The trail stretched ever on and on. For one only six or eight weeks old it was remarkable. Hundreds of wagons and animals had worn it wide and plain; and, moreover, on either side of it were scattered cook-stoves, trunks, bedsteads, bureaus, and other bulky household stuff, cast overboard to relieve the tiring teams. Davy found a rag doll and Billy picked up a thick hank of false hair. As Jim remarked: “A fellow could follow this trail in the dark by stubbing his toes!” “Busted” outfits were constantly passed. The strain of the wild march to “Pike’s Peak” was taking its toll of the weak and the illy prepared. The stage stations were placed from ten to twenty miles apart. They had been located in a hurry; wagons sent out from Leavenworth by Jones & Russell had dropped off the station agents and their outfits as fast as possible all the way through to Denver. Some of the stations were merely pieces of canvas laid over pole frames; and some were caves in clay banks of streams; but under the canvas and in the caves were living not only men but their wives. However, the fact that the stations had been established at all in such a rush across 600 miles of uninhabited country struck Davy as no small feat. And every day, on this Smoky Hill route trail, a stage coming from the west was met, and another coming from the east passed them. The stages went galloping along hauled by four dusty mules. The report was that the company had spent three hundred thousand dollars before the first coach had been started, and that the expenses were eight hundred dollars a day! The fare from Leavenworth to Denver was $100. The sight of the two stages each day was quite an event to the toiling Pike’s Peak Pilgrims, and they levelled all kinds of questions at driver and passengers whenever they had a chance. The trail did not cling to the Smoky Hill Fork, but frequently was far north of it. Numerous side creeks were crossed, supplying water and wood; and again there would be no fuel but the gleaning of buffalo chips. The country was flattening out into short-grass plains――buffalo country. Captain Hi and Lieutenant Billy saw to it that the span of mules were well attended to at noon and at evening, and that the daily marches of the Hee-Haw Express were steady and systematic. So the party forged straight along. The mules were fast walkers. “Strangers, you must be in a powerful hurry to dig out that pound of gold a day,” hailed a “Lightning Express” that the “Hee-Haw” passed. This Lightning Express was taking a whole sawmill out――as well as a large family. The household wagon bore the sign “Lightning Express”; it was drawn by a mule and an ox, pulling together. Then followed a freighting wagon loaded with the sawmill, and drawn by a yoke of oxen and a horse, the horse being in front of the yoke of oxen. A woman and several children were trudging beside the covered wagon. A man afoot drove with his whip. “Right you are,” replied Captain Hi to the hail.