"I tell you what we can do," he said. "We can outfit here, and take the Cut-off trail to the Platte, across the Kaw and the Big and Little Blue—that'll bring us in far enough east to catch the Colonel if he's comin' down the valley. You'd just as well be travelin' as loafin', and that's like enough the quickest way to find him."
The counsel seemed good. I sat down and wrote two more letters home, once more stating that I was not starting east, but going still farther west. This done, I tried to persuade myself to feel no further uneasiness, and to content my mind with the sense of duty done.
Auberry, as it chanced, fell in with a party bound for Denver, five men who had two wagons, a heavy Conestoga freight wagon, or prairie schooner, and a lighter vehicle without a cover. We arranged with these men, and their cook as to our share in the mess box, and so threw in our dunnage with theirs, Auberry and I purchasing us a good horse apiece. By noon of the next day we were on our way westward, Auberry himself now much content.
"The settlements for them that likes 'em," said he. "For me, there's nothing like the time when I start west, with a horse under me, and run au large, as the French traders say. You'll get a chance now to see the Plains, my son."
At first we saw rather the prairies than the Plains proper. We were following a plainly marked trail, which wound in and out among low rolling hills; and for two days we remained in touch with the scattered huts of the squalid, half-civilized Indians and squaw men who still hung around the upper reservations. Bleached bones of the buffalo we saw here and there, but there was no game. The buffalo had long years since been driven far to the westward. We took some fine fish in the clear waters of the forks of the Blue, which with some difficulty we were able to ford. Gradually shaking down into better organization, we fared on and on day after day, until the grass grew shorter and the hills flatter. At last we approached the valley of the Platte.
We were coming now indeed into the great Plains, of which I had heard all my youth. A new atmosphere seemed to invest the world. The talk of my companions was of things new and wild and strange to me. All my old life seemed to be slipping back of me, into a far oblivion. A feeling of rest, of confidence and of uplift came to me. It was difficult to be sad. The days were calm, the nights were full of peace. Nature seemed to be loftily above all notice of small frettings. Many things became more clear to me, as I rode and reflected. In some way, I know not how, it seemed to me that I was growing older.
We had been out more than two weeks when finally we reached the great valley along which lay the western highway of the old Oregon trail, now worn deep and dusty by countless wheels. Our progress had not been very rapid, and we had lost time on two occasions in hunting up strayed animals. But, here at last, I saw the road of the old fur traders, of Ashley and Sublette and Bridger, of Carson and Fremont, later of Kearney, Sibley, Marcy, one knew not how many Army men, who had for years been fighting back the tribes and making ready this country for white occupation. As I looked at this wild, wide region, treeless, fruitless, it seemed to me that none could want it. The next thought was the impression that, no matter how many might covet it, it was exhaustless, and would last forever. This land, this West, seemed to all then unbelievably large and limitless.
We pushed up the main trail of the Platte but a short distance that night, keeping out an eye for grazing ground for our horses. Auberry knew the country perfectly. "About five or six miles above here," he said, "there's a stage station, if the company's still running through here now. Used to be two or three fellers and some horses stayed there."
We looked forward to meeting human faces with some pleasure; but an hour or so later, as we rode on, I saw Auberry pull up his horse, with a strange tightening of his lips. "Boys," said he, "there's where it was!" His pointing finger showed nothing more than a low line of ruins, bits of broken fencing, a heap of half-charred timbers.
"They've been here," said Auberry, grimly. "Who'd have thought the Sioux would be this far east?"