and he snatched it back again. “I’ve a notion to lay it on _your_ back.
You call yourself a man and abuse dumb beasts that are doing the best
they can and doing it well?” He shook his big fist in Yank’s evil face,
which was turning from the red of anger to the white of fierce hate.
“You touch my team again and I’ll _kill_ you!” roared Joel. “I told you
they were to be let alone and I mean it. Stick that in your pipe and
smoke it.”
Yank said nothing. His eye, where Joel’s fist had thudded, was swollen
shut, but out of the other he glared steadily; and while he did not
move a muscle (he knew better than to move with that revolver muzzle
trained upon him), if a look could have killed, then Joel would have
dropped in his tracks.
Joel slowly backed away, keeping his Colt’s ready.
“Remember,” he warned. “Don’t try that again.” And finally, having
backed far enough, beyond the fringe of men who had gathered, he
hastened after his wagon. Davy’s heart could beat again.
“Joel was right in this,” proclaimed a teamster. “You may be assistant
wagon boss but even the boss himself has no business whipping another
man’s bulls.” And as the men resought their wagons heads wagged and
voices murmured in agreement therewith.
As for Yank, he was growing red again; he cautiously wiped his injured
eye, his hand twitched upon the butt of his revolver, and picking up
his hat he stumbled forward as if in a dream. The way he acted was more
dangerous, it seemed to Davy, than if he had stormed and threatened.
And Davy was afraid for Joel.
The train passed through the sandy hollow without further mishap; and
when they climbed out and pulled on over the next rise they met the
buffalo hunters returning. The mules’ saddles were red with meat, and
the three riders were well pleased with their hunt.
The sun was low over the trail before, making golden the dust of travel.
“We’ll camp here, boys,” called Charley, cheerfully, “and do what
butchering we need on those buffalo carcasses. Swing out, Joel. Whew,
man! You must have had to lay on the lash a bit heavy, didn’t you?” For
the haunches of the lead team were bloody welted. More than that, the
cracker seemed to have taken a piece of hide out the size of a quarter!
“No,” said Joel, briefly. “I didn’t.”
“Well,” continued Charley, “let’s corral where we are. Yank,
you――what’s the matter with your eye, man?”
“I fell down,” answered Yank, steadily. And at the laugh which went up
he reddened deeply again, and again his hand twitched.
XVII
DAVY “THE BULL WHACKER”
Charley scanned him quizzically for a moment.
“You must have fallen mighty hard,” he remarked. “Who hit you, Yank?”
“That lead teamster o’ yours,” growled Yank, with a string of oaths.
“I’ll get him for that. No man can strike me and stay long on this
earth. The dirty hound!” And he abused Joel horridly.
Joel heard the loud words, and suddenly leaving his team where it
stood, came walking fast.
“None of that!” he called. “You keep a quiet tongue in your head. You
can see what he did to my bulls, Charley. He laid my whip on them. I
allow no man to cut my bulls. I never cut them myself. They were doing
as well as they could.”
Charley quickly stepped between the two――for the hand of each was
poised for the dart to revolver butt.
“That’s enough,” he bade. “There’s to be no fighting in this train and
no swearing. You both know that. Give me your guns. Pass ’em over.”
“All right, Charley,” answered Joel. “Here are mine if you say so. I
don’t need a gun to deal with that fellow.” And unbuckling his belt he
tossed it aside.
“Now it’s up to you, Yank,” addressed Charley.
Yank flushed.
“My guns are my own, an’ I’m goin’ to wear ’em as long as I please,” he
blurted.
“No, you aren’t, Yank,” retorted Charley, coolly. Looking him in the
eye, he walked straight to him. “You needn’t give them to me; I’ll take
them. See?”
He was a little man, was Charley, but he had a great heart and the
nerve to back it up. Reaching, while Yank stood uncertain and cowed, he
jerked both revolvers from the holsters; then he stepped back to put
his foot on Joel’s belt.
“That’s enough,” he said. “I want this matter to end right here. If you
laid whip on another man’s bulls when there wasn’t any need of it I
reckon you got about what you deserved. We’re not bull skinners in this
train. But I’ll have no fighting in the outfit. You fellows can settle
your differences after you leave. Go on and finish your corralling,
Joel. Yank, you saddle a fresh mule from the cavvy and ride out and
help Kentuck and Andy butcher those buffalo. Your mule’s plumb worn
out. Hear me?”
Yank glared at him for a moment, but Charley returned eye for eye.
Presently Yank whirled on his heel, and snatching the bridle of his
mule strode off, muttering, to the cavvy. Joel went back to his team.
Charley shook the cylinders out of the four revolvers, dropped them
into his pockets, and stowed the useless weapons in one of the wagons.
The train proceeded about the business of the hour, and Davy, whose
heart had been beating high, helped.
“The ride out yonder will help to cool his blood a bit,” commented one
of the teamsters, referring to Yank――who, leading Andy and Kentuck, was
galloping furiously away. As for Joel, he was acting as if the recent
trouble was ancient history――except that when he examined the wounds on
his two beloved oxen he shook his head.
The teams had been unhitched from the wagons and were being led aside
to water and pasture, when a sudden shout arose.
“Look at Yank! Look at him, will you! Where’s he going?”
Everybody stared. Leaving Andy and Kentuck behind, Yank, without
slackening pace, was galloping on and on through the area where the
buffalo herd had been and where the carcasses were lying. Andy and
Kentuck yelled at him, but he paid no heed. And from the wagon train
welled another chorus of cries.
“He’s taking French leave! He’s deserting!”
“Let him go, boys,” quoth Charley, coloring, but making no move. “I’ll
send him his guns sometime; but he’s forfeited his pay. If he wants to
have things that way, good enough. We’re better off without him.”
The men grunted, satisfied; nobody liked the unruly, foul-mouthed Yank.
Soon he disappeared over a rise and he was not seen again by Davy for a
year.
The camp that evening seemed much pleasanter without the presence of
Yank. With him absent and with plenty of buffalo meat on hand, the men
laughed and joked to even an unusual extent. It was a carefree camp.
“Here are your guns, Joel,” said Charley, returning them. “Guess I can
trust you with them now. Well, we’re a short train, with two men shy.
I’d rather lose Yank than Sailor Bill; but they’re both gone. Kentuck,
you’re promoted to assistant wagon boss; and I’ll have to turn your
team over to Dave, here. They’re well broken and I reckon he can drive
them. How about it, Dave?”
Davy was somewhat flustered. He to be a bull whacker? Hurrah!
“I’ll try,” he stammered.
“Sure you will; and you’ll make good. Fact is, those bulls drive
themselves. But you can learn a heap, anyway. All right. You take
Kentuck’s outfit in the morning and go ahead. The boys will help you
if you get in trouble. I can’t spare Joel; he’s too good a man in the
lead, and we need him there.”
That night Davy could scarcely go to sleep. He was excited. He wondered
if he really could “make good” as a bull whacker. He had practised with
the whip and could “throw” it pretty well, although it was a long lash
for a boy. But he had found out that to wield a bull whip and “pop” it
required a certain knack rather than mere strength; and, besides, the
bull teams behind kept up with the wagons before as a matter of habit.
Of course, corralling and yoking were the chief difficulties. But he
had watched closely what the men did every day, and he thought that
he _knew_ how, at least. At any rate, he was bound to try. To handle
twelve oxen seemed to him a bigger job than being a messenger.
It was a proud Dave who, early in the morning, after breakfast, at the
cry “Catch up, men! Catch up!” shouldered his yoke and the two bows,
and sturdily trotted for the corral. He knew how to begin. The proper
method was to lay the heavy yoke across one shoulder with the bows
hanging from your arm. One pin was carried in your mouth, the other in
your hand. The ends of the bows passed up through the yoke, so that
only one end needed a pin thrust through above the yoke to hold it; the
other end stayed of itself.
Davy felt that the men were watching him out of the corners of their
eyes. He heard somebody say, aside, bantering: “Look out, boys, or
that kid will beat us!” Of course he could not do _that_! Not yet. But
Charley called to him from the forward gap, where somebody must stand
to keep the cattle in: “The wheel team first, Dave. You know them, do
you? A pair of big roans.”
Davy nodded. He remembered them; he had marked them well by a good
scrutiny when the herd was being driven in from pasture.
“All right,” said Charley. “You’ll find them together. The whole bunch
ought to be together.”
The corral was crowded with oxen and men, and appeared a mass of
confusion; but there was little confusion, for by this time the oxen
and the men all knew their business. Davy pushed his way straight to
the two big roans (the largest and stoutest bulls always were chosen
for the wheel team, because they must hold up the heavy pole and also
must stand up to the weight of the wagon down hill), and in approved
fashion laid the yoke across the neck of one.
“Be sure you yoke ’em like they’re used to travellin’, lad,” warned a
kind teamster. “The near and the off bull, or you’ll have trouble.”
Davy nodded again. He had noted this also. The “near” bull meant
the bull that was yoked to stand on the left; the “off” bull was
the right-hand one. The near bull of this team had a short horn, he
remembered. He slipped the bow under the near bull’s neck, and standing
on the outside, or left, inserted the ends of the bow up through the
yoke and slipped the pin in to hold it. Then he hustled around to the
opposite side of the “off” bull, who was standing close to his mate,
shoved him about (“Get ’round there, you!” ordered Davy, gruffly), and
reaching for the yoke lifted it across, adjusted the bow (from the
outside), slipped in the pin from his mouth――and there he had his wheel
pair yoked together!
Now proud indeed, he led his yoke out through the other bulls to his
wagon. They took position on either side of the pole, although they
seemed a little puzzled by the change in manager. Now it only remained
to lift the pole and put the end through the ring riveted to extend
below the middle of the yoke.
“Lead team next,” said Davy, wisely, to himself, leaving his wheel team
and hurrying to shoulder another yoke and its bows and re-enter the
wagon corral.
Every man was supposed to know his twelve bulls as a father knows
his children. Davy’s lead team were spotted fellows, with long black
horns. He went straight to them where they stood, waiting; yoked
them masterfully and led them, too, out to the wagon. He put them in
position, and with the four other yokes built his whole team――starting
from the rear. The train was ready and watching, but not impatient. The
men gave him time.
From the middle of each yoke the massive log chain by which they pulled
ran between them back to the yoke of the pair behind――save that the
wheel team pulled by the tongue and had no chain. Davy worked hard to
hook the chains. A man stepped forward to help him; but Charley called
promptly:
“Let him alone, boys. He’s doing well. He’ll get the hang of it. Every
man to his own team, you know.”
And Davy was glad.
“All set,” he announced shrilly, for his team were hooked at last.
“All set,” repeated Charley. “Line out, boys.”
To brisk shout from Joel and crack of his whip the lead team
straightened their chains and the wagon moved ahead. One after another
the other wagons followed; and Davy’s team fell into place almost
before he had “popped” his whip and had joined in the cries:
“Haw, Buck! Hep! Hep with you!”
The train retook the trail, Davy trudging like any other bull whacker
on the left side of his wheel yoke, his whip over his shoulder, his hat
shoved back from his perspiring forehead. He doubted if even Billy Cody
could have done better; and he wished that Billy might see him.
Ever the trail unfolded on and on, sometimes skirting the shallow
Platte, sometimes diverging a little to seek easier route. It traversed
a country very unattractive, broken by the clayey buttes and by deep
washes, and running off into wide, sandy plateaus and bottoms, rife
with jack-rabbits, coyotes, prairie-dogs, antelope, and occasional
buffalo. The rattlesnakes were a great nuisance; the men killed them
with the whip lashes by neatly cutting off their heads as they coiled
or sometimes shot them. And almost every morning somebody complained of
a snake creeping into his warm blanket.
The processions of emigrants continued as thick as ever, bound for
“Pike’s Peak,” for Salt Lake, California and Oregon. Each day the stage
for Denver and the stage for Leavenworth passed, dusty and hurrying;
and now was given a glimpse, once in two weeks, of the Hockaday &
Liggett stages, which travelled twice a month between St. Joseph,
above Leavenworth, and Salt Lake City. Occasionally Indians――Cheyennes,
Arapahoes, Pawnees and Sioux――came into the camps begging for “soog”
and “cof” and “tobac.”
Davy enjoyed every mile and he did splendidly. He enjoyed even the
never-varying diet of “sowbelly” (salt pork), baked beans, hot bread,
and sugarless, milkless coffee, eked out by buffalo meat and antelope
meat when they could get it. Some of the men tried prairie-dogs――which
weren’t so bad as they sound, tasting and looking like chicken or
rabbit. The main difficulty was to get them after they had been shot,
for they almost always managed to tumble into their holes. Then, when
anybody put a hand in to drag them out, it was met by the angry whirr
of a rattle-snake. A rattle-snake and a little owl seemed to live in
each hole along with the prairie-dog family!
There were storms, coming up with startling suddenness. One storm, at
Cottonwood Springs a hundred miles west of Kearney, Davy never forgot.
It was a hail storm. First a mighty cloud of deep purple shot through
with violet lightning, swelled over the trail in the west. Emigrants
scuttled to secure their wagons, and at Charley’s sharp commands so did
the bull train.
“It looks like a twister, boys,” shouted Charley, riding back along the
train. “Better corral. I’m afraid for these bulls.”
So the train corralled in a jiffy; and, unyoked, the bulls were driven
inside. The tongues were hung in the draw ropes of the wagon covers and
the wheels were chained, wagon to wagon. Slickers were jerked out from
the wagons and donned; and the men prepared to crawl under the wagon
boxes if necessary.
With angry mutter and swollen shape the purple cloud came on at a
tremendous pace. The spin-drift of it caught the plain far ahead, and
one after another the trains of the emigrants were swallowed in the
blackness. When the first gust struck the bull train the touch was icy
cold.
“Hail, boys! Hail!” shouted Charley. “Watch the bulls!”
Now sounded a clatter like rain on a sheet-iron roof; and across the
landscape of sand and clay, and a cottonwood grove at the mouth of the
creek, swept a line of white. The men dived for cover like prairie-dogs
whisking into their holes.
Yes, it was hail! Such hail! Driven by a gale the stones, some as large
as hickorynuts, and all as large as filberts, lashed the huddled train;
whanged against canvas and wagon-box and with dull thuds bounded from
the bulls’ backs. Some of the animals shifted uneasily, for the stones
stung. The others stood groaning and grunting with discomfort, shaking
their heads when a particularly vicious missile landed on an ear. Under
the wagons the men were secure; but Dave felt sorry for the poor bulls
who turned and sought in vain.
As quickly as it had come the storm passed, leaving the ground white
with the hail. Almost before the men had crawled out from underneath
their wagons the sun was shining.
The hail had not damaged the bull train to any extent. There were dents
in the tough wood where the heavy stones had struck, and several of
the wagon sheets, forming the hoods, had been punctured in weak spots;
but thanks to Charley’s promptness in corralling, the animals had
not stampeded. However, some of the emigrants had not fared so well,
because they had not known what to do. After the bull train was yoked
up again and was travelling on, it passed two emigrant outfits stalled
by the trail, trying to recover their teams which had run away. Many of
the flimsy cotton hoods used by the emigrants were riddled into strips.
The Overland Trail followed up the south side of the Platte, the same
way by which Dave had come down with the Lew Simpson train a year
before, after the fight in the mule fort. Where the North Platte
and the South Platte joined current it continued on up the South
Platte――and now to the north a short distance was the place where the
mule fort had been located so hastily by Billy Cody and Lew and George
Woods.
Soon the main trail for Salt Lake and California forded the South
Platte to cross the narrow point of land for Ash Hollow at the North
Platte and for Laramie and Salt Lake City. But the Denver branch
proceeded on into the west by the newer trail to the mountains and
Denver.
This branch of the Overland Trail down to Denver was only six months
old, but already it was a well-worn trail, scored deep by the stages
and by the thousands of emigrants and the constant freight outfits. The
travel eastward, toward the States, was almost as great now as that
westbound, for fall had come and everybody who was intending to return
to the States had started so as to get there before winter. A winter
journey by wagon across these plains was no fun.
After the parting of the trail, the next station on the route was
Jules’ Ranch. Jules was an old French-Indian trapper and trader, whose
full name (as he claimed) was Jules Beni. His mother was a Cheyenne
Indian, and Jules had built a trading post here, a mile beyond
Lodgepole Creek, for trade with the Cheyennes. Now Jules had turned his
attention to the new business that had opened, and he was selling flour
to the Pike’s Peak “pilgrims” at a dollar a pound. He had been smart
enough to break a new trail that would bring the travel between the
North and the South Platte past his place――for the regular crossing was
east of him. He was smart, was Old Jules, and now he had just been made
stage agent.
“I want all you fellows to keep clear of Old Jules,” cautioned
Charley, as the train approached what some of the men jokingly called
“Julesburg.” “I’ve never seen him when he wasn’t drunk and he’s a
corker for losing his temper and picking fights. Then he wants to kill
somebody. When he’s in liquor he’s plumb crazy. He’s shot two men and
carries their ears in his pocket. I’m not afraid of him, and neither
are you; but to-morrow’s Sunday and we’ll tie up near his place, and I
don’t want trouble.”
“Why don’t you pull right through, Charley?” asked Andy Johnson, as a
spokesman. “We’re agreeable. ‘Dirty Jules’ is no great attraction.”
“Well,” said Charley, “we usually do ease off on Sunday, and it’s
company orders and I don’t propose to change the programme at this
stage of the game.”
XVIII
BILLY CODY TURNS UP AGAIN
The Russell, Majors & Waddell bull trains were under instructions to
lie by over Sunday whenever possible. By some people this was accounted
a waste of time. However, Mr. Majors especially insisted that Sunday
should be Sunday wherever it fell, in town or on the danger trail. One
day in seven might well be spent in rest even with a bull train. It
brought the men and cattle through in better shape, and was a gain that
way instead of any loss.
So that evening the wagon train corralled near the Platte River
crossing, where the Salt Lake Trail turned north, about half a mile
east from Jules’ Ranch. The river was a great convenience, for on
Sunday the men usually tried to slick up by bathing and washing their
clothing and tidying generally. Therefore, after breakfast the brush
near the river bank was soon displaying shirts and handkerchiefs of red
and blue, and sundry pairs of socks, spread out to dry, while their
owners sat around and fought mosquitoes and watched the wagon outfits.
Some of these forded the river for Salt Lake, Oregon or California, but
most of them kept on up the Denver branch.
This was interrupted by a distant hullabaloo――a yelling and cheering
mingled. The air was thin and still and very clear, so that sound and
eyesight carried far through it. The hullabaloo evidently came from
Jules’ Ranch, where at the group of buildings a crowd of people had
gathered. Davy’s shirt was dry, and he reached for it.
“Must be having a celebration over yonder,” drawled Kentuck. “Reckon
I’ll go see.”
He donned his red shirt and started. Several others made ready to go;
and Davy, as curious as anybody, decided that he would go, too. So,
wriggling into his clothes, whether they were dry or not, he followed
along up the trail to Jules’ place.
The ranch was a small collection of adobe or sun-baked clay buildings,
and a log shack which was the store. The main excitement was centred
in front of the store. The crowd had formed a circle at a respectful
distance. They were emigrants and a few of the Charley Martin bull
train.
“What’s the row?” queried Kentuck of a man at his elbow.
“’Pears like this fellow Jules is having a leetle time with himself,”
answered the man. “I ’low he’s crazy. He’s got whiskey and flour out
thar on the ground and says he’s mixing mortar. It’s a good place for
the whiskey, but it’s an awful waste of flour.”
Edging through the circle, Davy peered to see. A dirty, darkly sallow
visaged, hairy man, in soiled shirt, and trousers sagging from their
belt, was capering and screeching, and hoeing at a white mass which
might have been real mortar. But the smell of whiskey was strong in the
air, and there stood a barrel of it with the head knocked in. The white
stuff was flour, for, as Davy looked, the capering hairy man grabbed a
sack, tore it open and emptied it on the pile.
“I show you how I mek one gr-r-rand mortarr,” he proclaimed. “Flour
at one dollar ze pound, whiskey at ten dollars ze quart; zat ze way
ol’ Jules mek gr-r-rand mortarr. Wow! Hooray! If anybody teenk he mek
one better mortarr, I cut off hees ears. Dees my country; I do as I
please.” And he hoed vigorously at his “mortar bed,” and screeched and
capered and threatened and boasted and made a fool of himself.
Some of the crowd laughed and applauded; but the majority were
disgusted. To Davy it seemed a great pity that any human being should
so lose all control of himself and be less human than an ape. He
speedily tired of this silly exhibition by Jules, the store-keeper, and
turned away for fresh air. He and Charley, the wagon boss, emerged from
the crowd together.
“Old Jules is spoiling his own business, I reckon,” observed Charley.
“How any man can watch that in there and ever taste whiskey again is
more than I know. To see him make a fool of himself is better than
signing a pledge.”
The crowd rapidly wearied of this drunken Jules and his antics and
dwindled away. As for Davy, he had decided to take a walk to the mouth
of Lodgepole Creek, up the river a short distance. Lodgepole Creek
emptied in on the opposite side of the Platte, and was named because
the Cheyennes used to gather their lodge poles along it.
The Platte flowed shallow and wide, with many sand bars and ripples,
and many deepish holes where the water eddied rapidly. The banks were
fringed with willows not very high. From a rise in the trail Dave,
trudging stanchly in his heavy dusty boots, beheld an object, far up
the channel, beyond the willow tops, floating down.
It was a large object flat to the water, and as he peered he saw a
flash as from an oar-blade. A boat! No――too large and low for a boat.
It must be a raft with somebody aboard. Davy waited, inquisitive; for
craft floating on the Platte were a curiosity. The upper river was too
shallow, especially at this time of the year.
The raft came on gallantly and swiftly. It carried three persons and
their outfit. The crew were standing up: one of them steering, behind,
and one at either edge, with oars, was helping to fend off from the
bars. It looked like an easy mode of travel, and Davy prepared to stand
out and give the voyagers a cheer.