“Goodby, goodby, old fellow.”
“Don’t forget to give Robinson that package from his wife.”
“Most of these people don’t know where they’re going or why,” remarked
a man near Davy, to another man. “There’ll be much suffering from this
mad rush.”
He was a tall, slender, erect man of about thirty-five, with long
bronzed, florid face, sandy complexion and crisp, sandy beard.
“That’s Lieutenant William T. Sherman, formerly of the Army. He’s
practising law here now with Judge Ewing,” said another man, aside,
to a companion. In a few more years he would be the famous “General
Sherman.”
Billy Cody, too, was of the opinion that the green-horns on the trail
would meet with trouble; and in Davy’s opinion Billy ought to know.
Already reports were to the effect that the route up the Smoky Hill and
the Republican were short of grass and exposed to the Indians, and that
the emigrants were being compelled to throw away much of their baggage.
However, this did not stop anybody from starting. Davy and Billy had
the gold fever bad. Even Mr. Shields had decided to take his wife and
baby and leave the ranch for the diggings, where he counted on making
more money in a week than he could make here in a year. So Davy only
waited on Billy, to start, himself.
“Shucks!” exclaimed Billy, in May. “I’ve got to quit, Dave, and go on
the trail again. Mother said last night ‘All right.’ She’ll let me go.
She needs the money and I’ll send her back a lot. Come on. We’ll raise
a gang and start.”
“When, Billy?”
“Right away, as soon as we get the men and the outfit. This green grass
makes me restless. Got any money left, Dave? We have to buy a wagon and
team.”
Yes, Davy had almost all his herding wages on deposit with Mr. Majors.
He was proud to say so, and to be able to pay his own way.
IX
THE HEE-HAW EXPRESS
Now Billy wasted no time with the preparations. That was his style. The
Reverend Mr. Baxter, who had been ill in Leavenworth, and so had not
started before, promptly agreed to join the party. He and Billy and
Dave clubbed together with an outfit that Billy knew. These were Jim
Barber and Hi Wilson and another man called “Left-over Joe.” Jim and
Hi had been teamsters with Russell, Majors & Waddell bull trains; but
“Left-over Joe” seemed to be nobody in particular――and that is why they
nicknamed him “Left-over Joe.”
A big emigrant outfitting camp had been established in the Salt Creek
Valley near the Cody home, and while Jim and Hi were here getting ready
to move on, this lean, lank, very long-necked hobbledehoy of squeaky
voice and nineteen or twenty years had wandered into their camp and
adopted them. So they let him stay.
Jim and Hi had a team of mules: Billy and Dave and Mr. Baxter added an
old light wagon. The party thought themselves lucky, for oxen had risen
in price to $175 and $200 a yoke, and mules and horses were scarcer
yet. Wagons were scarce, too.
By the time that the supplies of salty pork and beans and flour and
coffee had been laid in for “grub,” and picks and spades and gold-pans
for digging out the gold and separating it, and ammunition for killing
game and fighting Indians, Davy’s money was about gone. However, that
did not matter. They all would find gold enough to last them the rest
of their lives!
Billy owned the Mississippi “yager” smoothbore musket and the two
Colt’s navy revolvers that he had used when in the mule fort. He gave
Davy one of the revolvers. With it belted at his waist, Davy felt like
a regular scout indeed. Hi and Jim also owned guns. Hi’s was a yager
similar to Billy’s. Jim’s was a heavy Sharp’s “Old Reliable” rifle, of
fifty calibre holding six cartridges underneath, and one in the breech.
It was a tremendously hard-shooting gun. Whoever had a Sharp’s “Old
Reliable” had the best gun on the plains.
The Reverend Mr. Baxter had no gun at all and did not want one, he
claimed. “Left-over Joe” had no gun at all, but wanted one badly. Hi
promised to let him shoot the yager sometime.
The Salt Creek camp was a lively place. Here were assembled a thousand
emigrants, all “Pike’s Peakers,” making ready to travel on westward and
find their fortunes. About every kind of an outfit was to be seen, and
all sorts of people. Many of the men never had driven oxen or mules
before; they had bought what they could get; some of the animals proved
not to be broken to drive, and when the green-horns tried to hitch up
the green “critters” then there was fun for the onlookers.
However, nobody was delaying to watch the “fun.” By the hundred,
parties were setting out every day from the camp as well as from
Leavenworth. Thousands of gold-seekers already had left Omaha and
Kansas City and St. Joseph. It was reported that along any of the
trails a person could walk from the Missouri River to the Rocky
Mountains on the tops of the prairie schooners――so thick was the
travel. It beat the celebrated stampede to California in 1849.
There were four trails to the “diggin’s.” The two best known were the
Santa Fe Trail, on the south, which followed up the Arkansas River
in southern Kansas, to the mountains, and then turned north for the
gold fields; and the big Salt Lake Overland Trail, on the north, which
from the Missouri River followed up the Platte River, until in western
Nebraska the gold hunters turned south for Pike’s Peak. Omaha and
St. Joseph were the outfitting points for this northern trail, and
Leavenworth traffic struck it by the government road which ran through
Salt Creek Valley on into the northwest. The Russell, Majors & Waddell
“bull trains” hauled their freight over this route.
The other two trails were new central trails, made especially for
the Pike’s Peak rush. One trail followed up the Republican River
through southern Nebraska; the other followed up along the Smoky Hill
Fork River, through central Kansas. Emigrants coming in by St. Joseph
were taking either the Salt Lake and California Overland route or the
Republican route; the emigrants outfitting at Leavenworth and the Salt
Creek Valley were taking the Smoky Hill route or else the Overland
Trail route.
By the Overland Trail (the Salt Lake and California Trail) it was
accounted 580 miles from Omaha to the diggin’s; and the Pike’s Peak
Guide-book recommended that trail. But from Leavenworth it was 100
miles further, and the Smoky Hill Trail was said to be the straightest
and the shortest. The Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak Express Company stages
had chosen that route.
“I reckon that’s the route for us,” said Hi. “I hear we can follow the
Smoky clear to the mountains, and have water all the way.”
“When the first stage comes back we’ll know more about it, but we can’t
wait,” mused the Reverend Mr. Baxter.
“Oh, we’ll get through,” spoke Billy, quickly. “And the sooner we start
the better, before all the grass and fuel are used up. Look at the
people, will you, pulling out every day!”
“Do you think one wagon will be enough to bring back our gold?”
squeaked Left-over, anxiously. “I don’t want to quit till I get a
million dollars’ worth for myself alone.”
“Then what’ll you do, Left-over?” asked Jim, with a wink at the rest.
Left-over Joe scratched his long freckled neck and looked like a
chicken.
“I’d buy a gun and have all the pie I wanted, too,” he declared
foolishly.
Now everything had been made ready. The night before the start Billy
and Dave spent in camp with the rest of the party. Mr. Shields and
family had gone; their log cabin was empty, their claim abandoned
again. If they had stayed they could have made lots of money selling
produce to the emigrants; but they, like the thousands of others,
wished to get rich quick.
This last evening in the Salt Creek emigrant camp the party elected
their officers. Hi was chosen captain or wagon-master, Billy was
chosen lieutenant or assistant, Mr. Baxter volunteered to cook, and
“Left-over” was appointed “cavarango” or herder of the two mules. This
left Jim and Davy for the general work of march and camp.
With the provisions and bedding and mining tools and other stuff the
wagon was well loaded for two mules to haul across the plains; so it
was decided that all the party except the driver must walk. They would
take turns driving and riding; and after the mules were well broken in
and the trail was rougher then probably nobody would ride.
“I reckon we ought to make twenty miles a day, with mules,” quoth
Billy, wisely. “But those oxen the other folks are using won’t make
more than twelve or fifteen miles a day. Some of ’em are liable to be
sixty days on the road.”
“Well, we’ll be lucky if we get through in thirty,” said Mr. Baxter.
“It will be nearer forty.”
“Do we have to walk forty days?” squealed “Left-over.”
“That’s nothing to a bull whacker,” said Hi, gruffly. “I’ve walked
clean from Leavenworth to Salt Lake and back again.”
“So have I,” nodded Jim. “That’s twelve hundred miles each way――and
most of it up-hill, too!”
The Smoky Hill Fork trail was to be struck at Fort Riley, 132 miles
southwest from Leavenworth. Here the Smoky Hill Fork and the Republican
Rivers joined to form the Kaw or Kansas River. Settlements extended to
Fort Riley and a short distance beyond; but after that the country was
the “Indian Country.”
“Lookee here,” suddenly exclaimed Billy Cody, that last night before
the start, when everybody was under blankets and almost asleep. “We’ve
got to have a name painted on our wagon.”
“Can’t we travel anonymous?” queried the Reverend Mr. Baxter, sleepily.
“I dunno what that means but it sounds pretty good,” spoke Hi. “Can you
spell it?”
“Oh,” chuckled Mr. Baxter, “that doesn’t mean anything.”
“Huh!” grumbled Hi. “I thought it was an animile like a hippopotamus,
mebbe.”
When the camp turned out at sunrise Billy had already been up, and on
the wagon hood he had painted, with the stick and tar-pot used for
greasing the wagon, the title: “HEE-HAW EXPRESS.” So, amidst laughter,
the Hee-Haw Express it was which, soon after sun-up, joined the
procession that, anew each day, filed out for the long trail to Pike’s
Peak.
The Hee-Haw Express, being mule-power, travelled faster than many of
the other outfits. The road certainly presented a series of strange
sights, as if everybody had thrown together whatever he could and
was hastening from a fire or a plague. The Hee-Haw Express, at amble
and fast walk, with Hi driving and his partners trudging as fast as
they were able beside, gradually passed men with packs, men pushing
handcarts and wheel-barrows, crippled ox teams, next an ox and a cow
harnessed together, next a mule and an ox harnessed together; and so
forth and so forth, all in the dust and the shouting and the rumbling
and creaking and whip cracking.
Almost all the other “Pike’s Peak pilgrims” passed by the Hee-Haw
Express waved and shouted their greetings.
“Trade you my wheel-barrow for a mule.”
“You must be in a rush, strangers.”
“What’s the fare?”
To this Billy answered gaily:
“Regular stage rates. Twenty-five cents a mile or hundred dollars to
the mountains.”
For that was what the Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak Express Company charged.
Many of the other wagons also bore signs. “Pike’s Peak or Bust!”
“Noah’s Ark!” “Root Hog or Die!” “Pike’s Peak Special!” “Bound For
the Diggin’s!”――thus ran some of the lines to be noted as the Hee-Haw
Express sturdily pressed forward.
That night the road was one continuous camp, with fires glowing and
canvas glimmering as far as the eye could see in either direction.
Parties visited back and forth, men and women exchanged news and views,
children played in the firelight shadows, babies cried, dogs barked,
and not until after nine o’clock was the trail quiet enough so that
nervous persons might sleep. However, Davy was not nervous; and from
the snores he might judge that Billy and the rest were not nervous
either.
The next day the Hee-Haw Express started early, and was on the road
even before sun-up. Billy and Hi and all were anxious to pass Fort
Riley and strike the Smoky Hill Fork as soon as possible, and in
advance of as many of these “pilgrims” as possible. The only excitement
of this day was a sudden cheer adown the line and a craning of necks
and waving of hands. Before, from the west, were approaching two
vehicles――by the looks of them, and by the four mules, stages, both!
And two stages they proved to be, as, skirting the procession of
“pilgrims,” they dashed along, bound for Leavenworth. The first bore
a lot of bright bunting and streamers, and on its sides a banner that
said: “Greetings from the Gold Mountains of Kansas.” By its dusty
appearance and the appearance of its driver and passengers, this coach
evidently had come clear from Pike’s Peak. The second coach, close
following, was its escort from Fort Riley in to Leavenworth.
Speedily the word travelled through the column of Pike’s Peakers
that the first coach actually was the first return coach from the
gold mines, and that it carried to Leavenworth $3500 in gold dust.
Leavenworth, as was afterwards reported, had a big celebration.
Of course, the sight of the travel-stained coach, and the rumors as to
what it contained and what news it bore, excited the emigrants. Some
of them began to throw away stuff in order to lighten their loads; so
that from here on to Fort Riley the trail was strewn with what Billy
called “useless plunder.” But the Hee-Haw party were experienced enough
to start out only with what they needed, and they had nothing to throw
away yet.
The last of the settlements was Junction City, just beyond Fort Riley.
While the rest of the party were making camp along with the other
“pilgrims,” outside the little town, Billy and Dave rode the mules in
to see if there were any provisions worth buying. Mr. Baxter, the cook,
said that if they could find any dried apples he would make a pie!
But there were no dried apples or any other such delicacies in rude
little Junction City, here at the edge of the Indian country. Every
store seemed to be a saloon; and the streets were thronged with rough
emigrants and soldiers from the fort. Only whom did the boys meet but
Wild Bill Hickok!
He was standing on the edge of the plank sidewalk of the one business
street, with several other men, apparently expecting something.
“Why, hello, Bill!”
“Hello, Billy. How are you, Dave? Where’d you come from, if I may ask?”
“Salt Creek,” answered Billy Cody.
“Going to Pike’s Peak,” announced Davy.
“Good enough,” approved Wild Bill. “People are taking a little gold out
o’ thar, that’s sure. But I don’t believe all I hear.”
“What are you doing here, Bill?”
“I? Well, I may go to the diggin’s myself, and I may drive stage.
To-day’s stage westbound is due now. That’s what we’re looking for.”
“She’s a comin’,” remarked one of the other men, with a nod.
Sure enough, up the trail from the east, along the north bank of
the Smoky Hill Fork, in the dusk and the dust came at a gallop the
Leavenworth stage for the Pike’s Peak country, drawn by its four fine
mules. It halted before the Junction House Hotel, and the passengers
clambered stiffly out from under the canvas top that arched over the
wagon box.
They were only two, and one from the driver’s box. The two plainly
enough were Easterners. The first was a rather young man, with a thin
sandy beard and a soft slouch hat; the second was a stoutish, elderly
man, with a round rosy face and a fringe of white whiskers under his
chin. He wore a rather dingy whitish coat; the younger man wore a
regulation duster. They both gazed about them alertly before entering
the hotel.
“Hello, Bill,” nodded the stage driver, descending, after tossing his
lines to the hostler from the stage stable――for Junction City was
Station Number Seven on the stage route.
“Who’s yore load, Tom?” queried somebody.
“That old fellow in the white coat, he’s Horace Greeley. Other fellow’s
named Richardson――Albert D. Richardson.”
“Where they from?”
“N’ York, I reckon.”
“Where they going?”
“Out to the diggin’s.”
“What line they in?”
“Newspaper fellows of some sort, I hear tell. Anyhow, they ask a heap
of questions. That old chap in the white coat he’s been speech-makin’
all through Kansas. As I understand it, he an’ that young fellow are
goin’ out to the mines to write up the country, so the people of the
East’ll know what’s true an’ what ain’t.” And Tom the driver walked on
into the hotel to wash and eat.
“Seems to me I’ve heard of Horace Greeley,” mused Wild Bill. “He’s
quite a man.”
“Sure. He’s editor of the New York _Tribune_,” asserted a man who
had not spoken before. “He’s the biggest man on the biggest paper in
the States, and what he says will influence the people more than a
stage-load of gold. Richardson’s a newspaper man, too; and another
reporter, named Henry Villard, of Cincinnati, is out at the diggin’s
now. But Greeley’s the biggest of the lot. They say only one printer in
his office can read his writing; but the old man has come out here to
get the truth, and if he tells the people to ‘go West’ they’ll go.”
“That,” quoth Wild Bill emphatically, “is the best thing that’s ever
happened to this country. But it seems to me it’s a lot of trouble for
a man to take. Do you reckon he’s going to start a paper out thar at
Cherry Creek?”
“No, sir! They say Horace Greeley is wedded to two things: his New York
_Tribune_ and his old white coat.”
“Well, if he makes any speech here to-night I’m going to hear him,”
said Wild Bill.
Horace Greeley did make a speech to citizens and emigrants, in a
partly-finished stone church. He talked on “Republicanism.” But Dave
and Billy and Hi and Jim and “Left-over” were too tired to go and hear
him; and so were the majority of the “pilgrims.” The Reverend Mr.
Baxter went in and reported that it was very good for those who agreed
with it.
Bearing Horace Greeley and Journalist Richardson, the stage continued
westward in the morning. So did the Hee-Haw Express.
X
“PIKE’S PEAK OR BUST!”
Already the procession had considerably thinned out. Some of the
outfits had broken down and some had quit discouraged. The Pike’s Peak
region was still 500 miles distant, and the worst of the journey lay
before. However, the Hee-Haw Express had no thought of quitting.
“We’ll have to travel under discipline from now on, boys,” spoke
Captain Hi at noon camp. “You bear in mind I’m boss, and Billy is
second boss. We’ll try to be as easy on you as we can, but what we say
goes. The only person who doesn’t need to pay much attention is the
cook. He’s his own boss. The rest of us will mount guard every night
and follow a regular schedule. I appoint Jim the official hunter,
because he’s got the best gun. Jim, you watch out for meat. Ought to
see buffalo, plenty.” And Jim nodded. “Davy, you’re assistant to the
cook. You get him fuel and water.” And Davy nodded. “Left-over and
Billy and I’ll tend to the mules.”
“What I want to know is, why don’t we ever have pie. If I’d thought
we’d eat just bacon and beans and coffee all the way across to the
mountains I wouldn’t have come,” squeaked Left-over, earnestly.
“Sowbelly and beans will make a man of you,” growled Hi. “After you’ve
stood a steady diet of that for a couple o’ months nothing can kill
yuh.” And he rose. “All right; catch up, boys. Let’s be moving.”
“Catch up” (or “Ketch up,” as Hi pronounced it) was the regulation
signal in the freighters’ trains on the plains for harnessing the mules
and oxen to the wagons. So now the span of mules were put back into
their places on either side of the tongue, and Left-over climbed into
the seat; it was his turn to drive.
Just before sunset Left-over, peering ahead from his driver’s seat,
uttered a shrill whoop and tried to whip up his mules.
“Hyar! What’re you aiming to do?” demanded Captain Hi, severely.
“Aw, can’t you let a feller be?” whined Left-over. “I was going on
ahead, is all, and see what I could buy.”
On a little hillock, before, beside the trail was what appeared to be
another stage station of canvas, but the top of the tent (for wall
tent it turned out to be) displayed in large black letters the sign:
“Grocery.” This explained Left-over’s hurry. However, as the nearest
“pilgrims” were behind he would have the grocery to himself, so
Captain Hi calmed him down with――
“Don’t be so brash about it, then. If you go and kill off one of those
mules we’ll put you in harness with the other one.”
“And that will be a pair,” added Billy, quick as a wink.
“Never mind, Left-over,” comforted the Reverend. “Maybe we can get our
dried apples there and have that pie I promised you.”
But as they toiled on nearer, the tent grocery seemed deserted. It had
no customers and no proprietor.
“Whoa!” yelled Left-over loudly, pulling down his mules opposite the
tent. “Whoa, there!” And――“Hello,” he hailed shrilly.
At this slowly emerged from between two large barrels the figure of a
gaunt, frowsy-headed man――like a dog crawling out of a kennel. The man
must have been asleep. He yawned and stretched and stared.
“Howdy?”
“Howdy, strangers.”
“What do you keep?”
“Everything.”
“Got any dried apples?” demanded Left-over, eagerly.
“Nary apple.”
“Got any crackers?”
“Nary cracker.”
“Any ham?” queried Hi.
“Nary ham.”
“Any molasses?” asked Billy.
“Nary molasses.”
“Any salt?” asked Jim.
“Nary salt.”
“What have you got, then?”
“Pickles and smokin’ tobacco, strangers. Which’ll you have?”
“That’s a great grocery stock!” scoffed Billy, as the Hee-Haw party
proceeded. “Pickles and smoking tobacco!”
“I should say!” agreed Davy. “Not much chance for a pie there!”
“I didn’t s’pose the country was going to be as bad as this,” whined
Left-over, from the wagon seat.
“Wait till you strike the wust of it,” answered Jim.
“Somebody’s broken down ahead, hasn’t he?” queried the Reverend Mr.
Baxter.
“Looks so. We’ll go on and make camp there, anyway, and see,” directed
Captain Hi.
The trail had veered apart from the Smoky Hill Fork and was cutting
through a wide, flat bottom-land, grown to short buffalo grass and
a few cottonwood trees. In the midst of the stretch was a “prairie
schooner,” halted, its white hood just visible in the gathering dusk.
Lonely enough it looked, too――solitary there with not another token of
human life near it. It did not have even a camp-fire.
In the twilight the Hee-Haw Express drew upon it and halted also. The
owner of the wagon was sitting on the tongue, smoking an old clay pipe.
“Howdy, strangers?” he greeted, coolly.
“Howdy,” they responded; and suddenly Billy nudged Davy and pointed to
the wagon hood.
“Pike’s Peak or Bust!” said the one sign; and under that had been
added: “Busted, by Thunder!”
“What’s the matter, pardner? Stuck?” asked Captain Hi.
The man jerked his thumb toward the wagon hood.
“Read for yoreself, stranger,” he bade. “Busted!”
“Where’s your party?”
“I’m the party. I sent the old woman and the kids back by stage, and I
air hyar and hyar I stay, I reckon.”
“Where are your animals?”
“My critters war a hoss and a caow, hitched together. Injuns stole my
hoss; the old caow’s had a calf daown in the willows; and I’m busted.
How far to Pike’s Peak yet?”
“’Bout five hundred miles.”
“Wall,” drawled the man, yawning, “in case my old woman doesn’t find
another outfit back at the Missouri I reckon I can wait till the calf
grows up.”
“Nothing we can do for you?” invited Mr. Baxter.
The man slowly shook his head.
“Nope, stranger. I air comfortable. ’Bout two miles on you’ll find a
better campin’ place. Water and fuel right around hyar I’m goin’ to
need, myself.”
So, thus politely dismissed, the Hee-Haw Express moved along until,
where the trail crossed a creek, they found the wood and water.
The trail stretched ever on and on. For one only six or eight weeks old
it was remarkable. Hundreds of wagons and animals had worn it wide and
plain; and, moreover, on either side of it were scattered cook-stoves,
trunks, bedsteads, bureaus, and other bulky household stuff, cast
overboard to relieve the tiring teams. Davy found a rag doll and Billy
picked up a thick hank of false hair. As Jim remarked: “A fellow could
follow this trail in the dark by stubbing his toes!”
“Busted” outfits were constantly passed. The strain of the wild march
to “Pike’s Peak” was taking its toll of the weak and the illy prepared.