Kitabı oku: «Elam Storm, the Wolfer: or, The Lost Nugget», sayfa 5
CHAPTER VII.
A TEMPERANCE LECTURE
It was a muddy, miry place in which Tom Mason now found himself, for it had been raining some there and Fort Hamilton was not blessed with a system of drainage. There were no sidewalks except in front of the various saloons and stores they passed, and half the way they walked through mud that was more than ankle deep. It was astonishing to him to notice how many people there were on the streets who recognized his companions. It was "Howdy, Mr. Kelley?" and "Hello, Stanley!" or "Hello, Arrow-foot!" until Tom might be pardoned for thinking that his two friends were raised right in town instead of coming from a country a hundred miles away.
"Arrow-foot?" said he. "That's one thing I do not understand."
"Well, you see that when my employer first came to this country and wanted a name for his cattle, he picked up on his piece of land, close by the spot where his dugout is now located, a small piece of clay plainly marked with an arrow-foot. There was the stem of the arrow all complete, and so he named his cattle 'Arrow-foot.' Almost everybody out here is known by the brand his cattle wears."
"But how do they come to call you 'Mr.' Kelley?"
"I don't know, unless it is because I don't drink or gamble with them, and have a happy faculty for settling all the rows."
Presently Mr. Kelley made his way into a spacious saloon that occupied one end of the block. It had evidently been built by someone who had an idea of refinement about him, for its verandas were spacious, the windows came down to the floor, and there was a gilded sign over the door. Inside the room was large and airy, with a bar on one side and a number of tables extending away to the other end. It was quiet enough now in the daytime, but when Tom heard the noise that came from it after the lamps were lighted, he thought pandemonium had broken loose.
"Howdy, Mr. Kelley? Denominate your poison," said the man behind the counter, extending a bottle toward him with one hand and reaching out the other to be shaken. "Got back safe and sound, didn't you?"
"I don't take any of that stuff, and you ought to know better than to ask me. I got back all right with the exception of the dumb ague, which took me just as I got ready to leave Fort Gibson. Have you seen Black Dan lately?"
"You're right, I have," said the man, frowning fiercely. "Do you see that?" he added, taking out from under his counter a revolver which was cocked and ready to be used when it was drawn. "I am going to keep that just as it is and show it to him when he wakes up. Because he used to own this house is no reason why he should pull a pistol on me!"
"Did he draw it on you?" asked Tom, forgetting where he was in the excitement of the moment.
"I should say he did, kid, and Mose, there, was just in time to stop him. I hope you have come to take him East, for I don't want him around here any longer. It is all I can do to keep him from getting into a fight with somebody, and the first thing you know he will pick up the wrong man. You took him out, Mose. Do you know where he is?"
"Yes; he's out there," said Mose, motioning one way with his thumb and another way with his head. "I can find him."
Mose made an effort to get on his feet, but reeled considerably, and would have fallen back in his chair if Mr. Kelley had not caught him and placed him steadily on his feet. When he was fairly up, he was all right, and made his way out of the house and around the corner, closely followed by Mr. Kelley and Tom. Presently he stopped, and curled up behind a water-butt, the mud spattered thick on his torn clothing, his empty holster and the stump of his crippled arm thrown out recklessly by his side, lay all that was left of Black Dan. Tom saw in a minute where he had got his cognomen. His complexion was swarthy and his hair and whiskers were as black as midnight, but for all that he had been a very handsome man. He was dead drunk, and Mr. Kelley saw that all attempts to arouse him would be useless.
"Why didn't you put him in a bed?" asked Tom, in accents of disgust.
"He wouldn't stay there," replied Mose. "That is the only place he will stay, and there is where we take him as soon as he shows any desire to go to sleep."
"Let's go away," said Tom. "I'll never drink a drop of whiskey as long as I live."
"It would be useless to try to awake him," said Mr. Kelley. "Mose, you tell him that as soon as he wakes up we want to see him down to the Eldorado, where we are stopping. We want to see him particularly. You can remember that much, can't you?"
"I can, sir," replied Mose, hastily pocketing the dollar which Kelley thrust out to him. "I'll send him down as soon as he comes to himself."
"It always comes hard for one to see a man done up in that style," said Mr. Kelley, as he and Tom bent their steps toward the Eldorado. "It makes me hate whiskey worse than I did before."
Tom had seen so much of the little town of Fort Hamilton that he had some doubts about going to the Eldorado. Their little interview with Black Dan, if such it could be called, had taken all the conversation out of them; but when they entered the living-room of the hotel, and saw no semblance of a bar, and the men who were playing cards were doing it for fun, and not for money, and there was no sign of a drunken man around, his spirits rose wonderfully, and he walked up and placed his valise on the counter.
"Ah! here you are," exclaimed Stanley, coming up at that moment. "I wasn't able to get a room with four beds in it, but I have engaged one end of the dining-room, so that we can all be together to-night."
"Full up to the top notch," said the clerk. "Put it there, Mr. Kelley. How are you, Arrow-foot? This young man I don't remember to have seen before, but all the same I am glad to meet him."
"Yes, he's a tender-foot, and we are taking him out to have the boss grub-stake him."
"Ah! that's your business, is it? Fine business that. You may make a strike some day and come back and buy us all out. You're going right in the country for one, for there's a nugget worth eight thousand dollars for you to pitch on to."
"Yes, Elam Storm's nugget," said Stanley. "I hope to goodness you'll get it, for then we shall quit hearing so much about it."
"Oh, it's there, for one with such a reputation as that – why, man alive, it extends through twenty years! And the Red Ghost, too; you want to steer clear of him."
Tom laughed and said he would do his best to follow the clerk's advice. He had heard of Elam Storm's nugget, had even found himself thinking of it when awake, and dreaming about it when asleep. He knew that his chances for digging it up were rather slim, for he did not suppose that the man who had hid it had any idea that it would be unearthed by anyone save himself; but if he should happen to strike it with one blow of his pick! Wouldn't he be in town? He could then write back to his uncle that he had made more than the sum he had temporarily lost, made it by the sweat of his brow, and he was sure that the next letter he received from his uncle would be one telling him to come back home, and all would be forgiven. But the Red Ghost! Tom did not know what to think about him. He had been seen, never in broad daylight, and he was a terrible thing to look at. He roamed about after nightfall, tearing the mules and trampling the teamsters to death, and the worst of it was he was always to be found somewhere near the place where the nugget was supposed to be hid. Stanley once had a partner that had been done to death, and even Mr. Kelley's face grew solemn whenever he spoke of him. That was the only thing that made Tom doubtful about taking a grub-stake.
The dinner-bell rang while they were talking, and when the meal was ended Tom went out with the two cowboys to look at a horse that Stanley had found for him in the morning. They were gone about two hours, and when they came back, Tom told himself that he was a cowboy at last; a horse, saddle, and bridle were waiting for him at the stable, and the poncho which he carried slung over his arm was roomy enough for his extra baggage. The first thing that attracted Stanley's notice was a strange man talking to Mr. Kelley. The stump of his arm proclaimed who he was.
"It's Black Dan," said he. "Now, Tom, let's see how much your temperance principles will amount to."
Tom was startled, as well he might be, to know that he had it in his power to help a man who, in his palmy days, held an influence in Fort Hamilton second only to the commander of the station. He gazed steadily at him a moment, then threw his poncho on the table, asked the clerk for his valise, and took from it the pin Mr. Bolton had given him, and with this in his hand he approached Black Dan, while with a delicacy of feeling that some people who occupy prouder stations might have envied the cowboys turned toward the window. Hearing from the barkeeper that the man who wanted to see him was a "top-notch fellow," Dan had washed his face and brushed his hair, and made other efforts to improve himself. His holster was filled this time, so it showed that he was in a situation to defend himself. Mr. Kelley introduced Tom, and then moved away.
"How do you do, sir?" said Dan, gazing hard at Tom's face and trying to recollect where he had seen him before. "You have got the advantage of me."
"I never saw you before, and I am sorry to find you this way," said Tom, trying to keep up his courage. "I want you to look at this pin and tell me if you ever saw it before."
Tom unwrapped the pin and placed it in Dan's hands. The latter took it in surprise, and finally the wondering scowl his face had assumed gave way to an entirely different expression, and he sat for five minutes, turning the pin over in his hand, and doubtless harassed by gloomy reflections. When he gave that pin to the one from whom Tom had received it, he was worth half a million dollars.
"What was Bradshaw doing when he gave you the pin?" said he.
"He told me his name was Bolton," said Tom. "He had been doing some gambling, and, finding out from me that I was coming up here, he gave me the pin with a request that I should give it to you."
"You haven't come out here with any intention of going into this business, have you?"
"What, gambling? Not much I haven't. I think I have seen enough to keep me away from gambling forever. I'm going to get a grub-stake and go into the mountains. I think I can do better there."
"You are an honest boy, and I wish I could give you something for it. One short year ago I could have sent you to the mountains with some prospects of success; but now – " Dan held up his crippled arm.
"I should think that would drive you from gambling forever," said Tom earnestly. "You have taken to drink, and that is just as bad."
"Well, seeing that you are going to preach, I guess I'll go. Shake. So long."
Before Tom could think of another word to say Dan had squeezed his hand and was on his way to the door, walking along with his hat pulled over his eyes, as if he didn't want to see anybody. When he reached the street, he simply touched his forehead to some people he met, and kept on his way to the saloon. Tom stepped to the window and saw him go in at the door.
"Well, what success did you meet with?" said Stanley.
"I didn't meet with any success at all," said Tom, gazing helplessly out at the muddy street. "He said if I was going to preach he'd go. He seemed to think I had come out here to go into his business, but I told him I had seen enough to keep me away from cards forever."
"Well, I declare!" said Mr. Kelley. "It is the greatest wonder in the world he didn't knock you down. He never lets anybody say anything against cards in his hearing. You have had a narrow escape."
As Tom sat there with his three friends and talked over the incidents of Dan's past life he grew more frightened than ever, and thanked his lucky stars that he didn't know more about it before he held his interview with the gambler. Tom had told him that he had taken to drink, which was as bad as gambling, and Dan had been known to floor a man who had said as much to him. That night, while Tom was lying on his bed and trying to go to sleep, he heard something more of the pin. High and loud above all the hubbub that arose on the streets came the chorus of a song in which one voice far outled the others. It was Dan's voice, and proved that the pin had been pawned for something besides water. He looked over toward Monroe, and saw that the latter was wide awake and looking at him.
"They're going it, aint they?" Tom whispered.
"You're right, they are. Poor Dan! You have done what you could for him." And with the words he rolled over and prepared to go to sleep.
The next morning everything was quiet enough. The drunkards had been put into the calaboose by the soldiers, and the others had gone to bed to sleep it off. Tom wanted to know what had become of Dan, but nobody said anything about him, and from that time his name was dropped. They ate their breakfast in haste, paid their bills, and in ten minutes more Tom was on his way in search of a grub-stake.
"Oh, certainly you'll get it," said Monroe, who rode beside him. "That is the way the bosses always treat a tender-foot when they haven't anything in particular for him to do. Some of our best known men have got their start that way."
"I should think that some of the men you trust that way would run off when they find something good," said Tom.
"Why, bless you, they can't take their find with them. They've got to stay and work it. I did hear of a fellow who found a lot of iron pyrites, and filled his pockets with them. He ran away, making the best course he could for Denver, and when he was found, his pockets might just as well have been filled with clay."
"Dead?" said Tom.
"Yes; and he was two hundred miles from where he belonged."
"And his find didn't amount to anything?"
"No. It is a brassy substance and looks very much like the precious metal, but you need a mine to work it."
"What do you suppose killed him?"
"Don't know. Some people suppose that his mule got away from him, and ran away with his outfit. At any rate, there was nothing near him, and the fellow got desperate and died from exhaustion. Oh, it's one of the things that will happen out here."
"That's a queer way to do," said Tom musingly. "By the way, I haven't got any revolver."
"Oh, the old man will give you a pop. You will get everything you need to last you two or three months. While that lasts, you are expected to do some hunting; when it begins to give out, you want to come home."
"But how will I know the way?"
"The mule will bring you. He will stay there about two months, – that is, if he doesn't get frightened, – and when he gets tired of staying, he will come home, and you had better come, too."
It was by such talks as this that Tom learned a great deal about the business upon which he was soon to embark. It never occurred to him that he was to engage in any other business. Cowboys – or, as they were called in those days, "vaqueros" – were not as plenty as they became a few years later, and if a ranchman could be found who thought him able to make his living by riding for a stake, well and good. He certainly would not run away with his pockets filled with pyrites. He expected to make a good many blunders, but Tom told himself he was used to that. What he thought of more than anything else was that nugget worth eight thousand dollars.
They camped that night with a party of emigrants, and for the first time Tom had the luxury of sleeping out of doors; but the appetite he brought to the breakfast-table with him amply made amends for that. In all the hunting excursions he had enjoyed for a week or more on his uncle's plantation he always had a darky along to build a shelter for him, cook his breakfast for him, and do any other work that happened to be necessary, and all he had to do was to ride to and from his hunting-grounds and shoot the turkeys after he got there. The next night they drew up before a dugout, the first one he had ever seen. The only thing that pointed out its place of location were a couple of hay-racks, which had been torn to pieces by mules. There was not a human being in sight, not even standing in the door to bid them welcome.
"Boys, I am glad my trip is done," said Mr. Kelley, as he threw himself from his horse, relieving him of his bridle as he did so. "Tom, what do you think of your new home?"
"Why, there is nobody around here," said Tom, gazing on all sides of him.
"Oh, they are around here somewhere. It isn't dark yet, and we'll get in and light a fire for them. They are out somewhere, looking for some lost cattle. We left two hundred head here when we went to the mountains."
"To the mountains?" repeated Tom.
"Yes. I tell you we want to get away from here when the blizzards fly, for there isn't a thing to shelter us. I don't expect we shall find more than fifty head of those cattle, if we do that."
"What do you suppose will become of them?"
"They will be dead, of course. You see, when cattle are loose on the prairie and a storm comes up, and they can't stand it any longer, they start and travel in the same way the storm is going; and as the storm lasts from three to four days, you can readily imagine that they must get exhausted before they stop. When the hailstones come down as large as hens' eggs, you can – "
"Haw, haw!" laughed Monroe.
"Well, as large as pigeons' eggs," said Kelley, "and I won't come down another grain in weight. Why, an army officer went by here two years ago hunting for his thirty-five mules that had been stampeded by a storm, and when he found them, there were only four that were able to stand alone. Oh, you get out, Monroe! You haven't seen any blizzard yet. Now, let's go in and get some supper."
"But what makes the mules run so? Why don't they go under shelter?" added Tom, as he picked up his poncho and saddle and followed the man inside the house.
"There was just where they were going – for shelter. There aint a piece of timber within twenty-five miles of this place to shelter a rabbit."
"Then what do you use for fuel?"
"Buffalo chips. There, Tom, put your plunder in there and set down and look around you. You wouldn't think the man who owns this place was worth two hundred thousand, but it is a fact."
"Why doesn't he buy a better piece of ground, then? I wouldn't be so far from shelter if I were in his place."
"Buy it? He doesn't own this property. Every acre of ground that he occupies is Congress land."
"But I'll bet you he wouldn't give it up," said Stanley. "I'd like to see somebody come here and say this is his."
"Then you will never see it. Mr. Parsons says that all this property will be thrown open to settlement some day, and then he and the rest of the squatters will have to go farther West. But, laws! he's got money enough, and he began life, Tom, just as you are going to – by taking a grub-stake and starting for the mountains. But come on, boys, and let's get supper. Stanley, just roll out the rest of that bacon and hard-tack, and, Monroe, you go outside and throw in some buffalo chips."
Tom, weary with his long ride, made up his bunk, then threw himself upon it and looked about him.
CHAPTER VIII.
A HOME RANCH
Tom was surprised at the interior of the dugout. From the outside it didn't look large enough to accommodate more than three or four men, but there were bunks for eight, and there was ample room for the cooking stove, a dilapidated affair which looked as though it might have come from somebody's scrap-pile and left one of its legs behind it. But there was plenty of "draw" to it, as Monroe came in with his arms full of buffalo chips, filled the stove full, and touched a match to them. On each side of the stove was a blanket, which on being raised proved to conceal little cupboards devoted to various odds and ends. One contained books and magazines, a whip or two, and several pairs of spurs, and in the other were to be found the dishes from which the inmates had eaten breakfast, all neatly washed and put away. Tom was surprised at the air of neatness that everywhere prevailed.
"Oh, you won't find all dugouts like this one," said Monroe. "Some of them are so dirty that you can't find a place to spread your blanket. Mr. Parsons' cook did this work, and all the ole man does is to sit outside and smoke."
"Here comes the ole man now," said Stanley, who had ascended to the top of the stairs and was looking out over the prairie. "He has got a small drove of cattle with him, so we shall have some corral duty to do to-night."
"And I believe he has more than twenty-five head with him," said Mr. Kelley, who dropped everything and came to Stanley's side. "He's got fifty if he's got one. Boys, I guess you had better go out there. They are tired most to death, and we might let them come in and get some supper."
Although the two cowboys had ridden all of fifty miles that day, there was no objection raised to this arrangement. Without saying a word they buckled on their belts containing their revolvers, shouldered their saddles and bridles, and went out behind the hay racks. When they came within sight a few minutes later, they were going at full speed to meet their employer and his cattle.
"Now, maybe you are able to see something off there, but I can't," said Tom, after he had run his eyes in vain over the horizon. "I can't see a single thing."
"Can't you see that long line that looks like a pencil-mark off there?" said Mr. Kelley, trying in vain to make Tom see the object at which he was looking. "Well, it's there plain enough. When you have been on the plains as long as I have, you'll notice all little objects like that one, and, furthermore, you will want to know what makes them. It will be two hours before they come up, and you sit down here on the bench and watch it. I will go down and get some supper."
Tom seated himself on the bench beside the door and tried hard to make out the approaching line of cattle, but could not do it. Finally he was called to supper, and went down saying that he would give his eyes a little rest and then maybe he could see them; but he couldn't do it now.
"Supposing you were in a line of march and had a scout out there where those men are, and he should begin riding in a circle, what would you say?" asked Mr. Kelley.
"I wouldn't say anything," exclaimed Tom. "I wouldn't know what he meant."
"He would mean that there was danger close at hand, and you had better be gathering your cattle up," said Mr. Kelley. "And if they were scattered as far apart as those cattle are, you would want a small battalion of men to answer your orders."
"What would be the danger?"
"From Cheyennes, of course."
"Good gracious! Do they ever come out and threaten a whole ranchful of cattle?"
"Certainly they do. But they are all right now. They haven't had any grievance for a long time, and they are as trustworthy as Indians ever get to be. I wouldn't put any faith in them, however. I'd have been worth half a million dollars if it hadn't been for those pesky redskins."
"Did they steal from you?" asked Tom.
"Yes, they stole me flat, but I got away with my life, and that is something to be thankful for. Now, go out and see if you can find those cattle."
Tom obediently went, and whether it was from the long rest his eyes had had or from some other reason, he distinctly made out a long "pencil line" on the horizon. By watching it closely he finally made out that in certain places the line was interrupted, and finally decided that that was the place where some of the cattle had strayed more than they ought to; and he was confirmed in this idea when he saw a solitary figure move up and turn them in toward the centre. As Mr. Kelley, having finished his dishes, came out and sat down on the bench to enjoy his smoke, he finally made out the two horsemen who rode around the outskirts of the herd and gradually disappeared.
"It won't be long now before the old man will be along," said he. "You will see that he won't ride through the drove, but will come around it. If he should try riding through it, he would have a stampede on his hands that would do your heart good to see."
"Are they as wild as that?" asked Tom, who told himself that he was learning something about the cowboy's business the longer he talked with Mr. Kelley.
"You just bet they are. If you should go among them on foot, you would either stampede them or else they would charge upon you and gore you to death. That's the reason we always use horses in tending cattle."
In about half an hour two horsemen were seen riding around the outskirts of the herd. They took a wide circle, so as not to frighten the cattle, and finally drew a bee-line for the dugout. Mr. Kelley remarked that they were the ones he was expecting, dived down the stairs, and in a few minutes the rattling of dishes was heard as he proceeded with his preparations for a second supper. The horsemen were hungry, or else their animals were, for they occupied much less time in coming in than the cowboys who relieved them, and in short order they were near enough for Tom to distinguish their faces. Tom took a long look at the man who was going to befriend him. He knew who he was, for there was the cut of a leader about him; and when the man rode up and swung himself from his horse with a "How are you, Tom?" it proved to him that Stanley and Monroe had told him something about him.
"Howdy?" shouted a voice from the dugout; and Mr. Kelley stuck his head up through the door. "We're still on hand, like a bad dollar bill. How many cattle have you got out there?"
"Sixty-five; and pretty good luck, too, seeing that they have been stampeded more than forty miles. Where did you pick up this youngster?" added Mr. Parsons, giving Tom's hand a hearty squeeze. "I certainly do not remember seeing him before."
"No, he's a tender-foot. As he didn't know what else to do, he came out here for somebody to grub-stake him."
"Ah!"
"Everyone who knows him has gone back on him," continued Mr. Kelley, "and so he has come out here to see if you won't stake him for a gold mine."
"M-m-m!"
"And as he cured me of the dumb ague by giving me a pitcher of ice-water, I thought I would bring him along."
"Aha!" said the ranchman, who had kept a firm hold of Tom while his right-hand man was speaking. "You claim to be a doctor, do you? Well, we must do something for you. I was a little older than you are when I went into the mountains to seek for a gold mine, and, unfortunately for me, I found it. I smell bacon. Is supper ready yet?"
Mr. Kelley made some sort of incoherent reply which Mr. Parsons and his man understood, for they dived down the doorway, leaving Tom standing alone.
"Unfortunately he got it," Tom kept repeating to himself. "I don't see what there was unfortunate about it, unless he was cheated out of it. If I had as many cattle as he has got out there, and as many men to obey my orders, I should look upon myself as remarkably fortunate."
Tom did not have any opportunity to talk further with Mr. Parsons that night, for as soon as he had eaten supper he went to bed and was soon sleeping soundly. Tom felt the need of slumber, and when he thought he could do so without disturbing anybody, he slipped quietly down the stairs. There sat Mr. Kelley fast asleep on his dry-goods box, holding in his hand the copy of a newspaper about a fortnight old, and which he had been trying to read by the aid of the smoky candle that gave out just light enough to show how dark it was; and as everybody else felt the need of slumber, and gave over to the influence of it wherever they happened to be, Tom threw off his boots and tumbled into his bunk. Once during the night he was aroused by somebody coming in and informing Mr. Kelley that it was twelve o'clock; then there was a stir of changing watches and the camp became silent again. Or no; it wasn't silent. Just after the watches had been changed (for men had to keep track of the cattle during the night and see that nothing happened to stampede them) Tom was treated to a wolf serenade. It began faint and far off, and then all on a sudden broke out so fiercely that it seemed as if the pack had surrounded the cabin and were about to make an assault upon it.
"What was that?" asked Tom, starting up in alarm.
"It's the pesky coyotes," said Monroe, who was taking off his boots. "We're always glad to hear them, for then we know that there is nothing else about."
"What else do you think might be about?" said Tom, wondering how any lone hunter could find any consolation in such a dismal serenade.
"Indians," said the cowboy shortly. "Good-night."
After that Tom did not sleep very soundly, for at times it seemed to him that some of the fierce animals had come to the door, which stood wide open all this while, and were about to come in. Once he was sure he heard them on top of the cabin, but the others slept on and paid no attention to it, and finally Tom became somewhat accustomed to it. He did not think he had closed his eyes at all in slumber, but when he awoke to a full sense of what was going on, he found that there were only two men left in the cabin, Mr. Parsons and his cook. The former sat on the edge of his bunk pulling on his boots, and the cook was busy with his frying-pan.
"Hallo, youngster!" said Mr. Parsons cheerfully. "You'll have to get up earlier than this if you're going to strike a gold mine. Why, it must be close on to six o'clock."
"I was awfully tired last night, and the wolves kept me awake," said Tom. "I don't see how anybody can sleep with such a din in his ears."
"The time may come when you will be glad to hear them. If there are any Indians around, you won't hear them; just the minute the Indians break loose the wolves all seem to go into their holes; but when the Indians are whipped, they are out in full force."
Tom noticed that the men seemed to be in a hurry, and he lost no time in packing his outfit. He ate breakfast when Mr. Parsons did, sitting down to it without any invitation from anybody, swallowed his coffee and pancakes scalding hot, saddled his horse, and rode away, leaving the cook to straighten affairs in the dugout; and all the while it seemed to him that he hadn't had any breakfast at all. He couldn't see anything of the cattle; but Mr. Parsons put his horse into a lope and proceeded to fill his pipe as he went.
