XI
BUDDY AND BABY GIRL
In Camp, October 16, 1914.
Dear Mrs. Coney,—
The day we left the game-warden’s was damp and lowering. It didn’t seem it could have one good thing to its credit, but there were several things to be thankful for. One of them was that you were safe at home in your warm, dry apartment. We had hardly passed the great Block buttes when the biggest, wettest flakes of snow began to pelt into our faces. I really like a storm, and the kiddies would have enjoyed the snow; but we had to keep the wagon-sheet tied down to keep the bedding dry, and the kiddies get sick under cover. All the pleasure I might have had was taken away by the fact that we were making a forced drive. We had to go. The game-warden had no more than enough food for his family, and no horse feed. Also, the snow was almost as deep there as it had been higher up, so the horses could not graze.
We made it to Cora that day. Here at last was plenty of hay and grain; we restocked our mess-boxes and felt better toward the world. Next day we came on here to Newfork, where we are resting our teams before we start across the desert, which begins just across the creek we are camped on.
We have added two to our party. I know you will be interested to know how it happened, and I can picture the astonishment of our neighbors when we reach home, for our newcomers are to be members of Mrs. O’Shaughnessy’s family. We had all been sorry we could not visit Elizabeth or “Danyul” and his mother. We felt almost as if we were sneaking past them, but we consoled ourselves with promises to see the Burneys and Grandma Mortimer. Yesterday the children and I were riding with Mrs. O’Shaughnessy in the buckboard. We were trotting merrily along the lane that leads to Newfork, thankful in our hearts to be out of the snow,—for there is no snow here. Just ahead of us two little boys were riding along on their ponies. There was a wire fence on both sides of the lane, and almost at the end of the lane an old cow had her head between the wires and was nibbling the tall dead grass. The larger of the two boys said, “That’s old Pendry’s cow, and she shan’t eat a blade of grass off Dad’s meadow.”
He rode up to the cow and began beating her with his quirt. That frightened the cow, and as she jerked her head up, the top wire caught her across the top of her neck; she jerked and lunged to free herself, and was cruelly cut by the barbs on the wire. Then he began beating his pony.