The Ranche on the Oxhide Part 9

In a very few days she had so ingratiated herself in the good opinion of the women of the village, that they really took a fancy to her. She willingly helped them in all the daily tasks heaped upon them by their hard masters. She learned readily how to tan the different furs which were brought into the place after a hunt, made moccasins, herded the ponies in her turn, and even became such an adept in cooking that she was soon permanently a.s.signed as cook for the occupants of the tepee in which she was lodged. Then she was spared the dirtier and harder labor which fell to the lot of the Indian women, for she had been brought up by her excellent mother to perform all kinds of work in which a white woman is supposed to become proficient, and now it served her in a way that was never dreamed of.

The Indians occasionally had flour, but knew of but one way to prepare it. They made a kind of gruel, by boiling, and adding a little salt. A most unpalatable dis.h.!.+ She made bread and biscuit, which she baked in the most primitive way, on a piece of thin iron before the coals of the camp-fire; but then the food was so different from that to which the savages had been accustomed, that no one was permitted to prepare the meals for the lodge where she made her abode, but the White Fawn, as they began to call her.

Like Constantinople, every village is overrun with dogs, and they are the most vigilant guards that can be imagined. No one may hope to approach an Indian lodge, or a group of them, without being saluted by a chorus of the most unearthly barking and howling from the canine cataract that is sure to pour out the moment a strange footstep is heard. Kate, always a lover of pets, immediately began to cultivate the friends.h.i.+p of the dogs of the village. There was, however, something more in her method than mere natural affection for the brute creation; she had an object in view. She knew that when the time arrived for her to attempt to escape, the dogs must be thoroughly attached to her, so that they would regard any movement she might make without the slightest suspicion. This she soon effected, and in a short time every miserable cur in the village was her faithful ally.

The intense interest which she took in the herd of ponies may be imagined, for in one of them, at some time in the near future, was concentrated her hope of escaping from the hateful village. She had noticed a little roan pony which seemed to her to possess that power of endurance that would be so necessary when she started on her long and lonely journey to the beloved Oxhide. She knew that he was the swiftest animal of the hundred or more in the bunch, for she had watched him often when the dusky warrior who owned him rode away on the hunt. She had read in some favorite magazine at the ranche, that in the old tales of English minstrelsy, the roan horse was the favorite color of the heroes of those stories, and she selected that animal out of the herd to carry her away. So, whenever she could, surrept.i.tiously, she petted him, and he became so attached to her that he would follow her like a dog.

The savages watched her very closely, and she dared not think of leaving the village for many long weeks. At last she appeared to be so pleased with her new a.s.sociations that their vigilance relaxed somewhat, and their eyes were not always upon her.

She very rapidly learned the language of her captors, and then, as she could talk to the women, who were really kind to her, her isolation did not seem so hard to bear.

The princ.i.p.al food of the savages was dried buffalo meat, and, as it would keep sweet for a long time and was very nouris.h.i.+ng, she hid portions of her rations in the hollow of an old elm that stood near her tepee, for use on the trip when the time arrived for her to run away.

The clothes which Kate wore when she was stolen soon began to show the hard service to which they had been subjected, and finally she had to resort to the blanket for a general wrap like her female a.s.sociates. She had patched her civilized dress until it was like Joseph's coat, of many colors, but she tenaciously clung to it, determining that she would wear it home, if she was fortunate enough ever to return. So she took it off and carefully stored it with her buffalo meat in the hollow of the old elm.

She soon became aware that the savages were at war with the whites, for often when the warriors went away dressed up in their feathers and hideous paint, they came back with their ranks decimated, and then there was wailing and howling in the village.

She knew, also, that General Custer, whom the Indians called the Crawling Panther, was gradually outwitting them, for she heard the sobriquet they had given him often mentioned in their talks around the camp-fires.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Par-fleche is the tanned hide of the buffalo, without the hair. The Indians make baskets and boxes of it in which to pack their provisions and other articles when they move their villages.

CHAPTER XI

THANKSGIVING DAY AT ERROLSTRATH--KATE'S RETURN--CUSTER'S BATTLE WITH "BLACK KETTLE"--KATE TELLS HER STORY--THE ORIGIN OF INDIAN CORN--A WOLF HUNT WITH GENERAL CUSTER--A WOLF STORY BY THE COLONEL

FIVE months had made their sad pa.s.sage at Errolstrath ranche since Kate was carried off by the Indians. It was now November, and Thanksgiving, that day so sacred to every New Englander's heart, was rapidly approaching; it lacked but one week of its advent. Notwithstanding the sadness which still hovered over Errolstrath, the great healer, Time, had poured balm into the wounded hearts. There still remained the tender remembrance of the light which the absent one always brought into the house, and the parents still strove to fulfil their obligations to those who were left to them, so Thanksgiving was kept as it had been ever since the settlement of the family on the ranche.

The mince pies had been baked, the cider bottled, and all that was lacking to make up the complement of the great dinner was a turkey. As, however, the woods were full of them around Errolstrath, no uneasiness was felt in regard to the presence of the magnificent bird when he was wanted.

Joe, upon whom the family depended to keep the larder well supplied with game, intended to go and kill a wild turkey the next day. Thanksgiving came the second day following on the twenty-fifth, so there was ample time to procure the princ.i.p.al dish for the coming event.

Joe had long since ceased to hunt for mere amus.e.m.e.nt. He had become a veritable pot-hunter, not in the general sense in which the word is used, that is, a man who only kills his game on the ground, but he hunted only when the family needed a change of diet, and desired some kind of game.

It was Rob's duty that month to bring the cows home and milk them, a duty at which the boys took turn and turn about each month. That evening he was returning home with his charge, and was riding, as usual, one of the buffalo ponies. As he was going along the bank of the Oxhide, in the long gra.s.s which grew in some places higher than a man's head, his animal suddenly stumbled with both feet, into a prairie dog's hole, and Rob was incontinently thrown over his head, falling into the long gra.s.s without receiving any injury. As he started to his feet again, he felt something struggling in his hands, for he had involuntarily clutched at the ground when the pony so unceremoniously tumbled him off, and to his great surprise, he discovered that he had accidentally caught a large wild turkey! He held on to the bird manfully, although it tried its hardest to get away from him; and holding it by the legs, he walked on to the corral and drove the cows in. Then, still leading his pony, he arrived at the house, and called his mother and Gertrude out, exclaiming:--

"I've got the turkey for Thanksgiving, and I didn't have to shoot it, either!"

Joe, hearing the noise, came down from his room, and learning what had caused the racket, said:--

"By jolly, Rob, you are a lucky dog; but if any one read of the way you caught it, they wouldn't believe it. I never heard of such a thing before. I sha'n't have to hunt one to-morrow now, and I'm glad of it, for I want to go to the fort to try to find out how the Indian war is coming on."

"Well, Joe," said his mother, "as you needn't shoot one now, suppose you kill and pick it while Rob is milking, then hang it up somewhere so that the lynxes can't get it, and in the morning Gertie and I will get it ready for the oven."

Joe then took it from Rob, who was still holding the struggling creature by the legs, and taking it to the woodpile, he chopped off its head, then he picked it, and hung it up in the smoke-house as the safest place until his mother was ready for it in the morning.

Thanksgiving day opened clear and cool, but not at all cold, for November in Kansas is one of the most delightful months in the whole year. The Indian summer is then at its height, and the amber mist hangs in light clouds on every hill, giving to all objects a smoky hue. This mist rests particularly on the bluffs bordering that stream to which General John C. Fremont gave the name of "The Smoky Hill Fork of the Republican." He first saw it in the late autumn of 1843, when on his exploring expedition to the Rocky Mountains, and it is into that river that the Oxhide empties itself only a short distance from Errolstrath ranche.

It was intended to have dinner served promptly at noon, and Mrs.

Thompson had so announced to her husband and children, who were all anxious for twelve o'clock to strike.

About ten, while she and Gertrude were busy in the kitchen, the boys out in the yard, and Mr. Thompson in the timber, marking some trees he planned to cut down, there rode up to the front porch a strange-looking figure on a roan pony which was evidently nearly blown in consequence of the pace at which it had been driven.

The strange object was seemingly a girl, but she was one ma.s.s of rags over which was thrown a red blanket, Indian fas.h.i.+on. Her hair was unkempt, and she sat crossways on her animal, like a savage.

Mrs. Thompson, hearing the sound of a horse's hoofs on the buffalo sod in front of the house, went out with her dish-cloth in her hand to see who the intruder might be. Looking at her, she at first thought one of the p.a.w.nee boys had come for Joe, but when she heard in a sad and apparently disappointed tone a voice which she could never have forgotten: "My heavens! mamma, don't you know me?" she recognized it as that of her lost daughter Kate. The cloth dropped from her hand, and she fell p.r.o.ne upon the porch, overcome by the shock.

Just as Gertrude, who had heard her mother's smothered groan, ran out with a tin dipper of water to dash into her face, Kate dismounted, and rus.h.i.+ng to where her mother was lying, she threw her arms around her neck and began to sob violently.

It was then that Gertrude, for the first time, saw her sister Kate, and she, too, immediately fell upon her lovingly, and for some moments there was weeping, laughing, kissing, and hugging. The boys, in the back part of the house, and their father in the stable, hearing the voices, hurried to the veranda, and in another second all were kissing and hugging the ragged girl, each one trying to outvie the other in their joy at the return of the pet of the household.

They fairly dragged Kate into the sitting-room, where, for a few minutes, they looked at her in a dazed sort of way. Her mother was the first to come to her senses.

"The first thing to do," she said, "is to get some decent clothes on the child; then as soon as Mr. Tucker comes we will have dinner. Oh! my, what a Thanksgiving it will be!"

Kate was soon made comfortable in clean linen, and a dress of her sister's, for she had outgrown all that were of her own wardrobe five months before.

At this moment Mr. Tucker rode up to the door, and allowing Rob to take his horse to the stable, the old man walked into the house. He was the only invited guest on the Thanksgivings at Errolstrath. All his family were long since dead, and he was alone in the world; besides, being a New Englander, he had not forgotten how to appreciate the most important festival of Yankee Land.

He was wonderfully taken aback when he saw that Kate had returned, and he congratulated her with his eyes full of tears; for he was a man with a warm heart, though his early life in the days of the old trappers had given him a rough looking exterior.

Kate looked like the dear Kate of old, as all sat down to a real Thanksgiving dinner. She was much browner than when she left Errolstrath, because of her constant outdoor life in the Indian village.

"Oh! Kate," said her mother, as the happy girl took her accustomed place at the table, between her father and Gertrude, "how earnestly I have prayed that you might be restored to us; I felt at times almost in despair, but the thought of the good G.o.d's promises to the patient, cheered me up, and I knew that in His own time my prayer would be answered. What a different Thanksgiving this is from what we all have expected, when we thought of Kate's vacant chair! Only think, we have never yet been separated on this blessed day during all the years we have lived at Errolstrath! But we little thought that we should be together to-day."

"We have much to be thankful for," said Mr. Thompson; "excellent crops, good luck with our stock, and to cap the climax, our beloved Kate is restored to us."

The Thanksgiving dinners at Errolstrath were composed of those conventional dishes which make up the celebration of the festival in New England, and the one at Errolstrath that day was perfect in its resemblance to those of the old homestead in Vermont.

While they were discussing the good things on the table, Kate was told how Rob had got the turkey for the dinner, and also how matters had progressed at the ranche during her absence, for she was very anxious to know. Her father said that he had raised the largest crop of corn since he had been on the creek; that the wolves had carried off two calves from Errolstrath, but that many of the neighbors had suffered a great deal more from their depredations, and that a grand wolf hunt was contemplated by the whole neighborhood, for something had to be done to thin out the ravenous creatures. Gertrude told how many chickens she had, but Joe gave them all the best news they had heard for a long time.

"I was over at Fort Harker yesterday," he said, "and I heard that General Custer had attacked the camp of Black Kettle, the Cheyenne chief, on the Was.h.i.+ta in the Indian Territory, and completely wiped them out. The war is ended, and the savages are suing for a peace which General Sheridan says they will be sure to keep this time. The commanding officer told me that Custer would soon arrive at the fort, and that the settlers need have little more fear; that they may go anywhere now without expecting to lose their hair. He said that Sheridan had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general for the brilliant success of his winter campaign, and that he would shortly be at Fort Harker on his way to Was.h.i.+ngton."

"Well, that is glorious news," said Mr. Tucker. "No more stealing pretty little girls from their homes, eh?"

When Joe had finished his joyous piece of intelligence, the family adjourned to the big sitting-room, and Kate was asked to tell the wonderful story of her capture and escape. She seated herself in her favorite chair, an old Boston rocker, brought from Vermont and nicely cus.h.i.+oned at the back, and was making ready to begin, when her mother said:--

"What in the world, Kate, possessed you to go away from the house that day and to tell none of us where you intended to go?"

"Why," answered Kate, "I remembered that you were very fond of raspberries, and I thought that, as they must be ripe, I would saddle Ginger and go up to the patch to get some, for I wanted to surprise you.

I took my little Indian basket--"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I had nearly filled my basket."]