bother _me_. Did you see the way I downed the big buffalo? That’s what
any Injuns’ll get who tackle _me_. You fellows don’t know me when I’m
mad. I’m bad. I’m a regular tarrer. I’m half horse and half alligator.
Those Injuns had better keep out of my way!”
“We’re mighty glad of your company, Left-over,” claimed Mr. Baxter
soberly. “If I were you I’d ride the trail and hire out to emigrant
parties to see them through safely.”
Left-over continued to bluster as they marched; and Billy only remarked
to Davy:
“If his ‘do’ is half as big as his ‘tell’ he could lick Wild Bill,
couldn’t he?”
Late that afternoon Hi pointed to the north.
“Here’s a chance for Left-over,” he called. “We’re going to have
visitors!”
“Injuns!” said Billy quickly, shading his eyes and peering. They all
peered――Davy, who was driving, from the wagon seat.
A band of horsemen were rapidly approaching across the level sandy
plain. By their figures and the way they rode Indians they certainly
were; some twenty of them. Left-over bellowed wildly.
“I see ’em!” he cried. “I see ’em! Gimme a gun! Get behind the wagon!
Aren’t you going to stop? Going to let us all be scalped?”
“Quit your yawp!” bade Hi, roughly. “Drive along, Davy. Handle your
guns, boys, so they’ll know we’re ready. Don’t let them think we’re
afraid. I’ll tend to them at the proper time.”
Minding these instructions of Captain Hi, the Hee-Haw outfit proceeded
as if intent on their own business. Left-over whimpered and showed a
strong disposition to climb into the rear of the wagon, but Billy said
sternly:
“None of that! You stay outside. Thought you were an Injun-fighter.”
“I am,” piped Left-over. “I was going to protect the wagon.”
“Huh!” grunted Billy.
Up on the seat, in plain sight, driving the mules, Davy felt rather
alone and exposed; but he drove steadily. The mules were pricking their
long ears and showing uneasiness.
“Watch your animals, Dave,” cautioned Jim. “A mules hates Injuns wuss
’n a rattlesnake.”
And Davy hung tight.
The Indians bore down at full gallop, as if to cut the wagon off. But
at sight of the guns in the hands of Hi and Jim and Billy, when within
a hundred yards they reined in sharply and the leader threw up his
hand, palm outward. Hi answered with similar sign. He rode forward
halfway, so did the Indian; they met.
“’Rapahoes,” exclaimed both Billy and Jim.
“Regular beggars,” commented the Reverend, easily. “Hi’ll fix them.”
Hi and the Arapaho leader came riding toward the wagon, and the others
in the band slowly edged closer. They were armed mainly with bows and
spears, and did not look very formidable.
“Just a lot of rascals out on a thieving expedition, picking up what
they can from the emigrants,” announced Hi. “But of course they claim
to be ‘good.’ The chief here’ll show you his recommendations.”
The chief (who was a villainous appearing old fellow, cross-eyed and
marked by small-pox and wearing a dirty ragged blanket) passed from one
to another of the Hee-Haw company, saying “How, how?” and shaking hands
and extending a bit of dingy paper.
When the paper reached Davy he read:
“This Indian is Old Smoke. He’ll steal the tail off a mule.
Watch him and pass him along.
“PIKE’S PEAKER.”
The chief grinned and grunted, evidently well pleased with himself and
the impression that he thought he was making.
“Soog!” he said eagerly. “Soog!”
“No sugar,” answered Hi. “Drive on, Dave. Needn’t stop.”
But the old Indian kept pace.
“Tobac’. Give tobac’?”
“Nope,” answered Hi, shaking his head. “Puckachee! Be off! Vamose!”
“Look out for those other Injuns!” suddenly warned Billy, the alert.
“They’re coming right in!”
“Don’t let ’em!” begged Left-over, excited. “Give him some sugar, so
he’ll go away. I’ll give him some.”
“No, you won’t,” retorted Hi, quickly. “Then he’ll want something else.
Here, you――” and he spoke in earnest to the chief. “Puckachee!” And
Hi waved his hand and patted his yager meaningly. “Get! All of you! No
soog, no tobac’, nothing. Keep close to the wagon, boys,” he warned to
his party, “and show ’em we mean business. Drive the mules right along,
Dave.” He shouted to the advanced Indians: “No! No!” And facing about
shifted his gun as for action.
The chief had paused, uncertain; and now his followers paused. The
Hee-Haw wagon, flanked by its body-guard, with the mules snorting and
straining but controlled by Davy, pressed on. In a moment the chief
rode back to his band, and all went cantering away.
“Lucky for them they didn’t try to make us trouble,” boasted Left-over,
changing his tune but still suspiciously pale. “We’d have shown ’em!”
“Lucky for us, you mean,” growled Hi. “If once those fellows had got in
amongst us and started to crowding us thar’s no knowing what mightn’t
have happened. That’s the mistake lots of these emigrants make. They
try to parley and give presents, thinking they’re buying the Injuns
off; and fust thing they know they’re overrun and helpless and lose
their whole outfit.”
“Were you scared up there, Dave?” called Billy.
“No. Were you down there?” retorted Dave.
“Not so anybody noticed it, I hope,” answered Billy.
“Well, one thing’s certain,” said Jim. “We’ve got wuss ahead of us
than Injuns, I reckon. Water’s petered out.”
Before their eyes the shallow head-waters of the Smoky Hill Fork
disappeared abruptly, as if soaking down through the sand of its bed.
Davy checked his mules while Hi and the others surveyed before. Not a
token of water showed beyond or as far as they could see.
Billy Cody had promptly trudged on in the advance; and now he shouted
and waved.
“Trail forks,” he reported. “One fork keeps on, other turns off to the
right.”
“We’ll follow that right fork as far as we can before dark,” quoth Hi.
“How’s the water bar’l? Fill her up.”
The Reverend Mr. Baxter sprang to the river bed and with the camp spade
dug vigorously. The others took pails and pans and kettles and carried
water, as fast as the hole supplied it, to the big cask that, slung
fast at the rear of the wagon, formed part of the trail kit.
It was slow work filling this cask through the bung-hole, but Hi kept
them at it until the cask was well-nigh running over. By this time dusk
was settling, and with a shrewd glance about at the landscape Captain
Hi said:
“Unspan, boys. We might as well camp right hyar. But it’s mighty poor
grazing for the mules, I tell you!”
XII
PERILS FOR THE HEE-HAWS
Many emigrants had camped here, evidently. The grass had been eaten off
for several acres around, and Davy roamed in a circle of a quarter of a
mile before he had gleaned enough buffalo chips for the supper fire.
“Better get enough for breakfast, too, Dave,” warned Mr. Baxter, the
cook, with a weather-wise eye cocked at the horizon. “Hear the thunder?
We’re liable to be soaked and so will the chips.”
Buffalo chips when dry were fine, quick, hot fuel; but when wet they
were hopeless, like soggy paste-board. Mr. Baxter’s warning had been
well founded, for the air was heavy and warmish, and from some distant
point echoed the rumble of a storm.
Up to this time the journey from Leavenworth had been very comfortable
as to weather, with sunny days and occasional little rains. But,
according to Billy and all, some of these plains storms were regular
“tail twisters” and “stem winders,” drowning even the prairie-dogs out
of their holes!
“Left-over’s first on guard to-night,” directed Captain Hi. “We must
keep eye and ear open for those Injuns. They may sneak up and run off
our mules.”
“They’d better not try it when I’m on guard,” blustered Left-over, in
his funny squeak. “You’ll lemme have your gun, won’t you, Jim?”
“Not much!” rapped Jim. “I may want that gun myself. Take one of
Billy’s. Let him have your yager, Billy. What have you got in it?”
“A bullet and three buckshot. I loaded her for Injuns.”
“That’s right. Left-over can do a toler’ble lot of shooting with that
load.”
Pleased, Left-over took the gun and posted himself just outside the
firelight, where he could oversee camp and mules (now tethered near)
and any prowling figures approaching. The night settled black and
thick, with the stars faintly twinkling through a haze; but wrapped in
his blanket beside Billy, Dave soon fell asleep.
He was awakened by a loud bang, and a louder howl from Left-over, who
seemed to be stepping on everybody at once.
“Injuns! I’m killed! Help! Murder! Wake up! Why don’t you wake? Help!
Murder! Injuns! Injuns!”
Before Davy had collected his own wits and was out from the blanket
Billy had sprung up like a deer; with the one motion he was on his
feet, free of the blanket, revolver in hand, ready to obey Captain Hi’s
sharp voice.
“Shut up! (to Left-over, who was cavorting around like whale in a
flurry). Lie low, boys! Over here, together, away from the fire. Where
are they, Left-over? What’s the matter? What’d you see?”
“I’m killed,” wailed Left-over. “The whole country’s full of
Injuns――’Rapahoes. I shot into ’em when they were sneaking up, and then
they shot me through the head. It all happened at once. But I saved
the mules. I gave my life for ’em, and you-all.” And Left-over groaned
vigorously.
Half deafened by the wails of Left-over, Davy had been listening hard
for Indian whoop or rustle, and peering for shadowy forms. But he
heard only the breathing of his companions and the grunty sighs of the
aroused mules. Not a figure, except those of the shadowy mules, just
visible against the sky-line, could be descried.
“Aw, shucks!” grumbled Billy, suddenly, breaking the suspense. And
standing boldly, he strode to the smouldering camp-fire and thrust a
bit of paper into the live ashes. He made a plain target, but he did
not seem to care, and waited for the paper to flare.
In the flare they all stared around; the mules were the first things
noted――but Mr. Baxter exclaimed:
“Look at Left-over! By jiminy, he is wounded! Start that fire more or
make a torch so we can see. Wait a minute, Left-over.”
Left-over certainly presented an alarming sight. His face was welling
blood, which streamed down upon his chest. His eyes rolled and he
groaned dismally.
As Billy made another flare, Jim, nearest to Left-over, hastily
examined, with eyes and deft fingers, Left-over groaning now terribly.
“Don’t find anything――there ain’t any new hole; mostly mouth,” Jim
reported. “Can’t you hold your yawp, Left-over, long enough to tell us
what happened to you?”
“I saw the Injuns sneaking up and we all shot at the same time, and
I killed them and they killed me,” sobbed Left-over. “If you don’t
believe me go out and look.”
“I know,” quoth Billy Cody. “That gun kicked him in the face and plumb
broke his nose! She was loaded to do business.”
“Huh!” grunted Left-over, venturing to sit up and feel of his face.
“If you fellows’ll watch I’ll scout around a bit and see what’s what
outside,” proffered Billy. “I keep seeing something lying out yonder.
Shouldn’t wonder if Left-over did kill an Injun.”
The lightning was fitful but incessant; its pallid flashes played over
the landscape――momentarily revealing the drooping mules, the spots of
sage, the wagon, the faces on Davy’s right and left, and (as seemed to
Davy) exposing, for a brief instance, a dark mass lying farther out on
the prairie.
“Well――――” began Captain Hi; but he was interrupted. As if borne on the
wings of a sudden cool gust from the west there came fresh blare of
thunder and glare of lightning. Peal succeeded peal, flash succeeded
flash, with scarce an interval. Hi’s voice rang sternly.
“Billy, you and Dave see to those mules, quick, or they’ll stampede.
The rest of you pitch what stuff you can into the wagon and stretch
guy-ropes to hold her down. This is an old rip-snorter of a storm, and
it’s coming with its head down and tail up!”
Nobody paused to question or debate. The storm seemed right upon them.
Following Billy, Dave leaped for the mules.
“Tie ’em to the wagon wheels,” yelled Billy, in the pale glare tugging
at a picket pin.
He and Davy hauled the mules along to the wagon, where Hi and Jim, Mr.
Baxter and even the gory Left-over were hustling frantically to put
things under cover and make the wagon fast with guy-ropes stretched
taut over the top.
But the storm scarcely waited. The bellow of the thunder and the fierce
play of the lightning increased. There was a pause, a patter, a swift
gust; and rushing out of the inky night charged the rain.
Rain? Sheets of it! Blinding, drenching sheets of it, driven by gust
after gust, and riven by peal after peal, glare after glare.
“Hang to the wagon, everybody!” shouted Captain Hi; and Davy, hanging
hard, could see, amidst the cataract of water, his partners also
hanging hard to guy-ropes and wagon-sheet corners. The mules stood
drooped and huddled, their ears flat and their tails turned to the
storm.
Never had there been such lightning, never such thunder, never such
rain! All in a moment, as it seemed to Davy, he was soaked through and
through, and the ground under him was running with water an inch deep.
The wagon top bellied and slapped and jerked, and every instant was
threatening to tear loose and sail away, or else lift the wagon and all
with it.
“Hurrah!” yelled Billy gaily, braced and panting, as he tried to anchor
his corner. Nothing daunted Billy Cody. “Now we’ve got water a-plenty!”
As suddenly as it had arrived the bulk of the storm departed, leaving
only a drizzle, and a very wet world. The Hee-Haw party might release
their grip on the wagon, and take stock. The rain had driven through
the canvas top into the bedding and other stuff, and the rest of the
night bid fair to be rather uncomfortable.
“What are we going to do now?” whined Left-over.
“Do the best we can,” answered Captain Hi. “Stand up or lie down,
whichever you please, till morning.”
“Aren’t you going out to look at my Injun?”
“He’ll keep. We’ve got enough to tend to right hyar.”
Mr. Baxter lighted the lantern, and they overhauled the bedding.
“Come on, Davy,” quoth Billy. “I’m going to sleep. Crawl in and we’ll
shiver ourselves warm.”
Billy’s buffalo robe was spread down on a spot where the rain already
had soaked into the sandy soil, and snuggled beside him, under a
blanket, dressed just as he was, Dave soon found himself growing warm.
“’Twon’t hurt us any,” murmured Billy. “I’ve been wet this way many a
time before. If we don’t change our clothes we won’t catch cold.”
That was fortunate, for they had no clothes to change to!
When Dave awakened, the sun was almost up; he was nearly dry, and had
not been uncomfortable, after all. The Reverend Mr. Baxter was trying
to start a fire with bits of wood from some of the boxes in the wagon,
and to dry out a few buffalo chips. Left-over was snoring lustily, but
the rest of the camp was turning out. Billy, who was sitting up, gazing
about, whooped joyously.
“Look at Left-over’s Injun!” he cried, pointing. Out he sprang and
hustled across the plain. The camp began to laugh――all but Davy, who
stared, blinking, and Left-over, who stirred, half aroused.
At the dark spot, which was Left-over’s Indian, Billy stopped; he waved
his hand and cheered, and came back, dragging the thing. As he drew
near, Davy saw what the others had seen. The Indian was a big calf!
“Shot it plumb through the head!” yelped Billy. “’Rah for Left-over!”
“What is it? What’s the matter?” stammered Left-over, struggling to sit
up, while he blinked, red-eyed.
“Better take his tail for your scalp, Left-over,” bade Jim. “It’s a
pity we don’t need meat, but you can butcher him if you want to.”
Not for some weeks did the Hee-Haw outfit get done teasing Left-over
about his “Injuns.”
“Anyway,” soothed Mr. Baxter, “you made a good shot. Nobody can deny
you that.”
“Huh!” agreed Left-over, swelling importantly. “I knew it was
something, and I drew bead and whaled away.”
“Purty good to draw bead in the dark,” remarked Captain Hi. “Left-over
must have eyes like a cat!”
They ate a rather scant breakfast, mostly cold; and leaving the
luckless calf (which must have wandered from some emigrant party) minus
a few steaks, they turned northwest on the cut-off to the next water.
The stage route went straight on, over a bare plateau; but a number of
emigrants evidently had been turning off here on a trail of their own.
So sandy was the soil and so hot the sun that very soon the ground was
as dry as before, and Billy’s boast of “plenty water” failed to make
good.
About the middle of the morning they passed an emigrant train of a
large party still recovering from the storm. Wagons had been capsized,
tents torn up bodily, and equipage scattered far and wide. One wagon
had been carried away completely.
“How far to the mountains, strangers?” queried one of the emigrants. It
was the same old question. All the Pike’s Peak travellers appeared to
have the one thing in mind――the mountains.
“Follow us and you’ll get thar,” replied Captain Hi. “What do you know
about this cut-off?”
“Nothing at all, stranger. There looked as if somebody had gone up this
way, so we came too.”
“It’s a terrible dry road, though,” sighed a woman. “Maybe if we’d have
kept on west we’d have done better.”
“Well, by jiminy!” said Hi, as the Hee-Haws toiled on. “I sort of think
so, myself. This trail doesn’t look good to me; not a little bit.”
“Shall we turn back?” proposed Mr. Baxter.
“I hate to turn back,” spoke Billy promptly. “I like to keep a-going.”
“Oh, we might as well go on,” added Jim. “I hate to back track, too.
But there aren’t many emigrants on this trail, that’s certain.”
“The trouble is they’ll follow like sheep,” asserted the Reverend. “If
this cut-off is no good somebody ought to put a sign on it.”
Hotter and hotter grew the day. The trail, which was not so large after
the emigrant party had been passed, wound among blistering sand-hills,
and soon the mules were plodding doggedly, with tongues out, hides
lathering. They guided themselves, for the Reverend, whose turn it was
to drive, had mercy on them and walked. That night at camp he uttered a
sudden exclamation.
“Water’s more than half gone, boys,” he announced. “Either this keg
leaks or the air drinks faster than we do.”
“We’ll have to be easy on water, then,” ordered Captain Hi. And they
all went to bed thirsty.
Davy had a miserable night, and probably the rest did, too, although
nobody except Left-over said anything. The mules started out stiffly.
But Mr. Baxter suddenly shouted, in a queer wheeze, pointing:
“Cheer up, fellows! There’s either a cloud or a mountain――see?”
They peered. Away in the west, just touched by the first rays of the
sun, peeped over the rolling desert, at the horizon edge, a vague
outline that did look like the tip of a cloud.
“There’s another!” cried Billy, pointing further to the north. “If
those are mountains I reckon this one is Long’s Peak; maybe that other
is Pike’s Peak.”
Davy gazed constantly at the two vague, cloudlike breaks in the line of
horizon and sky. As the sun rose higher they seemed to grow whiter; but
they did not move. They must be mountains, then; and oh, so far away!
Occasionally, as the wagon labored over a swell in the desert, Davy
thought that he could descry other mountains in an irregular ridge
connecting the tip in the north with the tip at the south. However, as
the sun shone fiercer the whole sandy plain quivered with the heat rays
and the horizon blurred. Nobody seemed to care about the mountains now;
the main thought was getting through to water.
The trail was almost drifted over by sand; the Hee-Haw party appeared
to be the only party travelling it. That was discouraging. The mules
scarcely moved. At noon they were given a little drink out of Hi’s hat,
for the wooden bucket had warped and leaked like a sieve. Davy never
had been so thirsty in all his life, and Left-over had to be forced
back by main strength from the nearly empty cask. That night, camped in
a dry watercourse, where they dug and dug without finding any moisture,
they used the last of their water for coffee.
“It’s make or break, to-morrow, boys,” said Captain Hi. “We’ll start
as early as we can see, and push right through. Ought to strike water
soon. The nearer we get to the mountains the better the chance for
water from them.”
Sunrise of the third day caught them plodding ahead, the poor mules
groaning and wheezing, the wagon rolling sluggishly, and Davy, like
the rest, with mouth open and tongue bone dry, in the wake. The cloud
things in the horizon had remained stationary; some of them were
whitish, some purplish; and mountains they certainly were!
About ten o’clock Billy cried out thickly.
“Water, fellows! Look at those mules’ ears! They smell it!”
“’Pears like a creek yonder, sure,” mumbled Captain Hi. “Don’t be
disappointed, though, if it’s another mirage.” For they had been fooled
several times by the heat waves picturing water.
“Those mules smell water, just the same, I bet you,” insisted Billy.
Far in the distance shimmered now a thin fringe of green. The mules
actually increased their pace; they broke into a labored trot; and
shambling heavily behind the outfit pressed on. Left-over groaned and
dropped, to lie and moan dismally.
“I’m dying,” he wheezed. “I can’t move a step. Are you fellows going on
and leave me?”
There was no holding the mules. As they forged along Billy exclaimed
quickly:
“Wait here, Left-over. Go ahead, fellows. I’ll fetch him back a drink.”
And seizing the coffee-pot he sturdily ran and stumbled to the fore.
All hastened after him, rivalling the frantic mules, but he beat.
Water it was! When they approached it did not vanish as a mirage would;
and they met Billy returning with coffee-pot actually dripping as its
precious contents slopped over.
Davy felt a strong impulse to halt Billy, wrest the pot from him, and
drink long and deep. But of course this was only a thought. Puffing,
Billy passed.
“There’s plenty water waiting you,” he announced. “I’ll bring Left-over
on after he’s had his drink.”
Yes, water it was――a real stream flowing crooked and shallow in a deep
bed bordered by brush and willows. The trail led to a ford. Wagon and
all, the mules fairly plunged in, and burying their noses to their eyes
gulped and gulped. First Jim, then in quick succession Davy and Captain
Hi and Mr. Baxter (who was the last of all) imitated the mules. Whew,
but that drink was a good long one! It seemed to Davy, as he sucked
again and again, that he simply could not swallow fast enough.
“Some head stream or other, I reckon,” finally spoke Captain Hi.
“Shouldn’t wonder if we had water now all the way in. We’re getting
where the drainage from the mountains begins to cut some figger.”
Billy arrived with Left-over. They spent the rest of the day beside the
welcome stream; and by morning they left about as strong as ever.
The trail that they were following now crossed at least one stream a
day, so that the water cask was kept filled. The buffalo jerky had
been eaten or was not eatable; but antelope and black-tail deer were
abundant. So the trail proved pleasant. Captain Hi called attention
to the fact that the water was growing colder to the taste; and he
said that the snow mountains must therefore be nearer. Indeed, the
mountains were nearer; they lined the whole western horizon, and made a
humpy, dark ridge extending from straight ahead far up into the north.
A haze like to a fog veiled them much of the time, and the Hee-Haw
party were always expecting a better view.
Anyway, there were the Rocky Mountains in sight; and little by little
the trail was approaching them. Yet it was a long, long trail, and who
would have imagined that the plains were so broad from Leavenworth to
the digging!
However, one morning a surprise occurred. The trail had been threading
a little divide which evidently separated one stream from another. A
few pines were growing on it. They smelled good. When the mules had
tugged the wagon over the last rise and were descending a splendid
spectacle unfolded to the eyes of the Hee-Haws. Involuntarily they
cheered――hooray! and again hooray! For right before them was the main
trail once more, with the wagons of emigrants whitening it and with a
stage dashing along.
Down hastened the Hee-Haws, even the mules being glad of company.
“Hooray for Cherry Creek and the diggin’s, strangers!” was the
greeting, as the Hee-Haw party entered at a break in the toiling
procession.
“How much further, lads?” asked Captain Hi.
“Whar?”
“To the mountains?”