The Reverend Mr. Baxter had no gun at all and did not want one, he claimed. “Left-over Joe” had no gun at all, but wanted one badly. Hi promised to let him shoot the yager sometime. The Salt Creek camp was a lively place. Here were assembled a thousand emigrants, all “Pike’s Peakers,” making ready to travel on westward and find their fortunes. About every kind of an outfit was to be seen, and all sorts of people. Many of the men never had driven oxen or mules before; they had bought what they could get; some of the animals proved not to be broken to drive, and when the green-horns tried to hitch up the green “critters” then there was fun for the onlookers. However, nobody was delaying to watch the “fun.” By the hundred, parties were setting out every day from the camp as well as from Leavenworth. Thousands of gold-seekers already had left Omaha and Kansas City and St. Joseph. It was reported that along any of the trails a person could walk from the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains on the tops of the prairie schooners――so thick was the travel. It beat the celebrated stampede to California in 1849. There were four trails to the “diggin’s.” The two best known were the Santa Fe Trail, on the south, which followed up the Arkansas River in southern Kansas, to the mountains, and then turned north for the gold fields; and the big Salt Lake Overland Trail, on the north, which from the Missouri River followed up the Platte River, until in western Nebraska the gold hunters turned south for Pike’s Peak. Omaha and St. Joseph were the outfitting points for this northern trail, and Leavenworth traffic struck it by the government road which ran through Salt Creek Valley on into the northwest. The Russell, Majors & Waddell “bull trains” hauled their freight over this route. The other two trails were new central trails, made especially for the Pike’s Peak rush. One trail followed up the Republican River through southern Nebraska; the other followed up along the Smoky Hill Fork River, through central Kansas. Emigrants coming in by St. Joseph were taking either the Salt Lake and California Overland route or the Republican route; the emigrants outfitting at Leavenworth and the Salt Creek Valley were taking the Smoky Hill route or else the Overland Trail route. By the Overland Trail (the Salt Lake and California Trail) it was accounted 580 miles from Omaha to the diggin’s; and the Pike’s Peak Guide-book recommended that trail. But from Leavenworth it was 100 miles further, and the Smoky Hill Trail was said to be the straightest and the shortest. The Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak Express Company stages had chosen that route. “I reckon that’s the route for us,” said Hi. “I hear we can follow the Smoky clear to the mountains, and have water all the way.” “When the first stage comes back we’ll know more about it, but we can’t wait,” mused the Reverend Mr. Baxter.