hang on a snag or else strike a sudden eddy; or perhaps it did both
at once; nobody could tell. Under Davy’s astonished eyes it stopped for
a moment in mid-stream; the crew wildly dug with their oars and fell to
their hands and knees; whirling around and around the platform fairly
melted away underneath them, leaving only three black dots on the
surface of the water. These were heads!
Waking to the situation, Davy waved and shouted; the swimmers may
have seen him, he thought, because they were making for his side.
The current bore them along, as sometimes they swam and sometimes
they waded; and he kept pace to encourage. As the foremost neared the
bank, Davy rushed down and waded in to meet him and help him ashore.
He wasn’t a very large person――that drenched figure floundering and
splashing for safety; he wasn’t large at all; and extending a hand, to
give him a boost, Davy gasped, only half believing:
“Why――hello, Billy! Gee whiz! Is that you?”
[Illustration: “WHY――HELLO, BILLY! IS THAT YOU?”]
“Hello, Dave,” answered Billy Cody, muddy and dripping, but calmly
shaking Dave’s hand. “I guess it must be. Where are Hi and Jim?” And he
turned quickly to scan the river. “Good. They’re coming. I knew they
could swim. They can swim better than I, so I reckoned I’d get ashore
as soon as I could. What are you doing here and where are you bound
for?”
“I’m bull whacking for Russell, Majors & Waddell from Leavenworth to
Denver,” informed Davy, proudly. “Where are you bound for?”
“Back to the river.” And by “the river” Davy knew that Billy meant the
Missouri. “We didn’t have any luck in the diggin’s, so we thought we’d
float home down the Platte to the Missouri and down the Missouri to
Leavenworth. Well, we got this far, anyhow.”
“Jiminy crickets!” shouted Hi, now plashing in. “If here isn’t Dave
waiting for us! Did you come all the way from Leavenworth to meet us,
Dave?”
And there was a great shaking of hands.
“I dunno what the dickens happened to us out there,” volunteered Jim,
gazing at the river suspiciously. “One moment we were just sailing
along and next moment we were swimming. No more sailoring for me; I’d
rather walk with a bull team. Here we’ve lost our whole outfit and
we’re going home from the diggin’s ‘busted’ flat.”
“We didn’t have much to lose; that’s one comfort,” said Billy. “Think
how bad we’d be feeling if we’d struck it rich up in the mountains and
every ounce was now at the bottom of the Platte! Huh! We’ve had our
fun, anyhow. Who’s your wagon boss, Dave?”
“Charley Martin.”
“Where are you camped?”
“At the Platte crossing, just below Jules’.”
“All right,” quoth Billy, cheerily. “Come on, boys. I’m going down to
the camp and see what I can get, and Charley’ll grub-stake us home.”
They had clambered up the bank into the dryness, and now they continued
down the trail――Billy and Hi and Jim clumping and squashing, Davy
tramping sturdily in his teamster costume of flannel shirt and trousers
tucked into big boots.
“So you’re a sure-’nough bull whacker, are you?” asked Hi of Davy, with
a grin.
“I was hired just as an ‘extra’ for carrying messages, you know,” said
Davy, to be both honest and modest. “But we ran short of men so Charley
put me at whacking. I can sling a whip some; that is, pretty good. The
bulls are trained, anyway.”
“When did you begin?” asked Billy.
“Back at Plum Creek.”
“If you’ve held your job this far, then, I guess you can hold it as
long as you like. Bully for you, Red.” And at Billy’s generous praise
Davy blushed.
The excitement at Jules’ trading store had quieted and only the mess of
whiskey-sodden flour remained. Billy and Jim paid scant attention to
this, except that they, too, were disgusted when they heard what old
Jules had been up to. They were more intent upon getting to the wagon
train camp. And here Charley Martin and the whole outfit, in fact,
received them with a great ado. Everybody in the train seemed to know
Billy, and almost everybody knew Hi and Jim.
There was a stranger to Davy in camp. He had arrived in a light buggy
drawn by a strong, spirited team of black horses, and was chatting with
Charley. His name proved to be B. F. Ficklin――“Ben” Ficklin. He shook
hands with Billy, and Billy introduced Dave.
“Mr. Ficklin, this is my friend Dave Scott, youngest bull whacker on
the plains.”
“You want to watch out or he’ll catch up with you, Billy,” bantered Mr.
Ficklin.
“I shouldn’t wonder,” answered Billy, carelessly. “But I’ve got a head
start over him. I’m a prairie sailor sure now, and navigation on the
Platte is closed!”
Not only in sailing on the Platte, but in many other feats Dave never
did catch up with Billy Cody.
Mr. Ficklin was the general superintendent of the Russell, Majors &
Waddell freighting and staging business. He bore the news that the
company had taken over the stage outfit of Hockaday & Liggett, which
ran twice a month from St. Joseph on the Missouri to Salt Lake on the
Platte River Overland Route, and were going to combine the Leavenworth
& Pike’s Peak Express with it. He himself was on his way from Denver,
back down the trail to inspect the condition of the stations from the
Platte crossing to the Missouri.
“We’re going to make this stage line a hummer, boys,” he informed.
“Hockaday & Liggett have been running two times a month on a schedule
of twenty-one days to Salt Lake; no stations, and same team without
change for several hundreds of miles at a stretch. The company are
putting in stations every ten and fifteen miles all along the Overland
route from the river to Salt Lake, and stocking them with provisions
and fodder. We’re buying the best Kentucky mules that we can find and
ordering more Concord coaches; and we’re going to put a coach through
every day in the year, from the Missouri to Salt Lake, on a ten-day
schedule, by the Salt Lake Overland Trail to the crossing here, then
north to Laramie and over the South Pass. A stage will be sent down to
Denver, too.”
Mr. Ficklin evidently was an enthusiast. Davy had heard of him――a hard
worker and a booster for the company that he loved.
“What’s ever become of the scheme of yours and that California senator,
Gwin, to put a fast mail service through, horseback, from St. Louis to
San Francisco, by the Overland route, at $500 for each round trip,”
asked Joel of Mr. Ficklin.
“Nothing yet. Senator Gwin was right for it after our talk on the stage
from California five years ago, and he introduced a bill in Congress;
but the bill died. The California people are howling, though, for
something better than news three weeks to six weeks old from the East.
And mark my words,” continued Mr. Ficklin, earnestly, “that’s what will
happen next――a pony express from the Missouri to the coast that will
beat the stage.”
“Do you think they’ll stretch a line of relays clear across for two
thousand miles and keep it going day and night passing the mail along?”
demanded Billy, his eyes sparkling at the fancy.
“Yes, sir,” answered Mr. Ficklin, shortly.
“Well, when they do I want to ride one of the runs――one that will keep
me hopping, too,” declared Billy.
XIX
DAVY MAKES ANOTHER CHANGE
“Did you see my mother when you were back East, Dave?” asked Billy.
“Yes.”
“How’s she looking?”
“Not extra good, Billy. She’s not very well, and she said if I came
across you to tell you she’d like to see you as soon as she could.”
“How are the girls?”
“They’re all right.”
“I’m sorry about ma,” mused Billy, soberly. “If she’s poorly I’m going
home as straight as I can travel, you can bet on that.”
“We can give you a job with the bull train, Billy,” proffered Charley
Martin. “We’re short of men.”
But Billy shook his head.
“No, sir. I’m due at the Cody place in Salt Creek Valley.”
“Well, Billy, in that case I’ll pass you through on the next stage, if
there’s room,” volunteered Mr. Ficklin.
“I can hang on somewhere,” asserted Billy. “The pass is the main thing.
Never mind the room.”
While they all were talking a new arrival halted near. It was an army
ambulance――a wagon with black leather top, seats running around the
inside, and four big black army mules as the team. It was bound west.
A soldier in dusty blue uniform was the driver, and a corporal of
infantry sat beside him, between his knees a Sharp’s carbine. From
the rear of the ambulance another soldier briskly piled out. By his
shoulder straps and the white stripes down his trouser-seams he was an
officer; by the double bars on his shoulder straps a captain. He wore a
revolver in holster.
He walked over to the group and nodded.
“Hello, Ben.”
“How are you, captain.” And Mr. Ficklin arose to shake hands.
“Gentlemen,” continued Mr. Ficklin, “I want to introduce Captain Brown.”
“I believe I know the captain,” spoke Charley, also shaking hands.
“Hello, Billy,” addressed the captain, catching sight of him. “What’s
the matter? Been swimming?”
“Yes,” laughed Billy. “The water’s a little cold up in the mountains,
so I took my annual down here.”
“Billy’s been at the diggin’s, captain,” vouchsafed Mr. Ficklin. “He
brought down so much gold in his hide that he couldn’t travel till he’d
washed it out.”
Billy took their joking good-naturedly. That he was going home “broke”
had not discouraged him at all.
“I know one thing, gentlemen,” he declared. “I’m not a miner, but I
had to learn. The plains for me after this. You’ll find me bobbing up
again.”
“Yes, you can’t keep Billy Cody down, that’s a fact,” agreed Mr.
Ficklin. “Where are you bound, captain? Denver?”
“No, sir. Laramie. I’ve just come through from Omaha. I hear you
fellows are putting on a daily stage to Salt Lake to connect there with
the line for San Francisco.”
“Yes, sir. It’ll be running this month, and it’ll be a hummer. I’m on
my way to inspect the stations now.”
“This is my friend Dave Scott, captain,” introduced Billy, in his
generous way. “He’s the youngest bull whacker on the trail.”
“He must be a pretty close second to you, then, Billy,” remarked
Captain Brown, extending his hand to Davy, who, as usual, felt
embarrassed. “You started in rather young yourself!” The captain (who
was a tanned, stoutly-built man, with short russet beard and keen
hazel eyes) scanned Davy sharply. He scratched his head. “I don’t see
why I can’t get hold of a boy like you or Billy,” he said. “I prefer
red-headed boys. I was red-headed myself once, before the Indians
scared my hair off.”
“You’re a bit red-headed now, captain,” slyly asserted Charley; for
the captain’s bald pate certainly was well burned by the sun.
“Well, I _feel_ red-headed, too,” retorted the captain. “So would you
if every time you got a clerk he deserted to the gold fields. Lend me
this boy, will you, Martin? He’s in your train, isn’t he? I’ll take him
on up to Laramie with me and give him a good job in the quartermaster’s
department. There’s a place there for somebody just about his size,
boots and all.” And the captain, who evidently had taken a fancy to the
sturdy Dave, smiled at him.
All of a sudden Davy wanted to go. He had heard of Fort Laramie, that
important headquarters post on the North Platte in western Nebraska
(which is to-day Wyoming) near the mountains, and he wanted to see
it. Billy had been there several times with the bull trains out of
Leavenworth, and had told him about it.
“I’d like to oblige you, captain,” answered Charley. “But we’re short
handed this trip, and Davy’s a valuable man. He’s making quite a bull
whacker. Besides, I reckon he’s counting on going to school this winter
in Leavenworth; aren’t you, Davy?”
Davy nodded.
“I thought I’d better,” he said. “That’s one reason I left Denver.”
“He can go to school at Laramie,” asserted the captain quickly. “We
have a school for the post children there, and it’s a good one.”
Davy listened eagerly, and it was plain to be seen how _he_ was
inclined. Denver meant only a short stay, for Charley was anxious to
start back again before winter closed in on the plains, and there might
not be any chance to see Mr. Baxter, after all. Laramie sounded good.
“Oh, shucks!” blurted Jim. “If you want to let Dave out, Charley, I’d
as lief go on to Denver and finish with you.”
“So would I,” added Hi.
“How about it, Dave?” queried Charley. “Is it Denver or Leavenworth, or
Laramie, for you?”
“I’d like to try Laramie first-rate but I don’t want to quit the train
unless you say so,” answered Dave, honestly. “I hired out for the trip,
and Mr. Russell and Mr. Majors expect me to go through.”
“Mr. Majors knows me and so does Billy Russell,” put in the captain.
“I’ll write Majors a letter and give him a receipt for one red-headed
boy, with guarantee of good treatment. I tell you, Martin, the
United States has need for one red-headed boy, name of Dave, in the
quartermaster service at Fort Laramie; and I believe I’ll have to send
a detail out on the trail and seize him by force of arms.” The captain,
of course, was joking, but he also seemed in earnest. “If he’s employed
by Russell, Majors & Waddell that’s recommendation enough, and I want
him all the more.”
Charley laughed.
“Oh, in that case, and if he wants to go, I suppose I’ll have to let
him, and take Jim and Hi on in his place. They two ought to be able to
fill his job. If you say so, Dave, I’ll give you your discharge right
away, and a voucher for your pay to date, and you can see how you like
the army for a change.”
“Go ahead, Red,” bade Billy. “You’ll learn a heap, and I’ll be out that
way myself soon. First thing you know you’ll see me coming through
driving stage or riding that pony express. Whoop-la!”
And of this Davy did not have the slightest doubt.
Captain Brown declined an invitation to stay for dinner with the mess.
He was in a hurry. So the exchange of Davy from bull whacking to
Government service was quickly made. Before he was an hour older he had
shaken hands with everybody within reach and was trundling northward
in the black covered ambulance beside Captain Brown. He knew that in
another hour or two Billy himself would be travelling east, back to
Salt Creek Valley and Leavenworth; and that early in the morning the
bull train, with Charley and Joel and Kentuck and Hi and Jim and all,
would be travelling west for the end of the trail at Denver.
This was just like the busy West in those days; friends were constantly
mingling and parting, each on active business――to meet again a little
later and report what they had been doing in the progress of the big
country.
“You’re too young to follow bull whacking, my boy,” declared the
captain. “It’s a rough life and a hard one. To earn your own way
and know how to hold up your end and take care of yourself is all
very well; but you’d better mix in with it the education of books and
cultured people as much as you can while you go along. Then you’ll grow
up an all-round man instead of a one-sided man. Laramie’s a long way
from the States; but we’ve got a small post school and a few books, and
it’s the home of a lot of cultured men and women. You’ll learn things
there that you’ll never learn roughing it on the trail.”
And Davy looked forward to life at old Fort Laramie, the famous army
post and freight and emigrant station on the Overland Trail to Salt
Lake, Oregon and California.
The fording of the Platte was made in quick time to foil the
quicksands. The North Platte was now scarce eighteen miles across the
narrow tongue of land separating the two rivers above their juncture.
It was struck at Ash Hollow. Ash Hollow had a grocery store for
emigrant trade. The sign read “BUTTE, REGGS, FLOWER and MELE.”
Captain Brown halted here long enough to buy a few crackers and some
sardines.
“Thought we’d stock up while we can,” he explained to Dave. “These and
what buffalo meat we have will carry us quite a way. Laramie’s one
hundred and sixty miles, and I’m going to push right through.”
The four stout mules ambled briskly at a good eight miles an hour,
following the trail into the west, up the south bank of the river. The
trail was broad and plain, but it was not so crowded with emigrants
as it had been before the Pike’s Peak portion of it had branched off.
However, there still were emigrants; and there were many bull trains
bound out for Laramie and Fort Bridger and Salt Lake, for this was the
main Overland Trail, dating back fifty years.
The ambulance rolled on without slackening, except for sand or short
rises, until after sunset. Then the captain gave the word to stop. By
this time he knew Dave’s history, and Davy was liking him immensely.
They clambered stiffly out. The driver and corporal unhitched the
mules: and while the corporal made a fire for coffee, the driver (who
was a private) put the mules out to graze.
“We’ll take four hours, Mike,” said the captain to the corporal. “Then
we’ll make another spurt until daylight.”
“Yes, sir,” answered the corporal, saluting.
“You’d do well to crawl in the wagon and sleep, after supper, Dave,”
advised the captain to Davy. “We’ll be travelling the rest of the
night. Can you stand it?”
Davy laughed. A great question, that, to ask of a boy who’d just been a
bull whacker walking across the plains!
Nevertheless, Davy took a nap in the bottom of the ambulance; and more
than a nap. When he awakened, he had been aroused by the jolting of
his bed. A buffalo robe had been thrown over him, the captain was
sitting in a corner snugly wrapped, and by the light of a half moon the
ambulance was again upon its way.
In the morning, when they once more halted to rest and feed the mules,
the country was considerably rougher, with hills and fantastic rocks
breaking the sagy, gravelly landscape. The white-topped wagons of
emigrants and the smoke of their camp-fires were in sight, before and
behind; and not far ahead a bull outfit were driving their bulls into
the wagon corral to yoke up for the day’s trail.
Breakfast was coffee and buffalo meat; but Corporal Mike mounted one
of the mules and rode off the trail. When he returned he had some sage
chickens and an antelope. The sides of the ambulance had been rolled
up; and about noon, pointing ahead the captain remarked to Davy:
“That’s Laramie Peak, beyond the post. We’ve got only about eighty
miles to go and we’ll be in bright and early.”
The landmark of Laramie Peak, of the Black Hills Range of the Rocky
Mountains, remained in sight all day, slowly standing higher. The sun
set behind it. Davy snoozed in the bottom of the ambulance. The captain
had spoken truth, for shortly after sunrise they sighted the flag
streaming over Fort Laramie.
Old Fort Laramie was not so large a post as Fort Leavenworth; it was
not so large as Fort Kearney, even. Davy was a little disappointed, for
“Laramie” was a name in the mouth of almost every bull whacker in the
Russell, Majors & Waddell trains out of Leavenworth, and the men were
constantly going “out to Laramie” and back. The post stood on a bare
plateau beside Laramie Creek about a mile up from the Platte; some of
the buildings were white-washed adobe, some were logs, and some were of
rough-sawed lumber. Back of the fort were hills, and beyond the hills,
to the southwest, were mountains――Laramie Peak being the sentinel.
It was the important division point on the Overland Trail to Salt Lake;
maintained here in the Sioux Indian country to protect the trail and
to be a distributing point for Government supplies. It was garrisoned
by both cavalry and infantry; on the outskirts were cabins of Indian
traders and trappers and other hangers-on, and there were a couple
of stores that sold things to emigrants. Sioux Indians usually were
camping nearby, in time of peace.
Davy changed his rough teamster costume for clothes a little more
suited to a clerk and messenger in the quartermaster’s department,
and was put to work by Captain Brown, the acting quartermaster. The
post proved a busy place, with the quartermaster’s offices the busiest
of all; but the captain and Mrs. Brown saw that Dave was courteously
treated and given a fair show. He went to evening school, and had
books to read; and once in a while was allowed time for a hunt. In
fact, Fort Laramie, away out here, alone, guarding the middle of the
Overland Trail through to Salt Lake, was by no means a stupid or quiet
place.
Of course, the trail was what kept it lively, for every day news from
the States and from the farther west arrived with the emigrants and the
bull trains; and scarcely had Dave been settled into his new niche,
when arrived the first of the new daily stages from the Missouri. It
was preceded by a slender, gentlemanly man named Bob Scott, dropped off
by one of the company wagons which was establishing the stations. Bob
Scott was to drive stage from Fort Laramie on to Horseshoe, thirty-six
miles, and he was here in readiness. He seemed to be well known on the
trail, for many persons at the post called him “Bob.”
“When do you expect to start on the run, Bob?” asked the captain.
“I think about next Tuesday, captain,” answered Bob, in his quiet, easy
tone. “The first coach leaves to-day, I understand, from St. Joe.”
“They’ll make it through in six days, will they?”
“Yes, sir. Ten days to Salt Lake is the schedule――an average of one
hundred and twenty miles a day. At Salt Lake the express and passengers
are transferred to the George Chorpening line to Placerville,
California, and from Placerville they’re sent on to Sacramento and
San Francisco. I understand the time from the Missouri River to San
Francisco will be about eighteen days.”
“You haven’t heard what’s to be the name of the new company, have you,
Bob?”
“Yes, sir. ‘Central Overland, California & Pike’s Peak Express’ is to
be the name; the ‘C. O. C. & P. P.’”
Stables and express station and a relay of horses had been established
adjacent to the post. The old stage company, Hockaday & Liggett, had
worked on a loose, go-as-you-please system which was very different
from the way that Russell, Majors & Waddell went at it. Now, with
things in readiness along the line, clear to Salt Lake City, Tuesday
dawned on a post eagerly hoping that Bob Scott’s calculation would
prove true.
About eleven o’clock a murmur and hustle in the post announced that the
stage was in sight. It came with a rush and a cheer――its four mules at
a gallop, up the trail, the big coach swaying behind them, the driver
firm on his box. Stain of dust and mud and rain and snow coated the
fresh coach body, for all the way from the Missouri River, 600 miles,
had it come, through all kinds of weather, and had been travelling
night and day for six days. At top and bottom of the frame around the
stiffened canvas ran the legend: “Central Overland California & Pike’s
Peak Express Co.”
“Wild Bill” Hickok himself it was who, coolly tossing his lines to
the hostler, waiting to take them and lead the horses to the stable,
drawing off his gloves bade, for the benefit of his passengers:
“Gentlemen, you have forty minutes here for dinner.”
At the same moment the station keeper’s wife began to beat a sheet-iron
gong as dinner signal.
XX
FAST TIME TO CALIFORNIA
Dave was heartily glad to see Wild Bill again――and Wild Bill seemed
glad to see Davy.
“I heard you were out in this region,” said Wild Bill, after they had
shaken hands. “Billy Cody told me.”
“When did you see him, Bill?”
“Last time was when I was out to his house about a month ago. He was
planning on a trapping and hunting trip with a man named Harrington up
in the Republican country north of Junction City. But he’ll be on the
trail again in the spring; you mark my word.”
“So you’re driving stage, are you, Bill?”
“Yes; I’m running between Horse Creek and Laramie, forty-two miles.
It’s a great outfit, the C. O. C. & P. P.――the finest coaches and mules
I’ve ever seen, and plenty of stations and feed. Now it’s up to the
drivers to make the schedule.” And Wild Bill sauntered off, nodding to
acquaintances, to wash and eat.