On A Donkey's Hurricane Deck Part 42

Near by stood prairie schooners, and some yards beyond were their horses, nibbling on the tops of sage brush. The party was bound east, and did us a kindness by preventing our drinking to excess in our condition.

The man was kind enough to caution me before departing to mark well the sky and the wind, for should we be caught in a rain in that dreaded Red Desert, whose soil is so tenacious, we would "pa.s.s in our chips" without doubt.

At one o'clock we struck out. The afternoon's march was just as tedious, and uncomfortably hot, and thirst-provoking as that of the previous day. But, with the exception of a fright we received late in the day when a few drops of rain fell from a pa.s.sing cloud, there was nothing to mar the serenity of the journey to Redding Springs. The long-traveled trail was worn to a depth of twenty inches and more for many miles. We men, especially I, had to sit our animals Turkish-fas.h.i.+on to avoid being drawn out of the saddles by our dragging feet. The march after sunset to two in the morning was the most wearisome. Finally, when we were still three or four miles to Redding, I heard a dog bark ahead in the darkness, and thought we were almost there. Yet we traveled an hour and a half before the buildings of the ranch loomed in the darkness. Soon we had supped, and were wrapped in slumber.

Redding Springs is a great oasis in the Salt Lake Desert. Three springs, varying from fifty to one hundred and fifty feet in diameter, overflow the reeded banks and irrigate a wide area of what otherwise might be an arid spot. An Italian owns this cattle-ranch and grows most of the necessities of life; he seemingly is content, though far removed from the cheerful and busy world. He believed that two of the springs were bottomless, and had some subterranean outlet. A steer once attempted to swim across one pond, and was drawn under by the suction and never seen again. To prove the Italian's theory, these two ponds, or springs, contained fish whose blindness indicates they must have lived in underground channels where eyesight was not required, soon losing their optics altogether.

Mac A'Rony observed, when I had related to him the dago's story that in all probability the steer had undertaken an underground voyage to join a herd of sea-cows in the Pacific.

Our much-needed day of rest was a delightful one.

It was a twenty-eight mile journey to Deep Creek. My outfit was in readiness to start at 7 a. m. next day. The nine miles across the sage-covered plain to the mountains was accomplished in a little over three hours; then my animals began slowly to climb the ascent over a rough but well-beaten trail.

By carrying out the directions given me by the Italian, at ten that night my fatigued caravan was straggling along the western slope of the broad-shouldered Deep Creek range. The sky was clouded, the air heavy with mist; a shower was imminent. I strained my eyes to ferret out a habitation of some sort from among the distant and faintly twinkling lights, but when I had selected one for our objective point and gone a hundred yards or so, it suddenly went out, and I had to single out another one.

Again we were disappointed. Evidently it was the bed-time hour; soon all the lights would be extinguished.

Presently rain began to fall. I took it as a timely warning, and ordered camp. We pitched our tent in the trail, the only place in which we could spread our bed, and crawled under cover just as the rain poured down with a vengeance.

We had not more than closed our eyes than Don uttered a growl of warning, and I heard the sound of galloping hoofs approaching. I sat up. Then I heard the trampling of sage to one side of the trail, and looking out, saw a man on horseback. "h.e.l.lo there! Who be you? Travelin' er goin' somewhere?" called a voice. I liked the tone; the words were genial, even cheery. When I answered, he gave us an urgent invitation to pack up and go on with him to his cabin a half mile distant, as his guests until the storm abated.

"I thought you were drunken Injuns at first," said he. "Not common for white men to camp in the trail. My horse was so frightened he nearly spilt me, shying into the chaparral."

I laughed good-naturedly, and promised to arrive at his house in time for breakfast, explaining that it would not be worth our while to dress and pack in the rain, since we were perfectly comfortable. Soon a hush fell upon the scene, and the beating rain on the canvas lulled us sweetly to sleep.

When we arose in the morning, everything was dripping and a furious gale blowing. The rain appeared to be over, but no sooner had we packed up than down again it came. We hustled our animals up the muddy incline, and soon rode into the door-yard of the only cabin on the trail, and commenced unpacking. Soon our midnight acquaintance, Murray, and his chum, an old man who went by the cognomen of Uncle Tom, came out and welcomed us; both our hosts were effusive in their hospitality. One stabled and fed the donkeys, and the other ushered us into the cabin where we were provided with dry raiment and a hot breakfast. The fire in the stove roared in triumph and scorn at the scudding rain and wind without, while I smiled in grat.i.tude.

The men brought us books and tobacco, and couldn't do enough for us. The storm soon a.s.sumed the character of a hurricane; and I tried to fancy my little party struggling in the throes of those merciless elements to make headway across the valley and up the western mesa. The gale waged all day and night, but on the following morning the sky was clear and the wind had died considerably. It was a relief to get out of the stuffy house into the free and open air. I took the axe and exercised myself with chopping wood for an hour, which display of energy greatly pleased Uncle Tom, who, I a.s.sumed, provided the fuel for the camp.

Murray was to start at eight on a round-up; so I resumed my pilgrimage at the same time. Before good-byes were said he presented me with a fine hair rope, braided with his own hands, as a souvenir of the happy occasion. The place to find large hearts is out on the western plains!

Nine o'clock saw us trampling sage in a short cut down the slope toward a small group of log houses, designated as Deep Creek. The frontier store was kept by an Irishman, but bossed by his wife, who tried to impress me with her importance. Adjoining it stood another old shack, and projecting from its front eves was a small signboard on which was the following startling announcement:

1st. cla.s.s dentestry All kinds dun cheap. Horses a specilty.

Wimen prefured.

TERMS CASH or credit.

I was amused at the novelty of this dentist's s.h.i.+ngle; so was Mac A'Rony.

"Poor Damfino!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed presently, as I rubbed his nose.

"Can't you help her out of her suffering? The poor girl has had a toothache for two days."

"Most a.s.suredly I will," I said. "Why didn't you inform me before?" And forthwith I ferreted out the frontier tooth-doctor.

He, resurrected from his prolonged lethargy, hunted up a dust-covered tool-chest, and followed me impetuously to his asinine patient.

CHAPTER XLIX.

BY MAC A'RONY.

Of all tales 'tis the saddest--and more sad Because it makes us smile. --_Byron._

Contrary to the old saw, "Misery loves company," Damfino wished to be alone. She said she wanted to cry, but couldn't. She had the sympathy of us all. Only those who have suffered can appreciate the sufferings of others. I never shall forget my profanity and the pain that prompted it when the too considerate Prof. consented to my electric bath.

And now, with the same kind motives oozing out of his face, he introduced the sage brush dentist to Damfino. Dr. Arrowroot dropped his toolchest and seizing his patient by the upper jaw with his left hand and by the lower jaw with his right, said: "Open up, madam," and proceeded to examine her molars.

"Locate the claim, Doc?" an on-looker asked, facetiously.

The doctor said he did, but no sooner began to dig than he was ejected. Then the tooth-doctor called for volunteers to a.s.sist him; every man not valuing his life responded. Two Mexicans held the remote end of a long pole and pried Damfino's jaws apart, while several Indians and halfbreeds braced against her sides to prevent her from kicking and falling.

At length, Doc fastened his forceps on the ulcerated tooth, and, grinding his teeth and wrinkling his face, yanked with all his might. He might just as well have tried to pull a tree out of the ground. He rested a few moments, then sent for some hay wire and a lariat, and after wiring the lariat to the tooth, tied it to Damfino's hind feet. We other donks were holding our sides; I thought I would "bust." Then, when the patient was unbound--that cantankerous donkey's four legs were roped together to prevent further excavations in the local cemetery--there was performed the neatest, cleverest, most thoroughly successful piece of dental surgery that I ever heard of. That moaning "Old maid" just kicked the tooth clean out of her jaw. And, s'help me Balaam! the root of all that evil was three inches long.

Poor Damfino was the last to realize that the trick had been accomplished, and kept on kicking till she threw off the lariat and slung the molar half way through the side of the store. When Pod showed her the tooth, she brayed for the loss of it, and as evidence of her ingrat.i.tude, the shrew turned to me and whispered: "Mac, since I pulled my own tooth, how can that brutal dentist have the nerve to ask pay for it?"

"He got the nerve from your tooth, like as not," I said. "You once told me that the Bible says, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,'"--and in a jiffy Damfino made for that innocent, fleet-footed tooth-doctor, before Pod could have time to settle with him.

Before long, I was leading the troop up the sage-covered mesa in step with Damfino's mutterings. When we arrived at Billy Jones'

ranch, Billy was leaning on the picket fence in front of his back door. His house was once turned around, hind side foremost, by a cyclone. He was munching pinenuts, and did not budge, at first, taking us for prospectors. When Pod introduced himself, Billy almost fell to pieces with surprise. Soon Mrs. Jones came out, and Pod was almost persuaded to remain over night.

But we did not tarry. It was dark and misty; rain threatened to descend any moment. When darkness settled, it was as black as Egypt and almost impossible for me to follow the trail. After a while a light could be seen through the mist; Pod said it must be the Tibbits' ranchhouse, where he proposed to camp.

Suddenly, wwhile chuckling over a joke, we donks walked slam-bang against a barbed-wire fence, throwing the men into a rage. Then I leading the way, we followed the fence, turned a corner round a barn, and finally anch.o.r.ed at the back door of the house. Pod found the doork.n.o.b, and made the ranchman's acquaintance, while c.o.o.nskin pitched the tent, unpacked and picketed us donks, then both men gathered fire-wood with which to cook. Mr. T----, when once a.s.sured that Pod was neither beggar nor tramp, authorized us animals to be fed grain and hay; but his wife said it was too late to prepare supper for the men. This did not disturb Pod for he soon had one prepared.

My, that ranchman was close-fisted! Pod even had to pay for his kindling wood before starting the fire. The old man was a plain-looking ruddy-faced Englishman, as sn.o.bbish as he was penurious, but after a time he condescended to "join" the five in a post-prandial smoke. And not until it was pounded into his thick cranium, that his strange guests were traveling like princes did he affect to be hospitable.

Long before dawn, our donkey matin song awoke the natives as well as our masters, and Pod issued from the tent, half awake, hardly in presentable condition to face Madam T., who was splitting wood, while the old man looked on. He now insisted on his "guests"

taking breakfast with him, and afterwards charged for the bacon, eggs, coffee and bread double the sum charged by other ranchmen previously. The bill for hay, grain and firewood was also presented and paid by the amused Prof. c.o.o.nskin was rash enough to hint to Mr. T. that by some oversight no charge had been made for water, for our party drank lots, but the Briton said no, he'd be generous.

He accompanied us horseback four miles, nearly to the base of the mountain, where we turned to cross the pa.s.s, and on the way acquaint us with the superior advantages of country life in England as compared with the disadvantages in America, and admitted that, while a squatter in the West, he had for twenty-five years declined to be naturalized.

The climb over the Antelope Mountains was slow and laborious.

Across the flat valley beyond, mottled with sage and greasewood, alkali and sand spots, rose the summits of the Kern Mountains. We trailed through straggly groves of dwarf pines laden with cones, full of tiny nuts, some of which the men gathered and munched unroasted. c.o.o.nskin said they were a dandy invention, just the thing to break the monotony of talk, for they kept the jaws at work just the same; and they were so hard to gather and shuck that a fellow couldn't eat too many to crowd the stomach.

The valley was about ten miles broad; we crossed it and camped at the base of another range of mountains, near the V---- sheep ranch. The boss was away, but his genial wife and son were holding down the claim. They visited camp after supper, listened to the Professor's marvelous tales, and next morning the good woman sent her son horseback to lead us beyond the point of conflicting trails, to the entrance to the pa.s.s to Schelbourne. As the lad rode off we donks joined in that pathetic hymn: "One more mountain to cross," just as a sort of parting serenade.

The trail was smooth, but in some places almost obliterated; it was the old pony express trail of ante-railroad days. Sometimes it was steep and we donks puffed like engines. There were the charred stumps of the telegraph poles that the Injuns burned to annoy Uncle Sam, and occasional ruins of stone or adobe cabins or saloons, relics of those hot times of savages and fire-water.

Every time I saw one of them I felt dry.

By 11 a. m. we had crossed the summit and were resting near the great stone barn of Schelbourne. It is built strong, with sheet-iron doors and shutters, and high enough to admit a stage coach and four. When the Injuns used to get out for a little holiday sport, the stage, freighted with pa.s.sengers, mail and express, used to drive in at a two-forty gait; and I've heard tell how the iron doors would shut and give the coach a friendly boost in the nick of time to receive on their armor a hail of leaden bullets or a shower of poisoned arrows.

On reaching the plain, I heard my master tell his valet we would spend that night at Green's ranch. I was glad, for I was hungry; the savory smell of the nuts the men chewed was tantalizing.

Midway the plain we were stopped to enable Pod to empty a sackful of cones, which Cheese had threshed by his wibble-wobble motion, and to refill their pockets with nuts. At length, we arrived at Green's a half-hour after dark. Here we donks were fed and watered; then c.o.o.nskin proceeded to get camp ready for the night, while Pod made a fas.h.i.+onable call on Mrs. Green. And--well, he will tell you what happened.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_c.o.o.nskin and I took shelter behind our donkeys._"]