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.