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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Two Wyoming Girls and Their Homestead Claim, by 
+Carrie L. Marshall
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Two Wyoming Girls and Their Homestead Claim
+       A Story for Girls
+
+Author: Carrie L. Marshall
+
+Illustrator: Ida Waugh
+
+Release Date: May 15, 2010 [EBook #32383]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO WYOMING GIRLS AND HOMESTEAD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ TWO WYOMING GIRLS
+ And Their Homestead Claim
+
+ A Story for Girls
+
+ BY
+
+ MRS. CARRIE L. MARSHALL
+
+ Author of "The Girl Ranchers," Etc.
+
+ ILLUSTRATED BY IDA WAUGH
+
+ THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY
+ PHILADELPHIA MDCCCXCIX
+
+
+
+
+ COPYRIGHT 1899 BY THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+ [Illustration: THE FLAMES REACHED TOWARD ME GREEDILY
+ (Page 63)]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ CHAP.                                       PAGE
+
+ I     I GO ON AN ERRAND                       7
+
+ II    THE WILL OF THE WATERS                 23
+
+ III   AT THE MOUTH OF THE SHAFT              37
+
+ IV    A PLOT FOILED                          44
+
+ V     AN EXCITING EXPERIENCE                 57
+
+ VI    A VISIT FROM MRS. HORTON               68
+
+ VII   SURMISES                               77
+
+ VIII  "BEST LAID PLANS"                      92
+
+ IX    AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT             108
+
+ X     RALPH AND I GO BLACKBERRYING          118
+
+ XI    THE CATTLE BRAND                      130
+
+ XII   ON THE TRAIL OF A WILDCAT             145
+
+ XIII  JOE DISAPPEARS                        158
+
+ XIV   AT THE STORAGE RESERVOIR              172
+
+ XV    CHASED BY WOLVES                      183
+
+ XVI   A SLEEPLESS NIGHT                     194
+
+ XVII  A QUEER BANK                          207
+
+ XVIII A VITAL POINT                         227
+
+ XIX   MR. HORTON MAKES US A VISIT           240
+
+ XX    GUARD MAKES A MISTAKE                 253
+
+ XXI   A FRIEND IN NEED                      261
+
+ XXII  AN OPEN WINDOW                        273
+
+ XXIII ALONE ON THE CLAIM                    284
+
+ XXIV  HUNTING FOR GUARD                     294
+
+ XXV   GUARD'S PRISONER                      304
+
+ XXVI  MR. HORTON CAPITULATES                316
+
+
+
+
+TWO WYOMING GIRLS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+I GO ON AN ERRAND
+
+
+A fierce gust of wind and rain struck the windows, and Jessie, on her
+way to the breakfast table, dish in hand, paused to listen.
+
+"Raining again!" she exclaimed, setting the dish down emphatically.
+"It seems to me that it has rained every day this spring. When it
+hasn't poured here in the valley, it has more than made up for it in
+the mountains."
+
+"You are more than half right," father said, drawing his chair up to
+the table. "Is breakfast ready, dear? I am going to work in the mines
+to-day, and I'm in something of a hurry."
+
+"Going to work in the mines!" Jessie echoed the words, as, I am sure,
+I did also. I was sitting in the corner dressing little Ralph, or, to
+be strictly accurate, trying to dress him. No three year-old that ever
+lived could be more exasperating than he sometimes was during that
+ordeal or could show a more pronounced distaste for the bondage of
+civilized garments.
+
+Jessie made haste to dish up the breakfast, but she inquired: "Do you
+remember, papa, what that old miner who was here the other day told us
+about mines in the wet season? About what was liable to happen
+sometimes, and did happen here once, a good many years ago?"
+
+"I don't know that I do," father answered, glancing toward Ralph and
+me, to see if we were ready. As we were anything but that, he
+continued; "I guess I won't wait for you children."
+
+"Don't, please!" I exclaimed, "Ralph is a perfect little buzz-saw this
+morning. Keep still, Ralph!"
+
+"Me want to do barefoot! Me want to wade in 'e puddle!" cried the
+child, pulling one soft little foot out of the stocking that I had
+just succeeded in getting upon it.
+
+"Ralph!" I cried, angrily: "I've a good notion to spank you!"
+
+"Don't, Leslie!" father interposed, mildly; "I remember so well how I
+liked to wade in the mud-puddles when I was a little shaver; but it's
+too early in the season, and too cold for that sort of sport now. So,
+Ralph, my boy, let sister dress you, and don't hinder."
+
+Ralph always obeyed father's slightest word, no matter how gently the
+word was spoken; so now he sat demurely silent while I completed his
+toilet.
+
+"What was it that your friend, the miner, said, Jessie?" father asked,
+as Jessie took her seat and poured out his coffee.
+
+"He said that there had been so much rain on the mountains, and that
+the Crusoe mines were on such a low level that there was some danger
+of an inrush of water, like that which ruined the Lost Chance, before
+we came here."
+
+"I recollect hearing something about the Lost Chance," father said,
+going on with his breakfast indifferently. "There may have been water
+crevices in it. The accident was probably caused by them--and
+neglect."
+
+"I don't see how it could be all due to neglect," Jessie persisted.
+"The miner said that the springs and rivers were all booming full,
+just as they are now. People never thought of danger from the water,
+because it was so often warm and dry in the valley--as it is, you
+know, often, even when it is raining hard on the mountains. The miner
+said that the men went on with their work in the mine, as usual,
+until, one afternoon, the timbered walls of the tunnels slumped in
+like so much wet sand. What had been underground passages became, in a
+moment, underground rivers, for the water that had been held back and
+dammed up so long just poured in in a drowning flood. He said that the
+rainfall seeped through the bogs up on the mountains, and fed
+underground reservoirs that held the water safely until they were
+overtaxed. When that happened the water would burst out, finding an
+outlet for itself in some new place. The only reason that any one of
+the force of thirty men usually employed in the mine escaped was that
+the accident occurred just as they were putting on a new shift. I
+remember very well what he told us."
+
+"I see that you do," father responded, with a thoughtful glance at her
+earnest face, "but I reckon he rather overdid the business. These old
+miners are always full of whims and forecasts; they are as
+superstitious as sailors."
+
+"What he told was not superstition; it was a fact," replied Jessie,
+with unexpected logic.
+
+Father smiled. "Well, anyway, don't you get to worrying about the Gray
+Eagle, daughter. It's rather damp these days, I admit, but as safe as
+this kitchen."
+
+"Do you really think so, papa?" Jessie asked, evidently reassured.
+
+"Well, perhaps not quite as safe," father answered, with half a smile.
+"It's a good deal darker for one thing, you know, and there are
+noises--"
+
+He lapsed into that kind of listening silence that comes to one who is
+striving to recall something that has been heard, not seen, or felt,
+and I was about to insist upon a further elucidation of those
+subterranean sounds when the door opened and a man, whom father had
+hired for the day, put in his head:
+
+"Say, Mr. Gordon, I can't find a spade anywhere," he announced.
+
+"Well, there!" father exclaimed, with a disturbed look, "our spade was
+left at the mine the last day that we worked there."
+
+"That's too bad!" the man, who was a neighbor, as neighbors go on the
+frontier, said regretfully. "I can go back home and get mine, but the
+team's hitched up; it's stopped raining, an' there's a load of posts
+on the wagon. Seems 'most a pity for me to take time to go an' hunt up
+a spade, but I reckon I'll have to do it. I never saw the man yet that
+could dig post holes without one."
+
+"Oh, no, Reynolds, don't stop your work for that; I'll have to bring
+mine down; it's about as near to get it from the Gray Eagle as to go
+to one of the neighbors; you just go on with your work."
+
+Reynolds withdrew accordingly, and, as the door closed upon him,
+father said:
+
+"I'm anxious to earn every dollar I can to help fence that wheat
+field, before Horton's cattle 'accidentally' stray into it. I was out
+to look at it this morning. The field looks as if covered with a green
+carpet, it's coming up so thick. I count it good luck to be able to
+get Reynolds to go on with the fence-building while I work in the
+mine, for I can exchange work to pay him, while the pay that comes
+from the mine is so much cash."
+
+"And when we get our title clear, won't I shoo Mr. Horton's cattle to
+the ends of the earth!" I said, resentfully, for we all understood
+well enough that the reason that father was so anxious to earn money
+was to pay for the final "proving up" on his homestead claim, as well
+as to build fences. "I'm teaching Guard to 'heel' on purpose to keep
+track of those cattle," I concluded, audaciously, for father didn't
+approve of a policy of retaliation.
+
+"Horton's cattle are not to blame," he said now, but the shadow that
+always came over his patient face at the mention of our intractable
+neighbor settled heavily upon it as he spoke.
+
+"I know the cattle are not to blame," I retorted, with a good deal of
+temper. "I just wish that their master himself would come out and
+trample on our corn and wallow in our wheat field, instead of driving
+his cattle up so that they may do it; I'd set Guard on him with the
+greatest pleasure."
+
+"Now, now, Leslie, you shouldn't talk so!" father remonstrated gently.
+
+But here Jessie, whose disposition is much more placid than mine,
+broke in, abruptly:
+
+"I don't blame Leslie for feeling so, father. Only think, we've been
+on this place nearly five years, and we've never yet raised a crop,
+because Mr. Horton's cattle, no matter where they may be ranging,
+always get up here just in time--the right time--to do the most
+damage. The other neighbors' cattle hardly ever stray into our
+fields, and when they do the neighbors are good about it. Think of the
+time when Mr. Rollins's herd got into the corn field and ate the corn
+rows down, one after another. Mr. Rollins came after them himself, and
+paid the damage, without a word of complaint. Besides, he said that it
+shouldn't happen again; and it didn't. When has Mr. Horton ever done a
+thing like that?"
+
+"He's been kept busy other ways," father said, and his voice had none
+of the resentment that Jessie's expressed. "The last time that his
+cattle got in here I went to see him about it, and he said that the
+field was a part of the range, being unfenced, and that any lawyer in
+the United States would sustain him in saying so. He was quite right,
+too--only he was not neighborly."
+
+"Neighborly! I should say not," Jessie exclaimed, with a lowering
+brow. "His horses have trampled down our garden and girdled all our
+fruit trees, even to the Seckel pear that mother brought from
+grandfather's."
+
+"I know; it is very trying," father said, stifling a sigh; "but it can
+do no good to dwell on these things, daughter. An enemy of any kind
+does you more injury when he destroys your peace of mind, and causes
+you to harbor revengeful feelings, than he can possibly achieve in any
+other way. We must keep up our courage, and make the best of present
+circumstances, bad as they sometimes are. A change is bound to come."
+
+"Me wants more breakfuss," Ralph broke in, suddenly, extending his
+empty milk-cup toward me, his chief servitor. I refilled it from the
+pitcher beside me, and as I absently crumbled bits of bread into it I
+sought enlightenment. "I never quite understood, father, why Mr.
+Horton is so spiteful toward us."
+
+"It is easily understood, Leslie. He wants this homestead claim, and
+hopes to weary us into giving it up."
+
+"He can find plenty of other claims," I argued.
+
+"Yes; but not such as this. This is an upper valley, as you know, and
+just above our claim five mountain streams join the main river as the
+fingers of a hand join the palm, the main river being the palm. Every
+square foot of our claim can be irrigated, and it takes in about all
+of the valley that is worth taking--enough to control the water rights
+for all the land below us. That is the reason why Horton is trying so
+hard to dislodge us. He would like to be able to make the ranchmen on
+the lower ranches come to his terms about the water."
+
+"But the law regulates the water rights," said Jessie.
+
+"It is supposed to do so, and does it, after a fashion, but no human
+laws have ever yet been able to satisfactorily regulate a mean man. It
+would be a great misfortune to the ranchmen below if Horton were to
+get a title to this place; he likes to make people feel his authority,
+and one effective way of doing that would be to worry people about the
+water supply, just when they needed it most, of course. I feel now
+that our danger of losing the place is past. It has been a hard
+struggle to bear up against nearly five years of such sly, petty
+persecutions. Horton is careful not to oppose us openly. When he's
+found out, as he is occasionally, it always appears that he has been
+careful to keep within the letter of the law. Well, as Leslie says,
+we'll get our title clear, and then the wind will be out of Mr.
+Horton's sails. I've been afraid to make a move, or to do anything
+except curl down and study the homestead laws all this time. If I had
+come to an open rupture with him he might have gone down to the land
+office and told some story of his own invention to the agent that
+would injure me greatly, for land agents are only too ready to believe
+evil of land claimants, it seems to me. Now my notice for offering
+final proof is in one of the papers; it must be published three times,
+and the period of publication must not range over more than three
+months at the outside, so you see, at the farthest, if our proof is
+accepted, we shall have a deed to this place within three months. I do
+not see how we can fail to get it; we have complied with all the
+requirements."
+
+"Yes," Jessie assented, gravely. "We have two cows, two horses, a cat,
+a dog, a clock, some chairs, some dishes, a table, a stove, and some
+poultry."
+
+Father smiled, the slow, serious smile that had replaced his cheery
+laugh since mother's death two years before. "You are well posted on
+homestead laws, daughter," he said, rising from the table. "Where's my
+coat, Leslie, did you get it mended?"
+
+For answer I took down a worn, light, gray coat from a nail behind the
+kitchen door.
+
+"Look at that!" I said, pointing proudly to a very conspicuous patch
+on the elbow of one sleeve. An older seamstress would have felt,
+perhaps, that the patch asserted its existence almost too defiantly;
+it seemed almost to vaunt itself, but conscious of the rectitude of my
+intentions, if not of my work, I raised my face, expectantly, awaiting
+the praise that I felt to be my due. I was not disappointed. Father
+held the garment up to the light and examined the mending with
+critical approval.
+
+"That's what I call a good job, my little girl," he said heartily, but
+Jessie, glancing at the proof of my housewifely skill, as evidenced by
+the coat, laughed.
+
+"'A tear may be the accident of a moment,'" she quoted, "'but a patch
+is premeditated poverty.' And such a patch! You could see it a mile
+away. Really, Leslie, it looks like Jeremiah Porlock's cattle brand."
+
+I felt my face crimsoning with indignation, but was happily prevented
+from making the retort that sprang to my lips, as father murmured
+ruefully:
+
+"Dear, dear, what a pity that Joe left the spade! It will just about
+spoil my whole forenoon to be obliged to stop and bring it down.
+However, there's no help for it."
+
+"Yes, there is, papa," I cried, springing to my feet. "I'll go up with
+you and bring it back."
+
+It was characteristic of father's gentleness toward us his motherless
+young daughters, that he had not once thought of the possibility of
+either of us acting, in this instance, as his substitute.
+
+"It's a long walk," he objected, looking at me doubtfully.
+
+"Long! Why, papa, I've taken longer walks than that, lots of times. It
+isn't above a mile and a half; I could run every step of the way!"
+
+"Me, too," proclaimed Ralph, descending from his high chair in such
+haste that he fell sprawling on the floor. Disdaining, on this
+occasion, to weep for an accident that, under ordinary circumstances,
+would have opened the flood-gates of woe, he scrambled to his feet:
+"Me do wiv 'oo, 'Essie!" A battered old hat of Joe's was hanging on
+the wall, within reach of his chubby hand; he snatched it down and set
+it quickly on his head, pulling down the wide brim until his brown
+curls and the upper part of his rosy little face were completely
+extinguished. "Me ready, 'Essie," he said. He was a comical little
+figure. Papa took him in his arms and kissed him. Then he set him
+gently on his feet again; "You can't go with sister to-day, my boy."
+
+"'Ess," Ralph declared, with unusual persistence, "Me do!"
+
+"No," father reiterated. He opened the door, and we slipped out,
+followed for some distance along the trail by the deserted youngster's
+ear-splitting shrieks. Father halted once, looking irresolutely at me
+as a peculiarly heart-rending outburst came to our ears. "I could
+easily carry him up there," he said, with a somewhat sheepish look,
+"but I suppose you couldn't fetch him home?"
+
+"Come along, father," I retorted, slipping my hand under his arm.
+"Jessie will have Ralph consoled before you could get back to the
+house, and, when we started, you were in some doubt as to whether I
+could carry a spade home from the mine."
+
+"That's true," father confessed. "But hasn't the boy got a pair of
+lungs, though? I doubt if I was ever able to yell like that. I dare
+say it's partly owing to the climate; it's very healthy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE WILL OF THE WATERS
+
+
+Crusoe was the generic name of the collection of rough shanties that
+clustered about and among the various shaft-houses. Not all of the
+mines had attained to the dignity of shaft-houses and regular hours,
+many of them, indeed, being mere prospect-holes, but all were named,
+and a student of human nature might have accurately gauged the past
+experience or present hopefulness of their respective owners by some
+of the curious freaks of nomenclature.
+
+The shaft-house of the Gray Eagle was the last but one at the upper
+extremity of the ravine along which Crusoe straggled. Father and I,
+hurrying past the cabins, had nearly reached it, when a loud call from
+the open doorway of one of the larger cabins brought us to a halt.
+
+"There's old Joe!" father said, glancing at the individual who had
+shouted; "I was in hopes that I could slip past without his seeing
+me."
+
+"No such good luck as that," I said, with what I felt to be
+uncharitable impatience; "I almost believe that Joe sits up nights to
+watch for you. It's a shame, too, for him to try to work in the mines.
+Just look at him!"
+
+"I've looked at him a good many times, Leslie, dear, but he would be
+in a ten times worse position if I were to tell him that I am old
+enough to take care of myself. Since the day I was born he has spent
+his life in watching over me."
+
+From all accounts that was strictly true. The white-wooled old negro
+who, in his shirt sleeves, now came limping down the pathway toward
+us, had once been a slave on grandfather Gordon's estate. When freedom
+came to all the slaves, old Joe--who was young Joe then--declined to
+accept of any liberty, or to follow any occupation that might take him
+away from his master's oldest son, Ralph Gordon, our father. The
+negro's mission in life, as he understood it, was simply to keep an
+eye on the young man, for the young man's good. The flight of years
+did not lessen his sense of responsibility any more than it did his
+devotion, which was immeasurable. But, curiously enough, he seemed to
+prefer, on the whole, not to reside with the object of his adoration.
+It was enough for him if he could but hover around in father's
+vicinity, and this he did with such tireless persistency that in all
+the changes, the shifting scenes of his Western life, the one thing
+that father owned to being absolutely sure of was, that no matter
+where he went, or how quietly, the place that knew him presently
+became familiar also with the white wool and shambling figure of old
+Joe.
+
+"I 'clar ter goodness!" groaned Joe, reaching us at last, and hobbling
+on beside us, "I didn' 'low fur t' wuck ter-day; my rheumatiz is tuck
+dat bad!"
+
+"Don't work, then, Joe; the mine is as wet as a sponge. You'll be the
+worse to-morrow for going into it," remonstrated father, kindly.
+
+"No; I reckons I's wuck ef yo' does; hit ain' out o' place, noway,
+fur me ter crope inter a hole like dat; but w'at fur yo' keep w'alin'
+at wuck in de mine? 'Pears like a gen'leman might fin' more fittin'
+kine o' wuck dan dat."
+
+"The kind of work neither makes nor unmakes one, Joe," returned
+father, good-humoredly; "but I'm not going to do this sort of work
+much longer. I'm calculating on opening up the ranch in fine shape,
+with your help, when I get the title to it."
+
+"W'en yo' 'low fur ter git dat titull?"
+
+"In about three months. You'll have to come and live with us then,
+Joe, so as to be on hand to help us."
+
+"Yes," the old man assented, with unexpected readiness, "I 'spect I
+shall. I'se mighty good farmer, yo' knows, Mas'r Ralph. Hit goin' take
+nigh a week ter tell all dat I knows erbout raisin' ob watermillions
+an' goobers. Yo' 'low dat goobers grow in dish yer kentry, Mas'r
+Ralph?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. Why not?" father returned, cheerily, evidently glad of
+old Joe's implied willingness to take up his abode with us.
+
+We presently entered the shaft-house. Rutledge, the mine
+superintendent, was standing by the shaft, and the hoisting-cage, with
+its first load of ore from the dump below, was moving slowly upward.
+
+"You're late," was his greeting.
+
+"A trifle late," father returned, pleasantly, adding, "you can dock my
+day's wages for it if you like."
+
+"I know that without you telling me, but I shouldn't like," Rutledge
+said, crossly. We all knew him slightly, and I had thought him a
+pleasant young gentleman, but he was looking sullen to-day, almost
+angry, it seemed to me. We stood there waiting, and the cage had
+reached the surface and automatically dumped its load before Rutledge
+spoke again.
+
+"I thought you weren't coming, in spite of your promise," he then
+said, looking toward father. "No one could have blamed you if you had
+shown the white feather--"
+
+"Say, yo' heah me!" broke in old Joe, suddenly and savagely, his voice
+quivering with indignation. "Ole Cunnel Gordon's son ain' one o' de
+kine w'at done breaks promises, ner yit w'at's a-showin' w'ite
+fedders. Ef yo's lookin' fer dat kine of a man, git a lookin'-glass
+an' study de face dat yo' sees in hit, den maybe yo' fine 'im!"
+
+Rutledge smiled, although he still scowled disapproval.
+
+"That's all right, Joe; there are no cowards around the Gray Eagle
+shaft-house, but I couldn't blame any one for keeping out of the mine
+to-day--not but what it's safe enough, as far as I can see--I've just
+been down."
+
+For an instant his words startled and thrilled me. Could it be that
+there was so much danger in working in the mine then? I glanced at
+father. He was just stepping into the cage, and his face was as serene
+as if Rutledge's discourse had been of some possible disturbance in
+the moon. The look of displeasure on Rutledge's face deepened as I
+caught hold of one of the ropes and swung myself lightly into the
+cage, following father and Joe. Delaying the signal for descent,
+Rutledge said:
+
+"While it may be safe enough down there, it isn't exactly like a
+lady's parlor, Gordon--not to-day, anyway."
+
+"Oh, Leslie is just going down on an errand," father explained. "But,
+Leslie, perhaps you had better wait here and let me send the spade up
+to you."
+
+"And make you walk from your tunnel clear back to the hoisting cage
+again!" I remonstrated. "Why, Mr. Rutledge, I've been down lots of
+times, you know, and I'm not at all afraid."
+
+The superintendent had looked relieved when he heard that my stay in
+the mine was likely to be a short one. I wondered, inconsequently, as
+the cage started on its downward passage, if he had thought that I was
+going down on a tour of inspection. There would have been nothing for
+him to fear from any one's inspection; he was a good superintendent.
+"Don't stay long, Miss Leslie," he called down after us. I could no
+longer see his face, but his voice sounded anxious, and father
+remarked:
+
+"Rutledge seems quite uneasy, somehow."
+
+"Dese yer minin' bosses, dey knows dey business," muttered old Joe.
+"Dey knows dat de rheumatiz hit lays in wait, like a wile beas'
+scentin' hits prey. 'Spect's Mas'r Rutledge he hate fur ter see a
+spry young gal like Miss Leslie git all crippled up, same's a ole
+lame nigger."
+
+"Yes; it must be that he feared Leslie would get the rheumatism,"
+father said, in a lighter tone. Old Joe's explanations and reasons for
+things were always a source of unfailing delight to him. The cage
+reached the bottom of the shaft and we stepped out. By the light that
+was always burning at the tunnel's mouth father and Joe each selected
+a miner's lamp from the stock in a corner, and, as father was lighting
+his, he said: "You had better carry a lamp, too, Leslie." I picked one
+up while father slipped the bar of his under his cap band. Then he
+glanced at my big hat. "You'll have to carry yours in your hand,
+child; there's no room for so small a thing as a miner's lamp on that
+great island of straw that you call a shade hat."
+
+The Gray Eagle was a quartz gold mine. Tunnels drifted this way and
+that, wherever deposits of the elusive metal led them; sometimes they
+even made turns so sharp as to almost double back on themselves. I was
+glad to see that the point where father and Joe halted, at last, to
+pick up the tools that they had thrown down when they quit work in the
+mine, was within sight of the twinkling yellow star that marked the
+location of the hoisting cage. The place seemed less eerie somehow,
+with this means of escape signaled in the darkness. I had been, as I
+told Mr. Rutledge, in the mines a good many times, but never had its
+darkness seemed so impenetrable, so encroaching, as on this morning.
+
+"It seems to me that our lamps don't give so much light as usual, or
+else what they do give does not go so far," I remarked to father as I
+lingered beside him a few moments, watching him work.
+
+He was using a drill on the face of the rock wall in front of him. He
+suspended operations now to say: "I noticed that myself. The air is
+thick and damp; the light is lost much as it is in a fog." Then he
+called my attention to an object lying on the ground at his feet.
+"There's the spade; I guess you'd better be going back with it, dear;
+Reynolds will be needing it."
+
+Accordingly, with the spade in one hand and the lamp in the other, I
+started to retrace my steps to the hoisting cage. The sound of the
+drill that father was now plying vigorously followed me, becoming
+muffled, rather than fainter in the distance as I proceeded. From the
+various tunnels, branching off to the right and left, came the sound
+of other drills, and, occasionally, the plaintive "hee-haw" of one of
+the half-dozen or more little Andalusian mules used in hauling the
+loaded cars to and from the ore dumps near the hoisting cage. With all
+these sounds I was more or less familiar, but to-day, underneath them
+all, it seemed to me that there were others, myriads of them. To my
+lively young fancy the silence teemed with mysterious noises; low
+groans and sighing whispers that wandered bodiless through dark
+tunnels, dripping with a soft, unusual ooze. Knowing that Reynolds was
+in a hurry for the spade I hastened along, listening and speculating,
+until coming opposite one of the side extensions I was suddenly taken
+with the whim to see if its walls were as damp as those of the tunnel
+that I was then standing in. I turned into it accordingly, but stopped
+doubtfully after a few yards. Holding the lamp aloft I looked
+inquiringly along the walls. Damp! I understood now why my father wore
+a coat, a circumstance that had already impressed itself upon my mind
+as being very unusual among these underground workers. The water was
+almost running down the sides of the rocky tunnel, and the light of my
+lamp was reflected back at me in a thousand sliding, mischievous
+drops.
+
+"Where does it all come from?" I thought, laying my hand on the face
+of the rock before which I stood. My hand had touched it for a single
+heart-beat, no more, when I felt the color go out of my face, leaving
+me with wide, staring eyes, while I stood trembling and ghastly white
+in the breathless gloom. Like one suddenly bereft of all power of
+speech or motion I stared mutely at the black wall before me. I had
+felt the rock move!
+
+Standing there in that awful darkness, hundreds of feet underground, I
+understood what had happened, what was happening, and, dumb with the
+horror of that awful knowledge, stood motionless. All the stories that
+I had ever heard or read of sudden irruptions of water in mines, of
+dreadful cavings-in, flashed into my mind, and then, breaking the
+paralyzing trance of terror, I turned and ran toward the main tunnel.
+I tried to utter a warning shout as I ran, but my stiffened lips gave
+forth no sound. Happily, as I reached the main tunnel, the light at
+the foot of the shaft was in direct range with my vision, and between
+the shaft and myself I plainly saw a man hastening toward it. He was
+wearing a light gray coat. A quick glance toward the spot where I had
+left father and Joe showed nothing but darkness. They had both left.
+The hoisting cage was down, and, as I raced toward it, the man in the
+gray coat scrambled in. Even in my terror and excitement I was
+conscious of an unreasonable, desolate sense of desertion when I saw
+that. Yet, underneath it all a lingering fragment of common sense told
+me that father would believe me, by this, safe above; he had told me
+to go--and I had not obeyed him.
+
+Behind me, as I ran, arose a shrill and terrible chorus, a crashing of
+timbers, yells and shrieks of men, the terrific braying of the
+Andalusian mules, and above all, a new sound; the mighty voice, the
+swelling roar of imprisoned waters taking possession of the channels
+that man had inadvertently prepared for them. I reached the hoisting
+cage so nearly too late that it had already started on its upward
+journey, when, seeing me, one of its occupants reached down, caught
+both my upstretched hands and swung me up to a place by his side. It
+chanced, providentially, that the cage was at the bottom of the shaft
+when the inrush of waters came, and it had been held there for a
+brief, dangerous moment while the men nearest the shaft fled to its
+protection. It rose slowly upward, not too soon, for in an incredibly
+short time an inky flood rolled beneath it; rolled beneath, but seemed
+to keep pace with it as it arose. The water was coming up the shaft.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+AT THE MOUTH OF THE SHAFT
+
+
+Rutledge was standing by the windlass as the cage drew slowly up into
+the light. The men sprang out, not forgetting to lift me out with
+them, and the superintendent craned his neck, looking down into the
+black hole from which we had ascended. "Keep back!" he shouted, as
+some of the men crowded about him. "Keep back; the water is coming up
+the shaft. We'll soon have a spouting geyser, at this rate. How many
+of you are there?" He glanced over the group and answered his own
+question, in an awed voice: "Seven--and the girl--God help us! Only
+seven!"
+
+I had been so blinded by the fierce white glare of sunlight, following
+on the darkness of the shaft, and so dazed by the awful nature of the
+calamity that had befallen us that at first I comprehended almost
+nothing. The events of the day recorded themselves automatically upon
+my mind, to be clearly recalled afterward. In a numb, dazed way I saw
+a man in a light gray coat creep stiffly from the cage, last of all,
+and, as he staggered away up the dump, I took a step toward him,
+looked in his face, and recoiled with a wild, heart-broken cry.
+
+The wearer of the coat was old Joe. Facing around, I looked on the
+rescued men, my heart beginning to beat in slow, suffocating
+throbs--my father was not among them.
+
+For a moment I was quite beside myself. Like one gone suddenly mad, I
+sprang at the negro, and, seizing his arm, shook it furiously, crying:
+
+"Father, father--where is my father? What have you done with my
+father?"
+
+The old man began to whimper, "I ain' done nuffin'! I wish't I had! I
+wish't hit was me dat done gone to respec' dat ole Watkin's Lateral,
+den I'd 'a' been drownded, an' he wouldn't!"
+
+"Watkin's Lateral?" echoed one of the men who had so narrowly
+escaped. "Was Gordon in there? That's where the water burst through
+first. I thought that some one might have gone in there to test the
+walls, and they'd given way."
+
+"You are probably right, Johnson. Not but what the walls would have
+caved in, just the same, whether they were struck or not."
+
+Little heed as I paid, at the moment, to what was going on or being
+said, yet it all impressed itself upon my mind, to be recalled
+afterward, and afterward I knew that this last observation of Mr.
+Rutledge's was intended to exonerate father from any charge of
+carelessness in going into that place at just that time. But every
+employee of the Gray Eagle knew that Watkin's Lateral--a long,
+diagonal passage, with which the main tunnel was connected by a number
+of side extensions--was a treacherous place in which to work at all
+times, and must, of necessity, have been trebly so this morning.
+Loosing my frenzied hold of old Joe, I crouched to the ground, while
+Joe sank down on the dump, covering his face with his gnarled old
+hands. "He made me tuck an' put on his coat, he did, an' tole me fur
+t' start fur home; I was dat racked wid de misery in my back!" he
+moaned.
+
+The men were again clustering about the shaft. I got up and went and
+stood beside them. A hollow roar came up from the depths into which we
+gazed. The black water had risen, and risen, until, touched by a ray
+of sunlight, it threw back at us a sinister, mocking gleam, as the eye
+of a demon might. And father was down there in that black grave! That
+was my one coherent thought as, after the first wild look, I suddenly
+grasped one of the ropes of the cage that still swung above the
+shaft's mouth, and swung myself aboard. My reckless hand was on the
+starting lever when Mr. Rutledge, with a cry, and a spring as quick as
+my own had been, landed beside me. He snatched my hand from the lever.
+"Are you mad?" he asked, sternly, "What are you going to do?"
+
+"I am going down to my father; I am going to bring him up!" I cried
+wildly.
+
+As though the words had held a charm to break the spell of silence,
+they were followed by a babel of groans, of outcries and entreaties.
+It seemed that all the surface population of Crusoe were already on
+the spot; all, and especially the women, were wild to go to the rescue
+of the doomed men below. Doomed! Ah, they were past that now--all of
+them--all! It was this solemn thought that suddenly calmed me, that
+made me yield quietly to Rutledge's guiding hand as he drew me from
+the cage. "There are men here," he said. "Stand back, all of you
+women." He took his place in the cage again; then he looked around on
+the assembled men.
+
+"Dick," he said, signalling out a square-built Scotch miner, "stand
+beside the hoist, and do exactly as I tell you."
+
+"I wull that!" returned the miner, taking the station indicated.
+
+"I'm going down as far as the water will allow," Rutledge explained.
+"Who comes with me?" A dozen men volunteered instantly. Rutledge
+selected two who stepped into the cage beside him.
+
+"There may be fire-damp--gas," the Scotchman said, warningly.
+
+"I know; there is, probably; I'll look out for that. Lower away!"
+Rutledge had lighted one of the miner's candles which was suspended by
+a cord from a crack in the bottom of the cage. We above leaned over
+that dreadful well and watched the tiny flicker of light as the cage
+swung down and down toward the sinister eye that came steadily up as
+it went down. The tiny flame burned bravely for a space, then it went
+out as suddenly as if snuffed out by invisible fingers while the water
+below moved and sparkled as it might have done if the owner of the
+demoniac eye had laughed. "Choke damp!" said the Scotch miner
+succinctly, and began hoisting up.
+
+I was crouching on the ground with my face hidden on Joe's shoulder
+when the cage came up again. The men sprang out silently, and the hush
+on the waiting throng seemed to deepen.
+
+"We will set the pumps at work as soon as it can be done; that is the
+only thing left for us to do," I heard Rutledge say, and his voice
+sounded far away to my reeling senses as it might have sounded had I
+heard it in some dreadful vision of the night. Then he came and knelt
+down beside me; he took my hands in a close grasp. "Go home, Leslie,"
+he said, "go home and do not come back. We will do all that can be
+done."
+
+Not many hours thereafter the pumps were at work, lifting the water
+out of the mine--a Herculean task, but not so long a one, or so
+hopeless, as had been anticipated by many. Soon fresh mounds of earth
+began to appear in the lonely little hillside cemetery; mounds beneath
+which the rescued bodies of the drowned miners were reverently laid.
+Among them was one where father lay peacefully sleeping by mother's
+side, and leaving him there at rest, we turned sadly away to take up
+again the dreary routine of our every-day life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A PLOT FOILED
+
+
+It was a full month after the mine accident, and things had settled
+back as nearly into the old routine as was possible with the head of
+the household gone. I doubt if Jessie and I could have carried the
+burden of responsibility that now fell upon our unaccustomed shoulders
+had it not been for Joe. The day after father's funeral he walked
+quietly into the kitchen with the announcement:
+
+"I'se come ter stay, chillen! Whar yo' gwine want me ter drap dis
+bun'le?"
+
+The bundle was done up in a handkerchief--not a large one at that--and
+it contained all of Joe's worldly possessions. Jessie gave him the
+little bed-room off the kitchen, and there Joe established himself,
+to our great satisfaction. He was not less reticent than usual, but
+there was immense comfort to us, even in Joe's silence. The only
+explanation that he ever gave as to his intentions was contained in
+the brief declaration:
+
+"Yo's no 'casion fur t' worry yo'se'ves no mo', chillen; I'se come ter
+tek holt."
+
+And take hold he did. Early and late the faithful black hands were
+toiling for the children of the man whom he had so devotedly loved.
+
+On this particular morning Jessie and I were seated in the kitchen
+busily employed in doing some much-needed mending, when I dropped my
+work and said to Jessie: "I believe something is taking the chickens,
+Jessie."
+
+Jessie glanced at the garment that I had let fall, a torn little dress
+of Ralph's. "Do you?" she said.
+
+"Yes; I'm sure there are not so many as there should be."
+
+"Don't you count them every night?"
+
+"Yes, I do; but they should be counted oftener. At mid-day, too, I
+should say." I submitted this proposition deferentially, but with a
+covert glance at the clock; it was nearly twelve, and I did so dislike
+mending.
+
+"Very well," Jessie said, "count them a dozen times a day if you think
+best, of course."
+
+The elation with which I arose to comply with this generous permission
+was tempered somewhat by a little haunting sense of meanness. "Still,"
+I reasoned, "when one's home depends on such things as cats, dogs, and
+chickens, one cannot take account of stock too often. Besides, Jessie
+likes to mend, at least I've never heard her say she does not, but I
+have heard her say that she doesn't like to tend poultry."
+
+When I re-entered the house, after conscientiously enumerating every
+pair of yellow legs on the place, and finding, somewhat to my chagrin,
+that the tally was the same as that of the previous evening, I found
+Jessie sitting at the table with her face hidden in her hands. Afraid
+that she was crying I at first pretended not to notice. We had more
+than enough cause for tears. I picked up the discarded little dress
+and, in a spasm of repentance, murmured ostensibly to Ralph, who was
+playing near the table, but really for Jessie's benefit: "Sister is
+going to mend the pretty blouse that you tore on the oak bush after
+she gets this dress done."
+
+"'En w'en oo' puts it on me, me do in 'e oak bush an' tear it adain,"
+the child declared, cheerfully.
+
+"You naughty boy!"
+
+"'Es; me notty boy," with which announcement he went and leaned
+against Jessie's knees. Jessie looked up; she was not crying, but her
+face was haggard with pain.
+
+"I've got a dreadful toothache," she said, and then I remembered that
+she had been very restless during the night. "I'm afraid I shall know
+no peace until it is out," Jessie went on, "and it's half a day's
+journey to a dentist."
+
+"And Joe has taken both the horses to go up into the Jerusalem
+settlement after that seed-corn, and he can't get back before
+to-morrow night!" I exclaimed, in consternation. As I sat looking at
+her with eyes more tearful than her own there came to our ears the
+welcome sound of wheels, and a wagon stopped at the gate. I sprang up
+and ran to the door, with some faint hope, for the moment, that Joe
+had returned. It was not Joe who was sitting immovable on the seat of
+the light wagon that was drawn up before the gate, but my astonishment
+would not have been so great if it had been. The small, bronzed-faced,
+wiry individual who sat still, calmly returning my inquiring gaze was
+none other than our persevering enemy, Mr. Jacob Horton. I did not
+fancy our caller, but thinking that he would not have called if he had
+not some reason for so doing, I walked out and down the path toward
+him, saying, "Good morning, Mr. Horton."
+
+"Mornin', Miss Leslie. Folks all well?"
+
+"Not very well; at least, Jessie isn't. She's got a dreadful
+toothache."
+
+"Toothache, eh? That's bad. Nothin' like yankin' out fur an achin'
+tooth. That's my experience, and you may pass it along to Miss Jessie
+for what it's worth."
+
+"I don't know what good it will do her if I do," I replied, rather
+irritably, for Jessie was sobbing now, and the sound hurt me almost
+as much as a physical pain could have done.
+
+"Why, the good it will do is that that old nigger of yours--Joe, you
+call him--will tackle up, she'll tie on her bunnet, hop into the
+wagon, and away for Dr. Green's office in Antonito, and she'll set as
+still as a mouse while the doctor yanks out that tooth; that's the
+good it'll do."
+
+"Yes, that might all be if Joe wasn't away with the team."
+
+"Wal', that does rather spoil my program. Goin' to be gone all day,
+is he?"
+
+"Yes; maybe for two or three days. He's gone up to the Archer
+settlement on the Jerusalem trail."
+
+"Oh, has he? Wal', now!"
+
+Mr. Horton had been sitting all this time with the reins in one hand,
+his hat in the other. He now replaced the hat on his head and stood
+up. He remained standing so, motionless, for more than a minute,
+gazing steadfastly at his horses' ears, while his brow puckered and
+his small eyes narrowed like those of a person in deep thought.
+Finally he exclaimed:
+
+"Say, I tell you how we'll fix it. You all get in here with me and
+come over to my house. Maria, she'll be sure to think of something to
+ease that tooth the minute she claps eyes on ye; then, in the mornin',
+she or I'll take ye over to the doctor's office, and bring ye home
+afterward. Hey, what do you say, Miss Jessie?" for Jessie had by this
+time come out of the gate, with Ralph clinging to her hand.
+
+Jessie, the pain of her aching tooth dulled for the moment by sheer
+amazement, said that he was very kind. She said it almost timidly. We
+had had so little reason hitherto to look for any neighborly kindness
+at Mr. Horton's hands.
+
+"Then ye'll go?" Mr. Horton insisted.
+
+Jessie looked inquiringly at me. Her face was swollen and her eyes red
+with crying.
+
+"Yes, Jessie, do go. There's no knowing when Joe will be back, and
+you--"
+
+"Why, you'd better all come," Mr. Horton interposed again. "There's
+two seats in the wagon--plenty of room. Here, where's the little
+shaver's hat? Get your hat and climb in here, youngster."
+
+Ralph, who was enterprising and fearless, obeyed without protest.
+Peremptorily declining Mr. Horton's invitation to sit with him, he
+took his station on the back seat, and from that vantage urged his
+sisters to make haste.
+
+"Come, 'Essie, us yeady."
+
+Jessie ran in and got her hat, tossed her old coat over her shoulders
+without stopping to put her arms in the sleeves, and, by aid of the
+wheel, mounted to the seat beside Ralph. I, too, had put on my hat,
+but waited to secure the windows, and then to get the door-key. Mr.
+Horton, sitting silent on the front seat, observed my proceedings with
+interest; "You're awful careful, ain't ye?" he said, at length, and,
+in spite of his friendliness, it seemed to my sensitive fancy that
+there was a sneer in his voice. However, that did not greatly trouble
+me, for, from my slight speaking acquaintance with him before this, I
+had come to believe that he never spoke without one, so I replied,
+cheerfully:
+
+"Yes; I guess I am careful enough."
+
+I had locked the door, and was approaching the wagon when Mr. Horton
+asked:
+
+"Where's your dog--you've got one, ain't ye?"
+
+"Guard? Yes, he's with Joe. Why?"
+
+I stopped short as I suddenly realized what Joe's absence for the
+night meant.
+
+"Why, I can't go, Jessie; I shall have to milk both the cows
+to-night!"
+
+"Oh, that's true!" groaned Jessie. She started up.
+
+"I'm sorry we have detained you at all, Mr. Horton, but Leslie can't
+stay here alone all night, and the cows must be milked. Come, Ralph,
+we must get out."
+
+As Ralph slid obediently off his seat, Mr. Horton laid a detaining
+hand on his arm. Ralph wriggled himself loose, looking defiant.
+
+"Wait!" Mr. Horton urged. "It's too bad for you to have to keep on
+sufferin' all night, Miss Jessie, when you might be helped."
+
+"Oh, I know it!" Jessie moaned, sinking back on the seat and covering
+her face with her hands.
+
+"I've never had the toothache myself, but I know it must be dreadful.
+By the way, where are the cows?" Mr. Horton stood up and looked around
+as if he might spy them in the tree-tops or anywhere. "I do'no--I
+wisht' 'twas so I could spend the time--" he muttered reflectively.
+Then, suddenly: "How long will it take ye to milk 'em? I might wait."
+
+"Oh, no! No indeed! I couldn't think of asking you to do that on my
+account!" I exclaimed, feeling very grateful, nevertheless, for the
+interest he displayed. "The cows haven't come up yet; besides, it
+would do no good to milk them now, at noon, for this evening," I
+explained, although Mr. Horton, being a cattleman, should have known
+that without my telling him.
+
+"I've thought what I can do," I said, after a moment. "You and Ralph
+go with Mr. Horton, Jessie, and after the chores are done this
+evening I'll slip over to Crusoe to Mrs. Riley's." Mrs. Riley being
+the kindly Irish-woman with whom old Joe usually boarded when working
+in the mines.
+
+"That's a good plan," Jessie said. "I couldn't bear to leave you here
+alone all night."
+
+Mr. Horton had seemed considerably nonplussed when he found that I was
+not coming with him; he now brightened visibly, remarking: "Yes, you
+can do that; lonesome work for a young gal stayin' alone all night; no
+tellin' what might happen," and then, with that curious fatality that
+so often induces people to say exactly the wrong thing for their
+purpose, he added: "I should 'a' thought your nigger would 'a' left
+the dog here to purtect you young women whilst he was gone. But
+niggers is always thoughtless, and yourn is no exception."
+
+Inwardly resenting both the tone and words, I instantly resolved, in a
+spirit of loyalty to Joe, to remain where I was that night. Why should
+I not, indeed? I had never spent a night alone in my life, but I would
+let Mr. Horton know that I was not afraid to do it--I would let
+him know afterward--just at present I nodded my head in apparent
+acquiescence with his views, and bidding good-by to the trio, walked
+away toward the corral, intent on beguiling them into the belief,
+should they look back, that I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of
+the cows in order that I might the sooner get away myself. In the
+silence that followed upon the last faint rumble of their disappearing
+wheels I thought of something else. Something that made my blood run
+cold with a sickening apprehension of the calamity that had so nearly
+befallen us. A moment more and, the numb fit of terror passed, I was
+dancing down the corral path, saying jubilantly to myself: "Oh, ho,
+Mr. Horton! But it isn't left alone! The homestead isn't left alone.
+I'm here, I'm here!"
+
+Jessie was half crazed with pain, no wonder that she had forgotten,
+but why should it have escaped my mind, until almost too late, that,
+under the homestead laws, the laws by which we hoped to obtain a title
+to this beautiful valley ranch, the house must not be left untenanted
+for a single night, until the deed to it was in the claimant's
+possession. We had heard so much about the homestead laws from poor
+father that we accounted ourselves quite able to comply with them
+all--yet--how nearly we had come to leaving the house vacant that
+night!
+
+And it was Mr. Horton, of all others, who had urged us to do so, and
+he understood the homestead laws; no one better.
+
+The thought of our narrow escape was still with me when, towards
+evening, I heard the tinkle of old Cleo's bell, coming musically down
+the mountain side, and went out to the corral to let down the bars.
+"After all," I thought, looking back at the house as I stood waiting
+by the bars, "it might not have been a complete success for Mr. Horton
+if he had got us all away from home for the night. The house and
+furniture would be pretty good proof to the land agent of the honesty
+of our intentions."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+AN EXCITING EXPERIENCE
+
+
+I had never been left entirely without human companionship before,
+not even for a night, and I soon began to wonder at the amount of
+loneliness that can be compressed into a few hours. Before the
+afternoon was half spent I was mentally reviewing the history of
+Robinson Crusoe, and was feeling an intense sympathy for that
+resourceful castaway.
+
+I lingered over my evening tasks, and, sooner than seemed possible,
+dusk came and night was at hand, so at last I reluctantly closed and
+made fast the kitchen door. Reluctantly, for to-night, this common and
+necessary precaution seemed, somehow, to cut me adrift from all chance
+of human aid, and by this time my mind was running on wild tales of
+bandits, of lonely camps, and the far sweep of the cattle ranges
+where, in darkened hollow or at the foot of shadowy buttes, great
+gray wolves lay in wait for their midnight prey, indifferent as to
+whether the prey consisted of cattle or cattleman.
+
+Still, I am sure that I was not really cowardly; it was only the
+unusual situation that set me thinking of these things. Father's light
+rifle hung in its accustomed place over the kitchen fireplace, and, as
+a last precaution, I took it down, and, after ascertaining that it was
+properly loaded, put it near the head of the bed, within reach of my
+hand. To be expert with firearms is almost a matter of course for
+girls on Western ranches, and I was an unusually good marksman. As it
+would, to my fancy, but intensify the emptiness and loneliness of the
+house if I were to light a lamp, I decided to go straight to bed
+without a light, and, if possible, forget my troubles in sleep. But I
+had hardly reached this sensible conclusion when I became convinced
+that I was thirsty. It is not in the least probable that I should have
+even thought of needing a drink if it had not suddenly occurred to me
+that there was no water in the house. I had used it all, and had
+neglected to fill the pail again. There is no surer provocative of
+thirst than the knowledge that there is no water to be had, and, as I
+thought the matter over, my lips grew dry and my throat parched. It
+was unendurable. In desperation I slipped on the shoes that I had just
+taken off, and, taking the empty pail from the kitchen sink, unlocked
+the door and made a hurried trip to the spring, a few rods west of the
+house.
+
+Returning with a brimming pailful, and disdaining to acknowledge, even
+to myself, that my knees were shaking, I set the pail on a chair by
+the bed-room window. I was determined to have water close at hand, in
+case my thirst became torturing during the night. The cat was mewing
+plaintively on the kitchen doorstep. I re-opened the door and let her
+in, then re-locked the door and, disrobing, crept quickly into bed.
+Curled down snugly under the blankets I was almost dozing when a
+sudden recollection caused me to laugh softly to myself, there in the
+darkness. In spite of my terrible thirst I had entirely forgotten to
+take a drink after the water was at hand. "I'll get up after a while
+if I find that I can't get along without it," I told myself, sleepily,
+and with the sense of amusement still upon me, I was far away into
+dreamland.
+
+I suppose that very few people have escaped the unpleasant, breathless
+sensation of awakening suddenly and completely under the spell of some
+unknown challenge, a warning of some impending danger passed by the
+alert mind to the slumbering senses of the body. I had slept far into
+the night when I awoke, seemingly without cause, to find myself
+sitting upright in bed, listening intently. For a moment I heard
+nothing but the soft padded foot-fall of the cat as, stealing from her
+place on the foot of the bed, she moved restlessly about the room. "It
+must have been her springing off the bed that awoke me," I thought,
+nestling back into the pillows again. I closed my eyes, but opened
+them quickly as a soft rustling outside of, and almost directly
+underneath the bed-room window, came to my ears.
+
+The window-shade was pulled down, but it was hung several inches below
+the top of the window, which had been left open for ventilation.
+Through this uncurtained space the moonlight streamed into the room;
+by its light I saw the cat retreating into a corner farthest from the
+window, her tail swelled out like that of a fox, her hair bristling,
+and her yellow eyes glaring vindictively. She disliked strangers, and
+commonly resented their presence in just this manner. I wondered, as
+my eyes followed the cat's movements with growing apprehension, if
+she would act this way because of the vicinity of any large prowling
+animal. I was sure now, as I crouched tremblingly under the blankets,
+that the increasing noise that I heard was not made by any harmless
+midnight prowler. If it had been, the cat, being a great hunter, would
+have shown an eager desire to get outside the window, instead of away
+from it. Accustomed to the knowledge that there were wild animals in
+plenty up on the mountain slopes and in the encircling forests above
+us, and having abundant reason to know that they often made stealthy
+visits to the valley settlements at night, I soon reasoned myself into
+quietude. Whatever the beast might be, I was in no personal danger;
+the cows were safe in the high-walled corral, and the poultry-house
+securely locked. Reassured, as I recalled these facts, I did not get
+up to make any investigation as to the cause of the noise. "If it's a
+bear, it isn't mine," I told myself, drowsily; "as Joe says, 'I ain'
+los' no bear 'roun' yer.'"
+
+I was half asleep again when a curious sensation, as of a bright light
+playing over my closed eyelids caused me to open them suddenly. Then I
+bounded out of bed, uttering a scream that might, I should think, have
+been heard a mile. A broad sheet of yellow flame was streaming up
+beside the house and over the uncurtained window space. Obeying an
+impulse as irresponsible as the one that had caused that useless
+scream, I seized the loaded rifle at my bedside, and sent a bullet
+whistling and crashing through the window panes. The impression that
+some prowling wild animal was about was probably still strong upon me,
+and, in any case, the shot was not without effect. My shriek and the
+report of the rifle rang out almost at the same instant. Following
+them came a cry, a smothered oath, and the sound of running footsteps.
+Throwing down the yet smoking gun, I ran to the window, tore down the
+obstructing shade with one sweep of my impatient hand, and leaned
+forward, scanning the hillside. The flames reached toward me greedily
+through the opening that my bullet had made, but, although their hot
+breath half blinded me, I saw a man running swiftly for the shelter of
+the hillside pines. I glanced toward the rifle--I was a good shot,
+then. "Thou shalt not kill," I said aloud, but it had occurred to me
+also, that the gun was not loaded. An instant more and I was throwing
+water on the fire from the pailful beside the window ledge. After all,
+as I soon found, the bullet had done more apparent harm than the fire,
+for the heap of inflammable rubbish underneath the window was quickly
+drenched and the fire extinguished. To make all doubly secure,
+however, I reloaded the gun and with that faithful friend in hand
+brought water and poured over the rubbish until it ceased even to
+smoke. The heap was composed of pine needles, pine cones, and resinous
+pitch pine, and once fairly started would have set the house on fire,
+past all saving, in a very short time. When the blackened pile was so
+thoroughly drenched that I could poke around in the ashes with my bare
+hands I gave up pouring water on it, went back into the house, locked
+the door, tacked a heavy blanket up over the dismantled window, and,
+shivering with cold and excitement, again crept into bed. As I lay
+with my finger on the trigger of the rifle, with its muzzle trained on
+the window, I was surer of nothing than that there was no more sleep
+for me that night. But, soothed by the sensation of returning warmth,
+and by the feeling of security that the touch of the rifle gave, I
+closed my eyes--not to sleep, but the better to think. Sleep! I could
+not sleep. Nevertheless--
+
+The sunlight was pouring into the adjoining room when I again opened
+my eyes. Night with its terrors was a thing of the past. I heard the
+imprisoned cows lowing for their milk-maid and realized with a pang of
+self-reproach that I had slept later than I ought. Sitting up in bed
+I looked around, blinking sleepily. The light from the window was
+effectually excluded by the thick blanket, and my slumber had been
+so peaceful that I had scarcely stirred; my relaxed hand had merely
+dropped away from the trigger of the rifle lying beside me. The cat
+was in her old place at my feet, and I smiled to see her trying to
+thrust an inquisitive paw into the muzzle of the gun. Finding the hole
+too small for that purpose she wriggled around lazily until she had
+brought an eye to bear on the cavity that she seemed to suspect might
+contain a mouse. When I had dressed and gone outside I was filled with
+wonder at the narrowness of the escape that the house had had. There
+had been no rain for weeks; scarcely a drop, indeed, since the
+dreadful accident that had left us fatherless--and everything was as
+dry as tinder. Once started, a fire would have devastated the whole
+valley. In the retrospect the danger that we had escaped seemed even
+more terrifying than in the hurry and excitement of the fire itself.
+And--how came that heap of combustible stuff under the window? Who was
+that man whom I had seen running up the hillside as if pursued by the
+furies?
+
+The morning's chores done, I procured broom and rake and set about
+clearing away the unsightly heap from under the window. I was
+raking industriously, when my eye was suddenly attracted by a small
+glittering object near the outer edge of the pile. Stooping, I picked
+it up. It lay in the hollow of my hand, and I stood looking at it for
+a long, long time. "All things come to him who waits." The origin of
+the fire was no longer a mystery, but there were other things. We had
+suffered nearly five years of petty, relentless persecution, and had
+never, never by any chance, been able to produce any direct evidence
+against our enemy. The wind sweeping through the pine boughs on the
+hillside above had, to my fancy, the sound that a great fire makes; a
+great fire that, rioting unchecked, leaves suffering and death in its
+wake. "Much harm would have been done to others besides us if I had
+not been here to put the fire out," I thought, gravely regarding the
+thing in my hand. "Much harm; and the law punishes any one convicted
+of setting a fire, here in the mountains in a dry time, very
+severely." Then I went into the house to put the glittering trifle
+safely out of sight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A VISIT FROM MRS. HORTON
+
+
+I had not looked for Jessie and Ralph to return before night, but the
+article that I had found was scarcely hidden when, chancing to glance
+down the road, I saw Mr. Horton's team, with the light wagon attached,
+trotting briskly toward the house.
+
+Only Jessie, Ralph, and Mrs. Horton were in the wagon, and it startled
+me at first to observe that Ralph was driving. My astonishment changed
+to amusement as they drew nearer, and I saw that Mrs. Horton's capable
+hands held a firm grip of the lines, just far enough behind Ralph's
+not to deprive him of the glory of the idea that he was doing all the
+driving.
+
+"'Oo! 'oo, dere!" he called imperiously, bringing the horses--with
+Mrs. Horton's help--to a standstill before the gate. Jessie sprang
+out and turned to lift the little driver to the ground, while we
+all began talking at once. But our mutual torrent of questions was
+abruptly checked by the contumacious conduct of that same small
+driver, who deeply resented Jessie's invitation to him to come off his
+perch. "Me is doin' tek care of 'e 'orses," he declared, scowling
+defiance at his sister. "Mis 'Orton, 'oo dit out if 'oo p'ease!"
+
+No better description of Mrs. Horton could be given than to say that
+she was all that her husband was not--the dearest soul. She laughed as
+she surveyed the conceited little fellow and then said seriously: "How
+in the world am I to get out if you don't get out first and help me
+down?"
+
+Ralph was unprepared for this emergency, but the objection appeared to
+him reasonable; he slid slowly off the seat--he was so short that it
+seemed a long time before his tiny toes touched the bottom of the
+wagon-box--and began climbing laboriously down, over the wheel. When
+he had at length reached the ground Mrs. Horton stood up and with the
+reins held securely in one hand she gained the hub of the near wheel.
+From that vantage she reached down to meet Ralph's upstretched mite of
+a hand, and so was gallantly assisted to alight.
+
+To my delight Mrs. Horton announced that she had come to spend the day
+with us. She led the team to the barn and we proceeded to unharness
+them without assistance from their late driver, who had already
+forgotten his intention and his dignity in a romp with his friend and
+playmate, the cat.
+
+"I suppose your tooth stopped aching and you decided not to have it
+out," I said to Jessie, as we were helping Mrs. Horton.
+
+"No," Mrs. Horton explained, cheerfully; "by the best of luck, Dr.
+Green chanced to be passing our house last night, soon after Jake
+brought Jessie. We called him in, and as he had his forceps--toothers,
+my little brother used to call them--with him, he had that aching
+tooth out in no time."
+
+"I'm afraid it hurt you dreadfully, didn't it, Jessie?" I inquired,
+sympathetically.
+
+"Not so much as I thought it would; not so much as the aching did,"
+Jessie replied. "People are so cowardly about such things!" she added,
+and the sly look that Mrs. Horton bestowed on Jessie's sister behind
+her back, awoke a suspicion in my mind that, perhaps, Jessie herself
+had betrayed some shrinking dread before the operation took place.
+
+"How glad I am that you didn't have to go clear over to Antonito," I
+said. "You wouldn't have been home for hours yet, and Mrs. Horton
+wouldn't have been making us a visit."
+
+"And Mrs. Horton would a good deal rather be making you a visit than
+driving these horses to Antonito, I can tell you!" said that lady.
+"They're quiet as lambs until it comes to cars and engines, and the
+sight of them scares them both nigh to death, and the railway track
+runs along right beside the highway for a mile before you get into
+Antonito. I'd have been obliged to drive Jessie over, for the hired
+man is gone, and Mr. Horton met with an accident to one of his hands
+last night, and couldn't have driven."
+
+"An accident! How did it happen?" I inquired, with feigned
+carelessness.
+
+"Why, I declare, I can hardly make out how it did happen!" exclaimed
+Mr. Horton's wife, with a troubled look. "There, Jessie, that's hay
+enough to last them a week, and I don't expect to stay that long. You
+see," she went on, slipping the harness deftly off the nigh horse, and
+tossing it down on the pile of hay, "nothing would do Jake last night
+but he must go up to the north pasture to salt the cattle. I told him
+there was no need--they were salted only last Sunday--but go he would,
+and go he did. It got to be so late before he came back that I got
+real uneasy about him. It's a good bit to the north pasture, but I
+knew it ought not to keep him out so very late. Why, it was after
+twelve o'clock when he came in at last, with his clothes torn, and his
+hand done up in his handkerchief and just dripping with blood! Jessie
+and Ralph had gone to bed, hours before, and I was thankful that she
+wasn't up to see it, for it fairly scared me, and I'm not a mite
+nervous, generally. I expect I was the more scared because of Jake's
+way of taking it. He's as steady as iron, most times, but last night
+he was all kind of trembly and excited. He tried to explain to
+me how the accident took place, but I couldn't make out hardly
+what he did mean. It appears, though, that he was coming home
+along the ravine--where it's always dark, no matter how bright the
+moonlight--and he jabbed his hand, as he was walking fast, up against
+a sharp jack oak stub--at least, he thought it must have been some
+such thing--and he got an awful cut. You wouldn't believe, if you
+didn't see it with your own eyes, that a stub of any kind could make
+such a wound! There's a long, slanting cut clean through the palm of
+his hand. I wanted him to let me look in it for splinters, but he's
+real touchy about it; wouldn't even let me bathe it," she concluded
+sadly.
+
+Everybody liked Mrs. Horton, and a good many things that her husband
+did would have been less easily condoned by their neighbors if she had
+been as little of a favorite as he, and one of the things that people
+liked best, while finding it most incomprehensible, was that she
+believed in him and his good intentions most implicitly.
+
+"I don't see how he could possibly have run against an oak stub in a
+ravine," observed Jessie, musingly. "Oaks, and especially jack oaks,
+grow only on the dry hillsides." Jessie is very observing when it
+comes to a question of the flora of a country, and what she said was
+true, as Mrs. Horton hastened to admit.
+
+"I never thought of it before, but I believe that's so," she said. "It
+might have been something else, but Jake himself said that there
+wasn't any other kind of wood that he knew of, tough enough and hard
+enough to make such a cut as that."
+
+Having cared for the horses we three started for the house. "Did you
+have a good bed at Mrs. Riley's?" Jessie now asked, bestowing direct
+attention on me for the first time. We were just entering the house,
+and before I could reply Jessie cried out in surprise at the
+unfamiliar aspect of the bed-room, where the heavy quilt still
+excluded the daylight from the window.
+
+"Why, what is that for?" she asked, perceiving the cause of the
+semi-darkness.
+
+I had purposely refrained from telling my story until now. Now I told
+it, to the consternation of my auditors. Jessie could scarcely credit
+the evidence of her senses, and Mrs. Horton said feelingly:
+
+"Thank God that you have a brave heart and good sense, Leslie! If you
+hadn't thought of that clause in the homestead law in time, and had
+gone away last night, I tell you this settlement would have been in
+mourning this morning! Seems to me that I just couldn't bear for you
+children to lose this place now--this place that your poor pa had set
+his heart on! And to think that such an accident should take place so
+near the time of your proving up makes it so much the worse, for, if
+the house had gone, I don't believe you could have got your title. No,
+not if you had taken down a dozen witnesses to testify to the burning.
+The law is strict. I doubt if the agent would have the power to give
+you a deed unless there was a house standing on the land at the moment
+that the deed was issued, no matter if he wanted to ever so badly."
+
+She was full of sympathy and kindness, poor soul, and, listening to
+her exclamations and condolences, I was sorry for her. Jessie was
+right: there were no jack oaks in the ravine down which Mr. Horton
+must have passed on the way from the north pasture to his home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SURMISES
+
+
+Mrs. Horton and Jessie walked around the house to the bed-room window,
+and stood surveying the pile of rubbish beneath it, wondering greatly
+why a fire should break out in that place.
+
+"The only way I can account for it is that a spark from the chimney
+must have fallen into this pile and set it afire," Mrs. Horton
+observed, turning bits of the pile in question over with the toe of
+her shoe. "I'm not blaming you, Leslie, but it is true that young
+folks can't be too careful with fire. I wouldn't be a mite surprised
+now, if you just filled the kitchen stove full of dry stuff and set it
+off when you built a fire to get your supper."
+
+"Leslie always does use lots of kindling," interposed Jessie, who was,
+it must be admitted, more careful about small savings than I.
+
+"You may depend on it, then, that that's just how it happened," Mrs.
+Horton went on, while I remained silent. "You see, when you start a
+fire like that, lots of live sparks are carried up the chimney, and
+it's just a mercy that there are not more houses burned than there are
+on account of it. I say it for your good, Leslie, when I say that I
+hope this will be a lesson to you; you've had a narrow escape. My! but
+it makes me shudder to think of it!"
+
+As she stopped talking to shudder more effectively I ventured to make
+an observation that, it was strange, had occurred to neither Jessie
+nor herself:
+
+"It took that spark--supposing the fire was started by a spark from
+the chimney--a long time to fall, didn't it? It was after twelve when
+the fire broke out, and I had supper at six, besides--" but there I
+checked myself. The more I thought the matter over, the more desirable
+it seemed that I should keep to myself the dreadful certainty that I
+felt in regard to the origin of the fire. If people liked to believe
+that it was caused by some negligence or carelessness of mine, it
+would only complicate matters, beside robbing them of a comfortable
+conviction, for me to tell that I had had no fire on the previous
+evening. Yet such was the case. I had made my solitary meal of bread
+and milk.
+
+"What a girl you are, to be sure!" Mrs. Horton exclaimed, in genuine
+admiration, as we turned back into the house. "Now, why couldn't
+Jessie or I think of that! Twelve hours to fall! No, it would have
+been six hours falling, wouldn't it? You said the fire broke out about
+midnight. Well, you can think of more things and keep more quiet about
+them than any ten men that ever I saw. When I think of anything I like
+to tell of it, and I expect likely that's the reason that I never
+think of real smart things; I don't hold on to them long enough; I
+pick them before they're ripe."
+
+Jessie went to the stove and lifted a lid to peep inquiringly into the
+fire-box. "I'm not so sure that the fire wasn't started as Mrs. Horton
+says," she declared. "This stove holds fire for a long time, you
+know, Leslie. A gust of wind might have come up and made such a draft
+that the embers started to burning again."
+
+"If all the world were apple-pie, and all the sea were ink, and all
+the trees were bread and cheese, what should we have to drink?" was my
+not irrelevant thought. In strict accordance, however, with the
+character for sagacity that Mrs. Horton had just given me, I said
+nothing; but Mrs. Horton assented to the proposition with energy
+enough for both. Ralph was giving unmistakable signs of sleepiness.
+Mrs. Horton sat down and took him on her lap; the small head drooped
+on her shoulder while she went on to the creaking accompaniment of the
+old rocking chair. "I've just thought of another way in which that
+fire might have been started"--she evidently had it upon her
+conscience to furnish a satisfactory solution of the mystery--"I have
+been noticing that you keep matches in that china saucer over the
+mantel-piece, and it's right alongside the window-sill. Now, girls, I
+don't want to seem to find fault with any of your arrangements; but I
+do like an iron match safe, with a heavy lid, better myself; then
+there's no danger of their getting out, and you can't be too careful
+about such things. Suppose, now, that one of those mountain rats that
+are always prying around, getting into every crack and crevice that
+they can wedge themselves into--suppose one of them had come into the
+house, and crept out again with a lot of matches--they'll eat
+anything--and suppose that rat went through the rubbish pile and
+rubbed against--"
+
+But this line of reasoning proved too much for Jessie, who, with good
+cause, prided herself upon her housekeeping.
+
+"There isn't a hole big enough for a rat to crawl through in the
+house!" she declared, with some warmth.
+
+The rooms were all lathed and plastered. Mrs. Horton looked around.
+"One might come in at a window," she suggested, with less confidence.
+
+Knowing the truth, and having in my possession the means of proving
+it, if need be, I took a somewhat wicked pleasure in this game of wild
+conjecture. It was, at all events, a satisfaction to be able to veto
+this last proposition.
+
+"There were only two windows open, Mrs. Horton, and they were open
+only a few inches at the top," I said.
+
+"A rat might climb up the side of the window, and come in that way,"
+was the reply to this. "But"--her face suddenly brightening as a new
+solution of the mystery flashed upon her mind--"I don't think it was a
+rat, after all, and I'll warrant I know now just how it happened. Last
+night was Wednesday night, you know, and they always have those
+dancing-parties out at Morley's tavern, beyond the Eastern Slope, of a
+Wednesday night. Lots of those Crusoe miners go to them, and they all
+smoke. Now what'll you chance that as one of them was coming
+home--they have to go right past here--he didn't light a match for his
+cigar, and when he was through with it, fling the match right down
+against the house, or, maybe, he threw the stub of a cigar down?"
+
+"It might be, I suppose," Jessie admitted, rather reluctantly. She was
+evidently disposed to abide by her own theory of reviving embers and
+falling sparks.
+
+"Oh, I'm well-nigh sure, now that I think of it, that that was the way
+it happened," Mrs. Horton insisted, pausing to brush Ralph's damp
+curls back from his forehead. "You see, I wouldn't feel so positive
+that it was done in just that way if it wasn't for an experience that
+we had, here in the valley a long spell ago."
+
+"You refer to the time when the great forest was burned?" Jessie
+inquired rather absently. She had seated herself at the sewing machine
+and was busily running up the seams of Ralph's new kilt.
+
+"Yes; that's the time. It was before you came here. And the fire was
+set in the way I spoke of. A couple of young men--they weren't much
+more than boys--came up from town, and they were just at that age when
+they thought it a smart thing to be able to smoke a cigar without
+turning sick after it. They were staying at the hotel, and one day
+they went with a party from there up to see the marble quarries.
+There'd been an awful dry spell; it had lasted for weeks, and
+everything was just as dry as touch-wood. There were notices posted
+all along the roads and trails, forbidding folks building camp-fires,
+or anything of that kind. The boys, after they had been to the
+quarries, started home ahead of the others, and on foot. I don't
+reckon that they'd got above a quarter of a mile from the quarries
+when they pulled out some cigars and matches, intending, of course, to
+have a smoke. Well, they had it, but it wasn't just the kind they'd
+expected. First one, then the other, threw down their lighted matches,
+after they'd got their cigars to going. The wind was blowing hard in
+their faces and toward the quarry, as it happened, and the next thing
+they knew they heard a great roaring, and as they said afterward, two
+pillars of flame seemed to spring right out of the ground, one on
+either side of the trail, and to reach so high that they almost
+touched the tree-tops. In less time than I'm taking in telling of it
+they had reached the tree-tops, and then the two little pillars of
+fire became a great blazing ocean of fire up in mid-air. You know how
+'tis with pine needles and cones; they make a blaze as if the end of
+the world had come. No wonder the poor boys were scared! It was right
+in the thickest part of the woods, and what with the fire roaring away
+before the wind on either side of them, and the clouds of smoke and
+sparks roaring away above the burning tree-tops, it must have been an
+awful sight. They were in no particular danger themselves, because the
+fire was going away from them, but as they stood there, blistering in
+the heat, they thought of their parents--their parents, who were right
+in the path of the flames, and in the way they acted up to that
+thought, you may see the difference in folks. One of them--Dick Adams,
+his name was--pulled his hat down over his eyes, shook out his
+handkerchief and tied it over his mouth to save his lungs, and said
+to the other, 'If anything happens to our folks we are the ones to
+blame for it; come on and help;' and with that he gave a leap down the
+trail as if he would overtake the fire itself. But the other boy, he
+wasn't made of that kind of stuff. He just turned and ran the other
+way, and folks did say that he never stopped running until he reached
+town, twenty miles away. When poor Dick, blackened with grime and
+smoke, with his hair singed and his burnt shoes dropping off his feet,
+staggered into the open space about the quarry, there were the folks,
+and even the horses, all safe. They hadn't started when they saw the
+fire coming, and so, knowing that they were safe where they were, they
+stayed. The fire swept past them on either side, and all they had to
+do was to wait till the trail got cool enough to travel over. There
+was no great damage done after all, though a great many trees were
+destroyed, but so were acres and acres of underbrush, and that was a
+big help to stockmen. Dick was pretty well done up, but he didn't
+care for any more cigars, and his father paid the fine that the
+township's trustees assessed against him, cheerful on that account,
+though he said he was sorry he couldn't save the timber. Now, Leslie,"
+she concluded her story, abruptly, "if you'll just move those hats a
+little I'll lay the baby on the bed."
+
+After I had complied, and Ralph's head was on a pillow instead of her
+arm, she came to Jessie's side and stood regarding her work
+thoughtfully.
+
+"You're real spry on the machine, aren't you?" she at length remarked,
+admiringly. "Now me, I'm as slow!" She looked around the room and
+continued, with seeming irrelevance: "I s'pose the furnishings must
+have cost you a good deal?" Her tone was very gentle.
+
+"Yes," Jessie returned, comprehending her meaning with the quick
+intuition that grief gives. "Yes; they did."
+
+"Well, he's at rest. You can visit his grave. They're worth all they
+cost and more, but I was thinking now if you felt like taking in a
+little sewing to help along until--"
+
+"Why, I'd like to do it, dear Mrs. Horton!" Jessie interrupted,
+looking up with sparkling eyes. "I've never thought of it before, but
+if I could get it to do I would be so glad! Every little toward the
+proving up is just so much gained."
+
+"That is what I was thinking. I can let you have quite a little work
+myself, and I know there are others who will be glad of a chance to
+get sewing done. I declare, I'm glad I thought of it! It will be so
+nice for you to do something to help out right here at home. And," she
+went on, her kind eyes shining, "maybe you can learn to be a
+dressmaker--"
+
+"No, no!" interposed Jessie, who had her future comfortably mapped out
+in her mind. "I mean to be a teacher."
+
+"Do you? That's a good, respectable trade, too, and a teacher you
+shall be if I can do anything to help you get a school."
+
+Jessie smiled up at her gratefully. Mrs. Horton might not, perhaps,
+have great influence in educational circles, but the highest authority
+among them could not have had a kinder heart. But something that Mrs.
+Horton had said set me thinking of quite another matter.
+
+"If you were here so long ago," I observed, suspending my task of
+shelling peas, and looking earnestly at our visitor, "why didn't Mr.
+Horton take up some land? He could have taken anything, almost then,
+and I--we--I have sometimes thought that he kind of wanted this
+place," I concluded, weakly.
+
+Mrs. Horton's gentle face flushed; she was really fond of her husband,
+who, to be sure, was very careful not to let any knowledge of his
+underhanded doings come to her ears.
+
+"To tell the truth, Leslie," she said, "I've thought now and again
+myself that Jake was looking after this place. It's a beautiful place;
+there isn't another as pretty in the valley, but when we first came
+here folks were not thinking of taking up land--no, indeed. Cattle
+ranges were what they were after, and they couldn't abide the settler
+that put up fences. No; Jake let his chance of taking the place slip,
+and your father took it up; and that was right; he wasn't a cattleman,
+and he needed the land to work. Don't you fret about Jake's wanting
+it. He don't need it, for one thing, for we're real well to do, if I
+do say it, and it would be a pretty unneighborly thing for him to
+grudge the place to you now. You see, Jake's ways are different. He
+makes folks think, often, I make no doubt, that he's set on getting
+things when he isn't, really. I expect he'd feel quite hurt if you
+were to lose this place."
+
+"Unless he got it himself," was my silent amendment.
+
+"We could buy the ranch where we are," Mrs. Horton went on, "and I
+wish Jake was willing to do it; I'm like your father was; I want a
+home of my own, but Jake says he doesn't like that place as well as he
+does another that he has in mind."
+
+"What place is that?" asked Jessie.
+
+"I don't know, really, Jake's no hand to talk over business matters
+with me; no hand at all, and so I don't worry him. I just let him take
+his own gait." And a very bad gait it was, if she had but known it,
+poor woman!
+
+No more was said about the land, the remainder of the day passed
+pleasantly, and it was nearly night-fall when Mrs. Horton again
+climbed into the wagon-seat and headed the horses toward home.
+Good-bys had been exchanged when, suddenly, she drew in the restless
+horses to say: "You tell old Joe, when he comes back, how that fire
+got started; tell him that he must be more careful, these dry times,
+how he lets such a lot of dry stuff get lodged against the house."
+And, with that admonition, she was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+"BEST LAID PLANS"
+
+
+Joe came home the next day, and his indignation, when Jessie told him
+of the fire, and of the manner--presumably--in which it originated,
+was nearly as scorching as the fire itself. Nothing in the whole
+affair seemed to rouse his wrath to such a pitch as did her recital of
+the theories that she and Mrs. Horton had evolved to account for the
+threatened disaster.
+
+"W'at sort of fool talk dat?" he inquired, contemptuously, when Jessie
+had concluded.
+
+"Why, Joe, the fire must have started in some such way!" Jessie
+insisted.
+
+"Honey, yo's done got a forgibbin' sperrit; yo' not only forgibs yo'
+inimy, like what de Bible say fur ter do, but yo' eben furgits dat yo'
+has one!"
+
+"Oh, Joe! Surely you cannot think that it was the work of an
+incendiary?"
+
+"Ob a 'cindery? No, hit ain' dat."
+
+"What do you think, then, Joe?"
+
+"W'at I t'ink? Some low-down sneak sot hit afire. Dat's w'at I t'ink.
+An' I wouldn' hab ter hunt long afore I done laid my han's on him,
+neider." Jessie looked so shocked, and so cast down, that, chancing to
+catch the old man's eye, I shook my head at him warningly. Joe
+understood. His beloved master Ralph's tactics had been those of
+silence and Joe was willing to follow them to the end. But he muttered
+scornfully: "'Cindery? Dat a likely idee; w'en I nebber lef' a heap o'
+stuff like dat ag'in' nobody's house en all my life! Look like I'd go
+fur ter doin' hit now, w'en dish yer house hole my own fambly!"
+
+He seated himself in the corner with a bit of harness that he had
+brought up to the house to mend, in his hand, but presently he began
+searching anxiously for some mislaid tool.
+
+"What have you lost, Joe?" I asked.
+
+"W'y I ain' right shore as I done los' anyt'ing, chile, but de needle
+an' t'read w'at I put in dis cheer, ag'in' I wanted 'em, 'pear to hab
+crope away some'ers; likewise dat ar leetle case knife w'at I cuts
+leather wiv'. Dey's gone, an' I doan see dat chile Ralph 'round'
+nowhere's."
+
+Just at this point the door was pushed a little farther open and a
+cheerful voice proclaimed: "Here me is, Doe!"
+
+The voice was followed by its owner, little Ralph, but such a curious
+spectacle the boy presented that the occupants of the room stared at
+him a moment in amazed silence. Jessie was the first to recover her
+power of speech and remonstrance:
+
+"Ralph! Oh, what have you been doing, you naughty, naughty boy!"
+
+It was evident that the little trespasser had not realized that his
+recent occupation had been in any way objectionable. His lips began to
+quiver, but he stood his ground manfully.
+
+"Me isn't a notty, notty b'y, Jeppie. Me is a yittle 'orse, an' 'ese
+are 'e yittle 'orse's ley bells."
+
+"Sleigh bells! Didn't you know any better than to pull up all of
+Joe's cantaloupes and string them on to threads--how you could do it I
+can't imagine--to hang around your shoulders?"
+
+"Dey isn't 'antelopes, Jeppie; dey's ley bells."
+
+"How did you do it? Oh, you naughty--"
+
+"Me did it wiv Doe's little knife an' Doe's needle an' t'read; an' me
+hurted me's han's, me did."
+
+The recollection gave him the excuse that he was longing for. The
+string to one of his odd sets of sleigh-bells broke as he started
+across the room, with outstretched arms, for Joe, and he left a trail
+of small, hard, green melons as he ran. "Doe!" he cried, as the old
+man lifted him tenderly to his breast, "me hurted me han's!" The howl
+of anguish with which he repeated the statement was partially
+smothered by reason of the sufferer's face being buried in Joe's neck.
+"Jeppie say me is notty, notty b'y!" he continued, sobbing.
+
+"Miss Jessie," the old man said, with dignity, looking disapprovingly
+at his young mistress over the boy's shaking shoulders, "yo' means
+well, honey; I ain' a doubtin' ob dat, but yo' done got er heap ter
+learn 'bout managin' chillen. Yo's done hurted pore little Ralph's
+feelin's mighty bad!"
+
+"His feelings ought to be hurt!" Jessie persisted, indignantly. "A boy
+who is old enough to do such a piece of mischief as that is old enough
+to know better. And, Joe, it isn't right for you to encourage him in
+it."
+
+"Honey, hit ain' likely, now, is hit, dat any one has dish yer pore
+little feller's good more at heart dan I has, now is hit?"
+
+"No, Joe, it isn't."
+
+"Berry well, den; now yo' listen at me. Ef I had a t'ought ob hit w'en
+I was a plantin' dem dere little yeller seeds I'd put out a patch on
+purpose for dis chile ter 'a' had fur a marble quarry, or fur
+sleigh-bells, or w'atebber he tuck a notion fur. But I didn't t'ink of
+hit, an' de chile did. Dat's all!"
+
+It was utterly useless to argue against such self-abnegation as this,
+but Jessie could not forbear saying: "Think of the trouble you have
+taken with that melon patch. You've scoured the whole valley, high
+and low, for tin cans to cover the vines when a frost was threatened,
+and you've spent days in hoeing and weeding them."
+
+"And dere ain' a purtier patch ob melons, er a more promisin' one, in
+de whole State, ef I does say hit!" Joe declared with pride.
+
+"Don't be too sure of that, Joe. You haven't seen it since Ralph has
+been over it."
+
+Joe shifted the child's position, so that the tear-stained little
+white face rested against his own, to which it formed a wonderful and
+beautiful contrast. "W'at melons dese yer little han's been a-pullin'
+up ain' no loss t' nobody," he said; "an' I wants de chile t' 'joy
+hisself."
+
+A subsequent examination of the melon patch established the truth of
+Joe's words. At the moment, however, the idea that Ralph gathered was
+that he had done a rather commendable thing than otherwise. "Shall me
+pull up 'e rest of 'em?" he asked hopefully, snuggling closer to the
+black face. Joe stole a sheepish look at Jessie, whose eyes were
+dancing with amusement.
+
+"Not jess yit, wouldn't go fur t' pull 'em, honey, chile. Wait twell
+dey's growed 'bout as big as er coffee-cup, an' den jess bring yo'
+little toofies tergedder on de inside o' one of 'em. Yo's et oranges,
+an' yo's squalled hard w'en dey was gone, 'cause dere wan't no mo' of
+'em. But yo' won't look at a orange when yo' kin git a cantaloupe."
+
+"Den me lets 'em drow," Ralph declared magnanimously, and it is but
+fair to the child to say that he kept his word.
+
+"Come and gather up all your sleigh-bells, then, Ralph," Jessie
+admonished him.
+
+Climbing down from Joe's lap he set about the clearance, awkwardly
+enough. The abbreviated skirt of his little dress was about half
+filled--he had made a kind of bag of it by gathering the folds tightly
+in one hand while he picked up melons with the other--when there came
+a knock at the door. Dropping the spoil that he had already secured,
+Ralph ran across the room to admit the caller, the melons rolling in
+every direction. Joe glanced at them apprehensively, and then gave his
+undivided attention to the harness mending.
+
+The visitor who entered the room on Ralph's hospitable invitation was
+our near neighbor, Caleb Wilson. Mr. Wilson glanced at the array of
+hard little spheres on the floor and laughed.
+
+"I'll bet a cent you've been up to mischief, youngster," he said,
+nodding to me as I handed him a chair.
+
+He looked smilingly at Ralph, who retreated to Joe's side, and made no
+answer.
+
+"Ralph, do you hear Mr. Wilson?" Jessie sternly inquired.
+
+"'Ess; me hears him."
+
+"Why don't you answer him, then?"
+
+"'Tause he didn't ask me nuffin'."
+
+Joe's sombre face lighted up; his white ivories gleamed out suddenly
+like a flash of sunlight through a storm cloud. To Joe's mind few
+people had a right to question the doings of a Gordon, of any age or
+degree, and Mr. Wilson was not one of the favored few. Our genial
+neighbor laughed.
+
+"That's right, my little man; I didn't. I made a statement, and you
+seem to be sharp enough already to see the difference."
+
+He had been carrying a covered tin pail in his hand. He now set it on
+the floor beside his chair, while Jessie, who had it much at heart
+that her little brother must be properly trained, remarked:
+
+"Ralph has been very naughty."
+
+"He'll come out all right; don't you go to worrying about him, Miss
+Jessie," Mr. Wilson admonished her, cheerfully. "He's nothing but a
+baby, anyway," he continued, "but what even a baby can want of all
+those little green knobs of cantaloupes is more'n I can tell, but
+seeing 'em calls to my mind a fruit speculation of mine, last summer."
+
+"I thought you were a cattleman?" I interrupted, involuntarily.
+
+Mr. Wilson glanced down at the pail beside his chair. "Well, I am,
+Leslie, but a cattleman doesn't have to be sensible all the time. I
+had a kind of spell last summer when I wasn't sensible, and while it
+was at its height I got hold of a pile of young tomato plants and set
+'em out. You see, as everybody else, pretty nigh, is in the cattle
+business, too, there ain't much fruit raised around here, and so I
+'lowed I'd be able to dispose of my tomato crop to good advantage.
+Along in August the crop was ready to market, and it was a hummer, no
+mistake. The construction gang and the engineers were working on the
+big storage reservoirs out beyond Turtle Shell Buttes then, just as
+they are now. There's a lot of men employed there and I knew that
+there was the place to go with my tomatoes."
+
+"What, away out on the plains, beyond the valley? That must be twenty
+miles away," Jessie remarked, as Mr. Wilson paused to chuckle over
+some amusing reminiscence.
+
+"It's all of that; maybe more. But you must remember that driving
+over the plains is like driving over a level floor. Distance doesn't
+count for much when the roads are always smooth and even. Well; one
+afternoon Tom and I filled the bottom of the wagon-box with a soft bed
+of fresh alfalfa hay and then we piled tomatoes in on top of it till
+they came clean up to the edge of the top bed. Of course if the roads
+had been rough it ain't likely that even a cattleman would 'a' thought
+of taking such a load in that way; as it was, I reckon there wasn't a
+tomato smashed in transit. I didn't get quite as early a start as I'd
+'lowed to, so it was just noon when I reached the camp."
+
+"I should have thought that you would lose the way," I said. My mind
+had conjured up a vivid picture of the far stretches of unfenced
+plains that lay between our mountain-walled valley and the great water
+storage system where a single lake already sparkled like a white jewel
+on the gray waste of plains. "There are wolves, too," I added,
+suddenly.
+
+"Yes; there are wolves, but they don't eat tomatoes. And, as for
+losing the road, all that I had to do was to follow it; it stretches
+out, plain as a white ribbon on a black dress. As I said, it was noon
+when I reached camp. All hands had struck work and gone to dinner, so
+I thought I'd wait till they got through before I sprung the subject
+of tomatoes on them.
+
+"There ain't a tree nor a shrub bigger than a soap weed within a mile
+of the reservoirs, and as I didn't want to set and hold the horses all
+the time, I unhitched 'em and tied 'em to the wagon-box; one on each
+side. I knew that they wouldn't eat the tomatoes, and, as there was
+plenty of horse feed in camp, I 'lowed to buy their dinner when I run
+on to some one to buy it of. It turned out, though, that the horses
+didn't understand about that; they had a scheme of their own, and they
+worked it to good advantage.
+
+"I strolled off, and pretty soon I got mighty interested in lookin' at
+the works; it's a big enterprise, I tell you! I was gone from the
+wagon a good deal longer than I'd laid out to be, and I don't know as
+I'd 'a' woke up for an hour or two, but I heard a fellow laughin' over
+that way and so I went over to see what was goin' on. Well, I found
+out." Mr. Wilson paused impressively and glanced around at us. Joe was
+listening with such absorbed attention that his work had slipped
+unheeded from his hands and Ralph had again secured the harness needle
+and was awkwardly re-stringing his imitation sleigh bells. "What was
+it?" I asked.
+
+"Why, you see, I'd plumb forgot about the alfalfa hay, but the horses
+had remembered, and they nosed through the fruit until they come to
+it, and they hadn't lost a minute's time, either. When the hay'd given
+out in one place they'd worked through at another until they struck
+bed rock again. The whole load was just a mass of tomato jam; the
+juice was running out of the box in a stream, and the horses were red
+with it from hoof to forelock. There wasn't a bushel of whole fruit
+left. I jerked out the tailboard and dumped the mess on the ground,
+while about forty men stood around just yellin' and hootin' with
+delight. They got more pleasure out of it than they could possibly 'a'
+got from eatin' the tomatoes. The cook came out of his little tent
+alongside the big dining tent, to see what the racket was about, and
+when he got his eyes on the fruit he was powerful mad. He said he'd
+'a' given a dollar and a half a bushel for the load. He wanted me to
+promise to come with another load the next day, but I'd had enough of
+fruit raisin'--'specially when the horses did the heft of the
+raisin'--I wouldn't 'a' faced that yellin' crowd again for a hundred
+dollars. No, sir! I come right straight home, and I sent word 'round
+among the neighbors to come and help themselves to all the tomatoes
+they could lug home; what they didn't take the frost did, and that was
+the end of my experiment in fruit raising."
+
+"It was just too bad!" I exclaimed, feeling that I ought to say
+something sympathetic.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," returned our neighbor, in his comfortable way. "It
+was all my fault. A man's got to keep his wits about him, no matter
+what he undertakes to do, and I left mine at home that day. My wife'll
+think I'm lost, wits and all, if I stay much longer, that's a fact."
+
+He rose to his feet, and, after bidding us a cordial farewell, started
+for the door. Then the pail on the floor caught his eye to remind him
+that his intractable wits had again strayed. "Well, I declare for it!
+I come nigh forgetting what I stopped for. Seems like a good way to
+come for milk, doesn't it? We had company come unexpected, and nothing
+would do Sarah but I must ride over here and ask you for some milk.
+Condensed milk is good enough for us, but Sarah says it ain't good
+enough for company."
+
+Jessie had already taken the pail and started for the pantry; when she
+re-appeared with it filled, she said, demurely:
+
+"I thought that you said you were a cattleman, Mr. Wilson."
+
+"Oh, bless you! Don't you know the old saying about a shoemaker's
+wife? Lots of folks that can count their cattle by the thousand head
+would be glad if they could be sure of as much nice milk and butter
+as you girls get off your two cows, Miss Jessie. It's management, you
+see."
+
+"You mean want of management, don't you?" returned Jessie, smiling.
+
+Mr. Wilson's jolly laugh floated back to us as he went down the walk
+toward the horse that was waiting for him at the gate, and then I
+roused myself to observe that Joe was again hunting for his tools. He
+presently rescued them from Ralph's destructive little hands, and set
+to work, only pausing the while to remark:
+
+"I reckons dat ar watah sto'age camp gwine be a 'mighty good place fur
+to sell we all's melon crap at."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
+
+
+The Hortons' place was some five miles below ours, if one followed the
+main road, but they were often passing the house on their way to and
+from the little country store and post-office. So it was not
+surprising that Mrs. Horton should reappear in a few days with a large
+bundle of sewing of her own for Jessie to do, and the intelligence
+that she had interviewed several of the neighbors, some of whom had
+said that they would gladly employ Jessie.
+
+"You are so good, Mrs. Horton," Jessie exclaimed gratefully. "It will
+be a real help to us if we are able to earn a little in this way."
+
+"Maybe you won't feel so anxious to do it when you see what I've
+brought," the good woman said, as she proceeded to untie her bulky
+bundle. "You see," she explained, "Jake nearly tore the coat from his
+back when he went up to salt those cattle the other night. He seems,
+from what I can make out, to have had a regular circus with himself,
+and I'm so busy, what with the housework and being obliged to do all
+the trading--for Jake never will go to the store if he can get out of
+it--I've had no time to mend it. I put it right in here with the other
+things, hoping that you or Leslie wouldn't mind mending it for me."
+
+My very spine seemed to stiffen at the idea of mending the clothing
+that had been torn while its wearer was making a futile attempt to
+burn our house, but Jessie, knowing nothing of all this, and naturally
+trustful, replied tranquilly:
+
+"Certainly, we will, Mrs. Horton, if you think we can do it well
+enough."
+
+"Oh! anybody can do it well enough. If I had my way with it I'd put it
+into the stove and have done with it," she announced frankly. "It's
+seen its best days. But it appears to me that the longer Jake wears a
+thing the better he likes it. What a figure he would have made in the
+days of Methuselah, to be sure!"
+
+She shook the coat out and laid it on the table. Jessie turned it
+over, examining some gaping rents, evidently of recent make. Finally,
+
+"Here's a button gone," she said. I felt my face grow white, while
+Mrs. Horton explained placidly:
+
+"Yes; and that's a pity, for the buttons are worth more than the coat.
+They're quite curious, if you'll notice. I never saw any like them
+before he got that coat. I think myself that that little brass leaf
+stuck on to the front of them looks fussy on a man's coat buttons, but
+Jake thinks they're so tasty. He was wonderfully put out when he found
+that he'd lost one of them. The land sake, Leslie!" she broke off
+suddenly as her glance fell on me. "Are you sick, child? Why, you are
+as pale as a sheet! Isn't she, Jessie?"
+
+Jessie, glancing up from the tattered coat, in alarm, confirmed this
+statement, and they were both anxiously inquiring if I felt sick, and
+how long since the attack came on, and if I hadn't better go right to
+bed, when a diversion was created by the entrance of Joe. Joe had the
+weekly county paper open in his hand; he could read a little in a
+halting and uncertain fashion, but did not often trouble himself to do
+it. "There must have been something of special interest to him in this
+issue," I thought, and was not left long in doubt as to what it was.
+
+"Heah we is!" he exclaimed, gleefully, extending the paper toward
+Jessie; "heah's our third and las' notice ob provin' up!"
+
+"Oh, is it there?" cried Jessie, seizing the paper, and running her
+eye quickly over the item indicated by Joe's stubby black finger. Mrs.
+Horton, brushing her husband's cherished coat from the chair where
+Jessie had dropped it to the floor, seated herself, leaning forward in
+anxious attention, and even Ralph, abandoning a furtive attempt to put
+the cat in the water-pail, came and leaned against her knees, while
+Jessie read aloud:
+
+    "Before the United States Land Office at Fairplay, Chico
+    County, on August 30th, 18--, will appear, viz.: Ralph C.
+    Gordon, who enters Homestead claim, No. 4571, for the W. 1-2,
+    W. 1-4, Section 34, and S. 1-2 Section 33, Township 22 S.,
+    Range 68 W.
+
+    "Ralph C. Gordon names the following witnesses to prove his
+    continuous residence upon, and cultivation of said land,
+    viz.:
+
+    "W. H. Wright, S. H. Stearns, C. L. Wilson, all of Chico
+    County.
+
+                    "W. W. BAYARD, Register."
+
+We all listened to the reading with breathless interest. When it was
+concluded Mrs. Horton observed: "Wright, Stearns, and Wilson, they're
+your witnesses, are they?"
+
+"Yes; father selected them, you know," Jessie replied.
+
+"They're good men, all of them, but, I declare, I wish that your pa
+had thought to put Jake on, too! It would have given me a good excuse
+to go down with you when the day comes. Not but what I mean to go
+anyhow, for that matter. Well, now, your date is set. It wasn't set
+before, was it?"
+
+"No; the other notices read: 'On a day to be hereinafter named, etc.'"
+
+"August 30th," Mrs. Horton repeated, musingly; "let's see, this is the
+15th. You've got two weeks and a day yet to wait. It don't give a
+great amount of time to get money in, but it's a relief to know when
+it's coming off, isn't it?"
+
+Joe had been sitting in his corner, saying nothing, but, just at this
+point, I saw him roll his eyes scornfully at our neighbor, and
+wondered if it could be that the old man was jealous of her openly
+expressed interest in the little family to which he laid prior claim.
+"Yes," Jessie said, replying to Mrs. Horton's question: "It is a great
+relief, and, after all, we've done about all that we can to make ready
+for it."
+
+"I'm not doubting that, still, I wish, now that we've thought of it,
+that you did have time to earn a little more by sewing. How much are
+the witnesses' fees?"
+
+"Six dollars each; it will take eighteen dollars for that alone,"
+Jessie told her.
+
+"Eighteen dollars! and I don't suppose you can have much more than
+that on hand!" Mrs. Horton's face lengthened. "I wish I had it to lend
+you," she remarked, at last. "You could pay me in sewing; but Jake--"
+
+We had heard of Mr. Horton's views on the money question. He always
+ran bills at the store because, he said, a woman couldn't be trusted
+with ready cash. "Give a woman her head and she'll spend all a man has
+on knick-knacks!" was an observation with which even his chance
+acquaintances were unduly familiar. How often, then, must his poor
+wife have heard it.
+
+Pitying her halting effort to give a good excuse for not having the
+sum needed--when they were so wealthy--and still loyally shield her
+tyrant, I said: "I'm sure the witnesses will not be at all hard on us;
+they will be willing to wait a little if necessary, don't you think
+so, Jessie?"
+
+But before Jessie could reply, Joe interposed: "Mr. Wilson, he done
+say he goin' gib me a chance for to wuck for him w'en I wants to;
+mebbe I goin' want ter wuck out dem witness fee; no tellin'."
+
+This was ambiguous, but we well understood that the old man did not
+like to talk of business matters before strangers--as he regarded
+every one outside the immediate family.
+
+"Your first notice came out along in the spring, didn't it?" Mrs.
+Horton inquired.
+
+"In April," Jessie replied, and was silent, a dreamy look in her eyes,
+while I vividly recalled the stormy day when father came back from a
+visit to the post-office with the paper containing the first notice in
+his hand. I heard the April rain beating against the window panes
+while father told us children--for Jessie and I were children then; it
+was so long ago, measured by heart-beats, oh! so long ago--that our
+notice was out and the witnesses named.
+
+Joe broke a little silence by remarking: "Dere's ten acres ob as fine
+w'eat as ebber growed out doahs, a waitin' to be cut an' threshed
+atwixt dat day an' dis."
+
+"Ten acres!" Mrs. Horton echoed. "What a help that'll be to you! I do
+hope you'll get it taken care of all right."
+
+"I'se goin' tek keer ob hit; yo' needn't fur to fret about dat. I'se
+goin' at hit, hammer an' tongs, day arter to-morry mornin'."
+
+"Why not to-morrow?" Jessie inquired eagerly; "Leslie and I can help
+you."
+
+"I reckons dere can't nobody help me much w'en I'se done got a broken
+reaper to wuck with."
+
+"Oh, that's too bad! How long will it take to get it fixed?" Jessie
+asked.
+
+"I'se done get hit fixed to-morry, sure, den--we see."
+
+"Leslie and I will help you," Jessie repeated. "The wheat is worth
+more than any sewing that we can do. If we can get it marketed it will
+pay up all our bills, nearly, won't it, Joe?"
+
+"I spec' maybe hit will, honey," Joe returned, grinning complacently.
+"Doan you chillen fret about nothin'," he continued earnestly. "Dem
+bills all goin' be paid up, clean to de handle."
+
+I confess that I felt far less sanguine than he appeared to be on that
+point.
+
+"Isn't it a mercy that our corn and wheat have been let to grow in
+peace this year?" I said, after Mrs. Horton had taken her leave. "It's
+the first year since we have been here that such a thing has
+happened."
+
+"I hope it will be the last year that we will have to try raising a
+crop without a fence," Jessie replied. For our fence building had
+stopped abruptly with the digging of some post holes on that day in
+April. Pumping the water out of the mine had been an expensive piece
+of work, and all the valley people who had lost relatives in the
+accident, many who had not, indeed, had come gallantly to the Gray
+Eagle's aid when that task was undertaken. Because of the aid that we
+had furnished, our fence was still unbuilt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+RALPH AND I GO BLACKBERRYING
+
+
+"Chillen's, dere's lots ob blackberries on de hill above de w'eat
+fiel'," Joe stopped to remark, as he was about starting for the
+blacksmith shop with the reaper, the next morning.
+
+"They'll have to stay there as far as I'm concerned," returned Jessie,
+who was busily engaged in sewing up the gaping rents in Mr. Horton's
+coat; "I haven't time to gather them."
+
+"Me do det 'em!" exclaimed Ralph, starting up from the floor, where he
+had been vainly trying to fasten some paper boots on Guard's paws.
+Guard did not object, but, when a boot was, after much trouble,
+partially secured, he took it in his mouth and calmly pulled it off.
+"Me do dit 'ackburries yite now," reiterated Ralph.
+
+"No," said Jessie, "Ralphie can't go."
+
+Thus summarily enjoined, Ralph began to roar, as a matter of course.
+Joe, who had already started to climb into the reaper seat, came back
+and looked in at the door, the better to look reproachfully at us.
+
+"I doan like dish yer sperrit ob money-gettin'," he declared,
+frowning. "Denyin' a little chile all his innercent pleasures fo' de
+sake ob scrapin' a few censes togedder!" he exclaimed severely.
+
+Jessie laughed, with a suspicious little catch in her voice; it was
+hard to be misunderstood, if only by blundering, faithful old Joe. "I
+really must not spare time to go with him, Joe," she said in
+self-defense, "but perhaps Leslie had better go. It will do you good,
+dear," she added, mindful of my inexplicable paleness on the preceding
+day.
+
+"I don't need being done good to, Jessie, but evidently Ralph does, so
+I'll take him out," I said, while old Joe nodded approvingly.
+
+"Dat's right; dat's right, honey, chile," he declared, and again
+betook himself to the waiting team and reaper. Freed from the danger
+of being compelled to wear boots, Guard had gone outside and placed
+himself by the doorstep, where he was, to all appearances, peacefully
+dozing when Joe started. But, before the team had turned the shoulder
+of the nearest hill, he arose, stretched himself lazily, and trotted
+slowly down the road after them.
+
+Soon after Joe's departure, Ralph and I, baskets in hand, started for
+the blackberry patch. Ralph's basket was a little toy candy pail,
+which he assured Jessie he should bring to her "filled way up on 'e
+top wiv burries." The blackberry vines grew along the upper edge of
+the wheat field. We stopped when fairly above the field to admire the
+square of yellow grain spread out below us, the bended heads of wheat
+nodding and swaying in the light breeze, and the tall stalks now and
+then rippling in soft, undulating waves, as if a gentle wind had moved
+over a sea of gold. Next to the wheat stood the corn in file after
+file, the leaves rustling and the tasseled heads held bravely aloft.
+Green uniformed soldiers of peace and plenty they seemed to me,
+bidding defiance to want and famine. I might better say that I stopped
+to admire the grain fields, for Ralph had no æsthetic enthusiasm. His
+one desire was to reach the "'ackburry" patch and begin stuffing them
+into that little red mouth of his.
+
+"Tum on, 'Essie," he said, tugging at my hand impatiently as I
+lingered. "Me's so hungry."
+
+"Yes; it must be half an hour at least since you had breakfast," I
+replied unfeelingly, but turning my back on the fields nevertheless
+and hastening on.
+
+There were, as Joe had said, lots of blackberries, as we found on
+reaching the spot. I helped Ralph to fill his little bucket and he
+trudged along at my side, eating steadfastly, but sometimes suspending
+even that fascinating employment to cling to my skirts and shrink
+closer to me as we came upon a particularly luxuriant cluster of
+vines. They were so tall and arched so high above his sunny little
+head, and the prickly vines extended away and away in vistas that
+must have seemed so endless to his small stature that it was no wonder
+if he felt somewhat overawed at times.
+
+We were well up on the hillside, and the fields below us were hidden
+from our view, when he suddenly announced that it was time to go home.
+
+"Oh, no, Ralph," I said, "see, sister hasn't got her basket nearly
+full yet. Here's some nice large berries; let me fill your bucket
+again."
+
+"No; 'eys sour. Me don't like 'ackburries any more!"
+
+"I don't wonder!" I thought, recalling the number of times that I had
+filled the small bucket, and he had emptied it, but I remained
+discreetly silent. The little fellow had been humored so much since
+father's death--and, perhaps, before--that the moment he was opposed
+he cried, so now he began to whimper forlornly: "Me 'ants to do home,
+'Essie!"
+
+"What for, dear?"
+
+"Me's s'eepy."
+
+That appeared very probable, too, but I disliked to return with a
+half-filled bucket when the berries were so abundant and fairly
+begging to be picked. Looking around, inquiringly, I saw, under a
+clump of bushes at some little distance, an inviting carpet of cool
+green grass. Taking the child in my arms I carried him over and laid
+him down on the grass, putting my apron under his head for a pillow.
+"There, Ralph, isn't that nice? I'll stay right close by you and you
+can sleep here in the bushes like the little birds."
+
+Ralph smiled sleepily, nestling his head closer into the impromptu
+pillow. "'Ess," he murmured drowsily, "'is nice; now me is a yittle
+yay bird." He meant no reflection on himself in the comparison. His
+acquaintance with jay birds was limited, but he recognized them when
+he met them, and considered them very good fellows. The cool breeze
+fanned him; the leaves rustled, their airy shadows playing over his
+face, and Ralph was sound asleep almost as soon as his drowsy eyes
+closed. I watched him for a moment and then hastened back to my
+chosen corner of the blackberry patch and resumed picking.
+
+Unconsciously, as I worked, I pressed in among the tall vines until at
+length the recumbent little figure on the grass was quite hidden from
+sight. That did not really matter, for I was easily within call. No
+sound coming from that quarter I gradually became more and more
+absorbed in my task. It would be very nice, I thought, to carry a
+brimming bucket full of berries down to the house on my return. Once
+or twice I suspended operations to stand still and listen under the
+startled impression that I had heard some unusual noise. Convinced
+each time that there was nothing; that I was mistaken, I continued
+picking, but I remember that I did glance up once at the cloudless
+sky, wondering, in an idle way, why I should have heard thunder.
+
+The bucket was quite full and I was backing carefully out from a thick
+cluster of canes, having a respectful regard for their sharp thorns,
+when, suddenly, the air was rent with a wild shriek, coming from the
+direction of the grassy plot where I had left Ralph. Shriek after
+shriek followed. I had heard those high piercing notes too many times
+to be left in an instant's doubt; the shrieks were his. Tearing my way
+out of the bushes, regardless now of thorns and scratches, I bounded
+into the open. The scene that presented itself, when I could get a
+view of what was going on, almost took away my breath. The entire
+hillside, and the fields below, were literally swarming with cattle.
+Not the tame domestic herds of peaceful Eastern meadows, but the wild,
+long-horned, compactly built, active, and peculiarly vicious beasts
+known in Western parlance as "range stock."
+
+Ralph had been awakened, none too soon, perhaps by the trampling of
+hoofs, perhaps by the low bellowing that I had absently attributed to
+unseen thunder clouds. However it was, he had started up, as he
+afterward sobbingly expressed it, "To make 'e bad tows do away, so 'ey
+not hurt 'Essie."
+
+In pursuance of this design he had advanced toward the foremost of
+them, shouting and waving his big straw hat in one hand, while
+attempting to wave my apron in the other. The apron was long and he
+was short, and the effort to wave it in self-defense resulted in his
+becoming wound up in it, falling, and rolling bodily down the
+hillside, in the face of some half dozen wild-eyed steers, who were
+coming up it. It was then that he screamed, and I appeared on the
+scene at the very instant that one of the steers, awakening from what
+appeared to be a momentary trance of surprise, advanced toward the
+screaming little bundle, bellowing and pawing the ground. The immense
+black head, crowned with a pair of great horns, curving like a Turkish
+scimiter, and with a point as keen, was lowered; the savage animal was
+on the very verge of charging on the helpless child, when my screams
+drew his attention toward me. He paused, lifted his head, stared at
+me, and, retreating a step or two, began pawing the ground again, at
+the same time sending forth a hoarse challenge which seemed to
+proclaim his readiness to engage me and all my race in a hand to horn
+conflict if need be. His bit of bovine bravado had given me time to
+reach Ralph. I caught him up and thrust him behind me. Clutching my
+skirt tightly, he brought his scared little face into view for an
+instant to exhort me. "Don't 'e be 'fraid, Essie, me knock 'e pie out
+o' 'at bad tow if her touches 'oo!" Then he shrank back, creeping
+under the friendly shelter of the blackberry canes until he was, as I
+afterward found, quite lost to view. It all took place so quickly that
+I had scarcely time to realize the danger before I was called upon to
+act. If I had turned to run, in the first instance, the great beast
+would have been upon me, and, in less time than it takes to tell it, I
+should have been ground and trampled out of human semblance. As I
+stood my ground he hesitated, challenged again, and, as others of the
+herd started toward him, charged.
+
+In spite of the signal service that it rendered me, I cannot
+conscientiously recommend a twelve-quart tin bucket, filled with
+blackberries, as a reliable weapon of defense. There would be only
+about one chance in a hundred, I should think, of its proving useful
+in just the way that mine did. When the steer charged I was, in fact,
+quite wild with terror; it was instinct alone that prompted me to
+attempt a defensive use of any article in my hands, and if that
+article had been a feather duster I should have made the same use of
+it. The lowered head and sweeping horns were within six feet of me
+when I threw blackberries, pail and all, full in the creature's face,
+at the same time giving frantic voice to the wild, high-pitched,
+long-drawn cry that the cow-boys use in rounding up their cattle. The
+blackberries did not trouble him; what did trouble him was that, by
+one chance in a hundred, the handle or bail of the bucket caught on
+the tip of one horn, and, as feeling it and, perhaps, bewildered by
+the rattle of tinware, the steer threw up his head, the bucket slid
+down the horn, lodging against the skull, and wholly obscuring one
+eye. Undaunted by this mishap the steer backed off, lifting his head
+high, shaking it and bellowing; then suddenly he lowered it, grinding
+head and horns into the ground, with the evident intention of
+pulverizing the strange contrivance rattling about his forehead. The
+attempt resulted in his getting his nose into the trap where only a
+horn had been before. Maddened with fright he took to his heels,
+careering down the hillside, and through the fields at top speed,
+followed by all the herd.
+
+I had retreated, of course, the instant that I had discharged the
+bucket at my foe, and was cowering under the canes beside Ralph when
+the finale came.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE CATTLE BRAND
+
+
+We were saved, but my heart swelled with grief and anger, as, creeping
+out from our shelter, I stood up and looked down on what had so lately
+been a field of waving grain, ripe for the harvest.
+
+Torn, trampled, beaten into the earth, scarcely a stalk was left
+standing, and the corn field was in no better shape. Poor little
+Ralph, with a dim, childish comprehension of the calamity that had
+befallen us, was crying bitterly. Lifting him to my shoulder I started
+toward the house, the desolated fields were out of sight behind us,
+when Jessie came hurrying up the trail.
+
+"What has happened?" she inquired anxiously. "I thought I heard Ralph
+scream, and I am sure I heard you giving the round-up call; I thought
+I heard cattle, too." She took Ralph, who was still crying, from my
+shoulder and carried him in her arms. "Don't cry, precious," she said.
+"Tell sister what has frightened you?"
+
+"'Essie frowed all 'e 'ackburries at 'e bad tow, an' 'e bad tows
+walked all over our pitty torn 'talks, so 'ey don't 'tan' up no more,"
+he sobbed incoherently. Jessie looked at me with dilating eyes. We
+were by this time entering the house, where I was not surprised to
+find Mrs. Horton again awaiting us, for I had already observed the
+Horton equipage in the front yard.
+
+"Leslie!" Jessie was exclaiming, as we crossed the threshold. "Don't
+tell me that the cattle have been in our fields; it isn't possible!"
+
+"I guess it is," I said recklessly, unreasonably resenting our
+neighbor's placid face. "If you find it hard to believe, just go and
+look for yourself. There isn't a stalk of grain left standing," and I
+proceeded to give the details of my late adventure and experience.
+
+Jessie seemed like one dazed. She sank into a chair, holding Ralph,
+who was willing, for once, to be held tightly in her arms, and spoke
+never a word.
+
+"What I want to know," cried Mrs. Horton, her face fiery with
+indignation, "is, whose cattle were they? It's a low shameful, mean,
+trick; I don't care who did it! Oh, to think of all you've had to
+suffer, and of all that those fields of grain stood for to you, and
+then to think--I don't feel as if I could hear it!" she broke off,
+abruptly, her voice choking. I, avoiding her eyes, looked out of the
+window through which I saw, indeed, only the trampled fields,
+invisible to any but the mind's eye from that window.
+
+"I hope you can collect damages," Mrs. Horton broke out again; "and I
+guess you can if you can prove the ownership of the cattle. Did you
+notice the brand?"
+
+Feigning not to have heard the question, I still gazed silently out of
+the window, but Mrs. Horton was not to be put off so easily; she
+repeated the inquiry, her voice suddenly grown sharp with anxiety.
+"Did you notice the brand, Leslie?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well?"
+
+She would not be put off, and, for a wicked moment, my heart was hot
+against all that bore her husband's name.
+
+"The brand was, 'R, half-circle, A,'" I said, and bolted out of the
+house to hide myself and my boiling indignation in the hayloft, but,
+as I went, I heard Mrs. Horton sobbing out an explanation to Jessie:
+
+"Jake started out early this morning, long before sun-up, it was, to
+drive the cattle from the upper range to the north pasture--he said. I
+told him I was afraid that he couldn't handle such a big bunch
+alone--there's nigh three thousand of them, if there's a dozen--but he
+thought that he could, and they must have got away from him after
+all!"
+
+Jessie made no comment, but lying at full length in the seclusion of
+the hayloft, I thought of the relative positions of the upper range,
+where Mr. Horton's cattle usually grazed, and the north pasture, and
+knew that, in order to reach our fields, the herd must have "strayed"
+at least five miles out of their proper course.
+
+I was still lying in the hayloft when, as my ears informed me, Mrs.
+Horton came out, climbed soberly into her wagon, and drove away. With
+my eyes shut I still seemed to see her drooping head and shamed face.
+I had so far recovered my reason by this time that I could feel for
+her; she believed in her husband. He would soon be able to convince
+her that what had occurred was due to an unavoidable accident; the
+cattle had broken away from their one herder, and she would expend her
+indignation on the fact that he had attempted to drive them alone,
+and--she would try to make him pay damages. She would fail. One did
+not need an intimate acquaintance with her husband to know that.
+
+The sound of approaching wheels aroused me from my unhappy
+meditations. Joe was returning. I sprang up, slid down the ladder, and
+went out into the yard to meet him. Mr. Wilson, the ranchman, who was
+to be one of our witnesses, was with him. Joe had found him at the
+blacksmith shop, and, as his homeward route led past our house, had
+invited him to ride with him. The two were talking earnestly as the
+horses stopped before the barn door. Mr. Wilson had been away from
+home for some weeks, and we had been somewhat worried lest he should
+not return in time for our proving up. Evidently Joe had just been
+telling him this, for, as I came near them, he was saying in his
+hearty way: "No, sir; your young ladies needn't 'a' been a mite
+worried for fear of my not getting around in time. I was bound to come
+when they wanted me, and wife's been keeping me posted about their
+notice. I told her I'd leave whatever I had on hand and come in time,
+whether or no." He was a large man. Joe had resigned the reaper seat
+to him and had ridden home himself standing on one of the cross-bars.
+He was slowly and cautiously backing down from the high seat as I
+stopped beside the reaper. When his feet were fairly on the ground he
+turned to greet me: "Why, what's been happening to you, little girl?
+Joe, you didn't tell me that one of your young ladies was sick!"
+
+Joe had begun unharnessing the team; he was tying up the lines, but
+dropped them as Mr. Wilson spoke, and came around to my side; just
+then, too, Jessie joined us; she stood with one hand on old Joe's
+shoulder, while I again told of the incursion of cattle on our fields.
+I think that she feared some terrible outburst of rage from the old
+man who had toiled so faithfully in those fields, and had taken such
+honest pride in the rich promise of an abundant harvest. If so, her
+fears were groundless. Joe's sole remark, as he went on with the work
+of caring for the horses, was:
+
+"Mought jess as well a' spared de trouble ob gettin' de reaper fixed,
+hit 'pears."
+
+Instinctively, I felt that he was so sure, he understood so well by
+whose agency the ruin had been wrought that he disdained to ask a
+question. What had taken place was simply a thing to be borne, like
+martyrdom.
+
+But Mr. Wilson was not committed to a policy of silence; he had a
+good deal to say, and what he said was directly to the point.
+
+"Crops plumb ruined, you say, Miss Leslie?"
+
+"Oh, yes; entirely; I think the whole herd must have been there; not
+feeding quietly so much as tearing through--"
+
+"You say the whole herd? Know of any herd, now, that you could spot?"
+
+"It was Mr. Horton's herd; we all know his brand."
+
+"R, half-circle, A; yes. Now, young folks,"--he paused to roll his
+eyes impressively from one to the other of us--"I'll tell you what you
+want to do about this affair. You want to keep still; to keep still!"
+
+"And be ruined!" cried Jessie, her eyes flashing.
+
+"And not be ruined! There's where the fun's going to come in, Miss
+Jessie. S'pose you go to work now to try to prove malicious mischief
+on the part of Horton in driving his cattle into your fields, for
+that's what he's deliberately done, no doubt of that, why all he's got
+to do is to take his stand on the law and say that you had no
+business to sow grain on the range and expect cattle to keep out of
+it; you've no title to this place, and your grain fields are not even
+fenced. Horton's got the law on his side, you may be sure of that, but
+he hasn't got the right, and some day he'll find it out; he'll find it
+out to his cost, no matter what the law says, now you mark my words!"
+
+"There hasn't been a year since we've been here that Mr. Horton's
+cattle--always Mr. Horton's cattle--haven't destroyed our crops,"
+Jessie said, her voice trembling.
+
+"And it has always been an 'accident,'" I added, "but I did think that
+maybe there would be no such accident this year; it couldn't have
+occurred at a time when it would be more effective."
+
+"No, you may count on that; that's just the reason why it hasn't taken
+place before this. Now, the rest of us folks around here don't propose
+to see you two girls and that purty little orphan boy drove off of
+this place that you've tried so hard and so bravely to keep, but
+we've all got to sing low until you get your title. Then, Mr. Man, let
+that--well, I won't call names--just let Mr. Horton try his little
+games and he'll find that there are laws that will fit his case. The
+reasons that that man hasn't landed in the penitentiary before this
+are, first, that the Lord was mighty lenient toward him when he went a
+courtin' and induced that good woman to become his wife; second, he's
+so sly. There's never been a time yet when a body could produce
+direct, damaging evidence against him. It's all 'accident.'"
+
+I thought of that small shining object that I had picked up in the
+rubbish the morning after the fire was set under our window. It would
+have been hard, indeed, to produce more damaging or convincing
+evidence than that, but Mr. Wilson had just been enjoining a strict
+silence in regard to Mr. Horton and his works upon us, so I kept the
+thought to myself.
+
+"Your father was a good man," Mr. Wilson continued. "He had one big
+advantage over Horton from the start--he was able to hold both his
+tongue and his temper even when Horton, by his acts, kept him so
+short-handed that he was unable to build the fence that would have
+saved his crops and so helped to defeat Horton. The fencing will cost
+about three hundred dollars. When I sold off that big bunch of steers,
+two years ago, I offered to lend him money to fence his claim, but, no
+sir, he wouldn't touch a cent--seemed to have a kind of prejudice
+agin' borrowing money, even of me. Another thing about Horton is,"
+went on our friend, who seemed to have made an exhaustive study of his
+subject, "that he must brag about what he's going to do before he does
+it. That's how every one knows, in reason, that he is the one who has
+made you all this trouble. He hasn't scrupled to say that he's bound
+to have this place, by hook or by crook, whatever happens--and so he
+looks out for it that things happen. But there is one thing that I
+will say for him, and it's kind of curious, too--let him once be
+fairly and squarely beaten, so that there's no way but for him to own
+up to it, and you needn't ask for a better or more faithful friend
+than he is; but he's like--" Mr. Wilson lifted his hat and scratched
+his grizzled head, casting about for a simile; his eye fell on Guard.
+"Why, he's like a bull-dog, you might say--he'll hang on until beaten,
+and then he's yours to command ever after."
+
+Jessie was greatly cast down; she looked at Guard and accepted the
+simile mournfully.
+
+"There's no hope of our ever being able to do anything that will make
+him admit himself beaten," she said, "so, I suppose, we must resign
+ourselves to enduring his enmity as best we can."
+
+"I ain't calculating on his keeping up this racket after you get your
+title," Mr. Wilson declared, hopefully; "he's dead set on getting this
+land now. He's made his brags that he would have it, but when it's
+once passed out of his reach, he'll kind of tame down, I'm thinking.
+Now, about your fences," he continued, with a sudden, cheery change of
+tone: "they're going up. Don't you worry about the loss of your crop,
+but Joe, you just whirl in and go to plowing those fields again for
+fall wheat; nothing better for raising money on than fall wheat; and
+by the time it's sprouted, we'll have it fenced, snug and tight; we
+will, if I have to mortgage my farm to do it! But I shan't have to do
+that. I can raise the money for you somehow."
+
+Jessie was sitting on the wagon-tongue. She looked gratefully up into
+the ranchman's weather-beaten face.
+
+"I think you're just awful good, Mr. Wilson, but--would it be right
+for us to let you lend us the money when we know how opposed poor
+father was to anything of that kind?"
+
+This was a vital question. I leaned forward, awaiting the answer,
+while Jessie listened with parted lips, as she might if our good
+neighbor had been some ancient oracle, whose lightest word was law.
+Mr. Wilson regarded us steadfastly for a moment, then scratched his
+head again.
+
+"Well," he said slowly, at last, "I s'pose, setting aside all
+questions of circumstances, that when the Bible said: 'Honor thy
+father and thy mother in the days of thy youth,' it meant to reach
+clean down to the things that your parents wanted you to do--or not to
+do--whether they was alive to see it done or not. I do s'pose that
+that was what it means, and your father he was sure set against
+borrowing."
+
+Stooping, he picked up a straw, and began biting it meditatively,
+while we two pondered his plain interpretation of a very plain text.
+Suddenly he dropped the straw, and looked at us with a brightening
+face:
+
+"Why, say, you can give a mortgage on your own land, when you get your
+title, and your father, nor the Bible, nor nobody else, would say
+there was anything wrong in your neighbor's helping you out, if so be
+that you couldn't lift the mortgage when the time come. Not that
+there'll be any danger of that, with the price that wheat always
+brings in this grazing country."
+
+He went away shortly after, leaving us much comforted. Joe had housed
+the un-needed reaper in the shed and was examining the plow before he
+had been gone an hour. Some bolts needed tightening and Jessie offered
+her services as assistant.
+
+"We'll get ahead of Mr. Horton yet!" she exclaimed, hammering away at
+the head of the bolt that she was manipulating, under Joe's direction,
+as vigorously as though it might have been the head of the gentleman
+in question.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+ON THE TRAIL OF A WILDCAT
+
+
+Joe went at the plowing the next morning and kept at it with dogged
+perseverance for several days. Jessie and I, busy with the sewing, at
+first paid little attention to him, but after a few days the look of
+settled exasperation on his sable countenance, as he returned to the
+house at the close of his day's work, drew my attention.
+
+"Joe," I said to him one morning, as he was about starting for the
+field, "what is the matter? You look discouraged."
+
+"I ain' discouraged, so my looks is deceivin', den; but I is kine o'
+wore out in my patience."
+
+"Why; what about?"
+
+"Hit's dat 'ar Frank horse; nothin' gwine ter do him, but he mus' stop
+in de furrer, ebbery few ya'ahds, an' tun aroun' in de ha'ness ter
+look at me. 'Pears like he can' be satisfy dat I knows my own
+business, but he's got to obersee hit. Hit done gets mighty worrisome
+afore de day's out," he concluded with a heavy sigh.
+
+"Why don't you whip him for it?" demanded Jessie indignantly.
+
+"W'ip nuffin'! Hes a saddle hoss; he's nebber been call' on fer to do
+such wuck afore, an' he doan know what hit means."
+
+"I guess if he attended to his business he'd find out in time," Jessie
+insisted. But Frank, whatever other faults he had, had none under the
+saddle; he was, moreover, old Joe's especial pet. One of the work
+horses had died during the preceding winter, which was the reason that
+this one was called upon to perform labor that he evidently regarded
+with distrust, if not active disapproval.
+
+So now the old man replied to Jessie's observation with unusual
+sharpness:
+
+"De whole worl' is plum' full ob plow hosses, so fur's I kin see. Yo'
+done meets 'em on de road, and in de chu'ch and de town meetin's, and
+on de ranches; yes, sir; yo' kin fine a plow hoss twenty times a day
+where yo' meets up wid a saddle hoss once in six mont's w'at is a
+saddle hoss, and not a saw-hoss wif a bridle on. Ef somebody's got fer
+to poun' dat Frank fer to make him drag a plow aroun', hit'll be
+somebody odder dan me w'at does hit! I done cut dem wicked ole clumsy
+blinders, w'at is a relict ob ba'barism, ef dere ebber was one, offen
+his bridle, so's 't dem bright eyes ob his'n kin see w'ats goin' on
+aroun' him, an' now I ain' gwine spile a good saddle hoss ter make a
+poor plow hoss. Hit's too much like tryin' ter make a eagle inter a
+tame ole goose," the old man concluded soberly.
+
+"Well, then, I suppose we'll have to give up the fall plowing, just on
+account of Frank's whims!" Jessie retorted, nettled.
+
+"No," Joe returned patiently; "I'se done gwine ter keep at hit, we's
+get hit done somehow; if not dis year, den de nex'. I 'clar fur hit,
+sometimes I done been tempted fur t' hitch one ob de cow beasts up
+along o' Bill an' tryin' de plowin' dat way."
+
+"Isn't there some way of making Frank keep straight without whipping
+him?" I asked, my sympathies being about equally divided between man
+and horse.
+
+"Oh, yes! I done thought a hun'nerd times dat ef dere was only some
+small, active boy w'at would ride him whilst I--"
+
+I sprang to my feet, tossing aside the pieces of gingham that were
+destined to form a new shirt for Mr. Horton: "Here am I, Joe, take
+me!"
+
+"You!" Joe's mild eyes looked me over, and gleamed approvingly. "You
+is little, you is active, an' yo' has de bravest heart, and de
+unselfishest sperrit--" he said, half soliloquizing, until I
+interposed, laughingly:
+
+"Come, now! Stop calling me names and say that I'll do!"
+
+"Dat yo' will, honey, chile, but I nebber thought ob askin' yo' to do
+sech wuck as dat! Hit ain' fittin' nohow!"
+
+"Fitting! Anything is fitting that is honest, and will help us out,
+Joe. Still, I am rather glad that the fields are quite out of sight
+from the road."
+
+"Dat's w'at dey is. Come on, den. Frank gwine wuck like a hero, now,
+'cause he done think hit's saddle wuck w'at he's a doin'."
+
+"And I'll work all the harder at the sewing," Jessie said, smiling
+approval of this novel arrangement, and hastily rescuing Mr. Horton's
+unfinished shirt from Guard, who had been trying to utilize it for a
+bed. "There, now, see that!" she added, looking at me reproachfully.
+"How could you be so careless, Leslie? Guard has been lying on Mr.
+Horton's new shirt!"
+
+"It is new, and Mr. Horton has never worn it, so I don't think it will
+contaminate Guard," I retorted, perversely, as I turned to follow Joe,
+who had already started for the fields.
+
+With me perched upon his back, the long, awkward, pulling lines
+discarded, and his movements directed by a gentle touch of the bridle
+reins against the side of his neck, Frank worked, as Joe had said he
+would, like a hero. The other horse, being of a meek and quiet spirit,
+had made no trouble from the outset; he was content to follow Frank's
+lead, so we got on famously with the plowing from the day that I was
+installed as postillion.
+
+"I always supposed that plowing was such a monotonous kind of
+business," I remarked to Joe one day, taking advantage of the
+opportunity offered by his stopping the team to wipe away the
+perspiration that was streaming down my face. For the day was very
+warm, and we had been working steadily.
+
+"If mon'tonus means hot, honey chile, I reckons yo's right," responded
+Joe. "Yo's purty face is a sight to behole; red as a turkey cock's
+comb, hit is, an' dat streaked wif dirt dat dey doan nuffin' show
+natteral but yo' eyes."
+
+"One good thing, Joe, I can't look any dirtier than I feel," I replied
+wearily, and with a longing glance toward the river that rippled
+silver-white and cool at the foot of the hill beneath us. Joe saw the
+glance.
+
+[Illustration: WE GOT ON FAMOUSLY WITH THE PLOWING (Page 150)]
+
+"Hol' on, honey," he exclaimed, as I was about starting the team
+again. "Dere's de lines looped up on the back band; I'll jess run
+'em out an' finish up dish yer bit alone."
+
+"Do you think you can?" I asked, wavering between a longing to rest
+and my sense of duty.
+
+"T'ink I kin? Dat's good, now! Yo' run along down to de ribber an' hab
+a good paddle afore hit gits too late."
+
+Accordingly I slid off of Frank's back while Joe, gathering in the
+slack of the lines, clucked encouragingly to him to go on. Instead of
+doing that the horse wheeled around in the furrow until he had brought
+my retreating figure into view, then stopped and gazed inquiringly
+after me.
+
+"Joe," I called back, halting, "maybe I'd better not leave."
+
+"Yo' jess run right erlong, Miss Leslie, honey; dis hoss gwine ter go
+all right jess soon's he make up he mine whar yo' is gwine."
+
+Glancing back again presently, I found that Joe was right. Frank was
+working with promising sedateness.
+
+It was deliciously cool down underneath the shadow of the cliff, on
+the banks of the shallow, bright river. Guard had followed me from the
+field; he, too, enjoyed the cool water and proceeded to make the most
+of it. After I had bathed my hot face and hands I sat on the bank and
+watched him as he splashed about, making sudden, futile darts at the
+tiny fish that swarmed around him when he was quiet, and went
+scurrying away like chaff before the wind, the instant that he moved.
+I had just risen to my feet, intending to start to the house, when
+Guard suddenly sprang out of the water with a growl. At the same
+instant the direful squawking of a frightened chicken broke on my
+ears. The squawking, close at hand at first, receded rapidly.
+Evidently some animal had caught one of our flock of poultry and was
+making off with its prize.
+
+There was a wildness of rocks and gnarled cedar trees on the steep
+mountain slope above us, just beyond the bend in the river, and toward
+this wild quarter, judging by the outcries--fast lessening in the
+distance--the animal, whatever it might be, was bearing its prey. I
+was drenched with a shower of water drops as Guard shot past me,
+taking the trail with an eager yelp, while I, no less eager, and with
+as little reflection, ran after him. The dog had cleared the
+underbrush on the river bank, as I rushed out, and was racing across
+the little interval, or clear space between the river bank and the
+first jumble of rocks where the abrupt rise of the mountain slope
+began. Just in front of him, so close it seemed the next leap would
+surely enable him to seize the creature, glided, rather than ran, so
+swift and stealthy was the motion, some large animal, bearing a white
+chicken in its mouth. A tiny trail of white feathers drifted backward
+as the animal ran, while the helpless white wings beat the air
+frantically on either side of the unyielding jaws.
+
+The poor chick might be badly hurt, but it could still squawk and
+struggle. Indignation gave me renewed strength. I ran forward,
+shouting, "Sic him, Guard, sic him!" and the next instant my foot
+caught under a projecting root and I fell headlong to the ground. It
+really seemed for a blank space as if my fall must have jarred the
+earth. There was a whirling dance of stars all about my head; the
+ground rolled and heaved underneath me; sky, earth, and trees swam
+together, joining that whirling dance of stars. It must have been a
+full minute before I was able to sit up and weakly wonder what had
+happened. It all came back to me as a cold, moist nose touched my hand
+and a sympathetic whimper broke the silence. I turned on Guard
+reproachfully.
+
+"Why did you leave that thing to come back to me, sir? You could have
+caught it if you had kept right on after it, and you might have known
+I'd get along all right without your help. Now, do you go and find it,
+sir!" and I pointed imperatively, if rather vaguely, towards the
+jumble of rocks. The chicken's cries had ceased; there was now nothing
+to guide the dog, even if he understood, which I, having great faith
+in his intelligence, believed he did. He ran along the trail for a
+few yards, stopped, gave a joyful bark, and came running back to me
+with a stick in his mouth.
+
+I had been trying to teach him to retrieve, and my order, "go find
+it," suggested that pastime to him. When he laid the stick at my feet,
+wagging his tail and looking up in hopeful anticipation of the praise
+that he felt to be his due, I could not find it in my heart to
+withhold it. Besides, the chicken thief was, no doubt, safe in his
+lair at this time, so, abandoning the hopeless pursuit, we made our
+way homeward.
+
+When Joe came in, and I related our adventure to him, he said: "Yo'
+may t'ank yo' sta'hs, Miss Leslie, dat yo' done got dat tumble w'en
+yo' did! Dat feller wif de black coat, trimmed in yeller, was a
+lynx--dat's his'n's dress ebbery time--an' I'd 'a' heap rudder meet up
+wif a mountain lion, any day, dan one 'o' dem ar! Land, chile! Ef hit
+had 'a' been me, down dar by de ribber, I'd 'a' helt Guard to keep him
+still, an' I'd 'a' kep' out o' sight. Dat's w'at I'd 'a' done, honey."
+
+"Do you recollect, Leslie," Jessie chimed in, "what Mrs. Loyd told us
+about her encounter with a lynx, last year? She said that she was in
+the house one day, when she heard a great outcry among her chickens,
+right close at hand, in the yard. She ran to the door, and there was a
+great lynx, chasing the chickens around. The minute the door was
+opened, they ran toward it, and into the house. The lynx was right
+behind them, but it stopped as the chickens crowded around her, and
+she seized the broom and struck at it. Instead of running, it stood
+its ground and showed its teeth, bristling up and growling. She
+dropped the broom and sprang into the house, slamming the door shut
+just as the lynx hurled itself against it. She said that she was
+almost scared to death. She locked the door, and scrambled up into the
+loft--she said that she was afraid the cat would take a notion to
+break in at one of the windows--and the creature stayed outside and
+killed chickens as long as he pleased, while she stayed up there,
+trembling, until her husband came home. She said that the next time a
+bob-cat wanted one of her chickens it could have it, for all of her."
+
+"I would hate to have Guard get hurt," I said, looking affectionately
+at our follower.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+JOE DISAPPEARS
+
+
+The plowing was done--had been done for some days, indeed--and the
+time set for our offering final proof was close at hand. But Jessie
+and I, going about our household tasks with sober faces, had hardly a
+word to say to each other.
+
+We had looked forward to this coming day with such eager expectation,
+but now that it was so near, we shrank with dread from facing it. A
+trouble so great as, under the circumstances, to deserve to be ranked
+as a calamity, had befallen us. Joe was gone. He had left us without a
+sign, at the time, of all others in our whole lives, when we most
+needed him. On the evening of the day that the plowing was done he had
+retired, as usual, to his little room off the kitchen, and when we
+awoke in the morning he was gone. That was all. But it was enough. It
+was a fact that seemed to darken our whole world. It was not alone
+that we missed his help; we had believed in his fidelity as one
+believes in the fidelity of a mother, and he had left us without a
+word of explanation or regret.
+
+The subject was so painful that, by tacit consent, we both avoided it.
+It would have been better, I think, to have expressed our views
+freely, for, as we could dwell on nothing else, we seldom spoke at
+all, and that added to the gloom of the situation.
+
+Joe had been gone several days, and we had been silently struggling in
+the Slough of Despond, when I awoke one morning filled with a new and
+ardent resolution, which I proceeded to carry into instant execution.
+
+Jessie was always the first one up. I heard her moving about in the
+kitchen, and, making a hasty toilet, joined her there. She was
+grinding coffee in the mill that was fastened securely to the
+door-jamb. It was, I believe, the noisiest mill in existence; its
+resonant whi-r-rr was like that of some giant grist-mill. Jessie
+suspended operations as I drew near to remark:
+
+"You're up early, Leslie."
+
+"Yes; I've thought of something, and--"
+
+"It's the early thought that is caught, same's the early worm," my
+sister remarked, unfeelingly. Then she added: "Excuse me a minute,
+Leslie, I must get this coffee ground, and can't talk against the
+mill."
+
+When the coffee was in the pot on the stove, she turned to me again:
+
+"Now what have you thought of that is so wonderful?"
+
+"It isn't wonderful, Jessie. It's sensible."
+
+"It amounts to the same thing."
+
+"Not in this case. First, I think we ought to stop grieving over Joe's
+desertion."
+
+Jessie's bright face clouded instantly:
+
+"It is cruel!" she protested.
+
+"I don't feel as if we ought to say that, Jessie. Joe has been a good,
+true, faithful friend to us, and he loved father; we, ourselves, loved
+father no more than Joe did--"
+
+"Why, Leslie!"
+
+"It is true, Jessie. I feel it, someway, and I am not going to blame
+Joe any more; not even in my own thoughts. It does no good, and it
+makes us very unhappy. Let's try to be cheerful again, Jessie, and
+make the best of it."
+
+"We must make the best of it whether we are cheerful or not."
+
+"Very well, then; one of the first things that we must do, if we are
+to depend on our own efforts, is to market that cantaloupe crop."
+
+"What, you and I, Leslie?" Jessie sat down with the bread knife in one
+hand and a loaf of bread in the other, the better to consider this
+proposition.
+
+"Just you and I, Jessie. We cannot afford to hire an agent, supposing
+that one was to be had for the hiring, which is by no means likely.
+We've been eating the melons for days; they are just in their prime,
+and I know that Joe counted on making quite a little sum on his
+cantaloupe crop, but if we wait now, hoping for his return, the melons
+will be ruined; they will be a total loss."
+
+"You needn't offer any more arguments, Leslie. I'm glad you thought
+of it; it's a pity that I never think of any such thing myself
+until the procession has gone by. Now let me see, have I got your
+morning thoughts in order? First, Charity. Toward Joe. Second,
+Resignation--all capitals--Toward Joe. Third, Labor. For ourselves.
+Is that right?"
+
+"Yes; if you like to put it that way."
+
+"You shall have it any way you please, Leslie dear, and I will help
+you."
+
+"After breakfast, then, we will harness up the team and drive the
+wagon into the melon patch, then--we will fill it."
+
+"Yes, and what then?"
+
+It was like taking a plunge into cold water. I am sure that I was not
+intended for a huckster, but I managed to respond with some show of
+courage:
+
+"Why, then I will drive over to the store and sell what I can, and
+then I will go about among the neighbors with the rest."
+
+"Will you?" Jessie breathed a sigh of relief. "That will be
+enterprising, anyway. I should dreadfully hate to drive about peddling
+melons myself, but there's such a difference in people about things of
+that sort."
+
+Jessie is so exasperatingly prosaic, at times, that she makes me feel
+either like crying, or like shaking her. On this occasion I was
+fortunately hindered from doing either by Ralph, who suddenly
+appeared, demanding to be "dwessed." After breakfast we harnessed
+the horses--we could either of us do that as well, and quicker than
+Joe--then we drove into the enclosure where the olive-tinted little
+spheres lay thick on the ground and proceeded to fill the wagon-box.
+The patch was small, but the melons grew in great profusion, and it
+did not take long. Within a couple of hours I was traveling along the
+highway, perched upon the high spring seat of the wagon-box, with
+Guard beside me. Guard was, according to my idea, very good company,
+and it was, moreover, desirable that he should learn to ride in a
+wagon and to conduct himself properly while doing so. It was a very
+warm morning and as the sweet, cloying odor of my wagon load of
+produce assailed my nostrils, I could not but think of the famous
+couplet, "You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, but
+the scent of the roses will hang round it still!" My route through
+the settlement might be traced, I fancied, by the fragrance that
+the melons exhaled.
+
+My first stop was at the store where I disposed of a satisfactory
+quantity of melons, but after leaving the store the business dragged
+wearily, and I found myself obliged to take promises to pay in lieu of
+money from the women of the household when the masculine head chanced
+to be absent. They always explained, quite as a matter of course, that
+"he" had left no money with them. It appeared to me, as I patiently
+booked one promise after another, that "he" could not have kept
+hired help very long if their wages consisted of nothing more
+tangible--after the matter of food and lodging was eliminated--than
+those that fell to the lot of "his" womenfolk. I had observed, with
+some annoyance, when I first started out, that one of the wagon
+wheels had a tendency to make plaintive little protests, as if it
+objected to being put to any use. I could by no means fathom the
+reason for it, but by mid-afternoon the protest had grown into a
+piercing shriek. A shriek that even Guard shrank from with an
+indignant growl.
+
+Less than one-fourth of my load yet remained unsold. I was most
+anxious to clear it all out, but that ear-piercing sound was becoming
+maddening. "The wagon must be conjured," I thought, recalling some of
+Joe's fancies. Coming to a place at last, where two roads met, I
+halted the team and sat considering the question of a return home or a
+trip to Crusoe, which place I had not yet visited, when the sight of a
+horseman far down the left-hand road decided me to go in that
+direction. The horseman was well mounted and going at a good pace. "I
+don't care!" I told myself, recklessly, "I'm going to overtake him and
+make him take some of these melons if I have to pay him for doing it."
+
+But there was no occasion for my hurrying the horses. When the man on
+ahead caught the sound of my rapidly-advancing shriek he promptly drew
+up beside the roadway and awaited my approach, and then I saw that the
+rider was Mr. Rutledge. He recognized me at the same moment and
+exclaimed:
+
+"Why, Miss Leslie, is that you?"
+
+"Yes," I said, meekly, but I felt my face grow red, and was conscious,
+in spite of my good resolutions, of a sudden resentment against Joe.
+Why had he left me to do such work as this?
+
+Mr. Rutledge, drawing close to the wagon, ran an inquiring eye over my
+merchandise.
+
+"Been buying melons?" he asked, adding: "I didn't know that there was
+anything of the kind for sale in the valley."
+
+The observation did not seem to require an answer, and I was silent
+while he reached into the box and selected one of the smaller melons
+and held it up laughingly, as if defying me to retake it.
+
+"Findings is keepings!" he said, gayly.
+
+[Illustration: HE DREW UP BESIDE THE ROADWAY (Page 166)]
+
+"Also, pilferings," I returned, triumphantly. After all, I should not
+be compelled either to urge a sale or to offer a bribe.
+
+"Call it pilfering if you have the face to, but in return for this bit
+of refreshment I am going to give you some advice."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The next time that you take your colored attaché's place as teamster,
+make sure that he has greased your wagon wheels. You may not have
+observed it, but their protests against moving are simply diabolical."
+
+"Oh, is that what causes that noise?" I asked, leaning down from the
+seat the better to peer at the wheels in question.
+
+"Certainly; Joe should not have allowed you to go out with them in
+such shape."
+
+The laughter had died out of my heart and my voice, but a stubborn,
+foolish pride held my tongue. I could not tell the mining
+superintendent, who would have been one of the best of customers,
+that the melons were for sale, or that Joe had left us. "If I tell
+him that Joe is gone," ran my foolish thought, "he will understand
+that I am peddling melons." Gathering up the lines, I started the
+horses quickly, lest he should ask where I got my load. Mr. Rutledge
+drew his horse aside, waiting for me to pass.
+
+"Be sure to tell Joe about the wheels, when you see him!" he called
+after me, as the complaining shriek again rent the air.
+
+"Yes," I returned, "I will;" and added to myself: "When I see him."
+
+In my anxiety to escape questioning I had forgotten that a person who
+is riding in a wagon whose wheels need oiling cannot shake off a
+well-mounted horseman so easily. Underneath the weird outcry of the
+wheels the steady pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat of the black horse's hoofs came
+to my ears, and I glanced back to see Mr. Rutledge close to the hind
+wheel. Unless he stopped entirely he must of necessity be close at
+hand. The road that Mr. Rutledge must take in order to reach the
+mining camp branched off from the one that we were following, at a
+little distance, and I understood very well that, considering the
+distance, he did not think it civil to gallop on ahead of me. But
+suppose he should yet ask me where the melons came from--just suppose
+it. Should I tell a lie, or should I tell him that I was not even
+acting as teamster to oblige another? I took up the whip--then I
+dropped it back into its socket. I had always known myself for, in my
+quiet way, rather a proud girl, but--it--but--it was not this kind of
+pride, and I had never before felt myself a coward. Because Mr.
+Rutledge was a gentleman, was it any worse that he should know--
+
+I drew in the reins sharply, and the team came to a standstill. The
+sudden cessation of that fearful noise called to mind a line or two
+that Jessie is fond of quoting: "And silence like a poultice comes, to
+heal the blows of sound."
+
+Mr. Rutledge again halted his horse, and turned on me an inquiring
+look. My throat was dry and husky, and my voice sounded strange in my
+own ears as I said, in answer to the look:
+
+"I wanted to tell you, Mr. Rutledge, that we raised these melons
+ourselves, and we are trying to sell them."
+
+"Are you?"
+
+His tone was very gentle. He regarded me and my dusty, wayworn outfit
+silently for a space, then he said, this time with no laughter in his
+voice:
+
+"I take off my hat to you, Miss Leslie"--he suited the action to the
+word--"and I thank you for teaching me anew the truth of the old
+saying: 'True hearts are more than coronets, and simple worth than
+Norman blood.'"
+
+He replaced his hat with a sweeping bow, touched the black horse
+lightly with a spurred heel, and was gone. The tears were in my eyes
+as I watched the little swirl of dust raised by his horse's hoofs
+settle back to place. I had not deserved praise, but it was something
+to feel that others understood how hard and distasteful was this
+bitter task, and I was glad to remember that he had not added to my
+humiliation by offering to buy my melons. I meant to sell them all
+before returning home now, and I did, but it was a long day's work,
+and when I reached home I had only five dollars to show for it. "He"
+had been chiefly absent from home, and I had booked many promises.
+
+Jessie and Ralph met me at the gate as I drove up. Jessie was
+interested and anxious.
+
+"Why, you have sold all the melons!" Jessie exclaimed, glancing into
+the wagon-box, and narrowly escaping being knocked over by Guard, as
+he sprang down from the seat. "You have had good luck, Leslie."
+
+"Good luck doesn't mean ready money in this case, Jessie, and that is
+what we need. There's just about one more load of melons, and
+to-morrow we'll take them out to the storage camp."
+
+"That may be a good plan," Jessie admitted reflectively, "but it's a
+long drive."
+
+"Yes, we must get an early start, and we must not forget to oil the
+wagon wheels," I said, but I did not mention my meeting with Mr.
+Rutledge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+AT THE STORAGE RESERVOIR
+
+
+By nine o'clock the next morning we were on our way to the
+water-storage camp, twenty miles away across the plains.
+
+The wagon-box was piled high with the last of our cantaloupe crop.
+Jessie and I had risen at daylight to pull them. We had been careful
+to leave a vacant space in the front of the wagon, and this, fitted up
+with his favorite little chair and plenty of blankets, made a snug
+harbor for Ralph. The little fellow was wild with excitement and
+pleasure at the prospect before him. There was room, besides, in the
+harbor for a well-filled lunch basket, a jug of water, and, if he
+became tired of walking, for Guard. The dog trotted on beside the
+wagon, alert and vigilant, until we were well outside of the valley,
+when, intoxicated, perhaps, by the sight of such boundless miles over
+which to chase them, he gave himself up to the pursuit of prairie
+dogs. An entirely futile pursuit in all cases, but Guard seemed unable
+to understand the hopelessness of it until some miles had been covered
+and he was panting with fatigue. The wary little creatures always kept
+within easy reach of their burrows, a fact which Guard did not
+comprehend until he had scurried wildly through a half-dozen prairie
+dog towns in succession. But when the conviction did force itself upon
+him their most insistent and insolent barking was powerless to arrest
+his further attention. He had learned his lesson.
+
+I had put the rifle and a well-filled cartridge-belt into the wagon
+thinking that I might get a shot at a jack-rabbit or cotton-tail, but
+Guard's experience impressed me as likely to be mine also should I
+attempt to kill such small game with a rifle, and I left the gun
+untouched.
+
+The plains were gray with dust and shimmering in the heat. Clouds of
+the pungent alkali dust were stirred up by the horses' feet and by the
+wagon wheels--we had oiled the wheels after an extravagant fashion,
+I'm afraid, for I do not remember that Joe ever used up an entire jar
+of lard, as we did, for that purpose--and our throats were parched,
+our faces blistered, and our eyes smarting before half the distance to
+the camp was passed over. The wind, what little there was of it,
+seemed but to add waves of heat to the torturing waves of alkali dust.
+Ralph, after whimpering a little with the general discomfort, curled
+down in his nest and dropped off to sleep, but there was no such
+refuge for Jessie and me.
+
+"It's a dreadful thing to be poor!" Jessie exclaimed, at last. There
+was a desolate intonation in her voice, and my own spirits drooped.
+The horses dropped into a slow walk.
+
+"We shall have one advantage over Mr. Wilson, whatever happens,"
+Jessie presently continued.
+
+"How is that?" I inquired. It did not look, at the moment, as if we
+were ever destined to have the advantage of any one.
+
+"We shall not find the men at dinner; they will have had their
+dinners and gone to work again."
+
+"We may find them at supper," I said, giving Frank an impatient slap
+with the lines. The blow was a light one, but it took him by surprise,
+and, as was his wont, he stopped and looked back inquiringly,
+seemingly anxious to know what was meant by such a proceeding. Jessie
+snatched up the whip, and I laughed as I invited Frank to go on.
+"Don't strike him, please, Jessie! You don't understand Frank, and he
+doesn't understand the meaning of a blow; he thinks, when he is doing
+his work faithfully and gets struck, that it must have been an
+accident, and he stops to investigate."
+
+"Dear me! How much you know--or think you do--about horses," Jessie
+returned wearily. "You're worse than old Joe." She dropped the whip
+back into its socket with a petulant gesture. "I'm sorry we started,
+Leslie. Here we've been on the road six or eight hours--"
+
+"A little over three hours, Jessie."
+
+"Well, we're not in sight of the promised land yet, and I'm nearly
+roasted; I shall just melt if we keep on this way much longer."
+
+"Me is melted; me is all water!" cried Ralph, waking up suddenly, and
+immediately giving way to forlorn tears. The tears plowed tiny furrows
+through the dust that clung to his moist cheeks, and had settled in
+grayish circles underneath his eyes. Jessie looked down at the piteous
+little figure and her own ill-temper vanished.
+
+"Come up here and look round, you poor hot little mite!" she
+exclaimed, extending one hand and a foot as a sort of impromptu
+step-ladder. Ralph clambered up with some difficulty and looked around
+as directed, but the prospect did not have an enlivening effect on
+him.
+
+"Where is we?" he demanded, turning his large, dust-encircled eyes on
+each of us in turn.
+
+"On the plains," I responded briefly. I was driving; the load was
+heavy, and the horses, worn with fatigue and the heat, lagged more and
+more; therefore my anxiety grew, and I had no time to waste on
+trivialities.
+
+"One need not ask why it never rains here, though," I suddenly
+observed, "for behold! Jessie, there is the thing that makes rain
+unnecessary."
+
+A glimmer of white had been, for some minutes, slowly growing on the
+horizon. I had thought at first, that it must be a mirage, but it kept
+its place so steadily, without that swift, undulating, gliding motion
+that these familiar plains spectacles always present that I presently
+became convinced that the white glimmer was a lake, and so that we
+were within a few miles of our objective point.
+
+"Sure enough, that's the lake!" Jessie exclaimed, after a long look.
+"Well, that's some comfort," was her conclusion. Ralph stood up on the
+seat between us and looked, too:
+
+"Me wants a dwink!" he cried, after making quite sure that the white
+shimmer in the distance was that of water.
+
+Jessie slid off the seat and got hold of the water-jug and tin-cup,
+then she tried to fill the cup, but the result was disastrous.
+
+"You'll have to stop the horses, Leslie, I shall spill every drop of
+water at this rate."
+
+As the wagon came to a standstill, and while Ralph was drinking, Guard
+suddenly appeared from his place underneath the wagon--he had thus far
+declined all invitations to ride--and putting his fore feet on the
+front hub, looked up, whining beseechingly:
+
+"Dard wants some water, too," Ralph said.
+
+"He's got to have it, then," I declared, and climbed quickly out of
+the wagon.
+
+"I hope you don't intend to let him drink out of the cup!" Jessie
+exclaimed.
+
+"No; hand me the jug, and I'll pour the water into his mouth."
+
+"Oh, he can't drink in that way!"
+
+"Just hand me the jug and see." She complied, and Guard justified my
+faith in his intelligence by gulping down the water that I poured into
+his open mouth, very carefully, scarcely spilling a drop.
+
+In the end we decided to get out and eat our lunch in the shade of
+the wagon, especially as Ralph was plaintively declaring:
+
+"Me so hundry!"
+
+"We'll give the horses a chance to eat while we're selling the
+melons," I remarked, as much for Frank's benefit as anything else, for
+he had turned his head, and was watching us with reproachful interest,
+as we sat at our meal. He must have thought us very selfish.
+
+Lunch over, we climbed back into the wagon again, after re-packing the
+basket. Guard also signified his willingness to ride, now, and we went
+on, much refreshed by the brief stop and the needed lunch which had
+hardly lost its consolatory effect when, between one and two o'clock,
+we drew up before the door of the cook's tent, on the eastern bank of
+the great water-storage reservoir. The cook was busy, but signified,
+after a hasty inspection, that our load was all right.
+
+"Better take it in," he added, nodding toward one of the three men who
+were lounging about in the vicinity. I suppose that this friendly
+young gentleman must have been the commissary clerk, or something of
+that sort. He called a man to take care of our horses, and chatted
+with us pleasantly, while another man unloaded the melons. He urged us
+to come into the dining-tent and let the cook "knock us up a dinner,"
+but this we declined on the plea that we had already dined, and were
+extremely anxious to take the homeward road as soon as possible.
+
+"It's so late, you see," Jessie observed, consulting father's big
+silver watch, which she carried.
+
+"We have already been here some time; how late is it, Jessie?" I
+asked.
+
+"Why, it's nearly four!" Jessie made the statement in a tone of
+dismay, adding: "How late it will be before we get home!"
+
+"I can drive home a great deal faster than we came," I said.
+
+"How far have you got to go?" inquired the clerk, who had told us that
+his name was Phillips.
+
+"Twenty miles."
+
+"That's a good bit; but it's a moonlight night."
+
+"Dear me! We don't care if it is," Jessie returned, rather crossly;
+"we want to get home."
+
+"You'll get home all right," Mr. Phillips assured her, easily. "I'll
+have Tom put your horses in at once and here's the money for your
+load." He counted out a fascinating little roll of bills, adding, as
+he tendered the amount to Jessie, who promptly pocketed it, "I hope
+you'll excuse my saying that you appear to be a plucky pair of girls.
+If you've anything more to market--" Jessie shook her head:
+
+"There was a reason; we were obliged to sell the melons," she ended,
+lamely. The horses, fed, watered, and evidently greatly refreshed,
+were, by this time, on the wagon. Mr. Phillips helped us in, and,
+while doing so, his glance fell on the rifle lying under the seat. He
+took up the gun and ran his eye over it approvingly.
+
+"Either of you shoot?" he inquired.
+
+"My sister shoots pretty well," Jessie told him, adding: "We really
+must be starting, and we are a thousand times obliged to you for your
+kindness."
+
+"And particularly for buying the melons," I could not forbear saying.
+
+Mr. Phillips laughed: "The boys will say that it was you who conferred
+the obligation, when it comes to sampling those melons," he said. I
+had gathered up the lines when he added, suddenly: "Wait!" I waited,
+while he stepped back into the tent. He re-appeared directly, carrying
+a half dozen big mallards and a couple of jack-rabbits: "You'll let
+me make you a present of these, won't you?" he asked, smiling,
+persuasively, as he tossed them into the wagon-box. "I was out hunting
+this morning, and I had good luck, as I always do." We thanked him
+heartily for his gift and drove off feeling not only a good deal
+richer, but much happier than when we had started out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHASED BY WOLVES
+
+
+The horses trotted along briskly for a few miles, but they were tired
+from two days of hard work, and, in spite of their eagerness to reach
+home, their pace slackened. I did not urge them. It would be, as Mr.
+Phillips had said, a moonlight night; the rays of the rising moon were
+already silvering the deepening dusk. Ralph was again asleep in his
+snug harbor, with Guard lying quietly beside him.
+
+"The cows will be waiting at the corral bars when we get home," Jessie
+remarked once, "but it is going to be so light that we can do the
+chores nearly as well at midnight as we could at mid-day, so there is
+really no need of hurrying. We've had good luck to-day, haven't we,
+Leslie?"
+
+"Yes," I answered, "we have," but I spoke absently. I was listening to
+again catch a sound that had just reached my ears; faint, far off,
+but welcome; it was one that we seldom heard in that mountain-guarded
+valley where our days were passed.
+
+"Did you hear that, Jessie?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"The whistle of a locomotive engine; there it is again! How far off it
+seems!"
+
+"Sound travels a long way over these plains; there's nothing to
+intercept it--but I didn't hear it."
+
+"Listen. It will sound again, perhaps, when the train reaches another
+crossing. It must be way down on the Huerfano. There, didn't you hear
+that?"
+
+"Yes; do keep still, Guard."
+
+Guard, aroused from his nap, was sitting up and looking around with an
+occasional low growl.
+
+"Seems to me that they must have railway crossings pretty thick down
+on the Huerfano," Jessie remarked, after a moment's silence. "That
+makes three whistles--if they are whistles--that we've heard within
+as many minutes."
+
+"That's true, Jessie--I hadn't thought of that. It may not be an
+engine. It sounds louder, instead of diminishing as it would if--keep
+still, Guard! What in the world is the matter with you!"
+
+For answer, Guard, with every hair on his back erect and standing up
+like the quills of a porcupine, got up, and wriggled himself under
+the seat on which we were sitting, making his way to the end of the
+wagon-box, where he stood with legs braced to keep himself steady, his
+chin resting on the edge of the tailboard, and his eyes fixed on the
+darkening roadway over which we had just passed. Every now and then
+he gave a low, sullen growl, and, even from where we sat, and in the
+increasing gloom we could see that his white fangs were bared.
+
+"How strangely Guard acts!" exclaimed Jessie, with a sudden catch in
+her voice, and a dawning fear of--she knew not what--in her eyes.
+At that instant the sound that I had taken for the far-off, dying
+whistle of a locomotive, came again to my ears; nearer, more distinct,
+in increasing volume--a weird, melancholy call--a pursuing cry. The
+lines were in my hands, and at that instant the horses suddenly sprang
+forward, faster, faster, until their pace became a tearing run, and
+then some words of my own, spoken weeks before, flashed into my mind,
+bringing with them a mental illumination.
+
+"There are wolves!" I had said. I was conscious of an effort to steady
+my voice, to keep it from shaking, as I thrust the lines into Jessie's
+hands. "Try to keep the horses in the road, Jessie; do not check them.
+I am going back there by Guard."
+
+"What for?" Jessie's tones were sharp with apprehension, and again, as
+if in explanation, came that pursuing chorus. I sprang over the back
+of the seat, and knelt in the bottom of the wagon-box, securing the
+rifle and cartridge-belt. Jessie, holding the lines firmly in either
+hand, shifted her position to look down on me. Her face gleamed white
+in the dusk as she breathed, rather than spoke: "Wolves, Leslie?"
+
+"Yes." I had the gun now and staggered to my feet. "Watch the horses,
+Jessie." Jessie nodded.
+
+Ralph, roused by the rapid motion, had awakened. He struggled to a
+sitting posture. "What for is us doin' so fas'?" he inquired, with
+interest.
+
+Jessie made no reply, but she put one foot on his short skirt, holding
+him in place. Some intuition told him what was taking place, perhaps,
+what might take place. Clasping both chubby hands around Jessie's foot
+to steady himself, he sat in silence, making no complaint. The brave
+spirit within his baby body had risen to meet the crisis as gallantly
+as could that of any Gordon over whose head a score of years had
+passed.
+
+Reaching the end of the wagon, I crouched down beside Guard, with
+rifle poised and finger on the trigger, waiting for the pursuing
+outcry to resolve itself into tangible shape. I had not long to wait.
+Dusky shadows came stealing out from either side of the roadway.
+Shadows that, as I strained my eyes upon them, seemed to grow and
+multiply, until, in less time than it takes to tell it, we were close
+beset by a pack of wolves in full cry. The terrified horses were
+bounding along and the wagon was bouncing after them, at a rate that
+threatened momentarily to either shatter the wagon or set the horses
+free from it, but Jessie still kept them in the road. A moment more
+and the wolves were upon us, and had ceased howling; their quarry was
+at hand. I could see their eyes flaming in the darkness, and with the
+rifle muzzle directed toward a couple of those flaming points, I
+fired. There was a terrific clamor again as the report of the gun died
+away, and a score or more of our pursuers halted, sniffing at a fallen
+comrade. But one gaunt long-limbed creature disdained to stop for such
+a matter. He kept after the wagon. Guard was young and, moreover, this
+was his first experience with wolves. He had stopped growling, but
+his eyes seemed to dart fire, and as the wolf that had outstripped its
+mates sprang up, with gnashing teeth, hurling himself at the tailboard
+in a determined effort to spring into the wagon, Guard attempted to
+spring out and grapple with him. I was leaning against the dog, ready
+to meet the wolf's closer approach with a bullet, and, in consequence,
+I felt the impetus of his leap before he could accomplish it. The gun
+dropped from my hand with a crash as I threw both arms around Guard,
+intent on holding him in the wagon. I was so far successful that his
+leap was checked; he fell across the tailboard, his head and forelegs
+outside. My grip about his body tightened as I felt him slipping. I
+pulled back mightily, and had the satisfaction of tumbling backward
+with him into the wagon-box, but not before he had briefly sampled the
+wolf. The creature's savage head and cruel eyes appeared above the
+tailboard, even as I dragged at Guard, who, not to be deterred by my
+interference, made a vicious lunge at the enemy, and fell back with
+me, his mouth and throat so full of wolf-hair and hide that he was
+nearly strangled. But that particular wolf had drawn off. I regained
+my feet and admonished Guard: "Stay there, sir! Stay right there!" I
+gasped, and again secured the gun. The wolves, on each side of us now,
+were running close to the front wheels and to the galloping horses,
+and one was again trying to leap into the box from the rear. The rifle
+spoke, and he fell motionless on the road, at the same instant I heard
+Ralph saying, imperatively: "Do away! Do away I tells 'oo!" I looked
+around. Ralph was on his knees--no one could have kept footing in that
+wagon-box just then--a pair of wolves were leaping up wildly beside
+the near wheel, making futile springs and snaps at him, and just
+then he lifted something, some dark object from the bottom of the
+wagon-box, and hurled it at them with all the power of his baby hands.
+Whatever the object was, its effect on the wolves was instantaneous.
+The pack had not stopped to look at the wolf brought down by my
+second shot, but they all stopped, snarling and fighting over Ralph's
+missile. A few took on after us, and then Ralph threw another; they
+stopped again at that, and then I saw that the child was throwing out
+the game that Phillips had given us. With another command to Guard to
+remain where he was, I crept back to the pile of game yet remaining,
+and tossed out what was left. Then I crept on to Jessie.
+
+"Can you slow the horses down?" I shouted in her ear. "The wolves will
+not follow us again; they have got what they were after."
+
+The horses knew me, and by dint of much pulling and many soothing
+words I had them partially quieted, but it took so long to gain even
+that much control over them that the wolves were far out of sight and
+sound behind us when I at length ventured to look back. The horses
+were walking at last, but it was a walk so full of frightened starts
+and nervous glances that it threatened at any moment to break into a
+run. By the moonlight Jessie and I looked into each others' white
+faces, and, with Ralph cuddled between us, clung together for a
+breathless instant of thanksgiving. Then--"'Ose dogs was hundry,"
+Ralph observed, philosophically, adding, as an afterthought: "Me
+hundry, too; is we mos' 'ome, 'Essie?"
+
+"We'll be there soon," I answered, tremulously. We saw or heard
+nothing more of the wolves, which were of that cowardly species--a
+compromise between the skulking coyote and the savage gray wolf, known
+as "Loafers." A loafer very seldom attacks man, but he will, if
+numerous enough, run down and destroy cattle--sometimes horses. In
+this instance it was undoubtedly the scent of the game in the wagon
+that attracted them. Once attracted and bent on capture, they are as
+fiercely determined as their gray cousins, and but for the fortunate
+accident of Ralph's using a duck for a projectile they would have kept
+up the chase until the horses were exhausted, and they were able to
+help themselves.
+
+It was after nine when we reached home, and never had home seemed
+a dearer or safer place. The chores all done, Ralph asleep in his
+little crib, and Guard sleeping the sleep of the just on the kitchen
+doorstep, Jessie and I sat down by the table to eat a belated supper,
+and count our hard-won gains. The melon crop was all sold, and it had
+netted us forty dollars.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A SLEEPLESS NIGHT
+
+
+It was close upon the beginning of another day before Jessie and I got
+to bed, but, late as it was, I could not sleep.
+
+Our pressing financial problem was so constantly in my thoughts that
+now, in my weariness, I found myself unable to dismiss it. We had
+collected some money, but not enough--not enough! I turned and tossed
+restlessly. Now that the time for proving up was so close at hand an
+increasing terror of failure grew upon me. It did not seem to me that
+I should be able to endure it if we were obliged to give up our home.
+Forty dollars! In the stillness of the night that sum, as I reflected
+upon it, dwindled into insignificance. I reviewed all of our monetary
+transactions that I could think of, and, adding up the sum total, half
+convinced myself that we must have made a mistake in the counting that
+evening.
+
+"I'm quite sure that there's more than forty dollars," I told myself,
+turning over my hot pillow in search of a cooler side, and giving it a
+vigorous shake. "I'm quite sure! There's the money for Mr. Horton's
+mending, that was forty cents; and Miss Jones's wrapper was two
+dollars; and that setting of eggs that I sold to Jennie Speers--I
+don't remember whether they were two dollars or only fifty cents. Oh,
+dear! And there was Cleo's calf; that was--I don't remember how much
+it was!"
+
+The longer I remembered and added up, and remembered and subtracted,
+the less I really knew. By the time that my fifth reckoning had
+reduced our hoard to twenty-seven dollars I would gladly have gotten
+up and counted the money again, but Jessie had it in charge and I did
+not know where she kept it. It was small consolation in the desperate
+state of uncertainty into which I had worked myself to reflect that I
+had only myself to blame for this. Being a somewhat imaginative young
+person, I had reasoned that if burglars were to break into the house
+and demand to know the whereabouts of our hidden wealth it might be
+possible for Jessie, who knew, to escape, taking her knowledge
+with her, while I, who did not know, might safely stand by that
+declaration. It was rather a far-fetched theory, but Jessie had
+willingly subscribed to it. If not actually apprehensive of robbery,
+she was, perhaps, more inclined to trust to her own quiet temper,
+in a case of emergency, than to my warmer one. At the same time she
+understood very well that I had an unusual talent for silence. It was
+this talent that induced me to stay my hand late that night just as I
+was on the point of rousing Jessie and asking her where she had put
+the money. She was sleeping soundly and she was very tired.
+
+"I'll count it all over the first thing in the morning," I thought;
+and with the resolution, dropped off to sleep.
+
+It was very late when I awoke. Ralph was still sleeping, but Jessie
+had risen, and was moving quietly about the house. Above the slight
+noise that she made I heard distinctly the pu-r--rr of falling
+water, and knew that it was raining heavily. With the knowledge, the
+recollection that Joe had gone came back to me with an unusual sense
+of aggravation. Joe had always done the milking, and it had not rained
+since he left. Dressing noiselessly, in order not to disturb Ralph, I
+went out into the kitchen. Jessie looked up as I entered. "I'll help
+you milk this morning, Leslie," she said. "It's too bad for you to
+have to putter around in the rain while I'm dry in the house."
+
+"There's no use in our both getting wet," I returned, ungraciously.
+"You'd much better finish getting breakfast and keep watch of Ralph.
+If he were to waken and find us both gone he'd probably start out a
+relief expedition of one in any direction that took his fancy. He'd be
+glad of the chance to get out in the rain."
+
+"Who would have thought of its raining so soon when we came home last
+night. There wasn't a cloud in sight."
+
+"There's none in sight now; we're inside of one so thick that we
+can't see out. I dare say we'll encounter more than one rain-storm
+'while the days are going by'; but it would be handy if Joe were here
+this morning."
+
+"Yes, indeed! I only hope Joe's conscience acquits him, wherever he
+is."
+
+"Oh, I am sure it does--if he has a conscience--for I suppose that's
+what you would call his feeling obliged to worry about us," I said, in
+quick defence of the absent friend whose actions I might secretly
+question, but of whom I could not bear that another should speak
+slightingly.
+
+I put on my old felt hat and took up the milk-pail. Jessie was busy
+over something that she was cooking in a skillet on the stove, but she
+glanced up as I opened the door, and a dash of rain came swirling in.
+
+"Why, Leslie Gordon! Are you going out in this storm dressed like
+that? Here, put on my mackintosh."
+
+I had forgotten all about wraps, but a shawl or cape would have been
+better than the long mackintosh that Jessie insisted upon buttoning
+me into. It was too long; the skirts nearly tripped me up as I started
+to run down the path to the corral, and when I held it up it was
+little protection.
+
+The corral where the cows were usually penned over-night was behind
+the barn. As I came in sight of it a feeling of almost despair swept
+over me. The corral bars were down, and the cows were gone! I hung
+the milk-pail bottom-side up on one of the bar posts. The raindrops
+played a lively tattoo on its resounding sides, while I dropped the
+mackintosh skirt, regardless of its trailing length, and stood still,
+trying to recollect that I had put up the bars after we had finished
+milking on the previous evening. Search my memory as I might,
+however, I could not find that I had taken this simple but necessary
+precaution, and, if I had forgotten it, it was useless to suppose that
+Jessie had not.
+
+"It's just my negligence!" I remarked, scornfully, to my drenched
+surroundings; "just my negligence, and now I shall have to hunt for
+those cows, and in this rain that shuts everything out it will be like
+looking for a needle in a haymow."
+
+I took down the pail, seeming to take down an entire chorus of singing
+water witches with it, and retraced my steps to the house. Even this
+simple act was performed with some difficulty, for again I stepped on
+the mackintosh and nearly fell.
+
+"You've been very quick with the milking, and breakfast's all ready,"
+Jessie remarked, cheerfully, as I entered, and then, catching sight of
+the empty pail, she exclaimed, "Why, what's the matter?"
+
+When I told her, she said, reproachfully, "Leslie, of course I
+supposed that you would put up the bars after we had finished milking
+last night!"
+
+I am afraid that I was cross as well as tired: "Why, 'of course,'
+Jessie? Why is it, can you tell me, that there is always some one
+member of a family who is supposed, quite as a matter of course, to
+make good the short-comings and long-goings of all the others? To
+straighten out the domestic tangles, to remember, always remember,
+what the others forget; to be good-tempered when others are
+ill-tempered; to--"
+
+Jessie laid a brown little hand on my shoulder, checking the torrent
+of my eloquence; she laid her cheek against my own for a passing
+instant.
+
+"That's all easily answered, Leslie dear. The some one that you
+describe is the soul of a house. When a house has the misfortune not
+to have such an one in it, it has no soul; the other members are
+merely forms, moving forms, with impulses."
+
+I knew that she meant to compliment me, but I would not appear to know
+it.
+
+"I suppose, then," I returned, with affected resentment, "that I am a
+form with impulses. One of the impulses just now is to eat breakfast."
+
+"Me hundry; me eat breakfuss, too," proclaimed a shrill, familiar
+voice at my elbow. I had already taken my seat at the table.
+
+"Eat your breakfast, Leslie," said Jessie; "I'll dress Ralph. After
+breakfast, perhaps, I had better go with you after the cows?" She
+spoke with some hesitation. As a matter of fact, she does not begin to
+know the cattle trails as I know them.
+
+"No," I said; "I'll go alone, Jessie; I can find them much quicker
+than you could."
+
+"They may not have gone far." Jessie advanced this proposition
+hopefully.
+
+"Far enough, I'll warrant. I believe there's nothing that a cow likes
+so well as to chase around on a morning like this; especially if she
+thinks some one is hunting for her."
+
+"You can take one of the horses--" Jessie began, and, in the irritated
+state of my mind, it was some satisfaction to be able to promptly veto
+that proposition.
+
+"Oh, no, indeed! I shall have to go on foot. It seems you turned them
+out to pasture last night. I think you must have forgotten how hard it
+is to catch either of the horses when they are both let out at once."
+
+My sister had the grace to blush slightly, which consoled me a good
+deal. I hoped that, either as a soul or a form with impulses, she
+remembered that father or Joe had never made a practice of letting
+both horses out at once. When one was in the barn, his mate in the
+pasture could be easily caught. Otherwise, the catching was a work of
+labor and of pain. Once, indeed, when both had been inadvertently
+turned out together, father had been obliged to hire a cowboy to come
+with his lariat and rope Jim, the principal offender. When Jim, with
+the compelling noose about his neck, had been led ignominiously back
+to the stable, father had told us never to let them out together
+again, a warning that Jessie evidently recalled now for the first
+time.
+
+"Dear me, Leslie! I'm dreadfully sorry!" she exclaimed, lifting Ralph
+into his high chair; "I just meant to save a little work, and I guess
+I've brought on no end of it!"
+
+"Perhaps not; we'll leave the barn door open. It's so cold that they
+may go in of their own accord after a while." And that was what they
+did do, along in the afternoon, when it was quite too late for them to
+be of any service that day.
+
+My hasty breakfast finished, I got up from the table. "I am going
+right away, Jessie; it will never do to let the cows lie out all day."
+
+"No," Jessie assented. She was waiting on Ralph. I had thrown the
+mackintosh over a chair near the stove. I had had enough of that, but
+I must wear something. Picking up the big felt hat, I went into the
+next room and looked into a closet where a number of garments were
+hanging. Back in the corner, partially hidden under some other
+clothing, I caught a glimpse of a worn gray coat--the coat that father
+had loaned Joe on that fatal morning months ago. The rain dashed
+fiercely against the window panes as it had on that morning, too, and
+the sad, dull day seemed to grow sadder and grayer. With a sudden,
+homesick longing for father's love and sympathy, I took down the coat.
+Tears sprang to my eyes at sight of the big, aggressive patch on the
+left sleeve. Father had praised me for that bit of clumsy workmanship
+at which Jessie had laughed. I resolved to wear the coat. "I shall
+feel as if father were with me," I thought, as I slipped it on. Going
+out at the front door I did not again encounter Jessie, but as I
+passed the kitchen windows I saw her glance up and look at me with a
+startled air.
+
+It was still raining heavily and I started out on a fast walk.
+Crossing the foot-bridge below the house I ascended the hill on the
+other side. The cattle always crossed the river without the aid of the
+foot-bridge, however, and took this route to the upper range, where
+they were pretty sure to be now. I hoped that the pursuit would not
+lead me far among the hills. While thus in the open the situation was
+not unpleasant; I rather enjoyed the feeling of the rain drops in my
+face. Just as I gained the crest of the hill beyond the river I heard
+some one shouting, and, looking back, saw Jessie. She was out in the
+yard in the rain calling and waving the apron that she had snatched
+off for the purpose. With the noise of the rain and the rushing river
+it was impossible to make out what she was saying. I was sure, though,
+that she merely wished to remonstrate with me for not wearing the
+mackintosh. I waved my hand to let her know that I saw her, and then
+hurried on down the farther slope of the hill. I walked fast for a
+long distance without coming upon any trace of the cattle, and then I
+fell gradually into the slower pace that is meant for staying. As I
+did so my thoughts again reverted to the money-counting problem that
+had vexed me over night. In the re-assuring light of day it did not
+seem so entirely probable that Jessie had been so mistaken in her
+count, and it did not so much matter that I had forgotten after all to
+ask her where the money was kept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+A QUEER BANK
+
+
+In spite of obliterating rain, there were plenty of fresh cattle
+tracks along and by the side of the trail. It did not necessarily
+follow that any of the tracks were made by our cattle, still, they
+might have been, and with this slight encouragement, I hurried along,
+getting gradually higher, and deeper into the mountains. As I went I
+reflected bitterly on the perversity of cow nature. A nature that
+leads these gentle seeming creatures to endure hunger, thirst, and
+weariness, to push for miles into a trackless wilderness, if by so
+doing they can put their owners to trouble and expense. It was not
+often that our cattle ranged so far away from home, and it was with a
+little unconfessed feeling of dismay that, pausing to take stock of my
+surroundings, I suddenly discovered that I was close upon the Hermit's
+cave, and no signs of the strays yet. At the same time I made another
+discovery as comforting as this was disquieting. Guard, whom I had
+forgotten to invite to accompany me, was skulking along in the
+underbrush beside the trail, uncertain whether to show himself or not.
+When I spoke to him he bounded to my side. "Guard," I said, looking
+down at him thoughtfully, "it's raining harder than ever, and the wind
+is blowing; now that you are with me, I think we will just stop in the
+cave until the storm abates a little." Guard's bushy tail was wet and
+heavy with rain, but he wagged it approvingly, and toward the cave
+we started. There was a green little valley over the ridge, and I
+resolved when the storm slackened, to climb up and have a look into
+it. If the cattle were not there I should be compelled to give over
+the hunt for that day.
+
+A sudden lull in the storm was followed by a blacker sweep of clouds
+and a resounding peal of thunder, the prelude to a pitiless burst of
+hail-stones. Pelted by the stinging missiles, and gasping for breath
+as I struggled against the rising wind, I made for the cave with Guard
+close at my heels, and dashed into the gloomy cavern without a thought
+of anything but shelter.
+
+The entrance to the cave was merely a large opening in a pile of
+rocks close beside the cattle trail, and the cave itself was famous
+throughout the valley solely because of its imagined history and its
+actual equipment. Because of its nearness to the trail there was
+little danger of its becoming a lair for wild beasts. People said that
+the spot had been the dwelling place of a man, educated and wealthy,
+who had chosen to live and die alone in the wilderness. How they came
+to know this was never quite clear, for the furnishing of the cave was
+there, offering its mute history to the first venturesome hunter who
+had penetrated these wilds years and years ago, just as it was offered
+to the curious to-day. The educational theory could probably be traced
+to the torn and yellowing fragments of a book that lay on the rude
+table opposite the cavern entrance. How many inquisitive fingers had
+turned its baffling pages, how many curious eyes had vainly scanned
+them in the course of the slow moving years in which the cavern held
+its secret? The book was written in a language quite unknown to us
+simple folk. For the theory of wealth the rusty, crumbling old
+flint-lock musket, leaning against the wall beside the table, was
+silver mounted and heavily chased. Beside the table was a rude bench
+made from a section of sawed pine. That was all, but impressive
+legends have been handed down, from one generation to another, on less
+foundation than the cave furnished to our valley romanticists. It was
+not even odd to us that no one in all these years had stolen or
+desecrated the pathetic mementos of a vanished life. People on the
+frontier have a great respect--a respect not necessarily enforced with
+lock and key--for the belongings of another. The mountings of the gun
+were of solid silver, but I doubt if even Mr. Horton could have
+justified himself to himself in taking it. I had been in the place
+once or twice and had turned over the untelling leaves with reverent
+fingers, but I had never felt any inclination to linger within the
+gloomy walls; the sunlight on the cattle trail outside had greater
+allurements, but now, beaten by the hail, I rushed in headlong, and in
+doing so nearly fell over the body of a man lying outstretched on the
+stone floor, just within the entrance. The man was evidently sleeping,
+and very soundly, for my tumultuous rush roused him so little that he
+merely turned on one side, sighed, and again relapsed into deepest
+slumber. I stood in my tracks, trembling, undecided whether to dash
+out into the storm or run the risk of remaining in the cavern. The
+fierce rattle of the hail beating on the rocks outside decided me to
+do the latter. Noiselessly, step by step, I stole backward into the
+darkness of the cavern. My backward progress was checked at last by
+the corner of the table against which I brought up. I glanced down at
+it. It was laden with a regular cowboy equipment of spurs, quirt,
+revolver, cartridge-belt, and the too common accompaniment of a
+bottle of whiskey. If the sleeping man on the floor were called
+on to defend himself for any cause he need not suffer for want
+of ammunition. I had less fear of his awakening since seeing the
+half-emptied bottle, but far greater fear of what he might do when
+he did awake.
+
+Surely, there never was a wiser dog than Guard! He had not made a
+sound since our entrance, although he had certainly cocked a
+disdainful eye at the recumbent figure on the floor as we passed
+it. Now, in obedience to the warning of my uplifted finger, he
+crept silently to my side. He watched my movements with an air of
+intelligent comprehension as I quietly took possession of the bottle,
+revolver, and cartridge-belt, and then followed me without a sound as
+I stole breathlessly into the deepest recess of the cavern. The rocky
+roof sloped down over this recess, until, at its farthest extremity,
+there was scarcely room for a person to crouch under it, close to the
+wall, and it was so dark that I could barely make out the form of the
+dog crouching beside me. Safe hidden in the darkness, I determined to
+rid the sleeping man of at least one of his enemies. Pulling the cork
+from the bottle, I poured its contents on the rocks, thereby, as I
+found, running imminent risk of a sneeze from Guard, who rolled his
+head from side to side in distress as the pungent liquor penetrated
+his nostrils. The danger passed, luckily, without noise. We crouched
+in perfect silence, waiting for the hail-storm to pass. It was too
+violent to be of long duration, yet I could not tell, after some
+minutes of anxious listening, when it ceased, for the hail was
+followed by a fresh deluge of rain. It was comfortable in the
+cavern--warm and dry. The man, as his regular breathing testified,
+slept soundly, and I thought, while I waited, that I, too, might as
+well make myself easy. Softly pulling off the wet coat, I turned the
+dryest side outward, and, rolling it into a compact bundle, placed it
+under my head for a pillow. With the sleeper's armament between myself
+and the rock at my back, with Guard vigilantly alive to any motion of
+anything, inside the cavern or out, I felt entirely safe, and wearily
+closed my eyes. It was pleasant lying there so sheltered and guarded,
+to listen to the heavy rush of the rain--or was it hail?--or the
+far-heard cry of wolves, or the rushing swirl of the river. I had not
+slept well the night before, but I could not have been asleep many
+minutes when I was awakened by a low growl from Guard. Brief as my
+nap had been, it was, nevertheless, so sound that at first I was
+bewildered and unable to recall what had happened. I started up
+quickly, bumping my head against the rocky roof, and so effectually
+recalling my scattered senses and the necessity for caution.
+
+The sleeping cowboy had also awakened and was wandering aimlessly
+about the cavern. He was muttering to himself, and his incoherent talk
+soon told me that he was in anxious quest of the bottle that I was at
+that moment sitting upon.
+
+The sound of his own voice had, apparently, drowned that of Guard's.
+Seeing this I put one hand on that attendant's collar and shook the
+other threateningly in his face. He had been standing up, but sat
+down, with, I was sure from the very feel of his fur, a most
+discontented expression. In the silence the stranger's plaint made
+itself distinctly audible:
+
+"Leff' 'em on a table; 'n' whar is they at now? Reckon I must 'a' been
+locoed, or, like 'nuff that ar ole hermutt's done played a trick on
+me. S'h'd think he'd have more principle than t' play a trick on a
+pore feller what's jest stopped t' rest in his hole for a few hours."
+
+He overturned the bench to peer inquiringly at the place where it had
+stood, then, straightening himself as well as he could--which was not
+very well--he looked slowly around the cavern. "It stan's to reason,"
+he muttered thoughtfully, "that if airy one had come in whilst I was
+asleep I'd 'a' woke up, so the hermutt must 'a' done it. What a ghost
+kin want of a gun beats me, too! Why in thunderation didn't he take
+his ole flint-lock, if he was wantin' a gun so mighty bad, instead of
+sneakin' back t' rob a pore feller in his sleep! I wonder if the ole
+thing is loaded, anyway. There's a pair of eyes shinin' back yon in
+the corner; I ain't afeared of 'em, but I wisht he'd 'a' left my gun.
+Who's agoin' t' draw a bead on a pair of eyes in the dark with a ole
+flint-lock that you have to build a bonfire around before the
+powder'll take fire?"
+
+Clearly, as his drunken muttering told, he had caught the gleam of
+Guard's angry eyes, yet, it was evident, as he had said, that he was
+not at all afraid. Wild beast or tame, it was all one to him, that I
+well knew, for now that he was on his feet, and standing in the shaft
+of pale light streaming in at the cavern entrance, I recognized him as
+Big Jim.
+
+Big Jim was a cowboy with a more than local fame for reckless daring,
+as well as for his unfortunate appetite for strong drink. I had seen
+him but once before, but I had been able on that occasion to render
+him a slight service. It did not seem to me, however, as I crouched
+trembling under the rock, watching his irresponsible movements, that
+the memory of that service would aid my cause with him just now, even
+if I were daring enough to recall it. People said that Big Jim never
+forgave any one who came between him and his whiskey bottle. Recalling
+this gossip, as the man staggered toward the corner where the rusty
+old musket stood, I decided that it was time to act. The flint-lock,
+even if loaded, would probably be as harmless in his incapable hands
+as any other iron rod, but under the circumstances it did not look
+particularly safe to linger.
+
+As the man's back was turned I sprang suddenly to my feet. "Seek him,
+Guard! Take him!" I cried, and Guard literally obeyed. Startled and
+sobered by the sound of a voice, Big Jim whirled around, facing the
+direction whence the voice came, to be met by the dog's fierce charge.
+Guard's leap was so impetuous that the man staggered under it, and,
+losing his balance, fell to the floor. Guard fastened his teeth in the
+skirt of his coat as he fell. There was a momentary struggle on
+the floor. While it was taking place I darted out of the cavern,
+revolver, cartridge-belt, and even the empty whiskey bottle in my
+hands. Safely outside, I halted, and with what little breath I had
+left whistled for Guard. A load was off my heart when the dog came
+bounding to my side, none the worse for his brief encounter with an
+unarmed cowboy.
+
+I had hoped to get out of sight before Big Jim discovered me, but he
+came out of the cavern on Guard's heels. Evidently quite sobered, he
+stopped when he saw me. He glanced at the armament in my hands, at
+the empty bottle, and, lifting his hat with its great flapping brim,
+scratched his head in perplexity. It was still raining, a fact which
+Big Jim seemed suddenly to discover.
+
+"Wet, ain't it?" he observed.
+
+"Rain is usually wet," I informed him, with unnecessary explicitness.
+
+"Yes, I reckon 'tis. Say, that's my bottle you've got in your hands."
+
+"So I supposed."
+
+"You're welcome to the whiskey--I see it's gone, and 'tis a good thing
+to take off a chill--when a body gets wet--but I'd like the bottle
+again."
+
+"I am going to put the bottle and the revolver and the belt in the
+hollow of the big pine near the lower crossing. You can get them
+there."
+
+"Oh, ain't you goin' t' give 'em to me now?"
+
+"No, I am not."
+
+"'Fraid of me, I reckon."
+
+"Yes, I am."
+
+"I won't hurt you, Miss Leslie Gordon. I remember you first-rate. Got
+that little white handkercher that you done up my hand in the day I
+burned it so at the Alton camp yet."
+
+"You might not hurt me, but I think you would hurt my dog."
+
+"Yes, Miss Gordon, I'm 'bleeged t' say that if I had a shootin' iron
+in my hands jest now I'd be mighty glad t' let daylight through that
+dog o' yourn. He's too fractious t' live in the same country as a
+white man."
+
+I grasped the revolver tighter. "How came you in the cavern?"
+
+"Well, if you want t' know, I took a drop too much at the dance last
+night, an' the ole man, he'd said if sech a thing as that ar' took
+place again he'd feel obligated t' give me the marble heart. Mighty
+cranky the ole man is. So I jest wended up here along, thinkin' I'd
+bunk with the ole hermutt till I got a little nigher straight. It's a
+thing that don't often happen," he added, in self-extenuation; "but
+the party, it done got away with me. Now you know all about it, an'
+you'd better hand over them weapons."
+
+[Illustration: "YOU BETTER HAND OVER THEM WEAPONS!" (Page 220)]
+
+In spite of his civility, he was plainly angry, and I was the more
+resolved not to yield. The storm had been gradually lessening, the
+rain had subsided to a mere drizzle, and, in the increasing silence,
+I plainly heard the musical tinkle of old Cleo's bell. It came from
+beyond the ridge, so that it was certain that the cows were in the
+little green valley where I had hoped to find them. I started to climb
+the ridge, remarking over my shoulder to the baffled cowboy, "You'll
+find your things in the pine, where I told you."
+
+"Say, now, don't make me go down there on the high road!" he pleaded;
+"some one might see me and tell the boss. I won't touch the consarned
+dog if you'll give me the gun; I won't, honest! The boss, he thinks
+I'm on the range now, an' it's where I had ort to be."
+
+I was sorry for him, but my fear was greater than my sympathy. Guard
+had torn the skirt of his coat in such a manner that it trailed behind
+as he walked, like a long and very disreputable pennant, and I could
+not be blind to the malevolent looks that he turned on my canine
+follower in spite of his fair promises.
+
+"I never heard of any one's being the better for drinking whiskey," I
+volunteered, as a bit of information that might be of interest to him.
+Then I started on again, to be brought to an abrupt halt by hearing a
+voice on the trail below calling in a tone of piercing anxiety:
+
+"Leslie! Leslie! Leslie!" The voice was Jessie's.
+
+"Jessie, I am here!" I called back re-assuringly, and ran down in the
+direction of the voice, leaving the cowboy staring.
+
+In a moment I came face to face with my sister as she panted,
+breathless, up the trail.
+
+"Oh, Leslie! Leslie!" she gasped. "What a chase I have had after you!"
+
+"Why did you follow me? I have the cows--or they have themselves--and
+your skirts are all wet."
+
+For answer, Jessie gazed at me with an expression curiously compounded
+of horror and dismay.
+
+"The coat! Where is the coat?" she gasped.
+
+I remembered then that in my eagerness to escape from the cave I had
+left the coat lying as I had used it, rolled up for a pillow.
+
+"It's in the Hermit's cave," I said meekly, ashamed to admit that I
+had forgotten the thing that she held so sacred that, for its sake,
+she had followed me in the rain for some toilsome upward miles.
+
+"Go back and get it instantly, instantly!" cried my usually calm
+sister, wringing her hands in distress. The distress was so
+unnecessarily acute for the cause that I resented it.
+
+"The coat is all right, Jessie; it is safe; and I do not want to go
+back there now."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+I told her.
+
+"You must!" said Jessie, with whitening lips. "You must! Come!" and
+she rushed up the trail toward the cavern.
+
+"What have you done with Ralph?" I asked, hurrying after her. Jessie
+turned an anguished glance back at me over her shoulder.
+
+"I have left him locked up in the house with a pair of scissors and a
+picture book; hurry!"
+
+"I hope they'll keep him from thinking of the matches," I said,
+bitterly. It seemed to me at that moment that Jessie showed more
+concern for the out-worn garment of the dead than she did for the
+safety of the living.
+
+Big Jim had gone back into the cavern; he, too, had evidently been
+searching it, for when, at the sound of our approaching footsteps, he
+appeared at the entrance, it was with father's coat in his hands.
+Jessie went boldly to his side.
+
+"I want that coat, if you please," she said firmly.
+
+Jim backed off a little, holding the coat out at arm's length, and
+examining it critically.
+
+"Whose is it?" he asked.
+
+"It was my father's; it is ours; please give it to me."
+
+Big Jim shook his head. "No; your dog done tore my coat half offen my
+back; your sister made way with my tonic--I'm 'bleeged to take it for
+my lungs--an' she's got my gun an' fixin's, an' won't give 'em up. I
+reckon as I'll jest keep this coat till she forks them things over."
+
+"Give him his things, Leslie," Jessie commanded.
+
+"No," I remonstrated; "no, Jessie, if I do he will shoot Guard; I'm
+sure of it."
+
+Jessie turned on the dog: "Go home! go home, sir!" she cried, stamping
+her foot. Guard slunk off, his tail between his legs, and his bright
+eyes fixed reproachfully on me. I threw the gun with its trappings at
+the cowboy's feet. "There, take them! You can shoot me if you like. I
+threw away your whiskey."
+
+"I wouldn't 'a' cared a bit if you'd 'a' drunk it, as I reckoned you
+did," Jim returned with a light laugh, as he picked up the gun. "I
+ain't agoin' to hurt you; tole you so in the first place. Got your
+little handkercher yet, I have. Here's the coat." He tossed it into
+Jessie's outstretched arms. Clasping it tightly to her breast she
+started quickly down the trail.
+
+Following her for a few steps before taking my way over the ridge, I
+observed that her hands were wandering swiftly over the coat, from
+pocket to pocket; as if seeking something. Suddenly the expression of
+intense anxiety on her face gave way to one of unspeakable relief. She
+turned around quickly and caught my hand: "Come on, you poor, abused
+girl! Let's run, I am so anxious about Ralph."
+
+"I'm glad you've got some affection left for him!" I retorted
+scornfully. "It seemed to me from the way you've gone on, that you
+cared less for either of us than for father's old coat."
+
+Jessie gave the hand that lay limply in her's an ecstatic little
+squeeze. "Our money, Leslie, is all in a little bag that is pinned in
+the lining of this old coat; it's here now, all safe."
+
+I could only gasp, as she had done before me, with a difference of
+names, "Oh, Jessie!"
+
+"Yes," Jessie repeated, nodding, "and it's quite safe, I can feel it.
+Our cowboy friend did not have time to find it. I only hope that Ralph
+has not got into mischief." He had not. I was obliged to leave Jessie
+and go over the ridge for the cows, but she told me, when I presently
+followed her into the house, that she had found Ralph still
+contentedly destroying his picture book.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A VITAL POINT
+
+
+It was the day but one after our exciting trip to the Water Storage
+Reservoir when, as we were busy about our usual work, our attention
+was attracted by a loud voice at the gate, shouting: "Whoa! Whoa, sir!
+Whoa, now, I tell you!" and I was guilty of a disrespectful laugh.
+
+"There comes Mr. Wilson, Jessie. You can always tell when he is
+coming, for he begins shouting to his horses to stop as soon as he
+sights a point where he wishes them to halt. Evidently he is intending
+to call on us."
+
+"Good morning, young folks, good morning!" was the hearty salutation,
+a moment after, as our neighbor himself stood on the threshold.
+
+"No, I can't stop," he declared, as usual, when Jessie offered him a
+chair. "If I set," he continued, "I shall stay right on, like a big
+clam that's got fixed to his liking, prob'ly, and I've got a heap to
+do to-day."
+
+Nevertheless, he dropped easily into the seat as he continued:
+
+"Day after to-morrow's the day, I s'pose?"
+
+"Yes," Jessie responded, dejectedly, "it is."
+
+"Hu--m--wal', wal', you don't seem real animated about it, if you'll
+excuse my saying so. I swan, I 'lowed you all would be right pleased
+to think the long waiting's so nearly over."
+
+"It isn't that," Jessie told him, trying to keep her lips from
+quivering, "but--Joe has gone."
+
+"What!"
+
+Jessie repeated the statement.
+
+"Pshaw! Now, that's too bad!" Mr. Wilson exclaimed, rubbing his hair
+upright, as he always did when perplexed. "Wal', I don't know when
+I've heard anything more surprising," he continued, when Jessie had
+detailed the manner of Joe's disappearance to him; "I'd a banked on
+that old man to the last breath o' life. And he's gone! Appearances
+are all-fired deceivin', that's so, but don't you grieve over it,
+girls; it'll all come out all right in the end. The old man has stayed
+right by you and helped you good since your pa was taken, but we must
+remember that he never was in the habit of tyin' himself down to one
+place before this, and, more'n likely's not, his old, rovin' habits
+have suddenly proved too strong fer him, and he's jest lit out because
+he couldn't stan' the pressure any longer."
+
+"But Joe is so faithful; he has always been just like one of the
+family, and he knows so well how badly we need him," I objected; "it
+does not seem possible for him to have deserted us."
+
+"Desert is a purty ha'sh word, Miss Leslie. There's some mystery about
+it, take my word for it. Joe'll be back again, and when he comes I'll
+guarantee that he'll be able to give some good reason for going away."
+
+Jessie shook her head, tearfully. "I don't believe he will ever come
+back," she said.
+
+"Wal', s'pose he doesn't? I reckon you two ain't goin' to let go your
+grip on that account. But troubles do seem to kind o' thicken around
+you! That's so."
+
+He paused a moment, musing over our troubles, and Ralph took advantage
+of his silence to call his attention to the kitten with which one of
+the neighbors had presented him to the jealous torment of his old
+playfellow, the big cat: "My new tat tan wink wiv bof he eyes, see?"
+he proclaimed, holding the animal up for inspection.
+
+"Yes, yes, I see, little feller," was the absent reply.
+
+Encouraged, Ralph put the kitten on his lap. "Her won't bite; 'oo
+needn't be 'fraid," he said.
+
+Mr. Wilson stroked the small cat mechanically and then lifted it to
+the ground--using its tail for a handle, to Ralph's speechless
+indignation--then he faced us again, his forehead puckered with
+anxious wrinkles: "There's one thing that I never thought of until
+early this morning--when I did, I hurried through with my chores and
+came right over here. It's a stunner to find that Joe's gone, now, in
+addition to all the rest, but we must keep a stiff upper lip. Fact is,
+I'm to blame for not thinking of this thing six weeks--yes, three
+months ago. I ought to have thought of it, children," he swept us all
+with a compassionate glance, "the day that your father died. I'd be
+willing to bet a big sum, if I was a betting man--which I'm thankful
+to say that I ain't--that Jake Horton thought of it, and has kept it
+well in mind all along; he ain't the man to overlook such a thing as
+that." Wiping his perplexed face with the red silk handkerchief that
+he always kept in his hat for that purpose, he continued, desperately:
+"This claim was taken up, lived on, built on, notices for proving up
+by Ralph C. Gordon. Ralph C. Gordon! Wal'," he ran his fingers again
+through his iron-gray hair, making it stand more defiantly upright
+than ever, "there ain't no Ralph C. Gordon!"
+
+The point that we had overlooked, presented to us now, for the first
+time, almost on the eve of our proving up, was of such vital
+importance, as it occurred to our awakened understanding, that, at
+first, we could do nothing but stare at each other, and at him, in
+stunned dismay. But hope, as that saving angel will, stirred, and
+began to brighten as our friend proceeded.
+
+"There are ways," he said. "I've been thinking of some of 'em; but I
+am desperate afraid that none of 'em will do. The agent might, if he
+was disposed to be obligin', transfer your father's claim to you,
+Jessie, if you could swear that you are the head of a family, and
+that's what you can't do--not as the law requires it, you can't. The
+law don't recognize any one as the head of a family until of legal
+age. Even if you were of legal age, the agent might refuse, if he saw
+fit. If he should, all that you can do will be to file on the claim
+again and go in for another five years' tussle with the homesteading
+problem. 'Pears like there was a pretty fair prospect of your whole
+family coming of age before another siege of homesteading is ended.
+Why didn't I think of all this before? 'Cause I'm an old wooden head,
+I s'pose! No, I'm mighty afeared that the only thing we can do is for
+you to jest go down and file on the land in your own name, and say
+nothing about age, if the agent asks no questions. As I said before,
+you'll be old enough for anything before it comes time for a second
+proving up."
+
+Jessie, who had been listening intently, here suddenly interposed with
+sparkling eyes, "I'm old enough now, Mr. Wilson, or, at least, I shall
+be to-morrow. To-morrow is my birthday, and I shall be eighteen!"
+
+Mr. Wilson sprang up so suddenly that he overturned his chair, and
+sent Ralph's new pet scurrying from the room in wild alarm.
+
+"Hooray for us!" he cried, seizing Jessie's hand. "The Gordons
+forever! Now we're all right. I've felt certain all along that the
+agent would give you a deed if he could, but he couldn't if you were
+all under age. 'Twouldn't 'a' been legal. But if one of you is of
+legal age, the homestead business is settled."
+
+"But suppose he should refuse to give us a deed on account of the
+claim's standing in father's name?" Jessie asked.
+
+"In that case the thing to do is to file on it again, right there and
+then, in your own name--strange, ain't it," he interjected, suddenly,
+"that the law 'pears to declare that a girl's as smart at eighteen as
+a boy is at twenty-one? Wal', the law don't know everything; you must
+go down there day after to-morrow, prepared to enter the claim again,
+though I do hope it won't come to that."
+
+"That will cost a good deal, too, won't it?" Jessie inquired,
+dejectedly.
+
+"Yes; it will. I don't see but you must go down with money enough not
+only to pay up the final fees, but to file on the land again in case
+of the agent's refusal."
+
+"Will that take more than the fees would amount to?" I inquired.
+
+"Bless you, yes! I don't know jest how much, but a right smart. How
+much have you got now?"
+
+It needed no reckoning to tell the sum total of our painfully
+garnered hoard. Mr. Wilson shook his head when Jessie named the sum
+total. "Not enough; not enough, by half! And, as the worst luck will
+have it, I'm clean out of money myself jest now. I declare, I don't
+see where my money all goes! It don't 'pear to matter how much I may
+have one day, it's all gone the next; beats all, it does!" He looked
+at us solemnly, sitting with his lips pursed up, his hair standing
+bolt upright, and his brows knit over the problem of his own financial
+shortage, yet, to one who knew him, no problem was of easier solution.
+Up and down the length and breadth of the valley, in miner's lonely
+cabin, in cowboy's rough shack, or struggling rancher's rude
+domicile--wherever a helpful friend was needed, Mr. Wilson was known
+and loved, and, if money was needed, all that he had was freely given.
+So it was no surprise to learn that he was suffering from temporary
+financial embarrassment at a time when he would have liked, as usual,
+to help a friend.
+
+"Say," he suddenly exclaimed, starting from his troubled reverie; "in
+order to make all safe, you've got to have money enough to file on
+that land when you go down; there's no 'if's' nor 'and's' about that!
+Your father would never 'a' hesitated a minute about borrowing the
+money for such a purpose, if he had it to do. Now, Jim Jackson--over
+Archeleuta way--he's owing me quite a consid'able. I'll go over there
+to-day and see what I can do with him. He'll help us out if he can,
+but he's been having sickness in his family, and maybe he can't; we'll
+have to take our chances. I do' no's a hold-up is ever justifiable,"
+he continued, with a humorous twinkle in his bright eyes; "but if it
+is, this would be one of the times. I hope we won't be drove to that!"
+
+He took his departure shortly after, going back home to exchange his
+team--to the detriment of his own affairs, I'm afraid--for a
+saddle-horse, the better to perform the somewhat hazardous journey up
+"Archeleuta way," but, before going, he enjoined us, if we had any
+written proof of Jessie's coming of age on the morrow, to look it up
+and have it in readiness to offer in evidence, in case the fact were
+questioned.
+
+"Your coming of age to-morrow is of so much importance that it seems
+almost too good to be true," he said, earnestly.
+
+So, after he had gone, Jessie took the big family Bible down from the
+book shelf, and, opening the book, turned to the pages where the
+Gordon family record had been carefully kept for many years. We knew,
+of course, that there could be no mistake, but it was pleasant to see
+the proof of our security in indisputable black and white.
+
+"I'm afraid that Mr. Wilson will get nothing out of the Jacksons,"
+Jessie remarked, as we turned away from a prolonged inspection of the
+record; "he has had bad luck, and I heard, the other day, that Ted had
+broken his arm."
+
+"I'm not going to be afraid about anything now," I declared valiantly.
+"I'm sure we'll come out all right. Mercy on us! What was that?" I
+broke off, as a chorus of mingled outcries came to our ears. Outside
+the doorway there appeared to be, judging by the sound, a lively
+commotion, in which cat, dog, and boy were each bearing a part. We ran
+out in alarm and found Ralph just picking himself up off the ground
+upon which he seemed to have been thrown with some force.
+
+Ralph, unnoticed in the interest of our talk with Mr. Wilson, had been
+amusing himself in his own way. His way had been to overturn the empty
+bushel basket and put it over Guard, who was lying by the doorstep.
+Guard had submitted to imprisonment with placid indifference until it
+came to Ralph's thrusting the new cat in with him; this he instantly
+resented, so, to insure the dog's staying within, Ralph had climbed
+upon the basket. Whereupon Guard sprang up, overturning both jail and
+jailor. The liberated cat fled with all speed, and Guard walked off in
+disgust.
+
+"What on earth are you trying to do?" I demanded.
+
+Ralph raised his violet eyes soberly to my face as he replied: "Us
+was havin' a round-up; now us all 'tampeded," and the violet eyes were
+drenched with raindrops, as the little cattleman threw himself on the
+ground, sobbing.
+
+"Never mind, darling, your herd will all come home," I said,
+consolingly.
+
+"Me don't want 'em to tum back; me's so mad!" was the uncompromising
+reply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+MR. HORTON MAKES US A VISIT
+
+
+Late that same evening Mr. Wilson called again. He was on his way
+home, and stopped to tell us--with evident chagrin--that his mission
+had been a failure.
+
+"You'll have to take the trail in the morning, Leslie, and see what
+you can do," he said, as he went away.
+
+The cows broke out of the corral that night, and it took so long to
+hunt them up, get them back into the corral, and milk them, that it
+was quite the middle of the day when I was ready to start out on my
+unwelcome business. Try as I might to convince myself to the contrary,
+the effort to borrow money seemed to me, somehow, akin to beggary. In
+my heart I had a cowardly wish that Joe had been on hand to take my
+place, but I kept all such reflections to myself. I had changed my
+print dress for the worn old riding habit of green serge, and was
+about starting for the barn to get Frank, when Jessie remarked:
+
+"While you are hunting for a chance to borrow money, I'll be
+earning some. If I can finish this work to-day--it's Annie Ellis'
+wrapper--I'll have two dollars to add to the fund. Why, Leslie, I'd
+pretty nearly sell the dress off my back to raise money to-day!"
+
+"Well, I know I'd do that, with half the reason for it that we have
+now. Dresses are a bother, anyway"--my habit was too short and too
+tight, not having kept pace with my growth--"but, all the same, I hate
+to see you working so hard. You've really grown thin and pale lately,"
+I added.
+
+"It won't be for long; I'll soon be through with it now--" Jessie was
+beginning, when a cheerful voice from the doorway echoed her words:
+
+"No; it won't be for long! That's a comfort, ain't it?"
+
+We both started. We had been so engrossed that we had heard no one
+approaching, and, even if we had, we could scarcely have been less
+startled, for the man leaning comfortably against the door-jamb was
+Jacob Horton. It had been many weeks since he had, to our knowledge,
+set foot on our premises.
+
+"Good morning, Miss Jessie and Leslie," he began affably. "Nice
+morning, ain't it? I've been living in this valley going on eight
+year, and I don't recollect as ever I see a nicer mornin' than this
+is."
+
+He put one foot upon the door sill--a suggestive attitude--but neither
+of us invited him to enter. He was not easily daunted, however. The
+hand that rested against the door-jamb was still bandaged, and, as I
+made out with a swift glance, a button was still missing from his
+coat. It was the coat that he had worn on the night that he had
+ostensibly salted the cattle in the far pasture. From his point of
+observation Mr. Horton, turning slightly, threw an admiring glance
+around. The glance seemed to include the outer prospect as well as the
+inner.
+
+"This is a sightly place for a house, ain't it?" he remarked. "I
+do'no--I really do'no but I'd like that knoll t'other side the river
+just as well, though, and it would be nigher the spring. I'll speak to
+my wife about it; if she likes this spot better, why, here our house
+goes up. I shan't object. We can move this contraption that your
+father built, back for a hen house, or a pig-pen; just as she says. I
+always try to please my wife."
+
+"When you get ready, perhaps you'll kindly tell us what you are
+talking about, Mr. Horton," Jessie said, rising from the sewing
+machine and going toward the door, whither I followed her.
+
+"Tell you? Oh, yes, I forgot. Of course you girls can't be expected to
+know--young as you be--that you can't hold this claim. This claim was
+open for re-entry the day that your father was drowned. I wasn't ready
+to take it up just then; I am ready now. Odd, ain't it? I've been
+hearin' some talk--my wife told me, in fact--that you girls had laid
+out to go down to the land office with your witnesses to offer final
+proof to-morrow; Well, now--he, he! That's a reg'lar joke, for if
+you'll believe it, to-morrow's the day I've set to go down and file on
+this claim, 'count of it's being vacant! I don't s'pose, now, that you
+girls are reely in earnest about trying to keep the place? It would be
+a sight of trouble to you, even if the law would allow it, which it
+won't."
+
+"Why not, Mr. Horton?" I asked.
+
+"Why not? Wal', I don't know just why; I didn't make the homestead
+laws--reasonable laws they be, though; I couldn't 'a' made better ones
+myself--but I can tell you two girls one big, fundamental clause, so
+to speak, of the Homestead Act, under which you don't come--yes, two
+of 'em. First, foremost, and enough to swamp your whole outfit, if
+there was nothing else, you ain't neither of you of age. Second, not
+being of age, you ain't neither of you the head of a family."
+
+I looked at Mr. Horton's bandaged hand, and a thrill of genuine
+delight went through me, as I hastened to dispute one of his
+fundamental clauses.
+
+"Jessie is the head of a family, Mr. Horton--Ralph and I are her
+family."
+
+"Maybe! Maybe! I s'pose, no doubt, you regard yourselves in that
+light. No harm's done, as long as you keep it to yourselves, but
+you'll find that the law won't recognize you in that way. The law's
+everlastin' partic'lar about such things. But, again, there's the
+matter of your both being under age! Now, what a misfortune that is to
+you--s'posing that you're in earnest about wanting to keep this place,
+but I reckon you ain't--if you recollect, you two, I've always said
+that I'd have this place. It may save you some trouble and expense, if
+I say right here and now, that I mean to have it! I mean to have it!
+Don't forget that! But I ain't a hard man--not at all--and I'm willing
+to make it as easy as I can for you. Why, I could 'a' filed on this
+any time since your pa died, but I didn't, and why not?"
+
+"If you ask me," I said, speaking very quietly, though I was
+trembling with indignation, "I suppose you didn't file on it because
+you thought it would be better to let us get a crop in before you did
+it; then you could steal the crop along with the place."
+
+"Leslie!" Jessie exclaimed, aghast.
+
+But Mr. Horton's thin lips parted in a wolfish smile. "Oh--ho! you're
+up on the homestead laws to some extent, I see. Crops do go with the
+land when the claimant forfeits his right to the land that bears them.
+Your father, he forfeited his right by getting drownded, and no one
+has entered the claim since, so I'm about to enter it. As I said
+before I ain't a hard man, and I'm willing to make it as easy as I can
+for you, so I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll pay a fair price for such
+improvements as your father made. They don't amount to much--"
+
+"But if you should decide to commute the claim, instead of waiting
+five years to prove up, it would be worth a good deal to you to be
+able to swear that such and such things had stood on the place so
+long, which you could not do if we took our improvements away; for we
+have a right to remove whatever we have built, if we do not keep the
+claim."
+
+Mr. Horton's narrow eyes rested on me with anything but a friendly
+expression. "You're posted quite a consid'able; ain't you, Miss
+Smarty? Pity you didn't know jest a little mite more. Well; we won't
+quarrel over a little thing like that. I'll pay for the improvements,
+and you'll jest leave 'em where they are. This house, now, I'll take a
+look at it; it don't amount to much, that's so, but such as 'tis, I'll
+look at it."
+
+"You are welcome to do so," Jessie assured him.
+
+I think it came into her mind, as it certainly did into mine, that he
+wished to ascertain if the house were not lacking in some one or more
+of the essential equipments of a homesteader's claim. If he should
+discover such a lack his task would be all the easier. I ran over a
+hasty, furtive inventory on my fingers: "Cat, clock, table, chairs,
+stove--"
+
+The cat was lying comfortably outstretched on the window ledge, her
+head resting on the open pages of the Bible, that we had both
+neglected to replace. The clock ticked loudly from its place on the
+mantel-piece; there was a fire in the stove, and, absorbed in staring,
+Mr. Horton stumbled over one of the chairs. The result of his
+inspection did not please him; he scowled at the cat, who resented his
+glance by springing from the window and hissing spitefully at his legs
+as she passed him on her way out. Her sudden spring drew our visitor's
+attention to the book on which her head had been resting; the written
+pages attracted his notice.
+
+"What's that?" he demanded, going nearer, the better to examine them.
+
+"That is our family Bible," Jessie replied, laying her hand upon it
+reverently. "This"--she looked up at him with a kind of still, pale
+defiance--"this is the Gordon family record! It has been kept in these
+pages since the days of our great-great-grandfather, and"--she turned
+the book so that Mr. Horton's eyes rested on the entry--"it may
+interest you to know that I am eighteen, of legal age, to-day."
+
+Mr. Horton's jaw dropped, and for a speechless instant he looked the
+picture of blank amazement, then he rallied.
+
+"Records can lie," he declared, brutally. "You don't look eighteen,
+Jessie Gordon, and I don't believe you are. It's a likely story, ain't
+it now, that you should happen to be of age on the very day, almost,
+that it's a matter of life or death, as one might say, that you should
+be! No, that's too thin; it won't wash. You've made a little mistake
+in your entry, that's all. One of them convenient mistakes that folks
+are apt to make when it's to their interest to do so."
+
+"As there is no man here to kick you out of the house, I suppose you
+feel at liberty to say whatever comes into your wicked head, and we
+must bear it!" Jessie said, her voice shaken with anger.
+
+In spite of himself, Mr. Horton winced at that. "I ain't one to take
+advantage of your being helpless," he declared, virtuously. "You've
+no call to hint as much. But you know as well as I do that you don't
+look a day over sixteen, if you do that, and you couldn't make
+nobody--no land agent--believe that you are of age, if you didn't have
+that record to swear by."
+
+"As we do have it, it will probably answer our purpose."
+
+"Oh, well; maybe 'twill; maybe 'twill!" his glance ranged up and down
+the window, where lay the book with its irrefutable evidence. Then his
+eyes fell, and his tones changed to blandness once more. "I must be
+going," he announced, edging toward the door; "I was passing along,
+and an idee popped into my head. You've been to some expense in
+helping to find your pa's body--though why you should 'a' been so set
+on finding it, nobody knows; folks is so cur'ous, that way! If it had
+been my case, I reckon my folks would 'a' had sense enough to leave me
+where I was--"
+
+"I am sure they would--gladly!" I interposed, quickly.
+
+Mr. Horton shot an evil glance in my direction, and went on: "Well,
+you've been to some expense, and the mines have shut down so's 't that
+old crackerjack of a nigger that hangs 'round your place is out of
+work. I'm going to pre-empt this place--none o' your slack-twisted
+homestead rights for me--and I thought it would be neighborly if I was
+to step in and tell you, Jess, that my wife's wanting a hired girl.
+She was speaking of it last night, and the thought came into my head
+right off, though I didn't mention it to her, that you was going
+to need a home, and there was your chance. Being so young and
+inexperienced--for you don't look eighteen, no--I reckon you'd be
+willing to work without any more wages than jest your board and
+lodging until you had kind o' got trained into doing things our way."
+
+"I'm afraid that I should never earn any wages at anything--not if I
+were to live a thousand years, if I had to be trained to do things
+your way first!" Jessie told him, with flashing eyes.
+
+"Oh, that's all right; you'll get over some of your high notions when
+you get to be a hired girl. You'll prob'ly acquire the ornament of a
+meek and quiet spirit, same's the Bible speaks of, and it's one that
+you ain't got at present. As for you"--he turned on me savagely, and
+it was evident that he held me in even less esteem than he did my
+sister--"you can get out, and that brat"--he glared at Ralph, who had
+drawn near, and was regarding him with a kind of solemn, impersonal
+interest--"you can get shet of him easy enough--you can send him to
+the poor-house."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+GUARD MAKES A MISTAKE
+
+
+Mr. Horton was returning to the charge when I eagerly caught at an
+opportunity that now presented itself, of speeding his departure. He
+was standing with his back to the open door, and had not observed,
+as we did, that his horse--contrary to the usual habit of mountain
+ponies--was not standing patiently where his master had left him.
+
+Weary of waiting, he was walking away along the homeward road as
+rapidly as the dangling bridle reins would allow.
+
+"Mr. Horton," I said, "your horse is leaving." A wicked impulse forced
+me to add: "I am sure you would hate to lose your horse here--as you
+did a coat button, one night not so long ago."
+
+It was a reckless speech to make, as I felt when I looked at him. His
+face turned of a livid pallor; he looked murderous as he stood in his
+tracks, glaring at me. He was, I am certain, afraid to trust himself
+to speak, or to remain near me. He bounded out of the house shouting
+"Whoa! Whoa!" as he ran. Guard was dozing by the doorstep. Mr.
+Horton's action and call were so sudden that he sprang up, wide awake,
+looking eagerly around, under the impression that his services were in
+requisition. Though nearly full grown he was still a puppy, with many
+things to learn. The horse, also startled by Mr. Horton's outcry,
+raised his head, turning it from side to side as he looked back in
+search of the creature that had made such a direful noise. He
+quickened his pace into a trot, checked painfully whenever he stepped
+on the trailing bridle.
+
+An older and wiser dog than Guard, seeing the saddle and the trailing
+bridle, would have known better than to attempt to practice his
+"heeling" accomplishments on the animal that wore them. But Guard,
+eager to air his lately-acquired knowledge, stopped for no such
+considerations. Passing Mr. Horton, who was running after the horse,
+like a flash, he made a bee-line for that gentleman's mount. Reaching
+the animal, he crouched and bit one of his heels sharply. As the horse
+bounded away, he followed, nipping the flying heels and yelping with
+excitement. Mr. Horton toiled along in their rear and I ran after
+him--not actuated by any strong desire to come to his assistance, but
+in fear of what might happen should he succeed in laying hands on
+Guard. The very set of his vanishing shoulders told me that he was
+purple with rage and fatigue, and I had good cause to fear for the
+safety of the dog, to whom I called and whistled, imploringly. After a
+chase of about half a mile, Guard, making a wide detour around Mr.
+Horton, came slinking back to me. He was evidently troubled with
+misgivings as to the propriety of his conduct, and crouched in the
+dust at my feet, looking up at me with beautiful beseeching eyes. "You
+did very, very wrong!" I admonished him, earnestly. "You are
+never--ne-ver--to heel a horse that has a saddle or bridle on. Do you
+understand?"
+
+Guard hung his head dejectedly, his bright eyes seeming to say that he
+understood, and would profit by the lesson.
+
+Returning to the house I went in again instead of mounting the waiting
+horse and getting about my delayed errand.
+
+"Did Mr. Horton catch his horse?" Jessie inquired.
+
+"I don't know; I hope not, I'm sure. I think a five-mile walk will do
+him good. He'll have time to cool off a little."
+
+"He thinks that we have made a false entry here," Jessie went on,
+resentfully, approaching the window ledge and turning the leaves of
+the record. "Why," she continued, "it does not seem to me that even a
+hardened criminal would dare to do a thing like that! And I'm not a
+hardened criminal--yet. I am not sure but that I might become one if
+I am obliged to see much of Mr. Horton, though!" She closed the book
+and, stepping up on a chair, laid it on the shelf where our few books
+were kept. When she stepped down again she had another book in her
+arms. It was a large, square, leather-bound volume, almost identical
+in appearance with the one that she had just laid away.
+
+"What are you looking in the dictionary for?" I asked, as she laid the
+book on the broad window ledge that made such a convenient
+reading-desk.
+
+"I want to know exactly what 'fundamental' means," she replied. "I
+know pretty well, or I think I do, but I want to know exactly."
+
+Finding the word, she presently read aloud:
+
+"'Fundamental--pertaining to the foundation; hence, essential,
+elementary; a leading or primary principle; an essential.'"
+
+"Well, that's plain enough," she said, closing the book; "but I think
+we have looked out for fundamental clauses pretty faithfully. I wish
+that Joe was at home; we must get an early start to-morrow. It is
+foolish to feel so, when we know just how matters stand; but, somehow,
+Mr. Horton's threats have made me uneasy."
+
+"No wonder! The very sight of him is enough to make one shudder. But I
+don't see that there is anything that we can do, more than we are
+doing, Jessie."
+
+"You might ride over, since you are going out anyway, and tell Mr.
+Wilson what Mr. Horton has been saying. If you call on Mr. Drummond,
+who is our main hope for raising the money, you'll pass Wilson's,
+anyway."
+
+"Oh, yes! I'll see him, sure; and now I must be going."
+
+I went out accordingly, observing in an absent way, as I left the
+room, that, since no fundamental clause required Jessie to replace the
+dictionary on its shelf, it was still lying on the window-ledge.
+
+I rode immediately over to Mr. Wilson's, and was fortunate in finding
+him at home. He promised to "turn the thing over in his mind," and, if
+there seemed to him, as a result of this process, anything, any new
+move, called for on our part, to ride over during the day and let us
+know.
+
+Then I went on to the two or three places that we had in mind as most
+promising, if one desired to raise money, and failed distinctly, in
+every case. It was, as one of the ranchmen feelingly explained, "a dry
+time; between hay and grass. Too late for the spring round-up and too
+early for the fall harvest." Every one was, accordingly, lacking in
+ready cash.
+
+I returned home, not greatly dejected by my failure, since, thanks to
+Mr. Wilson, I had so well understood the existing conditions before
+starting out that I would have been surprised if I had succeeded.
+
+Joe being still absent, I was obliged to care for Frank myself. When,
+in the dusky twilight, I at length entered the house, it was to find
+little Ralph already fast asleep and Jessie about starting for the
+corral with the milk-pail.
+
+"Haven't you got the milking done yet, Jessie?"
+
+"No; I waited for Ralph to get to sleep and for you to come. Did you
+get any money?"
+
+"No."
+
+Jessie sighed. "I don't know, after all, that I much expected that you
+would. Well, if you can wait a little for your supper, come out to the
+corral and let me tell you what Mr. Wilson has been saying."
+
+"Has he been here again?"
+
+"Yes; he just left a few minutes before you came."
+
+We went on out to the corral where the cows were waiting to be milked,
+Guard following after us with as much sedateness and dignity as if he
+had never contemplated, much less committed, a foolish act in his
+life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+A FRIEND IN NEED
+
+
+Jessie seated herself on the milking-stool by old Cleo's side, while I
+leaned against the corral bars, watching her.
+
+"You're tired, aren't you, Leslie?" she asked, glancing up at me, as
+under her nimble fingers, the streams of milk began to rattle noisily
+into the pail.
+
+"Yes; I am, rather. I think I'm some disappointed too, maybe. What did
+Mr. Wilson say?"
+
+"He said that my best plan--for it must go in my name, now--is to get
+to town to-morrow before Mr. Horton does, explain to the agent about
+father's death--he must have heard of it, Mr. Wilson says, but he is
+not obliged to take official note of a thing that has not been
+reported to him, and that he has only heard of incidentally--and ask
+him to make out the deed to me, as the present head of the family. Mr.
+Wilson says that I must be there, ready to tell my story, the minute
+the office opens. He hopes that, in that way, we may frustrate Mr.
+Horton, who is likely, he says, to be one of the very first on hand
+to-morrow morning. After I have explained matters to the agent, he
+will be forced to wait the arrival of my witnesses, of course, before
+he can do anything. But Mr. Wilson thinks that anything that Mr.
+Horton may say, after the agent has seen me, and heard my story, will
+be likely to work in my favor, it will show so plainly what Mr. Horton
+is up to. Mr. Wilson says that I had better take a horse and start for
+town to-morrow, just as soon as it is light enough to see."
+
+"Twenty miles!" I said. "How long will it take you to ride it?" I knew
+how long it would take me, on Frank's back, but Jessie is less wonted
+to the saddle than I.
+
+"It will take me nearly four hours, I should think, shouldn't you?"
+She stopped milking while she looked at me, anxiously awaiting my
+reply.
+
+"Just about that, Jessie."
+
+"It would kill me to keep up such a gait as you and Frank seem to both
+take delight in," she continued. "So I must be poking along for four
+hours doing the distance that you could cover in two. The Land Office
+opens at seven o'clock--there's a rush of business just now, Mr.
+Wilson says--and I must start not later than half-past two."
+
+"Dear me, Jessie, I hate to have you start out alone in the night,
+that way!"
+
+"I don't like it very well myself," Jessie admitted. "But Mr. Wilson
+thought we'd better not say a word to any one about my going--lest it
+should get to Mr. Horton's ears some way, and he will drive around
+later in the morning and pick up the witnesses and bring them down.
+Oh, and Leslie, above all things, don't forget the Bible. Be sure to
+put that in the wagon when Mr. Wilson comes."
+
+"Certainly I shall! Do you imagine that I would forget the one
+fundamental clause of our proving up?"
+
+"No, of course you wouldn't. Mr. Wilson said that he would go down
+with me--we could drive his fast horse down in the light cart, if only
+Joe were here to bring down our witnesses. But he isn't, and I must go
+alone."
+
+It was evident that Jessie did not relish the prospect of taking a
+lonely night ride.
+
+"I will leave the money--what little there is of it--for Mr. Wilson
+to bring down," Jessie presently remarked. "Then, if I am held up,
+we will have saved that much, anyhow."
+
+"And much good it will do us, with our fundamental clause in the hands
+of brigands," I retorted laughingly. For, indeed, there was about as
+much danger of a hold-up as of an earthquake.
+
+"What a fuss you are making, Guard--what's the matter?" Jesse said, in
+a tone of remonstrance, as she resumed the milking. The dog had been
+looking toward the house, growling and bristling, for some minutes.
+His response to Jessie's remonstrance was a tumultuous rush toward the
+house, around the corner of which he disappeared. Presently we saw
+him bounding away into the oak scrub beyond, apparently in hot pursuit
+of some retreating object, for his voice, breaking out occasionally in
+angry clamor, soon died away in the distance.
+
+"I hope there isn't another wildcat after the chickens," Jessie
+remarked, as, the milking finished, we started toward the house.
+
+"I don't think it's a wildcat," I said; "from all the legends we have
+heard lately, a wildcat would have stood its ground: more likely it
+was a polecat."
+
+Entering the house that we had left vacant, save for the sleeping
+child in the bed-room, we were startled at sight of a dusky, silent
+figure, sitting motionless before the fire--for, in the mountain
+country, a blaze is always welcome after night-fall, even in
+midsummer. At the sound of our approaching footsteps the figure turned
+toward us a head crowned with white wool, and smiled benignly.
+
+"Joe!" we both cried, in a breath.
+
+"Joe I is!" returned the old man, placidly, stretching his gnarled
+hands toward the blaze, and grinning delightedly; "I reckon you all
+begin fur to projec' 'Whar's Joe?' long 'bout dish yer time o' day,
+so I done p'inted my tracks in dish yer way."
+
+"It must have been you that Guard was barking at," I said, stirring
+the fire into a brighter blaze.
+
+"No; hit wa'nt me. I yeard his racketin' as I come up along. Hit war'
+some udder varmint, I reckons. What fur he want ter bark at me?"
+
+"True enough. Well, we're just awful glad you've come back, Joe,"
+Jessie told him. "Leslie has been out all the afternoon and she hasn't
+had her supper. I waited for her before eating mine, so now I'll fix
+yours on this little table beside the fire and we can all eat at the
+same time."
+
+Joe accepted the proposition thankfully, and, after seeing him
+comfortably established, we seated ourselves at the large table near
+the window. I was hungry after my long ride and fell to with a will,
+but I presently observed that Jessie ate nothing.
+
+"Why don't you eat your supper, Jessie?"
+
+"I can't," she replied, pushing away her plate; "I'm so worried.
+Leslie, have you thought that if the agent refuses to issue a deed to
+us we shall have no home? I feel just sure of it, for we haven't money
+enough to re-enter the claim, hire a surveyor, and all that."
+
+"Must there be a new survey made?"
+
+"So Mr. Wilson says; he says that it will be the same, in the eye of
+the law, as if no entry had ever been made."
+
+"The eye of the law must be half blind, then!" I exclaimed,
+indignantly. "As if the survey already made and paid for, was not good
+enough, and when we know that a new one would only follow the same
+lines!"
+
+"That's just what I said to Mr. Wilson. He said that surveyors had to
+have a chance to earn their living, and this way of doing business was
+one of the chances," Jessie replied, dropping her head dejectedly on
+her hand.
+
+"Well; don't let's worry about it, Jessie dear, we must keep on
+hoping, as father used to say. He used to say, you know, that no one
+was ever really poor until he had ceased to hope. We will do our best
+and God will look out for the rest, I guess. I don't believe He
+intends to let our home be taken from us. He wouldn't have given us
+such good men for witnesses if He had."
+
+"Yes, they are good. If we were only able to borrow a little more
+money now I should feel quite safe. If we could just borrow money
+enough to--"
+
+"Woe unto him that goeth up an' down de lan' seeking fur t' borrow
+money! Borrowed money, hit stingeth like an adder; hit biteth like a
+surpunt! Hit weaves a chain what bin's hit's victims han' an' foot!
+Hit maketh a weight what breaks his heart, amen!"
+
+In the interest of our conversation we had, for the nonce, forgotten
+Joe, who was quietly toasting his ragged shoes before the fire, until
+his voice thus solemnly proclaimed his presence.
+
+"Dat's w'at ole Mas'r Gordon, yo' chillen's gran'fadder, used fur t'
+say, an' hit's true. Hit's true! He knowed; Good Heaven, didn't he
+know!"
+
+There was the tragedy of some remembered bitter suffering in the old
+man's voice, and, recalling father's stern determination to endure
+all things, to lose all things, if need be, rather than to become a
+borrower, I felt that the misery hinted at in old Joe's words had been
+something very real and poignant in the days of those Gordons, now
+beyond all suffering.
+
+"Hit may be," continued the old man reflectively, "dat I ain' got all
+dem verses jess right, but dat was deir senses. W'at s'prises me, Miss
+Jessie, is dat yo' alls is talkin' ob wantin' fur to borrow money,
+too. W'at fur yo' wan' ter borry money, w'en de're's a plenty in de
+fambly? A plenty ob hit, yes. W'at yo' reckons I's been doin' all dese
+yer weeks, off an' on? T'inks I's a 'possum, an' doan know w'en hit's
+time ter come t' life? Ain' I been a knowin' 'bout dish yer lan'
+business an' a gittin' ready fur hit, ebber sense long 'fore Mas'r
+Ralph was took. I didn't git drownded w'en he did--wish't I had, I
+does--an' long 'fore dat, I'se been sabin' up my wages agin' a time
+w'en Mas'r Ralph goin' need 'em wustest. I reckoned he goin' need
+'em w'en hit comes to de provin' up on dish yer claim. Hit doan tek'
+much ter keep a ole nigger like me, an' I ain' been crippled wid de
+rheumatiz so bad until 'long dis summah, an' so, chillen, I'se done
+got five hundred dollahs in de bank at Fa'hplay, fo' de credit ob
+Mas'r Ralph Gordon--dat's yo's now, Miss Jessie, honey, cause yo's
+ob age."
+
+Joe had remembered that important fact, too, it seemed. We could only
+stare at him in speechless amazement, while he concluded, abruptly:
+"So doan let's heah no more fool talk 'bout borrowin' money. We's
+got a plenty, I tells yo'. I been a-keepin' hit in de bank at
+Arnold--whar' Mas'r Ralph an' me stopped fur quite a spell 'afore we
+done come yer--an' so, a few days ago, I done slipped ober to Arnold
+an' drawed de money out, an' put it in de bank at Fa'hplay, subject
+to de order ob Miss Jessie Gordon--dat's yo', honey," he added, as
+if fearful that Jessie might not recognize herself under this formal
+appellation. He was holding his coffee-cup suspended, half-way to his
+lips, while he looked at us exultantly, and then we both expressed our
+feelings in a characteristic manner. I ran to him, and threw my arms
+around his neck.
+
+"Oh, Joe! Joe! you are an angel!" I sobbed, dropping my head on his
+shoulder.
+
+"Maybe I is," the old man admitted, stiffly, edging away; "but if
+dere's airy angel, w'ite or black, w'at likes ter hab hot coffee
+spilled ober his laigs, I ain' nebber met up wid him!"
+
+"I'll get you another cup, Joe," I said, laughing, as I brushed away
+my tears. While I was getting it, Jessie clung to his rough old hand.
+
+"God bless you, Joe! Oh, you have lifted such a weight from my heart!
+I don't know how to thank you; but Joe, we'll pay it all back to you!
+We will, if it takes the place to do it!"
+
+Joe, freeing his hand from her clasp, rose to his feet--not stiffly,
+this time, but with a certain grave dignity. Motioning aside the
+coffee that I was bringing, he picked his ragged old hat up from the
+floor beside his chair, put it on, pulled it down over his eyes, and
+started for the door.
+
+"'Fore Heaben! I wouldn't 'a' beliebed dat one ob Mas'r Ralph Gordon's
+chillen gwine fur insult me like dis!" he muttered, huskily; "Talk ob
+payin' me! Me, like I was a stranger, an' didn' belong to de fambly!"
+
+"Wait!" cried Jessie, springing forward, as the old man laid a
+trembling hand on the door knob. "Wait, sit down, Joe, dear Joe, don't
+desert us when we need you most! As for the money, God bless you for
+making sure of our home, for, of course, it's your home, too, always,
+always! And I'll never pay a cent of the money back; not if I use it
+all!"
+
+"Yo's gwine hab to use hit all, honey," Joe returned, with a beaming
+face, as he resumed his seat. "Dere's de fence buildin' an' breakin'
+de new groun', and de seedin'."
+
+"True enough! Oh, we shall come out all right, now, thanks to you,
+Joe."
+
+And Jessie spoke with the happy little laugh that we had not heard for
+a long, long time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+AN OPEN WINDOW
+
+
+It was, apart from the pecuniary relief that his coming had brought
+us, a great satisfaction to have old Joe again with us. Remembering
+his habit of not speaking until he was, as he sometimes expressed it,
+"plumb ready," we forbore to ask any more questions until he had
+finished his supper, and smoked his pipe afterward. Smoking is a bad
+habit, I know, but I am afraid that there are few good habits from
+which people derive more comfort than fell to Joe when he was puffing
+contentedly away at his old clay pipe. After a long interval of
+blissful enjoyment he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, pocketed it,
+and then remarked, rather wistfully, apparently to the fire as much as
+to either of us: "I reckons he's fas' asleep, shore' nuff!" "He" meant
+Ralph, of course.
+
+"Yes," Jessie said, "he's been asleep ever since a little while before
+dark."
+
+"Yo' reckons hit gwine fur 'sturb him, jess fur me ter tek' a look at
+him, honey?"
+
+"Surely not, Joe." Accordingly I took up a lamp, and stepped with it
+into the next room--the sitting-room, in which Ralph's crib was
+stationed. The crib stood close to the window, which was open. I was
+surprised that Jessie had left it so, knowing, as she did, that Ralph
+caught cold with painful facility. Joe cast a disapproving look at the
+opening as we stood by the crib side, but, fearful of awakening the
+little sleeper, he said nothing. All children are lovely in their
+sleep, but as I held the lamp aloft, while we admiringly surveyed this
+one, I think the same idea occurred to us both--that never was there
+one more beautiful than our Ralph. Joe, cautiously advancing a horny
+fore-finger, softly touched the moist, dimpled little hand that lay
+relaxed outside the coverlet. Then he drew the coverlet a little
+closer over the baby sleeper's shoulders, and, noiselessly closing the
+window, turned away with a sigh that belonged, I felt, not to Ralph,
+but to some one whom he seemed to the old man to resemble.
+
+When we were again in the kitchen, he said decidedly: "I 'clar fo'
+hit, Miss Jessie--fo' hit mus' 'a' been yo, w'at done hit; fo' yo'
+said Miss Leslie done been gone--I'se 'sprised fur to see yo'
+a-puttin' dat chile ter bed wid the winder beside him wide open, an'
+the nights plumb cole an' varmints a wanderin' roun'--"
+
+"Why, Joe, what are you talking about? I never left it open. I'd be
+afraid that that cat of Ralph's would jump in and wake him, if nothing
+else. When it's open at all I'm careful to open it from the top; but
+it's so cool to-night that I didn't open it."
+
+"I jess reckons yo' furgot ter shet it, honey," Joe insisted.
+
+"I'm quite sure it hasn't been opened," returned Jessie, who did not
+give up a point easily. I could see, though I had no doubt that Joe
+was right, that the matter really puzzled her.
+
+"Ralph, he de libin' picter ob Mas'r Ralph, w'en he was a little
+feller, an' hit in' no ways likely dat I gwine ter set still an' see
+Mas'r Ralph's onliest son lose his 'heritance; not ef I can holp it,"
+Joe remarked reflectively, after Jessie had again proclaimed that she
+did not leave the window open.
+
+The words reminded me of the danger which still threatened us, in
+spite of the providential help that Joe's coming had brought us.
+
+A new idea occurred to me. "Jessie," I said, "there's nothing to
+hinder your going down to town as early as you please to-night, now
+that Joe has come, and Mr. Wilson will be left free to go with you."
+
+Jessie sprang to her feet, as if she would go on the instant.
+
+"That is so!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Joe, how glad I am that you came
+just as you did!"
+
+The matter was then explained to Joe, who volunteered to go over at
+once to Mr. Wilson's and arrange to take his place in the morning,
+thus leaving him free to go with Jessie.
+
+It was past ten o'clock and the moon was just coming up over the
+tree-tops when Joe started on his two-mile tramp to Mr. Wilson's.
+
+"You'd better take one of the horses," Jessie had told him.
+
+"W'at fur I want ob a hoss? Rudder hab my own two footses to trabbel
+on--if dey is kine o' onsartain some times--dan airy four-legged hoss
+dat eber libed," Joe returned, disrespectfully.
+
+Sure that our good neighbor would return with him, Jessie proceeded to
+make ready for the trip. We were not disappointed. After a wait of
+about an hour we heard the rattle of approaching wheels, and presently
+Mr. Wilson, with Joe in the cart beside him, stopped the fast colt
+before the gate.
+
+"All ready, Miss Jessie?" he sang out in response to our eager
+greeting.
+
+"Yes," said Jessie, "I'm quite ready."
+
+"Climb right in, then, and we'll get well started before midnight.
+Whatever Horton does, he can't beat that, for we'll have our
+forces--part of 'em, any way--drawn up in battle array before the
+Land Office doors when they open at seven o'clock. We won't need to
+hurry to do it, either. We'll have time to brush up and eat our
+breakfasts like a couple of Christians after we get there."
+
+"Had I better take the money with me?" Jessie asked.
+
+"Certainly, all you can rake and scrape."
+
+Jessie laughed gleefully; it was evident that Joe had not told Mr.
+Wilson of his recent financial transaction. When Jessie told him, he
+got up--the colt had been tied at the gate and we were all within
+doors again, in spite of Mr. Wilson's first entreaty to Jessie to "get
+right in"--crossed the room and held out his hand to the old negro.
+
+"Shake, friend!" As Joe, rather reluctantly, I thought, for he was a
+shy old man, laid his black hand in Mr. Wilson's clasp, the latter
+continued: "I reckon I know a man when I see one, be he white or
+black, and I tell you I'm proud to have the chance of shaking hands
+with you!"
+
+Joe, furtively rubbing the hand that he had released--for, in
+his earnestness, Mr. Wilson had evidently given it a telling
+pressure--hung his head, and responded, sheepishly: "I reckons I'se
+be a whole Noah's A'k full of animals ef dish yer sort ob t'ing gwine
+keep on. Miss Leslie, she done call me a angel, and now yo' done says
+I'se a man. Kine o' ha'd on a ole feller like me, hit is!"
+
+Mr. Wilson laughed good-humoredly.
+
+"You're all right, Joe; we won't talk about it. And now, how is Miss
+Jessie to get the money?"
+
+"I'se gwine draw a check on de bank in Fa'hplay to cobber de whole
+'posit," returned Joe, with dignity; "I done axed the cashier 'bout
+hit, an' he tole me w'at ter do. He gin me some papers w'at he called
+blanket checks, an' tole me how to fill 'em out. I'se done been
+keepin' ob 'em safe." In proof of which statement Joe drew an
+old-fashioned leather wallet from an inner pocket of his ragged coat,
+undid the strap with which it was bound, and, opening it, carefully
+extracted therefrom two or three bits of paper, that a glance sufficed
+to show were blank checks on the First National Bank of Fairplay.
+While he was getting the checks out another paper, loosely folded and
+yellow with age, slipped from the wallet, falling to the hearth. As it
+fell there slid from its loose folds a soft curl of long, bright hair,
+of the exact hue of little Ralph's. Stooping, Jessie picked up the
+shining tendril, pausing to twine it gently around her finger before
+tendering it to Joe.
+
+"Ralph's hair is a little darker, I believe, than it was when you cut
+this, Joe," she remarked, going to the light for a nearer view.
+
+"Dat ar' cu'l didn' grow on dis Ralph's head, honey; I cut dat offen
+de head ob dat odder Ralph w'at's a lyin' in de grabeya'd, w'en he was
+littler dan dis one; an' I'se 'done carried dat cu'l close to my heart
+fo' upwa'ds ob fo'ty yeah," responded Joe simply, as he took the bit
+of hair from Jessie's finger, and carefully replaced it. "W'en I
+dies," he continued, "I ain' carin' w'at sort ob a berryin' I gets,
+ner w'at sort ob clo'se my ole body is wrapped up in, but I'd like
+fur to be suah dat dish yer bit o' hair goes inter de groun' wid me."
+
+He looked up at us, his beloved young master's children, solemnly and
+questioningly, as though exacting a promise, which was given, though
+no words were spoken on either side. Eyes have a language of their
+own.
+
+"Now ef yo'll done fotch me de ink bottle, Miss Leslie, honey, I'se
+boun' ter fill out dish yer blanket check, same like de cashier done
+tole me," Joe went on with a business-like change of tone.
+
+The ink bottle, with pen and holder, was produced and placed on the
+table which Joe immediately cleared for action by removing every
+article upon it until he had a clear sweep of some three or four feet,
+then he sat down and proceeded, slowly, slowly, to fill out the check
+in Jessie's favor. It was a task that required time and infinite
+painstaking. We had not known that Joe could write, and I am afraid
+that, even when he announced that the work was done and the check
+filled out, we were by no means sure of it, for wonderful indeed were
+the hieroglyphics through whose agency Joe proclaimed his purpose.
+There was one thing certain, however, no sane cashier, having once
+seen that unique signature, could for a moment doubt its authenticity.
+
+Mr. Wilson glanced over the document, as Joe at length put it in
+Jessie's hand. "That's all right," he said, in his hearty, re-assuring
+way. "You've got it all as straight as a string, Joe"--which he had
+not, so far as mechanical execution went--"we'll have no trouble now.
+Put that away safely, Jessie, and let's be going."
+
+"Shall we take the Bible now?" Jessie asked, after she had complied
+with his directions.
+
+"Oh, no; time enough for that when Joe comes down. Put on a warm
+bonnet and shawl, now," he continued, "for the nights are chilly."
+
+In the days of his youth women and girls wore bonnets and shawls, and
+I never knew him to refer to their cloaks or headgear in any other
+terms. Jessie assured him that she was well protected, and Joe and I
+followed her and her sturdy escort out to the gate.
+
+"Had Leslie better come down with the others to-morrow?" Jessie
+inquired after they were seated in the cart, and while Joe was tucking
+the lap robe around her feet.
+
+"Oh, no! By no means. It isn't necessary, and her being here will
+enable us to swear that the house hasn't been vacant, day or night,
+since the claim was first filed on, and ain't vacant even at the
+present minute. We can't be too careful, you know. Good night to you
+both!"
+
+He spoke to the colt; Jessie echoed his good night, and they were
+gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+ALONE ON THE CLAIM
+
+
+Joe glanced at the clock as we re-entered the house, after the cart
+had disappeared down the road. "Now, if yo' gits right to bed, Leslie,
+chile, yo's gwine git right sma'ht ob sleep afore yo' has to git up
+ter holp me git stahted," he said.
+
+It was past one o'clock. "I don't know, Joe," I returned. "It seems
+hardly worth while to try to sleep at all; we must get up so soon."
+
+"Hit's wuf while ter git sleep w'enebber, an' wharebber yo' kin," the
+old man insisted, with the wisdom of experience.
+
+Accordingly, I lay down on my bed without taking the trouble to
+undress--I was so fearful of oversleeping. For a long time I lay
+thinking of Jessie, on her hurried night ride, of old Joe, and the
+blessed relief that his coming had brought us, and, above all, of Mr.
+Horton and his machinations. I meant to be awake when the hour that
+Joe had suggested for rising struck. The hour was five o'clock, but it
+was well past, when a gentle tap on the door awoke me, and Joe's voice
+announced: "Hit's done struck fibe, Miss Leslie; yo's bettah be
+stirrin."
+
+My reply was forestalled by a delighted cry from the crib, where Ralph
+was supposed to lie asleep: "Oho! Mine Joe is tum 'ome! Mine Joe is
+tum 'ome!"
+
+I heard the negro shuffle quickly across the floor, and the next
+instant Ralph was in his arms and being borne triumphantly into the
+kitchen. The friendship between the two was mutual, and it was not at
+all surprising that Ralph was beside himself with joy at Joe's return.
+He hurried through his own breakfast, watched Joe, gravely, through
+his, and then announced his intention of accompanying the latter, "in
+'e waggin." He had gathered from our conversation that Joe was going
+somewhere, and, wherever it was, he was willing to bear him company.
+
+"W'er my 'at?" he asked, trotting about in search of that article, as
+Joe drove up to the door with the horses and light wagon.
+
+"Your hat is under your crib, dear, but you can't go with Joe to-day."
+
+"'Ess; me doin'," he returned, obstinately, securing the hat, while I
+was carrying the Bible out to Joe.
+
+"Now, Joe, take good care of it!" I counseled him, as he stooped down
+to take the bulky volume from my arms.
+
+"Keer? Ha! I reckons I'se boun' fur tek' keer ob dat book! Lots ob
+folks w'at done all sorts ob t'ings, shet up 'atween de leds ob dat
+book. Some good t'ings dey done, an' a mighty lot o' bad ones, an' I
+ain' goin' let none ob 'em git out! Leslie, chile, I'se gwine sot on
+dat book, an' keep dem folks squelched 'til we all roun's up in front
+ob de 'lan' office; yo' kin count on dat!"
+
+Placing the book on the wagon-seat, he spread a blanket over it, then
+planted himself, squarely and with emphasis, upon it. "Dere, dey's
+safe!" He gathered up the lines; the outfit was in motion when its
+progress was suddenly arrested by a piercing cry from Ralph:
+
+"'Top, 'top, Joe! Me's doin' wiv' 'oo, me is!"
+
+The little fellow was standing beside the wagon, his arms upstretched
+to be taken, and the tears streaming down his cheeks. Joe looked at
+him, and scratched his head in perplexity. "I'se wisht' yo'd stayed
+asleep till I'se done got away, honey, chile--I does so!" he muttered,
+ruefully.
+
+"Me's doin'!" Ralph insisted, taking advantage of the halt to swarm up
+over the wheel-hub, and to get his white apron covered with
+wagon-grease.
+
+"Me is doin'!" he repeated.
+
+"Train up a chile in de way w'at he wants ter go, an' w'en he is ole
+he won't depart from it!" Joe quoted, with fatal aptness. "Dat chile
+cain't be 'lowed fur ter run t'ings dish yer way; he cain't be 'lowed
+ter go to town, noway; but I tell yo' w'at, honey, yo' might jess
+slip er clean apern on ter him an' let him ride down ter Wilson's
+'long 'er me. Dat Mis' Wilson, she always bein' tickled when she see
+Ralph."
+
+"'Ess; me do see Mif' 'Ilson," Ralph declared, brightening. It was
+true that the good ranchman's wife had always made much of him, and
+was glad to have him with her, and I had a particular reason for being
+glad of the temporary freedom that his going over there would give me.
+I made haste to change his soiled dress and get him ready. "Tell her,"
+I said, as I lifted him into the wagon, "that I'll come over after him
+some time this afternoon; it isn't far, and if I start early enough he
+can easily walk home with me before night."
+
+"Dat's right; we's got dat all fixed," Joe responded cheerfully. He
+started the team again, while Ralph, his good humor restored, threw me
+kisses as the wagon rattled away.
+
+I had mentioned it to no one, but I was secretly a good deal worried
+over the non-appearance of Guard. In the present absorbed interest in
+other matters, I think none of the family, save myself, had taken note
+of the fact that the dog had not been seen since his noisy scramble up
+the hillside in pursuit of some animal, the evening before.
+
+Only hunters, or those who dwell in remote and lonely places, can
+realize how fully one's canine followers may become, in certain
+surroundings, at once comrades and friends. I missed the dog's shaggy
+black head and attentive eyes as I hurried through with the morning's
+milking. He was wont to sit beside me during that operation, and watch
+proceedings with absorbed and judicial interest. I missed him again
+as I heard a fluttering and squawking that might mean mischief, near
+the poultry yard. Above all, in the absence of the other members of
+the family, I missed his companionship. So, as I hastened with the
+morning's tasks, I resolved to take the opportunity afforded by
+Ralph's absence, and go in search of him. Disquieting recollections
+of the wildcat that he and I had dared, and of the wildcat that had
+dared Mrs. Lloyd, came to my mind. It seemed to me by no means
+improbable that Guard had treed one of these creatures and was
+holding it until help came or until the cat should become tired of
+imprisonment and make a rush for liberty; a rush that, if it came to
+close quarters, would be pretty certain to result disastrously for
+Guard. So thinking, I took father's light rifle--which was always kept
+loaded--down from its place on the kitchen wall, buckled a belt of
+cartridges around my waist, and, locking the door behind me, started
+on my quest.
+
+Guard's vanishing bark, on the previous evening, had led up the
+hillside, behind the house. So, up the hillside I went, scanning the
+ground eagerly for tracks, or for any sign that might indicate which
+direction to take. The ground was thickly strewn with pine needles and
+the search for tracks was fruitless; an elephant's track would not
+have shown on such ground as that. After a little, though, I did find
+something that puzzled me. Lying conspicuously near the cattle trail
+that led upward into the higher hills, was a large piece of fresh
+beef. Stopping, I turned the meat over cautiously with the toe of my
+shoe, wondering greatly how it came to be just there. It was cut--not
+torn--so it could not have been dropped there by any wild beast, but
+by some person. As I looked attentively at it, some white substance,
+lying half hidden in a deep cleft in the meat, attracted my attention.
+I stood still for a long time, studying that bit of beef. That the
+white substance was poison I had not a doubt. If some one were anxious
+to kill a dog--like a flash the recollection of Guard's indiscreet
+charge on Mr. Horton's horse, and of Mr. Horton's speechless rage
+thereat, came to my mind. An attempt to poison Guard did not strike
+me, at the moment, as an act indicating anything more than a
+determination to be revenged on him for the trouble that he
+had already given Mr. Horton. Afterward, I understood its full
+significance. A little beyond the spot where I found the poisoned
+meat, well out of sight from the house, or of any chance passers-by,
+I came to a tree under which a horse had evidently been recently
+tethered, and that, too, for a long time. I wondered at this, for,
+among us, people seldom tether a horse; it is considered an essential
+part of a cow pony's training to learn to remain long in one place
+without being fastened in any way. Still, as I reflected, the matter
+was not one to cause wonder. The ground was torn and trampled by the
+impatient, pawing hoofs, and I knew very well what horse it was that,
+for his recent sins, might have been compelled to do penance in this
+manner.
+
+Something over half a mile from our house there was a break in the
+hills--the beginning of a long and dark ravine that, trending
+southward, led, if one cared to traverse it, in a tolerably straight
+course to the far lower end of the valley, near where the Hortons
+lived.
+
+It was an uncanny place--dark at all times, as well as damp, and so
+uninviting in its wildness, even as a short cut to a brighter place,
+that it was very seldom entered. As I stood on the hill above it,
+peering down into its shadows, a great longing took possession of me
+to know whether Mr. Horton had really gone to town as he threatened.
+Besides, if Guard were really standing sentinel over a wildcat, no
+more promising place to search for him could be found. So thinking,
+I readjusted my cartridge-belt, swung the rifle muzzle to the front,
+ready for instant use, should occasion demand it, and, not without
+some unpleasant, creepy sensations at the roots of my hair, I dropped
+down into the ravine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+HUNTING FOR GUARD
+
+
+The ravine was a mile or more in length, and I traversed it rapidly
+without coming upon any traces of Guard or the wildcat.
+
+Sooner than I had expected, despite my anxiety, the ravine widened,
+the encroaching walls became lower, the light stronger, and, in a
+moment more, I came out on a wide, park-like opening, back of Mr.
+Horton's house.
+
+I had not met Mrs. Horton since the morning that the wheat crop was
+destroyed, although I had seen her passing the house frequently on her
+way to and from the store. It was plain that she avoided us, through
+no fault or desire of her own, but out of very shame because of the
+brand on the cattle that had ruined our crops. Casting about in my
+mind for an excuse for calling on her now, I was impelled to go on,
+even without an excuse. My conscience told me that I had treated her
+with less kindness on that occasion than she deserved. Striking into
+the cattle trail that, bordering the park, led to Horton's corral, I
+followed it to the corral gate, and was soon after knocking at
+Horton's front door. My knock was answered by Mrs. Horton, who
+exclaimed in astonishment at sight of me:
+
+"Why, I declare! I thought you'd be gone to town to-day, sure. Has
+Jessie gone?"
+
+"Oh yes; and Ralph is at Mrs. Wilson's."
+
+"Well, well! Come right in! And so you didn't go. I don't see how you
+managed it, hardly."
+
+"Joe came home in time to drive down, and Mr.--we thought it best not
+to leave the homestead alone."
+
+Mrs. Horton nodded her head approvingly.
+
+"That was a good thought; you can't be too careful. I declare, I wish
+you had brought Ralph over here--the precious! I've been feeling as
+lonesome as an owl this morning. Generally I don't mind being left
+alone, not a bit; I'm used to it; but I was feeling disappointed
+to-day, and so everything goes against the grain, I s'pose."
+
+I must have looked sympathetic, for she presently broke out:
+
+"I don't feel, Leslie, as if I was an unreasonable or exacting kind of
+woman, in general, but Jake talked last night as if he thought I was.
+You see, I had set my heart on going to town when it came time for you
+girls to prove up. I'd thought of lots of little things that I was
+going to mention to the Land Agent, to influence him in your favor,
+and I guess there aren't many folks that know better than I do how
+you've tried and tried to fill all the requirements. But Jake--"
+
+She paused, her mouth, with its gentle-looking curves, closing as if
+she would say no more. But her grievance was too fresh and too bitter
+to admit of her keeping silence. In answer to my respectful inquiry as
+to why she didn't go, she burst out impatiently:
+
+"Jake wouldn't let me. Said if I did I'd be interfering with what was
+none of my business--as if I ever interfered with any one else's
+business--and, besides, he said it wasn't convenient to take me. He
+went on horseback himself."
+
+"Oh, he's gone, then?"
+
+"Gracious, yes! Gone! He's been in town nearly all night. He was out
+somewhere last evening, looking up cattle, he said, and he didn't get
+in till almost nine o'clock; then he ate supper and started right off.
+I thought it was a rather dark time to be starting for town, but he
+said the moon would be rising before he got out on to the plains, and
+he didn't care for the dark."
+
+"Why was he so anxious to get to town early this morning?" I asked,
+with what I inwardly felt to be almost insolent persistency. Mr.
+Horton's good wife suspected nothing, however.
+
+"Why, I suppose, to help you folks, if help was needed," she replied,
+readily. "I've felt awfully cut up, Leslie, about the way our cattle
+destroyed your crops. It just went to my heart to think that it was
+our cattle that did it"--and the tears in her honest blue eyes
+attested the sincerity of her words--"I've talked to Jake a good deal
+about it. He hasn't said straight out that he'd pay damages, but I've
+been thinking maybe he intended to do it in his own way, and his way
+was to get to town and help you all he could with the Land Agent. As
+he's been known to the claim so long, his word ought to have weight.
+Don't you think so?"
+
+"I am afraid--I mean yes, certainly," I stammered. It was not
+re-assuring to think of the weight that his word might have.
+
+"When do you look for Mr. Horton to return?" I asked, rising from my
+chair as I spoke.
+
+"Oh, not until your business is all settled; he said he'd stay and see
+it all through. He said that he'd have a surprise for me when he got
+back; but I guess he won't. I imagine that he thought I'd feel
+surprised to learn that you'd received your papers, but I'd be
+surprised if you didn't, after the way you've kept the faith, so to
+speak. Oh, now, sit down! You're not going yet, are you? And after
+such a walk as it is from your house here, too!"
+
+"I came down by the trail, Mrs. Horton." And then I told her about
+Guard, thus accounting for the gun, which I had caught her glancing
+at, once or twice, rather curiously.
+
+"Young dogs are foolish," was her comment, when she had heard the
+story. "If he was older, I should tell you not to be a mite worried,
+but as he's a young one, it's different. I've known a young dog to get
+on a hot trail, and follow it until he was completely lost. My father
+lost a fine deerhound that way once. The dog got on the trail of a
+buck, and last we ever heard of him he was twenty miles away, and
+still going. I do hope you won't have such bad luck with your dog."
+
+I bade good-by to Mrs. Horton, and started homeward, again taking the
+trail through the ravine. I was not much cheered by her words in
+regard to Guard, and heavily depressed by the knowledge that Mr.
+Horton had, after all, beaten Mr. Wilson and Jessie in his start for
+town--though what difference it could make, either way, until the Land
+Office was open in the morning no one could have told. Being troubled,
+I walked slowly, this time, with my eyes on the ground. Half-way
+through the ravine I came to a point where a break in the walls let in
+the sunlight. Through this low, ragged depression the light was
+streaming in in a long, brilliant shaft as I approached the spot. The
+warm, bright column of golden light had so strange an effect, lighting
+up the gray rocks and the moist, reeking pathway, that I paused to
+admire it. "If it were only a rainbow, now," I thought, "I should look
+under the end of it, there, for a bag of gold." My eyes absently
+followed the column of light to the point where it seemed suddenly to
+end in the darkness of the ravine, and I uttered a startled cry. Under
+the warm, bright light I saw the distinct impression of a dog's foot.
+It was as clearly defined in the oozy reek as it would have been had
+some one purposely taken a cast of it, but after the first start, I
+reflected that it did not necessarily follow that the print was made
+by Guard. Still, examination showed that it might well be his.
+Searching farther, I found more tracks--above the break in the wall,
+but none in the ravine below it. The footprints had been a good deal
+marred by my own as I came down the ravine, and, what I thought most
+singular, supposing the tracks to have been made by Guard, there were
+also the hoof-marks of a horse--not a range-horse, for this one wore
+shoes, and, developing Indian lore as I studied the trail, I presently
+made the important discovery that, while the dog's tracks occasionally
+overlaid those of the horse, the horse's tracks never covered the
+dog's. Clearly, then, if those footprints belonged to Guard, as I had
+a quite unaccountable conviction that they did, he was quietly
+following some horseman. For an indignant instant I suspected some
+reckless cowboy of having lassoed and stolen him, but a little further
+study of the footprints spoiled that theory. Guard would have resisted
+such a seizure, and the footprints would have been blurred and
+dragging. The clean impressions left by this canine were not those of
+an unwilling captive. I followed the tracks along the trail to the
+upper end of the ravine for some time, but learning nothing further in
+that way, returned again to the break in the wall. Looking attentively
+at that, I at length discovered a long, fresh mark on the slippery
+rock. Such a mark as might have been made by the iron-shod hoof of a
+horse, scrambling up the wall in haste, and slipping dangerously on
+the insecure foothold. With the recognition of this, I was scrambling
+up the bank myself. Scarcely had my head reached the level of the bank
+when a loud, eager whinny broke the silence. Startled, I slipped into
+a thicket of scrub-oaks, and, from their friendly shelter, made a
+cautious reconnoissance. Not far away, and standing in clear view, a
+bay horse was tethered to the over-hanging limb of a pine tree. It did
+not need a second glance for me to recognize Don, Mr. Horton's
+favorite saddle-horse. That the poor creature had had a long and
+tedious wait, his eager whinnying, and the pawing of his impatient
+hoof, as he looked over in my direction, plainly told.
+
+I watched him for awhile, breathlessly, and in silence, but he was far
+too anxious to keep silent himself. His distress was so apparent that
+I felt sorry for him, and finally decided that I might, at least,
+venture to approach and speak to him. Leaving my place of concealment
+I started toward him, but stopped abruptly with my heart in my mouth,
+before I had taken a dozen steps, as a new sound broke the silence. A
+new sound, but familiar, and doubly welcome in that wild place. It was
+the sharp, excited yelping that Guard was wont to make when he had
+treed game and needed help.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+GUARD'S PRISONER
+
+
+At the sound of Guard's voice, regardless of caution, and waiting only
+to raise the hammer of the rifle that I held ready in my hand, I ran
+forward. Guard evidently had his eyes on me, although I could not see
+him; his yelps ceased for an instant to break forth with redoubled
+energy as I came within sight of him. He was standing over a heap of
+rubbish, into which he was glaring with vindictive watchfulness, but
+with one alert ear bent in my direction and the tip of his bushy tail
+quivered in joyful recognition as I advanced toward him. Before
+reaching him, however, I had found my bearings, as the hunters say,
+and knew the locality. Still, the place had an unfamiliar air. It was
+a minute or two before I saw the cause of this; then I missed the one
+thing that particularly designated the spot, setting it apart to that
+extent from many similar places. I had not seen the lonely, secluded
+little park more than two or three times in all the years that we had
+lived so near it, but whenever I had seen it, hitherto, a hunter's
+shack, long abandoned, had stood on the farther edge of the opening.
+It had always seemed on the verge of falling, and, as I neared Guard,
+I saw that this was the thing that had happened: the cabin had
+collapsed, and, more than that, Guard had run something to earth under
+it.
+
+The dog's excited yelping, now that relief was at hand, was
+ear-splitting, but his vigilant watch did not for an instant relax.
+
+"What is it, Guard--have you got a wildcat in there?" I panted,
+breathlessly, halting beside him. "Well; you just wait, now; we're
+going to get him this time!" So speaking, I cautiously trained the
+muzzle of the rifle on the spot that his vigilant eyes never left off
+watching. Then I cast a hasty glance around. If half the wildcat
+stories that I had been hearing of late were true, it would be well
+to have some place of retreat to fall back upon, in case the cat,
+proving obdurate, should decline to die easily. Fortunately, as I
+thought, there was a large pine tree close at hand; it was, indeed,
+immensely large. I could no more have swarmed up that scaly trunk, had
+I flown to it for protection, than I could have spread out a pair of
+wings and flown to its topmost branches. In my excitement, I never
+thought of that, nor of the equally unpleasant fact that wildcats are
+expert climbers. Sure that the refuge at hand would suit, I dropped on
+one knee, training the rifle-muzzle into a crevice between a couple of
+fallen logs, and sighting along the barrel. I could see nothing, but,
+with my finger on the trigger, I was prepared to fire whether I
+sighted the enemy or not. Guard drew back, silent, now, but trembling
+with excitement.
+
+[Illustration: "HOLD ON, I AIN'T NO WILDCAT!" (Page 306)]
+
+"Hold on!" cried a voice from the rubbish heap, "I ain't no wildcat!"
+The voice was shrill and sharp with terror, but I knew it instantly
+for that of Jacob Horton. The rifle slipped unheeded from my nerveless
+hand, while Guard, since there was evidently to be no shooting,
+resumed his former post and growled menacingly.
+
+"Why--why," I stammered, "if you are not a wildcat--if you are a
+man--I thought you had gone to town!"
+
+"Gone to town!" the voice, losing its tone of terror, degenerated into
+a snarl. "I've been here all night. I've met up with an accident. I'm
+pinned down under a log, and that infernal dog of yours has stood and
+growled at me all night; I ain't dared to say my soul was my own."
+
+"I don't believe that any one else would care to claim it."
+
+The words broke from me involuntarily. I had the grace to feel ashamed
+the minute they were spoken. Guard's prisoner answered my unfeeling
+observation with a groan, and I looked reproachfully at Guard, who
+returned the look with a hopeful glance of his bright eye and wagged
+his tail cheerfully. I think that he quite expected to receive orders
+to go in and drag his fallen enemy out to the light of day. Realizing
+that as a general thing Guard understood his own business I forbore to
+reproach him, at the moment, for having treed or grounded Mr. Horton.
+
+"Are you badly hurt?" I inquired, falling on my knees before the
+crevice, and trying to catch a glimpse of the victim of an accident.
+
+"I do' no's I'm hurt in none of my limbs," was the cautious reply,
+"but I'm covered with bruises, and I'm pinned fast. I couldn't 'a' got
+away if I hadn't been, for that brute was determined to have my life.
+Turn about's fair play; we'll see how he comes out after this!"
+
+Clearly, the victim's temper had not been improved by the night's
+adventures, and it was easy to see that he had made almost no
+effort at all to escape from a position which, although certainly
+uncomfortable, had the great advantage of keeping the dog at bay. I
+thought of the Land Office in Fairplay and of the business that was
+probably being transacted there at that moment, and resolved to give
+Guard the whole of the roast that was left over from yesterday's
+dinner when we reached home again.
+
+"Ain't you even goin' to try to help me? Goin' to let me lay here an'
+die?" demanded the angry voice from under the ruins.
+
+"Oh, no, certainly not. I'll try to help you out. I guess you've been
+here long enough," I replied, cheerfully.
+
+"Huh! I should think I had been here long enough. This night's work'll
+prob'ly cost me thousands of dollars--but I'll have that whelp's life
+when I do git out; that's one comfort."
+
+For a wicked instant I was tempted to turn away and leave our
+unrepentant enemy where he was. The impulse passed as quickly as it
+came, but I am not ashamed to confess that before setting to work to
+try to extricate the prisoner I threw my arms around Guard's neck and
+hugged him ecstatically. "It's all right; we're safe!" I whispered in
+his ear, as if he could understand me--and I am not sure to this day
+that he could not. Then I began tugging away at the rotten pieces of
+wood that, fallen in a heap, formed a rough sort of wickiup, under
+which Mr. Horton reclined at length. It was a pretty hard task, for
+some of the timbers were heavy enough to tax all my strength; but an
+opening was made at last, and through it Mr. Horton slowly crawled
+into the light. He was compelled to advance backward, after the manner
+of the crawfish, and as he finally got clear of the ruins and
+staggered to his feet, he was a most disreputable-looking figure.
+Apart from a good many scratches and bruises, he did not seem to be
+injured in the least. The timbers had fallen in such a way that their
+weight did not rest on him. His scowling face, as he turned it to the
+light, was further disfigured by several long scratches and by a dry
+coating of blood and dirt. His coat--the coat, again--was torn, his
+hat gone, and his bushy iron-gray hair stood fiercely upright. The
+change from the semi-darkness of his place of imprisonment to the full
+light of day partially blinded him, and he stood, blinking and winking
+for a full minute after getting on his feet; then he apprehensively
+examined his arms and legs.
+
+"I reckon there ain't none of 'em broken," he said at last,
+grudgingly. "But it's no thanks to that dog of your'n that I ain't
+chawed into mince-meat--confound you!"--this to Guard, who was
+sniffing inquiringly at the legs of his late quarry. The words were
+further emphasized by a vicious kick, which, missing its intended
+victim, did astounding execution on something else.
+
+We were standing, at the moment, on a drift of leaves that had lain
+inside the hut. Mr. Horton's vigorous kick sent a shower of these
+leaves flying in all directions, and disclosed, half hidden beneath
+them, a large, square, leather-bound volume, on which my eyes rested
+in amazed recognition, while Guard, with a bark of delight, took his
+station beside it, wagging his tail joyfully.
+
+I looked at Mr. Horton, whose face, under its mask of blood and dirt,
+had turned the color of gray ashes. He began to back slowly away
+toward his horse.
+
+"Wait!" I cried; "I want you to tell me--you must tell me, Mr. Horton,
+what you were doing last night. How came Jessie's dictionary here?"
+
+"Jessie's dictionary?" His voice rose in a shrill cry, that made me
+jump, and drew a warning growl from Guard.
+
+I thought of the window beside Ralph's crib, that Jessie so stoutly
+averred she did not leave open, and light dawned upon me. "Yes!" I
+repeated, sternly, contempt for the wretch before me overcoming all
+fear; "Jessie's dictionary." I had, by this time, picked up the book.
+Mr. Horton extended his hand toward it; and his tone was almost humble
+as he said:
+
+"Let me see it."
+
+When the book was in his hands, he turned over the leaves, examining
+them with evident surprise and bewilderment. Finally:
+
+"It is a dictionary, ain't it?" he said, feebly, and repeated, under
+his breath. "It is a dictionary!"
+
+"You thought, when you opened the window last night, and stole it off
+the ledge, that it was the Bible, with our family record in it, didn't
+you?" I recklessly inquired. But Mr. Horton was past being angry.
+
+"Yes, I did," he said, making the admission as if still dazed.
+
+"And you left the window open?" I went on.
+
+"Yes, I did. The dog took after me--the dog has been hot on my trail
+from first to last, it 'pears, and you ain't been fur behind him."
+
+"No," I admitted, glancing at his torn coat, from which the upper
+button was still absent, "I don't think I have. I even have a bit of
+your property as a reward for some of my work. There's a button
+missing from your coat. I found it."
+
+"Where?" Mr. Horton inquired, in a low voice.
+
+"Under the window that you are so fond of visiting; the one that you
+started the fire under some weeks ago."
+
+Mr. Horton stirred uneasily, and again glanced toward his horse. "You
+think I lost the button there, do you?"
+
+"I know you did."
+
+Mr. Horton did not dispute the statement. He had dropped down on a
+log, after the discovery of the dictionary, as if his knees were too
+weak to sustain him. He looked at Guard, and then at me, studying us
+both for a full minute.
+
+"You make quite a pair of detectives, you and the dog," he said. Then,
+suddenly, he rose to his feet, his bunched up figure straightened, he
+lifted his head, as one might who had inwardly made some strong
+resolve, and I felt, with a curious kind of thrill, that a new
+atmosphere enveloped us both.
+
+Quite irrelevantly, as it then seemed to me, some words that father
+had spoken many weeks ago, came into my mind: "They all tell me," he
+had said, "that Horton's as good a friend as one need ask for, once
+let him be fairly beaten at his own game." Could that be true? Surely,
+if ever a man was fairly and very badly beaten, this one was. The
+result had been brought about, in a measure, by his own blundering,
+but it was none the less effective for that. If he would but
+acknowledge it--if he would cease to persecute us! At the very thought
+of such a thing as that the world seemed suddenly to grow radiant. I
+had not seemed to realize before how much of our trouble, our unspoken
+apprehension and dread of impending calamity was due to this man.
+
+"Say," Mr. Horton suddenly exclaimed, looking squarely in my face for
+the first time, "I reckon I've been making an everlastin' fool of
+myself long enough!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+MR. HORTON CAPITULATES
+
+
+I had not been very polite to Mr. Horton before that morning, but when
+he made the abrupt declaration that he had made a fool of himself long
+enough, I was civil enough to refrain from contradicting him.
+
+"I ain't had no breakfast," he went on, presently, glancing at his
+torn dress. "I'm a pretty tough-looking subject, too, I reckon." Again
+I did not dispute the statement. Looking away from me, he took a step
+or two toward the spot where his horse awaited him, then turned
+resolutely back again. "Say, I'm going to own up while I've got
+courage to do it!" he exclaimed, speaking rapidly and with suppressed
+excitement: "I ain't treated you and your folks right, Miss Leslie;
+I've knowed it all along; but, you see, I'd got my mind set on that
+bit of land that your father took up--not that I needed it, or
+anything of that kind--a claim would 'a' been more bother than good to
+me as a general thing; but I'd said to folks that I meant to have it
+and I'd managed to get up a kind of ugly pride in showing folks that
+what I said went, whether or no.
+
+"My wife--she's a good woman--I do'no what she'd do if she was to know
+all that I've done or tried to do, but I reckon you know pretty well,
+Miss Leslie. Well, you've known Jake Horton as he was. I'm going to
+give you all a chance to know him as he is now. When a man undertakes
+to do a bit of spite work like this; work that he's no call to feel
+proud of, and knows that so well that he tries to do it alone and in
+the dark, and is held back from making a consummate idiot of himself,
+and a criminal, too, like enough, by a dog and a young girl, it's time
+to call a halt. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to call a halt
+and travel a new trail from this on. I don't ask you to believe
+anything that I say, Miss Leslie, there ain't no reason at present why
+you should, but there will be!" He paused to moisten his dry lips. I
+looked up at him expectantly. "I'm going to do what's right by you and
+yours, from this on," he said, in answer to the look. Despite my past
+acquaintance with him I believed him, and indignantly strove to
+smother the tormenting little recollection that would keep obtruding
+itself--the recollection that, from the moment that the deed to the
+homestead was secured this man would be powerless to injure us, unless
+he did it openly and in ways that might be easily brought home to him,
+and it was now too late for him to do us any harm at the Land Office.
+
+I am ashamed to be obliged to record that Mr. Horton's declaration of
+a change in his feelings toward us, and his promises of better conduct
+toward us in the future were accompanied in my secret thought by such
+damaging reflections, but such was the case. The dictionary was under
+my arm and glancing down at it I said: "I would like to know, if you
+don't mind, Mr. Horton, how this book--and you--came to be under the
+ruins of that shack?"
+
+There was a big black and blue bruise on the back of Mr. Horton's
+right hand, the hand that some weeks previously had been injured by an
+oak splinter, as he told his wife, on the night that I had fired at a
+man fleeing up the hillside. Looking attentively at the bruise, and
+not at all at me, Mr. Horton replied:
+
+"Well; it was an easier thing to undertake than it is to tell; that's
+so. 'Bout as easy to tell though as it was to go through with. That's
+a wide-awake dog of yours, Miss Leslie, lives up to his name, too. He
+was living right up to it last night when I sneaked up to your window
+after watching you and Miss Jessie go out to the corral, and making
+sure that the boy was asleep. I opened the window, got the book that,
+I made sure, was the Bible that I had seen put on the window ledge
+that morning, and started back toward my horse. But I'd forgot one
+thing, I'd forgot about the dog. He didn't forget himself, though; he
+came round the corner after me and I had to leg it like scat. I had
+studied some about him earlier in the day; enough so that I had
+thrown a piece of poisoned meat near the upper trail. Not seeing
+anything of him in the evening I never thought of him again until I
+felt him a-holt of my coat-tail, for he caught up with me in a minute.
+I do'no how it would 'a' come out between us, but jest then while I
+was pulling up the hill and he was pulling back for all he was worth,
+we come to the meat, stumbled over it, in fact. The dog let go my
+coat--he's young, I reckon--" the victim interpolated, impartially;
+"an old dog wouldn't 'a' give up his game for such a thing as
+that--and stopped to sniff the meat. That give me time to reach my
+horse, but he come tearing after me like a whole pack o' bloodhounds.
+After I was fairly in the saddle, though, I didn't hear anything more
+of the dog. I 'lowed that he'd given up and gone back, or else that
+he'd swallered the meat and the poison had got in its work. I
+rode down along the ravine, feeling good. As I said, I'd planned
+it out beforehand. I knew jest what I was going to do with the
+Bi--dictionary. I didn't 'low to plumb destroy it. I 'lowed that when
+it was too late for it to be of any use to you--that is, after I'd
+entered the claim--I'd see to it that it accidentally come to light
+again. I didn't want to plumb destroy it," he repeated apologetically.
+
+I made no comment, and Mr. Horton, plucking a pine branch, began
+divesting it of its needles with fingers that shook a little in spite
+of himself as he proceeded:
+
+"I'd made up my mind to hide the Bi--dictionary in the old shack here
+until it was time to bring it to light again. When I got to that break
+in the caņon wall, down here, I put the horse up the break and rode to
+the shack, and then--I made a mistake." He paused to silently review
+this mistake, then continued: "Instead of dismounting and carefully
+covering the book with the leaves, as I'd ought to 'a' done, I jest
+slung it into the shack, letting it fall where it would. I heard it
+fall, soft like, on the leaves, and then I went on home. My wife, she
+had supper all ready, and I sot down and et it. I told her I was going
+to start right off, as soon as I'd done eating, for town. She kind o'
+objected to my going then; said she'd been wanting to go herself, to
+help you folks when it come to proving up. That made me some mad, for
+I wan't figuring on helping you then. But all the time that I was
+eating supper, and all the time that she was talking, I kept thinking:
+'S'pos'n some one should come along past that shack, look in there,
+and see that book lying there?' I felt that I'd ought to 'a' covered
+it up with leaves"--"and Robin Redbreast painfully did cover them with
+leaves," ran the silent under-current of my thought, while I listened
+gravely to Mr. Horton's elucidation of the mystery of the book. "I
+felt it so strong that nothing would suit me, at last, but I must make
+my way back there and cover it before I started for town. So, while my
+wife thought, after I'd mounted again, that I was riding toward town,
+I was sneaking back up the caņon. I tied my horse near the break in
+the wall, and went to the shack on foot, this time. It was as dark as
+a stack of black cats inside the shack. I couldn't see a thing--I
+stooped down, and was feeling 'round 'mong the leaves for the book,
+when I run up ag'in' a surprise." Mr. Horton dropped the branch, now
+denuded of its needles, and stared thoughtfully at the bruise on his
+hand. "That dog--he wan't dead, as it turned out; he hadn't even gone
+back, or gone before. He was all there and ready for business--I had
+time to study the thing out whilst I was a lyin' on my back, last
+night, starin' up into his eyes that was glarin' down into mine,
+through a chink in the logs--and I figured it out that he'd follered
+me, quiet, after I'd mounted; then, when I threw the book into the
+shack, he'd gone in there and stayed with it. He knew that it belonged
+to his folks, and he meant to guard it. He did, too. As I was stoopin'
+down, feeling 'round, something gave a yell, all at once, that made my
+hair stan' up, stiff and spiky, all over my head, and, next thing,
+something--some animal--sprung at me with such force that I reeled and
+fell back ag'in' the side of the shack, and then--the shack it fell,
+too. I do' know's I fainted!" Mr. Horton continued, reflectively; "I
+never have lost conscientiousness as I know of, but there was quite a
+spell that I didn't realize where I was, nor what had happened. When I
+did come to I found that I was pinned to the ground, and the animal--I
+hadn't recognized him for your dog yet--was stretched out on the
+rubbish above my body, looking down at me and growling. The critter
+growled so ferocious whenever I tried to move that I gin up trying. I
+had found out, though, that the animal was a dog, and, natterally, I'd
+a pretty clear idea whose dog it was."
+
+Mr. Horton concluded abruptly. He got up slowly and stiffly, and again
+started toward his horse. Watching him, as he walked away, I saw that
+he looked broken and humbled, and an impulsive desire to help him, who
+had so often hindered us, took possession of me. "Wait," I cried,
+starting up suddenly, for I had also found a seat on one of the fallen
+logs; "wait a minute, Mr. Horton!" He stopped, and I went up to him.
+"Mr. Horton," I said, earnestly, "I want to do what's right. I am
+sure that you are sorry for what you have done--"
+
+"I am, you may believe me, Miss Leslie; I am sorry. I've done many a
+mean thing in my life, but none meaner than this job of persecutin' a
+couple of orphan girls and their baby brother, and I've known it, and
+been ashamed of it, all along in my own heart. But I'd never 'a' given
+in, nor given nor owned up to what I'm telling you this minute, Leslie
+Gordon, if you'd 'a' shown less spunk and courage; and I'll be as good
+a friend to you after this as I've been merciless enemy before it. I
+don't ask you to believe me--"
+
+"But I do believe you! I do believe you! If I--if we can begin
+again--if keeping still about what happened last night--and--about
+other things; the button, and the fire, and the crops, with your
+cattle brand on them," I stammered, eagerly, not making things very
+clear in my haste, but Mr. Horton understood me.
+
+"You are a good girl, Leslie," he said, looking away from me; "you are
+a good girl. You see, my wife believes in me--she's a better man than
+I am."
+
+"Yes; she must not know. No one need know anything about it, for I
+have told no one. I have kept my own counsel, and I will keep it
+still."
+
+Mr. Horton faced me now, holding out his hand. There was a mist over
+his hard eyes, and wonderfully softened and improved those same eyes
+were in such unaccustomed setting. I laid my hand in his, he clasped
+it closely for an instant, then dropping it, observed in his usual
+tones:
+
+"Well, I reckon I'll ride over to the fur pasture; then I'll git home
+again jest about the time the folks come in from town."
+
+"No," I said; "come home with me first and have some breakfast, and
+get brushed up a little."
+
+"I will," he replied, readily, adding, with a rueful glance at his
+torn clothing, "I need a little mending done about as bad as any one
+I've seen lately."
+
+Guard and I walked along the ravine with him, while he led his horse.
+On emerging from the ravine Mr. Horton suddenly stopped, and began
+looking anxiously around. "That meat, now," he observed, at length,
+"it ought not to be left layin' around."
+
+I had put the poisoned meat up in the fork of a pine tree, and now
+showed it to him. "We'd better dispose of it," he said, taking it
+down. Reaching the house, I went on in to prepare breakfast for my
+unlooked-for guest, who lingered outside until his horse was cared
+for; then he came in, and, going straight to the stove, lifted the lid
+and dropped the meat on the glowing coals. "There!" he exclaimed,
+replacing the lid, "that bit of death won't hurt anything now."
+
+An hour afterward, washed, brushed, and partially mended--for I do
+hate mending, even in a righteous cause, like this--breakfasted, and
+with his horse equally refreshed, Mr. Horton rode away, looking like,
+and, I am sure, feeling like, another man.
+
+Early in the afternoon I went over to the Wilsons', and brought Ralph
+back with me. Long before they could possibly arrive we were both
+watching for Jessie's and Joe's return. The stars were shining big and
+bright, and Ralph was nodding sleepily in his high chair when the bays
+and the light wagon, with Jessie and Joe perched on the front seat,
+came rattling down the homeward road. Snatching Ralph, who was wide
+awake on the instant, up in my arms, I ran out to meet them.
+
+"We didn't have one bit of trouble, Leslie!" cried Jessie, jubilantly,
+as the team stopped at the gate; "Mr. Horton never came near us. I'm
+afraid we've been almost too ready to believe evil of him; but it
+won't matter now, anyway, for the land is ours, Leslie, ours!"
+
+"Hit is so, honey, chile!" echoed old Joe's gentle voice. His black
+face was one expansive grin of satisfaction. "Young Mas'r Ralph Gordon
+ain't nebber gwine want fur place to lay he head, now; yo' listen at
+dat!"
+
+"Neither is Joe!" said Jessie, brightly, as she sprang to the ground.
+"Every one has been so kind, Leslie," she continued, as we turned back
+into the house, while Joe drove on to the barn with the horses. "Lots
+of the neighbors were down there, besides our witnesses. I feel so
+cheered, Leslie, dear. We have so many friends."
+
+That was true, indeed; but, as time passed, not one among them all
+proved to be more helpful, steadfast, and efficient than was our
+erstwhile enemy, Mr. Jacob Horton.
+
+                    THE END
+
+
+
+
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+ _The Ferry Maid of the Chattahoochee_
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+ _By Annie M. Barnes_     _Illustrated by Ida Waugh_
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+An heroic little Georgia girl, in her father's extremity, takes charge
+of his ferry, and through many vicissitudes and several impending
+calamities, succeeds in carrying out her purpose of supporting her
+invalid parent and his family. The heroine's cheerfulness and hearty
+good humor, combined with an unflinching zeal in her determination to
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+young people.
+
+
+ _A Maid of the First Century_
+
+ _By Lucy Foster Madison_     _Illustrated by Ida Waugh_
+
+A little maid of Palestine goes in search of her father, who, for
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+bound for Britain. Eventually an opportunity is afforded her for going
+to Rome, where, after many trying and exciting experiences, she and
+her father are united and his liberty is restored to him.
+
+
+ _My Lady Barefoot_
+
+ _By Mrs. Evelyn Raymond_     _Illustrated by Ida Waugh_
+
+A beautifully told story of the trials of a little backwoods girl who
+lives in a secluded place with an eccentric uncle, until his death.
+The privations she undergoes during his life-time, her search for
+other relatives, her rather uncongenial abode with them, her return to
+her early home to acquire her uncle's estate, and thus to enjoy a
+useful and happy life, form a most interesting narrative of a girl
+whose ruggedness and simplicity of character must appeal to the
+admiration of all readers.
+
+
+ _Dorothy Day_
+
+ _By Julie M. Lippmann_     _Illustrated by Ida Waugh_
+
+This is a most interesting story of a bright and spirited young girl
+whose widowed mother re-marries. The impulsive girl chafes under the
+new relationship, being unwilling to share with another the bounteous
+love of her mother which she had learned to claim wholly for her own.
+By the exercise of great tact and kindness, the obdurate Dorothy is at
+last won over, and becomes a most estimable girl.
+
+
+ _Miss Wildfire_
+
+ _By Julie M. Lippmann_     _Illustrated by Ida Waugh_
+
+The story of a governess' attempt to win the love and confidence of
+her ward, who, owing to a lack of early restraint, is inclined to be
+somewhat of a hoyden. The development of the girl's character and her
+eventual victory over her turbulent disposition combine to form a
+story of unusual merit and one which will hold its reader's eager
+attention throughout.
+
+"A story of girls for girls that teaches a moral without labeling or
+tagging it at the end."--_Western Christian Advocate_, Cincinnati, O.
+
+
+ _An Odd Little Lass_
+
+ _By Jessie E. Wright_     _Illustrated by Ida Waugh_
+
+This is a story of the regeneration of a little street waif. She
+begins life in a lowly court of a large city. Her adventures are
+numerous, and often quite exciting. After a time she is transplanted
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+grows into a useful and lovable young woman. The story is pleasantly
+told, and abounds in interesting incident.
+
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+and unique situations."--_Religious Telescope_, Dayton, O.
+
+
+ _Two Wyoming Girls_
+
+ _By Mrs. Carrie L. Marshall_     _Illustrated by Ida Waugh_
+
+Two girls, thrown upon their own resources, are obliged to "prove up"
+their homestead claim. This would be no very serious matter were it
+not for the persecution of an unscrupulous neighbor, who wishes to
+appropriate the property to his own use. The girls endure many
+privations, have a number of thrilling adventures, but finally secure
+their claim and are generally well rewarded for their courage and
+perseverance.
+
+
+ _The Girl Ranchers_
+
+ _By Mrs. Carrie L. Marshall_     _Illustrated by Ida Waugh_
+
+A story of life on a sheep ranch in Montana. The dangers and
+difficulties incident to such a life are vividly pictured, and the
+interest in the story is enhanced by the fact that the ranch is
+managed almost entirely by two young girls. By their energy and pluck,
+coupled with courage, kindness, and unselfishness they succeed in
+disarming the animosity of the neighboring cattle ranchers, and their
+enterprise eventually results successfully.
+
+
+ _An Every-Day Heroine_
+
+ _By Mary A. Denison_     _Illustrated by Ida Waugh_
+
+The heroine is not an impossible character but only a pure, winsome,
+earnest girl, who at fourteen years of age is suddenly bereft of
+fortune and father and becomes the chief support of a semi-invalid
+mother. While there are many touching scenes, the story as a whole is
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+carries its readers along and makes them reluctant to put down the
+book until the end is reached.
+
+
+ _Her College Days_
+
+ _By Mrs. Clarke Johnson_     _Illustrated by Ida Waugh_
+
+This is a most interesting and healthful tale of a girl's life in a
+New England college. The trustful and unbounded love of the heroine
+for her mother and the mutual and self-sacrificing devotion of the
+mother to the daughter are so beautifully interwoven with the varied
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+wholesome impression upon the mind and heart of the reader.
+
+
+STORIES FOR BOYS
+
+
+ _Uncrowning a King_
+
+ _By Edward S. Ellis, A. M._     _Illustrated by J. Steeple Davis_
+
+A tale of the Indian war waged by King Philip in 1675. The adventures
+of the young hero during that eventful period, his efforts in behalf
+of the attacked towns, his capture by the Indians, and his subsequent
+release through the efforts of King Philip himself, with a vivid
+account of the tragic death of that renowned Indian chieftain, form a
+most interesting and instructive story of the early days of the
+colonies.
+
+
+ _The Young Gold Seekers_
+
+ _By Edward S. Ellis, A. M._     _Illustrated by F. A. Carter_
+
+A thrilling account of the experiences of two boys during a trip to
+the gold fields of Alaska. The hardships that they endure, the
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+manifest in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and their
+eventual success in their undertaking, are all most graphically
+portrayed.
+
+
+ _True to His Trust_
+
+ _By Edward S. Ellis, A. M._     _Illustrated by J. Steeple Davis_
+
+The hero of this story will win his way at once into the heart of
+every one, and his pluck and perseverance will carry the sympathy of
+every reader through his many adventures, struggles, and singular
+experiences. Like all of the author's works, the incidents teach in
+the most convincing manner that true manliness and sturdy integrity
+are the only principles through which happiness and success in life
+are possible.
+
+
+ _Comrades True_
+
+ _By Edward S. Ellis, A. M._     _Illustrated_
+
+In following the career of two friends from youth to manhood, the
+author weaves a narrative of intense interest. This story is more
+realistic than is usual, as the two heroes pass through the calamitous
+forest fires in Northern Minnesota and barely escape with their lives.
+They have other thrilling adventures and experiences in which the
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+
+"Among juveniles there is not one of greater interest, or more
+wholesome influence than 'Comrades True.'"--_Sentinel_, Milwaukee,
+Wis.
+
+
+ _Among the Esquimaux_
+
+ _By Edward S. Ellis, A. M._     _Illustrated_
+
+The scenes of this story are laid in the Arctic region, the central
+characters being two sturdy boys whose adventurous spirit often leads
+them into dangerous positions. They visit Greenland; go on a hunting
+expedition, have a number of stirring adventures, but ultimately reach
+home safe and sound.
+
+"A capital and instructive book for boys."--_Post_, Boston, Mass.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
+
+Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors;
+otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's
+words and intent.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Two Wyoming Girls and Their Homestead
+Claim, by Carrie L. Marshall
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO WYOMING GIRLS AND HOMESTEAD ***
+
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