 | When the Grass Grew Long |  |
WHEN THE GRASS GREW LONG.
BY JOHN M. OSKISON.
Author of "Only the Master shall Praise," the prize story in THE CENTURY'S College Competition for Graduates of 1898.
TEN years ago every cow-boy in the northern part of the Indian Territory knew "Sermon Billy" Wilson, for he was such a slouchy, tireless, moody, and altogether strange figure that one did not forget his face after once seeing it. Everybody knew that one of Billy's hips was dislocated, and that he walked with a difficult side-swing of his right leg, but none knew or cared how the disfigurement had occurred.
It was when the puncher was seventeen years old that he came to the Territory, leaving a rather miserable Indiana home and the ridicule of an Indiana community behind him. His first job, after he reached the country of wide prairies and wider license, was as horse-rustler for "Jimmy" Thompson, whose ranch skirted the edge of the Paw Paw Creek timber. Jimmy paid ten dollars a month to his puncher, furnished a horse and saddle, and stood ready to act as schoolmaster to the young rustler.
"Look here, Billy," advised the ranchman one day, "this ranch is a long ways from any excitement, an' I know how it is with young bucks like you. Girls an' drink are the general things. I don't like to change punchers ever' month; an' I'd not care if you went down into the timber once in a while. There's some half-breed girls, an' full-bloods too, that ain't so bad comp'ny as you'd think. Better consider it some."
Billy considered the words of his boss, placing more confidence in them each time he recalled them. He rode past the cabins of the Cherokees, stuck on narrow, fertile strips of open land under the shelter of rocky hills, and watched the girls plodding about their outdoor tasks. At first he could not understand how romance might be fostered here. The girls were rather heavy-bodied, with large, regular, and unresponsive faces. They would not talk to him when he called for a gourd of water or asked to be allowed to rest in the shade of a big live-oak. They brought the water and went back to their work, or pointed silently to the tree.
But at "Cherokee Jake's" cabin, one day, he gained the daughter's favor by helping to pen a calf that had wormed its way through the milk-lot bars. When Billy, at the third attempt, swung the noose of his lasso over the calf's head, the Indian girl showed her teeth in a smile, and spoke her thanks:
"Much welcome. Awful nice rope. Bad little oyah [sheep]! And Billy felt that he had made distinct progress.
The little puncher had occasion to ride that way often afterward, and, noting the growing cheerfulness of his rustler, Jimmy Thompson reflected: "If there was any white girls in sight that wasn't a darn sight worse than the Indians, I'd rather he'd take up with them; but the way it is, the Cherokees are the best. I reckon he'll marry her some of these days, settle down on his corn-patch, an' raise shotes an' two calves ever' year."
It could scarcely be called a courting, this unconscious fluttering of the young puncher about the cabin; for old Jake, Jake's wife, and "Jinnie Jake," as the girl was called, apparently accepted him as only another piece of furniture to be given room, when necessary, in a crowded cabin. But Billy knew they were friendly, and his desire for female companionship was almost satisfied.
Before the great herds of cattle from Texas were turned loose on the prairies, the grass grew incredibly tall and thick every year, and in the late fall great fires raced across the country, leaving it black and bare. Ranchmen who were thus early settled in the country provided fire-guards — strips of grass cut while green, left to dry, and burned — to protect their ranges from destruction. The Indians generally provided the same protection for themselves; but sometimes they would forget, and be forced to build again after the annual conflagration.
A year after Billy had hired himself to Jimmy Thompson, at the end of a remarkably dry and hot summer, the prairie fires began to break out earlier than usual. A
Reaching the open prairie, on the edge of which was Cherokee Jake's cabin, the ranchman took in the situation at once, and instructed Billy: "I can get the steers back all right by myself. You'd better go over to Jake's cabin an' see if they're all safe. If they ain't burnt a fire-guard, get 'em away to my side the creek — an' hurry!" The fire was sweeping across the open furiously.
In this strip of country, west of the creek, and lying east of a range of low, black-jack-covered hills, where few cattle ever grazed, the grass grew to the height of a rider's cinch-buckle. The day was hot, and the air was dry; the long stems of the dried grass were like trains of cotton. From the south the wind carried the flames straight up the valley, forcing the wild prairiechickens and rabbits to scurry for safety to the timber on each side. Billy spurred his pony in front of the line of fire, beating it to Jake's cabin with a margin of only a few minutes.
As he rode near the cabin he saw Jake, Jake's wife, and the girl standing outside the cabin, apparently unconcerned and delighted with the spectacle. Billy decided that they must have burned a fire-guard about their home since he had been there two days before; but when he came up to the three he saw the mistake. Jake stood near the cabin with an old wet grain-sack in his hand, waiting to beat out the flames when they should come up to him. Jake had never before neglected a fire-guard, and he did not understand the resistlessness of a prairie fire. Jinnie Jake held another wet cloth, ready to help with the fighting, and the mother had carried two pails of water from the spring to keep the sacks wetted. There was an element of humor in the situation that appealed to Billy, and he muttered to himself: "Darnedest funniest bucket outfit I ever seen!" He had seen and applauded the drills of the Plainfield, Indiana, bucket brigade. He turned to Jake, and shouted: "Git out o' here, quick! This way," and he pointed toward the creek. Old Jake only grunted, gripped his sack firmly, and looked toward the roaring line of smoke, which rolled up in thick, black clouds, rose for an instant as the flames leaped out over the tops of the yet unburned grass, then closed down, and pressed forward with new speed. "Git out, git out, quick!" the puncher screamed above the roar.
But now the answer was a half-crazy, exultant light in the old Indian's eyes and a vigorous shake of the head.
"Here, you two, git on my horse an' ride for the timber!" Billy turned to the two women standing stolidly at one side.
"No," said the girl, shortly; "we stay, put out the fire. You help."
But the old woman weakened. Bits of charred grass-tops, carried up in the billows of flame, fell about them; the crackling of dry stems, snapped by flashes of outreaching fire, could be plainly heard. Billy noticed the woman's willingness, and carried her bodily to his horse. Then he turned to the girl, and tried to place her behind the mother. Jinnie only pushed him away with powerful arms, and stood defiant at her father's side. The mother galloped away safely to the creek when she saw that Jinnie would not come. The young puncher was desperate.
"Don't be such awful fools! Are you crazy?" He shouted the words in Jake's ear, and seized the Indian's arm to drag him away. The fascination of the oncoming wall of destruction was upon the full-blood; he was mad with the impulse to save his home. He grabbed the little puncher as one might grab a furious, irritating terrier, and threw him against the corner of the log-cabin with crushing force. A jutting log, left rough and sharp-edged at the corner, stopped Billy's fall, smashing his hip, and stunning him for a moment. When the girl saw her father fling Billy against the corner of the cabin, and heard the thud of the impact and the groan of pain that escaped him, she ran to the fallen form with a single comprehending cry: "Oh!" In the one exclamation she loosed all of that which we call love and tenderness, which had been so long and so carefully hidden. Billy regained his senses, tried to rise, and fell back limp with pain.
"Git to water — the well — the spring — quick!" he gasped, and the whirling smoke-clouds made breathing difficult.
The Indian girl picked him up in her arms and ran to the spring. She shouted over her shoulder for old Jake to follow. As well have shouted to the fluttering, frightened bird as it flew into the singeing heat to its late-built nest! Jake put down his head with a fierce shake of his long black hair, seized the wet rag with both hands, and plunged into the consuming flames. The
DRAWN BY CHARLES SCHREYVOGEL. HALF-TONE PLATE ENGRAVED
BY S. DAVIS.
THE RESCUE
[Description: A women carrying a young man from a fire]"Maybe so, this way!" the girl half sobbed to herself as the heat singed her hair; then she plunged the body of the puncher into the spring. The water was not deep enough to cover the upright man, and she forced him to his knees on the bottom of the pool. She leaned over to see if he was completely covered and conscious, and when she rose, she whispered to herself: "Maybe so, save him, little fellow!" There was no chance for the girl to escape now. She knew that in the narrow spring there was not room for two, and, turning away, she disappeared in the crackling bed of flames. She went into the choking, blinding, cinder-laden smoke to find old Jake.
When Jimmy Thompson rode back with the frightened old Indian woman, he found some twisted bucket-hoops and two charred skeletons. The cabin was blazing furiously, and Jimmy wondered where he would find
"Fools!" Then questioningly: "What come o' the girl? Think she done somethin' for me, didn't she?"
"Maybe she did," agreed Jimmy, though Billy had fainted and did not hear the answer.
| When the Grass Grew Long | |