USA > Oregon > The Oregon trail : sketches of prairie and Rocky Mountain life > Part 3
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We were in all four men with eight animals; for besides the spare horses led by Shaw and myself, an additional mule was driven along with us as a reserve in case of accident.
After this summing up of our forces, it may not be amiss , to glance at the characters of the two men who accom- 40 panied us.
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THE OREGON TRAIL
Deslauriers was a Canadian, with all the characteristics of the true Jean Baptiste.º Neither fatigue, exposure, nor hard labor could ever impair his cheerfulness and gayety, nor his obsequious politeness to his bourgeois°; and when 5 night came he would sit down by the fire, smoke his pipe, and tell stories with the utmost contentinent. In fact, the prairie was his congenial element. Heury Chatillon was of a different stamp. When we were at St. Louis, several gentlemen of the fur companyº had kindly offered to pro- Io cure for us a hunter and guide suited for our purposes, and on coming one afternoon to the office, we found there a tall and exceedingly well-dressed man, with a face so open and frank that it attracted our notice at once. We were surprised at being told that it was he who wished to 15 guide us to the mountains. He was born in a little French town near St. Louis, and from the age of fifteen years had been constantly in the neighborhood of the Rocky moun- tains, employed for the most part by the company to supply their forts with buffalo meat. As a hunter he had but one 20 rival in the whole region, a man named Simoneau, with whom, to the honor of both of them, he was on terms of the closest friendship. He had arrived at St. Louis the day before, from the mountains, where he had remained for four years; and he now only asked to go and spend a day 25 with his mother before setting out on another expedition. His age was about thirty; he was six feet high, and very powerfully and gracefully molded. The prairies had been his school; he could neither read nor write, but he had a natural refinement and delicacy of mind such as is very 30 rarely found, even in women. His manly face was a perfect mirror of uprightness, simplicity, and kindness of heart; he had, morcover, a keen perception of character, and a tact that would preserve him from flagrant error in any society. Henry had not the restless energy of an Anglo-American.
35 He was content to take things as he found them; and his chief fault arose from an excess of casy generosity, impelling him to give away too profusely ever to thrive in the world. Yet it was commonly remarked of him, that whatever he might choose to do with what belonged to himself, the 40 property of others was always safe in his hands. His brav- ery was as much celebrated in the mountains as his skill in
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hunting; but it is characteristic of him that in a country where the rifle is the chief arbiter between man and man, Henry was very seldom involved in quarrels. Once or twice, indeed, his quiet good-nature had been mistaken and presumed upon, but the consequences of the error 5 were so formidable that no one was ever known to repeat it. No better evidence of the intrepidity of his temper could be wished than the common report that he had killed more than thirty grizzly bears. He was a proof of what unaided nature will sometimes do. I have never, 10 in the city or in the wilderness, met a better man than my noble and true-hearted friend, Henry Chatillon.
We were soon free of the woods and bushes, and fairly upon the broad prairie. Now and then a Shawanoe passed us, riding his little shaggy pony at a "lope"º; his calico 15 shirt, his gaudy sash, and the gay handkerchief bound around his snaky hair fluttering in the wind. At noon we stopped to rest not far from a little creek replete with frogs and young turtles. There had been an Indian en- campment at the place, and the framework of their lodgesº 20 still remained, enabling us very easily to gain a shelter from the sun, by merely spreading one or two blankets over them. Thus shaded, we sat upon our saddles, and Shaw for the first time lighted his favorite Indian pipe; while Deslauriers was squatted over a hot bed of coals, 25 shading his eyes with one hand, and holding a little stick in the other, with which he regulated the hissing contents of the frying-pan. The horses were turned to feed among the scattered bushes of a low oozy meadow. A drowsy springlike sultriness pervaded the air, and the voices of ten 30 thousand young frogs and insects, just awakened into life, rose in varied chorus from the creek and the meadows.
Scarcely were we seated when a visitor approached. This was an old Kansas Indian; a man of distinction, if one might judge from his dress. His head was shaved 35 and painted red, and from the tuft of hair remaining on the crown dangled several eagle's feathers, and the tails of two or three rattlesnakes. His cheeks, too, were daubed with vermilion; his ears were adorned with green glass pendants; a collar of grizzly bears' claws surrounded his 40 neck and several large necklaces of wampum hung on his
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THE OREGON TRAIL
breast. Having shaken us by the hand with a cordial grunt of salutation, the old man, dropping his red blanket from his shoulders, sat down cross-legged on the ground. In the absence of liquor we offered him a cup of sweetened 5 water, at which he ejaculated "Good !" and was beginning to tell us how great a man he was, and how many Pawnees he had killed, when suddenly a motley concourse appeared wading across the creek toward us. They filed past in rapid succession, men, women, and children; some were Io on horseback, some on foot, but all were alike squalid and wretched. Old squaws, mounted astride of shaggy, meager little ponies, with perhaps one or two snake-eyed children seated behind them, clinging to their tattered blankets; tall lank young men on foot, with bows and arrows in their 15 hands; and girls whose native ugliness not all the charms of glass beads and scarlet cloth could disguise, made up the procession; although here and there was a man who, like our visitor, seemed to hold some rank in this respectable community. They were the dregs of the Kansas nation, 20 who, while their betters were gone to hunt the buffalo, had left the villageº on a begging expedition to Westport.
When this ragamuffin horde had passed, we caught our horses, saddled, harnessed, and resumed our journey. Fording the creek, the low roofs of a number of rude build- 25 ings appeared, rising from a cluster of groves and woods on the left; and riding up through a long lane, amid a pro- fusion of wild roses and early spring flowers, we found the log-church and school-houses belonging to the Methodist Shawanoe mission. The Indians were on the point of 30 gathering to a religious meeting. Some scores of them. tall men in half-civilized dress, were seated on wooden benches under the trees; while their horses were tied to the sheds and fences. Their chief, Parks, a remarkably large and athletic man, was just arrived from Westport. 35 where he owns a trading establishment. Beside this, he has a fine farm and a considerable number of slaves. In- deed the Shawanoes have made greater progress in agri- culture than any other tribe on the Missouri frontier; and both in appearance and in character form a marked contrast 40 to our late acquaintance, the Kansas.
A few hours' ride brought us to the banks of the river
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3 1833 03018 9432 C C
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BREAKING THE ICE
Kansas. Traversing the woods that lined it, and plowing through the deep sand, we encamped not far from the bank, at the Lower Delaware crossing. Our tent was erected for the first time on a meadow close to the woods, and the camp. preparations being complete we began to 5 think of supper. An old Delaware woman, of some three hundred pounds' weight, sat in the porch of a little log- house close to the water, and a very pretty half-breed girl was engaged, under her superintendence, in feeding a large flock of turkeys that were fluttering and gobbling 10 about the door. But no offers of money, or even of to- bacco, could induce her to part with one of her favorites; so I took my rifle, to see if the woods or the river could furnish us anything. A multitude of quails were plain- tively whistling in the woods and meadows; but nothing 15 appropriate to the rifleº was to be seen, except three buz- zards, seated on the spectral limbs of an old dead syca- more, that thrust itself out over the river from the dense sunny wall of fresh foliage. Their ugly heads were drawn down between their shoulders, and they seemed to luxuriate 20 in the soft sunshine that was pouring from the west. As they offered no epicurean temptations, I refrained from disturbing their enjoyment; but contented myself with admiring the calm beauty of the sunset, for the river, eddying swiftly in deep purple shadows between the im- 25 pending woods, formed a wild but tranquillizing scene.
When I returned to the camp I found Shaw and an old Indian seated on the ground in close conference, passing the pipe between them. The old man was explaining that he loved the whites, and had an especial partiality for 30 tobacco. Deslauriers was arranging upon the ground our service of tin cups and plates; and as other viands were not to be had, he set before us a repast of biscuit and bacon, and a large pot of coffee. Unsheathing our knives, we attacked it, disposed of the greater part, and tossed 35 the residue to the Indian. Meanwhile our horses, now hobbled° for the first time, stood among the trees, with their fore-legs tied together, in great disgust and astonish- ment. They seemed by no means to relish this foretaste of what was before them. Mine, in particular, had con- 40 ceived a mortal aversion to the prairie life. One of them,
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THE OREGON TRAIL
christened Hendrick, an animal whose strength and hardi. hood were his only merits, and who yielded to nothing but the cogent arguments of the whip, looked toward us with an indignant countenance, as if he meditated aveng- 5 ing his wrongs with a kick. The other, Pontiac, a good horse, though of plebeian lineage, stood with his head drooping and his mane hanging about his eyes, with the grieved and sulky air of a lubberly boy sent off to school. Poor Pontiac ! his forebodings were but too just; for when 10 I last heard from him, he was under the lash of an Ogal- Iallah brave, on a war party against the Crows.
As it grew dark, and the voices of the whip-poor-wills succeeded the whistle of the quails, we removed our saddles to the tent, to serve as pillows, spread our blankets upon 15 the ground, and prepared to bivouac for the first time that season. Each man selected the place in the tent which he was to occupy for the journey. To Deslauriers, however, was assigned the cart, into which he could creep in wet weather, and find a much better shelter than his bourgeois 20 enjoyed in the tent.
The river Kansas at this point forms the boundary line between the country of the Shawanoes and that of the Delawares. We crossed it on the following day, rafting over our horses and equipage with much difficulty, and 25 unlading our cart in order to make our way up the steep ascent on the farther bank. It was a Sunday morning; warm, tranquil, and bright; and a perfect stillness reigned over the rough inclosures and neglected fields of the Dela- wares, except the ceaseless hum and chirruping of myriads 30 of insects. Now and then an Indian rode past on his way to the meeting-house, or through the dilapidated entrance of some shattered log-house an old woman might be dis- cerned, enjoying all the luxury of idleness. There was no village bell, for the Delawares have none; and yet upon 35 that forlorn and rude settlement was the same spirit of Sabbath repose and tranquillity as in some little New England village among the mountains of New Hampshire or the Vermont woods.
Having at present no leisure for such reflections, we 40 pursued our journey. A military road led from this point to Fort Leavenworth, and for many miles the farms and
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BREAKING THE ICE
cabins of the Delawares were scattered at short intervals on either hand. The little rude structures of logs, erected usually on the borders of a tract of woods, made a pictur- esque feature in the landscape. But the scenery needed no foreign aid. Nature had done enough for it; and the 5 alternation of rich green prairies and groves that stood in clusters, or lined the banks of the numerous little streams, had all the softened and polished beauty of a region that has been for centuries under the hand of man. At that early season, too, it was in the height of its freshness and 10 luxuriance. The woods were flushed with the red buds of the maple; there were frequent flowering shrubs unknown in the east; and the green swells of the prairie were thickly studded with blossoms.
Encamping near a spring by the side of a hill, we re- 15 sumed our journey in the morning, and early in the after- noon had arrived within a few miles of Fort Leavenworth. The road crossed a stream densely bordered with trees, and running in the bottom of a deep woody hollow. We were about to descend into it, when a wild and confused 20 procession appeared, passing through the water below, and coming up the steep ascent toward us. We stopped to let them pass. They were Delawares, just returned from a
hunting expedition. All, both men and women, were mounted on horseback, and drove along with them a 25 considerable number of pack mules, laden with the furs they had taken, together with the buffalo robes, kettles, and other articles of their traveling equipment, which, as well as their clothing and their weapons, had a worn and dingy aspect, as if they had seen hard service of late. At 30 the rear of the party was an old man, who, as he came up, stopped his horse to speak to us. He rode a little tough shaggy pony, with mane and tail well knotted with burrs, and a rusty Spanish bit in its mouth, to which, by way of reins, was attached a string of rawhide. His saddle, robbed 35 probably from a Mexican, had no covering, being merely a treeº of the Spanish form, with a piece of grizzly bear's skin laid over it, a pair of rude wooden stirrups attached, and in the absence of girth, a thong of hide passing around the horse's belly. The rider's dark features and keen snaky 40 eye were unequivocally Indian. He wore a buckskin frock,
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THE OREGON TRAIL
which, like his fringed leggings, was well polished and black- ened by grease and long service; and an old handkerchief was tied around his head. Resting on the saddle before hin lay his rifle; a weapon in the use of which the Delawares 5 are skillful; though, from its weight, the distant prairie Indians are too lazy to carry it.
" Who's your chief ?" he immediately inquired.
Henry Chatillon pointed to us. The old Delaware fixed his eyes intently upon us for a moment, and then senten- Io tiously remarked :
"No goodl Too young !" With this flattering com- ment he left us, and rode after his people.
This tribe, the Delawares, once the peaceful allies of William Penn,° the tributaries of the conquering Iroquois, I5 are now the most adventurous and dreaded warriors upon the prairies. They make war upon remote tribes, the very names of which were unknown to their fathers in their ancient seats in Pennsylvania; and they push these new quarrels with true Indian rancor, sending out their 20 little war parties as far as the Rocky mountains, and into the Mexican territories. Their neighbors and former confederates, the Shawanoes, who are tolerable farmers, are in a prosperous condition; but the Delawares dwindle every year, from the number of men lost in their warlike 25 expeditions.
Soon after leaving this party, we saw, stretching on the right, the forests that follow the course of the Missouri. and the deep woody channel through which at this point it runs. At a distance in front were the white barracks of 3º Fort Leavenworth, just visible through the trees upon an eminence above a bend of the river. A wide green meadow, as level as a lake, lay between us and the Missouri, and upon this, close to a line of trees that bordered a little brook. stood the tent of the captain and his companions, with 35 their horses feeding around it; but they themselves were invisible. Wright, their muleteer, was there, seated on the tongue of the wagon, repairing his harness. Boisverd stood cleaning' his rifle at the door of the tent, and Sorel lounged idly about. On closer examination, however, we 40 discovered the captain's brother, Jack, sitting in the tent, at his old occupation of splicing trail-ropes. He welcomed
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BREAKING THE ICE
us in his broad Irish brogue, and said that his brother was fishing in the river, and R. gone to the garrison. They returned before sunset. Meanwhile we erected our own tent not far off, and after supper a council was held, in which it was resolved to remain one day at Fort Leaven- 5 worth, and on the next to bid a final adieu to the frontier: or in the phraseology of the region, to "jump off !" Our deliberations were conducted by the ruddy light from a dis- tant swell of the prairie, where the long dry grass of last summer was on fire.
CHAPTER III
FORT LEAVENWORTH
ON the next morning we rode to Fort Leavenworth. Colonel, now General Kearny, to whom I had had the honor of an introduction when at St. Louis, was just ar- rived, and received us at his quarters with the high-bred 5 courtesy habitual to him. Fort Leavenworth is in fact no fort, being without defensive works, except two block- houses. No rumors of warº had as yet disturbed its tran- quillity. In the square grassy area, surrounded by bar- racks and the quarters of the officers, the men were pass- ro ing and repassing, or lounging among the trees; although not many weeks afterward it presented a different scene; for here the very offscourings of the frontier were con- gregated, to be marshaled for the expedition against Santa Fé.º
15 Passing through the garrison, we rode toward the Kicka- poo village, five or six miles beyond. The path, a rather dubious and uncertain one, led us along the ridge of high bluffs that bordered the Missouri; and by looking to the right or to the left, we could enjoy a strange contrast of 20 opposite scenery. On the left stretched the prairie, rising into swells and undulations, thickly sprinkled with groves, or gracefully expanding into wide grassy basins of miles in extent; while its curvatures, swelling against the horizon, were often surmounted by lines of sunny woods; a scene 25 to which the freshness of the season and the peculiar mel- lowness of the atmosphere gave additional softness. Below us, on the right, was a traet of ragged and broken woods. We could look down on the summits of the trees, some living and some dead; some erect, others leaning at every angle, 30 and others still piled in masses together by the passage of a hurricane. Beyond their extreme verge, the turbid waters of the Missouri were discernible through the boughs, rolling
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FORT LEAVENWORTH
powerfully along at the foot of the woody declivities on its farther bank.
The path soon after led inland; and as we crossed an open meadow we saw a cluster of buildings on a rising ground before us, with a crowd of people surrounding 5 them. They were the storehouse, cottage, and stables of the Kickapoo trader's establishment. Just at that moment, as it chanced, he was beset with half the Indians of the settlement. They had tied their wretched, neglected little ponies by dozens along the fences and outhouses, and were Ic either lounging about the place, or crowding into the trad- ing house. Here were faces of various colors; red, green, white, and black, curiously intermingled and disposed over the visage in a variety of patterns. Calico shirts, red and blue blankets, brass ear-rings, wampum necklaces, ap- 15 peared in profusion. The trader was a blue-eyed, open- faced man, who neither in his manners nor in his appear- ance betrayed any of the roughness of the frontier; though just at present he was obliged to keep a lynx eye on his suspicious customers, who, men and women, were climbing 20 on his counter, and seating themselves among his boxes and bales.
The village itself was not far off, and sufficiently illus- trated the condition of its unfortunate and self-abandoned occupants. Fancy to yourself a little swift stream, work- 25 ing its devious way down a woody valley; sometimes wholly hidden under logs and fallen trees, sometimes issu- ing forth and spreading into a broad, clear pool; and on its banks in little nooks cleared away among the trees, miniature log-houses in utter ruin and neglect. A laby- 30 rinth of narrow, obstructed paths connected these habita- tions one with another. Sometimes we met a stray calf, a pig or a pony, belonging to some of the villagers, who usually lay in the sun in front of their dwellings, and looked on us with cold, suspicious eyes as we approached. 35 Farther on, in place of the log-huts of the Kickapoos, we found the pukwi lodges of their neighbors, the Pottawat- tamies, whose condition seemed no better than theirs.
Growing tired at last, and exhausted by the excessive heat and sultriness of the day, we returned to our friend, 40 the trader. By this time the crowd around him had dis- --
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THE OREGON TRAIL
persed, and left him at leisure. He invited us to his cot- tage, a little white-and-green building, in the style of the old French settlements; and ushered us into a neat, well- furnished room. The blinds were closed, and the heat 5 and glare of the sun excluded; the room was as cool as a cavern. It was neatly carpeted too, and furnished in a manner that we hardly expected on the frontier. The sofas, chairs, tables, and a well-filled bookcase would not have disgraced an Eastern city; though there were one or Io two little tokens that indicated the rather questionable civilization of the region. A pistol, loaded and capped, lay on the mantelpiece; and through the glass of the book- ease, peeping above the works of John Milton,º glittered the handle of a very mischievous-looking knife.
15 Our host went out, and returned with iced water, glasses, and a bottle of excellent claret; a refreshment most wel- come in the extreme heat of the day; and soon after appeared a merry, laughing woman, who must have been, a year or two before, a very rich and luxuriant specimen 20 of Creoleº beauty. She came to say that lunch was ready in the next room. Our hostess evidently lived on the sunny side of life, and troubled herself with none of its cares. She sat down and entertained us while we were at table with anecdotes of fishing parties, frolics, and the 25 officers at the fort. Taking leave at length of the hospitable trader and his friend, we rode back to the garrison.
Shaw passed on to the camp, while I remained to call upon Colonel Kearny. I found him still at table. There sat our friend the captain, in the same remarkable habili- 30 ments in which we saw him at Westport; the black pipe, however, being for the present laid aside. He dangled his little cap in his hand and talked of steeple-chases, touching occasionally upon his anticipated exploits in buffalo-hunting. There, too, was R., somewhat more 35 elegantly attired. For the last time we tasted the luxuries of civilization, and drank adieus to it in wine good enough to make us almost regret the leave-taking. Then, mount- ing, we rode together to the camp, where everything was in readiness for departure on the morrow.
CHAPTER IV
"JUMPING OFF "
THE reader need not be told that John Bullº never leaves home without encumbering himself with the greatest possible load of luggage. Our companions were no excep- tion to the rule. They had a wagon drawn by six mules and crammed with provisions for six months, besides am- 5 munition enough for a regiment; spare rifles and fowling- pieces, ropes and harness; personal baggage, and a mis- cellaneous assortment of articles, which produced infinite embarrassment on the journey. They had also decorated their persons with telescopes and portable compasses, and Io carried English double-barreled rifles of sixteen-to-the- pound caliber,° slung to their saddles in dragoon fashion.
By sunrise on the twenty-third of May we had break- fasted; the tents were leveled, the animals saddled and harnessed, and all was prepared. " Avance doncº ! get up !" 15 cried Deslauriers from his seat in front of the cart. Wright, our friends' muleteer, after some swearing and lashing, got his insubordinate train in motion, and then the whole party filed from the ground. Thus we bade a long adieu to bed and board, and the principles of Blackstone's Com- 20 mentaries.º The day was a most auspicious one; and yet Shaw and I felt certain misgivings, which in the sequel proved but too well founded. We had just learned that though R. had taken it upon him to adopt this course without consulting us, not a single man in the party was 25 acquainted with it; and the absurdity of our friend's high- handed measure very soon became manifest. His plan was to strike the trail of several companies of dragoons, who last summer had made an expedition under Colonel Kearny to Fort Laramie, and by this means to reach the 30 grand trail of the Oregon emigrants up the Platte.
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