May i8, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
623 
Across the Plains in Early Days 
By SAMUEL MANSFIELD STONE 
{Continued from last week.) 
T O enumerate all of the articles coiita.'necl in 
that chest would require a column of space 
and a better memory than mine after all the 
years that have elapsed since that notable Saturday 
afternoon. Suffice then to state that there was 
a practically complete carpenter’s outfit of saws, 
chisels, gouges, planes, awls and punches, gim¬ 
lets, bit and brace, with a kit of extra bits, an 
adze, broad-axe, several big augers with handles, 
draw-shave, try-square, etc. In a locker at one 
side was a five-pound can of powder and a large 
roll of safety fuse, evidently for use in con¬ 
junction with the nitro glycerine. There was 
also a quantity of pig lead and a tripod and 
melting crucible and several bullet and plummet 
moulds. 
We argued that it would be right to make such 
use of our unknown landlord's property as our 
situation seemed to warrant, offering to remuner¬ 
ate him for such use, provided he should return 
during our sojourn, otherwise leaving a note of 
thanks against his reclaiming the property at 
some future time. We speculated freely upon 
the peculiar situation—a tenantable house equip¬ 
ped with all the necessary fixtures to convenient 
existence, abandoned in this wilderness, the 
owner evidently having been gone for years, pos¬ 
sibly, there being nothing to indicate how long. 
Who was he? Is he still living? Why did he, 
evidently a mechanic, locate so far from all oppor¬ 
tunity to ply his craft? These and many other 
questions we asked each other. 
With the hatchet, which was in good order. 
John cut a quantity of fuel from the tops of a 
dead tree that had fallen over the cliff, while 
I cut some slices of venison and salt pork, which 
I put to fry in one of the landlord’s pans, previ¬ 
ously cleansed with sand, soap and water. While 
eating dinner we speculated as to where we were. 
That we were on the outskirts of the Arkansas 
valley was apparent, but as to our position with 
reference to inhabited localities we were wholly 
in the dark. We realized what a mistake had 
been made in neglecting to equip ourselves with 
a map of the State or at least a copy of the Gov¬ 
ernment sectional survey ere setting out. The 
responsibility of the omission rested chiefly with 
me, for John had no idea on leaving home other 
than to make as short a trip as possible to Ar¬ 
kansas City. Not that he regretted his digres¬ 
sion ; on the contrary he seemed to thoroughly 
enjoy our experience. Personally, I was per¬ 
fectly happy. The surroundings of our present 
camp were exactly to my notion, game was 
abundant, we were amply equipped for hunting 
and fishing, we had a most comfortable and con¬ 
venient shelter, the nature of whose acquisition 
failed to worry me after our commendable reso¬ 
lutions as to recompensing its proprietor; I had 
agreeable company, and above all was in the en¬ 
joyment of splendid health. Under these condi¬ 
tions I gave myself up to the enjoyment of what 
I had always looked forward to as the culmina¬ 
tion of worldly happiness. True, closer prox¬ 
imity to a laundry would have enhanced my 
satisfaction, and I occasionally pined for a 
pleasanter smoke than a nicotine-impregnated 
brier wood and “Virginia plank road” supplied, 
but I was happy. 
We concluded to do nothing about refurnish¬ 
ing the house till Monday, hence we made camp 
for over Sunday in a sheltered nook a little 
way up the gulch. We did not care to sleep in 
the shack until we had thoroughly cleansed and 
renovated it, having in mind possible contagious 
illnesses from which former occupants might 
have suffered. In the chest locker we found a 
number of sticks of sulphur, and after cooking 
our Sunday dinner, we placed one of these in 
the skillet and set it on fire. Closing the door, 
we left the place to fumigate itself, which it did 
so effectually that it was impossible to stay with¬ 
in twenty yards of the shack to the leeward 
without suffocating. Whether this treatment had 
the effect to destroy any dangerous germs or 
not, one thing is certain—it drove away the bats 
which had returned after we first surprised them. 
The first streaks of Monday’s dawn saw John 
in a thicket cutting alder and willow twigs, which 
he fashioned into a very good apology for a 
broom. With this we swept the shack floor of all 
the accumulated dirt, as well as the side walls 
and overhangings of dust. Then, with the tools 
at command, we cut and made a bedstead, which 
we put on the opposite side of the room from 
the original. We fixed a number of shelves 
near the fireplace for our cooking utensils, and 
drove pegs in convenient spots on which to hang 
our saddles, bags and other traps. A new handle 
was fitted to the pickaxe and John turned coal 
miner for a half hour, with the result that we 
had a ton or more of free-burning bituminous 
coal piled in a home-made bin alongside the 
fireplace. Not only was this coal a very great 
convenience in cooking, but it converted the 
shack into an enjoyable sitting room during the 
cool evenings common to Western bottom lands. 
With a lighted candle in a bracket candlestick, 
one of John’s invention, a bright fire blazing 
cheerfully in the open grate, two youngsters sit¬ 
ting by the fireplace, with halos of tobacco smoke 
above their heads, you have a picture of homely 
contentment which was nightly reproduced in 
that lonely shack on the fringe of the Arkansas 
Valley. The only thing we longed for to com¬ 
plete our enjoyment was something to read. In 
a corner of the tool chest, wrapping up some 
whiting, we found part of a copy of a Topeka 
paper, printed nearly three years previously. 
About half of the print was illegible, but what 
remained was read and re-read until we were 
able to tell it to each other at night, instead of 
getting the paper each time. 
One serious drawback to the enjoyment of the 
nights was the presence of great numbers of 
coyotes which seemed to know of our occupancy 
of the shack, and every night, just as we were 
ready to sleep, these yelping brutes would set 
up the most frightful din imaginable and keep 
at it during the greater part of the remaining 
hours of darkness. Occasionally we would go 
to the door and fire a shot at them, but this 
would only serve to frighten them for a few 
minutes when they would return with renewed 
vigor. One night during a particularly vocifer¬ 
ous concert I chanced to recall the presence of 
the can of nitro glycerine in the cellar. I men¬ 
tioned it to John with the result that we soon 
matured a scheme for using the explosive in 
the interests of peace and quietness. Next eve- 
