USA > Idaho > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 40
USA > Montana > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 40
USA > Oregon > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 40
USA > Washington > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 40
USA > Wyoming > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 40
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Sanderson's store at Stockton. While there, I made the money which brought me here, and I came here because of the favorable reports in cir- culation regarding the placer.
"' I am a Spaniard, and speak only the Spanish language. The very little that I know of your tongue I have learned since I came here. Natu- rally, I sought for associates among those with whom I could converse, and they were Mexicans. I have been well raised - taught to fear God and live honestly, and have ever tried to do so. This is the first time I was ever accused of crime. It is hard, gentlemen, that I should suffer for the crime of another, and that my name and memory should be blackened with so infamous, so terrible a charge as that of taking the life of a fellow-man. Gentlemen, I am innocent.'
" We were convinced of the truth of this state- ment, but, wishing to appear unmoved by his appeal, ordered him to resume his place in the line.
" The next prisoner addressed was an old man. Among the wrinkles which time had placed, a look of calm resignation beamed forth, which seeemed to say that he had no fear for the fate which was before him. Looking at
us with steady, unblenching eyes, he said, -
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" ' I have nothing to say to you. I know noth- ing whatever about this murder.' Turning to his companions, he continued, ' You all know me to be an honest, hard-working man. My wife and daughter, who are very dear to me, are living at Jesus Maria, where I have been mining. If any of you escape, bear to them from me my dying blessing. Tell them I die with a clear conscience, innocent, - and only regret that I am forced to die without the rites of my church.'
" We conducted him over the hill to the scaf- fold, and placing him under it, asked him if he would avail himself of the opportunity to escape.
"' I cannot,' he replied, ' for I know nothing. Your treatment is cruel, and if not here, you will certainly be called to account for it at the bar of God.'
"Impressed with his innocence, we sent him over the hill beyond, with the assurance that no harm should come to him. Two others were dis- posed of in the same manner. Our next prisoner, a keen-eyed young fellow of about twenty-five, evinced so much indifference that we removed him to the scaffold. When placed under the rope he became greatly alarmed, and consented to tell us all he knew. He narrated to us several murders, some upon hearsay, and others that he had wit-
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nessed, told where the remains of some could be found, but made no mention of Osborne, and evidently knew nothing about him. Our inquisi- tion of him was interrupted by the discharge of a g'un. We sent him to join the others while we hurried to the camp.
" As we ascended the hill, we saw one of the prisoners running at full speed across the valley towards the mountain, and several of our men in hot pursuit. Talifero, Broughton, and Gilson mounted their horses and followed, but the fellow reached a ledge of rocks inaccessible to their horses, and escaped. On returning to camp, the prisoners remaining were ordered to lie down with their faces to the earth. The young Cuban was alarmed, trembled violently, and prayed with ear- nest devotion for relief.
" During our absence one of the men had, with the consent of his guard, gone to an oak- tree standing near, and another at the same time a similar distance in an opposite direction. The former took the chance of running for his life ; the other, more closely guarded, failed of oppor- tunity. The runaway was fired upon and slightly wounded in the shoulder. The circumstance con- vinced us that these were the men whose conver- sation first aroused our suspicions. We imme-
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diately conducted the one in custody to the gallows. He was very obstinate, said he had noth- ing to tell us, and drawing a large sack of gold dust from his pocket, handed it to us, saying, -
"' Here, gentlemen, here is what you want. Take it and let me go.'
""' You have mistaken your men,' replied Tali- fero, 'we are neither robbers nor highwaymen. We are in search of the murderer of our friend. We are convinced that you know all about it. Take baek your gold, give us the information we seek, or it shall be buried with you.'
" John Morrison, having hold of the rope, ex- cited by the impudence of the fellow, here ob- served, -
"' Boys, let's choke him a little, anyhow.'
" The rope was adjusted to his neck, and John pulled it to an uncomfortable tension.
"'Hold a minute,' said the man, uplifting his arms, 'and let us talk this matter over a while. You say you'll spare my life if I'll tell where the captain is buried. What assurances have I that you will protect me ? You know my countrymen will kill me if possible, for making this exposure. It will be very difficult for you to shield me from their vengeance.'
"' We will use all possible precaution to pre-
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vent their ascertaining the source of our informa- tion,' replied Talifero. 'Or we will take you into our camp, or, if you wish to leave, furnish you with means and an escort for safety. Our honor is pledged to this. We only want to bring the guilty to justice.'
"' On those conditions I will tell you every- thing. Your friend, the captain, came into San Andreas one night the latter part of December. He had been drinking hard and was very talka- tive. He went to the fonda, made a great display of his gold dust, of which he had considerable, and bragged loudly of the number of Mexicans he had killed in the battle of Monterey. He seated himself at a table and called for a dish of chili concarney. While he was eating, the Chilano woman proposed to her husband that he should kill him and take his money. He refused, but she
insisted. Finally, he stabbed him. Then the question arose, "How shall we dispose of the body ?" The woman said she would find a place for it. The doors of the fonda were closed and fastened. She took up a bed in the corner, and the husband and another man dug a hole under it, into which they laid the body, and covered it with dirt. The ground was levelled, the fresh dirt swept up, carried out and emptied into the
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gulch, and the bed replaced. By all means ar- rest the woman first, as she is most guilty. Go back with me. I will disguise myself and go with you into the fonda, and stand in the corner where the captain is buried.'
" As soon as this disclosure was made, we re- moved the rope from the neck of the man, and returned with him to camp. After preparing a good breakfast, one of our boys went after and soon came in with the men who were supposed to have been hanged, and the entire company sat down on the sward and ate heartily. When our prisoner saw that no harm had been done to those whose examination had preceded his, he mani- fested some token of regret at having fallen into the trap we had set, which, though quiet, did not escape our observation. Breakfast over, we apolo- gized to the Mexicans for the harsh measures we had employed, and parted with them on the most friendly terms. We were greatly prepossessed in favor of the young Cuban, and made up for him a handsome purse, which he accepted with many expressions of gratitude.
"Soon after they left us, we started with our prisoner for San Andreas. When we arrived within two or three miles of the town, we stopped for consultation. Our prisoner said that we had
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misunderstood him. It was the man who escaped who knew where the captain was buried. He would ascertain from him and tell us. We re- sorted to hanging a second time, but without effect. Relying upon the information we had re- ceived, which we thought sufficient, we again removed the rope, and proceeded to town in full force and well armed. The escaped Mexican had arrived there before us, and spread the report that we had hanged all his comrades, and that he had escaped with a shot-gun wound in the shoulder. The town was full of gamblers who were especially friendly with their patrons, the Mexicans. They censured and threatened us. We defied them. Proceeding in a body to the fonda, we found it had been suddenly vacated. The man and woman who kept it had taken the alarm and fled. Our prisoner professed ignorance of everything. We
removed the bed, dug beneath, and found the re- mains of our murdered comrade. Every possible effort was made to arrest the murderers, but they had a day's start of us, and there were neither telegraphs nor railroads to stop or overtake them. They left San Francisco for Chili, where, we were afterwards told, they arrived in safety. We set our prisoner free, with a gentle admonition as to his future conduct, which we have every reason to believe he religiously observed."
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CHAPTER XXIV.
AN INTERESTING ADVENTURE.
ROUTES BY YELLOWSTONE AND MISSOURI IN MACKINAWS - DESCRIPTION OF YELLOWSTONE - WONDERS AT ITS SOURCE - LOWER CANON - REMARKABLE EROSIONS - POMPEY'S PILLAR - BAD LANDS - THREE FORKS - GREAT FALLS - GATE OF THE MOUNTAINS - FORT BENTON - JACK SIMMONS'S NARRATIVE - JOHNNY - ERODED ROCKS - FIGHT WITH GRIZZLIES - HERD OF BUFFALOES - WOODCUTTERS - BATTLE WITH THE SIOUX - INDIAN MODE OF MAKING MEDICINE - WAR DANCE - TERRIBLE ONSLAUGHT - DEPARTURE AND DEATH WAIL OF THE INDIANS - JOIINNY ON THE WATCH - FORT BUFORD - HOSPITABLE RECEPTION - ARRIVAL OF THE "LUELLA " - JOHNNY'S STORY -- A STARTLING REVELATION.
FOR the first three or four years after the set- tlement of Montana, a favorite mode of returning to the States was by Mackinaw boat, down one or both of the two great rivers whose upper waters traverse the Territory. The water trip, if not less exposed to Indian attack, was pleasanter, less la- borious and expensive, and sooner accomplished than the long, weary journey by the plains.
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The upper portions, both of the Missouri and Yellowstone, pass through a country abounding in some of the grandest, most unique, and most richly diversified scenery on the continent. Of themselves the rivers are very beautiful, - their waters pure, cold, broken into frequent rapids ; at one moment passing through tremendous cañons and gorges ; at the next, babbling along wide- spread meads; and anon, as if by a transformation of enchantment, dashing into the midst of a deso- lation which realizes all the descriptive horrors of Dante's "Inferno,"- they afford to the eye a greater variety of picturesque beauty than any of the other great rivers of the continent. A jour- ney down them in a Mackinaw boat is an incident to fill a prominent place in the most adventurous life.
The point selected for embarkation on the Yellowstone was about twelve miles above the spot where Captain Lewis started on his descent of the river, when returning from the famous ex- pedition of 1804, 5-6. An isolated grove of lofty cottonwoods has grown upon the only soil within miles, under the overhanging crags of a cañon whose sombre walls lift themselves three thousand feet or more into the atmosphere. The river glides through those strong jaws with the swiftness and
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silence of a huge serpent escaping its pursuers, forming an eddy just in front of the grove, which, being convenient of access, was early selected as a favorable place for the construction of boats and embarkation of companies.
At this grove, in the fall of 1865, a company of six hundred persons commenced, in forty-three boats of different patterns, the long journey of three thousand miles to the States. The distance to the mouth of the Yellowstone was eight hundred and twenty miles, and little more was known of its general character at that time than could be derived from the geographical memoir written by Captain Lewis sixty years before. A gentleman who belonged to the party has informed me that, after the first day's sail, he had learned to confide so fully in this narrative for geographical accu- racy, that he was enabled to anticipate, long be- fore reaching them, every prominent landmark and rapid mentioned in it. No better geographers than Lewis and Clarke have, since their time, vis- ited the country which they explored; but their book, valuable as it must ever prove for its histori- cal and topographical accuracy, left untold the surpassing grandeur and novelty of the scenes through which they passed. There is not a river in the world which, for its entire length of one
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thousand miles, presents with the same grandeur and magnificence so much of novelty and variety in the stupendous natural architecture that adorns its banks. Its source is in a beautiful lake, un- like, in general character and appearance, any other body of water on the globe. It is sur- rounded by innumerable warm and hot springs, sulphur deposits, and mud volcanoes. At a few miles distance is the largest geyser basin in the world, and close at hand stupendous cataracts and beautiful cascades. Here, too, is a cañon which for forty miles of distance is filled with physical wonders, so numerous, strange, and various as to defy description, and almost surpass comprehen- sion.
The wonders of the Upper Yellowstone were first brought to the knowledge of the people of Montana, by David E. Folsom and C. W. Cook ; though there is good reason to believe that they were seen by the soldiers of Captain Bonneville's command as early as 1834, and that Washington Irving, in the preparation of the report of that officer's expedition, was furnished with a descrip- tion of them which he rejected as too incredible for belief. Mr. Folsom had often heard vague and uncertain rumors of the strange phenomena to be seen near the head waters of the Snake and
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Yellowstone rivers. He was told that the Indians, taking counsel of their superstitious fears, be- lieved that region to be the abode of evil spirits, and in their nomadic journeyings carefully avoided all near approach to it. This story, gathering in volume and embellishment as it was circulated through the mining camps, so wrought upon his curiosity that, in July, 1869, he and Mr. Cook made a partial exploration of the region to solve their doubts. Bewildered and astounded at the marvels they beheld, they were unwilling to risk their reputations for veracity by a full recital of them to a small company of citizens of Helena, assembled to hear the account of their explora- tions ; Mr. Folsom, however, published a careful account of his expedition in 1870, in the Chicago Western Monthly, and this, with such informa- tion as could be gleaned from him, led to the organization, in August, 1870, of the Washburn exploring expedition, of which the writer was a member. The range of discoveries was so greatly extended by this latter expedition, and by the additions made a year afterwards by Professor Hayden, that Congress was induced to set apart the entire locality as a National Park.
Two hundred miles below this immense field of novelties, we arrive at the mouth of the cañon
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whence the river has been of late years frequently navigated, by Mackinaw and flat boats, to its union with the Missouri. Of this portion, but little has yet been written except by scientific explorers. For the first eighty miles of the distance, the river, almost a continuous rapid, rolls between gently undulating banks, dotted at intervals with clumps of stunted pines. Frequent ledges of rock jut into the stream, and wherever a bend or pro- jection has served to arrest the flow of débris in time of flood, or catch the detritus washed from the rocks, a little bottom affords sustenance to a dense growth of majestic cottonwoods. This feature is prominent in the river scenery until the stream enters the Bad Lands four hundred miles below the cañon. These groves, unlike the irreg- ular groves that adorn the Eastern rivers, present to the voyager a straight regular outline on all sides, a feature imparted to them by the beavers, which cut down unsparingly both great and small trees outside the given spaces. This perfect reg- ularity, always at right angles with the upland shore, gives to these frequent groves the appear- ance of artificial cultivation, and in the very midst of one of the most boundless solitudes in the world, the observer frequently finds himself in- dulging a thought that there may be some old
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medieval castle still standing within the shadow of these trees.
After one has sailed about eighty miles, and finds himself descending an expansive reach of the river, the eye is suddenly attracted by the ap- pearance on the right of an immense and seem- ingly interminable ridge of yellow rocks, very high, precipitous, and crowned along its summit by a forest of stunted pines. It is several miles distant, and its sheer, vertical sides gleam in the sunlight like massive gold. Far away it stretches seemingly on an air line beyond the field of vision, presenting few inequalities of surface, and none of the features of ordinary mountain scenery.
The Happy Valley of Rasselas was not more strongly protected against outside intrusions by the precipices surrounding it, than is this portion of the Yellowstone valley from all access by those who dwell beyond this ridge of sandstone.
At a distance of ten miles or more from where it first appears, the river has worn its way through it. We enter the massive gorge. Higher and higher rise the gleaming cliffs, seemingly straight up from the river's bed, until sunlight disappears, and the blue sky above you spans like a roof the confronting erags. The illusion vanishes with
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decreasing height, the gloom painted in darkness upon the frightened stream grows again into sun- light, and for the next few miles you pass through banks of green adorned on either hand with cita- dels, temples, towers, turrets, spires, and castellated ruins, all deftly wrought by the wind and rain upon the exposed portions of the yellow rock. Neither the Hudson, with its green hills and mas- sive knobs, nor the Columbia, with its crags and beetling cliffs, presents anything at all comparable to this. At one moment you look up at the sheer sides of a temple wrought into a form not unlike that of Edfou or Denderah, except as it surpasses them in its magnificent dimensions, all its sides presenting in the vitrified fractures of the layers of rock, regular rows of seeming hieroglyphics, and its conical, time-worn summit, gray and smooth with the frosts and storms of centuries. A little beyond stand the remains of a castle; and still farther on, seemingly equidistant from each other, three or four stately towers ; then comes a massive citadel of stone, with embrasures, walls, and portholes, all the apparent paraphernalia of a mighty fortress.
These scenes, with all the variety that Nature observes in her works, occur at intervals of thirty or forty miles, every time the river penetrates the
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ridge, for a distance of two hundred miles; and all the way between these passages, on one side or the other of the beautiful stream, you behold stretching along upon the most exact of natural lines the pine-crowned ridge itself, skirted by meadow reaching to the margin. Before quite losing this grand exhibition, the river, fed by Clark's Fork, the Rosebud, and the Big Horn, changes its character. The waters become dark and turbid, and spread out to more than a mile in width. The valley expands correspondingly, and the foot-hills and mountains are more distant. About midway of this passage through the yellow sandstone, Pompey's Pillar, a table of rock sepa- rated by the river from the main ridge, stands isolated, towering to a height of several hundred feet over the plain, on the brink opposite. Its summit of less than half an acre, accessible with difficulty on the inland side, according to Captain Lewis, affords an extensive view of the surround- ing country.
At the mouth of the Big Horn the last view of the Rocky Mountains, which thus far have enliv- ened the scenery with their varied phenomena of storm and sunlight, fades upon the vision, and your voyage lies for several miles through a richer agricultural region than any you have yet seen.
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Here are fine meadows covered with bunch-grass, and, upon the distant hills, herds of elks, flocks of mountain sheep, antelopes, and deer. The temp- tation, often too great to be resisted, makes the hunter forgetful of Crows and Sioux, and some- times lures him to his death. The rapids now become less frequent, though several of them are more formidable. At one point, where the river passes through the ridge for a distance of six miles, it has no channel of sufficient depth to float an ordinary Mackinaw, and voyagers are obliged by main force to push their boats into the pool below. Captain Lewis gave to this obstruction the name of Buffalo Shoals. A few miles below this he saw, in the midst of a formidable rapid, a grizzly bear upon a rock, and gave to the place the name of Bear Rapids.
The early hunters and trappers of the North- west found no region more favorable for their pursuit than the central valley of the Yellowstone. Here eame Ashley, and Bridger, and Culbertson, and Sarpie, as early as 1817. The latter built a fort, which he called Fort Alexander, some remains of which are still standing on the margin of one of the most delightful meadows in the valley.
The last and most fearful rapid of the Yellow- stone is near the mouth of the Tongue river, and
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was named by Captain Lewis, Wolf Rapid, because he killed a wolf near it. The river is here lashed into a fury. The roar of the rapid is heard for several miles, and the tossing spray and seething foam can be seen at considerable distance. The experiment of descending it has much to excite the fears of a person unaccustomed to river travels, but as yet it has been unmarked by accident.
Below this rapid we enter upon the last one hundred and eighty miles between us and the Missouri. The river, which to this point has dis- played its beauties in long reaches of ten and twelve miles, now becomes crooked like the Mis- souri. Its banks are constantly crumbling, and its channel as constantly shifting. Everything in sight but adds to the desolation of the scenery, and the traveller finds it hard to realize that he is sailing on the same river which he beheld but yesterday so gloriously arrayed. The same gene- ral features are apparent to its mouth. It is much larger and wider than the Missouri at its junction with it, and increases to more than twice its size the latter, which, as all are aware, for more than a thousand miles below the Yellowstone has fewer attractions than any other river in the world.
Not so, however, the upper Missouri. That, like the Yellowstone, passes through a picturesque
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and beautiful country. From its source, where the Madison, Jefferson, and Gallatin unite to form it, to Fort Benton, a distance of two hundred miles, it exhibits a great variety of interesting and stupendous scenery, both of water, valley, rock, and mountain. There are the Great Falls, the Gate of the Mountains, and the passage of the river through numerous canons, which, in any other portion of the country than the mountains and rocks of Montana, would be unparalleled for grandeur and sublimity.
Fort Benton, one of the early posts built by the American and Northwestern Fur Companies, is at the virtual head of steamboat navigation on the Missouri, in the midst of a country formerly oc- cupied by the Blackfeet Indians, -the most im- placable of all the mountain tribes in their hatred of the whites. From the time of the arrival of the first settlers of Montana in 1862, until the completion of railroads into the Territory, Fort Benton was the commercial depot of the Territory. During the period of high water every spring it is visited by steamboats freighted at St. Louis with merchandise for the great number of traders in the interior towns. A considerable town has sprung up within the shadows of the old post.
A trip from Fort Benton to the States in a
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Mackinaw, though full of danger, was always in- viting, while the same trip by the overland stage, though comparatively safe, was ever repulsive. In the latter part of August, 1866, Andrew J. Simmons, a citizen of Helena, and ten companions, after a wagon journey of one hundred and forty miles, alighted on the levée at Fort Benton, en route to the States. In a letter to me descriptive of this journey, Mr. Simmons writes, -
" The varied fortunes and migrating tendencies of the gold miner, in following the great periodi- cal excitements, had cast our lots together through rough and pleasant places, through adversity and prosperity in many of the mining camps of the Pacific slope; and now, having accomplished a successful mining season in the Rocky Moun- tains, a visit to home and friends was determined upon by descending the Missouri river in a Macki- naw. In three days our craft was completed. She was as stanch as pine lumber and nails could make her. She was thirty-three feet in length, seven and a half feet beam, and ten inches rake. Sharp at both ends, and ample for our accommo- dation, she was a trim built, rakish-looking craft, which rode the current majestically, and chal- lenged the admiration of all observers.
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