CHAPTER III

WE FIND AN OUTFIT

When the dusty bull train came rolling along the road past the garrison it found us waiting. Our property was stowed in an empty wagon, and, again shouting good-bys to the comrades who had come out to see us off, we began our tedious, dusty, dirty march with the bull train.

At that time Majors & Russell, of Leavenworth, Kansas, had the contract for transporting government supplies to all frontier posts. Mr. Majors had the reputation of being a very religious man, and in fitting out trains required all wagon-masters and teamsters to sign a written contract agreeing to use no profane language and not to gamble or to travel on Sundays. At starting he furnished each man with a Bible and hymn-book, and exhorted him to read the gospel and hold religious services on the Sabbath. This statement is regarded by many people of the present day as an old frontier joke, but it is actual fact.

The wagons--called prairie-schooners--were large and heavy and usually drawn by six yoke of oxen to the team. When outward bound they were loaded at the rate of one thousand pounds of freight to the yoke. Twenty-five such teams constituted a train, in charge of a wagon-master and assistant, who were mounted on mules. The travel was slow, dusty, and disagreeable beyond description. At camping time the trains corralled across the road, a half circle on either side, leaving the open road running through the centre of the corral.

Our route was down the Arkansas River on the north bank, but the train itself did not go to the water. That used for cooking and drinking was carried along in casks, which were replenished at every opportunity. The detail of this travel, while interesting, cannot be given here, but on the journey we learned a great deal that was absolutely new to us.

On the first night out from Fort Wise we were awakened by a bull-whacker, who brought to our bed two men who had asked for us and who proved to be deserters. We felt the sympathy for them which the average soldier feels for a deserter, gave them a little money and some rations, and recommended them to hurry on, travelling at night and lying hid in the daytime. They went on, as advised.

The next morning a sergeant and two privates from Fort Wise galloped up behind us and stopped to speak to us, asking if we had seen a couple of deserters. We gravely told them that we had seen no such men and suggested that they might have gone west from Fort Wise. The sergeant made a perfunctory search of the wagons and then went on, to camp a little farther along and kill time until it was necessary to return to the post. In those days such pursuing parties often overtook the deserters they were after, gave them part of their rations, and sent them along on their road.

At the Big Timbers, on the Arkansas, we met with a large band of Cheyenne Indians on the way up to Fort Wise to receive their annuities; and when we reached the Santa Fé road, where it crossed the Arkansas, coming from the Cimarron River by the sixty-mile dry stretch called the _jornada_, we saw a government six-mule train, travelling east, just going into camp on the river bank.

Here, we thought, was an opportunity to get along faster and travel more comfortably if we could arrange for a transfer to the mule train. Its days' drives were about twice as long as those of the bull train, which seldom exceeded twelve miles a day. We therefore sent Tom back to the mule train, and he found in the wagon-master of the train an old acquaintance, who cheerfully agreed to take us on to Fort Leavenworth without charge. Next morning, as the mule train passed us, we bade good-by to our kind but dirty friends the bull-whackers and tumbled ourselves and our baggage into one of the empty mule wagons and went on.

At the Santa Fé crossing of the Arkansas, we had begun to see a few buffalo; and the herds grew larger as we went on until we reached Pawnee Fork, near Fort Larned, which seemed to be about the centre of their range. After we passed the fort their numbers decreased until we came to the Little Arkansas, where we saw the last of them. Our old company, K of the First Cavalry, had built the first quarters at Larned, in 1859. When we passed it, in the autumn of 1861, it was garrisoned by two companies of the Second Infantry and one of the Second Dragoons and was commanded by Major Julius Hayden, Second Infantry.

After joining the mule train Tom, Jack, and I made it our business to keep the outfit supplied with fresh meat while passing through the buffalo range. We also killed numbers of ducks, geese, brant, and sand-hill cranes, borrowing the wagon-master's shotgun for bird hunting. This suggested to us that a good shotgun would be a useful part of our equipment for the winter's work.

In due time we reached Fort Leavenworth, received our pay from our old paymaster, Major H. E. Hunt, and then went down to Leavenworth City, two and a half miles from the fort. We stopped at a boarding-house kept by an old dragoon who had a wide acquaintance among citizens and soldiers and who could and would be useful to us in getting together our outfit.

The war between the States was now in full blast, and blue cloth and brass buttons were seen everywhere. Several of our former comrades had enlisted in the volunteers, and some had obtained commissions.

According to our previous understanding, I had been chosen as treasurer and bookkeeper for the expedition and began to keep accounts of receipts and expenses. Each man turned into a common fund, to be used in the purchase of an outfit, one hundred and fifty dollars--making a common capital of four hundred and fifty dollars. The balance of each man's money was left in his hands to use as he saw fit, except in the case of Jack, whom we had persuaded to turn over all his money to me. Jack begged ten dollars from me to go off and have a good time, and Tom advised me to give it; but he warned Jack that he would probably bring up in the lockup and declared that if he did so he should stay there until we were ready to start. Both Jack and I had so much respect for Tom's greater age and experience that we never thought of taking offence at his scoldings.

For two days Tom and I were busy going about from one stable to another, hoping to find a ready-made camp outfit, team, and wagon offered for sale cheap. Nothing like that had as yet been seen. We had heard nothing of our Irishman, and I was getting a little uneasy about him and asked Tom if I should not go to the police station, pay Jack's fine, and get him out. Tom agreed, and expressed some sorrowful reflections on the blemish to Jack's character which his love for liquor implied.

As expected, Jack was found behind the bars. He had evidently received a terrible beating, part of it from a gang of toughs who had tried to rob him, and the remainder from the police who had finally, with much difficulty, arrested him. I was obliged to pay a fine of twenty dollars to get Jack out.

A further search of Leavenworth City failed to show us what we wanted, and we were getting discouraged. To buy a team and a camp equipment at the prices that were asked would take all the money we could raise and still leave us poorly prepared for our expedition. We were considering the possibility of doing better in Kansas City and Saint Joe and had half decided to go to those places when one day Jack came rushing in, exclaiming:

"I've struck it. I've struck just the rig that we want. A lot of fine-haired fellows from the East have just got in from a buffalo hunt with a splendid outfit they want to sell. They will take anything they can get for it, because they are going back East on the railroad and are in a hurry to get off; and who do you think I found in charge of the outfit but Wild Bill Hickock?[B] Bill told me he'd been hired by three fellows to buy the team and rig up the whole equipment for them, and he'd been their guide. He says it's a dandy outfit. He don't know how much they'll ask for it, but says they don't care for money and will give it away if they can't sell it. They've left Bill to get rid of it. It's over yonder on Shawnee Street, and we'd better look it over and see what sort of a bargain we can make."

By this time we were all heading for Jim Brown's livery stable. There we found the wagon in the back lot, and the team, a good pair of mules, in the barn. When we had looked over the well appointed rig and made a rough estimate of its probable value we began to fear that the owners would ask more than we could pay for it. Wild Bill was absent.

I asked: "What do you think of the outfit, Tom?"

"It's one of the best camp equipments I ever saw," replied Tom, "but I am afraid it's too rich for our blood. Those mules and harness alone would be cheap at two hundred and fifty dollars. The wagon is easy worth another hundred dollars, and there is no telling what the camp outfit cost. They must have let Bill fit things up to his own notion, and Bill never did know the value of money. It may be, as Bill said, that they don't expect much for it and they'll let us have it cheap as dirt. We'd better be quick, if we can, before some one else snaps it up."

"Here comes Wild Bill himself!" exclaimed Jack; and sure enough, that first of frontier scouts, in beaded buckskins and with his long, tawny hair hanging down his back, came striding through the barn to meet us. Bill confirmed what Jack had told us, and said that as these young men seemed to have more money than they knew what to do with he had rigged up as good an outfit as he knew how. He continued: "The wagons, mules, harness, camp outfit, and some grub left over is for sale, but their riding horses are not for sale. They are to be shipped on the cars back to New York. They've got a couple of pretty fair broncos which they got here at starting, and they'll sell you them, or throw them in for good measure. What will you give me for the whole lot?"

Tom asked if he was willing to let us unload the wagon and look at its contents, to which Bill assented. We found it an extraordinarily complete camp outfit, with many duplicate parts for the wagon, a Sibley tent, a sheet-iron cook-stove, a mess-chest, and a complete mess-kit, or cooking outfit. There was a large amount of provisions left over. The wagon and the animals were good and the broncos had saddles and bridles.

While we were unpacking the wagon Bill told us something about the trip, which, from the point of view of the hunters, had been very successful, though commonplace enough as Bill saw it. When the examination was completed Bill asked: "What do you think of the outfit, Tom, and what will you give me for the whole caboodle?"

"It's a good rig, and no mistake," replied Tom with a seemingly hopeless sigh, "but, Bill, I am afraid we haven't money enough to buy it. The outfit was all right for your purposes, but we'll have to buy a lot more things and must have some money left after buying a team and camp outfit. To buy your outfit would clean us out."

"Well," said Bill, "make a bid of what you can afford to give, not what it's worth. They do not expect to get what it's worth."

"It sounds like a mighty small price, Bill, and I'm ashamed to make you the offer," said Tom hesitatingly, "but two hundred dollars is as much as we can afford to give and still buy our other truck. Would your men consider such a bid as that?"

"Boys, that does seem like giving the outfit away, and until I see my men I won't say whether they'll take it or not, but I'll talk for you a little and help you out all I can. They told me to sell the rig for whatever I could get, and I'll tell them that two hundred dollars is the best offer I have had--it's the only one; if they say it's a go the outfit is yours."

As we stood on a corner near the levee awaiting Bill's return we heard the long, hoarse whistle of a steamboat, and saw one approaching from down the river, though still some distance away. A little later Bill came hurrying out of the hotel and gladdened our hearts by telling us that our offer had been accepted. His men were to take the approaching steamer to Saint Joe, and he must hurry back to Brown's stable and help get their fine hunting-horses aboard the boat.

I counted him out the two hundred dollars, which he stuffed in his pocket without recounting. We had bought for two hundred dollars an outfit worth at least five hundred dollars.

We soon had the six fine horses on board the boat. Bill went up to the cabin to turn over the money we had paid him. Soon the steamer's big bell clanged, and just as the deck-hands were about to pull in the gangplank, Bill came running out and turned and waved good-by to his employers, who stood on the hurricane-deck.

In the autumn of 1861 there was no railroad in Kansas, and the nearest point to reach the cars going east from Leavenworth would have been Weston, six or eight miles above, on the Missouri side of the river. The railroad from Saint Joseph east was patrolled by Union soldiers, to protect the bridges and keep it open for travel.