from the foothills. Another fellow has offered to furnish the team and
do the hauling if I’ll do the chopping. But that’s no life for a boy,
Dave. You’ll learn more, freighting out of Leavenworth; and then you
can go to school in the winter. See?”
That sounded sensible. Thus the Hee-Haw outfit had divided: Billy Cody
and Hi and Jim and Left-over mining; Mr. Baxter cutting timber, and
Davy freighting across the plains. Such was life in the busy West.
Davy engaged passage in the next morning’s Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak
stage, east bound to the States. It had taken the Hee-Haw outfit forty
days to come out; now Davy was going back in six. This was luxury.
The coach held six passengers, with one on the seat. There was a
school-teacher from Vermont, a merchant from Ohio, a banker from
Chicago, an army officer from Fort Leavenworth, a man and wife from
Boston, and Davy. All, except Davy, had been to the “diggin’s”――and the
Ohio merchant let slip the fact that he had located a good claim there
where he and his partner were washing out two hundred dollars a day! So
he was returning for his family.
Yes, it was an interesting company; but as best of all, the driver was
Hank Bassett!
“Why, hello!” greeted Hank of Dave. “Bully for you. Get up here on the
seat. I’ll take you through in style.”
“I engaged that seat,” objected the school-teacher.
“Not much,” retorted Hank. “It’ll make you seasick. I can have what I
want in this seat; and the boy rides there. I can depend on him if I
need a hand, and that’s very important, mister.”
“You know him, do you?”
“You’re right I know him. We’ve worked together before, haven’t we,
Dave?”
Davy blushed, somewhat embarrassed by Hank’s hearty manner; but Hank
had ordered, and Hank was boss, and Dave climbed to the seat beside him.
With crack of whip and cheer from the crowd gathered to watch, at a
gallop out surged the four mules for the nigh seven hundred miles to
the Missouri River and the States. Davy thoroughly enjoyed that trip.
Hank sent his mules forward at a rattling pace; for, as he explained,
he changed teams at every station, eighteen or twenty miles apart.
Night and day the stage travelled, making its one hundred miles each
twenty-four hours, halting only to change teams and for meals.
And night and day the Pike’s Peak pilgrims were in sight. The westward
travel was even more pronounced than earlier in the year, when the
Hee-Haws had joined in it. There were new signs, too, on the wagons.
“Bound for the Land of Gold.” “Family Express; Milk for Sale!” “Mind
Your Own Business.” “We Are Off for the Peak. Are You?” “Hooray for
the Diggin’s!” These and other announcements Davy read on the prairie
schooners as the hurrying stage passed.
“Horace Greeley, the New York editor, wrote back east that the Pike’s
Peak country is O. K.,” said Hank to Davy. “That’s what’s set the
tide flowin’ in earnest. People were waitin’ to get his opinion. He
inspected the diggin’s, and he says the gold is thar――although most
people would do better to take up land in Kansas and go to farmin’. If
you call this trail a busy one you ought to see the Salt Lake Overland
Trail up the Platte. I hear three hundred wagons a day pass Fort
Kearney. This booms the freightin’ business. The old man (Hank meant
Mr. Majors) and his pards are puttin’ on every team they can lay hands
to for haulin’ goods an’ provisions. Why, this hyar stage line is usin’
a thousand mules and fifty coaches. You’re thinkin’ of bull whackin’,
are you?”
“Mr. Majors offered me a job,” answered Davy.
Hank spat over the lines.
“It’s a good firm to work for,” he said. “And a man’s job. After you’ve
bull whacked a while you’ll be drivin’ stage like I am.”
That sounded attractive. To handle four mules at a gallop, dragging a
coach across the plains in spite of Indians and weather, appeared quite
a feat. Driving stage meant taking care of people as well as of animals.
However, holding up one’s end with a freight outfit was not to be
despised, these days. On arriving at Leavenworth Davy lost no time in
reporting at the Russell, Majors & Waddell office. Mr. Majors was not
here. He had removed his family up to Nebraska City, on the Missouri
above Leavenworth, where a branch office had been established in
order to relieve the crowded state of the Leavenworth shipping yards.
However, if Mr. Majors was gone, here was Mr. Russell, as snappy and
alert as ever, taking care of whatever came his way.
“All right, my boy,” he greeted promptly. “If you want a job you’re
just in time. When did you get in?”
“This noon, Mr. Russell.”
“I suppose you’re ready to start back again for the mountains?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. We’ve got a train made up to leave in about an hour. Charley
Martin’s wagon master. You’ll find him a fine fellow. He comes from
a wealthy family in my home town, Lexington, Missouri. You’ll be an
‘extra’ at forty dollars a month, and have a mule to ride. I expect you
to do as well as Billy Cody’s done. You know what your duties are, do
you? You’ll act as the wagon master’s orderly, or messenger, to carry
word along the line; and if necessary you’ll fill the place of any hand
who’s sick. Let’s see――you signed the pledge once, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Mr. Russell.”
“Well, we changed that pledge a little to make it stronger. Mr. Majors
has drawn up a new one. Read it before you sign,” and Mr. Russell
reached out his tanned, freckled hand for a pad of printed forms.
Davy read: “I, ――――, do hereby swear, before the Great and Living God,
that during my engagement and while I am in the employ of Russell,
Majors & Waddell, I will, under no circumstances, use profane language;
that I will drink no intoxicating liquors; that I will not quarrel or
fight with any other employe of the firm, and that in every respect I
will conduct myself honestly, be faithful to my duties, and so direct
all my acts as to win the confidence and esteem of my employers. So
help me God.”
This was an impressive promise, but it sounded just like the strict and
Christian Mr. Majors. Dave had no hesitation in signing it.
“All right,” crisply approved Mr. Russell. “If you keep that pledge
you’ll never be far wrong. Here’s your Bible. To every man employed in
our trains we give a Bible. There’s no time or place when the Bible
isn’t a help and a comfort. The more of them we get on the plains the
better. Now I’m going out to the camp. You come along and I’ll start
you off.”
Davy tucked the compact little leather-bound Bible into his pocket, and
followed Mr. Russell’s wiry active figure out of the door. Russell,
Majors & Waddell certainly organized their business on somewhat unusual
lines; Davy had heard the pledge and the Bible both laughed at by
outsiders as being foolishness for running bull trains. But nobody was
enabled to point out the harm done, and few denied that considerable
good might result. At any rate, no better bull outfits crossed the
plains than those of Russell, Majors & Waddell. They did what no other
outfits could do; nothing stopped them.
The streets of Leavenworth were busier than ever, with emigrants,
teamsters, rivermen, soldiers, and Indians――Kickapoos, Osages and
Pottawattamies; with wagons, oxen, mules and horses. The company’s
freight trains were started from a large camp on the outskirts of town.
Hither Mr. Russell, with Davy in tow, hastened.
Charley Martin was speedily found working hard――together with the
assistant wagon master, who was nicknamed “Yank.”
“Here’s your ‘extra,’ Charley,” announced Mr. Russell.
Charley paused and wiped his forehead. He gazed, rather puzzled.
“What name does he go by, Mr. Russell?”
“Davy Scott.”
“Sometimes they call me ‘Red,’ too,” volunteered Davy.
Charley Martin smiled; and when he smiled, Davy instantly liked him.
“Oho! This must be Billy Cody’s pard on the trail and at the Cody home,
I reckon. I’ve heard about him, but I never had the pleasure of meeting
him. You must have been growing some, haven’t you, Red? I thought you
were a runt.” And Davy fidgeted, embarrassed. During his sturdy life in
the open air he had indeed been growing; he had shot up and broadened
out, and had acquired a steady eye and a manner of self-reliance.
“Where’ve you been keeping yourself lately?” continued Charley.
“I’ve just got back from Pike’s Peak.”
“Good for you. Well, if you’ve travelled with Billy Cody, and Mr.
Russell recommends you, too, you’ll do.” And Charley called to his
assistant: “Here’s our ‘extra,’ Yank.”
Charley was small and compact, tanned and gray-eyed, and so quick and
cheery that anybody felt like calling him by his first name at once.
“Yank,” the assistant wagon boss, was high-shouldered, long-legged,
slouchy, and very different from Charley. His sullen face was bristly
with carroty stubble, his eyes were small and close together, and his
lips were thin and hard-set, leaking tobacco-juice. Him, Davy did not
fancy at all; and by his glance and contemptuous grunt he evidently did
not fancy Davy.
Further exchange of conversation was interrupted by the incisive voice
of Mr. Russell reproving a teamster who had a perverse ox in hand.
“My man, don’t you understand there’s to be no cursing while you’re
working for this company?”
“I’m not cursing,” retorted the man, with a dreadful oath.
“But you’re cursing right this minute!” asserted Mr. Russell, sharply.
“I’m not, either,” answered the man, with another oath.
“Why, you curse every time you open your mouth,” asserted Mr. Russell,
red with anger.
“I don’t,” insisted the man, as before.
That was too much for Mr. Russell. As if not knowing quite what to do
with such an ignoramus as this he walked off, scratching his head, and
left the puzzled teamster scratching his.
“Well, Red, get busy if you’re to travel with this outfit,” bade
Charley to Davy; and proceeded to give orders right and left.
The train was made up and almost ready to start. The last covers were
being drawn taut, and the last wagon, which had been delayed to load in
town, was approaching.
“All set?” shouted Charley to the teamster who, standing beside the
rear pair of his team, seemed to have been appointed as the leader.
The teamster nodded.
“All set.”
“String out,” ordered Charley, and the word was carried along: “String
out, boys! Fall in!”
The lead teamster flung his lash; it flipped forward and cracked like a
pistol-shot over the backs of his twelve oxen.
“Spot! Dandy! Yip! Yip with you!”
The twelve oxen lunged all together as a well-trained team; and
creaking, the huge wagon rolled ahead.
“Haw! Whoa――haw! Hep! Hep!”
To the shouts, and the volley of whip-snappers, the grunts of the oxen,
creakings of the wagons and yokes, and rattle of the ox-chains, the
train uncoiled from the mass that it had formed and lengthened out into
a long line. Led by that first teamster whose “bulls,” sleek-coated,
evidently were his pride, the white-topped bull train stretched out for
the farther West.
Charley, the wagon master, rode well up with the leading team, and
Davy, his assistant, as his aide or orderly, rode at his elbow ready
for orders. Yank, assistant wagon master, was down the line. At the
rear, behind the few loose cattle taken along for use in case of
accidents, rode on a mule the “cavvy” herder――a young Eastern chap who
was Mr. Waddell’s nephew and wanted to learn plains life. “Cavvy” of
course was the short for “cavvy-yard,” and “cavvy-yard” was the slang
for “caballada,” Spanish of “horse-herd.”
There were twenty-six wagons in the train: twenty-five loaded with
freight and one mess-wagon carrying the supplies. They were enormous
wagons, some of them seventeen feet long, the broad boxes five or six
feet deep, the great wheels wide tired; and over all a flaring hood of
canvas labelled “Osnaburg” (the trademark of the famous mills which
furnished most of the duck and sheeting used on the plains), stretched
upon bows, nailed fast at the edges to the wagon-box, but at either end
puckered tight by draw ropes, leaving an oblong hole. As Davy knew,
the wheels, axles and other running gear were the very best of wood.
Even the ends of the axles, on which fitted the wheels, were wood.
The wheels were held on by an iron linch-pin thrust through the axle
outside the hub. These wooden axles on the sandy, dusty plains required
much greasing, and from the rear axle of each wagon hung a pot of tar
for greasing. On the reach-pole, which was the pole projecting from
underneath the box, out behind the wagon, was slung a ten-gallon keg of
water.
Each wagon was drawn by twelve oxen, yoked together in six pairs. This
was the regular fashion; twenty-five freight wagons to a train, and six
yoke of bulls to a wagon. There were thirty-one men in the outfit: a
teamster for each of the twenty-six wagons, the wagon master and the
assistant wagon master, Davy the “extra” another “extra” (who was a
regular teamster), and the cavvy herder. The teamsters trudged beside
their teams; the only persons who rode were Charley and Yank and Davy
and the cavvy herder, on their mules.
The freight train was called a “bull train”; the wagons were “bull
wagons”; the oxen were “bull teams”; the teamsters were “bull
whackers”; the wagon master was the “bull wagon boss”; and the whole
array was a “bull outfit.”
Stretched out in a line a quarter of a mile long, the train made a
handsome sight to Davy, proudly looking back from his post at the flank
of Charley’s mule. The oxen, fresh for the start, with heads low and
necks fitted into great wooden yoke and bow, pulled stanchly, at a
dignified, steady plod, keeping the heavy ox-chains tight. The majority
of the “bulls” were spotted white and red or black; there were a number
of roans and reds and a few black. The head team were black, except
the pair next to the wagon, which were red. Several had been dehorned
because they were fighters.
The teamsters strode sturdily, cracking their whips, shouting to their
teams and to one another, and occasionally singing. One and all wore
neither coat nor vest, but heavy flannel shirt of red or blue, and a
silk or cotton handkerchief about the neck. Their shirts were tucked
into coarse trousers, and the trousers into high, stout cowhide boots.
On their heads were the regular broad-brimmed, flat-crowned felt hats
that plains travellers liked best. About the waists of the most of the
men were strapped one or two big Colt’s revolvers, and through the belt
was thrust a butcher-knife. They all had a gun somewhere, either belted
on or else as a yager or a rifle stowed handily in the wagon. And every
teamster carried, trailing or coiled, his long-lashed whip.
The train was, as Charley remarked roundly to Dave, “a crack outfit.”
“We’ve got some of the top-notcher teams and whackers of the whole
Russell, Majors & Waddell concern,” he said. “There’s not a better
bull-whip slinger or a better six yoke of bulls on the trail than
right here with this lead wagon. Of course, I suppose we’ve some
crooked sticks, like every train has; but they’ve got to behave
themselves while I’m boss.”
The train was bound for Denver by the regular Overland Trail up the
Platte River, through central Nebraska. The Government road from
Leavenworth, to strike the main trail, was that travelled road which
crossed the Salt Creek Valley; Davy seized the chance to dart aside for
a moment and say “how-de-do” to Mother Cody and the girls. He gave them
what word he could of Billy, but they gave him none, for they had not
had time to hear from Billy since he had reached the diggings.
The bull train toiled on over the hill and out of the valley. Now it
was fairly launched upon its day-by-day journey of 700 miles. It did
not travel alone. The trail before and behind was alive with other
outfits, chiefly emigrants, likewise bound for the “Peak,” and Charley
asserted that when the main trail was entered, at Fort Kearney, where
the travel from Omaha and St. Joe and Nebraska City joined with the
travel from Leavenworth, there’d scarcely be room to camp!
“How long will we be on the road, do you think?” asked Dave.
“Leavenworth to Denver? About fifty days if we have reasonable luck.
The trail’s so crowded and dusty and fodder’s so scarce I don’t reckon
we’ll average more than twelve miles a day. We’re hauling seventy
hundred pounds in some of those wagons. But I have averaged fifteen
miles a day; and travelling empty a smart bull train headed for home
can make twenty.”
It now was past midsummer; it would be fall when the train reached the
mountains, and winter before it got home again.
XV
FREIGHTING ACROSS THE PLAINS
“Do you know,” drawled Charley Martin, lazily, after supper this
evening, “there’s a heap of money wrapped up in one of these bull
outfits?”
They had made camp at sunset――and the sight had been an inspiring one.
On order from Charley, the lead wagon had turned from the trail and
halted; the second wagon had pulled up opposite and also halted; the
third wagon had halted behind the first, a little outside of it, with
tongue pointing out and the fore wheels about on a line with the other
wagon’s rear wheels. The fourth wagon had halted in similar position
behind the second wagon. And so forth. Each wagon widened the circle
until it was time for them to begin to edge the other way and narrow
the circle. At the last the circle was complete, save for an opening at
either end. When the ox-chains had been linked from wagon-wheel to next
wagon-wheel then the bull corral, as it was called, was finished. Or,
no; after the bulls had been unyoked and driven to water and pasture
each wagon tongue was hung off the ground, slung in the draw ropes of
the front end of the hood. This weight kept the canvas hood pulled taut
in case of storm.
It took considerable skill in driving to swing the long bull teams and
land the wagons just right to form the corral. Yes, and the animals
needed to be well trained, too. By the way that all went to work this
wagon outfit knew their business.
The corral was useful for yoking the bulls and for standing off
Indians. No Indians dared to charge a wagon corral when the men inside
it had guns and ammunition.
The bulls were put out to pasture in charge of two teamsters selected
as herders. The men had been divided into four messes. Each mess chose
a cook and their water carrier and fuel gatherers and guards――when
guard was needed. Davy was in Captain Charley’s mess, which consisted
of Charley and Yank, Davy, the cavvy herder, the lead teamster, whose
name was Joel Badger, and the extra teamster, Henry Renick, who did the
cooking. This was the smallest mess.
Each mess had its fire, about which the men lounged after eating, to
smoke their pipes and joke and tell stories.
“Yes, siree; there’s a lot of money wrapped up in a bull outfit,” quoth
Wagon Boss Charley. “Take this train here. The most of those wagons are
‘Murphies’ (by which he meant wagons manufactured by J. Murphy, of St.
Louis), or else the Conestoga pattern built down at Westport (and by
Westport was meant Kansas City). Only the best of stuff goes into those
wagons. Hickory, generally――though osage orange is said to be better,
for it won’t warp. But second growth hickory and sound white oak answer
the purpose if they’re so well seasoned that they won’t shrink or warp.
This dry air out on these plains plays the dickens with wheels; it saps
them dry and makes them so they want to fall to pieces. Well, I reckon
you all know this better than I do. But as I was going to say, one of
these wagons figures easily three hundred dollars, including bows and
canvas. Then, bulls have been seventy-five dollars a yoke, but they’re
rising to double that. Taking the six yoke at five hundred dollars,
and adding the yokes and bows and chains and other gear, you’ll have
nigh to a thousand dollars in each wagon outfit. With twenty-five and
twenty-six wagons making a train there’s twenty-five thousand dollars
in outfit alone. And Russell, Majors & Waddell have bull trains like
this every five or six miles clear across from the Missouri River to
Salt Lake!”
“Not to speak of the wages of the men and the cost of the supplies,”
added Joel Badger.
“Yes, sir; not to mention the thirty or more men with every train at a
dollar a day up; and the beans and flour and sowbelly and coffee they
use.”
“Just the same,” observed Joel, “I hear that in Fifty-six, before
Waddell joined, Majors & Russell cleaned up about seventy thousand
dollars with three hundred wagons at work.”
Charley nodded.
“You can sum up for yourself. We’re hauling flour at nine cents a
pound, meat at fifteen cents, furniture at thirty cents, hardware at
ten cents; and my waybill shows we’re loaded with one hundred and
sixty-three thousand pounds of freight, averaging, I reckon, at least
fifteen cents.”
“Which totals up between twenty-five and twenty-six thousand dollars,
as I make it,” proffered Joel.
“Of course, the outfits don’t earn that both ways,” reminded Henry
Renick, scouring a skillet. “They travel back empty.”
“Well, twenty-five thousand dollars for the round trip to the mountains
isn’t so bad,” said Charley.
“No,” grunted Yank, the assistant wagon boss. “Russell, Majors &
Waddell are makin’ their profits, all right. They can sit at home an’
take things easy. But the trail’s a hard life for the rest of us.”
“Don’t you believe they take it easy,” retorted Charley. “Did you ever
hear of Alex Majors taking it easy? And look at Billy Russell, with
all the Leavenworth freighting on his shoulders. Besides, they know
that one big blizzard or one Indian war would wipe them out in spite of
their hustle. No; they’ve got the worry; we’ve got the picnic.”
“’Twould serve ’em right if they did get wiped out once in a while,”
growled Yank, who evidently was as narrow-minded as his eyes indicated.
“That psalm-singin’ old whiskers has too many notions. No swearin’, no
drinkin’ no bull skinnin’, no fightin’, every man read the Bible an’
lay up on Sunday! An outfit can’t do freightin’ on these plains an’
follow any such rules as those.”
“See here,” bade Charley, sternly. He was a gritty little chap.
“You’re new amongst us, my man, and I’ll warn you that when you speak
to us of Mr. Majors or Mr. Russell or Mr. Waddell either, you want to
do it civilly. They may have their peculiar notions of how to run a
bull outfit, but I notice they’ve made good already with about twenty
million pounds of Government freight, and that’s a pretty big contract.
They’re a firm whose word is equal to a United States banknote; and
there’s not a man who ever worked for them that won’t stick up for
Russell, Majors & Waddell. A kinder man than Mr. Majors never lived;
and if he tries to spread a little Christianity along the trail all the
more credit to him, and all the better for the rest of us. We need some
of that out here. The fact is a Russell, Majors & Waddell bull train is
the best on the trail, besides being decent.”
“Well,” rapped Yank, “as long as I do the work I’m hired to do I’ll
allow no man to tell me how to act. When I signed that pledge for the
whiskers outfit I didn’t mean to keep it an’ I sha’n’t if I don’t
choose.”
He stalked off; they gazed after――Charley with a keen glint in his gray
eyes.
“There’s a man” spoke Henry the mess cook, “who’ll take it out on
animals when he gets mad. He’s just mean enough.”
“He’ll not take it out on my team,” remarked Joel, quietly. “I don’t
whip my bulls.”
“No, nor on mine,” asserted Henry.
“Anybody who thinks he has to beat bulls to drive them doesn’t know how
to drive,” added Charley.
That night they all slept on the ground under blankets and quilts
and buffalo robes; many of the men slept beneath their wagons. The
neck-yokes of the oxen, with an overcoat folded into the hollow of the
curve in them, made comfortable pillows. At least so Davy found his
when, to be a veteran bull whacker, he borrowed a yoke and tried. Two
men at a time night-herded the cattle. Davy, being an “extra,” did not
go on herd yet.
The mess cooks were up at dawn preparing breakfast; and speedily the
collection of little camps was astir. The men called back and forth,
washed at the nearby creek, brought water in buckets, and what fuel
they found, and were ready for breakfast when breakfast was ready for
them. The company, Davy learned, furnished everything, even to the
gunny sacking in which buffalo chips and bull chips were gathered;
everything except the men’s revolvers. These the men owned.