The Voyage of the Rattletrap Part 10

We all went over to see it. It was in a big box back of a hotel, and the man in charge called it a mountain-lion, and said it was caught up in the Black Hills. "Right where we're going,"

whispered Ollie. The animal was, I presume, really a jaguar, and was a big cat three or four feet long.

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Good Salesman]

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

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

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

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

"And the worst of it," called Jack, as he waded out into the weeds, "is that it has been harvested about twelve times already.

The scoundrel has been selling it to every man that came along for a month, and I don't believe there were three sackfuls in the whole field to start with."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IX: OFF FOR THE BLACK HILLS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Now that's just about the sort of game that Snoozer likes!"

exclaimed Jack. "If they were badgers, or even woodchucks, you couldn't drive him at them."

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

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

"I suppose that was the mayor of the town that peeped up first?" said Ollie. "Yes, or the chief of police," answered Jack.

We camped that night by the bed of a dry creek, and watered the horses at a settler's house half a mile away.

"That's the most beautiful place for a stream I ever saw,"

observed Jack. "If a man had a creek and no bed for it to run in, he'd be awfully glad to get that."

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

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

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

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: Big Bear Looks Into the Educational Situation]

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

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

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

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

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

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