A thin line of them circled out of range; ponies were picketed and tents pitched; night fell, and the stars shot out.
As Woods was wounded, he was excused from guard duty, Will and Simpson keeping watch in turn. Will took the first vigil, and, tired though he was, experienced no difficulty in keeping awake, but he went soundly to sleep the moment he was relieved. He was wakened by a dream that Turk was barking to him, and vaguely alarmed, he sat up to find Simpson sleeping across his rifle.
The midnight hush was unbroken, and the darkness lay thick upon the plain, but shapes blacker than night hovered near, and Will laid his hand on Simpson"s shoulder.
The latter was instantly alive, and Woods was wakened. A faint click went away on the night breeze, and a moment later three jets of flame carried warning to the up-creeping foe that the whites were both alive and on the alert.
There was no more sleep within the barricade. The dawn grew into day, and anxious eyes scanned the trail for reinforcements--coming surely, but on what heavy and slow-turning wheels!
Noon came and pa.s.sed. The anxious eyes questioned one another. Had the rear train been overcome by a larger band of savages? But suddenly half a dozen of the Indians were seen to spring up with gestures of excitement, and spread the alarm around the circle.
"They hear the cracking of the bull-whips," said Simpson.
The Indians who had seen the first team pa.s.s, and had a.s.sumed that Simpson and his companions were straggling members of it, did not expect another train so soon. There was "mounting in hot haste," and the Indians rode away in one bunch for the distant foothills, just as the first ox-team broke into view.
And never was there fairer picture to more appreciative eyes than those same lumbering, clumsy animals, and never sweeter music than the harsh staccato of the bullwhips.
When hunger was appeased, and Woods"s wound properly dressed, Will, for the second time, found himself a hero among the plainsmen. His nerve and coolness were dwelt upon by Simpson, and to the dream that waked him in season was ascribed the continued life on earth of the little company.
Will, however, was disposed to allow Turk the full credit for the service.
The remainder of the trip was devoid of special incident, and as Will neared home he hurried on in advance of the train. His heart beat high as he thought of the dear faces awaiting him, unconscious that he was so near.
But the home toward which he was hastening with beating heart and winged heels was shadowed by a great grief. Sister Martha"s married life, though brief, had amply justified her brother"s estimate of the man into whose hands she had given her life. She was taken suddenly ill, and it was not until several months later that Will learned that the cause of her sickness was the knowledge that had come to her of the faithless nature of her husband. The revelation was made through the visit of one of Mr. C----"s creditors, who, angered at a refusal to liquidate a debt, accused Mr. C----of being a bigamist, and threatened to set the law upon him. The blow was fatal to one of Martha"s pure and affectionate nature, already crushed by neglect and cruelty. All that night she was delirious, and her one thought was "Willie," and the danger he was in--not alone the physical danger, but the moral and spiritual peril that she feared lay in a.s.sociation with rough and reckless men. She moaned and tossed, and uttered incoherent cries; but as the morning broke the storm went down, and the anxious watchers fancied that she slept. Suddenly she sat up, the light of reason again shining in her eyes, and with a joyous cry, "Tell mother Willie"s saved! Willie"s saved!" she fell back on her pillow, and her spirit pa.s.sed away. On her face was the peace that the world can neither give nor take away. The veil of the Unknown had been drawn aside for a s.p.a.ce. She had "sent her soul through the Invisible," and it had found the light that lit the last weary steps through the Valley of the Shadow.
Mr. C---- had moved from Leavenworth to Johnson County, twenty-five miles away, and as there were neither telegraph nor mail facilities, he had the body sent home, himself accompanying it. Thus our first knowledge of Martha"s sickness came when her lifeless clay was borne across our threshold, the threshold that, less than a year before, she had crossed a bright and bonny bride. Dazed by the shock, we longed for Will"s return before we must lay his idolized sister forever in her narrow cell.
All of the family, Mr. C---- included, were gathered in the sitting-room, sad and silent, when Turk suddenly raised his head, listened a second, and bounded out of doors.
"Will is coming!" cried mother, and we all ran to the door. Turk was racing up the long hill, at the top of which was a moving speck that the dog knew to be his master. His keen ears had caught the familiar whistle half a mile away.
When Turk had manifested his joy at the meeting, he prepared Will for the bereavement that awaited him; he put his head down and emitted a long and repeated wail. Will"s first thought was for mother, and he fairly ran down the hill. The girls met him some distance from the house, and sobbed out the sad news.
And when he had listened, the lad that had pa.s.sed unflinching through two Indian fights, broke down, and sobbed with the rest of us.
"Did that rascal, C----, have anything to do with her death?" he asked, when the first pa.s.sion of grief was over.
Julia, who knew no better at the time, replied that Mr. C----was the kindest of husbands, and was crushed with sorrow at his loss; but spite of the a.s.surance, Will, when he reached the house, had neither look nor word for him. He just put his arms about mother"s neck, and mingled his grief with her words of sympathy and love.
Martha was shortly after laid by father"s side, and as we stood weeping in that awful moment when the last spadeful of earth completes the sepulture, Will, no longer master of himself, stepped up before Mr.
C----:
"Murderer," he said, "one day you shall answer to me for the death of her who lies there!"
When Will next presented himself at Mr. Majors"s office, he was told that his services had been wholly satisfactory, and that he could have work at any time he desired. This was gratifying, but a sweeter pleasure was to lay his winter"s wages in mother"s lap. Through his help, and her business ability, our pecuniary affairs were in good condition. We were comfortably situated, and as Salt Creek Valley now boasted of a schoolhouse, mother wished Will to enter school. He was so young when he came West that his school-days had been few; nor was the prospect of adding to their number alluring. After the excitement of life on the plains, going to school was dull work; but Will realized that there was a world beyond the prairie"s horizon, and he entered school, determined to do honest work.
Our first teacher was of the good, old-fashioned sort. He taught because he had to live. He had no love for his work, and knew nothing of children. The one motto he lived up to was, "Spare the rod and spoil the child." As Will was a regular Tartar in the schoolroom, he, more than all the other scholars, made him put his smarting theory into practice.
Almost every afternoon was attended with the dramatic attempt to switch Will. The schoolroom was separated into two grand divisions, "the boys on teacher"s side," and those "on the Cody side." The teacher would send his pets out to get switches, and part of our division--we girls, of course--would begin to weep; while those who had s.p.u.n.k would spit on their hands, clench their fists, and "dare "em to bring them switches in!" Those were hot times in old Salt Creek Valley!
One morning Turk, too, was seized with educational ambition, and accompanied Will to school. We tried to drive him home, but he followed at a distance, and as we entered the schoolhouse, he emerged from the shrubbery by the roadside and crept under the building.
Alas for the scholars, and alas for the school! Another ambitious dog reposed beneath the temple of learning.
Will, about that time, was having a bad quarter of an hour. An examination into his knowledge, or lack of it, was under way, and he was hard pressed. Had he been asked how to strike a trail, locate water, or pitch a tent, his replies would have been full and accurate, but the teacher"s queries seemed as foolish as the "Reeling and Writhing, Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision" of the Mock Turtle in "Alice in Wonderland."
Turk effected an unexpected rescue. Snarls were heard beneath the schoolhouse; then savage growls and yelps, while the floor resounded with the whacks of the canine combatants. With a whoop that would not have disgraced an Indian, Will was out of doors, shouting, "Eat him up, Turk! Eat him up!"
The owner of the opposing dog was one Steve Gobel. "Twixt him and Will a good-sized feud existed. Steve was also on the scene, with a defiant, "Sic "em, n.i.g.g.e.r!" and the rest of the school followed in his wake.
Of the twisting, yelping bundle of dog-flesh that rolled from under the schoolhouse it was difficult to say which was Turk and which n.i.g.g.e.r.
Eliza and I called to Turk, and wept because he would not hear. The teacher ordered the children back to their studies, but they were as deaf as Turk; whereat the enraged pedagogue hopped wildly about, flourishing a stick and whacking every boy that strayed within reach of it.
n.i.g.g.e.r soon had enough of the fight, and striking his tail-colors, fled yelping from the battle-ground. His master, Steve Gobel, a large youth of nineteen or twenty years, pulled off his coat to avenge upon Will the dog"s defeat, but the teacher effected a Solomon-like compromise by whipping both boys for bringing their dogs to school, after which the interrupted session was resumed.
But Gobel nursed his wrath, and displayed his enmity in a thousand small ways. Will paid no attention to him, but buckled down to his school work. Will was a born "lady"s man," and when Miss Mary Hyatt complicated the feud "twixt him and Steve, it hurried to its climax. Mary was older than Will, but she plainly showed her preference for him over Master Gobel. Steve had never distinguished himself in an Indian fight; he was not a hero, but just a plain boy.
Now, indeed, was Will"s life unendurable; "patience had had its perfect work." He knew that a boy of twelve, however strong and sinewy, was not a match for an almost full-grown man; so, to balance matters, he secreted on his person an old bowie-knife. When next he met Steve, the latter climaxed his bullying tactics by striking the object of his resentment; but he was unprepared for the sudden leap that bore him backward to the earth. Size and strength told swiftly in the struggle that succeeded, but Will, with a dextrous thrust, put the point of the bowie into the fleshy part of Steve"s lower leg, a spot where he knew the cut would not be serious.
The stricken bully shrieked that he was killed; the children gathered round, and screamed loudly at the sight of blood. "Will Cody has killed Steve Gobel!" was the wailing cry, and Will, though he knew Steve was but pinked, began to realize that frontier styles of combat were not esteemed in communities given up to the soberer pursuits of spelling, arithmetic, and history. Steve, he knew, was more frightened than hurt; but the picture of the prostrate, ensanguined youth, and the group of awestricken children, bore in upon his mind the truth that his act was an infraction of the civil code; that even in self-defense, he had no right to use a knife unless his life was threatened.
The irate pedagogue was hastening to the scene, and after one glance at him, Will incontinently fled. At the road he came upon a wagon train, and with a shout of joy recognized in the "boss" John Willis, a wagon-master employed by Russell, Majors & Waddell, and a great friend of the "boy extra." Will climbed up behind Willis on his horse, and related his escapade to a close and sympathetic listener.
"If you say so, Billy," was his comment, "I"ll go over and lick the whole outfit, and stampede the school."
"No, let the school alone," replied Will; "but I guess I"ll graduate, if you"ll let me go along with you this trip."
Willis readily agreed, but insisted upon returning to the schoolhouse.
"I m not going," said he, "to let you be beaten by a bully of a boy, and a Yankee school-teacher, with a little learning, but not a bit of sand."
His idea of equalizing forces was that he and "Little Billy" should fight against the pedagogue and Steve.
Will consented, and they rode back to the schoolhouse, on the door of which Willis pounded with his revolver b.u.t.t, and when the door was opened he invited Gobel and the "grammar man" to come forth and do battle. But Steve had gone home, and the teacher, on seeing the two gladiators, fled, while the scholars, dismissing themselves, ran home in a fright.
That night mother received a note from the teacher.
He was not hired, he wrote, to teach desperadoes; therefore Will was dismissed. But Will had already dismissed himself, and had rejoined the larger school whose walls are the blue bowl called the sky. And long after was his name used by the pedagogue to conjure up obedience in his pupils; unless they kissed the rod, they, too, might go to the bad, and follow in Will Cody"s erring footsteps.
Willis and Will had gone but a piece on the road when hors.e.m.e.n were seen approaching.
"Mr. Gobel and the officers are after me," said Will.
"Being after you and gittin" you are two different things," said the wagon-master. "Lie low, and I"ll settle the men."
Mr. Gobel and his party rode up with the information that they had come to arrest Will; but they got no satisfaction from Willis. He would not allow them to search the wagons, and they finally rode away. That night, when the camp was pitched, the wagon-master gave Will a mule, and accompanied him home. We were rejoiced to see him, especially mother, who was much concerned over his escapade.
"Oh, Will, how could you do such a thing?" she said, sorrowfully. "It is a dreadful act to use a knife on any one."
Will disavowed any homicidal intentions; but his explanations made little headway against mother"s disapproval and her disappointment over the interruption of his school career. As it seemed the best thing to do, she consented to his going with the wagon train under the care of John Willis, and the remainder of the night was pa.s.sed in preparations for the journey.