CHAPTER 10
April meant that spring was coming. Spring brought contractors and
crowds of laborers to work on the new railroad which was taking form;
car-loads of grading machinery; structural timbers, horses and mules. A
new bank was started by Whipple and associates; the landoffice was
swamped with new business; Saunders and Percival worked overtime to
keep pace with the Court's fast expanding public record work; Mudge's
office accumulated enormous variety of new contracts in meeting the
needs of the grading and track laying contractors out along the
surveyed extension of the railroad to the west; business boomed. Since
Billy's trial was over ad the Gem saloon was being operated by others,
thing quieted down for a while in the town,---but out along the grade,
the report of killings came regularly.
Maggie
and May were prevailed upon by their friends to return to the Lakeside
and resume oversight of the kitchen and dining room,---as the hotel was
filled and its reputation had suffered during their absence after Pat's
death. Mudge promptly forgot his orders to rotate his weekly boarding
places; he was content to be waited on by May; would have been content
to remain,---if it had not been spring. Spring brought so many
disturbing situations, among them were regular weekly letters from a
young lady back east,---the girl who had spelled him down at a spelling
bee; then Col. Whipple came to ask him to go into his new bank as
cashier; and the courthouse officials sought his help to become a
politician and assistant recorder there; the Indians were coming again,
for their last season of bone business; next season they would trade at
a new station farther west. Business at the fort took more attention;
cattle were being shipped in by train loads; always Mudge was called
onto help in the roundup; had to visit the ranges to buy beef; go to
the railroad camps to collect for delivered meats and supplies; his
responsibilities were becoming so great that Sunday hunting and fishing
were abandoned. Relief from this pressure came when the "gang" went on
a visit to the Indian camp, or to an encampment of prairie schooner
emigrant families at the outskirts, for an evening. Sometimes a stop
for a few beers at the girl emporium below the railroad tracks; they
were usually welcome there, until it was discovered that Gertie had a
grudge against "Doc" Smith, and, as the party was leaving, the doctor
lagged behind to settle his dispute. Suddenly a shot rang out from a
window as "Doc" came up to the party; she had missed him in the
darkness. But the gang decided that this could not be tolerated toward
a member of their crowd; they turned back, kicked the door in, tore up
the interior fixings, threw the furniture out the front door, turned
the three girls out of the house and marched them up town, and after
exacting promises for good behavior, left the on the street.
The
gang learned of a dance at a log cabin near the lake border at which a
couple of fairly neat white girls were to be present; they found the
place, went in, and found eight other rather tough looking cowboys and
soldiers, all armed with wicked six-guns in holsters, and there were
several bottles of raw whiskey on the table alongside the fiddler, a
French half-breed who wore his coon-skin cap and sawed at a
three-string violin for them as they danced, with their broad brim hats
on--and swung the two girls off their feet. It was a private dance,
they said, and other folks were not invited; they all took a drink, but
did not pass the bottle to their uninvited visitors. As they
outnumbered the gang and were unwilling to furnish a girl for any of
them to dance with, without a fight, it was agreed to leave before
trouble started, as somebody was sure to get hurt there, and the gang
had work to do. It was the first and last defeat,---a defeat of wise
choosing.
Busy days and rough environment were not without the
occasional funny incidents. One day in a quiet moment Doug had slipped
out from his job behind the meat counter to buy a new stock of cigars
and smoking tobacco for the partnership glass jar always kept in the
desk in Mudge's office. As it was a mutual errand, Mudge felt it his
duty to go behind the meat counter and wait upon Mrs. Hansbrough who
came into shop. This lady was the really prominent leader of the most
high-toned folks in town, and, as she stepped to the marble-top, Mudge
appeared there to wait on her; she said: "Some dog meat, please," and
waited for it to be handed to her. Mudge blushed and hesitated; he was
shocked; he knew that Indians used dog for stews, but he had never
heard of elite white people eating dog; in his confusion, he said:
"I'll have Doug get you a nice white one from the Indins, dess it and
deliver it by four o'clock if tat will be time enough for your dinner."
She said: "I'll thank you to tell Doug that I want some meat for my
dog,---and have it sent over at once." Chin out, she strutted out and
slammed the door hard. Her husband was publisher of the Interocean,
and one of Mudge's most intimate friends, later to become United States
Senator when the territory was divided and admitted to the Union as two
states. Long years after, the "Senator" took delight in relating the
dog meat story to his friends and especially was it a choice one for
those who happened to know Mudge.
Johnny Davenport, the baker,
was in the habit of getting on periodic sprees. On such occasions he
made the Dodge meat store a place to work out his drunken antics and as
he had a reputation as a bad actor, the boys were watchful when he
appeared there. One day he rushed in brandishing a huge butcher knife,
saying he was going to butcher the butcher, but Doug had business in
the ware-room, and got away through the back door. Johnny ranted at
Mudge's window about a bad deal he once had from Doug,---and then
departed.
Word was sent to Doug who came back to his counter and
went to work. Presently Johnny came back, this time instead of his long
knife, he held in his hand, his pipe with its tiny stem pointed at
Doug; as he approached the counter, Mudge slipped out of his office
door, caught the obstreperous baker by the collar and swung him to the
floor, as Doug came to the rescue and held him there until more help
came to tie him into a helpless bundle; then they called the policeman
who took charge; stored Johnny in the jail to sober up.
The
cattle-corral was located at the lakeside adjoining Indian timber which
was infested with the big grey timber wolves. The herds in the
enclosure had to be guarded at night by men armed with Winchesters and
it was not an enviable position to patrol the line fence on a cold or a
dark night. When a shipment of sheep and hogs was attached to the
incoming cattle train, extra guards were necessary, and occasionally it
fell to Mudge to act as a sentinel with the regular force. These ugly
brutes were so desperate that they would approach the fenced enclosure
in broad daylight in their hunger for pork or a feast on juicy mutton;
and one morning attacked the stableman who was delivering some bales of
hay for feeding the cattle, who in the battle, killed it with his
hayfork. The beasts were hard to shoot at night, but with well-placed
poison along the fence lines, the herders collected many a hide.
The
two Hoover brothers, in the old home town back east, had sold their
farms and came to take up homesteads; along with their teams and
implements in the big box car, came Davy Jones, Mudge's chestnut
Hambletonian three-year-old saddler. It was like meeting one of the
family to have this beautiful steed to ride again; but it was soon
learned that a Pennsylvania racehorse could not stand the pace
alongside of Sitting Bull in the long hard campaigns that western
ponies were accustomed to; "Davy" was a show horse, and he took the eye
of the local sportsmen at once.
Harry Garbett was a
horse-fancier; he liked to drive "Davy" in his high-wheeled racing
sulky, and on Sundays, he delighted to hitch him in his shining buggy
for a drive around own. One day he came to ask Mudge if he could buy
him; he offered one hundred and twenty-five for the horse. "Sold," said
Mudge, and they went to the bank where Garbett drew out the gold and
handed it over. Mudge shoved the pile back in to the teller for credit;
the next day the bank was gone, president, cashier and money,--gone for
good; just one more western experience. It was a "private" concern
started by the once mayor of the new town, O.B. Corsett; the only asset
that could be located was the gold letters B A N K on the front window.
The
long indefinite talks about the new railroad, now took on the phase of
a reality; it was actually under way, for grading crews composed of
Irish, Swedes, Norwegians, Indians and "breeds" with now and then a
negro, were scattered along the prairie for fifteen miles. Mudge got
the fever for land-site profits, along with the lawyers and real estate
agents, who were constantly talking of laying out new towns on the line
of the survey.
Determined to get his share of the rich acres
which could be had if not delayed too long; he went to the Land Office
to file for it; as Whipple began to fill out the blanks for the 160
acre plot which he had selected for his own, the smiling land agent
laid the papers aside, and said: "Mac, you'll have to grow up before
you can take up a claim, you are not of age yet." ---and the youth
turned away disgusted, but not wholly discouraged; he would go out the
line and see what he could find.
Jack Devlin was a big rancher
from Montana; he had shipped in 700 head of feeders from St. Paul,
unloaded then and was organizing a crew to drive them overland to Great
Falls, estimated to be some seven hundred and fifty miles west through
a little known and wholly undeveloped region. Devlin came to try to
induce Mudge to join the outfit, and made a very romantic and
attractive appeal; it would require signing up for six months; must get
a good horse and full equipment for the horse and himself; wages fifty
dollars a month and found. To Mudge this meant a great adventure; he
did not sign, but he mentally decided that he would go, and proceeded
to look for the horse, selected the saddle, and bargained for the price
of each. Then Sam came in to the office to talk it over; he had heard
of the proposition from Devlin himself; said he: "You musn't do it,
you're too young to bind up with a gang of toughs; you'd never get
through; I know this crowd, and I won't stand for it." Meantime the
rest of the boys heard of it and turned in similar protests.
Bigger
and more alluring tales about the railroad floated around town; it was
stated that it might be built as far west as the Mouse River; already
there was a townsite plotted at Church's Ferry and loyal real estate
men were counting on a boom.
Ties and rails were coming in
car-lots and daily the ring of the sledge on spikes echoed from all
along the way to Grand Harbor; then the tie-and-rail trains no longer
stopped at the local yards, but went wobbling on over the new
tracks,---out of sight in the western horizon; a new frontier was born!
Fall indicated that Minot, a hundred miles west was to be the new
frontier boom-town; it was a real Baron Munchausen tale, but it came
true, for back of it was that bald-pate bewhiskered Canadian, Jim Hill,
who, by the next fall had driven his railroad six hundred and
forty-five more miles west through 413 miles of Indian reservations and
wild wilderness, to Great Falls, Montana. Frontier Days were over
forever.
Mudge asked for a two-week leave to visit the folks
back east and the first to meet him was the girl who won the spelling
bee. They were married next July and celebrated their golden wedding
not so long ago.
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