Part 13

It was a solemn company which with bared heads stood about the spot where they laid Sailor Bill. A deep hole was dug beside the trail, and what was left of Sailor Bill, wrapped in a blanket, was lowered into it. Charley read a chapter from the Bible, the hole was filled, and the wagons made a little detour to drive across the spot and pack the soil so that the coyotes would not be tempted to dig there.

“We’ll certainly miss Bill and his ‘Bay of Biscay, O!’” said the men; and they did.

Henry Renick was appointed by Charley to Sailor Bill’s wagon and team, and the train rolled on.

Fort Kearney was four days, or fifty miles, ahead. On the fourth day a great dust, crossing the Leavenworth trail, made a cloud against the horizon; and Charley, pointing, remarked to Davy: “There’s the Platte trail. We’ll be in Kearney to-night.”

Fort Kearney was located on the south bank of the Platte River, at the head of a large island thirty miles long, which was called Grand Island. The military reservation extended on both sides of the river. The fort was not nearly so pleasant or so well built as Fort Leavenworth. The bluffs and the country around were bare and gray, and the buildings were old frame buildings, rather tumble-down. The only timber was on Grand Island, which made a green spot in the landscape.

Fort Kearney was a division point on the Overland Trail for Russell, Majors & Waddell. Charley reported to the company agent here, and the train laid up for a day to rest and restock with what provisions were needed. The meat was running short, for buffalo had been scarce all the way from Leavenworth.

At Fort Kearney the Leavenworth trail joined the main trail that came in from Omaha and Nebraska City. That trail crossed the Platte just above Fort Kearney, and there met the Leavenworth trail; and as one they proceeded west up the south bank of the Platte.

People at Fort Kearney claimed that on some days 500 wagons passed, headed either west or east. Joel Badger started in to count the number of teams in sight throughout an hour, but quit tired. And truly, the scene at old Fort Kearney was a stirring one: the long lines of white-topped wagons slowly toiling in from the east and the southeast, and, uniting above the fort, toiling on out, under their dust cloud, up the river course into the west.

Charley did not delay here longer than was absolutely necessary, and Davy, as well as others in the train, was glad to be away on the trail again. Yank, the assistant wagon boss, and Charley, his chief, almost had a fight, despite the pledge that they had taken, for Yank had begun drinking in the groggeries of vicious Dobytown on the edge of the post and was uglier than usual.

“You hear what I say,” spoke up Charley loud enough for everybody else to hear, too. “Any more of this and you’re discharged without pay. Those are company orders and you knew it when you signed the roll.”

“The company that discharges me without pay I’ve earned will wish it hadn’t,” snarled Yank.

“I’ll take the responsibility,” retorted Charley, angrily. “If you don’t obey company rules you’re discharged; see? And if I can’t enforce those rules I’ll discharge myself.”

Yank said “Bah!” and swaggered off; but he stayed away from Dobytown.

Fort Kearney seemed to mark a dividing point of the country as well as of the great trail. The country from Leavenworth up through Kansas had been prairie-like, with many wooded streams and considerable green meadows. But here at the Platte the greenness dwindled, and the trail wound along amidst sand and clay which grew chiefly sage brush and buffalo grass.

The Platte was a shallow, shifty stream, full of quicksands, so that drivers must be very careful in crossing. Charley told of a time when he saw a whole freight wagon, load and all, sink and disappear in what looked to be hard sand under only two inches of water! The trees in sight were for the most part on the islands in the river, for all timber within easy reach along the trail had long ago been cut and burned by the emigrants. Even buffalo chips were very scarce, so that Charley took pains to camp on the sites of previous camps, where cattle had left fuel similar to buffalo chips, although not so good.

The buffalo chips burned slowly and held the fire a long time, making splendid coals. The men seemed to think that this was because they had been lying out for years, maybe, and were well baked; whereas the cow chips and the bull chips were newer.

The Platte was frequently bordered by high clay bluffs; and where the road climbed or descended the scene at night was very pretty, with all the camp-fires of the emigrants and other bull trains sparkling high and low. The bluffs also were good coverts for Indians; and Charley ordered that each mess have a man on guard all night. Fort Kearney was considered the jumping-off place for the Indian country and the buffalo country. Beyond, the country was, as Charley said, “wide open.”

“To-morrow we’ll cross Plum Creek,” quoth Joel to Davy on the second day out from Kearney. “We ought to see buffalo at Plum Creek; ’most always do.”

Plum Creek was 330 miles from Leavenworth and thirty-six out of Fort Kearney. As they approached it, Charley and others uttered a glad cry, for buffalo were in sight by the hundreds. They were grazing on the hills and flats north of the river. Some emigrants already were among them, chasing them hither and thither; so Captain Charley ordered Andy Johnson and another teamster called “Kentuck” (because he was from Kentucky) to take Davy’s and Yank’s mules and go with him after meat.

That was as quickly done as said. Away the three spurred through the shallow water and on.

“We’ll have short ribs and roast hump to-night, boys,” shouted back Charley. He and Andy and Kentuck were good hunters.

This left Yank in charge of the train. He had not been pleasant since that scene at Kearney, when he and Charley had the row; just now he was more irritable and mean, because he had to walk. He grumbled and snarled, and said a number of unkind things about Charley which Dave knew were not true.

“Wants to take the huntin’ himself, that feller does,” grumbled Yank, “an’ leaves us other fellers to hoof it. Who ever heard of an assistant wagon boss havin’ to walk? I didn’t hire out to walk, you bet.” And he yelped out to Joel: “Hurry on your bulls there, you lead team man. Give ’em the gad or you’ll get stuck.”

For the head of the train had reached a sandy hollow, and Joel’s team were tugging through it. The sand rolled in a stream from the tires and from half way up the spokes; but the twelve bulls――the ten blacks, and the two burly reds forming the pole yoke――were pulling together nobly.

“They don’t need it,” returned Joel, shortly. “They’re doing well. Let ’em alone.”

“You’ve held the lead so long and done as you please that you’ve got sassy,” sneered Yank. “You need a new boss, an’ now you’ve got him, see? I tell you to hustle those fat pets o’ yourn along an’ give somebody else a chance in here. Do you call that pullin’? Which way you movin’? Touch ’em up, my man; touch ’em up.”

“I’m driving this team,” answered Joel, roundly, “and I don’t need advice from any assistant wagon master as to _how_ to drive. They pull better without the lash.” And he sung out vigorously: “Buck! Muley! Hep, now! Hep with you!”

The wagon moved steadily, ploughing through the sand and encouraging the teams behind. But Joel’s reply seemed to enrage Yank――who had been waiting for just such a chance.

“Oh, gimme that whip!” he snarled, and snatched it from Joel’s hand. “Get out o’ there with you!” he yelled. The lash flew hissing; the snapper landed with a distinct “thut!” on the haunch of the right lead ox; it jerked smartly back and out-sprang at the spot where it had struck a rim of blood on the sweaty, dusty black hide. The whip end had cut through to the quick!

As fast as lash could travel (and that was fast indeed) the other lead ox felt like smart and humiliation. With frenzied, panting snort and groan the yoke quivered and strained, setting shoulders forward and fairly jerking the swing yokes after them. It was an unnecessary strain and Davy knew it.

“Whoa-oa-oa, boys!” soothed Joel. “Easy now!” And turning like a tiger on Yank, who again was swinging the whip, he knocked him flat on his back.

The team went toiling on but Joel stood, panting, over Yank, and watched him scramble up. Yank’s hand flew to his revolver butt――and there it stopped; for when he got that far he was looking into the big muzzle of Joel’s own Colt’s navy.

“None o’ that either!” growled Joel, boiling mad. “Gimme that whip,” 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!”