Jack, the Young Ranchman: A Boy's Adventures in the Rockies

by George Bird Grinnell

"Why, Jack," said he; "that is very interesting, and you were lucky to find such a place. It was pretty keen of you too, to think of making the torch as you did. I fancy it would have served you better though, if you had put some wads of grass with your pine needles. It would have burned more slowly and steadily, and would have given you a pretty fair light. I do not wonder that you wanted to get out of the cave when you heard that noise and were hit. Were you much scared?"

"Yes, I guess I was, Uncle Will. My heart was beating hard when I got out, but the light seemed to cool me down right off. That's queer, isn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know," said his uncle; "it seems to me very natural. Wait till Hugh gets back, Jack, and then we three will go up on the hill, with plenty of lights, and will see what there is in the cave, and where it goes to." With this, Jack was forced to be content.

During the next two days Jack thought a great deal about the cave, and on the evening of the second day, when Hugh returned from town, Jack met him at the barn, and while he was unsaddling, poured into his ear the tale of his discovery.

Hugh seemed much impressed, but ventured no opinion, though he asked a number of questions. "What did the thing feel like that hit you on the head, son?" said he.

"Why, it was something soft, and not very big. It just hit my hat a light blow, not much more than enough to dent it in, I should think, but there was the queerest noise at the same time that I ever heard. I don't know how to describe it. It was like something moving quickly through the air. Just the faintest sound you can think of, but it seemed close to my ear."

"Well," said Hugh, "I reckon you're a great hand to have things happen to you. Now ain't it a queer thing that you should just about roll into this place, and me live about here all these years and never know that it was there. You done well to make the light you did, and to go in like you did. It kind o' makes a man go slow to see everything black ahead of him. We'll know to-morrow what there is there, unless your uncle wants me to do something else."

"No," said Jack, "I'm sure he don't, for he said that we'd all three go up there together and find out what there is in the cave."

"All right," said Hugh, "that will suit me first class. I expect when we get there maybe we won't find anything very strange, and then again, maybe we will. Caves ain't very common in this country, but I've seen a good many of 'em; some of 'em where the Indians have been in, and drawed all kinds of pictures on the walls. And then away south-west of here, up in the mountains, there's lots of caves that the Indians used to live in. Some of 'em are away high up on the cliffs, right hard places to get to, but those Indians lived there, and you can see their bed places, and where they have had their fires, and sometimes you'll find the pots that they used to cook in, and everywhere, all about, there's lots of pieces of broken pots. But all that was a long time ago. I expect the Indians that lived down on the prairie, at the foot of these cliffs, were likely hostile, and the fellows that had their houses up in the caves lived there so's to get away from them that was down on the plains. I reckon you've heard tell of the Pueblo people that live down there yet. They live in regular houses, built of 'dobes. Some of them houses are like three or four built on top of each other, and they haven't got a door nor a window on the outside. They climb up into 'em by ladders, that they haul up after 'em, and then they're just like they was in a fort. I expect they got to building them houses because people were hazing them, and they had to have protection, nights."

After breakfast next morning the three started for the cave, carrying two lanterns and some candles. When they came to the place where Jack had seen the badger and the coyote, he told Hugh about it, and asked him what sort of a game these two animals were playing. Mr. Sturgis laughed when the question was asked, and Hugh smiled, too. "Son," he said, "your uncle, here, asked me that same question about six years ago, when he first saw a badger and a coyote acting that way. I have seen it a heap of times, and I'll tell you what I believe it means. You know, in these days, since there ain't no buffalo, any more, the coyotes are pretty nearly always hungry. I believe that a coyote sometimes, when he finds a badger out on the prairie, just keeps a-bothering him and a-bothering him until he gets the badger right mad, and gets him so he wants to fight. You know, a badger ain't a very good-tempered animal, nohow. Well, after the coyote has pestered him a while, the badger gets so cross that he just wants to get hold of that coyote, and the coyote keeps pretty close to him, and the badger keeps following him, and so the coyote leads him along, until presently maybe he runs across two or three other coyotes, and then they all pitch into the badger and kill him, and eat him."