Hal is in the house
now, with Cagey, and Billie is there also, and has the exclusive run
of one room. The little fellow stood the march finely, and it is all
owing to that terrible old wagon that was such a comfort in some ways,
but caused me so much misery in others. These houses must be quite
warm; they are made of large logs placed horizontally, and the inner
walls are plastered, which will keep out the bitter cold during the
winter. The smallest window has an outside storm window.
CAMP BAKER, MONTANA TERRITORY,
December, 1877.
THIS post is far over in the Belt Mountains and quite cut off from the
outside world, and there are very few of us here, nevertheless the
days pass wonderfully fast, and they are pleasant days, also. And then
we have our own little excitements that are of intense interest to us,
even if they are never heard of in the world across the snow and ice.
The Rae family was very much upset two days ago by the bad behavior of
my horse Bettie, when she managed to throw Faye for the very first
time in his life! You know that both of our horses, although raised
near this place, were really range animals, and were brought in and
broken for us. The black horse has never been very satisfactory, and
Faye has a battle with him almost every time he takes him out, but
Bettie had been lovely and behaved wonderfully well for so young a
horse, and I have been so pleased with her and her delightful gaits - a
little single foot and easy canter.
The other morning Faye was in a hurry to get out to a lumber camp and,
as I did not care to go, he decided to ride my horse rather than waste
time by arguing with the black as to which road they should go. Ben
always thinks he knows more about such things than his rider. Well,
Kelly led Bettie up from the corral and saddled and bridled her, and
when Faye was ready to start I went out with him to give the horse a
few lumps of sugar. She is a beautiful animal - a bright bay in
color - with perfect head and dainty, expressive ears, and remarkably
slender legs.
Faye immediately prepared to mount; in fact, bridle in hand, had his
left foot in the stirrup and the right was over the horse, when up
went Miss Bet's back, arched precisely like a mad cat's, and down in
between her fore legs went her pretty nose, and high up in the air
went everything - man and beast - the horse coming down on legs as rigid
and unbending as bars of steel, and then - something happened to Faye!
Nothing could have been more unexpected, and it was all over in a
second.
