CHAPTER XXXII.

BY PYE POD.

It has come about that now, to many a Royal Society, the Creation of a World is little more mysterious than the cooking of a dumpling; concerning which last, indeed, there have been minds to whom the question, _How the apples_ were got in, presented difficulties.--_Sartor Resartus._

It was noon at Big Springs, the last village on the Union Pacific Railroad in Nebraska, when I sat down to write in my dairy. I had just finished a combination breakfast and dinner, warranted to kill any appetite and keep it dead for twelve hours. Consequently I wrote under great pressure.

Since striking Camp Coyote, I had shot prairie dogs, owls, jack-rabbits, and gophers innumerable, but on Wednesday, June 30, I killed my first rattlesnake. It was not the first we had seen, but the first to lie in our path. I wanted to shoot it's head off, but instead of it losing its head, I lost mine, and severed its vertebræ. The snake was three feet five, and possessed eight rattles and a button. Cookskin suggested that the button might come in handy in many ways. "You know, Pod, you are always losing buttons."

These dreaded reptiles abound on the plains, particularly in dogtowns, where they can dine on superfluous baby-dogs when families become too large. Three sorts of creatures, including the owl--animal, bird, and reptile--bunk together companionably, but have quarrels of their own, doubtless, like mankind in domestic affairs. At that season the South Platte was drained for irrigation in Colorado. I was riding peaceably along, watching its morbid current and the gray hills beyond, when suddenly my valet yelled to me, "Look out, Pod, a rattler ahead!"

Coonskin was riding Cheese, who leaped to one side, but my own steed, blinded by his spectacle-frames, walked on and stepped over the coiled snake, which struck at my leg. Fortunately my canvas legging protected me from the reptile's fangs, which glanced off, letting him fall in the trail. Instantly I turned in my saddle and ended its miserable existence.

The report of my revolver attracted some cowboys, who galloped up on their rope horses and accompanied us to their adobe house a few miles beyond. It was five in the afternoon, the day was hot, and our journey long and dusty. They were a jolly lot. Thir ranch was a square sod structure, without a floor, and sparingly furnished, but cool and comfortable.

"We'll have hot biscuit for supper," said one of the cowboys.

"So you like cooking," I remarked; "I pride myself on the dumplings I make, and my flapjacks are marvels of construction."

"Hang together well, I suppose," observed the cook, smiling and piling buffalo chips in the stove.

"I haven't tasted dumplings since I visited the World's Fair," said another.

"Well," declared the first speaker, "my tenderfoot friend, your oven will soon be hot, and the flour, soda, shortening, and apples are on the shelf. Anything else you need, ask for it."

I was in a bad fix; I remembered the parrot that got into trouble with the bull-terrier by talking too much.

"It requires a long time to steam dumplings; it will delay supper," I protested.

"We shan't turn you out, if it takes you all night, but we'll shoot the enamel off your front teeth if you don't make them apple dumplings, and do your best," said a cowboy.

"All right, boys, I'll try my luck, and you can save time by helping."

"Sure," all replied.

"Fetch me the shortening," I called.

"Right before your eyes," said one.

"Blamed if I can see it," I explained. The fellow put his hands on a cake of greasy-looking substance.

"That's soap," I said, remonstrating, with a chuckle.

"All we use for shortening," apologized the cook; "don't see much butter or lard out on this here desert."

I fell to with a will. Before long my dough was mixed. As I rolled it out with a tin can, I directed a cowboy to put in the apples and roll up the dough. Soon the dumplings were in the steamer, and the cook began to prepare other eatables for the meal. Then, my duty done, I watched two fellows throw the lariat, and shoot the fly specks off Coonskin's hat in midair.

At last, five hearty eaters sat down to dinner. The cook's hot biscuits, potatoes, bacon, eggs and coffee were delicious, and I devoured them greedily. But in the middle of our repast I turned my head in time to detect the cook meddling with the dumplings.

"Shouldn't take off the cover till they're done," I shouted; "makes 'em heavy."

"Didn't take it off--lifted itself off," explained the man, regarding me first, then the steamer. "Man alive, the dumplings are as big as cabbages."

"And 'tain't more'n likely they've got their growth yet," said Coonskin, who examined the wonders.

"Gracious!" I exclaimed. "How many apples did you cram into each dumpling?"

"Only fifteen or twenty," the cook returned; "awfully small, you know."

"That explains the size of them," said I. "You've got a half dozen whole apples in each dumpling, and a peck or more in the steamer. Don't you know dried fruit swells?"

"But how am I to keep the lid on the steamer," asked the hungry cook, wistfully eying the disappearing meal.

"Sit on it, you crazy loon," suggested a companion.

And the fellow did. Presently there was a deafening report, and the cook was lifted off the steamer, while dumplings flew in every direction, striking the ceiling, and then, from heaviness, dropping on the floor. One broke my plate into a dozen pieces. Another hot and saucy dumpling shot through the bursted side of the steamer, hitting one of the cowboys in the eye.

"Just my luck," I said; "they would have been as light as a feather."

"Light!" exclaimed the injured fellow with a handkerchief against his scalded optic. "It was the heaviest thing that ever hit me, let me tell you, and I've been punching cattle seven years."

When the excitement was over, and we had found sufficient grub to complete our meal, all assembled in the cool outer air, where Coonskin and I entertained with our musical instruments until bedtime.

Next morning, on my suggestion, a cowboy threw his lariat round my body good-naturedly and pulled me over, but before I could right myself Don took three bounds and pulled the fellow down by the shoulder, frightening one and all. I shouted so loudly to the dog that I was hoarse for a week. That demonstration of Don's loyalty was a revelation to me. The man was not injured, although his coat was torn.

The lack of energy and enterprise of the town of the western plains was both surprising and amusing. I expected a package of photos at Willow Island. When I called for it I was informed that the railroad station had burned a few months before, and that their express stopped at Cozad, which I had passed through. So I wrote to have the package forwarded to a station farther west.

Gothenburg, the next town, was in a decline, the reaction of a boom. A traveler approaching it expects to find a business center. Many stores and dwellings were of brick, but whole rows were vacant at the time. The soothing melody of the squalling infant was only a memory to the village druggist; the itinerant butcher and milkman had ceased their daily rounds; and all that was left to distinguish the half-deserted village from the desert was an occasional swallow that went down the parched mouth of a chimney. There is another town characteristic of the plains. I had a letter to post at Paxton, but forgot it; some miles beyond, a ranchman whom we met said I would find a post-office at Korty, five miles further on. After traveling two hours, we could see no vestige of a village anywhere. Don ran ahead to the top of every sand hill and stood on his hind feet to have the first peep at the mysterious town. I came to the conclusion the ranchman had said twenty-five miles instead of five. Finally the trail approached the railroad.

"I see the town of Korty!" my valet exclaimed.

"Where?" I asked.

"There. Plain as day. Can't you see it?" he asked, pointing straight ahead.

"I must confess I can't," I replied. "Let me look over your finger." Then I saw it. It wasn't one hundred feet away. A single white-painted post stood beside the track, and on it was nailed a cross-bar, lettered in bold type, "Korty;" underneath was a letter-box. That was the town. There was no section house, no water tank, no break in the wire fence, and there being, of course, no general delivery window in the "post-office," I did not ask for my mail.

On the way to North Platte, we passed the site of old Ft. McPherson, where Buffalo Bill, the celebrated scout, once lived and won his fame and title by providing buffalo meat for the Government, and also the site of a notorious Pawnee village, now called Pawnee Springs. We reached North Platte, situated at the confluence of the North and South Platte rivers, which form the great River Platte, Saturday afternoon, and spent Sunday in a manner to meet the approval of the most pious.

That first evening I lectured from a large dry-goods box on a prominent corner.

Sunday afternoon an old friend and classmate drove me into the country to the famous "Scout's Rest Ranch," the estate of Mr. Cody (Buffalo Bill), where I saw a herd of buffalo and a cornfield of 500 acres.

"There is quite a contrast between your cornfield and mine," I said to the manager.

"How big a cornfield have you?"

"Just a small one," I replied. "One acher on each big toe."

"I see, only sufficient for your own use," came the response; "your 'stock in' trade, as it were." Then the ranchman purchased a photo, and we two grown-up school boys drove back to town, in time to escape a thunder shower.

The country between North Platte and Julesburg is a desolate and barren region. Occasionally we could see a ranch house, sometimes cattle grazing on I knew not what. There was plenty of alkali grass in the bottom lands of the Platte, and further back on the mesa, patches of the short and nutritious buffalo grass, half seared by the scorching sun. The railway stations, with one or two exceptions, consisted of water tanks and section houses, where water could be procured. At Ogalala we met a train-load of Christian Endeavorers, and had a chance to quench our thirst.