"Bring Me His Ears" Part 10

One man was running around in a circle not five feet across, moaning and blubbering. Tom glanced at him as he came around and stepped quickly forward, his foot streaking out and up. It caught the human pinwheel on the chest and he turned a beautiful back flip into the crowd. Zack's booming laugh roared out over the water and he slapped Tom resoundingly on the shoulder.

"More fun right hyar than in a free-fer-all at a winter rendyvoo, pardner. You kick wuss nor a mule. An' whar _you_ goin'?" he asked a tin-horn gambler who took advantage of his lapse of alertness to dart past him. Zack swung his stiff arm and the gambler bounced back as though he had been struck with a club. "Thar's plenty o' it hyar if yer lookin' fer it," he shouted, raising his pistol.

Uncle Joe clawed his way back again, Tom's double-barreled rifle in his hands, and grimly took his place at his friend's side. Suddenly he c.o.c.ked his head and then heard Tom's voice bellow past his ear.

"Listen, you fools! Th' fur boat! Th' fur boat!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. His companions and the other little group of resolute men took up the cry, and as the furor of the crowd died down, the answering blasts rolled up the river. Suddenly a light, and then an orderly series of them pushed out from behind the last bend downstream, and showers of sparks from the belching stacks of the oncoming fur company boat danced and whirled high into the night, the splashing tattoo of her churning paddles sounding like music between the rea.s.suring blasts of her whistle. The two stokers hanging from the levers of her safety valves kicked their feet in time with her whistle, not knowing which kick would usher them on an upward journey ending at St. Peter's eager gate. Their skins were as black as the rods they swung from, but their souls were as white as their rolling eyes.

"Thank G.o.d!" screamed a woman who was fighting her way through the crowd toward Tom's post, her clothing nearly torn from her; and at the words she sagged to the deck, inert, unresisting. Tom leaped forward and hauled her back with him, pa.s.sed her on to Patience and resumed his grim guard.

A great shout, still tinged with horror and edged with fear, arose from the decks of the _Belle_ and thundered across the river, the answering roar chopped up by the insistent whistle. Several red, stringy, rapier-like flashes pierced the night and the heavy reports barked across the hurrying water, to be juggled by a great cliff on the north bank.

Captain Newell had been busy. Learning that cool minds were dominating the panicky crowd, and that the bullboats were being properly launched and were ready for use if the worst came, he gave his undivided attention to the saving of the _Belle_. Her paddle still thrashed, but at a speed just great enough to overcome the current and to hold the snag in the wound it had made. Experience told him that once she drew back from that slimy a.s.sa.s.sin blade and fully opened the rent in her hull her sinking would follow swiftly. Already men had sounded the river on both sides and reported a steep slant to the bottom, twenty feet of water on the port side and fifteen on the starboard. One of the spare yawls, manned by two officers and a deck hand, shot away from the boat and made hurried soundings to starboard, the called depths bringing a look of hope to the captain's face. Forty yards to the right lay a nearly flat bar; but could he make that forty yards? There remained no choice but to try, for while the _Missouri Belle_, if she sank in her present position, would not be entirely submerged, she would be even less so every foot she made toward the shallows.

Part of the crew already had weighted one edge of a buffalo hide and stood in the bow, directly over the snag, which luckily had pierced the hull more above than below the water line. The captain signalled and the great paddle wheel turned swiftly full speed astern. The grating, splitting sound of the snag leaving the hull was followed by a shouted order and the hide was lowered overside and instantly sucked against the rent; and the paddle wheel, quickly reversing, pushed the boat ahead at an angle to the current until, low in the water, she grounded solidly on the edge of the flat bar. Anchors were set and cables made taut while the _Belle_ settled firmly on the sandy bottom and rested almost on an even keel. There she would stay if the river continued to fall, until the rent was fully exposed and repaired; and there she would stay, repaired, until another rise floated her. The captain signalled for the paddles to stop and then drew a heavy arm across his forehead, sighed, and turned to face the fur company packet.

The pa.s.sengers were becoming calm by stages, but the calm was largely the reaction of hysteria for a few moments until common sense walled up the breach. Every eye now watched the oncoming steamboat, which had sailed doggedly ahead for the past two nights and days while the _Belle_ had loitered against the banks. Even the most timid were now calmed by the sight of her lighted cabins as she ploughed toward her stricken sister. Fearful of the snag, she came to a stop when nearly abreast of the _Belle_ and the two captains held a short and shouted conversation.

Her yawl soon returned and reported the water safe, but shoaling rapidly; and at this information she turned slightly oblique to the current and, sounding every few feet, crept up to within two gangplanks'

reach of the _Belle_ and anch.o.r.ed bow and stern. Her own great landing stage swung out over the cheated waters and hung poised while that of the _Belle_ circled out to meet it, waveringly, as though it had lost a valuable sense. They soon touched, were made to coincide and then lashed securely together. At once, women first, the pa.s.sengers of the _Belle_ began to cross the arched span a few at a time, and sighed with relief as they reached the deck of the uninjured vessel. On the main deck of the _Belle_ the crew already was piling up such freight as could be taken from the hold and the sound of hammering at her bow told of temporary repairs being made.

Among the last to leave the _Belle_ were Uncle Joe and Tom and as they started toward the gangplank, Captain Newell hurriedly pa.s.sed them, stopped, retraced his steps, and gripped their hands tightly as he wished them a safe arrival at Independence. Then he plunged out of sight toward the engine room.

The transfer completed, the fur company boat cast free, raised her anchors, and sidled cautiously back into the channel. Blowing a hoa.r.s.e salute, she straightened out into the current and surged ahead, apparently in no way daunted by the fate of her sister. Captain Graves had commanded a heavily loaded boat when he left St. Louis and the addition of over a hundred pa.s.sengers and their personal belongings, for whom some sort of provision must be made in sleeping arrangements and food, urged him to get to Independence Landing as quickly as he could.

Turning from his supervision of the housing of the gangplank, he b.u.mped into Uncle Joe, was about to apologize, and then peered into the face of his new pa.s.senger. The few lights which had been placed on deck to help in the transfer of the pa.s.sengers, enabled him to recognize the next to the last man across the plank and his greeting was sharp and friendly.

"Joe Cooper, or I'm blind!" he exclaimed. "Alone, Joe?"

"Got my niece with me, and my friend, Tom Boyd, here."

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Boyd--seems to me I've heard something about a Tom Boyd fouling the official craft of the Government of New Mexico,"

said the captain, shaking hands with the young plainsman. "We'll do our best for you-all the rest of the night, and we'll put Miss Cooper in my cabin. We ought to reach Independence early in the morning. I suppose that's your destination? Take you on to Westport just as easily."

"Independence is where I started for," said Uncle Joe.

"Then we'll put you ash.o.r.e there, no matter what the condition of the landing is. It's easier to land pa.s.sengers than cargo. But let me tell you that if you are aiming to go in business there, that Westport is the coming town since the river ruined the lower landing. Let's see if the cook's got any hot coffee ready, and a bite to eat: he's had time enough, anyhow. Come on. First we'll find Miss Cooper and the other women. I had them all taken to one place. Come on."

Shortly after dawn Tom awakened, rose on one elbow on the blanket he had thrown on the deck and looked around. Uncle Joe snored softly and rhythmically on his hard bed, having refused to rob any man of his berth. He had accepted one concession, however, by throwing his blanket on the floor of the texas, where he not only would be close to his niece, but removed from the other men of the _Belle_, many of whom were not at all rea.s.suring in the matter of personal cleanliness. Arising, Tom went to a window and looked out, seeing a clear sky and green, rolling hills and patches of timber bathed in the slanting sunlight. A close scrutiny of the bank apprised him that they were not far from Independence Landing and he stepped to the rail to look up the river.

Far upstream on a sharp bend on the south bank were the remains of Old Fort Clark, as it was often called. About twenty miles farther on the same side of the river was his destination. He turned to call Uncle Joe and met the captain at the door of the texas; and he thought he caught a glimpse of a head bobbing back behind the corner of the cabin. As he hesitated as to whether to go and verify his eyes, the captain accosted him, and he stood where he was.

"Fine day, Mr. Boyd," said the officer. "Sleep well on the soft side of the deck?"

Tom laughed. "I can sleep well any place, captain. If I could have scooped out a hollow for my hips I wouldn't feel quite so stiff."

"Let me know as soon as Miss Cooper appears and I'll have some breakfast sent up to her. If you'd like a bite now, come with me."

"Thank you; you are very considerate. I'll call Uncle Joe and bring him with me."

"You will, hey?" said a voice from the texas. "Uncle Joe is ready right now, barring the aches of his old bones; and I've just been interrupted by Patience. She says she can chew chunks out of the cups, she's so hungry. What's that? You didn't? All right; all right; I'm backing up again! Have it your own way; you will, anyhow, in the end."

"You stay right where you are, Miss Cooper," called the captain. "I'll send up breakfast enough for six, and if you keep an eye on this pair perhaps you can get a bit of it. And let me tell you that it's lucky that you're real hungry, for the fare on this boat is even worse than it was on the _Belle_. I'll go right down and look to it."

Breakfast over, the three went out to explore the boat, Patience taking interest in its human cargo, especially its original pa.s.sengers, and she had a good chance to observe them during the absence of the rescued pa.s.sengers of the _Belle_, to whom had been given the courtesy of the first use of the dining-room.

Almost all of the original list on this boat were connected in some way with the fur trade, the exceptions being a few travelers bound for the upper Missouri, and two noncommissioned officers going out to Fort Leavenworth, who had missed the _Belle_ at St Louis, missed her again at St. Charles, and had been taken aboard by Captain Graves, who would have to stop at the Fort for inspection.

The others covered all the human phases of the fur business and included one _bourgeois_, or factor; two partisans, or heads of expeditions; several clerks, numerous hunters and trappers, both free and under contract to the company; half a dozen "pork-eaters," who were green hands engaged for long periods of service by the company and bound to it almost as tightly and securely as though they were slaves. Some of them found this to be true, when they tried to desert, later on. They were called "pork-eaters" because the term now meant about the same as the word "tenderfeet," and its use came from the habit of the company to import green hands from Canada under contracts which not only made them slaves for five years, but almost always left them in the company's debt at the expiration of their term of service. On the way from Canada they had been fed on a simple and monotonous diet, its chief article being pork; and gradually the expression came to be used among the more experienced voyageurs to express the abstract idea of greenness. There were camp-keepers, voyageurs, a crew of keelboatmen going up to the "navy yard" above Fort Union and two skilled boat-builders bound for the same place; artisans, and several Indians returning either to one of the posts or to their own country. They made a picturesque a.s.semblage, and their language, being Indian, English, and French, or rather, combinations of all three, was not less so than their appearance. Over them all the bully of the boat, who had reached his semi-official position through elimination by consent and by combat, exercised a more or less orderly supervision as to their bickerings and general behavior, and relieved the boat's officers of much responsibility.

The boat stopped a few minutes at Liberty Landing and then went on, rounding the nearly circular bend, and as the last turn was made and the steamboat headed westward again there was a pause in the flurry which had been going on among the rescued pa.s.sengers ever since Liberty Landing had been left. Independence Landing was now close at hand and the eager crowd marked time until the bank should be reached.

Soon the boat headed in toward what was left of the once fine landing, its slowly growing ruin being responsible for the rising importance of the little hamlet of Westport not far above, and for the later and pretentious Kansas City which was to arise on the bluff behind the little frontier village. Independence was losing its importance as a starting point for the overland traffic in the same way that she had gained it. First it had been Franklin, then Fort Osage, then Blue Mills, and then Independence; but now, despite its commanding position on one of the highest bluffs along the river and its prestige from being the county seat, the latter was slowly settling in the background and giving way to Westport; but it was not to give up at once, nor entirely, for the newer terminals had to share their prominence with it, and until the end of the overland traffic Independence played its part.

The landing was a busy place. Piles of cordwood and freight, the latter in boxes, barrels, and crates, flanked the landing on three sides; several kinds of new wagons in various stages of a.s.sembling were scenes of great activity. Most of these were from Pittsburg and had come all the way by water. A few were of the size first used on the great trail, with a capacity of about a ton and a half; but most were much larger and could carry nearly twice as much as the others. Great bales of Osnaburg sheets, or wagon covers, were in a pile by themselves, glistening white in their newness. It appeared that the cargo of the _John Auld_ had not yet been transported up the bluff to the village on the summit.

The landing became very much alive as the fur company's boat swung in toward it, the workers who hourly expected the _Missouri Belle_ crowding to the water's edge to welcome the rounding boat, whose whistle early had apprised them that she was stopping. Free negroes romped and sang, awaiting their hurried tasks under exacting masters, the bosses of the gangs; but this time there was to be no work for them. Vehicles of all kinds, drawn by oxen, mules, and horses, made a solid phalanx around the freight piles, among them the wagons of Aull and Company, general outfitters for all kinds of overland journeys. The narrow, winding road from the water front up to and onto the great bluff well back from the river was sticky with mud and lined with struggling teams pulling heavy loads.

When the fur company boat drew near enough for those on sh.o.r.e to see its unusual human cargo, both as to numbers and kinds, conjecture ran high.

This hardy traveler of the whole navigable river was no common packet, stopping almost any place to pick up any person who waved a hat, but a supercilious thoroughbred which forged doggedly into the vast wilderness of the upper river. Even her curving swing in toward the bank was made with a swagger and hinted at contempt for any landing under a thousand miles from her starting point.

Shouts rang across the water and were followed by great excitement on the bank. Because of the poor condition of the landing she worked her way insh.o.r.e with unusual care and when the great gangplank finally bridged the gap her captain nodded with relief. In a few moments, her extra pa.s.sengers ash.o.r.e, she backed out into the hurrying stream and with a final blast of her whistle, pushed on up the river.

Friends met friends, strangers advised strangers, and the accident to the _Belle_ was discussed with great gusto. Impatiently pushing out of the vociferous crowd, Joe Cooper and his two companions swiftly found a Dearborn carriage which awaited them and, leaving their baggage to follow in the wagon of a friend, started along the deeply rutted, prairie road for the town; Schoolcraft, his partner, and his Mexican friend sloping along behind them on saddle horses through the lane of mud. The trip across the bottoms and up the great bluff was wearisome and tiring. They no sooner lurched out of one rut than they dropped into another, with the mud and water often to the axles, and they continually were forced to climb out of the depressed road and risk upsettings on the steep, muddy banks to pa.s.s great wagons hopelessly mired, notwithstanding their teams of from six to a dozen mules or oxen.

Mud-covered drivers shouted and swore from their narrow seats, or waded about their wagons up to the middle in the cold ooze. If there was anything worse than a prairie road in the spring, these wagoners had yet to learn of it.

CHAPTER VIII

THE NEW SIX-GUN

Independence was alive all over, humming with business, its muddy streets filled with all kinds of vehicles drawn by various kinds and numbers of animals. Here a three-yoke ox team pulled stolidly, there a four-mule team balked on a turn, and around them skittish or dispirited horses carried riders or drew high-seated carriages. The motley crowd on foot picked its way as best it could. Indians in savage garb pa.s.sed Indians in civilization's clothes, or mixtures of both; gamblers rubbed elbows with emigrants and made overtures to buckskin-covered trappers and hunters just in from the prairies and mountains, many of whom were going up to Westport, their main rendezvous. Traders came into and went from Aull and Company's big store, wherein was everything the frontier needed. Behind it were corrals filled with draft animals and sheds full of carts and wagons.

Boisterous traders and trappers, in all stages of drunkenness, who thought nothing of spending their season's profits in a single week if the mood struck them, were still coming in from the western foothills, valleys, and mountains, their loud conversations replete with rough phrases and such names as the South Park, Bent's Fort, The Pueblo, Fort Laramie, Bayou Salade, Brown's Hole, and others. Many of them so much resembled Indians as to leave a careless observer in doubt. Some were driving mules almost buried under their two packs, each pack weighing about one hundred pounds and containing eighty-odd beaver skins, sixty-odd otter pelts or the equivalent number in other skins. Usually they arrived in small parties, but here and there was a solitary trapper. The skins would be sold to the outfitting merchants and would establish a credit on which the trapper could draw until time to outfit and go off on the fall hunt. Had he sold them to some far, outlying post he would have received considerably less for them and have paid from two hundred to six hundred per cent more for the articles he bought. As long as there was nothing for him to do in his line until fall set in, he might just as well spend some of the time on the long march to the frontier, risking the loss of his goods, animals, and perhaps his life in order to get better prices and enjoy a change of scene.

The county seat looked good to him after his long stay in the solitudes.

Pack and wagon trains were coming and going, some of the wagons drawn by as many as a dozen or fifteen yokes of oxen. All was noise, confusion, life at high pressure, and made a fit surrounding for his coming carousal; and here was all the liquor he could hope to drink, of better quality and at better prices, guarantees of which, in the persons of numerous pa.s.sers-by, he saw on many sides.

Rumors of all kinds were afloat, most of them concerning hostile Indians lying in wait at certain known danger spots along the trails, and of the hostile acts of the Mormons; but the Mormons were behind and the trail was ahead, and the rumors of its dangers easily took precedence. It was reported that the first caravan, already on the trail and pressing hard on the heels of spring, was being escorted by a force of two hundred United States dragoons, the third time in the history of the Santa Fe trade that a United States military escort had been provided. Dangers were magnified, dangers were scorned, dangers were courted, depending upon the nature of the men relating them. There were many noisy fire-eaters who took their innings now, in the security of the town, who would become as wordless, later on, as some of the tight-lipped and taciturn frontiersmen were now. Greenhorns from the far-distant East were proving their greenness by buying all kinds of useless articles, which later they would throw away one by one, and were armed in a manner befitting buccaneers of the Spanish Main. To them, easiest of all, were old and heavy oxen sold, animals certain to grow footsore and useless by the time they had covered a few hundred miles. They bought anything and everything that any wag suggested, and there were plenty of wags on hand. The less they knew the more they talked; and experienced caravan travelers shook their heads at sight of them, recognizing in them the most prolific and hardest working trouble-makers in the whole, long wagon train. Here and there an invalid was seen, hoping that the long trip in the open would restore health, and in many cases the hopes became realizations.

Joseph Cooper installed his niece in the best hotel the town afforded and went off to see about his wagons and goods, while Tom Boyd hurried to a trapper's retreat to find his partner and his friends. The retreat was crowded with frontiersmen and traders, among whom he recognized many acquaintances. He no sooner had entered the place than he was soundly slapped on the shoulder and turned to exchange grins with his best friend, Hank Marshall, who forthwith led him to a corner where a small group was seated around a table, and where he found Jim Ogden and Zeb Houghton, two trapper friends of his who were going out to Bent's trading post on the Arkansas; Enoch Birdsall and Alonzo Webb, two veteran traders, and several others who would be identified with the next caravan to leave.

"Thar's one of them danged contraptions, now!" exclaimed Birdsall, pointing to the holster swinging from Tom's broad belt. "I don't think much o' these hyar newfangled weapons we're seein' more an' more every year. An' cussed if he ain't got a double-bar'l rifle, too! Dang it, Tom, don't put all yer aigs in one basket; ain't ye keepin' no weapons ye kin be sh.o.r.e on?"

"Thar both good, Enoch," replied Tom, smiling broadly.

"Sh.o.r.e they air," grunted Birdsall's partner. "Enoch don't reckon nothin's no good less'n it war foaled in th' Revolutionary War, an' has got whiskers like a Mormon bishop. Fust he war dead sot ag'in steamboats; said they war flyin' in th' face o' Providence an' wouldn't work, nohow. Then he said it war plumb foolish ter try ter take waggins inter Santer Fe. Next he war dead sot ag'in mules fer anythin' but packin'. Now he's cold ter caps an' says flints war made 'special by th'

Lord fer ter strike fire with--_but_, he rides on th' steamboats when he gits th' chanct; he's taken waggins clean ter Chihuahua, drivin' mules ter 'em; an' he's sorter hankerin' fer ter use caps, though he won't admit it open. Let him alone an' watch him try ter borrer yer new pistol when th' Injuns try ter stampede th' animals. He's a danged old fool in his talk, but you jest keep an eye on him. Thar, I've said my say."

"An' a danged long say it war!" snorted Enoch, belligerently. "It stands ter reason that thar pistol can't shoot 'em out o' one bar'l plumb down the dead center of another _every_ time! An' suppose ye want ter use a double charge o' powder, whar ye goin' ter put it in them danged little holes? Suppose yer caps hang fire--what then, I want ter know?"