Buffalo Bill and the Overland Trail: Being the story of how boy and man worked hard and played hard to blaze the white trail, by wagon train, stage coach and pony express, across the great plains and the mountains beyond, that the American republic might expand and flourishSabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
General
Buffalo Bill and the Overland Trail: Being the story of how boy and man worked hard and played hard to blaze the white trail, by wagon train, stage coach and pony express, across the great plains and the mountains beyond, that the American republic might expand and flourish
Sabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
Buffalo Bill, 1846-1917 -- Fiction; Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.) -- Fiction; Western stories
The trail was divided off by various names, as city blocks are divided
off by streets. Most of the men could call the route by heart. There
was Salt Creek and Grasshopper Creek and Walnut Creek and Elm Creek
and the Big Blue, and the Big and Little Sandy, and Ash Point and the
Little Blue and Thirty-two Mile Creek and Sand Hill Pond and the Platte
River and then Fort Kearney, where, 294 miles from Leavenworth, the
main Overland Trail to Denver and Salt Lake was struck.
On the Little Blue, before reaching Fort Kearney, the train had its
first accident――and a peculiar accident that was. Davy first learned of
it when, as he came riding back from an errand for Charley to another
train behind, he saw a wagon at the middle of his train pull short and
heard a shout and saw teamsters, their teams also halted, go running to
the place.
“What’s the matter? Rattlers?” This was the first thought――that the
teamster had been bitten by a rattlesnake.
“No. Somebody run over!”
The rear half of the train had stopped, of course; the fore half, after
pulling on a little way, also had stopped. Charley came galloping back,
Yank galloped forward, and so did Davy. The men ahead had gathered in
a group and were carrying something out from under the wagons. It was
Sailor Bill, poor fellow. He had been riding sitting on the pole of his
wagon behind his wheel yoke, and he must have dozed, for he had fallen
off and the wheels of his wagon had passed over him.
“My old lead bulls snorted and jumped like as if they’d stepped on a
rattler,” was explaining the teamster who had shouted and halted his
team. “I thought it _was_ a rattler, of course; but when I looked I
saw _him_! Right under my second swing team’s hoofs! But he was done
breathing before ever we got to him. I’m sartin of that. His own wagon
did for him; and mighty quick.”
“Yes,” they all nodded soberly, “poor Bill like as not never knew what
was happening to him.”
“Anybody know who his folks are or where?” demanded Charley.
Heads were shaken.
“Never heard him say. He ran away to sea when he was a kid and never
went home again, I reckon.”
“Well,” uttered Charley, “we’ll do the best we can.”
It was a solemn company which with bared heads stood about the spot
where they laid Sailor Bill. A deep hole was dug beside the trail, and
what was left of Sailor Bill, wrapped in a blanket, was lowered into
it. Charley read a chapter from the Bible, the hole was filled, and the
wagons made a little detour to drive across the spot and pack the soil
so that the coyotes would not be tempted to dig there.
“We’ll certainly miss Bill and his ‘Bay of Biscay, O!’” said the men;
and they did.
Henry Renick was appointed by Charley to Sailor Bill’s wagon and team,
and the train rolled on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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