Part 15
“You’re too young to follow bull whacking, my boy,” declared the captain. “It’s a rough life and a hard one. To earn your own way and know how to hold up your end and take care of yourself is all very well; but you’d better mix in with it the education of books and cultured people as much as you can while you go along. Then you’ll grow up an all-round man instead of a one-sided man. Laramie’s a long way from the States; but we’ve got a small post school and a few books, and it’s the home of a lot of cultured men and women. You’ll learn things there that you’ll never learn roughing it on the trail.”
And Davy looked forward to life at old Fort Laramie, the famous army post and freight and emigrant station on the Overland Trail to Salt Lake, Oregon and California.
The fording of the Platte was made in quick time to foil the quicksands. The North Platte was now scarce eighteen miles across the narrow tongue of land separating the two rivers above their juncture. It was struck at Ash Hollow. Ash Hollow had a grocery store for emigrant trade. The sign read “BUTTE, REGGS, FLOWER and MELE.”
Captain Brown halted here long enough to buy a few crackers and some sardines.
“Thought we’d stock up while we can,” he explained to Dave. “These and what buffalo meat we have will carry us quite a way. Laramie’s one hundred and sixty miles, and I’m going to push right through.”
The four stout mules ambled briskly at a good eight miles an hour, following the trail into the west, up the south bank of the river. The trail was broad and plain, but it was not so crowded with emigrants as it had been before the Pike’s Peak portion of it had branched off. However, there still were emigrants; and there were many bull trains bound out for Laramie and Fort Bridger and Salt Lake, for this was the main Overland Trail, dating back fifty years.
The ambulance rolled on without slackening, except for sand or short rises, until after sunset. Then the captain gave the word to stop. By this time he knew Dave’s history, and Davy was liking him immensely. They clambered stiffly out. The driver and corporal unhitched the mules: and while the corporal made a fire for coffee, the driver (who was a private) put the mules out to graze.
“We’ll take four hours, Mike,” said the captain to the corporal. “Then we’ll make another spurt until daylight.”
“Yes, sir,” answered the corporal, saluting.
“You’d do well to crawl in the wagon and sleep, after supper, Dave,” advised the captain to Davy. “We’ll be travelling the rest of the night. Can you stand it?”
Davy laughed. A great question, that, to ask of a boy who’d just been a bull whacker walking across the plains!
Nevertheless, Davy took a nap in the bottom of the ambulance; and more than a nap. When he awakened, he had been aroused by the jolting of his bed. A buffalo robe had been thrown over him, the captain was sitting in a corner snugly wrapped, and by the light of a half moon the ambulance was again upon its way.
In the morning, when they once more halted to rest and feed the mules, the country was considerably rougher, with hills and fantastic rocks breaking the sagy, gravelly landscape. The white-topped wagons of emigrants and the smoke of their camp-fires were in sight, before and behind; and not far ahead a bull outfit were driving their bulls into the wagon corral to yoke up for the day’s trail.
Breakfast was coffee and buffalo meat; but Corporal Mike mounted one of the mules and rode off the trail. When he returned he had some sage chickens and an antelope. The sides of the ambulance had been rolled up; and about noon, pointing ahead the captain remarked to Davy:
“That’s Laramie Peak, beyond the post. We’ve got only about eighty miles to go and we’ll be in bright and early.”
The landmark of Laramie Peak, of the Black Hills Range of the Rocky Mountains, remained in sight all day, slowly standing higher. The sun set behind it. Davy snoozed in the bottom of the ambulance. The captain had spoken truth, for shortly after sunrise they sighted the flag streaming over Fort Laramie.
Old Fort Laramie was not so large a post as Fort Leavenworth; it was not so large as Fort Kearney, even. Davy was a little disappointed, for “Laramie” was a name in the mouth of almost every bull whacker in the Russell, Majors & Waddell trains out of Leavenworth, and the men were constantly going “out to Laramie” and back. The post stood on a bare plateau beside Laramie Creek about a mile up from the Platte; some of the buildings were white-washed adobe, some were logs, and some were of rough-sawed lumber. Back of the fort were hills, and beyond the hills, to the southwest, were mountains――Laramie Peak being the sentinel.
It was the important division point on the Overland Trail to Salt Lake; maintained here in the Sioux Indian country to protect the trail and to be a distributing point for Government supplies. It was garrisoned by both cavalry and infantry; on the outskirts were cabins of Indian traders and trappers and other hangers-on, and there were a couple of stores that sold things to emigrants. Sioux Indians usually were camping nearby, in time of peace.
Davy changed his rough teamster costume for clothes a little more suited to a clerk and messenger in the quartermaster’s department, and was put to work by Captain Brown, the acting quartermaster. The post proved a busy place, with the quartermaster’s offices the busiest of all; but the captain and Mrs. Brown saw that Dave was courteously treated and given a fair show. He went to evening school, and had books to read; and once in a while was allowed time for a hunt. In fact, Fort Laramie, away out here, alone, guarding the middle of the Overland Trail through to Salt Lake, was by no means a stupid or quiet place.
Of course, the trail was what kept it lively, for every day news from the States and from the farther west arrived with the emigrants and the bull trains; and scarcely had Dave been settled into his new niche, when arrived the first of the new daily stages from the Missouri. It was preceded by a slender, gentlemanly man named Bob Scott, dropped off by one of the company wagons which was establishing the stations. Bob Scott was to drive stage from Fort Laramie on to Horseshoe, thirty-six miles, and he was here in readiness. He seemed to be well known on the trail, for many persons at the post called him “Bob.”
“When do you expect to start on the run, Bob?” asked the captain.
“I think about next Tuesday, captain,” answered Bob, in his quiet, easy tone. “The first coach leaves to-day, I understand, from St. Joe.”
“They’ll make it through in six days, will they?”
“Yes, sir. Ten days to Salt Lake is the schedule――an average of one hundred and twenty miles a day. At Salt Lake the express and passengers are transferred to the George Chorpening line to Placerville, California, and from Placerville they’re sent on to Sacramento and San Francisco. I understand the time from the Missouri River to San Francisco will be about eighteen days.”
“You haven’t heard what’s to be the name of the new company, have you, Bob?”
“Yes, sir. ‘Central Overland, California & Pike’s Peak Express’ is to be the name; the ‘C. O. C. & P. P.’”
Stables and express station and a relay of horses had been established adjacent to the post. The old stage company, Hockaday & Liggett, had worked on a loose, go-as-you-please system which was very different from the way that Russell, Majors & Waddell went at it. Now, with things in readiness along the line, clear to Salt Lake City, Tuesday dawned on a post eagerly hoping that Bob Scott’s calculation would prove true.
About eleven o’clock a murmur and hustle in the post announced that the stage was in sight. It came with a rush and a cheer――its four mules at a gallop, up the trail, the big coach swaying behind them, the driver firm on his box. Stain of dust and mud and rain and snow coated the fresh coach body, for all the way from the Missouri River, 600 miles, had it come, through all kinds of weather, and had been travelling night and day for six days. At top and bottom of the frame around the stiffened canvas ran the legend: “Central Overland California & Pike’s Peak Express Co.”
“Wild Bill” Hickok himself it was who, coolly tossing his lines to the hostler, waiting to take them and lead the horses to the stable, drawing off his gloves bade, for the benefit of his passengers:
“Gentlemen, you have forty minutes here for dinner.”
At the same moment the station keeper’s wife began to beat a sheet-iron gong as dinner signal.
XX
FAST TIME TO CALIFORNIA
Dave was heartily glad to see Wild Bill again――and Wild Bill seemed glad to see Davy.
“I heard you were out in this region,” said Wild Bill, after they had shaken hands. “Billy Cody told me.”
“When did you see him, Bill?”
“Last time was when I was out to his house about a month ago. He was planning on a trapping and hunting trip with a man named Harrington up in the Republican country north of Junction City. But he’ll be on the trail again in the spring; you mark my word.”
“So you’re driving stage, are you, Bill?”
“Yes; I’m running between Horse Creek and Laramie, forty-two miles. It’s a great outfit, the C. O. C. & P. P.――the finest coaches and mules I’ve ever seen, and plenty of stations and feed. Now it’s up to the drivers to make the schedule.” And Wild Bill sauntered off, nodding to acquaintances, to wash and eat.
Davy joined the group admiring the coach. It evidently had been prepared especially for the occasion of the first trip through. It was a new “Concord,” built by the famous stage-coach manufacturers, the Abbot-Downing Company, of Concord, New Hampshire. The large round, deep body was enclosed at the sides by canvas curtains that could be rolled up; and behind, it was extended to form a large roomy triangular pocket, or “boot,” for mail and baggage. The driver’s seat, in front, was almost on the level with the roof; and beneath it was another pocket, or boot, for express and other valuables. A pair of big oil lamps sat upon brackets, at either end of the driver’s seat. The coach body was slung upon heavy straps forming the “throughbrace,” instead of resting upon springs; and here it securely cradled. It had been painted red and decorated with gilt.
This coach had space for six passengers, three in a seat facing three others in an opposite seat. The coach was filled, when it had arrived, with the six passengers and a lot of mail; Wild Bill on the box, and beside him a wiry little man, who was Captain Cricket, the express messenger.
Bob Scott and Wild Bill ate dinner together at the station. The fresh team of mules had been harnessed into the traces, and were being held by the heads. Bob looked at his watch, drew on his gloves, circuited the mules with an eye to their straps and buckles, laid his overcoat (a fine buffalo coat with high beaver collar) on his seat, and grasping lines and whip climbed up. Captain Cricket nimbly followed.
“All ready, gentlemen,” announced Bob, his foot on the brake, poised to release it. The passengers came hurrying out and into the coach. Bob gave one glance over his shoulder. Then――“Let ’er go,” he bade the hostlers.
“Whang!” his brake released; the hostlers leaped aside; out flew his lash, forward sprang the mules, and away went coach and all, in a flurry of dust, for the next run, to Horseshoe Creek, thirty-six miles. Run by run, up the Sweetwater River, over South Pass, down to the Sandy and the Green Rivers, through Fort Bridger and Echo Canyon, one hundred and more miles every day, would it speed, by relays of teams and of drivers, until the last team and last driver would bring it into Salt Lake.
Wild Bill took a horse and returned to his east station, to drive in the next westbound stage. Every day a stage came through, and presently the stages from the west began coming back. The driver who brought in a stage from one direction took back the stage going in the opposite direction.
The stages through to Salt Lake and to the Missouri brought considerable new life to Fort Laramie. Papers and letters from New York and San Francisco arrived so quickly after being mailed that it was easy to see what a great treat this service was to Salt Lake and Denver and every little settlement along the whole route.
Mr. Ficklin was general superintendent of the line, and was constantly riding up and down. No person who passed by was better liked than Superintendent Ficklin. Mr. Russell was in Washington, but Mr. Majors appeared, once, stepping from the stage; and he had not forgotten Davy.
“Your pardner, Billy Cody, almost met his end this winter, my lad,” he informed. “Did you hear about it?”
“No, sir,” gasped Dave.
“Well, he did. He was up in central Kansas on a trapping trip, and lost his oxen and broke his leg and had to be left alone in a dug-out while his companion went one hundred and twenty-five miles, afoot, to the nearest settlement for a team and supplies. Billy got snowed in, couldn’t move anyway, a gang of Indians plundered him and might have murdered him, and when, on the twenty-ninth day――nine days late――his friend finally arrived and yelled to him, Billy could scarcely answer. Even then the snow had to be dug away from the door. But he reached home safely and he’s getting along finely now. He’s plucky, is Billy――and so was his friend, Harrington.”
“Maybe he won’t want to go out on the plains any more,” faltered Dave.
“Who? Billy Cody?” And Mr. Majors laughed. “You wait till the grass begins to get green and the willow buds swell, and you’ll see Billy Cody right on deck, ready for business.”
Back and forth, between Salt Lake and the Missouri River shuttled the stages of the Central Overland, California & Pike’s Peak Express. They seemed to be making money for the company, but rumors said that the company needed more money; in fact, the company were in a bad way. The expenses had been tremendous. The big coaches cost $1000 apiece――and there were fifty of them. The harness for each four-mule team was made in Concord, and it cost about $150. Then there were 10,000 tons of hay a year, at twenty to thirty dollars a ton; and 3,000,000 pounds of corn and another 3,000,000 pounds of grain, at several cents a pound; and 2000 mules at seventy-five dollars each; and the wages of the men――$100 a month and board for the division agents, $50 and $75 a month for the drivers, $50 a month for the station agents, and $40 a month for the hostlers who took care of the mules.
But even under this expense it seemed as though the passenger fare of $125 to Denver and $200 to Salt Lake (meals extra at a dollar and a dollar and a half), and the heavy rates on express ought to bring the company a profit. Davy, trying to figure out the matter, hoped so. Of course, it was not his business, but a fellow likes to have his friends successful; and Dave looked upon Mr. Majors, and Mr. Russell, and Mr. Waddell as very good friends of his.
He took a trip, once in a while, on the stage east with Wild Bill, or west with “Gentleman Bob,” on quartermaster’s affairs, to some of the stations. There always was room on the driver’s box, and generally Wild Bill or “Gentleman Bob” was glad to have him up there along with the messenger.
“Gentleman Bob” proved to be as remarkable a character as Wild Bill Hickok. When approaching stations Wild Bill signalled with a tremendous piercing: “Ah-whoop-pee!” and arrived on the run. Gentleman Bob whistled shrilly. The teams for either of them had to be changed in less than four minutes, or there was trouble. The Overland stage waited for naught.
Wild Bill passed the news on to Gentleman Bob, and Gentleman Bob it was who passed it to Davy, as one fresh, windy morning in this the spring of 1860, Dave gladly clambered up to the driver’s box to ride through to the end of the run at Horseshoe.
“Let ’er go!” yelped Bob, kicking the brake free; and to mighty lunge and smart crack of lash the coach jumped forward, whirling away from the station for another westward spurt.
“This, oh this is the life for me, Driving the C. O. C. & P. P.”
warbled Gentleman Bob, flicking the off lead mule with the whip cracker. No bull whacker in any Russell, Majors & Waddell outfit could sling a whip more deftly than “Gentleman Bob,” a “king of the road.” “Do you know what that means, nowadays, Red――‘C. O. C. & P. P.’?”
“What, Bob?”
“Clean Out of Cash & Poor Pay!”
“Aw!” scoffed Davy. “Is it as bad as that?”
“Pretty near,” asserted Bob. But that wasn’t his news. His news followed. “Do you know something else; what’s going to happen next on this blooming road?”
“Pony express!” hazarded Dave.
Bob turned his head and coolly stared.
“How’d you find out?”
“I guessed. Mr. Ficklin spoke about it a long time ago.”
“Well, she’s due, and Ben Ficklin and Billy Russell and Alex Majors and that crowd are back of it. You saw Billy Russell go through Laramie last month. He’s been buying hosses――the best in the country, two hundred of ’em, at from one hundred to two hundred dollars apiece. Read this advertisement in the paper; that’ll tell you the scheme.” And reaching in behind the leather apron which covered the front of the pocket or “boot” under his seat, Bob extracted a newspaper. He indicated with his thumb. “Read that,” he bade.
It was a “Missouri Republican,” date of March 26. The article said:
TO SAN FRANCISCO IN EIGHT DAYS BY THE CENTRAL OVERLAND CALIFORNIA AND PIKE’S PEAK EXPRESS CO.
The first courier of the Pony Express will leave the Missouri River on Tuesday, April 3, at 5 o’clock p. m., and will run regularly weekly thereafter, carrying a letter mail only. The point of departure on the Missouri River will be in telegraphic connection with the East and will be announced later.
* * * * *
The letter mail will be delivered in San Francisco in ten days from the departure of the Express. The Express passes through Forts Kearney, Laramie, Bridger, Great Salt Lake City, Camp Floyd, Carson City, The Washoe Silver Mines, Placerville, and Sacramento.
* * * * *
W. H. RUSSELL, President. LEAVENWORTH CITY, KANSAS, March, 1860.
There was more than this to the advertisement, but these were the paragraphs that appealed to Davy.
“Pretty slick they’ve all been about it, too,” resumed Bob, tucking the paper away again.
“You’re right,” spoke the express messenger――who was Captain Cricket, again on his way through to Salt Lake. “They’ve bought the ponies and hired the riders, sixty of them. The route’s being divided into runs of seventy-five or a hundred miles, and stocked with horses, every ten or fifteen miles, for change of mounts.”
“Do you think it’ll pay?” asked Gentleman Bob.
“Pay? No! It can’t pay. But it’ll be a big advertisement for this company. They count on showing the Government that the Salt Lake Trail can be travelled quicker and easier than the old Butterfield overland trail through Texas, and on taking the mail and express business away from it.”
“I’d like to ride one of those runs,” asserted Dave, boldly.
Gentleman Bob laughed and cracked his silk lashed whip, of which he was very proud.
“I expect you would, Red,” he agreed. “But this riding a hundred miles or more at a gallop without rest is no kid’s job, you’d find.”
“Billy Cody’ll ride, though, I bet a dollar,” returned Davy.
Gentleman Bob scratched his cheek with his whip stock, and deliberated.
“Well,” he said, “I shouldn’t wonder if he would.”
Events moved rapidly now after the Pony Express had been announced. Three new horses were stabled at the stage station; two were wiry ponies, the other was a mettlesome horse of such extra good points that Gentleman Bob pronounced him a Kentucky thoroughbred. The station force of men were increased by Pony Express employees, and a rider himself arrived who had been engaged to take the run from Laramie west to the next “home” station, Red Buttes, ninety-eight miles. His name was “Irish Tom,” and he did not weigh more than one hundred pounds; but every pound of him seemed to be good hard muscle.
Irish Tom had come in from the west. He said that he had been one of sixty riders hired at Carson City, Nevada, by Bolivar Roberts, who was the superintendent of the Western Division of the Pony Express. According to Irish Tom every man had to prove up that he was experienced on the plains and in the mountains, and could ride. Altogether, there were eighty riders waiting, stationed all the way across the continent from St. Joseph on the Missouri to Sacramento in California; there were over 400 picked horses, which would gallop at top speed up hill and down, through sand and mud, snow and water and sun, for at least ten miles at a stretch.
The start from both ends of the route, from St. Joseph and from Sacramento, was to be made (as advertised) on April 3. Of course there was no way of knowing at Laramie, for instance, whether the start had been made; the Pony Express would bring its own news, for the railroad and the telegraph were the only things that could beat it, and these seemed a long way in the future. As for the Overland Stage, the Pony Express was scheduled to travel two miles to the stage’s one!
April 3rd passed; so did April 4th and 5th. It was figured at the post and stage station that on a schedule of ten miles an hour, including stops, the 600 miles to Laramie would bring the first rider through early on April 6th. The west-bound rider would reach Laramie before the east-bound rider, because the distance from the Missouri River was the shorter distance.
Davy was among those who turned out at daybreak to watch for the first rider. He hustled down to the stage station. The air was frosty, ice had formed over night, and the sunrise was only a pink glow in the east, beyond the expanse of rolling, sage-brush plain. A group of stage and pony express employees and of people from the post had gathered, wrapped in their buffalo-robe coats and army coats, shivering in the chill air, but waiting. By evidence of this group the rider had not come; but the fresh horse was standing saddled and bridled (he was the Kentucky thoroughbred), and Irish Tom was also standing, ready, beside it. Irish Tom wore a close-fitting leather jacket and tight buckskin trousers, and boots and spurs and a slouch hat tied down over his ears with a scarf. At his belt were two revolvers and a knife; and slung to his back was a Spencer carbine, which could fire eight shots.
All eyes were directed down the trail.
“He’s due,” spoke the station agent. And――
“There he comes!” shouted somebody. “There he comes!”
“There he comes! Hurray! There he comes!”
Upon the dun sandy trail had appeared a black speck. How rapidly it neared! Every eye was glued to it; Irish Tom put foot into stirrup, hand upon mane; his horse, as if knowing, pawed eagerly.
Now the speck had enlarged into a horseman, rising, falling, rising, falling, upon galloping steed. The horse itself was plain――and through the still thin air floated the heralding beat of rapid hoofs.
The rider was leaning forward, lifting his mount to its every stride; the horse’s head was stretched forward, he was running low and hard, and now the steam from his nostrils could be seen in great puffs. On they swept, they two, man and horse, every second nearer――and suddenly here they were, the horse’s chest foam-specked, his nostrils wide and red, his legs working forward and back, forward and back, his rider a little fellow not much larger than Dave, crimson faced from the swift pace through the cold night. He swung his hat, and whooped, exultant. Up rose a cheer to greet him; and the crowd scattered, for into its very midst he galloped at full speed.