Openings in the Old Trail

by Bret Harte

  MISS PEGGY'S PROTEGES

  The string of Peggy's sunbonnet had become untied--so had her rightshoe. These were not unusual accidents to a country girl of ten, but asboth of her hands were full she felt obliged to put down what she wascarrying. This was further complicated by the nature of her burden--ahalf-fledged shrike and a baby gopher--picked up in her walk. It wasimpossible to wrap them both in her apron without serious peril to oneor the other; she could not put either down without the chance of itsescaping. "It's like that dreadful riddle of the ferryman who had totake the wolf and the sheep in his boat," said Peggy to herself, "thoughI don't believe anybody was ever so silly as to want to take a wolfacross the river." But, looking up, she beheld the approach of SamBedell, a six-foot tunnelman of the "Blue Cement Lead," and, hailinghim, begged him to hold one of her captives. The giant, loathing thelittle mouse-like ball of fur, chose the shrike. "Hold him by the feet,for he bites AWFUL," said Peggy, as the bird regarded Sam with thediabolically intense frown of his species. Then, dropping the gopherunconcernedly in her pocket, she proceeded to rearrange her toilet. Thetunnelman waited patiently until Peggy had secured the nankeen sunbonnetaround her fresh but freckled cheeks, and, with a reckless displayof yellow flannel petticoat and stockings like peppermint sticks, haddouble-knotted her shoestrings viciously when he ventured to speak.

  "Same old game, Peggy? Thought you'd got rather discouraged with your'happy family,' arter that new owl o' yours had gathered 'em in."

  Peggy's cheek flushed slightly at this ungracious allusion to a formercollection of hers, which had totally disappeared one evening after theintroduction of a new member in the shape of a singularly venerable andpeaceful-looking horned owl.

  "I could have tamed HIM, too," said Peggy indignantly, "if Ned Myers,who gave him to me, hadn't been training him to ketch things, and neverlet on anything about it to me. He was a reg'lar game owl!"

  "And wot are ye goin' to do with the Colonel here?" said Sam, indicatingunder that gallant title the infant shrike, who, with his claws deeplyimbedded in Sam's finger, was squatting like a malignant hunchback, andresisting his transfer to Peggy. "Won't HE make it rather lively for theothers? He looks pow'ful discontented for one so young."

  "That's his nater," said Peggy promptly. "Jess wait till I tame him.Ef he'd been left along o' his folks, he'd grow up like 'em. He's a'butcher bird'--wot they call a 'nine-killer '--kills nine birds a day!Yes! True ez you live! Sticks 'em up on thorns outside his nest, jestlike a butcher's shop, till he gets hungry. I've seen 'em!"

  "And how do you kalkilate to tame him?" asked Sam.

  "By being good to him and lovin' him," said Peggy, stroking the head ofthe bird with infinite gentleness.

  "That means YOU'VE got to do all the butchering for him?" said thecynical Sam.

  Peggy shook her head, disdaining a verbal reply.

  "Ye can't bring him up on sugar and crackers, like a Polly," persistedSam.

  "Ye ken do anythin' with critters, if you ain't afeerd of 'em and love'em," said Peggy shyly.

  The tall tunnelman, looking down into the depths of Peggy's sunbonnet,saw something in the round blue eyes and grave little mouth that madehim think so too. But here Peggy's serious little face took a shade ofdarker concern as her arm went down deeper into her pocket, and her eyesgot rounder.

  "It's--it's--BURRERED OUT!" she said breathlessly.

  The giant leaped briskly to one side. "Hol' on," said Peggyabstractedly. With infinite gravity she followed, with her fingers, aseam of her skirt down to the hem, popped them quickly under it, andproduced, with a sigh of relief, the missing gopher.

  "You'll do," said Sam, in fearful admiration. "Mebbe you'll make suthin'out o' the Colonel too. But I never took stock in that there owl. Hewas too durned self-righteous for a decent bird. Now, run along aforeanythin' else fetches loose ag'in. So long!"

  He patted the top of her sunbonnet, gave a little pull to the shortbrown braid that hung behind her temptingly,--which no miner was everknown to resist,--and watched her flutter off with her spoils. He haddone so many times before, for the great, foolish heart of the BlueCement Ridge had gone out to Peggy Baker, the little daughter of theblacksmith, quite early. There were others of the family, notablytwo elder sisters, invincible at picnics and dances, but Peggy was asnecessary to these men as the blue jay that swung before them in thedim woods, the squirrel that whisked across their morning path, or thewoodpecker who beat his tattoo at their midday meal from the hollowpine above them. She was part of the nature that kept them young. Hertruancies and vagrancies concerned them not: she was a law to herself,like the birds and squirrels. There were bearded lips to hail herwherever she went, and a blue or red-shirted arm always stretched out inany perilous pass or dangerous crossing.

  Her peculiar tastes were an outcome of her nature, assisted by hersurroundings. Left a good deal to herself in her infancy, she madeplayfellows of animated nature around her, without much reference toselection or fitness, but always with a fearlessness that was the resultof her own observation, and unhampered by tradition or other children'stimidity. She had no superstition regarding the venom of toads, thepoison of spiders, or the ear-penetrating capacity of earwigs. She hadexperiences and revelations of her own,--which she kept sacredly toherself, as children do,--and one was in regard to a rattlesnake, partlyinduced, however, by the indiscreet warning of her elders. She wascautioned NOT to take her bread and milk into the woods, and was toldthe affecting story of the little girl who was once regularly visited bya snake that partook of HER bread and milk, and who was ultimately foundrapping the head of the snake for gorging more than his share, and not"taking a 'poon as me do." It is needless to say that this incautiouscaution fired Peggy's adventurous spirit. SHE took a bowlful of milk tothe haunt of a "rattler" near her home, but, without making the pretenseof sharing it, generously left the whole to the reptile. After repeatingthis hospitality for three or four days, she was amazed one morning onreturning to the house to find the snake--an elderly one with a dozenrattles--devotedly following her. Alarmed, not for her own safety northat of her family, but for the existence of her grateful friend indanger of the blacksmith's hammer, she took a circuitous route leadingit away. Then recalling a bit of woodland lore once communicated to herby a charcoal-burner, she broke a spray of the white ash, and laid itbefore her in the track of the rattlesnake. He stopped instantly, andremained motionless without crossing the slight barrier. She repeatedthis experiment on later occasions, until the reptile understood her.She kept the experience to herself, but one day it was witnessed by atunnelman. On that day Peggy's reputation was made!

  From this time henceforth the major part of Blue Cement Ridge becameserious collectors for what was known as "Peggy's menagerie," and twoof the tunnelmen constructed a stockaded inclosure--not half a milefrom the blacksmith's cabin, but unknown to him--for the reception ofspecimens. For a long time its existence was kept a secret between Peggyand her loyal friends. Her parents, aware of her eccentric tastes onlythrough the introduction of such smaller creatures as lizards, toads,and tarantulas into their house,--which usually escaped from their tincans and boxes and sought refuge in the family slippers,--had frownedupon her zoological studies. Her mother found that her woodland ramblesentailed an extraordinary wear and tear of her clothing. A pinaforereduced to ribbons by a young fox, and a straw hat half swallowed by amountain kid, did not seem to be a natural incident to an ordinarywalk to the schoolhouse. Her sisters thought her tastes "low," andher familiar association with the miners inconsistent with their owndignity. But Peggy went regularly to school, was a fair scholar inelementary studies (what she knew of natural history, in fact, quitestartled her teachers), and being also a teachable child, was allowedsome latitude. As for Peggy herself, she kept her own faith unshaken;her little creed, whose shibboleth was not "to be afraid" of God'screatures, but to "love 'em," sustained her through reprimand, tornclothing, and, it is to be feared, occasional bites and scratches fromthe loved ones themselves.


  The unsuspected contiguity of the "menagerie" to the house had itsdrawbacks, and once nearly exposed her. A mountain wolf cub, broughtespecially for her from the higher northern Sierras with great troubleand expense by Jack Ryder, of the Lone Star Lead, unfortunately escapedfrom the menagerie just as the child seemed to be in a fair way oftaming it. Yet it had been already familiarized enough with civilizationto induce it to stop in its flight and curiously examine theblacksmith's shop. A shout from the blacksmith and a hurled hammer sentit flying again, with Mr. Baker and his assistant in full pursuit. Butit quickly distanced them with its long, tireless gallop, and they wereobliged to return to the forge, lost in wonder and conjecture. For theblacksmith had recognized it as a stranger to the locality, and as aman of oracular pretension had a startling theory to account for itspresence. This he confided to the editor of the local paper, and thenext issue contained an editorial paragraph: "Our presage of a severewinter in the higher Sierras, and consequent spring floods in thevalleys, has been startlingly confirmed! Mountain wolves have beenseen in Blue Cement Ridge, and our esteemed fellow citizen, Mr. EphraimBaker, yesterday encountered a half-starved cub entering his premises insearch of food. Mr. Baker is of the opinion that the mother of thecub, driven down by stress of weather, was in the immediate vicinity."Nothing but the distress of the only responsible mother of the cub,Peggy, and loyalty to her, kept Jack Ryder from exposing the absurditypublicly, but for weeks the camp fires of Blue Cement Ridge shook withthe suppressed and unhallowed joy of the miners, who were in the guiltysecret.

  But, fortunately for Peggy, the most favored of her cherishedpossessions was not obliged to be kept secret. That one exception wasan Indian dog! This was also a gift, and had been procured with great"difficulty" by a "packer" from an Indian encampment on the Oregonfrontier. The "difficulty" was, in plain English, that it had beenstolen from the Indians at some peril to the stealer's scalp. It wasa mongrel to all appearances, of no recognized breed or outwardsignificance, yet of a quality distinctly its own. It was absolutely andtotally uncivilized. Whether this was a hereditary trait, or the resultof degeneracy, no one knew. It refused to enter a house; it would notstay in a kennel. It would not eat in public, but gorged ravenouslyand stealthily in the shadows. It had the slink of a tramp, and in itspatched and mottled hide seemed to simulate the rags of a beggar. It hadthe tirelessness without the affected limp of a coyote. Yet it had noneof the ferocity of barbarians. With teeth that could gnaw through thestoutest rope and toughest lariat, it never bared them in anger. Itwas cringing without being amiable or submissive; it was gentle withoutbeing affectionate.

  Yet almost insensibly it began to yield to Peggy's faith and kindness.Gradually it seemed to single her out as the one being in this vastwhite-faced and fully clothed community that it could trust. Itpresently allowed her to half drag, half lead it to and fro from school,although on the approach of a stranger it would bite through the ropeor frantically endeavor to efface itself in Peggy's petticoats. It wastrying, even to the child's sweet gravity, to face the ridicule excitedby its appearance on the road; and its habit of carrying its tailbetween its legs--at such an inflexible curve that, on the authorityof Sam Bedell, a misstep caused it to "turn a back somersault"--waspainfully disconcerting. But Peggy endured this, as she did the greaterdangers of the High Street in the settlement, where she had often, ather own risk, absolutely to drag the dazed and bewildered creature fromunder the wheels of carts and the heels of horses. But this shynesswore off--or rather was eventually lost in the dog's complete and utterabsorption in Peggy. His limited intelligence and imperfect perceptionswere excited for her alone. His singularly keen scent detected herwherever or how remote she might be. Her passage along a "blind trail,"her deviations from the school path, her more distant excursions,were all mysteriously known to him. It seemed as if his senses wereconcentrated in this one faculty. No matter how unexpected or unfamiliarthe itinerary, "Lo, the poor Indian"--as the men had nicknamed him (inpossible allusion to his "untutored mind")--always arrived promptly andsilently.

  It was to this singular faculty that Peggy owed one of her strangestexperiences. One Saturday afternoon she was returning from an errand tothe village when she was startled by the appearance of Lo in her path.For the reason already given, she no longer took him with her to theseactive haunts of civilization, but had taught him on such occasions toremain as a guard outside the stockade which contained her treasures.After reading him a severe lecture on this flagrant abandonment of histrust, enforced with great seriousness and an admonitory forefinger,she was concerned to see that the animal appeared less agitated by herreproof than by some other disturbance. He ran ahead of her, insteadof at her heels, as was his usual custom, and barked--a thing he rarelydid. Presently she thought she discovered the cause of this in theappearance from the wood of a dozen men armed with guns. They seemed tobe strangers, but among them she recognized the deputy sheriff of thesettlement. The leader noticed her, and, after a word or two with theothers, the deputy approached her.

  "You and Lo had better be scooting home by the highroad, outer this--orye might get hurt," he said, half playfully, half seriously.

  Peggy looked fearlessly at the men and their guns.

  "Look ez ef you was huntin'?" she said curiously.

  "We are!" said the leader.

  "Wot you huntin'?"

  The deputy glanced at the others. "B'ar!" he replied.

  "Ba'r!" repeated the child with the quick resentment which a palpablefalsehood always provoked in her. "There ain't no b'ar in ten miles! Seeyourself huntin' b'ar! Ho!"

  The man laughed. "Never you mind, missy," said the deputy, "you trotalong!" He laid his hand very gently on her head, faced her sunbonnettowards the near highway, gave the usual parting pull to her brownpigtail, added, "Make a bee-line home," and turned away.

  Lo uttered the first growl known in his history. Whereat Peggy said,with lofty forbearance, "Serve you jest right ef I set my dog on you."

  But force is no argument, and Peggy felt this truth even of herself andLo. So she trotted away. Nevertheless, Lo showed signs of hesitation.After a few moments Peggy herself hesitated and looked back. The menhad spread out under the trees, and were already lost in the woods. Butthere was more than one trail through it, and Peggy knew it.

  And here an alarming occurrence startled her. A curiously striped brownand white squirrel whisked past her and ran up a tree. Peggy's roundeyes became rounder. There was but one squirrel of that kind in all thelength and breadth of Blue Cement Ridge, and that was in the menagerie!Even as she looked it vanished. Peggy faced about and ran back to theroad in the direction of the stockade, Lo bounding before her. Butanother surprise awaited her. There was the clutter of short wingsunder the branches, and the sunlight flashed upon the iris throat of awood-duck as it swung out of sight past her. But in this singleglance Peggy recognized one of the latest and most precious of heracquisitions. There was no mistake now! With a despairing little cry toLo, "The menagerie's broke loose!" she ran like the wind towards it. Shecared no longer for the mandate of the men; the trail she had taken wasout of their sight; they were proceeding so slowly and cautiously thatshe and Lo quickly distanced them in the same direction. She would haveyet time to reach the stockade and secure what was left of her treasuresbefore they came up and drove her away. Yet she had to make a longcircuit to avoid the blacksmith's shop and cabin, before she saw thestockade, lifting its four-foot walls around an inclosure a dozen feetsquare, in the midst of a manzanita thicket. But she could see alsobroken coops, pens, cages, and boxes lying before it, and stopped once,even in her grief and indignation, to pick up a ruby-throated lizard,one of its late inmates that had stopped in the trail, stiffened tostone at her approach. The next moment she was before the rooflesswalls, and then stopped, stiffened like the lizard. For out of thatpeaceful ruin which had once held the wild and untamed vagabonds ofearth and sky, arose a type of savagery and barbarism the child hadnever before looked upon,--the head and shoulders of
a hunted, desperateman!

  His head was bare, and his hair matted with sweat over his forehead; hisface was unshorn, and the black roots of his beard showed against thedeadly pallor of his skin, except where it was scratched by thorns,or where the red spots over his cheek bones made his cheeks look asif painted. His eyes were as insanely bright, he panted as quickly, heshowed his white teeth as perpetually, his movements were as convulsive,as those captured animals she had known. Yet he did not attempt to fly,and it was only when, with a sudden effort and groan of pain, he halflifted himself above the stockade, that she saw that his leg, bandagedwith his cravat and handkerchief, stained a dull red, dragged helplesslybeneath him. He stared at her vacantly for a moment, and then lookedhurriedly into the wood behind her.

  The child was more interested than frightened, and more curious thaneither. She had grasped the situation at a glance. It was the hunted andthe hunters. Suddenly he started and reached for his rifle, which he hadapparently set down outside when he climbed into the stockade. He hadjust caught sight of a figure emerging from the wood at a distance. Butthe weapon was out of his reach.

  "Hand me that gun!" he said roughly.

  But Peggy did not stir. The figure came more plainly and quiteunconsciously into full view, an easy shot at that distance.

  The man uttered a horrible curse, and turned a threatening face onthe child. But Peggy had seen something like that in animals SHE hadcaptured. She only said gravely,--

  "Ef you shoot that gun you'll bring 'em all down on you!"

  "All?" he demanded.

  "Yes! a dozen folks with guns like yours," said Peggy. "You jest crouchdown and lie low. Don't move! Watch me."

  The man dropped below the stockade. Peggy ran swiftly towards theunsuspecting figure, evidently the leader of the party, but deviatedslightly to snatch a tiny spray from a white-ash tree. She never knewthat in that brief interval the wounded man, after a supreme effort, hadpossessed himself of his weapon, and for a moment had covered HER withits deadly muzzle. She ran on fearlessly until she saw that she hadattracted the attention of the leader, when she stopped and began towave the white-ash wand before her. The leader halted, conferred withsome one behind him, who proved to be the deputy sheriff. Stepping outhe advanced towards Peggy, and called sharply,

  "I told you to get out of this! Come, be quick!"

  "You'd better get out yourself," said Peggy, waving her ash spray, "andquicker, too."

  The deputy stopped, staring at the spray. "Wot's up?"

  "Rattlers."

  "Where?"

  "Everywhere round ye--a reg'lar nest of 'em! That's your way round!" Shepointed to the right, and again began beating the underbrush with herwand. The men had, meantime, huddled together in consultation. It wasevident that the story of Peggy and her influence on rattlesnakes waswell known, and, in all probability, exaggerated. After a pause, thewhole party filed off to the right, making a long circuit of the unseenstockade, and were presently lost in the distance. Peggy ran back to thefugitive. The fire of savagery and desperation in his eyes had gone out,but had been succeeded by a glazing film of faintness.

  "Can you--get me--some water?" he whispered.

  The stockade was near a spring,--a necessity for the menagerie. Peggybrought him water in a dipper. She sighed a little; her "butcherbird"--now lost forever--had been the last to drink from it!

  The water seemed to revive him. "The rattlesnakes scared the cowards,"he said, with an attempt to smile. "Were there many rattlers?"

  "There wasn't ANY," said Peggy, a little spitefully, "'cept YOU--atwo-legged rattler!"

  The rascal grinned at the compliment.

  "ONE-legged, you mean," he said, indicating his helpless limb.

  Peggy's heart relented slightly. "Wot you goin' to do now?" she said."You can't stay on THERE, you know. It b'longs to ME!" She was generous,but practical.

  "Were those things I fired out yours?"

  "Yes."

  "Mighty rough of me."

  Peggy was slightly softened. "Kin you walk?"

  "No."

  "Kin you crawl?"

  "Not as far as a rattler."

  "Ez far ez that clearin'?"

  "Yes."

  "There's a hoss tethered out in that clearin'. I kin shift him to thisend."

  "You're white all through," said the man gravely.

  Peggy ran off to the clearing. The horse belonged to Sam Bedell, buthe had given Peggy permission to ride it whenever she wished. This wasequivalent, in Peggy's mind, to a permission to PLACE him where shewished. She consequently led him to a point nearest the stockade, and,thoughtfully, close beside a stump. But this took some time, and whenshe arrived she found the fugitive already there, very thin and weak,but still smiling.

  "Ye kin turn him loose when you get through with him; he'll find his wayback," said Peggy. "Now I must go."

  Without again looking at the man, she ran back to the stockade. Then shepaused until she heard the sound of hoofs crossing the highway in theopposite direction from which the pursuers had crossed, and knew thatthe fugitive had got away. Then she took the astonished and stillmotionless lizard from her pocket, and proceeded to restore the brokencoops and cages to the empty stockade.

  But she never reconstructed her menagerie nor renewed her collection.People said she had tired of her whim, and that really she was gettingtoo old for such things. Perhaps she was. But she never got old enoughto reveal her story of the last wild animal she had tamed by kindness.Nor was she quite sure of it herself, until a few years afterwards onCommencement Day at a boarding-school at San Jose, when they pointed outto her one of the most respectable trustees. But they said he was oncea gambler, who had shot a man with whom he had quarreled, and was nearlycaught and lynched by a Vigilance Committee.