Davy engaged passage in the next morning’s Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak stage, east bound to the States. It had taken the Hee-Haw outfit forty days to come out; now Davy was going back in six. This was luxury. The coach held six passengers, with one on the seat. There was a school-teacher from Vermont, a merchant from Ohio, a banker from Chicago, an army officer from Fort Leavenworth, a man and wife from Boston, and Davy. All, except Davy, had been to the “diggin’s”――and the Ohio merchant let slip the fact that he had located a good claim there where he and his partner were washing out two hundred dollars a day! So he was returning for his family. Yes, it was an interesting company; but as best of all, the driver was Hank Bassett! “Why, hello!” greeted Hank of Dave. “Bully for you. Get up here on the seat. I’ll take you through in style.” “I engaged that seat,” objected the school-teacher. “Not much,” retorted Hank. “It’ll make you seasick. I can have what I want in this seat; and the boy rides there. I can depend on him if I need a hand, and that’s very important, mister.” “You know him, do you?” “You’re right I know him. We’ve worked together before, haven’t we, Dave?” Davy blushed, somewhat embarrassed by Hank’s hearty manner; but Hank had ordered, and Hank was boss, and Dave climbed to the seat beside him. With crack of whip and cheer from the crowd gathered to watch, at a gallop out surged the four mules for the nigh seven hundred miles to the Missouri River and the States. Davy thoroughly enjoyed that trip. Hank sent his mules forward at a rattling pace; for, as he explained, he changed teams at every station, eighteen or twenty miles apart. Night and day the stage travelled, making its one hundred miles each twenty-four hours, halting only to change teams and for meals. And night and day the Pike’s Peak pilgrims were in sight. The westward travel was even more pronounced than earlier in the year, when the Hee-Haws had joined in it. There were new signs, too, on the wagons. “Bound for the Land of Gold.” “Family Express; Milk for Sale!” “Mind Your Own Business.” “We Are Off for the Peak. Are You?” “Hooray for the Diggin’s!” These and other announcements Davy read on the prairie schooners as the hurrying stage passed.