The Biography of a Prairie Girl Part 14

Happy over her trade, the little girl rushed away to the sick horse, while the eldest brother, enraged at her interference yet not daring to stop the bargain, mentally promised to give her a lesson later.

"If the mare lives," he said aside to the biggest brother, "you bet these thieves'll even things up."

The evening of things came sooner than he expected. For at sundown, after the Indians had departed, the swift horse ridden to their camp by the little girl was nowhere to be found!

But, angry as the farm-house felt over the theft, the big brothers knew that it would be worse than foolhardy to try to recapture their animal.

And the trade seemed likely to be fair in the end, after all,--for at midnight the family saw that the blue mare was getting well!

SHRIEKS of laughter from behind the barn, following strange, rapid thumps upon the bare ground, led the three big brothers in that direction one May morning, and, on turning the corner, they found the little girl leaning convulsively against the old straw stack for support, while in front of her, blinded by a big, red handkerchief, and with a long bolster full of hay across her dappled withers, was the blue mare, making stiff, wild plunges into the air, with arched back and head held low. For the little girl was breaking her to ride!

It was the little girl who broke the horses on the farm to ride. She played with them as colts, and, with her light weight, mounted them long before they were old enough to carry any one heavier, and yet were too old to be sway-backed. She tried them first as they stood tied in their stalls, crawling carefully upon them from the manger. Later, she rode them at a walk up and down the reservation road.

She had learned the First Reader of the saddle on the St. Bernard's wide, slipping back. The pinto had been the Second, and she had then pa.s.sed rapidly to the graduation cla.s.s of frisky calves and lean, darting shoats. Now, for two years, all the horses sold at the reservation by the big brothers had been of her training, and the troopers vowed that no gentler, better mounts had ever been in the service. Her mother viewed the colt-breaking tremblingly, and the big brothers declared that the little girl would be buried some day with a broken neck. But the little girl said nothing, and continued her riding fearlessly, knowing that love, even with horses, makes all things easy,--except the breaking of the blue mare.

Thirteen hands stood the blue mare, sound, clean-limbed, and beautiful, and the markings of her sharp front teeth showed that she was but four.

From velvet muzzle to sweeping tail, from mottled croup to fetlocks, she shone in the sunlight like corn-silk. Her mane was black and waved to her wide chest, and her heavy forelock hid an inwardly curving nose that proved an Arab strain. And when, after many spirited bouts with the hay bolster, the little girl finally won her over to a soft blanket and a stirruped girth, she showed the endurance and strength of a mustang, the speed of a racer, and the gait of a rocking-chair.

She was so tall that she could not be climbed upon, like a pony, from the upper side of sloping ground or from the stone pile on the carnelian bluff, and too skittish to allow a bare foot to be thrust behind her sleek elbows as a step to her back, so the little girl invented a new method of mounting. Her nose was coaxed to the ground by the offer of a choice wisp of gra.s.s, and, as her neck was lowered, the little girl carefully put one leg over her glossy crest and gave her a slap to start her,--when the blue mare raised her head and the little girl hedged along to her back, facing rearward. Then she slowly turned about!

Herding on the blue mare's back became a pleasure, not a despised duty, and long jaunts to the station, ten miles away, for mail or groceries, were welcomed. The eldest brother, too, had ceased to scold the little girl for the trade with Black Cloud or for the loss of the horse that was stolen. For the blue mare was worth two of the other.

The subject hardly ever came up in the farm-house any more; when it did, it only served to remind the little girl of a dread prophecy of the Swede, that, in good time, the swarthy brave would pa.s.s that way again!

The little girl always grew white at the bare thought. And often the dream of the leering face and the clutching hand would follow her by day. If she entered the barn, cruel eyes watched her from out dim corners; if she rode through the corn-field, now waist high, the leaves rustled a mysterious warning to her. "Run--run!" they whispered, and the little girl obeyed and sought the safety of the open prairie.

But there were hours of proud security, when, with the Swede boy as an audience, or, better still, with the colonel's son, she put the blue mare through her wonderful trick. This trick had been discovered accidentally by the little girl. One morning, when she was breaking the horse, she put one hand back playfully and pinched her on the croup to see if she would buck,--and, instead, she promptly lay down! Afterward, the same pinch brought her again to the ground, and the little girl found that it needed barely a touch to make the mare perform. But however delighted she was over her discovery, the little girl never mounted the prostrate horse, for she was afraid that she might roll upon her.

The days had pa.s.sed, and it was now haying-time. But the mowers stood idle beneath their sheds, and the work-horses grazed contentedly with their heads to the south, for a rain was pa.s.sing over the prairie.

Inside the farm-house, the little girl, standing against the blurred panes, rebelled against the showers, and fretted for the blue mare and a gallop; the biggest brother, buried deep in a book, thanked Providence; while the eldest, remembering the uncovered c.o.c.ks in the timothy meadow, cursed the storm.

Toward evening, the third day of the downpour, however, the clouds lifted. A new moon appeared, holding its chin up,--a promise of suns.h.i.+ne,--and the little girl ran happily to the barn, slipped a lariat into the blue mare's mouth, secured it with a thong under the jaw, and, bareback, started toward the sloughs beyond the reservation road to bring home the herd. When she was a mile away, the eldest brother followed her, for he wanted to see if the gra.s.s around the farthest slough would make good cutting. He rode the bald-faced pony, and across his pommel was slung his musket.

The little girl did not see him. Content with the blue mare beneath her, her mind busy, she rode on. And her voice, shrill, and broken by her cantering, floated back to the eldest brother in s.n.a.t.c.hes:

"Scotland's burning! Scotland's burning!

Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!

More water! More water!"

Then she disappeared over the ridge on her descent to the herd.

The eldest brother urged his horse a little to try to catch up with her.

But she was going faster now, too, and when he reached the top of the ridge she was in the tall gra.s.s between him and the cattle, and he could just see her bobbing sailor hat and the flying tail of the blue mare.

Her song ceased as she neared the herd, for twilight was coming down and the meadow blades had taken up the same soft warnings that she had heard in the corn. Above her, homing birds called to each other, and bullfrogs croaked from the sloughs at her horse's feet. There flashed into her mind the night-and-day horror of the Indian's face and hand, and she began to whistle a little to rally heart as she rode beyond the cows to turn a stray.

But suddenly the sound died on her lips. For up from the earth rose the ugly, leering face, and out of the gra.s.s came the horrid, clutching hand! With a choking cry, the little girl struck her horse, but the next instant was flung down from her seat, and Black Cloud, rifle in hand, swung himself to her place.

He dared not fire for fear of sounding an alarm, and he dared not wait an instant to club with his gun-stock the little girl, lying stunned and half-dead with fear. Without a backward look, he drove the blue mare out of the meadow to the prairie and turned her toward the river.

But the eldest brother was scarcely a half-mile behind him. And, as the strange form came into view, going like the wind through the gathering gloom, he guessed what had happened. He whipped the bald-face wildly, following the blue mare. And a race for the Vermillion began!

But it was an uneven one. In a few leaps the mare had lengthened the distance between her and the bald-face. Discouraged, and anxious to know what had become of the little girl, the eldest brother resolved to stop.

But as he did so, he raised his musket and sent a load of buckshot after the fleeting brave.

The Indian, safe from pursuit, answered it with a derisive whoop, and, turning his body around, still going swiftly, waved his rifle triumphantly aloft in his right hand and, looking back, leaned for an instant with the other on the blue mare's croup!

The horse obeyed the sign like a flash. As if the eldest brother's shot had found her heart, she stopped dead still and threw herself upon the ground,--and Black Cloud, his face for once almost white, lunged forward, struck his head with crus.h.i.+ng force against a boulder on the river's edge, and lay as motionless as the rock itself!

EARLY that night, when the prairie lay still and sweet, and the new moon was swimming westward from cloud-island to cloud-island, the gray buffalo-wolves came up the Vermillion on their way to the sheep-pen of the Swede, and waked the drowsing valley with their howling. But the trembling ewes and their babies were not molested; for when the pack reached the river bank near the farthest slough, they halted to quarrel at a boulder--till the sun came up in the east again and glittered on a string of gla.s.s wampum lying beside the rock.

XII

THE PROFESSOR'S "FIND"

A NIMBUS of mystery clung to the professor the first two days of his stay. His arrival, late one afternoon, in the sewing-machine man's buggy, was as unexplained as it was unexpected; and when he was shown to the little girl's room, which she hospitably relinquished, he volunteered neither his name nor his place of residence. The following morning he left the house, carrying a small paper box and a black hand-bag, and crossed the fields to the prairie, where he ran about, his spare figure stooped, as if he were picking something, while his left hand held an instrument that flashed in the sun. On his return at noon, his box and bag were closed, and only a green stain on his fingers gave any suggestion of what he had been doing. He spent the remainder of the day quietly in his room.

The big brothers made various conjectures about him. The eldest declared that he was searching for minerals; the biggest thought him a government agent on a secret mission; while the youngest, to the terror of the little girl, who had not recovered from her adventure of a month before with Black Cloud, hinted at a dark purpose and openly a.s.serted that it was dangerous to have the professor in the house. But, since their mother would not permit any questioning, their curiosity was not satisfied nor their fears allayed until the professor, unasked, revealed his ident.i.ty.

Then it was ridiculously simple. He was a professor in the botanical department of an Eastern university, and had come West to obtain floral specimens. The paper box held his fresh finds; the bag, a telescope with which to distinguish plants not easily accessible, and a microscope to study those close at hand. In his trunk were heavy blank books filled with dried leaves, pressed blossoms, and scientific notes.

When the little girl heard that he taught in one of those colleges, remote and wonderful, of which she dreamed, her suspicions were straightway transformed into reverence. She listened eagerly to his every word, watched him, agape with interest, as he wrote at the sitting-room table, and hung at his heels, happy and fascinated, when he walked up and down, smoking a cigar, under the ash trees in the twilight.

On the other hand, the big brothers respected him less than ever. To them flower-hunting, as an occupation, seemed trivial and effeminate.

Flowers, though they were well enough in their proper places,--the front garden or the gra.s.s,--were usually a nuisance that crept through the crops and choked their growth, until descended upon and tediously jerked up, one after another, by the roots. And a man who could give his entire time not only to the collection of nosegays but to the gathering of _weeds_, could not have the esteem of the big brothers. All three, whenever they spoke of him, raised their shoulders contemptuously, after the manner of "Frenchy."

It was not long, however, before their att.i.tude changed. The professor was so gentle and courteous, yet so firm and convincing, and so full of knowledge concerning things about them of which they were entirely ignorant, that they soon came to view him seriously. The eldest and the youngest brothers even took turns at driving him on long trips in the buckboard, and the biggest loaned him a pair of rubber boots so that he could hunt in swamps and wet meadows for bristly b.u.t.tercups and crowfoot.

After she found out that he was a professor, the little girl always accompanied him on his jaunts. Before that, the herd being in the care of the Swede boy, she spent the days either in skilfully outlining on a wide board, by means of a carpenter's pencil and an overturned milk-pan, cart-wheels for the box of the little red wagon, or in playing "Pilgrim's Progress," seated on an empty grain-sack which Bruno, snarling with delight, dragged by his teeth along the reservation road from the Slough of Despond to the gates of the Celestial City. She also helped her mother prepare for the coming Fourth of July celebration at the station.

But she gave up everything to go with the professor while he scoured the prairie to the north, east, and south, and burdened herself willingly with the lunch-bucket and his umbrella. From dawn till noon, for a whole fortnight, she trotted beside him, straining her eyes to catch sight of some plant he had not yet seen, and tearing here and there to pluck posies for his bouquet. When, however, there remained to be searched only a wide strip bordering the Vermillion, she remained at home.

The professor carried forward his work along the river enthusiastically, planning to finish by the eve of the celebration, so that he could accompany the family to the station on the morning of the Fourth, and there take the afternoon local going east. He tramped up and down the bluffs, finding many a rare shrub in high, sunny spots or low, sheltered nooks, and returning to the farm-house only when he was laden with spoil. But it was on his very last excursion that he discovered something really remarkable.

He visited a point far up the valley, where the banks were precipitous and came close together. At their base lay narrow reaches of sand between which, even at its lowest, the river hurried; and when it was swelled by heavy rains or melting snow, it rushed through boisterously and spat high to right and left against the walls.

The western side, with its southern exposure, was the greener.

Box-elders belted its foot, growing at a sharp angle to the side. Above the elders an aspen thrust out its slender trunk, and, still higher, gra.s.s and weeds protruded. Where the cliff was of solid rock, trailing wild-bean drooped across and softened it. But the professor, after sweeping it carefully with his gla.s.s and finding no new specimens upon it, resolved not to waste his time and labor, and turned his attention opposite.

Though almost bare, for it faced the north, the eastern precipice still was promising. No trees interrupted its rise, and the stones that, midway, coincided with it were uncovered. Low down were scattered clumps of wild black currant and cl.u.s.ters of coral-berry. But above the stones, bending temptingly forward into plain view, was a cactus which the professor had long sought.

He determined to scale the wall and secure the plant. Dropping the paper box and the hand-bag, he toiled from the sand to a first narrow ledge, from there to the currant bushes, and thence higher, by relying for a foothold upon snake holes and crevices. Once having gained the flat stones, the climb was over. He had only to put out his hand and gather the cactus.