CHAPTER III
A Fire and a Blizzard: with how a great many People go away fromTrack's End and how some others come.
It was an even two hours' fight between the town of Track's End andthe fire; and they came out about even--that is, most of thescattering dwelling-houses were burned, but the business part of thetown was saved. There was no water to be had, nor time to plow afurrow, so we fought the fire mainly with brooms, shovels, oldblankets, and such-like things with which we could pound it out. Butit got up to the dwellings in spite of us. As soon as the dangerseemed to be past, I said to Allenham, who had had charge of the firebrigade:
"I saw a man set that fire out there. Don't you suppose we could findhim?"
"Pike, I'll bet a dollar!" exclaimed Allenham. "We'll try it, anyhow,whoever it is."
He ordered everybody that could to get a horse, and soon we all rodeoff into the darkness. But though we were divided into small partiesand searched all that night and half the next day, nothing came of it.I kept with Allenham, and as we came in he said:
"There's no use looking for him any longer. If he didn't have a horseand ride away out of the country ahead of all of us, then he's down abadger-hole and intends to stay there till we quit looking. I'll wagerhe'll know better'n to show himself around Track's End again,anyhow."
Toward night the train came in pushing Pike's box-car ahead of it.Burrdock, who had now been promoted to conductor, said he had bumpedagainst it about six miles down the track. The little end door hadbeen broken open from the inside with a coupling-pin, which Pike musthave found in the car and kept concealed. With the window open it wasno trick at all to crawl out, set the brake, and stop the car. Nobodydoubted any longer that he was the one who had started the fire.
I may as well pass over the next month without making much fuss aboutit here. Nothing happened except that folks kept going away. Afterthe fire nearly all of those burned out left, and about the same timeall of the settlers who had taken up claims in the neighborhood alsowent back east for the winter, some of them on the train, but most ofthem in white-topped covered wagons. There was almost no business intown, and if you wanted to get into a store you would generally firsthave to hunt up the owner and ask him to open it for you. I saw Mr.Clerkinwell occasionally. He always spoke kindly and wished mesuccess. Then the great October blizzard came.
Folks in that country still talk about the October blizzard, and wellthey may do so, because the like of it has never been known since. Itcame on the twenty-sixth day of October, and lasted three days. It wasas bad as it ought to have been in January, and the people at Track'sEnd, being new to the country, judged that the winter had come tostay, and were discouraged; and so most of the rest of them wentaway.
It began to snow on the morning of the twenty-fifth, with an east andnortheast wind. The snow came down all day in big flakes, and byevening it was a foot deep. It turned colder in the night, and thewind shifted to the northwest. In the morning it was blizzarding. Theair was full of fine snow blown before the wind, and before noon youcould not see across the street. Some of the smaller houses werealmost drifted under. This kept up for three days. Of course the traincould not get through, and the one telegraph wire went down and leftthe town like an island alone in the middle of the ocean.
The next day after the blizzard stopped it grew warmer and the snowbegan to melt a little, but it was another four days before the traincame. By the time it did come it seemed as if everybody in town wasdisgusted or frightened enough to leave. When the second train afterthe blizzard had gone back, there were but thirty-two persons, alltold, at Track's End. Only one of these was a woman, and she it wasthat was the cause of making me a hotel-keeper on a small scale.
The woman was Mrs. Sours, wife of my employer. One morning, afterevery one had left the breakfast-table except her husband and myself,she said to me:
"Jud, couldn't you run the hotel this winter, now that there are onlythree or four boarders left, and them not important nor particular,only so they get enough to eat?"
"I don't know, ma'am," I said. "I can run the barn, but I'm afraid Idon't know much about a hotel."
"Do you hear the boy say he can do it, Henry?" says she, turning toher husband. "Of course he can do it, and do it well, too. He alwayssaid his mother taught him how to cook. That means I'm a-going down onthe train to-morrow, and not coming back to this wretched country tillspring has melted off the snow and made it fit for a decent body tolive in."
"Well, all right," said Sours. "You may go; Jud and me are good forit."
"Mercy sakes!" cried Mrs. Sours, "do you suppose I'm going to leaveyou here to be frozen to death, and starved to death, and killed bythe wolves that we already hear howling every night, and murdered byIndians, and shot by Pike and that wretched band of horse-thievesthat the Billings sheriffs who stopped here the other night waslooking for? No, Henry; when I go I am going to take you with me."
Sours tried to argue with her a little, but it did no sort of good,and the next day they both went off and I was left in charge of thehotel for the winter with three boarders--Tom Carr, the station agentand telegraph operator; Frank Valentine, the postmaster; and aNorwegian named Andrew, who was to take my place in the barn. Allenhamhad gone before the blizzard. Some others went on the same train withMr. Sours and his wife. We were twenty-six, all told, that night.
The weather remained bad, and the train was often late or did not comeat all. On the last day of November there were an even fourteen of usleft. On the morning of that day week Tom Carr came over from thestation and brought word that he had just got a telegram fromheadquarters saying that for the rest of the winter the train wouldrun to Track's End but once a week, coming up Wednesday and going backThursday.
"Well, that settles it with _me_," said Harvey Tucker. "I shall goback with it the first Thursday it goes."
"Same with me," said a man named West. "I know when I've got enough,and I've got enough of Track's End."
Mr. Clerkinwell, who happened to be present, laughed cheerfully. Hewas by far the oldest man left, but he always seemed the leastdiscouraged.
"Oh," he said to the others, "that's nothing. The train does us nogood except to bring the mail, and it can bring it just as well once aweek as twice. We were really pampered with that train coming to ustwice a week," and he laughed again and went out.
It was just another week and a day that poor Mr. Clerkinwell was takensick. He had begun boarding at the hotel, and that night did not cometo supper. I went over to his rooms to see what the trouble was. Ifound him on the bed in a high fever. His talk was rambling andflighty. It was a good deal about his daughter Florence, whom he hadtold me of before. Then he wandered to other matters.
"It's locked, Judson, it's locked, and nobody knows the combination;and there aren't any burglars here," he said. I knew he was talkingabout the safe in the room below.
We all did what we could for him, which was little enough. The doctorhad gone away weeks before. He grew worse during the night. The trainhad come in that day, and I asked Burrdock if he did not think itwould be best to send him away on it in the morning to his friends atSt. Paul, where he could get proper care. Burrdock agreed to thisplan. Toward morning the old gentleman fell asleep, and we covered himvery carefully and carried him over to the train on his bed. He rousedup a little in the car and seemed to realize where he was.
"Take care of the bank, Judson, take good care of it," he said in asort of a feeble way. "You must be banker as well as hotel-keepernow."
I told him I would do the best I could, and he closed his eyes again.
It was cold and blizzardy when the train left at nine o'clock. Tuckerand West were not the only ones of our little colony who took thetrain; there were five others, making, with Mr. Clerkinwell, eight,and leaving us six, to wit: Tom Carr, the agent; Frank Valentine, thepostmaster; Jim Stackhouse; Cy Baker; Andrew, the Norwegian, andmyself, Judson Pitcher.
After the train had gone away down the track in a cloud of whitesmoke, we held
a mock mass-meeting around the depot stove, and electedTom Carr mayor, Jim Stackhouse treasurer, and Andrew streetcommissioner, with instructions to "clear the streets of snow withoutdelay so that the city's system of horse-cars may be operated to theadvantage of our large and growing population." The Norwegian grinnedand said:
"Aye tank he be a pretty big yob to put all that snow away."
READING THE OUTLAWS' LETTER, DECEMBER SIXTEENTH]
In a little while the new street commissioner and I left the others ata game of cards and started out to go to the hotel. There was a strongnorthwest wind, and the fine snow was sifting along close to theground. I noticed that the rails were already covered in front of thedepot. The telegraph wire hummed dismally. We were plowing alongagainst the wind when we heard a shout and looked up. Over by the oldgraders' camp there were three men on horseback, all bundled up in furcoats. One of them had a letter in his hand which he waved at us.
"Let's see what's up," I said to Andrew, and we started over. At thatthe man stuck the letter in the box of a broken dump-cart, and thenthey all rode away to the west.
When we came up to the cart I unfolded the letter and read:
TO PROP. BANK OF TRACK'S END AND OTHER CITIZENS AND FOLKS:
The Undersined being in need of a little Reddy Munny regrets that theyhave to ask you for $5,000. Leave it behind the bord nailed to thedoor of Bill Mountain's shack too mile northwest and there wunt be notrubble. If we don't get munny to buy fuel with we shall have to burnyour town to keep warm. Maybe it will burn better now than it did lastfall. So being peecibel ourselves, and knowing _how very peecibel_ youall are, it will be more plesent all around if you come down with thecash. No objextions to small bills. We know _how few there are of you_but we don't think we have asked for too much.
Yours Respecfully, D. PIKE, and numrous Frends.
P.X. Thow somewhat short on reddy funs, We still no how to use our guns.
This is poetry but we mean bizness.