CHAPTER VI
Some time after Bushy had helped save the men from the snow-slide she had an adventure with Rover which was very funny, though Bushy’s heart was almost broken because it ended in the ruin of her one good dress.
This was a pink calico with white moons dotted all over it, and the only dress she had, in fact, for everything else she wore was made of the sacks that the horse-feed and the corn-meal came in. Flour was $100 a sack, so there were very few flour sacks to be used up in clothes for Bushy. It took all they could get to make the undergarments, so dresses generally had to be gunny sacks made over.
This pink calico dress one of the miners had brought from the States when it was his turn to bring the freight, and Bushy only wore it when some special affair was going on. This day she was left all alone in the cabin. Nobody was expected until supper-time. Rover was enjoying the sunshine so much that he could not be induced to enter into a romp—he seemed to like nothing better than to stretch himself full length across the front doorstep and make Bushy go around him or step over him every time she had occasion to go in or out.
“You are a stupid old fellow!” cried Bushy, giving him a soft tap with her bare foot. Rover only winked at her and wagged his shaggy tail.
“You are no company at all,” she added, but Rover did not mind, and this time he was too lazy to wink, but closed his eyes and went sound asleep.
Time hung heavily on her hands; she had written her lesson until both sides of the slate were full; she had swept the cabin and made a roaring fire in the fire-place, that kept the pot of deer meat boiling away like fun. It was an exceptionally warm day for that time of the year, and her father had told her not to go up the mountains hunting, because he was afraid of another snow-slide. The water was running down in streams until quite a little lake was formed in a low spot not far away.
Bushy watched the water running down on all sides and began to wonder how deep the lake was. “I wonder what kind of weather it was last year,” she said to herself—she always talked out loud because she never had any little boys or girls to play with.
Then she hunted up the almanac where her father jotted down all the snow-storms, snow-slides, and everything that he particularly wanted to remember.
“Why, Rover! Rover!” she screamed, running out and shaking him until he was obliged to pay some attention to her, “it is the 17th of June. Padre didn’t know it, I guess. We must have a good time, Rover. Wake up, you sleepy dog!”
Bushy rushed back to the wooden box where she kept her pink dress, and while she sang a merry tune, slipped the pink calico over her head, shook down the little ruffles, buttoned the row of pearl buttons in the back—those buttons to Bushy were more precious than diamonds—then snatching her hat, that was a great, soft, felt sombrero, she called to Rover and they ran a race down a well-trodden path to the very edge of the water.
“Oh, look, Rover, the lake is growing wider and wider; it will soon reach the divide and then run down the other side in a great river. Come on, Rover, let’s wade in just a little way.”
Bushy slipped off her moccasins that had been put on in honor of the day—Bushy always insisted on going barefooted the minute the snow left the ground—and began to dip her toes cautiously into the water. Rover whined and acted very disagreeably, dashing in and out and wagging his wet tail so as to throw the water over her.
“Rover! if you can’t behave yourself you will have to keep out!” she cried, venturing in a little farther. “Stay out, sir! Don’t you dare sprinkle me again!”
“OH, LOOK, ROVER, THE LAKE IS GROWING WIDER AND WIDER.”
Rover howled and stuck his nose as high in the air as possible.
“Howl away!” answered Bushy, as she tucked her pink dress up high about her waist and waded still farther. The day was warm and the water did not feel half so cold as she thought it would. She could see quite to the bottom as she waded, but when her toes dug vigorously in the mud great clouds of it would circle in queer forms about her fat legs. To insure the pink dress from getting damp she threw the skirt from the back over her head, thus preventing her from seeing Rover.
Howl after howl issued from his throat. He knew that Bushy was doing a very foolish thing.
“Her father told her this very morning,” said Rover to himself, “that she should be careful. She will step in a hole in a minute and then she will be drowned.” He ran first up the bank then down to the very water’s edge, then back toward the house, looking to see if he could not call some one to make Bushy mind; then he would squat on his hind legs and howl and yelp at every step she made.
“Hush up!” cried Bushy, who thought he was crying only because she had forbidden him coming in. “Hush up! people don’t cry on Bunker Hill Day. When the parade comes home we will—oh, oh, oh!” she screamed stooping down to try and pull out something that had stuck into her foot. Her back was to Rover. He saw her stoop and heard her scream with pain. That was enough for him. With one bound he landed in the water close beside her and with another he had clinched his teeth in the back of her dress and then commenced a backward movement that threw Bushy quite off her feet and down flat in the black muddy water.
The skirt worked down from her head. Rover pulled and pulled, her head ploughing a furrow in the mud as he dragged her along. The water almost choked her. She could not cry out, and did not realize what had happened to her until she found herself high and safe on the bank, with Rover dancing as if he were crazy about her.
She was dripping wet; her hair was plastered down over her face by the mud; her dress, once so pink and beautiful, was black with dirt. As soon as she could get her breath she threw herself down on the ground and cried with all her might.
“Oh, Rover, Rover! You have broken my heart. You stupid dog! It isn’t deep. I was only wading in just for fun, and now you have spoilt my”——
“Great heavens! Bushy, what has happened?” cried Shanks, who had been sent to the cabin for a chisel. “How did you fall in, and how did you get out?” he cried, quite out of breath from running.
He wiped the mud from her face, and again asked: “Tell me, Bushy, did you fall to the bottom?”
“GREAT HEAVENS! BUSHY, WHAT HAS HAPPENED?” CRIED SHANKS.
“Bottom of what?” inquired Bushy, looking curiously at him through her tangled hair. “I was only wading.”
“Then you didn’t fall into the prospect hole that has twelve feet of water in it, just there?” and Shanks pointed about two feet from the spot where Bushy’s toe had struck against a board, and from which Rover had dragged her.
“Rover saved me!” she cried, throwing her arms about his wet body.
“Dear old Rover kept me from falling into that dreadful hole. I forgot it was there; one step more and I would have gone down. Oh, Rover, dear Rover, I won’t call you stupid ever in my life again; and who cares for the pink dress now!”
Rover wagged his tail with joy until Bushy stood up; then she presented such a funny appearance that he began to howl louder than ever. This made Shanks and Bushy laugh heartily.
Shanks took them to the cabin and gave them both a bath, but Bushy’s hair had to be shingled; her father could not get the snarls out any other way. The pink dress was spoiled, but Bushy had it put carefully away in a box, where she found it years and years afterward, when it brought back the story of faithful old Rover and how he saved her life.