CHAPTER III
Bucks, after his eventful first night on duty, slept so heavily thaton the following afternoon he had only time to eat his supper, walkhaltingly up the main street of Medicine Bend and back to the square,when it was time to relieve the day man at the station.
But the few minutes in the narrow business street filled him withinterest and at times with astonishment. Medicine Bend, still veryyoung, was a mushroom railroad town of frame store buildings hastilythrown together, and houses, shanties, and tents. It was alreadythe largest and most important town between the mountains and theMissouri River. The Union Pacific Railroad, now a double-tracked,transcontinental highway, laid with ninety and one hundred poundsteel rails, and ballasted with disintegrated granite, a model ofrailroad construction, equipment, and maintenance, was, after theclose of the Civil War, being pushed with light iron rails and heavygradients across what was then known to geographers as the GreatAmerican Desert, and the project of a transcontinental railroad wasmeant at that time to unite the chief port of the Pacific coast,San Francisco, with the leading cities of the Atlantic seaboard.
A railroad in building across a country considers first the twouttermost cities (its principal terminals), or those two portions ofthe country which it seeks to connect for the interchange of traffic.
The Union Pacific and its companion road, the Central Pacific,afforded, too, the first and last instance of the United StatesGovernment's becoming responsible for the building of a railroad.Although the project of aiding a railroad to be built somewherebetween and connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean ports had beendiscussed by Congress for thirty years before the fall of Fort Sumter,the extraordinary feeling caused by the Civil War alone made possibleso unusual an undertaking. President Lincoln himself had given thesubject careful thought, and when, after much controversy anddiscouraging political intrigue, the Union and Central PacificRailroad bills were ready to pass Congress, Abraham Lincoln wasappealed to to decide a long-standing controversy concerning thegauge, or width of track, for the new lines.
After painstaking consideration, he decided on a gauge of five feet,but the promoters of the line then persuaded Congress to reduce thefigures to four feet eight and one-half inches, and that gauge is nowthe standard gauge for all American railroads. It would have beenbetter if the railroad builders had followed Lincoln's suggestion,since the traffic of American railroads has outgrown the possibilitiesof their gauges. And within a few years one of the greatest ofpresent-day railroad builders has declared with emphasis that asix-foot gauge must one day come to provide our railroads with thenecessary facilities for handling the enormous and constantlyexpanding volume of American railroad traffic.
The young operator, who, in spite of his efforts to conceal his hurt,now limped a little as he walked up the street of the new railroadtown might well look with curiosity and amazement on what he saw. Thestreet he walked in was no more than a long assemblage of saloons,restaurants, boarding-houses, gambling-houses, dance-halls and shops.Nearer the station and fronting on the open square, there werebarber-shops and so-called hotels. Up and down the side streets he sawlivery-stables and roughly built warehouses for contractors' supplies,army supplies, and stage-line depots.
The main street was alive with strange-looking frontiersmen, trappers,hunters, scouts, soldiers, settlers, railroad laborers, outlaws,prospectors, and miners. Every face that Bucks looked into presented astudy. They were sometimes faces bronzed with the clear, dry sunshineof the plains and mountains, rugged with adventure and keen withdangers met and passed, but others were furrowed with dissipation andseamed with vice, or merely vacant with the curiosity of thewanderer.
Nearly every man carried a fire-arm of some sort. Indians were acontinual menace upon the frontier to the north and west and on thefront where the road was being built; and in the train-service andconstruction work railroad men usually went armed. Moreover, when thefrontiersmen were not arming against the Indians they were armingagainst one another; it being difficult at times to tell whether thewhite men or the savages were the more dangerous to the peacefulpursuit of happiness. As Bucks, returning down Front Street, nearedthe square that opened before the station a group of army officerswere walking across it. They were the first regular officers he hadever seen and he regarded them with interest. At the station the chiefdespatcher, Baxter, met him at the door. "Bucks, I've been waiting foryou. Can you ride a horse?"
Bucks smiled.
"Colonel Stanley," continued Baxter, "is going to the front to-night.He wants to take an operator with him. Giddings isn't well enough togo, but he can take your key to-night; you can go with the colonelinstead. He will take Dancing and a detail of cavalrymen with LeonSublette and Bob Scott for guides."
The suddenness of the call was not unpleasant. It was such continualexcitement and new adventure that Bucks liked and he said he wasready. The despatcher told him to hunt up Bill Dancing, who would givehim the details.
Within an hour the cavalry horses were being loaded into a box-car upat the stock chute, and while Bucks and big Bill Dancing watched theman engine and the chief engineer's car were backed down the yard tomake up the special train. At the same moment, the two saw Stanleywalking across the yard with two engineers who were going to the frontwith him.
Bucks looked with admiration at the soldier-constructionist. He wasslight in figure, wore the precise-looking military cap, and wasdressed with extreme care. He stepped with a light briskness thatimplied an abundance of native energy, and his manner as he greetedthe two railroad men was intimate and gracious, putting them at onceat their ease. His smooth-shaven face, bronzed with service, and hisbrown eyes, were alive every moment. Whatever the enterprise, Stanleycould call forth the loyalty and the best in those under him, and inDancing and Scott he had two men that worked well together and had intheir chief the unquestioning faith that insures devotion.
To these two more experienced men was now to be added a third, Bucks.The train started almost at once, and Oliver, the colonel's cook,prepared supper in his box-like kitchen and chopped his potatoes, forfrying, in muffled ragtime, as the puffing engine slowly drew thetrain up the long gorge into the mountains. Bucks sat down at tablewith the engineers and Stanley asked him many questions. He wanted toknow where Bucks had gone to school, why he had quitted at fifteen,and what had brought him away out on the Desert to begin railroading.
When it appeared that Stanley as well as he himself was fromPittsburgh, and even that Bucks had been named after the distinguishedofficer--John Stanley Bucks--Bucks was happier than at any time sincehe had left home.
The talk went on till very late. Stanley and General Park, who alsohad been a regular-army man, told stories of the Civil War, just thenended, and the giant lineman, Dancing, entertained the company withstories of adventure incurred in the mountains and on the plains inbuilding the first transcontinental telegraph line.
Bucks sat for hours in silence while the three men talked; but he hadgood ears and was a close listener. All the adventure books of hisboyhood reading had been bound up with this very country and withthese rugged mountains through which they were riding. The tales ofthe people all about him during his youth had been of the far andmysterious West--of the overland trail and the gold seekers, of Pike'sPeak and California, of buffaloes and trappers and Indians, and of theMormons and the Great Salt Lake. These had been his day-dreams, and atlast he was breathing the very air of them and listening to men whohad actually lived them.
The sleeping-bunks in the car could hardly be called berths, but theyserved to lessen the fatigues of the night, and when Bucks woke in themorning he saw from his window a vast stretch of rough, desert countrybordered by distant mountain peaks, some black, some brown, somesnow-capped in the morning sun. The train stopped in a constructioncamp, near the end of the rails, and after a hasty breakfast Buckswalked with the engineers up the track to the head-quarters of therail-laying gang.
The air was frosty. During the night snow had fallen, and as Bu
cksfollowed his party the sun burst over the plain that they had crossedin the night and lighted the busy camp with a flood of gold. It was acamp such as few American boys had ever seen and of a type that no boywill ever see again. Everywhere along the cuts and hillsides and insheltered spots the men had made temporary quarters by burrowing intothe clay or soft rock and making dugouts and canvas-roofed huts, withearthen sides for walls.
But not all were so enterprising as this. Some laborers were campingin old hogsheads. Even packing-boxes served others for shelter, butwere all so disposed within the cuts and among the ridges of therailroad grade as to be safe from Indian forays. And along thecompleted railroad, all the way from the Missouri River, material andsupply trains were moving to supply this noisy, helter-skelter camp,which seemed to Bucks all confusion, yet was in reality all energy.
General Jack Casement, in charge, came forward to greet Stanley.
"And they tell me, general," said Stanley, "you are laying a mile aday."
"If you would give us the ties, colonel," returned Casement,short-bearded and energetic, "we should be laying two miles a day."
"I have turned the Missouri River country upside down for timber,"returned Stanley. "The trouble is to get the material forward over asingle track so many hundred miles. However, we shall be getting tiesdown the Spider Water within two weeks. I am on my way up there now tosee what the contractors are doing."
It was the first intimation Bucks had had as to the object of thetrip. Casement had a number of subjects to lay before his superiorwhile within consulting distance, and Bob Scott, an hour later,announced that Stanley would not move on for two days. This left hisattendants free, and when Scott, low-voiced and good-natured, askedBucks if he wanted to go out on the Sweet Grass Plains with him afteran antelope, Bucks accepted eagerly. The two saddled horses and Bucks,with a rifle borrowed from Sublette, followed Scott across a low-lyingrange of hills broken by huge stone crags and studded with wind-blownand stunted cedars, out upon the far-reaching expanse of an openplain. The scene was inspiring, but impressions crowded so fast oneupon another that the boy from the Alleghanies could realize only thathe was filled with sensations of delight as his wiry buckskinclattered furiously along the faint trail that carried him and hisguide to the north and west. The sun was high when Scott reined upand, dismounting, tethered his horse in a glade hidden by a grove ofaspens and bade Bucks do the same.
"Getting hungry?" asked Scott, smiling at his companion. An answerwas written pretty plainly on Bucks's face.
"Didn't bring anything to eat, did you?" suggested Scott.
Bucks looked blank. "I never thought of it," he exclaimed. "Did youbring anything?"
"Nothing but this," answered Scott, holding up a small buckskin sackfitted with drawing strings.
"What is that, Bob?"
"It is what I carry wherever I ride. I carry nothing else. And it isonly a little bag of salt."
"A bag of salt!" cried Bucks. "Do you eat salt?"
"Wait and see," answered the scout. "Pull your belt up a notch. We'vegot a little walking to do."
Scott, though of Chippewa blood, had been captured when a boy by theSioux and, adopted into the tribe, had lived with them for years. Heknew the mountains better than any man that served Stanley, and thelatter trusted him implicitly--nor was the confidence ever betrayed.
Walking rapidly over a low-lying divide beyond which lay a broadvalley marking the course of a shallow creek, Scott paused behind aclump of cedars to scan the country. He expected to find antelopealong the creek, but could see none in any direction. Half a mile moreof scouting explained the absence of game, and Scott pointed out toBucks the trail of an Indian hunting party that had passed up thevalley in the morning. They were Cheyennes, Scott told his companion,three warriors and two squaws--reading the information from signs thatwere as plain to him as print--though Bucks understood nothing of it.In the circumstances there was nothing for it but a fresh venture,and, remounting, the Indian led the boy ten miles farther north towhere the plains stretched in a succession of magnificent plateaus,toward the Sleepy Cat Mountains.
"We are in real Sioux country now," observed Scott, as he againdismounted. "And we are as likely now to uncover a war party as a herdof antelope."
"What should you do, Bob, if we met Sioux?"
"Run," smiled Bob, with Indian terseness. Yet somehow the boy feltthat Bob, in spite of what he said, would not run, and he realized fora moment the apprehension of one but newly arrived on the frontier,and still subject to tremors for his scalp. The scout took his standnear a thicket of quaking asp and almost at once sighted a band ofantelope. Taking Bucks, he worked around the wind toward the band, anddirected him how and when to shoot if he got a chance. Bucks, highlywrought up after the long crawl to get within range, did get a chance,and with his heart beating like a trip-hammer, covered a buck andfired. The scout shot immediately afterward, and the herd brokeswiftly for the timber along the creek. But Bucks, as well as hisexperienced companion, had brought down an antelope.
Scott, as he joined his companion, looked at him with curiosity."Where did you learn to shoot?"
"I couldn't do it again, Bob," exclaimed Bucks frankly. "The onlyshooting I've ever done is rabbit-shooting, or squirrel-shooting. Iwas lucky for once, that's all."
"I hope your luck stays with us. If it does we may get back with allof our hair," returned Scott. "The thing to do now is to lose no timein leaving here. We are farther from camp than we ought to be. When Iget to running antelope I am apt to go as far as they do."
The two hunters got the carcasses across their horses, and acting onScott's admonition started to cover a good bit of the distance towardcamp before stopping.
The sun was already low in the west and Bucks realized that they hadbeen out all day. The hunters rode due southeast, to put every milepossible between them and the Indian country before dark. They wereriding along in this manner at dusk, when Scott, leading, pointed to acanyon that offered a hiding-place for the night, and directed hishorse into it. Scarcely had the two passed within the canyon wallswhen Scott halted and, with a quick, low command to the boy, sprangfrom his horse. Bucks lost no time in following suit: they had riddenalmost into an Indian camp, and when Bucks's feet touched the groundScott was covering with his rifle a Sioux brave who with two squawsrose out of the darkness before him. Quick words passed between Scottand the Indian in the Sioux tongue. Bucks's hair rose on end until theconfab quieted, and the scout's rifle came down. In an instant it wasall over, but in that instant the Easterner had lived years.
"It is all right," said Bob, turning to reassure his charge. "He is ayoung chief--Iron Hand. I know his father. These three are alone.Eight of them went out after buffalo five days ago. The second daythey fell in with Turkey Leg and a Cheyenne war party. Two of IronHand's warriors were killed. The rest got separated and these threelost their horses. Iron Hand," Scott nodded toward the silent Indian,"was hit in the arm, and with his squaw and her sister has been tryingto get north, hiding by day and travelling by night. He can't shoothis rifle; he thinks his arm is broken; and the squaws haven't beenable to kill anything. They are hungry, I guess."
"And did they tell you all this in those few words?" demanded Bucksincredulously.
"It doesn't take many words to tell stories in this country. If a mantalked much he would be dead and buried before he got through."
"Bob, if they are hungry, give them some antelope."
Scott, who had meant to suggest the same thing, was pleased that theoffer should come from his companion, and so told the wounded Indian.The latter drew himself up with dignity and spoke a few rapid words."He says he is glad," translated Bob, "that your heart is big. Andthat it will be safer to go farther into the canyon. The Cheyennes arehunting for them all around here, and if you are not afraid to campwith the Sioux, we will stay with them here to-night. While theCheyennes are hunting them, they might find us. It will be about thesafest thing we can do."
"You know best," said
his companion. "Can you trust this man?"
"Trust him?" echoed Bob mildly. "I wish I could trust the word of awhite man half as far as I can that of a Sioux. He understandseverything you say."
"Can he talk English?" asked Bucks in surprise.
"Better than I can."
It was with queer sensations that Bucks found himself in a hostilecountry and with the deadliest enemies of the white man going intocamp for the night. Within a minute or two after Scott and the woundedbrave had picked a defended camp near a rivulet of water, the twosquaws had a fire going, and they set to work at once dressing anantelope.
Savory morsels were cut from choice spots on the carcasses and thesewere broiled by impaling them on long sticks over the fire. Bucks,learning very fast with his eyes, saw how surprisingly small an affairan Indian camp-fire is, and how much could be done with a few buffalochips, if one understood how to keep them renewed. Both safety andconvenience were served by the tiny blaze, and meat never tasted asgood to Bucks as it did on that clear, frosty night, broiled by thetwo women and garnished from Bob Scott's provident salt bag.
After satisfying his ravenous hunger, which the Indians considered noteven a fair appetite, Bucks asked to look at the warrior's injuredarm, explaining that his father had been an army surgeon in the greatwhite man's war, as Bob Scott designated the Civil War in translatingfor the Sioux. The arm, which was badly swollen, he found had indeedbeen broken by a bullet near the wrist, but only one bone wasfractured, and, finding no trace of the bullet, the confident youngsurgeon offered to set the fracture.
Iron Hand, nothing loath, accepted the offer, and after cleansing thewound as well as it could be cleansed in running water hard by, Buckstook the rough splints handily supplied by Scott's hunting-knife, andpulling the bone into place with the scout's aid--though the bravewinced a little at the crude surgery--he soon had the forearm set andwas rewarded with a single guttural, "Wa-sha-ta-la!" from the stalwartwarrior, which, Bob explained, meant, "Heap good."
Sitting afterward by the camp-fire, Scott and Iron Hand, since theyoung chief would not talk English, conversed in the Sioux tongue,the scout translating freely for his younger companion, while thesquaws dressed the second antelope and cut it up for convenience incarrying on the horses to Casement's camp. Scott reserved only thehind-quarters of each animal for himself and Bucks, giving the rest totheir hosts.
When it was late, Scott showed the boy how to pillow his head on hissaddle and then stretched himself out to sleep. Bucks lay a long timelooking up at the stars. When he fell asleep, he woke again very soon.His companion was sleeping peacefully beside him, and he saw Iron Handsitting by the fire. Bucks easily imagined his arm would keep himawake. The squaws were still broiling pieces of antelope over thelittle blaze, which was neither bigger nor smaller than before, andtogether with the chief they were still eating. Bucks slumbered andwoke again and again during the night, but always to see the samething--the three Indians sitting about the fire, broiling and eatingthe welcome and wholly unexpected venison.