Bushy

“Halloo! What are you two old fellows talking about, that you stop short the minute I come in,” said Bushy as she stood in the doorway with her arms loaded down with the fresh pine-boughs she had gathered, with which to make the supper-fire.

“About you, Puss.”

The wood tumbled in a heap at her feet. Something in her father’s voice told her that all was not well. She put her arms, still fragrant with the perfume of the pine, about his neck, and asked: “Are you ill, Padre? Have I been so long getting the wood for the fire? Oh, I have found a new bird to-night and could not come in till I had learned to sing his song. I fooled him, too. He thought I was his mate calling, and came so close that I caught him. Here he is,” she exclaimed as she drew from her breast a frightened bird that gladly escaped through the door when tossed up to amuse her father. “I know that I am a naughty little woman, but you don’t mind, do you?” Then she hugged him tight.

“Oh, Padre! why didn’t you tell me? I did hurt you, didn’t I?”

She fell on her knees before him and began to examine the foot.

“A rock in the mine got loosened some way,” said Tom, “and as we were coming out to-night it fell, grazing your father’s head and mashing his foot. We ought not to complain, Mr. Sukolt, for an inch to the left and it would have been your brains instead of blood we left there.”

“Who dressed it?” inquired Bushy, noticing that it was bandaged.

“I did the best I could, but what I was suggesting was that you go for Shanks, who is at the blacksmith’s. He was a surgeon before he came to the mines, and, I think, ought to see this foot; I fear the bones are broken; the flesh is so cut I can’t make anything out.”

By the time Tom had finished his sentence Bushy was half dressed for the journey. She was sitting on the shanty floor winding strips of coffee-sack about her feet and legs, for the night was bitterly cold. Tom got down to assist her.

“Now, you two are so quick you don’t give me time to think,” said her father, watching them as they hurried through the preparations. “I wish some one besides Bushy could do this. Look here, Tom, don’t you think it possible to manage Ned?”

“It’s no use, Padre, to lose time that way,” spoke up Bushy; “he threw Tom yesterday, and you know he acts as if Old Nick himself were in him when any one else gets on his back. It’s an awful nuisance, and I’m going to break him of it if I have to break his neck, so there! but it won’t do to try now, with your foot mashed like that. Wrap your shawl about my head, Tom, please, and then tie it in a knot behind. There, that’s the way; now I am ready. Do you think I can take the short cut?”

“Oh, how the snow blows!” exclaimed Mr. Sukolt. “I don’t think it wise, Bushy; the bridge at the ravine might be snowed over. Tom, come here quick and loosen the bandage. I fear I cannot stand the pain, it”——

Mr. Sukolt bent over, tried to move his foot, and fainted.

“Don’t leave him, Tom,” screamed Bushy. “I can saddle Ned myself,” and, giving one tearful look at her father, she took from the wall Ned’s bridle and went out.

At last all was ready; buckling about her waist the belt that carried two revolvers, and drawing on her thick mitts, she jumped on Ned and away they went.

Through the cold wind and blinding snow they ran, up one hill, down another—Ned knew the way to the blacksmith’s and so did Bushy. There was no fear. On, on they sped, until they came to the point where she must take the short cut or the longer route.

“I’ll do it,” said Bushy aloud—she often talked to Ned as if he were a boy companion. “We’ll make an hour by going this way, so on with you, old fellow, and no falls, no stumbles, for we can’t afford any accidents to-night, with the Padre lying so white and still in the shanty.”

Ned shortened his long strides and began to pick his way over a snow-drift, when in the quiet that fell about them a faint bark, way, way off in the distance was heard. Ned stood stock still, raised both ears straight up, turned his head toward the west, then toward the east, and listened. Bushy’s heart beat so loud she could hear it go thump, thump, against her ribs.

“Padre mio! not wolves, not wolves!” she murmured. “Oh, Ned, Ned, you can never take me through a pack of wolves!” Another bark, and another and another came more distinctly to their ears. Ned gave one snort and plunged forward so suddenly he almost unseated Bushy, but she grabbed the pommel, regained a firm seat, took up the reins and cried: “Go it, Ned! we are in for a race for life or death. On with you! but if you stumble you will never have Bushy to ride you any more.”

There was no need to urge Ned; he was running as fast as he could.

“If they come in sight I’ll try to shoot the head one; it always makes a break in their running, for they are a cowardly lot without a leader,” thought Bushy.

Finally Ned struck a long stretch of road that circled a mountain.

“Now they will come in sight before we get around this,” thought Bushy, and so they did. Nearer and nearer came the pack, with their fiendish yelling and howling that frightened poor Ned until he became almost unmanageable.

“Whoa! whoa! Ned. They are gaining on us. I’ve got to kill one or we are lost. Whoa! there’s a good fellow! Whoa!”

Bushy braced herself well, as Ned slackened into a steady run without the irregular strides he made in his wild dash; then, turning and taking aim, she held on to the back of the saddle with her left hand, and when the wolves gained so that they were in range of her revolver she fired.

I have told you before that Bushy was a good shot, and this time her aim was not false; the leader of the pack fell, and the others went tumbling over him. It caused a halt, as Bushy had thought it would. The greedy animals, imagining that something, perhaps Bushy herself, had tumbled off for their hungry mouths to devour, made a decided halt. Bushy fired again and killed a second, which Tom afterward told her was a very foolish thing to do. She might need her ammunition, he said, and it was only a waste to kill two at one halt, when there was no possible hope of ever killing them all.

Ned needed but one word of encouragement to stretch his legs again to their utmost. But soon came another danger in the form of a broken bridge ahead of them. You remember Mr. Sukolt mentioned the bridge over the ravine. It was not drifted over, as he feared it would be, but gone; and Ned was going at a madder speed then ever and the wolves were barking louder and were quite close.

Bushy saw that of the two evils she must select the lesser, and that was to try to make Ned jump the fissure. There was no time to check Ned if she wanted to, and if she could have done it it would be to throw the two in the teeth of the starving animals already at their heels. It seemed death, try either way, but she screamed: “Oh, Ned, Ned, Ned, jump, jump for Padre’s sake, jump!” She gave him one quick stroke with her bare hand—she had lost her mittens—and Ned at the word “jump” pricked up his ears and looked about, for he knew what that meant. He had jumped many a wide place for Bushy before, but nothing like this. He saw the space and gave a wild long leap that landed him on the other side, but on the very edge, and there he balanced for a minute, as if he were going to the bottom after all.

I don’t know how it happened, but Bushy swung off and pulled hard on the bridle and some way helped Ned keep his footing, and they were saved. I don’t suppose it could ever be done again, and I am sure Bushy would never attempt it. The new leader of the band of wolves went headlong into the opening and down to the very bottom, where he was dashed to pieces. The others stopped on the edge and howled. Bushy, with half-frozen hands, reached the blacksmith’s, and, leaving Ned there—for he was badly sprained—she took a new horse and, joined by Shanks, went the long way back to Great Pine Mine.

Bushy’s mad run had made the time much shorter than it would have been otherwise, so Shanks was with Mr. Sukolt in time to prevent any very bad results from the delay in setting the foot.

The miners to this day tell about Bushy’s ride, and say General Putnam’s break-neck plunge down the rocks with the British after him was nothing compared to Bushy’s leap with the pack of howling wolves at her heels.