been located in a hurry; wagons sent out from Leavenworth by Jones &
Russell had dropped off the station agents and their outfits as fast
as possible all the way through to Denver. Some of the stations were
merely pieces of canvas laid over pole frames; and some were caves in
clay banks of streams; but under the canvas and in the caves were
living not only men but their wives.
However, the fact that the stations had been established at all in such
a rush across 600 miles of uninhabited country struck Davy as no small
feat. And every day, on this Smoky Hill route trail, a stage coming
from the west was met, and another coming from the east passed them.
The stages went galloping along hauled by four dusty mules. The report
was that the company had spent three hundred thousand dollars before
the first coach had been started, and that the expenses were eight
hundred dollars a day! The fare from Leavenworth to Denver was $100.
The sight of the two stages each day was quite an event to the toiling
Pike’s Peak Pilgrims, and they levelled all kinds of questions at
driver and passengers whenever they had a chance.
The trail did not cling to the Smoky Hill Fork, but frequently was far
north of it. Numerous side creeks were crossed, supplying water and
wood; and again there would be no fuel but the gleaning of buffalo
chips. The country was flattening out into short-grass plains――buffalo
country.
Captain Hi and Lieutenant Billy saw to it that the span of mules were
well attended to at noon and at evening, and that the daily marches of
the Hee-Haw Express were steady and systematic. So the party forged
straight along. The mules were fast walkers.
“Strangers, you must be in a powerful hurry to dig out that pound of
gold a day,” hailed a “Lightning Express” that the “Hee-Haw” passed.
This Lightning Express was taking a whole sawmill out――as well as a
large family. The household wagon bore the sign “Lightning Express”;
it was drawn by a mule and an ox, pulling together. Then followed a
freighting wagon loaded with the sawmill, and drawn by a yoke of oxen
and a horse, the horse being in front of the yoke of oxen. A woman and
several children were trudging beside the covered wagon. A man afoot
drove with his whip.
“Right you are,” replied Captain Hi to the hail.
“Have you heard any news?” quavered the woman. “Is it true that people
are putting knives in the bottom of their wagon-boxes and sliding down
Pike’s Peak and scraping up the gold in big slivers?”
“I’ve heard about it but I’ve never seen it, ma’am,” said Hi,
truthfully.
“When do we see the mountains?”
“Oh, not for a few hundred miles more,” informed the Reverend, kindly.
“Well, when you get there and see Jacob Smith from Posey County,
Injianny, tell him we’re coming as fast as we can,” she called after
them.
“We will.”
“Shouldn’t wonder if that was Jacob Smith or some other pilgrim on his
way back already,” proclaimed Jim, pointing. “Reckon he’s made his pile
and is heading home to spend it.”
“Wish we were doing the same!” squeaked Left-over. “I’d buy pie; all I
could eat.”
“I don’t,” announced Billy Cody. “Do you, Dave! I want the fun of
finding before I have the fun of spending.”
“Yes,” agreed Mr. Baxter; “it’s a heap more fun to earn what you get.”
A man on horseback was wending way down the trail from the west. It was
an exception to meet anybody travelling east; he was the first since
they had left the stage line. If he came from the Pike’s Peak country
he ought to bring much news.
So, as he met them, Captain Hi halted the Hee-Haw Express and hailed
him.
“Howdy, stranger? Bound far?”
“To the States if I can get there.”
“Come from far?”
“Far enough, mister. I come from the Cherry Creek diggin’s.”
Hurrah! Davy had been eyeing him keenly. He was an unshaven, thin
but powerful man, with cadaverous face and fierce black eyes; and he
bestrode a mule as cadaverous as himself. He carried a musket; and that
seemed to be about all. Anyway, his saddle-bags were disappointingly
flat. But he may have had his gold stowed out of sight or deposited to
his account somewhere.
“Clear from the diggin’s, eh?” pursued Hi. “How are things out thar?
Booming?”
The man stroked his black beard and surveyed the party.
“Do I look booming, mister?” he demanded. “I wouldn’t give an acre in
old Missouri for the whole of the Pike’s Peak country. You going out
yonder after gold?”
“Yes.”
“Wall, you’re on the hardest trail you ever tackled, mister; no wood,
no water, no forage, and game mighty scarce. And when you get to the
end you won’t find much. That story about gold is the biggest hoax ever
invented. From now on you’ll meet about as many people turned back as
there are going on.”
“What’s the matter? Isn’t there any gold at all?” asked Billy, dismayed.
“Mighty little and hard to get.”
“I’m going on just the same and see,” said Billy, doggedly.
“We’re with you, Billy,” encouraged the Reverend. And――“What’s
happening out there, anyway?” he queried of the returning pilgrim. “We
hear that twenty thousand people are on the road.”
“They’ve made two towns on Cherry Creek; one’s Auraria, t’other’s
called Denver now. They’ve had a meeting, too, and organized to send
a delegate to Congress from the Territory of Jefferson; and the first
Monday in June they held a convention to form the State of Jefferson.
That was after I left, so I dunno what you will find when you get
there. But you won’t find gold; at least not to amount to anything.
And my advice is turn around now ’fore you starve to death.”
With that, he clapped his heels against his mule, and continued. So did
the Hee-Haw Express――but in the opposite direction.
“I reckon,” said Captain Hi, “we’ll keep going. Little Billy said it.”
That was a great disappointment――to have such a report. The man seemed
to have spoken the truth, for from now on the returning goldseekers
rapidly increased in numbers, and they all insisted that the Pike’s
Peak country was a hoax, and the trail to it very bad. Indeed, many
“pilgrims” were turning back without having reached the “diggin’s” at
all.
The Hee-Haw party were now well out in the midst of the Great Plains
which stretched from the Missouri to the Rocky Mountains. Afar extended
on either hand and before and behind, the rolling, sandy surface,
covered with the short, woolly buffalo grass, and broken here and there
by little hills and occasional willows and cottonwoods growing by the
creeks. Jack-rabbits, as large as fox-terriers, and prairie-dogs and
coyotes and gray wolves and antelope scampered from the trail, and the
paths made by the buffalo frequently crossed and recrossed.
These paths were worn deep, like bridle paths. Jim kept the camp
in fresh meat from the antelope that he shot. He stalked them very
cleverly, as Dave thought, by lying out in the brush, and waving his
handkerchief from the end of his wiping stick. The flag seemed to
fascinate the curious-minded antelope, who edged nearer and nearer to
him, circling around and around and peering and stamping, until he shot
what he wished, at his leisure.
The meat was tender and sweet, but according to Billy and the others,
it was nothing compared with buffalo meat. Buffalo meat gave more
strength, and Billy claimed that anybody could eat it for weeks at a
time and not tire of it. So they all wanted buffalo――and especially
Left-over. He was clamorous to shoot a buffalo, and began to whine
about it continually.
“Lookee here, Left-over,” finally spoke Jim. “If we let you shoot a
buffalo will you quit this etarnel gab about that and pie?”
“I will. Truly I will, Jim,” promised Left-over.
“All right, then. As soon as we sight buffalo, where we can get at ’em,
you can shoot one, and after that shut up till we get to Denver.”
“With your gun, Jim?”
“Yes, with my gun.”
Only a few buffalo had been seen thus far. The “pilgrim” travel on the
trail had split their herds and had made them wary. But on the very
next day it was that Billy, driving the laboring mules, from the wagon
seat whooped exultantly:
“Buffalo! Plenty o’ ’em. There’s yore chance, Left-over.”
Left-over came running from the rear.
“Where, Billy?”
“Over there, of course. Don’t you see them?” and Billy reined in his
mules.
“I see ’em! I see ’em!” yelled Left-over, much excited. “Where’s my
gun? Is it loaded? How’ll I get ’em?”
He would have grabbed the gun from Jim and have set right out afoot,
but Captain Hi and Jim both stopped him.
“Easy, easy, now!” exclaimed Hi, gazing calculatingly. “Thar’s buffalo
enough for all, I reckon. Must be two thousand. But if you try to run
’em down on foot we’ll lose every one. Let’s unharness the mules, fust.”
Left-over promptly jumped to help. The buffalo were plain in sight. To
the right of the trail, slightly ahead and just out of gun-shot, they
were grazing in a great herd which speckled the landscape like a mass
of gooseberry bushes.
“Looks as if we had ’em all to ourselves,” quoth Jim, as the mules were
speedily unharnessed from the wagon. “No ‘pilgrims’ around to interfere
with this herd. Reckon if we don’t get a mess it will be our own fault.”
“Where do I come in?” whined Left-over, anxiously. “You promised me,
didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did, and I never break a promise. Hyar’s your gun, now. You
stay right whar you are. We’ll drive the buffalo in to you. Otherwise
you’ll jest shoot up the landscape and mebbe yourself or us in the
bargain. Lend me one of your shooting-irons, Billy. The pistol’s
enough. Thanks.”
So saying, he vaulted on one of the mules, Hi did the same. They rode
bareback with the traces tied short, and used the coiled lines as
bridle-reins. Hi carried his long-barrelled Mississippi yager, Jim held
the Colt’s navy revolver in his right hand. On a wide circuit they set
out, as if to get behind the buffalo and turn them toward the wagon.
“What are we goin’ to do? Where do we come in?” wildly appealed
Left-over.
“We stay here, I reckon,” said Billy coolly.
“You and Davy and Left-over can whang away,” bade Mr. Baxter, with a
laugh. “I’ll sit in the reserved seat and see the fun.”
So saying, he calmly clambered aboard and into the seat, where he
stowed himself at languid ease.
“If those mules aren’t broken to buffalo there won’t be any fun――except
for the buffalo,” observed Billy.
“Yes, Hi and Jim are liable to be stampeded clear back into
Leavenworth,” chuckled Mr. Baxter.
With the four at the wagon keenly watching, Hi and Jim pursued their
circuit. They rode at rapid gallop, and presently disappeared in a
shallow draw. The next sign of them was the action of the buffalo
herd. Animals on the farther outskirts began to lift their heads and
stare and show uneasiness. Gradually the whole herd were staring in the
one direction; and on a sudden, like a vast blanket tossed by the wind,
forth they lunged into motion. And with reason, for out into the open,
on the far side of them, came racing hard on their long-eared mules, Hi
and Jim.
“Hurrah!” cried Billy Cody, exultant. “Those mules are O. K. Lie low
and stay by the wagon, fellows. Meat’s coming.”
“What’ll I do?” yelled Left-over. “Where’ll I go?
“You do as I say,” ordered Billy, thoroughly alive. “Stay right here.
We may have to split that herd.”
On blundered the buffalo. The roll of their hoofs sounded like
heavy thunder, and the dust floated over their dark backs. Pressing
valiantly, Hi and Jim held their mules in the rear, and, still
circuiting, forced the herd over toward the wagon.
“Great Cæsar’s ghost, boys!” gasped Mr. Baxter, straightening in his
seat. “Don’t forget that I’m up aloft here, and I’ll land hard if that
herd strikes us!”
The herd arrived almost before he had finished speaking. The
foremost――a big cow in the lead――went streaming past just in front of
the wagon; and the whole van of the shaggy, crazy army loomed in one
grand charge on either hand.
“I’ll tend to this side; you and Left-over tend to the other,”
shouted Billy to Dave. “Give it to them! Split ’em! Split ’em! Wave
yore hat, Reverend.”
[Illustration: “GIVE IT TO THEM! SPLIT ’EM! SPLIT ’EM!”]
“Now’s your chance, Left-over,” exclaimed Dave, levelling his revolver.
The Reverend waved his broad hat and shouted lustily.
“Bang!” spoke Billy’s yager. Davy pointed his revolver at the nearest
buffalo and pulled trigger. He dimly saw the huge creature plunge
forward to its knees, but he did not wait to see more; he only pulled
trigger as fast as he could right into the faces of the pelting herd.
He had a vague vision of bulging eyes and lolling red tongues, and
short horns and tangled foreheads and lunging shoulders, and ever the
dark, panting mass flowed past.
Suddenly a tremendous report in his ear well-nigh deafened him, and
Left-over yelped loudly, crying, “I got him! I got him!”
“Hooray!” screamed the Reverend, choking with glee, and laughing so
that he doubled and swayed.
Left-over was on his back, heels high, gun waving. He sat up, pulled
trigger, and over he went again, kicked flat by the heavy Sharp’s. At
every shot he yelped, sprawled backward, sat up, shot, and yelped again.
Davy’s revolver was emptied, and he had space to watch. Now Left-over’s
gun was empty, too; and dusty and perspiring and wild-eyed, he picked
himself up.
“How many did I kill?” he squealed hoarsely. “Are all those mine?”
For the herd had passed, the wagon was untouched, and the chief token
of the battle was the half dozen bulky forms lying prone almost in the
very trail itself. Davy drew a long breath. That had been an exciting
moment. Hi and Jim came galloping in, their mules lathered and puffing.
XI
SOME HALTS BY THE WAY
“Good work,” praised Hi, with casual glance. “Thar are three or four
more out yonder. Reckon we’ve got meat enough now for a while.”
“Which are mine?” squealed Left-over. “Did you other fellows kill any?
I’d have killed fifty if I’d had any more cartridges.”
“You killed one, all right, Left-over,” asserted the Reverend. “I saw
you. You killed him six times and once more for luck.”
“No, I didn’t, either!” disputed Left-over. “I killed seven, mebbe
more. I shot seven times.”
“Which is it, Reverend?” asked Hi.
The Reverend Mr. Baxter pointed, with a grin; and grinning, Hi and Jim
rode forward to inspect. Davy went, too; he was certain that a couple
of buffalo had fallen to his revolver, and as there were only three on
this end of the wagon, he did not see where Left-over’s seven could be.
Hi and Jim were gazing down upon a huge buffalo bull, who lay with his
nose touching the fore wheel of the wagon. He made a great pool of
blood, which flowed from wounds in his head and his shoulders and back
and legs and everywhere, apparently.
“You certainly peppered him, Left-over,” assured Hi. “I reckon he’s
dead.”
“Did I do all that?” queried Left-over. And he began to strut. “Well,
I think that’s pretty good. If I hadn’t been here he’d have run right
over the wagon. I picked him out on purpose. But I must have killed
a lot more.” And chattering and strutting he roamed about, every few
seconds returning to examine the holes that he had made or to thrust
the carcass with his toes or to proclaim how large it was.
“You surely made your mark. Now you can rest a while,” chuckled Jim.
“What’s your count, Billy?”
“Two at my end,” reported Billy, who had shot and killed, and had
reloaded like lightning and shot and killed again.
“And two for Davy, and another who’s dropped yonder; and those that
Jim and I got. That makes a mess,” said Hi. “Wall, reckon we’d better
butcher ’fore the wolves spoil the meat. You fellows go ahead here, and
Jim and I’ll fetch in the rest.”
“Davy didn’t do so bad, himself; did he?” remarked Mr. Baxter, climbing
out of the wagon. “Did you aim, Davy?”
“No,” confessed Davy; “not after the first shot. My eyes were full of
buffalo.”
“Mine’s the biggest, anyhow,” boasted Left-over. “If I hadn’t shot him
so much he’d have got away.”
With Davy and Left-over helping the best that they could, Billy and the
Reverend dressed the buffaloes that were near the wagon; and before
they were done Hi and Jim came in, packing the best portions of those
lying out in the wake of the herd. Even though only the best parts――the
humps and rib roasts――were taken, the outfit had what looked to be more
meat than they could use. But Hi and Jim were up to snuff.
“We’ll jerk this as we go,” said Hi. “Cut it into strips, fellows.”
So they cut much of the meat into strips about two inches wide and as
thick as one’s finger and a foot long, and hung it on cord all around
the wagon, row after row. So dry was the air and so pure out here in
the great open plains that before the wagon had travelled an hour the
strips already were curing hard and dark. They resembled strips of
leather. That considerable dust settled on them apparently did no harm.
“Now they’ll keep forever,” declared Hi, striding along after a brief
inspection. “You can chaw ’em as they are, or fry ’em; and you’ll find
’em the sweetest meat you ever stuck between your jaws. Thar’s nothing
better than buffalo jerky.”
That afternoon they passed another stalled Pike’s Peak outfit――a whole
family, this time, with their wagon mired down to the hubs in a boggy
place that sometimes was a creek. The canvas top proclaimed: “Root Hog
or Die! We’re from Ohio. Bound for the Gold Fields.”
“Started rooting a leetle early, haven’t you?” queried Hi, as the
Hee-Haw Express halted to survey.
A thin, sallow woman was sitting on the ground holding a baby. Three
children were playing about. A cookstove stood out, with dishes
scattered around. A yoke of scrawny lame oxen grazed near.
At Hi’s good-natured hail the woman gave a weak, tired answer.
“Howdy, strangers. Yes, ’pears like we’re stuck. We’ve been here since
yesterday. Can’t seem to get out.”
“Are you alone?” asked Mr. Baxter.
“No, sir. But my man he’s thar in the wagon, sick. Reckon he’s got the
janders, and he isn’t any good.”
But a boy younger than Davy walked forward from the other children. He
was a ragged, sharp-faced youngster, and now full of business.
“I’m boss of this outfit,” he asserted. “Say, can’t you hitch on your
mules an’ give us a lift. Those oxen of ours can’t pull grass up by the
roots, they’re so plumb wore out. It’s a hard trail, strangers.”
“Sure we can,” replied Hi, promptly. “Unhitch, boys. Let’s snake ’em
out o’ thar.”
“Want our oxen, too?” keenly queried the boy.
“Nope, sonny. We can haul the wagon, but we can’t haul the bulls at the
same time.”
At shout and crack of lash the Hee-Haw mules sturdily put their
shoulders to their collars and with heave and groan the wagon rolled
out to the firm ground.
“Much obliged,” said the boy. “What do we owe you?”
“Nothing,” answered Hi.
“Strangers,” spoke a quavering voice, and the man himself poked his
face out from under the hood, “how’ll you trade some of that meat for a
sack of flour. I’ve a powerful hankering for fresh meat.”
He was as yellow as a sunflower, and looked pretty miserable.
“Take ten feet of it and welcome,” proffered Mr. Baxter at once. “We
don’t want your flour.”
“No; we’ve got plenty flour,” added Hi.
“Thank you,” said the woman, “but we don’t travel on charity. My man’s
got a turrible hankering for meat, and if you’ll trade we’ll be right
glad to dicker with you. I reckon you can use the flour, can’t you?”
“Just as you say, then, ma’am,” responded Hi. “But you’re welcome to
the meat.”
Billy was already slashing at a string of the jerky; down it came.
Seeing this, the Ohio boy dived into the wagon and lustily dragged
forth a sack of flour.
He shouldered it and staggered with it toward the Hee-Haw wagon. Billy
sprang to take it, but the boy shook his head stubbornly.
“I’m man enough to tote this,” he panted.
“I reckon you are, sonny,” grinned Hi. “But you’ll lemme help you toss
it into the wagon, won’t you? You’re so strong and sassy you’re liable
to bust a hole through the box!”
“How far to Pike’s Peak, strangers?” asked the woman, anxiously.
“A few hundred miles, ma’am.”
“It seems a powerful long road,” she sighed. “We’ve come clear from
Ohio; drove the whole way. We started last fall, an’ wintered in
Missouri. That’s where this baby was born.”
“We’ll get there, ma,” encouraged the boy. “Pap’ll feel better now, an’
we’ll go a-whoopin’.”
“I hope so,” she faltered. “But they do say there isn’t any gold,
anyhow.”
Davy felt sorry for her. Evidently so did the Reverend Mr. Baxter.
“What is your name, if you please?” he asked.
“Jones. Mrs. Jasper Jones. My man’s a blacksmith.”
“Well, Mrs. Jones, we understand there’s quite a town going up out at
the mountains; and if we get there before you do we’ll trade this flour
in for a corner lot and your husband can start in blacksmithing.”
“Will you?” she exclaimed, brightening. “Now that’s mighty kind of you.”
“I’ll take care of you, ma,” comforted the boy, quickly. “I’ll take
care of you an’ pap, too, as soon as we get where there’s some work.”
“I believe you will, sonny,” spoke Jim admiringly. “You’ll make the
fur fly. We’ll tell ’em you’re coming, so they’ll leave space for you.”
And Billy added as good measure:
“When you get to the diggin’s, if you don’t see me you ask for Billy
Cody. I’ll fix you out.”
“Aw, crickity!” gasped the boy, staring. “Say――are you Billy Cody, the
Boy Scout?”
“I’m Billy Cody, all right,” responded Billy, now somewhat confused,
while Hi and Jim and Mr. Baxter laughed loudly.
“We know you. We read all about you in the paper,” proclaimed the boy,
excited. “That time you fought the Injuns. Say――will you shake hands
with me?”
“Aw,” stammered Billy, trying to hide behind the wagon, “forget about
that, will you? I’m nobody.”
“Terrible modest all of a sudden, isn’t he!” chuckled Jim, as he and Hi
and the Reverend finished harnessing the mules again.
“I killed a big buffalo! Biggest one you ever saw!” squealed Left-over.
“Shot him all to pieces jest as he was running into us. Didn’t I,
Billy?”
“Hooray for Left-over!” cheered Hi. “Well, catch up, boys. We’d better
be moving or we’ll never get thar.” And he addressed the other outfit.
“Can we do anything more for you?”
“No, thank you, strangers,” said both the woman and the man. “We can
make it, now our wagon’s out. And that meat’ll taste powerful good.”
“Goodby, then,” called the Hee-Haws.
“Goodby.” And the woman added. “Don’t forget that corner lot.”
“We won’t.”
The timber lining the course of the various streams had shrunken, and
the streams themselves were dwindling ever smaller. It was a barren
country, this, wide and sandy and dotted with occasional thumb-like
hills called buttes. Across it wound the trail, marked by dust and
canvas-topped wagons.
“We must be getting near the mountains, boys,” called Hi. “That last
station agent said we were only two hundred miles from Denver.”
“We ought to see them, then, pretty soon, I should think,” remarked Mr.
Baxter.
“The chances are we’ll be looking for water instead,” declared Jim.
“The country’s going dry on us.”
The trail had swerved in to the Smoky Hill Fork again; and the Smoky
Hill Fork itself seemed about to quit. It contained only a mere trickle
of water.
“You can follow the stage route on west to the Big Sandy,” informed
a squad of returning Pike’s Peakers, “or you can cut over to the
northward and find water there. It’s more than twenty-five miles to
where the stage route strikes the Big Sandy, and there isn’t any water
even then. But we hear tell there’s water on the short cut to the
north, where you strike the Big Sandy higher up.”
Hi nodded thoughtfully.
“All right,” he said. “How’s the country north?”
“There’s nothing to brag on anywhere you go in this whole region,
stranger. We’re bound back to the States. We’ve had enough. But if
you try the short cut north watch out for the Injuns, ’Rapahoes and
Cheyennes both.”
Hi nodded again.
“We will.”
Davy noted Left-over’s mouth open and his eyes begin to pop. Presently
Left-over could hold in no longer.
“Lookee here,” he squealed. “Let’s quit. Let’s turn around with those
other fellows and go home. I’m tired, and I don’t feel very well, and
there isn’t anything at the other end anyhow.”
“If you want to quit you can join the next party bound east. We can
do without you,” spoke Jim. “But I’m going on if I have to carry the
mules.”
“So am I,” declared Billy; and the others, including Davy, felt the
same way.
“I reckon Left-over’s afraid of the Injuns,” commented Hi.
This seemed to arouse Left-over’s wrath.