VIDAVY HAS AN ADVENTURE
At least a thousand cattle were spread out, grazing in the grassy bottom. Much of the grass was still green, some patches had been cured by the sun; and the broad expanse, under the blue sky, with the shadows of the cattle now clearly cast by the setting sun, made a pleasant picture. On the edges of the grazing herd were the herders, sitting their horses or mules. The canvas top of the mess wagon shone white beyond the herd. Down the hill into the valley, and up the opposite hill, out of the valley, were toiling slowly two emigrant trains of wagons and people, following the Overland Trail into the farther west.
“We’ll go over to the mess wagon and I’ll introduce you; then I’ll skip back,” said Billy. “Stand in with the cook, do what the boss tells you, mind your own business, and you’ll get along fine. Don’t be fresh, that’s all.”
Davy resolved that he would remember. He wanted to be a success.
On their mounts they galloped across the turfy bottom, and rounding the herd arrived at the mess wagon. Smoke was already rising from the cook’s fire; andthe cook himself was moving about, from wagon to fire, and fussing with his row of black kettles, set beside the fire or atop the coals. The fire had been made in a long shallow trench. The pots had covers on them. Their steam smelled good.
The cook merely glanced up as the two boys approached. Halting and dismounting nimbly, Billy hailed him.
“Hello, Sam.”
The cook now paused and gazed. He was a short, pudgy man, with a big bristly moustache and a broken nose. He wore a wide brimmed hat and a floursack apron, and boots. Odd enough he looked, cooking at the fire.
“Hello, Billy. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing much. Sam, this is Dave Scott, a friend of mine. He’s going on herd. Dave, shake hands with Sam Bean, the best cook on the plains.”
Davy advanced and shook hands with Sam.
“Shucks,” mused Sam, surveying Dave. “Another kid, is it? Who sent him out; the old man?”
“Yes; Mr. Majors. Mr. Russell, too.”
“Well,” said Sam, proceeding with his cooking, “I hope he’s a better kid than that other one we’ve had. That lad was no good. All he thought of was eatin’ an’ sleepin’.”
“Davy’ll make good, all right,” assured Billy, loyally. “I’ll back him up on that. He came in with us in Lew Simpson’s train.”
“He’s the kid who left his shirt to the buffalo?” queried Sam.
“You bet,” answered Billy.
“Huh!” grunted Sam, now surveying Davy with new interest and a little respect.
“Where’s the boss?” asked Billy.
“Comin’,” said Sam, with jerk of his head.
A horseman was galloping in from the herd; but part way he whirled, and went back again.
“That’s Hank Bassett, isn’t it?” asked Billy, keen eyed. “He’s a good one, Dave. He’ll treat you right if you don’t get fresh. Well, I reckon I’ll light out. I’ll leave you with Sam. See you later.”
He shook hands with Dave and climbed on his pony.
“Where you bound, Billy?” queried Sam.
“Going out again Thursday with Buck Bomer to Laramie.”
“Good luck.”
“Same to you,” replied Billy, and rode away. Looking back once, he waved his hand; Sam and Dave waved answer.
“Might as well unpack your mule an’ lay out your beddin’,” advised Sam, gruffly, to Dave. “Wouldn’t unsaddle yet, though. Wait till the boss comes in. Tie your mule to a wagon wheel.”
Davy promptly set about it; he unpacked his bedding, and tied his mule.
“If you’re not too busy,” quoth Sam, sarcastically,“you might fetch me in some more buffalo chips, if you can find ’em. There ought to be some, out a ways, if those blamed emigrants ain’t cleaned ’em up. It’s a wonder to me how far they’ll go lookin’ for fuel. Here, take a sack.” And he tossed an old gunny sack at Davy. “Jest pile ’em on it; don’t stop to stuff ’em inside.”
Davy alertly seized the sacking, and started out. He knew what buffalo chips were: the dried droppings of the buffalo that used to roam by thousands through the valley. They had been driven out of it, largely by the traffic, but they had left their wallows and their “chips.”
The chips had been well gleaned for other cooks, and he must wander some distance from the wagon before he found enough to pay for the picking up. However, in due time he returned with all that the sack could hold. The buffalo chips made a fine fire, with little smoke and much heat. And they were easy and cheap. Everybody used them in travelling across the plains.
Sam grunted, whether pleased or not, as Davy dumped the load by the fire.
“Now fetch me some fresh water from the creek, will you?” bade Sam. “There’s a bucket.”
The creek was a side branch of the Salt Creek, and both streams were running low; but Davy managed to dip the bucket almost full of water. He brought itback. Sam grunted what might have been thanks or not.
“There comes the boss,” he said.
The man on the white horse was galloping in again; presently he dismounted at the fire. He was a tall man, with scraggy beard, gray eyes and a very tanned skin. He wore slouch hat, blue flannel shirt, jeans trousers and boots. He glanced keenly at Dave.
“Here’s another kid for you to break in, Hank,” informed the cook shortly.
“How’d you get here?” demanded Hank of Dave.
“Billy Cody fetched him out,” said the cook, over his shoulder, from the wagon.
“Who sent him?”
“Mr. Russell and Mr. Majors told me to come out and help herd,” answered Davy, speaking for himself.
“Did you ever herd before?”
“No, sir; except with an emigrant train. I herded horses and cattle there some.”
“Have you crossed the plains?”
“Just part way.”
“He’s the kid the Injuns had when they corralled Simpson and Woods and little Billy, out near Cedar Bluffs last summer,” reported Sam the cook. “Billy says he’s all right.”
“Well, he’s a different color, anyhow,” remarked Hank, referring to Davy’s red head. “How old are you?”
“Ten going on ’leven,” replied Davy.
“What’s your name?”
“David Scott. Billy and the others call me ‘Red.’”
“Got any folks?”
“No, sir.”
“Injuns wiped ’em out,” informed Sam the cook. “Remember?”
Hank nodded.
“Yes. All right,” he continued, in tone more kindly, to Dave; “you can help the cook to-night. In the morning you can go on herd, and see if you can hold the job. That red thatch ought to give you plenty of spunk, anyhow!”
“Yes, sir,” said Davy, encouraged.
Two herders came in for supper, leaving one on guard over the herd. They were rough-appearing men, and Davy and his red head had to take considerable banter and joking. He stood that well. He tried not to be “fresh” or impertinent; and when he didn’t know what he ought to say he said nothing and only grinned. After a while the men seemed to accept him as a pretty good kind of a boy. The fact that Billy Cody had vouched for him was a great help.
That night Davy slept on the ground again (as he had slept when with the wagon trains), rolled in his quilts, his saddle for a pillow. Breakfast was called before sunrise; and after breakfast he went out on herd.
“You’ll be eight hours on and four off,” instructed Hank, “except when you ride in for meals. Tend tobusiness and don’t bother the cattle except when they’re straying. They’re here to rest and get their flesh on. When they stray too far turn ’em back, but don’t run ’em. I suppose Billy told you about what to do, didn’t he?”
“Yes, sir; he told me to look out for Indians and emigrants passing through.”
There were two herders for the herd to which Davy was appointed. Davy thought that he was lucky in his partner, whose name was the Reverend Benjamin Baxter. When the other men had called him “Reverend,” Davy thought they were joking; but he found out that Mr. Baxter actually was a minister of the gospel. He was a pleasant-faced, thin young man, with dark eyes and hollow cheeks, and an occasional cough. Evidently he was out on the plains for his health. His home was Massachusetts; but in his plains garb and his tan he looked as much of a Westerner as any Missourian. Yes, Davy was lucky to be paired off with Mr. Baxter, who had been well educated and whom everybody seemed to like because, while he was a “preacher” he was also much of a man.
“You ride around your half of the herd and I’ll ride around my half, Davy,” said Mr. Baxter. “When we’re about to meet we’ll turn back. Take things easy. You don’t have to ride every minute, you know; just enough to keep the cattle from straying out where they’re liable to get out of sight or be pickedup by somebody passing. I’ll let you know when it’s time to go in for dinner.”
The herding did not strike Davy as hard work, except that it was rather monotonous and steady. It was more interesting at first than later. The cattle, spread out loosely over a wide area, required considerable of a ride along their edges. They were all work cattle—steers or oxen, young and old, used for hauling the wagons of the Russell, Majors & Waddell “bull trains.” Some were decrepit, worn out in the hard service across the plains; others were yet strong, and needed only rest and feed. In the beginning Davy bestirred himself more than was required; he was so afraid lest any of them might stray too far. Soon he was sharp enough to note that as long as they were only grazing, and he could keep his eyes on them, the stragglers might be permitted to have a little freedom to pick the best grass. In fact, the whole herd constantly shifted ground, gradually moving on from clump to clump and patch to patch.
About the middle of the morning Mr. Baxter’s first shift of eight hours was up, and another herder relieved him.
“Now I’ll take a sleep,” he called back, gaily, to Dave as he galloped for the wagon. “Have to sleep when we can, you know.”
Davy continued his herding with the new partner—who was gruff and silent, very different from Mr.Baxter. However, that made little difference, for herding did not give much chance to gossip.
At noon Davy was sent in for his turn at dinner; and when his four hours recess arrived he was glad to dismount at the wagon and lie in the shade. After he had served half the night on night guard and had not made any mistakes, when he crawled in, in the chill and dark, under his quilts, and settled for his short sleep, he felt like a veteran.
So the days and nights passed, of long hours in the saddle and short hours afoot. The bull herd moved from pasturage to pasturage, with Sam and his mess wagon keeping handy. The days were sunny fall, the nights were crisp, the air pure except for the dust stirred up by the hoofs of the herd or sometimes drifting from the great trail, the cattle gave little trouble, the mess food was plenty although about the same every meal, and herding on the plains proved not such a disagreeable business as might have been expected.
The chief annoyance was the rattlesnakes—although Sam and Hank and several others claimed that the emigrants and the cattle had cleaned about all the snakes out. However, on his first day Davy rode over two, and scarcely a day passed that he did not see three or four. He was told that he must not let one bite his mule, for mules often died from snake bite. Horses and cattle seemed stronger; anyway, the cattle of the bull herd seemed to be what Mr. Baxter called “snakeeducated”; Davy could tell from their movements that a rattlesnake was near them.
The most interesting part of herding was the sight of the travel on the great Overland Trail. The Trail entered the Salt Creek Valley by a hill on the east and left it by a hill on the west; and at any hour of the day the white-topped wagons of emigrant train and freight train could be seen descending and crossing and ascending, some bound to Leavenworth, but the majority bound westward for the plains trip.
Where they all were going Davy used to wonder. It seemed as though everybody from the East was moving into the far West. Of course, some of the emigrants were bound for western Kansas, where in Arapahoe County, at the base of the Rocky Mountains, people were seeking for gold. Some were hoping to take up farms in Kansas. Others were aiming for the Salt Lake region, where the Mormons under Brigham Young had settled. And others were bound clear across the continent to California for gold and for land. And many did not know exactly where they were going, except that they were moving west, ever west, to found new homes. The freight trains of the great Russell, Majors & Waddell Company were carrying government stores to Fort Kearney, in Nebraska, and Fort Laramie, also of Nebraska, on the North Platte, and Fort Bridger, in Utah, and Salt Lake, where troops had been sent last winter. The dusty trail, bordered by camps old and new, and by abandonedpots and pans and boxes and clothing and deserted skeletons of cattle and horses, was never vacant, night or day. Whenever the herding business led Davy near to it he viewed it with wonder.
Herding took all of Davy’s time. Occasionally Hank Bassett went into Leavenworth, and occasionally the other men rode in—all but Mr. Baxter. He and Davy stayed out. The weather continued clear and pleasant, with the days soft and sunny, and the nights crisp and still. Nobody paid much attention to Davy now, for he was proving a good herder, and was accepted as a member of the herding mess. He was as hard as nails, everything he ate tasted good, long hours on mule back did not stiffen him, and he thought that he knew every steer in the big herd.
One big steer he especially watched. It was a large red and white steer, with a sore hoof which did not heal. Every now and again a portion of the herd was separated and driven in to Fort Leavenworth for another trip across the plains; and new bunches took their places, to rest up again. But the old red and white steer stayed. He was foot sore, but he also was a wanderer, for he loved to stray. Several times during each day he would edge out farther and farther, leading some of his cronies; and in due time Davy must ride in front of him and turn him back. He was a pesky animal, and caused much trouble; the third herder wanted him killed, but Davy and Mr. Baxter only laughed and kept persuading Hank to save him.After all, he was only a steer, with a mind of his own. Maybe he would get well. Davy rather hoped that he wouldn’t; he seemed to have such a good time, and the worked cattle were so gaunt and scarred when they returned from their long, hard trips.
Now it was November of 1858. The days were shorter, the nights were colder, the grass was failing, and Indian summer was about to end. Soon the herds would be taken off the plains, for the snow was due and there would not be enough feed. One day Mr. Baxter was ill in camp; the other herder was off, and Davy found himself left on herd alone for a brief time. This he did not mind. He felt capable of handling the herd himself. So he slowly rode around and around, occasionally halting for a survey of the landscape.
This week the herd had drifted farther than usual from the trail and from the settlements, to the very edge of the Salt Creek Valley, where in numerous pockets amidst low hill the grass was still abundant. Davy never understood exactly how it happened, but all of a sudden he missed the red and white lame ox. His eyes ran rapidly over the herd, seeking the old fellow. The red and white ox was a “marker”; when he was present then the chances were that the herd was holding together, but when he was absent then something must be done at once.
Well, he was absent; he was not even in sight. This meant that probably he had led off a dozen or so followers.From his mule Davy cast keen gaze over the herd and over the surrounding rolling country.
“Gwan!” he ordered to his mouse-colored mule, and striking into a gallop he set off on a wide circle.
From the top of the nearest rise he saw nothing moving. But the top of the second gave him a wide view—and he saw something of much interest. There, about half a mile from him, and out in the open, was a line of moving dots. He made out the red and white steer—he recognized the color and the limp. At least a dozen other cattle were with him. They were strung out in a little group; and behind, several horsemen were driving them. Yes, actually driving them! Indians! Indians were driving off a bunch of strays!
Davy’s heart skipped a beat and suddenly thumped violently. But he didn’t sit looking long. Not he. He knew what Billy Cody would do, and he knew what any herder with spunk would do. He clapped his heels against his mule and away he went straight for the Indians.
They might be Kickapoos. Kickapoos from the reservation frequently visited the cattle camps to beg for food and clothes; and many of them would carry off more than was given to them. A sick steer was their especial delight. They picked up strays, too, when they could. So likely enough these Indians were Kickapoos. Davy was not afraid of Kickapoos, although, of course, any Indian might be surly when he had the advantage.
On galloped Davy, urging his mule. The Indians had seen him, for they tried to quicken their pace; but the lame steer held them back. Good for the lame steer, who could not travel fast! So Davy rapidly drew nearer.
As he approached he made up his mind that these were not Kickapoos. They wore blankets like any Indians, but their hair was not worn like that of Kickapoos, whose hair was combed back smoothly. And they were not Osages—another reservation tribe of Kansas. The hair of the Osages was roached like a rooster’s comb. No; by their braids and by the way they rode these were Cheyennes or Sioux! Whew! That was bad.
They did not even glance around as Davy rode upon them. Still at a gallop he rode around them, and whirling short, bravely throwing up his hand, halted squarely in the path. The baker’s dozen of steers (there were thirteen of them) bunched and stopped, panting. The Indians stared fixedly at Davy; two of them rode forward.
Yes, they were Cheyennes, except one Sioux; and the leader was Tall Bull!
“What are you doing with those cattle?” demanded Davy.
“Go. Our cattle,” grunted Tall Bull.
“They aren’t, either,” retorted Davy. “They’re my cattle from that herd yonder.”
“No,” denied Tall Bull, angrily; his companion’seyes were blazing. Davy felt them, and the hot eyes of the four other Indians, in the rear. “You go. Our cattle.”
“Where’d you get them, then?” demanded Davy.
“Buy ’em. Take ’em an’ eat ’em. Puckachee! (Get out!)”
“Puckachee yourself,” answered Davy, now angry. “You can’t have ’em. I take ’em back. Savvy? They belong to Russell, Majors & Waddell. See that brand?”
The two Indians grunted one to another. The Indians behind called in their own language.
“Get out of the way,” ordered Davy, boldly. “Gee, Buck! Whitey! Gee-haw!”
The cattle began to turn; but Tall Bull interposed by reining his pony and forcing them around again.
“No whoa-haws; ours. Buy ’em. How much?”
“Can’t sell ’em. Whoa-haw cattle. Gee, Buck! Get out of the way, you two.”
“Give one. Give one, take rest.”
“No!” stormed Davy, stoutly. “None.”
The Indians all were armed with bows and arrows. Suddenly the old Indian with Tall Bull strung his bow like lightning, fitted arrow to string, and Davy found the steel head quivering on taut string within six inches of his chest. The black eyes of the Indian glared into his, the swarthy face was fierce with a scowl of hatred.
Davy did not dare to move; even if he had had a gun or pistol he could not have used it. The arrowwould have been through him before he could pull trigger. There he must sit, waiting for the string to be released. His flesh in front of the arrow point shrank and stung, as if already the keen point had driven into it. If the Indian’s finger should slip—!
Half a minute passed; it seemed to Davy like an hour. Tall Bull spoke again.
“Two; give two,” he urged meaningly. “Take rest.”
“TWO; GIVE TWO,” HE URGED, MEANINGLY. “TAKE REST”
“TWO; GIVE TWO,” HE URGED, MEANINGLY. “TAKE REST”
“TWO; GIVE TWO,” HE URGED, MEANINGLY. “TAKE REST”
Davy shook his head. He felt white and queer, but his mind was made up.
“No,” he answered, trying to speak naturally, but suspecting that his voice was rather shaky. “None.”
The arrow head was still at his breast; the Indian’s bow was still stretched taut until it quivered with the strain; the Indian’s eyes glared, his face scowled. Davy did not glance aside. He was afraid to.
“One,” now urged Tall Bull. “Boy give one, or mebbe boy die an’ lose all.”
Davy shook his head.
“No.”
Now another Indian rode forward. With the corner of his eye Davy saw that he was the Sioux. The Sioux spoke to the two Cheyennes; they grunted answer, and the bow of the old warrior slowly relaxed, as if it hated to.
The Sioux extended his hand to Davy. He was a young buck, and good looking, with a sober cast of features.
“How, cola? (How do you do, friend?)” he said; and Davy shook hands with him. “All right. Brave boy. You go. Take cattle. Goodby.”
“Goodby,” said Davy. He promptly turned the lame steer aside and the others followed. He did not delay a moment. Would the Indians try to stop him again? No; they let him work. Driving the steers he started on the back trail, past the three Indians in the rear. Every moment he expected to feel an arrow plump into him between his shoulders; but he did not even look around. He attended to business. When at last he did look around, the six Indians were riding along at a jog. Davy quickened his pace, and when he arrived with his little bunch at the herd he was glad indeed.
He had proved his mettle. He felt that nobody would have done better.