Part 9

At shout and crack of lash the Hee-Haw mules sturdily put their shoulders to their collars and with heave and groan the wagon rolled out to the firm ground.

“Much obliged,” said the boy. “What do we owe you?”

“Nothing,” answered Hi.

“Strangers,” spoke a quavering voice, and the man himself poked his face out from under the hood, “how’ll you trade some of that meat for a sack of flour. I’ve a powerful hankering for fresh meat.”

He was as yellow as a sunflower, and looked pretty miserable.

“Take ten feet of it and welcome,” proffered Mr. Baxter at once. “We don’t want your flour.”

“No; we’ve got plenty flour,” added Hi.

“Thank you,” said the woman, “but we don’t travel on charity. My man’s got a turrible hankering for meat, and if you’ll trade we’ll be right glad to dicker with you. I reckon you can use the flour, can’t you?”

“Just as you say, then, ma’am,” responded Hi. “But you’re welcome to the meat.”

Billy was already slashing at a string of the jerky; down it came. Seeing this, the Ohio boy dived into the wagon and lustily dragged forth a sack of flour.

He shouldered it and staggered with it toward the Hee-Haw wagon. Billy sprang to take it, but the boy shook his head stubbornly.

“I’m man enough to tote this,” he panted.

“I reckon you are, sonny,” grinned Hi. “But you’ll lemme help you toss it into the wagon, won’t you? You’re so strong and sassy you’re liable to bust a hole through the box!”

“How far to Pike’s Peak, strangers?” asked the woman, anxiously.

“A few hundred miles, ma’am.”

“It seems a powerful long road,” she sighed. “We’ve come clear from Ohio; drove the whole way. We started last fall, an’ wintered in Missouri. That’s where this baby was born.”

“We’ll get there, ma,” encouraged the boy. “Pap’ll feel better now, an’ we’ll go a-whoopin’.”

“I hope so,” she faltered. “But they do say there isn’t any gold, anyhow.”

Davy felt sorry for her. Evidently so did the Reverend Mr. Baxter.

“What is your name, if you please?” he asked.

“Jones. Mrs. Jasper Jones. My man’s a blacksmith.”

“Well, Mrs. Jones, we understand there’s quite a town going up out at the mountains; and if we get there before you do we’ll trade this flour in for a corner lot and your husband can start in blacksmithing.”

“Will you?” she exclaimed, brightening. “Now that’s mighty kind of you.”

“I’ll take care of you, ma,” comforted the boy, quickly. “I’ll take care of you an’ pap, too, as soon as we get where there’s some work.”

“I believe you will, sonny,” spoke Jim admiringly. “You’ll make the fur fly. We’ll tell ’em you’re coming, so they’ll leave space for you.”

And Billy added as good measure:

“When you get to the diggin’s, if you don’t see me you ask for Billy Cody. I’ll fix you out.”

“Aw, crickity!” gasped the boy, staring. “Say――are you Billy Cody, the Boy Scout?”

“I’m Billy Cody, all right,” responded Billy, now somewhat confused, while Hi and Jim and Mr. Baxter laughed loudly.

“We know you. We read all about you in the paper,” proclaimed the boy, excited. “That time you fought the Injuns. Say――will you shake hands with me?”

“Aw,” stammered Billy, trying to hide behind the wagon, “forget about that, will you? I’m nobody.”

“Terrible modest all of a sudden, isn’t he!” chuckled Jim, as he and Hi and the Reverend finished harnessing the mules again.

“I killed a big buffalo! Biggest one you ever saw!” squealed Left-over. “Shot him all to pieces jest as he was running into us. Didn’t I, Billy?”

“Hooray for Left-over!” cheered Hi. “Well, catch up, boys. We’d better be moving or we’ll never get thar.” And he addressed the other outfit. “Can we do anything more for you?”

“No, thank you, strangers,” said both the woman and the man. “We can make it, now our wagon’s out. And that meat’ll taste powerful good.”

“Goodby, then,” called the Hee-Haws.

“Goodby.” And the woman added. “Don’t forget that corner lot.”

“We won’t.”

The timber lining the course of the various streams had shrunken, and the streams themselves were dwindling ever smaller. It was a barren country, this, wide and sandy and dotted with occasional thumb-like hills called buttes. Across it wound the trail, marked by dust and canvas-topped wagons.

“We must be getting near the mountains, boys,” called Hi. “That last station agent said we were only two hundred miles from Denver.”

“We ought to see them, then, pretty soon, I should think,” remarked Mr. Baxter.

“The chances are we’ll be looking for water instead,” declared Jim. “The country’s going dry on us.”

The trail had swerved in to the Smoky Hill Fork again; and the Smoky Hill Fork itself seemed about to quit. It contained only a mere trickle of water.

“You can follow the stage route on west to the Big Sandy,” informed a squad of returning Pike’s Peakers, “or you can cut over to the northward and find water there. It’s more than twenty-five miles to where the stage route strikes the Big Sandy, and there isn’t any water even then. But we hear tell there’s water on the short cut to the north, where you strike the Big Sandy higher up.”

Hi nodded thoughtfully.

“All right,” he said. “How’s the country north?”

“There’s nothing to brag on anywhere you go in this whole region, stranger. We’re bound back to the States. We’ve had enough. But if you try the short cut north watch out for the Injuns, ’Rapahoes and Cheyennes both.”

Hi nodded again.

“We will.”

Davy noted Left-over’s mouth open and his eyes begin to pop. Presently Left-over could hold in no longer.

“Lookee here,” he squealed. “Let’s quit. Let’s turn around with those other fellows and go home. I’m tired, and I don’t feel very well, and there isn’t anything at the other end anyhow.”

“If you want to quit you can join the next party bound east. We can do without you,” spoke Jim. “But I’m going on if I have to carry the mules.”

“So am I,” declared Billy; and the others, including Davy, felt the same way.

“I reckon Left-over’s afraid of the Injuns,” commented Hi.

This seemed to arouse Left-over’s wrath.

“I’m not, either,” he squealed frantically. “The Injuns had better not bother _me_. Did you see the way I downed the big buffalo? That’s what any Injuns’ll get who tackle _me_. You fellows don’t know me when I’m mad. I’m bad. I’m a regular tarrer. I’m half horse and half alligator. Those Injuns had better keep out of my way!”

“We’re mighty glad of your company, Left-over,” claimed Mr. Baxter soberly. “If I were you I’d ride the trail and hire out to emigrant parties to see them through safely.”

Left-over continued to bluster as they marched; and Billy only remarked to Davy:

“If his ‘do’ is half as big as his ‘tell’ he could lick Wild Bill, couldn’t he?”

Late that afternoon Hi pointed to the north.

“Here’s a chance for Left-over,” he called. “We’re going to have visitors!”

“Injuns!” said Billy quickly, shading his eyes and peering. They all peered――Davy, who was driving, from the wagon seat.

A band of horsemen were rapidly approaching across the level sandy plain. By their figures and the way they rode Indians they certainly were; some twenty of them. Left-over bellowed wildly.

“I see ’em!” he cried. “I see ’em! Gimme a gun! Get behind the wagon! Aren’t you going to stop? Going to let us all be scalped?”

“Quit your yawp!” bade Hi, roughly. “Drive along, Davy. Handle your guns, boys, so they’ll know we’re ready. Don’t let them think we’re afraid. I’ll tend to them at the proper time.”

Minding these instructions of Captain Hi, the Hee-Haw outfit proceeded as if intent on their own business. Left-over whimpered and showed a strong disposition to climb into the rear of the wagon, but Billy said sternly:

“None of that! You stay outside. Thought you were an Injun-fighter.”

“I am,” piped Left-over. “I was going to protect the wagon.”

“Huh!” grunted Billy.

Up on the seat, in plain sight, driving the mules, Davy felt rather alone and exposed; but he drove steadily. The mules were pricking their long ears and showing uneasiness.

“Watch your animals, Dave,” cautioned Jim. “A mules hates Injuns wuss ’n a rattlesnake.”

And Davy hung tight.

The Indians bore down at full gallop, as if to cut the wagon off. But at sight of the guns in the hands of Hi and Jim and Billy, when within a hundred yards they reined in sharply and the leader threw up his hand, palm outward. Hi answered with similar sign. He rode forward halfway, so did the Indian; they met.

“’Rapahoes,” exclaimed both Billy and Jim.

“Regular beggars,” commented the Reverend, easily. “Hi’ll fix them.”

Hi and the Arapaho leader came riding toward the wagon, and the others in the band slowly edged closer. They were armed mainly with bows and spears, and did not look very formidable.

“Just a lot of rascals out on a thieving expedition, picking up what they can from the emigrants,” announced Hi. “But of course they claim to be ‘good.’ The chief here’ll show you his recommendations.”

The chief (who was a villainous appearing old fellow, cross-eyed and marked by small-pox and wearing a dirty ragged blanket) passed from one to another of the Hee-Haw company, saying “How, how?” and shaking hands and extending a bit of dingy paper.

When the paper reached Davy he read:

“This Indian is Old Smoke. He’ll steal the tail off a mule. Watch him and pass him along.

“PIKE’S PEAKER.”

The chief grinned and grunted, evidently well pleased with himself and the impression that he thought he was making.

“Soog!” he said eagerly. “Soog!”

“No sugar,” answered Hi. “Drive on, Dave. Needn’t stop.”

But the old Indian kept pace.

“Tobac’. Give tobac’?”

“Nope,” answered Hi, shaking his head. “Puckachee! Be off! Vamose!”

“Look out for those other Injuns!” suddenly warned Billy, the alert. “They’re coming right in!”

“Don’t let ’em!” begged Left-over, excited. “Give him some sugar, so he’ll go away. I’ll give him some.”

“No, you won’t,” retorted Hi, quickly. “Then he’ll want something else. Here, you――” and he spoke in earnest to the chief. “Puckachee!” And Hi waved his hand and patted his yager meaningly. “Get! All of you! No soog, no tobac’, nothing. Keep close to the wagon, boys,” he warned to his party, “and show ’em we mean business. Drive the mules right along, Dave.” He shouted to the advanced Indians: “No! No!” And facing about shifted his gun as for action.

The chief had paused, uncertain; and now his followers paused. The Hee-Haw wagon, flanked by its body-guard, with the mules snorting and straining but controlled by Davy, pressed on. In a moment the chief rode back to his band, and all went cantering away.

“Lucky for them they didn’t try to make us trouble,” boasted Left-over, changing his tune but still suspiciously pale. “We’d have shown ’em!”

“Lucky for us, you mean,” growled Hi. “If once those fellows had got in amongst us and started to crowding us thar’s no knowing what mightn’t have happened. That’s the mistake lots of these emigrants make. They try to parley and give presents, thinking they’re buying the Injuns off; and fust thing they know they’re overrun and helpless and lose their whole outfit.”

“Were you scared up there, Dave?” called Billy.

“No. Were you down there?” retorted Dave.

“Not so anybody noticed it, I hope,” answered Billy.

“Well, one thing’s certain,” said Jim. “We’ve got wuss ahead of us than Injuns, I reckon. Water’s petered out.”

Before their eyes the shallow head-waters of the Smoky Hill Fork disappeared abruptly, as if soaking down through the sand of its bed. Davy checked his mules while Hi and the others surveyed before. Not a token of water showed beyond or as far as they could see.

Billy Cody had promptly trudged on in the advance; and now he shouted and waved.

“Trail forks,” he reported. “One fork keeps on, other turns off to the right.”

“We’ll follow that right fork as far as we can before dark,” quoth Hi. “How’s the water bar’l? Fill her up.”

The Reverend Mr. Baxter sprang to the river bed and with the camp spade dug vigorously. The others took pails and pans and kettles and carried water, as fast as the hole supplied it, to the big cask that, slung fast at the rear of the wagon, formed part of the trail kit.

It was slow work filling this cask through the bung-hole, but Hi kept them at it until the cask was well-nigh running over. By this time dusk was settling, and with a shrewd glance about at the landscape Captain Hi said:

“Unspan, boys. We might as well camp right hyar. But it’s mighty poor grazing for the mules, I tell you!”

XII

PERILS FOR THE HEE-HAWS

Many emigrants had camped here, evidently. The grass had been eaten off for several acres around, and Davy roamed in a circle of a quarter of a mile before he had gleaned enough buffalo chips for the supper fire.

“Better get enough for breakfast, too, Dave,” warned Mr. Baxter, the cook, with a weather-wise eye cocked at the horizon. “Hear the thunder? We’re liable to be soaked and so will the chips.”

Buffalo chips when dry were fine, quick, hot fuel; but when wet they were hopeless, like soggy paste-board. Mr. Baxter’s warning had been well founded, for the air was heavy and warmish, and from some distant point echoed the rumble of a storm.

Up to this time the journey from Leavenworth had been very comfortable as to weather, with sunny days and occasional little rains. But, according to Billy and all, some of these plains storms were regular “tail twisters” and “stem winders,” drowning even the prairie-dogs out of their holes!

“Left-over’s first on guard to-night,” directed Captain Hi. “We must keep eye and ear open for those Injuns. They may sneak up and run off our mules.”

“They’d better not try it when I’m on guard,” blustered Left-over, in his funny squeak. “You’ll lemme have your gun, won’t you, Jim?”

“Not much!” rapped Jim. “I may want that gun myself. Take one of Billy’s. Let him have your yager, Billy. What have you got in it?”

“A bullet and three buckshot. I loaded her for Injuns.”

“That’s right. Left-over can do a toler’ble lot of shooting with that load.”

Pleased, Left-over took the gun and posted himself just outside the firelight, where he could oversee camp and mules (now tethered near) and any prowling figures approaching. The night settled black and thick, with the stars faintly twinkling through a haze; but wrapped in his blanket beside Billy, Dave soon fell asleep.

He was awakened by a loud bang, and a louder howl from Left-over, who seemed to be stepping on everybody at once.

“Injuns! I’m killed! Help! Murder! Wake up! Why don’t you wake? Help! Murder! Injuns! Injuns!”

Before Davy had collected his own wits and was out from the blanket Billy had sprung up like a deer; with the one motion he was on his feet, free of the blanket, revolver in hand, ready to obey Captain Hi’s sharp voice.

“Shut up! (to Left-over, who was cavorting around like whale in a flurry). Lie low, boys! Over here, together, away from the fire. Where are they, Left-over? What’s the matter? What’d you see?”

“I’m killed,” wailed Left-over. “The whole country’s full of Injuns――’Rapahoes. I shot into ’em when they were sneaking up, and then they shot me through the head. It all happened at once. But I saved the mules. I gave my life for ’em, and you-all.” And Left-over groaned vigorously.

Half deafened by the wails of Left-over, Davy had been listening hard for Indian whoop or rustle, and peering for shadowy forms. But he heard only the breathing of his companions and the grunty sighs of the aroused mules. Not a figure, except those of the shadowy mules, just visible against the sky-line, could be descried.

“Aw, shucks!” grumbled Billy, suddenly, breaking the suspense. And standing boldly, he strode to the smouldering camp-fire and thrust a bit of paper into the live ashes. He made a plain target, but he did not seem to care, and waited for the paper to flare.

In the flare they all stared around; the mules were the first things noted――but Mr. Baxter exclaimed:

“Look at Left-over! By jiminy, he is wounded! Start that fire more or make a torch so we can see. Wait a minute, Left-over.”

Left-over certainly presented an alarming sight. His face was welling blood, which streamed down upon his chest. His eyes rolled and he groaned dismally.

As Billy made another flare, Jim, nearest to Left-over, hastily examined, with eyes and deft fingers, Left-over groaning now terribly.

“Don’t find anything――there ain’t any new hole; mostly mouth,” Jim reported. “Can’t you hold your yawp, Left-over, long enough to tell us what happened to you?”

“I saw the Injuns sneaking up and we all shot at the same time, and I killed them and they killed me,” sobbed Left-over. “If you don’t believe me go out and look.”

“I know,” quoth Billy Cody. “That gun kicked him in the face and plumb broke his nose! She was loaded to do business.”

“Huh!” grunted Left-over, venturing to sit up and feel of his face.

“If you fellows’ll watch I’ll scout around a bit and see what’s what outside,” proffered Billy. “I keep seeing something lying out yonder. Shouldn’t wonder if Left-over did kill an Injun.”

The lightning was fitful but incessant; its pallid flashes played over the landscape――momentarily revealing the drooping mules, the spots of sage, the wagon, the faces on Davy’s right and left, and (as seemed to Davy) exposing, for a brief instance, a dark mass lying farther out on the prairie.

“Well――――” began Captain Hi; but he was interrupted. As if borne on the wings of a sudden cool gust from the west there came fresh blare of thunder and glare of lightning. Peal succeeded peal, flash succeeded flash, with scarce an interval. Hi’s voice rang sternly.

“Billy, you and Dave see to those mules, quick, or they’ll stampede. The rest of you pitch what stuff you can into the wagon and stretch guy-ropes to hold her down. This is an old rip-snorter of a storm, and it’s coming with its head down and tail up!”

Nobody paused to question or debate. The storm seemed right upon them. Following Billy, Dave leaped for the mules.

“Tie ’em to the wagon wheels,” yelled Billy, in the pale glare tugging at a picket pin.

He and Davy hauled the mules along to the wagon, where Hi and Jim, Mr. Baxter and even the gory Left-over were hustling frantically to put things under cover and make the wagon fast with guy-ropes stretched taut over the top.

But the storm scarcely waited. The bellow of the thunder and the fierce play of the lightning increased. There was a pause, a patter, a swift gust; and rushing out of the inky night charged the rain.

Rain? Sheets of it! Blinding, drenching sheets of it, driven by gust after gust, and riven by peal after peal, glare after glare.

“Hang to the wagon, everybody!” shouted Captain Hi; and Davy, hanging hard, could see, amidst the cataract of water, his partners also hanging hard to guy-ropes and wagon-sheet corners. The mules stood drooped and huddled, their ears flat and their tails turned to the storm.

Never had there been such lightning, never such thunder, never such rain! All in a moment, as it seemed to Davy, he was soaked through and through, and the ground under him was running with water an inch deep. The wagon top bellied and slapped and jerked, and every instant was threatening to tear loose and sail away, or else lift the wagon and all with it.

“Hurrah!” yelled Billy gaily, braced and panting, as he tried to anchor his corner. Nothing daunted Billy Cody. “Now we’ve got water a-plenty!”

As suddenly as it had arrived the bulk of the storm departed, leaving only a drizzle, and a very wet world. The Hee-Haw party might release their grip on the wagon, and take stock. The rain had driven through the canvas top into the bedding and other stuff, and the rest of the night bid fair to be rather uncomfortable.

“What are we going to do now?” whined Left-over.

“Do the best we can,” answered Captain Hi. “Stand up or lie down, whichever you please, till morning.”

“Aren’t you going out to look at my Injun?”

“He’ll keep. We’ve got enough to tend to right hyar.”

Mr. Baxter lighted the lantern, and they overhauled the bedding.

“Come on, Davy,” quoth Billy. “I’m going to sleep. Crawl in and we’ll shiver ourselves warm.”

Billy’s buffalo robe was spread down on a spot where the rain already had soaked into the sandy soil, and snuggled beside him, under a blanket, dressed just as he was, Dave soon found himself growing warm.

“’Twon’t hurt us any,” murmured Billy. “I’ve been wet this way many a time before. If we don’t change our clothes we won’t catch cold.”

That was fortunate, for they had no clothes to change to!

When Dave awakened, the sun was almost up; he was nearly dry, and had not been uncomfortable, after all. The Reverend Mr. Baxter was trying to start a fire with bits of wood from some of the boxes in the wagon, and to dry out a few buffalo chips. Left-over was snoring lustily, but the rest of the camp was turning out. Billy, who was sitting up, gazing about, whooped joyously.

“Look at Left-over’s Injun!” he cried, pointing. Out he sprang and hustled across the plain. The camp began to laugh――all but Davy, who stared, blinking, and Left-over, who stirred, half aroused.

At the dark spot, which was Left-over’s Indian, Billy stopped; he waved his hand and cheered, and came back, dragging the thing. As he drew near, Davy saw what the others had seen. The Indian was a big calf!

“Shot it plumb through the head!” yelped Billy. “’Rah for Left-over!”

“What is it? What’s the matter?” stammered Left-over, struggling to sit up, while he blinked, red-eyed.

“Better take his tail for your scalp, Left-over,” bade Jim. “It’s a pity we don’t need meat, but you can butcher him if you want to.”

Not for some weeks did the Hee-Haw outfit get done teasing Left-over about his “Injuns.”

“Anyway,” soothed Mr. Baxter, “you made a good shot. Nobody can deny you that.”

“Huh!” agreed Left-over, swelling importantly. “I knew it was something, and I drew bead and whaled away.”

“Purty good to draw bead in the dark,” remarked Captain Hi. “Left-over must have eyes like a cat!”

They ate a rather scant breakfast, mostly cold; and leaving the luckless calf (which must have wandered from some emigrant party) minus a few steaks, they turned northwest on the cut-off to the next water. The stage route went straight on, over a bare plateau; but a number of emigrants evidently had been turning off here on a trail of their own.

So sandy was the soil and so hot the sun that very soon the ground was as dry as before, and Billy’s boast of “plenty water” failed to make good.

About the middle of the morning they passed an emigrant train of a large party still recovering from the storm. Wagons had been capsized, tents torn up bodily, and equipage scattered far and wide. One wagon had been carried away completely.

“How far to the mountains, strangers?” queried one of the emigrants. It was the same old question. All the Pike’s Peak travellers appeared to have the one thing in mind――the mountains.

“Follow us and you’ll get thar,” replied Captain Hi. “What do you know about this cut-off?”

“Nothing at all, stranger. There looked as if somebody had gone up this way, so we came too.”

“It’s a terrible dry road, though,” sighed a woman. “Maybe if we’d have kept on west we’d have done better.”

“Well, by jiminy!” said Hi, as the Hee-Haws toiled on. “I sort of think so, myself. This trail doesn’t look good to me; not a little bit.”

“Shall we turn back?” proposed Mr. Baxter.

“I hate to turn back,” spoke Billy promptly. “I like to keep a-going.”

“Oh, we might as well go on,” added Jim. “I hate to back track, too. But there aren’t many emigrants on this trail, that’s certain.”

“The trouble is they’ll follow like sheep,” asserted the Reverend. “If this cut-off is no good somebody ought to put a sign on it.”