The Boys of Crawford's Basin

Joe and I were on our hands and knees, when the bear, going down upon his chest, reached for us with one of his paws. He could not quite touch us, but he came so uncomfortably close that we crept away down the ledge, which, dipping pretty sharply, soon put us out of his reach altogether.

Seeing this, the bear rose to his feet again, gazed at us for a moment, and then stepped back out of sight.

“Has he gone?” I whispered; but before Joe could answer Big Reuben appeared again, walking down the ledge towards us. Of course we sidled away from him, until the ledge had become so narrow that I could go no farther; and lucky it was for us that the ledge was narrow, for what was standing-room for us was by no means standing-room for the bear: his body was much too thick to allow him to come near us, or even to approach the spot whence we had just retreated.

As it was obvious that the bear could advance no farther, for he was standing on the very edge of the ledge and there was a bulge in the rock before him which would inevitably have pushed him off into the chasm had he attempted to pass it, Joe and I returned to the spring, where we had room to stand or to sit down as we wished.

The enemy watched our approach, with a glint of malice in his little piggy eyes, but when he saw that we intended to come no nearer, he lay down where he was and began unconcernedly licking his paws.

“He thinks he can starve us out,” said Joe; “but if I’m not mistaken we can stand it longer than he can, even if he did eat half a pig last night. And there’s one thing certain, Phil: if we don’t get home to-night, somebody will come to look for us in the morning.”

“Yes,” I assented. “But they’ll get a pretty bad scare at home if we don’t turn up. Is there no way of sending that beast off? If we could only get hold of one of the guns – ”

By standing upright we could see my rifle lying on the ground and Joe’s big gun standing with its muzzle pointed skyward, leaning against a boulder. They were only six feet away, but six feet were six feet: we could not reach them without climbing up, and that was out of the question – the bear could get there much more quickly than we could.

“Phil!” exclaimed my companion, suddenly. “Have you got any twine in your pocket?”

“Yes,” I replied, pulling out a long, stout piece of string. “Why?”

“Perhaps we can ‘rope’ my gun. See, its muzzle stands clear. Then we could drag it within reach.”

I very soon had a noose made, and being the more expert roper of the two I swung it round and round my head, keeping the loop wide open, and threw it. My very first cast was successful. The noose fell over the muzzle of the gun and settled half way down the barrel, where it was stopped by the rock.

“Good!” whispered Joe. “Now, tighten it up gently and pull the gun over.”

I followed these directions, and presently we heard the gun fall with a clatter upon the rocks; for, fearing it might go off when it fell, we had both ducked below the rim of the wall.

Our actions had made the bear suspicious, and when the gun came clattering down he rose upon his hind feet and looked about him. Seeing nothing moving, however, he came down again, when I at once began to pull the gun gently towards me, keeping my head down all the time lest one of the hammers, catching against a rock, should explode the charge.

At length, thinking it should be near enough, I ceased pulling, when Joe straightened up, reached out, and, to my great delight, when he withdrew his hand the gun was in it.

Ah! What a difference it made in our situation!

Joe, first opening the breach to make sure the gun was loaded, advanced as near the bear as he dared, and kneeling down took careful aim at his chest. But presently he lowered the gun again, and turning to me, said:

“Phil, can you do anything to make him turn his head so that I can get a chance at him behind the ear? I’m afraid a shot in front may only wound him.”

“All right,” said I. “I’ll try.”

With my knife I pried out of the face of the cliff a piece of stone about the size and shape of the palm of my hand, and aiming carefully I threw it at the bear. It struck him on the very point of his nose – a tender spot – and seemingly hurt him a good deal, for, with an angry snarl, he rose upright on his hind feet.

At that instant a terrific report resounded up and down the cañon, the whole charge of Joe’s ponderous weapon struck the bear full in the chest – I could see the hole it made – and without a sound the great beast dropped from the ledge, fell a hundred feet upon the rocks below, bounded two or three times and then lay still, all doubled up in a heap at the bottom.

Big Reuben had killed his last pig!

CHAPTER II

Crawford’s Basin

You might think, perhaps, as many people in our neighborhood thought, that Joe was my brother. As a matter of fact he was no relation at all; he had dropped in upon us, a stranger, two years before, and had stayed with us ever since.

It was in the haying season that he came, at a moment when my father and I were overwhelmed with work; for it was the summer of 1879, the year of “the Leadville excitement,” when all the able-bodied men in the district were either rushing off to Leadville itself or going off prospecting all over the mountains in the hope of unearthing other Leadvilles. Ranch work was much too slow for them, and as a consequence it was impossible for us to secure any help that was worth having.

What made it all the more provoking was that we had that year an extra-fine stand of grass – the weather, too, was magnificent – yet, unless we could get help, it was hardly likely that we could take full advantage of our splendid hay-crop.

Nevertheless, as what could not be cured must be endured, my father and I tackled the job ourselves, working early and late, and we were making very good progress, all things considered, when we had the misfortune to break a small casting in our mowing-machine; a mishap which would probably entail a delay of several days until we could get the piece replaced.

It was just before noon that this happened, and we had brought the machine up to the wagon-shed and had put up the horses, when, on stepping out of the stable, we were accosted by a tall, black haired, blue eyed young fellow of about my own age, who asked if he could get a job with us.

“Yes, you can,” replied my father, promptly; and then, remembering the accident to the machine, he added, “at least, you can as soon as I get this casting replaced,” holding out the broken piece as he spoke.

“May I look at it?” asked the young fellow; and taking it in his hand he went on: “I see you have a blacksmith-shop over there; I think I can duplicate this for you if you’ll let me try: I was a blacksmith’s apprentice only a month ago.”

“Do you think you can? Well, you shall certainly be allowed to try. But come in now: dinner will be ready in five minutes; you shall try your hand at blacksmithing afterwards. What’s your name?”

“Joe Garnier,” replied the boy. “I come from Iowa. I was going to Leadville, but I met so many men coming back, with tales of what numbers of idle men there were up there unable to get work, that, hearing of a place called Sulphide as a rising camp, I decided to go there instead. This is the right way to get there, isn’t it?”

“Yes, this is the way to Sulphide. Did you expect to get work as a miner?”

“Well, I intended to take any work I could get, but if you can give me employment here, I’d a good deal rather work out in the sun than down in a hole in the ground.”

“You replace that casting if you can, and I’ll give you work for a month, at least, and longer if we get on well together.”

“Thank you,” said the stranger; and with that we went into the house.

The newcomer started well: he won my mother’s good opinion at once by wiping his boots carefully before entering, and by giving himself a sousing good wash at the pump before sitting down to table. It was plain he was no ordinary tramp – though, for that matter, the genus “tramp” had not yet invaded the three-year-old state of Colorado – for his manners were good; while his clear blue eyes, in contrast with his brown face and wavy black hair, gave him a remarkably bright and wide-awake look.

As soon as dinner was over, we all repaired to the blacksmith-shop, where Joe at once went to work. It was very evident that he knew what he was about: every blow seemed to count in the right direction; so that in about half an hour he had fashioned his piece of iron into the desired shape, when he plunged it into the tub of water, and then, clapping it into the vise, went to work on it with a file; every now and then comparing it with the broken casting which lay on the bench beside him.

“There!” he exclaimed at last. “I believe that will fit.” And, indeed, when he laid them side by side, one would have been puzzled to tell which was which, had not the old piece been painted red while the other was not painted at all.

Joe was right: the piece did fit; and in less than an hour from the time we had finished dinner we were at work again in the hay-field.

The month which followed was a strenuous one, but by the end of it we had the satisfaction of knowing that we had put up the biggest crop of hay ever cut on the ranch.

Our new helper, who was a tall, stout fellow for his age, and an untiring worker, proved to be a capital hand, and though at first he was somewhat awkward, being unused to farm labor, before we had finished he could do a better day’s work than I could, in spite of the fact that I had been a ranch boy ever since I had been a boy at all.

We all took a great liking for Joe, and we were very pleased, therefore, when, the hay being in, it was arranged that he should stay on. For there was plenty of work to be done that year – extra work, I mean – such as building fences, putting up an ice-house and so forth, in which Joe, having a decided mechanical turn, proved a valuable assistant. So, when the spring came round again it found Joe still with us; and with us he continued to stay, becoming so much one of the family that many people, as I said, who did not know his story, supposed that he and I were brothers in fact, as we soon learned to become brothers in feeling.

Long before this, of course, Joe had told us all about himself and how he had come to leave his old home and make his way westward.

Of French-Canadian descent, the boy, left an orphan at three years of age, had been taken in by a neighbor, a kind-hearted blacksmith, and with him he had lived for the twelve years following, when the blacksmith, now an old man, had decided to go out of business. Just at this time “the Leadville excitement” was making a great stir in the country; thousands of men were heading for the new Eldorado, and Joe, his old friend consenting, determined to join the throng.

It was, perhaps, lucky for the young blacksmith that he started rather late, for, on his approach to the mountains, he encountered files of disappointed men streaming in the opposite direction, and hearing their stories of the overcrowded condition of things in Leadville, he determined to try instead the mining camp of Sulphide, when, passing our place on the way he was caught by my father, as I have described, and turned into a ranchman.

Such was the condition of affairs with us when Big Reuben made his final raid upon our pig-pen.

The reward of one hundred dollars which the county paid us for our exploit in ridding the community of Big Reuben’s presence came in very handily for Joe and me. It enabled us to achieve an object for which we had long been hoarding our savings – the purchase of a pair of mules.