USA > Oregon > The Oregon trail : sketches of prairie and Rocky Mountain life > Part 6
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32
helpless. Not long after the storm moderated, and we 15 advanced again. The cow walked painfully along under the charge of Jack, to whom the captain had committed her, while he himself rode forward in his old capacity of vedette. We were approaching a long line of trees, that followed a stream stretching across our path, far in front, when we 20 beheld the vedette galloping toward us, apparently much excited, but with a broad grin on his face.
"Let that cow drop behind !" he shouted to us; "here's her owners !"
And in fact, as we approached the line of trees, a large 25 white object, like a tent, was visible behind them. On approaching, however, we found, instead of the expected Mormon camp, nothing but the lonely prairie, and a large white rock standing by the path. The cow therefore resumed her place in our procession. She walked on until 30 we encamped, when R. firmly approaching with his enor- mous English double-barreled rifle, calmly and deliberately took aim at her heart, and discharged into it first one bullet and then the other. She was then butchered on the most approved principles of woodcraft, and furnished a very 35 welcome item to our somewhat limited bill of fare.
In a day or two more we reached the river called the Big Blue. By titles equally elegant, almost all the streams of this region are designated. We had struggled through ditches and little brooks all that morning; but on travers- 40 ing the dense woods that lined the banks of the Blue, we
46
THE OREGON TRAIL
found that more formidable difficulties awaited us, for the stream, swollen by the rains, was wide, deep, and rapid.
No sooner were we on the spot than R. had flung off his clothes, and was swimming across, or splashing through 5 the shallows, with the end of a rope between his teeth. We all looked on in admiration, wondering what might be the design of this energetic preparation; but soon we heard him shouting: "Give that rope a turn round that stump! You, Sorel: do you hear? Look sharp now, 10 Boisverd ! Come over to this side, some of you, and help me !" The men to whom these orders were directed paid not the least attention to them, though they were poured out without pause or intermission. Henry Chatillon di- rected the work, and it proceeded quietly and rapidly. 15 R.'s sharp brattlingo voice might have been heard inces- santly ; and he was leaping about with the utmost activity, multiplying himself, after the manner of great commanders, as if his universal presence and supervision were of the last necessity. His commands were rather amusingly incon- 20 sistent; for when he saw that the men would not do as he told them, he wisely accommodated himself to circum- stances, and with the utmost vehemence ordered them to do precisely that which they were at the time engaged upon, no doubt recollecting the story of Mahomet and the re- 25 fractory mountain.º Shaw smiled significantly; R. ob- served it, and, approaching with a countenance of lofty indignation, began to vapor a little, but was instantly reduced to silence.
The raft was at length complete. We piled our goods 30 upon it, with the exception of our guns, which each man chose to retain in his own keeping. Sorel, Boisverd, Wright, and Deslauriers took their stations at the four corners, to hold it together, and swim across with it; and in a moment more, all our earthly possessions were floating 35 on the turbid waters of the Big Blue. We sat on the bank, anxiously watching the result, until we saw the raft safe landed in a little cove far down on the opposite bank. The empty wagons were easily passed across; and then each man mounting a horse, we rode through the stream, the 40 stray animals following of their own accord.
CHAPTER VI
THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT
WE were now arrived at the close of our solitary journey- ings along the St. Joseph trail. On the evening of the twenty-third of May we encamped near its junction with the old legitimate trailº of the Oregon emigrants. We had ridden long that afternoon, trying in vain to find 5 wood and water, until at length we saw the sunset sky reflected from a pool encircled by bushes and a rock or two. The water lay in the bottom of a hollow, the smooth prairie gracefully rising in oceanlike swells on every side. We pitched our tents by it; not however before the keen 10 eye of Henry Chatillon had discerned some unusual object upon the faintly-defined outline of the distant swell. But in the moist, hazy atmosphere of the evening, nothing could be clearly distinguished. As we lay around the fire after supper, a low and distant sound, strange enough amid 15 the loneliness of the prairie, reached our ears - peals of laughter, and the faint voices of men and women. For eight days we had not encountered a human being, and this singular warning of their vicinity had an effect extremely wild and impressive.
20
About dark a sallow-faced fellow descended the hill on horseback, and splashing through the pool rode up to the tents. He was enveloped in a huge cloak, and his broad felt hat was weeping about his ears with the driz- zling moisture of the evening. Another followed, a stout, 25 square-built, intelligent-looking man, who announced himself as leader of an emigrant party encamped a mile in advance of us. About twenty wagons, he said, were with him; the rest of his party were on the other side of the Big Blue, waiting for a woman who was in the pains 30 of child-birth, and quarreling meanwhile among themselves.
These were the first emigrants that we had overtaken,
47
48
THE OREGON TRAIL
although we had found abundant and melancholy traces of their progress throughout the whole course of the journey. Sometimes we passed the grave of one who had sickened and died on the way. The earth was usually torn up, and 5 covered thickly with wolf-tracks. Some had escaped this violation. One morning a piece of plank, standing upright on the summit of a grassy hill, attracted our notice, and riding up to it we found the following words very roughly traced upon it, apparently by a red-hot piece of Io iron :
MARY ELLIS. DIED MAY 7TH, 1845. Aged two months.
Such tokens were of common occurrence. Nothing 15 could speak more for the hardihood, or rather infatuation, of the adventurers, or the sufferings that await them upon the journey.
We were late in breaking up our camp on the follow- ing morning, and scarcely had we ridden a mile when we 20 saw, far in advance of us, drawh against the horizon, a line of objects stretching at regular intervals along the level edge of the prairie. An intervening swell soon hid them from sight, until, ascending it a quarter of an hour after, we saw close before us the emigrant caravan, with 25 its heavy white wagons creeping on in their slow pro- cession, and a large drove of cattle following behind. Half a dozen yellow-visaged Missourians, mounted on horse- back, were cursing and shouting among them; their lank angular proportions enveloped in brown homespun, evi- 30 dently cut and adjusted by the hands of a domestic female tailor. As we approached, they greeted us with the polished salutation : "How are ye, boys? Are ye for Oregon or California ?"º
As we pushed rapidly past the wagons, children's faces 35 were thrust out from the white coverings to look at us; while the care-worn, thin-featured matron, or the buxom girl, seated in front, suspended the knitting on which most of them were engaged to stare at us with wondering curios- ity. By the side of each wagon stalked the proprietor, 40 urging on his patient oxen, who shouldered heavily along,
49
THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT
inch by inch, on their interminable journey. It was easy to see that fear and dissension prevailed among them; some of the men - but these, with one exception, were bachelors - looked wistfully upon us as we rode lightly and swiftly past, and then impatiently at their own lum- 5 bering wagons and heavy-gaited oxen. Others were unwilling to advance at all until the party they had left behind should have rejoined them. Many were murmur- ing against the leader they had chosen, and wished to depose him; and this discontent was fomented by some 10 ambitious spirits, who had hopes of succeeding in his place. The women were divided between regrets for the homes they had left and apprehension of the deserts and the savages before them.
We soon left them far behind, and fondly hoped that 15 we had taken a final leave; but unluckily our companions' wagon stuck so long in a deep muddy ditch that, before it was extricated, the van of the emigrant caravan appeared again, descending a ridge close at hand. Wagon after wagon plunged through the mud; and as it was nearly 20 noon, and the place promised shade and water, we saw with much gratification that they were resolved to en- camp. Soon the wagons were wheeled into a circle; the cattle were grazing over the meadow, and the men, with sour, sullen faces, were looking about for wood and water. 25 They seemed to meet with but indifferent success. As we left the ground, I saw a tall slouching fellow with the nasal accent of "down east," contemplating the contents of his tin cup, which he had just filled with water.
"Look here, you," he said; "it's chock full of animals !" 30
The cup, as he held it out, exhibited in fact an extraor dinary variety and profusion of animal and vegetable life.
Riding up the little hill and looking back on the meadow, we could easily see that all was not right in the camp of 35 the emigrants. The men were crowded together, and an angry discussion seemed to be going forward. R. was missing from his wonted place in the line, and the captain told us that he had remained behind to get his horse shod by a blacksmith who was attached to the emigrant party. 40 Something whispered in our ears that mischief was on foot;
E
50
THE OREGON TRAIL
we kept on, however, and coming soon to a stream of toler- able water, we stopped to rest and dine. Still the ab- sentee lingered behind. At last, at the distance of a mile, he and his horse suddenly appeared, sharply defined against 5 the sky on the summit of a hill; and close behind, a huge white object rose slowly into view.
" What is that blockhead bringing with him now ?"
A moment dispelled the mystery. Slowly and solemnly, one behind the other, four long trains of oxen and four Io emigrant wagons rolled over the crest of the declivity and gravely descended, while R. rode in state in the van. It seems that, during the process of shoeing the horse, the smothered dissensions among the emigrants suddenly broke into open rupture. Some insisted on pushing for- 15 ward, some on remaining where they were, and somne on going back. Kearsley, their captain, threw up his com- mand in disgust. "And now, boys," said he, "if any of you are for going ahead, just you come along with me." Four wagons, with ten men, one woman, and one small 20 child, made up the force of the "go-ahead" faction, and R., with his usual proclivity toward mischief, invited them to join our party. Fear of the Indians -for I can con- ceive of no other motive - must have induced him to court so burdensome an alliance. As may well be con- 25 ceived, these repeated instances of high-handed dealing sufficiently exasperated us. In this case, indeed, the men who joined us were all that could be desired; rude indeed in manner, but frank, manly, and intelligent. To tell them we could not travel with them was of course out of the 30 question. I merely reminded Kearsley that if his oxen could not keep up with our mules he must expect to be left behind, as we could not consent to be further de- layed on the journey; but he immediately replied, that his oxen "should keep up; and if they couldn't, why he 35 allowed that he'd find out how to make 'em!" Having availed myself of what satisfaction could be derived from giving R. to understand my opinion of his conduct, I re- turned to our side of the camp.
On the next day, as it chanced, our English companions 40 broke the axle-tree of their wagon, and down came the whole cumbrous machine lumbering into the bed of a brook !
51
THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT
Here was a day's work cut out for us. Meanwhile, our emigrant associates kept on their way, and so vigorously did they urge forward their powerful oxen that, with the broken axle-tree and other calamities, it was full a week before we overtook them; when at length we discovered 5 them, one afternoon, crawling quietly along the sandy brink of the Platte. But meanwhile various incidents occurred to ourselves.
It was probable that at this stage of our journey the Pawnees would attempt to rob us. We began therefore Io to stand guard in turn, dividing the night into three watches, and appointing two men for each. Deslauriers and I held guard together. We did not march with military pre- cision to and fro before the tents; our discipline was by no means so stringent and rigid. We wrapped ourselves 15 in our blankets, and sat down by the fire; and Deslauriers, combining his culinary functions with his duties as sentinel, employed himself in boiling the head of an antelope for our morning's repast. Yet we were models of vigilance in comparison with some of the party; for the ordinary 20 practice of the guard was to establish himself in the most comfortable posture he could; lay his rifle on the ground, and enveloping his nose in the blanket, meditate on his mistress, or whatever subject best pleased him. This is all well enough when among Indians who do not habitually 25 proceed further in their hostility than robbing travelers of their horses and mules, though, indeed, a Pawnee's for- bearance is not always to be trusted; but in certain regions farther to the west, the guard must beware how he exposes his person to the light of the fire, lest perchance some keen- 30 eyed skulking marksman should let fly a bullet or an arrow from amid the darkness.
Among various tales that circulated around our camp fire was a rather curious one, told by Boisverd, and not inappropriate here. Boisverd was trapping with several 35 companions on the skirts of the Blackfoot country. The man on guard, well knowing that it behooved him to put forth his utmost precaution, kept aloof from the firelight, and sat watching intently on all sides. At length he was aware of a dark, crouching figure, stealing noiselessly 40 into the circle of the light. He hastily cocked his rifle, but
52
THE OREGON TRAIL
the sharp click of the lock caught the car of Blackfoot, whose senses were all on the alert. Raising his arrow, already fitted to the string, he shot in the direction of the sound. So sure was his aim that he drove it through the 5 throat of the unfortunate guard, and then, with a loud yell, bounded from the camp.
As I looked at the partner of my watch, puffing and blowing over his fire, it occurred to me that he might not prove the most efficient auxiliary in time of trouble.
IO " Deslauriers," said I, "would you run away if the Paw- nees should fire at us ?"
"Ah! oui, oui, monsieurº!" he replied very decisively. I did not doubt the fact, but was a little surprised at the frankness of the confession.
15 At this instant a most whimsical variety of voices - barks, howls, yelps, and whines - all mingled as it were together, sounded from the prairie, not far off, as if a whole conclave of wolves of every age and sex were assembled there. Deslauriers looked up from his work with a laugh, 20 and began to imitate this curious medley of sounds with a most ludicrous accuracy. At this they were repeated with redoubled emphasis, the musician being apparently indignant at the successful efforts of a rival. They all proceeded from the throat of one little wolf, not larger 25 than a spaniel, seated by himself at some distance. He was of the species called the prairie wolf; a grim-visaged, but harmless little brute, whose worst propensity is creep- ing among horses and gnawing the ropes of rawhide by which they are picketed around the camp. But other 30 beasts roam the prairies, far more formidable in aspect and in character. These are the large white and gray wolves, whose deep howl we heard at intervals from far and near.
At last I fell into a doze, and, awakening from it, found 35 Deslauriers fast asleep. Scandalized by this breach of dis- cipline, I was about to stimulate his vigilance by stirring him with the stock of my rifle; but compassion prevail- ing, I determined to let him sleep awhile, and then to arouse him, and administer a suitable reproof for such a forget- 40 fulness of duty. Now and then I walked the rounds among the silent horses, to see that all was right. The night
53
THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT
was chill, damp, and dark, the dankº grass bending under the icy dewdrops. At the distance of a rod or two the tents were invisible, and nothing could be seen but the obscure figures of the horses, deeply breathing, and restlessly start- ing as they slept, or still slowly champingº the grass. Far 5 off, beyond the black outline of the prairie, there was a ruddy light, gradually increasing, like the glow of a con- flagration; until at length the broad disk of the moon, blood-red, and vastly magnified by the vapors, rose slowly upon the darkness, flecked by one or two little clouds, and Io as the light poured over the gloomy plain, a fierce and stern howl, close at hand, seemed to greet it as an un- welcome intruder. There was something impressive and awful in the place and the hour; for I and the beasts were all that had consciousness for many a league around. 15
Some days elapsed, and brought us near the Platte. Two men on horseback approached us one morning, and we watched them with the curiosity and interest that, upon the solitude of the plains, such an encounter always excites. They were evidently whites, from their mode of 20 riding, though, contrary to the usage of that region, neither of them carried a rifle.
"Fools !" remarked Henry Chatillon, "to ride that way on the prairie; Pawnee find them - then they catch it !"
Pawnee had found them, and they had come very near 25 " catching it"; indeed, nothing saved them from trouble but the approach of our party. Shaw and I knew one of them; a man named Turner, whom we had seen at West- port. He and his companion belonged to an emigrant party encamped a few miles in advance, and had returned 30 to look for some stray oxen, leaving their rifles, with char- acteristic rashness or ignorance, behind them. Their neglect had nearly cost them dear; for just before we came up, half a dozen Indians approached, and seeing them ap- parently defenseless, one of the rascals seized the bridle of 35 Turner's fine horse, and ordered him to dismount. Turner was wholly unarmed; but the other jerked a little revolv- ing pistol out of his pocket, at which the Pawnee recoiled; and just then some of our men appearing in the distance, . the whole party whipped their rugged little horses, and 40 made off. In no way daunted, Turner foolishly persisted in going forward.
54
. THE OREGON TRAIL
Long after leaving him, and late this afternoon, in the midst of a gloomy and barren prairie, we came suddenly upon the great Pawnee trail, leading from their villages on the Platte to their war and hunting grounds to the soutli- 5 ward. Here every summer pass the motley concourse ; thousands of savages, men, women, and children, horses and mules, laden with their weapons and implements, and an innumerable multitude of unruly wolfish dogs, who have not acquired the civilized accomplishment of Io barking, but howl like their wild cousins of the prairie.
The permanent winter villages of the Pawnees stand on the lower Platte, but throughout the summer the greater part of the inhabitants are wandering over the plains, a treacherous, cowardly banditti, who by a thousand acts 15 of pillage and murder have deserved summary chastise- ment at the hands of government. Last year a Dahcotah warrior performed a signal exploit at one of these villages. He approached it alone in the middle of a dark night, and clambering up the outside of one of the lodges, which are 20 in the form of a half-sphere, he looked in at the round hole made at the top for the escape of smoke. The dusky light from the smoldering embers showed him the forms of the sleeping inmates; and dropping lightly through the opening, he unsheathed his knife, and, stirring the fire, coolly 25 selected his victims. One by one he stabbed and scalped them, when a child suddenly awoke and screamed. He rushed from the lodge, yelled a Sioux war-cry, shouted his name in triumph and defiance, and in a moment had darted out upon the dark prairie, leaving the whole village 30 behind him in a tumult, with the howling and baying of dogs. the screams of women, and the yells of the enraged warriors.
Our friend Kearsley, as we learned on rejoining him, signalized himself by a less bloody achievement. He and 35 his men were good woodsmen, and well skilled in the use of the rifle, but found themselves wholly out of their ele- ment on the prairie. None of them had ever seen a buf- falo, and they had very vague conceptions of his nature and appearance. On the day after they reached the Platte, 40 looking toward a distant swell, they beheld a multitude of little black specks in motion upon its surface.
55
THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT
"Take your rifles, boys," said Kearsley, "and we'll have fresh meat for supper." This inducement was quite sufficient. The ten men left their wagons and set out in hot haste, some on horseback and some on foot, in pursuit of the supposed buffalo. Meanwhile a high grassy ridge 5 shut the game from view; but mounting it after half an hour's running and riding, they found themselves sud- denly confronted by about thirty mounted Pawnees ! The amazement and consternation were mutual. Having nothing but their bows and arrows, the Indians thought Ie their hour was come, and the fate that they were ho doubt conscious of richly deserving about to overtake them. So they began, one and all, to shout forth the most cordial salutations of friendship, running up with extreme earnest- ness to shake hands with the Missourians, who were as 15 much rejoiced as they were to escape the expected conflict.
A low undulating line of sand-hills bounded the horizon before us. That day we rode ten consecutive hours, and it was dusk before we entered the hollows and gorges of these gloomy little hills. At length we gained the summit, 20 and the long expected valley of the Platteº lay before us. We all drew rein, and, gathering in a knot on the crest of the hill, sat joyfully looking down upon the prospect. It was right welcome; strange too, and striking to the im- agination, and yet it had not one picturesque or beauti- 25 ful feature ; nor had it any of the features of grandeur, other than its vast extent, its solitude, and its wildness. For league after league a plain as level as a frozen lake was outspread beneath us; here and there the Platte, divided into a dozen threadlike sluices, was traversing it, and an 30 occasional clump of wood, rising in the midst like a shadowy island, relieved the monotony of the waste. No living thing was moving throughout the vast landscape, except the lizards that darted over the sand and through the rank grass and prickly pear just at our feet. And yet stern 35 and wild associations gave a singular interest to the view; for here each man lives by the strength of his arm and the valor of his heart. Here society is reduced to its original elements, the whole fabric of art and conventionality is struck rudely to pieces, and men find themselves suddenly 40 brought back to the wants and resources of their original natures.
56
THE OREGON TRAIL
We had passed the more toilsome and monotonous part of the journey ; but four hundred miles still intervened be- tween us and Fort Laramie; and to reach that point cost us the travel of three additional weeks. During the whole 5 of this time we were passing up the center of a long nar- row sandy plain,° reaching like an outstretched belt nearly to the Rocky mountains. Two lines of sand-hills, broken often into the wildest and most fantastic forms, flanked the valley at the distance of a mile or two on the right and Io left; while beyond them lay a barren, trackless waste - the great American desert - extending for hundreds of miles to the Arkansas on the one side and the Missouri on the other. Before us and behind us, the level monot- ony of the plain was unbroken as far as the eye could 15 reach. Sometimes it glared in the sun, au expanse of hot, bare sand; sometimes it was veiled by long coarse grass. Huge skulls and whitening bones of buffalo were scat- tered everywhere; the ground was tracked by myriads of them, and often covered with the circular indentations 20 where the bulls had wallowed in the hot weather. From every gorge and ravine, opening from the hills, descended deep, well-worn paths, where the buffalo issue twice a day in regular procession down to drink in the Platte. The river itself runs through the midst, a thin sheet of rapid, 25 turbid water, half a mile wide, and scarce two feet deep. Its low banks, for the most part without a bush or a tree, are of loose sand, with which the stream is so charged that it grates on the teeth in drinking. The naked landscape is, of itself, dreary and monotonous enough; and yet the 30 wild beasts and wild men that frequent the valley of the Platte make it a scene of interest and excitement to the traveler. Of those who have journeyed there, scarce one, perhaps, fails to look back with fond regret to his horse and his rifle.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.