Bushy a romance founded on fact
“Off with you, Rover, you noble fellow,” called Mr. Sukolt. “He is
dead--dead as a door-nail.” Then, turning to Bushy, who had scrambled
to her feet, he took her in his arms, saying: “Brave little girl, this
isn’t the first time you have saved me with that revolver of yours.”
“Not mine this time, but Shanks’s, and it was so heavy, and I was so
afraid of shooting you that I missed my second fire. Oh, come away! Oh,
come back! Shanks told me of the Indians around the blacksmith’s and
there may be more with this one.” She trembled like a leaf, and her
face was ashen white.
“Look, Padre, the Indian pony’s lariat is entangled about Spott’s body.
If you can catch him we can yet take home the bear.”
“I will catch him, for the boys at camp are famishing for fresh meat,”
said Mr. Sukolt, “though we run a little risk by the delay.”
“We will both ride Ned and I will lead this pony with his load of
meat,” remarked Mr. Sukolt, as he came up with the frightened animal.
“Yes, let’s hurry; I’m so frightened. Ugh! The horrid Indian, don’t
touch him, Padre!” she screamed. But Mr. Sukolt thought best to drag
the body behind the bowlder and away from the main road. With one
regretful look at Spott, lying dead in the path, they rode away--Bushy
and her father on Ned; Bushy guiding the horse, while the Indian pony,
with the bear, was led by Mr. Sukolt.
They reached camp in time for Tom to cook some of the bear for the
Thanksgiving dinner. Six miners, Tom, and Shanks, the father and Bushy,
all sat around the wooden table and ate none the less merrily for the
day’s strange adventures.
CHAPTER XI
Bushy continued as little housekeeper for her father at Great Pine
Mine until December of the next year. Mr. Sukolt was then called south
to Cross Roads, a settlement composed of miners only. He went there
to judge a “lead” that was up for sale and draw maps of the mining
district. Bushy went with him, as she explained to Tom, to “watch out
for his papers and cook his victuals.”
It was Christmas morning and Bushy had got up bright and early to
prepare the breakfast.
“Pickle and herring! but this is a dish fit for a king with a crown on.
Stir, dip, taste,” she sang, swallowing a big spoonful of the savory
soup. It seems odd to have soup for breakfast, but that is what they
did have that Christmas morning.
“Very much taste, it seems to me,” interrupted a voice from the corner
of the tumble-down shanty in which Mr. Sukolt and his daughter had
passed the night. “Within the last twenty minutes you have sampled that
soup just twenty-one and a half times.”
“Padre mio!” exclaimed Bushy, striking a most tragic attitude before
him. “I do not object to twenty-one, but the half. How could I sample
anything half a time?”
“That’s so. How could you,” replied the father, his face beaming with
love. “I had forgotten that you never do things by halves, even to
loving the Padre; eh, little girl?”
“I don’t know about that,” she laughed. “I’m afraid you are not so
awfully good in arithmetic, Padre;” then she turned her attention to
the soup again. “Golly, but it’s hot! Just try some, won’t you?” she
cried, extending the spoon toward him.
“No, thank you, I will take your word for it; only tell me how much
there is left when you get through sampling,” replied the father.
Bushy and her father had been more than once without anything to eat,
and at this time of the year, way down where they were, so far from
anybody, they had again found themselves almost out of everything in
the line of food.
“Oh, I guess there will be enough, but perhaps I had better put in a
little more water,” remarked Bushy, and with a mischievous twinkle in
her eyes she darted for the water-can.
“Don’t you dare do that!” exclaimed her father, jumping up from the
roll of buffalo skins on which he had been sitting writing. With a
little chasing and some lively scuffling, he pinioned her arms behind
her and in the midst of her hearty laughter said:
“If you don’t mind, Miss Cook, I prefer my drinks not mixed; I will
take first the soup and then the water.”
“But do you think you can tell one from the other?” inquired Bushy,
saucily.
They both took a peep into the kettle, Bushy ready to enjoy the
surprise she had in store for her father.
“By my faith, but it does look like soup and smells accordingly! Why,
what do you call it and how did you make such a raise?”
“Oh, Padre, don’t bother your head over the name. The name won’t count
if you like it. This morning when you were snoozing I crawled out to
look for game, for, you know, we had nothing for breakfast but crackers
and bacon. As good luck would have it, I spied this squirrel. I popped
him over with this,” she lovingly patted her gun as it hung on the
shanty wall; “and here he is, chopped in tiny bits with the crackers
and bacon.”
They both laughed merrily, Bushy filled the two tin cups with soup
and took out fresh crackers from the provision box, while her father
put away his books and papers in a very much worn carpet-bag. Then he
stretched out a buffalo skin for Bushy to sit on and made two of the
others into a roll to serve as a seat for himself. He took a cup of
soup, seated himself, and said:
“Now for the lesson; what is it to-day, Bushy?”
“It commences with the word ‘There.’ The sentence is, ‘There are many
Spaniards in America;’ but how do you like the soup; it’s good, isn’t
it?”
“Excellent!” murmured Mr. Sukolt. “A New York chef couldn’t have
treated me better than you have this morning.” He held the cup in hand,
opened the well-fingered grammar, put it beside him on the skins, and
then, before taking another swallow of soup, said:
“All right now, go ahead with your grammar.”
“There are many [she swallowed soup] Spaniards [more soup] in America,
and I suppose there are many Americans in Spain, too. Let me see,”
again she stopped for soup, “where did you tell me Spain is?” She
raised her bright face to her father.
“In Europe,” he replied.
“I wish I had a geography, Padre; I am so hungry for one that I just
guess I’ll kill the first person I find with one; that is if he don’t
want to give it to me,” said Bushy, much to her father’s astonishment.
“Bushy, you are an odd child, but you are happy, are you not?” Mr.
Sukolt waited rather anxiously for her reply.
“Guess so,” she said, musingly; “but sometimes I think my feelings
don’t depend so much on what you think is the best thing for me, as
they depend on what I think is the best thing for me.
“Now, I’d be awfully happy if you would give me a geography that tells
about the fairylands where you and my mother used to live, instead of
giving me meat for supper,” added Bushy, thoughtfully.
“You will note one thing as you grow older, my little girl; that when
you get the geography it will call for an atlas, and the atlas for a
trip round the world, and so on, your desires always being just as
strong as they are now for something you haven’t got.”
“You don’t know me, Padre. I’ll outwit your philosophy by never wishing
for what I can’t get. Who wants to go around the world? Why I’m twelve
years old and mistress of this establishment. What do I want more!
Hurrah!” With another peal of laughter she waved high the tin of soup,
as if pledging the beauties of the tumble-down shanty.
“This won’t do!” exclaimed Mr. Sukolt, jumping up and running his
fingers through Bushy’s tangled hair, “you’ve got out of a lesson
again, you little witch! We must start right off or we will not catch
Tom with the wagon at Cross Roads.”
While packing up the camp articles Bushy kept up a constant chatter.
“Padre,” she cried, as a new thought came to her, “you told me that on
this trip I would see some children. Where are the children?”
She threw herself down on the bundle of robes that Mr. Sukolt was
trying to tie up, and her laughing eyes peeped up at him through her
fluffy hair which had fallen so as to almost cover her face.
“Show me the children or I will strike for higher wages. Think of it,
Padre! I cannot remember ever seeing any children. Yes, I’ll strike for
higher wages or for Great Pine Mine; so there.” And again the shanty
was filled with her ringing laugh.
“Get up, you little rascal, and help me with these bundles. Now, what
would you do if we should run against a little boy, say to-day, at
Cross Roads?”
“Kiss him, and if he is very, very sweet, eat him up. Do you think we
can buy a geography there, Padre?” she asked wistfully. “I don’t know
which I want to see the most, a geography or a baby--a real live baby.”
“Well, we will soon find out what is there,” said Mr. Sukolt, firmly
tying all the bundles on to the pack-horse and mounting his own. “Are
you ready to start?”
“Almost,” she answered, coiling the lariat so as to attach it to the
saddle; then with it still in her hand she sprang on Ned’s back and
called to Rover, who was gnawing at the squirrel’s head.
Hearing a noise they both looked up. Coming down the path, about a
quarter of a mile away, was a horseman, and it was obvious to Bushy and
her father that the rider had lost all control of the animal he rode.
“He sits badly for a Mexican!” exclaimed Mr. Sukolt, “yet I think he
will come out all right.”
“He isn’t a Mexican; he’s a soldier,” cried Bushy. Then, frightened by
a second thought, she screamed:
“The ravine! the ravine! This path leads straight over the precipice!
Oh, Padre, his horse can never stop after he turns the bend!”
They both started toward the soldier, neither knowing just what they
were going to do.
Mr. Sukolt spied the lariat which Bushy still held in her hand.
“Lariat him! lariat him!” he commanded in a stern, hard voice, checking
his pony at the same time.
“But can I?” came from her pale lips.
“Try it, child! try it! There is no time for me to take the lariat now!”
Again the queer old look settled on her face. There was only time to
swing the lariat three times over her head and let go when the horse
dashed past her. Ned stubbornly planted his feet and awaited the
accustomed pull--it came, and with it headlong into the snowy path fell
the soldier. The horse, lightened of his load, went at yet madder speed
around the rocks out of sight to its death.
The man lay perfectly still. Bushy sprang from Ned and ran to him. Mr.
Sukolt was already cutting the rope that had settled over the soldier’s
head and wound around his body, pinioning both his arms tight to his
sides.
“I have killed him!” murmured Bushy, opening his shirt and feeling for
his heart.
“No, I think he is only stunned. The snow was deep and saved him,”
replied her father.
As the blood commenced to ooze from the wounds where the rope had cut
into the flesh, the soldier opened his eyes and attempted to raise
himself, but with an ejaculation of pain, fell back again. He gazed at
Mr. Sukolt and then at Bushy, and in a bewildered manner exclaimed:
“What has happened to me now?”
Bushy was so delighted to hear him speak that she burst into tears and
cried:
“I didn’t kill him; I didn’t kill him!”
“You were going fast to your death, young man,” said Mr. Sukolt, as
he raised the man to a sitting position. “You are alive now simply
because the lariat checked you. Try to stand up and see if you are
very much hurt.”
Assisted by Bushy and her father, the soldier struggled to his feet,
shook himself, then pointed significantly to his left sleeve.
“Oh, Padre, his arm is broken,” cried Bushy; “but that is not so bad as
a leg, is it?” She looked up wistfully in the soldier’s face; and he
laughed, quietly saying, “Quite right, little girl; quite right.”
“No, nor a neck,” replied Mr. Sukolt, smiling.