UP THE PLATTE TO DENVER.
The Union Pacific Railroad had then just reached Fort Kearney from
Omaha, and was the sensation of the hour. With a large force of men,
it was being pushed rapidly up the north bank of the Platte; but as
our road lay up the south bank, we did not cross to see it. There was
little to prevent its rapid progress of a mile and even two miles
per day, as the Platte valley ascends gradually, and for railroad
purposes is almost everywhere practically a level. We now dismissed
our ambulance and escort, with instructions to return to Fort Riley,
and transferred ourselves, bag and baggage, to Holliday's Overland
Stages, which here connected with the railroad.
This stage-line was long one of the first enterprises of America,
and, as the forerunner of the railroad did its part well in carrying
civilization across the continent. It was then owned and controlled
by Mr. Ben Holliday, an enterprising Missourian, but then living in
New York. It had originally fallen into his hands for debt, but he
had since greatly enlarged and extended it. It then ran from Fort
Kearney to Denver, with branches to the mining regions; thence across
the Rocky Mountains to Salt Lake;[2] thence through Idaho to the
Columbia, with branches through Montana; extending in all, nearly
three thousand miles, employing six thousand horses and mules, and
more than three hundred coaches. He paid his general superintendent
ten thousand dollars per year; his division superintendents, half
that; and lesser employees proportionately. His hay, and grain, and
provisions, he had to haul hundreds of miles, distributing them along
the route, and his fuel frequently one hundred and fifty. To offset
all this, he carried the U. S. Mail, daily each way, and for this
service alone received over half a million of dollars per year from
the government. In addition, his passenger fares from Fort Kearney
to Denver were one hundred and fifty dollars; to Salt Lake, three
hundred; to Nevada, four hundred and fifty; to California, five
hundred; and to Idaho and Montana, about the same.
We found his stages to be our well-known Concord coaches, and they
quite surpassed our expectations, both as to comfort and to speed.
They were intended for nine inside--three seats full--and as many more
outside, as could be induced to get on. Their teams were either four or
six horses, depending on the roads, and the distance between stations.
The animals themselves were our standing wonder; no broken-down nags,
or half-starved Rosinantes, like our typical stage-horses east; but,
as a rule, they were fat and fiery, and would have done credit to a
horseman anywhere. Wiry, gamey, as if feeling their oats thoroughly,
they often went off from the stations at a full gallop; at the end of
a mile or so would settle down to a square steady trot; and this they
would usually keep up right along until they reached the next station.
These "stations" varied from ten to twelve miles apart, depending
on water and grass, and consisted of the rudest kind of a shanty or
sod-house ordinarily. Here we would find another team, ready harnessed,
prancing to be gone, and in fifteen minutes or so would be off on
the road again. Halts were made twice a day for meals, forty minutes
each, and with this exception we kept bowling ahead night and day. Our
meals were fair for the region; generally coffee, beef-steak or bacon,
potatoes, and saleratus-biscuit hot; but the prices--one dollar and one
dollar and a half per meal--seemed extortionate. In this way, we often
made ten and twelve miles per hour, while on the road; and seldom drove
less than one hundred, and one hundred and twenty-five miles, per day
and night.
We talked a good deal, or essayed to, with the drivers; but as a
rule, they were a taciturn species. Off the box they were loquacious
enough; but when mounted, with four or six in hand, they either
thought it unprofessional to talk, or else were absorbed too much
in their business. I remarked this to a Division Superintendent,
when he replied, "You bet! A talking driver is like a whistling girl
or crowing hen, always of no account!" They each had their drive
of fifty or sixty miles, up one day, and back the next, and to the
people along the route were important personages. Many we found were
from New Hampshire, and Western New York. Usually they were a roving
class; but when they once settled down to stage-driving, they seldom
left it permanently. There seemed to be a fascination about the
life, hard as it was, and we found many of these Jehus who had been
driving for years, and never expected to quit it. They were fond of
tobacco and whiskey, and rolled out ponderous oaths, when things did
not go to suit them; but as a rule, they were hearty and generous
fellows, and were doing the world good service. As bearers of the
U. S. Mail, they felt themselves kings of the road, and were seldom
loth to show it. "Clar the road! Git out of the way thar with your
bull-teams!" was a frequent salutation, when overtaking or meeting
wagon-trains; and if this was not complied with quickly, they made
little hesitation in running into the oxen, and swearing till all was
blue. I have a vivid recollection of one instance of the kind, when
we ran into an ox-team, and the justly exasperated teamster sent us
his compliments, in the shape of a bullet whizzing through the air,
as we whirled away again.
In fellow-passengers we were remarkably lucky. Col. B. was a good
specimen of the ups and downs of an average Westerner. He was a
graduate of West Point, or at least had been a cadet there, and
afterwards served some years in the Regular Army. Retiring to civil
life, he subsequently was elected Lieut.-Governor of a western
state, and afterwards became Governor--the incumbent dying. When
the war broke out, he turned up as Colonel of a volunteer regiment;
and now, like the Irishman, having been "promoted backward," was
vegetating as sutler at a post on the Plains. He was a man of rare
wit and intelligence, of infinite jest and humor (his own worst
enemy), and we were sorry to part when he reached his post. Then we
had a Swiss artist, M. Buchser, sent over by his government to make
a grand painting illustrative of our late war, embracing our most
famous statesmen and generals, for the Capitol at Berne. Having a
month or two of leisure, he was spending it wisely in making a run to
the Plains and the Rocky Mountains. Now he was hurrying on to join
Gen. Sherman at Julesburg, whence he was to accompany him and his
brother, the Ohio Senator, on a tour of inspection to Fort Laramie,
Buford, Denver, and then east again via the Arkansas. He was a close
observer, had travelled much on both continents, and was very chatty
and companionable, speaking English like a native. He sketched
constantly _en route_, making "studies" of the Platte valley from
the top of the stage-coach, and when we parted at Fort McPherson, it
was with the mutual hope of meeting again at Denver. Next we had a
Doctor of Divinity from Illinois, of the Methodist persuasion, _en
route_ to Golden City and the Mountains, in search of health, and
to look after certain mining interests of some company in the east.
Then we had a banker from New York, of copperhead tendencies, bound
for Idaho City, also in quest of mines; but his wife was a staunch
Republican, and more than offset his political heresies. We had
others besides, merchants, miners, telegraph-men, etc., and really
not one disagreeable person.
As to the weather, we found that intensely hot in the middle of the
day (it being the last of August and first of September), but the
mornings and evenings were delightful, and the nights always superb.
Most of the passengers preferred the inside; but Dr. M. and I chose
the outside, which with some inconveniences had its advantages
after all. By day it gave us a wider view of the country; and at
night we used to give our blankets a "shake down" on the flat top
(first borrowing an armful of hay from some station), and then go
luxuriously to sleep. At first when we tried this, not understanding
the philosophy of the situation, we came near rolling off when the
coach would pitch into a chuck-hole, or give a lurch from heel to
port; but we soon learned to boom ourselves on, with a rope or
strap from railing to railing, and thus managed to secure not a
little of "tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," while our
fellow-passengers down below (nine inside), packed like sardines in
a box, got seldom a wink. The most of the time, the moon was at the
full or about that, and superb in her unveiled glory. The sky was
packed with a myriad of stars, far beyond what we ever see east. The
air, pure and dry, free from both dew and frost, was a perpetual
tonic to lungs and brain. Every hundred miles or so we stopped over
a day or two to inspect some Military Post, and so got rested. The
scenery from day to day was ever fresh and changing, abounding in new
sensations. And, in short, in all my experiences of life, I have few
pleasanter recollections than in thus staging it outside, across the
Plains, and up the Platte to Denver. One night, however, a wind-storm
from the summit of the Rocky Mountains struck us, and for hours raged
furiously--raw and gusty, piercing to the bone. But at midnight we
rolled into Fort Morgan, and halting in its hospitable quarters,
waited until the wind blew itself out.
The sunsets now and then were magnificent, and one particularly
beyond Fort Sedgwick or Julesburg deserves further mention. We were
rolling rapidly along, when the sun went down behind a cloud, that
formed the huge segment of a circle on the horizon, and from around
and behind this his rays came flashing forth with a beauty--a glory
and a gorgeousness--that we had never seen equalled. Heavy, sombre
clouds hung about the west, while over head and off to the east they
thinned out into fleecy mottled masses almost invisible, until his
reflected rays illuminated them. Up among these, across the whole
dome of the heavens, the colors flamed and went, as tremulous as a
maiden's blushes--now crimson and gold, then purple and violet, and
now again a dreamy, hazy, half-pink, half rosy light, that baffles
description. I had seen gorgeous sunsets elsewhere--on the Hudson,
among the Alleghanies, by the sea--but never any so full of glory
and majesty, and sublimity as this. The fleecy masses overhead seemed
to hang in curtains, one behind the other, like the top scenes at a
theatre, and the shifting light playing about among them added to
the illusion. Nature seemed here to enrobe the heavens in her most
magnificent and gorgeous tapestry, as if trying to show what glorious
fabrics her noiseless looms could weave; and over all brooded that
mysterious silence of the Plains, that seems like the hush of
eternity. It must have been some such scene, that flamed through the
poet's brain when he wrote:
"All the west was washed with fire;
Great clouds were standing round the setting sun,
Like gaping caves, fantastic pinnacles,
Citadels throbbing in their own fierce light,
Tall spires that came and went like spires of flame,
Cliffs quivering with fire-snow, and peaks
Of piléd gorgeousness, and rocks of fire
A-tilt and poised, bare beaches, crimson seas."
A singular part of it all was, that passengers in the next
stage-coach, a hundred miles east, were struck with the same
magnificent sunset, and followed us into Denver with similar accounts
of its grandeur and sublimity, at the point where they had been.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] The line thence to California was run by Wells, Fargo & Co.