CHAPTER XIII.
LOST!
"We must have some board-nails and some lead," remarked Uncle Aleck,one fine morning, as the party were putting the finishing touches tothe Whittier cabin. "Who will go down to the post and get them?"
"I", "I", "I", shouted all three of the boys at once.
"Oh, you will all go, will you?" said he, with a smile. "Well, youcan't all go, for we can borrow only one horse, and it's ten milesdown there and ten miles back; and you will none of you care to walk,I am very sure."
The boys looked at each other and laughed. Who should be the lucky oneto take that delightful horseback ride down to the post, as Fort Rileywas called, and get a glimpse of civilization?
"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Sandy, after some good-natureddiscussion. "Let's draw cuts to see who shall go. Here they are. Youdraw first, Charlie, you being the eldest man. Now, then, Oscar. Why,hooray! it's my cut! I've drawn the longest, and so I am to go. Oh, itwas a fair and square deal, daddy," he added, seeing his father looksharply at him.
The matter was settled, and next morning, bright and early, Sandy wasfitted out with his commissions and the money to buy them with.Younkins had agreed to let him have his horse, saddle, and bridle.Work on the farm was now practically over until time for harvestingwas come. So the other two boys accompanied Sandy over to the Younkinsside of the river and saw him safely off down the river road leadingto the post. A meal-sack in which to bring back his few purchases wassnugly rolled up and tied to the crupper of his saddle, and feeling inhis pocket for the hundredth time to make sure of the ten-dollar goldpiece therein bestowed, Sandy trotted gayly down the road. The twoother boys gazed enviously after him, and then went home, wondering,as they strolled along, how long Sandy would be away. He would be backby dark at the latest, for the days were now at about their longest,and the long summer day was just begun.
At Younkins's cabin they met Hiram Battles, a neighbor who livedbeyond the divide to the eastward, and who had just ridden over insearch of some of his cattle that had strayed away, during the nightbefore. Mr. Battles said he was "powerful worrited." Indians had beenseen prowling around on his side of the divide: but he had seen nosigns of a camp, and he had traced the tracks of his cattle, threehead in all, over this way as far as Lone Tree Creek, a small streamjust this side of the divide; but there he had unaccountably lost alltrace of them.
"Well, as for the Indians," said Charlie, modestly, "we have seen thempassing out on the trail. But they were going hunting, and they keptright on to the southward and westward; and we have not seen them goback since."
"The lad's right," said Younkins, slowly, "but still I don't like thestories I hear down the road a piece. They do say that the Shians haveriz."
"The Cheyennes have risen!" exclaimed Charlie. "And we have let Sandygo down to the post alone!"
Both of the men laughed--a little unpleasantly, it seemed to theboys, although Younkins was the soul of amiability and mildness. ButCharlie thought it was unkind in them to laugh at his very naturalapprehensions; and he said as much, as he and Oscar, with theirclothes on their heads, waded the Republican Fork on the way home.
"Well, Charlie," was Oscar's comforting remark, as they scrambled upthe opposite bank, "I guess the reason why they laughed at us was thatif the Cheyennes have gone on the warpath, the danger is out in thewest; whereas, Sandy has gone eastward to-day, and that is right inthe way of safety, isn't it? He's gone to the post; and you know thatthe people down at Soldier Creek told us that this was a good place tosettle, because the post would be our protection in case of an Indianrising."
Meanwhile, Sandy was blissfully and peacefully jogging along in thedirection of the military post. Only one house stood betweenYounkins's and the fort; and that was Mullett's. They all had occasionto think pleasantly of Mullett's; for whenever an opportunity came forthe mail to be forwarded from the fort up to Mullett's, it was sentthere; then Sparkins, who was the next neighbor above, but who livedoff the road a bit, would go down to Mullett's and bring the mail upto his cabin; when he did this, he left a red flannel flag flying onthe roof of his house, and Younkins, if passing along the trail, sawthe signal and went out of his way a little to take the mail up to hiscabin. Somehow, word was sent across the river to the Whittier boys,as the good Younkins soon learned to call the Boy Settlers, and theywent gladly over to Younkins's and got the precious letters and papersfrom home. That was the primitive way in which the mail for thesettlers on the Republican Fork went up the road from Fort Riley, inthose days; and all letters and papers designed for the settlers alongthere were addressed simply to Fort Riley, which was their nearestpost-office.
So Sandy, when he reached Mullett's, was not disappointed to be toldthat there were no letters for anybody up the river. There had beennobody down to the post very lately. Sandy knew that, and he wasconfident that he would have the pleasure of bringing up a good-sizedbudget when he returned. So he whipped up his somewhat lazy steed andcantered down toward the fort.
Soon after leaving Mullett's he met a drove of sheep. The drivers weretwo men and a boy of his own age, mounted on horseback and carryingtheir provisions, apparently, strapped behind them. When he asked themwhere they were going, they surlily replied that they were going toCalifornia. That would take them right up the road that he had comedown, Sandy thought to himself. And he wondered if the boys at homewould see the interesting sight of five hundred sheep going up theRepublican Fork, bound for California.
He reached the fort before noon; and, with a heart beating highwith pleasure, he rode into the grounds and made his way to thewell-remembered sutler's store where he had bought the candy,months before. He had a few pennies of his own, and he mentallyresolved to spend these for raisins. Sandy had a "sweet tooth", but,except for sugar and molasses, he had eaten nothing sweet sincethey were last at Fort Riley on their way westward.
It was with a feeling of considerable importance that Sandy surveyedthe interior of the sutler's store. The proprietor looked curiouslyat him, as if wondering why so small a boy should turn up alone inthat wilderness; and when the lad asked for letters for the familiesup the river, Mullett's, Sparkins's, Battles's, Younkins's, and hisown people, the sutler said: "Be you one of them Abolitioners thathave named your place after that man Whittier, the Abolition poet?I've hearn tell of you, and I've hearn tell of him. And he ain't nogood. Do you hear me?" Sandy replied that he heard him, and to himselfhe wondered greatly how anybody, away down here, ten miles from thenew home, could possibly have heard about the name they had given totheir cabin.
Several soldiers who had been lounging around the place now went outat the door. The sutler, looking cautiously about as if to be surethat nobody heard him, said: "Never you mind what I said just now,sonny. Right you are, and that man Whittier writes the right sort ofstuff. Bet yer life! I'm no Abolitioner; but I'm a free-State man, Iam, every time."
"Then what made you talk like that, just now?" asked Sandy, hishonest, freckled face glowing with righteous indignation. "If you likeMr. John G. Whittier's poetry, why did you say he wasn't any good?"
"Policy, policy, my little man. This yere's a pro-slavery guv'ment,and this yere is a pro-slavery post. I couldn't keep this place onesingle day if they thought I was a free-State man. See? But I tell youright here, and don't you fergit it, this yere country is going to befree State. Kansas is no good for slavery; and slavery can't get inhere. Stick a pin there, and keep your eye on it."
With some wonder and much disgust at the man's cowardice, Sandypacked his precious letters in the bosom of his shirt. Into one endof his meal-sack he put a pound of soda-biscuit for which his UncleCharlie had longed, a half-pound of ground ginger with whichCharlie desired to make some "molasses gingerbread, like mother's,"and a half-pound of smoking-tobacco for his dear father. It seemeda long way off to his father now, Sandy thought, as he tied upthat end of the bag. Then into the other end, having tied the bagfirmly around, about a foot and a half from the mouth, he put thepackage of nails
and a roll of sheet lead. It had been agreed thatif they were to go buffalo-hunting, they must have rifle-balls andbullets for their shot-guns.
The sutler, who had become very friendly, looked on with an amusedsmile, and said, "'Pears to me, sonny, you got all the weight at oneend, haven't you?"
Sandy did not like to be called "sonny," but he good-naturedly agreedthat he had made a mistake; so he began all over again and shiftedhis cargo so that the nails and a box of yeast-powder occupied oneend of the meal-sack, and the other articles balanced the other. Theload was then tied closely to the crupper of the saddle and the boywas ready to start on his homeward trip. His eyes roved longingly overthe stock of goodies which the sutler kept for the children, young andold, of the garrison, and he asked, "How much for raisins?"
"Two bits a pound for box, and fifteen cents for cask," replied theman, sententiously.
"Give me half a pound of cask raisins," said the boy, with somehesitation. He had only a few cents to spare for his own purchases.
The sutler weighed out a half-pound of box raisins, did them up, andhanded them across the counter, saying, "No pay; them's forWhittier."
Sandy took the package, shoved it into his shirt-bosom, and, wonderingif his "Thank you" were sufficient payment for the gift, mounted hissteed, rode slowly up the road to a spring that he had noticedbubbling out of the side of a ravine, and with a thankful heart,turning out the horse to graze, sat down to eat his frugal lunch, nowgraced with the dry but to him delicious raisins. So the sutler atFort Riley was a free-State man! Wasn't that funny!
It was a beautifully bright afternoon, and Sandy, gathering hisbelongings together, started up the river road on a brisk canter. Theold horse was a hard trotter, and when he slackened down from acanter, poor Sandy shook in every muscle, and his teeth chattered asif he had a fit of ague. But whenever the lad contrived to urge hissteed into an easier gait he got on famously. The scenery along theRepublican Fork is (or was) very agreeable to the eye. Long slopes ofvivid green stretched off in every direction, their rolling sidesdropping into deep ravines through which creeks, bordered with densegrowths of alder, birch, and young cottonwood, meandered. The sky wasblue and cloudless, and, as the boy sped along the breezy uplands, thesoft and balmy air fanning his face, he sung and whistled to expressthe fervor of his buoyant spirits. He was a hearty and a happy boy.
Suddenly he came to a fork in the road which he had not noticed whenhe came down that way in the morning. For a moment he was puzzled bythe sight. Both were broad and smooth tracks over the grassy prairie,and both rose and fell over the rolling ground; only, one led to theleft and somewhat southerly, and the other to the right. "Pshaw!"muttered Sandy, and he paused and rubbed his head for an idea. "Thatleft-hand road must strike off to some ford lower down on the Forkthan I have ever been. But I never heard of any ford below ours."
FILLING IN THE CHINKS IN THE WALLS OF THE LOG-CABIN.]
With that, his keen eyes noticed that the right-hand road was cut andmarked with the many hoof-tracks of a flock of sheep. He argued tohimself that the sheep-drivers had told him that they were going toCalifornia. The California road led up the bank of the Republican Forkclose to the trail that led him from Younkins's to the ford across theriver. The way was plain; so, striking his spur into the old sorrel'sside, he dashed on up the right-hand road, singing gayly as he went.
Absorbed in the mental calculation as to the number of days that itwould take that flock of sheep to reach California, the boy rode on,hardly noticing the landmarks by the way, or taking in anything butthe general beauty of the broad and smiling landscape over which theyellow light of the afternoon sun, sinking in the west, poured a floodof splendor. Slackening his speed as he passed a low and sunken littleround valley filled with brush and alders, he heard a queer sound likethe playful squealing of some wild animal. Slipping off his saddle andleading his horse by the bridle over the thick turf, Sandy cautiouslyapproached the edge of the valley, the margin of which was steep andwell sheltered by a growth of cottonwoods. After peering about forsome time, the lad caught a glimpse of a beautiful sight. A young doeand her fawn were playing together in the open meadow below,absolutely unconscious of the nearness of any living thing besidesthemselves. The mother-deer was browsing, now and again, and at timesthe fawn, playful as a young kitten, would kick its heels, or butt itshead against its mother's side, and both would squeal in a comicalway.
Sandy had never seen deer in a state of living wildness before, andhis heart thumped heavily in his breast as he gazed on the wonderfulsight. He half groaned to himself that he was a great fool to havecome away from home without a gun. What an easy shot it was! Hownicely he could knock over the mother, if only he had a shot-gun! Shewas within such short range. Then he felt a sinking of the heart, ashe imagined the horror of death that would have overtaken the innocentand harmless creatures, sporting there so thoughtless of man's huntinginstincts and cruelty. Would he kill them, if he had the weapon tokill with? He could not make up his mind that he would. So he crouchedsilently in the underbrush, and watched the pretty sight as if it werea little animal drama enacted here in the wilderness, mother and childhaving a romp in their wildwood home.
"Well, I'll give them a good scare, anyhow," muttered the boy, hissportive instincts getting the better of his tender-heartedness atlast. He dashed up noisily from the underbrush, swung his arms, andshouted, "Boo!" Instantly deer and fawn, with two or three tremendousbounds, were out of the little valley and far away on the prairie,skimming over the rolls of green, and before the boy could catch hisbreath, they had disappeared into one of the many dells and ravinesthat interlaced the landscape.
But another animal was scared by the boy's shout. In his excitement hehad slipped the bridle-rein from his arm, and the old sorrel,terrified by his halloo, set off on a brisk trot down the road. Invain Sandy called to him to stop. Free from guidance, the horsetrotted along, and when, after a long chase, Sandy caught up with hissteed, a considerable piece of road had been covered the wrong way,for the horse had gone back over the line of march. When Sandy wasonce more mounted, and had mopped his perspiring forehead, he cast hiseye along the road, and, to his dismay, discovered that thesheep-tracks had disappeared. What had become of the sheep? How couldthey have left the trail without his sooner noticing it? He certainlyhad not passed another fork of the road since coming into this at thefork below.
"This is more of my heedlessness, mother would say," muttered Sandy tohimself. "What a big fool I must have been to miss seeing where thesheep left the trail! I shall never make a good plainsman if I don'tkeep my eye skinned better than this. Jingo! it's getting towardsundown!" Sure enough, the sun was near the horizon, and Sandy couldsee none of the familiar signs of the country round about the Fork.
But he pushed on. It was too late now to return to the fork of theroad and explore the other branch. He was in for it. He remembered,too, that two of their most distant neighbors, Mr. Fuller and hiswife, lived somewhere back of Battles's place, and it was barelypossible that it was on the creek, whose woody and crooked line hecould now see far to the westward, that their log-cabin was situated.He had seen Mr. Fuller over at the Fork once or twice, and heremembered him as a gentle-mannered and kindly man. Surely he mustlive on this creek! So he pushed on with new courage, for his hearthad begun to sink when he finally realized that he was far off hisroad.
The sun was down when he reached the creek. No sign of humanhabitation was in sight. In those days cabins and settlements werevery, very few and far between, and a traveller once off his trailmight push on for hundreds of miles without finding any trace of humanlife.
In the gathering dusk the heavy-hearted boy rode along the banks ofthe creek, anxiously looking out for some sign of settlers. It wasas lonely and solitary as if no man had ever seen its savagenessbefore. Now and then a night-bird called from a thicket, as ifasking what interloper came into these solitudes; or a scaredjack-rabbit scampered away from his feeding-ground, as the steps ofthe horse tore through t
he underbrush. Even the old sorrel seemedto gaze reproachfully at the lad, who had dismounted, and now ledthe animal through the wild and tangled undergrowths.
LOST!]
When he had gone up and down the creek several times, hunting for sometrace of a settlement, and finding none, he reflected that Fuller'shouse was on the side of the stream, to the west. It was a verycrooked stream, and he was not sure, in the darkness, which was westand which was east. But he boldly plunged into the creek, mounting hishorse, and urging the unwilling beast across. Once over, he exploredthat side of the stream, hither and yon, in vain. Again he crossed,and so many times did he cross and recross that he finally had no ideawhere he was. Then the conviction came fully into his mind: He waslost.
The disconsolate boy sat down on a fallen tree and meditated. It wasuseless to go farther. He was tired in every limb and very, veryhungry. He bethought himself of the soda-biscuits in his sack. He neednot starve, at any rate. Dobbin was grazing contentedly while the ladmeditated, so slipping off the saddle and the package attached to it,Sandy prepared to satisfy his hunger with what little provisions hehad at hand. How queerly the biscuits tasted! Jolting up and down onthe horse's back, they were well broken up. But what was this so hotin the mouth? Ginger? Sure enough, it was ginger. The pounding thathad crushed the biscuits had broken open the package of ginger, andthat spicy stuff was plentifully sprinkled all over the contents ofthe sack.
"Gingerbread," muttered Sandy, grimly, as he blew out of his mouthsome of the powdery spice. "Faugh! Tobacco!" he cried next. Hisfather's package of smoking-tobacco had shared the fate of the ginger.Sandy's supper was spoiled; and resigning himself to spending thenight hungry in the wilderness, he tethered the horse to a tree, putthe saddle-blanket on the ground, arranged the saddle for a pillow,and, having cut a few leafy boughs from the alders, stuck them intothe turf so as to form a shelter around his head, and lay down topleasant dreams.
"And this is Saturday night, too," thought the lost boy. "They arehaving beans baked in the ground-oven at home in the cabin. They arewondering where I am. What would mother say if she knew I was lost outhere on Flyaway Creek?" And the boy's heart swelled a little, and afew drops of water stood in his eyes, for he had never been lostbefore in his life. He looked up at the leaden sky, now overcast, andwondered if God saw this lost boy. A few drops fell on his cheek.Tears? No; worse than that; it was rain.
"Well, this is a little too much," said Sandy, stoutly. "Here goes forone more trial." So saying, he saddled and mounted his patient steed,and, at a venture, took a new direction around a bend in the creek. Ashe rounded the bend, the bark of a dog suddenly rung from a mass ofgloom and darkness. How sweet the sound! Regardless of the animal'sangry challenge, he pressed on. That mass of blackness was alog-barn, and near by was a corral with cows therein. Then a lightshone from the log-cabin, and a man's voice was heard calling thedog.
Fuller's!
The good man of the house received the lad with open arms, and caredfor his horse; inside the cabin, Mrs. Fuller, who had heard theconversation without, had made ready a great pan of milk and a loaf ofbread, having risen from her bed to care for the young wanderer. Neverdid bread and milk taste so deliciously to weary traveller as this!Full-fed, Sandy looked at the clock on the wall, and marked withwondering eye that it was past midnight. He had recounted his trialsas he ate, and the sympathizing couple had assured him that he hadbeen deceived by the sheep-driver. It was very unlikely that he wasdriving his flock to California. And it was probable that, coming tosome place affording food and water, the sheep had left the main roadand had camped down in one of the ravines out of sight.
As Sandy composed his weary limbs in a blanket-lined bunk oppositethat occupied by Fuller and his wife, he was conscious that he gave along, long sigh as if in his sleep. And, as he drifted off intoslumber-land, he heard the good woman say, "Well, he's out of histroubles, poor boy!" Sandy chuckled to himself and slept.