The Mountain Divide by Frank H. Spearman (poetry books to read txt) 📖

Stanley’s next camp was pitched down the river where the overland telegraph line crossed the Spider Water, and Bucks, installed in a smart army tent with a cracker-box for a stool and a packing-case for an instrument table, was, through Dancing’s efforts, put in communication by wire with Medicine Bend and the west country as far as Sleepy Cat, where the War Department was establishing an army post.

Stanley, with Bob Scott, now spent a great deal of time in the saddle between the bridge and the upper tie-camps, and his presence made itself felt in the renewed energy everywhere apparent among the contractors and their men. Bucks, chained to a wire, as he expressed it, found the days dragging again and would much rather have been at liberty to ride with Scott, who, when free, hunted in the foot-hills.

One day Bucks was sitting alone in his tent, 95 looking for the hundredth time over a worn copy of Harper’s Weekly that he had picked up at Casement’s camp, when a dog put his nose in the tent door. A glance revealed merely a disconsolate, unpromising cur, yet Bucks thought he had seen the dog before and was interested. He seemed of an all-over alkali-brown hue, scant of hair, scant of tail, and with only melancholy dewlap ears to suggest a strain of nobler blood in an earlier ancestry. He looked in with the furtive eye of the tramp, and as if expecting that a boot or a club would most probably be his welcome.

But Bucks at the moment was lonely––as lonely as the dog himself––and as the two fixed their eyes intently on each other, Bucks remembered that this was the tie foreman’s dog, Scuffy.

Scuffy had appeared at the psychological moment. Bucks regarded him in silence, and the dog perceiving no immediate danger of assault stood, in silence, returning Bucks’s stare. Then watching the boy’s eye carefully, the dog cocked his head just the least bit to one side. It was a mute appeal, but a moving one. Bucks continued, 96 however, his non-committal scrutiny, recalling that the foreman had said nothing good of Scuffy, and the homeless cur stood in doubt as to his reception. But realizing, perhaps, that he had nothing to lose and everything to gain, the little vagabond played his last card––he wagged his stubby tail.

A harder heart than Bucks’s might have been touched. The operator held out his hand. No more was needed; the melancholy tramp stepped cautiously forward waving his alert flag of truce. He sniffed long and carefully as he neared Bucks, looked solicitously into the boy’s eyes, and then smelt and licked the proffered hand. It was a token of submission as plainly expressed as when Friday, kneeling, placed Robinson Crusoe’s foot on his head. Bucks reached into a paper bag that Bill Dancing had left on the table and gave the dog a cracker.

Scuffy snapped up the offering like one starving. A second cracker and a third disappeared at single gulps. For the length of the dog, the size of his mouth appeared enormous. In a moment the 97 cracker-bag was emptied and Scuffy again licked the friendly hand. It did not take Bucks long to decide what to do. In another moment he had resolved to adopt his tramp visitor. The day happened to be Friday, and Bucks at once renamed him Friday. When Dancing, who had been with Bob Scott hunting, came in late that night he found Bucks asleep and Scuffy lying in Dancing’s own bed, from which he was ejected only after the most vigorous language on his own part as well as on that of the lineman. Even then, Scuffy retreated only as far as Bucks’s feet, where he slept for the rest of the night undisturbed.

“Where did he come from?” growled Dancing in the morning as he sat with his pipe regarding the intruder, who acted quite at home, with a critical eye.

Bucks explained that this was the tie foreman’s runaway dog, Scuffy, and beyond Scuffy’s first appearance at the tent door he could tell him nothing. Scuffy simply and promptly assumed a place in camp and Bucks became, willy-nilly, his sponsor. 98 But his effort to rename him came to nothing. Scuffy gave no heed when called “Friday,” but for “Scuffy” he sprang to attention instantly.

Bill Dancing decided, off-hand, that “the pup” was worthless. Scott, whose smile was kindly even when sceptical, only corrected Bill to the extent of saying that Friday or Scuffy, whoever or whatever he might be, was no pup; that he was a full-grown dog and in Bob’s judgment he would need no guardian.

One day, shortly after Scuffy had been put upon the pay-roll, Scott came in from a trip after venison with word that there were black bears in the hill canyons. The thought of bear’s meat aroused every one, and Stanley suggested a bear hunt. Scott had to send down to Stanley’s ranch at Medicine Bend for his dogs and some delay followed. But when the three hounds arrived there was excitement enough to compensate for it. One of the dogs was a big black fellow and his companions were brown full-bloods. The hounds, one and all, set on Scuffy the moment they reached camp, and it was only by the most 99 dexterous manœuvres that the strange dog escaped being eaten alive. Indeed, Bob Scott remarked at once that if Scuffy should survive the greetings of his new comrades he would prove his right to live. The hounds always set upon him at meal-times, usually chewed him at bed-time, and harried him at all times.

To a less hopeful temperament than Scuffy’s, life would not have seemed worth living. It was only Bucks who insured him anything at all to eat, and the enmity of the big, rangy hounds for the lean and hungry tramp dog left him no peace save when they were fighting in dreams. To accept life under such conditions indicated that Scuffy was a philosopher, and he accepted the conditions cheerfully, filching what he could of sustenance from the common pot and licking his troublesome wounds at night after his truculent companions had gone to sleep.

As soon as the tie-supply trouble had been lessened Stanley took things more leisurely and the interval afforded the opportunity for the delayed bear hunt. Bob Scott and Dancing were to go 100 with Stanley, and Bucks being freed for one day from his key was invited to be of the party. All hands were in the saddle by daybreak, and Scott’s hounds were baying and tearing around camp wild with excitement.

At the last moment a complication arose. Scuffy, who until the moment of starting had for prudential reasons––that is, to avoid being eaten up––remained in obscurity, joined the hunters. Every one in turn tried to drive him back, but long practice had made him expert in dodging missiles and had rendered him insensible to reproach. The hounds were too filled with the prospect of sport to pay any attention to Scuffy. In vain, Bob Scott tried to set them on him and drive him back to camp. On this occasion, when bullying would plainly have been justified, no hound would assail Scuffy. Bucks drove him again and again from the flank of the advance only to have the mortification of seeing him reappear a mile or two farther along the trail, and it was at last decided to leave him to his fate at the paw of a bear––which no one made doubt he 101 was certain to suffer. At that moment Bucks and Bill Dancing, riding together, saw a deer frightened from a thicket running toward the river. Bucks jumped from his horse and lifted his rifle to take a shot, but by the time he was ready to fire the deer had vanished.

Led by Scott, the hunters rode at once into the rough country to the west, where in the mountain fastnesses the bears loved to feed. The hounds gave tongue vigorously, and Scuffy, who had by this time not only established himself but had impudently taken the lead and was heading the pack, barked loudest and longest.

“Did anybody ever see conceit equal to that?” demanded Stanley. “Look at that cur leading the hounds.”

Bucks was mortified and expressed his regret.

“Don’t mind him, Bucks,” remarked Dancing consolingly. “That dog won’t bother long. The first time the hounds run in, the bear will finish him.”

Bucks did not know precisely what Bill meant by “running in,” but he was not to be long in doubt. The pack struck a fresh trail almost at 102 once and the hunters had a long ride along a mountain-side covered with fallen timber and cut by innumerable wash-outs that made the riding hard and dangerous. Scott found intervals to encourage Bucks, whose youth and inexperience made his task of keeping up with the others a difficult one. “Take it easy,” said Scott encouragingly as the operator tried to urge his mount.

“I am keeping you all back, Bob.”

“Plenty of time. You are doing wonders for mountain-riding. When we close in on the bear don’t be too keen to get near him. You wouldn’t be safe for a minute on your horse if the dogs didn’t keep the bear busy. As long as the dogs worry the bear you are safe. A bear will never chase a man as long as a dog keeps at him. It’s only when the dogs refuse to go in any longer that the danger begins. When that happens, look out. Keep a respectful distance all the time and a road open behind you. That’s all there is to a bear fight.”

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