With so many people making for Cherry Creek over several trails it seemed a pity to waste a night by camping. But when darkness settled the trail was ablaze with the camp-fires of the emigrants who, like the Hee-Haw outfit, had halted until dawn. Afar blinked the lights of the “Pike’s Peak settlements”; and miles distant, north across the plain, were the bright dots betokening the camps of those emigrants entering by the Salt Lake Overland Trail.
The whole procession was early astir with the dawn; even Left-over was up as soon as anybody, eager to be digging out his pound of gold a day.
The trail down Cherry Creek was six inches deep with dust, ground to powder by the constant wheels and hoofs. In a great cloud it rose as the wagons and animals and persons ploughed through it; to the north lifted other dust lines, where the rival travel likewise pressed forward to the goal. It was an inspiring scene, almost as good as a race; but Left-over grumbled:
“I don’t call this Pike’s Peak,” he said. “And where’s Denver City? I don’t see any city.”
“City or not,” remarked the Reverend Mr. Baxter, “it’s a wonderful thing, Davy—all these people, from all over the United States, setting out overland, breaking new trails, and founding a town away out here, six hundred miles across the desert, at the foot of those snowy mountains! It’s taken a lot of pluck and a lot of trust in Providence.”
“Where do you calculate on stopping, boys?” queried a black-eyed, sharp-nosed man who was riding down along the column.
“I don’t know,” drawled Captain Hi. “What’s the difference?”
“All the difference in the world. Throw in with Auraria. She’s on the mountain side of the Creek, and she’s bound to be the biggest city west of Omaha. We’ve got the buildings, the people, and the ferry across the Platte River. Remember that. Don’t let these Denver boomers fool you. Stop at Auraria and we’ll treat you right.”
And he rode on down the line talking about “Auraria.”
But he was close followed by another man—a fatty, red-faced man.
“Keep right on down the east side of the creek to Denver City,” he proclaimed. “The travelled side, the side next to the States. Buy a town lot in Denver; it’ll be a nest-egg for you while you’re at the diggin’s. Denver, Denver, Denver! Remember the east side of the creek.”
And he, also, proceeded on, chanting the praises of “Denver City.” The Reverend Mr. Baxter laughed.
Before they reached the settlement district the trail forked. A large sign, pointing to the left-hand fork, said: “AURARIA. Direct Route to the Gold Fields.” Another sign, pointing before, said: “Straight Ahead for DENVER CITY. Nearest and Best.”
“Which will it be, boys?” queried Captain Hi.
“Let’s try Denver. It’s on this side of the creek and it’s named for the governor of Kansas,” spoke Mr. Baxter.
So they continued on down to Denver City. Denver and Auraria were separated by only the almost dry channels of Cherry Creek, and both extended along it nearly to the Platte River below, into which Cherry Creek emptied. As soon as the Hee-Haw party had pitched their camp on the outskirts of Denver, they hastened about their business. Davy and Mr. Baxter paired off to wander about. Billy and Hi and Jim undertook some errands. Left-over was wild to grab shovel and pick and pan and start right in digging and washing.
Many persons, in plain sight all up and down the creek bed, were working hard panning for gold. Some of the emigrants had begun almost before they had unharnessed their teams. And yonder, northwest, glimpses of the Platte River, flowing past both Denver and Auraria, gave glimpses also of other miners delving away.
Billy walked straight to the nearest group in the creek bed.
“How are you making it, pardner?” he asked.
“Have you fellows come for your pound a day, too?” asked the man. Even his wife was wielding a dish-pan while he shovelled.
“You bet,” assured Billy.
The woman paused, and the man laughed wearily and wiped his forehead.
“You’ll be lucky if you make fifty cents,” he said.
“Yes,” quavered the woman. “It’s awful poor picking along this creek. I expect we’re all going to starve, provisions are getting so high.”
“Where are the diggin’s, then?”
“Yonder, up in the mountains, stranger. We hear tell they’ve made a big strike there. We’re going on as soon as we can travel. But our oxen are about petered out.”
“How far’s Pike’s Peak?” demanded Left-over. “Where’s the Pike’s Peak country? Why don’t you go to Pike’s Peak?”
“That’s Pike’s Peak down south, seventy-five miles,” answered the man. “They call this the Pike’s Peak country, but it’s only a name. I reckon you’ve heard of them sliding down Pike’s Peak and scraping up the gold as they slide. Don’t you believe it, mister. The peak’s above snow line and the ground is frozen solid. See that line of wagons? They’re all heading to the new Gregory diggin’s, west in the mountains about forty miles. That’s the big strike.”
“Oh, shucks!” exclaimed Billy.
Davy felt his heart sink; this, then, was not the end of the gold-seekers’ trail, and the snowy mountains, topping the barrier of the tumbled foot-hills, looked like a hard country.
“Come, Davy,” said the Reverend Mr. Baxter. “We’ll see the sights first, anyway.”
So they left Left-over, hauling out his pick and spade and gold-pan to join the squads working along the creek; and Hi and Jim and Billy, who set forth on errands; and trudged away “to see the sights.”
“This gold craze is all right as a means of attracting the people here,” remarked the Reverend Mr. Baxter, thoughtfully. “But the most wonderful part to me is the settlement itself. There must be fifteen hundred population already in scarce a year, and emigrants are pouring in at the rate of a thousand a day, I hear. There are fifty thousand on the way, Dave. I don’t give a snap for the mines; but look, what has happened! This gold excitement is going to settle the plains. The United States has jumped at a leap from the Missouri River six or seven hundred miles to the mountains. With a city here, and cities at the other end, there’ll soon be cities in between. A whole lot of waste country is due to be made useful.”
“I don’t call this much of a city yet,” commented Davy, considerably disappointed over the end of his trip.
“Well,” said Mr. Baxter, “it’s the starter for one if the people don’t starve to death. The weak hearts will go back; the strong ones will stick; it’s only a question of holding out for a while until the land is cultivated.”
Truly, Denver was a strange collection of tents and shacks, with a few good buildings. The houses were of hewn logs, sod roofs and dirt floors, and the furniture was made mostly from slabs and planks. There were few windows; and these were filled with sacking stretched across or else had wooden shutters. As far as Davy could see, the whole town did not have a pane of glass.
However, the streets (and particularly the two main streets named Blake and Larimer) were thronged with people as thick as the crowds at the other end of the route, Leavenworth. Indians, Mexicans and whites fairly jostled elbows, and conversation in every variety of speech was heard. The whites wore costumes ranging from the broadcloth frock coat and flowing trousers of the St. Louis and New York merchant to the flannel shirt, jeans trousers and heavy boots of the regular plainsman and miner. The Mexicans wore their broad, high-peaked hats and their serapes or gay Mexican blankets, draped from their shoulders. The Indians stalked about bare-headed, and enveloped in their blankets also. There were few women.
Several stores handling general merchandise had been opened, but according to the signs goods were expensive. One sign said: “Antelope Meat, 4 cents a lb.” Picks and spades were the cheapest; they could be bought for fifteen cents apiece, and nobody seemed to be buying at that! This was a bad sign; it showed how disgusted many of the overlanders had become when they found that they could not dig gold out by the pound where they stopped!
Right in the centre of Denver was a large village of Indians, camped in their tipis. By the hundreds they were lounging about, men, women and children, the men unclothed except for a girdle about the waist, and the children wearing nothing at all.
“Arapahoes,” pronounced Mr. Baxter. “Come on, Davy. There’s the stage. Let’s go over to the hotel.”
A large cloth sign before a long one-story log building said: “Denver House.” It was next to the Arapahoe village. People were hurrying across to this hotel, for a stage-coach, with crack of whip and cheer from passengers and driver, had halted short in front of it.
The coach, drawn by its four mules, dusty and lathered, bore the lettering: “Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak Express Co.” So this, then, was the daily Leavenworth stage. Already the street before the hotel was crowded with onlookers who had gathered to receive the coach. When Davy and Mr. Baxter arrived the travel-worn passengers were clambering out. The first was Mr. Majors himself! Davy recognized the long beard and he and Mr. Baxter pressed forward to welcome their friend.
“Why, hello, boys,” quoth Mr. Majors. “Where’d you drop from?”
“Just got in,” answered Mr. Baxter, shaking hands, as did Davy. “We came by mule and wagon with Billy Cody and two or three others.”
“How?”
“Up the Smoky.”
“Joined the gold rush, did you?”
“Yes, sir. But I’ve about decided I’d rather plant potatoes.”
“How about you, Dave?” queried Mr. Majors.
“I’d like to eat one,” asserted Davy ruefully.
“You’ve got the right idea, I guess,” approved Mr. Majors. “But I understand Horace Greeley has told the people here they ought to plant potatoes, and they laughed at him. Potatoes are a better crop than gold, in my opinion; but this country certainly doesn’t look very promising for them. How people are going to live I don’t know. It will be good for the freighting business, though. We’ll be hauling stuff in here with every team we can muster. Did you know we’ve taken over the stage line, too?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, we have. It’s run by Russell, Majors & Waddell now. Call in on me before I leave, and I’ll give you a pass to Leavenworth in case you want to go back.”
“All right. Thank you, Mr. Majors.”
“If I were you, my lad, I wouldn’t stay around here long,” continued Mr. Majors to Davy. “This place is going to be a good place, and I haven’t any doubt that lots of gold will come out of these mountains as soon as the people are experienced in finding it. But looking for gold haphazard is a poor job for a boy. I think you’ll do much better on the plains. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, you know; and there’s a big work to be done in helping these people live. If the freight outfits aren’t kept moving the diggings will starve. If you’ll come in to Leavenworth we’ll put you to work with the bull trains.”
“You’d better do it, Davy,” advised Mr. Baxter. And Davy soberly nodded.
“I guess I will, then.”
“I’m up at our Nebraska City office most of the time now,” said Mr. Majors. “But you’ll find Mr. Russell at Leavenworth and I’ll tell him to fix you out.” And Mr. Majors shouldered his way into the hotel.
“Whar’s the post-office, stranger?” asked a voice; and turning they faced an emigrant evidently newly arrived.
“I don’t know. We’re lost around here, ourselves,” explained Mr. Baxter.
“Pardon. I tella the way,” spoke somebody else. He was a tall, swarthy-visaged man, with heavy black moustache and black bushy eyebrows, a large meerschaum pipe in his mouth. However, he was neatly dressed, even to natty shoes. He looked like a foreigner, and his accent sounded foreign. He continued rapidly: “That beeg house w’ere you see-a the line of men.”
“Thank ’ee,” acknowledged the emigrant, after a hearty stare. And he strode off.
“And you, signors? Canna I direct you zomeplace?” inquired the foreign man, with a bow.
“We’re just looking around, is all,” informed Mr. Baxter.
“Then later. Perhappa for the hair or the whiskers; perhappa for the wash. Permitta me.” And with another bow he handed to Mr. Baxter and to Davy his card.
It read: “H. Murat. Tonsorial Artist. Shaves, Trims and Cuts. Laundry Done.”
“Do you know who he is?” piped another voice at Davy’s side, as the dark foreigner disappeared in the crowd. “He’s a count, a real Italian count.”
The speaker was a slender, fair-haired little fellow, not much older than Dave himself.
“He’s Count Murat. His father was a big man in Italy. But out here the count’s a barber and his wife takes in washing.”
“I declare!” ejaculated Mr. Baxter. “And where did you come from, son?”
“From the States. I’ve been up in the diggin’s, but I froze my feet and I’m going home.”
“Are your folks here?”
“No, sir. I ran away. But I’ve got enough and when I reach home I’m going to stay there.”
“Well, you’d better,” approved Mr. Baxter. “You’re too young to be out here alone.”
“I guess I am,” admitted the little fellow. “Life out here is fierce unless you’re used to it.”
“How are the diggin’s?” queried Davy, eagerly.
“Forty miles into the mountains—and then always a little farther,” asserted the young fellow. “If you can stick it out and don’t freeze to death or starve to death you may make a few hundred dollars—and you may not. Did you ever mine?”
“No,” said Davy, and Mr. Baxter shook his head, smiling.
“Then you’re tenderfeet like I am. That’s the trouble in there. Half the people don’t know how to find gold and the other half don’t know it when they do find it. It’s fierce, I tell you. I’m bound home, busted. I had to walk in, fifty miles; but I’ve earned just enough to take me through to the Missouri.”
“How?” asked Davy.
“Sweeping out for one of the gambling houses,” and with a gesture of disgust the slender youngster turned away.
Mr. Baxter watched him a moment.
“Davy,” he uttered, “that’s no boy. That’s a girl. Great Scott! What a place for a girl!”
And later they found out that Mr. Baxter had spoken the truth. They were glad to learn that the pretended boy took the next stage back to Leavenworth and reached there safely.
“Let’s try our luck at the post-office,” proposed Mr. Baxter. “I’d like to get a letter, myself.”
They threaded their way in the direction of the office. The mail had recently come in, for from the post-office window a line of men, single file, extended over a block. However, before they two took their places Billy Cody stopped them.
“I asked for your mail,” he announced. “There wasn’t any. I got a letter from ma. All she said was: ‘Dear Will. Let us know how you are. We are well. Mother.’ And I had to pay fifty cents for it down from Laramie. The new stage line carries letters for twenty-five cents. Wish ma had written more for the money. She might just as well.”
“What’s the news, Billy? What are you and the rest of the outfit going to do?”
“Hi and Jim and I are going on up to the diggin’s right away. See that line of travel?” And Billy pointed to the constant procession of wagons and of people afoot, extending from the settlement as far as the eye could reach, westward into the hills fifteen miles distant. They’re all going. Left-over’s quit and joined another outfit. He couldn’t wait. Jim and Hi are buying supplies. Did you notice the prices? Eggs are two dollars and a half a dozen. Milk fifty cents a quart. Flour ten dollars for a fifty-pound sack. Reckon beans and sowbelly will do for us. They say even game is scarce around the diggin’s.
“If you fellows don’t mind I believe I’ll stay around here for a while till people cool down a little,” said the Reverend Mr. Baxter.
“Cool down!” exclaimed Billy. “Huh! The stage driver says he passed ten thousand emigrants all heading this way!”
“Then I guess I won’t be missed,” laughed Mr. Baxter.
“How about you, Dave?” asked Billy.
Davy hesitated. What the “boy” (who was a girl) had told them rather weighed on his mind. And the same old story of “beans and sowbelly” did not sound inviting any longer.
“We saw Mr. Majors. He offered Dave a job freighting and a pass to Leavenworth,” put in Mr. Baxter.
“Take it if you want to, Dave,” said Billy, quickly. “Life in the diggin’s will be mighty tough, but I’ve got started and I’m going in. You do as you please.”
“Well,” faltered Dave, “I reckon maybe I’ll stay out a while.”
“All right,” quoth Billy. “We’ll see you before we leave. We want to pull right out, though.”
Nothing could stop Hi and Jim and Billy; and sure enough that afternoon they did pull out for the diggings forty and more miles west, among the mountains. They settled with Mr. Baxter and Dave for the two shares in the Hee-Haw outfit, and left with a cheer.
Davy felt a momentary twinge of regret that he was not going, too; but when he remembered what Mr. Majors had said about “haphazard looking” and a “bird in the hand” he decided that, after all, he had done what was best. The work of bridging the plains was a great work and very necessary if these settlements at the mountains were to live.
“Let’s go over to Auraria and see that, Dave,” invited Mr. Baxter. “Then we can find a place to stop in over night. I’m tired of bedding out on the ground.”
Cherry Creek was almost dry. Camps and cabins had been located right in the middle of it, so they easily walked across. Auraria was larger than Denver, but the buildings were not so good. They were of rough cottonwood logs, whereas the Denver logs were smoothed and many were of pine brought down from the timber in the hills. Auraria had the newspaper, the Rocky Mountain News, whose press and type and so forth had been hauled overland by the editor, Mr. W. N. Byers. Like Denver City, Auraria was bustling with all kinds of people.
“How are you, strangers? Don’t you want to buy a city lot and make your fortune?” invited an alert man of the two Hee-Haws.
“What’s the price?” asked Mr. Baxter.
“What’ll you give? Cash or trade? The best lots in the city. Can’t be beat.”
“Will you take a sack of flour?” demanded Mr. Baxter.
“Done!” snapped the man. “Flour’s better than money, friend. Where’s your flour?”
“Where are your lots?”
“Right yonder. I’ll show you.”
The man promptly led them on. The lots proved to be somewhere in the midst of bare, sandy ground half a mile out from the business street. They looked forlorn and lonely, and Davy did not think much of them. Neither, evidently, did Mr. Baxter. One rude cabin stood there.
“Cabin too?” queried Mr. Baxter.
“Sure.”
“How many lots?”
“Five, my friend. Five of the finest lots in this bustling metropolis for your sack of flour. And remember this is Auraria; ’tain’t measley Denver. I reckon you could buy half of Denver for your flour and then you’d be cheated.”
“All right. We’ll take you, won’t we, Davy?” responded Mr. Baxter, off-hand. “And we’ll move right in.”
“Show me your flour and we’ll go to the land office and close the deal.”
So they delivered to him the flour. At the land office the clerk asked their names.
“This is the Jones’ flour, Dave,” reminded Mr. Baxter, eyeing Davy. “We’ll have that deed made out to Jasper Jones; he’s on the way. Meanwhile we’ll occupy the cabin.”
That was certainly a good scheme—besides, as occurred to Dave, being very honest. Only it seemed rather a high price to pay for just five lots away from everywhere. The next time that Davy saw those lots they were quoted at a thousand dollars apiece!