“Hello, Dave,” answered Billy Cody, muddy and dripping, but calmly shaking Dave’s hand. “I guess it must be. Where are Hi and Jim?” And he turned quickly to scan the river. “Good. They’re coming. I knew they could swim. They can swim better than I, so I reckoned I’d get ashore as soon as I could. What are you doing here and where are you bound for?” “I’m bull whacking for Russell, Majors & Waddell from Leavenworth to Denver,” informed Davy, proudly. “Where are you bound for?” “Back to the river.” And by “the river” Davy knew that Billy meant the Missouri. “We didn’t have any luck in the diggin’s, so we thought we’d float home down the Platte to the Missouri and down the Missouri to Leavenworth. Well, we got this far, anyhow.” “Jiminy crickets!” shouted Hi, now plashing in. “If here isn’t Dave waiting for us! Did you come all the way from Leavenworth to meet us, Dave?” And there was a great shaking of hands. “I dunno what the dickens happened to us out there,” volunteered Jim, gazing at the river suspiciously. “One moment we were just sailing along and next moment we were swimming. No more sailoring for me; I’d rather walk with a bull team. Here we’ve lost our whole outfit and we’re going home from the diggin’s ‘busted’ flat.” “We didn’t have much to lose; that’s one comfort,” said Billy. “Think how bad we’d be feeling if we’d struck it rich up in the mountains and every ounce was now at the bottom of the Platte! Huh! We’ve had our fun, anyhow. Who’s your wagon boss, Dave?” “Charley Martin.” “Where are you camped?” “At the Platte crossing, just below Jules’.” “All right,” quoth Billy, cheerily. “Come on, boys. I’m going down to the camp and see what I can get, and Charley’ll grub-stake us home.” They had clambered up the bank into the dryness, and now they continued down the trail――Billy and Hi and Jim clumping and squashing, Davy tramping sturdily in his teamster costume of flannel shirt and trousers tucked into big boots. “So you’re a sure-’nough bull whacker, are you?” asked Hi of Davy, with a grin. “I was hired just as an ‘extra’ for carrying messages, you know,” said Davy, to be both honest and modest. “But we ran short of men so Charley put me at whacking. I can sling a whip some; that is, pretty good. The bulls are trained, anyway.” “When did you begin?” asked Billy. “Back at Plum Creek.” “If you’ve held your job this far, then, I guess you can hold it as long as you like. Bully for you, Red.” And at Billy’s generous praise Davy blushed. The excitement at Jules’ trading store had quieted and only the mess of whiskey-sodden flour remained. Billy and Jim paid scant attention to this, except that they, too, were disgusted when they heard what old Jules had been up to. They were more intent upon getting to the wagon train camp. And here Charley Martin and the whole outfit, in fact, received them with a great ado. Everybody in the train seemed to know Billy, and almost everybody knew Hi and Jim.