Bushy

It was not very long before another pony was brought to the little girl.

“Don’t believe you will do at all,” said Bushy, “but I’ll try you.” Jip, for that was the new horse’s name, turned his head and looked appealingly at the child who thought he was not good enough for her.

“I don’t mean that you are not a fine pony,” continued Bushy, patting him lovingly on the nose, and then turning to continue braiding his mane, “but you will never be bright like poor Ned. You can’t imagine the wonderful things that Ned took me through. Why, there was the trip up Stone Gulch, when poor Spott was killed by that Indian who thought he was going to get Padre’s scalp, sure; then at Cross Roads he helped me save the soldier’s life by standing so firm when I lariated him. But you are a stupid little Indian pony and don’t know anything about lariating. Oh! I know you won’t ever do. You are stupid and haven’t heard one word I have said.” She grabbed him by the head and shook him with all her might.

Bushy had a big comb that one of the miners had made out of a piece of pine shingle, and with it she was combing out the long, silky mane that almost swept the ground. Tom said he had never seen so long a mane on any of the Western ponies.

“Oh, listen to me, Jip; you are so impolite! Padre always punishes me when I don’t look at him if he talks. I tell you that Ned was much smarter than you, because just think how he took me through the snow to the very edge of the shanty when it was under the snow-slide! You couldn’t do that. Now, could you, Jip?”

Bushy threw her arms about the Indian pony’s neck again and putting her lips close to his ear, whispered: “He carried me safe to the blacksmith’s when the wolves were after me. Do you think you could do that, Jip?”

Jip gazed wonderingly in Bushy’s face and neighed as much as to say he could.

“Why, you dear old fellow, you do understand me after all, and I guess you are half as good as Ned! But would you save me from the big mountain bear? Ned did. He snorted and screamed so that the bear attacked him instead of me. If Ned had not been the best and loveliest horse in the world I would have been scratched to death. Ugh!

“Oh, Jip, dear, do stand still and don’t look at me all the time; it crooks your neck so that I can’t see if the braids are all made. What a funny pony you are! Sometimes you won’t look at all, then you are licking my hand all the time. I bet you want sugar. We are out of sugar. I put the last bit in Padre’s coffee this morning, and we are not going to send for any more, because we are going away. Oh, Jip, I must tell you all about it.”

With one spring she landed on Jip’s back, and then stretching herself at full length she clutched his mane and said: “Do you know how you came to belong to me, Jip? It’s a long, long story, but I tell it to myself every day. I loved Ned next to Padre, and after the wicked bear had killed him, I cried until Tom carried me home. I can’t bear to think of anything turning over on its side and shutting its eyes that way. Oh, Jip, dear, will you do that, too, just when I get to loving you so hard?”

Bushy cried softly to herself and Jip grew uneasy. “Never mind, Jip; I am coming to the nice part soon. When we got home that night after the berrying, Shanks and the boys and the wagons were all there, and you were tied to the feed-box at the back of the train-master’s wagon. You broke your halter and came right up to me. You thought I was your little mistress—your poor little mistress that was killed. Do you think I will do, Jip? Maybe you don’t like me half as well as you did the little Indian girl that the wagon-master said was dead and hanging to the funny kind of a saddle you had on your back. Do you think you can like me a wee, tiny bit, Jip?”

Bushy anxiously reached out her hand and twisted Jip’s head about so she could look into his large, intelligent eyes.

“The wagon-master’s name was Bill, and he said that you were wandering over the valley at the foot of the mountain range with this dead girl dangling across your back. When he tried to lariat you you were naughty and ran away. The morning after they saw you first, Bill woke up early and went out to see what was disturbing the train horses, and there you were, eating out of one of the feed-boxes, just as if you were starved to death. Bill slipped up behind you and threw the bridle over your head, and it was no good to try and get away then.

“The little Indian girl was a very pretty little girl, so Bill said, and you must have loved her very much, Jip, ’cause Bill said you pawed the ground and cried and cried when they took her off your back. You almost killed one of the train boys, but that was because you did not want them to take her away, I guess. They buried your princess by the roadside and tied you to Bill’s wagon. He said you made friends with no one until you saw me. You broke the strap and bounded up to me just as if you thought I was the Indian Princess—poor Jip! You had lost your little girl and I had lost Ned.”

Again Bushy gave way to soft crying, and Jip grew unhappy and whinnied and pawed the soft dirt beneath his feet.

“Bill told me he guessed the little Indian girl belonged to a tribe that passed up north on the west side of the range, and he heard some miners over there say they had caught them driving off their stock, so they sent out ten men to get back the horses. Ever so many Indians were shot before they would run away and leave the stock, and he thinks that is the way the little girl got killed. She had tied herself on with a rawhide whip and some strips made of her buckskin skirt. Bill says, that shows she was not killed outright, but lived long enough to fasten herself on your back. Poor little girl! Maybe she thought you would take her back to her father. Bill thinks you did not know where to go because the tribe was moving north.

“And now you are mine, all mine, Jip,” said Bushy, brightening into her old self again. “As soon as Bill heard that Ned was up in the mountains, never to come down any more, why, he just put the rope that was about your neck into my hands and said: ‘There, Bushy, I knew Jip was meant for some special thing. He was sent to us in such an odd way. He is yours, Bushy, with my compliments.’ Ha! ha! that is the way he did it, Jip. Do listen! You are growing stupid and are not taking in half I say.”

Slipping off his back she pounded him in play on his head and then kissed his eyes and patted his nose.

“I am going to ride you all the way to the new home. Padre is going and I am going and so is Tom and so is Shanks. We are going because Padre has sold the mine to a rich man who came with the train of freight wagons, and we are going back—back—oh, I don’t know where it is we are going, but Padre knows. Then he will ’tend to some mining business and maybe we will go into Mexico, where Ned was born, and maybe I’ll get some books and some clothes like the little girls Tom tells about, but, Jip”——

“Bushy!” called a voice from the shanty, “where are you, and what are you thinking about? It is way past the time to take the lunch to the miners!”

“Gracious! It is all Jip’s fault; he kept me talking so long,” replied Bushy as she bounded into the shanty. “Say, Tom, I like Jip. We have made up,” and snatching the pail of hot dinner she swung it on her arm and jumping on Jip he made his first trip to the mine. Next day they started away in covered wagons—two of them, with three old saddle-horses, Bushy’s Jip, and old Rover trotting on behind.