Bushy a romance founded on fact
something seemed to be choking her. In a soothing tone she called:
“Whoa, Ned! whoa, old boy! nothing is going to hurt you.”
She had just started toward him when suddenly her heart stood still
and she stopped, for over the top of a bowlder she saw two gleaming
eyes fastened upon her. For a second they disappeared, but were soon
followed by a huge dark-brown bear. He came shambling toward her, his
wicked white teeth gleaming in his open jaws. He was grunting with
satisfaction, like a pig expecting a good dinner.
Bushy stood as if she had been turned to stone; her face was as white
as the snow that covered the tops of the tall mountain peaks. All this
time poor Ned, who was tied not more than a dozen yards away, had been
trembling in every muscle. It seemed as if he appreciated Bushy’s
danger, and he stretched his long neck as far as he could in her
direction and opened his mouth wide as if he wanted to snatch her from
the path of the dreaded animal. At last he could bear his suffering no
longer, and his agony found vent in a peculiar cry which sounded much
like a human shriek.
This drew the bear’s attention away from Bushy. He uttered an angry
growl and raised himself upon his haunches, the hair about his head
and neck standing erect. He looked steadily at Ned a few seconds. His
angry eyes glowed like coals and his teeth snapped together after every
growl. It seemed to Bushy that in the twinkling of an eye the bear had
covered the distance between him and Ned, but he had not been quicker
than Bushy herself.
The little girl, who had been unable to move in her own defence, was
all courage when she saw her poor horse in danger. Quickly reaching for
the revolver which hung by her side, she fired rapidly three shots at
the bear. One of the bullets evidently took effect and wounded him.
This only served to enrage the bear still more. Ned gave a wild leap
and broke his halter, but it was too late. The bear had reached him,
and there ensued a sight that Bushy will never forget to her dying day.
The savage growls of the bear, poor Ned’s pitiful neighs and cries of
agony as the cruel claws tore through his flesh--ah, she hears them yet!
Bushy ran up quite close to the struggling animals, never thinking of
the danger to herself, and kept on firing at the bear. Mr. Sukolt came
tearing down the mountain-side, for he had heard the reports of the
revolver, and reached the scene just as the bear fell from Ned’s back,
mortally wounded.
“Keep away, keep away, Bushy! Don’t go near him; he may tear you to
pieces even if he is dying,” screamed her father, as he came in sight
and saw her danger.
“Hurry!” shouted Bushy. “I’m afraid Ned is dreadfully hurt.”
Tom came bounding over the rocks and fallen timbers, spilling berries
at every jump. Mr. Sukolt fired a shot at the bear, but this was
useless, as Bruin was already quite dead. Poor Ned, it was all over
with him. He turned his head feebly toward Bushy as she knelt by him,
and in his intelligent eyes there was a look that was pitiful to see.
“Oh, Ned! Oh, poor dear, dear Ned!” cried Bushy, the tears streaming
down her face. “Padre! Tom! can’t you do something for him? See, he is
all torn and bleeding. Ned, old fellow, Bushy loves you so! Bushy was
wrong to tie you so you couldn’t get away. Ned, Ned, Ned! Don’t die,
Ned!”
She held his head in her lap and kissed his big, sorrowful eyes.
“Padre, can’t you do something?” she cried again.
Mr. Sukolt and Tom both sadly shook their heads. Bushy threw her arms
about the neck of the dying horse and wept bitterly. Then she tried to
lift his head, talked lovingly to him, coaxed him, and kissed him, but
Ned made no sign that he heard his little mistress’s voice, for he was
dead--poor, dear Ned was dead!
CHAPTER XVIII
It was not very long before another pony was brought to the little girl.
“Don’t believe you will do at all,” said Bushy, “but I’ll try you.”
Jip, for that was the new horse’s name, turned his head and looked
appealingly at the child who thought he was not good enough for her.
“I don’t mean that you are not a fine pony,” continued Bushy, patting
him lovingly on the nose, and then turning to continue braiding his
mane, “but you will never be bright like poor Ned. You can’t imagine
the wonderful things that Ned took me through. Why, there was the trip
up Stone Gulch, when poor Spott was killed by that Indian who thought
he was going to get Padre’s scalp, sure; then at Cross Roads he helped
me save the soldier’s life by standing so firm when I lariated him.
But you are a stupid little Indian pony and don’t know anything about
lariating. Oh! I know you won’t ever do. You are stupid and haven’t
heard one word I have said.” She grabbed him by the head and shook him
with all her might.
Bushy had a big comb that one of the miners had made out of a piece of
pine shingle, and with it she was combing out the long, silky mane that
almost swept the ground. Tom said he had never seen so long a mane on
any of the Western ponies.
“Oh, listen to me, Jip; you are so impolite! Padre always punishes me
when I don’t look at him if he talks. I tell you that Ned was much
smarter than you, because just think how he took me through the snow
to the very edge of the shanty when it was under the snow-slide! You
couldn’t do that. Now, could you, Jip?”
Bushy threw her arms about the Indian pony’s neck again and putting
her lips close to his ear, whispered: “He carried me safe to the
blacksmith’s when the wolves were after me. Do you think you could do
that, Jip?”
Jip gazed wonderingly in Bushy’s face and neighed as much as to say he
could.
“Why, you dear old fellow, you do understand me after all, and I
guess you are half as good as Ned! But would you save me from the
big mountain bear? Ned did. He snorted and screamed so that the bear
attacked him instead of me. If Ned had not been the best and loveliest
horse in the world I would have been scratched to death. Ugh!
“Oh, Jip, dear, do stand still and don’t look at me all the time;
it crooks your neck so that I can’t see if the braids are all made.
What a funny pony you are! Sometimes you won’t look at all, then you
are licking my hand all the time. I bet you want sugar. We are out of
sugar. I put the last bit in Padre’s coffee this morning, and we are
not going to send for any more, because we are going away. Oh, Jip, I
must tell you all about it.”
With one spring she landed on Jip’s back, and then stretching herself
at full length she clutched his mane and said: “Do you know how you
came to belong to me, Jip? It’s a long, long story, but I tell it to
myself every day. I loved Ned next to Padre, and after the wicked bear
had killed him, I cried until Tom carried me home. I can’t bear to
think of anything turning over on its side and shutting its eyes that
way. Oh, Jip, dear, will you do that, too, just when I get to loving
you so hard?”
Bushy cried softly to herself and Jip grew uneasy. “Never mind, Jip;
I am coming to the nice part soon. When we got home that night after
the berrying, Shanks and the boys and the wagons were all there, and
you were tied to the feed-box at the back of the train-master’s wagon.
You broke your halter and came right up to me. You thought I was your
little mistress--your poor little mistress that was killed. Do you
think I will do, Jip? Maybe you don’t like me half as well as you did
the little Indian girl that the wagon-master said was dead and hanging
to the funny kind of a saddle you had on your back. Do you think you
can like me a wee, tiny bit, Jip?”
Bushy anxiously reached out her hand and twisted Jip’s head about so
she could look into his large, intelligent eyes.
“The wagon-master’s name was Bill, and he said that you were wandering
over the valley at the foot of the mountain range with this dead girl
dangling across your back. When he tried to lariat you you were naughty
and ran away. The morning after they saw you first, Bill woke up early
and went out to see what was disturbing the train horses, and there you
were, eating out of one of the feed-boxes, just as if you were starved
to death. Bill slipped up behind you and threw the bridle over your
head, and it was no good to try and get away then.
“The little Indian girl was a very pretty little girl, so Bill said,
and you must have loved her very much, Jip, ’cause Bill said you pawed
the ground and cried and cried when they took her off your back. You
almost killed one of the train boys, but that was because you did not
want them to take her away, I guess. They buried your princess by the
roadside and tied you to Bill’s wagon. He said you made friends with no
one until you saw me. You broke the strap and bounded up to me just as
if you thought I was the Indian Princess--poor Jip! You had lost your
little girl and I had lost Ned.”
Again Bushy gave way to soft crying, and Jip grew unhappy and whinnied
and pawed the soft dirt beneath his feet.
“Bill told me he guessed the little Indian girl belonged to a tribe
that passed up north on the west side of the range, and he heard some
miners over there say they had caught them driving off their stock, so
they sent out ten men to get back the horses. Ever so many Indians were
shot before they would run away and leave the stock, and he thinks that
is the way the little girl got killed. She had tied herself on with a
rawhide whip and some strips made of her buckskin skirt. Bill says,
that shows she was not killed outright, but lived long enough to fasten
herself on your back. Poor little girl! Maybe she thought you would
take her back to her father. Bill thinks you did not know where to go
because the tribe was moving north.
“And now you are mine, all mine, Jip,” said Bushy, brightening into
her old self again. “As soon as Bill heard that Ned was up in the
mountains, never to come down any more, why, he just put the rope that
was about your neck into my hands and said: ‘There, Bushy, I knew Jip
was meant for some special thing. He was sent to us in such an odd way.
He is yours, Bushy, with my compliments.’ Ha! ha! that is the way he
did it, Jip. Do listen! You are growing stupid and are not taking in
half I say.”
Slipping off his back she pounded him in play on his head and then
kissed his eyes and patted his nose.
“I am going to ride you all the way to the new home. Padre is going and
I am going and so is Tom and so is Shanks. We are going because Padre
has sold the mine to a rich man who came with the train of freight
wagons, and we are going back--back--oh, I don’t know where it is we
are going, but Padre knows. Then he will ’tend to some mining business
and maybe we will go into Mexico, where Ned was born, and maybe I’ll
get some books and some clothes like the little girls Tom tells about,
but, Jip”----
“Bushy!” called a voice from the shanty, “where are you, and what are
you thinking about? It is way past the time to take the lunch to the
miners!”
“Gracious! It is all Jip’s fault; he kept me talking so long,” replied
Bushy as she bounded into the shanty. “Say, Tom, I like Jip. We have
made up,” and snatching the pail of hot dinner she swung it on her
arm and jumping on Jip he made his first trip to the mine. Next day
they started away in covered wagons--two of them, with three old
saddle-horses, Bushy’s Jip, and old Rover trotting on behind.
CHAPTER XIX
Imagine for yourself the covered wagon that was to be Bushy’s home for
several weeks. She called it “a little house on wheels.”
“Just look at it, Tom,” she cried the morning they left Great Pine
Mine. “See, I have fixed the room up beautifully, quite like a true
house!” The conveyance had been packed full up to the top of the wagon