Chapter XIV: A Night of Adventure

Because in this story of Snap's life there are so many adventures I don't want my boy readers to go away with the idea that life out West is all fun and frolic, for of course I know, as well as anyone, that, to a hot-blooded English boy, roughing it, and facing dangers which he just manages to overcome, are fun and frolic. In the summer, the cowboy has a pretty idle time of it. If he is a fisherman, and there are trout-streams handy, he may while away the hours with a rod, but the rivers of the plains on which he and his cattle live are oddly enough very destitute of fish. Up in the hills, in the tarns and mountain streams, there is plenty of lovely _Salmo fontinalis_, or Canadian trout, strong and game fish, which take a fly as well as their English cousins, and make a really good fight before the angler manages to land them, bright bars of quivering purple and gold, on the grass at his feet. There are, too, towns sometimes near enough to attract the 'boys,' who think nothing of a fifty-mile ride across the prairie, and in these a good deal of the money advanced by parents at home is apt to be spent on billiards (of a very poor quality), gambling, and worse.

Luckily the autumn 'round-up' necessitates everyone's presence on the ranche, and from that time until summer there is constant, and occasionally severe, work to be done.

Snap found the worst time was from Christmas, when the really hard weather set in, until March. Luckily, the Rosebud people had laid in a very large supply of hay for winter use. Nares's rule was, 'Get in as much as can possibly be needed for the worst winter men ever saw, even though you may not want a quarter of it.'

And it was well in Snap's first year that such ample provision had been made, for not only did the snow fall continuously for many days, but it packed, thus preventing the beasts from getting at the sun-dried, self-cured prairie hay below. In the bitterest weather Snap and the other men had to go out and feed; had to visit the different bands sheltering in the coulees and hollows of the foot-hills; look alter the young and the feeble; get the beasts out of the timber, where, if left alone, they would shiver and starve rather than face the bitter wind which drove them back from the feeding-ground on the bare lands below; keep an eye on the coyotes and wolves; and perform a hundred other duties which required strength and hardihood, and which were certain either 'to kill a boy or make a man,' as Wharton put it.

Nature must have meant Snap for a cowboy. His long, lean figure, broad shoulders, and red-brown skin made him look a typical cowboy, almost before he was one. Enduring as a wolf, he made up by staying-power what he lacked in muscles, and day by day these developed through constant use.

The severe weather had brought down other beasts from the hills besides the patient oxen. Now and again, as Snap went his rounds, he saw in the snow a track into which both his own feet would go without destroying its outline. Sometimes, after following this track for a while, he would find patches of blood on the trail, and then a dead steer, torn by the huge claws and mangled by the teeth of 'old Ephraim,' as the trappers used to call the grizzly. If the beast had been killed some time, there would be other tracks near--wolf and coyote--showing that others had finished what the fierce king of the forest had begun. A dose of arsenic hid in the flesh that was left would generally enable the cowboys to cry quits with the wolves, and go some way towards compensating for the death of the steer by the acquisition of three or four handsome skins, but the grizzly himself never touched a 'doctored carcase.'

When Christmas came round it brought letters for Snap which kept his imagination busy all day. One was from the Admiral, another from the little mother, and a third from the guardian. The Admiral's accompanied a pair of field-glasses which had belonged to the dear old fellow for ages, and through which he had looked over many a stormy sea and sunny land. Through them he had seen the edges of all the world, the ports of every country, the shattered, shot-torn rigging of the enemy's fleet, and perhaps the powdered faces of many a European prima donna. 'Now,' he wrote, 'they are no good to me. Even these glasses won't help you to see through a London fog, and it's hardly respectable for the Chairman of the 'Company associated for the Culture and Civilisation of Puffin Islands' to be seen at a theatre. So, Snap, I send them to you. I wish I could look through them, my boy, and see you tending the cattle on a thousand hills.'

So the old gentleman was the director of a company, and Snap, knowing him well, thought that the shareholders in that company were luckier than their director, for, if downright honesty would insure the payment of a dividend by Puffin Islands, Puffin Islands, under the command of the Admiral, would pay. Poor old gentleman, it was a change to him, trudging into the City through sludge and fog to talk about guano and its prospects, instead of with gun and spaniel pottering about Fairbury coverts on the off chance of a 'cock.'

Then there was a letter from the 'mother,' concealing the miserable life she and her gallant old brother were leading in a dingy London back-street--a letter full of thanks to Snap for looking after her 'other two boys' on the way out, and regretting that the three could not be all together. She sent Snap what she imagined would be useful Christmas presents, and the tears came into his eyes as he thought of the weary hours which she must have spent stitch-stitching in the gloom of a London parlour to make those useless white robes for him. For, indeed, they were useless. Two of them were night-shirts--linen night-shirts!--to sleep in in a country where, if you touched an axe out of doors, the cold made it cling to your hand until either the skin came away on the axe or you put axe and hand together into hot water to thaw and dissolve partnership. He treated them very reverently at first, but, long after, Snap confessed that they had been very useful '_as overalls_, with a pudding-bag used as an extempore night-cap, _for stalking wild-fowl in the snow-time_.'

Then there was a long letter from his guardian, reminding Snap that, 'had he only been advised by him, he might now be occupying an honourable position in commerce or the law, and making his way to a fair competency in his maturer years.'

'Yes,' muttered Snap, 'and supping on blue pills, with a breakfast of black draught, or (if very well) only Eno, to follow. No, thank you, my worthy relative,' muttered the boy. 'I prefer these "Arctic solitudes and uncultured men," as you civilly call them, to a solicitor's office, any day.'

Snap's guardian fell into a common error. Civilised himself, he couldn't understand the beauties of barbarism. Snap could; and of the two, barbarism and civilisation, thought barbarism the better horse.

The odd thing that Christmas was that there was no letter from Frank or Towzer, to whom Snap had already written more than once. Later on, Snap got a letter, but, as we will ourselves visit the other boys shortly, it is unnecessary to refer further to that here.

The Admiral's glasses nearly led Snap into a bad scrape, though the glasses were in no way to blame for it. As he stood trying them from the door of the ranche-house one morning, he said to Wharton, who was beside him:

'Dick, I believe I can see a band of cattle making up towards the line.'

'Like enough,' replied Dick, 'for there is, maybe, some little feed up that way; but you had better turn them, if you can, we don't want to lose any that way.'

'What way, Dick?'

'Why, if they get on the line the train may catch them before we do, and the C.P.R. won't stop for a beast or two; the "cow-catcher"' (a great iron fender in front of the engine) 'will just pick them up and chuck them off the rails in heaps.'

'The deuce,' muttered Snap, 'then I'd better go; the boys are out, and if the silly brutes go on as they are going now they'll just about get on to the line by the time the passenger train comes along.'

So saying, Snap threw his big Mexican saddle on his pony and started in pursuit, although it was already late in the day.

It soon became evident that his guess had been a correct one. He had lost sight of the beasts for a while, it is true, as they had passed through a thin belt of timber which temporarily hid them from him, but their tracks led straight on for the line. Still, there was lots of time, and, after all, the cattle would not be such fools, he thought, as to climb on to the line itself, where, of course, there could be no feed.

But they did. When Snap next saw them there were about two dozen beasts wandering aimlessly up 'the track' itself, towards the great trestle-bridge which spans the canyon (or gully) of the 'Elk Horn Crik.' The line here runs along a cutting in a hillside, and Snap, leaving his pony below, climbed painfully up to the level of the line.

Once up there, his work was only begun. Do all that he would, he could not get the beasts to leave their perilous pathway. They would not let him get up to them, but steadily jogged on in front of him towards the trestle-bridge. Having tried in vain to get round them, Snap looked at his watch. He had still nearly twenty minutes to spare before the train was due. If he could run the brutes up to the trestle-bridge they would never try to cross that, and he would be able to turn them down the bank, which, terribly steep as it was, was in places just practicable for the sure-footed, prairie-reared cattle.

So he pressed on, driving the cattle against time, as the dark grew ever darker, and the train nearer and nearer to the bridge. At last he thought as he ran that he could hear it far away in the hills, a low, distant, rattling noise, heard plainly for a moment, and then lost again as some high ground was brought by a twist of the line between him and it. The trestle-bridge, however, was in sight, and in another minute he had the satisfaction of seeing the stupid beasts trot up to it, stop, and then, first one, then another, turned and scrambled in headlong fashion down the bank. All except one. One perverse brute, a thorough Texan, 'all horns and tail,' would not follow his companions, but elected to try the bridge.

Perhaps my readers do not know what a trestle-bridge is. To understand the story, it is necessary that they should do so. A trestle-bridge, then, such as the one before Snap, is a bridge of timber, the beams laid at right angles to the line, and each beam about two feet from its neighbour. Across the beams run the iron rails, and between the beams is nothing at all but emptiness. The whole bridge is supported on a huge scaffolding, which rises from the sides of the canyon crossed, and in some cases these bridges are as much as 150 yards from end to end, and 250 feet above the stream which generally races along below. To walk over these bridges by daylight requires a clear head and steady nerves, for, though it is easy enough to stride from beam to beam for a few yards, it becomes more difficult as you proceed: the light gleams off the water below, flickers through the open spaces and dazzles you, while the sight of the vast profound underneath, and the knowledge that one false step will send you whirling between those beams to eternity, has not a steadying effect upon you.

These bridges are, most of them, very narrow, and on the one in question there was but a single line, the shunting station immediately preceding the bridge, which was not considered equal to the weight of two trains at the same time. And on this bridge the black Texan steer had elected to ramble. Clever as a goat, it stepped from beam to beam; then, as the light flickered up into its eyes, it grew nervous and stopped, afraid to come back, and afraid to go on.

Again Snap heard the warning rattle of the coming train amongst the hills, a faint whistle, and then again silence. He had saved all the herd but one. Should he leave that one?

'No, I'm blowed if I will,' muttered the boy, setting his teeth and feeling just as stubborn as the steer in front of him. 'That train won't be up for another quarter of an hour--you can hear it coming for miles on a frosty night like this,' he argued, and boldly enough he started on to the bridge, stepping freely from beam to beam.

The steer, seeing him coming, moved slowly on, trembling in every limb, but still determined not to be headed.

'Confound the brute,' thought Snap, 'I shouldn't wonder if he means me to follow him across the Rockies. I will head him, though!'

Just then the steer made a false step. One leg went just short of the beam on to which it had intended to step. It lurched forward, and for one moment Snap thought it had gone over into the abyss. But it recovered itself somehow, and stood trembling in every limb, and bellowing piteously in its fear.

Then, unfortunately, Snap himself looked down through the ribs of that skeleton bridge. It was getting dusk now, and he could not see very clearly; but below he could hear the roll of waters amongst the boulders, he could see the tops of trees far below him, and occasionally a white flash of foam where the river dashed against a black rock. He didn't like it, 'you bet,' as he said afterwards, 'he did not like it,' and the more he looked the less he liked it.

For some reason, unexplained, his knees at this juncture acquired an unhappy knack of knocking together, and grew weak and uncertain. With a start he pulled himself together. This would not do at any price. There was another hundred yards of bridge to traverse, and he hardly thought, if the train was 'on time,' that he would be able to coax that steer across before the train reached the bridge.

At that moment a roar sounded behind Snap--the roar and rattle of a huge engine, and then a piercing shriek from the steam-whistle--such a shriek, so shrill, so wailing, that it sounds among the lone peaks of the Rockies like the cry of some tortured spirit.

Snap's heart turned to stone in that awful minute, as the red light rounded the bluff not a hundred yards from the head of the bridge, and rushed towards him. Then the blood came back to his cheek, and the strength to his arm. Death was staring him in the face. Unless he DID something, he had not ten seconds to live. He would have raced for the other end of the bridge, but his brain was keener now than ever in his life before, and he knew human speed would avail him nothing in the time allowed him. In another few seconds the cow-catchers would sweep him off the track and hurl him down, down, rushing through the air over that narrow edge to the sharp, wet rocks below. The rails themselves were so near the edge of the bridge that a man could not stand outside the rails and escape. The foot-board of the train would sweep him down, or the wind from the engine blow him into space. There was only one thing to be done, and with a muttered prayer he did it. Dropping on his knees in the middle of the track, he seized a beam with both hands, lowered himself through the opening, and hung by his hands, dangling over the depth below. If he let go it meant death. His muscles were strong, his grip desperate, but could he hold on when the timbers rocked beneath the great mass of wood and iron which was even now upon them?

It was all like a horrible nightmare. He could see and hear everything so plainly, and think so clearly and so fast. Far down below he heard a great tree crack with the frost; looking up, he could see the Texan steer stupefied with terror. Then the bridge rocked and his hands almost lost their grip; a blaze of lurid light flashed in his eyes and blinded him; a breath as of a furnace licked his face for one moment and made him sick with horror; two or three great, bright sparks of fire dropped past him, down, down, into the darkness; there was a dull thud, and a mass of broken limbs was shot out into the dark night to fall with a faint splash into the river below; and then the train had passed, and Snap hung there still--saved from the very jaws of death.

Then, and not till then, the full horror of the thing came upon him. Then, and not till then, pluck, and coolness, and strength deserted him. He had held firm to the beam when it shook like a leaf in the blast, now he tried to draw himself up and he could not. He, Snap Hales, to whom the horizontal bar in the gymnasium at school had been a favourite plaything, could not, to save his life, draw himself up to his chin, and for a moment his fingers began to let go and he thought of dropping down, that he might have done with the struggle and be still.

Then he tried again. He felt that if he failed this time he would never succeed afterwards; his strength was all going fast, and inch by inch he dragged himself up with desperate effort, until at last he lay with a gasp half-fainting along the bars.

A long blood-curdling howl from somewhere in the mist-filled gorge beneath brought him to himself. Was it possible, he thought, that they had smelt the fresh blood already? Only five seconds more of indecision--a little less strength to regain his position upon the bridge--and his own shattered body might have made a meal for those grim and hungry scavengers! It was a horrible thought, and as he stepped clear of those dangerous timbers Snap looked up thankfully at the bright stars and beyond.

It was now dark save for the starlight; but that, reflected from the snow, was already bright enough to travel by. Later on, when the night was undisputed mistress of the earth, it would be light enough to read a letter on the prairie.

Unfortunately for Snap, he was likely to see a good deal of a Canadian winter night before he got home to the cheerful fire in the ranche-house. Misfortunes, they say, never come singly. In this instance the proverb was justified, for on looking for his pony Snap found it had broken away from the tree to which he had tied it, and had gone back towards home.

Snap was not only disgusted, but puzzled. A tramp home after his recent experiences was not quite what he would have chosen, and that the old 'Cradle' should have played him such a trick passed his understanding.

Just then a cry which reverberated amongst the great pines, and seemed to fill the forest with horror, explained the mystery. It was the cry of the hungry mountain lion seeking his prey by night. Snap glanced at the pine to which his horse had been tied. Yes, thank goodness, his rifle was there! it had not been strapped to his saddle; and as the boy got hold of his weapon confidence returned to him. If only he could get clear of the forest on to the open prairie he had no fear of the cowardly, sneaking brute behind him.

He tried to sing as he walked, to show his confidence and scare the beast with the sound of the human voice. But it was no good, he could not sing in that forest. Its awful silence rebuked him: the cold stars looked down, it seemed to him, in stony scorn, and his voice seemed so little and insignificant amongst all these mighty children of mother Nature.

Now and again the ice upon some stream, or the frozen limbs of some great tree, cracked like a loud rifle-shot. All else was still, except now and again for the voice of the red beast sneaking behind the boy somewhere in the shadows, still following, still afraid to attack.

The silence and lifelessness of a North American forest in winter is very impressive. The snow which covers the ground is lighter than swansdown, drier than sand. It falls unheard, it gives place to the foot without a sound. The birds are gone, or if not gone have hidden. The bear has made him a bed in some hollow tree or cave, and sleeps silently in the silent wood. The squirrel chatters no longer; he, too, has retired to his little granary in some hollow trunk. The rabbit and the weasel are still restlessly wandering about as usual, but both have changed their coats, and assumed a white covering to match the snows amongst which they live. Almost everything sleeps: trees in their robes of snow, the bear in his cave, the streams in their bonds of ice; even the winds are still. Nothing stirs.

If you have ever made a long walk at night by yourself over some lonely road or moor you may know that feeling which grows upon you, that some one is following you, that you can hear other footsteps than your own behind you. If this state of mind occurs to those who walk alone in England, where silence is really unknown and solitude impossible, where there are no mysteries (and very few, alas! of the beauties) of nature left, you can imagine how anxiously Snap kept gazing into the forest round and behind him for the owner of that awful voice, about which there could be no mistake, which was not the mere creation of any fancy.

At last he could see the edge of the open prairie, and, breaking into a run, he gained it. It was not a wise thing to do, for if anything will encourage a wild beast to attack, it is the appearance of flight in a man. And so it was in this case. As Snap gained the open he looked back, and as he did so, saw the long snake-like figure of the mountain lion come in long bounds across the snow.

As the boy faced about, the great reddish brute paused for a moment, crouching, its belly almost on the snow, for the last rush; its ears flattened back, its yellow eyes ablaze with murder, and its white fangs gleaming in the starlight. But a foe in the open can always be tackled and fought outright, and the flash of the good Winchester was redder than the anger in the wild beast's eyes, and the sharp, clear ring of the little rifle was a more unerring presage of death than even the scream of the mountain lion.

Over and over the great beast rolled, dyeing the snow with his blood, and Snap, standing beside him, guessed him at a good ten feet six inches from the tip of his snout to the tip of his tail.

Having skinned the panther (for in the West this animal is called indifferently mountain lion, catamount, panther, and a good many more names), Snap once more plodded homewards, utterly worn out with fatigue and excitement.

The sound of his rifle had attracted the notice of old Wharton, who now rode towards him, leading a spare pony for his use. Although there was much to tell, the two rode home almost in silence, for the spell of the night was upon them, and, besides, their whole minds were absorbed in the wonderful spectacle before them.

Suddenly great flames of rosy red had risen from behind the distant mountains, and reached like the fingers of some great hand across the heavens. The whole sky was full of the rosy light, the stars had turned white and pale. The great spokes of flame seemed to tremble with heat, like the hot air round a chimney on a day in June; then gradually they grew paler and almost died out, only to flash out again directly in brighter glory. It was the Aurora Borealis!