CHAPTER IV.

OLD JOE RIGGS.

It was Sunday, the eighth day after Jack had taken that memorable trip so near unto death. In the warm sunshine at Rock Creek camp the major part of the day had been passed by the young hunter in writing up his journal, carefully jotting down all the incidents of latest development, even to the extra spread given in his honor to himself and three imaginary guests. He, being present, had a good meal, but the "invited" guests had to feast by proxy. The menu started with a hambone soup, and a nice broiled mountain trout, captured in a big hole where Pony and Rock Creek join forces. Winter trout being so great a luxury, Jack forgot his table etiquette and asked for a second portion, and being refused, he made a fierce onslaught upon the piece de resistance, no more and no less than a blue grouse roasted before the fire, as they roasted turkeys in the days of the Pilgrim Fathers. Jack used one of the metal joints of the cleaning rod belonging to his rifle as a spit, and as he turned the bird slowly and basted it with venison fat he wondered, if his guests could really drop in for a moment, what they would say about his culinary efforts. The bird was stuffed with real sage dressing; not quite so good as mother used to make, as the mountain sage is a trifle stronger. When finished the grouse was garnished with juniper berries and spruce buds, these being the winter food of the grouse. There was a distinct flavor of the juniper in the meat. Then came an entree of young elk brains and another of Big Horn kidney stew. Jack was shy on vegetables of any kind, except Rock Creek baked beans, cooked all night in a Dutch oven sunk in the hot ashes of the camp fire; two kinds of bread, baking powder and sour dough, the first being hot biscuit, the latter nice big slices of cold white bread, never free from the name it bears. Stewed prunes and baked apple dumpling constituted the pastry, while black coffee in a tin cup and sparkling Rock Creek water served for liquids.

Jack had finished the "dishes," the last rattle of tin plates, pans, cup and skillets had re-echoed from the depths of the "china" closet, and he had settled himself for a chat with his pipe, when Chiquita bounded into camp all excitement and panting for breath.

"Colorow gone Sulphur Springs. Take 'em many ponies" (counting forty with her fingers). "All Utes except old men and Yamanatz go too. Mebbe so come back with bullets, powder, bacon, flour," and she stopped to breathe.

Jack contemplated, and while he did so Chiquita cast wistful eyes at the remains of the midday banquet. The longing expression was not a new one to Jack. He knew from experience that Chiquita was a good eater, in fact all Indians had that failing, so he motioned the belle of the village to a seat on the end of a log near by and proceeded to dish her up a square meal. He knew that Yamanatz would be coming along soon, so he reserved some odds and ends for him. When Chiquita had advanced far enough so she could have time between mouthfuls--not bites--to answer, Jack gave utterance to his thoughts.

"Colorow's ponies make pretty big track in snow--make heap big trail. Mebbe so good for two sleeps on high mountain where wind blow."

Chiquita understood and stopped her struggles, with a rib of venison in one hand and a grouse wing in the other, long enough to articulate:

"Chiquita comprehends. White man follow Utes; white man leave Chiquita and Yamanatz to go Sulphur Springs, mebbe so Denver City."

Her smiles were gone, but not her appetite, as she renewed her attacks on the remnant counter. Jack replied:

"Mebbe so Jack be gone four moons. Come back when honeysuckle on mountainside and cactus on plain in bloom. Will Chiquita and Yamanatz go then with Jack to Blazing-Eye-by-Big-Water?"

Jack decided to get out of the Ute country while the scalp was yet on his head and not dangling at the belt of any warrior, or braided into the make-up of any tepee pole. Just then the clatter of two ponies down the trail caused him to look around. In a moment or two the willows parted and Yamanatz, accompanied by a white man, whom Jack recognized as old Joe Riggs, entered the camp. To Jack's greeting of "How?" the newcomers both made response. Joe inquired as to the condition of Jack's feet, and upon being assured that those necessary adjuncts to a man's safety on Rock Creek were in fairly good order, the cattleman suggested the opportunity presented for Jack to make an attempt to connect with civilization.

Old Joe Riggs was known from the Cache le Poudre to the Rio Grande; to cowman, miner, prospector and goods store folks. Old Joe was a part and parcel of the main range. Forty-niners had bunked with him and fifty-niners had divided buffalo steaks with him, while sixty-niners from Missouri allowed old Joe could rock a cradle or shovel tailings from the sluice boxes, and seventy-niners found him as ready to take his turn at the drill or windlass as the best of them. In appearance old Joe was a weird, uncanny being that made the creeps run up and down one's crupper bone. Seated upon a chair in a room full of average-sized people, Joe appeared a dwarf. His anatomy seemed to rest on the ends of his shoulder blades, while his knees formed the hypothenuse of an inverted right-angle triangle. When standing he overtopped every man in a regiment of six-footers. His arms swung listlessly to his knees from the shoulder socket, as if lacking in elbow joints, terminating in hands fashioned more after the talons of an eagle than those of a human being. His nose was also like the beak of that fierce bird, while his chin retreated from his underlip in a direct line to the "Adam's apple." High cheek bones and protruding forehead caused the deep sunken orbital spaces to appear sightless, except for the nervous batting of his eyelids. His shoulders were broad, but being thin chested, he was short on lung capacity, which caused a most extraordinary mixture of guttural whispers and shrill wheezes every time he tried to talk. His strength was prodigious, and on more than one occasion he had won his drink by taking hold of the chines of a full barrel of liquor, raising it from the ground to his lips and drinking his fill from the bunghole. The most startling of all, though, was his wardrobe, and it was an open secret that Joe had his surname thrust upon him by reason of the various rigs in which he was clad. As the winter season approached and Joe got cold, he would appropriate any and all old garments he could find lying around loose; old pants, overalls, shirts, vests and socks which others had cast away as useless. These he would patch and sew together where necessity demanded, lengthening or widening, and pull one garment on over another. In this semi-annual outfitting he would appear one day with overalls reaching just below the knees, the pair under them revealing their "frazzled" ornamentations for a foot or more. The next day, as like as not, he would find an old pair of red drawers, and these would go on right over the last pair of overalls. When the spring came and warm weather got the best of his clothes, Joe proceeded to divest himself of a lot of useless and uncomfortable rags, for by that time they could not be called garments.

Joe at the present time was conducting a vest-pocket ranch on the sunny slopes of the cedar-treed hills rising from the Grand River tributaries and in what were termed "warm holes," being little areas of sage-brush covered mesas found upon the banks of the streams. These miniature parks were quite fertile in bunch and even buffalo grass, and varied from five acres to a whole section in extent. His herd of cattle consisted of two heifers, six old cows and ten three-year-old steers. This constituted the nucleus of an expectant million-dollar stock farm. It represented more than the average fortune accumulated by constant and attentive prospecting for forty years.

Joe's hint at the opportunity of connecting with God's country struck Jack as a coincidence upon which there might turn a contingency, so he reasoned with himself: "Why does Joe think I might want to get away from the Indians? Does he think I will desert my camp outfit and provisions? Besides, what is the old trapper to do when he returns?"

These questions were immediately answered by the cattleman just the same as though Jack had asked the information point blank, a proceeding which added to the weirdness of Joe's presence, and the most uncanny feature of it was the total inability of the hearer to locate whence came the sound that emanated from that sepulchral living cadaver. No lips moved in unison with a voice, nor even did the gleaming teeth, just visible through the parted mouth, open or close as if responsive to any oral exertions. The sound came from everywhere. Joe was a heaven-born ventriloquist.

"Yer needn't be slow about gittin' away from Rock Creek ef yer want ter go. 'Taint nothin' ter me. That ther' trapper ain't comin' back 'til ther beaver gets to usin' thar cutters on the trees a-buildin' dams, an' then he won't cum back ef thar's goin' to be trubble. He tol' me that ther day afore he struck out, savvey?"

Jack did not need to have the cabin fall on him nor an upheaval of the earth to realize that the trapper had "cut loose" from the Rock Creek possibilities. There was an ominous silence for a couple of minutes. One thing was certain in the minds of the two white men, alone, as they were, far from aid of any sort in the event of an uprising, and the thought uppermost in both their minds was as patent to each other as if branded in letters of fire--the trapper had deserted the tenderfoot.

As soon as this thought had coursed through Jack's brain other thoughts surged one upon another in quick succession. Was it a frontier conspiracy in which both white and red men were equally interested? Was it a put-up job between the trapper and Joe and the Indians--merely a coincidence in the commission of the trade? Perhaps the trapper had sold the camp outfit and Joe had come to take possession. This last thought made his heart sick, for he knew only too well that he could make no resistance except that which would end in a tragedy. Again the supernatural mind-reading Joe proclaimed himself in a few disjointed sentences, but to Jack they were most welcome in their honesty of purpose and implication of the trapper as a coward.

"I reckon yer might be calkerlatin' on what yer would do with this yere plunder," said Joe, as he pointed at the camp outfit, the provisions and the furs hanging on the side of the cabin. Continuing in that monotonous sing-song of gutturals and whispers, he allowed the plunder belonged to Jack, for the trapper had acknowledged as much.

"That trapper got 'skeered' of Colorow and lit out. Mebbe yer don't know it, but the Utes don't like him any too much, and when Colorow said 'Vamoose' yer pardner left yer to yer own cogitashuns. He tol' me that nothin' in the camp belonged to him; thet 'twas all your'n except the traps and harness. 'Taint likely he'll come back 'til next March, so ef yer don't want ter stay 'til then yer'll have to git a move on yerself. Thet trail won't stay open an hour on the high divide, but yer can rastle a couple Ute cayuses through ten feet of snow like a hot bullet goin' through a piece of ham fat, and onct on the other side of the divide it will be an easy trail to Kremling's, at the mouth of the Big Muddy. Yer don't need ter take much along. Yer will be out but one night, and mebbe yer will git ter the old hunter's cabin about forty mile from here 'fore that. Ef yer don't ther is a good campin' ground on the crik in a big pocket five miles this side."

It did not take long to make a trade. Jack reserved his six-shooters, blankets and three or four fine cat and fox skins. Joe gave him a good Indian pony, a silver watch, and the balance in money for the provisions, rifle, ammunition and other paraphernalia, except the remaining furs, traps and cooking utensils, which were the legitimate belongings of the trapper.

But the awful perils of a trip over an unknown trail in midwinter rose up as a barrier between Jack and civilization. The night had come on and Yamanatz, with Chiquita, as silent witnesses to the exchange of chattels, sat beside the camp fire. Grotesque shadows wavered and wandered back and forth in and out of the gloom as Jack replenished the disappearing embers with new fuel preparatory to a pow-wow in which the final arrangements were to be completed concerning his escape from Rock Creek, his return later when the winter passed, when Yamanatz should conduct him to the great gold deposit. It was a matter of a hundred miles to the nearest ranch in Middle Park, before reaching which was a "divide," the top of which soared far above the surrounding hills, and then came the Gore, or Park range, split by the Grand River into an impassable canon, along whose steep side ran the old Ute trail, up, up, until it crossed the snow-covered summit beyond timber line, and thence descended by serpentine and circuitous windings to the southern entrance of the Park. From there to the ranch on the Troublesome was open level country, across which was comparatively easy traveling. The other pass over the Gore range, which was used by the trapper and Jack when they made their incoming trip to Rock Creek, was already closed by snow as far as travel by horses was concerned, and for that matter the Ute trail was closed, except for being opened by the band of Indians and thirty or forty ponies bucking their way through to Sulphur Springs.