Another night they howled so long right in front of the building I was in that I put down my foolish fears and got up and fired at them, hoping to scare them away and maybe get another skin for my coat. One fell, and the others made off at a great rate. I watched the one on the snow till I was sure he was dead, and I heard nothing more of the others that night. In the morning there was neither hide nor hair of the dead wolf.
But the work I had to do kept my mind off of my terror a good deal, and saved me, I really believe, from going stark mad. I will tell about my great system of tunnels presently, but before I began it I did much else. One of the first things was to make a long, light sled for Kaiser to draw, and also a harness 119 for him. The materials and tools for the one I got from the wagon-repair shop attached to Beckwith’s blacksmith shop, and the same for the other from the harness shop, where I kept up one of my fires. I was always handy with all kinds of tools, inheriting a love for them from my father; besides, I had worked with him in the shop at home a good deal, and had thus become a fairly good mechanic for my age. I could handle a plane or a drawshave or a riveting-hammer, or even an awl, for the matter of that, with any of them.
I used this dog rig chiefly for taking over ground feed from the depot to the barn for the horses and cow; but Kaiser learned to enjoy the work of dragging the sled so much that I soon came to use him nearly always in good weather in making my rounds to look after the fires or patrol the town. He would whisk me along on top of the frozen drifts at such a rate that it would nearly take my breath away sometimes. I practised with the skees till there was no danger of turning my ankle again, and would sometimes run races with him on them; but he could beat me all hollow unless there was a good, stiff load on the sled. 120
Another thing that I made was a pair of leather spectacles, something which my mother had used often to tell me I needed when I was small and could not see something that was plain as a pikestaff. My spectacles were made out of a strip of black leather two inches wide which went over my eyes and around my head, with two slits through which I could look. These I wore on the dazzling bright days and was troubled no more by snow-blindness, which had made my eyes so painful the day I came back from Mountain’s.
It was about New-Year’s that I began to spend my evenings in noting down in the hotel register what had happened during the day. I did this chiefly so that when I came to write to my mother Sunday I would forget nothing; and I am very glad now that I did so, for without the register and the letters (both of which I now have) about some things, especially dates, I might go wrong in writing this account. Besides, in the past, it has been much satisfaction when I have related any of the incidents of my winter at Track’s End and some person, to show how smart he was, has tried to cast doubt on my word–it has 121 been much comfort to me, I say, in such cases to have the register and letters to show him, with it all set down in black and white.
Thus it comes I know that Pawsy caught a mouse in the barn on Wednesday, January 12th, at about half-past seven o’clock in the morning, while I was milking the cow. I think it was the only mouse at Track’s End that winter, for I never saw or heard any other. There were no rats in the Territory then anywhere, unless it may have been at Yankton, or at some of the old Red River settlements about Pembina.
Pawsy was a good hunter, and several times caught a snowbird, though I boxed her ears for this; and on Friday, the 21st, I found her near Joyce’s store trying to drag home a jack-rabbit. She must have caught it by lying in wait, but I marveled how she killed the monstrous creature. But she was, indeed, one of the largest and strongest cats I ever knew. I would have trusted her to whip a coyote in a fair fight. I got three jacks in January myself with the rifle, and found them very good to eat; but the first one, after skinning it, I left overnight in the shed, and in the morning 122 it was gone. That day I went to Taggart’s and got two good bolts and put them on the shed door.
Getting my meals I found very hard work, but I made out better than you might think, since my mother had taught me something about cooking. At first I neglected getting regular meals, snatching a bite of anything that I could lay my hands on; but I soon saw that this would not do if I were to keep in good health and strength. My boarders, too, were great hands to complain if they did not get their meals regularly. You might have thought that cat and dog were paying good money for their board, the way they would mew and whine if a meal were late. I took very good care of the chickens, giving them plenty of warm food, so from about Christmas I got a dozen or more eggs each week. The cow, too, I fed well on ground feed and hay, with pumpkins and sometimes a few potatoes, and she gave me a fair quantity of milk all winter; and on the eggs and milk, together with potatoes, bacon, and salt codfish, I and my boarders managed to live tolerably well. 123
Pie I missed very much, and cookies and apple dumplings and such things, all of which my mother used to make very freely at home, and never keeping them hid. I looked longingly at the pumpkins, and once fetched a quantity of ginger from Joyce’s, vowing I would attempt pumpkin pie; but I never got up my courage. Bread, also, I never attempted, though I got a package of yeast from the store and looked at it many times. The place of this was taken by pancakes, which I made almost every day, big and thick, which with molasses went very well; though a good cook, as like as not, would have said they were somewhat leathery.
There was not an apple in town, nor any kind of fresh fruit, but there were dried apples and prunes, and canned fruit and vegetables, especially tomatoes. Of the canned things I liked the strawberries best, and ate many, though they tasted somewhat of the tin. There were plenty of crackers in the stores, and some dry round things, dark-colored, which called themselves gingersnaps; I took home a large package in great glee, thinking I had made a find; I ate one of them 124 by main strength and gave the rest to the cow. Butter I made several times, with fair success, though it was not like mother’s, being more greasy.