Bushy

“I’ll give you the finest set of gold jewelry I can find if you beat me killing Rocky Mountain sheep,” said Tom to Bushy one day the following summer, when she was boasting that she had killed almost as many as he, and would have beaten him long ago if she had had the same opportunities.

“Oh, it’s safe enough to say that,” exclaimed Bushy; “for where can you find jewelry out here? How many have you killed in your life, Tom?”

“Ten, counting the little one that I brought down last week.”

“Why, I’ve killed just that many, too,” cried Bushy, clapping her hands. “I’m even with you. I’ll wager I kill the next one. Let me see, I’ll give you”——

“I’ll bet you that set of jewelry if I ever live to go East again,” interrupted Tom, taking hold of Bushy’s hands and spinning her about like a top. “I’ll bet you the whole set of pretty things—say a necklace like the lady in the picture wears, earrings and brooch, and, yes, and a pendant to show off your neck when in full dress as you were when you played Queen of the Mountains. I’ll bet you all that against”——

“Make it something that I shall have to buy when I go to the big city, too, Tom,” exclaimed Bushy, stopping long enough in her whirling to throw her arms about him and peep up coyly into his face. “Let it be a beautiful wig of curly black hair, with just a tiny bit of gray in it like your dear old head used to wear.” There was a suspicion of a tremble in her voice and the eyes grew dangerously moist, threatening a shower of tears if she kept long on the subject.

“All right,” cried Tom, and he called out to Shanks and Mr. Sukolt that they must be witnesses to the bet.

“You had better begin to save the gold-dust to-day,” remarked Shanks to Bushy as he cleaned away at his rifle. “Tom said only yesterday that he knew where there were mountain sheep, and he will slip out and bring one in before you even think of cleaning your gun. There is nothing so shy as the mountain sheep or big-horn, and it’s just luck on your part, Bushy, that you killed so many. Tom knows their tricks. I’ll bet you a year’s schooling in any place you like that Tom’ll come out ahead.”

Bushy called the big-horn and mountain goats all sheep. They are almost alike, have recurved horns, sheep-like noses, with a short furry under coat and the upper coat long and shaggy. They are the most difficult to get of all the animals in North America. The herds were even at that time few, and they lived high up in the mountains, taking refuge where often Rover could not follow.

“Since we need meat, suppose you and Bushy try to-day for the goat,” said Mr. Sukolt, just before shouldering his tools for a trip to the mine. “Take Rover along with you and bring in anything you can find.” So it was arranged. Tom and Bushy were soon climbing the peaks and looking down hundreds of feet into the chasms. They went through caverns and crossed ravines; they made bridges of tree-trunks and climbed over rocks that were so steep that they could not keep from falling except by taking off their shoes and clinging to the surface in their stocking feet. Finally they reached a place high in the cliffs where Tom said a herd of goats lived. Just below was a deep gorge, through which a torrent of water madly plunged, at last spreading out into a calm and glistening stream in the valley below.

“There they are,” cried Bushy, suddenly, but Tom was looking down the deep ravine and did not hear. Bushy’s eyes danced, for she thought she could climb behind one of the bowlders and while Tom was searching below, perhaps head off the herd and get a good shot. When the sheep bounded down the mountain-side, she fairly hugged herself with delight that Tom was going directly away from the herd. “They are not more than fifty feet from me,” cried Bushy to herself. Softly, softly she crawled forward. Oh, how steep it was! She must scale one of those smooth red rocks. By going around it she would surely miss getting a shot, but if she could only climb to the top of it and surprise them, her bet would be won.

Up, up she went, with her eyes watching both sides, and her rifle in hand ready to fire on short notice. When almost at the top, she grew careless and slipped. Ah, that was dangerous! “Oh, Tom, I am falling,” she cried, but Tom was out of hearing, and down she rolled over and over, bumpity bump to the very bottom, where a scraggly tree which had worked its way through a crack in the rock caught her, and with its dry branches held her fast.

“Well, I’m much obliged to you, Mr. Tree,” said Bushy, as she scrambled to her feet and looked down the precipice where she would surely have fallen several hundred feet had not her buckskin blouse been clutched by the queer-looking pine-branch.

She was a little scratched but not badly hurt. She took off her stockings, as she should have done in the first place, and began the ascent again. She found the rifle half way up, where she had dropped it when trying to get a hold on the rock to check her fall. Bushy succeeded in reaching a small pine-tree near the top, and there, stretched at full length, she clung to its trunk, drew herself to the very edge and looked over.

The herd was within rifle range, and Bushy grew so excited that she almost had a second tumble. She fired before she was really in a steady position. The rifle bar struck against the edge of the rock and the bullet was sent way to the left of where she had intended it should go. She frightened the sheep, lost her hold, and went sliding way to the bottom of the steep rock again. It was very easy to slide down safely when the sliding was not unexpected, for she spread her arms out and slipped slowly to a point where she could get a good foothold, then with rifle in her right hand she crawled along the very edge of the precipice, hoping to intercept some of the sheep as they would bound by. These sheep are very queer animals. They have such great horns and the head is so well protected with thick wool, too, that they can jump from place to place and fall on their horns, folding their front feet up close to their body, quite hiding and protecting them in the thick woolly coat they wear. Bushy knew they could easily descend, even though she could not.

She passed the steep place and reached a spot where the mountain sloped more gently. “Ah, there is where they will go by,” she said, and planting her feet against the root of a tree that looked as if it had spent the greater part of its life trying to keep from sliding down hill, she reloaded, raised her rifle to her shoulder and waited. A minute later a shout from Tom and wild barking from Rover as they appeared on the grade one hundred feet below, sent the sheep dashing about in a violent flurry, and, as Bushy had anticipated, they crossed her path not fifty feet away. They were wild with fright, and seemed to fairly fly down the precipice, falling with a thump and a bump from one steep place to another. She waited until one beautiful specimen leaped from the rock above her as if to land on a kind of shelf below.

“Those are the horns for me,” she said, and fired when the sheep was in mid-air. The bullet went straight, and the poor fellow fell not far from where Tom and Rover stood watching below. The fall sent his body bouncing down, until Tom and Bushy felt their hearts sink with fear that it would land in some of the gloomy dark gorges where they could never get it.

“You have won,” cried Tom, and he took off his cap and waved it and hallooed with joy. He seemed to rejoice that he had lost, though he really and truly meant to win if he could.

“Not yet,” answered Bushy from her high position on the great red-rock slide. “The Padre said we must have a steak, and Shanks asked for the horns.”

“Come down,” yelled Tom; “we will try and find him.”

By sliding and jumping and rolling, Bushy finally reached Tom and Rover, and then, after she had put on her stockings and moccasins, slowly and carefully they descended.

When they were about to give up the hunt they came plump upon the sheep’s soft body all in a heap where the horns had checked it by catching on to some low brush.

Tom laughed and so did Bushy. They were as happy as two little children over her success. By the aid of the lariat the sheep was lowered down the steepest places, and at other times they bound it on to two sticks and dragged it over the rough rocks without tearing the skin the least bit. It took them four hours to reach the foot of the mountains and get into the path that led directly without obstruction into the camp.

“Now, Tom, carry him,” said Bushy, “and I will take the firearms and ropes.” So Tom, with Bushy’s help, got the body thrown across his shoulders, and grasping the fore feet in one hand and the hind feet in the other he bravely got over the quarter of a mile. He threw the sheep down before Mr. Sukolt and Shanks with the exclamation, “You are in for it, boys. Bushy has won the day. She goes to school, Shanks, at your expense for a year.”