“Good work,” praised Hi, with casual glance. “Thar are three or four more out yonder. Reckon we’ve got meat enough now for a while.”
“Which are mine?” squealed Left-over. “Did you other fellows kill any? I’d have killed fifty if I’d had any more cartridges.”
“You killed one, all right, Left-over,” asserted the Reverend. “I saw you. You killed him six times and once more for luck.”
“No, I didn’t, either!” disputed Left-over. “I killed seven, mebbe more. I shot seven times.”
“Which is it, Reverend?” asked Hi.
The Reverend Mr. Baxter pointed, with a grin; and grinning, Hi and Jim rode forward to inspect. Davy went, too; he was certain that a couple of buffalo had fallen to his revolver, and as there were only three on this end of the wagon, he did not see where Left-over’s seven could be.
Hi and Jim were gazing down upon a huge buffalo bull, who lay with his nose touching the fore wheel of the wagon. He made a great pool of blood, which flowed from wounds in his head and his shoulders and back and legs and everywhere, apparently.
“You certainly peppered him, Left-over,” assured Hi. “I reckon he’s dead.”
“Did I do all that?” queried Left-over. And he began to strut. “Well, I think that’s pretty good. If I hadn’t been here he’d have run right over the wagon. I picked him out on purpose. But I must have killed a lot more.” And chattering and strutting he roamed about, every few seconds returning to examine the holes that he had made or to thrust the carcass with his toes or to proclaim how large it was.
“You surely made your mark. Now you can rest a while,” chuckled Jim. “What’s your count, Billy?”
“Two at my end,” reported Billy, who had shot and killed, and had reloaded like lightning and shot and killed again.
“And two for Davy, and another who’s dropped yonder; and those that Jim and I got. That makes a mess,” said Hi. “Wall, reckon we’d better butcher ’fore the wolves spoil the meat. You fellows go ahead here, and Jim and I’ll fetch in the rest.”
“Davy didn’t do so bad, himself; did he?” remarked Mr. Baxter, climbing out of the wagon. “Did you aim, Davy?”
“No,” confessed Davy; “not after the first shot. My eyes were full of buffalo.”
“Mine’s the biggest, anyhow,” boasted Left-over. “If I hadn’t shot him so much he’d have got away.”
With Davy and Left-over helping the best that they could, Billy and the Reverend dressed the buffaloes that were near the wagon; and before they were done Hi and Jim came in, packing the best portions of those lying out in the wake of the herd. Even though only the best parts—the humps and rib roasts—were taken, the outfit had what looked to be more meat than they could use. But Hi and Jim were up to snuff.
“We’ll jerk this as we go,” said Hi. “Cut it into strips, fellows.”
So they cut much of the meat into strips about two inches wide and as thick as one’s finger and a foot long, and hung it on cord all around the wagon, row after row. So dry was the air and so pure out here in the great open plains that before the wagon had travelled an hour the strips already were curing hard and dark. They resembled strips of leather. That considerable dust settled on them apparently did no harm.
“Now they’ll keep forever,” declared Hi, striding along after a brief inspection. “You can chaw ’em as they are, or fry ’em; and you’ll find ’em the sweetest meat you ever stuck between your jaws. Thar’s nothing better than buffalo jerky.”
That afternoon they passed another stalled Pike’s Peak outfit—a whole family, this time, with their wagon mired down to the hubs in a boggy place that sometimes was a creek. The canvas top proclaimed: “Root Hog or Die! We’re from Ohio. Bound for the Gold Fields.”
“Started rooting a leetle early, haven’t you?” queried Hi, as the Hee-Haw Express halted to survey.
A thin, sallow woman was sitting on the ground holding a baby. Three children were playing about. A cookstove stood out, with dishes scattered around. A yoke of scrawny lame oxen grazed near.
At Hi’s good-natured hail the woman gave a weak, tired answer.
“Howdy, strangers. Yes, ’pears like we’re stuck. We’ve been here since yesterday. Can’t seem to get out.”
“Are you alone?” asked Mr. Baxter.
“No, sir. But my man he’s thar in the wagon, sick. Reckon he’s got the janders, and he isn’t any good.”
But a boy younger than Davy walked forward from the other children. He was a ragged, sharp-faced youngster, and now full of business.
“I’m boss of this outfit,” he asserted. “Say, can’t you hitch on your mules an’ give us a lift. Those oxen of ours can’t pull grass up by the roots, they’re so plumb wore out. It’s a hard trail, strangers.”
“Sure we can,” replied Hi, promptly. “Unhitch, boys. Let’s snake ’em out o’ thar.”
“Want our oxen, too?” keenly queried the boy.
“Nope, sonny. We can haul the wagon, but we can’t haul the bulls at the same time.”
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!”