XII: HOMEWARD BOUND
"Snoozer shall have a pancake medal."
This was the first thing Ollie and I heard in the morning, and it was Jack's voice addressing the hero of the night before. We speedily rolled out, and agreed with Jack that Snoozer must be suitably rewarded, he seemed fully to understand the importance of his action in barking at the right moment, and for the first morning on the whole trip he was up and about, waving his bushy tail with great industry, and occasionally uttering a detached bark, just to remind us of how he had done it. He walked around the pony several times, and looked at her with a haughty air, as much as to say, "Where would you be now if it hadn't been for me?"
"He shall have a pancake," continued Jack--"the biggest and best pancake which the skilful hand of this cook can concoct."
Jack proceeded to carry out his promise, and when breakfast was ready presented a griddlecake, all flowing with melted butter, to the dog, which was as big as could be made in the frying-pan.
"I always knew," said Jack, "that Snoozer would do something some day. He's lazy, but he's got brains. He would never bark at the moon, because he knows the moon isn't doing anything wrong, but when it comes to horse-thieves it's different."
Snoozer munched his pancake, occasionally stopping to give a grand swing to his tail and let off a little yelp of pure joy.
As we were getting ready for a start, and speculating on the prospect for water, a man came along, riding a mule, and we asked him about it<.
"Yah, blenty vaters," said the man. "Doan need to dake no vaters along.'
"Any houses on the road?" asked Jack.
"Blenty houses," answered the stranger "houses, vaters, efferydings."
We thanked him and started. Notwithstanding this assurance, I had intended to fill a jug with water, but forgot it, and we went off without a drop. We were going down what was called the Ridge Road, along the divide between Elk and Elder creeks, and hoped to reach the crossing of the Cheyenne at Smithville Post-office that evening, and get on the Reservation the next morning. In half an hour we passed some trees which marked the site of the Washday Springs, but there was no house there, nor had we seen one at eleven o'clock. We met an Indian on foot, and Jack said to him:
"Where can we get some water?"
The Indian shook his head. "Cheyenne River," he replied.
"Isn't there any this side?"
"No," with another jerk of the head. Then he stalked on.
"Yes, and the Indian's right, I'll warrant," exclaimed Jack. "'Blenty raters,' indeed! Why, that Dutchman doesn't know enough to ache when he's hurt."
"Well, we're in for it," said I. "We can't go back. Maybe it'll rain," though there was not a cloud in sight, and there was more danger of an earthquake than of a shower.
So we went on, ,'rod a little after dark wound down among the black baked bluffs to the crossing, without any of us having had a drop to drink since before sunrise. After we had "lowered the river six inches," as Jack declared, we went into camp.
We were up early in the morning, and Jack went down the river with his gun and got a brace of grouse. There was one house near the crossing, which was the post-office. The man who lived there told us it was a hundred and twenty-five miles across the Reservation to Pierre, and twenty miles to Peno Hill, the first station at which we should find any one. The ford was deep, the water coming up to the wagon-box, and there was ice along the edges of the river. It was a fine clear day, however, and the cold did not trouble us much. We wound up among the bluffs on the other side of the river, and at the top had our last sight of the Black Hills. We went on across the rolling prairie, black as ink, as .the grass had all been burned off, and reached Peno Hill at a little after noon. There was a rough board building, one end of it a house and the other a barn. All of the stage stations were built after this plan. We camped here for dinner, and pressed on to reach Grizzly Shaw's for the night. About the middle of the afternoon we passed Bad River Station, kept by one Mexican Ed.
"I'm going to watch and see if he runs when he sees Snoozer," said Ollie. Snoozer had insisted on walking most of the time since his adventure with the horse-thieves; but, greatly to Ollie's disappointment, Mexican Ed showed no signs of fear even when Snoozer went so far as to growl at him.
As it grew dark we passed among the Grindstone Buttes--several small hills. A prairie fire was burning among them, and lit up the road for us. We came to Shaw's at last, and went into camp. We visited the house before we went to bed, and found that Shaw was grizzly enough to justify his name, and that he had a family consisting of a wife and daughter and two grandchildren.
"Pierre is our post-office," said Shaw, "eighty-five miles away."
"The postman doesn't bring out your letters, then?" returned Jack.
"We ain't much troubled with postmen, nor policemen, nor hand-organ men, nor no such things," answered Shaw. "Still, once in a while a sheriff goes by looking for somebody."
We told him of our experience with thieves, and he said:
"It's a wonder they didn't get your pony. There's lots of 'em hanging about the edge of the Reserve, because it's a good place for 'em to hide."
"Must make a very pleasant little walk down to the post-office when you want to mail a letter," said Jack, after we got back to the wagon--"eighty-five miles. And think of getting there, and finding that you had left the letter on the hall table, and having to go back!"
We were off again the next morning, as usual. At noon we stopped at Mitchell Creek, where we found another family, including a little girl five or six years old, who carried her doll in a shawl on her back, as she had seen the Indian women carry their babies. We had intended to reach Plum Creek for the night, but got on slower than we expected, owing partly to a strong head-wind, so darkness overtook us at Frozen Man's Creek.
"Not a very promising name for a November camping-place," said Jack, "but I guess we'll have to stop. I don't believe it's cold enough to freeze anybody to-night."
There was no house here, but there was water, and plenty of tall, dry grass, so it made a good place for us to stop. Frozen Man's Creek, as well as all the others, was a branch of the Bad River, which flowed parallel with the trail to the Missouri. We camped just east of the creek. The grass was so high that we feared to build a camp-fire, and cooked supper in the wagon.
"I'm glad we've got out of the burned region," said Jack. "It's dismal, and I like to hear the wind cutting through the dry grass with its sharp swish."
There was a heavy wind blowing from the southeast, but we turned the rear of the wagon in that direction, saw that the brake was firmly on, and went to bed feeling that we should not blow away.
"I wonder who the poor man was that was frozen here?" was the last thing Jack said before he went to sleep. "Book agent going out to Shaw's, perhaps, to sell him a copy of Every Man his Own Barber; or, How to Cut your Own Hair with a Lawn-Mower."
We were doomed to one more violent awakening in the old Rattletrap. At two o'clock in the morning I was roused up by the loud neighing of the horses. Old Blacky's hoarse voice was especially strong. As I opened my eyes there was a reddish glare coming through the white cover. "Prairie fire!" flashed into my mind instantly, and I gave Jack a shake and got out of the front of the wagon as quickly as I could. I had guessed aright; the flames were sweeping up the shallow valley of the creek before the wind as fast as a horse could travel.
Jack came tumbling out, and we knew instantly what to do. We both ran a few yards ahead of the wagon and knelt in the grass, and struck matches almost at the same moment. Jack's went out, but mine caught, and a little flame leaped up, reached over and to both sides, and then rolled away before the wind, spreading wider and wider. I beat out the feeble blaze which tried to work to windward, and ran back to the wagon, while Jack went after the horses. The coming flames were almost upon us by this time; but Ollie was out, and together, aided by the wind, we rolled the wagon ahead on our little new-made oasis of safety. Jack pulled up the pony's picket-pin, and brought her on also, while the other horses, being loose, sought the place themselves. The flames came up to the edge of the burned place, reached over for more grass, did not find it, and died out. But on both sides of us they rushed on, and soon overtook our little fire, and went on to the northwest. The wind, first hot from the fire, now came cool and fresh, though full of the odor of the burned grass.
"Closest call we've had," said Jack. "Yes," I replied; "been pretty warm for us if we hadn't waked up. Our animals are doing better; first Snoozer distinguished himself, and now I think we've to thank Old Blacky mainly for this alarm."
We were pretty well frightened, and though we went back to bed, I do not believe that any of us slept again that night. At the first touch of dawn we were up. As it grew lighter, the great change in the landscape became apparent. The gray of the prairie was turned to the blackest of black. Only an occasional big staring buffalo skull relieved the inkiness. Far away to the northwest we could see a low hanging cloud of smoke where the fire was still burning.
"Blacky ought to have a hay medal," said Jack at breakfast. "If I had any hay I'd twist him up one as big as a door-mat."
But Blacky, unlike Snoozer, seemed to have no pride in his achievement, and he wandered all around the neighborhood trying to find a mouthful of grass which had been missed by the fire; but he was not successful.
"If the frozen man had been here last night he'd have been thawed out," I said.
"Yes; and if Shaw had been here, what a good time it would have been for him to let the fire run over his hair and clear off the thickest of it!" returned Jack.
We started on, but the long wind had brought bad weather, and before noon it began to snow. It kept up the rest of the day, and by night it was three or four inches deep. We stopped at noon at Lance Creek, and made our night camp at Willow Creek; at each place there was a stage station in charge of one man. It cleared off as night came on, but the wind changed to the north, and it grew rapidly colder. Shortly after midnight we all woke up with the cold. We already had everything piled on the beds, but as we were too cold to sleep, there was nothing to do but to get up and start the camp-fire again. This we did, and stayed near it the rest of the night, and in this way kept warm at the expense of our sleep.
The morning was clear, but it was by far the coldest we had experienced. The thermometer at the station marked below zero at sunrise. We almost longed for another prairie fire. It grew a little warmer after we started, and at about eleven o'clock we reached Fort Pierre, on the Missouri, opposite the town Of Pierre. The ferry-boat had not yet been over for the day, but was expected in the afternoon.
"You're lucky to get it at all," said a man to us. "It is liable to stop any day now, and then, till the ice is thick enough for crossing, there will be no way of getting over."
The boat came puffing across toward night, and we were safely landed east of the Missouri once more. But we were still two hundred miles from home; the country was well settled most of the way, however, and we felt that our voyage was almost ended. Little happened worthy of mention in the week which it took us to traverse this distance. The weather became warmer and was pleasant most of the way. On the last night out it snowed again a little and grew colder. We were still a long day's drive from Prairie Flower, but we determined to make that port even if it took half the night.
It was ten o'clock when we saw the lights of the town.
"Here we are," said Jack, "and I vote we've had a good time, and that we forgive Old Blacky his temper, and old Browny and Snoozer their sleepiness, and Ollie his questions, and the rancher his general incompetence."
"And the cook his pancakes!" cried Ollie. We stopped a little way in front of Squire Poinsett's grocery, and Jack picked up the big revolver and fired the six shots into the air. The pony had come alongside the wagon, and Snoozer had his head over the dash-board. Half a dozen people came running out, including Grandpa Oldberry, wearing red yarn mittens and carrying a lantern. He held up the light and looked at us.
"Well, I vum," he exclaimed, "if it ain't them three pesky scallawags back safe and sound! I've said all along that varmints would get ye sure, and we'd never see hide nor hair of ye again! Well, well, well!"
It was clear that Grandpa was just a little disappointed to see that his predictions hadn't been fulfilled.
So the voyage of the good schooner Rattletrap was ended. It had been over a thousand miles in length, and had lasted for more than two months.
