whole town would be burned up; but I was
helpless.
Finally I ran across the square and, leav
ing my rifle on the ground, scrambled up the
windmill tower. It was truly a beautiful
sight, as I knew despite my fears. The sky
was covered with thick, low-hanging clouds,
and save for the fire, the night was pitch-dark.
The whole town lay below me, half lit up like
day, half inky shadows. Even at this dis
tance I could feel the heat, and the sullen roar
and crackling of the flames never stopped.
But though I shaded my eyes and peered
everywhere among the houses and across the
prairie, I could make out no living thing.
Cinders were falling all over town, but there
seemed to be little fire left in them when they
alighted. The roofs were mostly flat and
covered with tin, though the depot, the
Headquarters barn, and a few others were of
shingles. Suddenly a cinder unusually large
fell on the depot roof and lay there blazing.
I hurried down the tower, and hauled a lad
der which I had noticed the day the Indians
came from beneath the platform, thinking
I might climb up and put out the fire with
143
TRACK S END
snow. There was no water to be had any
where except from the well back of the hotel.
But the flame died out, and I dragged the lad
der across the square. It occurred to me that
it would be no great loss to me should the
depot burn. I could not know the good thing
that was later to come out of it.
It was so hot that I could not go behind Fitz-
simmons s, so I dragged my ladder across the
drifts of the street and through between the
hotel and Hawkey s. When I came out in
the rear of these I was startled to find a
small blaze on the barn roof. I hurried to
the barn with my ladder, got it in place, and
then with pails of water from the well I man
aged to put it out. Once more it caught,
and once the roof of the shed where Pike shot
Allenham blazed up; but I dashed water on
the fires and saved both buildings.
At last the stable fire began to die down.
The current of air from the northeast had
become stronger, and the column of smoke
was swaying more and more to the south
west. Just as daylight began to appear in the
east the last remaining timber of the stable
fell, and, though there was a great cloud of
144
TRACK S END
sparks and still much heat, I saw that un
less a strong east wind should spring up
there was no longer danger that the town
would be consumed. By this time I was
cold and stiff, my face scorched by the fire,
and my clothes frozen with the water from
the pailfuls I had carried. I went into the
hotel.
Kaiser was so glad to see me that he reared
up and put his forepaws on my shoulders. I
was patting and praising him, when suddenly
the question, What caused the fire? flashed
into my mind. There had been no trace of
Pike. From the windmill tower I had been
unable to see any trail leading from the way
he would come. There was no explanation
except that it must have been caused by the
same thing that had made me so much other
trouble. Till it was broad daylight I paced
up and down the office floor, unable to stop.
For two days I thought of little else, and
brooded on it till I was half sick.
It seems to me as I look back at it that
every time I got fairly desperate through
lonesomeness or pure fright I went and
dug a snow tunnel. I was as bad as a mole
MS
TRACK S END
for tunnels; and I meant to tell about my
system before this; but so many things keep
popping into my mind, what with my memory
and with the old hotel register and the letters
to my mother lying spread out before me, that
I have not once got around to mention any of
them except the first, which connected the
hotel and the bank, directly across the street.
I was so taken up with this that soon after
New- Year s I decided to build some others.
I was keeping up at that time five fires (or
smokes) besides the one in the hotel, to wit:
one in the harness shop and one in Joyce s,
both at the north end of the street and oppo
site each other; one in the bank; one in
Townsend s store at the south end of the street
on the west side, and one in the depot out
across the square in front of the south end of
the street. There was a chance for a good
tunnel to all of these except to the depot;
here the northwest wind had swept across
the square and the ground in some places
was almost bare.
But the street between the houses was filled
up pretty much like a bread tin with a loaf,
and starting from the north side of my first
146
TRACK S END
tunnel I began another and ran it straight up
the street to between the harness shop and
Joyce s, and here I ran side tunnels to each of
these. The snow was rather low in front of
Joyce s at first, and was not enough above the
sidewalk to give me room, but the sidewalk
here was high, being made of plank, as were
all the walks in town; so I went under it by
getting down on my hands and knees, and, as
the building had no underpinning, I went on
under and up through a trap -door in the
floor. I got a good many things to eat from
Joyce s, such as canned fruit and the like; but
I always wrote down on a piece of paper
nailed on the wall everything I got from any
store, so that in the spring, if I were still alive,
I could pay for it, or, if it were food, Sours
could, since I was, of course, still working for
him and it was his place to pay for my keep.
South from the first tunnel I next ran an
other and curved it into Townsend s store.
This was a fine, high tunnel; and it would
have done your heart good to have seen
Kaiser whisk about through all of them, filling
the air with snow from waving his tail, just
like a great feather duster, and oftentimes
147
TRACK S END
barking at the top of his voice. "Be still,
sir," I would say to him; "you will disturb
the neighbors," at the which he would bark
the louder. I often wondered what a stranger
on top of the drifts would have thought to
have heard the dog s noise beneath his feet.
It always seemed warm and comfortable in
the tunnels, if they were made of snow; this
you noticed particularly on a blizzardy day,
since, of course, no wind whatever got into
them. Indeed, on a windy day I doubt not a
snow tunnel would be warmer than a house
without a fire. But though Kaiser delighted
in the tunnels, Pawsy would have nothing to do
with any of them at all except the one which
led from the woodshed to the barn.
This I made last. I got into it from a shed
window, which I cut down and fitted with a
rough door. It went into the barn through a
small door in the corner, which was in halves,
like a grist-mill door. I opened only the
lower half, and this tunnel I used mainly in
bad weather. I had only just finished it the
day before the fire. It was the day after the
fire, when I was feverish for some way to get
rid of my scare, that I decided to go to work
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TRACK S END
on my place of retreat in case the town was
burned.
I had thought about building something of
the kind for a long while, but could not seem
to get it planned out in my mind just to suit
me. The burning of the livery stable, of
course, set me thinking harder than ever.
The place had to be, of course, something that
would not burn and some place that could not
be found. The only thing that wouldn t burn
was the snow, but in case of fire I knew that it
would melt for some distance from the build
ings. I had just had an example of this.
Besides, there had to be a way to get into
it which could not be seen either before or
after the fire, and this entrance must be
from a building so that I would not have to
expose myself in going to it. The place must
also be where I could stay a few days if I had
to. A dozen times I thought I had got the
whole thing planned out, and once I wrote
about it to my mother, but I always found
that something was weak about the plan
somewhere. But I now concluded that I
had struck on the right thing at last.
A hundred feet back of the next building to
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TRACK S END
the north of the one in which I had my bed
room was a small barn where the man who
owned the place had kept a cow. It was so
small that I always thought he must have
measured his cow, like a tailor, and built the
barn to fit. Fifty feet back (east) of this
barn was a haystack. Before the snow came
the top of it had been taken off so it was left
about four or five feet high and the shape of a
bowl turned wrong side up. It was in the lee
of the barn, and the snow had piled up over
it in a great drift so that you would never
once have guessed that there was such a thing
as a haystack within half a mile. It was,
maybe, a hundred feet from the Headquarters
barn to this stack, with four or five or more
feet of snow all the way. My idea was to
tunnel from the barn to the stack, dig out
some hay on the south side and have a snug
room half made of hay and half of snow.
There was no underpinning beneath the
Headquarters barn (most of the buildings in
town simply stood on big stones a few feet
apart) and the space where it should have been
was filled in with a wide board and banked
outside with hay. Under Ned s manger I
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TRACK S END
sawed out a piece of this board big enough to
crawl through, and hung it on leather hinges at
the top, concealed by the manger. I then
dug through the hay and had a clear field for
my tunnel straight to the stack.
I ran my tunnel, or rather burrow, as it was
small and low, a little too much east, and
missed the haystack by about three feet, but I
probed for it with a long, stiff wire and soon
found it. I carried in a hay-knife and cut me
out a little room like an Esquimau s house,
high enough to sit in and wide and long enough
so that I could stretch out comfortably in it.
The hay had been wet and was frozen, so there
was no danger of its caving down on me. As
the stack was all covered with snow no wind
could get in, and I knew it would always be
warm enough to be comfortable with plenty
of clothes and blankets. I took in a buffalo-
robe and some things of that sort and left
them there. I also cached a box of food there,
consisting of dried beef, crackers, and such
things; enough, I calculated, to last three
days. I could hardly tell what to do about
water, but at last tried the plan of chopping
ice into small pieces and putting them into
TRACK S END
some of Mrs. Sours s empty glass fruit-jars.
My notion was that in case I was imprisoned
there 1 could button a can inside of my
coat and thus thaw enough of the ice to get
a drink.
I was very well pleased with what I called
my fire stronghold. I could enter from a
hidden place in the barn, and could get into
the barn through the tunnel from the hotel,
which connected with the whole tunnel sys
tem. I knew if every house in town burned
that it would not melt the snow around the
stronghold; and I thought if I were in it
when the barn burned I could push down the
snow where it melted along the tunnel so
that it would not be noticed.
In short I was so tickled over my Esquimau
house that I took Kaiser the first night it was
done and slept in it ; and though it was one of
the coldest nights we were comfortable. I
heard the wolves sniffing about on the roof,
but we were getting used to wolves. I didn t
know that we were going to have to sleep
under snow again before spring; and in less
coi r? f o i table quarters.
CHAPTER XVI
Telling of how Pike and his Gang come and of what
Kaiser and I do to get ready for them: together
with the Way we meet them.
TIERE, now, I must tell of how the out-
* * laws came to Track s End, and of the
fight we, that is to say, Pike and his gang on
the one side and I, Judson Pitcher, on the
other side, had that day.
I may speak in prejudice, though I mean to
be fair, when I say that I believe them to have
been as bad a gang of cutthroats as you could
well scare up. Though I fought them all as
best I could I make no bones of saying that I
should ten thousand times rather have been at
home blowing the bellows, or doing anything
else.
I was very lucky with these villains and
was not caught away from home flat on my
back, as I had been by those other scoundrels,
the Indians; if I had not been lucky I should
TRACK S END
not now be here to tell the tale. Those fellows
meant no good to me nor to anybody else. It
would have been no bad thing if they could all
have been hanged by the neck.
They came, then, to Track s End to rob,
and to murder if needs be, on Saturday,
February 5th. My good luck consisted in
this: The evening before, just as the sun was
about to go down, I saw them at Mountain s
from the windmill tower with Tom Carr s
field-glass. I had gone up on purpose to have
a look about, as I did two or three times every
day when the weather 4 was so I could see.
For three days the weather had been much
better than at any time before, and it had
even thawed a little; so I was not much sur
prised when I saw horses coming up to the
shack from the west. I made out seven men
all told, and some extra led horses. I could
see that the men went into the shack and that
many of the horses lay down. By this I
knew they were tired, and guessed that the
gang would probably stay there that night
and rest. I was surprised that they had got
through on horses at all. I stayed on the
tower till it was so dark that I could not see
TRACK S END
any more. The longer I stayed the louder
my heart thumped.
I knew they might, after all, come that
night, either with the horses or on snow-shoes,
so I did what I could to get ready for them.
The fires were all going well, and I lit several
lamps about town. I wished a thousand
times for the population I was pretending I
had. I thought if I could have even one
friend just to talk to perhaps my heart wouldn t
act quite so unreasonably. But after a while
it tired out and quieted down. My knees got
stronger and more like good, sensible knees
that you don t have to be ashamed of. I
took a look at all the guns and wiped them up.
I locked and bolted everything except the
doors or windows which led into the tunnels.
There wasn t anything more I could do except
wait and try to keep that crazy heart of mine
a little quiet.
I knew that whenever or however they came
they would be most likely to come in on the
grade, so I thought the best place to wait was
in Townsend s store, as they would have to
come up facing the back of it. The windows
were plankecj up; but I knew that there were
TRACK S END
no windows in town, or even sides of houses,
either, which would stop a bullet from a good
rifle. I calculated if they came in the night it
would probably be about one or two o clock,
and if they waited till morning I could look for
them when it began to get light.
I went over to Townsend s early in the
evening and sat down close to a back window
in the second story. I had Kaiser with me.
I think he was gradually getting the thing
through his head, because he had stopped
wagging his tail and begun to growl once in a
while. I thought I could trust him to hear
any sound for three or four hours, and I tried
to sleep, but I couldn t. Every few minutes
I went up a short ladder and put my head out
the scuttle in the roof to look and listen. I
heard a good deal, but except for the wolves
away off it was all in my ears. About mid
night by the stars I went to sleep in my chair
before I knew it.
When I woke up I gave a great jump. It
seemed as if I had been asleep a week; and it
certainly had been several hours. Kaiser was
sitting on the floor beside my chair. I knelt
down and threw my arms around his neck and
156
TRACK S END
gave him such a prodigious hug that it must
have hurt him. "We will do the best we
can!" I said to him.
From the roof I could see a faint light in the
east. The wind was fresher from the north
west and it was drifting a little; this was
good. I scolded myself for having slept so
long. I knew if they had come that I should
not have been ready for them.
I hurried around and fixed the fires. I
drank a cup of coffee at the hotel, but couldn t
eat anything. I think if I had had outlaws
every day that my keep wouldn t have cost
Sours very much. I was back at Townsend s
in a jiffy. It was getting red in the east now,
and the moon, which had shone all night, was
about down. It was light enough so I could
see pretty well by this time; but I heard the
crunching of the crust by the horses feet be
fore I could see them at all. Then I saw the
whole gang coming on a dog-trot along the
grade, two abreast, with one ahead, seven
pleasant neighbors coming to call on me at
Track s End. I let them come as near as they
deserved to come to any honest town and then
fired a shot in front of them. I tried to see if
TRACK S END
the bullet skipped on the snow, but the smoke
got in my eyes.
Anyhow, they stopped pretty quick, and
stood all in a bunch, talking. " Maybe you
don t like to be shot at," I said out loud. I
don t know how it was, but my heart was doing
better. I thought I would wait and see before
I did any more shooting.
They talked a few minutes; then one of
them got off his horse, handed his gun and
belt to one of the others, took off his big fur
coat, pulled out a white cloth and waved it and
came walking very slowly toward the town.
This seemed fair enough; I had heard my
Uncle Ben tell about flags of truce in the war.
I waved mylhandkerchief out of the port-hole
and then waited three or four minutes as if we
in the houses were talking it over; then I
walked boldly out the back door. Kaiser
wanted to go along, so I let him.
The man walked very slowly, and I did the
same, but we came up within a few steps of
each other at last. This was out not very far
from the water-tank. I had expected it was
Pike himself, and, sure enough, it was, wearing
a leather jacket with the collar turned up.
158
MY MEETING WITH PIKE, TRACK S END, FEBRUARY FIFTH
TRACK S END
"It s you, is it, Jud?" said he in a kind of
sneering tone. (It seemed strange to me to
hear a man s voice, I had been so long
alone.)
"Yes, it s me," I answered. "What do
you want?"
" I sort of thought these here Track s Enders
might send out a full-grown man to talk to
me about such an important matter," he
went on.
" I was man enough to catch you a couple of
times and it was only your good luck that you
weren t hung up here in Track s End by the
neck," I said, a little put out by the way he
spoke, because I was almost as big as he
was.
" Oh> well, no matter. Now you
"I ll tell you the reason I was sent out," I
broke in, just thinking of something.
"What is it?"
" I can say all there is to say as well as any
body, but I m a poor shot, so it was decided
that if I didn t get back it wouldn t make
much difference in the matter of shooting you
fellows down if you come any nearer.
He pulled his collar down and looked at me
TRACK S END
over his crooked nose. Kaiser began to growl,
but I poked him in the ribs with my foot to let
him understand that there was a flag of truce
on and he must behave himself. I guess
Pike didn t like it, because this sounded as if
we couldn t trust him, but he didn t say any
thing.
" Well," he broke out, " there s no use of us
standing here and talking. We ve come after
that $5,000, and you fellers know it."
" We told you all we had to say about that
in the letter."
"Then we ll bust that safe and burn your
town," he said, like a savage.
"Go ahead and try it," I answered. "We re
ready for you."
His face, which had looked black as night
all the while, now turned white with rage.
" We ll try it fast enough and we ll do it fast
enough, too," he cried, with some prodigious
oaths, bad enough for any pirate. "Look
here; I ain t got any gun with me, and I
s pose you ain t, if you re any man at all. But
you re as near your gun as I am mine, hey ?"
"Yes," I said.
"Then this here flag of truce is ended right
160
TRACK S END
now. When I get hold of my gun I shoot, and
you re welcome to do the same!"
He turned and started back on the run. So
there was nothing for me but to face about and
do the same.
CHAPTER XVII
The Fight, and not much else : except a little Happen
ing at the End which startles me greatly.
TT seems a good deal to believe, but I ac-
tually half think that Kaiser had begun
to get hold of the fine points of a flag of
truce, and that he understood it was ended.
What makes me have this idea is that I think
he must have taken after Pike at first, though
I wasn t doing much looking back just then,
being busy at something more important;
but anyhow he wasn t with me till I was half
way to the store, when he passed me with a
great bark and went on tearing up the snow a
few steps ahead. I wish he had got ahead
sooner, as I think I ran faster trying to keep up
with him; but as it was I don t know but he
saved my life.
Either Pike got back before I did, or one of
his cutthroats fired for him; I know not,
probably the latter, but the shot was for me
162
TRACK S END
and well aimed, so well that I guess the bullet
went where I was when it started. Thus it
was: Kaiser was ahead, and reared up and
threw himself at the store door, which, being
unlatched, flew open; it stopped him a little,
and I, being close behind, went down over him
and into the store head first, as if I had been
fired out of a cannon ; and at that instant the
bullet I spoke of struck the open door half
way up. I slammed the door shut, grabbed
my rifle, stuck the muzzle through the port
hole, and pumped three shots out of it without
once trying to aim.
Then, without taking breath, I ran out the
front by way of the tunnel to the bank, and so
up-stairs, where with another rifle I pumped
out two more shots, and then looked. The
men had left the grade and were coming full
tilt out around the water-tank and graders
carts, their horses rearing and floundering
through the drifts. I fired twice, aiming
carefully each time, but I don t think I hit.
I saw they would soon be out of range. Again
I dropped my gun, ran down- stairs and through
tunnel No. i to the hotel and up-stairs to a
corner window, double planked up, and giving
163
TRACK S END
me the range on the square and the foot of the
street. I was there first, with the hammer of
my Winchester back, and with Kaiser behind
me wishing, I know, that dogs could shoot.
The next second they came in sight and
charged for the street. I aimed and fired; I
hit this time; one of the horses went down and
the man over his head. The other six came
straight for the end of the street. I fired
again, but saw no results. I counted on the
drift stopping them. It did so less than I
expected. Two went down in the snow ; four
came on. I fired and one man dropped off his
horse. The hard crust was holding the other
three. I fired again, but it did no good. Then
the head one, on a pinto pony, went down like
a flash out of sight, horse and man. He had
gone into tunnel No. 3, leading to Townsend s
store.
I fired three shots as fast as I could work the
lever, without stopping to aim. Then I
looked out. The other two riders had turned
tail. The horse of one had gone down in the
snow and he was running away on foot; the
other had got off the drifts without going
down. I thought it was Pike. It seemed a
164
TRACK S END
good time to shoot at him, and I did so, but
without so much as touching him, as I think.
The man in the tunnel got out and dodged
around the corner of Townsend s store before
I could do my duty by him. They were all
the next minute at the depot, either in it or
behind it.
This thing of their taking the depot was
something which I had not thought of. They
were now as well covered and protected as I ;
and it was still seven against one, because the
man that I shot off of his horse got over with
the others by the help of one whose horse went
down in the drift. But their building was
more exposed than mine, and they could do
nothing about their robbery so long as they
stayed there.
They now began to fire their first shots since
the one which followed me into Townsend s
store. They were well-aimed shots, too, and
the bullets came through my window as if
the planks were gingerbread. A splinter of
wood struck my left eye and closed it up ; but
I had it shut most of the time anyhow, aiming
with the other, so it didn t matter. However,
I didn t like the place, and went back into the
165
TRACK S END
room in the northwest corner and got a range
on them from one of the front windows. I
thought their bullets would glance off of the
planks here, and they did; however, the ones
which struck the side came right on through,
lath partitions and all ; but I kept close to the
floor. All the time Kaiser stayed close behind
me, barking so that I thought he would tear
himself to pieces, and with the hair on his back
standing straight up.
I had two rifles and a hundred or more
cartridges, and I began to give the depot a
pretty stiff bombarding. I don t think I
missed the building once, and I knew every
ball went through the side ; but what they did
after that I couldn t tell. There were three
windows in the depot on the side toward me,
all close together near the east end, but none
at all to the right of them. None of them were
boarded up, and the robbers were pretty care
ful about showing themselves much at them.
They gradually dropped off the platform on
the other side and crawled under to the front
from where I had watched the Indians that
day. They were well protected here, but the
wind swept across the west end of the square
TRACK S END
and blew such a spray of snow in their faces
that they could not see to aim well. On the
other hand the sun had now got up and the
reflection came in my eyes and hurt my shoot
ing. I wished that the horse was out of the
way so I could get through tunnel No. 3
into Townsend s, where a side window, well
planked, looked right down on the depot ; but
it was just as well that I couldn t, as I found
out afterward.
They were still thinking that there was a
large population in Track s End, and I could
see splinters flying all over town where they
were plugging away at windows and doors.
I soon noticed that they were not shooting
quite so much, and thought some of them
might be sneaking around and thinking of
coming up from the west, so I went through
to the bank once in a while, firing a few shots
from its front window at the depot so as to
keep up their large-population idea. At the
third visit I looked out back and saw a man
run from the coal-shed to behind the water-
tank. I got ready and waited. Another ran
across. I gave him a shot which made him
jump. Then I fired half a dozen shots through
167
TRACK S END
the inclosed part below the tank, and if any
of the balls missed the big timbers they must
have gone through. I thought those fellows
would keep awhile, and ran back to the hotel
and began to pepper away at the depot again.
This I kept up for an hour, I think, when I
caught a glimpse of one of the men from the
tank going back, and thought likely they had
both gone.
The outlaws made just one more rally, and
it was very well planned, and if I had not
been expecting it it might, after all, have gone
hard with the town of Track s End. All at
once they began an uncommonly lively firing
from under the depot platform. I thought
this might mean a charge from the other side,
so I started to see. Joyce s store ran back
farther than any of the others on that side of
the street, and had a side window near the
back corner; so I went there instead of to the
bank.
It was slow work crawling under the side
walk and getting up through the trap-door, but
I made it at last and ran to the window. Two
of the men were charging straight across the
square for the rear of Townsend s, carrying a
168
TRACK S END
big torch of sticks and twisted hay. The
window was not boarded up, but I stuck my
rifle barrel through the glass and fired at them.
The bullet, I think, struck the torch, because I
saw the fire fly in all directions. They dropped
it and retreated in a great panic, while I shot
again.
I ran back to the hotel and began shooting
once more at the depot. They never fired
another shot. I went over to the bank and
from the back window I could see them going
away to the southwest, keeping under cover of
the tank and coal-shed. They came around
up on to the grade a half-mile to the west. I
had a look at them through the glass. Some
were walking and some riding. There seemed
to be two men on one horse. I think that
more than one of them was wounded, but the
drifting snow now made it hard to see. I
went back through the hotel and down the
street to watch them from the tower above the
snow. The pony which had fallen into the
tunnel was still there. I noticed it wore an
expensive Mexican saddle, all heavy embossed
leather, with a high cantle, silver ornaments,
big tapaderos on the stirrups, and a horsehair
12 169
TRACK S END
bridle with silver bit. There was a red blan
ket rolled up and tied on behind the saddle.
As I went by Townsend s I saw that the
window I wanted to get to was as full of holes
as a skimmer, and I was glad the horse had
blocked up my way. I noticed that the depot
wasn t much better off, however, for holes.
I went up the tower and watched the outlaws
for half an hour. They stopped a few minutes
at Mountain s to get their extra horses and
then went on.
The wind was coming fresher all the time
and I was pretty well chilled when I got down.
I was hurrying along across the drifts to the
hotel when I noticed the horse in the tunnel
again. But his fine saddle and bridle were
gone. I knew instantly that it must be the
work of my unknown night visitor, who had not
stolen anything for some time. This was the
first thing that had been disturbed by day
light; it was growing bolder. My heart had
behaved itself so well during the fight that
I had forgotten that I had such a thing;
now it started to thumping so hard that I
thought it was all there was to me.
CHAPTER XVIII
After the Fight: also a true Account of the great
Blizzard: with how I go to sleep in the Strong
hold and am awakened before Morning.
SO that is the true history of the fight, just
as it all happened at Track s End, Territory
of Dakota, on Saturday, February 5th; and
thus, through good luck and being well in
trenched behind my fortifications, and having
plenty of Winchesters, I beat off the cut
throat outlaws and held the town. If they had
waited one day longer for their coming they
would have waited a good while longer; for
the next day there came such a blizzard as I
had never seen before nor since, which roared
without ceasing six days, lacking twelve hours;
and for two weeks more the weather stayed
bad, and seemed to have relapses, as they say
of a person sick. No robbers could have come
through it, but the ones that had come got
back to their headquarters through the first of
it, as I have good reason to know.
171
TRACK S END
And for almost six weeks after the fight I
lived regularly and without much disturbance,
with Kaiser and the other animals for company
by day and the howling of the wolves and my
own thoughts by night. If the thoughts had
given me no more trouble than the wolves I
should have been happy, for I think I had got
so that I could not sleep unless there was a
wolf howling somewhere about in the neigh
borhood. The loneliness, the dread of the
outlaws coming back, the mystery of what or
who was in or near the wretched town besides
myself, all kept with me and made me wish ten
thousand times that I had never heard of the
place, or of any place except home.
Though of course I did not keep so miser
able all the while. There was plenty of work
to be done, and I kept at it most of the time.
My eye soon got well. The day after I beat
off the outlaws and had a little recovered from
the work and strain of that and of the strange
start the disappearance of the saddle gave me,
I found so many things waiting to be done that
I scarce knew what to turn my hand to first.
But I had thought the poor pony in the tun
nel deserved to be got out before anything
172
TRACK S END
else was done ; and this I attended to an hour
after the robbers had gone. I went out half
expecting to find it gone, too, with its saddle;
but it was not.
It was quite tired out and stood hanging its
head. To get it out the way it had tumbled
in would take a great amount of shoveling in
the hard snow, I soon saw, so I decided I would
try to lead it through the tunnel and on out by
way of the hotel, though it seemed an odd
thing to do. So I put a halter on it and tried
that plan, and though its back scraped a little
in places, what with me ahead and with
Kaiser behind barking a good deal, we got it
along and into the office and then on through
the storeroom and kitchen and out to the
barn. Dick and Ned were much excited by
the new arrival, and so for that matter was
Blossom ; and Crazy Jane was like to have
cackled her head off. The poor things were
the same as I, half dead from lonesomeness.
Then I straightened up things about town
which had been put out of order by the fight,
fixed the fires again and cleaned up the guns.
I didn t forget to go up the windmill tower
several times to have a look for the outlaws,
TRACK S END
but I saw no more of them. Another thing I
did was to lay some big slabs of frozen snow
over the hole in the tunnel where the pony fell
through, and it was a good thing I did this or I
believe the blizzard would have gone near to
filling the whole tunnel system. As it was it
piled on more snow and covered all trace of
the robbers charge on the street.
I think it would not be possible for me to
make you understand what a blizzard that
was, which began the next day and kept up for
the best part of a whole week. All day and
night it roared and pushed at the windows and
drove the snow in every crack and hole; here
piled it up and there swept it away clean down
to the ground. Not once did I go out beyond
the tunnels. The fire at the depot I let go out,
and the others I kept up more to have some
thing to do than for any use they were, be
cause I knew no outlaws could ever come in
such a storm.
While the blizzard lasted I had a hard time
to find enough to do to keep my mind off of
my troubles. In an old recipe-book, which
I found in the closet under the stairs, it told
how to tan skins, so I began tanning my
TRACK S END
wolf-skins. I whittled out some puzzles, too,
and made a leather collar for Pawsy ; but she
would not wear it. I forgot to say that after
the fight I found her in her old place over the
door. I taught Kaiser some tricks, too, and
gave the cat a chance to improve herself in
the same way, but she refused the oppor
tunity.
I did some reading, too, during these days.
There was little to read in the Headquarters
House, but among Tom Carr s things I found
a book by Doctor Kane, telling of his life in
the arctic regions, and this I enjoyed a great
deal, feeling that I was in a country not much
warmer, and that I must be more lonely than
he was, since he always had human com
panions, while I had not one. In Mr. Clerk-
inwell s rooms over the bank I found some
other books, all with very fine leather covers.
Some of these I took the liberty of borrowing,
but was very careful of them. One was The
Pilgrim s Progress, and I liked most of it ex
ceedingly, especially the fight in the king s
highway which Christian had with Apollyon.
Another book was a story, very entertaining,
by Charles Dickens, about little Pip and the
TRACK S END
convict who came back from Australia; I
felt very sorry for Pip when he had to go
out on the wet marshes so early, he being so
little and the marshes so big.
There was another thing that I tried to
amuse myself with, being nothing less than
music. I found an old banjo belonging to
Tom Carr and an accordion which Andrew
had left behind. The banjo I could not do
much with, but when I saw the accordion I
said to myself that if I could blow the bellows
in my father s forge, I ought to be able to work
an accordion. So I went at it, hammer and
tongs, and soon could produce a great noise,
though mighty dismal, I think, and maybe
what you would (had you heard it) have called
heartrending, since whenever I started up
Kaiser would point his nose to the ceiling and
howl, very sad indeed. I think when one of
our concerts was going on that could a guest
have arrived at the Headquarters House he
would have thought he had found a home for
lunatics and not a hotel for an honest traveler
who could pay his way.
During the blizzard also I drew up in black
and white a programme for each day which I
176
TRACK S END
decided I must follow out when the weather
became better; though I had lived up to most
of it from the first. Thus it was:
Five o clock Get up, start fire in hotel and
make cup of coffee.
Five-thirty Inspect fires in bank and three
stores.
Six o clock Feed horses and cow and
chickens, and milk cow.
Six-thirty Get breakfast for self and Kai
ser and Pawsy (which included washing the
dishes, a hard job).
Seven-thirty Inspect depot fire and climb
windmill tower and look over country with
glass.
Eight o clock Finish work at barn; and
for two hours such miscellaneous work as
might be doing, as tunnels or other fortifica
tions.
Ten o clock Windmill mounting again;
miscellaneous work for two hours.
Noon Dinner for family and work at barn.
One-thirty Inspection of fires and wind
mill mounting; folio wed by miscellaneous work.
Three o clock Windmill mounting; mis
cellaneous work.
177
TRACK S END
Four-thirty Final daylight inspection of
country from windmill; miscellaneous work.
Six o clock Supper and work at bam.
Eight o clock General inspection of fires
and town, including observation from wind
mill for lights or fires.
Nine o clock Bed.
This system I followed out pretty closely
whenever the weather was at all fair. When
there was no miscellaneous work I would
practise on the skees, shoot at the target, or
something of this sort. Quite often on days
when the weather would allow (though there
were few enough of them) I would go up
around and beyond the Butte on a little hunt.
I got several jack -rabbits and three more
wolves. One of the wolves I left outside the
shed, forgetting it. In the morning it was
gone. There were not many thefts, however,
and the shed was not broken into any more;
though, to be sure, I had made the door twice
as strong as it was before, and kept everything
about town carefully and strongly locked,
especially the buildings where the guns and
ammunition were.
During the worst storms I used to sleep on
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TRACK S END
the lounge in the hotel office, but at other
times I always retired to the other building
and took in the drawbridge. Two or three
times, just for a change, I took Kaiser and
slept in the fire stronghold. Kaiser and
Pawsy still remained as much company for me
as they had been from the first. What I
should ever have done in that solitude without
them I don t know. The great bushy wag of
Kaiser s tail, and the loud purr of the cat,
were the two things that cheered me more
than anything else. I do believe that cat to
have had the loudest purr of any cat that ever
lived. A young tiger need not have been
ashamed of it. And as for the grand wave
and flourish of Kaiser s tail, it is beyond all
description.
On one of my rabbit-hunting trips, about a
week after the big blizzard, I very foolishly
got both of my feet frost-bitten and paid the
full penalty. The day seemed not quite so
cold, and I did not put on the heavy pair of
woolen stockings which I commonly wore
outside of my shoes and inside of my over
shoes. I crouched behind a snowbank be
yond the Butte for some time waiting for a
179
TRACK S END
rabbit which I saw to come within range,
something which he did not do, and was so
interested in this that I did not notice what
was happening to my feet. But what had
happened was quite plain enough when I got
home and a great ache set up in my toes. I
got the dish-pan full of snow and thrust my
feet in, to draw out the frost gradually; but
this did not save me.
Two days later I was fairly laid up. One
whole day I could scarce crawl about the
hotel office and keep the fire going. I could
not get to the barn to feed the animals,
though they were suffering for food and
water; and what I called my war-fires in the
other buildings I knew were out. My feet
were much swollen, and the pain and the
worry must have brought on a fever, and I
lay on the lounge all day expecting nothing
less than a fit of sickness; and what will be
come of me? I asked myself. I had no
appetite for food, which alarmed me very
greatly. I remember no day of my life at
Track s End which seemed darker to me.
Toward night I fell asleep, and awoke with
Kaiser licking my face and whining. I re-
180
TRACK S END
membered that I had seen in the pantry a
package of boneset, an herb by which my
father set great store, holding it a sovereign
remedy for all common complaints. I roused
up, and by clinging to the back of a chair hob
bled after it, and steeped myself a large mug
ful, very hot, and I believe it did me good.
Be this as it may, as the saying is, I was
better the next day, and managed to feed
the poor, hungry creatures at the barn; and
the day after I was able to start the fires.
But for a week my feet were very painful,
and I suffered much.
It was a little more cheerful as the days
began to get longer as February went on, and
in the latter part of the month I thought the
weather seemed to grow slightly better on the
whole. For three days after the big blizzard
the thermometer had stood from forty to
forty-five below zero each morning, and it did
not get up much higher at any time during the
day. On the last two days of February it
thawed a little in the afternoon, and on March
2d the snow was soft enough so I could make
snowballs to throw at Kaiser; but it soon
turned cold again.
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TRACK S END
There were northern lights many nights,
flaming all over the heavens, like long swords,
and on the night of February i5th there were
some more prodigious than I would believe
were possible had I not seen them with these
eyes. They hung, wavering and trembling,
over the whole northern sky almost to the
zenith, like the lower edges of vast, mighty
curtains, swaying and moving, now here, now
there, and with all colors, yellow, violet, scar
let, blood red, as if the whole heavens were
going to burn up, the thing being so mar
velous that had I not seen lesser displays
before I should have thought the world were at
an end, no less, and have died, I do believe, of
terror. As it was I stood in the snow by the
barn gazing till my feet were like blocks of ice
and I knew not if I were in Track s End or in
the moon. Kaiser at first barked at the sight,
then growled, then whined, and next ran yelp
ing away to the shed, where I found him crept
beneath a bench. Never in my life before nor
since have I seen anything to equal the heav
ens that night. Early on the morning of
February 24th I saw a beautiful mirage.
I could see plainly, high in the air, the timber
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TRACK S END
and bluffs along the Missouri, and the Chain-
of-Lakes and coteaux. It lasted for a full
half-hour.
It happened on the night of March i4th
that I took it into my head to sleep another
night in the stronghold with Kaiser, and so
brought about one more startling thing. It
seemed that I must always be doing some
thing instead of staying content with things
as they were. It had been thawing a little for
several days and I was beginning to wonder if
I could not hope for such weather that the
train might get through before long and re
lease me from the awful place ; though I knew
the snow was packed in the cuts all along the
line to the east like ice, and that it would take
a great thaw to make any impression on it.
About nine o clock I left the hotel, after
carefully locking everything, and went through
the tunnel to the barn with Kaiser, my rifle,
and the lantern. I locked all the doors be
hind me, and then we crawled through the
small door under Ned s manger, and that I
fastened also. In the stronghold I rolled up
in a blanket and the buffalo-robe with Kaiser
beside me. I left the lantern burning in the
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TRACK S END
tunnel just beyond my feet at the edge of the
stack. Kaiser barked at something when we
first got in ; later I heard wolves sniffing about
on the roof; then we both went to sleep.
Some time in the night I awoke; what woke
me I suppose I shall never know. But when I
awoke I sat up suddenly as if I had never been
asleep. I was face to face with the worst-
looking creature I had ever seen in my life,
black and blear-eyed and ugly, on his hands
and knees in the tunnel beyond the lantern
drawing my gun toward him by the stock.
Then Kaiser sprang up like any wild beast;
but I held him back by the collar.
CHAPTER XIX
I find out who my Visitor is : with Something about
him, but with more about the Chinook which
came out of the Northwest: together with what
I do with the Powder, and how I again wake up
suddenly.
WHEN I sat up there in the stronghold
and saw that creature with the glare of
the lantern on his hideous face I knew two
things, and these were, first, that it was an
Indian, and, second, that he was the thief
who had made me so much trouble, though
how I knew this latter I can t say. I knew,
too, that I was at his mercy.
What I should have done first I don t know
if it had not been for Kaiser, but he acted so
that it took all my strength to quiet him. I
saw it would not do to let him spring at the
wretch, who was now squatting in the snow at
the mouth of the tunnel with my gun on his
knee, the muzzle pointed straight at me.
When at last Kaiser began to act like a
13 185
TRACK S END
reasonable being, I said to the Indian, pretty
loud and sharp, so he wouldn t know I was
scared:
"What do you want?"
He grunted and made a noise down in his
throat, which I couldn t see meant anything.
So I said:
"Don t understand. Where d you come
from?"
He only grunted again. I knew that a
great many times an Indian will pretend he
can t talk English when he can, so I kept at
him.
"What you going to do with the gun?" I
next asked him.
This seemed to interest him. He looked
down at it over his thick eyelids and said in
very good English:
"Shoot thieves. Steal Indians ponies."
It flashed upon me that perhaps I could
make him help me after all, though I could see
that he was a renegade and a drunkard.
" Did you see the fight ?" I asked, beginning
vaguely to suspect the truth.
He gave a grunt which meant yes. " Heap
good fight," he added.
166
TRACK S END
" Will you help fight if they come again?"
He said nothing, but sat looking at Kaiser,
who was still growling, and only kept back
because I held him by the collar.
"Where do you stay?" I asked. He made
no answer.
" 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
187
TRACK S END
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 re
membered 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
principally 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
188
TRACK S END
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 Fitz-
simmons 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 oppo
site the window through which I had shown
the jack-lantern. There was now a big bank
189
TRACK S END
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 oil
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
190
TRACK S END
rny heart, instead of beating too much, just
stood still and didn t beat at all.
I saw nothing of the Indian the next morn
ing, and after breakfast went to the Fitz-
siramons 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 in
stantly 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
191
TRACK S END
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 be
neath 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 any
thing.
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
IQ2
TRACK S END
started for the stairs. I snatched 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 i5th, that there be
gan 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
TRACK S END
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 1 5th 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 snowbanks 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
snowbanks all night. I saw the top of the
stronghold haystack from my bedroom win
dow. Tunnel No. i 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 horse
back along the street.
I had never seen a chinook wind before, of
194
TRACK S END
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 north
west, 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 rail
road 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.
TRACK S END
The next morning, the i8th, the chinqok 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 think-
196
TRACK S END
ing; 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 ex
cept 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 wind
mill tower and looked one way for the out
laws 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
197
TRACK S END
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
198
TRACK S END
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 dis
covered 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 rum
mage 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 wonder
ing 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
199
TRACK S END
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 copy ing-
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, balanc
ing 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
200
TRACK S END
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 al
most touched the bank. There was nothing
to either except a one - inch board and a
thickness of lath and plastering. I passed
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
14 201
TRACK S END
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 Head
quarters 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 pass through, and how I find my
self at the End.
first thing I heard was a loud laugh,
and then:
"How are you, Jud?" said Pike. "Back
again, you see. Hope yer feeling all right."
I saw I might as well make the best of it,
though you may be sure I was half scared to
death.
" Yes, I m feeling pretty well," I said. " I
was able to be about the last time you were
here, maybe you remember."
Pike scowled at me. " Yes, that s so, you
was," he said. "You stood us off in pretty
good shape that time you and the snow.
We were fools not to find out that you were
all alone. But we appointed an investigating
committee this time, and we re onto your
game. Just excuse me, but I ll have to ask
203
TRACK S END
you to wear a little of Taggart s jewelry while
we tend to some important business."
He pulled out a pair of handcuffs and
slipped one of them around my wrist and shut
it up so tight that it pressed into the flesh.
Then he led me in front of the counter, slipped
the other cuff through a brace under the front
edge of the counter, and then clasped it around
my other wrist, leaving the short chain which
connected the cuffs behind the brace, so that
I was a prisoner. He pushed up a chair and
said:
11 Set down and make yourself comfortable,
Jud. Ill see if I can t find a handful of
buttons for you, and you can put em on the
counter and play checkers with your nose."
The men laughed at this, and Pike went on:
" We met your pardner out here, the dark-
complected feller. He was a-riding off our
pinto that we left here by mistake last winter,
with our saddle and things, and a-leading
your two broncs, so we just stopped him and
gathered em in, and I reckon they re all our n
now, most of em, anyhow. And in considera
tion of our only shooting him around the edges
careful like, he give us some valuable informa-
204
PIKE HANDCUFFING ME IN THE DRUG STORE, MARCH
NINETEENTH
TRACK S END
tion, such as just where you was a-sleeping,
Jud, and where we d find the blacksmith
tools, and so forth. That s the way to get
along with an Injun and have everything all
easy-going shoot im, very careful, around
the edges."
Again they all laughed, and then went out
the back door, which, I noticed, had a small
hole cut in it over the bolt big enough to let in
a man s hand. There were five of them,
counting Pike. The windows were boarded
up and it was dark in the store, but as the
door opened I saw that it was quite light out
side and that it was snowing.
As I sat there in the dark unable to move
and with the handcuffs cutting into my wrists
you may believe I was miserable enough. I
expected nothing short of being killed by the
gang before they left. I saw what a fool I
had been to trust the scoundrelly Indian even
as much as I had. It was a little satisfaction,
however, to know that he had failed to get off
with his stolen property even if it had fallen
into the hands of a worse set of thieves. I
soon heard them at work on the safe in the
bank. Of course I thought of my fuse, but it
205
TRACK S END
was a dozen feet away, the other side of the
counter, and I could see not a shadow of hope
of getting at it.
I think I sat there as much as two hours,
listening to the noise in the next building,
when Pike came in and said:
"You ll be glad to hear, Jud, that we re
getting along beautiful on that safe. We re
a-going to blow the stuffing out of it the next
thing you know. Reckon if you ain t partic
ular we ll just borrow a sleigh we see out here
and a set of Sours s harness for a couple of our
horses when we go away, cause we think the
specie may be a little heavy. Besides, we re
calculating there may be some other stuff
around town worth taking off Winchesters
and such agricultural and stock-raising imple
ments," and he laughed. He seemed to be in
very good humor.
He went back, and for another long while I
heard nothing but steady drilling on the safe
and a little of their talk, though I could not
catch much of that. Sometimes, too, I could
hear Kaiser barking. He was locked in the
hotel, and I thought he knew I was in trouble
and wanted to get out and help me.
206
TRACK S END
After what seemed hours Pike came in
again.
"We blow er open now very shortly," he
said. " A reg ler little Fourth o July celebra
tion of our own, hey, Jud ?" Then he laughed
and went on: " We need that money and you
bet it s going to come handy." He looked
at me, came closer with the lantern, and
said:
"Jud, what d ye say to coming in with us
and having your share like a man? You re
a good one, if you are young, and we can find
plenty of work for you, and always you get
your share."
" No," I said, " I don t care to."
He looked at me sharply a moment and
then went on:
" Just as you please, of course. But me and
the boys was talking it over and we calcu
lated it was the best way to dispose of you,
a pile the best for you and some better for
us."
I had kept looking straight into his eyes,
under his big eyebrows. "No," I said, "I
won t do it."
" Oh, take your choice," he answered, " take
207
TRACK S END
your choice. Just as you think best, of
course. Only you know the old saying about
how dead men don t tell any tales. And if
you come in with us you get your share, just
the same as if you d done your part of the
work."
I said nothing. He waited a minute, then
went out and shut the door. I sprang up and
pulled and wrenched at the brace with all my
strength. The handcuffs cut into my wrists,
but I did not feel it. The brace stayed as firm
as ever. I sat down weak and trembling
with my last hope gone. A minute later
there was a loud explosion in the bank, which
shook the building I was in. Next came a
cheer from the men. Then voices, and I
heard Pike shout:
"It s all afire here bring a pail of water,
Joe!"
The well windlass creaked and I heard a
man start in from the back. Next I heard
Pike say, "Well soon fix that fire," then
came an explosion and a crash, like an earth
quake, and the wall came down upon me, and
the counter came over and I was half under it.
I heard the cries of the men, and, wriggling
208
TRACK S END
about, I got out from under the counter and
found my hands free from the brace, and the
snowflakes coming in my face through where
half the side of the building had been blown
away.
CHAPTER XXI
After the Explosion: some cheerful Talk with the
Thieves, and a strange but welcome Message out
of the Storm.
AS I struggled to my feet out of the wreck
I was so dazed that I had to lean against
the wall to keep from falling. I felt some
thing running down my face and at first won
dered what it was; then I saw it was blood.
One of my arms felt numb and I was afraid it
was broken; and my hands were all torn and
bruised. I could not see into the other build
ing for the smoke and falling snow, but I could
hear the groans and curses of the men. I
thought that if any of them were able they
might come to take revenge on me, and that I
best go away, especially as I was helpless with
the handcuffs still on my wrists. I managed
to pull open the front door and ran to Tag-
gart s, thinking that I might get the hand
cuffs off in some way.
210
TRACK S END
I found the box from which Pike had got
them. There were two other pairs, with keys.
I took the keys in my teeth and tried, but
neither would fit mine. Then I went to the
tin shop up-stairs. There was a file on the
bench and I managed to get this into the vise
and began rubbing the chain up and down on
the edge of it. It was the hardest work I ever
did, but I soon saw that I could get my hands
free in time if I kept on. Once or twice I
heard Pike shouting something and I could
still hear Kaiser barking in the hotel.
I don t know how long it took, but at last I
got my hands separated, though of course the
clasps were still tightly around my wrists. I
looked out of the window and saw that the
sleigh was in front of the bank with a pair of
the outlaws horses hitched to it. I was
afraid that the safe had been blown open with
the first explosion and that they were getting
the money after all. I ran out the back door
and along behind the buildings to the hotel.
Kaiser bounded around me, and Pawsy was
again in her old place over the door.
I peeped through the cracks in the boards
over one of the front windows. The whole
211
TRACK S END
front of the bank was blown away, but I
could just make out through the snow that the
inner door of the safe was still closed. Two of
the men were lying in the bottom of the sleigh,
motionless, whether dead or alive I knew not.
Pike was on the floor of the bank, propped up
on one elbow, giving orders to the one they
called Joe, who was helping the fifth man into
the sleigh, who seemed badly wounded and
sat in the bottom of the box.
Then Joe went back to help Pike. He took
him by the arms and was dragging him tow
ard the sleigh, when I suddenly made up
my mind that I would keep Pike. I went to
the closet and got Sours s double-barreled
shot-gun. I knew there was no weapon that
they would fear so much at close range. I
opened the door and walked out into the
street with it.
" Just leave Pike right here," I said. " I ll
take care of him. The rest of you go on."
I guess they thought I was buried under the
rubbish in the drug store, because I have
seldom seen men more astonished. I walked
up closer. Even Joe looked half wrecked,
and his face was all blackened with powder.
212
TRACK S END
" Hello, Jud," called Pike. "You ain t
a-going to strike a man when he s down, be
you, Jud? I might a been harder on you
many a time than I was, Jud/
" No, I won t hurt you, but you ve got to
stay, that s all/ I said. "Help him over to
the hotel and then go on with the others and
don t come back," I added, looking at Joe.
There was nothing for him but to do as he
was told, because I held the gun on them both,
and they had heard the click as I drew back
the hammers. Pike s left leg seemed to be
broken and he was all burned and blackened
with the powder. I sent Joe for a mattress,
which he put on the floor of the office and rolled
Pike on it. Then he drove off with the others.
So that is the whole account of the second
visit of the outlaws to Track s End, just as it
all happened, Saturday, March igth.
"Now, Pike," I said, after Joe had gone,
" the first thing out with that handcuff key !"
He took it from his pocket and gave it to
me. I unlocked each of my bracelets. They
left deep red marks around my wrists. Pike
asked for a drink of water and I got it for him,
I could see that he was in pain,
2I 3
TRACK S END
" You ve played it on us again, Jud, I ll be
hanged if you ain t," he said to me. " What d
you have under that counter, Jud?"
"A can of blasting-powder," I answered.
"Dangerous place to store it when there s
explosions, and kerosene lamps and hot stoves,
and fires, and such truck around. It done us
fellers up, and that s a fact."
" Well, I wasn t trying to make you feel at
home," I replied. "How did you happen to
be blowing open other folks s safes?"
11 Oh, it s all right, Jud, it s all right/ he said.
" I ain t finding no fault. Only I think you d
a done better to join us and get your share."
Though I still felt pretty dizzy and weak I
started out to look about town. I found that
the inside door of the bank safe was still tight
shut, though the outer one was blown off. The
building was wrecked and the drug store was
not in much better shape. I could see that
the bank had been afire, but that Joe had put
it out with water from the well.
Outside the barn I found Dick and Ned and
the pony the Indian had taken, with three of
the gang s horses which had been left behind,
huddled together trying to keep out of the
214
TRACK S END
snow, which was still coming down at a great
rate and was being swirled about by the wind.
I let them in, and they were all very glad to
get some feed, as were likewise the cow and
chickens. I found that the Indian had pried
open the back door with a crowbar from
among the blacksmith s tools.
Night was already coming on and I was so
tired and sleepy that I could scarce keep up.
So I made Pike as comfortable as I could,
and went to bed and slept like a log.
The first thing I knew in the morning was
that the storm had turned into a raging bliz
zard. It was not yet very cold, but the snow
was drifting as fast as it had any time during
the winter. I found Pike more comfortable.
I had hoped for the train, but the storm dis
couraged me. I began to wonder what I was
going to do with him. That his leg was
broken was certain, and I almost wished that I
had let him go with the others.
It was Sunday, and the first thing I did
after breakfast was to write my regular letter
to my mother, telling her all that had hap
pened the past week; and it was a good deal.
Then I started out to take another look around
215
TRACK S END
town. My sleep had done me a world of good,
though I still felt stiff and lame.
It was impossible to do much in the storm,
but I covered up the bank safe with some
blankets, and nailed boards over some win
dows in other buildings which had been broken
by the explosion. I finally turned up at the
depot and went in to see about the fire.
As I opened the door I was astonished to
hear the telegraph instrument clicking. I
knew the line was down and could not make
out what it meant. I understood no more
about telegraphing than Kaiser, but in visit
ing Tom Carr during the fall I had learned to
know the call for Track s End, which always
sounded to me like clicket-ty-click-click, click-
et-ty, over and over again till Tom opened the
switch and answered. Well, as I stood listen
ing I heard this call for Track s End, clicket-
ty-click-click, clicket-ty. Then I saw that the
line must have been repaired; but if this were
so a train must have come nearly through;
otherwise the repairmen could not have
reached the break, which, I remembered, Tom
said was just beyond Siding No. 15, fourteen
miles east of Track s End.
216
TRACK S END
I went to the table and sat down and lis
tened to the steady clicking, the same thing,
nothing but the call. It gave me a good feel
ing even if I didn t know where it came from.
I could not understand why any other office
should be calling Track s End, as they must all
know the station was closed for the winter.
Then it came to me that a train must be on the
way, and somebody thought it had got here.
Just to see if I could, I reached over, opened
the switch and tried giving the Track s End
call myself. Of course I did it very slowly,
with a long pause between each click; but I
thought I would show the fellow at the other
end that Track s End wasn t quite dead after
all. Then I closed the switch, and instantly
was surprised to hear the call repeated, but
just as slowly and in the same way that I had
given it. It came this way two or three times,
then I gave it as best I could, then it came the
same way once more.
After this there was a long pause, and then
it began to click something else, very slowly,
dot, dash, dash, dot, and so forth, with a long
stop between each. I picked up a pencil and
marked it down, slowly, just as it came.
15 217
TRACK S END
Every two or three clicks there was a very
long pause, and I would put down a mon
strous big mark, thinking it might be the
end of a letter; and when it stopped this is
what I had, just as I wrote it down (I have
the paper to this day), though it might as
well have been Greek for all I knew of its
meaning :
4
After a minute or two it began again, but I
soon saw that I was getting the same thing.
218
TRACK S END
I leaned back in the chair and wished that I
could read it. Then I sat up with sudden new
interest, wondering if I could not find a copy of
the Morse code somewhere and translate the
message. It didn t seem likely that Tom
would have one, as he was an old operator;
but I began rummaging among his books and
papers just the same. I had not gone far
when I turned up an envelope directed to him
on which was some printing saying that it
contained a pamphlet about books for teleg
raphers. I opened it, and on the first page,
as a sort of trade-mark, was what I wanted.
In ten minutes I had my message translated.
It read: " Starving. Siding fifteen. Carr."
CHAPTER XXII
The last Chapter, but a good Deal in it : a free Lodging
for the Night, with a little Speech by Mr. Cler-
kinwell: then, how Kaiser and I take a long
Journey, and how we never go that Way again.
WHEN I knew what the message said I
saw that a train must have got to No. 15,
and I jumped up and started for the door;
then I ran back again and slowly spelled out
O. K. on the instrument, and without waiting
to see what came in reply hurried over to
the hotel as fast as I could go.
It was now eleven o clock, and though the
storm was as furious as ever I was determined
to set out and try to reach the siding. If it
had been before the thaw, with all of the winter
snow on the ground, I never should have
thought of doing it, but most of the old drifts
were either gone or frozen so hard that they
could be walked over without the least fear of
breaking down; and as for the new drifts
220
TRACK S END
they were soft and not yet deep. I first
thought of taking the horses and large sleigh
and of keeping on the railroad track, but I
remembered that there were a good many
culverts and little bridges which I could not
cross that way, and I knew to leave the track
would mean to be lost instantly. So I saw
that the best I could do was to take Kaiser
and the small sled.
I soon had this loaded with all the pro
visions that I thought we could get through
with, though the selection was poor enough.
But I got a lot of coffee from the store, with
bacon and canned Boston baked beans and
other such things. There was a little of the
buffalo meat left, and as I had kept it buried
in the snow during the thaw it was still as
good as ever. This, with what eggs and other
things in the hotel which I had, I put on,
covered it all snugly with a blanket, tied the
load firmly and was ready. I told Pike where
I was going, though the next moment I saw
from the look on his face that I should not
have done so. Still, I could not see what
harm he could do with his bruises and broken
leg. I left food and water where he could
221
TRACK S END
reach them, and started out, walking beside
Kaiser and helping him drag the load.
It was just noon when I got off. We went
to the station and started down the track.
It was impossible to see more than a few rods,
but the wind, which all along had been in the
northeast, had now shifted to the northwest,
so it was partly in my back. It was both
snowing and blowing, and we waded through
the damp, heavy, new snow, and slipped and
stumbled over the old drifts. I soon saw that
there was a big job before us; and I had not
expected any pleasure excursion.
The first accident was when I fell through
between the ties over a culvert up to my chin.
It was too high to get back that way, so I
went on down and floundered out at the end
and so fought my way back up. We soon got
used to these, and generally I told where they
were by the lay of the land, and either we went
round them or walked carefully over on the
ties. But before I had gone three miles I saw
that my only hope of reaching the siding that
night was in the wind going down; but it was
all the time coming up.
But we plodded on, in some places making
222
TRACK S END
pretty good time; but on the other hand we
often had to stop to rest. Kaiser seemed not
the least discouraged, and when we stopped
even tried to wag his tail, but it was too bushy
a tail to wag well in such a wind. After a while
the blizzard became so blinding and the track
so deep with snow that we had to leave it and
follow the telegraph poles on the edge of the
right of way, stopping and clinging to one
pole till a little swirl in the snow gave me a
glimpse of the next one; then we would
plunge ahead for it, and by not once stopping
or thinking I would usually bump up against
it all right; though when I had gone fifty
steps if I did not find it I would stop and stand
still till a little lull made it so I could see the
pole, and then sometimes I would find that I
had passed it a few feet to one side.
At last (but too soon) I thought I noticed
that the light was beginning to fail; and it
was certainly all the time growing colder. A
little farther on we came to a deep cut through
a coteau. The cut was so filled with new
snow that we could not wade through, and the
side of the hill was covered with the old snow
and so slippery that we could not scramble
223
TRACK S END
over. The only thing to do was to go around it.
This I thought we could do and not get lost by
keeping close to its foot all the way around.
We started and plowed on till I thought
it time to see the telegraph poles again. We
went on, but I saw the hill was not leading us
right, and turned a little the other way. An
other coteau was in our path and I turned to
avoid it. For another five minutes we went
on. I turned where I was sure the railroad
must be, when suddenly it seemed as if the
wind had changed and was coming out of the
south. I knew it undoubtedly had not, but
by this sign I understood that I was lost. I
felt dazed and bewildered and was not sure if
I were north or south of the track. But for
another fifteen minutes we struggled on. I
had lost all sense of direction. I stopped
and tried to think. Every minute it was
growing colder; how long I stood there I
don t know, but I remember that I heard
Kaiser whine, and started at it, and realized
that I was growing sleepy. I knew what the
sleepiness which comes on at such times
means, and I turned around square to the
wind and started on.
224
TRACK S END
A dozen steps away we came face to face
with a big new snow-drift, its top blown over
like a great white hood. I guessed that there
was an old bank under this one. I took a
stake from the sled, dropped on my hands and
knees and began to poke about for it. I soon
found it, broke through the frozen crust with
the stake and began pawing out a burrow with
my hands. I dug like a scared badger and in
a few minutes had a place big enough. I
wriggled out, pushed Kaiser in, took the
blanket from the sled, backed into my snow
cave again and rolled up as best I could in the
blanket. In five minutes the mouth of the
burrow was drifted over and we were in total
darkness.
I was not afraid to sleep now, as I knew,
what with the snow, my big coat, and the
blanket, not to mention Kaiser, I would be
safe enough from freezing; so that is what I
did till morning, scarce waking once. When
I did wake, though I knew no more than any
thing if it were morning, I could no longer hear
the wind roaring, so I burrowed out ; which was
no small job, either, since I had to dig through
a wall of snow, packed solid as a cheese.
225
TRACK S END
But when Kaiser and I burst out, like
whales, I guess, coming up to breathe, we
found it clear and calm, with the sun just
peeping up above a coteau and the frost
dancing in the air. And we were not five
rods from the railroad, though in that blizzard
we could no more see it than we could Jericho.
It took half an hour to dig out the sled and get
started, with Kaiser barking, and his breath
like a puff of a locomotive at every bark, it
was so cold. I put on the skees now (which I
had had tied on the sled) and off we went over
the drifts, now packed hard, at a good rate.
It was no more than ten o clock when I saw
a white cloud of smoke far ahead and knew we
were coming to the siding; and Kaiser saw it
too, I think, and we both started to run and
couldn t help it. And half a mile farther we
saw a man coming slowly ; and who was it but
dear old Tom Carr !
I think I never was so glad to see anybody in
my life. The poor fellow was so weak that he
could hardly stand, but he was making a start
for Track s End.
"Jud," he said, "we started out Wednes
day, with a dozen passengers, as many shovel-
226
TRACK S END
ers, and three days food. We got to No. 15
Saturday. Then the storm came and the food
was about all gone. Yesterday the storm kept
up and the men could have done nothing
even if they had had food. This morning
they are at it, but they are so weak that they
can t do much, but with what you ve got on
your sled we ll get through."
He went back with me, and there were Burr-
dock and Sours and Allenham and some others,
all shoveling at the cut with the men ; and in
the car was Mr. Cler kin well, now recovered
from his sickness, but weak from the lack of
food. I won t try to tell how glad they were
to see me; but I was gladder to see them. I
felt that I was out of the prison of Track s
End at last ; and so many times I had thought
I never should get out alive !
" And why didn t you die a thousand times
from loneliness," cried Mr. Clerkinwell, after
he had talked a few minutes, "if from no
other cause?"
"Oh," I answered, "I had some company,
you know; then there were callers, too, once
in a while." Then I said to him that "I
wrote every Sunday to my mother," at the
227
TRACK S END
which he patted me on the head, just as if I
weren t taller than he!
The men all came in and we got up a sort of
a meal; at least there was plenty of coffee,
bacon, and beans. Then they went at the
shoveling again, the engineer got up steam,
and soon we left the short platform and little
cube of a house at the siding behind. There
was a snow-plow on the engine, and the men
now worked with so much energy that we
bucked along through the cuts, and before sun
down were at Track s End. So, on Monday,
March 2ist, the train which had gone away on
Friday, December i yth, was back again, with a
long whistle and a cheer from every man, and
barks from Kaiser which lasted longer than all.
I had told part of my story, and we all went
over to the Headquarters House, Allenham
to arrest Pike. He was gone. The barn had
been broken open that morning and one of his
ponies taken out. How he ever did it with
his broken leg was more than any of us could
tell, but he had done it, and it seemed no use
to try to follow him. I saw my mistake in
telling him so much; but it was too late to
remedy it.
228
MR. CLERKINWELL GIVING ME HIS WATCH AND CHAIN
TRACK S END
The next day another train came, bringing
a whole crowd of Track s-Enders; and that
night they held a little meeting at the hotel
and were for giving me a reward for what I
had done (which was no more than I had been
left to do); but I told them, No, that Mr.
Sours had paid me my wages according to
agreement and that I couldn t take any re
ward; but when Mr. Clerkinwell got up and
took off his watch and chain (gold they were,
you may be sure) and said I must take that
whether or no, so that when I " looked for the
time o day I would always remember that a
townful of people, and especially a certain old
gentleman, thanked me and did not forget
what I had done" when Mr. Clerkinwell did
this, I say, and I guess there were tears in his
eyes, what could I do but take it ? and take it I
did, and wear it to this day.
Mr. Clerkinwell told me afterward that
there was a full $20,000 in the safe.
So that is all there is to tell of my strange
winter at Track s End, so many years ago.
Three days later the regular trains began to
run, and the first one took all of my letters to
my mother; and no more than two days after
229
TRACK S END
she got them I was there myself, bringing only
one important thing more than I had taken
away (besides experience), and that was
Kaiser. I had asked for him and got him;
first I had thought to take away Pawsy, too,
but concluded to leave her with Mrs. Sours,
where she could get on the door in case of
trouble. And since, though I have done my
share of wandering about the world (and
perhaps a little more than my share), I have
never again visited Track s End; nor do I
think I want to go back where the wolves
howled so many dismal nights, and where the
other things were worse than the wolves.
THE END
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