The few settlers along the route consisted chiefly of New Englanders, with a goodly sprinkling of Germans. They generally had milk and eggs to sell, but seldom butter or vegetables. We camped one night on Fancy Creek, near a Mr. Segrist's, where we got tomatoes and onions, as well as eggs and milk; and as we had shot several prairie-chickens during the day, we supped luxuriously. Our mess-kit was rather a primitive affair, not much to speak of, and our cook quite a worthless fellow, as it turned out; but L. developed a talent that way very surprising, and so we got along comfortably. This Segrist himself was quite a character in his way. A Pennsylvania Dutchman by birth, he was bred in Indiana, but emigrated to Fancy Creek during the Kansas troubles, to help save the territory to freedom. Squatting on a quarter-section there, he first built himself a log-cabin, and then subsequently enlarged and improved this by a "lean-to;" now he had just completed a good two-story stone house, of magnesian limestone, and aspired to luxury. He had flocks and herds well about him; he was a hearty, cheery man, not afraid of hard work, nor a spice of danger; and, it was plain to be seen, would soon be a rich man, if he kept on. Of course, he was a Republican in politics, and took the St. Louis Westliche Post.
On Wild-Cat Creek, the first day out from Fort Riley, we struck a Mr. Silvers, who proved to be a minister of the United Brethren. He had a half-section of land there, and his son-in-law as much more just adjoining. They were both living in rude shanties put up by themselves, but seemed happy and contented. During the war, he had sent one son to the army, and when Price invaded Kansas he himself shouldered his Plains rifle, and marched to the defence of Lawrence and Topeka. When at home, he worked upon his farm; but he had a frontier circuit, with preaching places a hundred miles in every direction, which took him away most of the time. He seemed to be a veritable missionary, looking up the lost sheep scattered along the Border, and we bade him God-speed. His "gude wife" gave us a bowl of buttermilk fresh from the churn, and we paid her in the latest eastern newspapers.
CHAPTER III.
UP THE PLATTE TO DENVER.
The Union Pacific Railroad had then just reached Fort Kearney from Omaha, and was the sensation of the hour. With a large force of men, it was being pushed rapidly up the north bank of the Platte; but as our road lay up the south bank, we did not cross to see it. There was little to prevent its rapid progress of a mile and even two miles per day, as the Platte valley ascends gradually, and for railroad purposes is almost everywhere practically a level. We now dismissed our ambulance and escort, with instructions to return to Fort Riley, and transferred ourselves, bag and baggage, to Holliday's Overland Stages, which here connected with the railroad.
This stage-line was long one of the first enterprises of America, and, as the forerunner of the railroad did its part well in carrying civilization across the continent. It was then owned and controlled by Mr. Ben Holliday, an enterprising Missourian, but then living in New York. It had originally fallen into his hands for debt, but he had since greatly enlarged and extended it. It then ran from Fort Kearney to Denver, with branches to the mining regions; thence across the Rocky Mountains to Salt Lake;[2] thence through Idaho to the Columbia, with branches through Montana; extending in all, nearly three thousand miles, employing six thousand horses and mules, and more than three hundred coaches. He paid his general superintendent ten thousand dollars per year; his division superintendents, half that; and lesser employees proportionately. His hay, and grain, and provisions, he had to haul hundreds of miles, distributing them along the route, and his fuel frequently one hundred and fifty. To offset all this, he carried the U. S. Mail, daily each way, and for this service alone received over half a million of dollars per year from the government. In addition, his passenger fares from Fort Kearney to Denver were one hundred and fifty dollars; to Salt Lake, three hundred; to Nevada, four hundred and fifty; to California, five hundred; and to Idaho and Montana, about the same.
We found his stages to be our well-known Concord coaches, and they quite surpassed our expectations, both as to comfort and to speed. They were intended for nine inside—three seats full—and as many more outside, as could be induced to get on. Their teams were either four or six horses, depending on the roads, and the distance between stations. The animals themselves were our standing wonder; no broken-down nags, or half-starved Rosinantes, like our typical stage-horses east; but, as a rule, they were fat and fiery, and would have done credit to a horseman anywhere. Wiry, gamey, as if feeling their oats thoroughly, they often went off from the stations at a full gallop; at the end of a mile or so would settle down to a square steady trot; and this they would usually keep up right along until they reached the next station. These "stations" varied from ten to twelve miles apart, depending on water and grass, and consisted of the rudest kind of a shanty or sod-house ordinarily. Here we would find another team, ready harnessed, prancing to be gone, and in fifteen minutes or so would be off on the road again. Halts were made twice a day for meals, forty minutes each, and with this exception we kept bowling ahead night and day. Our meals were fair for the region; generally coffee, beef-steak or bacon, potatoes, and saleratus-biscuit hot; but the prices—one dollar and one dollar and a half per meal—seemed extortionate. In this way, we often made ten and twelve miles per hour, while on the road; and seldom drove less than one hundred, and one hundred and twenty-five miles, per day and night.
We talked a good deal, or essayed to, with the drivers; but as a rule, they were a taciturn species. Off the box they were loquacious enough; but when mounted, with four or six in hand, they either thought it unprofessional to talk, or else were absorbed too much in their business. I remarked this to a Division Superintendent, when he replied, "You bet! A talking driver is like a whistling girl or crowing hen, always of no account!" They each had their drive of fifty or sixty miles, up one day, and back the next, and to the people along the route were important personages. Many we found were from New Hampshire, and Western New York. Usually they were a roving class; but when they once settled down to stage-driving, they seldom left it permanently. There seemed to be a fascination about the life, hard as it was, and we found many of these Jehus who had been driving for years, and never expected to quit it. They were fond of tobacco and whiskey, and rolled out ponderous oaths, when things did not go to suit them; but as a rule, they were hearty and generous fellows, and were doing the world good service. As bearers of the U. S. Mail, they felt themselves kings of the road, and were seldom loth to show it. "Clar the road! Git out of the way thar with your bull-teams!" was a frequent salutation, when overtaking or meeting wagon-trains; and if this was not complied with quickly, they made little hesitation in running into the oxen, and swearing till all was blue. I have a vivid recollection of one instance of the kind, when we ran into an ox-team, and the justly exasperated teamster sent us his compliments, in the shape of a bullet whizzing through the air, as we whirled away again.
In fellow-passengers we were remarkably lucky. Col. B. was a good specimen of the ups and downs of an average Westerner. He was a graduate of West Point, or at least had been a cadet there, and afterwards served some years in the Regular Army. Retiring to civil life, he subsequently was elected Lieut.-Governor of a western state, and afterwards became Governor—the incumbent dying. When the war broke out, he turned up as Colonel of a volunteer regiment; and now, like the Irishman, having been "promoted backward," was vegetating as sutler at a post on the Plains. He was a man of rare wit and intelligence, of infinite jest and humor (his own worst enemy), and we were sorry to part when he reached his post. Then we had a Swiss artist, M. Buchser, sent over by his government to make a grand painting illustrative of our late war, embracing our most famous statesmen and generals, for the Capitol at