Part 3

“Hear him talk, will you! He talks of going to old Mexico or California as I would of going into the next pasture. But, my dear fellow, how do you expect to get there? and are you aware that both of these places are hundreds of miles from here?” said Star.

“Yes, I know they are, but what of that? If I want to go there I can get there. All I have to do is to wish for a thing hard enough and I get it. You know I made up my mind to come West, and here I am.”

“Yes, you are a plucky fellow, and I half believe that if we had not brought you, you would have carried out your threat of walking here,” said Star.

“You are right, I should,” said Billy Jr.

“Well, if you want my advice, I would go to old Mexico, as I think there would be more of interest there for you than in California.”

“I don’t know whether to follow the railroad tracks or start across country.”

“Oh, Billy! You will be the death of me, the way you talk of our great distances as if they were only a few miles,” said Star.

“Here comes the man to chase me back to the corral and I suppose he is wondering how I ever got out. I want to thank you for your kindness to me and to tell you how much I have enjoyed your friendship, which I hope nothing will ever break. I trust we will meet again in the East some day. Good luck to you and good-bye for a time. When I see you again I will have something of interest to tell you. Good-bye again,” and Billy bounded over the fence as the man walked in the gate to chase him out, while Star whinnied his good-bye.

_Billy Jr. Learns Something about Cowboys and Indians._

One morning three months later Billy Jr. appeared, tired, cold, and hungry, in front of a ranchman’s door; and was first seen by the Chinese cook, who opened the kitchen door of the long adobe house to see what the weather was like. There was Billy by the well, trying to get a drink out of the almost empty bucket on the well-curb.

Billy’s first thought when he saw the Chinaman was to run away, for he had been so illy treated lately--shot at, stoned, and half-starved--that he had lost some of his assurance and confidence in people and preferred to look them well over before he got too near. But the Chinaman appeared so inoffensive that he stood his ground and stared back when the man rubbed his eyes to see if it really were a large, live billy-goat by the well; his first thought being that he had not quite got over his opium pipe of last night. But when Billy Jr. bleated a good-morning to him, he came out of his stupor, walked to the well, and drew a bucket of water for the tired, thirsty beast.

From that day Billy was a fast friend of the Chinaman. Never in his life had anything tasted so good and refreshing as that cool drink of water after his long, dusty trip across the plains and mesas.

For a day and a night Billy Jr. had followed a wagon trail without passing a human being or habitation, and when he saw this ranchhouse it was indeed a welcome sight. He was tired, lonesome, hungry, and discouraged, and he knew that he must go back to the little town by the railroad, the last settlement he had met with, if he did not soon find a house and some living thing, man or beast, he could not endure the dreary solitude another day.

He preferred the town to this, even if the boys did tie tin cans to his tail, the women chase him with broomsticks or throw hot water on him when he tried to steal a meal from their kitchens, and the cow-boys aim at him to see how near they could come without actually shooting him. Once, when he stopped to get a drink of water from a trough standing outside of a saloon, the cow-boys caught him and forced him to drink some beer, which made him feel dizzy and as if the sidewalk were flying up and going to hit him in the face. And, oh my! what a splitting headache he had all the next day! It made him wonder and wonder how people could drink such nasty, bitter stuff when they could have pure, clear water instead, and he thought if they had to pay five dollars a bottle for water, perhaps they would crave it.

After these experiences, do you wonder that Billy was glad to find a friend in the Chinaman?

When the potatoes were peeled for breakfast the next morning, the skins were given to Billy, and they tasted as good to him, after his long fast, as fresh turnips did when he was living in plenty.

Just as the sun lighted the tops of the mountains, the Chinaman rang a large bell that hung on a high pole near the well, to call the cow-boys to breakfast, and as its peals rang out on the morning air it was answered by the barking of what seemed to be dozens of coyotes, although, in reality, there was perhaps not half that number; a peculiarity of their bark being that it seems to double itself and to sound as if coming from twice as many throats as it really does. Billy did not like to hear the coyotes, for their dismal cries made him feel both lonesome and homesick.

Immediately after breakfast the cow-boys rode off to look after the cattle and as soon as Billy saw them depart he gave a sigh of relief, for when they were around they were always plaguing him and throwing lassos or cracking their whips at him.

“Now, while the Chinaman is busy with his dishes and the cow-boys are away, is my time to explore the premises and find out what things look like around here,” thought Billy and, seeing an open door, he walked through and found himself in a long, low room barren of carpet or furniture, unless two tiers of bunks, a wooden chair or two, a washstand with a tin basin on it, and a cracked looking-glass, could be called furniture.

This room was in great disorder. Boots were lying around everywhere; some in the bunks, others sticking out from under them, and still others strewn about in general confusion all over the floor; and where there were no boots there were clay and corn-cob pipes with half-empty tobacco bags beneath them. None of these things surprised Billy, but what did puzzle him was that between the windows there were a lot of holes in the walls which were filled with old rags loosely poked in, while guns of all sizes and descriptions hung on the walls or were stacked in the corners of the room.

“This looks like a fort,” thought Billy, “but I fail to see who there is to fight around here.” But, even as he thought this, he remembered that Indians lived in this territory, and cold chills ran down his spine, for although he was only a goat, he had often heard of the unparalleled cruelty of the Apache Indian dwelling in this part of the country and he at once realized why this house had been built with holes in its walls and why all the guns were there. In case of a siege, the cow-boys barricaded the windows and doors and stuck the barrels of their guns into these holes, and then they were prepared to resist an attack and to defend themselves.

Besides the room in which Billy stood, the house contained a sitting-room, dining-room, kitchen, and a small room that was kept shut up except when occupied by the owner during his yearly visits to the ranch.

When Billy had reached this point in his explorations, he heard the Chinaman calling, “Bee-lee, Bee-lee, Bee-lee.”

“I suppose that means me, so since he makes my name sound so much like Bee, I will carry out the notion and make a bee-line for him,” said Billy.

“Where-ee you been, Bee-lee?” said the Chinaman when he saw Billy running toward him. “Come-ee long-ee in a here-ee; I have-ee something good-ee for-ee you-ee,” and he gave Billy a piece of Johnnie-cake that had been scorched in the baking-and which he did not want the ranchman to see because of the wasted meal.

While Billy Jr. was eating, the Chinaman threw himself down upon a wooden bench in the corner of the room, took two or three whiffs from his opium pipe and was soon fast asleep, dreaming doubtless of his almond-eyed sweetheart in the Orient. When Billy saw the pipe fall from his hand, he took first a smell and then a taste of the powder that had spilled out of it upon the floor; and soon he felt the most delightful, drowsy sensation stealing over him, and he, too, curled himself up by the bench near the Chinaman and was soon dreaming that he was back in the old home meadow with his father, mother, and Day; but the meadow he dreamed of was covered with sweeter clover blossoms than any goat ever ate and the breeze that fanned his face was laden with sweeter perfume than mortals ever breathed.

Billy was rudely awakened from this beautiful vision by a vigorous kick and on recovering his bewildered senses, he found the room filled with excited cow-boys all talking at once. From their conversation he soon learned that the Indians were out on the warpath and were even now within sight of the house.

With wondering eyes Billy watched the boys board up the windows, barricade the doors, and stick the gun-barrels into the holes in the wall. Presently, he was driven into the sitting-room and to his surprise he found that five of the cow-boys’ ponies had also been driven in here for safety, as the boys well knew that the Indians would steal them if left outside. He had no sooner entered this room than he heard a loud bang, and a bullet flattened itself against the doorjamb just as the Chinaman ran in carrying a bucket of water from the well; for during a siege, water is a necessity for both man and beast, and while the boys had been boarding up the windows from the inside, the Chinaman had been busy filling an old barrel with water from the well.

“The red devils are upon us,” he heard a cow-boy say, and then the door was slammed shut and he was alone with the ponies. While the bullets sped thick and fast, and showers of arrows fell, all of which were answered by the cow-boys’ bullets as they tried to pick off the Indians skulking around the house, the ponies told Billy when and how the raid began.

An old roan pony that had been on the ranch for years said, “When we went out this morning to round up and count the cattle, Jim Dowsen, the man who rides me, said, ‘Something has happened during the night, for the cattle are frightened and restless,’ and when we got near them we saw at a glance what was the matter.” And he proceeded to tell Billy about the last raid of the redskins.

The Indians had ridden into the herd during the night, had stolen fifty head of the company’s best cattle, and had ham-strung about fifteen more out of wanton cruelty, because the savage nature delights in torture. When Jim saw what had been done he was furious and he rode off like the wind to find the herder who had been with the cattle. After riding around the whole herd twice without discovering any trace of him, he at last found him lying face downward on the ground, his body without arms, his head minus its scalp. After mutilating him, the savages had left him for the wolves and vultures to devour, and then satisfied with their fiendish work had stolen his pony and ridden away. Billy discovered that the Apache Indians were the most cruel and fiendish of all the tribes living in the territories.

During all this time the fury of the savages had increased.

Before leaving the ranch, the redskins intended finishing their work of destruction. They wanted pale faces. They wanted scalps. But most of all, they wanted fire-water (the Indian name for whisky). And so the attack lasted for three days or more. Provisions were getting low within the cabin, the fuel to cook the meals with was gone, and the horses were neighing for fodder, as they had been fed only potatoes and cabbage once a day, and then as a last resort, straw out of the mattresses; and still the Indians skulked outside and waited for the little band of men in the house either to surrender or to starve.

The third night of the siege the boys began to lose courage. Constant watching, loss of sleep, little to drink and less to eat had nearly worn them out, while their enemies seemed to be in perfect condition and acted as though satisfied to camp outside their door for the rest of their natural lives.

At last, one of the cow-boys named Henry Staples said, “I have it, boys! I know just how we can get out of here; save our scalps and, what is better still, kill every one of those fiends sitting outside grimly waiting to see our finish.”

“Don’t buoy us up with a fairy tale like that, Henry,” they all said, “for it is too good to be true.”

“Listen and hear my plan,” he replied. “You remember that can of rat-poison we bought to kill rats with when in town the last time?”

“Yes,” they answered.

“Well, let us take that rat-poison and put it in a keg of fire-water; next, run up a flag of truce, then set the keg with seven or eight cups outside. Thinking we are offering it in the place of a peace pipe, the Indians will not hesitate to come and drink. They are used to poor fire-water and so will be less likely to detect the poison and will drink cup after cup until they are stupified, and in the end the poison will kill them as surely as it would kill the rats. These Indians are not any better than rats and should be treated as such. Have they not tortured and killed hundreds of people?”

“You are right, Henry; we can at least try your plan. It seems the only feasible way out of our plight, and it can but fail.” So they blew a horn to attract the attention of the Indians and then hoisted a flag of truce on the flag-pole at the side of the house where the United States flag usually floated; and while the Indians were watching it, the cow-boys set the fire-water outside with the cups on top of the keg; then, through the peep-holes where the guns had been, they watched the Indians confer together about coming forward to get a taste of the much coveted fire-water.

Presently a big buck, evidently the chief of the tribe, walked boldly forward and took a drink. He smacked his lips and then drew another cupful, which he swallowed at one gulp. Upon seeing this, the other braves ran up to get their share, for they did not know how much or how little the keg might contain. When they found that it was full, they commenced to dance around in high glee and they drank again and again as if they could not get enough.

“I should like to shoot every one of them as they now stand,” said Henry.

“No, don’t,” said the others. “Save your ammunition for live Indians. These will soon be dead.”

The chief, who had taken the first drink, was now feeling the effect of the potion and was becoming quarrelsome. He soon began to fight with another big Indian and this led to the rest taking sides with one or the other, and soon all were engaged in a grand melee, flourishing their weapons in a most reckless and dangerous manner, regardless of consequences, because the fire-water had gone to their heads. Presently a young buck, half-crazed under the combined influence of the fire-water and the poison, started for the door of the house and tried to batter it down, forgetting all about the flag of truce, and calling upon the other Indians to follow him and scalp the pale faces, but, even as their arms were upraised to strike the door, they were seized with cramps and violent pains. The poison had conquered at last and soon all were lying around in every possible shape, twisting and writhing in their death struggles.

In less than an hour every Indian lay motionless and the cow-boys went out to take possession of their arms and ponies. Suddenly Billy saw an Indian, supposed to be dead, stealthily rise and creep after one of the boys who was bending over a dead brave unstrapping his cartridge belt. For a second he saw a knife glisten in the sunlight and he knew that in another instant it would be buried in the unsuspecting boy’s back. With Billy, to see was to act, so without hesitation he rushed upon the treacherous Indian and tossed him aside as if he had been a paper ball. The knife dropped from his hand, for he had been killed instantly. One of Billy’s sharp horns had pierced his heart. All the cow-boy said, when he realized what Billy had done, was, “Billy, you have saved my life and for this you shall have a collar of gold, with your name and a record of your brave act engraved upon it.” The cow-boy kept his promise, so ever after Billy wore his collar of gold.

A few days after the siege, Billy felt that he had seen enough of ranch life and life on the plains, so he decided to return to town and from there go to some large city as fast as his legs would carry him. “For, if I stay here,” he mused, “other Indians may come to avenge those who have been poisoned. They may take a fancy to my horns to decorate one of their wigwams and may cut my head off, and then where would I be? Who knows but what they may come this very night? Anyhow I have seen enough of wild western life and I shall leave this country right now. There is no time like the present,” and with this soliloquy he started on a dead run for town by the same way he had come and he never stopped to say good-bye even to the Chinaman.

_Billy Jr. and the Firemen._

The next we hear of Billy Jr. he is in San Francisco living, as his father did before him, with an engine company near the outskirts of the city. When first we spy him, he and another goat are stealing vegetables out of the firemen’s garden. This other goat is an old fellow with a stubby tail and a single horn, and although he eats a great deal every day, anything and everything, from tin cans to rotten potatoes, and has a digestive apparatus like an ostrich, he still looks thin and shows every rib in his anatomy. Whether this lean, gaunt, hungry look is because of a guilty conscience or the result of ill-usage, I know not, but I do know that he is the homeliest goat any one ever looked at.

Bang! goes a gun and the next minute four pairs of legs are flying over the garden fence. “There, I told you we could not steal safely in broad daylight,” said Billy Jr.

“Oh! I hope you don’t mind a little scare like that,” answered the old goat. “Why, my sides are full of bullet holes. They are always firing at me, but I simply caper round and round until they pick the shot out, for it only goes in skin deep.”

“Well, I can tell you I don’t care to have _my_ sides peppered like that,” said Billy; “and, too, a bullet might go astray and put out one or both of my eyes. But here comes that fireman I so detest. Let us run and hide. I shall get even with him some of these fine days when he least expects it, for he is always cutting me with that fine-lashed whip that hangs in the engine-house. I don’t care how much he tries to club me, for I can fight, butt, and run, besides when he has a club in his hand he is obliged to come close in order to hit me, so that gives me a chance to butt him, but a long-lashed whip is a very different matter. It winds itself about one before he knows what is coming.”

“I, too, have a grudge against that particular fireman,” said old One-horn, as the boys had nicknamed the other goat, “and if you can get even with him I shall be your friend for life, for it was through him that I lost my horn and you know it is as bad for a goat to lose a horn as it is for a man to lose a leg. Come and lie here in the shade while I tell you how I lost my horn.”

“That fireman,” the old goat continued, “had been persistently mean to me for weeks; had put red pepper in my food until my tongue was nearly burned out, had shaken snuff under my nose and on my beard until I had almost sneezed my head off, had turned the hose on me until I was half frozen, and had annoyed me in a hundred other petty ways, until I felt that I could kill him with a clear conscience if I ever got the chance. He was the largest of the firemen and a champion boxer, but I was not afraid of that and resolved to watch for an opportunity when I might catch him alone and then pay him with compound interest for all the mean tricks he had played on me. One day I was lying here in the shade half-way between sleeping and waking when I saw him come out of the engine-house and start to cross the vacant lot you see before you, for his home is on the other side. He was half-way across when the thought struck me--_now is my opportunity_. He was alone and carried nothing to protect himself with, so I jumped up and ran quietly behind him, the soft turf deadening all sounds of my approach, and he never suspected that I was near him until I gave him a vigorous butt that was the master-stroke of my life. It sent him flying six feet or more straight in the air. When he struck the ground he lay perfectly motionless for a moment with the breath knocked completely out of him. He was only stunned, however, for he soon raised his head and, seeing me, shook his fist and fairly roared, ‘You confounded old goat, I’ll break every bone in your old carcass for this.’

“I intended to let him alone after that, for I thought he had been punished enough, but when he shook his fist and threatened me, I was mad all over and I lowered my head and would have butted him again had he not caught me by the horns, at the same time giving my head a twist with his great muscular arm, that nearly broke my neck. This made me furious, and I stamped and kicked and tried to get my horns loose, but he held me tight, well knowing that it was dangerous to let me go.

“Well, we rolled and tumbled about in the mud until we were both nearly exhausted, and at last he loosened his hold of my horns, at the same time giving me a parting blow on the head that made me see stars for an instant. In the meantime he started for home on a dead run, and as a matter of course I lost no time in following him, but I did not catch up until just as he was entering the front door of his home. Then I aimed straight for his coat tails, but he shut the door with a bang, catching my horns between it and the jamb; then he pushed with all his might and main from the inside, while I too pushed with all my strength from the outside, hoping to splinter the panel of the door, but instead, I broke my horn, and that is how I lost it and why I owe him a grudge.”

In the back yard of the engine-house stood a pump with a tub of water under its spout. Billy Jr. went to get a drink from it and, while quenching his thirst, heard one of the firemen say to two others standing in the yard, “I’ll bet you can’t do it, though every one knows he needs it badly enough.”

“Oh, it’s easy enough to wash him,” they answered, “the difficulty will be in untying him after it is done, for then he will butt the life out of the first man he catches.”

“Let’s draw cuts to decide who is to do the untying,” said a third.

“All right,” they answered; and before Billy even suspected what they were talking about, he found himself bound and tied to the pump so that he could only move his head slightly.

“So, it was me they were talking about,” thought poor Billy. “Had I only known, they would have had a fine time catching me, and more than one man would have had bruises and torn clothes.”

“Gee whiz!” he thought a moment later, “but this water is cold that they are pumping upon me, and won’t I get even with them all when I get loose!”

“Ouch!” cried one of the men, for Billy suddenly tossed his head giving him a bump on the nose. Then two of the men began to use brushes, one on each side, while a third kept the pump going; so, squirm and wriggle as he might, Billy got a generous supply of water and was drenched and shivering in spite of his efforts to free himself.

At last the firemen thought he was clean enough and they stopped scrubbing, while one of them said, “Well, Billy Jr., how do you find yourself?” Billy glared at him and shook his head in answer, but there was murder in his eye.