XIXDAVY MAKES ANOTHER CHANGE
“Did you see my mother when you were back East, Dave?” asked Billy.
“Yes.”
“How’s she looking?”
“Not extra good, Billy. She’s not very well, and she said if I came across you to tell you she’d like to see you as soon as she could.”
“How are the girls?”
“They’re all right.”
“I’m sorry about ma,” mused Billy, soberly. “If she’s poorly I’m going home as straight as I can travel, you can bet on that.”
“We can give you a job with the bull train, Billy,” proffered Charley Martin. “We’re short of men.”
But Billy shook his head.
“No, sir. I’m due at the Cody place in Salt Creek Valley.”
“Well, Billy, in that case I’ll pass you through on the next stage, if there’s room,” volunteered Mr. Ficklin.
“I can hang on somewhere,” asserted Billy. “The pass is the main thing. Never mind the room.”
While they all were talking a new arrival halted near. It was an army ambulance—a wagon with black leather top, seats running around the inside, and four big black army mules as the team. It was bound west. A soldier in dusty blue uniform was the driver, and a corporal of infantry sat beside him, between his knees a Sharp’s carbine. From the rear of the ambulance another soldier briskly piled out. By his shoulder straps and the white stripes down his trouser-seams he was an officer; by the double bars on his shoulder straps a captain. He wore a revolver in holster.
He walked over to the group and nodded.
“Hello, Ben.”
“How are you, captain.” And Mr. Ficklin arose to shake hands.
“Gentlemen,” continued Mr. Ficklin, “I want to introduce Captain Brown.”
“I believe I know the captain,” spoke Charley, also shaking hands.
“Hello, Billy,” addressed the captain, catching sight of him. “What’s the matter? Been swimming?”
“Yes,” laughed Billy. “The water’s a little cold up in the mountains, so I took my annual down here.”
“Billy’s been at the diggin’s, captain,” vouchsafed Mr. Ficklin. “He brought down so much gold in his hide that he couldn’t travel till he’d washed it out.”
Billy took their joking good-naturedly. That hewas going home “broke” had not discouraged him at all.
“I know one thing, gentlemen,” he declared. “I’m not a miner, but I had to learn. The plains for me after this. You’ll find me bobbing up again.”
“Yes, you can’t keep Billy Cody down, that’s a fact,” agreed Mr. Ficklin. “Where are you bound, captain? Denver?”
“No, sir. Laramie. I’ve just come through from Omaha. I hear you fellows are putting on a daily stage to Salt Lake to connect there with the line for San Francisco.”
“Yes, sir. It’ll be running this month, and it’ll be a hummer. I’m on my way to inspect the stations now.”
“This is my friend Dave Scott, captain,” introduced Billy, in his generous way. “He’s the youngest bull whacker on the trail.”
“He must be a pretty close second to you, then, Billy,” remarked Captain Brown, extending his hand to Davy, who, as usual, felt embarrassed. “You started in rather young yourself!” The captain (who was a tanned, stoutly-built man, with short russet beard and keen hazel eyes) scanned Davy sharply. He scratched his head. “I don’t see why I can’t get hold of a boy like you or Billy,” he said. “I prefer red-headed boys. I was red-headed myself once, before the Indians scared my hair off.”
“You’re a bit red-headed now, captain,” slyly assertedCharley; for the captain’s bald pate certainly was well burned by the sun.
“Well, Ifeelred-headed, too,” retorted the captain. “So would you if every time you got a clerk he deserted to the gold fields. Lend me this boy, will you, Martin? He’s in your train, isn’t he? I’ll take him on up to Laramie with me and give him a good job in the quartermaster’s department. There’s a place there for somebody just about his size, boots and all.” And the captain, who evidently had taken a fancy to the sturdy Dave, smiled at him.
All of a sudden Davy wanted to go. He had heard of Fort Laramie, that important headquarters post on the North Platte in western Nebraska (which is to-day Wyoming) near the mountains, and he wanted to see it. Billy had been there several times with the bull trains out of Leavenworth, and had told him about it.
“I’d like to oblige you, captain,” answered Charley. “But we’re short handed this trip, and Davy’s a valuable man. He’s making quite a bull whacker. Besides, I reckon he’s counting on going to school this winter in Leavenworth; aren’t you, Davy?”
Davy nodded.
“I thought I’d better,” he said. “That’s one reason I left Denver.”
“He can go to school at Laramie,” asserted the captain quickly. “We have a school for the post children there, and it’s a good one.”
Davy listened eagerly, and it was plain to be seenhowhewas inclined. Denver meant only a short stay, for Charley was anxious to start back again before winter closed in on the plains, and there might not be any chance to see Mr. Baxter, after all. Laramie sounded good.
“Oh, shucks!” blurted Jim. “If you want to let Dave out, Charley, I’d as lief go on to Denver and finish with you.”
“So would I,” added Hi.
“How about it, Dave?” queried Charley. “Is it Denver or Leavenworth, or Laramie, for you?”
“I’d like to try Laramie first-rate but I don’t want to quit the train unless you say so,” answered Dave, honestly. “I hired out for the trip, and Mr. Russell and Mr. Majors expect me to go through.”
“Mr. Majors knows me and so does Billy Russell,” put in the captain. “I’ll write Majors a letter and give him a receipt for one red-headed boy, with guarantee of good treatment. I tell you, Martin, the United States has need for one red-headed boy, name of Dave, in the quartermaster service at Fort Laramie; and I believe I’ll have to send a detail out on the trail and seize him by force of arms.” The captain, of course, was joking, but he also seemed in earnest. “If he’s employed by Russell, Majors & Waddell that’s recommendation enough, and I want him all the more.”
Charley laughed.
“Oh, in that case, and if he wants to go, I suppose I’ll have to let him, and take Jim and Hi on in hisplace. They two ought to be able to fill his job. If you say so, Dave, I’ll give you your discharge right away, and a voucher for your pay to date, and you can see how you like the army for a change.”
“Go ahead, Red,” bade Billy. “You’ll learn a heap, and I’ll be out that way myself soon. First thing you know you’ll see me coming through driving stage or riding that pony express. Whoop-la!”
And of this Davy did not have the slightest doubt.
Captain Brown declined an invitation to stay for dinner with the mess. He was in a hurry. So the exchange of Davy from bull whacking to Government service was quickly made. Before he was an hour older he had shaken hands with everybody within reach and was trundling northward in the black covered ambulance beside Captain Brown. He knew that in another hour or two Billy himself would be travelling east, back to Salt Creek Valley and Leavenworth; and that early in the morning the bull train, with Charley and Joel and Kentuck and Hi and Jim and all, would be travelling west for the end of the trail at Denver.
This was just like the busy West in those days; friends were constantly mingling and parting, each on active business—to meet again a little later and report what they had been doing in the progress of the big country.
“You’re too young to follow bull whacking, my boy,” declared the captain. “It’s a rough life and ahard one. To earn your own way and know how to hold up your end and take care of yourself is all very well; but you’d better mix in with it the education of books and cultured people as much as you can while you go along. Then you’ll grow up an all-round man instead of a one-sided man. Laramie’s a long way from the States; but we’ve got a small post school and a few books, and it’s the home of a lot of cultured men and women. You’ll learn things there that you’ll never learn roughing it on the trail.”
And Davy looked forward to life at old Fort Laramie, the famous army post and freight and emigrant station on the Overland Trail to Salt Lake, Oregon and California.
The fording of the Platte was made in quick time to foil the quicksands. The North Platte was now scarce eighteen miles across the narrow tongue of land separating the two rivers above their juncture. It was struck at Ash Hollow. Ash Hollow had a grocery store for emigrant trade. The sign read “BUTTE, REGGS, FLOWER and MELE.”
Captain Brown halted here long enough to buy a few crackers and some sardines.
“Thought we’d stock up while we can,” he explained to Dave. “These and what buffalo meat we have will carry us quite a way. Laramie’s one hundred and sixty miles, and I’m going to push right through.”
The four stout mules ambled briskly at a good eightmiles an hour, following the trail into the west, up the south bank of the river. The trail was broad and plain, but it was not so crowded with emigrants as it had been before the Pike’s Peak portion of it had branched off. However, there still were emigrants; and there were many bull trains bound out for Laramie and Fort Bridger and Salt Lake, for this was the main Overland Trail, dating back fifty years.
The ambulance rolled on without slackening, except for sand or short rises, until after sunset. Then the captain gave the word to stop. By this time he knew Dave’s history, and Davy was liking him immensely. They clambered stiffly out. The driver and corporal unhitched the mules: and while the corporal made a fire for coffee, the driver (who was a private) put the mules out to graze.
“We’ll take four hours, Mike,” said the captain to the corporal. “Then we’ll make another spurt until daylight.”
“Yes, sir,” answered the corporal, saluting.
“You’d do well to crawl in the wagon and sleep, after supper, Dave,” advised the captain to Davy. “We’ll be travelling the rest of the night. Can you stand it?”
Davy laughed. A great question, that, to ask of a boy who’d just been a bull whacker walking across the plains!
Nevertheless, Davy took a nap in the bottom of the ambulance; and more than a nap. When he awakened,he had been aroused by the jolting of his bed. A buffalo robe had been thrown over him, the captain was sitting in a corner snugly wrapped, and by the light of a half moon the ambulance was again upon its way.
In the morning, when they once more halted to rest and feed the mules, the country was considerably rougher, with hills and fantastic rocks breaking the sagy, gravelly landscape. The white-topped wagons of emigrants and the smoke of their camp-fires were in sight, before and behind; and not far ahead a bull outfit were driving their bulls into the wagon corral to yoke up for the day’s trail.
Breakfast was coffee and buffalo meat; but Corporal Mike mounted one of the mules and rode off the trail. When he returned he had some sage chickens and an antelope. The sides of the ambulance had been rolled up; and about noon, pointing ahead the captain remarked to Davy:
“That’s Laramie Peak, beyond the post. We’ve got only about eighty miles to go and we’ll be in bright and early.”
The landmark of Laramie Peak, of the Black Hills Range of the Rocky Mountains, remained in sight all day, slowly standing higher. The sun set behind it. Davy snoozed in the bottom of the ambulance. The captain had spoken truth, for shortly after sunrise they sighted the flag streaming over Fort Laramie.
Old Fort Laramie was not so large a post as FortLeavenworth; it was not so large as Fort Kearney, even. Davy was a little disappointed, for “Laramie” was a name in the mouth of almost every bull whacker in the Russell, Majors & Waddell trains out of Leavenworth, and the men were constantly going “out to Laramie” and back. The post stood on a bare plateau beside Laramie Creek about a mile up from the Platte; some of the buildings were white-washed adobe, some were logs, and some were of rough-sawed lumber. Back of the fort were hills, and beyond the hills, to the southwest, were mountains—Laramie Peak being the sentinel.
It was the important division point on the Overland Trail to Salt Lake; maintained here in the Sioux Indian country to protect the trail and to be a distributing point for Government supplies. It was garrisoned by both cavalry and infantry; on the outskirts were cabins of Indian traders and trappers and other hangers-on, and there were a couple of stores that sold things to emigrants. Sioux Indians usually were camping nearby, in time of peace.
Davy changed his rough teamster costume for clothes a little more suited to a clerk and messenger in the quartermaster’s department, and was put to work by Captain Brown, the acting quartermaster. The post proved a busy place, with the quartermaster’s offices the busiest of all; but the captain and Mrs. Brown saw that Dave was courteously treated andgiven a fair show. He went to evening school, and had books to read; and once in a while was allowed time for a hunt. In fact, Fort Laramie, away out here, alone, guarding the middle of the Overland Trail through to Salt Lake, was by no means a stupid or quiet place.
Of course, the trail was what kept it lively, for every day news from the States and from the farther west arrived with the emigrants and the bull trains; and scarcely had Dave been settled into his new niche, when arrived the first of the new daily stages from the Missouri. It was preceded by a slender, gentlemanly man named Bob Scott, dropped off by one of the company wagons which was establishing the stations. Bob Scott was to drive stage from Fort Laramie on to Horseshoe, thirty-six miles, and he was here in readiness. He seemed to be well known on the trail, for many persons at the post called him “Bob.”
“When do you expect to start on the run, Bob?” asked the captain.
“I think about next Tuesday, captain,” answered Bob, in his quiet, easy tone. “The first coach leaves to-day, I understand, from St. Joe.”
“They’ll make it through in six days, will they?”
“Yes, sir. Ten days to Salt Lake is the schedule—an average of one hundred and twenty miles a day. At Salt Lake the express and passengers are transferred to the George Chorpening line to Placerville,California, and from Placerville they’re sent on to Sacramento and San Francisco. I understand the time from the Missouri River to San Francisco will be about eighteen days.”
“You haven’t heard what’s to be the name of the new company, have you, Bob?”
“Yes, sir. ‘Central Overland, California & Pike’s Peak Express’ is to be the name; the ‘C. O. C. & P. P.’”
Stables and express station and a relay of horses had been established adjacent to the post. The old stage company, Hockaday & Liggett, had worked on a loose, go-as-you-please system which was very different from the way that Russell, Majors & Waddell went at it. Now, with things in readiness along the line, clear to Salt Lake City, Tuesday dawned on a post eagerly hoping that Bob Scott’s calculation would prove true.
About eleven o’clock a murmur and hustle in the post announced that the stage was in sight. It came with a rush and a cheer—its four mules at a gallop, up the trail, the big coach swaying behind them, the driver firm on his box. Stain of dust and mud and rain and snow coated the fresh coach body, for all the way from the Missouri River, 600 miles, had it come, through all kinds of weather, and had been travelling night and day for six days. At top and bottom of the frame around the stiffened canvas ran the legend:“Central Overland California & Pike’s Peak Express Co.”
“Wild Bill” Hickok himself it was who, coolly tossing his lines to the hostler, waiting to take them and lead the horses to the stable, drawing off his gloves bade, for the benefit of his passengers:
“Gentlemen, you have forty minutes here for dinner.”
At the same moment the station keeper’s wife began to beat a sheet-iron gong as dinner signal.