“Show me some.”
“Hain’t got it, stranger. But it’s thar. We’re goin’ back in the spring. Better join us. Go out an’ buy lots in St. Charles City.”
“No, sir. Buy ’em in Auraria, across the creek,” shouted another. “Auraria’s booming; St. Charles won’t last.”
“Thanks,” laughed Mr. Baxter. “I’ll think about it. Just now twenty-five dollars in the pocket seems better than nothing in a hole in the ground.”
“Wall, you’ll miss out,” warned one of the men as the little party pressed on in a great hurry.
Mr. Baxter laughed and bantered all the way in to Leavenworth.
“We want to see some of that gold before we pack up and go on a wild goose chase, don’t we, Davy?” he called. “And I’d rather have a yoke of steers on the hoof than a city lot on paper.”
This sounded like wisdom; but Davy imagined what an effect the report of those returned Cherry Creekers would have on that emigrant wagon! The men and the woman would be looking for the mountains more eagerly than ever.
He and Mr. Baxter turned the bunch of cattle over to the Russell, Majors & Waddell’s foreman at the fort, where another bull train was being made up, loaded high with government supplies for the west. Buck Bomer, Billy Cody’s wagon-master, had not come in yet from the Laramie trip, and there was no news from Billy himself. He was still out. Report said that he had gone on from Laramie to another fort, so nobody could tell when he would be back.