USA > Kansas > The northern tier: or, Life among the homestead settlers > Part 11
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His rebellious spirit, aided by a precocious genius, quickly devised a plan for his freedom, and he mentally adopted an individual declaration of independence in sight of the flag which floated in the breeze from a building across the street.
In the room there was an old-styled bedstead, the straw- tick and covering of which were supported by a rope fixture. Van Tansy deposited the bed-clothes on the floor, and with his jack-knife, the only article that occupied his pocket, cut the rope, and, detaching it from the bedstead, fastened one end and threw the other end of the rope out of the window, by which means he descended to the pavement without in- jury, save to his hands, which were chafed by the friction. He immediately decamped, bidding adieu forever to the house and its inmates, from which time forward they could discover no trace of him. It is known, however, that on the morning of each Fourth of July, at sunrise, he declared his independ- ence for the ensuing year; but of his wanderings after his reckless descent from the attic window, little is known.
As he was obliged to change his name to avoid pursuit, the practice of assuming aliases became a habit with which he could not afterwards dispense, without seriously interfer- ing with his plans and projects.
I have ascertained that he served in the army during the war of the Rebellion, though of that fact there is no positive 13
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evidence; but if the records of the War Department contain- ing the names of the privates in the different regiments were examined, doubtless the names George Lookout or Ditto Beverly might be found, as they are closely identified with that of Cuno Van Tansy on the tract-books of the Land Office. He claimed to have been in the army, but circumstances over which he had no control deprived him of the best evi- dence of that fact, discharge papers-whether withheld for disobedience or desertion is not known.
Be that as it may, the next reliable trace of him was in the spring of 1866, when a covered wagon crossed the Mis- souri river at St. Joseph, containing two men on their way to the frontier. One drove the spirited, well-fed team of horses, while his companion sat beside him on the seat with a violin, playing that lively, time-honored air among rollick- ing, fun-loving old stagers, known as "Over the River to
Charlie." It was ascertained that the fiddler of the outfit was Cuno Van Tansy, going West to "grow up with the country." On each side of the wagon-sheet was the follow- ing legend in large letters-"KANSAS OR BUST."
In the autumn of that year the grasshoppers first made their appearance in Northern Kansas, and late in the season the same team, driven by the same man, without the fiddler, went eastward. The only visible change in the horses was a
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lamentable lack of spirit, caused by an equally lamentable lack of flesh, while the faded, dust-covered wagon-sheet on each side bore the significant, melancholy word, "BUSTED."
Van Tansy was left in a "dug-out" somewhere between the Big Blue river and the sixth principal meridian, from which point his real-estate transactions branched out in sev- eral directions. It was his custom to pick up loose stones on the prairie and lay a foundation with four corners, claim the land, watch for immigrants, and sell his right to some one unacquainted with the land laws. He knew the num- bers of many tracts of land, would lay his foundations, then go on foot to the Land Office at Junction City, file on the tracts alternately in the names of George Lookout, Ditto Beverly and Cuno Van Tansy, then return to the land, watch for an immigrant, and sell his right. How often he engaged in such transactions, or in how many fictitious names he filed, is not known. He would sit for hours on one of those corner-stones watching for immigrants, whiling away the time playing on his violin, apparently as happy as Mark Tapley in his jolliest mood.
In many respects Cuno was a remarkable person. His ability to expatiate to an immigrant on the quality of the soil, the beauty of the country, the healthfulness of the cli- mate, etc., could not be surpassed by the most expert land
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agent, and it never failed to induce an immigrant to pur- chase the transient right of Cuno to a tract of land on which he had laid a temporary foundation of cobble-stones.
As the country settled rapidly, his shortcomings became too well known to settlers and immigrants, and he wisely concluded that the glory of the land business had forever de- parted; so he collected his earthly treasures and hied him away to the mountains, where, in the shadow of the lofty ranges, on the margin of the great lake, he joined the Mor- mons and became a sojourner in the suburbs of the city of the Latter Day Saints. No regrets were expressed at his de- parture, but he left as souvenirs on the tract-books in the Land Office, a series of enigmas, to unravel which an ingen- ious land agent and the clerks of the Department devoted time and patience without avail; and the names of George Lookout, Ditto Beverly and Cuno Van Tansy still remain a mystery, connected with declaratory statements for tracts of land coveted by railroad companies as a part of their grant.
There came a rumor of doubtful authenticity from the Far West, to the effect that Van Tansy could not forego his inher- ent desire to lay claim to various tracts of land, and that he had filed on a tract that had been allotted to an elder of high rank, and when the matter was investigated, Van Tansy, by adroitness, and with his usual facility for assuming aliases,
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asserted that he was not the party; that his name was Van Ditto Cuno, and actually proved his assertion by producing a certificate of a filing in that name made during his land transactions in Kansas! There came another rumor, that he was fortunate and successful in claiming his privileges under the rules and sanctions of polygamy; and as his real-estate transactions had been of a transitory nature, he claimed his plurality of wives by the same muniments of title, barring the doubtful practice of assuming aliases to which his divers and sundry spouses seriously demurred.
After a varied and eventful history he finally lost his life in a skirmish with the Indians, and his wives had his body decently interred at the base of the mountains, and caused a tombstone to be erected to his memory, bearing the follow- ing inscription :
"One shifty land agent less on earth, One angel more in Heaven !"
CHAPTER 16.
STAGING.
There seems to be a custom, or rather a habit, pertaining to frontier life, into which every one falls, particularly the first settlers-that of relating adventures and rehearsing the miraculous escapes and perilous dangers through which each old settler passed. There is no definite rule or system in re- gard to this kind of story-telling, but a spontaneous impulse on the part of those who, for lack of more exciting amuse- ment, become transient weights upon goods boxes that adorn the sidewalks in Western villages, while they lavishly de- scribe the early times, when they "went forty miles to mill, or to market their produce"-when Indian raids marred the pleasure of a hunt, and wolves howled around the cabins and "dug-outs" at night.
Since the advance of civilization, with its attendant im- provements and facilities, has lessened the hardships of the first settlers, they enjoy a rehearsal of the scenes of that early time when the journey to the commercial towns was made in covered wagons, requiring several days to make the trip,
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before stage-coaches made their appearance to convey the weekly mail and transient travelers.
Staging in the Republican valley was a feature of enter- prise, coexistent with the establishing of the Land Office, of which the writer had sufficient melancholy experience to ven- ture a description of it in these pages, as a dividing link in transportation facilities, between a toilsome journey in a cum- brous farm wagon and the handsome railway coaches that now convey one over the same route of travel in a few hours.
"All aboard !" shouted the driver, as he sat on the driver's seat in a small, cheerless-looking covered spring wagon, re- sembling a half-grown stage-coach of the present day, which the driver designated by the name of "jerky," as it stood in front of the Land Office at early dawn, while the morning star was yet shining, and the mercury below zero.
The driver was almost obscured with robes and blankets, while he held in check the restless horses, which evinced sundry acts of disobedience, doubtless augmented by coming in contact with the cold air, on being brought out of the stable. "All aboard!" shouted the impatient driver. There was no way of avoiding the journey.
The rules of the Department required that the receipts of the office, semi-monthly, must be conveyed to the depository, and the nearest express office was sixty miles away, with no
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stage route to it, and the "jerky" was bound for Junction City, seventy-five miles down the valley, requiring nearly two days to make the trip.
With doubtful prospects I entered the vehicle, the driver cracked his whip, and the "jerky" rattled away over the frozen ground down the valley. Two forlorn homestead set- tlers, who had taken claims and were going East for their families, were my traveling companions, and as the "jerky" rumbled over the rough ground, we were jostled, banged and battered sufficient to damage a cast-iron constitution. The sun rose bright, and the stillness of the morning, though cold, prompted us to hope for a mild day; but our hope ended not in fruition, but cheerless discomfort. As the dam- aged condition of the imitation of stage covering that inclosed the rickety bows of the "jerky " did not obstruct the vision, I discovered an embankment of dull, leaden-colored clouds lying along the northern horizon, that seemed to be slowly rising towards the zenith, while fitful gusts of small whirl- winds which dallied with "tumble-weeds" and detached por- tions of prairie- grass along the roadside, were omens that betokened an approaching snow storm.
No regular road had been established, and the trail made by immigrant wagons was the only guide for the driver, and while the route was down the valley, and a large portion of
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it level, yet at intervals we had to cross a divide or range of hills.
At the base of the first hill we reached, an unlooked-for delay occurred, by one of the horses refusing to go up the hill, and not only stood still, but manifested a decided prefer- ence for pulling backward instead of forward. In vain the driver applied his whip, accompanied with the usual amount of emphatic language from the stage-driver's vocabulary. We alighted and "put our shoulders to the wheel," but with- out avail, however, for we were compelled to walk up the hill -an exercise our chilled limbs needed - while the driver made a wide circuit, approaching the summit obliquely.
Meantime the sky became overcast with clouds and the snow began falling.
Late in the afternoon we arrived at the station for changing horses. By this time the snow was drifting, and danger of becoming lost on the prairie induced the driver to remain over night.
The station consisted of the dwelling of the owner-a "dug-out" and log cabin combined, and so arranged as to re- semble a "double" log cabin, with an open porch between, and a cheap straw-thatched Kansas stable, made by forks set in the ground, with poles laid across, covered with straw or
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prairie grass, the whole structure surrounded with straw and corn-shocks.
One room of the dwelling house was used for kitchen and dining-room combined, and the other used as a sitting-room with a fire-place, the jambs and mantel-piece laid up in the rough.
Into the latter we were conducted by the host, who left us to occupy seats while he went to the wood-pile to procure fuel to replenish an apology for a fire that feebly flickered between a green "back-log" and "fore-stick," reminding one of the end of life. He seemed to be lamentably slow as he shambled along with an armful of green cottonwood sticks, which he deposited promiscuously on the fading embers; and after fanning the embers into brightness with his slouched hat, he left us with the consoling remark :
"I guess it'll burn."
The green cottonwood sticks hissed like so many writhing serpents, and for all the heat or warmth they emitted one might as well have been sitting by a vanishing camp-fire on the shore of Hudson's Bay in midwinter.
I had heard of the "every-day ague" and the "third-day ague," but if I had been afflicted with both those diseases, with the "dumb ague" thrown in, I could not have been
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more chilled and uncomfortable than in that melancholy mood, as I gazed at that mass of cottonwood sticks hissing among the embers, while the storm without beat furiously against the clattering window-sash.
At length supper was announced, which might properly be called a second-class cold lunch, as the house was "out of coffee."
After supper I concluded our host had some redeeming qualities, as he brought in a basketful of corn-cobs, with which he built a roaring fire, and he entertained us with sev- eral lively airs on the violin, at which he seemed to be more expert than keeping a boarding-house or stage-station.
Our sleeping apartment was in that part of the building, in Western parlance, " up stairs," the route to which were the irregular rounds of a ladder, and the room, that which might be designated as the garret of a log cabin. Our sleeping- couch was a straw tick laid upon the floor, with a solitary blanket for covering. The gable end of the "up stairs" had a place or aperture for a window with the window left out, and in lieu thereof a segment of a wagon-cover fastened across it to prevent the snow and rain blowing into the room, which proved to be an insufficient barrier on the occasion of which I write. Sleep was out of the question with that wagon-sheet flapping, and the mournful sound of the wind
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as it penetrated every crevice, conveying the drifting snow into the chamber. At day-dawn I thrust aside the wagon- sheet and looked out over the desolate landscape to the east. The clouds had disappeared, the wind was decreasing in ve- locity, and I beheld a cold, cloudless sky. Near by was the ice-bound Republican ; on the other side of the river a range of dismal, snow-covered hills or bluffs, and beyond them the blue sky and twinkling stars fading away in the gray streaks of day-dawn.
We had a cold, cheerless journey on the following day to Junction City, where I deposited my package, consisting of a fragment of the Nation's revenue of considerable value, in the express office. Subsequently I made many such jour- neys over the same route, through storm or sunshine, varied only with the variations of the weather over which "Old Probabilities" had no control.
When the country became more thickly settled, and trav- elers penetrated this region, the Southwestern Stage Com- pany put on the roads their commodious stage-coaches, with a daily line from Waterville to Concordia, and for several years I made semi-monthly trips in those coaches to Water- ville, bearing the receipts of the office to the express office. Many of those journeys were enjoyable, barring an occasional trip during a rain or snow storm, and an occasional necessity
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requiring that I should recline on top of the coach the entire route, owing to the interior being crowded with women and children. At such times the kindness of the gentlemanly drivers served to dispel the otherwise dispiriting prospect of comfortable traveling.
The early settlers of the Republican and Solomon valleys will long remember the daily arrival of the stage-coaches, when the prospects for a railroad were doubtful, only en- livened by transient railroad meetings, appointing commit- tees and passing extravagant resolutions. But since the whistle of the locomotive has been heard in these valleys the stage-coaches are numbered among the things of the past. Yet they will be remembered among the scenes of frontier life, and the names of Scott and Benjamin as superintendents, and Murphy, Huggins, Conant, O'Toole and others, who handled the ribbons as drivers, will be remembered by those whose frontier traveling so long consisted of staging in North- western Kansas.
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