Part 10

Hotter and hotter grew the day. The trail, which was not so large after the emigrant party had been passed, wound among blistering sand-hills, and soon the mules were plodding doggedly, with tongues out, hides lathering. They guided themselves, for the Reverend, whose turn it was to drive, had mercy on them and walked. That night at camp he uttered a sudden exclamation.

“Water’s more than half gone, boys,” he announced. “Either this keg leaks or the air drinks faster than we do.”

“We’ll have to be easy on water, then,” ordered Captain Hi. And they all went to bed thirsty.

Davy had a miserable night, and probably the rest did, too, although nobody except Left-over said anything. The mules started out stiffly. But Mr. Baxter suddenly shouted, in a queer wheeze, pointing:

“Cheer up, fellows! There’s either a cloud or a mountain――see?”

They peered. Away in the west, just touched by the first rays of the sun, peeped over the rolling desert, at the horizon edge, a vague outline that did look like the tip of a cloud.

“There’s another!” cried Billy, pointing further to the north. “If those are mountains I reckon this one is Long’s Peak; maybe that other is Pike’s Peak.”

Davy gazed constantly at the two vague, cloudlike breaks in the line of horizon and sky. As the sun rose higher they seemed to grow whiter; but they did not move. They must be mountains, then; and oh, so far away! Occasionally, as the wagon labored over a swell in the desert, Davy thought that he could descry other mountains in an irregular ridge connecting the tip in the north with the tip at the south. However, as the sun shone fiercer the whole sandy plain quivered with the heat rays and the horizon blurred. Nobody seemed to care about the mountains now; the main thought was getting through to water.

The trail was almost drifted over by sand; the Hee-Haw party appeared to be the only party travelling it. That was discouraging. The mules scarcely moved. At noon they were given a little drink out of Hi’s hat, for the wooden bucket had warped and leaked like a sieve. Davy never had been so thirsty in all his life, and Left-over had to be forced back by main strength from the nearly empty cask. That night, camped in a dry watercourse, where they dug and dug without finding any moisture, they used the last of their water for coffee.

“It’s make or break, to-morrow, boys,” said Captain Hi. “We’ll start as early as we can see, and push right through. Ought to strike water soon. The nearer we get to the mountains the better the chance for water from them.”

Sunrise of the third day caught them plodding ahead, the poor mules groaning and wheezing, the wagon rolling sluggishly, and Davy, like the rest, with mouth open and tongue bone dry, in the wake. The cloud things in the horizon had remained stationary; some of them were whitish, some purplish; and mountains they certainly were!

About ten o’clock Billy cried out thickly.

“Water, fellows! Look at those mules’ ears! They smell it!”

“’Pears like a creek yonder, sure,” mumbled Captain Hi. “Don’t be disappointed, though, if it’s another mirage.” For they had been fooled several times by the heat waves picturing water.

“Those mules smell water, just the same, I bet you,” insisted Billy.

Far in the distance shimmered now a thin fringe of green. The mules actually increased their pace; they broke into a labored trot; and shambling heavily behind the outfit pressed on. Left-over groaned and dropped, to lie and moan dismally.

“I’m dying,” he wheezed. “I can’t move a step. Are you fellows going on and leave me?”

There was no holding the mules. As they forged along Billy exclaimed quickly:

“Wait here, Left-over. Go ahead, fellows. I’ll fetch him back a drink.”

And seizing the coffee-pot he sturdily ran and stumbled to the fore. All hastened after him, rivalling the frantic mules, but he beat.

Water it was! When they approached it did not vanish as a mirage would; and they met Billy returning with coffee-pot actually dripping as its precious contents slopped over.

Davy felt a strong impulse to halt Billy, wrest the pot from him, and drink long and deep. But of course this was only a thought. Puffing, Billy passed.

“There’s plenty water waiting you,” he announced. “I’ll bring Left-over on after he’s had his drink.”

Yes, water it was――a real stream flowing crooked and shallow in a deep bed bordered by brush and willows. The trail led to a ford. Wagon and all, the mules fairly plunged in, and burying their noses to their eyes gulped and gulped. First Jim, then in quick succession Davy and Captain Hi and Mr. Baxter (who was the last of all) imitated the mules. Whew, but that drink was a good long one! It seemed to Davy, as he sucked again and again, that he simply could not swallow fast enough.

“Some head stream or other, I reckon,” finally spoke Captain Hi. “Shouldn’t wonder if we had water now all the way in. We’re getting where the drainage from the mountains begins to cut some figger.”

Billy arrived with Left-over. They spent the rest of the day beside the welcome stream; and by morning they left about as strong as ever.

The trail that they were following now crossed at least one stream a day, so that the water cask was kept filled. The buffalo jerky had been eaten or was not eatable; but antelope and black-tail deer were abundant. So the trail proved pleasant. Captain Hi called attention to the fact that the water was growing colder to the taste; and he said that the snow mountains must therefore be nearer. Indeed, the mountains were nearer; they lined the whole western horizon, and made a humpy, dark ridge extending from straight ahead far up into the north. A haze like to a fog veiled them much of the time, and the Hee-Haw party were always expecting a better view.

Anyway, there were the Rocky Mountains in sight; and little by little the trail was approaching them. Yet it was a long, long trail, and who would have imagined that the plains were so broad from Leavenworth to the digging!

However, one morning a surprise occurred. The trail had been threading a little divide which evidently separated one stream from another. A few pines were growing on it. They smelled good. When the mules had tugged the wagon over the last rise and were descending a splendid spectacle unfolded to the eyes of the Hee-Haws. Involuntarily they cheered――hooray! and again hooray! For right before them was the main trail once more, with the wagons of emigrants whitening it and with a stage dashing along.

Down hastened the Hee-Haws, even the mules being glad of company.

“Hooray for Cherry Creek and the diggin’s, strangers!” was the greeting, as the Hee-Haw party entered at a break in the toiling procession.

“How much further, lads?” asked Captain Hi.

“Whar?”

“To the mountains?”

“Seventy miles to the diggin’s, we hear tell. This is the head o’ Cherry Creek, hyar; and as soon as the fog lifts you’ll see what you’re looking for, I reckon.”

The fog, which had cloaked the horizon since sunrise, already was thinning; and staring, the Hee-Haws waited the result.

“I see them!” cried Jim, waving his battered hat.

“Where, Jim?”

“Yonder, straight in front.”

“So do I!” yelped Billy. “There’s Long’s Peak――that big peak up at the north end. I’ve seen him from the Overland Trail. Look at the snow, will you!”

“Isn’t it wonderful!” breathed the Reverend Mr. Baxter, in awed tone.

And it was. Almost halting, spell-bound, they gazed. As the fog broke and melted away it exposed a mighty barrier, extending in a vast sweep from the right to the left――two hundred miles of mountains, the front range soft and purplish, the back range dazzling white with snow. The rugged plains, brushy and somewhat timbered, and lighter green where meandered Cherry Creek, reached to their very base.

“Where’s Pike’s Peak?” demanded Left-over.

“That lone peak at our end, stranger,” informed an emigrant.

Round and bulky and snow covered, standing out by himself, like an exclamation-point completing the range, Pike’s Peak seemed the biggest peak of all.

“That’s not far. ’Tisn’t more than ten miles!” declared Left-over. “Come on! Let’s go and climb it. Get out your picks, fellows! Don’t you see a kind of yellow patch? That’s gold, I bet you.”

“Keep cool, young man,” warned the emigrant. “You try to walk it before night and you’ll find out how far that peak is. More than fifty miles, I reckon.”

“It looks powerful cold up yon,” quavered a woman. “They do say the snow never melts off.”

The trail was now much more interesting. Some of the emigrants had come out, like the Hee-Haws, over the Smoky Hill Fork Trail, and the others were from the Santa Fe Trail up the Arkansas River, to the south. A trail along the base of the mountains connected this with Smoky Hill Trail. Soon the trail by way of Republican River joined in. The triple travel on Cherry Creek Trail was now so thick that Davy again wondered where all the people were coming from.

The marvellous panorama of the Rockies remained ever in sight before. Nobody tired of gazing at it, wondering which of the peaks, besides Pike’s Peak, were inlaid with gold and if a fellow could live on top of Pike’s Peak or back yonder among those other peaks while getting out his fortune. Some of the emigrants (Left-over included) asserted loudly that they could see the gold shining!

However, the first sight of the Pike’s Peak settlements――Denver and Auraria――began to be watched for the most eagerly. The mountains gradually drew nearer, Pike’s Peak gradually fell behind until on the afternoon of the third day, down the winding, white-topped procession swept a glad cry. Whips were flourished, sun-bonnets were waved, hats were swung; men and women cheered, children shouted, dogs barked.

“The Cherry Creek diggin’s! There they are! There are the gold fields and the pound a day!”

People seemed to forget the bad reports spread by the disgruntled emigrants bound back to the States. Hopes were again high for success and fortune at the end of the long, long trail.

Sure enough, several miles before, in a basin set out from the mountains a short distance, were a collection of wagons and tents and other canvases, and a number of cabins, also, jumbled together on both sides of the creek, apparently, and bounded before by a wooded river. At the edges was a fringe of little camps like those of emigrants stopping by the way.

Evening was nigh; the sun was low over the snowy range; smoke was curling from camp-fire and chimney.

“We won’t make it to-day, fellows,” spoke Captain Hi. “But we’ll pull in the first thing in the morning.”

“Goodness! Look at the people pouring in by the northern trail, too!” exclaimed Mr. Baxter.

For glinting in the last rays of the sun a long wagon train of emigrants, resembling crawling white beads, was heading in from the opposite direction.

“That’s the cut-off down from the Salt Lake Overland Trail up the Platte,” quoth Billy, promptly. “The bull trains travel that trail.”

XIII

THE CHERRY CREEK DIGGIN’S

With so many people making for Cherry Creek over several trails it seemed a pity to waste a night by camping. But when darkness settled the trail was ablaze with the camp-fires of the emigrants who, like the Hee-Haw outfit, had halted until dawn. Afar blinked the lights of the “Pike’s Peak settlements”; and miles distant, north across the plain, were the bright dots betokening the camps of those emigrants entering by the Salt Lake Overland Trail.

The whole procession was early astir with the dawn; even Left-over was up as soon as anybody, eager to be digging out his pound of gold a day.

The trail down Cherry Creek was six inches deep with dust, ground to powder by the constant wheels and hoofs. In a great cloud it rose as the wagons and animals and persons ploughed through it; to the north lifted other dust lines, where the rival travel likewise pressed forward to the goal. It was an inspiring scene, almost as good as a race; but Left-over grumbled:

“I don’t call this Pike’s Peak,” he said. “And where’s Denver City? I don’t see any city.”

“City or not,” remarked the Reverend Mr. Baxter, “it’s a wonderful thing, Davy――all these people, from all over the United States, setting out overland, breaking new trails, and founding a town away out here, six hundred miles across the desert, at the foot of those snowy mountains! It’s taken a lot of pluck and a lot of trust in Providence.”

“Where do you calculate on stopping, boys?” queried a black-eyed, sharp-nosed man who was riding down along the column.

“I don’t know,” drawled Captain Hi. “What’s the difference?”

“All the difference in the world. Throw in with Auraria. She’s on the mountain side of the Creek, and she’s bound to be the biggest city west of Omaha. We’ve got the buildings, the people, and the ferry across the Platte River. Remember that. Don’t let these Denver boomers fool you. Stop at Auraria and we’ll treat you right.”

And he rode on down the line talking about “Auraria.”

But he was close followed by another man――a fatty, red-faced man.

“Keep right on down the east side of the creek to Denver City,” he proclaimed. “The travelled side, the side next to the States. Buy a town lot in Denver; it’ll be a nest-egg for you while you’re at the diggin’s. Denver, Denver, Denver! Remember the east side of the creek.”

And he, also, proceeded on, chanting the praises of “Denver City.” The Reverend Mr. Baxter laughed.

Before they reached the settlement district the trail forked. A large sign, pointing to the left-hand fork, said: “AURARIA. Direct Route to the Gold Fields.” Another sign, pointing before, said: “Straight Ahead for DENVER CITY. Nearest and Best.”

“Which will it be, boys?” queried Captain Hi.

“Let’s try Denver. It’s on this side of the creek and it’s named for the governor of Kansas,” spoke Mr. Baxter.

So they continued on down to Denver City. Denver and Auraria were separated by only the almost dry channels of Cherry Creek, and both extended along it nearly to the Platte River below, into which Cherry Creek emptied. As soon as the Hee-Haw party had pitched their camp on the outskirts of Denver, they hastened about their business. Davy and Mr. Baxter paired off to wander about. Billy and Hi and Jim undertook some errands. Left-over was wild to grab shovel and pick and pan and start right in digging and washing.

Many persons, in plain sight all up and down the creek bed, were working hard panning for gold. Some of the emigrants had begun almost before they had unharnessed their teams. And yonder, northwest, glimpses of the Platte River, flowing past both Denver and Auraria, gave glimpses also of other miners delving away.

Billy walked straight to the nearest group in the creek bed.

“How are you making it, pardner?” he asked.

“Have you fellows come for your pound a day, too?” asked the man. Even his wife was wielding a dish-pan while he shovelled.

“You bet,” assured Billy.

The woman paused, and the man laughed wearily and wiped his forehead.

“You’ll be lucky if you make fifty cents,” he said.

“Yes,” quavered the woman. “It’s awful poor picking along this creek. I expect we’re all going to starve, provisions are getting so high.”

“Where are the diggin’s, then?”

“Yonder, up in the mountains, stranger. We hear tell they’ve made a big strike there. We’re going on as soon as we can travel. But our oxen are about petered out.”

“How far’s Pike’s Peak?” demanded Left-over. “Where’s the Pike’s Peak country? Why don’t you go to Pike’s Peak?”

“That’s Pike’s Peak down south, seventy-five miles,” answered the man. “They call this the Pike’s Peak country, but it’s only a name. I reckon you’ve heard of them sliding down Pike’s Peak and scraping up the gold as they slide. Don’t you believe it, mister. The peak’s above snow line and the ground is frozen solid. See that line of wagons? They’re all heading to the new Gregory diggin’s, west in the mountains about forty miles. That’s the big strike.”

“Oh, shucks!” exclaimed Billy.

Davy felt his heart sink; this, then, was not the end of the gold-seekers’ trail, and the snowy mountains, topping the barrier of the tumbled foot-hills, looked like a hard country.

“Come, Davy,” said the Reverend Mr. Baxter. “We’ll see the sights first, anyway.”

So they left Left-over, hauling out his pick and spade and gold-pan to join the squads working along the creek; and Hi and Jim and Billy, who set forth on errands; and trudged away “to see the sights.”

“This gold craze is all right as a means of attracting the people here,” remarked the Reverend Mr. Baxter, thoughtfully. “But the most wonderful part to me is the settlement itself. There must be fifteen hundred population already in scarce a year, and emigrants are pouring in at the rate of a thousand a day, I hear. There are fifty thousand on the way, Dave. I don’t give a snap for the mines; but look, what has happened! This gold excitement is going to settle the plains. The United States has jumped at a leap from the Missouri River six or seven hundred miles to the mountains. With a city here, and cities at the other end, there’ll soon be cities in between. A whole lot of waste country is due to be made useful.”

“I don’t call this much of a city yet,” commented Davy, considerably disappointed over the end of his trip.

“Well,” said Mr. Baxter, “it’s the starter for one if the people don’t starve to death. The weak hearts will go back; the strong ones will stick; it’s only a question of holding out for a while until the land is cultivated.”

Truly, Denver was a strange collection of tents and shacks, with a few good buildings. The houses were of hewn logs, sod roofs and dirt floors, and the furniture was made mostly from slabs and planks. There were few windows; and these were filled with sacking stretched across or else had wooden shutters. As far as Davy could see, the whole town did not have a pane of glass.

However, the streets (and particularly the two main streets named Blake and Larimer) were thronged with people as thick as the crowds at the other end of the route, Leavenworth. Indians, Mexicans and whites fairly jostled elbows, and conversation in every variety of speech was heard. The whites wore costumes ranging from the broadcloth frock coat and flowing trousers of the St. Louis and New York merchant to the flannel shirt, jeans trousers and heavy boots of the regular plainsman and miner. The Mexicans wore their broad, high-peaked hats and their serapes or gay Mexican blankets, draped from their shoulders. The Indians stalked about bare-headed, and enveloped in their blankets also. There were few women.

Several stores handling general merchandise had been opened, but according to the signs goods were expensive. One sign said: “Antelope Meat, 4 cents a lb.” Picks and spades were the cheapest; they could be bought for fifteen cents apiece, and nobody seemed to be buying at that! This was a bad sign; it showed how disgusted many of the overlanders had become when they found that they could not dig gold out by the pound where they stopped!

Right in the centre of Denver was a large village of Indians, camped in their tipis. By the hundreds they were lounging about, men, women and children, the men unclothed except for a girdle about the waist, and the children wearing nothing at all.

“Arapahoes,” pronounced Mr. Baxter. “Come on, Davy. There’s the stage. Let’s go over to the hotel.”

A large cloth sign before a long one-story log building said: “Denver House.” It was next to the Arapahoe village. People were hurrying across to this hotel, for a stage-coach, with crack of whip and cheer from passengers and driver, had halted short in front of it.

The coach, drawn by its four mules, dusty and lathered, bore the lettering: “Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak Express Co.” So this, then, was the daily Leavenworth stage. Already the street before the hotel was crowded with onlookers who had gathered to receive the coach. When Davy and Mr. Baxter arrived the travel-worn passengers were clambering out. The first was Mr. Majors himself! Davy recognized the long beard and he and Mr. Baxter pressed forward to welcome their friend.

“Why, hello, boys,” quoth Mr. Majors. “Where’d you drop from?”

“Just got in,” answered Mr. Baxter, shaking hands, as did Davy. “We came by mule and wagon with Billy Cody and two or three others.”

“How?”

“Up the Smoky.”

“Joined the gold rush, did you?”

“Yes, sir. But I’ve about decided I’d rather plant potatoes.”

“How about you, Dave?” queried Mr. Majors.

“I’d like to eat one,” asserted Davy ruefully.

“You’ve got the right idea, I guess,” approved Mr. Majors. “But I understand Horace Greeley has told the people here they ought to plant potatoes, and they laughed at him. Potatoes are a better crop than gold, in my opinion; but this country certainly doesn’t look very promising for them. How people are going to live I don’t know. It will be good for the freighting business, though. We’ll be hauling stuff in here with every team we can muster. Did you know we’ve taken over the stage line, too?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, we have. It’s run by Russell, Majors & Waddell now. Call in on me before I leave, and I’ll give you a pass to Leavenworth in case you want to go back.”

“All right. Thank you, Mr. Majors.”

“If I were you, my lad, I wouldn’t stay around here long,” continued Mr. Majors to Davy. “This place is going to be a good place, and I haven’t any doubt that lots of gold will come out of these mountains as soon as the people are experienced in finding it. But looking for gold haphazard is a poor job for a boy. I think you’ll do much better on the plains. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, you know; and there’s a big work to be done in helping these people live. If the freight outfits aren’t kept moving the diggings will starve. If you’ll come in to Leavenworth we’ll put you to work with the bull trains.”

“You’d better do it, Davy,” advised Mr. Baxter. And Davy soberly nodded.

“I guess I will, then.”

“I’m up at our Nebraska City office most of the time now,” said Mr. Majors. “But you’ll find Mr. Russell at Leavenworth and I’ll tell him to fix you out.” And Mr. Majors shouldered his way into the hotel.

“Whar’s the post-office, stranger?” asked a voice; and turning they faced an emigrant evidently newly arrived.

“I don’t know. We’re lost around here, ourselves,” explained Mr. Baxter.

“Pardon. I tella the way,” spoke somebody else. He was a tall, swarthy-visaged man, with heavy black moustache and black bushy eyebrows, a large meerschaum pipe in his mouth. However, he was neatly dressed, even to natty shoes. He looked like a foreigner, and his accent sounded foreign. He continued rapidly: “That beeg house w’ere you see-a the line of men.”

“Thank ’ee,” acknowledged the emigrant, after a hearty stare. And he strode off.

“And you, signors? Canna I direct you zomeplace?” inquired the foreign man, with a bow.

“We’re just looking around, is all,” informed Mr. Baxter.

“Then later. Perhappa for the hair or the whiskers; perhappa for the wash. Permitta me.” And with another bow he handed to Mr. Baxter and to Davy his card.

It read: “H. Murat. Tonsorial Artist. Shaves, Trims and Cuts. Laundry Done.”

“Do you know who he is?” piped another voice at Davy’s side, as the dark foreigner disappeared in the crowd. “He’s a count, a real Italian count.”

The speaker was a slender, fair-haired little fellow, not much older than Dave himself.

“He’s Count Murat. His father was a big man in Italy. But out here the count’s a barber and his wife takes in washing.”

“I declare!” ejaculated Mr. Baxter. “And where did you come from, son?”

“From the States. I’ve been up in the diggin’s, but I froze my feet and I’m going home.”

“Are your folks here?”

“No, sir. I ran away. But I’ve got enough and when I reach home I’m going to stay there.”

“Well, you’d better,” approved Mr. Baxter. “You’re too young to be out here alone.”