"I was man enough to catch you a couple of times and it was only your good luck that you weren't hung up here in Track's End by the neck," I said, a little put out by the way he spoke, because I was almost as big as he was.

"Oh, well, no matter. Now you--"

"I'll tell you the reason I was sent out," I broke in, just thinking of something.

"What is it?"

"I can say all there is to say as well as anybody, but I'm a poor shot, so it was decided that if I didn't get back it wouldn't make much difference in the matter of shooting you fellows down if you come any nearer."

He pulled his collar down and looked at me over his crooked nose.

Kaiser began to growl, but I poked him in the ribs with my foot to let him understand that there was a flag of truce on and he must behave himself. I guess Pike didn't like it, because this sounded as if we couldn't trust him, but he didn't say anything.

"Well," he broke out, "there's no use of us standing here and talking.

We've come after that $5,000, and you fellers know it."

"We told you all we had to say about that in the letter."

"Then we'll bust that safe and burn your town," he said, like a savage.

"Go ahead and try it," I answered. "We're ready for you."

His face, which had looked black as night all the while, now turned white with rage.

"We'll try it fast enough and we'll do it fast enough, too," he cried, with some prodigious oaths, bad enough for any pirate. "Look here; I ain't got any gun with me, and I s'pose you ain't, if you're any man at all. But you're as near your gun as I am mine, hey?"

"Yes," I said.

"Then this here flag of truce is ended right now. When I get hold of my gun I shoot, and you're welcome to do the same!"

He turned and started back on the run. So there was nothing for me but to face about and do the same.

CHAPTER XVII

The Fight, and not much else: except a little Happening at the End which startles me greatly.

It seems a good deal to believe, but I actually half think that Kaiser had begun to get hold of the fine points of a flag of truce, and that he understood it was ended. What makes me have this idea is that I think he must have taken after Pike at first, though I wasn't doing much looking back just then, being busy at something more important; but anyhow he wasn't with me till I was halfway to the store, when he pa.s.sed me with a great bark and went on tearing up the snow a few steps ahead. I wish he had got ahead sooner, as I think I ran faster trying to keep up with him; but as it was I don't know but he saved my life.

Either Pike got back before I did, or one of his cutthroats fired for him; I know not, probably the latter, but the shot was for me and well aimed, so well that I guess the bullet went where I was when it started. Thus it was: Kaiser was ahead, and reared up and threw himself at the store door, which, being unlatched, flew open; it stopped him a little, and I, being close behind, went down over him and into the store head first, as if I had been fired out of a cannon; and at that instant the bullet I spoke of struck the open door halfway up. I slammed the door shut, grabbed my rifle, stuck the muzzle through the port-hole, and pumped three shots out of it without once trying to aim.

Then, without taking breath, I ran out the front by way of the tunnel to the bank, and so up-stairs, where with another rifle I pumped out two more shots, and then looked. The men had left the grade and were coming full tilt out around the water-tank and graders' carts, their horses rearing and floundering through the drifts. I fired twice, aiming carefully each time, but I don't think I hit. I saw they would soon be out of range. Again I dropped my gun, ran down-stairs and through tunnel No. 1 to the hotel and up-stairs to a corner window, double planked up, and giving me the range on the square and the foot of the street. I was there first, with the hammer of my Winchester back, and with Kaiser behind me wishing, I know, that dogs could shoot.

The next second they came in sight and charged for the street. I aimed and fired; I hit this time; one of the horses went down and the man over his head. The other six came straight for the end of the street.

I fired again, but saw no results. I counted on the drift stopping them. It did so less than I expected. Two went down in the snow; four came on. I fired and one man dropped off his horse. The hard crust was holding the other three. I fired again, but it did no good. Then the head one, on a pinto pony, went down like a flash out of sight, horse and man. He had gone into tunnel No. 3, leading to Townsend's store.

I fired three shots as fast as I could work the lever, without stopping to aim. Then I looked out. The other two riders had turned tail. The horse of one had gone down in the snow and he was running away on foot; the other had got off the drifts without going down. I thought it was Pike. It seemed a good time to shoot at him, and I did so, but without so much as touching him, as I think. The man in the tunnel got out and dodged around the corner of Townsend's store before I could do my duty by him. They were all the next minute at the depot, either in it or behind it.

This thing of their taking the depot was something which I had not thought of. They were now as well covered and protected as I; and it was still seven against one, because the man that I shot off of his horse got over with the others by the help of one whose horse went down in the drift. But their building was more exposed than mine, and they could do nothing about their robbery so long as they stayed there.

They now began to fire their first shots since the one which followed me into Townsend's store. They were well-aimed shots, too, and the bullets came through my window as if the planks were gingerbread. A splinter of wood struck my left eye and closed it up; but I had it shut most of the time anyhow, aiming with the other, so it didn't matter. However, I didn't like the place, and went back into the room in the northwest corner and got a range on them from one of the front windows. I thought their bullets would glance off of the planks here, and they did; however, the ones which struck the side came right on through, lath part.i.tions and all; but I kept close to the floor. All the time Kaiser stayed close behind me, barking so that I thought he would tear himself to pieces, and with the hair on his back standing straight up.

I had two rifles and a hundred or more cartridges, and I began to give the depot a pretty stiff bombarding. I don't think I missed the building once, and I knew every ball went through the side; but what they did after that I couldn't tell. There were three windows in the depot on the side toward me, all close together near the east end, but none at all to the right of them. None of them were boarded up, and the robbers were pretty careful about showing themselves much at them.

They gradually dropped off the platform on the other side and crawled under to the front from where I had watched the Indians that day. They were well protected here, but the wind swept across the west end of the square and blew such a spray of snow in their faces that they could not see to aim well. On the other hand the sun had now got up and the reflection came in my eyes and hurt my shooting. I wished that the horse was out of the way so I could get through tunnel No. 3 into Townsend's, where a side window, well planked, looked right down on the depot; but it was just as well that I couldn't, as I found out afterward.

They were still thinking that there was a large population in Track's End, and I could see splinters flying all over town where they were plugging away at windows and doors.

I soon noticed that they were not shooting quite so much, and thought some of them might be sneaking around and thinking of coming up from the west, so I went through to the bank once in a while, firing a few shots from its front window at the depot so as to keep up their large-population idea. At the third visit I looked out back and saw a man run from the coal-shed to behind the water-tank. I got ready and waited. Another ran across. I gave him a shot which made him jump.

Then I fired half a dozen shots through the inclosed part below the tank, and if any of the b.a.l.l.s missed the big timbers they must have gone through. I thought those fellows would keep awhile, and ran back to the hotel and began to pepper away at the depot again. This I kept up for an hour, I think, when I caught a glimpse of one of the men from the tank going back, and thought likely they had both gone.

The outlaws made just one more rally, and it was very well planned, and if I had not been expecting it it might, after all, have gone hard with the town of Track's End. All at once they began an uncommonly lively firing from under the depot platform. I thought this might mean a charge from the other side, so I started to see. Joyce's store ran back farther than any of the others on that side of the street, and had a side window near the back corner; so I went there instead of to the bank.

It was slow work crawling under the sidewalk and getting up through the trap-door, but I made it at last and ran to the window. Two of the men were charging straight across the square for the rear of Townsend's, carrying a big torch of sticks and twisted hay. The window was not boarded up, but I stuck my rifle barrel through the gla.s.s and fired at them. The bullet, I think, struck the torch, because I saw the fire fly in all directions. They dropped it and retreated in a great panic, while I shot again.

I ran back to the hotel and began shooting once more at the depot.

They never fired another shot. I went over to the bank and from the back window I could see them going away to the southwest, keeping under cover of the tank and coal-shed. They came around up on to the grade a half-mile to the west. I had a look at them through the gla.s.s.

Some were walking and some riding. There seemed to be two men on one horse. I think that more than one of them was wounded, but the drifting snow now made it hard to see. I went back through the hotel and down the street to watch them from the tower above the snow. The pony which had fallen into the tunnel was still there. I noticed it wore an expensive Mexican saddle, all heavy embossed leather, with a high cantle, silver ornaments, big tapaderos on the stirrups, and a horsehair bridle with silver bit. There was a red blanket rolled up and tied on behind the saddle.

As I went by Townsend's I saw that the window I wanted to get to was as full of holes as a skimmer, and I was glad the horse had blocked up my way. I noticed that the depot wasn't much better off, however, for holes. I went up the tower and watched the outlaws for half an hour.

They stopped a few minutes at Mountain's to get their extra horses and then went on.

The wind was coming fresher all the time and I was pretty well chilled when I got down. I was hurrying along across the drifts to the hotel when I noticed the horse in the tunnel again. But his fine saddle and bridle were gone. I knew instantly that it must be the work of my unknown night visitor, who had not stolen anything for some time. This was the first thing that had been disturbed by daylight; it was growing bolder. My heart had behaved itself so well during the fight that I had forgotten that I had such a thing; now it started to thumping so hard that I thought it was all there was to me.

CHAPTER XVIII

After the Fight: also a true Account of the great Blizzard: with how I go to sleep in the Stronghold and am awakened before Morning.

So that is the true history of the fight, just as it all happened at Track's End, Territory of Dakota, on Sat.u.r.day, February 5th; and thus, through good luck and being well intrenched behind my fortifications, and having plenty of Winchesters, I beat off the cutthroat outlaws and held the town. If they had waited one day longer for their coming they would have waited a good while longer; for the next day there came such a blizzard as I had never seen before nor since, which roared without ceasing six days, lacking twelve hours; and for two weeks more the weather stayed bad, and seemed to have relapses, as they say of a person sick. No robbers could have come through it, but the ones that had come got back to their headquarters through the first of it, as I have good reason to know.

And for almost six weeks after the fight I lived regularly and without much disturbance, with Kaiser and the other animals for company by day and the howling of the wolves and my own thoughts by night. If the thoughts had given me no more trouble than the wolves I should have been happy, for I think I had got so that I could not sleep unless there was a wolf howling somewhere about in the neighborhood. The loneliness, the dread of the outlaws coming back, the mystery of what or who was in or near the wretched town besides myself, all kept with me and made me wish ten thousand times that I had never heard of the place, or of any place except home.

Though of course I did not keep so miserable all the while. There was plenty of work to be done, and I kept at it most of the time. My eye soon got well. The day after I beat off the outlaws and had a little recovered from the work and strain of that and of the strange start the disappearance of the saddle gave me, I found so many things waiting to be done that I scarce knew what to turn my hand to first.

But I had thought the poor pony in the tunnel deserved to be got out before anything else was done; and this I attended to an hour after the robbers had gone. I went out half expecting to find it gone, too, with its saddle; but it was not.

It was quite tired out and stood hanging its head. To get it out the way it had tumbled in would take a great amount of shoveling in the hard snow, I soon saw, so I decided I would try to lead it through the tunnel and on out by way of the hotel, though it seemed an odd thing to do. So I put a halter on it and tried that plan, and though its back sc.r.a.ped a little in places, what with me ahead and with Kaiser behind barking a good deal, we got it along and into the office and then on through the storeroom and kitchen and out to the barn. d.i.c.k and Ned were much excited by the new arrival, and so for that matter was Blossom; and Crazy Jane was like to have cackled her head off. The poor things were the same as I, half dead from lonesomeness.

Then I straightened up things about town which had been put out of order by the fight, fixed the fires again and cleaned up the guns. I didn't forget to go up the windmill tower several times to have a look for the outlaws, but I saw no more of them. Another thing I did was to lay some big slabs of frozen snow over the hole in the tunnel where the pony fell through, and it was a good thing I did this or I believe the blizzard would have gone near to filling the whole tunnel system.

As it was it piled on more snow and covered all trace of the robbers'

charge on the street.

I think it would not be possible for me to make you understand what a blizzard that was, which began the next day and kept up for the best part of a whole week. All day and night it roared and pushed at the windows and drove the snow in every crack and hole; here piled it up and there swept it away clean down to the ground. Not once did I go out beyond the tunnels. The fire at the depot I let go out, and the others I kept up more to have something to do than for any use they were, because I knew no outlaws could ever come in such a storm.

While the blizzard lasted I had a hard time to find enough to do to keep my mind off of my troubles. In an old recipe-book, which I found in the closet under the stairs, it told how to tan skins, so I began tanning my wolf-skins. I whittled out some puzzles, too, and made a leather collar for Pawsy; but she would not wear it. I forgot to say that after the fight I found her in her old place over the door. I taught Kaiser some tricks, too, and gave the cat a chance to improve herself in the same way, but she refused the opportunity.