the roads are, as usual, rocky and dusty, with many stretches of sand,
through which the poor, weak cattle pull the wagons, which, though
lightened by the reduction of our loads, are far too heavy for their
strength, which decreases daily.
“Our road, during the afternoon of to-day, lay close to the almost dry
bed of a rocky-bottomed creek, beside which we camped for the night,
without food for our stock, and almost without water. I wonder what the
poor creatures think of us for bringing them out here in the wilderness,
face to face with such a fate?
“Some of our teamsters have been growing quarrelsome of late. Two men who
fell in with us shortly after our loss of cattle and have been following
us ever since and begging food, suddenly left the train yesterday; since
their departure some of our men are growing insubordinate.
“Their grievance arises from the inability of the cattle to haul them
when not on duty as drivers, they assuming that they made no bargain
with daddie to do any extra walking. Our teamster Yank, the aristocratic
son of Virginia, who claims to be an F.F.V., climbed on a wagon-tongue
early in the day, and compelled the oxen to pull his weight through the
rocks and sand, the added strain upon their neck yokes making their lot
doubly hard. Daddie is holding a conference with the fellow now. He said
before we halted for the night that he hoped the dissatisfied ones would
leave of their own accord, as otherwise he expected trouble. He announced
to-night that there would be no more riding on wagon-tongues; and
although we await the result of the conference with some anxiety, daddie
says he isn’t worried, since the dissatisfied fellows must stay with the
train or starve.
“August 4. We travelled seventeen miles to-day, having halted for two
hours to feast the cattle on a bed of dry bunchgrass, fortunately
discovered by Scotty in a ravine overlooked by trains ahead. It was a
great comfort to see the hungry animals fill themselves with the dry but
nutritious grass, and drink their fill from a trench made in the bed of
the dry creek.
“Three miles’ further travel brought us to a bend in the creek, where we
succeeded in digging again for water.
“August 5. We are in better spirits than at any time since our loss of
cattle. All traces of mutiny have disappeared, and even Yank trudges over
the road without protest. The animals, too, are stepping briskly.
“We find nothing at all for the cattle to eat to-day. The road continues
rough and rocky, and abounds in chuck-holes which the narrow track
will not permit the wheels to avoid. The tires are all loose on the
wagon-wheels, and it seems a miracle that the wheels do not fall to
pieces.
“After we halted for the night on the banks of the Snake River, once more
our men were compelled to drive the cattle down the stream for over a
mile to find an opening between the bluffs through which they could reach
water. And the men had to carry back a limited supply in their canteens
to relieve the distress at camp. We are in plain and provoking sight of
a foaming waterfall on the opposite bank, but as thoroughly out of reach
of it as if it were in the mountains of the moon. It bursts from a ledge
of rocks, and descends to the river with a roar that at this distance
is sweetly musical. Some day, in the years to come, some enterprising
individual will preëmpt that spring, and make a fortune by selling the
pure water to his less fortunate fellow-men.
“August 6. At ten o’clock to-day we were refreshed by a welcome shower.
“Oh, the blessed summer rain! How it cooled the parching air and arid
earth, and revived the drooping spirits of poor dear daddie, who is
growing hollow-eyed and thin, like the cattle!
“We find no game, and nothing for the stock to eat but some willows.”
* * * * *
“Yonder,” said Captain Ranger, in an excited tone, “are the falls of
Salmon River. Make a note of them, Jean!”
The dilapidated wagons were halted on a great plateau overlooking a rapid
river, spanned by a mighty ledge of rocks, over which a great torrent
of foamy-white water rolled and surged, glistening in the sunshine with
great schools of female salmon in quest of spawning-ground, followed by
the male contingent, fierce of aspect and in fighting mood, ready to
destroy one another or anything else that might impede their progress.
Indians were camped in great numbers below the bluffs, the women drying
the fish for winter use, and the men bartering the produce of their
skill with lance and spear for such articles of food and apparel as the
depleted stores of the wanderers could spare.
“August 7. We travelled eighteen miles to-day. At ten o’clock we found a
little plat of dry bunchgrass, and halted for an hour to allow the stock
to graze. It was well we did, for to-night we find no grass at all. The
river is over a mile from camp, and we are compelled to carry water all
that distance for domestic use. We don’t use very much.”
For many miles the road continued through a rocky canyon, where the way
was so perilous that the locked wagon-wheels had to be held in place by
men on the upper side of the grade to prevent the wagons from tumbling
down the bluffs into the raging current far below.
The entries in Jean’s journal were interrupted at this time by a serious
siege of toothache; and for this reason we find, under date of August
10 and 11, in Captain Ranger’s painstaking chirography, the following
entries:—
“We travelled about eight miles and again came to Snake River. The
weather has been insufferably hot; and, as our weak and famished cattle
were unable to go on, we were compelled to halt and await the coming of a
breeze.
“The general face of the country is barren in the extreme. No vegetation
is in sight except the ever abounding sagebrush. Gnarled, old, dwarfed,
and shaggy, this seemingly boundless waste of sage subsists without
apparent moisture; and for no conceivable purpose it lives on and on
forever, staring stolidly at the sun by day and keeping vigil with the
moon and stars by night.”
On the 12th of August Jean made the following entry: “We reached the
banks of the river every few miles to-day, and camped near it at night.
We find here no grass, game, or fuel; but, thank God, there is plenty of
water.
“After resting the cattle till sundown, daddie gave orders to yoke up and
move ahead to a plat of grass that he had heard of, about six miles to
the westward, and half a mile to the left of the main travelled road. We
were all packed, ready to start, when Shorty and Limpy came into camp,
bringing about half of the cattle, and reported all the others missing.
So we are compelled to await the morning with such forebodings as no pen
can portray; mine at least will not make the attempt.
“August 13. The missing cattle were found and brought in at an early hour
this morning; and after a hurried breakfast we started for the promised
feeding-grounds, where we found good grass and water, but no fuel. We
halted for a couple of hours, and then came on seven miles farther, when
we once more reached Snake River.
“The dust throughout the day has been almost unbearable. It is as fine as
the finest flour, and, being impregnated with alkali, is very irritating
to nostrils, throats, and lungs.
“August 14. This has been the hardest day yet upon the cattle,—poor
starved and wretched creatures! And I might add, poor alkalied and
used-up people!
“Not a person in our company is well. We are a fretful, impatient, and
anxious lot, and no wonder. And yet our journeyings even now have their
amusing side. Susannah sings like a nightingale, and ‘Geo’die Wah,’ as
her lisping coon calls himself, leads the chorus. Scotty quotes poetry
by the yard, and the Little Doctor seeks diversion in every incident.
Mrs. Benson continues amiable and obliging, showing a side to her nature
wholly unlike the waspish way she had when we first knew her. The men
often clear away the sagebrush from a level plat of ground after their
chores are finished for the night, and hold dancing carnivals among
themselves (daddie draws the line at dancing, so we don’t participate).
Sawed-off makes tolerable music on a fairly good violin. The humble
jotter of these chronicles finds her chief diversion in the fact that we
are every day drawing nearer to the Oregon City Post-office.”
XXX
_BOBBIE GOES TO HIS MOTHER_
Jean’s aching tooth suffered a relapse, and the suppuration that ensued
made her seriously ill.
On the 14th of August her father again made an entry:—
“Five of our escort have left us, taking with them a wagon-bed left by
the wayside by somebody whose cattle have died or strayed. They made a
clumsy boat of the square-bottomed thing; and with this frail craft,
which they successfully launched in the tortuous waters of the Snake,
they expect to find safe navigation to its confluence with the Columbia.
Although it was a relief to get rid of some of them, chiefly because
they thought they knew so much more about my business than I was able to
learn, I am apprehensive of results solely on their account. Snake River
doesn’t look to me like a safe stream to be trusted. But it was a relief
to see them go, because we are yet many hundreds of miles from our goal,
and our supplies of food and means of transportation are getting more
precarious daily.
“August 15. Lost another ox by drowning.
“August 16. Weather insufferably hot. Lost an ox to-day from eating a
poisonous herb. At this rate we shall soon be left with one wagon. The
cattle must hustle for food after every day’s pull, making it very hard
to keep life in their poor skeleton bodies.”
On the evening of the 18th Jean resumed her writing, which ran in part as
follows:—
“The long and dreary road is rough and hilly, and the yielding sand is
deep. We found to-day at noon a patch of dry grass, and stopped to graze
our famishing cattle. But we neglected, by some mischance, to fill our
water-casks in the morning, so we had a dry luncheon in the hot sand,
under the blistering sunshine. Our shoes have all given out from constant
walking, and we are reduced to moccasins, which we get by barter among
the Indian women. But the deerskin things afford us no protection from
the still abounding cacti, which seem to thrive best where there is the
least moisture.
“We are encamped once more on the banks of the Snake. It was quite dark
when a halt was ordered.
“August 19. Glory to God in the highest! We are once more within sight of
some trees that are not sagebrush. They are off to the westward, several
miles away, and their stately presence marks the course of a stream we
cannot see.
“August 20. The stream proved to be the Owyhee,—a lukewarm, clear, and
rapid little river with a pebbly bottom. The air is so foul from the
stench of decaying cattle, the water of the little river is so warm, and
the heat so intolerable that sickness and death must soon ensue if the
conditions do not change. It is no wonder that we see many graves by the
roadside. Most of them are the last resting-places of mothers who have
mercifully fallen asleep and been buried, often with their babes in their
arms.
“August 21. Old Fort Boisé lies opposite our camp, away beyond and
across Snake River, looming in the distance like a mediæval fortress
from the midst of a gray, dry moat. Our printed guide, a little pamphlet
written by General Palmer in the forties, tells us that this fort was
built by the Hudson Bay Company for shelter and storage, and as a means
of protection from the Indians, with whom the traders did a thriving
business when the century was young. It is now fallen into decay, and is
doubtless the abode of bats and birds and creeping things.
“The men who left our company on the 16th inst., in a boat made of a
wagon-bed, rejoined us to-day, having had all the navigation on the Snake
they seemed to care for. They were a woe-begone and God-and-man-forsaken
set; and their chief fear was that they would not be permitted to come
into our train again on the old footing. Daddie—dear, big-hearted,
hospitable man—took them in, though they deserved a different fate;
but we think they’ll be content to let the best that can be had alone
hereafter.
“August 23. After a long, hot, and arduous journey of over thirty miles,
and consuming two days of the most trying experience possible, we reached
Malheur River, another tributary of the Snake. But we failed to find
any food for the cattle, and were compelled to pull out again the next
morning before dawn, headed for what appeared to be a stream of water, as
we judged from a fringe of willows. But when we reached the bed of the
stream it was dry as a bone. We were compelled to stop, though, as it was
then high noon, and it was reported twelve miles to the next water. So
a part of our force was detailed to dig a well in the creek bottom for
water for domestic use, and the rest were sent back to the Malheur to
water the stock, as soon as they had eaten their fill of the dry grass,
which to us is more precious than gold, or anything else just now but
water.
“On the 24th we left this camp and travelled down the dry bed of the
creek for several miles, through a valley that had evidently been missed
by the trains ahead, as the grass was fine and abundant. After leaving
this valley, we travelled over a blind trail through a hot, dusty ravine
till ten o’clock at night, when we reached some sulphur springs and
encamped, feeling cross, half sick, and disgusted with all the world. The
air is heavy with the fumes of sulphur, and Limpy says we are less than
half a mile from hell.”
On the 25th of August Jean’s journal again gave evidence of Captain
Ranger’s chirography and style. His characteristic narrative follows:
“To-day we made eight miles, which brought us to a deep and rocky canyon
debouching into the Snake. This is to be our last encounter with this
tortuous, treacherous, and in every way terrible serpent, of whose
presence we long ago had much more than enough.
“Three miles farther brought us to Burnt River,—a small, rapid, and
crooked stream, with a sandy delta at its disproportionately extended
mouth. Here the country changes its entire topography. The bold and
abrupt foot-hills are covered to their tops with an abundant coat of
seed-bearing bunchgrass; and numerous juniper-trees which somehow in
the long ago gained a footing among the sloping shale and sand, lend a
peculiar beauty to the scene.”
* * * * *
“Mr. Burns, I’m going to die before long.”
These were the words of little Bobbie, the darling of the family and of
the entire company, and were spoken to Scotty on that memorable day in
the Black Hills when preparations were in progress for the burial of his
mother.
The blow came suddenly. The child had been overjoyed at the prospect
of reaching the end of the journey at an early day. The sight of Burnt
River filled him with pleasing anticipations. He was never more playful,
quaint, and original than when his father stood him on his shoulder to
view the last they should see of the Snake River.
“Where is it going now, papa?” he asked artlessly. “Is it always hungry?
Is that what makes it in such a hurry? What does it eat? And where does
it sleep o’ nights? It’s a sure enough snake, isn’t it?”
At midnight, when the weary party were sound asleep, Mary, who was lying
near him, was wakened by an ominous cough, which rapidly developed into
an acute attack of croup.
* * * * *
“It was a stubborn case, and quite beyond my poor skill,” said the Little
Doctor, as they all stood weeping around the still and beautiful form of
the precious dead.
“What do you imagine caused the child to predict his untimely taking off,
Mr. Burns?” asked Mrs. McAlpin, as they watched alone.
“I suppose it was merely a child’s fancy,—a coincidence, probably.”
“And I suppose it was a revelation. Many important lessons may be learned
from the artless utterances of a child.”
For many weeks Mrs. McAlpin had studiously avoided conversation on any
subject with the one man on earth whom she believed to be her counterpart.
“Wait till that human imperfection called the Law has made me legally
free,” was her invariable command whenever her suitor showed symptoms of
impatience.
But to-night, as they knelt together in the presence of what the world
calls Death, he seized her hand, and it was not withdrawn.
“Kneeling in this presence, may I have my answer, Daphne?”
The dim light of a sputtering tallow candle shed a faint glow across the
white sheet under which the still form of Bobbie lay in dreamless sleep.
She returned the pressure of his hand in silence. But when he would have
caught her in a close embrace, she gently withdrew and whispered: “We
will take our first kiss at the altar, darling.”
“I am happy now, and I can wait. God bless you!” he whispered; and as
others were about entering the tent, he arose from his knees and went out
silently among the stars.
The morning came at last. Amid the tearful silence of the company
the train moved on for a couple of miles and halted at the foot of a
mountain to consign the mortal remains of the little soul to their last
resting-place. High up on the mountain-side, on a natural terrace, the
grave was made under a spreading juniper-tree, in whose branches the wild
birds chant his requiem as the years roll on, and the eternal breezes
sing.
* * * * *
The next morning, August 29, found the face of Nature covered everywhere
with a thick coating of hoar-frost. Ice had formed during the night in
the water-pails, an eighth of an inch in thickness, and an inspiriting
sensation of chilliness filled the air. But as the sun rode high in the
brassy heavens, the day grew intensely hot. On and on and up and up the
ailing cattle labored; and on and on and up and up the dispirited company
toiled, footsore and weary, ragged and dirty. But hope was not dead; for
was not the goal of their ambition now almost in sight?
The mountains of Powder River were next crossed, and the weary pilgrims
emerged upon an open plain over which the pygmy sagebrush of the desert
ran riot. Here a quarter of a century later an enterprising city
was destined to arise, in the midst of abounding mines and burdened
wheatfields, wherein the irrigated lands would drop fatness and the
stockman grow rich among the cattle of a thousand hills.
“This valley,” wrote Jean, under date of September 1, “is beautiful
to look upon; but it is considered worthless, as it is too dry for
cultivation, and there is no way to rid the land of the ever-obtruding
sage. Daddie says it will never be made to sprout white beans.”
The ranchers, stock-raisers, mine-owners, merchants, artisans, mechanics,
speculators, newspaper men, politicians, and successful schemers in every
walk of life can well afford to forgive Daniel Webster, John Ranger,
and every other false prophet who in his day harped on the same string,
in view of the continuous fields of wheat, oats, barley, rye, vetch,
hops, and fruits of all kinds peculiar to the temperate zone which this
wonderfully fertile valley now produces under the impulse of irrigation,
not to mention the mines of gold and silver, precious stones, and baser
metals with which the hills and mountains are fabulously rich.
The descent of the Ranger company into the now famous Grande Ronde
valley was most perilous. It was made long after nightfall, through a
precipitous and rocky defile, where a slip of the wagon-wheel or the
misstep of an ox would have plunged the adventurous teams, wagons, men,
women, children, and all, over sheer bluffs.
Camp was pitched in the edge of the beautiful valley, then a reservation
belonging to the Nez Percé Indians. Rye-grass was growing as high as the
top of the head of a man on horseback; and at one end of the valley,
where now is a famous resort for health and pleasure, a number of hot
springs were outlined by great columns of steam, which, rising beneath
the arid air, hung low over the foot-hills, and, hanging lower yet in the
vale below, spread itself like an enormous fleece over a lake of seething
water.
XXXI
_THROUGH THE OREGON MOUNTAINS_
After moving across the Grande Ronde valley through a veritable Eden
of untamed verdure, and crossing the Grande Ronde River by ford, our
travellers began the ascent of the Blue Mountains.
The air was cool and delicious. The cattle, much refreshed by their
luscious feed in the bountiful and beautiful valley, moved more briskly
than had been their wont, and were soon in the midst of the grand old
forest trees, which, at that time untouched by the woodman’s ax, stood
in all their native grandeur upon the grass-grown slopes. In the midst
of one of these groves of stately whispering pines the company halted
for the night near a sparkling spring, with scenery all around them so
enchanting that Jean exclaimed in her journal, “Oh, this beautiful world!
how big it is compared to the pygmy mortals who roam over its surface;
and yet how little it is compared to the countless stars that gaze upon
us from above this ‘boundless contiguity of shade’!”
For several days she had written little. Her thoughts wandered to the
Green River experience that had awakened within her being a new life,
from which, for her at least, there was to be no ending. She could not
write, so she strolled aimlessly away to a mossy rock in a starlit
ravine, at the foot of which a rivulet was singing.
“Why can’t I see you, mother dear?” she asked. “And you, Bobbie, can’t
you say a word to your sister Jean?”
For a long time she sat thus, lost in reverie, while the eternal silence
around her was broken only by the low cadence of the whispering pines.
Suddenly there came into her inner consciousness a call, unspoken yet
heard, “Jean!”
She closed her eyes and saw, as plainly as with physical vision, Ashton
Ashleigh’s border home; and he was gazing hard at Le-Le, who was kneeling
at his feet in beseeching attitude.
“Jean!”
Gradually, as the demon Doubt aroused her senses, a wild, unreasoning
jealousy crept into her heart. She turned her face to the eastward and
sent out to him an answering call, “Ashleigh!”
She listened eagerly; but no response was felt or heard, and no mental
vision reappeared. With her heart like lead, she returned to the wagon
and crept into bed.
When she awoke the sun was shining, and she could not recall the vision
that had distressed her. Had her soul visited the abode of her heart’s
idol? Who knows? and who can tell?
* * * * *
On and on the teams kept crawling, until on the 6th of September the
summit of the Blue Mountains was passed, and the wearied travellers gazed
for the first time upon the Cascade Mountains, lying to the westward in
the purple distance; and in their midst arose, supported by a continuous
chain of undulating, tree-crowned, lesser heights, the majestic
proportions of Mount Hood, the patriarch of the solitudes, his hoary head
uplifted in the shimmering air, and at his feet a drapery of mist.
The Umatilla River left the gorges through which it had fought its
way, and glided peacefully through a sagebrush plain toward the great
Columbia. But no settlements were yet to be seen. No navigation had yet
been started on the broad bosom of the upper Columbia. The rock-ribbed
Dalles frowned far below in the misty distance; and no dream of a
fleet of palatial river craft, with portage railways around otherwise
impassable gorges, had yet taken practical shape. The Cascade locks had
not entered the liveliest imagination, and a transcontinental railroad
was considered an engineering impossibility, existing only in the mind of
an impractical theorist or incurable crank.
A vast and practically level plain or upland lay between the Blue and the
Cascade mountains. The Whitman settlement had already made the existence
of the infant city of Walla Walla possible. Wallula and Umatilla were
not, and the site of Pendleton was an unbroken plain.
But game was plenty and grass was good. Choke-cherries and salmon-berries
grew thickly among the deciduous groves that bordered the Umatilla River;
and but for the sad bereavements in the Ranger family, which time alone
could heal, the company would have been in exuberant spirits.
At Willow Creek station, which is now a veritable oasis in the desert,
the party found a trading-post, where some fresh potatoes and onions made
a welcome change in the diet.
On the 13th of September Jean wrote: “Old friends and relatives, tried
and true, have come to meet us from the Willamette valley, and their
unexpected coming fills us with gratitude unspeakable.”