Leavenworth never had seemed so busy. New buildings had gone up, the
streets were crowded with people and teams, and the levee was lined
with steamboats bound north and south. But the people all were bound
west. They had gathered from every quarter of the States. The twang
of the Yankee, the drawl of the backwoodsman, and soft slur of the
Southerner mingled in a regular hubbub.
Mr. Majors was in his office; Mr. Russell was out somewhere on the
trail; Mr. Waddell was down home at Lexington, Missouri, visiting his
family. And who should be sitting in a chair in the office but Wild
Bill Hickok――as handsome and as gentlemanly as ever.
“Hello, there,” hailed Wild Bill. “How goes it?”
Mr. Baxter nodded cheerily at him.
“Fine,” answered Davy, feeling rather awkward in his worn-out old
clothes and his long hair, but not ashamed of what he had been doing.
“I hear you’re making good, boy,” asserted Wild Bill. “I reckon you can
hold your own as well as Billy.”
“He certainly can,” claimed Mr. Baxter. “He’s the hero of the camp.”
“Bassett sent you in, did he?” queried Mr. Majors. “How are things at
the camp?”
“Same as usual, Mr. Majors,” answered Mr. Baxter. “Davy’s a hero now, I
suppose you’ve heard.”
Mr. Majors nodded with his long beard.
“So they say,” he replied simply. “Well, we’re reducing our force out
in the cattle camps now, so you two needn’t go back this fall. The
cashier’ll pay you off. And――Dick,” he continued to the cashier, “give
Davy an order for a suit of clothes with the company’s compliments.
Make it clothes, shoes and hat complete.”
Davy blushed hotly, and didn’t know quite what to do. That the word of
his adventure with the Indians had reached the office so quickly was
very embarrassing. But he was glad to get some clothes, and Mr. Majors
had spoken in earnest, so it would have been bad taste in him to make
much ado about what he had or hadn’t done. Mr. Majors wasn’t a man to
say what he didn’t mean, or to offer more than anybody deserved. So
Davy stammered “Thank you, Mr. Majors,” and, clapped heartily on the
back by Mr. Baxter, went forward to the cashier.
“Here you are,” said the cashier, shoving out the money and the order.
“What’s the news out yonder? Anybody booming Cherry Creek?”
“Yes. A bunch of men who claimed they were from there passed us coming
in,” answered Mr. Baxter. “They had a big story about plenty of gold,
but we noticed they didn’t show any!”
“Color talks,” remarked Wild Bill. “When I see color I’m going out thar
but not before.”
“Yes, we’ll all wait a bit,” commented Mr. Majors.
“Those new towns out there will make more freight business, Mr.
Majors,” said Mr. Baxter.
“Shouldn’t wonder. We’re hauling down from Laramie for them now, and up
from Bent’s Fort on the Santa Fe trail. There’ll have to be a new trail
straight across, eventually. But we’ve got about all the business we
can handle. The government work alone takes thirty-five hundred wagons,
four thousand men and over forty thousand oxen. We’ve hauled over
sixteen million pounds of government freight, most of it clear through
to Utah.”
Nearly four thousand wagons, four thousand men, forty thousand bulls!
Davy gasped. It certainly was a big company, and he was proud to be
working for Russell, Majors & Waddell, even if he was only one in the
four thousand.
“Well,” said Mr. Majors, “I want to thank you two _men_ for your
faithful service and if there’s anything more I can do for you let me
know. Baxter, I suppose you can take care of yourself for a while.
What are you going to do, my boy?”
“I don’t know,” said Davy, in doubt. “Get another job, I guess.”
“Save your money. Don’t spend it foolishly. If you want to put it on
deposit with us we’ll give you a receipt for it; then you’ll be sure of
having it as you need it.”
Davy fingered the gold pieces, making his pocket warm and heavy. There
were seven ten-dollar pieces and one five-dollar piece. He would have
liked to carry them all around for a time until he could show them to
Billy Cody or Billy’s mother. But Mr. Majors’ offer sounded sensible,
so he fished out the ten-dollar pieces and passed them over to the
cashier.
“I’ll keep five dollars,” he said.
“What are you and the Reverend going to do?” queried Wild Bill. “That
is, if it’s any of my business.”
“Oh, Davy can range around with me for a while till he’s settled,”
answered Mr. Baxter. “First thing, we’ll get a hair cut. I’m going down
to St. Louis later, where I’ve got some folks.”
“Lookee here, Davy,” pursued Wild Bill; “if you haven’t any pressing
engagement come on out to the Cody ranch with me. I’m going to ride
over thar and the Reverend can do as he pleases. The Codys will sure
be glad to see you. Mebbe you can get a job for your schooling this
winter. Thar’s a fine school opened again near the Codys, I hear.”
“That’s right. Go to school while you can. You’ll never regret it,”
put in Mr. Majors. “Then when all this country’s settled up and you’re
among people who can read and write and figure, you won’t be ashamed.
Besides, you’ll command more wages. The school house and the church
are of more value to this country than the ox teams. The people with
schools and churches are here to stay and grow.”
Davy wanted to see the Cody family again, but it seemed rather tame to
be going to school when he might be riding the plains. He hesitated a
moment until Mr. Baxter said:
“Billy Cody goes to school when he’s home. He’s found out that a little
education helps a fellow along. I shouldn’t wonder if his mother turned
him into school again this winter when he gets back.”
Since Billy Cody the “Boy Scout” went to school there must be something
in it worth while. Davy began to feel that maybe he, too, who was
a kind of hero, could afford to take a little time off from making
himself famous and attend to making himself more of an all-round man.
“All right,” he said to Wild Bill. “I’ll go and see, anyway.” He shook
hands with Mr. Baxter, who promised to keep track of him, and left with
Wild Bill.
Mrs. Cody and the girls and Turk the dog were glad indeed to see them.
Davy must answer all their questions as to what he had done since
he had been there last. He did not mean to say anything about his
adventure with the Indians, but Wild Bill told it and praised him, and
then there was more ado.
“Billy’ll be pleased to hear that,” declared Mrs. Cody. And she sighed.
“I wish he were home.”
“Have you heard from him, Mother Cody?” inquired Wild Bill.
“He sent us word from Fort Laramie that he was going on with a train
for another post.”
“He sent us some money, too,” cried Helen, proudly.
“Billy’s a good boy, all right,” nodded Wild Bill.
“I wish he were home, though,” insisted Mrs. Cody, quietly. “He ought
to have more schooling. These girls will be far ahead of him. Lack
of education will be a great handicap to him after he gets out among
cultured people.”
“That’s what we’ve been telling Davy here,” quoth Wild Bill. “The
winter’s no time for him to be on the plains, anyway. He’d better be
going to school till things open up in the spring. Do you reckon he
could get a place hereabouts where he could work for his keep while he
went to school? ’Tisn’t a right place for a boy in Leavenworth.”
“Why,” mused Mrs. Cody, flushing, “we’ve always got room for Davy or
any friend of Billy’s or yours, Mr. Hickok. Of course, there isn’t much
work for an extra hand. You see, when Billy left he hired a man to
tend to the farm. But if Davy’ll stay he’s welcome.”
“Oh, Davy’ll stay!” cried the girls, dancing gaily; and Turk barked.
“You will stay, won’t you, Davy? We’ll have lots of fun.”
But Davy promptly shook his head.
“I think you’ve got enough,” he said. Mrs. Cody did not look at all
strong, and the girls were little. “I guess I’d rather find a place
where I can work enough to pay for my keep.”
“Well,” resumed Mrs. Cody, “maybe you would feel more independent,
Davy, although you’re welcome to stay right here as long as you like.
But there’s a new family on a claim about a mile and a half over
yonder. The man’s sick and his wife’s doing too much work. I expect
they’d be glad of somebody to tend to the chores. You might go over and
see.”
“Come ahead, Davy,” bade Bill.
“You’ll be back and have supper with us and stay all night, won’t you?”
invited Mrs. Cody, quickly.
“We’ll get Dave settled first, thank you, Mother Cody,” called back
Bill. “Then we’ll be mighty glad to stop off if we come this way.”
“Goodby, Dave,” called the girls. “There’s a splendid school started.
We’re all going.”
With Bill, Dave rode to the settler’s house spoken of by Mrs. Cody.
That was tremendously kind of Wild Bill, to go to so much trouble for
just a boy; but Davy found out that this Mr. Hickok was the kind of a
man who would do anything for anybody deserving it.
The new family’s name was Shields. They were from Massachusetts. Mr.
Shields had taken up a homestead of 160 acres, and now he was miserable
with fever and ague, so that he was unable to work steadily. He and
Mrs. Shields and the baby had come by railroad to St. Louis and by
steamboat from St. Louis to Leavenworth. There they had loaded their
goods into a wagon drawn by a yoke of oxen and had settled on this
claim where they had found a cabin already standing.
It wasn’t much of a cabin, being only twelve by eighteen feet square,
and built of logs. The floor was of rough boards with wide cracks
between them; torn muslin was stretched as a ceiling to keep the dirt
of the sod roof from sifting down. Over the walls Mrs. Shields had
pasted newspapers, right side up, so she could read them sometimes as
she worked. A muslin curtain, hung on a wire, divided the room; behind
the curtain was a bed, of poles laid on notched posts and a mattress
stuffed with hay. Clothes were hung on wooden pegs. On the other side
of the curtain was a cook stove, and a table of rough-sawed slabs, and
a couple of stools.
No, it wasn’t much of a place for people like Mr. and Mrs. Shields, who
were used to a comfortable house in Massachusetts; but it was home.
All this Davy found out in due time, while he worked for his board and
lodging. At night he slept on the floor by the stove; and he must rise
at daylight to milk the cow and feed the cow and the oxen and the few
chickens, and split the wood and bring the water from the well, and
make an early start for school, which was four miles away. After school
and on Saturdays he had other chores waiting, and drove the oxen while
Mr. Shields held the plough to break the sod for the spring sowing.
VIII
THE GOLD FEVER
Even while Davy had been herding a change had occurred in this Salt
Creek Valley. The number of settlers seemed almost to have doubled,
and cabins and houses and ploughed fields were everywhere. Amidst them
ran the Leavenworth end of the great Overland Trail. Until after the
first snows the emigrants and settlers toiled along it, down the hill
into the valley and up the hill out of the valley; and all winter the
bull trains plodded back and forth. Weather rarely stopped the Russell,
Majors & Waddell outfits.
Mr. DeVinne was the teacher in the school. It was the best school
yet, according to the Cody girls, because there were more pupils, and
Mr. DeVinne seemed to know how to teach. Of course the school was not
graded; it consisted of only one room, where the boys and girls sat on
long benches, with other benches for desks. The scholars ranged from
little Eliza Cody, who was six, up to big boys of twenty. The pupils
had come from all over――from Missouri, Illinois, Vermont, Carolina,
Mississippi, and the other States east and south. Davy, who had been
herding for Russell, Majors & Waddell, and had proved his pluck, felt
as big as any of them.
Steve Gobel, who tried to be a kind of boss (when Billy Cody wasn’t
there), started in to tease Davy, who was little and red-headed. Davy
stood the teasing as long as he could; but when Steve grabbed his hair
and pulled, saying: “Here, Red! Lemme warm my fingers,” Davy flared
up. He would have fought Steve then and there, but another boy sprang
between them.
“You’d better let him alone, Steve Gobel, or Billy Cody’ll give you
another licking.”
“Yes, he will!” cried Helen Cody and all the girls. “He’s coming back
pretty soon now.”
“Aw, he never licked me. He ain’t big enough,” snarled Steve.
“Well, he’s man enough, whether he’s big enough or not,” retorted the
boys. And――――
“He did, too, lick you. And he’ll do it again as soon as he gets home,”
called the Cody girls, loyally.
Steve growled, but he strolled off and after that he let Davy pretty
much alone. Davy learned that Steve had bullied Billy Cody, too――until
in a fight Billy had been made mad enough to hurt him. Billy was the
school’s hero, for he was out on the plains doing a man’s work and
helping to support his mother and sisters. Everybody liked Billy if
they knew him, or they wanted to see him if they didn’t know him.
The cold, snowy winter of Kansas and a new West set in. The days and
nights were below zero, blizzards of wind and snow swept through
plains and valleys; and in the frontier cabins the settlers schemed
hard to keep warm. His chores at the Shields cabin and his trips to
school and back kept Davy busy; but he must make the best of his school
term, for when winter quit school would quit too. Once in a while he
stopped in at the Cody home; Mrs. Cody was putting up a large house as
a hotel and eating place for the overland travellers, particularly the
teamsters of the wagon trains. The girls named it “The Valley Grove
House.”
Then, in February, who should appear at school but Billy himself.
“Hurrah! There’s Billy Cody!”
“Hello, Red!”
“Hello, Billy.”
“When did you get back, Billy?” asked everybody.
“Yesterday.”
“Where’ve you been this time?”
“Out to Laramie and Fort Walbach at Cheyenne Pass. Been trapping on the
Chugwater, south of Laramie, too.”
“How’d you come back? With a bull train?”
“Nope. A couple of fellows and I started with our own pack outfit, but
the Injuns jumped us on the Little Blue, and we ran into snow, and we
mighty nigh never got through.”
“What you going to do now, Billy?”
“Going to school a while, I reckon.”
And so he did. He also told Davy his adventures. He had been assistant
wagon master with Buck Bomer from Leavenworth northwest to Fort
Laramie, and from Laramie south sixty miles to new Fort Walbach. After
that he had gone trapping, but hadn’t caught much. In December he had
started home mule-back with two other “men.” The Indians had chased
them in central Kansas, and they had tried to sleep in a cave until
they found that it was strewn with skeletons; and a snowstorm had
buffeted them, but at last they had reached Leavenworth.
This seemed considerable for a boy of fourteen to have done. Billy
brought home his wages, as usual, for his mother, and now he settled
down to school again. Davy was very glad to have him back.
Once in a while he and Billy rode into Leavenworth on errands. As the
winter wore away rumors of the Pike’s Peak region and the Cherry Creek
gold diggings in it grew more and more numerous. A few travellers from
that western border of Kansas (for Kansas Territory extended clear to
the Rocky Mountains) arrived in Leavenworth and declared that things
out in the Pike’s Peak region were booming. Two towns, Auraria and
Denver, had been founded on Cherry Creek; and from the sands gold was
being washed out. It was claimed that the mines would equal those of
California――and they were much nearer to the States.
Soon after Billy had come home he and Davy met Mr. Baxter on the
street in Leavenworth. Mr. Baxter looked fine, and shook hands heartily
with them.
“What are you doing for yourselves?” he asked.
“Going to school. What are you doing?”
“Oh, visiting ’round, waiting for the trail to open.”
“The green grass will sure look good,” quoth Billy, wisely. “What are
you going to do, Reverend? Bull whack?”
“No. I think I’ll strike out for the new Cherry Creek diggings.”
“Thought you didn’t count much on those stories,” reminded Davy.
“I didn’t, but I do now. Just got back from Omaha. Boys, I saw six
quills full of gold there from the Pike’s Peak country. Everybody up
at Omaha is wild about it. They’re all going. The newspapers from my
home town in Massachusetts are full of gold stories. The whole East
is excited. By spring you’ll see the biggest crowd starting on the
Overland Trail since the days of Forty-nine and the California boom.
Leavenworth won’t be big enough to hold the people outfitting here.”
“Hurrah for Cherry Creek, then!” cried Billy. “Reckon we’ll have to go,
Davy!”
“I’ll go,” agreed Davy eagerly.
“We’ll all go,” said Mr. Baxter. “Everybody’ll go.”
A lean, sallow, unshaven man in jeans and flannel shirt and boots and a
huge muffler around his neck and a round fur cap on his head had been
standing near. He nodded.
“Right you are, pards,” he put in. “That’s the place.”
“How do you know?” queried Billy, quickly.
“I’ve been thar, an’ now I’ve come back to tell my friends. Why, boys,
out thar all you’ve got to do is to pull up the grass by the roots an’
shake out the gold. Pike’s Peak is solid gold, ’most. A feller can make
a flat-bottom boat an’ set knives in the hull an’ slide down, scraping
up the gold in slivers.”
“Did you ever see that done?” demanded Mr. Baxter.
“Not exac’ly, stranger. But I’m goin’ to do it.”
That sounded like a tall story――although of course it _might_ be true.
Billy and Mr. Baxter put small stock in the tale; but it filled Davy’s
mind with delightful visions. He dreamed of taking a plough up Pike’s
Peak and ploughing golden furrows clear to the bottom.
Suddenly Salt Creek Valley and all the frontier along the Missouri
River from St. Louis up to Omaha was excited. The Leavenworth papers
printed wonderful stories of the new gold fields, where miners were
washing out the precious metal. The Georgia party of miners, some of
whom were Cherokee Indians, which had outfitted at Leavenworth last
fall and had gone out by the southwest Santa Fe Trail to the mountains
and thence north to Cherry Creek, had “struck it rich,” and had sent
back the quills of gold to prove it. Already emigrants from the East
were arriving in Leavenworth, wild to push on as soon as the spring
opened. Between themselves Billy and Dave determined to join the crowd.
It was all they could do to wait.
One day early in March Davy was making a brief call at the Cody house,
when Billy excitedly pointed from the front porch.
“There’s the first one!” he cried. “There’s the first prairie schooner
bound for the diggings! Let’s go down and meet it!”
Away he rushed; Davy followed, and so did the girls. Mrs. Cody stood
shading her eyes, watching. Across the valley crept a white-topped
wagon drawn by two yoke of oxen. Beside the wagon was trudging a man,
and behind followed another man pushing a two-wheeled cart. When Billy
and Dave met the outfit they saw that two women were in the big wagon;
one held a baby; on the other side of the wagon were sturdily trudging
a boy and girl. A big shaggy dog barked at Turk, and Turk growled back.
The wagon was a farm wagon covered with the cotton hood and stuffed
with household goods. On the sides the hood bore, in scrawly black
paint: “PIKE’S PEAK OR BUST.”
“Hello!” hailed Billy. “Where you bound?”
“To the new diggin’s, stranger,” responded the driver of the oxen. “See
our sign?”
“Do you live hyar’bouts?” asked the man who was pushing the
hand-cart――which also was loaded with household stuff and camp stuff.
The ox-team paused; the man pushing the hand-cart wiped his forehead
with a red handkerchief.
“Yes; we live up yonder near the top of the hill.”
“How long do you reckon it’ll take us to get to Cherry Creek?” pursued
the ox-team driver.
“Two months if you keep going,” said Billy.
“’Twon’t take as long as that, stranger,” replied the man. “We can
travel right smart.”
“They do say you can dig out the gold with a shovel,” quavered the
woman. “We hear tell you can dig out a pound a day. Were you ever
there?”
“No,” answered Billy. “But we’re going. Aren’t you a little early?”
“Wall, we reckoned we’d start ’arly, an’ make our pile ’fore the other
folks got thar,” explained the driver. “Thar’s a tarnel lot o’ people
gathered behind us, an’ those that come later won’t find ’nough grass
for their critters. Gee-up, Buck! Spot! Get along with you.”
Creaking, the wagon resumed its way. The man with the hand-cart pushed
in the wake. The mud was ankle deep, and Dave felt sorry for the whole
outfit.
“Better stop on the hill and rest,” bade Billy. “Guess we can give you
some coffee.”
“Nope, thank ye, stranger,” said the driver. “We’re goin’ on through.”
And he swung his whip, urging his oxen.
Billy and Dave and the girls raced ahead; and when the wagon and the
hand-cart, with the oxen and men alike panting, toiled up hill near
the Cody house Mrs. Cody rushed out with a pail of hot coffee. But the
emigrants scarcely halted to drink it. Even the women were anxious to
proceed, as if already they saw the gold.
“Poor things,” sighed Mrs. Cody, while the girls waved goodby to the
two children. “They’ll have a hard time.”
But Billy and Dave watched until the “Pike’s Peak or Bust” sign was
only a blur, and the wagon a crawling dot.
“Shucks!” said Billy. “If it wasn’t for mother and school I’d join ’em.
But I wouldn’t go by the regular Overland Trail. When we go we’ll take
the Smoky Hill trail, Dave; up the Kansas River, to Fort Riley, and on
out by the Smoky Hill branch or the Republican. That’s shorter.”
This “Pike’s Peak or Bust” outfit was only the first of a long series
of gold-field “pilgrims” (as they were called), all enthusiastic.
And soon Leavenworth City was a sight! As Mr. Baxter had predicted,
the city was scarcely large enough to hold the new-comers. Two and
three steamboats a day arrived, loaded to the gunwales, at the levee,
bringing up from St. Louis and Kansas City Eastern and Southern
people, their teams and goods.
The streets were thronged with the strangers, young and old, in all
kinds of costumes and of all professions――farmers, lawyers, ministers,
doctors, merchants, teachers――buying supplies and exchanging opinions.
The lodging houses and hotels and spare rooms were overflowing, and
around the city and in the vacant lots were hundreds of tents, where
were camped overland parties of men and whole families.
A constant procession of “pilgrims” wended slow way through the
Salt Creek Valley, past the Cody home and the Shields home, and
northwestward to the main Salt Lake Overland Trail which led up the
Platte River; at the South Platte they might branch for the “diggin’s”
by a cut-off. Many of the wagon hoods bore that queer legend “Pike’s
Peak or Bust!” Some men trundled wheel-barrows, loaded, and a few were
trying to carry packs through on their backs.
But the greatest procession went out over the new route from
Leavenworth southwest to the Kansas River; thence on to Fort Riley at
the forks, and either northwest up the Republican branch or west up
the Smoky Hill River branch. Still other people travelled by the Santa
Fe Trail――the southernmost trail of all――up the Arkansas River to the
mountains, and then north along the base of the mountains past Pike’s
Peak itself to Cherry Creek and Denver.
Mr. Russell, of Russell, Majors & Waddell, and Mr. John S. Jones
put in a stage line to Denver by the Smoky Hill route. It was called
the “Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak Express Company,” Jones & Russell,
Proprietors. Two stages, travelling together for protection against
the Indians, each drawn by four fine Kentucky mules and carrying six
passengers, left Leavenworth every morning for Denver, and covered
the 700 rolling miles in ten days. Soon the return stages would be
arriving, and everybody was expecting great news. It was calculated
that already 25,000 people had started for the diggings. The trails
were said to be white with the wagons and the camps.
The streets and the levee of Leavenworth were so full of fascinating
sights that Davy took every moment he could spare from chores and
school to go in with Billy and look and listen. The best place was
in front of the Planters’ House Hotel, across the street from the
office of Russell, Majors & Waddell. Here the stages started, and here
people gathered to bid one another goodby. The conversation was most
interesting, as people on the ground called up to passengers in the
stages.
“Send us back a sack of gold, John.”
“Hold tight to your scalps, boys.”
“Let us know how things are. Be sure and write.”
“Kill a buffalo for me, Frank. I want a good big hide, remember.”
“Leave a message for me on the top of Pike’s Peak.”