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.”