mob, and won their victories in a great measure by the force of
individual courage, and through the timidity and still greater lack of
organization of the troops opposed to them. On the other hand, Ruxton
seems to have felt much admiration for the officers in command of the
regular army. He speaks of West Point, and declares that the military
education received there is one “by which they acquire a practical as
well as theoretical knowledge of the science of war”; and that, “as a
class, they are probably more distinguished for military knowledge than
the officers of any European army; uniting with this a high chivalrous
feeling and a most conspicuous gallantry, they have all the essentials
of the officer and soldier.”
Ruxton spent some time hunting about this camp. One day he had a
shot at a large panther which he did not kill, and later he found a
turkey-roost. After a short delay here he started northward again. One
of his servants had deserted him some time before, and now he sent
the other back to Mexico because he was already suffering from the
severity of the climate. The author’s animals had now been travelling
so long together that they required little or no attention in driving.
Of course the operation of packing for a single man was slow and
difficult. Continuing northward, he reached Santa Fé, where, however,
he did not stop long.
It was now winter, and the weather cold and snowy, but the intrepid
traveller had no notion of waiting for more genial days. He has much
to say about the Indians in the neighborhood, and especially of the
Pueblos, whose stone villages and peculiar methods of life greatly
interested him. He found the Mexicans of New Mexico no more attractive
than those with whom he had had to do farther to the southward, but
seems to have felt a certain respect, if not admiration, for the
Canadian and American trappers who had married among these people.
Some of these men advised him strongly against making the effort to
reach Fort Leavenworth at this season of the year, but he kept on. The
journey was difficult, however. His animals, natives of the low country
and of the tropics, were unused to mountain travel; each frozen stream
that they came to was a cause of delay. The work of getting them on was
very laborious, and every two or three days Ruxton froze his hands.
He was now approaching the country of the Utes, who at that time were
constantly raiding the settlements of northern New Mexico, killing
the Mexicans and taking their horses. His purpose was to strike the
Arkansas River near its head waters, and to reach the Bayou Salado,
an old rendezvous for trappers and a great game country. The cold of
the mountain country grew more and more bitter, and the constant winds
made it almost impossible for the men to keep from freezing. Indeed,
sometimes the cold was so severe that Ruxton found it necessary to
put blankets on his animals to keep them from perishing. For days at
a time snow, wind, and cold were so severe that it was impossible to
shoot game, as he could not bend his stiffened fingers without a long
preliminary effort.
During a part of his journey from Red River north he had been
constantly followed by a large gray wolf, which evidently kept with him
for the remains of the animals killed, and for bits of food left around
camp.
At length the Huerfano River was passed and a little later the
Greenhorn, where there was a camp of one white trapper and two or three
French Canadians. A few days later the Arkansas was reached, and then
the trading-post known as the Pueblo. Here Ruxton became a guest of
John Hawkins, a well-known mountaineer of the time, and here he spent
the remainder of the winter hunting on the Fontaine-qui-bouille and in
the Bayou Salado.
Ruxton had many hunting adventures, and some narrow escapes from Indian
fighting. Much of what he writes of this period has to do with the
animals of the region, for at that time the country swarmed with game.
The rapidity with which wolves will devour an animal is well known to
those familiar with the olden time, but not to the people of to-day.
“The sagacity of wolves is almost incredible. They will remain around
a hunting camp and follow the hunters the whole day, in bands of
three and four, at less than a hundred yards distance, stopping when
they stop, and sitting down quietly when game is killed, rushing to
devour the offal when the hunter retires, and then following until
another feed is offered them. If a deer or antelope is wounded, they
immediately pursue it, and not unfrequently pull the animal down in
time for the hunter to come up and secure it from their ravenous
clutches. However, they appear to know at once the nature of the wound,
for if but slightly touched, they never exert themselves to follow a
deer, chasing those only which have received a mortal blow.
“I one day killed an old buck which was so poor that I left the carcase
on the ground untouched. Six coyotes, or small prairie wolves, were
my attendants that day, and of course, before I had left the deer
twenty paces, had commenced their work of destruction. Certainly not
ten minutes after, I looked back and saw the same six loping after
me, one of them not twenty yards behind me, with his nose and face
all besmeared with blood and his belly swelled almost to bursting.
Thinking it scarcely possible that they could have devoured the whole
deer in so short a space, I had the curiosity to return, and, to my
astonishment, found actually nothing left but a pile of bones and
hair, the flesh being stripped from them as clean as if scraped with a
knife. Half an hour after I killed a large blacktail deer, and as it
was also in miserable condition, I took merely the fleeces (as the meat
on the back and ribs is called), leaving four-fifths of the animal
untouched. I then retired a short distance, and, sitting down on a
rock, lighted my pipe, and watched the operations of the wolves. They
sat perfectly still until I had withdrawn some three-score yards, when
they scampered, with a flourish of their tails, straight to the deer.
Then commenced such a tugging and snarling and biting, all squeaking
and swallowing at the same moment. A skirmish of tails and flying hair
was seen for five minutes, when the last of them, with slouching tail
and evidently ashamed of himself, withdrew, and nothing remained on the
ground but a well-picked skeleton. By sunset, when I returned to camp,
they had swallowed as much as three entire deer.”
Although Ruxton was no longer travelling, he was not yet free from
danger from storms, and an extraordinary night passed in a snow-storm
followed the loss of his animals on a hunting trip. Horses and mules
had disappeared one morning, and he and his companion had set out to
find them. This they did, and when they overtook the animals, shortly
after noon, he says: “I found them quietly feeding ... and they
suffered me to catch them without difficulty. As we were now within
twenty miles of the fort, Morgan (his companion), who had had enough of
it, determined to return, and I agreed to go back with the animals to
the _cache_, and bring in the meat and packs. I accordingly tied the
blanket on a mule’s back, and, leading the horse, trotted back at once
to the grove of cottonwoods where we had before encamped. The sky had
been gradually overcast with leaden-coloured clouds, until, when near
sunset, it was one huge inky mass of rolling darkness: the wind had
suddenly lulled, and an unnatural calm, which so surely heralds a storm
in these tempestuous regions, succeeded. The ravens were winging their
way toward the shelter of the timber, and the coyote was seen trotting
quickly to cover, conscious of the coming storm.
“The black threatening clouds seemed gradually to descend until they
kissed the earth, and already the distant mountains were hidden to
their very bases. A hollow murmuring swept through the bottom, but as
yet not a branch was stirred by wind; and the huge cottonwoods, with
their leafless limbs, loomed like a line of ghosts through the heavy
gloom. Knowing but too well what was coming, I turned my animals toward
the timber, which was about two miles distant. With pointed ears, and
actually trembling with fright, they were as eager as myself to reach
the shelter; but, before we had proceeded a third of the distance,
with a deafening roar, the tempest broke upon us. The clouds opened
and drove right in our faces a storm of freezing sleet, which froze
upon us as it fell. The first squall of wind carried away my cap,
and the enormous hailstones beating on my unprotected head and face,
almost stunned me. In an instant my hunting shirt was soaked, and as
instantly frozen hard; and my horse was a mass of icicles. Jumping off
my mule--for to ride was impossible--I tore off the saddle blanket
and covered my head. The animals, blinded with the sleet, and their
eyes actually coated with ice, turned their sterns to the storm, and,
blown before it, made for the open prairie. All my exertions to drive
them to the shelter of the timber were useless. It was impossible to
face the hurricane, which now brought with it clouds of driving snow;
and perfect darkness soon set in. Still, the animals kept on, and I
determined not to leave them, following, or, rather, being blown, after
them. My blanket, frozen stiff like a board, required all the strength
of my numbed fingers to prevent its being blown away, and although it
was no protection against the intense cold, I knew it would in some
degree shelter me at night from the snow. In half an hour the ground
was covered on the bare prairie to the depth of two feet, and through
this I floundered for a long time before the animals stopped. The
prairie was as bare as a lake; but one little tuft of greasewood bushes
presented itself, and here, turning from the storm, they suddenly
stopped and remained perfectly still. In vain I again attempted to turn
them toward the direction of the timber; huddled together, they would
not move an inch; and, exhausted myself, and seeing nothing before
me but, as I thought, certain death, I sank down immediately behind
them, and, covering my head with the blanket, crouched like a ball
in the snow. I would have started myself for the timber, but it was
pitchy dark, the wind drove clouds of frozen snow into my face, and
the animals had so turned about in the prairie that it was impossible
to know the direction to take; and although I had a compass with me,
my hands were so frozen that I was perfectly unable, after repeated
attempts, to unscrew the box and consult it. Even had I reached the
timber, my situation would have been scarcely improved, for the trees
were scattered wide about over a narrow space, and, consequently,
afforded but little shelter; and if even I had succeeded in getting
firewood--by no means an easy matter at any time, and still more
difficult now that the ground was covered with three feet of snow--I
was utterly unable to use my flint and steel to procure a light, since
my fingers were like pieces of stone, and entirely without feeling.
“The way the wind roared over the prairie that night--how the snow
drove before it, covering me and the poor animals partly--and how I
lay there, feeling the very blood freezing in my veins, and my bones
petrifying with the icy blasts which seemed to penetrate them--how
for hours I remained with my head on my knees and the snow pressing
it down like a weight of lead, expecting every instant to drop into
a sleep from which I knew it was impossible I should ever awake--how
every now and then the mules would groan aloud and fall down upon the
snow, and then again struggle on their legs--how all night long the
piercing howl of wolves was borne upon the wind, which never for an
instant abated its violence during the night,--I would not attempt
to describe. I have passed many nights alone in the wilderness and in
a solitary camp--have listened to the roarings of the wind and the
howling of wolves, and felt the rain or snow beating upon me with
perfect unconcern: but this night threw all my former experiences into
the shade, and is marked with the blackest of stones in the memoranda
of my journeyings.
“Once, late in the night, by keeping my hands buried in the breast of
my hunting shirt, I succeeded in restoring sufficient feeling into them
to enable me to strike a light. Luckily my pipe, which was made out of
a huge piece of cottonwood bark, and capable of containing at least
twelve ordinary pipefuls, was filled with tobacco to the brim; and this
I do believe kept me alive during the night, for I smoked and smoked
until the pipe itself caught fire and burned completely to the stem.
“I was just sinking into a dreamy stupor, when the mules began to
shake themselves and sneeze and snort; which hailing as a good sign,
and that they were still alive, I attempted to lift my head and take a
view of the weather. When with great difficulty I raised my head, all
appeared dark as pitch, and it did not at first occur to me that I was
buried deep in snow; but when I thrust my arm above me, a hole was thus
made, through which I saw the stars shining in the sky and the clouds
fast clearing away. Making a sudden attempt to straighten my almost
petrified back and limbs, I rose, but, unable to stand, fell forward
in the snow, frightening the animals, which immediately started away.
When I gained my legs I found that day was just breaking, a long gray
line of light appearing over the belt of timber on the creek, and the
clouds gradually rising from the east, and allowing the stars to peep
from patches of blue sky. Following the animals as soon as I gained
the use of my limbs, and taking a last look at the perfect cave from
which I had just risen, I found them in the timber, and, singularly
enough, under the very tree where we had _cached_ our meat. However, I
was unable to ascend the tree in my present state, and my frost-bitten
fingers refused to perform their offices; so that I jumped upon my
horse, and, followed by the mules, galloped back to the Arkansa, which
I reached in the evening, half dead with hunger and cold.
“The hunters had given me up for lost, as such a night even the ‘oldest
inhabitant’ had never witnessed. My late companion had reached the
Arkansa, and was safely housed before it broke, blessing his lucky
stars that he had not gone back with me.”
It was at this time that the news of the Pueblo Indian rising in the
valley of Taos was received and that Governor Charles Bent and other
white men had been killed.
At this time the fur of the beaver had been supplanted by other and
cheaper materials, so that beaver fur, which formerly brought eight
dollars a pound, now brought but one dollar. For this reason many,
if not most, of the trappers had for the time being ceased their
work, and had settled down on farms in the mountains, where, though
professing to farm, they raised little from the ground except corn, but
subsisted almost entirely on the game, which was enormously abundant.
The author has much to say about the trappers and their ways of life,
and this is one of the spirited pictures of the craft that he paints:
“On starting for a hunt, the trapper fits himself out with the
necessary equipment, either from the Indian trading-forts, or from
some of the petty traders--coureurs des bois--who frequent the western
country. This equipment consists usually of two or three horses or
mules--one for saddle, the others for packs--and six traps, which are
carried in a bag of leather called a _trap-sack_. Ammunition, a few
pounds of tobacco, dressed deer-skins for moccasins, &c., are carried
in a wallet of dressed buffalo-skin, called a possible-sack. His
‘possibles’ and ‘trap-sack’ are generally carried on the saddle-mule
when hunting, the others being packed with the furs. The costume of
the trapper is a hunting-shirt of dressed buckskin, ornamented with
long fringes; pantaloons of the same material, and decorated with
porcupine-quills and long fringes down the outside of the leg. A
flexible felt hat and moccasins clothe his extremities. Over his left
shoulder and under his right arm hang his powder-horn and bullet-pouch,
in which he carries his balls, flint and steel, and odds and ends
of all kinds. Round the waist is a belt, in which is stuck a large
butcher-knife in a sheath of buffalo-hide, made fast to the belt by a
chain or guard of steel; which also supports a little buckskin case
containing a whetstone. A tomahawk is also often added; and, of course,
a long heavy rifle is part and parcel of his equipment. I had nearly
forgotten the pipe-holder, which hangs round his neck, and is generally
a gage d’amour, and a triumph of squaw workmanship, in shape of a
heart, garnished with beads and porcupine-quills.
“Thus provided, and having determined the locality of his
trapping-ground, he starts to the mountains, sometimes alone, sometimes
with three or four in company, as soon as the breaking up of the ice
allows him to commence operations. Arrived on his hunting-grounds, he
follows the creeks and streams, keeping a sharp look-out for ‘sign.’
“During the hunt, regardless of Indian vicinity, the fearless trapper
wanders far and near in search of ‘sign.’ His nerves must ever be
in a state of tension, and his mind ever present at his call. His
eagle eye sweeps round the country, and in an instant detects any
foreign appearance. A turned leaf, a blade of grass pressed down, the
uneasiness of the wild animals, the flight of birds, are all paragraphs
to him written in nature’s legible hand and plainest language. All the
wits of the subtle savage are called into play to gain an advantage
over the wily woodsman; but with the natural instinct of primitive man,
the white hunter has the advantages of a civilized mind, and, thus
provided, seldom fails to outwit, under equal advantages, the cunning
savage.
“Sometimes, following on his trail, the Indian watches him set his
traps on a shrub-belted stream, and, passing up the bed, like Bruce
of old, so that he may leave no tracks, he lies in wait in the bushes
until the hunter comes to examine his carefully-set traps. Then,
waiting until he approaches his ambushment within a few feet, whiz
flies the home-drawn arrow, never failing at such close quarters to
bring the victim to the ground. For one white scalp, however, that
dangles in the smoke of an Indian’s lodge, a dozen black ones, at the
end of the hunt, ornament the campfires of the rendezvous.
“At a certain time, when the hunt is over, or they have loaded their
pack-animals, the trappers proceed to the ‘rendezvous,’ the locality of
which has been previously agreed upon; and here the traders and agents
of the fur companies await them, with such assortment of goods as their
hardy customers may require, including generally a fair supply of
alcohol. The trappers drop in singly and in small bands, bringing their
packs of beaver to this mountain market, not unfrequently to the value
of a thousand dollars each, the produce of one hunt. The dissipation
of the ‘rendezvous,’ however, soon turns the trapper’s pocket inside
out. The goods brought by the traders, although of the most inferior
quality, are sold at enormous prices:--Coffee, twenty and thirty
shillings a pint-cup, which is the usual measure; tobacco fetches ten
and fifteen shillings a plug; alcohol, from twenty to fifty shillings a
pint; gunpowder, sixteen shillings a pint-cup; and all other articles
at proportionately exorbitant prices.
“A trapper often squanders the produce of his hunt, amounting to
hundreds of dollars, in a couple of hours; and, supplied on credit with
another equipment, leaves the rendezvous for another expedition, which
has the same result time after time; although one tolerably successful
hunt would enable him to return to the settlements and civilized life,
with an ample sum to purchase and stock a farm, and enjoy himself in
ease and comfort the remainder of his days.
“An old trapper, a French Canadian, assured me that he had received
fifteen thousand dollars for beaver during a sojourn of twenty years
in the mountains. Every year he resolved in his mind to return to
Canada and, with this object, always converted his fur into cash; but a
fortnight at the ‘rendezvous’ always cleaned him out, and, at the end
of twenty years, he had not even credit sufficient to buy a pound of
powder.
“These annual gatherings are often the scene of bloody duels, for
over their cups and cards no men are more quarrelsome than your
mountaineers. Rifles, at twenty paces, settle all differences, and, as
may be imagined, the fall of one or other of the combatants is certain,
or, as sometimes happens, both fall to the word ‘fire.’”
Ruxton made many solitary hunting trips away from the fort--Pueblo--and
of one of these, to the head of the Fontaine-qui-bouille, he paints a
pleasing picture:
“Never was there such a paradise for hunters as this lone and solitary
spot. The shelving prairie, at the bottom of which the springs are
situated, is entirely surrounded by rugged mountains, and, containing
perhaps two or three acres of excellent grass, affords a safe pasture
to their animals, which would hardly care to wander from such feeding,
and the salitrose rocks they love so well to lick. Immediately
overhead, Pike’s Peak, at an elevation of 12,000 feet above the level
of the sea, towers high into the clouds; whilst from the fountain,
like a granitic amphitheatre, ridge after ridge, clothed with pine and
cedar, rises and meets the stupendous mass of mountains, well called
‘Rocky,’ which stretches far away north and southward, their gigantic
peaks being visible above the strata of clouds which hide their rugged
bases.
“This first day the sun shone out bright and warm, and not a breath of
wind ruffled the evergreen foliage of the cedar groves. Gay-plumaged
birds were twittering in the shrubs, and ravens and magpies were
chattering overhead, attracted by the meat I had hung upon a tree; the
mules, having quickly filled themselves, were lying round the spring,
basking lazily in the sun; and myself, seated on a pack, and pipe in
mouth, with rifle ready at my side, indolently enjoyed the rays, which
reverberated (_sic_) from the white rock on which I was lying, were
deliciously warm and soothing. A piece of rock, detached from the
mountainside and tumbling noisily down, caused me to look up in the
direction whence it came. Half a dozen big-horns, or Rocky Mountain
sheep, perched on the pinnacle of a rock, were gazing wonderingly upon
the prairie, where the mules were rolling enveloped in clouds of dust.
The enormous horns of the mountain sheep appeared so disproportionably
heavy, that I every moment expected to see them lose their balance and
topple over the giddy height. My motions frightened them, and, jumping
from rock to rock, they quickly disappeared up the steepest part of
the mountain. At the same moment a herd of blacktail deer crossed the
corner of the glade within rifle shot of me, but, fearing the vicinity
of Indians, I refrained from firing before I had reconnoitred the
vicinity for signs of their recent presence.
“Immediately over me, on the left bank of the stream, and high above
the springs, was a small plateau, one of many which are seen on the
mountainsides. Three buffalo bulls were here quietly feeding, and
remained the whole afternoon undisturbed. I saw from the sign that they
had very recently drunk at the springs, and that the little prairie
where my animals were feeding was a frequent resort of solitary bulls.”
[Illustration: INDIAN SIGNALLING “BUFFALO DISCOVERED”]
A mountain hunter rather than one of the plains, Ruxton nevertheless
devotes some space to buffalo hunting. He points out what has so often
been written of since his time, that the buffalo was hard to kill, not
because it had so much vitality, but because the inexperienced hunter
so seldom shot it in the right place. Thus he says: