XIIPERILS 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 cavortingaround 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 andglare 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 stooddrooped 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 fromthe 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.”
Hotter and hotter grew the day. The trail, which was not so large after the emigrant party had been passed, wound among blistering sand-hills, and soonthe mules were plodding doggedly, with tongues out, hides lathering. They guided themselves, for the Reverend, whose turn it was to drive, had mercy on them and walked. That night at camp he uttered a sudden exclamation.
“Water’s more than half gone, boys,” he announced. “Either this keg leaks or the air drinks faster than we do.”
“We’ll have to be easy on water, then,” ordered Captain Hi. And they all went to bed thirsty.
Davy had a miserable night, and probably the rest did, too, although nobody except Left-over said anything. The mules started out stiffly. But Mr. Baxter suddenly shouted, in a queer wheeze, pointing:
“Cheer up, fellows! There’s either a cloud or a mountain—see?”
They peered. Away in the west, just touched by the first rays of the sun, peeped over the rolling desert, at the horizon edge, a vague outline that did look like the tip of a cloud.
“There’s another!” cried Billy, pointing further to the north. “If those are mountains I reckon this one is Long’s Peak; maybe that other is Pike’s Peak.”
Davy gazed constantly at the two vague, cloudlike breaks in the line of horizon and sky. As the sun rose higher they seemed to grow whiter; but they did not move. They must be mountains, then; and oh, so far away! Occasionally, as the wagon labored over a swell in the desert, Davy thought that he could descryother mountains in an irregular ridge connecting the tip in the north with the tip at the south. However, as the sun shone fiercer the whole sandy plain quivered with the heat rays and the horizon blurred. Nobody seemed to care about the mountains now; the main thought was getting through to water.
The trail was almost drifted over by sand; the Hee-Haw party appeared to be the only party travelling it. That was discouraging. The mules scarcely moved. At noon they were given a little drink out of Hi’s hat, for the wooden bucket had warped and leaked like a sieve. Davy never had been so thirsty in all his life, and Left-over had to be forced back by main strength from the nearly empty cask. That night, camped in a dry watercourse, where they dug and dug without finding any moisture, they used the last of their water for coffee.
“It’s make or break, to-morrow, boys,” said Captain Hi. “We’ll start as early as we can see, and push right through. Ought to strike water soon. The nearer we get to the mountains the better the chance for water from them.”
Sunrise of the third day caught them plodding ahead, the poor mules groaning and wheezing, the wagon rolling sluggishly, and Davy, like the rest, with mouth open and tongue bone dry, in the wake. The cloud things in the horizon had remained stationary; some of them were whitish, some purplish; and mountains they certainly were!
About ten o’clock Billy cried out thickly.
“Water, fellows! Look at those mules’ ears! They smell it!”
“’Pears like a creek yonder, sure,” mumbled Captain Hi. “Don’t be disappointed, though, if it’s another mirage.” For they had been fooled several times by the heat waves picturing water.
“Those mules smell water, just the same, I bet you,” insisted Billy.
Far in the distance shimmered now a thin fringe of green. The mules actually increased their pace; they broke into a labored trot; and shambling heavily behind the outfit pressed on. Left-over groaned and dropped, to lie and moan dismally.
“I’m dying,” he wheezed. “I can’t move a step. Are you fellows going on and leave me?”
There was no holding the mules. As they forged along Billy exclaimed quickly:
“Wait here, Left-over. Go ahead, fellows. I’ll fetch him back a drink.”
And seizing the coffee-pot he sturdily ran and stumbled to the fore. All hastened after him, rivalling the frantic mules, but he beat.
Water it was! When they approached it did not vanish as a mirage would; and they met Billy returning with coffee-pot actually dripping as its precious contents slopped over.
Davy felt a strong impulse to halt Billy, wrest the pot from him, and drink long and deep. But ofcourse this was only a thought. Puffing, Billy passed.
“There’s plenty water waiting you,” he announced. “I’ll bring Left-over on after he’s had his drink.”
Yes, water it was—a real stream flowing crooked and shallow in a deep bed bordered by brush and willows. The trail led to a ford. Wagon and all, the mules fairly plunged in, and burying their noses to their eyes gulped and gulped. First Jim, then in quick succession Davy and Captain Hi and Mr. Baxter (who was the last of all) imitated the mules. Whew, but that drink was a good long one! It seemed to Davy, as he sucked again and again, that he simply could not swallow fast enough.
“Some head stream or other, I reckon,” finally spoke Captain Hi. “Shouldn’t wonder if we had water now all the way in. We’re getting where the drainage from the mountains begins to cut some figger.”
Billy arrived with Left-over. They spent the rest of the day beside the welcome stream; and by morning they left about as strong as ever.
The trail that they were following now crossed at least one stream a day, so that the water cask was kept filled. The buffalo jerky had been eaten or was not eatable; but antelope and black-tail deer were abundant. So the trail proved pleasant. Captain Hi called attention to the fact that the water was growing colder to the taste; and he said that the snow mountains musttherefore be nearer. Indeed, the mountains were nearer; they lined the whole western horizon, and made a humpy, dark ridge extending from straight ahead far up into the north. A haze like to a fog veiled them much of the time, and the Hee-Haw party were always expecting a better view.
Anyway, there were the Rocky Mountains in sight; and little by little the trail was approaching them. Yet it was a long, long trail, and who would have imagined that the plains were so broad from Leavenworth to the digging!
However, one morning a surprise occurred. The trail had been threading a little divide which evidently separated one stream from another. A few pines were growing on it. They smelled good. When the mules had tugged the wagon over the last rise and were descending a splendid spectacle unfolded to the eyes of the Hee-Haws. Involuntarily they cheered—hooray! and again hooray! For right before them was the main trail once more, with the wagons of emigrants whitening it and with a stage dashing along.
Down hastened the Hee-Haws, even the mules being glad of company.
“Hooray for Cherry Creek and the diggin’s, strangers!” was the greeting, as the Hee-Haw party entered at a break in the toiling procession.
“How much further, lads?” asked Captain Hi.
“Whar?”
“To the mountains?”
“Seventy miles to the diggin’s, we hear tell. This is the head o’ Cherry Creek, hyar; and as soon as the fog lifts you’ll see what you’re looking for, I reckon.”
The fog, which had cloaked the horizon since sunrise, already was thinning; and staring, the Hee-Haws waited the result.
“I see them!” cried Jim, waving his battered hat.
“Where, Jim?”
“Yonder, straight in front.”
“So do I!” yelped Billy. “There’s Long’s Peak—that big peak up at the north end. I’ve seen him from the Overland Trail. Look at the snow, will you!”
“Isn’t it wonderful!” breathed the Reverend Mr. Baxter, in awed tone.
And it was. Almost halting, spell-bound, they gazed. As the fog broke and melted away it exposed a mighty barrier, extending in a vast sweep from the right to the left—two hundred miles of mountains, the front range soft and purplish, the back range dazzling white with snow. The rugged plains, brushy and somewhat timbered, and lighter green where meandered Cherry Creek, reached to their very base.
“Where’s Pike’s Peak?” demanded Left-over.
“That lone peak at our end, stranger,” informed an emigrant.
Round and bulky and snow covered, standing out by himself, like an exclamation-point completing the range, Pike’s Peak seemed the biggest peak of all.
“That’s not far. ’Tisn’t more than ten miles!”declared Left-over. “Come on! Let’s go and climb it. Get out your picks, fellows! Don’t you see a kind of yellow patch? That’s gold, I bet you.”
“Keep cool, young man,” warned the emigrant. “You try to walk it before night and you’ll find out how far that peak is. More than fifty miles, I reckon.”
“It looks powerful cold up yon,” quavered a woman. “They do say the snow never melts off.”
The trail was now much more interesting. Some of the emigrants had come out, like the Hee-Haws, over the Smoky Hill Fork Trail, and the others were from the Santa Fe Trail up the Arkansas River, to the south. A trail along the base of the mountains connected this with Smoky Hill Trail. Soon the trail by way of Republican River joined in. The triple travel on Cherry Creek Trail was now so thick that Davy again wondered where all the people were coming from.
The marvellous panorama of the Rockies remained ever in sight before. Nobody tired of gazing at it, wondering which of the peaks, besides Pike’s Peak, were inlaid with gold and if a fellow could live on top of Pike’s Peak or back yonder among those other peaks while getting out his fortune. Some of the emigrants (Left-over included) asserted loudly that they could see the gold shining!
However, the first sight of the Pike’s Peak settlements—Denver and Auraria—began to be watched for the most eagerly. The mountains gradually drew nearer, Pike’s Peak gradually fell behind until on theafternoon of the third day, down the winding, white-topped procession swept a glad cry. Whips were flourished, sun-bonnets were waved, hats were swung; men and women cheered, children shouted, dogs barked.
“The Cherry Creek diggin’s! There they are! There are the gold fields and the pound a day!”
People seemed to forget the bad reports spread by the disgruntled emigrants bound back to the States. Hopes were again high for success and fortune at the end of the long, long trail.
Sure enough, several miles before, in a basin set out from the mountains a short distance, were a collection of wagons and tents and other canvases, and a number of cabins, also, jumbled together on both sides of the creek, apparently, and bounded before by a wooded river. At the edges was a fringe of little camps like those of emigrants stopping by the way.
Evening was nigh; the sun was low over the snowy range; smoke was curling from camp-fire and chimney.
“We won’t make it to-day, fellows,” spoke Captain Hi. “But we’ll pull in the first thing in the morning.”
“Goodness! Look at the people pouring in by the northern trail, too!” exclaimed Mr. Baxter.
For glinting in the last rays of the sun a long wagon train of emigrants, resembling crawling white beads, was heading in from the opposite direction.
“That’s the cut-off down from the Salt Lake Overland Trail up the Platte,” quoth Billy, promptly. “The bull trains travel that trail.”