"I told you so," groaned Calamity Jake. "These pesky Indians ought to be wiped off the face of the earth."
Singing Jim, however, merely grinned, and said as he ran his fingers through his hair: "Well, I'm glad this thatch is not decorating some Sioux tepee. I think it looks better on me than it would on a lodge pole."
After this, things went on in much the same old way in the little frontier town, for the Indians did not venture another attack.
In spite of its small size, Bismarck was a busy place and was the distributing point for a large unsettled territory.
Freighters came in from points on the distant railroad with provisions for the cattlemen, trappers, and miners, and the constantly changing population of the town. Their wagons were in long trains, one hitched to the other, the whole drawn by many teams of mules and driven by one man, who rode the near mule next the first wagon, controlling his team by a single "jerk line," which ran to the front near animal. This mule, who was picked for his intelligence, knew that one pull on the line meant turn left, and two short jerks indicated that a right turn was wanted; moreover, he knew just how wide a sweep to make to clear an obstruction.
When the trapper came to town to bring in his pelts for shipment East, and to get a supply of pork, beans, and coffee—-his standbys in the matter of diet—-and when the cowboy raced in with a couple of pack ponies to get supplies for his outfit, the rare opportunity was always taken advantage of to enjoy what pleasures the town afforded. The gamblers and saloon keepers did a thriving business, though a perilous one, for, on the slightest provocation, the frontiersman was ever ready with his shooting irons.
It was only a few weeks after the Indian attack described before the parching heat of summer began to give way before the dreaded wintry breath of the North.
John and Ben, when they went out to guard their father's stock, gave up their daily swimming in the river and took up horse racing instead; and many a race was hotly contested. The boy, however, who rode Baldy, the big bay, always won.
Mr. Worth, as has been noted before, was a freighter; he was also a miner, opening up mines of coal in the deep-cut river banks, the coal so obtained being sold to the government for the fort garrisons.
