Front matter (continued 2)

The man got up to go. "Well, good-night, boys," he said. "Rest as hard as you can tomorrow. You'll strike into the Sand Hills at about nine o'clock Monday morning. Take three days' feed, and every drop of water you can carry; and it you waste any of it washing your hands you're bigger fools than I think you are."

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VII: THROUGH THE SAND HILLS

"Come, stir out of that and get the camels ready for the desert!"

This was Jack's cheery way of warning Ollie and me that it was time to get up on the morning of our start into the Sand Hills.

"Any simooms in sight?" asked Ollie, by way of reply to Jack's remark.

"Well, I think Old Browny scents one; he has got his nose buried in the sand like a camel," answered Jack.

It was only just coming daylight, but we were agreed that an early start was best. It was another Monday morning, and we knew that it would take three good days' driving to carry us through the sand country. We had learned that, notwithstanding what our visitor of the first night had said, there were several places on the road where we could get water and feed for the horses. We should have to carry some water along, however, and had got two large kegs from Valentine, and filled them and all of our jugs and pails the night before. We also had a good stock of oats and corn, and a big bundle of hay, which we put in the cabin on the bed.

"Just as soon as Old Blacky finds that there is no water along the road he will insist on having about a barrel a day," said Jack. "And if he can't get it he will balk, and kick the dash-board into kindling-wood."

A little before sunrise we started. It was agreed, owing to the increase in the load and the deep sand, that no one, not even Snoozer, should be allowed to ride in the wagon. If Ollie got tired he was to ride the pony. So we started off, walking beside the wagon, with the pony lust behind, as usual, dangling her stirrups, and the abused Snoozer, looking very much hurt at the insult put upon him, following behind her.

For three or four miles the road was much like that to which we had been accustomed. Then it gradually began to grow sandier. We were following an old trail which ran near the railroad, sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other; and this was the case all the way through the hills. The railroad was new, having been built only a year or two before. There was a station on it every fifteen or twenty miles, with a side-track, and a water-tank for the engines, but not much else.

There was no well-marked boundary to the Sand Hills, but gradually, and almost before we realized it, we found ourselves surrounded by them. We came to a crossing of the railroad, and in a little cut a few rods away we saw the sand drifted over the rails three or four inches deep, precisely like snow.

"Well," said Jack, "I guess we're in the Sand Hills at last if we've got where it drifts."

"I wonder if they have to have sand-ploughs on their engines?" said Ollie.

"I've heard that they frequently have to stop and shovel it off," answered Jack.

As we got farther among the sand dunes we found them all sizes and shapes, though usually circular, and from fifteen to forty feet high. Of course the surface of the county was very irregular, and there would be places here and there where the grass had obtained a little footing and the sand had not drifted up. There were also some hills which seemed to be independent of the sand piles.

We stopped for noon on a little flat where there was some struggling grass, This flat ran off to the north, and narrowed into a small valley through which in the spring probably a little water flowed. We had finished dinner when we noticed a flock of big birds circling about the little valley, and, on looking closer, saw that some of them were on the ground.

"They are sand-hill cranes," said Jack. "I've seen them in Dakota, but this must be their home."

They were immense birds, white and gray, and with very long legs. Jack took his rifle and tried to creep up on them, but they were too shy, and soared away to the south.

We soon passed the first station on the railroad, called Crookston. The telegraph-operator came out and looked at us, admitted that it was a sandy neighborhood, and went back in. We toiled on without any incident of note during the whole afternoon. Toward night we passed another station, called Georgia, and the man in charge allowed us to fill our kegs from the water-tank. .We went on three or four miles and stopped beside the trail, and a hundred yards from the railroad, for the night. The great drifts of sand were all around us, and no desert could have been lonelier. We had a little wood and built a camp-fire. The evening was still and there was not a sound. Even the Blacksmith's Pet, wandering about seeking what he could devour, and finding nothing, made scarcely a sound in the soft sand. The moon was shining, and it was warm as any summer evening. Jack sat on the ground beside the wagon and played the banjo for half an hour. After a while we walked over to the railroad. We could hear a faint rumble, and concluded that a train was approaching.

"Let's wait for it," proposed Jack. "It will be along in a moment."

We waited and listened. Then we distinctly heard the whistle of a locomotive, and the faint roar gradually ceased.

"It's stopped somewhere," I said.

"Don't see what it should stop around here for," said Jack, "unless to take on a sand-hill crane."

Then we heard it start up, run a short distance, and again stop; this it repeated half a dozen times, and then after a pause it settled down to a long steady roar again.

"It isn't possible, is it, that that train has been stopped at the next station west of here?" I said.

"The next station is Cody, and it's a dozen miles from here," answered Jack. "It doesn't seem as if we could hear it so far, but we'll time it and see."

He looked at his watch and we waited. For a long time the roar kept up, occasionally dying away as the train probably went through a deep cut or behind a hill. It gradually increased in volume, till at last it seemed as if the train must certainly be within a hundred yards. Still it did not appear, and the sound grew louder and louder. But at the end of thirty-five minutes it came around the curve in sight and thundered by, a long freight train, and making more noise, it seemed, that any train ever made before.

"That's where it was!" exclaimed Jack--"at Cody, twelve miles from here; and we first heard it I don't know how far beyond. If I ever go into the telephone business I'll keep away from the Sand Hills. A man here ought to be able to hold a pleasant chat with a neighbor two miles off, and by speaking up loud ask the postmaster ten miles away if there is any mail for him."

We were off ploughing through the sand again early the next morning. We could not give the horses quite all the water they wanted, but we did the best we could. We were in the heart of the hills all day. There were simply thousands of the great sand drifts in every direction. Buffalo bones half buried were becoming numerous. We saw several coyotes, or prairie wolves, skulking about, but we shot at them without success. We got water at Cody, and pressed on. In the afternoon we sighted some antelope looking cautiously over the crest of a sand billow. Ollie mounted the pony and I took my rifle, and we went after them, while Jack kept on with the wagon. They retreated, and we followed them a mile or more back from the trail, winding among the drifts and attempting to get near enough for a shot. But they were too wary for us. At last we mounted a hill rather higher than the rest, and saw them scampering away a mile or more to the northwest. We were surprised more by something which we saw still on beyond them, and that was a little pond of water deep down between two great ridges of sand.

"I didn't expect to see a lake in this country," said Ollie.

I studied the lay of the land a moment, and said: "I think it's simply a place where the wind has scooped out the sand down below the water-line and it has filled up. The wind has dug a well, that's all. You know the telegraph-operator at Georgia told us the wells here were shallow--that there's plenty of water down a short distance."

We could see that there was considerable grass and quite an oasis around the pond. But in every other direction there was nothing but sand billows, all scooped out on their northwest sides where the fierce winds of winter had gnawed at them. The afternoon sun was sinking, and every dune cast a dark shadow on the light yellow of the sand, making a great landscape of glaring light covered with black spots. A coyote sat on a buffalo skull on top of the next hill and looked at us. A little owl flitted by and disappeared in one of the shadows.

"This is like being adrift in an open boat," I said to Ollie. "We must hurry on and catch the Rattletrap."

"I'm in the open boat," answered Ollie. "You're just simply swimming about without even a life-preserver on."

We turned and started for the trail. We found it, but we had spent more time in the hills than we realized, and before we had gone far it began to grow dark. We waded on, and at last saw Jack's welcome camp-fire. When we came up we smelled grouse cooking, and he said:

"While you fellows were chasing about and getting lost I gathered in a brace of fat grouse. What you want to do next time is to take along your hat full of oats, and perhaps you can coax the antelope to come up and eat."

The camp was near another railroad station called Eli. We had been gradually working north, and were now not over three or four miles from the Dakota line; but Dakota here consisted of nothing but the immense Sioux Indian Reservation, two or three hundred miles long.

The next morning Jack complained of not feeling well.

"What's the matter, Jack?" I asked.

"Gout," answered Jack, promptly. "I'm too good a cook for myself. I'm going to let you cook for a few days, and give my system a rest."

This seemed very funny to Ollie and me, who had been eating Jack's cooking for two or three weeks. The fact was that the gouty Jack was the poorest cook that ever looked into a kettle, and he knew it well enough. He could make one thing--pancakes--nothing else. They were usually fairly good, though he would sometimes get his recipes mixed up, and use his sour-milk one when the milk was sweet, or his sweet-milk one when it was sour; but we got accustomed to this. Then it was hard to spoil young and tender fried grouse, and the stewed plums had been good, though he had got some hay mixed with them; but the flavor of hay is not bad. We bought frequently of "canned goods" at the stores, and this he could not injure a great deal.

We did not pay much attention to Jack's threat about stopping cooking. He got breakfast after a fashion, mixing sour and sweet milk as an experiment, and though he didn't eat much himself, we did not think he was going to be sick. But after walking a short distance he declared he could go no farther, and climbed into the cabin and rolled upon the bed.

Ollie and I ploughed along with the sand still streaming, like long flaxen hair, off the wagon-wheels as they turned. In a little valley about ten o'clock Ollie shot his first grouse. We saw more antelope, and met a man with his wife and six children and five dogs and two cows and twelve chickens going east. He said he was tired of Nebraska, and was on his way to Illinois. At noon we stopped at Merriman, another railroad station. Jack got up and made a pretence of getting dinner, but he ate nothing himself, and really began to look ill.

We made but a short stop, as we were anxious to get out of the worst of the sand that afternoon. We asked about feed and water for the horses, and were told that we could get both at Irwin, another station fifteen miles ahead. We pressed on, with Jack still in the wagon, but it was almost dark before we reached the stationWe found a man on the railroad track.

"Can we get some feed and water here?" I asked of him.

"Reckon not," answered the man.

"Where can we find the station agent?"

"He's gone up to Gordon, and won't be back till midnight."

"Hasn't any one got any horse-feed for sale?".

"There isn't a smell of horse-feed here," said the man. "I've got the only well, except the railroad's, but it's 'most dry. I'll give you what water I can, though. As for feed, you'd better go on three miles to Keith's ranch. It's on Lost Creek Flat, and there's lots of haystacks there, and you can help yourself. At the ranch-house they will give you other things."

We drove over to the man's house, and got half a pail of water apiece for the horses. They wanted more, but there was no more in the well. The man said we could get everything we wanted at the ranch, and we started on. The horses were tired, but even Old Blacky was quite amiable, and trudged along in the sand without complaint.

Jack was still in the wagon, and we heard nothing of him. It was cloudy and very dark. But the horses kept in the trail, and after, as it seemed to us, we had gone five miles, we felt ourselves on firmer ground. Soon we thought we could make out something, perhaps hay-stacks, through the darkness. I sent Ollie on the pony to see what it was. He rode away, and in a moment I heard a great snorting and a stamping of feet, and Ollie's voice calling for me to come. I ran over with the lantern, and found that he had ridden full into a barbed-wire fence around a hay-stack. The pony stood trembling, with the blood flowing from her breast and legs, but the scratches did not seem to be deep.

"We must find that ranch-house," I said to Ollie. "It ought to be near."

For half an hour we wandered among the wilderness of hay-stacks, every one protected by barbed wire. At last we heard a dog barking, followed the sound, and came to the house. The dog was the only live thing at home, and the house was locked.

"Well, what we want is water," I said, "and here's the well."

We let down the bucket and brought up two quarts of mud.

"The man was right," said Ollie. "This is worse than the Sarah Desert."

"Fountains squirt and bands play 'The Old Oaken Bucket' in the Sarah Desert 'longside o' this," I answered.

It was eleven o'clock before we found the wagon. We could hear Jack snoring inside, and were surprised to find Snoozer on guard outside, wide awake. He seemed to feel his responsibility, and at first was not inclined to let us approach.

We unharnessed the horses, and Ollie crawled under the fence around one of the stacks of hay and pulled out a big armful for them.

"The poor things shall have all the hay they want, anyhow," he said.

"I'm afraid they'll think it's pretty dry," I returned, "but I don't see what we can do."

Then I called to Jack, and said: "Come, get up and get us some supper!"

After a good deal of growling he called back: "I'm not hungry."

"But we are, and you're well enough to make some cakes."

"Won't do it," answered Jack. "You folks can make 'em as well as I can."

"I can't. Can you?" I said to Ollie. He shook his head.

"You're not very sick or you wouldn't be so cross," I called to Jack: "Roll out and get supper, or I'll pull you out!"

"First follow comes in this wagon gets the head knocked off 'm!" cried Jack. "Besides, there's no milk! No eggs! No nothing! Go 'way! I'm sick! That's all there is," and something which looked like a cannon-ball shot out of the front end of the wagon, followed by a paper bag which might have been the wadding used in the Cannon. "That's all! Lemme 'lone!" And we heard Jack tie down the front of the cover and roll over on the bed again.

"See what it is," I said to Ollie.

He took the lantern and started. "Guess it's a can of Boston baked beans," he said. "Oh, then we're all right," I replied.

He picked it up and studied it carefully by the light of the lantern.

"No," he said, slowly, "it isn't that. G--g, double o--gooseberries--that's what it is--a can of gooseberries we got at Valentine."

"And this is a paper bag of sugar," I said, picking it up. "No gout to-night!"

I cut open the can and poured in the sugar. We stirred it up with a stick, and Ollie drank a third of it and I the rest. Then we crawled under the wagon, covered ourselves with the pony's saddle-blanket, and went to sleep. But before we did so I said:

"Ollie, at the next town I am going to get you a cook-book, and we'll be independent of that wretch in the wagon."

"All right," answered Ollie.

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VIII: ON THE ANTELOPE FLATS

The next morning the condition of the tempers of the crew of the Rattletrap was reversed. Jack was feeling better and was quite amiable, and inclined to regret his bloodthirsty language of the night before. But Ollie and I, on our diet of gooseberries, had not prospered, and woke up as cross as Old Blacky. The first thing I did was to seize the empty gooseberry can and hit the side of the wagon a half-dozen resounding blows.

"Get up there," I cried, "and 'tend to breakfast! No pretending you're sick this morning."

"All right!" came Jack's voice, cheerfully. "Certainly. No need of your getting excited, though. You see, I really wasn't hungry last night, or I'd have got supper."

"But we were hungry!" answered Ollie. "I don't think I was ever much hungrier in my life; and then to get nothing but a pint of gooseberries! I could eat my hat this morning!"

"I'm sorry," said Jack, coming out; "but I can't cook unless I'm hungry myself. The hunger of others does not inspire me. I gave you all there was. Your hunger ought to have inspired you to do something with those gooseberries."

"I'd like to know what sort of a meal you'd have got up with a can of gooseberries?"

"Why, my dear young nephew," exclaimed Jack, "if I'd been awakened to action I'd have fricasseed those gooseberries, built them up into a gastronomical poem; and made a meal of them fit for a king. A great cook like I am is an artist as much as a great poet. He--"

"Oh, bother!" I interrupted; "the gooseberries are gone. There's the grouse Ollie shot yesterday. Do something with that for breakfast."

Jack disappeared in the wagon, and began to throw grouse feathers out the front end with a great flourish. The poor horses were much dejected, and stood with their heads down. They had eaten but little of the hay. Water was what they wanted.

"We must hitch up and go on without waiting for breakfast," I said to Ollie. "It can't be far to water now, and they must have some. Jack can be cooking the grouse in the wagon."

So we were soon under way, keeping a sharp lookout, for any signs of a house or stream of water. We had gone five or six miles, and were descending into a little valley, when there came a loud whinny from Old Blacky. Sure enough, at the foot of the hill was a stream of water. The pony ran toward it on a gallop, and as soon as we could unhitch the others they joined her. They all waded in, and drank till we feared they would never be able to wade out again. Then they stood taking little sips, and letting their lips rest just on the surface and blinking dreamily. We knew that they stood almost as much in need of food as of water, as they had had nothing but the hay since the noon before. There was a field of corn half a mile away, on a side-hill, but no house in sight.

"I'm going after some of that corn," I said to the others. "If I can't find the owner to buy it, then I'll help myself."

I mounted the pony and rode away. There was still no house in sight at the field, and I filled a sack and returned. The horses went at their breakfast eagerly. But twice during the meal they stopped and plunged in the brook and took other long drinks; and at the end Old Blacky lay down in a shallow place and rolled, and came out looking like a drowned rat.

In the meantime Jack had got the grouse ready, and we ate it about as ravenously as the horses did their corn. We had just finished, and were talking about going, when a tall man on a small horse almost covered with saddle rode up, and began to talk cheerfully on various topics. After a while he said:

"Well, boys, was that good corn?"

We all suspected the truth instantly.

"He did it!" exclaimed Jack, pointing at me. "He did it all alone. We're going to give him up to the authorities at the next town."

The man laughed, and said: "Don't do it. He may reform."

There seemed to be but one thing to do, so I said: "It was your corn, I suppose. Our only excuse is that we were out of corn. Tell us how much it is, and we'll pay you for it."

"Not a cent," answered the man, firmly. "It's all right. I've travelled through them Sand Hills myself, and I know how it is. You're welcome to all you took, and you can have another sackful if you want to go after it."

I thanked him, but told him that we expected to get some feed at Gordon, the next town. After wishing us good-luck, he rode away.

We started on, and made but a short stop for noon, near Gordon. We found ourselves in a fairly well-settled country, though the oldest settlers had been there but two or three years. The region was called the Antelope Flats, and was quite level, with occasional ravines. The trail usually ran near the railroad, and that night we camped within three or four rods of it. Long trains loaded with cattle thundered by all night. We were somewhat nervous lest Old Blacky should put his shoulder against the wagon while we slept, and push it on the track in revenge for the poor treatment we gave him in the Sand Hills, but the plan didn't happen to occur to him. It was at this camp that we encountered a remarkable echoing well. It was an ordinary open well, forty or fifty feet deep, near a neighboring house, but a word spoken above it came back repeated a score of times. We failed to account for it.

The next forenoon we jogged along much the same as usual and stopped for noon at Rushville. This was not far from the Pine Ridge Indian Agency and the place called Wounded Knee, where the battle with the Sioux was fought three or four years later. We saw a number of Indians here, and though they came up to Ollie's idea of what an Indian should be a little better than the one that rode with us, they still did not seem to be just the thing.

"I don't think," he said, "that they ought to smoke cigarettes."

"It does look like rather small business for an Indian, doesn't it?" answered Jack. "But then smoking cigarettes is small business for anybody. What's your idea of what an Indian ought to smoke?"

"Well, I'm not sure he ought to smoke anything, except of coarse the peace-pipe occasionally. And he oughtn't to smoke that very much, because an Indian shouldn't make peace very often."

"Right on the war-path all the time, flourishing a scalping-knife above his head, and whooping his teeth loose--that's your notion of an Indian."

"Well, I don't know as that is exactly it," returned Ollie, doubtfully. "But it seems to me these are hardly right. Their clothes seem to be just like white people's."

"I don't know about that," said Jack. "I saw one when I went around to the post-office wearing bright Indian moccasins, a pair of soldier's trousers, a fashionable black coat, and a cowboy hat. I never saw a white man dressed just like that."

"Well, I think they ought to wear some feathers, anyhow," insisted Ollie. "An Indian without feathers is just like a--a turkey without 'em."

The Indians were idling all over town, big, lazy, villanous-looking fellows, and very frequently they were smoking cigarettes, and often they were dressed much as Jack had described, though their clothes varied a good deal. There were two points which they all had in common, however--they were all dirty, and all carried bright, clean repeating-rifles, We wondered why they needed the rifles, since there was no game in the neighborhood.

The chief business of Rushville seemed to be shipping bones. We went over to the railroad to watch the process. There were great piles of them about the station, and men were loading them into freight-cars.

"What's done with them?" we asked of a man.

"Shipped East, and ground up for fertilizer," he answered.

"Where do they all come from?"

"Picked up about the country everywhere. Men make a business of gathering them and bringing them in at so much a load. Supply won't last many months longer, but it's good business now."

They were chiefly buffalo bones, though there were also those of the deer, elk, and antelope. We saw some beautiful elk antlers, and many broad white skulls of the buffalo, some of them still with the thick black horns on them. As we were watching the loading of the bones Ollie suddenly exclaimed:

"Oh, see the pretty little deer!"

We looked around, and saw, in the front yard of a house, a young antelope, standing by the fence, and also watching the bone-men as they worked.

"It is a beautiful creature, isn't it?" said Jack. "And how happy and contented it looks!"

"I guess it's happy because it isn't in the bone-pile," said Ollie.

We went over to it, and found it so tame that it allowed Ollie to pet it as much as he pleased. The man who owned it told us that he had found it among the Sand Hills, with one foot caught in a little bridge on the railroad, where it had apparently tried to cross. He rescued it just before a train came along.

We left Rushville after a rather longer stop for noon than we usually made. Nothing worthy of mention occurred during the afternoon, and that night we camped on the edge of another small town, called Hay Springs.

"I don't know," said Jack, "whether or not they really have springs here that flow with water and hay, or how it got its funny name. If there are that kind of springs, I think it's a pity there can't be some of them in the Sand Hills."

Jack went over town after supper for some postage-stamps, and came back quite excited.

"Found it at last, Ollie!" he exclaimed. "Grandpa Oldberry was right."

"What--a varmint?" asked Ollie.

"A genuine varmint," answered Jack. "A regular painter. It's in a cage, to be sure, but it may get out during the night."

We all went over to see it. It was in a big box back of a hotel, and the man in charge called it a mountain-lion, and said it was caught up in the Black Hills. "Right where we're going," whispered Ollie. The animal was, I presume, really a jaguar, and was a big cat three or four feet long.

We were off again the next morning, looking forward eagerly to the camp for the night, which we expected would be at Chadron, and where our course would change to the north into Dakota again, this time on the extreme western edge, and carry us up to the mountains. Most of the day we travelled through a rougher country, and saw many buttes--steep-sided, flat-topped mounds; and in the neighborhood of Bordeaux the road wound among scattering pine-trees. We camped at noon near the house of a settler who seemed to have a dog farm, as the place was overrun with the animals. We needed some corn for the horses, and asked him if he had any to sell. He was a queer looking man, with hair the color of molasses candy, and skim-milk eyes.

"Waal, now, stranger, I jess reckon I have got some co'n to sell," he said. "The only trouble with that there co'n o' mine is that it ain't shucked. If you wouldn't mind to go out into the field and shuck it out, we can jess make a deal right here."

We finally gave him fifty cents for all our three sacks would hold, and he pointed out the field a quarter of a mile away and went back to the house. We noticed that he very soon mounted a pony and rode away towards Hay Springs, but thought nothing of it. When we were ready to start we drove over to the cornfield to get what we had paid for. Jack put his head out of the wagon, took a long look, and said:

"That's the sickest-looking cornfield I ever saw!"

We got out, and found a sorry prospect. The corn was poor and scattering and choked with weeds.

"And the worst of it," called Jack, as he waded out into the weeds, "is that it has been harvested about twelve times already. The scoundrel has been selling it to every man that came along for a month, and I don't believe there were three sackfuls in the whole field to start with."

We went to work at it, and found that he was not far from right.

"No wonder the old skeesicks went off to town soon as he got his money," I said. "He won't show himself back here till he is sure we have gone."

We worked for an hour, and managed to fill one bag with "nubbins," and gave up, promising ourselves that we wouldn't be imposed upon in that way again.

We reached Chadron in due time, and went into camp a little way beyond, on the banks of the White River, a stream which flows through Dakota and finally joins the Missouri. Our camp was on a little flat where the river bends around in the shape of a horseshoe. It seemed to be a popular stopping-place, and there were half a dozen other covered wagons in camp there. The number of empty tin cans scattered about on that piece of ground must have run up into the thousands. But there had not been a mile of the road since we left Valentine which had not had from a dozen to several hundred cans scattered along it, left by former "movers." We had contributed our share, including the gooseberry can. From the labels we noticed on the can windrow along the road it seemed that peaches and Boston baked beans were the favorite things consumed by the overland travellers, though there were a great many green-corn, tomato, and salmon cans.

"You can get every article of food in tin cans now," observed Jack one day, "except my pancakes. I'm going to start a pancake cannery. I'll label my cans 'Jack's Celebrated Rattletrap Pancakes--Warranted Free from Injurious Substances. Open this end. Soak two weeks before using.'"

It was a pretty camping-place on the little can-covered fiat, and we sat up late, visiting with our neighbors and talking about the Black Hills.

"I think," said Jack, as we stumbled over the cans on our way to the Rattletrap, "that I'll go into the mining business up there myself. I'll just back the Blacksmith's Pet up to the side of a mountain, tickle his heels with a straw, and he'll have a gold-mine kicked out inside of five minutes."

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IX: OFF FOR THE BLACK HILLS

The next day was Sunday, so we did not leave the White River camp till Monday morning. We found Chadron (pronounced Shadron) an extremely lively town, in which all of the citizens wore big hats and immense jingling Mexican spurs. We had the big hats, but to be in fashion and not to attract attention we also got jingling spurs.

"I shall wear 'em all night," said Jack, as he strapped his on. "Only dudes take off their spurs when they go to bed, and I'm no dude."

Our next objective point was Rapid City. It was a beautiful morning when we turned to the north. The sand had disappeared, and the soil was more like asphalt pavement.

"The farmers fire their seed into the ground with six-shooters," said a man we fell in with on the road. "Very expensive for powder."

"The soil's what you call gumbo, isn't it?" I said to him.

"Yes. Works better when it's wet. One man can stick a spade into it then. Takes two to pull it out, though."

It was not long before we passed the Dakota line, marked by a post and a pile of tin cans. Shortly before noon Ollie made a discovery.

"What are those little animals?" he cried. "Oh, I know--prairie-dogs!"

There was a whole town of them right beside the road, with every dog sitting on top of the mound that marked his home, and uttering his shrill little bark, and marking each bark by a peculiar little jerk of his tail.

"How do you know they are prairie-dogs?" asked Jack.

"They had some of them in the park at home," said Ollie. "But last fall they all went down in their burrows for the winter, and in the spring they didn't come up. Folks said they must have frozen to death."

"Nonsense," said Jack. "They got turned around somehow, and in the spring dug down instead of digging up. They may come out in China yet if they have good-luck."

"I can hardly swallow that," replied Ollie. "But, anyhow, these seem to be all right."

There must have been three or four hundred of them, and not for a moment did one of them stop barking till Snoozer jumped out of the wagon and charged them, when, with one last bark, each one of them shot down his hole so quick that it was almost impossible to see him move.

"Now that's just about the sort of game that Snoozer likes!" exclaimed Jack. "If they were badgers, or even woodchucks, you couldn't drive him at them."

"I don't think there is much danger of his getting any of them," said Ollie.

We called Snoozer back, and soon one of the little animals cautiously put up his head, saw that the coast was clear, gave one bark, and all the rest came up, and the concert began as if nothing had happened.

"I suppose that was the mayor of the town that peeped up first?" said Ollie. "Yes, or the chief of police," answered Jack. We camped that night by the bed of a dry creek, and watered the horses at a settler's house half a mile away.

"That's the most beautiful place for a stream I ever saw," observed Jack. "If a man had a creek and no bed for it to run in, he'd be awfully glad to get that."

The next day was distinctly a prairie-dog day. We passed dozens of their towns, and were seldom out of hearing of their peculiar chirp.

"I wonder," said Ollie, "if the bark makes the tail go, or does the tail set off the bark."

"Oh, neither," returned Jack. "They simply check off the barks with their tails. There's a National Prairie-Dog Barking Contest going on, and they are seeing who can yelp the most in a week. They keep count with their tails."

At the little town of Oelrichs we saw a number of Indians, since we were again near the reservation. One little girl nine or ten years old must have been the daughter of an important personage, since she was dressed in most gorgeous clothes, all covered with beads and colored porcupine-quill-work. And at last Ollie saw an Indian wearing feathers. Three eagle feathers stuck straight up in his hair. He was standing outside of a log house looking in the window. By-and-by a young lady came to the door of the house, and as we were nearer than anybody else, she motioned us to come over.

"I wish," she said, "that you'd please go around and ask Big Bear to go away. He keeps looking in the window and bothering the scholars."

We stepped around the corner, and Jack said: "See here, neighbor Big Bear, you're impeding the cause of education."

The Indian looked at him stolidly, but did not move.

"Teacher says vamoose--heap bother pappooses," said Jack.

The Indian grunted and walked away. "Nothing like understanding the language," boasted Jack, as we went back to the wagon.

At noon we camped beside a stream, but thirty feet above it. There was a clay bank almost as hard as stone rising perpendicularly from the water's edge. With a pail and rope we drew up all the water we needed. In the afternoon we got our first sight of the Black Hills, like clouds low on the northern horizon. About the same time we struck into the old Sidney trail, which, before the railroad had reached nearer points, was used in carrying freight to the Hills in wagons. In some places it was half a mile wide and consisted of a score or more of tracks worn into deep ruts. There was a herd of several thousand Texas cattle crossing the trail in charge of a dozen men, and we waited and watched them go by. Ollie had never seen such a display of horns before.

Shortly after this we came upon the first sage-bush which we had seen. It was queer gray stuff, shaped like miniature trees, and had the appearance of being able to get along with very little rain.

Toward night we found ourselves winding down among the hills to the Cheyenne River. They were strange-looking hills, most of them utterly barren on their sides, which were nearly perpendicular, the hard soil standing almost as firm as rock. They were ribbed and seamed by the rain--in fact, they were not hills at all, properly speaking, but small bluffs left by the washing out of the ravines by the rain and melting snows. Just as the sun was sinking among the distant hills we came to the river. It was shallow, only four or five yards wide, and we easily forded it and camped on the other side. The full moon was just rising over the eastern hills. There was not a sound to be heard except the gentle murmur of the stream and the faint rustle of the leaves on a few cottonwood-trees. There was plenty of driftwood all around, and after supper we built up the largest camp-fire we had ever had. The flame leaped up above the wagon-top, and drifted away in a column of sparks and smoke, while the three horses stood in the background with their heads close together munching their hay, and the four of us (counting Snoozer) lay on the ground and blinked at the fire.

"This is what I call the proper thing," remarked Jack, after some time, as he roiled over on his blanket and looked at the great round moon.

"Yes," I said, "this will do well enough. But it would be pretty cool here if it wasn't for that fire."

"Yes, the nights are getting colder, that's certain. I was just wondering if that cover will withstand snow as well as it does rain?"

"Why," said Ollie, "do you think it's going to snow?"

"Not to-night," returned Jack. "But it may before we get out of the mountains. The snow comes pretty early up there sometimes. I think I'll get inside and share the bed with the rancher after this, and you and Snoozer can curl up in the front end of the wagon-box. It would be a joke if we got snowed in somewhere, and had to live in the Rattletrap till spring."

"I wouldn't care if we could keep warm," said Ollie. "I like living in it better than in any house I ever saw."

"I'm afraid it would get a little monotonous along in March," laughed Jack. "Though I think myself it's a pretty good place to live. Stationary houses begin to seem tame. I hope the trip won't spoil us all, and make vagabonds of us for the rest of our lives."

We were reluctant to leave this camp the next morning, but knew that we must be moving on. It was but a few miles to the town of Buffalo Gap, and we passed through it before noon.

"There are more varmints," cried Ollie, as we were driving through the town. They were in a cage in front of a store, and we stopped to see them.

"What are they?" one of us asked the man who seemed to own them.

"Bob-cats," he answered, promptly.

"Must be a Buffalo Gap name for wild-cats," said Jack, as we drove on, "because that's what they are."

Ollie had gone into a store to buy some cans of fruit, and when he came out he looked much bewildered.

"I think," he said, "that that man must be crazy, or something. There were thirty cents coming to me in change. He tossed out a quarter and said, 'Two bits,' and then a dime and said, 'Short bit--thank you,' and closed up the drawer and started off. I didn't want more than was coming to me, so I handed out a nickle and said, 'There, that makes it right.' The man looked at it, laughed, and pushed it back, and said, 'Keep it, sonny; I haven't got any chickens.' Now, I'd like to know what it all meant."

We both laughed, and when Jack recovered his composure he said:

"It means simply that we're getting out into the mining country, where no coin less than a dime circulates. He didn't happen to have three dimes, so the best he could do was to give you either twenty-five or thirty-five cents, and he was letting you have the benefit of the situation by making it thirty-five. A bit is twelve and a half cents, and a short bit is ten cents. A two-bit piece is a quarter."

"Yes; but what about his not keeping chickens?"

"Oh, that was simply his humorous way of saying that all coins under a dime are fit only for chicken-feed."

We camped that night beside the trail near a little log store. "What you want to do," said the man in charge, "is to take your horses down there behind them trees to park 'em for the night. Good feed down there."

"'To park,'" said Jack, in a low voice. "New and interesting verb. He mean's turn 'em out to grass. We mustn't appear green." Then he said to the man:

"Yes, we reckoned we'd park 'em down there to-night."

The next day was the coldest we had experienced, and we were glad to walk to keep warm. We were getting among the smaller of the hills, with their tops covered with the peculiarly dark pine-trees which give the whole range its name. We camped at night under a high bank which afforded some protection from the chilly east wind. Now that we were all sleeping in the wagon there was no room in it to store the sacks of horse-feed which we had, and we knew that if we put them outside Old Blacky would eat them up before morning.

"There's nothing to do," said Jack, "but to carry them around up on that bank and hang them down with ropes. Leave 'em about twelve feet from the bottom and ten feet from the top, and I don't think the Pet can get them."

We accordingly did so, and went to bed with the old scoundrel standing and looking up at the bags wistfully, though he had just had all that any horse needed for supper. But in the morning we found that he had clambered up high enough to get hold of the bottom of one of the sacks and pull it down and devour fully half of it. He was, as Jack said, "the worst horse that ever looked through a collar."

But the weather in the morning gave us more concern than did the foraging of the ancient Blacky. It was even colder than the night before, and the raw east wind was rawer, and with it all there was a drizzling rain. It was not a hard rain, but one of the kind that comes down in small clinging drops and blows in your face in a fine spray. Jack got breakfast in the wagon, and we ate the hot cakes and warmed-over grouse with a good relish. Then we loaded in what was left of the horsefeed, and started.

It was impossible to keep warm even by walking, but we plodded on and made the best of it. The road was hilly and stony; but by noon we had got beyond the rain, and for the rest of the way it was dry even if cold. The hills among which we were winding grew constantly higher, and the quantity of pine timber upon their summits greater. Just as dusk was beginning to creep down we came around one which might fairly have been called a small mountain, and saw Rapid City spread out before us, the largest town we had seen since leaving Yankton. We skirted around it, and came to camp under another hill and near a big stone quarry a half-mile west of town. There was a mill-race just below us, and plenty of water. We fed the horses and had supper. There was a road not much over a hundred yards in front of our camp, along which, through the darkness, we could hear teams and wagons passing.

"I wonder where it goes to?" said Ollie.

"I think it's the great Deadwood trail over which all the supplies are drawn to the mines by mule or horse or ox teams," said Jack. "There's no railroad, you know, and everything has to go by wagon--goods and supplies in, and a great deal of ore out. Let's go over and see."

The moon was not yet risen and the sky was covered with clouds, so it was extremely dark. We took along our lantern, but it did not make much impression on the darkness. When we reached the road we found that everywhere we stepped we went over our shoe-tops in the soft dust. We beard a deep, strange creaking noise, mixed with what sounded like reports of a pistol, around the bend in the trail. Soon we could make out what seemed to be a long herd of cattle winding towards us, with what might have been a circus tent swaying about behind them.

"What's coming?" we asked of a boy who was going by.

"Old Henderson," he replied.

"What's he got?"

"Just his outfit."

"But what are all the cattle?"

"His team."

"Not one team?"

"Yes; eleven yoke."

"Twenty-two oxen in one team?"

"Yes; and four wagons."

The head yoke of oxen was now opposite to us, swaying about from side to side and swirling their tails in the air, but still pressing forward at the rate of perhaps a mile and a half or two miles an hour. Far back along the procession we could dimly see a man walking in the dust beside the last yoke, swinging a long whip which cracked in the air like a rifle. Behind rolled and swayed the four great canvas-topped wagons, tied behind one another. We watched the strange procession go by. There was only one man, without doubt Henderson, grizzled and seemingly sixty years old. The wagon wheels were almost as tall as he was, and the tires were four inches wide. The last wagon disappeared up the trail in the dust and darkness.

"Well," said Jack, "I think when I start out driving at this time of night with twenty-two guileless oxen and four ten-ton wagons that I'll want to get somewhere pretty badly." Then we went back to the Rattletrap.

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X: AMONG THE MOUNTAINS

After we got back to the Rattletrap we promised ourselves plenty of Sport the next day watching the freighters with their long teams and wagon trains. Jack could not recover from his first glimpse of Henderson.

"Rather a neat little turnout to take a young lady out driving with," he said, after we had gone to bed. "Twenty-two oxen and four wagons. Plenty of room. Take along her father and mother. And the rest of the family. And her school-mates. And the whole town. Good team to go after the doctor with if somebody was sick--mile and a half an hour. That trotting-cow man at Yankton ought to come up here and show Henderson a little speed. Still, I dare say Henderson could beat Old Browny on a good day for sleeping, and when he didn't have Blacky to pall him along."

But we got small sight of the trail the next day, as the rain we had left behind came upon us again in greater force than ever. It began toward morning, and when we looked out, just as it was becoming light, we found it coming down in sheets--"cold, wet sheets," as Ollie said, too. The horses stood huddled together, wet and chilled. We got on our storm-coats and led them up to a house a sort distance away, which proved to be Smith's ranch. There we found large, dry sheds, under which we put them and where they were very glad to go. Once back in the cabin of the Rattletrap, we scarcely ventured out again.

It certainly wasn't a very cheerful day. We would not have minded the rain much, because we were dry enough; but the cold was disagreeable, and we were obliged to wear our overcoats all day. We could watch the road from the front of the wagon, and saw a number of freighters go by, usually with empty wagons, as it soon became too muddy for those with loads. We saw one fourteen-ox team with four wagons, and another man with twelve oxen and three wagons. There were also a number of mule teams, and we noticed one of twelve mules and five wagons, and several of ten mules and three or four wagons. With these the driver always rode the nigh wheel animal--that is, the left-hand rear one.

"I'm going to put a saddle on Old Blacky and ride him after this," said Jack. "Bound to be in the fashion. Wonder how Henderson is getting along in the mud? A mile in two hours, I suppose. Must be impossible for him to see the head oxen through this rain."

The downpour never stopped all day. We tried letter-writing, but it was too cold to hold the pen; and Jack's efforts at playing the banjo proved equally unsuccessful. We fell back on reading, but even this did not seem to be very satisfactory. So we finally settled down to watching the rain and listening to the wind.

When evening came we shut down the front of the cover and tried to warm up the cabin a little by leaving the oil-stove burning, but it didn't seem to make much difference. So we soon went to bed, rather damp, somewhat cold, and a little dispirited. I think we all stayed awake for a long time listening to the beating of the rain on the cover, and wondering about the weather of the morrow.

When we awoke in the morning it did not take long to find out about the weather. The rain had ceased and the sky was clear, but it was colder. Outside we found ice on the little pools of water in the footprints of the horses. We were stiff and cold. Some of us may have thought of the comforts of home, but none of us said anything about them.

"This is what I like," said Jack. "Don't feel I'm living unless I find my shoes frozen in the morning. Like to break the ice when I go to wash my face and hands, and to have my hair freeze before I can comb it."

But we observed that he kept as close to the camp-fire which we started as any of us. We went up to Smith's to look after the horses. While Jack and I were at the sheds Ollie stayed in the road watching the freight teams. A big swarthy man, over six feet in height, came along, and after looking over the fence at Smith's house some time, said to Ollie:

"Do you s'pose Smith's at home?"

"Oh, I guess so," answered Ollie.

"I'd like to see him," went on the man, with an uneasy air.

"Probably you'll find him eating breakfast," said Ollie.

"I don't like to go in," said the man.

"Why not?"

"I'm--I'm afraid of the dog."

"Oh!" replied Ollie. "Well, I'm not. Come on," and he stalked ahead very bravely, while the man followed cautiously behind.

"He's a Mexican," said Smith in explanation afterwards. "All Mexicans are afraid of dogs."

"That's a pretty broad statement," said Jack, after Smith had gone. "I believe, if there was a good reward offered, that I could find a Mexican who isn't afraid of dogs. Though perhaps it's the hair they're afraid of; Mexican dogs don't have any, you know."

"Don't any of them have hair?" asked Ollie.

"Not a hair," answered his truthful uncle. "I don't suppose a Mexican dog would know a hair if he saw it."

"I think that's a bigger story than Smith's," said Ollie.

It was Sunday, and we spent most of the day in the wagon, though we took a long walk up the valley in the afternoon. The first thing Ollie said the next morning was, "When are we going to see the buffaloes?"

Smith had been telling us about them the evening before. They were down-town, and belonged to a Dr. McGillicuddie. They had been brought in recently from the Rosebud Indian Agency, and had been captured some time before in the Bad Lands.

We followed the trail, now as deep with mud as it had been with dust, meeting many freighters on the way, and found the buffaloes near the Deadwood stage barn.

"See!" exclaimed Ollie; "there they are, in the yard."

"Don't say 'yard,'" returned Jack; "say 'corral,' with a good, strong accent on the last syllable. A yard is a corral, and a farm a ranch, and a revolver a six-shooter--and a lot more. Don't be green, Oliver."

"Oh, bother!" replied Ollie. "There's ten of 'em. See the big fellow!"

"They're nice ones, that's so," answered Jack. "I'd like to see the Yankton man we heard about try to milk that cow over in the corner."

After we had seen the buffaloes we wandered about town and jingled our spurs, which were quite in the fashion. We encountered a big crowd in front of one of the markets, and found that a hunter had just come in from the mountains to the west with the carcass of the biggest bear ever brought into Rapid City. Some said it was a grizzly, and others a silvertip, and one man tried to settle the difficulty by saying that there wasn't any difference between them. But it was certainly a big bear, and filled the whole wagon-box. Ollie sidled through the crowd and asked so many questions of the man, who was named Reynolds, that he good-naturedly gave Ollie one of the largest of the claws. It was five inches long.

At noon we went down to the camp of the freighters on the outskirts of town, near Rapid Creek. There must have been fifty "outfits"--Jack said that was the right word--and several hundred mules, as many oxen, and a few horses. The animals were, most of them, wandering about wherever they pleased, the mules and horses taking their dinner out of nosebags, and the mules keeping up a gentle exercise by kicking at one another. It seemed a hopeless confusion, but the men were sitting about on the ground, calmly cooking their dinners over little camp-fires. One man, whom we had got acquainted with in the morning at Smith's, asked us to have dinner with him, and made the invitation so pressing that we accepted. He had several gallon's of coffee and plenty of bacon and canned fruit, and a peculiar kind of bread which he had baked himself.

"I'm a-thinking," he said, "there ain't enough sal'ratus in that there bread; but I'm a poor cook, anyhow."

The bread seemed to us to be already composed chiefly of saleratus, so his apology struck us as unnecessary. He very kindly wrote out the receipt on a shingle for Jack, but I stole it away from him after we got home and burned it in the camp-fire; so we escaped that.

"Your pancakes are bad enough," I said to him. "We don't care to try your saleratus bread."

Jack was a good deal worked up about the loss of his receipt, and experimented a long time to produce something like the freighter's bread without it; but as Snoozer wouldn't try the stuff he made, and he was afraid to do so himself, nothing came of it.

We enjoyed our dinner with the man, however, and Jack added further to his vocabulary in finding that the drivers of the ox teams were called "bullwhackers," and those of the mules and horses "muleskinners."

In the afternoon we climbed the hill above our camp. It gave us a long view off to the east across the level country, while away to the west were the mountain-peaks rising higher and higher. It was still cold, and the raw northeast wind moaned through the pines in a way that made us think of winter.

We went to bed early that night, so as to get a good start for Deadwood the next day. We brought the horses down from the ranch in the evening, blanketed them, and stood them out of the wind among some trees.

"Four o'clock must see us rolling out of our comfortable beds and getting ready to start," said Jack, as we turned in. "We must play we are freighters."

Jack planned better than he knew; we really "rolled out" in an exceedingly lively manner at three o'clock. We were sleeping soundly at that hour, when we were awakened by the motion of the wagon. Jack and I sat up. It was swaying from side to side, and we could hear the wheels bumping on the stones. The back end was considerably lower than the front.

"It's running down the bank!" I cried, and we both plunged through the darkness for the brake-handle. We fell over Ollie and Snoozer, and were instantly hopelessly tangled. It seemed an age, with the wagon swaying more and more, before we found the handle. Jack pushed it up hard, we heard the brake grind on the wheels outside; then there was a great bump and splash, and the wagon tilted half over and stopped. We found Ourselves lying on the side of the cover, with cold water rising about us. We were not long in getting out, and discovered that the Rattletrap was capsized in the mill-race.

"Old Blacky did it!" cried Jack, as he danced around and shook his wet clothes. "I know he did. The old sinner!"

We got out the lantern and lit it. Only the hind end of the wagon was really in the race; one front wheel still clung to the bank, and the other was up in the air. Ollie got in and began to pass things out to Jack, while I went up the hill after the horses. Jack was right. Old Blacky was evidently the author of our misfortune. He had broken loose in some manner, and probably begun his favorite operation of making his toilet on the corner of the wagon by rubbing against it. The brake had carelessly been left off, he had pushed the wagon back a few feet, and it had gone over the bank. I soon had the harness on the horses, and got them down the hill. We hitched them to the hind wheel with a long rope, Jack wading in the water to his waist, and pulled the wagon upright. Then we attached them to the end of the tongue, and after hard work drew it out of the race. By this time we were chilled through and through. Our beds and nearly everything we had were soaking with water.

"How do you like it, Uncle Jack?" inquired Ollie. "Do you feel that you are living now?"

Jack's teeth were chattering. "Y--yes," he said; "but I won't be if we don't get a fire started pretty quick."

There were some timbers from an old bridge near by, and we soon had a good fire, around which we tramped in a procession till our clothes were fairly dry. The wind was chilly, and it was a dark, cloudy morning. The unfortunate Snoozer had gone down with the rest of us, and was the picture of despair, till Ollie rubbed him with a dry corner of a blanket, and gave him a good place beside the fire.

By the time two or three hours had elapsed we began to feel partially dry, and decided to start on, relying on exercise to keep ourselves warm. We had had breakfast in the meantime, and, on the whole, were feeling rather cheerful again. We opened the cover and spread out the bedding, inside and outside, and hung some of it on a long pole which we stuck into the wagon from the rear. Altogether we presented a rather funny appearance as we started out along the trail, but no one paid much attention to us. The freighters were already astir, and we were constantly passing or meeting their long trains. Among others we passed Eugene Brooks, the man with whom we had taken dinner. We told him of our mishap, and he laughed and said:

"That's nothing in this country. Something's always happening here which would kill folks anywhere else. You stay here awhile and you'll be as tough as your old black horse."

Brooks had an outfit of five spans of mules and two wagons. We stayed with him a half-hour, and then went on. As we could not reach Deadwood that day, he advised us to camp that night where the trail crossed Thunder Butte Creek, a branch of La Belle Fourche.

The trail led for the most part through valleys or along the sides of hills, and was generally not far from level, though there was, of course, a constant though hardly perceptible rise as we got farther into the mountains. We camped at noon at Elk Creek, and made further progress at drying our household effects. We pressed on during the afternoon, and passed through the town of Sturgis, where we laid in some stores of provisions to take the place of those spoiled by the water, and also a quantity of horse-feed. Later we congratulated ourselves on our good-luck in doing this.

As the afternoon wore away we found ourselves getting up above the timber-line. The mountains began to shut in our view in all directions, and the valleys were narrowing. As night drew nearer, Jack said:

"Seems to me it's about time we got to this Thunder Butte Creek. 'Gene said that if we passed Sturgis we'd have to go on to that if we wanted water."

We soon met a man, and inquired of him the distance to the desired stream. "Two miles," he replied, promptly. We went on as much as a mile and met another man, to whom we put the same question. "Three miles," he answered, with great decision.

"That creek seems to be retreating," said Jack, after the man had gone on. "We've got to hurry and catch it, or it will run clean into Deadwood and crawl down a gold mine."

It was growing dark. We forged ahead for another mile, and by this time it was quite as dark as it was going to be, with a cloudy sky, and mountains and pines shutting out half of that. I was walking ahead With the lantern, and came to a place where the trail divided.

"The road forks here," I called. "Which do you suppose is right?"

"Which seems to be the most travelled?" asked Jack.

"Can't see any difference," I replied. "We'll have to leave it to the instinct of the horses."

"Yes, I'd like to put myself in the grasp of Old Blacky's instinct. The old scoundrel would go wrong if he knew which was right."

"Well," I returned, "come on and see which way he turns, and then go the other way." (Jack always declared that the old fellow understood what I said.)

He drove up to the forks, and Blacky turned to the right. Jack drew over to the left, and we went up that road. We continued to go up it for fully three miles, though we soon became convinced that it was wrong. It constantly grew narrower and apparently less travelled. We were soon winding along a mountain-side among the pines, and around and above and below great rocks.

"We'll go till we find a decent place to camp, and then stop for the night," said Jack. We finally came to a little level bench covered with giant pines, and we could hear water beyond. I went on with the lantern, and found a small stream leaping down a gulch.

"This is the place to stop," I said, and we soon had our camp established, and a good fire roaring up into the tree-tops. Ollie found plenty of dry pine wood, and we blanketed the horses and stood them under a protecting ledge. It was cold, and the wind roared down the gulch and moaned in the pines, but we scarcely felt it below. We finished drying our bedding and had a good supper. Jack got out his banjo and tried to compete with the brook and the pines. We went to bed feeling that we were glad we had missed the road, since it had brought so delightful a camping-place.

Ollie was the first to wake in the morning. It was quite light.

"What makes the cover sag down so?" he asked. Jack opened his eyes, reached up with the whipstock and raised it. Something slid off the outside with a rush.

"Open the front and you'll see," answered Jack.

Ollie did so, and we all looked out. The ground was deep with snow, and it was still falling in great feathery flakes. Old Blacky was loose, and looked in at us with a wicked gleam in his eyes.

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XI: DEADWOOD

"You're a miserable, sneaking, treacherous old equine scoundrel!" cried Jack, shaking his fist violently at Old Blacky. "You knew you were making us come the wrong road."

Old Blacky answered never a word, but turned, hit the wagon-tongue a kick, and joined the other horses.

"Well, close down the front and let's talk this thing over," said Jack. "In the first place, we are snowed in."

"In the second place," said I, "we may stay snowed in a week."

"I don't think we're prepared for that," said Ollie, very solemnly.

"Let's see," went on Jack. "There are two sacks of ground feed under Ollie's bed. By putting the horses on rather short rations that ought to last pretty nearly or quite a week. But for hay we're not so well provided. There's one big bundle under the wagon, if Blacky hasn't eaten it up. The pony won't need any, because she knows how to paw down to the dry grass. The others don't know how to do this, and the hay will last them, after a fashion, for about three days."

"Perhaps by that time the pony will have taught them how to paw," I said.

"Wouldn't be surprised," returned Jack. "Perhaps by that time we'll all be glad to learn from her. We've got flour enough to last a fortnight, so we needn't be afraid of running out of water-pancakes at least. You don't grow fat on 'em, but, on the other hand, there is no gout lurking in a water-pancake as I make it."

"No, Jack, that's so," I said, feelingly. "We've got enough bacon for several meals, a can of chicken, and two earls of beans. Also a loaf of bread and a pound of crackers. Then there's three cans of fruit, a dozen potatoes, six eggs, a quart of milk, and half a pound of pressed figs. After that we'll paw with the pony."

"I wonder if we couldn't get some game?" inquired Ollie.

"Snow-birds, maybe," said Jack. "Or perhaps an owl. I've heard b'iled owl spoken of."

After all, the prospect was not so bad. Besides, it was so early in the season that it did not seem at all likely that we should be snowbound a week. Still, we knew little about the mountain climate.

We got on our overcoats and went out and gave the horses their breakfast. Old Blacky was still cross, but Jack contented himself by calling him a few names. We also got up what wood we could and piled it against the wagon, for use in case our kerosene became exhausted, though we decided to cook in the wagon for the present. The snow was seven or eight inches deep, and still falling rapidly. After breakfast we took the pony down to a little open fiat and turned her loose. The old instinct of her wild days came back to her, and she began to paw away the snow and gnaw at the scanty grass beneath.

After giving the other horses a little hay we returned to the wagon, where we stayed most of the day. I'm afraid we were a little frightened by the prospect. Of course, we knew that if it came to the worst we could leave the wagon and make our way back along the trail on foot, but we did not want to do that. But as for getting the wagon back along the narrow road, now blotted out by the snow, we knew it would be foolish to attempt it. It was not very cold in the wagon, and Jack played the banjo, and we were fairly cheerful. The snow kept coming down all day, and by night it was a foot deep. The pony came in from the flat as it began to grow dark, and we gave the horses their supper and left them in the shelter of the rocks. Then we brushed the snow off the top of the cover, as we had done several times before, and went in to spend the evening by the light of the lantern. When bedtime came, Jack looked up and said:

"The cover doesn't seem to sag down. It must have stopped snowing."

We looked out, and found that it was so. We could even see the stars; and, better yet, it did not seem to be growing colder. We went to bed feeling encouraged.

The next morning the sun peeped in at us through the long trunks of the pines, and Ollie soon discovered that the wind was from the south.

"Unless it turns cold again, this will fix the snow," said Jack.

He was right, and it soon began to thaw. By noon the little stream in the gulch was a torrent, and before night patches of bare ground began to appear. We decided not to attempt to leave camp that day, but the next morning saw us headed back along the tortuous road. In two hours we were again on the main trail. Just as we turned in, Eugene Brooks came along, having also been delayed by the snow, though the fall where he was had not been nearly so great. 'Gene laughed at us, and told us that we had been following a trail to some lead mines which had been abandoned several months before.

Half a mile farther on we came to the Thunder Butte Creek which we had sought. The water was almost blood-red, which 'Gene told us came from the gold stamp-mills on its upper course. If the water had been gray it would have indicated silver-mining. Just beyond we met the Deadwood Treasure Coach. It was an ordinary four-horse stage, without passengers, but carrying two guards, each with a very short double-barrelled shot-gun resting across his lap. The stage was operated by the express company, and was bringing out the gold bricks from the mines near Deadwood.

"I suppose," said Ollie, musingly, "if anybody tried to rob the coach, those fellows would shoot with their guns?"

"Oh no," replied Jack. "Oh no; they carry those guns to fan themselves with on hot days." But Ollie did not seem to be misled by this astonishing information.

As we went on the road grew constantly more mountainous. Sometimes the trail ran along ledges, and sometimes near roaring streams and waterfalls, and the great pine-trees were everywhere. We passed two grizzly old placer-miners working just off the trail, and stopped and watched them "pan out" a few shovelfuls of dirt. They were rewarded by two or three specks of gold, and seemed satisfied. 'Gene told us afterward that one of them was an old California '49er, who had used the same pan in every State and Territory of the West.

It was a little after noon when we drove into Deadwood--the last point outward bound at which the Rattletrap expected to touch. It was a larger town than Rapid City, and was wedged in a little gulch between two mountains, with the White Wood Creek rushing along and threatening to wash away the main street. We noticed that the only way of reaching many of the houses on the mountain-side was by climbing long flights of stairs. We drove on, and camped near a mill on the upper edge of town.

In the afternoon we wandered about town, and, among other places, visited the many Chinese stores. We also clambered up the mountain-sides to the two cemeteries, which we could see far above the town. It seemed to us that on rather too many of the head-stones, (which were in nearly every case boards, by-the-way) it was stated that the person whose grave it marked was "assassinated by" so-and so, giving the name of the assassin; but these were of the old days, when no doubt there were a good many folks in Deadwood who left the town just as well off after they had been assassinated. "Killed by Indians" was also the record on some of the boards. Ollie was greatly interested in the Chinese graves, with dishes of rice and chicken on them, and colored papers covered with curious characters--prayers, I suppose. We climbed on up to the White Rocks, almost at the top of the highest peak overlooking Deadwood, and had a good view of the town and gulch below, and of the great Bear Butte standing out alone and bold miles to the east. We were tired, and glad to go to bed as soon as we got back to the wagon.

The next day we decided to visit Lead City (pronounced not like the metal, but like the verb to lead). Here were most of the big gold mines, including the great Homestake Mine. It was only two or three miles, and we drove over early. It was a strange town, perched on the side of a mountain, and consisted of small openings in the ground, which were the mines, and immense shed-like buildings, which contained the ore-reducing works. The noise of the stamp-mills filled the whole town, and seemed to drown out and cover up everything else. We soon found that there was no hope of our getting into the mines.

"They'd think you were spies for the other mines, or something of that sort," said a man to us. "Nobody can get down. Nobody knows where they are digging, and they don't mean that anybody shall. They may be digging under their own property exclusively, and they may not. For all I know, they may be taking gold that belongs to me a thousand feet, more or less, under my back yard."

"If I had a back yard here," said Jack, after we had passed on, "I'd put my ear to the ground once in a while and listen, and if I heard anybody burrowing under it I'd--well--I'd yell scat at 'em."

We found no difficulty in getting in the stamp-mills, and a man kindly told us much about them.

"The Homestake Mills make up the largest gold-reducing plant in the world," said the man. "Where do you suppose the largest single stamp-mill in the world is?" We guessed California.

"No," he said; "it's in Alaska--the Treadwell Mill."

We decided that the stamp-mills were the noisiest place we were ever in. There were hundreds of great steel bars, three or four inches in diameter and a dozen feet long, pounding up and down at the same time on the ore and reducing it to powder. It was mixed with water, and ran away as thin red mud, the gold being caught by quicksilver. The openings of the shafts and tunnels were in or near the mills, and there were the smallest cars and locomotives which we had ever seen going about everywhere on narrow tracks, carrying the ore. Ollie walked up to one of the locomotives and looked down at it, and said:

"Why, it seems just like a Shetland-pony colt. I believe I could almost lift it."

The engineer sat on a little seat on the back end, and seemed bigger than his engine. As we looked at them we constantly expected to see them tip up in front from the weight of the engineer. There was also a larger railroad, though still a narrow gauge, winding away for twenty miles along the tops of the hills, which was used principally for bringing wood for the engines and timbers for propping up the mines.

We were walking along a connecting shed, and happened to look out a window, when we saw a four-foot stick of cord-wood shoot up fifty feet from some place behind us, and after sailing over a wide curve, like a "fly-ball," alight on a great pile of similar sticks on the lower ground, which was much higher than an ordinary house, and must have contained thousands of cords.

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Jack. "Wish I could throw a stick of wood like that fellow."

Another and another shot after the first one in quick succession. Sometimes there were two almost together, and we noticed the bigger and heavier the stick the higher and farther it was shot. We saw some almost a foot in diameter soaring like straws before the wind.

"What a baseball pitcher that man would make!" went on Jack, enthusiastically. "Think of his arm! Look at that big one go--it must weigh two hundred pounds!"

"Let's get out of this shed and investigate the mystery," I said.

Outside it was all clear. The narrow-gauge wood railroad ended on the edge of the steep hill overlooking the mills. Down this was a long wooden chute, or flume, like a big trough, which for the last thirty or forty feet at its lower end curved upward. Men were unloading wood from a train at the upper end. Each stick shot down the flume like lightning, up the short incline at the end, and soared away like a bird to the pile beyond and below the shed. A little stream of water trickled constantly down the chute to keep the friction of the logs from setting it on fire.

"That's the most interesting thing here," said Jack. "I'd like to send the Blacksmith's Pet down the thing and see what he would do. I'll wager he'd kick the wood-pile all over the town after he alighted."

We spent nearly the whole day in wandering about the stamp-mills. The great steam engines which operated them were some of the largest we had ever seen.

"And think," observed Jack, "of the fact that all of this heavy machinery, including the big engines and the locomotives and cars, and, in fact, everything, was brought overland on wagons, probably most of it nearly three hundred miles. No wonder people got to driving such teams as Henderson's."

Toward night we returned to Deadwood by the way of Central City. Here were more great mines and mills, but they did not Seem to be so prosperous, and part of the town was deserted, and consisted of nothing but empty houses. Just as the sun set we drove in through the Golden Gate, and east anchor at our old camp near the mill.

The next morning was wintry again, with snowflakes floating in the air. The ground was frozen, and the wind seemed to come through the wagon-cover with rather more freedom than we enjoyed.

"It's time we began the return voyage," said Jack. "We're a long way from home, and we won't get there any too soon if we go as fast as we can and take the shortest out." So we started that afternoon.

The shortest cut was to return to Rapid City, and then, instead of going south into Nebraska, to go straight east, through the Sioux Indian Reservation, crossing the Missouri at Pierre, and then on across the settled country of eastern Dakota to Prairie Flower, over against the Minnesota line.

We followed the same road between Deadwood and Rapid City, with the exception that we turned out in one place, and went around by Fort Meade. Here we found a beautiful camping-place the first night near a little stream and great overhanging rocks, and not far from Bear Butte. We reached Rapid late the next night, which was Saturday, and stopped at the old camp near the mill-race. Here we stayed over Sunday, but Monday noon saw us under sail again. As we went through the town we stopped at the freighter's camp, and told 'Gene Brooks good-bye, and then drove away across the wide rolling plain to the east.

'Gene had warned us that we had a lonesome road before us to Pierre, one hundred and seventy miles, nearly all of it across the reservation.

"You'll follow the old freight trail all the way," he said, "but you may not see three teams the whole distance, because since the railroad got nearer it isn't used. You'll find an old stage station about every fifteen or seventeen miles, with probably one man in charge. You may see a horse-thief or two, or something of that sort. S'ciety ain't what it ought to be 'round a reservation gen'rally."

Just before the sun sank behind the mountains, which lay like low black clouds to the west, we came to a little ranch standing alone on the prairie. The door was open, and it seemed to be deserted, though there was a rude bed inside. There was a good well of water, and we decided to camp near it for the night, especially as the grass was good. There was no other house in sight. Bedtime arrived, and no one came to the ranch.

"I think I'll just sleep in that house tonight," said Jack, "and see how it seems. I'll leave the door open, so as not to have too much luxury at first."

So he went to bed in the shanty, taking Snoozer along, and leaving the wagon to Ollie and me.

We must have been asleep three or four hours when I was awakened by the loud barking of a dog. I started up and began unfastening the front end of the cover. Just then I heard the pony snort in terror; and then followed a shot from a gun and the sound of horses galloping away. As I put my head out, Jack called, excitedly:

"Some men were trying to get the pony. They'd have done it, too, if Snoozer hadn't barked and scared them away."

I was out of the wagon by this time, and found the pony trembling at the end of her picket-line as near the wagon as she could get. Snoozer kept barking as if he couldn't stop.

"Did they shoot at you, Jack?" I asked.

"No, I guess not. I think they just blazed away for fun. They went off toward the Reservation. Some of Gene's poor s'ciety, I suppose."

It took half an hour to get the frightened pony and indignant dog quieted; and perhaps it was longer than that before we again got to sleep.

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XII: HOMEWARD BOUND

"Snoozer shall have a pancake medal."

This was the first thing Ollie and I heard in the morning, and it was Jack's voice addressing the hero of the night before. We speedily rolled out, and agreed with Jack that Snoozer must be suitably rewarded, he seemed fully to understand the importance of his action in barking at the right moment, and for the first morning on the whole trip he was up and about, waving his bushy tail with great industry, and occasionally uttering a detached bark, just to remind us of how he had done it. He walked around the pony several times, and looked at her with a haughty air, as much as to say, "Where would you be now if it hadn't been for me?"

"He shall have a pancake," continued Jack--"the biggest and best pancake which the skilful hand of this cook can concoct."

Jack proceeded to carry out his promise, and when breakfast was ready presented a griddlecake, all flowing with melted butter, to the dog, which was as big as could be made in the frying-pan.

"I always knew," said Jack, "that Snoozer would do something some day. He's lazy, but he's got brains. He would never bark at the moon, because he knows the moon isn't doing anything wrong, but when it comes to horse-thieves it's different."

Snoozer munched his pancake, occasionally stopping to give a grand swing to his tail and let off a little yelp of pure joy.

As we were getting ready for a start, and speculating on the prospect for water, a man came along, riding a mule, and we asked him about it<.

"Yah, blenty vaters," said the man. "Doan need to dake no vaters along.'

"Any houses on the road?" asked Jack.

"Blenty houses," answered the stranger "houses, vaters, efferydings."

We thanked him and started. Notwithstanding this assurance, I had intended to fill a jug with water, but forgot it, and we went off without a drop. We were going down what was called the Ridge Road, along the divide between Elk and Elder creeks, and hoped to reach the crossing of the Cheyenne at Smithville Post-office that evening, and get on the Reservation the next morning. In half an hour we passed some trees which marked the site of the Washday Springs, but there was no house there, nor had we seen one at eleven o'clock. We met an Indian on foot, and Jack said to him:

"Where can we get some water?"

The Indian shook his head. "Cheyenne River," he replied.

"Isn't there any this side?"

"No," with another jerk of the head. Then he stalked on.

"Yes, and the Indian's right, I'll warrant," exclaimed Jack. "'Blenty raters,' indeed! Why, that Dutchman doesn't know enough to ache when he's hurt."

"Well, we're in for it," said I. "We can't go back. Maybe it'll rain," though there was not a cloud in sight, and there was more danger of an earthquake than of a shower.

So we went on, ,'rod a little after dark wound down among the black baked bluffs to the crossing, without any of us having had a drop to drink since before sunrise. After we had "lowered the river six inches," as Jack declared, we went into camp.

We were up early in the morning, and Jack went down the river with his gun and got a brace of grouse. There was one house near the crossing, which was the post-office. The man who lived there told us it was a hundred and twenty-five miles across the Reservation to Pierre, and twenty miles to Peno Hill, the first station at which we should find any one. The ford was deep, the water coming up to the wagon-box, and there was ice along the edges of the river. It was a fine clear day, however, and the cold did not trouble us much. We wound up among the bluffs on the other side of the river, and at the top had our last sight of the Black Hills. We went on across the rolling prairie, black as ink, as .the grass had all been burned off, and reached Peno Hill at a little after noon. There was a rough board building, one end of it a house and the other a barn. All of the stage stations were built after this plan. We camped here for dinner, and pressed on to reach Grizzly Shaw's for the night. About the middle of the afternoon we passed Bad River Station, kept by one Mexican Ed.

"I'm going to watch and see if he runs when he sees Snoozer," said Ollie. Snoozer had insisted on walking most of the time since his adventure with the horse-thieves; but, greatly to Ollie's disappointment, Mexican Ed showed no signs of fear even when Snoozer went so far as to growl at him.

As it grew dark we passed among the Grindstone Buttes--several small hills. A prairie fire was burning among them, and lit up the road for us. We came to Shaw's at last, and went into camp. We visited the house before we went to bed, and found that Shaw was grizzly enough to justify his name, and that he had a family consisting of a wife and daughter and two grandchildren.

"Pierre is our post-office," said Shaw, "eighty-five miles away."

"The postman doesn't bring out your letters, then?" returned Jack.

"We ain't much troubled with postmen, nor policemen, nor hand-organ men, nor no such things," answered Shaw. "Still, once in a while a sheriff goes by looking for somebody."

We told him of our experience with thieves, and he said:

"It's a wonder they didn't get your pony. There's lots of 'em hanging about the edge of the Reserve, because it's a good place for 'em to hide."

"Must make a very pleasant little walk down to the post-office when you want to mail a letter," said Jack, after we got back to the wagon--"eighty-five miles. And think of getting there, and finding that you had left the letter on the hall table, and having to go back!"

We were off again the next morning, as usual. At noon we stopped at Mitchell Creek, where we found another family, including a little girl five or six years old, who carried her doll in a shawl on her back, as she had seen the Indian women carry their babies. We had intended to reach Plum Creek for the night, but got on slower than we expected, owing partly to a strong head-wind, so darkness overtook us at Frozen Man's Creek.

"Not a very promising name for a November camping-place," said Jack, "but I guess we'll have to stop. I don't believe it's cold enough to freeze anybody to-night."

There was no house here, but there was water, and plenty of tall, dry grass, so it made a good place for us to stop. Frozen Man's Creek, as well as all the others, was a branch of the Bad River, which flowed parallel with the trail to the Missouri. We camped just east of the creek. The grass was so high that we feared to build a camp-fire, and cooked supper in the wagon.

"I'm glad we've got out of the burned region," said Jack. "It's dismal, and I like to hear the wind cutting through the dry grass with its sharp swish."

There was a heavy wind blowing from the southeast, but we turned the rear of the wagon in that direction, saw that the brake was firmly on, and went to bed feeling that we should not blow away.

"I wonder who the poor man was that was frozen here?" was the last thing Jack said before he went to sleep. "Book agent going out to Shaw's, perhaps, to sell him a copy of Every Man his Own Barber; or, How to Cut your Own Hair with a Lawn-Mower."

We were doomed to one more violent awakening in the old Rattletrap. At two o'clock in the morning I was roused up by the loud neighing of the horses. Old Blacky's hoarse voice was especially strong. As I opened my eyes there was a reddish glare coming through the white cover. "Prairie fire!" flashed into my mind instantly, and I gave Jack a shake and got out of the front of the wagon as quickly as I could. I had guessed aright; the flames were sweeping up the shallow valley of the creek before the wind as fast as a horse could travel. Jack came tumbling out, and we knew instantly what to do. We both ran a few yards ahead of the wagon and knelt in the grass, and struck matches almost at the same moment. Jack's went out, but mine caught, and a little flame leaped up, reached over and to both sides, and then rolled away before the wind, spreading wider and wider. I beat out the feeble blaze which tried to work to windward, and ran back to the wagon, while Jack went after the horses. The coming flames were almost upon us by this time; but Ollie was out, and together, aided by the wind, we rolled the wagon ahead on our little new-made oasis of safety. Jack pulled up the pony's picket-pin, and brought her on also, while the other horses, being loose, sought the place themselves. The flames came up to the edge of the burned place, reached over for more grass, did not find it, and died out. But on both sides of us they rushed on, and soon overtook our little fire, and went on to the northwest. The wind, first hot from the fire, now came cool and fresh, though full of the odor of the burned grass.