Bushy

Three days after Willie’s narrow escape, Mr. Sukolt and his party arrived at Silver City, a mining camp consisting of seven cabins and one paying mine.

“I must stay here one day to give the horses and mules a rest and have a chance to look over this district,” said Mr. Sukolt to Tom and Shanks early in the morning as their wagons drew up to the spring about which were gathered all the men of the little place. The animals were unhitched. The miners were only too glad to have Mr. Sukolt examine the property. They wanted the children to go along with them to the mines, but both preferred amusing themselves in their own way.

“We will take Rover with us and have some fun,” said Bushy to Willie. “Tom says there is no fear of Indians about here, because they are afraid of the white men when there are a lot living together.”

“They did not get me and my mamma, did they, Bushy?” laughed Willie as he felt for the tender spot on his head where the cruel knife had slashed through the skin.

“You look awful funny, Willie, with two big curls gone. Why don’t you cut them all off and give me half to remember you by?”

“I like you, Bushy, and will give them all to you; won’t you cut them off?”

Willie looked so pleadingly into Bushy’s face that she tried to think she ought to take them, yet in her heart she felt guilty over coveting the fair hair. “If you want them cut off very, very much, why I can do it for you, but they are awfully pretty curls, Willie.”

Bushy felt better after saying that.

“Never mind, you cut them all the same,” cried Willie. “Let us go up the canyon where nobody will know it before it is all over with.”

“Perhaps we had better tell the Padre,” remarked Bushy, timidly. But Willie had fled around the corner of the wagon and diving his hand into the provision box that was still on the camp ground had secured a pair of dull scissors that the men used for cutting canvas and rope fastenings. “Here,” he cried, thrusting them into her hand; “now, let’s hurry. Rover, come Rover, we want you!”

The children ran off, chasing butterflies, gathering flowers, and forgetting all about the hair-cutting scheme.

It was fully half an hour before a peal of thunder announced that, as Bushy put it, “the clouds were fighting.” The children were now following a path which led close to a precipice. Great trees grew on the mountain-side a little way above, and Willie broke from Bushy’s clinging hand and sought shelter underneath the branches of the largest one.

“Oh, Willie, Willie, don’t do that. Don’t you know if the lightning strikes, it will surely take the tall trees and you would be killed. Come away! do, Willie; don’t be afraid of the rain; it won’t hurt you.”

By this time the water was coming down in great sheets. Bushy could scarcely see Willie. The thunder roared and bellowed, and though Bushy called to the boy again, she knew he could not hear her. The lightning kept up a continual flashing. Willie cried and clung with both arms to the trunk of the pine-tree.

“I’ll go pull him away; he must not stay there,” thought Bushy as she started up the mountain-side. Just then there was a flash of lightning that not only blinded her but threw her flat upon the ground.

“Ah, that struck somewhere close.” A scream from Willie relieved her, yet it seemed a long time before she could get on her feet and look for him. “Oh! Willie, that is worse than ever,” she cried, as he, in his fright, fled from the first tree and sought shelter under one close to the path. Another flash, accompanied by a cracking and crashing and a whirl of wind, told Bushy one of those awful mountain wind-storms was on them.

“Throw yourself on the ground,” screamed Bushy, but Willie could not hear. In his alarm he started again to run and Bushy ran after him, begging him to stop and let them hide behind some of the great rocks near. A deafening peal of thunder made him seek a tree again and throw his arm around it.

The wind now rushed upon them, and at times would lift Bushy entirely from her feet and hurl her roughly against the rocks; once she almost went over the cliff.

“Oh! if Willie would only mind,” she thought as she struggled on to overtake him; “we may both be killed if we keep in the open path this way.”

“Padre mio! what was that?” she tumbled all in a heap and could not get up. Something heavy had rolled down upon her buckskin jacket and held her fast. It was the heavy limb of a tree broken off by the wind. Peal after peal of thunder rattled until she could not think, and lightning played around her in the most alarming manner. “The scissors! the scissors!” she screamed. “They are doing all this.” With an effort she cast them from her belt.

A loud barking filled her heart with joy. “Rover, has come! Rover, here, Rover!” she called, and he came bounding upon her with his shaggy coat wet and dripping.

“Go to Willie! Hunt Willie!” she commanded, at the same time freeing herself from the limb with a sudden effort.

She turned and looked down the path where she had seen Willie last. “He is gone!” she gasped, and her heart stood still in terror. Rover leaped to the edge of the precipice and began to howl dreadfully.

“The tree has been struck with lightning,” was her second exclamation. “Padre, Padre, I wish you were here,” wailed Bushy, running with all her might to the place and looking down to the water below.

“Willie!” she screamed.

There was no reply except the thunder, which continued to roar. Leaning way over and looking down the precipice she got a glimpse of Willie’s blouse as he lay on the very edge of a jutting rock that extended out into the water below.

“Willie, can you hear me?” No answer. “Hush, Rover, you make me want to cry,” said Bushy, as Rover set up another series of mournful whines.

Bushy realized that the water would gradually wash Willie into the swift stream, and he would be carried away never to be seen again.

“Oh, why have I neither rope nor revolver!” she cried. “Three shots from my revolver would bring any of the men to us. Padre always knows by three shots that I want him. No rope, nothing!”

She stopped talking and worked her way back to the place where she had thrown away the scissors. “If I can make a rope by cutting my jacket and skirt into strips I can get to Willie and hold him on the rocks till some one comes to find us.”

To make the rope long enough she used every bit of her clothing, except her little flannel pants and waist. Her stockings were both knotted in. It took her a long time to tie the strips together, because the wind was strong and the rain pelted her, but finally she fastened the improvised rope around the trunk of the blighted tree and began to let herself down. The buckskin held strong.

Carefully, carefully she descended, until at last her feet touched Willie’s body. She caught hold of his golden curls, and thus securing him, she succeeded in moving about over the rocks until she got a safe place to stand on.

“I’ll hold you, Willie, dear,” she said, and after tying the rope about her waist, so she could not be washed away, she drew him closer to her, and thus with her arms wound about him and half chilled, her father found her an hour later.

Rover’s barking as he kept watch above had attracted the miners to the spot. Mr. Sukolt had not worried about the children, thinking they were with the wagons.

“Give me the rope,” cried Mr. Sukolt, in a husky voice, as he took in the situation. A miner handed over a lariat which he had taken along to lower the bucket into the mine, and before the men realized what had happened, Mr. Sukolt had swung down beside the children. Then balancing himself by clinging to Bushy’s rope he called for the men to haul up the other, attach the bucket and lower it immediately.

Willie, limp and unconscious, was put in first. The storm was now over, and an almost dreadful stillness reigned. The bucket slowly ascended. The men said not a word when they lifted out the little boy and again lowered the bucket for Bushy. Bushy had only murmured, “I could not help it, Padre; he would go under the tree and the lightning struck him.” Her white face set with pain and cold, grew whiter as her father tenderly lifted her from her cramped position.

Silently she was hoisted to the top. One of the miners wound his coat close about her while another rubbed her chilled feet in his warm hands. Mr. Sukolt then came, hand over hand up the rope, and the little procession moved down toward the camp at Silver City.