Part 8

“What I want to know is, why don’t we ever have pie. If I’d thought we’d eat just bacon and beans and coffee all the way across to the mountains I wouldn’t have come,” squeaked Left-over, earnestly.

“Sowbelly and beans will make a man of you,” growled Hi. “After you’ve stood a steady diet of that for a couple o’ months nothing can kill yuh.” And he rose. “All right; catch up, boys. Let’s be moving.”

“Catch up” (or “Ketch up,” as Hi pronounced it) was the regulation signal in the freighters’ trains on the plains for harnessing the mules and oxen to the wagons. So now the span of mules were put back into their places on either side of the tongue, and Left-over climbed into the seat; it was his turn to drive.

Just before sunset Left-over, peering ahead from his driver’s seat, uttered a shrill whoop and tried to whip up his mules.

“Hyar! What’re you aiming to do?” demanded Captain Hi, severely.

“Aw, can’t you let a feller be?” whined Left-over. “I was going on ahead, is all, and see what I could buy.”

On a little hillock, before, beside the trail was what appeared to be another stage station of canvas, but the top of the tent (for wall tent it turned out to be) displayed in large black letters the sign: “Grocery.” This explained Left-over’s hurry. However, as the nearest “pilgrims” were behind he would have the grocery to himself, so Captain Hi calmed him down with――

“Don’t be so brash about it, then. If you go and kill off one of those mules we’ll put you in harness with the other one.”

“And that will be a pair,” added Billy, quick as a wink.

“Never mind, Left-over,” comforted the Reverend. “Maybe we can get our dried apples there and have that pie I promised you.”

But as they toiled on nearer, the tent grocery seemed deserted. It had no customers and no proprietor.

“Whoa!” yelled Left-over loudly, pulling down his mules opposite the tent. “Whoa, there!” And――“Hello,” he hailed shrilly.

At this slowly emerged from between two large barrels the figure of a gaunt, frowsy-headed man――like a dog crawling out of a kennel. The man must have been asleep. He yawned and stretched and stared.

“Howdy?”

“Howdy, strangers.”

“What do you keep?”

“Everything.”

“Got any dried apples?” demanded Left-over, eagerly.

“Nary apple.”

“Got any crackers?”

“Nary cracker.”

“Any ham?” queried Hi.

“Nary ham.”

“Any molasses?” asked Billy.

“Nary molasses.”

“Any salt?” asked Jim.

“Nary salt.”

“What have you got, then?”

“Pickles and smokin’ tobacco, strangers. Which’ll you have?”

“That’s a great grocery stock!” scoffed Billy, as the Hee-Haw party proceeded. “Pickles and smoking tobacco!”

“I should say!” agreed Davy. “Not much chance for a pie there!”

“I didn’t s’pose the country was going to be as bad as this,” whined Left-over, from the wagon seat.

“Wait till you strike the wust of it,” answered Jim.

“Somebody’s broken down ahead, hasn’t he?” queried the Reverend Mr. Baxter.

“Looks so. We’ll go on and make camp there, anyway, and see,” directed Captain Hi.

The trail had veered apart from the Smoky Hill Fork and was cutting through a wide, flat bottom-land, grown to short buffalo grass and a few cottonwood trees. In the midst of the stretch was a “prairie schooner,” halted, its white hood just visible in the gathering dusk. Lonely enough it looked, too――solitary there with not another token of human life near it. It did not have even a camp-fire.

In the twilight the Hee-Haw Express drew upon it and halted also. The owner of the wagon was sitting on the tongue, smoking an old clay pipe.

“Howdy, strangers?” he greeted, coolly.

“Howdy,” they responded; and suddenly Billy nudged Davy and pointed to the wagon hood.

“Pike’s Peak or Bust!” said the one sign; and under that had been added: “Busted, by Thunder!”

“What’s the matter, pardner? Stuck?” asked Captain Hi.

The man jerked his thumb toward the wagon hood.

“Read for yoreself, stranger,” he bade. “Busted!”

“Where’s your party?”

“I’m the party. I sent the old woman and the kids back by stage, and I air hyar and hyar I stay, I reckon.”

“Where are your animals?”

“My critters war a hoss and a caow, hitched together. Injuns stole my hoss; the old caow’s had a calf daown in the willows; and I’m busted. How far to Pike’s Peak yet?”

“’Bout five hundred miles.”

“Wall,” drawled the man, yawning, “in case my old woman doesn’t find another outfit back at the Missouri I reckon I can wait till the calf grows up.”

“Nothing we can do for you?” invited Mr. Baxter.

The man slowly shook his head.

“Nope, stranger. I air comfortable. ’Bout two miles on you’ll find a better campin’ place. Water and fuel right around hyar I’m goin’ to need, myself.”

So, thus politely dismissed, the Hee-Haw Express moved along until, where the trail crossed a creek, they found the wood and water.

The trail stretched ever on and on. For one only six or eight weeks old it was remarkable. Hundreds of wagons and animals had worn it wide and plain; and, moreover, on either side of it were scattered cook-stoves, trunks, bedsteads, bureaus, and other bulky household stuff, cast overboard to relieve the tiring teams. Davy found a rag doll and Billy picked up a thick hank of false hair. As Jim remarked: “A fellow could follow this trail in the dark by stubbing his toes!”

“Busted” outfits were constantly passed. The strain of the wild march to “Pike’s Peak” was taking its toll of the weak and the illy prepared.

The stage stations were placed from ten to twenty miles apart. They had been located in a hurry; wagons sent out from Leavenworth by Jones & Russell had dropped off the station agents and their outfits as fast as possible all the way through to Denver. Some of the stations were merely pieces of canvas laid over pole frames; and some were caves in clay banks of streams; but under the canvas and in the caves were living not only men but their wives.

However, the fact that the stations had been established at all in such a rush across 600 miles of uninhabited country struck Davy as no small feat. And every day, on this Smoky Hill route trail, a stage coming from the west was met, and another coming from the east passed them. The stages went galloping along hauled by four dusty mules. The report was that the company had spent three hundred thousand dollars before the first coach had been started, and that the expenses were eight hundred dollars a day! The fare from Leavenworth to Denver was $100.

The sight of the two stages each day was quite an event to the toiling Pike’s Peak Pilgrims, and they levelled all kinds of questions at driver and passengers whenever they had a chance.

The trail did not cling to the Smoky Hill Fork, but frequently was far north of it. Numerous side creeks were crossed, supplying water and wood; and again there would be no fuel but the gleaning of buffalo chips. The country was flattening out into short-grass plains――buffalo country.

Captain Hi and Lieutenant Billy saw to it that the span of mules were well attended to at noon and at evening, and that the daily marches of the Hee-Haw Express were steady and systematic. So the party forged straight along. The mules were fast walkers.

“Strangers, you must be in a powerful hurry to dig out that pound of gold a day,” hailed a “Lightning Express” that the “Hee-Haw” passed.

This Lightning Express was taking a whole sawmill out――as well as a large family. The household wagon bore the sign “Lightning Express”; it was drawn by a mule and an ox, pulling together. Then followed a freighting wagon loaded with the sawmill, and drawn by a yoke of oxen and a horse, the horse being in front of the yoke of oxen. A woman and several children were trudging beside the covered wagon. A man afoot drove with his whip.

“Right you are,” replied Captain Hi to the hail.

“Have you heard any news?” quavered the woman. “Is it true that people are putting knives in the bottom of their wagon-boxes and sliding down Pike’s Peak and scraping up the gold in big slivers?”

“I’ve heard about it but I’ve never seen it, ma’am,” said Hi, truthfully.

“When do we see the mountains?”

“Oh, not for a few hundred miles more,” informed the Reverend, kindly.

“Well, when you get there and see Jacob Smith from Posey County, Injianny, tell him we’re coming as fast as we can,” she called after them.

“We will.”

“Shouldn’t wonder if that was Jacob Smith or some other pilgrim on his way back already,” proclaimed Jim, pointing. “Reckon he’s made his pile and is heading home to spend it.”

“Wish we were doing the same!” squeaked Left-over. “I’d buy pie; all I could eat.”

“I don’t,” announced Billy Cody. “Do you, Dave! I want the fun of finding before I have the fun of spending.”

“Yes,” agreed Mr. Baxter; “it’s a heap more fun to earn what you get.”

A man on horseback was wending way down the trail from the west. It was an exception to meet anybody travelling east; he was the first since they had left the stage line. If he came from the Pike’s Peak country he ought to bring much news.

So, as he met them, Captain Hi halted the Hee-Haw Express and hailed him.

“Howdy, stranger? Bound far?”

“To the States if I can get there.”

“Come from far?”

“Far enough, mister. I come from the Cherry Creek diggin’s.”

Hurrah! Davy had been eyeing him keenly. He was an unshaven, thin but powerful man, with cadaverous face and fierce black eyes; and he bestrode a mule as cadaverous as himself. He carried a musket; and that seemed to be about all. Anyway, his saddle-bags were disappointingly flat. But he may have had his gold stowed out of sight or deposited to his account somewhere.

“Clear from the diggin’s, eh?” pursued Hi. “How are things out thar? Booming?”

The man stroked his black beard and surveyed the party.

“Do I look booming, mister?” he demanded. “I wouldn’t give an acre in old Missouri for the whole of the Pike’s Peak country. You going out yonder after gold?”

“Yes.”

“Wall, you’re on the hardest trail you ever tackled, mister; no wood, no water, no forage, and game mighty scarce. And when you get to the end you won’t find much. That story about gold is the biggest hoax ever invented. From now on you’ll meet about as many people turned back as there are going on.”

“What’s the matter? Isn’t there any gold at all?” asked Billy, dismayed.

“Mighty little and hard to get.”

“I’m going on just the same and see,” said Billy, doggedly.

“We’re with you, Billy,” encouraged the Reverend. And――“What’s happening out there, anyway?” he queried of the returning pilgrim. “We hear that twenty thousand people are on the road.”

“They’ve made two towns on Cherry Creek; one’s Auraria, t’other’s called Denver now. They’ve had a meeting, too, and organized to send a delegate to Congress from the Territory of Jefferson; and the first Monday in June they held a convention to form the State of Jefferson. That was after I left, so I dunno what you will find when you get there. But you won’t find gold; at least not to amount to anything. And my advice is turn around now ’fore you starve to death.”

With that, he clapped his heels against his mule, and continued. So did the Hee-Haw Express――but in the opposite direction.

“I reckon,” said Captain Hi, “we’ll keep going. Little Billy said it.”

That was a great disappointment――to have such a report. The man seemed to have spoken the truth, for from now on the returning goldseekers rapidly increased in numbers, and they all insisted that the Pike’s Peak country was a hoax, and the trail to it very bad. Indeed, many “pilgrims” were turning back without having reached the “diggin’s” at all.

The Hee-Haw party were now well out in the midst of the Great Plains which stretched from the Missouri to the Rocky Mountains. Afar extended on either hand and before and behind, the rolling, sandy surface, covered with the short, woolly buffalo grass, and broken here and there by little hills and occasional willows and cottonwoods growing by the creeks. Jack-rabbits, as large as fox-terriers, and prairie-dogs and coyotes and gray wolves and antelope scampered from the trail, and the paths made by the buffalo frequently crossed and recrossed.

These paths were worn deep, like bridle paths. Jim kept the camp in fresh meat from the antelope that he shot. He stalked them very cleverly, as Dave thought, by lying out in the brush, and waving his handkerchief from the end of his wiping stick. The flag seemed to fascinate the curious-minded antelope, who edged nearer and nearer to him, circling around and around and peering and stamping, until he shot what he wished, at his leisure.

The meat was tender and sweet, but according to Billy and the others, it was nothing compared with buffalo meat. Buffalo meat gave more strength, and Billy claimed that anybody could eat it for weeks at a time and not tire of it. So they all wanted buffalo――and especially Left-over. He was clamorous to shoot a buffalo, and began to whine about it continually.

“Lookee here, Left-over,” finally spoke Jim. “If we let you shoot a buffalo will you quit this etarnel gab about that and pie?”

“I will. Truly I will, Jim,” promised Left-over.

“All right, then. As soon as we sight buffalo, where we can get at ’em, you can shoot one, and after that shut up till we get to Denver.”

“With your gun, Jim?”

“Yes, with my gun.”

Only a few buffalo had been seen thus far. The “pilgrim” travel on the trail had split their herds and had made them wary. But on the very next day it was that Billy, driving the laboring mules, from the wagon seat whooped exultantly:

“Buffalo! Plenty o’ ’em. There’s yore chance, Left-over.”

Left-over came running from the rear.

“Where, Billy?”

“Over there, of course. Don’t you see them?” and Billy reined in his mules.

“I see ’em! I see ’em!” yelled Left-over, much excited. “Where’s my gun? Is it loaded? How’ll I get ’em?”

He would have grabbed the gun from Jim and have set right out afoot, but Captain Hi and Jim both stopped him.

“Easy, easy, now!” exclaimed Hi, gazing calculatingly. “Thar’s buffalo enough for all, I reckon. Must be two thousand. But if you try to run ’em down on foot we’ll lose every one. Let’s unharness the mules, fust.”

Left-over promptly jumped to help. The buffalo were plain in sight. To the right of the trail, slightly ahead and just out of gun-shot, they were grazing in a great herd which speckled the landscape like a mass of gooseberry bushes.

“Looks as if we had ’em all to ourselves,” quoth Jim, as the mules were speedily unharnessed from the wagon. “No ‘pilgrims’ around to interfere with this herd. Reckon if we don’t get a mess it will be our own fault.”

“Where do I come in?” whined Left-over, anxiously. “You promised me, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did, and I never break a promise. Hyar’s your gun, now. You stay right whar you are. We’ll drive the buffalo in to you. Otherwise you’ll jest shoot up the landscape and mebbe yourself or us in the bargain. Lend me one of your shooting-irons, Billy. The pistol’s enough. Thanks.”

So saying, he vaulted on one of the mules, Hi did the same. They rode bareback with the traces tied short, and used the coiled lines as bridle-reins. Hi carried his long-barrelled Mississippi yager, Jim held the Colt’s navy revolver in his right hand. On a wide circuit they set out, as if to get behind the buffalo and turn them toward the wagon.

“What are we goin’ to do? Where do we come in?” wildly appealed Left-over.

“We stay here, I reckon,” said Billy coolly.

“You and Davy and Left-over can whang away,” bade Mr. Baxter, with a laugh. “I’ll sit in the reserved seat and see the fun.”

So saying, he calmly clambered aboard and into the seat, where he stowed himself at languid ease.

“If those mules aren’t broken to buffalo there won’t be any fun――except for the buffalo,” observed Billy.

“Yes, Hi and Jim are liable to be stampeded clear back into Leavenworth,” chuckled Mr. Baxter.

With the four at the wagon keenly watching, Hi and Jim pursued their circuit. They rode at rapid gallop, and presently disappeared in a shallow draw. The next sign of them was the action of the buffalo herd. Animals on the farther outskirts began to lift their heads and stare and show uneasiness. Gradually the whole herd were staring in the one direction; and on a sudden, like a vast blanket tossed by the wind, forth they lunged into motion. And with reason, for out into the open, on the far side of them, came racing hard on their long-eared mules, Hi and Jim.

“Hurrah!” cried Billy Cody, exultant. “Those mules are O. K. Lie low and stay by the wagon, fellows. Meat’s coming.”

“What’ll I do?” yelled Left-over. “Where’ll I go?

“You do as I say,” ordered Billy, thoroughly alive. “Stay right here. We may have to split that herd.”

On blundered the buffalo. The roll of their hoofs sounded like heavy thunder, and the dust floated over their dark backs. Pressing valiantly, Hi and Jim held their mules in the rear, and, still circuiting, forced the herd over toward the wagon.

“Great Cæsar’s ghost, boys!” gasped Mr. Baxter, straightening in his seat. “Don’t forget that I’m up aloft here, and I’ll land hard if that herd strikes us!”

The herd arrived almost before he had finished speaking. The foremost――a big cow in the lead――went streaming past just in front of the wagon; and the whole van of the shaggy, crazy army loomed in one grand charge on either hand.

“I’ll tend to this side; you and Left-over tend to the other,” shouted Billy to Dave. “Give it to them! Split ’em! Split ’em! Wave yore hat, Reverend.”

“Now’s your chance, Left-over,” exclaimed Dave, levelling his revolver.

The Reverend waved his broad hat and shouted lustily.

“Bang!” spoke Billy’s yager. Davy pointed his revolver at the nearest buffalo and pulled trigger. He dimly saw the huge creature plunge forward to its knees, but he did not wait to see more; he only pulled trigger as fast as he could right into the faces of the pelting herd. He had a vague vision of bulging eyes and lolling red tongues, and short horns and tangled foreheads and lunging shoulders, and ever the dark, panting mass flowed past.

Suddenly a tremendous report in his ear well-nigh deafened him, and Left-over yelped loudly, crying, “I got him! I got him!”

“Hooray!” screamed the Reverend, choking with glee, and laughing so that he doubled and swayed.

Left-over was on his back, heels high, gun waving. He sat up, pulled trigger, and over he went again, kicked flat by the heavy Sharp’s. At every shot he yelped, sprawled backward, sat up, shot, and yelped again.

Davy’s revolver was emptied, and he had space to watch. Now Left-over’s gun was empty, too; and dusty and perspiring and wild-eyed, he picked himself up.

“How many did I kill?” he squealed hoarsely. “Are all those mine?”

For the herd had passed, the wagon was untouched, and the chief token of the battle was the half dozen bulky forms lying prone almost in the very trail itself. Davy drew a long breath. That had been an exciting moment. Hi and Jim came galloping in, their mules lathered and puffing.

XI

SOME HALTS BY THE WAY

“Good work,” praised Hi, with casual glance. “Thar are three or four more out yonder. Reckon we’ve got meat enough now for a while.”

“Which are mine?” squealed Left-over. “Did you other fellows kill any? I’d have killed fifty if I’d had any more cartridges.”

“You killed one, all right, Left-over,” asserted the Reverend. “I saw you. You killed him six times and once more for luck.”

“No, I didn’t, either!” disputed Left-over. “I killed seven, mebbe more. I shot seven times.”

“Which is it, Reverend?” asked Hi.

The Reverend Mr. Baxter pointed, with a grin; and grinning, Hi and Jim rode forward to inspect. Davy went, too; he was certain that a couple of buffalo had fallen to his revolver, and as there were only three on this end of the wagon, he did not see where Left-over’s seven could be.

Hi and Jim were gazing down upon a huge buffalo bull, who lay with his nose touching the fore wheel of the wagon. He made a great pool of blood, which flowed from wounds in his head and his shoulders and back and legs and everywhere, apparently.

“You certainly peppered him, Left-over,” assured Hi. “I reckon he’s dead.”

“Did I do all that?” queried Left-over. And he began to strut. “Well, I think that’s pretty good. If I hadn’t been here he’d have run right over the wagon. I picked him out on purpose. But I must have killed a lot more.” And chattering and strutting he roamed about, every few seconds returning to examine the holes that he had made or to thrust the carcass with his toes or to proclaim how large it was.

“You surely made your mark. Now you can rest a while,” chuckled Jim. “What’s your count, Billy?”

“Two at my end,” reported Billy, who had shot and killed, and had reloaded like lightning and shot and killed again.

“And two for Davy, and another who’s dropped yonder; and those that Jim and I got. That makes a mess,” said Hi. “Wall, reckon we’d better butcher ’fore the wolves spoil the meat. You fellows go ahead here, and Jim and I’ll fetch in the rest.”

“Davy didn’t do so bad, himself; did he?” remarked Mr. Baxter, climbing out of the wagon. “Did you aim, Davy?”

“No,” confessed Davy; “not after the first shot. My eyes were full of buffalo.”

“Mine’s the biggest, anyhow,” boasted Left-over. “If I hadn’t shot him so much he’d have got away.”

With Davy and Left-over helping the best that they could, Billy and the Reverend dressed the buffaloes that were near the wagon; and before they were done Hi and Jim came in, packing the best portions of those lying out in the wake of the herd. Even though only the best parts――the humps and rib roasts――were taken, the outfit had what looked to be more meat than they could use. But Hi and Jim were up to snuff.

“We’ll jerk this as we go,” said Hi. “Cut it into strips, fellows.”

So they cut much of the meat into strips about two inches wide and as thick as one’s finger and a foot long, and hung it on cord all around the wagon, row after row. So dry was the air and so pure out here in the great open plains that before the wagon had travelled an hour the strips already were curing hard and dark. They resembled strips of leather. That considerable dust settled on them apparently did no harm.

“Now they’ll keep forever,” declared Hi, striding along after a brief inspection. “You can chaw ’em as they are, or fry ’em; and you’ll find ’em the sweetest meat you ever stuck between your jaws. Thar’s nothing better than buffalo jerky.”

That afternoon they passed another stalled Pike’s Peak outfit――a whole family, this time, with their wagon mired down to the hubs in a boggy place that sometimes was a creek. The canvas top proclaimed: “Root Hog or Die! We’re from Ohio. Bound for the Gold Fields.”

“Started rooting a leetle early, haven’t you?” queried Hi, as the Hee-Haw Express halted to survey.

A thin, sallow woman was sitting on the ground holding a baby. Three children were playing about. A cookstove stood out, with dishes scattered around. A yoke of scrawny lame oxen grazed near.

At Hi’s good-natured hail the woman gave a weak, tired answer.

“Howdy, strangers. Yes, ’pears like we’re stuck. We’ve been here since yesterday. Can’t seem to get out.”

“Are you alone?” asked Mr. Baxter.

“No, sir. But my man he’s thar in the wagon, sick. Reckon he’s got the janders, and he isn’t any good.”

But a boy younger than Davy walked forward from the other children. He was a ragged, sharp-faced youngster, and now full of business.

“I’m boss of this outfit,” he asserted. “Say, can’t you hitch on your mules an’ give us a lift. Those oxen of ours can’t pull grass up by the roots, they’re so plumb wore out. It’s a hard trail, strangers.”

“Sure we can,” replied Hi, promptly. “Unhitch, boys. Let’s snake ’em out o’ thar.”

“Want our oxen, too?” keenly queried the boy.

“Nope, sonny. We can haul the wagon, but we can’t haul the bulls at the same time.”