Part 10

The open space between the semicircle of cottonwood trees had been cleared, and already was beginning to assume a homelike aspect. Mrs. Peniman and the girls, with Paul and little David to help them, had put in as busy a day at the camp as the boys and their father had on the sod house. When they arrived they found the table set, looking extremely neat and festive with its cloth of bright red, its dishes and silver, with a vase of wild-flowers in the centre of the table, and a great dish of fried prairie-chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and hot biscuits steaming upon it, and Mrs. Peniman flying about in a big kitchen apron unpacking cooking utensils, getting out furniture, and making a cozy resting-place under the trees.

At their exclamations of delight she laughed happily.

"There's no use waiting until the house is finished before we begin to _live_," she greeted them cheerily; "we're all tired of hardships, and I, for one, want some kind of comforts around me again. Wait till you come home to-morrow night, you'll see what we have done then, won't they, girls?"

Ruth and Nina, busy as bees getting the supper on the table, answered with gleeful and mysterious nods. The place already seemed so pleasant and inviting that they were loath to go to bed when the time came, but pioneer boys and girls, as well as pioneer men and women, soon found out that it was not what they _wanted_ to do, but what they _had_ to do that was to be considered.

With grim determination Mr. Peniman and the boys returned to the building of the sod house the next morning. They all realized that while gypsying under the trees might be very delightful now, stormy weather would materially change its aspect, and that in the unprotected wilderness in which they were living the sooner they were sheltered behind thick walls and barred doors at night the greater would be their safety.

It was hard, slow work, and many days passed, while the piles of sod grew steadily and the walls went up higher and higher. The boys worked manfully, and Mr. Peniman, like the wise father he was, did not work them too hard or too long, but often sent them off for a walk or a swim, sometimes urging them to go and catch a mess of fish for dinner, sometimes pretending that he was hungry for meat and sending them off into the woods or out on the prairies to hunt for game. They found any number of wild turkeys about the place, some quail, and plenty of prairie-chickens, and once in a while a deer or an antelope was killed, although neither of the boys liked to shoot the pretty, graceful creatures, that seemed utterly without fear, and often came up quite close about their camp.

It took a month to build the sod house, during which time the family lived in the woods, sleeping in their beds in the wagons as they had done on their journey, and eating in the open under the spreading cottonwood trees.

The weather continued fine, and the family, in spite of their isolation, were very happy. They were busy all day long, and had always been one of those happy and united families who find their greatest happiness in one another.

Nina had come to be quite one of themselves now, and she and Ruth were seldom apart, while for Joe and Sam and Lige the girl showed a warm and grateful affection. She was devoted to Mrs. Peniman, and often sat at her feet or on the arm of the old rocking-chair with her arm about her neck, calling her "Mother Peniman," and showering upon her the love and tenderness she had always shown for her own unfortunate young mother.

When the walls of the sod house were completed the hardest part of the work was to come, and Joshua Peniman puzzled long as to how he was going to get the ridgepole in place without another man to help him. He felled a strong, straight young tree, about fifteen inches through, and carefully stripped the bark from it. To raise the pole the aid of the whole family was required. As there were no neighbors within many miles to call upon, the difficult and dangerous feat must be performed with what help was at hand. He first made skids and rolled the tree upon it. These skids he placed with one end resting on the wall, the other on the ground. Ropes were then fastened to it, and while Mrs. Peniman, Ruth, Nina, and Sam stood on the top of the wall and pulled the ropes, Joe, Lige, and their father, on the ground, lifted and pushed the pole from below.

Fortunately for the success of the operation life in the open air, constant exercise and hard work had hardened the muscles of all and made them equal to the exertion. It was a strenuous piece of work, but with much puffing and panting and laughter they kept doggedly at it, and before dusk had come they got the ridgepole in place, and the most difficult part of building the house was accomplished.

Next came the rafters, which were poles of young trees from four to six inches through, placed about fifteen inches apart. Over these were laid boughs, cut from the willow thicket, and these thickly overlaid with the dry prairie grass. When a thick, deep covering of this straw had been laid in place and carefully packed down, dirt to the depth of about a foot was piled upon it and beaten down hard with the spade.

Now they were ready for the doors and windows!

The proud architects of this mansion of "Nebraska marble"--consisting of every member of the family except little Mary and David--stood about and surveyed it with admiring eyes. Even Lige was converted and was now willing to admit that it was a great idea. The walls were even, straight, and true, its corners square, its whole appearance neat and workman-like.

Greatly to the boys' astonishment they found packed away on the very bottoms of the two wagons three sets of window-casings and two stout wooden doors.

"I never knew those were there!" cried Joe, as he saw his father haul them out. "How did you ever come to think of them?"

"It would be a poor sort of a pioneer that did not think about providing shelter for his family, my lad," he answered. "I knew, of course, that we should have to build a sod house, and knew also that though the house might grow out of the prairie itself that glass windows and wooden doors wouldn't, so I brought them along."

It was a sharp, snappy morning in September when the last window was in, the last door screwed to its hinges, and Joshua Peniman, with a great sigh of relief, laid down his hammer and turned over the new house to his wife.

"There!" he ejaculated, "there is thy house, now thee and the girls can do what thee please with it. The boys and I have done our part. We must get at the barn now, for if I don't miss my guess there is some stormy weather coming."

There was not much time for loafing in the little colony these days. The whole family felt the impending change in the weather, and while Mr. Peniman and the boys, profiting by their experience in building the house, started on the barn, Mrs. Peniman with Ruth, Nina, Sam and Paul, plastered the walls of the new "soddy" with a medium made of one-third clay and two-thirds sand, which, when dry, they covered with a neat coat of whitewash.

The "soddy" when completed was eighteen by twenty-two feet inside, and though it had no partitions, was divided into three rooms by means of curtains, which Mrs. Peniman had brought in her trunk.

The last coat of whitewash was applied late in the evening, and the next morning Mrs. Peniman could scarcely wait to get breakfast over before she began to move into her new house.

The boys and their father were off and away early, for they were straining every nerve to get in a crop of sod-corn before the coming of the fall rains. But with the help of the girls and little Paul, she went at it with a will, determined to make their home in the wilderness as pleasant and comfortable as it could be under the circumstances.

They had brought with them from Ohio a carpet, a cook-stove, two bedsteads and several cots, some chairs, among which were two comfortable old-fashioned rockers, a table, a great roll of matting, and books, pictures, and knickknacks, and when these were in place, with packing-cases converted into dressing-tables, cupboards made out of boxes, and a couple of roughly constructed benches placed against the walls covered with bright-colored chintz, the place assumed a cheery and homelike appearance that one would never have deemed possible from its exterior. The window ledges were wide and deep, and in the windows she hung pretty white curtains, covered the packing-cases and boxes with chintz, laid the matting over the dirt floors and covered it with the carpet, and when the pictures were hung on the walls, the books and knick-knacks on the table, with a vase of gorgeous goldenrod from the prairies, the little "soddy" looked like a real home.

The front part of the house, into which the door opened, was the living-room, with cot-beds covered in the daytime like couches furnished the sleeping accommodations for the girls. Curtained off from this the second part of the interior was divided in two, with the sleeping quarters of the boys on one side of the curtain and those of Mr. and Mrs. Peniman on the other. The back third, from which the back door opened out into the outdoor kitchen, contained the cook-stove, dishes and cooking utensils, provisions, and a table at which the family took their meals in stormy weather.

Profiting by his remembrance of the Wards' dugout, Mr. Peniman had decided to make a dugout for the shelter of his stock. He selected a spot where the steep incline of a ravine made a high embankment; he set to work digging back into it, and was gratified to find that the earth sloped downward under a wide ledge of rock, so that by extending the dugout for about twenty-five feet back under the ledge he could take advantage of it and convert it into an excellent natural roof. This plan lightened the labors of building the barn considerably. When a large square chamber had been dug they evened it up, built a strong sod wall in front and at the sides where they met the slope of the embankment, put in three stalls on each side, made of dead timber they found along the river bank, constructed feed-racks out of old boxes, and built in the back end a sort of attic or loft, for grain and hay.

As no door had been brought for the barn they were obliged to make one, using small saplings closely nailed together on a strong pine frame. This made a heavy and rather cumbersome door, but an exceedingly strong one.

"I guess no Indian will break through that to steal our horses," remarked Joe, regarding it proudly.

"No, I think not. We'll put a good strong lock on it, and then I think our horses will be safe. It behooves us to keep them so," went on Mr. Peniman, "for a settler's wealth is in his horses, and we are better off than most. Most of the movers we have met were driving oxen, while we have three good teams."

When the dugout was completed it was indeed a strong and safe shelter for the stock. Protected from above by the ledge of rock, and on both sides by the stout sod wall and the rocky sides of the embankment, with the sturdy log door across its entrance, it was a shelter that would have stood a long siege.

As the family stood about it viewing it with pride they did not dream how well it would serve them, or how glad they would be of its protection in the days to come.

*CHAPTER XVI*

*IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY*

The house and barn were completed none too soon. On the afternoon of the day on which the door of the barn was hung the clouds hung heavy and ominous in the northeast. About four o'clock it began to thunder.

"Just in time, my lads," cried Mr. Peniman with a glance at the angry blackness of the sky. "We're going to have a big storm. Thank heaven that both we and our cattle will have good shelter. Get up the horses, Joe. Lige, you fill up the racks with grain and hay. Sam, you'd better bring in the cow. If it should be, as I fear, a very bad storm we shall all feel happier to know that our faithful beasts are under shelter."

It was nearly five o'clock, and the cow and horses were comfortably settled in their new quarters, when the storm broke. It was the first experience of the pioneers in a severe electrical storm on the prairies, and glad indeed were they of the thick walls and substantial roof above their heads as the lightning flashed and forked over the prairies, the thunder crashed, and the wind howled and raged while the rain came down in torrents.

"Oo-ooh! if we were out in the wagons now!" cried Ruth, flattening her nose against the window pane and peering out at the driving storm.

"Yes, or even in a frame house," said Joe. "No frame house could last long in a wind like this. Whee-ee, isn't it a gale! I'm glad we're in a soddy."

"It _is_ comfortable and cozy, isn't it?" sighed Mrs. Peniman, glancing about her with a little smile of content.

For three days the wind howled and the rain fell, while the gentle murmur of the river increased to a sullen roar and it rushed foaming and tumultuous over its rocky bed. On the night of the third day it overflowed its banks, and Mr. Peniman and the boys had to spend most of the night guarding their wagons, implements and other property that they might not be carried away by the flood. The rain had changed to hail on this night, and Joe and Lige wore inverted skillets on their heads to protect them from the pelting of the hailstones. On the fourth day the wind died down, the rain ceased, and the sun came out in an intensely blue sky, which looked as brilliantly clean and clear as if newly created.

With the first gleam of sunshine the pioneers left the shelter of the house and took up the work waiting them outside.

They found that the stock had weathered the storm in the greatest comfort. Dicky and Mother Feathertop, who had found shelter under the canvas covers of the prairie schooners, were sadly bedraggled, and Romeo and Juliet, though exceedingly muddy, and in a very wet pen, were squealingly protesting their desire for food.

"Their pen is all wet, Father," cried Ruth in a grieved tone; "they'll take their deaths of cold."

Lige and Sam burst into roars of laughter.

"_Pigs_ don't take cold, you goosie!" chuckled Sam.

"They do, too, don't they, Mother?"

"I never heard of pigs taking cold," said Mrs. Peniman, "but they certainly do look most uncomfortably wet. Couldn't we take them out and put them in another pen until their house dries?"'

"I think we might. I believe the pen we made for them when we first came is around here somewhere."

"I know where it is," cried Joe, and ran to get it.

When the pen of saplings was placed in a comparatively dry place Joe, Lige and Sam, in high rubber boots, descended into the pit to capture the young porkers. The mud was deep and slippery, the pigs well coated with the clay, and the boys chased them round and round the pen, sometimes catching hold of one by the ear or tail, sometimes grabbing them about the body, sometimes managing to get hold of a leg, when with a flirt and a squeal they would wiggle away, too slippery to hold on to, while the would-be captor would sprawl face down in the mud.

"Talk about your greased-pig races," panted Sam, who had just lost his grip on Juliet for the fourth time, "I never saw one that was a patchin' to this!"

Joe caught Romeo by his tail, which was too short and curly to make a good handle, and after a violent struggle, during which Joe slipped and slid all over the pen, Romeo made his get-away with a shrill squeal of vengeance, while Joe sprawled on his stomach in the mud.

The girls, with Paul and their mother were watching the chase from above with shouts and shrieks of laughter. When Lige made a wild dive for Juliet, who slipped through his hands and dived between his legs, sending him head-over-heels, Ruth doubled herself up with shrieks of mirth, in which Nina joined. Nothing could have injured the feelings of handsome Lige more.

"Well, _stay_ in your slimy old pen then," he growled, and began to climb out. Mr. Peniman, shaking with laughter, stopped him. He too had been watching the sport.

"Here's a rope," he called out; "you'll never get them that way, they're too slippery. Rope them and pass them up to me."

This was a new angle to the game, and one that suited the boys better. Sam grabbed the rope and made a lasso at one end. With a wild cowboy yell he made for the astonished young porkers. His first try failed, when Lige grabbed the rope, and after an unsuccessful cast or two succeeded in getting the festive Romeo firmly about his fat middle. Romeo protested with shrill squeals, but he was captured, and was soon hoisted up and dropped inside the other pen. Juliet, being a bit more spry, and perhaps, being a lady, a trifle more wary, was harder to catch. Each of the boys tried his hand, and it was Joe who at last made the lucky throw, and got her fast by the leg, after which it was an easy matter to get hold of her and hoist her up to their father.

By this time it would have been hard to say which were the muddier and dirtier, the boys or the pigs, but a swim in the river soon removed the mud, and the rubber boots and suits they had worn were washed at the same time, so that they were soon fresh and clean.

The next day was bright and clear, and soon after their early breakfast Mr. Peniman, Joe, Lige, and Sam set off for the far side of their claim to cut the prairie grass for hay.

Mr. Peniman had staked out his own claim of 160 acres, laying out at the same time a 160 acre tract for Joe on one side of it and Lige on the other, to be pre-empted as soon as the boys should be old enough.

They took all three teams, and while Mr. Peniman and Joe began cutting the long, rich prairie grass Lige and Sam guided the plows, turning over the sod for their fall planting.

As this side of the claim was quite a distance from the house they had taken their lunch with them, and had just finished eating, and Joe was tipping up the jug to take a swig of water, when he stopped short, the jug at his shoulder, staring with fixed gaze across the plains.

"Indians!" he shouted, "_Indians!_" and dashing down the jug leaped for the horses.

Joshua Peniman at the same moment had seen the horsemen dashing across the open plateau to the south of them.

With a leap he sprang to the other team and began loosing them from the plow.

Joe and Lige had by this time got Kit and Billy free and throwing themselves across their backs had started for home in a mad gallop.

In the minds of all was the same terrible thought. Mrs. Peniman and the children were there unprotected and alone.

Joshua Peniman, not so young or active as his sons, did not dare to ride bareback. With frantic haste he hitched his team to the wagon, and shouting to Sam to jump in, and lead the black team, leaped in and lashed the horses into a run.

None of them had any weapons. They had seen no Indians since coming to the Blue River country, and their fear of them had gradually subsided as their minds became filled with other things. Now as Joshua Peniman drove madly across the prairies he cursed his short-sightedness and stupidity.

Nearer and nearer the squat black house on the banks of the river came the naked, yelping savages.

"My God--will Hannah see them in time--will she get herself and the children into the house before they reach her!" The agonized thought hammered itself over and over in his brain.

As Joe and Lige dashed on, silent before the stark horror of the moment, they could see the children playing down by the river. It was evident that they knew nothing of their danger. Then as the boys dashed on, lashing their horses cruelly, they saw their mother come to the door.

For a moment she stood, and they could feel in their own hearts that terror that came over her. Then they saw her make a dash for the river. Even above the thudding of the horses' hoofs they could hear her wild, agonized calls. The Indians heard it, too, and answered with derisive whoops and yells.

With dry lips and a frantic unuttered prayer Joe ground his heels into Kit's sides.

_Would they get there in time?_

Joshua Peniman, standing up in the wagon and leaning far over the dashboard, lashed his horses and groaned aloud.

There seemed to be some forty or fifty of the savages, and as they wheeled and the sun shone full on their naked bodies Lige gave a loud cry.

"_Sioux!_" he shouted, in tones of horror, and lying forward over Billy's neck urged him forward with voice and whip. Joe had seen, and from his white lips came a hoarse cry.

Up to this moment he had hoped--even though faintly--that the band they saw might be a hunting party of Pawnees or Arapahoes, who seldom harmed white people unless first molested. But Sioux----!

He leaned forward over his panting horse and spoke in her ear.

"Oh, Kit," he half sobbed, "get me there--for God's sake get me there in time to save them!"

As if she understood the little mare laid back her ears and sprang forward like an arrow from a bow.

The Indians had reached the sod house by this time. Yelping and howling they were circling about and about it on their ponies.

As the eyes of the horror-stricken boys and man strained toward them a sharp "spat" spoke from one of the soddy windows, and a naked savage reeled and fell from his horse.

"Mother--brave, brave little Mother!" Joe sobbed in a choked, husky whisper. Then as he saw the band spring from their horses and make a dash for the soddy he leaped down from Kit's back, and followed by Lige dashed through the undergrowth along the bank of the river toward the house.

Before they could reach it they heard a wild shriek, and saw their mother dash from the house with David in her arms, dragging little Mary by the hand, and followed by Ruth, Sara, and Paul, and make for the dugout.

Joe's heart thrilled with pride as he saw tender Ruth, who loved all creatures, evidently covering her mother's retreat, backing toward the dugout, her face toward the Indians, a smoking revolver in her hand.

They heard its sharp angry bark, and saw another Indian fall. Then they saw that Mrs. Peniman had reached the dugout, and pushing the children in before her grabbed for the heavy door. As she did so an Indian in a war-dress of skin and feathers, with a great feathered war-bonnet on his head, made a grab for her, but Ruth was too quick for him. Quick as a flash she took deliberate aim and fired. Joe, who was almost behind her by this time, heard the grunt of the Indian as he fell face downward beside the door.

"_Inside--inside the dugout!_" he shouted, and grasping Ruth by the shoulders pushed her toward the door.

Ruth turned her white face and gave a quick, terrified look all about her.

"Nina," she shrieked, "where's Nina?"

With a stab like the thrust of a knife in his heart Joe heard the cry.

"_Nina?_" he shouted, "where is she?"

A wild, anguished cry was his answer, and whirling about he saw an Indian dashing past with Nina thrown across his pony in front of him.

Quick as thought he caught the revolver from Ruth's hand and fired. He had feared to aim at the Indian lest he should strike the child, but had taken aim at the horse, and saw it fall and roll over.

Joshua Peniman, with Sam, had now reached the scene, and brandishing a great club that he had caught up as he ran made for the Indians that were circling about the dugout, uttering their fiendish yelps and howls.

Mrs. Peniman and the children were inside now, the door firmly closed, and all the efforts of the savages seemed unavailing to move it.

As the horse fell the Indian at whom Joe had shot leaped with his burden in his arms, and fell free of the struggling animal. In an instant he was on his feet and started to run.