Bushy a romance founded on fact
Snuggling so close was the little face now in the folds of Mrs.
Golden’s dress that it was with some difficulty the old lady heard the
quaint prayer offered by her tiny charge.
“Now I lay me down to s’eep, tause I must dit up awful early, tause I’m
doin’ away wiv my papa.
“I pray the Lord my soul to teep away from all the bad sings what Tommy
Tiddles said would eat me up--the bears, and--and--sings like dat.”
There was a pause; then the wee voice inquired:
“What turns next, auntie?”
“If I should die”----
“If I should die before I wake,” broke in the child’s voice; “but I’m
not doin’ to die, tause I must dit up awful early. I’ll tell Tommy
Tiddles he don’t know nuffin ’bout where I’m doin’, and if I say my
prayers no bears ’ll eat me up.
“I pray the Lord my soul to take me wiv my papa’s tachel, Amen.
“Now, auntie, lay me down to s’eep,” she cried, jumping to her feet
and pulling up her nightgown she examined her knees to see how the
red spots looked. The red spots that came through her kneeling always
amused Bushy and she examined them as regularly as she said her prayers.
Mrs. Golden tucked Bushy safely into her little cot, knowing well that
the child was thinking much more about naughty Tommy Tiddles and his
bear story than about her prayers.
“She’s very dear to me!” sighed the old lady as she left the door ajar
and went into the next room to plan for Bushy’s flannel clothes. “I
don’t blame her father for taking her along; but what will I do without
her?” A tear fell on the wrinkled hand, and a sigh and a sob died away
together.
Mr. Sukolt found, as he anticipated, that the company at first objected
to his taking Bushy, but he refused to go without her, and as he was
the best practical geologist in the party, they could not afford to
lose him. Satisfactory arrangements were made and Bushy rode off as her
baby head had planned, “wiv her papa’s tachel.”
CHAPTER II
Bushy took her cat with her. It was a Maltese, with the softest fur,
and large eyes that Bushy said looked like stars in the night. Bushy
loved Pete, for that was his name, more than she did anything else in
the world, except her father.
Mr. Sukolt had no idea that Pete would stay with the wagon, but he
thought if it made Bushy any happier she could try and take him along.
So they put a collar of bright red leather around Pete’s neck and
fastened to that a leader, just as if he were a dog. Bushy was told to
keep a tight hold on it, or her Pete would be making tracks for home.
She was very much frightened, of course, and to make him more secure
she had her father tie the leader to her bracelet, and thus the two
were ever seen together. The bracelet was a small circle of gold that
had been slipped over her fat hand a few days before her mamma died,
and when Bushy started out West it was still on her arm. Old Mrs.
Golden had tried several times to get it off, but the hand was too fat
to let it slip over without hurting her.
You can imagine how funny Bushy and Pete looked, always together, and
sometimes, if Pete wanted to go anywhere very much, he would start on
a keen run and pull Bushy after him. Once he smelled a mouse that had
been brought along in the feed wagon. Bushy was watching Tom as he gave
Ned, who was known as her pony, and the other horses their breakfast,
and all at once Pete made a bound for the sack. He jumped and ran and
pulled and mewed to get away, and Bushy’s little feet had to trot very
fast to keep her from falling. Pete was a very big cat, and when Bushy
tried to carry him, her arms would just meet around his fat body.
They were six weeks on the way to the Rocky Mountains and Pete got so
accustomed to following his little mistress about, that all she had
to do to make him obey was to say, “Pete, tum on,” and he would trot
along by her side without being pulled by the string, as she had to do
at first. He would play “dead” and lie in her lap for five minutes at
a time without moving even his tail, but when she cried, “Oo is well,
now, Pete,” he would jump down and race around and around her till
the leader would wind them into a tangled ball; they would play hours
this way. Pete seldom scratched her, but he was very cross if the men
touched him. Every time her father washed her face she thought it
necessary to wash Pete’s too. He did not seem to like it, yet he knew
he could not get away, so he let her wet his face till she thought it
quite clean. Once she tried to wash his paws, but he showed his claws
and growled so that Bushy thought it not necessary to keep his feet
clean. Pete disliked to get his paws wet, and Bushy would pick him up
and carry him whenever she was out where it was wet and muddy.
Like all travellers in immigrant trains that started west in those
days, the motto adopted by these geologists was “Pike’s Peak or bust;”
when in fact their destination was far north of Pike’s Peak, a place
known as the Great Pine Mine district, and where eventually Mr. Sukolt
severed himself from the surveying party and remained for years as
overseer and part owner of Great Pine Mine.
Outside of prickly pears, cactus, “old man weed” and Pete, Bushy
recalls very little of that first trip across the plains, but that day
the wagons drove up to the one good shanty at Great Pine she will never
forget.
“Here we are, by Jove!” shouted Tom as he leaped from the wagon and
reached for Bushy and Pete.
It is needless to say that the curiosity shown by the miners over the
surveying party was nothing when compared with that they displayed over
the child and her cat.
An old fellow, named Walt, said he couldn’t stand it. “It reminds me
too strongly of home, by thunder!” he remarked as he walked away. Two
hours later he was found dead drunk under a tree near his cabin. The
bottle had been his consolation.
Shanks, a big strapping Englishman, possessor of one of the best hearts
in the world, a jolly, easy-go-lucky chap, a good scholar and surgeon,
had gone early to the mining fields because his health had failed him,
and since 1849 he had been haunting all new gold strikes, had had no
particular good luck, but had managed to pay his way, and at this time
boasted a constitution that seemed made of wrought iron.
It was not long before Shanks became the fourth one in this family--not
counting Pete, the cat, Rover, the dog, and Ned, the pony, every one of
which Bushy considered quite as important as herself.
Of all the wonderful Rocky Mountain scenery Great Pine Mine was the
centre of the most picturesque spot to be found. No pencil or brush
could ever reveal the weird and awful grandeur of those wild gorges,
the walls of which in places rose perpendicularly from the foaming
streams to a height of 3,000 feet. The canyon leading from the mine in
a southerly direction widened into a valley through which a rather
good road had been made, but as it ascended the cliffs it narrowed into
what the civilized world would have called a dangerous, rocky path.
Some estimate of the difficulty in reaching these mines can be gained
from the fact that it took the surveying party six hours to make the
last mile and a half.
To the north there was a chasm ten miles in length, hemmed in by walls
two hundred to four hundred feet in height; while on the west rose
cliffs eight hundred to two thousand feet in altitude.
At the place where the mine was situated the sun never shone more
than three hours a day, but those three hours turned the pinnacles,
buttresses, and opalized walls into all kinds of awe-inspiring forms,
brightened with all the colors of the rainbow.
Mr. Sukolt always declared that Aladdin’s wonderful garden (to which
Tom generally confined his bed-time stories) paled into insignificance
when the sun shone on Great Pine Mine.
The story must be told by and by how Bushy’s love for Pete made her
disobey her father. It was the only time in her life that she was ever
quite so naughty. Bushy always had a cat even after she lost Pete. The
miners would ask everywhere they went if there was a cat in camp, and
if gold could buy it, the cat was sure to go to Bushy. You see, she
loved cats so she squeezed them hard when she hugged them, and then she
would pick them up sometimes by the tail, sometimes by the head, and
often by the back, and carry them as far as they would let her. Her
tiny hands were often covered with scratches, because she found none
so gentle as Pete had been, and she would forget that they were not
all Petes. It kept the miners busy furnishing Bushy with cats, as the
life of one, after Bushy became its mistress, was of short duration.
One of the miners fenced off a piece of ground and called it the cat
graveyard, and there Bushy buried all her pets in a row, with pine
headboards, on which were burned with a hot poker the names of her
lamented darlings.
Now for the story about Pete. They had been at Great Pine Mine just a
year when the Indian trouble began. The miners had built a small fort
by digging a hole in the ground and covering it with stone and sod,
leaving portholes a foot apart all around just under the roof’s edge.
Anybody inside could see all over the country and pick off any Indian
who was brave enough to come within rifle range, while the Indians had
no show whatever. They might shoot all day at the fort without there
being the slightest danger of hurting any one inside. The fort was
deep and half-filled with ammunition, food, bedding, and a keg or two
of water. This precaution had been taken, although it was thought the
Indians would not come so far north as the Great Pine Mine until warmer
weather.
It was eight o’clock at night, and several miners were playing
cards--California Jack, they called the game. Mr. Sukolt was busy at a
table near sorting specimens and Bushy and Pete were curled up asleep
on a buffalo robe in front of the big fire-place. The only light in the
shanty came from the bright blaze of the pine-knots.
“Hist!” cried Mr. Sukolt, looking up from the rocks and listening. The
card-players checked their laughter and turned their faces toward the
door. Pete stretched himself and Bushy sat up and rubbed her eyes.
“It’s a horseman riding like mad,” exclaimed one of the men, rising and
going to the door. Mr. Sukolt reached for his belt and buckled it with
two revolvers about him; and the miners, who had taken off theirs, did
the same. As if by instinct they all scented danger and mechanically
prepared for it. Mr. Sukolt selected a warm blanket from the bunk near
at hand and threw it down by Bushy, then joined the others, who had by
this time stepped outside, and awaited the rider.
“It is some one who knows the way,” cried Tom; “there must be something
after him. It is pitch dark, and I defy anything to keep close to a
horse running like that.”
The words were no sooner said than Shanks dashed up to the door. The
horse was trembling in every limb and Shanks’s face was as white as a
sheet.
“To the fort, boys! The Indians attacked us in Stone Gulch, and I am
the only one who escaped. I saw five of the boys scalped; then fled,
for I was one against twenty, and I hoped to save you. Sh! They are
closer than I thought.”
A distant thud, thud, thud, signified the approach of mounted Indians;
then everything was still.
“They are dismounting,” cried Mr. Sukolt. “They mean to shoot from
ambush. To the fort, boys, to the fort!”
Shanks slipped off the bridle and turned his horse loose.
“There, old fellow, if the redskins get after you, you are free to save
yourself if you can.” He gave him a smart stroke that sent him running
down the path toward the mine.
“Tan I take Pete?” lisped Bushy, who had not stirred from the robe, but
had heard every word.
“No, dear,” said her father, “one mew might forfeit our lives.” He