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 surprised 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 locomotive.
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 probably 129 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 130 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 distance 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 minute I brought out Dick saddled and bridled. He had not been beyond a small yard for a 131 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. Anyhow, 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 132 the map often, since it shows the lay of the land very well, I think, and just where everything 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 galloped 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 133 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 hanging 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 astonishment, 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 134 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 expected 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 satisfied 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 135 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 136 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 137 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 imagined 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 closing both windows behind me. The northwest wind had died away at sundown, and the night was still and the sky becoming 138 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 shouting 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, 139 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 windowsill and his head and shoulders out the window. 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 window 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 140 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.