The Edward S. Ellis Megapack

by Edward S. Ellis

  “That’s the way we ginerally gits the p’ints of an animal,” returned Baldy, with great complaisance, as he seated himself upon a bench to watch the performance.

  It required the boy but a short time to generate a sufficient quantity of steam to set the legs going at a terrific rate, varying the proceedings by letting some of the vapor through the whistle which composed the steam man’s nose.

  Baldy Bicknell stood for some minutes with a surprise too great to allow him to speak. Wonderful as was the mechanism, yet the boy who had constructed it was still more worthy of wonder. When the steam had given out, the hunter placed his big hand upon the head of the little fellow, and said:

  “You’se a mighty smart chap, that be you. Did anybody help you make that?”

  “No; I believe not.”

  “What’ll you take for it?”

  “I never thought of selling it.”

  “Wal, think of it now.”

  “What do you want to do with it?”

  “Thar’s three of us goin’ out to hunt fur gold, and that’s jist the thing to keep the Injins back an’ scart. I’ve been out thar afore, and know what’s the matter with the darned skunks. So, tell me how much money will buy it.”

  “I would rather not sell it,” said Johnny, after a few minutes’ further thought. “It has taken me a great while to finish it, and I would rather not part with it, for the present, at least.”

  “But, skin me, younker, I want to buy it! I’ll give you a thousand dollars fur it, slap down.”

  Although much less than the machine was really worth, yet it was a large offer, and the boy hesitated for a moment. But it was only for a moment, when he decidedly shook his head.

  “I wish you wouldn’t ask me, for I don’t want to sell it, until I have had it some time. Besides, it isn’t finished yet.”

  “It ain’t,” exclaimed Baldy, in surprise. “Why, it works, what more do you want?”

  “I’ve got to make a wagon to run behind it.”

  “That’s it, eh? I thought you war goin’ to ride on its back. How much will it draw?”

  “As much as four horses, and as fast as they can run.”

  The hunter was half wild with excitement. The boy’s delight was never equal to one-half of his.

  “Skulp me ag’in, ef that don’t beat all! It’s jest the thing for the West; we’ll walk through the Injins in the tallest kind of style, and skear ’em beautiful. How long afore you’ll have it done?”

  “It will take a month longer, at least.”

  Baldy stood a few minutes in thought.

  “See here, younker, we’re on our way to the ‘diggin’s,’ and ’spect to be thar all summer. Ef the red-skins git any ways troublesome, I’m comin’ back arter this y’ar covey. Ef yer don’t want to sell him, yer needn’t. Ef I bought him, it ain’t likely I’d run him long afore I’d bust his b’iler, or blow my own head off.”

  “Just what I thought when you were trying to persuade me to sell it,” interrupted the boy.

  “Then, if he got the cramp in any of his legs, I wouldn’t know how to tie it up ag’in, and thar we’d be.”

  “I am glad to see you take such a sensible view of it,” smiled Johnny.

  “So, I’m goin’ on West, as I said, with two fools besides myself, and we’re goin’ to stay thar till yer get this old thing finished; and then I’m comin’ after you to take a ride out thar.”

  “That would suit me very well,” replied the boy, his face lighting up with more pleasure than he had shown. “I would be very glad to make a trip on the prairies.”

  “Wal, look fur me in about six weeks.”

  And with this parting, the hunter was let out the door, and disappeared, while Johnny resumed his work.

  That day saw the steam man completed, so far as it was possible. He was painted up, and every improvement made that the extraordinarily keen mind of the boy could suggest. When he stood one side, and witnessed the noiseless but powerful workings of the enormous legs, he could not see that anything more could be desired.

  It now remained for him to complete the wagon, and he began at once.

  It would have been a much easier matter for him to have secured an ordinary carriage or wagon, and alter it to suit himself; but this was not in accordance with the genius of the boy. No contrivance could really suit him unless he made it himself. He had his own ideas, which no one else could work out to his satisfaction.

  It is unnecessary to say that the vehicle was made very strong and durable.

  This was the first great requisite. In some respects it resembled the ordinary express wagons, except that it was considerably smaller.

  It had heavy springs, and a canvas covering, with sufficient, as we have shown in another place, to cover the man also, when necessary.

  This was arranged to carry the wood, a reserve of water, and the necessary tools to repair it, when any portion of the machinery should become disarranged.

  English coal could be carried to last for two days, and enough wood to keep steam going for twenty-four hours. When the reserve tank in the bottom of the wagon was also filled, the water would last nearly as long.

  When these contingencies were all provided against, the six weeks mentioned by the hunter were gone, and Johnny Brainerd found himself rather longing for his presence again.

  CHAPTER V

  On the Yellowstone

  Baldy Bicknell was a hunter and trapper who, at the time we bring him to the notice of the reader, had spent something over ten years among the mountains and prairies of the West.

  He was a brave, skillful hunter, who had been engaged in many desperate affrays with the red-skins, and who, in addition to the loss of the hair upon the crown of his head, bore many other mementos on his person of the wild and dangerous life that he had led.

  Like most of his class, he was a restless being, constantly flitting back and forth between the frontier towns and the western wilds. He never went further east than St. Louis, while his wanderings, on more than one occasion, had led him beyond the Rocky Mountains.

  One autumn he reached the Yellowstone, near the head of navigation, just as a small trading propeller was descending the stream. As much from the novelty of the thing, as anything else, he rode on board, with his horse, with the intention of completing his journey east by water.

  On board the steamer he first met Ethan Hopkins and Mickey McSquizzle, who had spent ten years in California, in a vain hunt for gold, and were now returning to their homes, thoroughly disgusted with the country, its inhabitants and mineral resources.

  Baldy was attracted to them by their peculiarities of manner; but it is not probable that anything further would have resulted from this accidental meeting, but for a most startling and unforeseen occurrence.

  While still in the upper waters of the Yellowstone, the steamer exploded her boiler, making a complete wreck of the boat and its contents. The hunter, with the others, was thrown into the water, but was so bruised and injured that he found it impossible to swim, and he would assuredly have been drowned but for the timely assistance of his two acquaintances.

  Neither the Yankee nor Irishman were hurt in the least, and both falling near the trapper, they instantly perceived his helplessness and came to his rescue. Both were excellent swimmers, and had no difficulty in saving him.

  “Do ye rist aisy!” said Mickey, as he saw the hunter’s face contorted with pain, as he vainly struggled in the water, “and it’s ourselves that’ll take the good care of yees jist.”

  “Stop yer confounded floundering,” admonished Hopkins; “it won’t do no good, and there ain’t no necessity for it.”

  One of them took the arm upon one side, and the other the same upon the opposite side, and struck out for the shore. The poor trapper realized his dire extremity, and remained motionless while they towed him along.

  “Aisy jist-aiey now!” admonished Mickey: “ye’re in a bad fix; but by the blessin’ of Heaven we’ll do the fair thing wid yees. We und
erstand the science of swimmin’, and—”

  At that moment some drowning wretch caught the foot of the Irishman, and he was instantly drawn under water, out of sight.

  Neither Hopkins nor Baldy lost presence of mind in this fearful moment, but continued their progress toward shore, as though nothing of the kind had happened.

  As for the Irishman, his situation for the time was exceedingly critical. The man who had clutched his foot did so with the grasp of a drowning man; in their struggle both went to the bottom of the river together. Here, by a furious effort, Mickey shook him free, and coming to the surface, struck out again for the suffering hunter.

  “It is sorry I am that I was compelled to leave yees behind,” he muttered, glancing over his shoulder in search of the poor fellow from whom he had just freed himself; “but yees are past helpin’, and so it’s maeself that must attend to the poor gentleman ahead.”

  Striking powerfully out, he soon came beside his friends again and took the drooping arm of Baldy Bicknell.

  “Be yees sufferin’ to a great extent?” inquired the kind-hearted Irishman, looking at the white face of the silent hunter.

  “Got a purty good whack over the back,” he replied, between his compressed lips, as he forced back all expression of pain.

  “Ye’ll be aisier when we fotch ye to the land, as me uncle obsarved whin he hauled the big fish ashore that was thrashing his line to pieces jist.”

  “’Twon’t take you long to git over it,” added Hopkins, anxious to give his grain of consolation; “you look, now, like quite a healthy young man.”

  The current was quite rapid, and it was no light labor to tow the helpless hunter ashore; but the two friends succeeded, and at length drew him out upon the land and stretched him upon the sward.

  The exertion of keeping their charge afloat, and breasting the current at the same time, carried them a considerable distance downstream, and they landed perhaps an eighth of a mile below where the main body of shivering wretches were congregated.

  “Do yees feel aisy?” inquired Mickey, when the hunter had been laid upon the grass, beneath some overhanging bushes.

  “Yes, I’ll soon git over it but woofh! that thar war a whack of the biggest kind I got. It has made me powerful weak.”

  “What might it have been naow!” inquired Hopkins.

  “Can’t say, fust thing I know’d, I didn’t know nothin’, remember suthin’ took me back the head, and the next thing I kerwholloped in the water.”

  The three men had lost everything except what was on their bodies when the catastrophe occurred. Their horses were gone, and they hadn’t a gun between them; nothing but two revolvers, and about a half dozen charges for each.

  Of the twenty odd who were upon the steamer at the time of the explosion, nearly one-half were killed; they sinking to the bottom almost as suddenly as the wrecked steamer, of which not a single trace now remained.

  The survivors made their way to land, reaching it a short distance below their starting-point, and here they assembled, to commiserate with each other upon their hapless lot and determine how they were to reach home.

  Our three friends had remained upon shore about half an hour, the two waiting for the third to recover, when the latter raised himself upon his elbow in the attitude of listening. At the same time he waved his hand for the others to hold their peace.

  A moment later he said:

  “I hear Injins.”

  “Begorrah! where bees the same?” demanded Mickey, starting to his feet, while Ethan gazed alarmedly about.

  “Jist take a squint up the river, and tell me ef they ain’t pitchin’ into the poor critters thar.”

  Through the sheltering trees and undergrowth, which partly protected them, the two men gazed up-stream. To their horror, they saw fully fifty Indians massacring the survivors of the wreck, whooping, screeching and yelling like demons, while their poor victims were vainly endeavoring to escape them.

  “Begorrah, now, but that looks bad!” exclaimed the Irishman. “Be the same towken, what is it that we can do?”

  “Jerusalem! They’ll be sure to pay us a visit. I’ll be gumtued if they won’t,” added the Yankee, in some trepidation, as he cowered down again by the side of the hunter, and said to him in a lower Voice:

  “The worst of it is, we haven’t got a gun atwixt us. Of course we shall stick by you if we have to lose our heads fur it. But don’t you think they’ll pay us a visit?”

  “Like noughtin’,” was the indifferent reply of the hunter, as he laid his head back again, as if tired of listening to the tumult.

  “Can’t we do anything to get you out of danger!”

  “Can’t see that you kin; you two fellers have done me a good turn in gittin’ me ashore, so jist leave me yere, and it don’t make no difference about me one way or t’other, Ef I hear ’em comin’ I’ll jist roll into the water and go under in that style.”

  “May the Howly Vargin niver smile upon us if we dissart you in this extremity,” was the reply of the fervent-hearted Irishman.

  “And by the jumpin’ jingo! if we was consarnedly mean enough to do it, there ain’t no need of it.”

  As the Yankee spoke, he ran down to the river, and walking out a short distance, caught a log drifting by and drew it in.

  “Naow, Mr. Baldy, or Mr. Bicknell, as you call yourself, we’ll all three git hold of that and float down the river till we git beyond fear of the savages.”

  The plan was a good one, and the hunter so expressed himself. With some help he managed to crawl to the river bank, where one arm was placed over the log, in such a manner that he could easily float, without any danger of sinking.

  “Keep as close to shore as you kin,” he said, as they were about shoving off.

  “We can go faster in the middle,” said Hopkins.

  “But the reds’ll see us, and it’ll be all up then.”

  This was the warning of prudence, and it was heeded.

  CHAPTER VI

  The Miners

  It was late in the afternoon when the explosion occurred, and it was just beginning to grow dark when the three friends began drifting down the Yellowstone.

  This fact was greatly in their favor, although there remained an hour or two of great danger, in case the Indians made any search for them. In case of discovery, there was hardly an earthly chance for escape.

  The log or raft, as it might be termed, had floated very quietly down-stream for about half an hour, when the wonderfully acute ears of the trapper detected danger.

  “Thar be some of the skunks that are creep-in ’long shore,” said he; “you’d better run in under this yar tree and hold fast awhile.”

  The warning was heeded. Just below them, the luxuriant branches of an oak, dipped in the current, formed an impenetrable screen. As the log, guided thither, floated beneath this, Mickey and Ethan both caught hold of the branches and held themselves motionless.

  “Now wait till it’s dark, and then thar’ll be no fear of the varmints,” added the trapper.

  “‘Sh! I haars sumfin’!” whispered the Irishman

  “What is it?” asked Ethan.

  “How does I know till yees kaaps still?”

  “It’s the reds goin’ long the banks,” said the trapper.

  The words were yet in his mouth, when the voice of one Indian was heard calling to another. Neither Mickey nor Ethan had the remotest idea of the meaning of the words uttered, but the trapper told them that they were inquiring of each other whether anything had been discovered of more fugitives. The answer being in the negative, our friends considered their present position safe.

  When it was fairly dark, and nothing more was seen or heard of the Indians, the raft was permitted to float free, and they drifted with the current. They kept the river until daylight, when, having been in the water so long, they concluded it best to land and rest themselves. By the aid of their revolvers they succeeded in kindling a fire, the warmth of which proved exceedingly grateful to all.<
br />
  They would have had a very rough time had they not encountered a party of hunters who accompanied them to St. Louis, where the trapper had friends, and where, also, he had a good sum of money in the bank.

  Here Baldy remained all winter, before he entirely recovered from the hurt which he received during the explosion and sinking of the steamer. When the Irishman and Yankee were about to depart, he asked them where they were going.

  “I’m goin’ home in Connecticut and goin’ to work on the farm, and that’s where I’m goin’ to stay. I was a fool ever to leave it for this confounded place. I could live decent put there, and that’s more than I can do in this blamed country.”

  “And I shall go back to work on the Erie railroad, at thirty-siven cents a day and boord myself,” replied the Irishman.

  “If yer were sartin of findin’ all the gold yor want, would yer go back to Califony?”

  “Arrah. Now, what are yees talkin’ about?” asked McSquizzle, somewhat impatiently. “What is the good of talkin’?”

  “I didn’t ax yer to fool with yer,” replied the trapper, “thar’s a place that I know away out West, that I call Wolf Ravine, whar thar’s enough gold to make both of yer richer than yer ever war afore, and then leave some for yer children.”

  “Jerusalem! but you’re a lucky dog!” exclaimed Ethan Hopkins, not daring to hope that he would reveal the place. “Why don’t you dig it up naow, yourself?”

  “I only found it a month ago, and I made a purty good haul of it, as it was. When that old boss of mine went down with the steamer, he carried a powerful heft of gold with him, and if anybody finds his carcass, it’ll be the most vallyable one they ever come across.”

  “Jingo! if I’d know’d that, I’d taken a hunt for him myself.”

  “Howsumever, that’s neither yar nor thar. You both done me a good turn when I got into trouble on the river, and I mud’ up my mind to do what I could toward payin’ it back the first chance I got. I didn’t say nothin’ of it when we was on our way, ’cause I was afeard it would make you too crazy to go back ag’in: but if you’ll come back this way next spring I’ll make the trip with you.”