Campmates Part 7

Mr. Hobart watched the boy's glowing face as he read this letter with genuine pleasure; for he had taken a real liking to him, and was not only glad of this opportunity for affording him such unalloyed happiness, but also that they were to be companions on the proposed trip.

Matters being thus happily settled, the engineer told Glen that they would start the following evening for the end of the track, nearly two hundred miles west of that point, where the expedition was to rendezvous, and where he was to establish a camp for their reception.

The information that interested and pleased Glen the most, though, was that Mr. Brackett was to be a.s.sistant engineer of the new division, and that most of the members of the party with whom the boy was already on such friendly terms, were also to join it.

Being dismissed by Mr. Hobart, with orders to be on hand bright and early in the morning, for the morrow would be a busy day, the happy lad rushed away to find those who were to be his fellow-explorers, and talk over with them the wonders and delights of the proposed trip. To his surprise not one of them was anywhere about the hotel, and he was told that the entire party had gone down town a few moments before. Too excited to do anything else, Glen immediately set out to find them. For some time he searched in vain; but at length, attracted by the sound of great shouting and laughter, he joined a throng of people who were gathered about one of the few barber shops of the city, and seemed to be vastly entertained by something taking place inside.

Recognizing "Billy" Brackett's voice above all the other sounds that came from the shop, Glen pushed himself forward until he finally gained a position inside the door. All the engineers were there. Three of them occupied the three chairs that the shop boasted, and were having their hair cut. Another, standing on a table, so that he could overlook the crowd, was superintending the operation. But for his voice and his unmistakable costume, Glen would never have recognized in him the dignified young engineer under whom he had been at work but an hour before. Every spear of hair had disappeared from his head, and he was as bald as a billiard cue. Seated on the table, contentedly swinging their legs, were two other bald-headed figures, whom Glen with difficulty recognized as the leveller and rodman.

When the three victims in the chairs had been reduced to a similar state of baldness, their places were instantly occupied by the remaining members of the party. The whole performance was conducted amid the most uproarious fun, of which the recently promoted a.s.sistant engineer was the ruling spirit.

As the chairs became empty for the third time, and the nine bald-headed members prepared to depart, each declaring that the others were the most comical-looking objects he had ever seen, they suddenly caught sight of Glen, and a rush was made for him. In another moment, despite his struggles, he too was seated in a barber's chair, and was rapidly growing as bald as his fellow-explorers.

"You'll look worse than a boiled owl, Glen," remarked "Billy" Brackett, encouragingly.

"And be a living terror to Injuns," cried another.

"It'll be the greatest comfort in the world, old man, to feel that though you may be killed, you can't be scalped," shouted a third.

Realizing that resistance was useless, Glen submitted to the shearing process with as good a grace as possible. A few minutes later, wearing a very loose-fitting hat, he was marching up the street with his jovial comrades, joining with the full strength of his lungs in the popular chorus of

"The bald-headed man, who's been always in the van Of everything that's going, since the world first began."

Chapter XII.

STARTING ACROSS THE PLAINS.

Transforming themselves into a party of bald-heads was the last of the absurd pranks with which the young engineers entertained the good people of Kansas City for many a long day. At the same hour on the following evening they were well on their way towards the far West in a dilapidated pa.s.senger-coach attached to a freight train loaded with tents and supplies of every description for their long trip.

By the next noon, after a hard, rough ride of nearly two hundred miles, the end of the track was reached. It was on a treeless prairie, sweeping away as far as the eye could see on all sides. Here was spread a thick green carpet of short buffalo gra.s.s, and into this carpet were woven exquisite patterns of innumerable flowers. The place was at the junction of the Kaw River with one of its numerous branches, and where but a few weeks before wild Indians had camped and vast herds of buffalo had pastured, a railroad town of several hundred rough frame houses, shanties, and tents had already sprung into existence.

Here the overland stages took their departure for the distant mining town of Denver, and here the long trains of great freight-wagons were loaded for their toilsome journey over the Santa Fe trail to the far-away valley of the Rio Grande. Here, on side-tracks, were the construction-cars, movable houses on wheels, in which lived the graders, track-layers, and other members of the army of workmen employed in the building of a railroad. Railroad men, soldiers, teamsters, traders, Indians, and Mexicans, horses, mules, and oxen mingled here in picturesque confusion. Nearly every man carried a rifle, and it was rare to meet one who did not wear one or more revolvers strapped to his waist.

It was by far the most novel and bustling scene Glen had ever looked upon; and, as he stepped from the last railroad-car he was to see for many months, and stretched his cramped limbs, he gazed about him in astonishment. But there was no time for idling, and Glen had hardly given a glance at his unfamiliar surroundings before Mr. Hobart's voice, saying, "Come, boys, there's plenty to do, and but a few hours to do it in," set the whole party to work in the liveliest possible manner.

There was a fine gra.s.sy level about a hundred yards from the railroad, on the opposite side from the settlement. It was skirted by a clear but sluggish stream, fringed by a slender growth of cottonwood-trees, and was so evidently the very place for a camp that Mr. Hobart selected it at once. Here the young engineers worked like beavers all through that long, hot afternoon, and by nightfall they had pitched twenty wall-tents, arranged in the form of an open square. One of these was reserved for Mr. Hobart, while Mr. Brackett and the leveller were given another, and two more were allowed to the other members of the party.

Into these they had removed all their personal belongings, while in two other tents, carefully ditched and banked to keep out the water in case of rain, were stored all the instruments, implements, blank-books, and stationery provided for the expedition.

Heartily tired after this novel but interesting labor, how Glen did enjoy his tin-cup of black coffee without milk, the fried bacon and hard-tack, that const.i.tuted his supper, when, at sundown, one of the axemen, who had been at work for an hour over a fire, announced that it was ready! He would have scorned such fare at home; but, with his present appet.i.te, and under the circ.u.mstances, it seemed as though nothing had ever tasted better.

As the darkness came on, how cheerful the tent, that had now become his home, looked in the light of a lantern hung from its ridge-pole! What a pleasant hour he pa.s.sed listening to the stories and experiences of his three tentmates, as they lay luxuriously outstretched on their blankets, enjoying their well-earned rest! The entire stock of blankets was used to make one wide, comfortable bed for the four. All the rubbers were, of course, placed underneath, next the ground, and Glen was greatly pleased at the praise bestowed upon his rubber-sheet, which was twice as large as an ordinary blanket, and which he had followed Mr. Hobart's advice in procuring.

After the others had finished their evening pipes and dropped off to sleep, and after the light had been put out, the novelty of this first night under canvas kept Glen awake for some time. What a fortunate fellow he felt himself to be, as he lay there recalling the events of the last ten days, and trying to picture the immediate future! To think that he, the worst scholar in his cla.s.s, a boy without an own father or mother, so far as he knew, nor even a birthday that he was sure of, should be away out here on the Plains, and about to start on an expedition that every boy in the country would be thankful to join if he could. It was simply wonderful; and he resolved that, if hard work and the promptest possible attention to duty could render him worthy of such good-fortune, neither of these things should be lacking.

By daylight the camp was astir; but Glen was the first to roll out of his blankets, and he had been down to the creek for a plunge in its cool waters before breakfast-time. Then followed another hard day's work. The train of twenty heavy canvas-topped army-wagons, each drawn by six mules, the three four-mule ambulances, and the drove of spare animals furnished to the expedition by the government, arrived during the morning. These wagons had to be loaded with the vast quant.i.ty of provisions and various supplies brought thus far by rail. Then the tents already up had to be ditched, and still others erected for the use of the engineer-in-chief and other officers of the party who were now hourly expected to arrive.

A flag-pole was planted in front of the headquarter tents, and that evening, when a train came in bringing General Lyle and about half the members of the expedition, an American flag was run to its top. Both it and the general were greeted with a volley of rifle-shots and a hearty cheer, while at the same time the encampment was christened "Camp Lyle."

Glen's youthful appearance attracted the chief's attention as soon as he caught sight of the lad, and he was inclined to doubt the advisability of allowing such a mere boy to accompany the expedition. A few words from Mr. Hobart satisfied him, however, that Glen would prove a credit to the party, and after that the general watched the boy with interest.

With the chief-engineer came a geologist, botanist, surgeon, photographer, private secretary, quartermaster, the two other division commanders, and, what was of more immediate interest to all the young engineers, several good camp-cooks. Thus, on the second night of its existence, with this large increase in the number of its occupants, Camp Lyle presented a most cheerful and animated appearance.

Early the following morning another train arrived from the East, bringing the remaining members of the expedition. A few minutes after its arrival Glen was awakened by hearing a voice that sounded very familiar, calling,

"h.e.l.lo! I say! Some of you fellows come out here and help me!"

As he sat up in his blankets, wondering who could be speaking with such a tone of authority, and whether he ought to answer the summons or not, a head was thrust into the tent-door, and the demand was repeated.

It was Binney Gibbs, who had pa.s.sed as completely out of Glen's mind as though he had never existed. He did not recognize Glen's bald head; but, when the latter stepped from the tent with his hat on, saying, "h.e.l.lo, Binney, old man, what can I do for you?" the prize scholar of the Brimfield High School stood for a moment speechless with amazement.

"You here?" he finally stammered. "What on earth does it mean?"

"It means," replied Glen, laughing at the other's incredulous expression, "that Brimfield is to have two representatives on this expedition instead of one, and that I am going through to the Pacific with you."

Binney had always been jealous of Glen, but at that moment he felt that he almost hated him.

In spite of this, he allowed his former schoolmate and another stout fellow to bring his heavy trunk from the railroad into camp. When the quartermaster saw it he said that, as there would be no room for trunks in the wagons, the owner of this one must take from it what would fill a moderate-sized valise, and either dispose of the trunk with the rest of its contents or send them back home. To this Binney angrily replied that he would see General Lyle about it.

The new arrival gave further offence that morning by turning up his nose at the breakfast prepared by one of the camp-cooks, and declaring it unfit for white men to eat. He also refused, point-blank, to help unload a car when requested to do so by one of the division engineers, saying that it was not the kind of work he had been engaged to perform.

He was only brought to a realizing sense of his position by a severe reprimand from General Lyle himself, who declared that, upon the next complaint brought to him of the boy's conduct, he should discharge him.

He also said that only the fact of Binney's having been sent there by his old friend Mr. Meadows prevented him from doing so at once. The chief closed his remarks by advising Binney to take the other Brimfield boy of the party as an example worthy of copying. Thereupon all the prize scholar's bitterness of feeling was directed against unsuspecting Glen, and he vowed he would get even with that young n.o.body yet.

Chapter XIII.

BINNEY GIBBS AND HIS MULE.

The effect on Binney Gibbs of General Lyle's reprimand was good, inasmuch as it brought him to a realizing sense of his true position in that party, and showed him that, if he wished to remain a member of it, he must obey orders, even when they were issued in the form of polite requests. So, after that, he made a virtue of necessity, and obeyed every order with a scrupulous exactness, though generally with an injured air, and a protesting expression of countenance as though he were being imposed upon. It was a great mortification to him to be obliged to send home his trunk, and more than half his supply of clothing, together with a number of other cherished luxuries, such as a rubber bathtub, a cork mattress, a rubber pillow, half a dozen linen sheets, several china plates, cups, and saucers, besides some silver and plated ware, all of which he relinquished with a heavy heart and many lamentations.

The only thing in the shape of a valise, with which to replace his trunk, that he could purchase in the railroad settlement, was one of those cheap affairs made of glazed leather, such as are often seen in the hands of newly landed immigrants. As Binney brought this into the camp, it at once attracted universal attention. The boys crowded about him, begging to be allowed to examine his new and elegant "grip-sack;"

and, from that day forth, he was known as "Grip" by the entire party.

For a week longer the expedition remained at Camp Lyle, waiting for settled weather, and preparing for its great undertaking. It was divided into four divisions, three of which were regularly equipped surveying-parties who were to run transit and level lines from a point near the Colorado border to the Pacific Ocean. The fourth, or headquarter division, was composed of the commander and his immediate staff, together with the scientific men and their a.s.sistants.

As Glen hoped and expected, he was a.s.signed to the second division, of which Mr. Hobart was engineer in charge, and Mr. Brackett was a.s.sistant.

He was a little disappointed that the only position found for him in the division was the very lowest of all in rank and pay. It was that of tapeman, and his duties were to a.s.sist the topographer of the party in measuring distances to, or taking the bearings of, prominent objects along the line. Neither could Glen help wishing that Binney Gibbs had not been a.s.signed to the same division as himself. On account of his brilliant record for scholarship and skill with figures, Binney was made rodman, a position that far outranked Glen's and commanded twice his pay. Still, Glen strove hard not to feel envious of this other Brimfield boy. He was altogether too proud of being a member of the expedition on any terms to have room for any other feeling, and he was anxious to be on a friendly footing with Binney, as he was with everybody else. So, when the positions were announced, and the prize scholar was found to hold such a fine one, Glen was the first to tender his congratulations.

Binney received them coldly, merely remarking that they could not very well have given him any lower position, and that he should not have accepted anything less if it had been offered.

Glen only smiled at this, and thought how fortunate it was that he did not feel that way.