Read Ebook: Lives of Famous Indian Chiefs From Cofachiqui the Indian Princess and Powhatan; down to and including Chief Joseph and Geronimo. Also an answer from the latest research of the query Whence came the Indian? Together with a number of thrillingly interesting by Wood Norman B Norman Barton

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Ebook has 2419 lines and 228309 words, and 49 pages

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"IN THE WHIRLING BLIZZARD, WITHOUT PROTECTION OF TIMBER, ONE PLACE WAS AS GOOD AS ANOTHER TO CAMP, AND WHILE THE INDIAN BUSIED HIMSELF WITH THE DOGS, CONNIE PROCEEDED TO DIG A TRENCH IN THE SNOW" 54

"THE THIRD DAY DAWNED COLD AND CLEAR, AND DAYLIGHT FOUND THE OUTFIT ON THE MOVE" 70

"IT WAS A TERRIBLE THING TO LOOK UPON TO THOSE TWO WHO KNEW ITS SIGNIFICANCE--THAT FLAG GLOWING LIKE A SPLOTCH OF BLOOD THERE IN THE BRAZEN SKY" 80

"THE SNARE WAS SET ONLY A FOOT OR TWO FROM THE STUFFED RABBIT SKIN AND STICKS AND BRUSH SO ARRANGED THAT IN ORDER TO REACH THE RABBIT THE LYNX MUST LEAP STRAIGHT INTO THE SNARE" 130

"'MERICAN JOE CLIMBED THE TREE AND A FEW MINUTES LATER CONNIE HEARD THE BLOWS OF HIS BELT AX AS HE HACKED AT THE LIMB THAT HELD THE CLOG" 156

"AS DARKNESS SETTLED OVER THE NORTH COUNTRY, A LITTLE FIRE TWINKLED IN THE BUSH, AND THE ODOUR OF SIZZLING BACON AND FRYING LIVER PERMEATED THE COZY CAMP" 182

"AS HE STEPPED THROUGH THE DOORWAY HE WAS SEIZED VIOLENTLY FROM BEHIND" 218

Connie Morgan in the Fur Country

DOG, OR WOLF?

In the little cabin on Ten Bow Waseche Bill laid his week-old newspaper aside, knocked the ashes from his pipe against the edge of the woodbox, and listened to the roar of the wind. After a few moments he rose and opened the door, only to slam it immediately as an icy blast, freighted with a million whirling flakes of snow, swept the room. Resuming his seat, he proceeded very deliberately to refill his pipe. This accomplished to his satisfaction, he lighted it, crammed some wood into the little air-tight stove, and tilted his chair back against the log wall.

"Well, son, what is it?" he asked, after a few moments of silence during which he had watched his young partner, Connie Morgan, draw rag after rag through the barrel of his rifle.

"What's what?" asked the boy, without looking up.

"What's on yo' mind? The last five patches yo've drug through that gun was as clean when they come out as when they went in. Yo' ain't cleanin' no rifle--yo' studyin' 'bout somethin'."

Connie rested the rifle upon his knees and smiled across the little oilcloth-covered table: "Looks like winter has come in earnest," he said. "Listen to her trying to tear the roof off. I've been wishing it would snow for a week."

"Snow fer a week?"

"No. Wishing for a week."

"Well, now it's come, what yo' goin' to do with it?"

"I'm going out and get that Big Ruff."

"Big Ruff! Yo' mean kill him?"

Connie shook his head: "No. I'm going to catch him. I want him."

Waseche laughed: "What in thunder do yo' want of him, even pervidin' he's a dog, which the chances is he ain't nothin' but a wolf. An' yo' don't even know they's any such brute rompin' the hills, nohow. Stories gits goin' that-a-way. Someone, mebbe, seen a dog or a wolf runnin' the ridge of Spur Mountain late in the evenin' so he looked 'bout half agin the size he was, an' they come along an' told it. Then someone else sees him, er another one, an' he recollects that he heard tell of a monstr'us big wolf er dog, he cain't recollect which, so he splits the difference an' makes him half-dog an' half-wolf, an' he adds a big ruff onto his neck fer good measure, an' tells it 'round. After that yo' kin bet that every tin-horn that gits within twenty mile of Spur Mountain will see him, an' each time he gits bigger, an' his ruff gits bigger. It's like a stampede. Yo' let someone pan out mebbe half a dozen ounces of dust on some crick an' by the time the news has spread a hundred mile, he's took out a fortune, an' it's in chunks as big as a pigeon's aig--they ain't nary one of them ever saw a pigeon's aig--but that's always what them chunks is as big as--an' directly the whole crick is staked an' a lot of men goes broke, an' some is killed, an' chances is, the only ones that comes out ahead is the ones that's staked an' sold out."

"But there are real wolf-dogs--I've seen plenty of 'em, and so have you. And there are real strikes--look at Ten Bow!"

"Yeh, look at it--but I made that strike myself. The boys down to Hesitation know'd that if I said they was colour heah it was heah. They didn't come a kihootin' up heah on the say-so of no tin-horn."

"Yes, and there's a big wolf-dog been over on Spur Mountain for a week, too. I didn't pay any attention when I first heard it. But, Dutch Henry saw him yesterday, and today when Black Jack Demeree came up with the mail he saw him, too."

Waseche appeared interested: "An' did they say he was as big as a cabin an' a ruff on him like the mainsail of a whaler?"

"No, but they said he was the biggest dog they ever saw, and he has got the big ruff, all right--and he was running with two or three wolves, and he was bigger than any of them."

"Well, if Dutch Henry an' Black Jack seen him," agreed Waseche with conviction, "he's there. But, what in time do yo' want of him? If he was runnin' with wolves he's buildin' him up a pack. He's a bad actor. You take them renegade dogs, an' they're worse than wolves an' worse than dogs--an' they're smarter'n most folks."

"That's why I want him. I want to make a leader out of him."

"You can't catch him--an' if you could, you couldn't handle him."

"I'll tell you more about that after I've had a try at him," grinned the boy.

"Who's going along?"

"No one. I don't want to divide him up with anyone, and anyone I could hire wouldn't be worth taking along."

"He'll eat you up."

"I hope he tries it! If he ever gets that close to me--he's mine!"

"Or yo'll be his'n," drawled Waseche Bill. "Howeveh, if I was bettin' I'd take yo' end of it, at that."

Connie flashed him a grin: "You've got as much as I have--and I don't notice you sitting around any swell hotels watching the folks go by."

Waseche's eyes twinkled: and he glanced affectionately at the boy: "No, son. This heah suits me betteh. But, yo' ain't even satisfied to stay heah in the cabin. When my laig went bad on me an' I had to go outside, you hit out an' put in the time with the Mounted, then last winteh, 'stead of taking it easy, you hit out fo' Minnesota an' handed that timbeh thievin' bunch what was comin' to 'em."

"Well, it paid, didn't it?"

"Sho' it paid--an' the work with the Mounted paid--not in money, but in what yo' learnt. But you don't neveh take things easy. Yo' pa was like that. I reckon it's bred in the bone."

Connie nodded: "Yes, and this winter I've got a trip planned out that will make all the others look piking. I'm going over and have a look at the Coppermine River country--over beyond the Mackenzie."

"There's gold--and copper," defended the boy.

"Did Dutch Henry an' Black Jack Demeree tell yo' that, too?"

Connie laughed: "No, I read about it in a book."

Waseche snorted contemptuously, "Read it in a book! Look a heah, son, it don't stand to reason that if anyone know'd they was gold an' coppeh up theah they'd be foolin' away theah time writin' books about it, does it? No suh, they'd be be right up amongst it scoopin' it out of the gravel, that's wheah they'd be! Books is redic'lus."

"You bet he didn't! That's the way with these heah fellows that writes books. They don't know enough about gold to make 'em a livin' diggin' it--so they write a book about it. They's mo' ways than one to make a livin' out of gold--like sellin' fake claims, an' writin' books."

"I'm going to roll in, now, because I want to get an early start. It's that book up there on the shelf with the green cover. You read it, and when I come back with Big Ruff, we'll talk it over."

Again Waseche snorted contemptuously, but a few minutes later as he lay snuggled between his blankets, Connie smiled to himself to see his big partner take the book from the shelf, light his pipe, and after settling himself comfortably in his chair, gingerly turn its pages.

Spur Mountain is not really a mountain at all. It is a long sparsely timbered ridge only about seven hundred feet in height that protrudes into the valley of the Ten Bow, for all the world like a giant spur. The creek doubles sharply around the point of the spur which slants upward to a deep notch or pass in the range that separates the Ten Bow from the valley of the Tanana.

It was past noon when Connie Morgan swung his dogs from the creek-bed and headed back along the base of the spur toward the main range. He had covered the fifteen miles slowly, being forced almost constantly to break trail ahead of the dogs through the new-fallen snow.

A half-hour later the boy slipped into a tangle of brush that marked the upper end of his patch of timber. The bare summit of the ridge stretched away in the half-light to merge in a mysterious blur with the indistinct valley of the Ten Bow. The wind was blowing gently from the ridge and the boy figured that if the wolf pack followed the summit as he hoped, they must pass within twenty yards of him. "If it don't go and cloud up before they get here I can see 'em plain as day," he thought, as he settled himself comfortably for his long wait. An hour passed and the boy was thankful he had thought to bring his parka. Mushing a hard trail, a man can dispense with his parka at twenty degrees below zero, but sitting still, even at zero, the heavy moosehide garment is indispensable. For another hour Connie divided his attention between watching the fantastic changes of pale aurora and scanning the distant reach of the ridge. He shifted his weight to his other hip to stretch a cramped leg; and suddenly became motionless as a stone. Far down the ridge his trained eye had caught a blur of motion. His fists clenched in anticipation as he stared into the dim distance. Yes, there it was again--something moving, like a swift shadow along the bald surface of the snow. Again the silent shadow shape vanished and again it appeared--nearer, now--near enough so that the boy could distinguish not one, but many shapes. In fascination he watched that silent run of the wolf pack. Nearer they swept, running easily and swiftly along the wind-swept ridge. Instinctively Connie reached for his rifle but withdrew his arm before his hand touched the weapon.

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