Part 14

Now sounded a clatter like rain on a sheet-iron roof; and across the landscape of sand and clay, and a cottonwood grove at the mouth of the creek, swept a line of white. The men dived for cover like prairie-dogs whisking into their holes.

Yes, it was hail! Such hail! Driven by a gale the stones, some as large as hickorynuts, and all as large as filberts, lashed the huddled train; whanged against canvas and wagon-box and with dull thuds bounded from the bulls’ backs. Some of the animals shifted uneasily, for the stones stung. The others stood groaning and grunting with discomfort, shaking their heads when a particularly vicious missile landed on an ear. Under the wagons the men were secure; but Dave felt sorry for the poor bulls who turned and sought in vain.

As quickly as it had come the storm passed, leaving the ground white with the hail. Almost before the men had crawled out from underneath their wagons the sun was shining.

The hail had not damaged the bull train to any extent. There were dents in the tough wood where the heavy stones had struck, and several of the wagon sheets, forming the hoods, had been punctured in weak spots; but thanks to Charley’s promptness in corralling, the animals had not stampeded. However, some of the emigrants had not fared so well, because they had not known what to do. After the bull train was yoked up again and was travelling on, it passed two emigrant outfits stalled by the trail, trying to recover their teams which had run away. Many of the flimsy cotton hoods used by the emigrants were riddled into strips.

The Overland Trail followed up the south side of the Platte, the same way by which Dave had come down with the Lew Simpson train a year before, after the fight in the mule fort. Where the North Platte and the South Platte joined current it continued on up the South Platte――and now to the north a short distance was the place where the mule fort had been located so hastily by Billy Cody and Lew and George Woods.

Soon the main trail for Salt Lake and California forded the South Platte to cross the narrow point of land for Ash Hollow at the North Platte and for Laramie and Salt Lake City. But the Denver branch proceeded on into the west by the newer trail to the mountains and Denver.

This branch of the Overland Trail down to Denver was only six months old, but already it was a well-worn trail, scored deep by the stages and by the thousands of emigrants and the constant freight outfits. The travel eastward, toward the States, was almost as great now as that westbound, for fall had come and everybody who was intending to return to the States had started so as to get there before winter. A winter journey by wagon across these plains was no fun.

After the parting of the trail, the next station on the route was Jules’ Ranch. Jules was an old French-Indian trapper and trader, whose full name (as he claimed) was Jules Beni. His mother was a Cheyenne Indian, and Jules had built a trading post here, a mile beyond Lodgepole Creek, for trade with the Cheyennes. Now Jules had turned his attention to the new business that had opened, and he was selling flour to the Pike’s Peak “pilgrims” at a dollar a pound. He had been smart enough to break a new trail that would bring the travel between the North and the South Platte past his place――for the regular crossing was east of him. He was smart, was Old Jules, and now he had just been made stage agent.

“I want all you fellows to keep clear of Old Jules,” cautioned Charley, as the train approached what some of the men jokingly called “Julesburg.” “I’ve never seen him when he wasn’t drunk and he’s a corker for losing his temper and picking fights. Then he wants to kill somebody. When he’s in liquor he’s plumb crazy. He’s shot two men and carries their ears in his pocket. I’m not afraid of him, and neither are you; but to-morrow’s Sunday and we’ll tie up near his place, and I don’t want trouble.”

“Why don’t you pull right through, Charley?” asked Andy Johnson, as a spokesman. “We’re agreeable. ‘Dirty Jules’ is no great attraction.”

“Well,” said Charley, “we usually do ease off on Sunday, and it’s company orders and I don’t propose to change the programme at this stage of the game.”

XVIII

BILLY CODY TURNS UP AGAIN

The Russell, Majors & Waddell bull trains were under instructions to lie by over Sunday whenever possible. By some people this was accounted a waste of time. However, Mr. Majors especially insisted that Sunday should be Sunday wherever it fell, in town or on the danger trail. One day in seven might well be spent in rest even with a bull train. It brought the men and cattle through in better shape, and was a gain that way instead of any loss.

So that evening the wagon train corralled near the Platte River crossing, where the Salt Lake Trail turned north, about half a mile east from Jules’ Ranch. The river was a great convenience, for on Sunday the men usually tried to slick up by bathing and washing their clothing and tidying generally. Therefore, after breakfast the brush near the river bank was soon displaying shirts and handkerchiefs of red and blue, and sundry pairs of socks, spread out to dry, while their owners sat around and fought mosquitoes and watched the wagon outfits. Some of these forded the river for Salt Lake, Oregon or California, but most of them kept on up the Denver branch.

This was interrupted by a distant hullabaloo――a yelling and cheering mingled. The air was thin and still and very clear, so that sound and eyesight carried far through it. The hullabaloo evidently came from Jules’ Ranch, where at the group of buildings a crowd of people had gathered. Davy’s shirt was dry, and he reached for it.

“Must be having a celebration over yonder,” drawled Kentuck. “Reckon I’ll go see.”

He donned his red shirt and started. Several others made ready to go; and Davy, as curious as anybody, decided that he would go, too. So, wriggling into his clothes, whether they were dry or not, he followed along up the trail to Jules’ place.

The ranch was a small collection of adobe or sun-baked clay buildings, and a log shack which was the store. The main excitement was centred in front of the store. The crowd had formed a circle at a respectful distance. They were emigrants and a few of the Charley Martin bull train.

“What’s the row?” queried Kentuck of a man at his elbow.

“’Pears like this fellow Jules is having a leetle time with himself,” answered the man. “I ’low he’s crazy. He’s got whiskey and flour out thar on the ground and says he’s mixing mortar. It’s a good place for the whiskey, but it’s an awful waste of flour.”

Edging through the circle, Davy peered to see. A dirty, darkly sallow visaged, hairy man, in soiled shirt, and trousers sagging from their belt, was capering and screeching, and hoeing at a white mass which might have been real mortar. But the smell of whiskey was strong in the air, and there stood a barrel of it with the head knocked in. The white stuff was flour, for, as Davy looked, the capering hairy man grabbed a sack, tore it open and emptied it on the pile.

“I show you how I mek one gr-r-rand mortarr,” he proclaimed. “Flour at one dollar ze pound, whiskey at ten dollars ze quart; zat ze way ol’ Jules mek gr-r-rand mortarr. Wow! Hooray! If anybody teenk he mek one better mortarr, I cut off hees ears. Dees my country; I do as I please.” And he hoed vigorously at his “mortar bed,” and screeched and capered and threatened and boasted and made a fool of himself.

Some of the crowd laughed and applauded; but the majority were disgusted. To Davy it seemed a great pity that any human being should so lose all control of himself and be less human than an ape. He speedily tired of this silly exhibition by Jules, the store-keeper, and turned away for fresh air. He and Charley, the wagon boss, emerged from the crowd together.

“Old Jules is spoiling his own business, I reckon,” observed Charley. “How any man can watch that in there and ever taste whiskey again is more than I know. To see him make a fool of himself is better than signing a pledge.”

The crowd rapidly wearied of this drunken Jules and his antics and dwindled away. As for Davy, he had decided to take a walk to the mouth of Lodgepole Creek, up the river a short distance. Lodgepole Creek emptied in on the opposite side of the Platte, and was named because the Cheyennes used to gather their lodge poles along it.

The Platte flowed shallow and wide, with many sand bars and ripples, and many deepish holes where the water eddied rapidly. The banks were fringed with willows not very high. From a rise in the trail Dave, trudging stanchly in his heavy dusty boots, beheld an object, far up the channel, beyond the willow tops, floating down.

It was a large object flat to the water, and as he peered he saw a flash as from an oar-blade. A boat! No――too large and low for a boat. It must be a raft with somebody aboard. Davy waited, inquisitive; for craft floating on the Platte were a curiosity. The upper river was too shallow, especially at this time of the year.

The raft came on gallantly and swiftly. It carried three persons and their outfit. The crew were standing up: one of them steering, behind, and one at either edge, with oars, was helping to fend off from the bars. It looked like an easy mode of travel, and Davy prepared to stand out and give the voyagers a cheer.

But just before the raft arrived opposite, going finely, it appeared to 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?”

“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.