And Their Homestead Claim

A Story for Girls

BY

MRS. CARRIE L. MARSHALL

Author of “The Girl Ranchers,” Etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY IDA WAUGH

THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY PHILADELPHIA MDCCCXCIX

Copyright 1899 by The Penn Publishing Company

CHAPTER I

I GO ON AN ERRAND

A fierce gust of wind and rain struck the windows, and Jessie, on her way to the breakfast table, dish in hand, paused to listen.

“Raining again!” she exclaimed, setting the dish down emphatically. “It seems to me that it has rained every day this spring. When it hasn’t poured here in the valley, it has more than made up for it in the mountains.”

“You are more than half right,” father said, drawing his chair up to the table. “Is breakfast ready, dear? I am going to work in the mines to-day, and I’m in something of a hurry.”

“Going to work in the mines!” Jessie echoed the words, as, I am sure, I did also. I was sitting [Pg 8]in the corner dressing little Ralph, or, to be strictly accurate, trying to dress him. No three year-old that ever lived could be more exasperating than he sometimes was during that ordeal or could show a more pronounced distaste for the bondage of civilized garments.

Jessie made haste to dish up the breakfast, but she inquired: “Do you remember, papa, what that old miner who was here the other day told us about mines in the wet season? About what was liable to happen sometimes, and did happen here once, a good many years ago?”

“I don’t know that I do,” father answered, glancing toward Ralph and me, to see if we were ready. As we were anything but that, he continued; “I guess I won’t wait for you children.”

“Don’t, please!” I exclaimed, “Ralph is a perfect little buzz-saw this morning. Keep still, Ralph!”

“Me want to do barefoot! Me want to wade in ’e puddle!” cried the child, pulling one soft [Pg 9]little foot out of the stocking that I had just succeeded in getting upon it.

“Ralph!” I cried, angrily: “I’ve a good notion to spank you!”

“Don’t, Leslie!” father interposed, mildly; “I remember so well how I liked to wade in the mud-puddles when I was a little shaver; but it’s too early in the season, and too cold for that sort of sport now. So, Ralph, my boy, let sister dress you, and don’t hinder.”

Ralph always obeyed father’s slightest word, no matter how gently the word was spoken; so now he sat demurely silent while I completed his toilet.

“What was it that your friend, the miner, said, Jessie?” father asked, as Jessie took her seat and poured out his coffee.

“He said that there had been so much rain on the mountains, and that the Crusoe mines were on such a low level that there was some danger of an inrush of water, like that which ruined the Lost Chance, before we came here.”

“I recollect hearing something about the Lost [Pg 10]Chance,” father said, going on with his breakfast indifferently. “There may have been water crevices in it. The accident was probably caused by them—and neglect.”

“I don’t see how it could be all due to neglect,” Jessie persisted. “The miner said that the springs and rivers were all booming full, just as they are now. People never thought of danger from the water, because it was so often warm and dry in the valley—as it is, you know, often, even when it is raining hard on the mountains. The miner said that the men went on with their work in the mine, as usual, until, one afternoon, the timbered walls of the tunnels slumped in like so much wet sand. What had been underground passages became, in a moment, underground rivers, for the water that had been held back and dammed up so long just poured in in a drowning flood. He said that the rainfall seeped through the bogs up on the mountains, and fed underground reservoirs that held the water safely until they were overtaxed. When that happened the water would burst out, finding an [Pg 11]outlet for itself in some new place. The only reason that any one of the force of thirty men usually employed in the mine escaped was that the accident occurred just as they were putting on a new shift. I

remember very well what he told us.”

“I see that you do,” father responded, with a thoughtful glance at her earnest face, “but I reckon he rather overdid the business. These old miners are always full of whims and forecasts; they are as superstitious as sailors.”

“What he told was not superstition; it was a fact,” replied Jessie, with unexpected logic.

Father smiled. “Well, anyway, don’t you get to worrying about the Gray Eagle, daughter. It’s rather damp these days, I admit, but as safe as this kitchen.”

“Do you really think so, papa?” Jessie asked, evidently reassured.

“Well, perhaps not quite as safe,” father answered, with half a smile. “It’s a good deal darker for one thing, you know, and there are noises—”

[Pg 12]

He lapsed into that kind of listening silence that comes to one who is striving to recall something that has been heard, not seen, or felt, and I was about to insist upon a further elucidation of those subterranean sounds when the door opened and a man, whom father had hired for the day, put in his head:

“Say, Mr. Gordon, I can’t find a spade anywhere,” he announced.

“Well, there!” father exclaimed, with a disturbed look, “our spade was left at the mine the last day that we worked there.”

“That’s too bad!” the man, who was a neighbor, as neighbors go on the frontier, said regretfully. “I can go back home and get mine, but the team’s hitched up; it’s stopped raining, an’ there’s a load of posts on the wagon. Seems ’most a pity for me to take time to go an’ hunt up a spade, but I reckon I’ll have to do it. I never saw the man yet that could dig post holes without one.”

“Oh, no, Reynolds, don’t stop your work for that; I’ll have to bring mine down; it’s about [Pg 13]as near to get it from the Gray Eagle as to go to one of the neighbors; you just go on with your work.”

Reynolds withdrew accordingly, and, as the door closed upon him, father said:

“I’m anxious to earn every dollar I can to help fence that wheat field, before Horton’s cattle ‘accidentally’ stray into it. I was out to look at it this morning. The field looks as if covered with a green carpet, it’s coming up so thick. I count it good luck to be able to get Reynolds to go on with the fence-building while I work in the mine, for I can exchange work to pay him, while the pay that comes from the mine is so much cash.”

“And when we get our title clear, won’t I shoo Mr. Horton’s cattle to the ends of the earth!” I said, resentfully, for we all understood well enough that the reason that father was so anxious to earn money was to pay for the final “proving up” on his homestead claim, as well as to build fences. “I’m teaching Guard to ‘heel’ on purpose to keep track of those [Pg 14]cattle,” I concluded, audaciously, for father didn’t approve of a policy of retaliation.

“Horton’s cattle are not to blame,” he said now, but the shadow that always came over his patient face at the mention of our intractable neighbor settled heavily upon it as he spoke.

“I know the cattle are not to blame,” I retorted, with a good deal of temper. “I just wish that their master himself would come out and trample on our corn and wallow in our wheat field, instead of driving his cattle up so that they may do it; I’d set Guard on him with the greatest pleasure.”

“Now, now, Leslie, you shouldn’t talk so!” father remonstrated gently.

But here Jessie, whose disposition is much more placid than mine, broke in, abruptly:

“I don’t blame Leslie for feeling so, father. Only think, we’ve been on this place nearly five years, and we’ve never yet raised a crop, because Mr. Horton’s cattle, no matter where they may be ranging, always get up here just in time—the right time—to do the most damage. [Pg 15]The other neighbors’ cattle hardly ever stray into our fields, and when they do the neighbors are good about it. Think of the time when Mr. Rollins’s herd got into the corn field and ate the corn rows down, one after another. Mr. Rollins came after them himself, and paid the damage, without a word of complaint. Besides, he said that it shouldn’t happen again; and it didn’t. When has Mr. Horton ever done a thing like that?”

“He’s been kept busy other ways,” father said, and his voice had none of the resentment that Jessie’s expressed. “The last time that his cattle got in here I went to see him about it, and he said that the field was a part of the range, being unfenced, and that any lawyer in the United States would sustain him in saying so. He was quite right, too—only he was not neighborly.”

“Neighborly! I should say not,” Jessie exclaimed, with a lowering brow. “His horses have trampled down our garden and girdled all our fruit trees, even to the Seckel pear that mother brought from grandfather’s.”

[Pg 16]

“I know; it is very trying,” father said, stifling a sigh; “but it can do no good to dwell on these things, daughter. An enemy of any kind does you more injury when he destroys your peace of mind, and causes you to harbor revengeful feelings, than he can possibly achieve in any other way. We must keep up our courage, and make the best of present circumstances, bad as they sometimes are. A change is bound to come.”

“Me wants more breakfuss,” Ralph broke in, suddenly, extending his empty milk-cup toward me, his chief servitor. I refilled it from the pitcher beside me, and as I absently crumbled bits of bread into it I sought enlightenment. “I never quite understood, father, why Mr. Horton is so spiteful toward us.”

“It is easily understood, Leslie. He wants this homestead claim, and hopes to weary us into giving it up.”

“He can find plenty of other claims,” I argued.

“Yes; but not such as this. This is an upper valley, as you know, and just above our [Pg 17]claim five mountain streams join the main river as the fingers of a hand join the palm, the main river being the palm. Every square foot of our claim can be irrigated, and it takes in about all of the valley that is worth taking—enough to control the water rights for all the land below us. That is the reason why Horton is trying so hard to dislodge us. He would like to be able to make the ranchmen on the lower ranches come to his terms about the water.”

“But the law regulates the water rights,” said Jessie.

“It is supposed to do so, and does it, after a fashion, but no human laws have ever yet been able to satisfactorily regulate a mean man. It would be a great misfortune to the ranchmen below if Horton were to get a title to this place; he likes to make people feel his authority, and one effective way of doing that would be to worry people about the water supply, just when they needed it most, of course. I feel now that our danger of losing the place is past. It has been a hard struggle to bear up against nearly [Pg 18]five years of such sly, petty persecutions. Horton is careful not to oppose us openly. When he’s found out, as he is occasionally, it always appears that he has been careful to keep within the letter of the law. Well, as Leslie says, we’ll get our title clear, and then the wind will be out of Mr. Horton’s sails. I’ve been afraid to make a move, or to do anything except curl down and study the homestead laws all this time. If I had come to an open rupture with him he might have gone down to the land

office and told some story of his own invention to the agent that would injure me greatly, for land agents are only too ready to believe evil of land claimants, it seems to me. Now my notice for offering final proof is in one of the papers; it must be published three times, and the period of publication must not range over more than three months at the outside, so you see, at the farthest, if our proof is accepted, we shall have a deed to this place within three months. I do not see how we can fail to get it; we have complied with all the requirements.”

[Pg 19]

“Yes,” Jessie assented, gravely. “We have two cows, two horses, a cat, a dog, a clock, some chairs, some dishes, a table, a stove, and some poultry.”

Father smiled, the slow, serious smile that had replaced his cheery laugh since mother’s death two years before. “You are well posted on homestead laws, daughter,” he said, rising from the table. “Where’s my coat, Leslie, did you get it mended?”

For answer I took down a worn, light, gray coat from a nail behind the kitchen door.

“Look at that!” I said, pointing proudly to a very conspicuous patch on the elbow of one sleeve. An older seamstress would have felt, perhaps, that the patch asserted its existence almost too defiantly; it seemed almost to vaunt itself, but conscious of the rectitude of my intentions, if not of my work, I raised my face, expectantly, awaiting the praise that I felt to be my due. I was not disappointed. Father held the garment up to the light and examined the mending with critical approval.

[Pg 20]

“That’s what I call a good job, my little girl,” he said heartily, but Jessie, glancing at the proof of my housewifely skill, as evidenced by the coat, laughed.

“‘A tear may be the accident of a moment,’” she quoted, “‘but a patch is premeditated poverty.’ And such a patch! You could see it a mile away. Really, Leslie, it looks like Jeremiah Porlock’s cattle brand.”

I felt my face crimsoning with indignation, but was happily prevented from making the retort that sprang to my lips, as father murmured ruefully:

“Dear, dear, what a pity that Joe left the spade! It will just about spoil my whole forenoon to be obliged to stop and bring it down. However, there’s no help for it.”

“Yes, there is, papa,” I cried, springing to my feet. “I’ll go up with you and bring it back.”

It was characteristic of father’s gentleness toward us his motherless young daughters, that he had not once thought of the possibility of either of us acting, in this instance, as his substitute.

[Pg 21]

“It’s a long walk,” he objected, looking at me doubtfully.

“Long! Why, papa, I’ve taken longer walks than that, lots of times. It isn’t above a mile and a half; I could run every step of the way!”

“Me, too,” proclaimed Ralph, descending from his high chair in such haste that he fell sprawling on the floor. Disdaining, on this occasion, to weep for an accident that, under ordinary circumstances, would have opened the flood-gates of woe, he scrambled to his feet: “Me do wiv ’oo, ’Essie!” A battered old hat of Joe’s was hanging on the wall, within reach of his chubby hand; he snatched it down and set it quickly on his head, pulling down the wide brim until his brown curls and the upper part of his rosy little face were completely extinguished. “Me ready, ’Essie,” he said. He was a comical little figure. Papa took him in his arms and kissed him. Then he set him gently on his feet again; “You can’t go with sister to-day, my boy.”

[Pg 22]

“’Ess,” Ralph declared, with unusual persistence, “Me do!”

“No,” father reiterated. He opened the door, and we slipped out, followed for some distance along the trail by the deserted youngster’s ear-splitting shrieks. Father halted once, looking irresolutely at me as a peculiarly heart-rending outburst came to our ears. “I could easily carry him up there,” he said, with a somewhat sheepish look, “but I suppose you couldn’t fetch him home?”

“Come along, father,” I retorted, slipping my hand under his arm. “Jessie will have Ralph consoled before you could get back to the house, and, when we started, you were in some doubt as to whether I could carry a spade home from the mine.”

“That’s true,” father confessed. “But hasn’t the boy got a pair of lungs, though? I doubt if I was ever able to yell like that. I dare say it’s partly owing to the climate; it’s very healthy.”

[Pg 23]

CHAPTER II

THE WILL OF THE WATERS

Crusoe was the generic name of the collection of rough shanties that clustered about and among the various shaft-houses. Not all of the mines had attained to the dignity of shaft-houses and regular hours, many of them, indeed, being mere prospect-holes, but all were named, and a student of human nature might have accurately gauged the past experience or present hopefulness of their respective owners by some of the curious freaks of nomenclature.

The shaft-house of the Gray Eagle was the last but one at the upper extremity of the ravine along which Crusoe straggled. Father and I, hurrying past the cabins, had nearly reached it, when a loud call from the open doorway of one of the larger cabins brought us to a halt.

“There’s old Joe!” father said, glancing at the individual who had shouted; “I was in [Pg 24]hopes that I could slip past without his seeing me.”

“No such good luck as that,” I said, with what I felt to be uncharitable impatience; “I almost believe that Joe sits up nights to watch for you. It’s a shame, too, for him to try to work in the mines. Just look at him!”

“I’ve looked at him a good many times, Leslie, dear, but he would be in a ten times worse position if I were to tell him that I am old enough to take care of myself. Since the day I was born he has spent his life in watching over me.”

From all accounts that was strictly true. The white-wooled old negro who, in his shirt sleeves, now came limping down the pathway toward us, had once been a slave on grandfather Gordon’s estate. When freedom came to all the slaves, old Joe—who was young Joe then—declined to accept of any liberty, or to follow any occupation that might take him away from his master’s oldest son, Ralph Gordon, our father. The negro’s mission in life, as he understood it, [Pg 25]was simply to keep an eye on the young man, for the young man’s good. The flight of years did not lessen his sense of responsibility any more than it did his devotion, which was immeasurable. But, curiously enough, he seemed to prefer, on the whole, not to reside with the object of his adoration. It was enough for him if he could but hover around in father’s vicinity, and this he did with such tireless persistency that in all the changes, the shifting scenes of his Western life, the one thing that father owned to being absolutely sure of was, that no matter

where he went, or how quietly, the place that knew him presently became familiar also with the white wool and shambling figure of old Joe.

“I ’clar ter goodness!” groaned Joe, reaching us at last, and hobbling on beside us, “I didn’ ’low fur t’ wuck ter-day; my rheumatiz is tuck dat bad!”

“Don’t work, then, Joe; the mine is as wet as a sponge. You’ll be the worse to-morrow for going into it,” remonstrated father, kindly.

“No; I reckons I’s wuck ef yo’ does; hit [Pg 26]ain’ out o’ place, noway, fur me ter crope inter a hole like dat; but w’at fur yo’ keep w’alin’ at wuck in de mine? ’Pears like a gen’leman might fin’ more fittin’ kine o’ wuck dan dat.”

“The kind of work neither makes nor unmakes one, Joe,” returned father, good-humoredly; “but I’m not going to do this sort of work much longer. I’m calculating on opening up the ranch in fine shape, with your help, when I get the title to it.”

“W’en yo’ ’low fur ter git dat titull?”

“In about three months. You’ll have to come and live with us then, Joe, so as to be on hand to help us.”

“Yes,” the old man assented, with unexpected readiness, “I ’spect I shall. I’se mighty good farmer, yo’ knows, Mas’r Ralph. Hit goin’ take nigh a week ter tell all dat I knows erbout raisin’ ob watermillions an’ goobers. Yo’ ’low dat goobers grow in dish yer kentry, Mas’r Ralph?”