“You must be in a rush, strangers.”
“What’s the fare?”
To this Billy answered gaily:
“Regular stage rates. Twenty-five cents a mile or hundred dollars to the mountains.”
For that was what the Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak Express Company charged.
Many of the other wagons also bore signs. “Pike’s Peak or Bust!” “Noah’s Ark!” “Root Hog or Die!” “Pike’s Peak Special!” “Bound For the Diggin’s!”—thus ran some of the lines to be noted as the Hee-Haw Express sturdily pressed forward.
That night the road was one continuous camp, with fires glowing and canvas glimmering as far as the eye could see in either direction. Parties visited back and forth, men and women exchanged news and views, children played in the firelight shadows, babies cried, dogs barked, and not until after nine o’clock was the trail quiet enough so that nervous persons might sleep. However, Davy was not nervous; and from the snores he might judge that Billy and the rest were not nervous either.
The next day the Hee-Haw Express started early, and was on the road even before sun-up. Billy and Hi and all were anxious to pass Fort Riley and strike the Smoky Hill Fork as soon as possible, and in advance of as many of these “pilgrims” as possible. The only excitement of this day was a sudden cheer adown the line and a craning of necks and waving of hands. Before, from the west, were approaching two vehicles—by the looks of them, and by the four mules, stages, both!
And two stages they proved to be, as, skirting the procession of “pilgrims,” they dashed along, bound for Leavenworth. The first bore a lot of bright bunting and streamers, and on its sides a banner that said: “Greetings from the Gold Mountains of Kansas.” By its dusty appearance and the appearance of its driver and passengers, this coach evidently had come clear from Pike’s Peak. The second coach, close following, was its escort from Fort Riley in to Leavenworth.