created considerable talk came through by stage bound west. He was Mr.
Edward Creighton――a pleasant gentleman with an Irish face; and was on
his way to Salt Lake looking over the country with a view to putting
in a telegraph line through to Salt Lake City. A California company
was to build from California east to Salt Lake and it was rumored that
the Government offered a payment of $40,000 a year to the company that
reached Salt Lake the first. This meant, of course, a line clear
across from the Missouri to the Pacific coast.
In the hurly-burly of troops preparing to leave for the front in the
East, Davy had the idea that he, too, should go as a drummer boy,
maybe. The sight of Billy Cody hurrying through was hard to bear.
Billy appeared unexpectedly on the stage from Horseshoe Station, where
he had been an “extra” rider under direct orders of Superintendent Jack
Slade himself.
“Hello, Billy!”
“Hello, Dave.”
“Where are you going now, Billy?”
“Back home. I haven’t been home for a year, and my mother wants to see
me. She’s poorly again. I guess I’d better be where things are boiling,
too. This war won’t last more than six months, they say; but Kansas
is liable to be a hot place with so many Southerners just across the
border in Missouri. I ought to be on hand in case of trouble around
home.”
That was just like Billy――to be on hand! Dave had more than half a
mind to accompany him to Leavenworth, and Captain Brown, about to
leave himself, had about decided that Leavenworth would be the best
place, when the matter was solved by the appearance of the Reverend Mr.
Baxter, who arrived on the next stage from the west.
“Gee whillikins!” exclaimed Dave, overjoyed, rushing to meet him. “What
are _you_ doing here?”
“Oh, merely coming through on my way from Salt Lake back to Denver,”
laughed Mr. Baxter. “I’m messenger on the stage between Julesburg and
Denver, but I’ve been off on a little vacation with a survey party for
a new stage road. I heard you were here. You’re celebrated since you
made that splendid ride, Davy.”
Davy blushed again. He hated to blush, but he had to.
“What are you doing these days?” demanded Mr. Baxter.
As soon as he heard of Davy’s plans and present fix, he insisted that
Davy travel down to Denver with him and stay there.
“Room with me, Dave?” he proffered generously. “I need a bunky. You can
get work easy enough――I know the very place where they can use a boy
who can write and figure――and I’ll tutor you. It will do me good to
brush up a little in mathematics and all that.”
Captain Brown agreed, and the matter was promptly settled. Away went
Dave, and the next day Captain Brown himself left for Fort Leavenworth,
and then――where? His going would have made Laramie rather empty for
Dave.
Denver had grown amazingly. There was now no “Auraria”; all was Denver
City――and what had been known as “Western Kansas” and the “Territory
of Jefferson,” was the Territory of Colorado. On both sides of Cherry
Creek many new buildings, two and three stories, some of the buildings
being brick, had gone up; potatoes and other produce were being raised,
and the streets, busier than ever, were thronged with merchants and
other real citizens, as well as with miners and bull whackers.
Mr. Baxter took Davy over to see the lots that they had bought for the
sack of flour two years before. Then, the lots had been out on the very
edge of town; now they were right in the business district. The Jones
family had not cared for them; had sold them for a mere song and had
pushed on to “get rich quick” mining. The Joneses had gone back to the
States, poor; but the lost lots were being held by the present owners
at $1000 apiece.
Mr. Baxter made good his promise, and Dave found a niche (which
appeared to have been made especially for a red-headed boy, with spunk,
who could read and write as well as take care of himself on the trail)
in the Elephant Corral. This was a large store building and yard for
the convenience of merchants and overland traffic. It dealt in flour
and feed and other staples consigned to it, and was headquarters for
bull outfits arriving and leaving.
The war excitement continued. Colorado, like Kansas and Nebraska, sent
out its volunteers in response to the calls of President Lincoln. Mr.
Baxter tried hard to be accepted as a chaplain, but the examining
surgeons refused him, he confided to Davy, because he had a “bum lung.”
“So, Davy boy,” he said, “you and I will have to fight the battle of
peace, and win our honors there, at present.”
They heard that Captain Brown had been made a general, and Billy Cody
and Wild Bill, too, were serving on the Union side as scouts and
despatch bearers in Kansas and Missouri. As for Davy, he pegged along,
rooming and boarding with Mr. Baxter, doing his work at the Elephant
Corral and studying evenings.
Meanwhile, the staging and freighting across the plains and to Salt
Lake continued, when not interrupted by the Indians. The Butterfield
“Southern Overland,” through Texas and New Mexico and Arizona to
California, which had been carrying the Government mail for two years,
had to be discontinued on account of the war and the Apache Indians;
and the contract was given to the “Central” route, operated by Russell,
Majors & Waddell. This meant $400,000 a year from the Government, and
it looked as though the Central Overland, California & Pike’s Peak need
no longer be called the “Clean Out of Cash & Poor Pay”; but soon the
word came that the whole line had been bought in by a big creditor, Ben
Holladay.
Great things were expected of Ben Holladay. Dave had seen him once or
twice――a large, heavy man, with square, resolute face; clean-shaven
cheeks, and gray beard. He was a veteran freighter and trader on the
plains, and had been in business in Salt Lake, California, St. Louis
and New York, and was a hustler. He hastened to increase the service
of his stage line. No expense or trouble was too much for him. The
line was known now as “Ben Holladay’s Line,” and “The Overland Stage.”
The old route north from Julesburg and around by Fort Laramie was
changed to a shorter route (the route which Mr. Baxter had helped
survey for Russell, Majors & Waddell at the time when he picked up Dave
at Laramie), which from Latham, sixty miles north of Denver, veering
northwest crossed the mountains at Bridger’s Pass for Salt Lake. At
Salt Lake the celebrated Pioneer Stage Line continued with passengers
and mail and express for Placerville, California.
The very fall after Dave arrived in Denver Mr. Creighton finished his
telegraph line into Salt Lake City, and won the $40,000 a year prize
offered by the Government. The California company met him there; the
first message was flashed through from coast to coast (“The Pacific
to the Atlantic sends greeting,” it said; “and may both oceans be dry
before a foot of all the land that lies between shall belong to any
other than a united country”); and, as Captain Brown had predicted, the
Pony Express must stop. The Holladay stages carried the mails.
Every morning at eight o’clock sharp they left Atchison below St.
Joseph on the Missouri River; at Latham the Salt Lake coaches
proceeded on to Salt Lake and the Denver coaches turned south to
Denver――and usually got in with such regularity that Denver people
set their watches by them! There never had been such a stage coach
magnate as Ben Holladay. His six- and nine-passenger Concord coaches
were the best that could be built――and on the main line alone he used
100. His horses were the best that could be bought――and of these and of
mules he had, on the main line, 3000. His drivers were paid the best
salaries――$125 and $150 a month. And for carrying the mails he received
from the Government $650,000 a year. When, several times a year, he
went over his whole lines he travelled like a whirlwind and caused a
tremendous commotion.
But speedily the regular operation of the Holladay Overland Express was
badly interrupted, for the Indians began to ravage up and down. All the
way from central Kansas to the mountains they destroyed stations and
attacked stages. The stages ran two at a time, for company, and were
protected by squads of soldiers; but even then they did not always get
through, and Denver was cut off from the outside world for weeks at
a time. Whenever Mr. Baxter started out as messenger Dave was afraid
that he would not come back alive; but somehow he managed to make the
trip, although he was apt to return in a coach riddled with arrows and
bullets.
The summer of 1864, when Davy was almost seventeen and old enough to
enter the Military Academy, was the worst season of all for Indian
raids. Stations and ranches for hundreds of miles at a stretch were
pillaged, and the stages ceased altogether between the mountains and
the Missouri. Then, in the fall, there came a lull――of which Dave was
heartily glad, for he had been ordered to report at Fort Leavenworth
for examination. His appointment had come, signed by Abraham Lincoln.
“I’ll see you through to Atchison, Dave,” said Mr. Baxter; “and to
Leavenworth, too. The return trip will be my last run.”
“Why so, Ben?” asked Davy, astonished.
“Because I’m going to change to a more permanent business while I can.
The railways are coming. The Central Pacific’s building a little every
year east out of California, and as soon as the war’s over the Union
Pacific will start from its end, at the Missouri. When the two roads
meet, with trains running across the continent, this staging business
will be knocked flat, and we messengers will be stranded. I’ve got my
health now; I’m as good a man as anybody, and when I get back from
Atchison I’ll go into something different. I’ve several offers pending.
See?”
That sounded like sense; but Dave was pleased that Mr. Baxter had not
quit before this trip, for he had counted on going out in Ben’s coach.
The fare from Denver to the Missouri River was up to $175, but Davy had
saved this, and more. The stages left from the Planters’ Hotel. The
first stage out, after the long interruption, created much excitement.
At least fifty passengers clamored for places, but there was room for
only nine in the body――and even they were crowded by mail sacks. Dave
sat on the driver’s box with Ben and the driver, who was Bob Hodge.
Everybody on the line knew Bob Hodge; he was one of the “king whips,”
and very popular. The Holladay stage drivers out of the principal
stations dressed the best that they could, for they were persons of
consequence. Polished boots, broadcloth trousers tucked in, soft silk
shirts with diamond stud, rakish hat and kid gloves were none too good
for them. Bob wore a suit of buckskin――with its decorations of beads
and fringes, the finest suit in Denver. As he stepped from the hotel
he elegantly drew on a pair of new yellow kid gloves. He nodded to Ben
and Dave, and tucked a brass horn, which was his pride, in the seat.
On this horn he was accustomed to perform when he wanted amusement and
when he approached stations. His other pride was his whip――of ebony
handle inlaid with silver. All the Holladay stage drivers owned their
whips and would not lend them.
Bob climbed aboard, Ben and Dave followed. Two hostlers held the
six-horse team by the bits; another handed up the lines to Bob――who
condescended to receive them.
“Think she’ll get through, Bob?” queried several voices, referring to
the coach.
“Oh, I reckon. She’s been through several times before,” drawled Bob.
And by the looks of “her,” she evidently had been through something. It
had been a beautiful coach, in the beginning, painted a glossy bright
green, trimmed with gilt; but now it was scarred by storm and Indians.
The very boot curtain behind Dave’s feet was punctured in two places by
arrows, and there were other holes through the coach sides.
Bob glanced at his gold watch. He grasped lines and whip, nodded at
the hostlers (they sprang from the leaders’ bits), released the heavy
brake with a bang; to the crack of his whip forward leaped the six gray
horses, whose harness was adorned with ivory rings. The watching crowd
gave a cheer, and, driving with one hand, Bob played what he called
“Into the Wilderness.”
Bob’s run was only to Latham, sixty miles down the Platte. Here he
descended, in lordly fashion, from his seat――and out of the coach must
issue the passengers, much to their disgust. The mails from the west
had been piling up for six weeks, and were of more importance than
people. Forty-one sacks were stored aboard by the station agent, until
the coach was heaped to the roof, and the big boot was overflowing. The
coach now carried a ton of mail――and Ben, Davy and the driver.
Express messengers rode an entire division, such as between Atchison
and Denver, between Denver and Salt Lake, and between Salt Lake and
Placerville of California. So Ben continued on, with Dave as his guest.
The new driver was “Long Slim”――another odd character. “Long Slim” was
six feet three inches tall, and so thin that he claimed when he stood
sideways he wouldn’t cast a shadow. He was much different from dandy
Bob Hodge; for he wore cowhide boots, a blue army overcoat, and a
buffalo fur cap.
Long Slim drove to Bijou Station, and here another driver took charge.
Stage drivers drove forty or fifty miles, or from “home” station to
“home” station. In between, about every ten miles, were the “swing”
stations, where the teams were changed. Meals were served at the home
stations.
The change of drivers was interesting, and really made little
difference to Dave, for none of them talked much; and as the coach
rolled further eastward into the Indian country the talk was less and
less. At the swing stations the teams were always standing, harnessed
and waiting. The driver grandly tossed down the lines and yawned; the
old team was whisked out in a jiffy, the new team trotted into place
without being told, the station men handed up the lines to the box, and
away went the stage again.
At the home stations the driver――“Long Slim,” or “Deacon,” or “Dad,” or
“Mizzou,” or whatever he was called, followed his lines to the ground,
said (if he chose): “All quiet so far, Hank,” and strolled into the
station. If he mentioned a drink of water, half the station force
rushed to get it for him. He was a king, was the driver on the Overland
Stage!
At Bijou Station, six soldiers of the Colorado cavalry picked up the
stage and escorted it, riding three on a side, for about 100 miles.
At least they were there when Davy peeked out of the boot under the
driver’s seat, where he slept, curled in a ball, very comfortably,
while the coach rocked and swayed through the night.
The Seventh Iowa Cavalry next took the stage, galloping and trotting
beside it down the trail along the Platte River.
The stage stations and the ranches looked as if they had been having a
tough time. Most of the ranch buildings were in ruins and abandoned;
many of the stage stations had been burned, and the station men were
living in dug-outs, some of which were merely holes in the ground,
roofed over with a pile of dirt loop-holed for rifles. Meals at the
home stations were $1.50, cooked by the station agents’ brave wives or
by the men themselves. Some of the meals were very poor, too――and some
astonishingly good.
All went well with the stage until between Cottonwood and Fort Kearney
the driver, who was known as “Waupsie,” pointed to the south with his
whip.
“There they are,” he said quietly; and instantly flung out his lash.
The silken snapper cracked like a pistol shot, and out launched the
team. Down from a low row of sandy buttes half a mile to the south and
ahead were speeding a bevy of dark dots. Davy’s heart skipped a beat.
The dots were making for the trail, as if to cut off the coach. They
were Indians, sure.
“What’ll we do, Waupsie?” asked Ben, coolly. “Beat ’em in?”
“We’ll do the best we can. Six miles to go is all,” answered Waupsie,
in grim manner. And he yelled to the cavalrymen: “You’ll have to ride
faster than that, boys.”
The corporal in charge of the squad had spoken gruffly. Three before,
three behind, the soldiers were rising and falling in their stirrups
and urging on their horses. The grade was slightly down hill, and
it was evident that the cavalry horses were no match for the stage
team――six splendid blacks, grain fed and long-legged. Soon the coach
gradually drew even with the leading soldiers and began to pass them in
spite of their efforts.
“Can’t wait,” yelled Waupsie, “Goodby. Fact is,” he remarked, half to
himself, “I can’t hold ’em. Drat their skins!”
The whoops of the Indians were plainly heard; the breeze was from the
south, and as if smelling the red enemy the stage horses were wild with
fear. Braced, Waupsie sawed on the lines; his foot pressed the brake
hard, but he might as well have saved his strength.
Waupsie had no time or opportunity to use a gun; his business was to
drive. Ben cocked his shot-gun lying across his knees.
“Get in the boot, Dave,” he bade.
Davy started to slide under, but stopped ashamed. In a rush the
Indians, whooping and frantically brandishing bows and lances, charged
the trail, cutting in behind, and racing on both sides before. The
cavalry squad were now far in the rear.
With a thud an arrow landed full in the coach side; another quivered in
the flank of the off wheel horse――and he leaped prodigiously.
“Steady! Steady, boys!” besought Waupsie.
The arrows were hissing and thudding. The painted Indians looked like
demons. Ben flung up his gun, took hasty aim, and at the report the
nearest Indian on the left (a particularly determined fellow) swerved
away, reeling in his saddle pad. Red spots could be seen on his side
where the buck-shot had struck. At the rear the cavalrymen were
shooting vainly, and suddenly Waupsie gave an exclamation.
“Take these lines, quick!” he said. “Confound it!”
An arrow had pinned his right arm to his side. He jerked at it and
could not budge it, and Ben grabbed the lines.
“You take my gun, Dave,” he ordered. “Don’t shoot unless you have to;
and then shoot the ponies. Fight ’em off.”
Dave promptly seized the gun from Ben’s lap, and at once he saw the
reason in the last order. The Indians were racing on either side;
whenever he raised the gun to aim every Indian on that side ducked
to the opposite flank of his horse, and left only a moccasin sole in
sight. That was a small mark at which to aim from a jolting coach. Dave
aimed and aimed again; whenever he paused, up bobbed the Indians; when
he pointed the gun at them, down they ducked; and all the time they
were shooting from underneath their ponies’ necks or from the saddle.
“That’s right. Fight ’em off, Davy. It’s as good as emptying your gun,”
panted Ben, hanging hard to the lines. Waupsie was plying the whip――now
and then to drop it and level his revolver.
[Illustration: “THAT’S RIGHT. FIGHT ’EM OFF, DAVY”]
“Fight ’em off, Davy!”
A sharp shock almost paralyzed Dave’s right arm, and through shoulder
and arm surged a red-hot pain. He nearly dropped the gun. He glanced at
his shoulder and saw a flush of crimson dyeing his shirt. But no arrow
was sticking there as he had feared. It was only a gash. All right.
“Hurt, Dave?” queried Ben.
“No, not much,” said Davy, firmly.
“We’ll make it,” uttered Waupsie. “Got to. Fight ’em off, boys!”
The sandy plain flowed past; another horse had been wounded and the
coach was fairly bristling with shafts. But the gallant team never
slackened their furious pace, and suddenly with a final chorus
of whoops and a last volley, the Indians turned and raced away; for
yonder, around the turn, appeared the home station.
“Humph!” muttered Waupsie. “Those Injuns are just on a lark. Now I’ll
get quit of this arrow.”
The cavalry squad did not arrive until after the coach had left;
another squad escorted it to Fort Kearney, and by the time Atchison was
reached, two days afterward, Dave’s shoulder was beginning to heal.
“It doesn’t hurt much, really, Ben,” he insisted; but he was proud of
his wound. The scar he carries to-day and other scars besides.
From Atchison he and Ben went down to Leavenworth. On the street at
Leavenworth a hand clapped him on his shoulder (fortunately his well
shoulder), and looking up he looked into the face of Billy Cody.
XXIV
BUFFALO BILL IS CHAMPION
It was not “Little Billy Cody” now――the slender boy whose boots had
seemed too large for him even when he was riding Pony Express. It was
“Scout Cody”――a man with wide, piercing brown eyes, long wavy yellow
hair, a silky light-brown moustache, a pair of broad shoulders above a
wiry waist, and an alert, springy step. But he was “Billy Cody” after
all.
He and Wild Bill Hickok had been serving together with the Union army
in Missouri and Arkansas; and now he was at Leavenworth on a furlough
from detached duty at St. Louis.
He could give Davy only a half hour; Davy heard some of his adventures
and learned also that “Mother Cody” had gone (what a brave, sweet woman
she had been!), and that the Cody home in Salt Creek Valley had been
broken up. Truly, the West was undergoing great changes.
Greater changes still occurred in the next three years. Dave entered
West Point in June of the next summer, 1865, and for the succeeding two
years he studied hard. When he was given his furlough he spent part of
it with General Brown, who, luckily, was stationed at Fort Leavenworth.
The two years at the Military Academy had formed a different boy of
Dave. The strict discipline had taught him how to make the most of his
time, and the constant drill exercises had straightened him up and
trained all his muscles as well as his mind. He felt quite like a man
as he shook hands with the general and met his approving eye.
One of his first questions to the general, after the greetings and
polite inquiries, was about Billy Cody.
“‘Billy’ Cody, you say?” laughed the general. “Haven’t you been reading
the papers?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t, general,” confessed Dave. “We don’t have much
time to read the papers at the Academy, you know.”
“That’s so,” chuckled the general. “You don’t. But your friend and
mine, Billy Cody, has a new name. He’s now ‘Buffalo Bill.’ He’s been
supplying buffalo meat to the grading contractors on the Kansas
Pacific. They need about twelve buffalo a day, and he took the job for
$500 a month. It’s been a dangerous business, and he hunts alone out
on the plains, with one man following in a wagon to do the butchering
and load the meat, and the Indians are always trying to get Bill’s
scalp. So far he’s outwitted them, and he’s been bringing in the meat
so regularly that at night when he rides in the boys in the camps yell:
‘Here comes old Bill with more buffalo!’ and ‘Buffalo Bill’ he is. He’s
been married, too, you know.”
“Oh, has he?” And Dave spoke impulsively. “I’d like to see him mighty
well.”
“You can. The railroad’s running trains about 500 miles west from the
river, nearly to Sheridan, and you’ve got here just in time to go along
with us and see a big contest between Buffalo Bill and Billy Comstock,
the chief of scouts at Fort Wallace there. They’re to hunt buffalo
together for eight hours, and the one who kills the most wins a nice
little purse of $500, gold. Billy Comstock is a fine young fellow, a
great hunter and a crack shot――but I’ll back Buffalo Bill.”
So, thought Dave, loyally, would he, too.
The contest had excited great interest. An excursion for friends of
the rivals and for sight-seers was to be run clear through from St.
Louis. Every army officer and soldier who could leave was going from
Fort Leavenworth. Leader of all was General George A. Custer, the
famous “Boy General with the Golden Locks” (as during the war the
newspapers had called him), who with his fighting Seventh Cavalry had
arrived at Fort Leavenworth after a summer’s campaign on the plains.
Of course, everybody in army circles knew about General Custer, the
dashing cavalryman, with his curling yellow hair and his crimson tie.
Introduced to him by General Brown, Dave blushed and stammered and felt
that he must cut a very poor figure.
It seemed strange that a railroad actually was on its way across the
plains. In fact, there were two railroads jutting out from the Missouri
River for the farther West. Northward from Omaha the celebrated Union
Pacific had built clear to Julesburg, and was hustling along to Utah
at the rate of five and six miles a day. It followed the old Overland
Trail up the Platte, and ate the stages as it progressed.