CHAPTER XII.
RESTING UP.
When Jack awoke next morning and tried to move he was unable to do so.For a moment he could not think what had happened; then suddenly theevents of the day before flashed back into his memory. Hugh, who hadbeen sitting by the fire, saw the blankets stir and walked over near tohim.
"Well, son," he said, "how do you feel this morning? Pretty stiff andsore I reckon, ain't you?"
"Yes, indeed, Hugh, I am sore all over. I don't feel as if I could move;but except for that I am all right."
"Well," said Hugh, "lie still awhile till I make breakfast, and thenwe'll kind o' prop you up, and see whether you are off your feed ornot."
Hugh went back to the fire and Jack could hear him walking about it andrattling the dishes. He wanted to get up and do his part, too, but hecould not bend one of his joints without its hurting. By-and-by hemanaged very slowly to turn his whole body, so that he lay on his sideand could look at the fire, and watch Hugh cooking the meat and waitingfor the coffee to boil, and then taking the pot off the coals andsetting it in a warm place, and finally clearing it by dashing a cupfulof water into it. Then, when all was ready, Hugh brought the packsaddles close to Jack's bed, piled them up firmly so as to make a back,and then approaching Jack, put his arm under his shoulders, lifted himpartly from the ground, and drew the whole bed over until the boy's backrested against the pack saddles, made soft by the piling against them ofa number of blankets. Hugh did this so very slowly and gently that thebending of Jack's body at the thighs scarcely hurt him at all.
"There," said Hugh, "did it hurt you much? I reckon you'll feel betterright off, now that you can sit up and look around; and now if you'lleat a good breakfast I think I can take and rub some of the soreness outof you pretty quick, as soon as it gets a little warmer."
"Thank you, Hugh," said Jack, gratefully, "it didn't hurt me a bit, andI believe if you'll help me a little bit I can get up and dress and walkaround, after breakfast. I hate to lie here doing nothing. It's likebeing a prisoner."
"Well," said Hugh, "it ain't no fun, I reckon. I mind once when I waslaid up with a broken leg, I got terrible uneasy until I was able tohobble about a little bit, and I know that being a prisoner ain't nofun, cause I was one myself once, and I was sure uncomfortable."
"When was that, Hugh?" said Jack. "I never heard about that before."
"Well," said Hugh, "you go on and eat your breakfast--here's your coffeeand some meat and bread, and I'll tell you about it. It wan't so verylong ago; only about ten years. I was working on a ranch at the head ofone of the forks of the Loup, just after they first got cattle in thecountry, and we had a terrible lot of trouble with horse thieves. DocMiddleton and his gang was camped somewhere in the country, and some ofthe best horses out on the range kept disappearing all the time. We knewit wasn't Indians that was taking them, and we knew they wasn't runningoff themselves; so we calculated it was white men, and we figured thatit was Middleton and his outfit. Still, there wasn't anything sure knownabout it. Some of the boys were for catching Middleton and hanging him,but it was easier to talk about that than it was to do it. He generallywent with three or four men, not always the same ones though, and theywere all of them always heeled, and it was liable to be a pretty hardmatter to get the drop on them. Nobody knew where they was camped, butthe boys that was riding on all the ranches in the country had orders tobe on the lookout for them, and if they saw any signs of where theystopped, to let it be known right off.
"Finally one day one of the boys came in and reported that he'd come ona horse trail pretty well worn, leading down into one of the cedarcanyons that runs into the Dismal, and he believed that Middleton'soutfit was camped in there; and from the way the trail looked, hethought they had a lot of horses there. It didn't take long to gather upa dozen men, who said they'd start down there and find out what therewas in the camp, anyhow; and other riders had been sent out to bring inmore men from the furthest camps. Really, a dozen men wasn't enough totackle this gang, for we could count eight or nine men that belonged toit, and if they wanted to put up a fight against us it wasn't any surething that we could best them. Anyhow, what there was of us started outabout dark and rode down within two or three miles of the cedar canyon,leaving fellows along the road to bring up any of the other men thatmight come in. When we got down to the stopping place, Wilson, the ranchboss who was leading our party, asked me to go ahead down to the campand see how many men there was there, and whether they had just theirown horses, or a bunch besides.
"I started off, and when I got within a quarter of a mile of the camp,left my horse in the hollow in the sandhills, and went ahead on foot. Itwas easy to find the place. When I got close to it, I could see thelight of the fire shine on the cedars long before I got within sight ofthe camp. I went along slow and easy, but when I got to the edge of thecanyon I could not see anything except the fire and two or three wagons,and five or six men sitting around. Their horses were out of sightsomewhere. I slipped down a side ravine, and keeping pretty well at theedge of the canyon, worked my way along until I got up above the men. Isoon saw that there'd been quite a bunch of horses pastured there, andgoing along a little further found thirty or forty head feeding in thecanyon. I went pretty careful, because I didn't know but I might runonto a horse guard any minute, for it didn't seem likely that thesehorses would stay down in the canyon there unless they was herded.They'd be more likely to get up onto the prairie where the grass wasbetter.
"After I had seen the horses I went on back till I got nearly oppositewhere the fire was, and then I crept up on a little ridge of sand andlooked over to count the men and see what they was doing, and how theywas fixed. I lay there, I guess, fifteen or twenty minutes, trying totake the whole thing in, and then suddenly I heard a little rustle inthe grass near me, and as I drew back out of sight, a couple of menlanded on my back and yelled plenty for help. One of them was smartenough to grab my gun and throw it away, and we just scuffled around inthe sand there for half a minute or two, and then the whole bunch thathad been at the fire jumped on me, and I give up.
"They hauled me over to the fire, and stood around looking at me andcalling me names, and presently Doc Middleton says, says he: 'Why, Iknow that old fool; he works over to Wilson's ranch. What were youdoing,' says he, mighty mad, 'spying around this here camp? For twocents I'd blow you full of holes;' and he pulled out a six-shooter andstuck it in my face. I was some uneasy, because I knew they was a badlot, and they was liable to kill me right there, and hide me in thesandhills, and then skin out of the country; but the fact is they'd beenthere so long without being bothered that I expect Doc thought he ownedthe country. And at last after a whole heap of talk they tied me up to awagon wheel close to the fire, and Doc told two of the men to sit by meand watch me all night, and to kill me if I moved.
"I sat there most of the night. The two fellows that was guarding mespelled each other; one would sleep for an hour, and then the otherwould wake him and give him the watch, and then he'd sleep; and prettysoon they both went to sleep.
"Whenever I got a chance I worked some at the ropes, mainly those on myhands, and at last I got 'em free, and then I loosened the rope aroundmy body; but I still sat there for I wanted both them fellows to getgood and sound asleep before I commenced to sneak. By this time the firehad died down, so that it didn't give no light to amount to nothing. I'djust cast off the ropes and worked myself around behind the wagon,mighty slow, and was beginning to crawl off, when all of a sudden Iheard horses coming, and the first I knew, the camp was surrounded. Docand his gang didn't make no fight at all; they was too surprised. Theywas all of 'em brought up to the fire and tied up there, same as I'dbeen a little while before. Of course, as soon as the fellows came intothe camp I holloard, because I didn't want 'em to be shooting at me. Bythe time the camp was captured it began to get light. Doc sat there bythe fire and talked, and told Wilson what an outrage it was that a bandof robbers should attack a lot of peaceable cowpunchers the way they hadthem
. He swore he'd have the law on 'em just as soon as he could get tothe Platte; but Wilson told him that he was liable never to get nearerto the Platte than the branches of one of them cedar trees up on thebluff.
"I told Wilson the way they'd mistreated me, and told him about thehorses up the canyon. They was fetched down; they had all sorts ofbrands on 'em, but not one that belonged in the country. It was alwaysmy belief that them fellows stole our horses and sent them down intoColorado, trading 'em off, maybe, for horses that they had stolen downthere. Anyhow, there wasn't a particle of evidence in the camp that wecould find that justified hanging one of them men.
"Wilson gave Doc and his men a good talking to, and told them they'dhave to leave the country. He gave 'em three weeks to get out, and thentold them that if they was found there after that, they'd be killed.Well, they left within the time set, and that part of the country hasn'tnever been troubled with 'em since, though I have heard of Doc in a goodmany places since, and always with a pretty tough name."
Jack had long ago finished his breakfast, and the sun was now high inthe heavens and beginning to beat down with fervor on the barren, yellowplain. After Hugh had washed the dishes, he said to Jack:--
"Now, I'll tell you what I want to do, son; I want to give you a goodrubbing all over, to take the soreness out of you. After I have donethat you'd better lie down and go to sleep again, and then towardevening maybe you can put on your clothes and walk around a bit, andto-morrow, if you feel all right, we'll start on again. I've found agood crossing up above here, and just as soon as you are able to travelwe'll roll out." Accordingly, Hugh gave Jack a hard rubbing from head tofoot, anointing the chafed and scratched parts of his body with sheeptallow, to which he added the crushed leaves and stems of a certainplant which he solemnly told Jack was his medicine, rolled Jack up in ablanket and left him to sleep. When the boy awoke again he felt fresh,and could move his arms and legs without much pain. Hugh helped himdress, and they walked a little distance up and down the river fromcamp; and after supper that night Jack said he certainly felt wellenough to go on in the morning.