Opening the iron trail

They left shortly after midnight, with Major Hurd’s dispatch tucked inside Terry’s shirt along with the General Dodge letters. The men of the wagon corral, except the sentries, were asleep, but Colonel Seymour had stayed up. He and the major shook hands with the two couriers.

“Good luck to you. We’ll depend on your sending that escort and opening the line again.”

“What was that General Dodge said? Boys are mighty handy, sometimes—wasn’t it?” George chuckled, as they rode away.

“That’s what,” agreed Terry. “But this is nothing. All we’ve got to do is to keep going—same as the railroad.”

“Can’t hurry, though, and kick up a fuss,” warned George. “Sure and steady, is the word, boy. We want to steer clear of those graders’ camps, too. They shoot first and ask questions afterward.”

“You bet.”

The plains before stretched wide and lonesome in spite of the railroad work. On either side of the survey stakes and the few graders’ camps it lay for hundreds of miles, by day broken with uplifts and ravines and ridges, but by night shrouded all in mystery, and looking all the same.

Above, the bright stars studded the black; below, there were no landmarks, except the upturned earth where the graders’ ploughs and picks and spades had followed the stakes. And frequently there was not even this, when the work had been interrupted or postponed.

The horses traveled, with ears pricked, at fast walk. Their hoofs occasionally clinked on a stone; and again were muffled in the sand and sod. The canteens now and then jingled, the saddle leather squeaked, one horse or the other blew snortingly. But the silence of the night, in such a country, was too big to be disturbed by such small noises.

However, with a good horse under him, and a Spencer repeating carbine across his saddle horn, and a stanch chum by his side, and a trail to which he was used, before him, a fellow need not feel afraid.

They jogged on. The darkness was not the thick kind; it never is, in the clear night in the great open. The graded trail loomed blackly, and warned by his glowing eyes they once or twice glimpsed a coyote slip away, like a shadow.

They tried to parallel the railroad survey, until, after they had ridden for an hour, maybe, in the distance ahead they heard a dog barking.

“Graders’ camp, huh!” George grunted.

“Yep. Can’t be Injuns. Injuns wouldn’t camp along the right o’ way. Not when the Pawnees are out after ’em. We’d better branch off and go ’round.”

“Right you are. Edge off, toward the North Star.”

So they veered from the due east and catty-cornered in the direction of the North Star.

“Keep it between chin and shoulder. That’ll take us ’round, I reckon, and we’ll know how far to turn back in,” Terry directed.

“Aw, we couldn’t miss the railroad grades, anyway,” George scoffed.

“A fellow can miss almost anything, at night, unless he’s mighty careful.”

“Couldn’t miss Cheyenne, though.”

“Well, this is a big country, just the same.”

They rode and rode. The barking of the dog had quit. They were surely past the graders’ camp; it was high time to turn in. George suddenly exclaimed:

“What’s the matter, up yonder? Blame it, the sky’s clouding. Can’t scarcely see the North Star, now.”

“That’s right. It’s light enough down here, though. Doesn’t feel like a storm.”

“No; but how’ll we keep direction?”

“Guess at it. If we travel in a straight line as we’re heading, we’ll strike the grade somewhere.”

Terry turned more sharply, to make certain, and they rode. They rode—and they rode, with eyes keen to catch the first traces of the railroad survey.

“Do you reckon we’ve crossed it?”

“No. It’s in front of us. Must be.”

“Wish some dog would bark,” George complained. “Let’s stop a minute.”

They stopped, and listened. They did not hear a sound.

“I’ll be darned!” George grumbled. “Just when we need a dog, he doesn’t bark. And there’s not a single star in the whole blamed sky. How can a fellow travel by night without stars?”

“Injuns can.”

“Well, we aren’t Injuns.”

“So could Jim Bridger, I bet you.”

“So could I, if I knew where I was going,” retorted George.

“Keep going.”

“Keep going,” George echoed.

They rode. The horses no longer pricked up their ears; they plodded with only an occasional shying off from unexpected objects, but otherwise did not take much interest. That was a bad sign. The country under foot seemed to be growing rougher. A deep gully cut the blind trail, and had to be followed for a piece, until the horses plunged in, and out again.

Terry reined, and spoke.

“Either we’re lost or the grade’s lost.”

“Shucks! We’re hefty scouts, to lose a railroad line.”

“Wouldn’t have lost it, if the sky hadn’t clouded over. And we haven’t any compass.”

“Next time we’ll ride right through any graders’ camp and let ’em shoot,” declared George. “What had we better do? Keep going?”

“Seems to me we’re headed nearly right, anyhow,” mused Terry. “I don’t think that gully threw us off, much. These horses are liable to take us somewhere if we give ’em the rein—liable to take us to a camp or into Cheyenne.”

“Maybe they don’t know about Cheyenne.”

“Gwan!” bade Terry, to his mount; and they rode on again, through the stillness and the monotonous dusk.

After what might have been a long time, of plodding and stumbling and rasping through brush and over rocks, the horses halted, of themselves, at the base of a steep slope which slanted up into the night. Their riders peered, and hope died.

“We’re plumb lost, for sure,” growled George. “There’s no railroad grade here; it’s somewhere else. Which way’s east, I’d like to know.”

“’Tisn’t this way. We must be north of the grade, still. We’d better follow along this hill, and strike in another direction. Come on.”

They rode (the horses were glad not to climb) and leaving the slope they presently arrived against another slope, in the new direction.

“Say! The farther we go the farther we are from anywhere,” George flatly declared. “I vote we quit till daylight. Then we can see something. This blundering about and getting no place isn’t any fun.”

“W-well,” sighed Terry, “I reckon you’re right, boy. Might as well save our hosses. But I hate to give in.”

So did George. Still, as he had said, they weren’t getting any place with all their riding. He plumped from the saddle, and fumbled at his picket rope.

“What you doing?”

“Going to picket this horse, and take a snooze.”

He was practical, George was; nothing phazed him.

“All right. Leave the saddles on, though, and the bits in, so we can mount in a jiffy.”

“You talk sense, pard,” George answered broadly.

They picketed their horses close within reach, and snuggled down like old campaigners.

“When the sky gets light, we’ll know where the east is, then, sure,” remarked Terry.

“Yes; and we may find ourselves right close to the grade, or we may be a thousand miles from nowhere,” George sleepily murmured. “Br-r! Wish we’d brought a blanket.”

The night was chill. Terry grew colder and colder, and shivered. He hunched up, longing for daybreak—he nodded off, and shivered awake. The horses cropped and snorted; George always could sleep at any time and at any place, and now began to gurgle. Terry dozed for short intervals; finally let himself go (there wasn’t any use in mounting guard, here, over the two of them); and when again he opened his eyes, the blackness had paled.

Morning!

He scrambled to his feet, and easily located the east, by the brightness of the sky there. Birds were twittering in the brush—hill slopes of sage and gravel rose on right and left, as the night thinned; but all the landscape was lonely, without trace of other human beings. Not even an antelope was in sight.

He shook George.

“Wha’ ’smatter?”

“Morning. Let’s get out of here.”

“I should say!” And George staggered to his feet. “Did you sleep, too? Where are we, anyhow?” And he blinked about.

“I don’t know. But we’ll hit south as fast as we can. There’s the east. Once we’re out of these hills, then we can see something.”

Without wasting time George stumbled for his horse; they hung the picket ropes to the saddles, swung aboard, and were on their way again.

“Follow down this draw?”

“Yes. If it doesn’t lead right we’ll climb a hill and take a look.”

The morning brightened rapidly. The draw seemed to lead in the right direction. It opened into a rolling plain—hurrah! And now they saw, far before, a column of smoke suspended in the still air.

“Camp! There’s the grade!”

“How in thunder did we ever get away out here?”

“I dunno. We ought to have been at Cheyenne by this time.”

“Well, we’ll get there now,” asserted George. “But we’re hefty dispatch-bearers.”

The smoke column was some three miles yonder. They pushed for it, at a trot—thought that they could see the line itself, and Terry was just saying: “Cheyenne can’t be very far, either,” when George’s voice broke in a little gasp.

“Terry! Injuns! Look quick. We’ll never make it.”

Terry looked. Quartering on their right, ahead, out from a low place in the range of bare hills, there, the Indians were coming, at last. There was no mistake about that. They were less than a mile away—they rode like Indians, they acted like Indians, and Indians they were, charging full tilt; twenty-five or thirty of them.

Terry’s heart surged into his throat. A wave of sickness swept through him. He hauled on the rein.

“Run for it, George. Never mind the grade—they’ll cut us off. But we’ll beat ’em to Cheyenne. Got to.”

“Sure have. They may quit.”

“We can fort and fight ’em off, till help comes. Blame the luck! Major Hurd’s counting on us.”

“Never say die till you’re dead,” panted George. “Maybe Cheyenne isn’t far. Maybe a graders’ camp has seen.”

They tore on at best speed. Terry glanced aside, to measure distance again. The sky in the east had cleared, and the sun was just launching his first level rays across the sage. They brought the Indians into plainer view. The gap between the two, pursuers and pursued, had narrowed. Those were good ponies as well as good riders, and the horses were stiff and sluggish.

“Dog-gone! They’re closing in on us,” George remarked, as if trying to speak matter-of-fact. George never got rattled, in a pinch. He might be depended upon, to the last inch.

“Guess they are.” And Terry also tried to speak cheerfully. “If we could only get to that ridge yonder, maybe we’d see Cheyenne.”

The Indians were beginning to whoop. Their cries wafted shrilly and threateningly—likewise gleefully. They were between the boys and the distant grade—were closing in almost parallel. From the grade nobody was coming, to the rescue. It seemed horrible to be cut off, this way, and forced to fight for one’s life, right within sight of other persons—right within sight of possible help; but that had been the story of the railroad, to date. The same thing had occurred along almost every mile of the track, and the grading, and the surveys.

“When we come to a good place, stop quick. We’ll have to fight ’em off, George,” spoke Terry. “We can’t make even the ridge.”

A fellow could always do that, if he was smart: down his horse, fort behind it, and shoot true.

The yells were louder. The Indians were within easy range. In a moment the bullets would commence to sing.

“Now!” rasped Terry—and at the instant George’s horse stumbled, pitched to his knees, and sent George flying over its head. Terry reined in a jiffy, tumbled off, and leveled his carbine across the saddle.

“Give it to ’em. Get up—catch your hoss. I’ll hold ’em off.”

The sight blurred in his eyes—but the Indians swerved madly—he saw the nearest lift hand, palm to the front, heard him shout—and heard George also.

“Wait! Don’t shoot. They’re Pawnees!”

So they were—the Pawnee scouts, several of them in army breeches made into leggins. They had bunched and halted, the leader (the one with the hand up) was riding forward, grinning; now the rest followed. The relief was so great that Terry felt faint and trembly.

“I suppose they think it’s a great joke,” panted George. “It’d served ’em right if we’d wiped out a few of ’em. And we’d have done it, too, in a minute more.”

The Pawnees evidently did think it a great joke. They came on laughing and prancing. The leader, their sergeant, shook hands with Terry, and with the angry George.

“What do you mean by chasing us, anyhow?” George demanded.

The sergeant, who wore breeches-leggins with a commissioned officer’s yellow stripe down their seam, grinned broadly.

“Heap run,” he chuckled. “No good. Pawnees ketch ’um, samee Sioux. Make young warriors. Good boys.”

“Humph!” Then Terry found himself smiling, too. There was no use in being sour over such luck. “Where you going?”

“Where you go?” answered the sergeant.

“Cheyenne.”

“All right. We go Cheyenne. Come.”

George’s horse was unhurt; they mounted.

“You with Major Hurd?” queried Terry.

“Yes. Chase Sioux; kill heap; many scalps. Take ’um Crow Creek, have big dance.”

“Why don’t you go back to the wagon train?” scolded George. “That’s where you belong. What are you out here chasing white men for?”

“No wagon train. Kill all Sioux, now bring scalps to soldier chief. Scare white boys, make ’em run. Hoo-rah!”

The Pawnees were in the highest kind of spirits. They seemed to think nothing of having left the wagon train in the lurch, but they thought a whole lot of their successful fight with the Sioux. Now they were going back to Crow Creek, or Cheyenne, to celebrate.

Taking the two dispatch-bearers, they laid a straight course—knew exactly where they were heading. And sure enough, from the crest of the next little rise Cheyenne was plain in sight, with the railroad grade running into its collection of tents and shacks and new buildings, and through and on east to meet end o’ track.

The first thing to do, of course, was to hustle the Major Hurd dispatch into the hands of the commanding officer at the new Fort Russell, which was as yet only a tent camp outside of town, and leave their Spencer carbines; then to look up General “Jack” Casement, and give him the General Dodge dispatches and report for duty; all before breakfast.

Scarcely had they reached town, from the fort, when a detachment of cavalry was trotting into the west, to relieve the Hurd wagon train. That was good. Now for General Casement.

“It’s shore some town,” George commented, as they ambled through, curiously inspecting.

And so it was, they were to find out: the “Magic City of the Plains,” with already over a thousand people, here where three months before there had been only a bare expanse, and a graveyard of two dead men; with streets named, and city officers in charge, and a daily paper, and shingled roofs as well as sheet-iron and canvas, and several two-story buildings, one of which, 55 × 25 feet, had been erected of raw rough lumber from Denver in forty-eight hours!

Luckily, whom should they sight but General Casement himself, getting this, the new terminal, into shape to receive the sidings and his warehouse and all, for end o’ track was only forty miles out and coming fast.

They vaulted off, where he was talking with Superintendent Sam Reed. Terry saluted.

“Dispatches from General Dodge, sir,” he said.

“Hello! It’s you again, is it? Well! Where’d you hail from, this time?” demanded the little general.

“From the Red Desert, sir; the both of us. I found George Stanton—or we all did, I mean, with the Bates party. The general sent us back.”

“I see.”

General Casement quickly tore open the dispatches, and read them.

“Very good,” he said. “Had your breakfast?”

“No, sir.”

“Had a pleasant trip?”

“Yes, sir. The Pawnees charged us, to scare us; but we forted behind our horses and were going to fight them off, only we didn’t need to.”

“They gave us the peace sign just in time, too,” George added; “or else they’d have lost some scalps.” And he wagged his head and growled hostily. “The laugh would have been on them, I’ll bet.”

“Hah!” chuckled the little general. “That’s the talk. You’re the right stuff. You ought to be corporals, at least. Now what? Ready for work?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve got a job at end o’ track,” Terry answered.

“I’ll take a job somewhere if I can get one,” asserted George. “I don’t want to loaf.”

“All right. Mr. Reed and I, between us, will see that you don’t loaf, young man. Nobody loafs, along the U. P. But first you get breakfast, both of you. Then you can have till noon. Report to one of us at noon; if we’re not here, go on out to end o’ track and find us.”

“Sha’n’t I start in hauling rails again, sir?” Terry asked.

“You’ll start in at something or other, never fear; and so shall this other boy. How are you fixed for funds? Got breakfast money?”

“I haven’t,” George confessed.

“Guess I have,” said Terry.

“Never mind. Here.” And General Casement scribbled upon a pocket pad and tore off the leaf. “You take this to the Home Cooking restaurant, two blocks up and right around the corner to your left. It’s run by two women—regular white women. It’s a fine place. I eat there myself, and so does Mr. Reed.”

“I recommend it without reserve,” Mr. Reed asserted. “The best cooking this side of Omaha. And very clean, pleasant women.”

The leaf said:

“Turn your horses in at the Square Deal corral, for feed and water,” bade General Casement. “Tell the man I’ll settle for them when I settle for my own.”

“And be sure to try the apple pie,” added Superintendent Reed. “It’s the real thing.”

“Yes, sir; we will. Thanks very much,” they replied, replying to all instructions at once.

“Don’t forget the apple pie,” Superintendent Reed reminded, after them, as they rode away.

“Do you suppose we can get apple pie for breakfast?” George queried, anxiously.

“I dunno. We can ask. Jiminy! I haven’t had a piece of real apple pie for a coon’s age,” said Terry. “We’re in luck, anyhow. We might have had to go clear to end o’ track without eating.”

“‘Home cooking’ restaurant sounds good to me. But you can’t always tell. Sometimes those names are frauds—they don’t pan out. Golly, I’d like to sit down to regular home cooking again, by women like my mother.”

“Or like mine. So would I,” agreed Terry. “Men cooks are all right, but it doesn’t seem to come natural to ’em. Now a woman, she just slings stuff together and you never know how it’s going to taste except it’ll taste exactly right.”

“That is, if she’s like our mothers,” George persisted.

All Cheyenne was ringing with the sound of busy hammering, as scores of men labored with might and main to put up still more buildings. It certainly was a lively place. They stowed their horses in the Square Deal, and on foot found the Home Cooking restaurant.

“Doesn’t look much,” George criticized, when they inspected it from the outside.

“’Bout the same as the rest of ’em, only smells kind of good.” And Terry sniffed.

The Home Cooking restaurant was of canvas walls boarded part way up, and corrugated sheet-iron roof painted red, and seemed brand new. A large square canvas sign hung up in front, with the name on it. The front door was ajar. Through it there wafted those odors that had made Terry sniff. Inside there was hammering and voices.

“Gee, I do smell pie—or something,” George declared, wrinkling his nose as he drew long breaths. “Shall we try it?”

“Sure. Come on. We’re not afraid of women, even if we aren’t washed up.”

So in they clumped. The room was as neat as wax. There was a long counter with a row of stools in front of it, and several signs—“Home Coffee,” “Home Bread,” “Home Doughnuts,” “Home Apple Pie,” “We Are Ladies. Please Be Gentlemen,” “Remember Your Mother, Boys.”

A woman in a blue checkered gingham dress was tacking shiny white oilcloth upon the counter. That was a part of the hammering. She had her back turned, and hadn’t heard them enter.

“Please, ma’am, may we get breakfast here?” Terry asked.

Whew, how good that room smelled!

“Why, I think I can accommodate you,” the woman answered, speaking through the tacks between her lips. “We can give you something—we’re just opening up——” and she took her tacks out and raised her head, to face them.

“Anything that’s homey, ma’am,” pleaded George. “We——”

But Terry fairly screeched.

“Ma! Jiminy whillikens! Say—aren’t you my mother?”

“Why, Terry Richards! What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” retorted Terry, as they rushed together and hugged.

“We’re on the U. P., too. We’re——”

From the kitchen another woman hurried in, her hands all flour, to find out what was going on. And George shouted and charged.

“There’s my mother. Hooray!”

“For goodness’ sake!”

“Never mind your hands, ma. I’m dirty, anyhow.”

And she didn’t; he didn’t, either.

“Well, well, well! We thought one of you was out at end of track and the other was surveying.”

“So we were. We just got into town. And we thought you were down at Denver.”

“So we were. And we’ve just got in, too—only two or three days ago. We’ve hardly opened up for business, yet.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Run a nice little restaurant.”

“But you can’t, ma,” Terry objected. “These railroad towns are awful tough towns, at first.”

“Yes, we can. As soon as the men find out that we’re ladies, and serve such good food, they’ll treat us all right, we’re sure. We haven’t had a bit of trouble, so far. We won’t serve a great variety, but what we do serve will be real home cooking.”

“Does dad know about it?”

“Not a word, and I don’t want him to know till the track gets here. Then we’ll surprise him.”

“But, ma! We’ll all be going on again. We won’t be here very long, maybe. You both can’t stay in Cheyenne, running a restaurant.”

“We don’t intend to,” laughed his mother, briskly. “We’re going on with you—clear through, with the U. P. Aren’t we, Mrs. Stanton!”

“Indeed we are. We’ll hire somebody to pack our things, each time the town moves. And at every new town you boys and your fathers (I only hope George’s father will be near) will know just where to get something good to eat. Oh, we’ll watch after you.”

Now there was another interruption. She was a girl, George’s sister. He called her his “little” sister, but she was growing faster than he.

“Hello, Virgie!”

Virgie stared.

“It’s no fair!” she accused. “We aren’t ready. We wanted to surprise you.”

“Well, I should say you did surprise us,” Terry comforted. “We didn’t know what the Home Cooking restaurant was.”

“Where’s Shep?” Virgie asked.

Terry sobered.

“We’ll tell you about Shep. We’ve got a lot to tell.”

“Do we have pie for breakfast, ma?” prompted George. “General Casement gave us a meal pass, for here; and Superintendent Reed said to be sure to try the apple pie.”

“Oh, those two men!” scoffed Mrs. Stanton. “They’ve almost eaten us out. Yes, you can have apple pie for breakfast, if you want it. Luckily we’ve got some fresh in the oven.”

“That’s what we smelled, George,” Terry exclaimed triumphantly.

“We leave the door open on purpose, when we’re cooking,” explained Virgie.

“Do you like Cheyenne, Virgie?” Terry asked, as the two mothers bustled to gather breakfast together.

“No; it’s too dirty and noisy. But I sha’n’t stay here. When Uncle Ralph (that was Terry’s father) brings his engine in, I’m going to ride up and down the track on it, all the time.”

“Breakfast will be ready in a minute,” called his mother. “You can wash out here in the kitchen; and you and George can be telling us about your fathers and about yourselves, and everything.”