I went back to the hotel, and though I did not like the notion of his having the gun, there was a great load gone from my mind. I saw that every mysterious happening could be explained by the presence of the Indian. I made no doubt he had set the livery stable on fire by using matches when visiting it to find something to steal. A few sounds and part of the glimpse I got of him that night when I watched in the shed would have to be charged to my imagination; but I guess it could stand it. I had to laugh at myself when I remembered how I had thought I heard strange noises before the Indians came at all.
I think I slept better the rest of the night (though it was only a few hours) than I had for a long time, notwithstanding the shock I got when I sat up and saw the Indian, when 191 my heart, instead of beating too much, just stood still and didn’t beat at all.
I saw nothing of the Indian the next morning, and after breakfast went to the Fitzsimmons store. I took the lantern and went down cellar. Everything was still in the greatest disorder. Boxes of groceries had been broken open, and empty cans were scattered everywhere. The missing saddle lay in one corner. I looked about for the Indian, and at first thought he was gone. But at last I found him half in a big box turned on its side, rolled up in blankets, some of which he had stolen from the bed in the hotel. One was a horse-blanket which I was sure came from the livery stable, so I now felt certain that he had been responsible for the fire. He was sound asleep. I poked him with my foot, but he did not move. I instantly knew that he had been drinking more of the whiskey and was sleeping off its effects. I picked up a hatchet, knocked off the spigot, and let the contents of the barrel run on the ground.
I took my lantern and started for the cellar-stairs. I glanced back at the Indian, and 192 just as I did so he moved one foot a trifle and I saw something under it. I went back and looked closer and saw that it was the stock of my rifle, of which I had not once thought that morning. I instantly decided that I must get it away from him.
I stood my lantern in line with the foot of the stairs, knelt down and very slowly and cautiously began to pull the gun from beneath the Indian. He was lying on it full length, and I knew there was vast danger of waking him. He was much larger than I, and I made no doubt three times as strong. I fairly held my breath as the weapon slowly yielded to my efforts. I got it perhaps a third of the way out when it stuck fast, caught, perhaps, on some of the Indian’s clothing. I pulled as hard as I could. It disturbed him, and he moved his feet, and then with one arm threw off the blanket from his shoulders. Like a flash I made up my mind to have that gun regardless of anything.
I jumped forward, and with my knees and hands rolled that savage over as if he had been a log of wood, grabbed the rifle, and 193 started for the stairs. I snatched at the lantern, but missed it and knocked it over. The flame wavered for an instant and went out. Up the stairs in total darkness I swarmed on all fours, dragging the gun by the muzzle, so that had the hammer caught on anything I am sure the bullet had gone clean through my body. I slammed the door at the top, scrambled out a side window where I had got in, and ran across the drifts to the hotel like a scared coyote, sitting down in the office weak as a cat. I expected no less than that he would follow me, but he did not, and I question if he roused up further from his drunken stupor. Looking back I see what a coward I showed myself; but it seemed quite natural at the time.
It was this day, March 15th, that there began the big thaw. I could not hope spring had come to stay, and that there would be no more winter weather, but it gave me hope that a train might get through. I needed hope of some kind to keep up my spirits, because I felt that with a little good weather I could look for the Pike gang again. If I could have been sure that the train would come first I 194 should have been gladder to see the thaw than anything else in the world; as it was I wished it might hold off till I could feel that spring had come in earnest.
The 15th was warm, but the snow melted very little. The next morning came the chinook. It was straight from the northwest, where all the blizzards had come from, but it was warmer than any south wind. All day it blew, and the snowbanks disappeared as if they were beside a hot stove. Before night there was a hole in the roof of tunnel No. 3. When I went to bed there were patches of bare ground and pools of water in the square.
The next morning the chinook was still blowing. It had been eating away at the snowbanks all night. I saw the top of the stronghold haystack from my bedroom window. Tunnel No. 1 had caved in. All day the wind kept up. By night the tunnel system was nothing but a lot of gaping cuts in the snow. The drifts had settled so much that the windows and doors were exposed, and it would soon be possible to ride on horseback along the street.
I had never seen a chinook wind before, of 195 course, but Tom Carr had told me about them. This one was a strong, steady wind sweeping all day and all night straight from the northwest, and seemed to blow right through the drifts. I had rather have seen the snow going in any other way, because I knew this wind only followed the valley of the Missouri River and I was afraid that it did not reach far enough east to thaw out the cuts on the railroad so that the longed-for train could get through. But on the other hand it of course covered all of the country between Track’s End and the outlaws’ headquarters, and I knew that there was now nothing to hinder their coming; and I was afraid that if they did come I could not keep them off. This day the Indian came out for the first time. I tried to talk with him some more, but could not get much out of him. He cast some very black looks at me, as I supposed for my taking away the gun and, more important, probably, knocking the spigot off of that barrel.