Track's End Part 5

I next went to the north end of the street, where stood a building which had been a harness shop. It was locked, but I could see a stove inside; so I broke a back window, reached in with a stick, and shot back the bolt of the rear door, and soon had a good smoky fire here, too. I decided that one more would do for that day, and thought the best place for that would be in the depot. The wind had now pretty well abated, and the snow was only streaming along close to the ground.

The depot was locked, but again I got in by breaking a window. There were the guns as I expected--five new Winchesters like Sours's.

There were also a lot of cartridges, and three large six-shooters, with belts and holsters. It was half-past three by the clock, which was still going. I clicked at the telegraph instrument, but it was silent. I remembered that Tom had told me that the line had gone down beyond Siding No. 15, which was the first one east from Track's End.

Everything made me think of Tom, and I looked away along the line of telegraph-poles where I knew the track was, down under the snow; but I could see no train coming to take me out of the horrible place.

I soon had another fire going. After that I hid two of the rifles in the back room and carried the others over to the hotel. I climbed to the top of the windmill tower and took a look at Mountain's house with the field-gla.s.s, but could see nothing. I walked around town and looked in each of the houses with an odd sort of feeling, as if I half owned them. Kaiser went with me, and was very glad to get out.

It was just after sundown when I got back to the door of the hotel. Up the street in front of the harness shop I saw a jack-rabbit sitting up and looking at me. Kaiser saw him, too, and started after him, though the dog ought to have known that it was like chasing a streak of lightning. I stood with my hand on the door-k.n.o.b watching the rabbit leave the dog behind, when suddenly I saw Kaiser stop as another dog came around Frenchman's b.u.t.te. They met, there was a little tussle, which made the snow fly; then I saw Kaiser coming back on a faster run than he had gone out on, with the other dog close behind.

"That's a brave dog I've got!" I exclaimed. I saw some other dogs come around the b.u.t.te, but I didn't look at them much, I was so disgusted at seeing Kaiser making such a cowardly run. On he came like a whirlwind. I opened the door and stepped in. He bolted in between my legs and half knocked me over. I slammed the door shut against the other dog's nose. The other dog, I saw, was a wolf.

CHAPTER VII

I have a Fight and a Fright: after which I make some Plans for the Future and take up my Bed and move.

I don't know if the door really struck the wolf's nose or not, when I slammed it shut, but it could not have lacked much of it. Poor Kaiser rushed around the stove, faced the window, and began to bark so excitedly that his voice trembled and sounded differently than I had ever heard it before. I must have been a little excited myself, as I stopped to bolt the door, just as if the wolf could turn the k.n.o.b and walk in. When I stepped back I met the wolf face to face gazing in the window, with his eyes flaming and mouth a little open. He was gaunt and hungry-looking. The rest of the pack were just coming up, howling as loud as they could.

I ran to the desk and got the rifle; then I dropped on one knee and fired across the room straight at the wolf's throat. He fell back in the snow dead; and, of course, there was only a little round hole in the window-pane. Everything would have been all right if it had not been for a mean spirit of revenge in Kaiser, for no sooner did he see his enemy fall back lifeless than with one jump he smashed through the window and fell upon him savagely. He had not seen the rest of the pack, but the next second half a dozen of them pounced on him. I dared not fire again for fear of hitting him, so I dropped my gun, seized an axe which I had used to split kindling-wood, and ran forward. There was a cloud of snow outside, and then the dog tumbled back through the window with one of the wolves, and they rolled over and over together on the floor.

I got to the window just as a second wolf started to come through the broken pane. I struck him full on the head with the axe, and he sank down dead, half outside and half inside. The others that pressed behind stopped as they saw his fate and stood watching the struggle on the floor through the window.

Kaiser was making a good fight, but the wolf was too much for him, and soon the dog was on his back with the wolf's jaws at his throat. This was more than I could stand, and I turned and struck at the animal with my axe. I missed him, but he let go his hold, snapped at the axe, and when I started to strike again he turned and jumped through the window over his dead companion and joined the howling pack on the snow-drift in front of the house.

I seized the gun again and rested it across the dead wolf, firing full at the impudent rascal who had come in and made Kaiser so much trouble. It was a good shot, and the wolf went down in the snow. I pumped up another cartridge, but the wolves saw that they were beaten, and the whole pack turned tail and ran off as fast as their legs could carry them. I took two more shots, but missed both. The wolves went around Frenchman's b.u.t.te, never once stopping their howling.

As soon as they were out of sight I had a look at Kaiser. I found him all blood from a wound in his neck, and one of his fore legs was so badly crippled that the poor beast could not bear his weight on it. I got some warm water and washed him off and bound up his throat. When I was done I heard a strange yowl, and, looking about, spied Pawsy clinging on top of the casing of the door which led into the dining-room, with her tail as big as a bed-bolster. I suppose she had gone up early in the wolf-fight, not liking such proceedings. She was still in the greatest state of fright, and spat and scratched at me as I took her down.

I next swept up the dog and wolf fur and cleaned the floor, and after I had got the place set to rights nailed a board over the broken window and carried the three dead wolves into the kitchen, where, after supper, I skinned them, hoping that some day their hides would go into the making of a fur overcoat for me; something which I needed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF TRACK'S END]

I don't know if it was the excitement of the fight, or the awful stillness of the night, or what it was, but after I had finished my work and sat down in the office to rest I fell into the utmost terror.

The awful lonesomeness pressed down upon me like a weight. I started at the least sound; dangers I had never thought of before, such as sickness and the like, popped into my mind clear as day, and, in short, I was half dead from sheer fright. There was not a breath of wind outside, or a sound, except once in a while a sharp crack of some building as the frost warped a clapboard or sprung out a nail; and at each crack I started as if I had been struck. The moon was s.h.i.+ning brightly, but it was much colder; the thermometer already marked twenty degrees below zero.

Suddenly there came, clear and sharp, the savage howling of a pack of wolves; it seemed at the very door. I jumped out of my chair, I was so startled, and stood, I think, a most disgraceful picture of a coward.

Kaiser rose up on his three sound legs and began to growl. At last I got courage to go to the window and peep out, with my teeth fairly chattering. I could see them up the street, all in a bunch, and offering a fine shot; but I was too frightened to shoot. After a while they went off, and it was still again. I wondered which was worse, their savage wailing or the awful stillness which made the ticking of the clock seem like the blows of a hammer. I wished that there might come another blizzard.

But at last I got so I could walk the floor; and as I went back and forth I managed to look at things a little more calmly. The first thing I decided on was that I must no longer, in good weather at least, sleep in the hotel. It was easy to see, if the robbers came in the night and found n.o.body in the other houses, that they would come straight to the hotel. I made up my mind to take my bed to some empty house where they would be little likely to look for any one, or where they would not be apt to look until after I had had warning of their coming.

Another thing which I decided on was that I must keep up two or three more fires, and get up early every morning to start them. I saw, too, that I ought to distribute the Winchesters more, and board up the windows of the bank, and perhaps some of the other buildings, leaving loopholes out of which to shoot. Still another point which I thought of was this: Suppose the whole town should be burned? I wondered if I could not find or make some place where I would be safe and would not have to expose myself to the robbers if they stayed while the fire burned, as they probably would. I thought of the cellars, but it did not seem that I could make one of them do in any way.

My fright was, after all, a good thing, because it made me think of all possible dangers, and consequently, as it seemed, ways to meet them. It was at this time that the idea of a tunnel under the snow across the street from the hotel to the bank occurred to me; but I was not sure about this. Still, some way to cross the street without being seen kept running in my mind. In short, I walked and thought myself into a much better state of mind, and, though I still started at every sound, I was no longer too frightened to control myself.

When it came bedtime I decided to follow out my plan for sleeping away from the hotel without delay. There was an empty store building to the north of the hotel. It was new, and had never been occupied. I had often noticed that one of the second-story windows on the side was directly opposite one in the hotel, and not over four feet away. I carried up the ironing-board from the kitchen, opened the hotel window, put the board over for a bridge, stepped across and entered the vacant building.

I thought I had never seen a place quite so cold before; but I carried over the mattress from my bed, together with several blankets, and placed them in a small back room in the second story. The doors and windows of the first story were all nailed and boarded up, and it seemed about the last place that you would expect to find any one sleeping. I left the dog and cat in the hotel, took one of the rifles with me, and pulled in my drawbridge. I almost dropped it as I did so, for at that instant the wolves set up another unearthly howling. I got into bed as quick as I could. They went the length of the street with their horrible noise; and then I heard them scratching at the doors and windows of the barn. I could have shot them easily in the bright moonlight; but I remember that I didn't do so.

CHAPTER VIII

I begin my Letters to my Mother and start my Fortifications: then I very foolishly go away, meet with an Accident, and see Something which throws me into the utmost Terror.

The next day, the nineteenth of December, was Sunday. I had been left alone (or, rather, let me say the truth, I had like a fool refused to go) on Friday, which seems in this case to have been unlucky for me, however it may ordinarily be. I woke up early, half cramped with the weight of the bed-clothes, I had piled on so many; but I was none too warm, either. I put out my drawbridge and got back to the hotel and started the fire. Outside the thermometer stood close to thirty-five degrees below zero, but the sun was rising bright and dazzling into a clear, blue sky.

Kaiser's leg was no better, and Pawsy was still nervous and kept looking at the windows as if she expected wolves to bolt in head-first; and I did not blame her much. It seemed to me that the wolves had howled most of the night. I only wished that the timber beyond Frenchman's b.u.t.te and the coteaux and the Chain of Lakes were a hundred miles away, for without them there would have been no wolves, or nothing but little prairie wolves or coyotes, which, of course, don't amount to much.

As soon as my own fire was started I went about town and got the others going; this I called "bringing the town to life." As I stood at the depot and watched the long columns of smoke from the chimneys it scarcely seemed that I was the only inhabitant of the town. After I had had breakfast and done up the work at the barn, I sat down in the office and was glad enough that it was Sunday. I suddenly thought of a way to spend the day, and in ten minutes I was at something which I did every Sunday while I stayed at Track's End.

This was to write a letter to my mother, stamp and direct it, and drop it in the slot of the post-office door. Of course it would not go very soon, but if nothing happened it would go some time; and, I thought, if I am killed or die in this dreadful place, the letters may be the only record she will ever have of my life here.

I accordingly set to work and wrote her a long letter, telling her fully everything that had happened so far, but without much of my fears for the future. I told her I was sorry that I had got myself into such a sc.r.a.pe, but that, now being in, I meant to go through it the best I could.

The next morning, Monday, I began work on my fortifications, by which name I included everything that would help to keep off invaders. I started two more fires, one in Townsend's store, at the south end of the street, and the other in Joyce's store, at the north end of town and nearly opposite the harness shop. I made another visit to Taggart's, and found some barrels of kerosene, which I needed, and more ammunition. Still another thing was a number of door-keys, so that I made up a string of them with which I could unlock almost every door in town. In Joyce's, besides groceries and such things, I found a buffalo overcoat, which I took the liberty of borrowing for the winter. It was so large for me that it almost touched the ground, but it was precisely what I needed, and, I think, once saved my life; and that before long.

I kept at the fortification-work for four days pretty steadily, though I did not use the best judgment in picking out what to do first. I was fascinated, boy-like, with the tunnel idea, when, I think, with the knowledge I then had, it would have been wiser to have paid more attention to some other things; but, as luck would have it, it all came out right in the end. I boarded up a few of the windows, but not many, and did nothing whatever at providing a secret retreat in case of fire, though I had a plan in mind which I thought was good. Worst of all, I left the Winchesters about here and there without any particular attempt at hiding them. But I kept at the tunnel hammer and tongs.

There were two front windows in the hotel office. At one of these the snow came only a little above the sill, which was the one where the wolf had come in; but the other was piled nearly to the top. It was even higher against the bank front opposite, and at no place in the street between was it less than four feet deep. Both buildings stood almost flat on the ground. I took out the lower sash of the window in the hotel and began work. I made the tunnel something over two feet wide and about four high, except where the drift was no more than this, where I did not think it safe to have the tunnel over three feet high. The snow was packed remarkably hard, and, as it all had to be carried out through the office in a basket and emptied in the street, it was slow work. But at last, on Thursday evening, it was done, and Kaiser and I pa.s.sed through it; but nothing could induce the cat to come nearer than the window. I was very proud of my work, and went through the tunnel twenty times with no object whatever.

The next morning I ought to have gone at other fortification-work, but instead I thought up the foolish notion that I ought to go out to Bill Mountain's to see if Pike had got our letter and had left any in reply. It was Friday, the day before Christmas, and I thought that the holiday would be more satisfactory if I knew about this; though, to tell the truth, I had not worried much about the gang's coming since I had been so taken up with the tunnel. I had been so careless that I might have been surprised twenty times a day.

It was a pleasant morning, and not very cold. Andrew had left behind a pair of skees, or Norwegian snow-shoes--light, thin strips of wood, four inches wide and eight or ten feet long--and, though I had never been on them but once or twice, I determined to use them in going. I fixed the fires well, made everything snug about town, gave the stock in the barn some extra feed, put on my big overcoat, with a luncheon in one pocket and Sours's revolver in the other, and started. Kaiser's leg was still a little stiff, but I let him go along.

I think I fell down three times before I got out of town; it was as many as this at least; and outside of town, there being more room, I fell oftener. But I soon began to improve and get along better. I decided to follow the railroad grade west, as it was most of the way higher than the prairie, and the snow on it was smoother.

When I got opposite Mountain's I found the grade some ten or twelve feet above the prairie, but it looked a very easy matter to slide down on the skees. I had seen Andrew go down the steep side of Frenchman's b.u.t.te. I accordingly slid, went wrong, fell, turned my ankle, and found myself on the hard snow at the bottom unable to stand on my feet.

I lay still some time thinking that perhaps my ankle might get better; but it got worse. It was still almost half a mile to Mountain's, but it was over two miles back to town. I felt that I might be able to crawl the half-mile, so I started, with the skees on my back. I hope I may never again have to do anything so slow and painful. Kaiser was prodigiously excited, and jumped around me and barked and said as plainly as words that he would like to help if he could. But, though I thought a hundred times that I should never reach there, I kept burrowing and floundering along and did accomplish it at last. It was far past noon. The sky had clouded over. I saw a new letter behind the board, but could not rise up to get it. I pushed open the door, crawled to the heap of hay by the stove, and lay on it, more miserable, it seemed, than ever before.

I scarcely stirred till I noticed that it was beginning to get dark.

Then I crept to the door and looked out; the snow was falling fast and in big flakes. I shut the door and crawled back to the hay. There seemed to be nothing to do. I knew I could not keep up a hay fire, even if I could start one. Besides, I had a sudden fear that some of the Pike gang might visit the shanty to look for an answer to their letter, and I thought if I simply lay still I might escape, even if they did come. I ate part of my luncheon, and gave Kaiser part. Then I drew my big overcoat around me as best I could, made the dog lie close up to me on the hay, and tried to sleep.

My ankle pained me a good deal, and the bed was not comfortable. I thought as I lay there that my mother and father and all the folks at home must then be at the church for the Christmas-tree; and I could see the lights, and the bright toys on the tree, and all the boys and girls I knew getting their presents and laughing and talking; and the singing and the music of the organ came to me almost as if I had been there. Then I thought of how, if I were home, later I should hang up my stocking and find other gifts in it in the morning, and of what a pleasant time Christmas was at home.

Every few minutes a sharp twinge of pain in my ankle would bring me back to my deplorable condition there in that deserted shack sunk in the frozen snow, and I would be half ready to cry; but, with all my thinking of both good and bad, I did at last get to sleep. Once, some time in the night, I woke up with a jump at a strange, unearthly, whooping noise which seemed to be in the room itself, but at last I made it out to be an owl to-whooing on the roof. Again I heard wolves, very distant, and twenty times in imagination there sounded in my ears the tramp of Pike's horses.

When morning came I crawled to the door again. There were six inches of soft, new snow, but the sun was rising clear, and there were no signs of a blizzard. I got back to the hay and for a long time rubbed my ankle. I thought it was a little better. I ate the rest of the food and called myself names for ever having left the town. The fires, I knew, were out, and everything invited an attack of the robbers, while I lay crippled in a cold shack two miles away, on the road along which they would come and go. I had been in no greater terror at any time since my troubles began than I was now on this Christmas morning.

Perhaps it was nine o'clock when I noticed that Kaiser was acting very peculiarly. He stood in the middle of the room with his head lowered and a scowl on his face. Then I saw the hair on his back slowly begin to rise; next he growled. I told him to hush, and waited. I could hear nothing, but I knew there must be good cause for his actions.

At last I could stand it no longer. I dared not open the door, but I seized one corner of the dry-goods box, drew myself up, and hobbled to the window, regardless of the pain. Going straight for the town, a quarter of a mile away, were a dozen men on horseback. I could see by their trail that they had pa.s.sed within fifty yards of where I was.