David Lannarck, Midget

G >> George S. Harney >> David Lannarck, Midget

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"North Park, however, is a great grazing country. Its grass wealth may
be greater than its mineral. The government owns the land, except
tracts here and there suitable for farming. Our destination is the
Silver Falls Project, a fine body of rolling land, suitable for either
grazing or farming. It was laid out in convenient tracts for
homesteads. Each parcel was a half section. If there was rough land
adjoining a tract, that was included for good measure. It was opened
for settlers and many came, but none stayed. There was no central
organization to hold them--no church to rally around--no one
established a central trading post--no outstanding personage to
collect and hold, as is always the case in community building in
America. Then, too, there were no roads; therefore no market outlet.
The road over which we are going, is the only inlet and there's no
outlet. A half mile of blasting and building would have made an
entrance to the Tranquil Meadows district and to trails and highways
that led to market towns in two states, but the blasting and building
was never done. The Silver Falls Project never grew big enough to make
its decline noticeable.

"Of those who came to try it out, only four stuck to a final deed. Two
of these are at this end of the project. Carter runs a filling station
at the forks of the road and Withrow, next to him, hunts, traps, and
plays a fiddle. I acquired the two tracts at the far end of the
project and Gillis, our enterprising neighbor, owns two parcels next
to me and operates the abandoned tracts under grazing allotments. This
is a real ranch; small, as compared to others, but modeled as a farm
in the East, for Gillis is a real farmer. I make the guess that when
you grow homesick and tired of the loneliness at my place you will
headquarter at the Gillis place, in fact I have made that kind of
arrangement with them. They have a telephone, a radio, a phonograph,
and take plenty of newspapers and magazines, and, best of all, there
is a kindly, enterprising woman there to manage, to cook and can the
fruits and vegetables, and do the homey things that makes life fit to
live.

"They have cows, chickens, turkeys, pigs, and raise plenty of feed.
But they are an oasis in a desert. Except for our place, they have no
neighbors within fifteen miles. Mrs. Gillis is a worker and a planner.
She sells pigs, turkeys and calves, in Laramie and Cheyenne, more than
one hundred miles away; she has a working arrangement with the
filling station down at the roadside, whereby they sell quite a lot
of her canned stuff and preserves. She's always got something to sell
and sells it, market or no market.

"I depend on them for almost everything. Even the car and trailer out
there belongs to them. I bought a stock of chickens off of them, and I
rent a cow and calf from them. Really, while you have come out here to
my place, you will subsist for the most part off the Gillis family."

"Well the outlook gets better and better each time you add a chapter,"
said Davy as they walked out to the car. "How many in the Gillis
family?"

"Just two, Jim and his wife. But staying with them is Landy--Landy
Spencer, Mrs. Gillis' brother. He's older, is an oldtime cow hand that
has retired, when Mrs. Gillis will let him. He's been in the West
since boyhood and knows the game, but doesn't play it. He just putters
around, when Mrs. Gillis isn't after him to do something, and that's
the reason he stays up at our place most of the time. You will like
Landy. He is the one that located your horse over at Lough's B-line
Ranch. I had told him of your wanting a little horse, and this week,
while Gillis and I were blasting out the rock and setting the pump,
Landy strayed over to Lough's and located the nag. Landy says as soon
as he sees you, he can tell instantly if the horse will fit."

"I've got a saddle in that keyster, and he can measure by that," said
Davy, "and anyhow I don't want a little, low-headed, round-bellied
hoss that can't go places. If he is a cowboy, he will know the kind."

For five or more miles, the route led over a national highway. Then
Welborn turned to the right, drove a few hundred feet and stopped.
"Look out here to the left" he said. "See that big mound with its head
in the clouds? That's Longs Peak, the highest in the country. On a
clear day, it can be seen from Cheyenne. From here on, you are to see
mountains and more mountains, but Longs Peak is the daddy of them
all."

Now the roadway was not so good, but the ancient car labored on in
full vigor. Fences had disappeared; the roadway no longer held to
section lines but took the course of least resistance, generally
following the stream bed which it crossed and re-crossed many times.
The direction was generally west and up. Twice on the trip, Welborn
took a bucket out of the car, dipped water from the stream, and cooled
the heated engine. On one of these occasions, he washed his face in
the cooling waters, explaining that he did this to overcome
drowsiness.

Davy saw everything. This was his country. Except for meeting a lone
herder in charge of a band of sheep, they had not met a human being in
the last fifty miles. Yet there was plenty of life. They were never
out of sight of cattle--not the big herds as Davy thought it would
be--just a few here and there. There were some horses around the
little pole barns off the roadway. High up on distant hills, bands of
sheep were grazing.

Overhead, but not too high, hawks skimmed the levels or tilted over
knolls and hills in search of a quarry; larks gathered in flights for
a final powwow before beginning the long trip southward. Magpies
flitted through the shrubbery of the creek banks. In crossing a little
wooden bridge near a waterfall, Davy saw an object in the water, then
in the air, and then in the water where the spray fell and where foam
formed. Later, he was to know this little slate-colored bird as the
water ouzel, a bird that was neither wader nor swimmer, yet took his
subsistence from the foam and spray.

"That road leads to Laramie," said Welborn pointing out a trail to the
right. "Laramie is closer to our place, and one less mountain range to
cross."

"Why didn't we come that way?" asked Davy.

"Well, the big circus didn't show in Laramie, and I had to get to
Cheyenne for contact. There I met a fellow who freighted me down with
pump tools and I had to take back some of the wrenches I borrowed.
Then this fellow made an appointment for Cheyenne, and I would not
have missed the appointment for anything."

"Oh yeah," said Davy, "I suppose out here, the matter of a few
mountain ranges is all in a day's work. Anyhow, we are seeing some
country, and the lizzie is going fine."

For several miles it was downhill and around many hairpin turns. Then
many small streams were crossed and followed. Several times the sun
seemed to set, only to reappear again through a cleft in the hills.
Where the terrain was level enough, hundreds of jack rabbits were
seen. They were not the nervous, string-halt jacks of the prairies,
but the smaller black-tailed variety.

And then they came to a store and filling station. "Well of all the
places for a filling station," exclaimed Davy. "Many times I've seen
'em located at places where there was little business, but I never
before saw one located where there was absolutely no business. What's
the big idea?"

"He is probably like another fellow I know," answered Welborn. "He
wanted to get somewhere, where he wouldn't see anyone. But at that, he
does some business, seemingly as much as he wants."

More gas was taken on, and the reserve tank filled.

"Adot is on ahead about eight miles, but we turn here for the final
dash."

The final dash was but a creep. Except for the bridge over Ripple
Creek, the roadway was just a trail. The sun had gone down for good.
The lights, none too good, revealed little of the hazards. It was a
long, steady grind, mostly uphill. At last a light appeared ahead. A
dog barked. A lantern shone. Welborn turned the car through a gate.
"Gillis Station," he called out to the midget who had remained very
quiet.

"Have them drive up next to the house," a woman's voice called from
within. "We will throw a canvas over the trailer. They will stay here
tonight. It's too cold to stay in a house that has had no fire."

"There's your orders, Welborn. Drive right over here next to the
chimney. Howdy, Mr. Lannarck, you and Welborn get out and limber up
for there's prospect for a fine supper." It was Gillis speaking as he
aided Davy out of the cab.

"I am Davy to you folks," said the little man as he stamped around to
limber up from the long confinement. "You are Mrs. Gillis, I know, and
you are Landy, aren't you? Will I fit that hoss that the girl owns?"

"You are about a half-hand short right now," the old man chuckled,
"but after a few hikes up to Pinnacle Point, you should fit that
little hoss jist like a clothespin fits the line."

It was a fine supper. There was also a home-made high chair that just
fit Davy's needs.

"Before I go to bed," said Davy earnestly and firmly, "I am going to
write down that supper menu and send it to poor old Lew and Jess, who
are wearing out shoe leather trying to find a restaurant where the
steaks aren't made out of saddle skirts and the potatoes and the
candle grease have parted company. Lemme see, there was fried chicken
and the best cream gravy I ever tasted, mashed potatoes, creamed peas,
fluffier biscuits than those birds ever saw, two kinds of jelly,
strawberry preserves, some other preserves, and apple pie with whipped
cream on it.

"A long time ago--it was my first year in vaudeville--Mr. Singer gave
his midget performers a dinner at one of the celebrated New York
restaurants, I think they called the place Shanley's, a swell place
with a private dining-room, lots of waiters, food in courses. Well,
that big feed would be a tramp's handout compared with this dinner
tonight." Davy was either talking to himself or was trying to interest
Welborn in the conversation as the two were undressing by the light of
the kerosene lamp in Mrs. Gillis' spare room. Welborn seemed not
interested. He was soon in bed and snoring.

"Feathers, by golly," muttered Davy as he snuggled down deep in the
bed.

4

The Gillis menage was well managed. Mrs. Gillis saw to that. Jim, aged
fifty, slim of build, sinewy, even-tempered, quiet, willing, was the
farmer and handyman. Crops grew, orchards bloomed, vines bore a full
vintage, and bushes yielded because he made them do so. Without
splutter or fuss, he did his work, and liked to do it.

The teamwork of Mrs. Gillis was equally effective. One could not say
however that her work was done as quietly. Landy, the cow hand brother
was wont to say--not in her presence however--that "as a child, Alice
was sorta tongue-tied, and she has to ketch up somehow."

And Landy--well, Landy made his contributions. As a young cowboy,
Landy had had his fling. He came into the game as the cattle-sheep
wars were at their peak and he played it strenuously. But with it all,
Landy Spencer kept his moral slate fairly clean. Then as the sober
days of manhood came, and Landy witnessed the finish of the
improvident and foolish, he began to save and skimp. "Hit's the pore
house fer a cow hand," was his terse aphorism on the subject, and
Landy had never seen a "fitten" poor house.

Landy was working for the Crazy-Q outfit, at the time the government
proposed to open the Silver Falls Project. He looked it over and filed
on two of the homesteads. One for himself and one for James Gillis.
Then he went to Illinois where his younger sister and her husband were
share-cropping.

"Come out whar yu've got room, whar ye own it, whar you do it your
way. I'll pay freight on yer car to Laramie, and keep up the supplies
for three years. Then if you're not satisfied, I'll move ye back."

It was Landy too, that planned as to the cows and calves. He bought
purebred cows from the B-line folks, and sold them the big, weaned
calves. And in view of the fact that the calf sale in 1931 was larger
than Alice's big turkey sale to the dealers in Laramie by fully two
hundred dollars, Landy had a modicum of peace on finances. The Gillis
menage was well managed. It made money in a depression.

Davy was awakened by what he thought was gunfire. He bounded out of
bed and ran to the window. Day was breaking. In the dawnlight he saw
Welborn and Landy tinkering with the old model that had brought them
so valiantly through the mountains. She was backfiring her protests
but presently settled down to her accustomed smoothness. Davy hustled
into his clothes. Mrs. Gillis knocked on the door. "There is a pan and
water right here on the bench," she said. "I told them fellers not to
monkey with the old car, but Mr. Welborn is anxious to git started, he
thought he'd tune her up before breakfast."

Gillis came from the barn with a brimming bucket of milk. "Howja rest,
Davy?" he asked.

"Fine! I hit the feathers and never moved until I heard this
bombardment that I thought was an uprising of the Utes."

"Breakfast is ready," called Mrs. Gillis. "How do you want your eggs,
Davy?"

"I want them the way you fix 'em," the little man replied promptly.
"After that supper last night, I wouldn't have the nerve to tell you
anything about cooking."

Mrs. Gillis beamed her appreciation. "I hope you will tell that to Jim
and Landy. To hear them complain, you would think I was serving their
grub raw or burnt. Didn't the circus people feed ye?"

"A circus always hires good cooks. It buys the best meats in the local
markets, and that's about as far as they can go. The vegetables are
out of cans, except the potatoes and cabbage, and the fruits are
either dried or canned. Preserves and jellies are factory made, so it
gets pretty monotonous. I had a good breakfast on the diner yesterday
morning. We had a fine lunch out this side of Cheyenne, but the supper
last night was far beyond anything I have ever enjoyed. I jotted down
some of the menu and as soon as I unpack I am going to write to a
couple of those old circus razorbacks and tell 'em what they have
missed." Davy was talking and eating; the men were eating.

"Now, Laddie, we are ready for the final dash," said Welborn, as he
rose from the table. "The farther we go, the tougher it gets. And we
are on the last leg."

"Landy and I had better go along," said Gillis. "Ye might get stuck,
and we will be needed to help unload."

"You men come back here for dinner," called Mrs. Gillis from the
doorway. "You will be too busy to stop and cook."

The old machine described a big curve in getting out of the enclosure,
but was again headed west. Gillis rode in the front seat with Welborn.
Landy and Davy found room on the trailer. "I want to see everything,"
said Davy as he climbed to a perilous perch on one of the trunks.

The mountains towered in the west, south, and southwest. The terrain
was fairly level, but a spirit level would have shown a marked tilt to
the east. There was a fringe of timberland on every side. Landy
pointed out places of interest. "That's Ripple Creek off to the left.
Ye crossed hit last night on the bridge, and we meet hit agin right up
by the house. That's Brushy Fork over at the right. They 'most come
together up here. Right up that canyon about two mile is whar Welborn
found the b'ar cubs. Way 'round that timber-covered nose to the right
is the B-line Ranch--hit's about ten miles. Right down that draw, in
the timber and brush, I killed two wolves last year. And if yer on a
hoss, ye can foller a trail down to brushy fork and out on yon side.
That's a short cut to the B-line, else ye'd have to go cl'ar back to
the fillin' station, then over to Adot and back across another bridge
to git thar. It's twenty-five miles thataway. When ye git all settled,
we'll sneak over to the B-line and take a squint at that little hoss."

Landy continued to point out the places of interest. "Right along
about here is Welborn's line. He's got two homesteads--bought 'em off
a crazy bird that had bought out both homesteaders. That's one of the
shacks over there and the other one he uses for a cowshed. En thar's
yer home a-settin' up on that bench of land."

Davy craned his neck as the trailer moved down hill. Perched up on a
shelf, he saw a yellow dot against a gray wall that ran to the sky. As
they neared the place he outlined a tiny cabin. Later it proved to be
a two-roomed affair with a porch and lean to at the rear. This was to
be his domicile--for how long, time would tell.

The car described a big curve that took them to the brink of the
Ripple Creek Canyon. In second gear it labored and twisted off to the
right, and then left again, and came to a stop right at the front
porch of the yellow-brown log cabin.

Davy climbed down from his perch. He walked around the cabin,
surveying it from three sides. "She's an Old Faithful," he announced
at last. "Modeled, matched, and built by the man that built Old
Faithful Inn. Why did he do it and when?"

"It was built the summer before last and it took all summer,"
explained Welborn. "The crazy galoot called himself the Count of Como.
He came barging in here and bought out Clark and Stanley, the
homesteaders, and brought in two men who had been building fancy
cabins in Rocky Mountain Park and tourist camps. He left them here on
the job while he drove the roads like a madman, in a big, black,
powerful coupe to Laramie, to Cheyenne, to Denver, anywhere he could
get whiskey and dope. He would come back, rave around, threaten
everybody with a gun, but paid out money like he had the mint back of
him, and finally got it done. You notice that the logs are "treated,"
stained or shellacked, to retain their first color. The mechanics did
that, and the count was mightily pleased until he found out that it
made the shack stand out so that it could be seen for a long distance,
and then he threw a fit. He went wild, ran 'em off the job, then I
came into the picture.

"I was prospecting down Ripple Creek Canyon and living in that shack
that you can see from the rim over there. I was trying to locate a
claim, mining claim. But from the homestead lines, this cabin was off
the reservation, built off the edge of Stanley's claim and on the
government's land where I wanted to stake off a mineral right.

"I came up out of the canyon on the day he had gotten the men back and
explained the error and showed him his predicament and then bought him
out...."

"Ah, tell hit right," growled Landy. "Tell him like them scairt men
told hit to me." Landy took up the recitation of how the home was
acquired. "He made that greasy counterfeit eat his gun that he whipped
out from under his left arm. He kicked him in the ribs, he did, after
he'd knocked him down a coupla times. Made him go down thar and look
at the old survey stakes, he did, then made him drive his crazy car
over to Adot, and old Squire Landry made out the deed and he signed
hit and Welborn here paid him in a sack of gold dust that they weighed
on the grocery scales. That's how 'twas done. Tell hit right, so's
Davy here will know the story."

Welborn laughed at Landy's recitals. "No, I didn't intimidate him. I
made him see the matter in the right light. The proposition to
sell-out came from him. I didn't want to buy him out, I had nothing to
buy with, but the dust that it took me all summer to acquire. Truth
is, this drink-crazed madman was a hoodlum gunman from Chicago or
Saint Louis, that had lost his nerve. A killer who couldn't take the
finish that was due him. He had run from it, and like an ostrich, he
thought he was hidden up here. He didn't want me as a neighbor and
when he found out that he had infringed on government land he was so
scared that he would have given the place to me or anyone that wanted
it. In fact, he didn't want to take the dust. He was afraid that the
government would run him down for selling something that he didn't
own, and maybe then find out about some of his killings back East. At
any rate, he showed more speed in getting away from Adot than he had
ever shown before, and that's saying a lot, for he surely burnt up the
roads. We will unload your plunder right here on the porch, and we can
place them as you want them later."

Davy got his personal grip out of the car, but that was about as far
as he could go in the matter of unloading the baggage. While the men
were engaged in the task, he looked the house over carefully. One with
artistic temperament would have turned his back to the house and
looked on the tremendous spectacle that offered itself to view in the
south, in the east, and north. A vast brown meadow, rimmed with the
dark greenery of the ancient conifers; and high above, a blue arch
that draped down curtains of white to hide the sombre shades of cliffs
and hills and peaks innumerable. It was a wonderful sight.

But Davy's eyes were on this house. He looked it over carefully. The
general plan was as if a crib of logs had been built up to a square
of, say, nine feet. Then another crib of logs built fifteen feet away.
These were connected by a log structure in the center that allowed a
recess in the porch at the front, and by a log extension enclosure
that made a kitchen at the rear. It had been roofed with gray-green
shingles and the porch ornamented by sturdy log columns, with rustic
rails at the side. The logs had been closely fitted so that there was
no space between that needed the chinking of the cabins of the
pioneer.

The floor was in narrow, rift-sawed planks. The walls and ceilings
were covered with wallboard, properly paneled and carefully and
tastefully decorated. There was a big fireplace in the east room. The
west room was heated by a stove that found vent in the kitchen
chimney. Entrance to any room was from the porch. The general plan of
the structure was the same as that of many cabins being built in
public parks and dude ranches. Davy had not seen these. His
comparisons were with the fine, substantial inn, built at Old
Faithful. There was little furniture in the cabin.

"Well, what's your reaction, Laddie?" asked Welborn kindly as he
marked the serious look on Davy's face.

"Well, I don't know whether to sit out there on the porch and have a
good cry or go in the spare room and put up a small dance. For five
years I have been dreaming about this place, and now it's a reality.
Outside of dreaming about it, and in sober moments, I just knew that
there couldn't be such a place, so I contented myself with plans for a
little shack, maybe a teepee, or a tent where I could spread out and
rest up. But here it is--just like the dream said."

"Wal, jist wait till a good winter blizzard comes through here like
they do," interrupted Landy. "Jist wait, ye'll be sorry that ye ever
had a dream. Why, it's six thousand feet up here, and the wind don't
monkey and dally around, hit gits right down to business. Last winter
hit most took the leg off 'en one of them burros old Maddy brought in
here, 'en mighty nigh whipped the fillin' outen his shirt."

"Let her blow," retorted Davy. "I've been in two circus blow-downs,
and we had to stake the elephants down to keep 'em from blowing over
into Texas."

Landy was a good loser. He grinned, and began wrestling the trunks.
All of Davy's plunder was moved into the fireplace room.

"We will live in here this winter, and when spring comes, we can
expand into the other room or out on the porch," explained Welborn.
"And now, before you begin to unpack, I want you to see what Jim and I
have been doing this last week. Let's take a look at the pump and
engine before a snow comes and covers it all." Welborn led the way
down near the brink of the canyon. "Over on the other side of the
creek, you can see a shack. I headquartered there for several months
and panned out some dust. From there I could see this opening here
that looked like it had a floor, and maybe some prospects. Well, I
climbed those trees down by the creek, but could not quite see what I
wanted. As the madman was working over here, I climbed and slipped,
and cut steps in the rock face of the cliff, on yon side. I wormed and
twisted around until I got up to that coulee, and sure enough, it was
what I thought. The floor of the old stream bed that had been thrown
out of line and out of use, by some secondary action in
mountain-making.

"Ripple Creek has been noted for its placer workings. It has been
panned and panned, many times, and always yields something. But here
was a part of the stream bed that was virgin, that had never seen a
miner or a pan. I walked over it and tested it. It stood the test.
When it was the bed of the stream, gold was being ground out, washed
out and carried down stream from the quartz-gold veins above. There it
was! I couldn't get to it--couldn't work it without an entrance from
this side of the creek. Landy has told you how I acquired the
entrance, and a farm and a house with it." Still talking, Welborn led
his guest back in the ravine back of the house, then through a tunnel
in the razor-edge cliff, the party walked out on the floor of the old
stream bed. "Jim and I made that tunnel. We dragged those logs through
it, to make a foundation for the engine and pump. Now all we have to
do, is blast out a sort of well-hole down at the creek so that the
intake will be on the claim, and we are all set for production. We can
do this today. Tomorrow, we will have water back on this old stream
bed. Jim and I will take a hand drill, dynamite, fuse and caps into
the gorge, and bust out a space about as big as a washtub, while you
and Landy are unpacking your plunder. Build a fire, Landy, to take the
chill off."

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