“Lookee here,” suddenly exclaimed Billy Cody, that last night before the start, when everybody was under blankets and almost asleep. “We’ve got to have a name painted on our wagon.”
“Can’t we travel anonymous?” queried the Reverend Mr. Baxter, sleepily.
“I dunno what that means but it sounds pretty good,” spoke Hi. “Can you spell it?”
“Oh,” chuckled Mr. Baxter, “that doesn’t mean anything.”
“Huh!” grumbled Hi. “I thought it was an animile like a hippopotamus, mebbe.”
When the camp turned out at sunrise Billy had already been up, and on the wagon hood he had painted, with the stick and tar-pot used for greasing the wagon, the title: “HEE-HAW EXPRESS.” So, amidst laughter, the Hee-Haw Express it was which, soon after sun-up, joined the procession that, anew each day, filed out for the long trail to Pike’s Peak.
The Hee-Haw Express, being mule-power, travelled faster than many of the other outfits. The road certainly presented a series of strange sights, as if everybody had thrown together whatever he could and was hastening from a fire or a plague. The Hee-Haw Express, at amble and fast walk, with Hi driving and his partners trudging as fast as they were able beside, gradually passed men with packs, men pushing handcarts and wheel-barrows, crippled ox teams, next an ox and a cow harnessed together, next a mule and an ox harnessed together; and so forth and so forth, all in the dust and the shouting and the rumbling and creaking and whip cracking.
Almost all the other “Pike’s Peak pilgrims” passed by the Hee-Haw Express waved and shouted their greetings.
“Trade you my wheel-barrow for a mule.”