USA > Oregon > The Oregon trail : sketches of prairie and Rocky Mountain life > Part 30
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I5 Our own horses now showed signs of fatigue, and we resolved to give them half a day's rest. We stopped at noon at a grassy spot by the river. After dinner Shaw and Henry went out to hunt; and while the men lounged about the camp, I lay down to read in the shadow of the cart.
20 Looking up, I saw a bull grazing alone on the prairie more than a mile distant. I was tired of reading, and taking my rifle I walked toward him. As I came near, I crawled upon the ground until I approached to within a hundred yards; here I sat down upon the grass and waited till he should 25 turn himself into a proper position to receive his death- wound. He was a grim old veteran. His loves and his battles were over for that season, and now, gaunt and war- worn, he had withdrawn from the herd to graze by himself and recruit his exhausted strength. He was miserably 3º emaciated; his mane was all in tatters; his hide was bare and rough as an elephant's, and covered with dried patches of the mud in which he had been wallowing. He showed all his ribs whenever he moved. He looked like some grizzly old ruffian grown gray in blood and violence, and scowling 35 on all the world from his misanthropic seclusion. The old savage looked up when I first approached, and gave me a fierce stare; then he fell to grazing again with an air of contemptuous indifference. The moment after, as if sud- denly recollecting himself, he threw up his head, faced quickly 40 about, and to my amazement came at a rapid trot directly toward me. I was strongly impelled to get up and run,
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but this would have been very dangerous. Sitting quite still, I aimed, as he came on, at the thin part of the skull above the nose. After he had passed over about three- quarters of the distance between us, I was on the point of firing, when, to my great satisfaction, he stopped short. 5 I had full opportunity to studying his countenance; his whole front was covered with a huge mass of coarse matted hair, which hung so low that nothing but his two fore feet were visible beneath it; his short thick horns were blunted and split to the very roots in his various battles, and across 10 his nose and forehead were two or three large white scars, which gave him a grim and at the same time a whimsical appearance. It seemed to me that he stood there motion- less for a full quarter of an hour, looking at me through the tangled locks of his mane. For my part, I remained 15 as quiet as he, and looked quite as hard; I felt greatly in-
clined to come to terms with him. "My friend," thought I, "if you'll let me off, I'll let you off." to have abandoned any hostile design. Very slowly and At length he seemed deliberately he began to turn about; little by little his side 20 came into view, all beplastered with mud. It was a tempt- ing sight. I forgot my prudent intentions, and fired my rifle; a pistol would have served at that distance. Round spun old bull like a top, and away he galloped over the prairie. He ran some distance, and even ascended a con- 25 siderable hill, before he lay down and died. After shooting another bull among the hills, I went back to camp.
At noon, on the fourteenth of September, a very large Santa Fè caravan came up. The plain was covered with the long files of their white-topped wagons, the close black 30 carriages° in which the traders travel and sleep, large droves of animals, and men on horseback and on foot. They all stopped on the meadow near us. Our diminutive cart and handful of men made but an insignificant figure by the side of their wide and bustling camp. Tête Rouge 35 went over to visit them, and soon came back with half a dozen biscuits in one hand and a bottle of brandy in the other. I inquired where he got them. "Oh," said Tête Rouge, "I know some of the traders. Dr. Dobbs is there besides." I asked who Dr. Dobbs might be. "One of our 40 St. Louis doctors," replied Tête Rouge. For two days
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past I had been severely attacked by the same disorder which had so greatly reduced my strength when at the mountains; at this time I was suffering not a little from the sudden pain and weakness which it occasioned. Tête 5 Rouge, in answer to my inquiries, declared that Dr. Dobbs
was a physician of the first standing. Without at all be- lieving him, I resolved to consult this eminent practitioner. Walking over to the camp, I found him lying sound asleep under one of the wagons. He offered in his own person 10 but an indifferent specimen of his skill, for it was five months since I had seen so cadaverous a face. His hat had fallen off, and his yellow hair was all in disorder; one of his arms supplied the place of a pillow; his pantaloons were wrinkled halfway up to his knees, and he was covered with little bits 15 of grass and straw, upon which he had rolled in his uneasy slumber. A Mexican stood near, and I made him a sign that he should touch the doctor. Up sprang the learned Dobbs, and, sitting upright, rubbed his eyes and looked about him in great bewilderment. I regretted the necessity of 20 disturbing him, and said I had come to ask professional advice. "Your system, sir, is in a disordered state," said he solemnly, after a short examination.
I inquired what might be the particular species of dis- order.
25 " Evidently a morbid action of the liver," replied the medical man; "I will give you a prescription."
Repairing to the back of one of the covered wagons, he scrambled in; for a moment I could see nothing of him but his boots. At length he produced a box which he had 30 extracted from some dark recess within, and opening it, he presented me with a folded paper of some size. " What is it?" said I. "Calomel," said the doctor.
Under the circumstances I would have taken almost anything. There was not enough to do me much harm, 35 and it might possibly do good; so at camp that night I took the poison instead of supper.
That camp is worthy of notice. The traders warned us not to follow the main trail along the river, "unless," as one of them observed, "you want to have your throats 40 cut !" The river at this place makes a bend ; and a smaller trail, known as the Ridge-path, leads directly across the
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prairie from point to point, a distance of sixty or seventy miles.
We followed this trail, and after traveling seven or eight miles, we came to a small stream, where we encamped. Our position was not chosen with much forethought or 5 military skill. The water was in a deep hollow, with steep, high banks; on the grassy bottom of this hollow we pick- eted our horses, while we ourselves encamped upon the barren prairie just above. The opportunity was admirable either for driving off our horses or attacking us. After Ic
dark, as Tête Rouge was sitting at supper, we observed him pointing with a face of speechless horror over the shoulder of Henry; who was opposite to him. Aloof amid the darkness appeared a gigantic black apparition; sol- emnly swaying to and fro, it advanced steadily upon us. 15 Henry, half vexed and half amused, jumped up, spread out his arms, and shouted. The invader was an old buf- falo bull, who with characteristic stupidity, was walking directly into camp. It cost some shouting and swinging of hats before we could bring him first to a halt and then 20 to a rapid retreat.
That night the moon was full and bright; but as the black clouds chased rapidly over it, we were at one moment in light and at the next in darkness. As the evening ad- vanced, a thunder-storm came up; it struck us with such 25 violence that the tent would have been blown over if we had not interposed the cart to break the force of the wind. At length it subsided to a steady rain. I lay awake through nearly the whole night, listening to its dull patter upon the canvas above. The moisture, which filled the tent and 30 trickled from everything in it, did not add to the comfort of the situation. About twelve o'clock Shaw went out to stand guard amid the rain and pitch darkness, Munroe, the most vigilant as well as one of the bravest among us, was also on the alert. When about two hours had passed, 35 Shaw came silently in, and touching Henry, called him in a low quick voice to come out. "What is it?" I asked. .
"Indians, I believe," whispered Shaw; "but lie still; I'll call you if there's a fight."
He and Henry went out together. I took the cover 40 from my rifle, put a fresh percussion cap upon it, and then,
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being in much pain, lay down again. In about five minutes Shaw came in again. " All right," he said, as he lay down to sleep. Henry was now standing guard in his place. He told me in the morning the particulars of the alarm. Mun- 5 roc's watchful eye discovered some dark objects down in the hollow, among the horses, like men creeping on all fours. Lying flat on their faces, he and Shaw crawled to the edge of the bank, and were soon convinced that what they saw were Indians. Shaw silently withdrew to call Io Henry, and they all lay watching in the same position. Henry's eye is one of the best on the prairie. He detected after a while the true nature of the moving objects; they were nothing but wolves creeping among the horses.
It is very singular that when picketed near a camp horses 15 seldom show any fear of such an intrusion. The wolves appear to have no other object than that of gnawing the trail-ropes of raw-hide by which the animals are secured. Several times in the course of the journey my horse's trail- rope was bitten in two by these nocturnal visitors.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE SETTLEMENTS
THE next day was extremely hot, and we rode from morning till night without seeing a tree or a bush or a drop of water. Our horses and mules suffered much more than we, but as sunset approached they pricked up their ears and mended their pace. Water was not far off. When we 5 came to the descent of the broad shallow valley where it lay, an unlooked-for sight awaited us. The stream glistened at the bottom, and along its banks were pitched a multitude of tents, while hundreds of cattle were feeding over the meadows. Bodies of troops, both horse and foot, and Io long trains of wagons with men, women, and children, were moving over the opposite ridge and descending the broad declivity in front. These were the Mormon bat- talion in the service of government, together with a con- siderable number of Missouri volunteers. The Mormons 15 were to be paid off in California, and they were allowed to bring with them their families and property. There was something very striking in the half-military, half-patriar- chal appearance of these armed fanatics, thus on their way with their wives and children, to found, it might be, a 20 Mormon empire in California. We were much more as- tonished than pleased at the sight before us. In order to find an unoccupied camping ground, we were obliged to pass a quarter of a mile up the stream, and here we were soon beset by a swarm of Mormons and Missourfans. The 25 United States officer in command of the whole came also to visit us, and remained some time at our camp.
In the morning the country was covered with mist We were always early risers, but before we were ready the voices of men driving in the cattle sounded all around us. 30 As we passed above their camp, we saw through the ob- scurity that the tents were falling and the ranks rapidly
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forming; and mingled with the cries of women and children, the rolling of the Mormon drums and the clear blast of their trumpets sounded through the mist.
From that time to the journey's end, we met almost 5 every day long trains of government wagons, laden with stores for the troops and crawling at a snail's pace toward Santa Fè.
Tête Rouge had a mortal antipathy to danger, but on a foraging expedition one evening, he achieved an adven- to ture more perilous than had yet befallen any man in the party. The night after we left the Ridge-path we en- camped close to the river. At sunset we saw a train of wagons encamping on the trail about three miles off; and though we saw them distinctly, our little cart, as it after- 15 ward proved, entirely escaped their view. For some days Tête Rouge had been longing eagerly after a dram of whisky. So, resolving to improve the present opportunity, he mounted his horse James, slung his canteen over his shoulder, and set forth in search of his favorite liquor. Some hours 20 passed without his returning. We thought that he was lost, or perhaps that some stray Indian had snapped him up. While the rest fell asleep I remained on guard. Late at night a tremulous voice saluted me from the darkness, and Tête Rouge and James soon became visible, advancing 25 toward the camp. Tête Rouge was in much agitation and big with some important tidings. Sitting down on the shaft of the cart, he told the following story :
When he left the camp he had no idea, he said, how late it was. By the time he approached the wagonsis it was 30 perfectly dark; and as he saw them all sitting around their fires within the circle of wagons, their guns laid by their sides, he thought he might as well give warning of his ap- proach, in order to prevent a disagreeable mistake. Rais- ing his voice to the highest pitch, he screamed out in pro- 35 longed accents, "Camp, ahoy !" This eccentric salutation produced anything but the desired result. Hearing such hideous sounds proceeding from the outer darkness, the wagoners thought that the whole Pawnee nation were about to break in and take their scalps. Up they sprang staring 40 with terror. Each man snatched his gun; some stood behind the wagons; some threw themselves flat on the
.
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ground, and in an instant twenty cocked muskets were leveled full at the horrified Tête Rouge, who just then began to be visible through the darkness.
"Thar they come," cried the master wagoner, "fire, fire ! shoot that feller."
5
"No, no !" screamed Tête Rouge, in an ecstasy of fright ; "don't fire, don't ! I'm a friend, I'm an American citizen !"
"You're a friend, be you ?" cried a gruff voice from the wagons, "then what are you yelling out thar for, like a wild Injun. Come along up here if you're a man." IC
"Keep your guns p'inted at him," added the master wagoner, "maybe he's a decoy, like."
Tête Rouge in utter bewilderment made his approach, with the gaping muzzles of the muskets still before his eyes. He succeeded at last in explaining his character and situa- 15 tion, and the Missourians admitted him into camp. He got no whisky; but as he represented himself as a great invalid, and suffering much from coarse fare, they made up a con- tribution for him of rice, biscuit, and sugar from their own rations. 20
In the morning at breakfast, Tête. Rouge once more related this story. We hardly knew how much of it to believe, though after some cross-questioning we failed to discover any flaw in the narrative. Passing by the wagoner's camp, they confirmed Tête Rouge's account 25 in every particular.
"I wouldn't have been in that feller's place," said one of them, "for the biggest heap of money in Missouri."
To Tête Rouge's great wrath they expressed a firm con- viction that he was crazy. We left them after giving them 30 the advice not to trouble themselves about war-whoops in future, since they would be apt to feel an Indian's arrow before they heard his voice.
A day or two after, we had an adventure of another sort with a party of wagoners. Henry and I rode forward to 35 hunt. After that day there was no probability that we should meet with buffalo, and we were anxious to kill one for the sake of fresh meat. They were so wild that we hunted all the morning in vain, but at noon as we approached Cow creek we saw a large band feeding near its margin. 40 Cow creek is densely lined with trees which intercept the
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view beyond, and it runs, as we afterward found, at the bottom of a deep trench. We approached by riding along the bottom of a ravine. When we were near enough, I held the horses while Henry crept toward the buffalo. I 5 saw him take his seat within shooting distance, prepare his rifle, and look about to select his victim. The death of a fat cow was certain, when suddenly a great smoke arose from the bed of the creek with a rattling volley of musketry. A score of long-legged Missourians leaped out from among Io the trees and ran after the buffalo, who one and all took to their heels and vanished. These fellows had crawled up the bed of the creek to within a hundred yards of the buffalo. Never was there a fairer chance for a shot. They were good marksmen; all cracked away at once, and yet 15 not a buffalo fell. In fact the animal is so tenacious of life that it requires no little knowledge of anatomy to kill it, and it is very seldom that a novice succeeds in his first attempt at approaching. The balked Missourians were ex- cessively mortified, especially when Henry told them that 20 if they nad kept quiet he would have killed meat enough in ten minutes to feed their whole party. Our friends, who were at no great distance, hearing such a formidable fusil- lade,° thought the Indians had fired the volley for our bene- fit. Shaw came galloping on to reconnoiter and learn if we 25 were yet in the land of the living.
At Cow creek we found the very welcome novelty of ripe grapes and plums, which grew there in abundance. At the little Arkansas, not much farther on, we saw the last buffalo, a miserable old bull, roaming over the prairie alone 3º and melancholy.
From this time forward the character of the country was changing every day. We had left behind us the great arid deserts, meagerly covered by the tufted buffalo grass, with its pale green hue, and its short shriveled blades. The 35 plains before us were carpeted with rich and verdant herbage sprinkled with flowers. In place of buffalo we found plenty of prairie hens, and we bagged them by dozens without leaving the trail. In three or four days we saw before us the broad woods and the emerald meadows of Council 40 grove, a scene of striking luxuriance and beauty. It seemed like a new sensation as we rode beneath the resounding
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arches of these noble woods. The trees were ash, oak, elm, maple, and hickory, their mighty limbs deeply overshadow- ing the path, while enormous grape vines were entwined among them, purple with fruit. The shouts of our scat- tered party, and now and then a report of a rifle, rang amid 5 the breathing stillness of the forest. We rode forth again with regret into the broad light of the open prairie. Little more than a hundred miles now separated us from the fron- tier settlements. The whole intervening country was a succession of verdant prairies, rising in broad swells and 10 relieved by trees clustering like an oasis around some spring. or following the course of a stream along some fertile hollow. These are the prairies of the poet and the novelist. We had left danger behind us. Nothing was to be feared from the Indians of this region, the Sacs and Foxes, the Kansas 15 and the Osages. We had met with signal good fortune. Although for five months we had been traveling with an insufficient force through a country where we were at any moment liable to depredation, not a single animal had been stolen from us, and our only loss had been one old mule 20 bitten to death by a rattlesnake. Three weeks after we reached the frontier the Pawnees and the Comanches began a regular series of hostilities on the Arkansas trail, killing men and driving off horses. They attacked, without ex- ception, every party, large or small, that passed during the 25 next six months.
Diamond spring, Rock creek, Elder grove, and other camping places besides, were passed all in quick succession. At Rock creek we found a train of government provision wagons, under the charge of an emaciated old man in his 30 seventy-first year. Some restless American devil had driven him into the wilderness at a time when he should have been seated at his fireside with his grandchildren on his knees. I am convinced that he never returned; he was complaining that night of a disease, the wasting effects 35 of which upon a younger and stronger man, I myself had proved from severe experience. Long ere this no doubt the wolves have howled their moonlight carnival over the old man's attenuated remains.
Not long after we came to a small trail leading to Fort 40 Leavenworth, distant but one day's journey. Tête Rouge
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here took leave of us. He was anxious to go to the fort in order to receive payment for his valuable military ser- vices. So he and his horse James, after bidding an affec- tionate farewell, set out together, taking with them as 5 much provision as they could conveniently carry, including a large quantity of brown sugar. On a cheerless rainy even- ing we came to our last encamping ground. Some pigs belonging to a Shawanoe farmer were grunting and rooting at the edge of the grove.
IO "I wonder how fresh pork tastes," murmured one of the party, and more than one voice murmured in response. The fiat went forth, "That pig must die," and a rifle was leveled forthwith at the countenance of the plumpest porker. Just then a wagon train, with some twenty Missourians, 15 came out from among the trees. The marksman suspended his aim, deeming it inexpedient under the circumstances to consummate the deed of blood.
In the morning we made our toilet as well as circumstances would permit, and that is saying but very little. In spite 20 of the dreary rain of yesterday, there never was a brighter and gayer autumnal morning than that on which we re- turned to the settlements. We were passing through the country of the half-civilized Shawanoes. It was a beautiful alternation of fertile plains and groves, whose foliage was 25 just tinged with the hues of autumn, while close beneath them rested the neat log-houses of the Indian farmers. Every field and meadow bespoke the exuberant fertility . of the soil. The maize stood rustling in the wind, matured and dry, its shining yellow cars thrust out between the gap- 30 ing husks. Squashes and enormous yellow pumpkins lay basking in the sun in the midst of their brown and shriveled leaves. Robins and blackbirds flew about the fences; and everything in short betokened our near approach to home and civilization. The forests that border on the Missouri 35 soon rose before us, and we entered the wide tract of shrub- bery which forms their outskirts. We had passed the same road on our outward journey in the spring, but its aspect was totally changed. The young wild apple-trees, then flushed with their fragrant blossoms, were now hung thickly 40 with ruddy fruit. Tall grass flourished by the roadside in place of the tender shoots just peeping from the warm and
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oozy soil. The vines were laden with dark purple grapes, and the slender twigs of the maple, then tasseled with their clusters of small red flowers, now hung out a gorgeous dis- play of leaves stained by the frost with burning crimson. On every side we saw the tokens of maturity and decay 5 where all had before been fresh and beautiful. We entered the forest, and ourselves and our horses were checkered, as we passed along, by the bright spots of sunlight that fell between the opening boughs. On either side the dark rich masses of foliage almost excluded the sun, though here and Io there its rays could find their way down, striking through the broad leaves and lighting them with a pure transparent green. Squirrels barked at us from the trees; coveys of young partridges ran rustling over the leaves below, and the golden oriole, the blue jay, and the flaming red-bird darted 15 among the shadowy branches. We hailed these sights and sounds of beauty by no means with an unmingled pleasure. Many and powerful as were the attractions which drew us toward the settlements, we looked back even at that moment with an eager longing toward the wilderness of prairies and 20 mountains behind us. For myself I had suffered more that summer from illness than ever before in my life, and yet to this hour I cannot recall those savage scenes and savage men without a strong desire again to visit them.
At length, for the first time during about half a year, we 25 saw the roof of a white man's dwelling between the opening trees. A few moments after we were riding over the mis- erable logbridge that leads into the center of Westport. Westport had beheld strange scenes, but a rougher looking troop than ours, with our worn equipments and broken- 30 down horses, was never seen even there. We passed the well-remembered tavern, Boone's grocery and old Vogel's dram shop, and encamped on a meadow beyond. Here we were soon visited by a number of people who came to purchase our horses and equipage. This matter disposed 35 of, we hired a wagon and drove on to Kansas Landing.º Here we were again received under the hospitable roof of our old friend Colonel Chick, and seated under his porch we looked down once more on the eddies of the Missouri.
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