Part 11 (1/2)
Both of the men laughed--a little unpleasantly, it seemed to the boys, although Younkins was the soul of amiability and mildness. But Charlie thought it was unkind in them to laugh at his very natural apprehensions; and he said as much, as he and Oscar, with their clothes on their heads, waded the Republican Fork on the way home.
”Well, Charlie,” was Oscar's comforting remark, as they scrambled up the opposite bank, ”I guess the reason why they laughed at us was that if the Cheyennes have gone on the warpath, the danger is out in the west; whereas, Sandy has gone eastward to-day, and that is right in the way of safety, isn't it? He's gone to the post; and you know that the people down at Soldier Creek told us that this was a good place to settle, because the post would be our protection in case of an Indian rising.”
Meanwhile, Sandy was blissfully and peacefully jogging along in the direction of the military post. Only one house stood between Younkins's and the fort; and that was Mullett's. They all had occasion to think pleasantly of Mullett's; for whenever an opportunity came for the mail to be forwarded from the fort up to Mullett's, it was sent there; then Sparkins, who was the next neighbor above, but who lived off the road a bit, would go down to Mullett's and bring the mail up to his cabin; when he did this, he left a red flannel flag flying on the roof of his house, and Younkins, if pa.s.sing along the trail, saw the signal and went out of his way a little to take the mail up to his cabin. Somehow, word was sent across the river to the Whittier boys, as the good Younkins soon learned to call the Boy Settlers, and they went gladly over to Younkins's and got the precious letters and papers from home. That was the primitive way in which the mail for the settlers on the Republican Fork went up the road from Fort Riley, in those days; and all letters and papers designed for the settlers along there were addressed simply to Fort Riley, which was their nearest post-office.
So Sandy, when he reached Mullett's, was not disappointed to be told that there were no letters for anybody up the river. There had been n.o.body down to the post very lately. Sandy knew that, and he was confident that he would have the pleasure of bringing up a good-sized budget when he returned. So he whipped up his somewhat lazy steed and cantered down toward the fort.
Soon after leaving Mullett's he met a drove of sheep. The drivers were two men and a boy of his own age, mounted on horseback and carrying their provisions, apparently, strapped behind them. When he asked them where they were going, they surlily replied that they were going to California. That would take them right up the road that he had come down, Sandy thought to himself. And he wondered if the boys at home would see the interesting sight of five hundred sheep going up the Republican Fork, bound for California.
He reached the fort before noon; and, with a heart beating high with pleasure, he rode into the grounds and made his way to the well-remembered sutler's store where he had bought the candy, months before. He had a few pennies of his own, and he mentally resolved to spend these for raisins. Sandy had a ”sweet tooth”, but, except for sugar and mola.s.ses, he had eaten nothing sweet since they were last at Fort Riley on their way westward.
It was with a feeling of considerable importance that Sandy surveyed the interior of the sutler's store. The proprietor looked curiously at him, as if wondering why so small a boy should turn up alone in that wilderness; and when the lad asked for letters for the families up the river, Mullett's, Sparkins's, Battles's, Younkins's, and his own people, the sutler said: ”Be you one of them Abolitioners that have 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 no good. Do you hear me?” Sandy replied that he heard him, and to himself he wondered greatly how anybody, away down here, ten miles from the new home, could possibly have heard about the name they had given to their cabin.
Several soldiers who had been lounging around the place now went out at the door. The sutler, looking cautiously about as if to be sure that n.o.body heard him, said: ”Never you mind what I said just now, sonny. Right you are, and that man Whittier writes the right sort of stuff. Bet yer life! I'm no Abolitioner; but I'm a free-State man, I am, every time.”
”Then what made you talk like that, just now?” asked Sandy, his honest, freckled face glowing with righteous indignation. ”If you like Mr. 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 one single day if they thought I was a free-State man. See? But I tell you right here, and don't you fergit it, this yere country is going to be free State. Kansas is no good for slavery; and slavery can't get in here. Stick a pin there, and keep your eye on it.”
With some wonder and much disgust at the man's cowardice, Sandy packed his precious letters in the bosom of his s.h.i.+rt. Into one end of his meal-sack he put a pound of soda-biscuit for which his Uncle Charlie had longed, a half-pound of ground ginger with which Charlie desired to make some ”mola.s.ses gingerbread, like mother's,”
and a half-pound of smoking-tobacco for his dear father. It seemed a long way off to his father now, Sandy thought, as he tied up that end of the bag. Then into the other end, having tied the bag firmly around, about a foot and a half from the mouth, he put the package of nails and a roll of sheet lead. It had been agreed that if they were to go buffalo-hunting, they must have rifle-b.a.l.l.s and bullets for their shot-guns.
The sutler, who had become very friendly, looked on with an amused smile, and said, ”'Pears to me, sonny, you got all the weight at one end, haven't you?”
Sandy did not like to be called ”sonny,” but he good-naturedly agreed that he had made a mistake; so he began all over again and s.h.i.+fted his cargo so that the nails and a box of yeast-powder occupied one end of the meal-sack, and the other articles balanced the other. The load was then tied closely to the crupper of the saddle and the boy was ready to start on his homeward trip. His eyes roved longingly over the stock of goodies which the sutler kept for the children, young and old, of the garrison, and he asked, ”How much for raisins?”
”Two bits a pound for box, and fifteen cents for cask,” replied the man, sententiously.
”Give me half a pound of cask raisins,” said the boy, with some hesitation. 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, and handed them across the counter, saying, ”No pay; them's for Whittier.”
Sandy took the package, shoved it into his s.h.i.+rt-bosom, and, wondering if his ”Thank you” were sufficient payment for the gift, mounted his steed, rode slowly up the road to a spring that he had noticed bubbling 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, now graced with the dry but to him delicious raisins. So the sutler at Fort Riley was a free-State man! Wasn't that funny!
It was a beautifully bright afternoon, and Sandy, gathering his belongings together, started up the river road on a brisk canter. The old horse was a hard trotter, and when he slackened down from a canter, poor Sandy shook in every muscle, and his teeth chattered as if he had a fit of ague. But whenever the lad contrived to urge his steed into an easier gait he got on famously. The scenery along the Republican Fork is (or was) very agreeable to the eye. Long slopes of vivid green stretched off in every direction, their rolling sides dropping into deep ravines through which creeks, bordered with dense growths of alder, birch, and young cottonwood, meandered. The sky was blue and cloudless, and, as the boy sped along the breezy uplands, the soft and balmy air fanning his face, he sung and whistled to express the 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 when he came down that way in the morning. For a moment he was puzzled by the sight. Both were broad and smooth tracks over the gra.s.sy prairie, and both rose and fell over the rolling ground; only, one led to the left and somewhat southerly, and the other to the right. ”Pshaw!”
muttered Sandy, and he paused and rubbed his head for an idea. ”That left-hand road must strike off to some ford lower down on the Fork than I have ever been. But I never heard of any ford below ours.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: FILLING IN THE c.h.i.n.kS IN THE WALLS OF THE LOG-CABIN.]
With that, his keen eyes noticed that the right-hand road was cut and marked with the many hoof-tracks of a flock of sheep. He argued to himself that the sheep-drivers had told him that they were going to California. The California road led up the bank of the Republican Fork close to the trail that led him from Younkins's to the ford across the river. The way was plain; so, striking his spur into the old sorrel's side, 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 it would take that flock of sheep to reach California, the boy rode on, hardly noticing the landmarks by the way, or taking in anything but the general beauty of the broad and smiling landscape over which the yellow light of the afternoon sun, sinking in the west, poured a flood of splendor. Slackening his speed as he pa.s.sed a low and sunken little round valley filled with brush and alders, he heard a queer sound like the playful squealing of some wild animal. Slipping off his saddle and leading his horse by the bridle over the thick turf, Sandy cautiously approached the edge of the valley, the margin of which was steep and well sheltered by a growth of cottonwoods. After peering about for some time, the lad caught a glimpse of a beautiful sight. A young doe and her fawn were playing together in the open meadow below, absolutely unconscious of the nearness of any living thing besides themselves. The mother-deer was browsing, now and again, and at times the fawn, playful as a young kitten, would kick its heels, or b.u.t.t its head against its mother's side, and both would squeal in a comical way.
Sandy had never seen deer in a state of living wildness before, and his heart thumped heavily in his breast as he gazed on the wonderful sight. He half groaned to himself that he was a great fool to have come away from home without a gun. What an easy shot it was! How nicely he could knock over the mother, if only he had a shot-gun! She was within such short range. Then he felt a sinking of the heart, as he imagined the horror of death that would have overtaken the innocent and harmless creatures, sporting there so thoughtless of man's hunting instincts and cruelty. Would he kill them, if he had the weapon to kill with? He could not make up his mind that he would. So he crouched silently in the underbrush, and watched the pretty sight as if it were a little animal drama enacted here in the wilderness, mother and child having a romp in their wildwood home.
”Well, I'll give them a good scare, anyhow,” muttered the boy, his sportive instincts getting the better of his tender-heartedness at last. He dashed up noisily from the underbrush, swung his arms, and shouted, ”Boo!” Instantly deer and fawn, with two or three tremendous bounds, were out of the little valley and far away on the prairie, skimming over the rolls of green, and before the boy could catch his breath, they had disappeared into one of the many dells and ravines that interlaced the landscape.