Bushy

“The supply-wagons are ten days late,” said Mr. Sukolt, anxiously; “and I am beginning to grow uneasy, for we are getting out of everything to eat, as well as powder and fuse for the mine.”

Mr. Sukolt, Shanks, and Tom were talking the matter over one night after they had returned from the mine, and had half concluded that if the wagons did not make their appearance by the next evening somebody ought to go down to the fort for news of them.

“It might be,” said Shanks, “that the Indians have overtaken the freight teams, killed the teamsters and carried off the mules and supplies.”

“Wal, there ain’t no use waitin’; a feller can’t work without he’s got grub that’ll stick to his ribs,” spoke up Tom. Shanks suggested, however, that they hang on until the last of the week and then take a load of ore with them to the valley. It was then Monday evening.

“I guess you are right, Tom,” Shanks laughingly admitted. “I feel myself as if I’d forgotten how potatoes taste, and if you don’t go soon, I’ll forget how they look.”

“I think you had better go,” said Mr. Sukolt, turning to Shanks, “because, should there be need of a doctor’s service, you know what to do.”

“Oh, please hurry and go,” chimed in Bushy, who was helping her father clean and polish his old musket and listening to what was said with the interest she always paid to subjects pertaining to the welfare of the camp. “I’m so tired, too, eating bear and johnny-cake all the time. I wish we had some flour so Tom could give us some more of those biscuits that are so good with molasses.”

The men all laughed as they gazed on Bushy’s eager face, and her father declared that Shanks should go in the morning if she was as hungry as she looked at that moment.

“Oh, no, Padre, I didn’t mean to be so selfish as that sounded,” she cried, as she kissed his bronze cheek and gave him a bearish hug. “I can eat what the rest eat; but I was so afraid that you were going to wait till the last of the week, and there is only the tiniest bit of molasses in the keg, and you men folks won’t eat johnny-cake or flapjacks without it.”

The next day wore slowly away. The hours seemed very long indeed to Bushy, who was longing for the good things in the wagons that were expected. Mr. Sukolt went out a dozen times to a high point on the mountain-side that overlooked the winding road. He swept the landscape far and near with a powerful field-glass, but he could see no signs of the freight wagons. So Shanks started for the fort early the next morning. It would take him four days to make the trip and perhaps longer, for it was agreed that if he did not meet the wagons he was to get a few supplies from the fort. In that case he would have to walk and pack the things on his pony.

Work was slack at the mine, for they were entirely out of blasting powder by this time, so when Bushy suddenly broke into her game of “cat’s cradle” with Tom, and cried: “Padre, Padre, let’s go berrying!” her father and Tom gladly assented. Buckets were soon ready, and Ned was saddled so that Bushy could ride. It was four miles up the gulch to where the berries grew. They were wild raspberries of a beautiful luscious red, which no tame raspberry can equal in flavor. They grow on the steepest mountains, choosing to push their hardy roots under great rocks and nestling close to fallen timbers, as if trying to hide themselves altogether.

The prickly, dwarfed bushes were bending almost to the ground beneath their load of fruit. Bushy could scarcely wait to tie Ned, she was so eager to be picking.

“Now, Bushy, you stay here by Ned and pick in this patch, and Tom and I will go farther up,” said Mr. Sukolt, as he handed her two small tin pails.

“All right,” said Bushy; “I’ll race both of you, and let’s see who gets a pailful first.”

She began very well and picked hard for five minutes, but then forgot all about the race, and a great many more berries found their way into her pretty mouth than into the pail. She picked on for perhaps an hour, but even then one pail was still empty, and the other only half full. She had forgotten all about her father and Tom, she was so interested in crushing the largest and plumpest berries between her lips, when all at once she was startled by a great snort from Ned.

Springing to her feet she looked wildly around. Ned was pulling at his halter, rearing and plunging, snorting and trembling. His eyes seemed to be starting from their sockets. Bushy’s heart was beating fast, and something seemed to be choking her. In a soothing tone she called: “Whoa, Ned! whoa, old boy! nothing is going to hurt you.”

She had just started toward him when suddenly her heart stood still and she stopped, for over the top of a bowlder she saw two gleaming eyes fastened upon her. For a second they disappeared, but were soon followed by a huge dark-brown bear. He came shambling toward her, his wicked white teeth gleaming in his open jaws. He was grunting with satisfaction, like a pig expecting a good dinner.

Bushy stood as if she had been turned to stone; her face was as white as the snow that covered the tops of the tall mountain peaks. All this time poor Ned, who was tied not more than a dozen yards away, had been trembling in every muscle. It seemed as if he appreciated Bushy’s danger, and he stretched his long neck as far as he could in her direction and opened his mouth wide as if he wanted to snatch her from the path of the dreaded animal. At last he could bear his suffering no longer, and his agony found vent in a peculiar cry which sounded much like a human shriek.

This drew the bear’s attention away from Bushy. He uttered an angry growl and raised himself upon his haunches, the hair about his head and neck standing erect. He looked steadily at Ned a few seconds. His angry eyes glowed like coals and his teeth snapped together after every growl. It seemed to Bushy that in the twinkling of an eye the bear had covered the distance between him and Ned, but he had not been quicker than Bushy herself.

The little girl, who had been unable to move in her own defence, was all courage when she saw her poor horse in danger. Quickly reaching for the revolver which hung by her side, she fired rapidly three shots at the bear. One of the bullets evidently took effect and wounded him. This only served to enrage the bear still more. Ned gave a wild leap and broke his halter, but it was too late. The bear had reached him, and there ensued a sight that Bushy will never forget to her dying day. The savage growls of the bear, poor Ned’s pitiful neighs and cries of agony as the cruel claws tore through his flesh—ah, she hears them yet!

Bushy ran up quite close to the struggling animals, never thinking of the danger to herself, and kept on firing at the bear. Mr. Sukolt came tearing down the mountain-side, for he had heard the reports of the revolver, and reached the scene just as the bear fell from Ned’s back, mortally wounded.

“Keep away, keep away, Bushy! Don’t go near him; he may tear you to pieces even if he is dying,” screamed her father, as he came in sight and saw her danger.

“Hurry!” shouted Bushy. “I’m afraid Ned is dreadfully hurt.”

Tom came bounding over the rocks and fallen timbers, spilling berries at every jump. Mr. Sukolt fired a shot at the bear, but this was useless, as Bruin was already quite dead. Poor Ned, it was all over with him. He turned his head feebly toward Bushy as she knelt by him, and in his intelligent eyes there was a look that was pitiful to see.

“Oh, Ned! Oh, poor dear, dear Ned!” cried Bushy, the tears streaming down her face. “Padre! Tom! can’t you do something for him? See, he is all torn and bleeding. Ned, old fellow, Bushy loves you so! Bushy was wrong to tie you so you couldn’t get away. Ned, Ned, Ned! Don’t die, Ned!”

She held his head in her lap and kissed his big, sorrowful eyes.

“Padre, can’t you do something?” she cried again.

Mr. Sukolt and Tom both sadly shook their heads. Bushy threw her arms about the neck of the dying horse and wept bitterly. Then she tried to lift his head, talked lovingly to him, coaxed him, and kissed him, but Ned made no sign that he heard his little mistress’s voice, for he was dead—poor, dear Ned was dead!