Patches (Hawkes)/Chapter 13
IT was not until the third year of their life together I upon the Crooked Creek ranch that the friendship and understanding between Patches and Larry ripened into its greatest perfection. Up to this time they had been the best of pals, doing the day's work together like good chums. The understanding between them even thus far had been remarked by the rest of the cow-punchers on the ranch, but with the beginning of the third year Patches evinced an understanding of his master and anticipated his wishes in a way that quite amazed the other cow-punchers.
The first indication of Patches' uncommon understanding came late in March, when Larry was taken ill, first with a hard cold and then with an attack of bronchitis. Larry and Patches had been doing most of the range riding that winter. For two or three weeks they had been searching for sick cows and calves. It was the season of the year when the strength of the herd was at its lowest ebb, and the stock had sometimes gone for days when the snow was deepest with very little food. The cows with new calves were often taken with pneumonia, while the calves frequently became so chilled during the first two or three days that they never got over it. It was the range rider's work to look up these animals and drive them to places of shelter and see that they had food.
One morning about the twentieth of March when Larry did not come to the corral as usual, Patches was rather surprised and watched for him for two or three hours, then finally gave up and settled down to the dullness of a day in the corral. But when the same thing happened the following morning he was still more surprised. He greeted each one of the cow-punchers when they came into the corral with a friendly nicker and when he discovered it was not his master his disappointment was very apparent. Two days was bad enough, but when this thing had gone on for five days, Patches became quite desperate and tried several times to slip by such old friends as Pony and Long Tom when they came into the corral. But seeing his efforts frustrated, on the fifth morning he took matters into his own hands.
Larry was resting comfortably in the bunk house. He was not very ill but the doctor had said that he must remain in bed for several days, resting and recuperating his strength. It was about nine o'clock in the morning and Larry had fallen into a pleasant morning doze, when he was awakened by a terrific bang in the hallway leading to the bunk house proper. It sounded to him as though a portion of the great front door had toppled over on the floor. Then he heard the sound of heavy steps in the hallway. He was greatly surprised and, wrapping a blanket over his shoulders and slipping on his shoes, hastened to the door leading to the hallway. As he opened it his astonishment may well be imagined when the beautiful head of Patches was thrust through the doorway into his face.
"Good gracious! Where in thunder did you come from, pal? What are you doing here in the bunk house? I'll have to get you out or you will go through the floor."
Larry hastily shut the door and putting on more clothes entered the hallway and very carefully backed Patches out of the front door, then he called for help. Pony soon came running in answer to his hellos and Patches was taken away and hitched in a stable to his great disgust. Only once or twice before in his whole life had he ever been tied up in one of these niggardly box stalls. As soon as Larry was well enough to have visitors, Pony would bring Patches around to the window by the head of his master's bed and they would hold a short confab through the open widow. Larry would smooth and pat Patches' head and talked to him until he had satisfied the craving of the fine animal for his master's company for that day.
It was a joyous morning when Larry and Patches were again riding over the range at their accustomed work. Then it was that Larry noticed that Patches had seemingly developed a strange perspicacity and knowledge of his own thought. They would be poking along some trail going at a slow walk when the thought would come to Larry that he ought to be hurrying up. Patches would anticipate his master's wishes and break into the habitual running trot. Or some evening just before Sunset they would be riding a distant portion of the ranch and Larry would conclude that he had done enough for that day and think to himself that it was about time to quit. Usually before he had entertained these thoughts for many seconds Patches would turn about and make a bee line for the ranch house.
This perspicacity of the horse was also most effective during the round-up season. If Larry singled out a steer away at the center of a large bunch of several hundred cattle, he had only to fix his mind steadfastly upon that particular animal and Patches would raise his head and look over the seething herd until he had spotted the animal in question, then he would start pushing this way and that until he had found the coveted steer, after which he would drive him out into the open in the shortest possible time.
One morning in early July, Patches and Larry had an adventure which the young man never forgot. In fact, it was burned so deeply into his memory that for weeks afterward he would occasionally spring up in bed during sleep and cry out, thinking that once again he was at the heart of the terrible maelstrom that had so nearly overwhelmed him.
It was a beautiful July morning, the American birthday in fact, but it was more like a June day than a July day. The sky was of that dreamy far-away blue which suggests infinite distance. Great white clouds were floating across the blue like stately ships. The distant mountains looked more like a range from dreamland than real peaks and cliffs of interchanging rock and forest. The air was soft and balmy, sparrows were chipping in the grass, Piñon birds were scolding in the thickets, and a sense of infinite peace was over all the land. It was one of those days which make a man gaze, first at the blue sky, then at the distant mountains, then at the green pasture land close at hand, and finally, when he had drunk in all this ravishing beauty, to heave a deep sigh, stretch his muscles and thank God for life. This was just what Larry did and then he noticed that he and Patches had stopped upon a sunny slope of the mesa where wild strawberries were plenty, so he dismounted and allowed the horse to graze upon the green grass while he ate wild strawberries much as he had done when he was a lad in that far away New England.
He was so interested in his search for the strawberries and they were so delicious that he wandered many rods from the spot where he had dismounted, in fact he passed over the top of the nearest ridge and part way down the slope beyond. Then he saw on the slope opposite fifty or seventy-five cattle feeding, with still more on the top of the opposite ridge. He did not, at first, think very much about it but stood looking at them. Nearly all of them had their heads down feeding while some were standing in ruminative attitudes looking off, like himself, across the landscape.
There were a dozen little calves in the herd and they were frisking about enjoying the warm summer sunlight and their own freedom upon the great plateau.
Then one of the cows nearest Larry raised her head and looked squarely at him and as though by some psychological action on the rest of the herd another head bobbed up and this cow also gazed straight at the man who was perhaps a hundred yards away on the opposite slope. Then other heads were raised until presently forty or fifty of the cattle which had been feeding a minute before were looking at the solitary man on the nearby hillside. Then the cow which had first noticed Larry began slowly walking toward him and another followed, and another, and another until twenty or thirty of the herd were in motion. But before they had covered fifty feet the walk changed into a slow trot and that in turn to a quick gallop and almost before Larry appreciated the sinister thing that was sweeping down upon him the entire herd had broken into a mad gallop.
Then Larry remembered something that Hank Brodie had told him the first day he had ridden with his uncle on the Crooked Creek ranch. His uncle had said a herd of cattle is like the sea, the sea can smooth out all its little ripples until it looks like the most peaceful thing in the world, but in a few minutes it can break into mighty billows scattering death and destruction in their wake. So it is with a herd of cattle, the first law of the cattle land is never dismount in sight of the herd and never be caught off your horse if you value your life.
Larry's first thought was of Patches, he was only a few rods away and he turned and ran with all his might towards the spot where he had left his faithful horse, but to his great surprise as he topped the crest and looked down the further slope Patches was not there. What did it mean? He surely had left him just over the swell. Then he looked back at the herd of cattle. They were coming on, heads down and tails up, at a terrific pace. The thunder of their hoofs could be heard like the rolling of many great drums. It was a sinister sight, so he bent his every energy and ran as he had not run in many a day. Surely Patches was just over the top of the next crest. He had been mistaken in the position where he had left him. The truth was that Larry in his great haste had gone in the wrong direction and instead of going towards his horse was going away from him in an oblique direction.
Although he ran with all his might, yet when he reached the top of the swell the herd topped the crest where he had been a minute before. So he put forth still greater effort and reached the top of the next crest and saw to his utter consternation that Patches was nowhere in sight. Then a great fear clutched him. He was helpless here upon the open plain with no tree or huge rock to shelter him, and no horse upon whose back he might climb to escape the terrible thing that was sweeping down upon him. He ran with all his remaining strength, he ran until his breath came in wheezy gasps, yet do the best he could, as he topped the next crest the herd came sweeping up the slope behind him only fifty yards away. Then it was that Larry thought he heard other hoofs from another direction. Another herd must be sweeping down upon him, his plight was even more desperate than he had imagined, but as he turned his head to see how close this new danger was, he saw to his great surprise two horses sweeping down upon him like the wind. One was Old Baldy and his uncle was upon his back and the other was Patches. Uncle Henry was holding Patches by the bridle rein with his left hand while he applied his quirt to both horses and they were running at a headlong gallop. Larry saw at once that his uncle was planning to meet the oncoming cattle at an angle of forty-five degrees and was curving in just as close to the herd as he dared to and his thought was that at just the right moment Patches would sweep up to the frantically running cattle and then Larry could mount while they were still going at a gallop. It was a desperate chance, a slip of the foot or hand and all would be over, but it was the only chance they had so Larry put forth the last remaining ounce of strength in his strong muscles as the galloping horses swept down almost in the face of the charging herd. Then it was that Larry's feat of mounting while Patches was going at a gallop, which he had practised so faithfully two years before stood him in good stead, for as the horses swept by so close to the herd that before they could turn both Patches and Baldy were struck by the horns of the frantic cattle, Larry clutched the horn of his saddle and with all his remaining strength threw himself across the haven of Patches' back. It was but the work of an instant to gain the saddle and with a sharp pull on the right rein both Baldy and Patches surged to the right and became a part of the madly rushing herd. In this way they not only saved their riders but they saved themselves from the terrible stampede.
_17.png)
They had gone only fifty yards further when the cattle of their own accord began to slow down. The surprise and consternation upon the individual members of the herd was plainly noticeable. They did not in the least associate Larry on horseback with the fleeing man on foot. They had seen that figure so often they thought him a part of the horse.
Seeing how pale his nephew was and how nervous, Hank Brodie rode by his side with one hand on his shoulder until they were safely out of the milling herd.
"Thank God!" exclaimed Uncle Henry fervently, when they were at last out of danger. "You see I heard the sound of stampeding hoofs and discovered Patches just in time. Two seconds later, boy, and there wouldn't have been enough of you left for a respectable funeral. It was a marvelous escape and should teach you a lesson you will never forget."
Another desperate race with death Larry and Patches had during that third eventful year upon the ranch, but this second race was quite different from the first. In the first instance they had raced to save their own lives, but now they raced to save the lives of others.
It happened about October first during a very rainy season. The equinoctial storms had begun about September nineteenth and it had rained almost continually up to the first of October. People on the Crooked Creek ranch had never seen the creek so high before. This would not have mattered especially to them had it not been for the fact that the spring before a small irrigation company, comprising a dozen farmers eight miles down the creek on the flat open country, had built a dam on Crooked Creek just below the holdings of the ranch. While it was some four miles from the ranch fences, yet it was just outside the unfenced land that the ranch people grazed in the winter time. Even when the water was of normal height this artificial lake set back for a quarter of a mile upon one of the ranch's best meadows, but at the time of high water it flooded nearly half a mile.
The head cow-puncher had sent Larry and Patches down to reconnoiter and to see if conditions were as bad as had been reported to him. Larry had made his way along the southeastern bank of the creek and had climbed the bluffs on that side nearest the dam. He was standing on the very crest of the hilltop looking at the beautiful artificial lake which stretched away up the valley for nearly a mile. This lake was also half a mile wide in some places and quite deep, so it will be seen that the flimsily constructed concrete and boulder dam held back a considerable body of water.
The dam had been hastily constructed by the farmers without very much engineering skill. They had not even copied the cunning of the beaver who curves his dam upstream in the middle in order to distribute the Pressure of the water along the entire dam. Instead their dam curved down in the middle and Larry wondered as he looked at it how it had ever managed to hold back the great volume of water behind it. The stones from which it had been built were not even quarried, they were simply boulders of every size and shape held together in a flimsy way by concrete which had been dumped in between them.
The sluice-way was wide open but this did not begin to care for the great volume of water for it poured over the dam two feet deep for its entire length. The water was dark and angry and the whole scene was one of grandeur and mighty power held in check by the ingenuity of man.
Larry was just thinking what a devastating flood would be set loose if this flimsy dam ever gave way when a great boulder near the sluice-way toppled from its place and crashed into the creek below. This seemed to precipitate a sort of land slide or rather a stone slide for one boulder after another went crashing after the first and almost in less time than it takes to tell the entire sluice-way itself rushed out and the water came pouring through a gap twenty feet wide and as many high.
"Gracious!" cried the boy under his breath, "I guess they're in for some water down below."
But the words were barely out of his mouth when more of the dam gave way, first on one side of the stream and then on the other. It went down like a cob-house, a piece here and a piece there, and the mighty—seething waters came rushing through the break like a demon of destruction. Then in a flash the full significance of what he had seen came home to Larry. The back of the dam had been broken and the rest would go in a few seconds. It meant a terrible flood in the valley below. He knew every rod of this country and his imagination pictured the waters piling up in the narrow canyon which stretched away for three miles below, but most of the farmers lived on the prairie land still further down and then he remembered the Ganzers, the family of floaters who had so annoyed the Crooked Creek ranch people the year before, and who had finally set fire to the lower plateau. This family of squatters had built a cabin two miles belocw the dam that very spring and so far as he knew they were still there. They were in the immediate pathway of the flood in one of the narrowest portions of the canyon where the water would pile up like a veritable deluge.
It was true that the Ganzers were enemies of the ranch people, but even so he would have to warn them. And was not little Elsie Ganzer one of the family? Elsie and he had been the best of friends all through the feud between her folks and the ranch people the year before. She was only eight years old and the sins of her parents ought not to be visited on her. Larry remembered her just as he had seen her that first summer morning in July when her flaxen hair was streaming in the morning breeze. Her eyes were of heavenly blue and sparkling with pleasure and her cheeks like roses while her mouth was stained red with wild strawberries.
He had taken her upon the pommel of his saddle and given her a ride on Patches' back and they had been good chums from that hour. He could not forsake her now. Patches who was hitched in a clump of aspens a score of rods away was greatly astonished a minute later when his master came tearing through the bushes and sprang into the saddle pulling the reins free from a sapling as he sprang.
Patches could not imagine why his master was in such a hurry. There were no cattle in sight and there was no race on, but he, like the good horse he was, took his cue from his impatient master and they flew down the little bridle path leading to the wagon trail at a breakneck gallop. Larry leaned low over the horse's neck in order to escape a lashing from the limbs of over-hanging trees. The pathway was rough but Paches was used to rough riding and hummocks and depressions did not break their head-long gallop.
In the shortest possible time they had covered the mile to the wagon trail. Larry pulled sharply on the left rein and headed his faithful horse straight up the valley into the teeth of the on-coming flood.
He had not covered half a mile when he met the Ganzer family. They were in their lumber wagon drawn by two frantically galloping horses, but all were not there for as he pulled up beside the wagon, old man Ganzer shouted to him, "Elsie, mine little girl, Elsie, we cannot find her."
"Where is she gone?" inquired Larry incredulously.
"We do not know," wailed Mrs. Ganzer, "we cannot find her."
"Cowards," called Larry back over his shoulder as he gave Patches the quirt and galloped on towards the Ganzer cottage. It did not matter that a torrent of water thirty or forty feet high was rushing down the valley towards them, he must save little Elsie at any cost.
Would he reach the cabin ahead of the flood? Would he have time to look for her if he did? And if he discovered her would they both have time to escape on Patches' back? Such were the thoughts that surged through his brain as he galloped madly up the canyon. "In two minutes time he rounded a curve in the draw which gave him an unobstructed view for three hundred yards. Fifty yards ahead was the Ganzer cabin, two-hundred yards beyond that was the avalanche of oncoming waters. It was carrying upon its crest trees, bushes and all sorts of débris and Larry was aghast at the height and breadth of the flood. As he neared the cabin he shouted at the top of his lungs, "Elsie, Elsie, where are you?" Presently he thought he heard a faint cry from the bluff at the left and looking in that direction he saw her running hurriedly down the path which wound out and in among the trees. Her hair was streaming in the autumn wind and she was pale with fear, but she still clutched in her hands a bunch of autumn leaves.
"Run to me, Elsie," Larry called, barely making himself heard above the roar of the flood which was now like the sound of continuous thunder. He turned Patches about so as to be in readiness, but did not dare dismount and all the time he looked over his shoulder to watch the on-coming monster. The seconds seemed like hours, but finally, breathless and excited, Elsie threw herself against Patches' side and at the same instant Larry caught her by the collar of her coat and set her upon the saddle in front of him.
"Cling on tight," he warned.
At that instant the advance wave of the flood struck them. It was foaming, hissing and gnashing its teeth. The wave was only three or four feet high but it gave them a good drenching.
Then Larry let the quirt fall on Patches' side and he _18.png)
bounded away. "Thank God," the young man thought, "we are safe."
But he had counted his chickens too soon for at that instant he noted that the water on the left side of the draw was racing much faster than that on the right because of fewer obstructions and the crest was much higher on that side. A great wave eight feet high was rushing across the canyon directly towards them, in fact it almost cut off their retreat. Could he get through it in time?
Then the hissing, foaming wave went over their heads and for a moment Larry thought they were lost. He felt Patches lose his footing and flounder in the flood, but that was only for a second for almost immediately he regained his foothold and burst out of the waters that sought to engulf them, like an express train and was racing down the valley at his best pace. With each hundred feet that he covered he left the water thirty feet behind. When Larry had seen the flood recede to one hundred feet he felt a little safer, but even so the race was a desperate one. If Patches were to slip on a rolling stone or stumble, even the slipping of the saddle or the breaking of a cinch might be fatal. But none of these things happened and rod by rod the fine horse drew away from the on-coming flood and by the time they reached the prairie land at the mouth of the draw the flood had been left far behind. Here they overtook the Ganzers in their lumber wagon.
"Here she is," cried Larry as he reined Patches up beside the wagon. "She is wet as a drowned rat but safe and sound."
"Gott in heaven bless you," cried Mrs. Ganzer, weeping and laughing, as she hugged the child to her breast, "my baby, my baby."
"Gott bless you, my boy," said old man Ganzer in his broken English. "I am ashamed that I have been so mean to you cattle people."
"You don't any of you deserve such a sweet little girl after deserting her in that cowardly way," said Larry, "but take good care of her now you have her back."
Then he galloped away and they heard his clear, resonant voice like a bugle call as it echoed far over the prairie land.
"The dam has burst. The flood is upon you. Look to your lives and your live stock."
Thanks to Larry's timely warning the people of the little settlement on the prairie saved their own lives as well as those of their horses and cattle although they lost a few chicken coops and pig pens and some small stock. But the story of the young man's daring rescue of Elsie Ganzer in the face of the on-coming flood and his heroic warning of the people in the settlement spread like wild fire through the region. If anything more was needed to add to the fame of this wonderful horse and his intrepid rider this story did it.