On the Cowboy's Trail: Western Boxed-Set. Coolidge Dane
snow-storm story, and Creede showed his white teeth scornfully as Bill leaned back and began the yarn.
“You see, Miss Bunnair,” began the Colorado cowboy, rolling his eyes about the circle to quell any tendency to give him away, “Coloraydo is an altogether different country from this here. The mountains is mighty steep and brushy, with snow on the peaks, and the cactus ain’t more ’n a inch high out on the perairie. But they’s plenty of feed and water –– you betcher life I wisht I was back there now instead of fightin’ sheep down here! The only thing aginst that country up there is the blizzards. Them storms is very destructive to life. Yes, ma’am. They’s never any notice given but suddenly the wind will begin to blow and the cattle will begin to drift, and then about the time your horse is give out and your ears frozen it’ll begin to snow!
“Well, this time I’m tellin’ about I was up on the Canadian River west of the Medicine Bow Mountains and she came on to snow –– and snow, I thought it would bury me alive! I was lost in a big park –– a kind of plain or perairie among the mountains. Yes’m, they have’m there –– big level places –– and it was thirty miles across this here level perairie. The wind was blowin’ something awful and the snow just piled up on my hat like somebody was shovellin’ it off a roof, but I kept strugglin’ on and tryin’ to git to the other side, or maybe find some sheltered place, until it was like walkin’ in your sleep. And that light fluffy snow jest closed in over me until I was covered up ten feet deep. Of course my horse had give out long ago, and I was jest beginnin’ to despair when I come across one of them big piles of rocks they have up there, scattered around promiscus-like on the face of nature; and I begin crawlin’ in and crawlin’ in, hopin’ to find some cave or somethin’, and jest as I was despairin’ my feet fell into a kind of trail, kinder smooth and worn, but old, you know, and stomped hard under the snow. Well, I follers along this path with my feet until it come to a hole in the rocks; and when I come to that hole I went right in, fer I was desprit; and I crawled in and crawled in until I come to a big nest of leaves, and then I begin to burrow down into them leaves. And as soon as I had made a hole I pulled them leaves over me and fell to sleep, I was that exhausted.
“But after a while I had some awful bad dreams, and when I woke up I felt somethin’ kickin’ under me. Yes ’m, that’s right; I felt somethin’ kinder movin’ around and squirmin’, and when I begin to investergate I found I was layin’ down right square on top of a tremenjous big grizzly bear! Well, you fellers can laugh, but I was, all the same. What do you know about it, you woolies, punchin’ cows down here in the rocks and cactus?
“How’s that, Miss Bunnair? W’y sure, he was hibernatin’! They all hibernate up in them cold countries. Well, the funny part of this was that Old Brin had gone to sleep suckin’ his off fore foot, jest like a little baby, and when I had piled in on top of him I had knocked his paw out of his mouth and he was tryin’ to git it back. But he was all quilled up with himself under them leaves, and his claws was so long he couldn’t git that foot back into his mouth nohow. He snooped and grabbed and fumbled, and every minute he was gittin’ madder and madder, a-suckin’ and slobberin’ like a calf tryin’ to draw milk out of the hired man’s thumb, and a-gruntin’ and groanin’ somethin’ awful.
“Well, I see my finish in about a minute if he ever got good an’ woke up, so I resolved to do somethin’ desprit. I jest naturally grabbed onto that foot and twisted it around and stuck it into his mouth myself! Afraid? Ump-um, not me –– the only thing I was afraid of was that he’d git my hand and go to suckin’ it by mistake. But when I steered his paw around in front of him he jest grabbed onto that big black pad on the bottom of his foot like it was m’lasses candy, and went off to sleep again as peaceful as a kitten.”
The man from Coloraydo ended his tale abruptly, with an air of suspense, and Kitty Bonnair took the cue.
“What did I do then?” demanded Lightfoot, with a reminiscent smile. “Well, it was a ground-hog case with me –– if I moved I’d freeze to death and if I knocked his paw out’n his mouth again he’d mash my face in with it –– so I jest snuggled down against him, tucked my head under his chin, and went to sleep, holdin’ that paw in his mouth with both hands.”
“Oh, Mr. Lightfoot,” exclaimed Kitty, “how could you? Why, that’s the most remarkable experience I ever heard of! Lucy, I’m going to put that story in my book when I get home, and –– but what are you laughing at, Mr. Creede?”
“Who? Me?” inquired Jeff, who had been rocking about as if helpless with laughter. “W’y, I ain’t laughin’!”
“Yes, you are too!” accused Miss Kitty. “And I want you to tell me what it is. Don’t you think Mr. Lightfoot’s story is true?”
“True?” echoed Creede, soberly. “W’y, sure it’s true. I ain’t never been up in those parts; but if Bill says so, that settles it. I never knew a feller from Coloraydo yet that could tell a lie. No, I was jest laughin’ to think of that old bear suckin’ his paw that way.”
He added this last with such an air of subterfuge and evasion that Kitty was not deceived for a moment.
“No, you’re not, Mr. Creede,” she cried, “you’re just making fun of me –– so there!”
She stamped her foot and pouted prettily, and the big cowboy’s face took on a look of great concern.
“Oh, no, ma’am,” he protested, “but since it’s gone so far I reckon I’ll have to come through now in order to square myself. Of course I never had no real adventures, you know, –– nothin’ that you would care to write down or put in a book, like Bill’s, –– but jest hearin’ him tell that story of gittin’ snowed in reminded me of a little experience I had up north here in Coconino County. You know Arizona ain’t all sand and cactus –– not by no means. Them San Francisco Mountains up above Flag are sure snow-crested and covered with tall timber and it gits so cold up there in the winter-time that it breaks rocks. No, that’s straight! Them prospectors up there when they run short of powder jest drill a line of holes in a rock and when one of them awful cold snaps comes on they run out and fill the holes up with hot water out of the tea-kittle. Well, sir, when that water freezes, which it does in about a minute, it jest naturally busts them rocks wide open –– but that ain’t what I started to tell you about.”
He paused and contemplated his hearers with impressive dignity.
“Cold ain’t nothin’,” he continued gravely, “after you git used to it; but once in a while, ladies, she snows up there. And when I say ‘snows’ I don’t refer to such phenominer as Bill was tellin’ about up in Coloraydo, but the real genuwine Arizona article –– the kind that gits started and can’t stop, no more ’n a cloudburst. Well, one time I was knockin’ around up there in Coconino when I ought to’ve been at home, and I come to a big plain or perairie that was seventy miles across, and I got lost on that big plain, right in the dead of winter. They was an awful cold wind blowin’ at the time, but I could see the mountains on the other side and so I struck out for ’em. But jest as I got in the middle of that great plain or perairie, she come on to snow. At first she come straight down, kinder soft and fluffy; then she began to beat in from the sides, and the flakes began to git bigger and bigger, until I felt like the Chinaman that walked down Main Street when they had that snow-storm in Tucson. Yes, sir, it was jest like havin’ every old whiskey bum in town soakin’ you with snow-balls –– and all the kids thrown in.
“My horse he began to puff and blow and the snow began to bank up higher and higher in front of us and on top of us until, bymeby, he couldn’t stand no more, and he jest laid down and died. Well, of course that put me afoot and I was almost despairin’. The snow was stacked up on top of me about ten feet deep and I was desprit, but I kept surgin’ right ahead, punchin’ a hole through that fluffy stuff, until she was twenty foot deep. But I wasn’t afraid none –– ump-um, not me –– I jest kept a-crawlin’ and a-crawlin’, hopin’ to find some rocks or shelter, until she stacked up on top of me thirty foot deep. Thirty foot –– and slumped down on top o’ me until I felt like a horny-toad