Bushy

Two weeks after Bushy’s ride on the bucking broncho the train of miners reached Whitestone, a place in the mountains where it was reported that great gold strikes had been made. It was pretty high up, and nothing but what was absolutely necessary to the maintenance of life had so far been freighted there. The miners were living principally in tents. A few log cabins had been built, but they were given up to the men with families. Bushy was full of joy to learn that a Mr. Delaney had two girls and one boy in his family, and that Mr. Hogan, with his wife and a beautiful blue-eyed girl of seven, lived only a few yards from the place where Mr. Sukolt pitched his tent. The nights were very cool, and often it took both camp-fires and buffalo robes to keep the people warm who lived in tents. Mr. Sukolt and Tom and Shanks concluded that their first duty was to build a cabin.

“What good would a rich find do us if a storm came and caught us without a house, and any of the four should get sick and die?” said Mr. Sukolt. So, while the other men in the party went off and prospected for gold, Bushy’s people cut pine-logs, and spent the first three days in building three small cabins close together. One was for Bushy to have all by herself and to be used in the day-time as a kind of sitting-room. The other two were, one for a kitchen and one for a sleeping-room for the men. The beds were made of pine-brush and autumn leaves, with buffalo robes spread over them. Bushy had never lived in such a beautiful home, for there was more room here than they had had at Great Pine Mine. She was quite well now, and delighted in the work of fixing up the room.

“Come over and help me,” said Bushy to Mollie Delaney on the third morning. Mollie and Bushy had, until this time, simply looked at each other; but Johnny, a boy of eight, had made up with Bushy on the first day, and helped carry the leaves, and drove nails, and tagged after Bushy wherever she went.

Mollie disappeared for a second; then came out of the cabin with a roll of something under her arm.

“My father is a baker; don’t you want a loaf of bread?” said Mollie as she reached Bushy. She thrust the loaf into Bushy’s hands, and then, evidently thinking she had made friends, sat down on the bed to see if it were as soft as hers.

It was a great thing to give a loaf of bread in those days, because flour was at this time $60 a sack, and white bread was a luxury. Mr. Delaney was baker for the camp.

“Your father must be a nice man,” murmured Bushy. She remembered the time she had tried to make biscuits, and knew from experience it was a rare art to be able to make bread well.

“He is a nice man when he doesn’t drink,” said Mollie. “He is awful when the miners sell him whiskey. We all have to keep away from him. That’s why I am glad to come over here now. Bill Murphy got a big bottle of whiskey, when he went for the mail yesterday, and he sold it to my father for ten loaves of bread. Dad’s drunk now in the cabin, and when he wakes up we are going to keep him locked in till he gets sober again.”

Bushy felt very sorry for Mollie, because her own father never drank, neither did Shanks. Tom took a little once in a while, but not enough to “kill a mosquito,” he said. The two girls played in the cabin, fixing up everything they could find to make the place pretty, and had forgotten all about Johnny and little Belle Hogan and the drunken father. The mother had died of mountain fever months ago, so Mollie was the housekeeper. Suddenly little Belle’s voice in a shrill scream brought both girls to their feet, and with blanched faces they rushed to the door and tried to get outside to see what was the matter. The door stuck, and even with their united force would not open. Scream after scream rent the air. Then came curses and growlings in a man’s voice, followed by sharp cries from Johnny.

“Father is doing something dreadful!” gasped Mollie, and again she tugged away at the door, but it would not open.

“The window!” shouted Bushy. She pulled Mollie toward the opening in the wall that passed for a window and said, “Climb on my back and jump out.”

“But aren’t you coming, too?” asked Mollie.

“Yes, yes!” answered Bushy, and when Mollie had jumped to the ground, her playfellow was by her side in an instant.

“Oh, Dad! don’t, Dad!” cried Johnny.

“Mollie! Mollie! where are you?” wailed little Belle.

That was all the girls could hear as they ran in the direction of Mollie’s home. They were obliged to go the full length of the three new cabins, then around a jutting corner of rock that marked the flat mountain top on which the few cabins had been built.

A terrible scene met the eyes of the two little girls as they rounded the rock. Mr. Delaney had wakened up with his brain on fire from the dreadful whiskey he had taken, and without saying a word he had softly slipped up behind little Johnny, who was busy whittling. His father gripped him with both hands, and before he knew what had happened Johnny was astride a wild colt that one of the miners had tied to a tree, meaning to break him for hauling logs the next day. The colt could not get away, but kicked and jumped about, throwing Johnny, of course, just as soon as his crazy father let go of him. It was a miracle how the lad escaped being danced upon by the colt, but he did, and started away on a run. Mr. Delaney was swifter than the boy, and with a fiendish yell clapped his poor little son on the wild animal again, saying: “It is capital fun; begorra, and it is, Johnny!”

It was just as Johnny was forced on the horse the second time that Bushy and Mollie came in sight. The colt raced like mad, around and around the tree. Finally, when he came near the log cabin where Mollie lived, he bucked and kicked his hind feet so high that he almost went over on his head. Mollie and Bushy stood still, almost paralyzed with fear. Little Johnny flew high up in the air and then came down on the slanting roof of the cabin. Bushy realized that something must be done right away, and when Johnny rolled off and fell limp and still on the rocky ground, she started to run as fast as she could in the opposite direction. One would have thought that she was afraid, but Bushy had a plan already formed, and she had to run if she hoped to carry it out. Mr. Delaney went up to Johnny and tried to make him stand up, so he could “ride the pretty horse again.”

“Oh, don’t leave us!” screamed Mollie, when she saw Bushy start for the cabin.

“I must get a knife to cut the colt loose. Hurry and get me a lariat; don’t you see he is going to put Johnny on again?”

Mollie was a brave girl when she knew what to do, so she started for the rope. Little Belle had heard Bushy’s order as she stood trembling like a leaf in the cabin door. She got the butcher-knife and met her half way, but, quick as they had been, the crazy man had already tried to throw Johnny once more on the colt’s back.

“If he gets Johnny on I must not cut the rope,” thought Bushy, “for then the colt would surely kill him.” Ah! the colt jumped and left Mr. Delaney still holding the unconscious boy in his hands.

“Hold up, Mr. Delaney, and let me help you!” called Bushy, and she slyly slipped near the frightened colt and scared the animal farther away. Then running to the tree she climbed it by grasping the sides of the trunk with her knees and lifting herself up to where the rope was tied. With one quick cut the halter was half severed. Another and another made it so weak that a hard pull by the colt broke it in two, and the creature dashed away down the mountain as much frightened as any of the people he left behind.

“So that is your game, my little lady!” cried Mr. Delaney, and his fiery eyes glared and his bloated face grew black with rage. He dropped Johnny and started for Bushy. She had expected such a movement and fell like a cat to the ground, screamed for Belle and Mollie to take Johnny into the cabin and bar the door, then stuck the butcher-knife in her belt, snatched the lariat out of Mollie’s hand and made ready to defend herself. The lariat was of no use unless she could get room and time to swing it. She decided to lead the frenzied man around the cabins, mixing him up if possible, so she could get far enough away to make the right swing and finally catch him in the loop. Mr. Delaney was not “drunk in his legs.” He could run and walk as well as he ever did; his drunkenness was in the brain, and he imagined that Bushy had cheated him out of some fun, and he was going to punish her for it. While he and Bushy were playing that awful hide and seek around first one cabin and then the other, Mollie and Belle carried Johnny into the cabin and barred the door, leaving little Belle inside and Mollie on the outside, for Mollie wanted to help Bushy—she was no coward. There were no holes big enough in the Delaney cabin for a person to climb in or out, and feeling safe about Johnny and Belle, Mollie grew braver. She rushed over to Mrs. Hogan’s cabin and pounded on the door, but got no reply. It seemed very strange that there should be no one except the drunken man and the three children in the camp.

“Bushy! Bushy!” she cried, “we must get into the cabin.”

“I dropped the butcher-knife and he has it. He is just as apt to hurt himself as he is us,” Bushy panted, as she ran up to Mollie.

Mr. Delaney was not in sight, but could not be far away.

“You go back in the cabin and get a gun; is there one there?”

“Yes,” cried Mollie, excitedly; “but you wouldn’t shoot my father, would you?”

“I could lame him, Mollie, just so he could not kill Johnny or any of the rest of us. Where are all the people, I wonder.

“Get the revolver or gun or anything that will shoot, and be ready with it at the door if he chases me there, and”——

A scream from Mollie made Bushy turn, and there close behind them was the furious madman. Mollie ran toward the cabin, and little Belle, who was watching through the cracks between the logs, opened the door and let her in. Mollie grabbed the rifle and waited at the door for Bushy, who, she supposed, was immediately behind her; but Bushy, who was a faster runner, had got far enough away already and was swinging the lariat preparing to catch the crazy man if possible. Mr. Delaney caught sight of the rope as it swung toward him, and instead of dodging it, he stupidly stood still and waited for it to fall. Bushy could scarcely believe her eyes when she saw the loop quietly settle over him. With a quick jerk she tightened the rope, and with another she threw the man to the ground.

“Mollie, Mollie, come quick!” cried Bushy, in her fright and excitement. She wound the rope about Mr. Delaney, binding him fast to a tree, which he had gradually backed against. Mollie got an extra rope, which the two girls added to the length of the lariat, and when at last the man was safely bound, the children looked up to see the whole camp hurrying toward them.

The miners were puzzled at first, till the girls told their story. Then old Bob looked at the raving drunkard as he stood bound to the tree—Bushy still held the end of the rope—and then turning to the crowd that had gathered so suddenly around her, he said: “The find is Bushy’s, by George! You don’t need to congratulate me any longer, boys. There stands the owner of my first strike. Bless her!”