Two Wyoming Girls and Their Homestead Claim - A Story for Girls

Carrie L. Marshall

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• Publié par: isso
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 27
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Two Wyoming Girls and Their Homestead Claim, by
Carrie L. Marshall
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Title: Two Wyoming Girls and Their Homestead Claim
A Story for Girls
Author: Carrie L. Marshall
Illustrator: Ida Waugh
Release Date: May 15, 2010 [EBook #32383]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO WYOMING GIRLS AND HOMESTEAD ***
Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)TWO WYOMING GIRLS
And Their Homestead Claim
A Story for Girls
BY
MRS. CARRIE L. MARSHALL
Author of “The Girl Ranchers,” Etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY IDA WAUGHTHE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA MDCCCXCIX
Copyright 1899 by The Penn Publishing Company
THE FLAMES REACHED TOWARD ME
GREEDILY
(Page 63)CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I I Go on an Errand 7
II The Will of the Waters 23
III At the Mouth of the Shaft 37
IV A Plot Foiled 44
V An Exciting Experience 57
VI A Visit from Mrs. Horton 68
VII Surmises 77
VIII “Best Laid Plans” 92
IX An Important Announcement 108
X Ralph and I go Blackberrying 118
XI The Cattle Brand 130
XII On the Trail of a Wildcat 145
XIII Joe Disappears 158
XIV At the Storage Reservoir 172
XV Chased by Wolves 183
XVI A Sleepless Night 194
XVII A Queer Bank 207
XVIII A Vital Point 227
XIX Mr. Horton Makes us a Visit 240
XX Guard Makes a Mistake 253
XXI A Friend in Need 261
XXII An Open Window 273
XXIII Alone on the Claim 284
XXIV Hunting for Guard 294
XXV Guard’s Prisoner 304
XXIV Mr. Horton Capitulates 316
[Pg 7]TWO WYOMING GIRLSCHAPTER I
I GO ON AN ERRAND
A fierce gust of wind and rain struck the windows, and Jessie, on her way
to the breakfast table, dish in hand, paused to listen.
“Raining again!” she exclaimed, setting the dish down emphatically. “It
seems to me that it has rained every day this spring. When it hasn’t
poured here in the valley, it has more than made up for it in the
mountains.”
“You are more than half right,” father said, drawing his chair up to the
table. “Is breakfast ready, dear? I am going to work in the mines to-day,
and I’m in something of a hurry.”
“Going to work in the mines!” Jessie echoed the words, as, I am sure, I did
[Pg 8]also. I was sitting in the corner dressing little Ralph, or, to be strictly
accurate, trying to dress him. No three year-old that ever lived could be
more exasperating than he sometimes was during that ordeal or could
show a more pronounced distaste for the bondage of civilized garments.
Jessie made haste to dish up the breakfast, but she inquired: “Do you
remember, papa, what that old miner who was here the other day told us
about mines in the wet season? About what was liable to happen
sometimes, and did happen here once, a good many years ago?”
“I don’t know that I do,” father answered, glancing toward Ralph and me, to
see if we were ready. As we were anything but that, he continued; “I guess
I won’t wait for you children.”
“Don’t, please!” I exclaimed, “Ralph is a perfect little buzz-saw this
morning. Keep still, Ralph!”
“Me want to do barefoot! Me want to wade in ’e puddle!” cried the child,
[Pg 9]pulling one soft little foot out of the stocking that I had just succeeded in
getting upon it.
“Ralph!” I cried, angrily: “I’ve a good notion to spank you!”
“Don’t, Leslie!” father interposed, mildly; “I remember so well how I liked to
wade in the mud-puddles when I was a little shaver; but it’s too early in the
season, and too cold for that sort of sport now. So, Ralph, my boy, let
sister dress you, and don’t hinder.”
Ralph always obeyed father’s slightest word, no matter how gently the
word was spoken; so now he sat demurely silent while I completed his
toilet.
“What was it that your friend, the miner, said, Jessie?” father asked, as
Jessie took her seat and poured out his coffee.
“He said that there had been so much rain on the mountains, and that the
Crusoe mines were on such a low level that there was some danger of aninrush of water, like that which ruined the Lost Chance, before we came
here.”
[Pg 10]“I recollect hearing something about the Lost Chance,” father said, going
on with his breakfast indifferently. “There may have been water crevices in
it. The accident was probably caused by them—and neglect.”
“I don’t see how it could be all due to neglect,” Jessie persisted. “The
miner said that the springs and rivers were all booming full, just as they
are now. People never thought of danger from the water, because it was so
often warm and dry in the valley—as it is, you know, often, even when it is
raining hard on the mountains. The miner said that the men went on with
their work in the mine, as usual, until, one afternoon, the timbered walls of
the tunnels slumped in like so much wet sand. What had been underground
passages became, in a moment, underground rivers, for the water that had
been held back and dammed up so long just poured in in a drowning flood.
He said that the rainfall seeped through the bogs up on the mountains, and
fed underground reservoirs that held the water safely until they were
[Pg 11]overtaxed. When that happened the water would burst out, finding an outlet
for itself in some new place. The only reason that any one of the force of
thirty men usually employed in the mine escaped was that the accident
occurred just as they were putting on a new shift. I remember very well
what he told us.”
“I see that you do,” father responded, with a thoughtful glance at her
earnest face, “but I reckon he rather overdid the business. These old
miners are always full of whims and forecasts; they are as superstitious
as sailors.”
“What he told was not superstition; it was a fact,” replied Jessie, with
unexpected logic.
Father smiled. “Well, anyway, don’t you get to worrying about the Gray
Eagle, daughter. It’s rather damp these days, I admit, but as safe as this
kitchen.”
“Do you really think so, papa?” Jessie asked, evidently reassured.
“Well, perhaps not quite as safe,” father answered, with half a smile. “It’s a
good deal darker for one thing, you know, and there are noises—”
[Pg 12]He lapsed into that kind of listening silence that comes to one who is
striving to recall something that has been heard, not seen, or felt, and I
was about to insist upon a further elucidation of those subterranean
sounds when the door opened and a man, whom father had hired for the
day, put in his head:
“Say, Mr. Gordon, I can’t find a spade anywhere,” he announced.
“Well, there!” father exclaimed, with a disturbed look, “our spade was left
at the mine the last day that we worked there.”
“That’s too bad!” the man, who was a neighbor, as neighbors go on the
frontier, said regretfully. “I can go back home and get mine, but the team’s
hitched up; it’s stopped raining, an’ there’s a load of posts on the wagon.Seems ’most a pity for me to take time to go an’ hunt up a spade, but I
reckon I’ll have to do it. I never saw the man yet that could dig post holes
without one.”
“Oh, no, Reynolds, don’t stop your work for that; I’ll have to bring mine
[Pg 13]down; it’s about as near to get it from the Gray Eagle as to go to one of the
neighbors; you just go on with your work.”
Reynolds withdrew accordingly, and, as the door closed upon him, father
said:
“I’m anxious to earn every dollar I can to help fence that wheat field, before
Horton’s cattle ‘accidentally’ stray into it. I was out to look at it this
morning. The field looks as if covered with a green carpet, it’s coming up
so thick. I count it good luck to be able to get Reynolds to go on with the
fence-building while I work in the mine, for I can exchange work to pay
him, while the pay that comes from the mine is so much cash.”
“And when we get our title clear, won’t I shoo Mr. Horton’s cattle to the
ends of the earth!” I said, resentfully, for we all understood well enough
that the reason that father was so anxious to earn money was to pay for
the final “proving up” on his homestead claim, as well as to build fences.
[Pg 14]“I’m teaching Guard to ‘heel’ on purpose to keep track of those cattle,” I
concluded, audaciously, for father didn’t approve of a policy of retaliation.
“Horton’s cattle are not to bla