"It"s the western winds and the hot sun that"s tanned those soldiers," said Jack. "We"ll look just that way, too, before we get back."
Ollie was half inclined to believe this astonishing statement at first, but concluded that his uncle was joking.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Sad Result of Dishonesty]
We went into camp on the banks of the Minichaduza River, a little brook which flows into the Niobrara from the northwest.
All night it gurgled and bubbled almost under our wheels. A man stopped to chat with us as we sat around our camp-fire after supper. We told him of our experience in getting the hay the night before. He laughed and said: "Ever steal any of your horse feed?"
"We haven"t yet," answered Jack. "We try to be reasonably honest."
"Some don"t, though," replied the man. "Most of "em that are going West in a covered wagon seem to think corn in the field is public property. A fellow camped right here one afternoon last fall. He was out of feed, and took a grain sack on one arm and a big Winchester rifle on the other, and went over to old Brown"s cornfield. He took the gun along not to shoot anybody, but to sort of intimidate Brown if he should catch him. Suddenly he saw an old fellow coming towards him carrying a gun about a foot longer than his own. The young fellow wilted right down on the ground and never moved. He happened to go down on a big p.r.i.c.kly cactus, but he never stirred, cactus or no cactus. He thought Brown had caught him, and that he was done for. The old man kept coming nearer and nearer. He was almost to him. The young fellow concluded to make a brave fight. So he jumped up and yelled. The old man dropped his gun and ran like a scared wolf. Then the young fellow noticed that the other also had a sack in which he had been gathering corn. He called him back, they saw that they were both thieves, shook hands, and went ahead and robbed old Brown together."
The man got up to go. "Well, good-night, boys," he said.
"Rest as hard as you can tomorrow. You"ll strike into the Sand Hills at about nine o"clock Monday morning. Take three days"
feed, and every drop of water you can carry; and it you waste any of it washing your hands you"re bigger fools than I think you are."
VII: THROUGH THE SAND HILLS
"Come, stir out of that and get the camels ready for the desert!"
This was Jack"s cheery way of warning Ollie and me that it was time to get up on the morning of our start into the Sand Hills.
"Any simooms in sight?" asked Ollie, by way of reply to Jack"s remark.
"Well, I think Old Browny scents one; he has got his nose buried in the sand like a camel," answered Jack.
It was only just coming daylight, but we were agreed that an early start was best. It was another Monday morning, and we knew that it would take three good days" driving to carry us through the sand country. We had learned that, notwithstanding what our visitor of the first night had said, there were several places on the road where we could get water and feed for the horses. We should have to carry some water along, however, and had got two large kegs from Valentine, and filled them and all of our jugs and pails the night before. We also had a good stock of oats and corn, and a big bundle of hay, which we put in the cabin on the bed.
"Just as soon as Old Blacky finds that there is no water along the road he will insist on having about a barrel a day,"
said Jack. "And if he can"t get it he will balk, and kick the dash-board into kindling-wood."
A little before sunrise we started. It was agreed, owing to the increase in the load and the deep sand, that no one, not even Snoozer, should be allowed to ride in the wagon. If Ollie got tired he was to ride the pony. So we started off, walking beside the wagon, with the pony l.u.s.t behind, as usual, dangling her stirrups, and the abused Snoozer, looking very much hurt at the insult put upon him, following behind her.
For three or four miles the road was much like that to which we had been accustomed. Then it gradually began to grow sandier.
We were following an old trail which ran near the railroad, sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other; and this was the case all the way through the hills. The railroad was new, having been built only a year or two before. There was a station on it every fifteen or twenty miles, with a side-track, and a water-tank for the engines, but not much else.
There was no well-marked boundary to the Sand Hills, but gradually, and almost before we realized it, we found ourselves surrounded by them. We came to a crossing of the railroad, and in a little cut a few rods away we saw the sand drifted over the rails three or four inches deep, precisely like snow.
"Well," said Jack, "I guess we"re in the Sand Hills at last if we"ve got where it drifts."
"I wonder if they have to have sand-ploughs on their engines?" said Ollie.
"I"ve heard that they frequently have to stop and shovel it off," answered Jack.
As we got farther among the sand dunes we found them all sizes and shapes, though usually circular, and from fifteen to forty feet high. Of course the surface of the county was very irregular, and there would be places here and there where the gra.s.s had obtained a little footing and the sand had not drifted up. There were also some hills which seemed to be independent of the sand piles.
We stopped for noon on a little flat where there was some struggling gra.s.s, This flat ran off to the north, and narrowed into a small valley through which in the spring probably a little water flowed. We had finished dinner when we noticed a flock of big birds circling about the little valley, and, on looking closer, saw that some of them were on the ground.
"They are sand-hill cranes," said Jack. "I"ve seen them in Dakota, but this must be their home."
They were immense birds, white and gray, and with very long legs. Jack took his rifle and tried to creep up on them, but they were too shy, and soared away to the south.
We soon pa.s.sed the first station on the railroad, called Crookston. The telegraph-operator came out and looked at us, admitted that it was a sandy neighborhood, and went back in. We toiled on without any incident of note during the whole afternoon. Toward night we pa.s.sed another station, called Georgia, and the man in charge allowed us to fill our kegs from the water-tank.
[Ill.u.s.tration: First Night Camp in the Sand Hills]
We went on three or four miles and stopped beside the trail, and a hundred yards from the railroad, for the night. The great drifts of sand were all around us, and no desert could have been lonelier.
We had a little wood and built a camp-fire. The evening was still and there was not a sound. Even the Blacksmith"s Pet, wandering about seeking what he could devour, and finding nothing, made scarcely a sound in the soft sand. The moon was shining, and it was warm as any summer evening. Jack sat on the ground beside the wagon and played the banjo for half an hour. After a while we walked over to the railroad. We could hear a faint rumble, and concluded that a train was approaching.
"Let"s wait for it," proposed Jack. "It will be along in a moment."
We waited and listened. Then we distinctly heard the whistle of a locomotive, and the faint roar gradually ceased.
"It"s stopped somewhere," I said.
"Don"t see what it should stop around here for," said Jack, "unless to take on a sand-hill crane."
Then we heard it start up, run a short distance, and again stop; this it repeated half a dozen times, and then after a pause it settled down to a long steady roar again.
"It isn"t possible, is it, that that train has been stopped at the next station west of here?" I said.
"The next station is Cody, and it"s a dozen miles from here,"
answered Jack. "It doesn"t seem as if we could hear it so far, but we"ll time it and see."
He looked at his watch and we waited. For a long time the roar kept up, occasionally dying away as the train probably went through a deep cut or behind a hill. It gradually increased in volume, till at last it seemed as if the train must certainly be within a hundred yards. Still it did not appear, and the sound grew louder and louder. But at the end of thirty-five minutes it came around the curve in sight and thundered by, a long freight train, and making more noise, it seemed, that any train ever made before.
"That"s where it was!" exclaimed Jack--"at Cody, twelve miles from here; and we first heard it I don"t know how far beyond. If I ever go into the telephone business I"ll keep away from the Sand Hills. A man here ought to be able to hold a pleasant chat with a neighbor two miles off, and by speaking up loud ask the postmaster ten miles away if there is any mail for him."
We were off ploughing through the sand again early the next morning. We could not give the horses quite all the water they wanted, but we did the best we could. We were in the heart of the hills all day. There were simply thousands of the great sand drifts in every direction. Buffalo bones half buried were becoming numerous. We saw several coyotes, or prairie wolves, skulking about, but we shot at them without success. We got water at Cody, and pressed on. In the afternoon we sighted some antelope looking cautiously over the crest of a sand billow.
Ollie mounted the pony and I took my rifle, and we went after them, while Jack kept on with the wagon. They retreated, and we followed them a mile or more back from the trail, winding among the drifts and attempting to get near enough for a shot. But they were too wary for us. At last we mounted a hill rather higher than the rest, and saw them scampering away a mile or more to the northwest. We were surprised more by something which we saw still on beyond them, and that was a little pond of water deep down between two great ridges of sand.
"I didn"t expect to see a lake in this country," said Ollie.
I studied the lay of the land a moment, and said: "I think it"s simply a place where the wind has scooped out the sand down below the water-line and it has filled up. The wind has dug a well, that"s all. You know the telegraph-operator at Georgia told us the wells here were shallow--that there"s plenty of water down a short distance."
We could see that there was considerable gra.s.s and quite an oasis around the pond. But in every other direction there was nothing but sand billows, all scooped out on their northwest sides where the fierce winds of winter had gnawed at them. The afternoon sun was sinking, and every dune cast a dark shadow on the light yellow of the sand, making a great landscape of glaring light covered with black spots. A coyote sat on a buffalo skull on top of the next hill and looked at us. A little owl flitted by and disappeared in one of the shadows.
"This is like being adrift in an open boat," I said to Ollie.
"We must hurry on and catch the Rattletrap."
"I"m in the open boat," answered Ollie. "You"re just simply swimming about without even a life-preserver on."
We turned and started for the trail. We found it, but we had spent more time in the hills than we realized, and before we had gone far it began to grow dark. We waded on, and at last saw Jack"s welcome camp-fire. When we came up we smelled grouse cooking, and he said:
"While you fellows were chasing about and getting lost I gathered in a brace of fat grouse. What you want to do next time is to take along your hat full of oats, and perhaps you can coax the antelope to come up and eat."