Part 9

The dog also was quite buried by the explosion, but he quickly dug himself out, and then he began an eager search for his master. Smelling out his location, he dug furiously with all his might to unearth him. Fortunately, his master's head was near the surface of the ground, but his arms and legs were bound tight so that he could not move, and he was nearly suffocated when the dog succeeded in digging out his head and face so that he could breathe.

Happily, relief came soon, and when the rescuing party arrived, they found the dog still working with all his strength to uncover his master.

Pick and spade soon brought the dog's quarry to the surface, who was quite unharmed except for a few bruises, while the dog, it was seen, was bleeding at ears, eyes and mouth from the effect of the explosive blast.

WEARY WILLIE'S DISCOMFITURE

Some good old English folk whose prosperous son had made a large amount of money in the railroad business in America, were persuaded by their boy to give up their fine, old-fashioned English country home for such home life as America could afford.

The dutiful son had anticipated the wants and pleasures of his parents, and on a fine country estate he had built practically a replica of the old English homestead. There was the big fireplace and the big, wide chimney, to be swept by the smutty chimney-sweep. The chimney was provided with pegs to climb up and down.

Some time after the good parents were quartered in their new home, Weary William the wanderer, a real hobo, walking past the place late one night, could see enough of it in the moonlight to recognize its genuine English aspect; for Weary Willie had, in his boyhood days, been one of those smut-faced chimney-sweeps in old England, and when he walked up and peeped through the window and saw a few embers in the familiar fireplace, he concluded to go down that chimney and take a nap in the cosy comfort that the room provided, and perchance find something to eat and drink without waking anyone.

Entering the room by way of the chimney, he did find, all set as though for himself, edibles and wine--left-overs from someone's late supper.

After feasting, he took a snooze on the sofa, intending to take his leave the way he came at an early hour before the family was up, but he had drunken more of the good wine than he ought, and he slept soundly. He was awakened by voices, which told him that it was high time and past for him to make his exit, and he scooted up the chimney in great haste, but not a whit too quickly, for by the time he had raised himself up out of sight, several persons entered the room. He did not dare continue his ascent or move for fear of making a noise. He waited there, breathless, for a more favorable opportunity to climb out.

It so happened that an ingenious Yankee neighbor of the English gentlefolk had suggested a more expeditious way of cleaning the chimney than by sweeping it out in the old British fashion. He said that all that was necessary was to throw several pounds of black gunpowder into the fire, which, flashing, would blow the soot out of the chimney. Of course, the genius had never tried the experiment himself, but as such geniuses are usually cocksure, he was so confident of success that he did not feel the need to make any preliminary experiments. Therefore, just as the tramp had mounted above the line of vision into the chimney, the genius, entering the room, threw the gunpowder into the fire, which instantly exploded with a great flash and smoke, blowing cinders and embers all over the room and filling it with dense, black, sulphurous smoke, burning the face and hands of the genius considerably, and frightening the elderly people out of their wits. But what frightened them all still more, was the appearance of the thoroughly singed and scared tramp, who fell from his perch in the chimney, down into the fireplace, and rolled out into the room, sneezing, coughing and saying things, all at once.

The terrified tramp was easily secured, and when the master's gold watch--a gift from royalty and a family heirloom--was found upon his person, the genius was not only forgiven for his miscalculated experiment, but also thanked for his good offices.

LO, THE POOR INDIAN!

Dave King, editor of the _Morris County Press_, Morristown, New Jersey, was reared a lariat man in the Wild and Woolly, in the days before civilization, rum and guns had subdued the Cheyennes, the Comanches and the Sioux to extinction or to the more uncongenial fate of enforced good behavior.

In all of Dave's hair-ruffling experiences--corralling stampeding long-horns, lassoing and riding a bull-buffalo bare-back, hunting, with Rex Beach, the great Kadiak bear in Alaska, whose enormous bulk and Ivan-the-Terrible disposition would by comparison make the grizzly of the Rocky Mountains a gentle companion--his most intimately interesting, close-to-nature adventure was when he was ten years old, and dwelt upon the upper waters of the Arkansas.

Dave's father, a husky pioneer, accompanied by his ten-year-old son, his brother, "Uncle Joe," an assortment of dogs, guns and ammunition, embracing a dozen kegs of gunpowder, had gone there to stake a squatter's claim, hunt buffalo and grow up with the country.

Timber was scarce, so, after the manner of the troglodyte, they burrowed out a room in the side of a hill, which constituted at once cook-room, dining-room and parlor, and also museum of rare weapons, dog-kennel and powder-magazine. The cook-stove was placed in the middle of the room, and the flue was run up through the ground for ventilation and the escape of products of combustion.

One day, Dave's father and Uncle Joe went on a buffalo hunt, much to the disconsolation of Dave, who wanted to go along. Toward the end of the afternoon following the departure of the hunters, Dave built a roaring fire in the stove to keep himself company, and incidentally to prepare supper for himself and the hunters, who were expected to return before sundown.

His eyes regarded longingly a double-barreled shotgun hung on the wall. He had many times been warned by his father to exercise caution in handling the guns during his absence, but Dave had the dare-devil spirit of his parent, with the added impulses of the small boy, and he took down the shotgun and fondled it lovingly, examining its firing mechanism. Then he proceeded to return it to its hanging, not noticing that he had left one of the hammers cocked. He did not know that the gun was loaded, and he would not have been deterred had he known. In putting up the weapon he accidentally touched the trigger of the cocked hammer and the charge in that barrel exploded, sending shot and burning wads under the sleeping-bunks, just missing one of the kegs of gunpowder.

Dave proceeded with his cooking, but soon he smelled smoke, and looking under the bunks discovered, to his horror, that a fire had started. Under the bunks he went, pawed at the fire with his hands, and smothered it with his hat, until he thought that he had extinguished the last spark. Then he started for a water-hole an eighth of a mile distant, to get a pail of water, accompanied by his favorite dog.

When he got out into the open, he saw a dozen horsemen just coming into view over a rising ground between him and the sinking sun. He thought at first that his father was bringing company home to dinner, and he waited and watched. But he soon saw by the feathered and blanketed make-up and demeanor of the horsemen that they were savages on the warpath.

Dave was not long getting himself and his dog out of sight in a badger-hole which he had, during many days of hard labor, enlarged for a playhouse.

The Indians were a party of Cheyennes who had been forcibly located in the Indian Territory by the Government. On this occasion, half a thousand of those fierce warriors decided to go on the warpath and return to their former hunting grounds in Wyoming. On their way they burned houses and slew and scalped everybody that fell in their path. Among many other outrages they, for a little diversion, killed and scalped a young woman school-teacher and forty pupils. United States troops then rounded them up and corralled them in Fort Robinson, Nebraska. One night they made a break to escape and the soldiers, now out of patience, killed the whole bunch.

But to return to Dave: When the Indians saw the smoke coming out of the top of the ground, their curiosity was excited, and discovering that it was a dwelling they rode round it, red-man fashion, in a constantly narrowing circle, firing guns and war-whooping.

The dog began to bark and struggle to free himself to get after those Indians, but Dave thrust his hand into the animal's mouth, and grasping his lower jaw managed to keep him from barking. It took all of Dave's strength to hold that dog, but he knew that it meant life or death, for if the dog should escape he would betray their hiding-place.

The Indians, finding no sign of life in the dugout except the barking dogs that Dave had shut in, came closer and closer. Half a dozen of them got up on the top of the dugout, and the others bunched themselves in close to the entrance, preparatory to rushing the place.

But Dave had not succeeded in extinguishing the last spark of the fire that he had started under the bunks, so, coincidentally with the Indians arranging themselves about the cavern, the twelve kegs of gunpowder went into action.

Dave could not imagine what had happened. He thought that possibly the Indians had captured the gunpowder and exploded it purposely, but he did not dare to emerge from his hiding.

There was an interval of silence. There were no more war-whoops, and he concluded that the Indians had departed. They had, but not exactly in the manner that Dave imagined.

The parent and Uncle Joe, returning on the edge of evening, were dumbfounded at finding only a great hole in the ground where the dwelling had been. Dave's father wrung his hands and bemoaned the loss of his boy, while Uncle Joe consoled him with the usual I-told-you-so that he ought not to have kept the gunpowder in the place.

They began a diligent search for any souvenirs of Dave that might have happened to return to Mother Earth. After they had gathered up about a wagon-load of the disintegrated Indians, Uncle Joe suggested that they must be on the wrong scent.

At this puzzling juncture, Dave, hearing the voices of his father and Uncle Joe, cautiously emerged from his hiding. When he came in sight, Uncle Joe said, "There's Dave now! There's your boy!" His father looked blankly at him for a moment. Though the vision looked like Dave he could not trust it. He said, "No, it can't be my boy! It can't be my boy!"

But it was; and Dave is still with us.

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Transcriber's Notes

Printer inaccuracies were silently corrected.

Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.