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                               CAMPMATES

                        _A Story of the Plains_

                             By KIRK MUNROE

          _Author of_ "THE FLAMINGO FEATHER," "WAKULLA," "DORYMATES,"
                         "DERRICK STERLING" ETC.


_Illustrated_

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON




[Illustration: "IT WAS A LIVE BABY."]




CONTENTS.


       I. A WEARY RIDE

      II. A RUDE BAPTISM

     III. A BOY WITHOUT A BIRTHDAY

      IV. "I JUST HATE TO STUDY"

       V. SWIMMING INTO A FRIENDSHIP

      VI. RECEIVING AN OFFER AND ACCEPTING IT

     VII. ACROSS THE MISSISSIPPI

    VIII. GLEN RUNS A LOCOMOTIVE

      IX. KANSAS CITY IN EARLY DAYS

       X. AT WORK WITH THE ENGINEER CORPS

      XI. ALMOST TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

     XII. STARTING ACROSS THE PLAINS

    XIII. BINNEY GIBBS AND HIS MULE

     XIV. ON GUARD AT NIGHT

      XV. THE SUSPICIOUS MOVEMENTS OF CERTAIN COYOTES

     XVI. IN THE HANDS OF THE CHEYENNES

    XVII. ATTACKING A STAGE RANCH

   XVIII. BUFFALO AND THEIR USES

     XIX. GLEN'S ESCAPE FROM THE INDIANS

      XX. A PRESENT THAT WOULD PLEASE ANY BOY

     XXI. LAME WOLF, THE YOUNG CHEYENNE

    XXII. GLEN AND BINNEY GET INTO TROUBLE

   XXIII. FIGHTING THE FINEST HORSEMEN IN THE WORLD

    XXIV. CROSSING THE QUICKSANDS

     XXV. SWEPT AWAY BY A FRESHET

    XXVI. RUNNING THE LINE

   XXVII. "COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY"

  XXVIII. LOST IN A MOUNTAIN SNOW-STORM

    XXIX. PLUNGING INTO A LAKE OF ICE-WATER

     XXX. DOWN THE LONELY CANON

    XXXI. KIT CARSON'S GOLD MINE

   XXXII. A NEW MEXICAN WEDDING

  XXXIII. IN THE VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE

   XXXIV. BAITING A WOLF-TRAP

    XXXV. EL MORO

   XXXVI. ZUNI, THE HOME OF THE AZTECS

  XXXVII. A PRACTICAL USE OF TRIGONOMETRY

 XXXVIII. DYING OF THIRST IN THE DESERT

   XXXIX. CROSSING THE SIERRA NEVADA

      XL. A HOME AND TWO FATHERS





ILLUSTRATIONS.


"IT WAS A LIVE BABY"

"TWO STALWART WARRIORS SEIZED HIM BY THE ARMS AND RAISED HIM BETWEEN
THEM AS THEY SWEPT PAST"

"THE STRANGE CRAFT WAS BORNE SLOWLY DOWN STREAM"

"'HEAD FOR THAT DARK SPACE, IT MARKS A VALLEY.... IF YOU FIND WATER,
FIRE YOUR PISTOL'"




_CAMP MATES._

_A Story of the Plains._




Chapter I.

A WEARY RIDE.


Slowly and heavily the train rumbled on through the night. It was called
an express; but the year was long ago, in the early days of railroading,
and what was then an express would now be considered a very slow and
poky sort of a train. On this particular night too, it ran more slowly
than usual, because of the condition of the track. The season was such a
wet one, that even the oldest traveller on the train declared he could
not remember another like it. Rain, rain, rain, day after day, for
weeks, had been the rule of that spring, until the earth was soaked like
a great sponge. All the rivers had overflowed their banks, and all the
smaller streams were raging torrents, red, yellow, brown, and sometimes
milky white, according to the color of the clays through which they cut
their riotous way. The lowlands and meadows were flooded, so that the
last year's hay-stacks, rising from them here and there, were veritable
islands of refuge for innumerable rabbits, rats, mice, and other small
animals, driven by the waters from their homes.

And all this water had not helped the railroad one bit. In the cuts the
clay or gravel banks were continually sliding down on the track; while
on the fills they were as continually sliding out from under it. The
section gangs were doubled, and along the whole line they were hard at
work, by night as well as by day, only eating and sleeping by snatches,
trying to keep the track in repair, and the road open for traffic. In
spite of their vigilance and unceasing labor, however, the rains found
plenty of chances to work their mischief undetected.

Many a time only the keen watchfulness of an engine-driver, or his
assistant, the fireman, saved a train from dashing into some gravel
heap, beneath which the rails were buried, or from plunging into some
yawning opening from which a culvert or small bridge had been washed
out. Nor with all this watchfulness did the trains always get through in
safety. Sometimes a bit of track, that looked all right, would suddenly
sink beneath the weight of a passing train into a quagmire that had been
formed beneath it, and then would follow the pitiful scenes of a
railroad wreck.

So nobody travelled except those who were compelled to do so, and the
passenger business of this particular road was lighter than it had been
since the opening. It was so light that on this night there were not
more than half a dozen persons in the single passenger coach of the
express, and only one of these was a woman. Another was her baby, a
sturdy, wholesome-looking little fellow, who, though he was but a year
old, appeared large enough to be nearly, if not quite, two. He had great
brown eyes, exactly like those of his mother. She was young and pretty,
but just now she looked utterly worn out, and no wonder. The train was
twelve hours late; and, instead of being comfortably established in a
hotel, at the end of her journey by rail, as she had expected to be
before dark that evening, she was wearily trying to sleep in the same
stuffy, jolting car she had occupied all day and had no hope of leaving
before morning.

There were no sleeping-cars in those days, nor vestibuled trains, nor
even cars with stuffed easy-chairs in which one could lie back and make
himself comfortable. No, indeed; there were no such luxuries as these
for those who travelled by rail at that time. The passenger coaches were
just long boxes, with low, almost flat roofs, like those of freight
cars. Their windows were small, and generally stuck fast in their
frames, so that they could not be opened. There was no other means of
ventilation, except as one of the end doors was flung open, when there
came such a rush of smoke and cinders and cold air that everybody was
impatient to have it closed again.

At night the only light was given by three candles that burned inside of
globes to protect them from being extinguished every time a door was
opened. There were no electric lights, nor gas, nor even oil-lamps, for
the cars of those days, only these feeble candles, placed one at each
end, and one in the middle of the coach. But worst of all were the
seats, which must have been invented by somebody who wished to
discourage railroad riding. They were narrow, hard, straight-backed, and
covered with shiny