Part 7

“Yes; we live up yonder near the top of the hill.”

“How long do you reckon it’ll take us to get to Cherry Creek?” pursued the ox-team driver.

“Two months if you keep going,” said Billy.

“’Twon’t take as long as that, stranger,” replied the man. “We can travel right smart.”

“They do say you can dig out the gold with a shovel,” quavered the woman. “We hear tell you can dig out a pound a day. Were you ever there?”

“No,” answered Billy. “But we’re going. Aren’t you a little early?”

“Wall, we reckoned we’d start ’arly, an’ make our pile ’fore the other folks got thar,” explained the driver. “Thar’s a tarnel lot o’ people gathered behind us, an’ those that come later won’t find ’nough grass for their critters. Gee-up, Buck! Spot! Get along with you.”

Creaking, the wagon resumed its way. The man with the hand-cart pushed in the wake. The mud was ankle deep, and Dave felt sorry for the whole outfit.

“Better stop on the hill and rest,” bade Billy. “Guess we can give you some coffee.”

“Nope, thank ye, stranger,” said the driver. “We’re goin’ on through.” And he swung his whip, urging his oxen.

Billy and Dave and the girls raced ahead; and when the wagon and the hand-cart, with the oxen and men alike panting, toiled up hill near the Cody house Mrs. Cody rushed out with a pail of hot coffee. But the emigrants scarcely halted to drink it. Even the women were anxious to proceed, as if already they saw the gold.

“Poor things,” sighed Mrs. Cody, while the girls waved goodby to the two children. “They’ll have a hard time.”

But Billy and Dave watched until the “Pike’s Peak or Bust” sign was only a blur, and the wagon a crawling dot.

“Shucks!” said Billy. “If it wasn’t for mother and school I’d join ’em. But I wouldn’t go by the regular Overland Trail. When we go we’ll take the Smoky Hill trail, Dave; up the Kansas River, to Fort Riley, and on out by the Smoky Hill branch or the Republican. That’s shorter.”

This “Pike’s Peak or Bust” outfit was only the first of a long series of gold-field “pilgrims” (as they were called), all enthusiastic. And soon Leavenworth City was a sight! As Mr. Baxter had predicted, the city was scarcely large enough to hold the new-comers. Two and three steamboats a day arrived, loaded to the gunwales, at the levee, bringing up from St. Louis and Kansas City Eastern and Southern people, their teams and goods.

The streets were thronged with the strangers, young and old, in all kinds of costumes and of all professions――farmers, lawyers, ministers, doctors, merchants, teachers――buying supplies and exchanging opinions. The lodging houses and hotels and spare rooms were overflowing, and around the city and in the vacant lots were hundreds of tents, where were camped overland parties of men and whole families.

A constant procession of “pilgrims” wended slow way through the Salt Creek Valley, past the Cody home and the Shields home, and northwestward to the main Salt Lake Overland Trail which led up the Platte River; at the South Platte they might branch for the “diggin’s” by a cut-off. Many of the wagon hoods bore that queer legend “Pike’s Peak or Bust!” Some men trundled wheel-barrows, loaded, and a few were trying to carry packs through on their backs.

But the greatest procession went out over the new route from Leavenworth southwest to the Kansas River; thence on to Fort Riley at the forks, and either northwest up the Republican branch or west up the Smoky Hill River branch. Still other people travelled by the Santa Fe Trail――the southernmost trail of all――up the Arkansas River to the mountains, and then north along the base of the mountains past Pike’s Peak itself to Cherry Creek and Denver.

Mr. Russell, of Russell, Majors & Waddell, and Mr. John S. Jones put in a stage line to Denver by the Smoky Hill route. It was called the “Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak Express Company,” Jones & Russell, Proprietors. Two stages, travelling together for protection against the Indians, each drawn by four fine Kentucky mules and carrying six passengers, left Leavenworth every morning for Denver, and covered the 700 rolling miles in ten days. Soon the return stages would be arriving, and everybody was expecting great news. It was calculated that already 25,000 people had started for the diggings. The trails were said to be white with the wagons and the camps.

The streets and the levee of Leavenworth were so full of fascinating sights that Davy took every moment he could spare from chores and school to go in with Billy and look and listen. The best place was in front of the Planters’ House Hotel, across the street from the office of Russell, Majors & Waddell. Here the stages started, and here people gathered to bid one another goodby. The conversation was most interesting, as people on the ground called up to passengers in the stages.

“Send us back a sack of gold, John.”

“Hold tight to your scalps, boys.”

“Let us know how things are. Be sure and write.”

“Kill a buffalo for me, Frank. I want a good big hide, remember.”

“Leave a message for me on the top of Pike’s Peak.”

“Look out for the ‘Rapahoes.’”

“Goodby, goodby, old fellow.”

“Don’t forget to give Robinson that package from his wife.”

“Most of these people don’t know where they’re going or why,” remarked a man near Davy, to another man. “There’ll be much suffering from this mad rush.”

He was a tall, slender, erect man of about thirty-five, with long bronzed, florid face, sandy complexion and crisp, sandy beard.

“That’s Lieutenant William T. Sherman, formerly of the Army. He’s practising law here now with Judge Ewing,” said another man, aside, to a companion. In a few more years he would be the famous “General Sherman.”

Billy Cody, too, was of the opinion that the green-horns on the trail would meet with trouble; and in Davy’s opinion Billy ought to know. Already reports were to the effect that the route up the Smoky Hill and the Republican were short of grass and exposed to the Indians, and that the emigrants were being compelled to throw away much of their baggage.

However, this did not stop anybody from starting. Davy and Billy had the gold fever bad. Even Mr. Shields had decided to take his wife and baby and leave the ranch for the diggings, where he counted on making more money in a week than he could make here in a year. So Davy only waited on Billy, to start, himself.

“Shucks!” exclaimed Billy, in May. “I’ve got to quit, Dave, and go on the trail again. Mother said last night ‘All right.’ She’ll let me go. She needs the money and I’ll send her back a lot. Come on. We’ll raise a gang and start.”

“When, Billy?”

“Right away, as soon as we get the men and the outfit. This green grass makes me restless. Got any money left, Dave? We have to buy a wagon and team.”

Yes, Davy had almost all his herding wages on deposit with Mr. Majors. He was proud to say so, and to be able to pay his own way.

IX

THE HEE-HAW EXPRESS

Now Billy wasted no time with the preparations. That was his style. The Reverend Mr. Baxter, who had been ill in Leavenworth, and so had not started before, promptly agreed to join the party. He and Billy and Dave clubbed together with an outfit that Billy knew. These were Jim Barber and Hi Wilson and another man called “Left-over Joe.” Jim and Hi had been teamsters with Russell, Majors & Waddell bull trains; but “Left-over Joe” seemed to be nobody in particular――and that is why they nicknamed him “Left-over Joe.”

A big emigrant outfitting camp had been established in the Salt Creek Valley near the Cody home, and while Jim and Hi were here getting ready to move on, this lean, lank, very long-necked hobbledehoy of squeaky voice and nineteen or twenty years had wandered into their camp and adopted them. So they let him stay.

Jim and Hi had a team of mules: Billy and Dave and Mr. Baxter added an old light wagon. The party thought themselves lucky, for oxen had risen in price to $175 and $200 a yoke, and mules and horses were scarcer yet. Wagons were scarce, too.

By the time that the supplies of salty pork and beans and flour and coffee had been laid in for “grub,” and picks and spades and gold-pans for digging out the gold and separating it, and ammunition for killing game and fighting Indians, Davy’s money was about gone. However, that did not matter. They all would find gold enough to last them the rest of their lives!

Billy owned the Mississippi “yager” smoothbore musket and the two Colt’s navy revolvers that he had used when in the mule fort. He gave Davy one of the revolvers. With it belted at his waist, Davy felt like a regular scout indeed. Hi and Jim also owned guns. Hi’s was a yager similar to Billy’s. Jim’s was a heavy Sharp’s “Old Reliable” rifle, of fifty calibre holding six cartridges underneath, and one in the breech. It was a tremendously hard-shooting gun. Whoever had a Sharp’s “Old Reliable” had the best gun on the plains.

The Reverend Mr. Baxter had no gun at all and did not want one, he claimed. “Left-over Joe” had no gun at all, but wanted one badly. Hi promised to let him shoot the yager sometime.

The Salt Creek camp was a lively place. Here were assembled a thousand emigrants, all “Pike’s Peakers,” making ready to travel on westward and find their fortunes. About every kind of an outfit was to be seen, and all sorts of people. Many of the men never had driven oxen or mules before; they had bought what they could get; some of the animals proved not to be broken to drive, and when the green-horns tried to hitch up the green “critters” then there was fun for the onlookers.

However, nobody was delaying to watch the “fun.” By the hundred, parties were setting out every day from the camp as well as from Leavenworth. Thousands of gold-seekers already had left Omaha and Kansas City and St. Joseph. It was reported that along any of the trails a person could walk from the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains on the tops of the prairie schooners――so thick was the travel. It beat the celebrated stampede to California in 1849.

There were four trails to the “diggin’s.” The two best known were the Santa Fe Trail, on the south, which followed up the Arkansas River in southern Kansas, to the mountains, and then turned north for the gold fields; and the big Salt Lake Overland Trail, on the north, which from the Missouri River followed up the Platte River, until in western Nebraska the gold hunters turned south for Pike’s Peak. Omaha and St. Joseph were the outfitting points for this northern trail, and Leavenworth traffic struck it by the government road which ran through Salt Creek Valley on into the northwest. The Russell, Majors & Waddell “bull trains” hauled their freight over this route.

The other two trails were new central trails, made especially for the Pike’s Peak rush. One trail followed up the Republican River through southern Nebraska; the other followed up along the Smoky Hill Fork River, through central Kansas. Emigrants coming in by St. Joseph were taking either the Salt Lake and California Overland route or the Republican route; the emigrants outfitting at Leavenworth and the Salt Creek Valley were taking the Smoky Hill route or else the Overland Trail route.

By the Overland Trail (the Salt Lake and California Trail) it was accounted 580 miles from Omaha to the diggin’s; and the Pike’s Peak Guide-book recommended that trail. But from Leavenworth it was 100 miles further, and the Smoky Hill Trail was said to be the straightest and the shortest. The Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak Express Company stages had chosen that route.

“I reckon that’s the route for us,” said Hi. “I hear we can follow the Smoky clear to the mountains, and have water all the way.”

“When the first stage comes back we’ll know more about it, but we can’t wait,” mused the Reverend Mr. Baxter.

“Oh, we’ll get through,” spoke Billy, quickly. “And the sooner we start the better, before all the grass and fuel are used up. Look at the people, will you, pulling out every day!”

“Do you think one wagon will be enough to bring back our gold?” squeaked Left-over, anxiously. “I don’t want to quit till I get a million dollars’ worth for myself alone.”

“Then what’ll you do, Left-over?” asked Jim, with a wink at the rest.

Left-over Joe scratched his long freckled neck and looked like a chicken.

“I’d buy a gun and have all the pie I wanted, too,” he declared foolishly.

Now everything had been made ready. The night before the start Billy and Dave spent in camp with the rest of the party. Mr. Shields and family had gone; their log cabin was empty, their claim abandoned again. If they had stayed they could have made lots of money selling produce to the emigrants; but they, like the thousands of others, wished to get rich quick.

This last evening in the Salt Creek emigrant camp the party elected their officers. Hi was chosen captain or wagon-master, Billy was chosen lieutenant or assistant, Mr. Baxter volunteered to cook, and “Left-over” was appointed “cavarango” or herder of the two mules. This left Jim and Davy for the general work of march and camp.

With the provisions and bedding and mining tools and other stuff the wagon was well loaded for two mules to haul across the plains; so it was decided that all the party except the driver must walk. They would take turns driving and riding; and after the mules were well broken in and the trail was rougher then probably nobody would ride.

“I reckon we ought to make twenty miles a day, with mules,” quoth Billy, wisely. “But those oxen the other folks are using won’t make more than twelve or fifteen miles a day. Some of ’em are liable to be sixty days on the road.”

“Well, we’ll be lucky if we get through in thirty,” said Mr. Baxter. “It will be nearer forty.”

“Do we have to walk forty days?” squealed “Left-over.”

“That’s nothing to a bull whacker,” said Hi, gruffly. “I’ve walked clean from Leavenworth to Salt Lake and back again.”

“So have I,” nodded Jim. “That’s twelve hundred miles each way――and most of it up-hill, too!”

The Smoky Hill Fork trail was to be struck at Fort Riley, 132 miles southwest from Leavenworth. Here the Smoky Hill Fork and the Republican Rivers joined to form the Kaw or Kansas River. Settlements extended to Fort Riley and a short distance beyond; but after that the country was the “Indian Country.”

“Lookee here,” suddenly exclaimed Billy Cody, that last night before the start, when everybody was under blankets and almost asleep. “We’ve got to have a name painted on our wagon.”

“Can’t we travel anonymous?” queried the Reverend Mr. Baxter, sleepily.

“I dunno what that means but it sounds pretty good,” spoke Hi. “Can you spell it?”

“Oh,” chuckled Mr. Baxter, “that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Huh!” grumbled Hi. “I thought it was an animile like a hippopotamus, mebbe.”

When the camp turned out at sunrise Billy had already been up, and on the wagon hood he had painted, with the stick and tar-pot used for greasing the wagon, the title: “HEE-HAW EXPRESS.” So, amidst laughter, the Hee-Haw Express it was which, soon after sun-up, joined the procession that, anew each day, filed out for the long trail to Pike’s Peak.

The Hee-Haw Express, being mule-power, travelled faster than many of the other outfits. The road certainly presented a series of strange sights, as if everybody had thrown together whatever he could and was hastening from a fire or a plague. The Hee-Haw Express, at amble and fast walk, with Hi driving and his partners trudging as fast as they were able beside, gradually passed men with packs, men pushing handcarts and wheel-barrows, crippled ox teams, next an ox and a cow harnessed together, next a mule and an ox harnessed together; and so forth and so forth, all in the dust and the shouting and the rumbling and creaking and whip cracking.

Almost all the other “Pike’s Peak pilgrims” passed by the Hee-Haw Express waved and shouted their greetings.

“Trade you my wheel-barrow for a mule.”

“You must be in a rush, strangers.”

“What’s the fare?”

To this Billy answered gaily:

“Regular stage rates. Twenty-five cents a mile or hundred dollars to the mountains.”

For that was what the Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak Express Company charged.

Many of the other wagons also bore signs. “Pike’s Peak or Bust!” “Noah’s Ark!” “Root Hog or Die!” “Pike’s Peak Special!” “Bound For the Diggin’s!”――thus ran some of the lines to be noted as the Hee-Haw Express sturdily pressed forward.

That night the road was one continuous camp, with fires glowing and canvas glimmering as far as the eye could see in either direction. Parties visited back and forth, men and women exchanged news and views, children played in the firelight shadows, babies cried, dogs barked, and not until after nine o’clock was the trail quiet enough so that nervous persons might sleep. However, Davy was not nervous; and from the snores he might judge that Billy and the rest were not nervous either.

The next day the Hee-Haw Express started early, and was on the road even before sun-up. Billy and Hi and all were anxious to pass Fort Riley and strike the Smoky Hill Fork as soon as possible, and in advance of as many of these “pilgrims” as possible. The only excitement of this day was a sudden cheer adown the line and a craning of necks and waving of hands. Before, from the west, were approaching two vehicles――by the looks of them, and by the four mules, stages, both!

And two stages they proved to be, as, skirting the procession of “pilgrims,” they dashed along, bound for Leavenworth. The first bore a lot of bright bunting and streamers, and on its sides a banner that said: “Greetings from the Gold Mountains of Kansas.” By its dusty appearance and the appearance of its driver and passengers, this coach evidently had come clear from Pike’s Peak. The second coach, close following, was its escort from Fort Riley in to Leavenworth.

Speedily the word travelled through the column of Pike’s Peakers that the first coach actually was the first return coach from the gold mines, and that it carried to Leavenworth $3500 in gold dust. Leavenworth, as was afterwards reported, had a big celebration.

Of course, the sight of the travel-stained coach, and the rumors as to what it contained and what news it bore, excited the emigrants. Some of them began to throw away stuff in order to lighten their loads; so that from here on to Fort Riley the trail was strewn with what Billy called “useless plunder.” But the Hee-Haw party were experienced enough to start out only with what they needed, and they had nothing to throw away yet.

The last of the settlements was Junction City, just beyond Fort Riley. While the rest of the party were making camp along with the other “pilgrims,” outside the little town, Billy and Dave rode the mules in to see if there were any provisions worth buying. Mr. Baxter, the cook, said that if they could find any dried apples he would make a pie!

But there were no dried apples or any other such delicacies in rude little Junction City, here at the edge of the Indian country. Every store seemed to be a saloon; and the streets were thronged with rough emigrants and soldiers from the fort. Only whom did the boys meet but Wild Bill Hickok!

He was standing on the edge of the plank sidewalk of the one business street, with several other men, apparently expecting something.

“Why, hello, Bill!”

“Hello, Billy. How are you, Dave? Where’d you come from, if I may ask?”

“Salt Creek,” answered Billy Cody.

“Going to Pike’s Peak,” announced Davy.

“Good enough,” approved Wild Bill. “People are taking a little gold out o’ thar, that’s sure. But I don’t believe all I hear.”

“What are you doing here, Bill?”

“I? Well, I may go to the diggin’s myself, and I may drive stage. To-day’s stage westbound is due now. That’s what we’re looking for.”

“She’s a comin’,” remarked one of the other men, with a nod.

Sure enough, up the trail from the east, along the north bank of the Smoky Hill Fork, in the dusk and the dust came at a gallop the Leavenworth stage for the Pike’s Peak country, drawn by its four fine mules. It halted before the Junction House Hotel, and the passengers clambered stiffly out from under the canvas top that arched over the wagon box.

They were only two, and one from the driver’s box. The two plainly enough were Easterners. The first was a rather young man, with a thin sandy beard and a soft slouch hat; the second was a stoutish, elderly man, with a round rosy face and a fringe of white whiskers under his chin. He wore a rather dingy whitish coat; the younger man wore a regulation duster. They both gazed about them alertly before entering the hotel.

“Hello, Bill,” nodded the stage driver, descending, after tossing his lines to the hostler from the stage stable――for Junction City was Station Number Seven on the stage route.

“Who’s yore load, Tom?” queried somebody.

“That old fellow in the white coat, he’s Horace Greeley. Other fellow’s named Richardson――Albert D. Richardson.”

“Where they from?”

“N’ York, I reckon.”

“Where they going?”

“Out to the diggin’s.”

“What line they in?”

“Newspaper fellows of some sort, I hear tell. Anyhow, they ask a heap of questions. That old chap in the white coat he’s been speech-makin’ all through Kansas. As I understand it, he an’ that young fellow are goin’ out to the mines to write up the country, so the people of the East’ll know what’s true an’ what ain’t.” And Tom the driver walked on into the hotel to wash and eat.

“Seems to me I’ve heard of Horace Greeley,” mused Wild Bill. “He’s quite a man.”

“Sure. He’s editor of the New York _Tribune_,” asserted a man who had not spoken before. “He’s the biggest man on the biggest paper in the States, and what he says will influence the people more than a stage-load of gold. Richardson’s a newspaper man, too; and another reporter, named Henry Villard, of Cincinnati, is out at the diggin’s now. But Greeley’s the biggest of the lot. They say only one printer in his office can read his writing; but the old man has come out here to get the truth, and if he tells the people to ‘go West’ they’ll go.”

“That,” quoth Wild Bill emphatically, “is the best thing that’s ever happened to this country. But it seems to me it’s a lot of trouble for a man to take. Do you reckon he’s going to start a paper out thar at Cherry Creek?”

“No, sir! They say Horace Greeley is wedded to two things: his New York _Tribune_ and his old white coat.”

“Well, if he makes any speech here to-night I’m going to hear him,” said Wild Bill.

Horace Greeley did make a speech to citizens and emigrants, in a partly-finished stone church. He talked on “Republicanism.” But Dave and Billy and Hi and Jim and “Left-over” were too tired to go and hear him; and so were the majority of the “pilgrims.” The Reverend Mr. Baxter went in and reported that it was very good for those who agreed with it.

Bearing Horace Greeley and Journalist Richardson, the stage continued westward in the morning. So did the Hee-Haw Express.

X

“PIKE’S PEAK OR BUST!”

Already the procession had considerably thinned out. Some of the outfits had broken down and some had quit discouraged. The Pike’s Peak region was still 500 miles distant, and the worst of the journey lay before. However, the Hee-Haw Express had no thought of quitting.

“We’ll have to travel under discipline from now on, boys,” spoke Captain Hi at noon camp. “You bear in mind I’m boss, and Billy is second boss. We’ll try to be as easy on you as we can, but what we say goes. The only person who doesn’t need to pay much attention is the cook. He’s his own boss. The rest of us will mount guard every night and follow a regular schedule. I appoint Jim the official hunter, because he’s got the best gun. Jim, you watch out for meat. Ought to see buffalo, plenty.” And Jim nodded. “Davy, you’re assistant to the cook. You get him fuel and water.” And Davy nodded. “Left-over and Billy and I’ll tend to the mules.”