Opening the iron trail

It was the easy Rattlesnake Pass that finally led out from the farther edge of the great Laramie Plains, and down to the North Platte River.

“There’s the last of the main streams which flow eastward, men,” remarked General Dodge, as from the top of the pass they emerged into view of the valley below. “Once across that, and over the next plateau, and we’ll be into the unknown country.”

“Can we see the Overland stage road, general?”

“It keeps to the base of those south hills, on the headwaters of the side streams, for fording.”

“I should think that the railroad would follow the stage road, by the trail already made,” spoke Mr. Corwith.

The general smiled.

“No. The grades are too sharp and there are too many ravines and gulches, too many streams, too many detours. A railroad always seeks the path of least resistance; and we’re limited by the Government to the grade of 116 feet to the mile, at the maximum. The Union Pacific will keep to the open country, and do away with curves as much as possible. Sharp tangents cut down speed. Lack of water doesn’t bother a railroad, if wells for tanks can be drilled, at intervals. In fact, the fewer streams to cross, the better.”

A month had gone by since from Sherman Summit they had descended a thousand feet into the Laramie Plains. It had been a continuous hunting and camping trip with the Indians at safe distance. The general had traveled by easy stints, to favor the health of General Rawlins, and let Geologist Van Lennep make his investigation for coal and ballast. A courier from Sanders had brought a dispatch saying that Mr. Evans’ wife was ill, in the East, and he had turned back.

The Laramie Plains had proved to be a great basin or park, watered by trout streams, tinted with red soil and rocks, and green brush and trees, broken by strange buttes and spires, and surrounded by snow-capped mountains. It stretched fifty miles wide, and 100 miles long, in northwesterly direction. The railroad line was to follow it and take advantage of such an open way.

Several times they had signs of other parties—the Browne surveying crews, General Dodge pronounced them. Now and again an abandoned surveyor’s flag fluttered from bush or pole.

“Who’d ’a thought when Jim Bridger and I trapped our beaver and fought for our meat in here, that the iron hoss’d be rampaging through before ever we lost our scalps,” Sol Judy mused. “That is, if we don’t lose those same scalps in the meantime.”

They followed down a stream which emptied into the Platte, and camped this night on the banks of the North Platte itself, which flowing north from Colorado turned for the east and joined the South Platte 300 miles away, at North Platte Station on the railroad, in Nebraska.

“And next year at this time the railroad will be here, I guess,” Terry ventured. “Wonder if the river knows.”

“It doesn’t seem possible,” Mr. Corwith mused.

“And in another year the rails will be climbing those mountains that look like cloud banks,” added young Mr. Duff.

“Your eye-sight’s improving, young man,” Sol joked. “You’re spying the main Rockies; and if ’twarn’t for those clouds I reckon you could look another hundred and fifty miles, into Utah.”

Sol had been scouting around, and had found traces of a deserted camp down stream a short distance. The general was quite certain that this had been a camp of the Percy Browne surveyors and escort.

“Camp’s about three weeks old, I judge,” Sol reported.

“Hoo-ee-ee!” sounded the high call, through the dusk.

“White man, that,” Sol uttered. “Yep, and there they are.”

Across the Platte there were two or three horsemen, who had united in the “Hoo-ee-ee.” Now here they came, fording and swimming. General Dodge beckoned them in, and met them as they rode forward, dripping.

He and Colonel Seymour, the consulting engineer, held a short confab with them. They all turned for the camp.

“That’s Frank Appleton, Percy Browne’s assistant,” Superintendent Reed exclaimed. “Wonder if anything’s gone wrong again.”

“Well, men don’t swim cold rivers for nothing,” drawled Sol, who was standing and warming the tails of his army overcoat.

The General Dodge squad arrived at the big camp fire. The general’s face was grave; so was Colonel Seymour’s. Everybody at the fire waited intent—General Rawlins, lying under a blanket to rest, half sat up.

The new-comers were two surveyors and a cavalry trooper. They and their horses appeared worn to the bones. The two surveyors dismounted stiffly, to advance to the fire, with a haggard smile and a brave “Good evening.” The trooper led the horses aside, for unsaddling and picketing out.

“Gentlemen, permit me to introduce Mr. Francis Appleton, and Mr. Bane, of the Percy Browne party,” spoke the general. “Mr. Appleton was the assistant engineer; now he is in charge of the party. He brings word of the loss of his chief. Percy Browne, a young engineer already at the top of his profession and one of my right-hand men, has been killed by the Sioux.”

“What! Another—and this time Browne!” gasped Mr. Blickensderfer.

“I sorter felt it,” remarked Sol.

“Where did that happen, and how?” queried General Rawlins.

“Can you tell them about it, Frank?” suggested General Dodge.

Engineer Appleton—he was young, too—sat down and stretched his legs and hands to the blaze.

“It happened about two weeks ago. We were running a line on the main divide, near Separation, about fifty miles west of here, or at survey station 6,801, when Mr. Browne left us, to reconnoiter in the basin country farther west. He’d found the maps of the region were wrong—they did not cover all that territory, especially a new basin that we call the Red Desert. The Salt Lake stage road skirts the edge of it, on the way to the Bitter Creek desert.

“Mr. Browne took eight of the cavalry escort and some pack animals. We were to work on a line at the east edge. It seems that he had almost crossed the Red Desert, when a band of 300 Sioux, who were making south to attack the stage stations, surrounded him and his escort. The men succeeded in fighting their way to a little hill, and there they forted, and held the Sioux off from noon until after dark. Just at dusk a ball had struck Mr. Browne in the stomach, and put him out of action. He knew he was done for, so he ordered the soldiers to leave him and break for safety; but they wouldn’t do it.”

“What! Soldiers leave their officer? Never!” rapped Colonel Mizner. “Not the Second Cavalry men—nor any other men, either.”

“And they didn’t,” asserted Mr. Appleton. “They refused to obey Browne’s orders. They let the Sioux stampede the horses and mules, which seemed to satisfy the red-skins, who drew off. So this same night those eight soldiers made a litter of a blanket slung on carbines, and afoot they carried poor Percy fifteen miles through the sage-brush and the sand to LaClede stage station on the Overland. They didn’t save his life, though, for he died soon after they got in with him.”

“A gallant deed,” said General Rawlins. “I’ll see to it that it’s brought personally before General Grant himself. We must have those soldiers’ names.”

“The news was telegraphed from the stage station to Sanders,” continued Mr. Appleton, “but of course General Dodge had passed through, before that. The soldiers found us, where we were waiting for Mr. Browne to return. I went ahead running a line according to the instructions, until my party became pretty well exhausted through lack of water and provisions. I was coming in to Fort Sanders, for more supplies and for further instructions, and sighted your fires, here. I guess that’s about all. The rest of the party are about forty miles west. They’re short of water, and animals, and unable to move forward—but they hate to quit. With a little help we’ll push right along, as Mr. Browne had intended, and finish out the survey according to his plans.”

“By Jiminy! That’s the stuff!” applauded young Mr. Duff.

“Yes, sir. The survey shall be carried out. We’ll enter the Browne basin,” declared the general. “We’ll give Mr. Appleton and Mr. Bane a day’s rest here, while I check over with them. Unfortunately all of Mr. Browne’s notes were lost when the Indians attacked him. But we’ll march on, to the Appleton party ahead, fix them up, and proceed to find the Bates party, too. Nothing has been seen of them, Mr. Appleton says.”

The North Platte flowed through a wide and shallow valley of sage-brush and reddish gravel, blotched by bright green cottonwoods and willows, with a scattering of small pines and cedars on the slopes. The river had to be forded; but the wagons were tugged through, and they all toiled up the west slope to the top of a broad plateau.

“The beginning of the Bitter Creek plains,” General Dodge uttered. “Any streams in here, Frank?”

“We discovered none, sir,” Mr. Appleton answered. “That is, none now flowing. There are numerous dry courses.”

The high plateau stretched onward into the west. It was of reddish gravel, plentifully cloaked with sage, like the rolling swells of a mighty grayish sea, and now and again blotched with the white of alkali, like the patchy froth of a sea. Sharp buttes, like islands, rose in the distances around, breaking the surface. Altogether, it was a lonely sight.

“How far are your party, Frank?”

“We’ll reach them tomorrow, sir. There’s a plain trail—my own trail, and the lines we ran.”

The party were all right, and waiting patiently for water and horses. The general decided to send them back to the North Platte, to rest and refit from Fort Sanders; but he took Mr. Appleton, as a guide to the great basin which Mr. Percy Browne had entered.

He and General Rawlins and Mr. Appleton led, with Terry and Sol Judy close behind; the rest of the party followed; the wagon train labored in the rear, while the cavalry bobbed up and down on either flank, riding dusty and sunburned, but watchful for Indians.

Indeed, dusty and sunburned were all: the once smooth faces of Major Dunn and Mr. Duff had sprouted beards, Terry’s face was parched and roughened, and everybody had the appearance of old campaigners.

It was hard on General Rawlins. The water in the casks had been divided with the survey party; that in the canteens was warm; and General Dodge had ordered that the casks and the canteens be tapped just as seldom as possible.

“I’d give my commission for a drink of good water,” suddenly spoke General Rawlins. “But I don’t suppose there is such a thing.”

“You shall have it, general,” answered General Dodge. “If you’re able, we’ll ride ahead of the main party and see what we can find. Mr. Appleton and Sol can bring them on.” He turned in his saddle and swept the group with keen eye. “Who’s with us? You’ll want your aide, of course. All right, Major Dunn. Then I’ll take my own aide. Come along, Terry. Gentlemen, we’ll have fresh water waiting for you, when you catch us.”

Weaving among the outcrops of red and gray rock, and the clumps of silent sage, while the gravel crunched under hoof and the sun beat hotly above, they four rode for an hour, leaving the cavalry and wagon train farther and farther behind. Every draw was dry. General Rawlins began to droop in his seat. He was not strong—had consumption; but he was plucky, for he was a soldier.

“I think we’ll do better to spread out,” General Dodge finally directed. “Four abreast. But each of us must halt on the top of every ridge and swell, until the others are in sight. We can’t exercise too much care, in this kind of a country.”

They rode for still an hour, into the west. The Browne survey had been through here—Terry himself saw the trails, here and there, and the flags and stakes; but pretty soon he lost them. His course, on the right of the searching line, took him where the only traces of life were the jack-rabbits.

Then, dipping down into another of the gravelly draws, he noticed a narrow trail swinging through the middle of it. His tired horse pricked its ears, and quickened its pace. A coyote trail, this—yes, marked by antelope hoofs, too; evidently going somewhere. An antelope trail usually led to water, if followed far enough. If the water happened to be near—then, hurrah! It would be great luck for a boy to find water when General Dodge, the explorer, and General Rawlins, chief-of-staff of the United States Army, both were looking for it. So Terry hopefully pressed forward, in the narrow antelope trail.

The draw turned a rocky shoulder; a couple of coyotes lifted their sharp noses, and were away like tawny shadows; Terry’s horse eagerly nickered; and here, near before, there was a spot of green in the desert dun.

A spring, sure enough!

Terry hauled his horse about—“General Rawlins first, old fellow. But you’ll get some”—and forced him up the side of the draw, to spread the good word.

One after another the men saw him, and in they came, answering his signals. General Dodge was nearest.

“What is it? Water?”

“Yes, sir. We found a spring.”

“Good! Where?”

“Straight down in this draw, sir.”

“Sweet water? Did you taste it?”

“No, sir; I didn’t taste it, but it looks sweet. The coyotes and antelope have been drinking it.”

“Rawlins!” shouted the general. “Come along. Here’s water.”

General Rawlins came. So did Major Dunn. Following Terry, in they went.

“General Rawlins is entitled to the first drink, I believe,” said General Dodge, huskily, as they reined their horses around the little spring.

“You fellows are as thirsty as I am. Who found it? This boy? Then the finder is entitled to the first drink.”

“He’s declined. Drink, man, or it’s liable to disappear.”

They gravely watched General Rawlins throw himself down and quaff.

“Whew!” he gasped, pausing. “It’s a miracle—cold and sweet.”

They all drank—General Dodge, Major Dunn, and Terry last; they let the horses drink.

“I told you that a boy would be handy to have in camp and on the march, general,” slyly reminded General Dodge.

“I feel as though he had saved my life,” and General Rawlins smiled. “This water is the most gracious thing of the whole march, to date. There’s nothing that takes the place of sweet water, when a man is thirsty. If my name is ever placed upon a map, I hope that it will be applied to a spring.”

“Your wish is granted at once, general,” laughed General Dodge. “Here is the spot, and I name it Rawlins Springs. The line of the railroad will run very close to it, I think—we’re about the right distance for a townsite. Within a year there’ll be a Rawlins Springs town here.”

“Well, if the town’s anything like Julesburg, they’ll be drinking other fluids than water, I’m afraid,” General Rawlins smiled.

The cavalry and wagon train were signaled in, and camp was made at Rawlins Springs, near where today is situated the city of Rawlins, Wyoming, on the first of the railroads across continent.

“Now, if you’re only lucky enough to find the Bates party, and your friend George Stanton——!” young Mr. Duff proposed, this evening, to Terry.

That was so. Sol Judy and Mr. Appleton declared that the country on ahead was much worse. George was somewhere in it—and Terry began to worry a little.