Chapter 13

The heat and weight of the two dresses had been awful, and as soon as I could get away, I ran to a dressing room and removed the cambric. But the pins! There seemed to be thousands of them. Some of the costumes were beautiful and costly, also. Mrs. Manson, a lovely little woman of Helena, was "A Comet." Her short dress of blue silk was studded with gold stars, and to each shoulder was fastened a long, pointed train of yellow gauze sprinkled with diamond dust. An immense gold star with a diamond sunburst in the center was above her forehead, and around her neck was a diamond necklace. Mrs. Palmer, wife of Colonel Palmer, was "King of Hearts," the foundation a handsome red silk. Mrs. Spencer advertised the New York Herald; the whole dress, which was flounced to the waist, was made of the headings of that paper. Major Blair was recognized by no one as "An American citizen," in plain evening dress. I could not find Faye at all, and he was in a simple red domino, too.

I cannot begin to tell you of the many lovely costumes that seemed most wonderful to me, for you must remember that we were far up in the Rocky Mountains, five hundred miles from a railroad! I will send you a copy of the Helena paper that gives an account of the ball, in which you will read that "Mrs. Rae was inimitable--the best sustained character in the rooms." I have thought this over some, and I consider the compliment doubtful.

We remained one day longer in Helena than we had expected for the bal masque; consequently we were obliged to start back the very next morning, directly after breakfast, and that was not pleasant, for we were very tired. The weather had been bitter cold, but during the night a chinook had blown up, and the air was warm and balmy as we came across the valley. When we reached the mountains, however, it was freezing again, and there was glassy ice every place, which made driving over the grades more dangerous than usual. In many places the ambulance wheels had to be "blocked," and the back and front wheels of one side chained together so they could not turn, in addition to the heavy brake, and then the driver would send the four sharp-shod mules down at a swinging trot that kept the ambulance straight, and did not give it time to slip around and roll us down to eternity.

There is one grade on this road that is notoriously dangerous, and dreaded by every driver around here because of the many accidents that have occurred there. It is cut in the side of a high mountain and has three sharp turns back and forth, and the mountain is so steep, it is impossible to see from the upper grade all of the lower that leads down into the canon called White's Gulch. This one mountain grade is a mile and a half long. But the really dangerous place is near the middle turn, where a warm spring trickles out of the rocks and in winter forms thick ice over the road; and if this ice cannot be broken up, neither man nor beast can walk over, as it is always thicker on the inner side.

I was so stiffened from the overheating and try-to-fool dancing at Mrs. Gordon's, it was with the greatest difficulty I could walk at all on the slippery hills, and was constantly falling down, much to the amusement of Faye and the driver. But ride down some of them I would not. At Canon Ferry, where we remained over night, the ice in the Missouri was cracked, and there were ominous reports like pistol shots down in the canon below. At first Faye thought it would be impossible to come over, but the driver said he could get everything across, if he could come at once. Faye walked over with me, and then went back to assist the driver with the mules that were still on the bank refusing to step upon the ice. But Faye led one leader, and the driver lashed and yelled at all of them, and in this way they crossed, each mule snorting at every step.

There were the most dreadful groans and creakings and loud reports during the entire night, and in the morning the river was clear, except for a few pieces of ice that were still floating down from above. The Missouri is narrow at Canon Ferry, deep and very swift, and it is a dreadful place to cross at any time, on the ice, or on the cable ferryboat. They catch a queer fish there called the "ling." It has three sides, is long and slender, and is perfectly blind. They gave us some for supper and it was really delicious.

We found everything in fine order upon our return, and it was very evident that Cagey had taken good care of the house and Hal, but Billie grayback had taken care of himself. He was given the run of my room, but I had expected, of course, that he would sleep in his own box, as usual. But no, the little rascal in some way discovered the warmth of the blankets on my bed, and in between these he had undoubtedly spent most of the time during our absence, and there we found him after a long search, and there he wants to stay all the time now, and if anyone happens to go near the bed they are greeted with the fiercest kind of smothered growls.

The black horse has been sold, and Faye has bought another, a sorrel, that seems to be a very satisfactory animal. He is not as handsome as Ben, nor as fractious, either. Bettie is behaving very well, but is still nervous, and keeps her forefeet down just long enough to get herself over the ground. She is beautiful, and Kelly simply adores her and keeps her bright-red coat like satin. Faye can seldom ride with me because of his numerous duties, and not one of the ladies rides here, so I have Kelly go, for one never knows what one may come across on the roads around here. They are so seldom traveled, and are little more than trails.

CAMP BAKER, MONTANA TERRITORY, March, 1878.

THE mail goes out in the morning, and in it a letter must be sent to you, but it is hard--hard for me to write--to have to tell you that my dear dog, my beautiful greyhound, is dead--dead and buried! It seems so cruel that he should have died now, so soon after getting back to his old home, friends, and freedom. On Tuesday, Faye and Lieutenant Lomax went out for a little hunt, letting Hal go with them, which was unusual, and to which I objected, for Lieutenant Lomax is a notoriously poor shot and hunter, and I was afraid he might accidentally kill Hal--mistake him for a wild animal. So, as they went down our steps I said, "Please do not shoot my dog!" much more in earnest than in jest, for I felt that he would really be in danger, as it would be impossible to keep him with them all the time.

As they went across the parade ground, rifles over their shoulders, Hal jumped up on Faye and played around him, expressing his delight at being allowed to go on a hunt. He knew what a gun was made for just as well as the oldest hunter. That was the last I saw of my dog! Faye returned long before I had expected him, and one quick glance at his troubled face told me that something terrible had happened. I saw that he was unhurt and apparently well, but--where was Hal? With an awful pain in my heart I asked, "Did Lieutenant Lomax shoot Hal?" After a second's hesitation Faye said "No; but Hal is dead!" It seemed too dreadful to be true, and at first I could not believe it, for it had been only such a short time since I had seen him bounding and leaping, evidently in perfect health, and oh, so happy!

No one in the house even thought of dinner that night, and poor black Cagey sobbed and moaned so loud and long Faye was obliged to ask him to be quiet. For hours I could not listen to the particulars. Faye says that they had not gone out so very far when he saw a wild cat some distance away, and taking careful aim, he shot it, but the cat, instead of falling, started on a fast run. Hal was in another direction, but when he heard the report of the rifle and saw the cat running, he started after it with terrific speed and struck it just as the cat fell, and then the two rolled over and over together.

He got up and stood by Faye and Lieutenant Lomax while they examined the cat, and if there was anything wrong with him it was not noticed. But when they turned to come to the post, dragging the dead cat after them, Faye heard a peculiar sound, and looking back saw dear Hal on the ground in a fit much like vertigo. He talked to him and petted him, thinking he would soon be over it--and the plucky dog did get up and try to follow, but went down again and for the last time The swift run and excitement caused by encountering an animal wholly different from anything he had ever seen before was too great a strain upon the weak heart.

Before coming to the house Faye had ordered a detail out to bury him, with instructions to cover the grave with pieces of glass to keep the wolves away. The skin and head of the cat, which was really a lynx, are being prepared for a rug, but I do not see how I can have the thing in the house, although the black spots and stripes with the white make the fur very beautiful. The ball passed straight through the body.

The loneliness of the house is awful, and at night I imagine that I hear him outside whining to come in. Many a cold night have I been up two and three times to straighten his bed and cover him up. His bed was the skin of a young buffalo, and he knew just when it was smooth and nice, and then he would almost throw himself down, with a sigh of perfect content. If I did not cover him at once, he would get up and drop down again, and there he would stay hours at a time with the fur underneath and over him, with just his nose sticking out. He suffered keenly from the intense cold here because his hair was so short and fine. And then he was just from the South, too, where he was too warm most of the time.

It makes me utterly wretched to think of the long year he was away from us at Baton Rouge. But what could we have done? We could not have had him with us, in the very heart of New Orleans, for he had already been stolen from us at Jackson Barracks, a military post!

With him passed the very last of his blood, a breed of greyhounds that was known in Texas, Kansas, and Colorado as wonderful hunters, also remarkable for their pluck and beauty of form. Hal was a splendid hunter, and ever on the alert for game. Not one morsel of it would he eat, however, not even a piece of domestic fowl, which he seemed to look upon as game. Sheep he considered fine game, and would chase them every opportunity that presented itself. This was his one bad trait, an expensive one sometimes, but it was the only one, and was overbalanced many times by his lovable qualities that made him a favorite with all. Every soldier in the company loved him and was proud of him, and would have shared his dinner with the dog any day if called upon to do so.

NATIONAL HOTEL, HELENA, MONTANA TERRITORY, May, 1878.

TO hear that we are no longer at Camp Baker will be a surprise, but you must have become accustomed to surprises of this kind long ago. Regimental headquarters, the companies that have been quartered at the Helena fair grounds during the winter, and the two companies from Camp Baker, started from here this morning on a march to the Milk River country, where a new post is to be established on Beaver Creek. It is to be called Fort Assiniboine. The troops will probably be in camp until fall, when they will go to Fort Shaw.

We had been given no warning whatever of this move, and had less than two days in which to pack and crate everything. And I can assure you that in one way it was worse than being ranked out, for this time there was necessity for careful packing and crating, because of the rough mountain roads the wagons had to come over. But there were no accidents, and our furniture and boxes are safely put away here in a government storehouse.

At the time the order came, Faye was recorder for a board of survey that was being held at the post, and this, in addition to turning over quartermaster and other property, kept him hard at work night and day, so the superintendence of all things pertaining to the house and camp outfit fell to my lot. The soldiers were most willing and most incompetent, and it kept me busy telling them what to do. The mess-chest, and Faye's camp bedding are always in readiness for ordinary occasions, but for a camp of several months in this climate, where it can be really hot one day and freezing cold the next, it was necessary to add many more things. Just how I managed to accomplish so much in so short a time I do not know, but I do know that I was up and packing every precious minute the night before we came away, and the night seemed very short too. But everything was taken to the wagons in very good shape, and that repaid me for much of the hard work and great fatigue.

And I was tired--almost too tired to sit up, but at eight o'clock I got in an ambulance and came nearly forty miles that one day! Major Stokes and Captain Martin had been on the board of survey, and as they were starting on the return trip to Helena, I came over with them, which not only got me here one day in advance of the company, but saved Faye the trouble of providing for me in camp on the march from Camp Baker. We left the post just as the troops were starting out. Faye was riding Bettie and Cagey was on Pete.

I brought Billie, of course, and at Canon Ferry I lost that squirrel! After supper I went directly to my room to give him a little run and to rest a little myself, but before opening his box I looked about for places where he might escape, and seeing a big crack under one of the doors, covered it with Faye's military cape, thinking, as I did so, that it would be impossible for a squirrel to crawl through such a narrow place. Then I let him out. Instead of running around and shying at strange objects as he usually does, he ran straight to that cape, and after two or three pulls with his paws, flattened his little gray body, and like a flash he and the long bushy tail disappeared! I was en deshabille, but quickly slipped on a long coat and ran out after him.

Very near my door was one leading to the kitchen, and so I went on through, and the very first thing stumbled over a big cat! This made me more anxious than ever, but instead of catching the beast and shutting it up, I drove it away. In the kitchen, which was dining room also, sat the two officers and a disagreeable old man, and at the farther end was a woman washing dishes. I told them about Billie and begged them to keep very quiet while I searched for him. Then that old man laughed. That was quite too much for my overtaxed nerves, and I snapped out that I failed to see anything funny. But still he laughed, and said, "Perhaps you don't, but we do." I was too worried and unhappy to notice what he meant, and continued to look for Billie.

But the little fellow I could not find any place in the house or outside, where we looked with a lantern. When I returned to my room I discovered why the old man laughed, for truly I was a funny sight. I had thought my coat much longer than it really was--that is all I am willing to say about it. I was utterly worn out, and every bone in my body seemed to be rebelling about something, still I could not sleep, but listened constantly for Billie. I blamed myself so much for not having shut up the cat and fancied I heard the cat chasing him.

After a long, long time, it seemed hours, I heard a faint noise like a scratch on tin, and lighting a lamp quickly, I went to the kitchen and then listened. But not a sound was to be heard. At the farther end a bank had been cut out to make room for the kitchen, which gave it a dirt wall almost to the low ceiling, and all across this wall were many rows of shelves where tins of all sorts and cooking utensils were kept, and just above the top shelf was a hole where the cat could go out on the bank. I put the lamp back of me on the table and kept very still and looked all along the shelves, but saw nothing of Billie. Finally, I heard the little scratch again, and looking closely at some large tins where I thought the sound had come from, I saw the little squirrel. He was sitting up in between two of the pans that were almost his own color, with his head turned one side, and "hands on his heart," watching me inquisitively with one black eye.

He was there and apparently unharmed, but to catch him was another matter. I approached him in the most cautious manner, talking and cooing to him all the time, and at last I caught him, and the little fellow was so glad to be with friends once more, he curled himself in my hands, and put two little wet paws around a thumb and held on tight. It was raining, and he was soaking wet, so he must have been out of doors. It would have been heartbreaking to have been obliged to come away without finding that little grayback, and perhaps never know what became of him. I know where my dear dog is, and that is bad enough. We heard just before leaving the post that men of the company had put up a board at Hal's grave with his name cut in it. We knew that they loved him and were proud of him, but never dreamed that any one of them would show so much sentiment. Faye has taken the horses with him and Cagey also.

The young men of Helena gave the officers an informal dance last night. At first it promised to be a jolly affair, but finally, as the evening wore on, the army people became more and more quiet, and at the last it was distressing to see the sad faces that made dancing seem a farce. They are going to an Indian country, and the separation may be long. I expect to remain here for the present, but shall make every effort to get to Benton after a while, where I will be nearly one hundred and fifty miles nearer Faye. The wife of the adjutant and her two little children are in this house, and other families of officers are scattered all over the little town.

COSMOPOLITAN HOTEL, HELENA, MONTANA TERRITORY, August, 1878.

YOU will see that at last I decided to move over to this hotel. I made a great mistake in not coming before and getting away from the cross old housekeeper at the International, who could not be induced by entreaties, fees, or threats, to get the creepy, crawly things out of my room. How I wish that every one of them would march over to her some fine night and keep her awake as they have kept me. It made me so unhappy to leave Mrs. Hull there with a sick child, but she would not come with me, although she must know it would be better for her and the boy to be here, where everything is kept so clean and attractive. There are six wives of officers in the house, among them the wife of General Bourke, who is in command of the regiment. She invited me to sit at her table, and I find it very pleasant there. She is a bride and almost a stranger to us.

The weather has been playing all sorts of pranks upon us lately, and we hardly know whether we are in the far North or far South. For two weeks it was very warm, positively hot in this gulch, but yesterday we received a cooling off in the form of a brisk snowstorm that lasted nearly two hours. Mount Helena was white during the rest of the day, and even now long streaks of snow can be seen up and down the peak. But a snowstorm in August looked very tame after the awful cloud-burst that came upon us without warning a few days before, and seemed determined to wash the whole town down to the Missouri River.

It was about eleven o'clock, and four of us had gone to the shops to look at some pretty things that had just been brought over from a boat at Fort Benton by ox train. Mrs. Pierce and Mrs. Hull had stopped at a grocery next door, expecting to join Mrs. Joyce and me in a few minutes. But before they could make a few purchases, a few large drops of rain began to splash down, and there was a fierce flash of lightning and deafening thunder, then came the deluge! Oceans of water seemed to be coming down, and before we realized what was happening, things in the street and things back of the store were being rushed to the valley below.

All along the gulch runs a little stream that comes from the canon above the town. The stream is tiny and the bed is narrow. On either side of it are stores with basements opening out on these banks. Well, in an alarmingly short time that innocent-looking little creek had become a roaring, foaming black river, carrying tables, chairs, washstands, little bridges--in fact everything it could tear up--along with it to the valley. Many of these pieces of furniture lodged against the carriage bridge that was just below the store where we were, making a dangerous dam, so a man with a stout rope around his waist went in the water to throw them out on the bank, but he was tossed about like a cork, and could do nothing. Just as they were about to pull him in the bridge gave way, and it was with the greatest difficulty he was kept from being swept down with the floating furniture. He was dragged back to our basement in an almost unconscious condition, and with many cuts and bruises.

The water was soon in the basements of the stores, where it did much damage. The store we were in is owned by a young man--one of the beaux of the town--and I think the poor man came near losing his mind. He rushed around pulling his hair one second, and wringing his hands the next, and seemed perfectly incapable of giving one order, or assisting his clerks in bringing the dripping goods from the basement. Very unlike the complacent, diamond-pin young man we had danced with at the balls!

The cloud-burst on Mount Helena had caused many breaks in the enormous ditches that run around the mountain and carry water to the mines on the other side. No one can have the faintest conception of how terrible a cloud-burst is until they have been in one. It is like standing under an immense waterfall. At the very beginning we noticed the wagon of a countryman across the street with one horse hitched to it. The horse was tied so the water from an eaves trough poured directly upon his back, and not liking that, he stepped forward, which brought the powerful stream straight to the wagon.

Unfortunately for the owner, the wagon had been piled high with all sorts of packages, both large and small, and all in paper or paper bags. One by one these were swept out, and as the volume of water increased in force and the paper became wet and easily torn, their contents went in every direction. Down in the bottom was a large bag of beans, and when the pipe water reached this, there was a white spray resembling a geyser. Not one thing was left in that wagon--even sacks of potatoes and grain were washed out! It is a wonder that the poor horse took it all as patiently as he did.

During all this time we had not even heard from our friends next door; after a while, however, we got together, but it was impossible to return to the hotel for a long time, because of the great depth of water in the street. Mrs. Pierce, whose house is on the opposite side of the ravine, could not get to her home until just before dark, after a temporary bridge had been built across the still high stream. Not one bridge was left across the creek, and they say that nothing has been left at Chinatown--that it was washed clean. Perhaps there is nothing to be regretted in this, however, except that any amount of dirt has been piled up right in the heart of Helena. The millionaire residents seem to think that the great altitude and dry atmosphere will prevent any ill effects of decaying debris.