OUR LAST NIGHT TOGETHER--THE REMARKABLE SHED-TAIL DOG--HE
RESCUES HIS MISTRESS, AND BREAKS UP A MEETING--A SKETCH OF
TERRITORIAL TIMES BY GRIPE--MONTGOMERY'S EXPEDITION FOR THE
RESCUE OF JOHN BROWN'S COMPANIONS--SCALPED, AND CARVING HIS
OWN EPITAPH--AN IRISH JACOB--"SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST"--SACHEM'S
POETICAL LETTER--POPPING THE QUESTION ON THE RUN--THE
PROFESSOR'S LETTER, 416-428
CONTENTS OF APPENDIX.
PAGES.
PRELIMINARY TO THE APPENDIX, 431, 432
CHAPTER FIRST.
COME TO THE GREAT WEST--SHOULD THERE NOT BE COMPULSORY
EMIGRATION--"GET A GOOD READY"--HOMESTEAD LAWS AND
REGULATIONS--THE STATE OF KANSAS--THE COST OF A FARM--A FEW
MORE PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS, 433-450
CHAPTER SECOND.
HUNTING THE BUFFALO--ANTELOPE HUNTING--ELK HUNTING--TURKEY
HUNTING--GENERAL REMARKS--WHAT TO DO IF LOST ON THE PLAINS--THE
NEW FIELD FOR SPORTSMEN, 451-463
CHAPTER THIRD.
"BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES"--THE GREAT WEST--FALL
OF THE RIVERS--THE PRINCIPAL RIVERS AND VALLEYS OF
BUFFALO LAND--THE VALLEY OF THE PLATTE--THE SOLOMON AND
SMOKY HILL RIVERS--THE ARKANSAS RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES--STOCK
RAISING IN THE GREAT WEST--THE CATTLE HIVE OF NORTH
AMERICA--THE CLIMATE OF THE PLAINS--CLIMATIC CHANGES ON THE
PLAINS--THE TREES AND FUTURE FORESTS OF THE PLAINS--THE
SUPPLY OF FUEL--DISTRICTS CONTIGUOUS TO THE PLAINS--THE VALLEYS
OF THE WHITE EARTH AND NIOBRARA--NEW MEXICO: ITS
SOIL, CLIMATE, RESOURCES, ETC.--THE DISAPPEARING BISON--THE
FISH WITH LEGS--THE MOUNTAIN SUPPLY OF LUMBER FOR THE
PLAINS, 465-503
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
_From Original Drawings by Henry Worrall, and Actual Photographs._
_The Engraving by the Bureau of Illustration, Buffalo, N. Y._
PAGE
FRONTISPIECE, FACING TITLE PAGE
ALASKAN LOVERS--SEALING THE CONTRACT, 27
ALASKAN GAME OF OLD SLEDGE, 27
"WAUKARUSA," 33
"TOASTS HIS MOCCASINED FEET BY THE FIRE," 33
THE PROFESSOR--A REMARKABLE STONE, 39
TAMMANY SACHEM--PROSPECTIVE AND RETROSPECTIVE, 39
COLON AND SEMI-COLON, 43
DAVID PYTHAGORAS, M. D., 43
ONE OF THE MUGGSES, 47
SHAMUS DOBEEN--HIS CARD, 53
HON. T. GRIPE (BEATIFIED), 53
"SPERIT, GENTLEMEN!" 57
OUR FIRST BIRD-SHOOTING, 67
JUDGE LYNCH--HIS COURT, 77
UNNATURALIZED, 91
NATURALIZED, 91
"YOU'VE RILED THAT BROOK"--AN OLD FABLE MODERNIZED, 96
DOG TOWN--THE HAPPY FAMILY, 96
INDIAN ROCK--FROM A PHOTOGRAPH, 105
MUSHROOM ROCK--FROM A PHOTOGRAPH, 105
FIRE ON THE PLAINS, ACCORDING TO NOVELS, 115
FIRE ON THE PLAINS, AS IT IS, 115
"AND ERIN'S SON CHRISTENS THOSE FAR-OFF POINTS OF THE PACIFIC
RAILROAD WITH HIS BLOOD," 127
GENTLE ZEPHYRS--GOING OFF WITHOUT A DRAWBACK, 133
"LOOKED LIKE THE END OF A TAIL," 137
THE RARE OLD PLAINSMAN OF THE NOVELS, 137
WILD BILL--FROM A PHOTOGRAPH, 147
BUFFALO BILL--FROM A PHOTOGRAPH, 147
OUR HORSES RUN AWAY WITH US, 157
THE PIPE OF PEACE--THE PROFESSOR'S DILEMMA, 167
_White Wolf at Home_, 172
THE WILD DENIZENS OF THE PLAINS, 197
SMASHING A CHEYENNE BLACK-KETTLE, 219
MIDNIGHT SERENADE ON THE PLAINS, 227
GOING AFTER AMMUNITION, 259
BATTLE BETWEEN CHEYENNES AND PAWNEES, 271
ONE OF OUR SPECIMENS--PHOTOGRAPHED BY J. LEE KNIGHT, TOPEKA, 301
WANTON DESTRUCTION OF BUFFALO, EMBRACING:
DAILY, FOR FUN, 315
300 A DAY FOR PLEASURE, 315
FOR EXCITEMENT, 315
100,000 FOR TONGUES, 315
2,000,000 FOR ROBES, TO GET WHISKY, 315
DUG OUT, 329
TAKING AND BEING TAKEN, 335
DEVELOPING--ONE OF THE FIRST FAMILIES, 348
THE SEA WHICH ONCE COVERED THE PLAINS, 357
WACONDA DA--GREAT SPIRIT SALT SPRING, 399
MORE OF OUR SPECIMENS (PHOTOGRAPHED BY J. LEE KNIGHT), EMBRACING:
PRAIRIE CHICKENS, 413
HEAD OF AN ELK, 413
WILD TURKEY, 413
BEAVER, 413
BUFFALO LAND.
CHAPTER I.
THE OBJECT OF OUR EXPEDITION--A GLIMPSE OF ALASKA THROUGH CAPTAIN
WALRUS' GLASS--WE ARE TEMPTED BY OUR RECENT PURCHASE--ALASKAN GAME
OF "OLD SLEDGE"--THE EARLY STRUGGLES OF KANSAS--THE SMOKY HILL
TRAIL--INDIAN HIGH ART--THE "BORDER-RUFFIAN," PAST AND
PRESENT--TOPEKA--HOW IT RECEIVED ITS NAME--WAUKARUSA AND ITS
LEGEND.
The great plains--the region of country in which our expedition
sojourned for so many months--is wilder, and by far more interesting,
than those solitudes over which the Egyptian Sphynx looks out. The
latter are barren and desolate, while the former teem with their savage
races and scarcely more savage beasts. The very soil which these tread
is written all over with a history of the past, even its surface giving
to science wonderful and countless fossils of those ages when the world
was young and man not yet born.
At first, it was rather unsettled which way the steps of our party would
turn; between unexplored territory and that newly acquired, there were
several fields open which promised much of interest. Originally, our
company numbered a dozen; but Alaska tempted a portion of our savans,
and to the fishy and frigid maiden they yielded, drawn by a strange
predilection for train-oil and seal meat toward the land of furs. For
the remainder of our party, however, life under the Alaskan's tent-pole
had no charms. Our decision may have been influenced somewhat by the
seafaring man with whom our friends were to sail. The real name of this
son of Neptune was Samuels, but our party called him, as it savored more
of salt water, Captain Walrus, of the bark Harpoon. This worthy,
according to his own statement, had been born on a whaler, weaned among
the Esquimeaux, and, moreover, had frozen off eight toes "trying to
winter it at our recent purchase." He evidently disliked to have
scientific men aboard, intent on studying eclipses and seals. "A
heathenish and strange people are the Alaskans," Walrus was wont to say.
"What is not Indian is Russian, and a compound of the latter and
aboriginal is a mixture most villainous. One portion of the partnership
anatomy takes to brandy, while the other absorbs train-oil, and so a
half-breed Alaskan heathen is always prepared for spontaneous
combustion, and if rubbed the wrong way, flames up instantly. He is
always hot for murder, and if you throw cold water on his designs, his
oily nature sheds it."
And many a yarn did the captain spin concerning their strange customs.
Sealing a marriage contract consisted in the warrior leaving a fat seal
at the hole of the hut, where his intended crawled in to her home
privileges of smoke and fish. Their favorite game was "old sledge,"
played with prisoners to shorten their captivity.
[Illustration: ALASKAN LOVERS--SEALING THE CONTRACT.]
[Illustration: ALASKAN GAME OF OLD SLEDGE.]
All this, and much more, probably equally true, we had picked up of
Alaskan history, and at one time our chests had been packed for a voyage
on the Harpoon; but at the final council the west carried it against
the north, and our steps were directed toward the setting sun, instead
of the polar star.
The expedition afforded unexcelled facilities for seeing Buffalo Land.
It was composed of good material, and pursued its chosen path
successfully, though under difficulties which would have turned back a
less determined party.
None of our company, I trust, will consider it an unwarrantable license
which recounts to others the personal peculiarities and mistakes about
which we joked so freely while in camp. It was generally understood,
before we parted, that the adventures should be common stock for our
children and children's children. Why should not the great public share
in it also?
* * * * *
Let the reader place before him a checker-board, and allow it to
represent Kansas, whose shape and outline it much resembles; the half
nearest him will stand for the eastern or settled portion of the State,
of which the other half is embraced in Buffalo Land proper. It is with
the latter that we have first to do, as with it we first became
acquainted.
Our party entered the State at Kansas City, and took the cars for
Topeka, its capital. During our morning ride through the valley of the
Kaw, memory went backward to the years when "Bleeding Kansas" was the
signal-cry of emancipation. When gray old Time, a decade and a half ago,
was writing the history of those bright children of Freedom, the united
sisterhood, a virgin arm reached over his shoulder, and a fair young
hand, stained with its own life-blood, wrote on the page toward which
all the world was gazing, "I am Kansas, latest-born of America. I would
be free, yet they would make me a slave. Save me, my sisters!" The great
heart of our nation was sorely distressed. Conscience pointed to one
path--Policy, that rank hypocrite, to another.
And so it was that the young queen, with her grand domain in the West,
struggled forward to lay her fealty at the feet of our great mother,
Liberty. She made a body-guard of her own sons, and their number was
quickly swelled by brave hearts from the north, east, and west. The new
territory, begging admission as a State, became a battle-ground. Slavery
had reached forth its hand to grasp the new State and fresh soil, but
the mutilated member was drawn back with wounds which soon reached,
corrupted and destroyed the body. In this land of the Far West a nation
of young giants had been suddenly developed, and Kansas was forever won
for freedom.
But there was yet another enemy and another danger. Westward, toward
Colorado, the savage's tomahawk and knife glittered, and struck among
the affrighted settlements. _Ad Astra per Aspera_, "to the stars through
difficulties," the State exclaims on the seal, and to the stars, through
blood, its course has been.
Those old pages of history are too bloody to be brought to light in the
bright present, and we purpose turning them only enough to gather what
will be now of practical use. Kansas suffered cruelly, and brooded over
her wrongs, but she has long since struck hands with her bitterer foe.
Most of the "Border Ruffians" ripened on gallows trees, or fell by the
sword, years ago. A few, however, are yet spared, to cheer their old age
by riding around in desolate woods at midnight, wrapped in damp
nightgowns, and masked in grinning death-heads. Although the mists of
shadow-land are chilling their hearts, yet those organs, at the cry of
blood, beat quick again, like regimental drums, for action.
The Kaw or the Kansas River, the valley of which we were traversing, is
the principal stream of the State--in length to the mouth of the
Republican one hundred and fifty miles, and above that, under the name
of Smoky Hill, three hundred miles more.
The "Smoky Hill trail" is a familiar name in many an American home. It
was the great California path, and many a time the demons of the plain
gloated over fair hair, yet fresh from a mother's touch and blessing.
And many a faint and thirsty traveler has flung himself with a burst of
gratitude on the sandy bed of the desolate river, and thanked the Great
Giver of all good for the concealed life found under the sand, and with
the strength thus sucked from the bosom of our much-abused mother, he
has pushed onward until at length the grand mountains and great parks of
Colorado burst upon his delighted vision.
About noon we arrived at Topeka, the capital, well situated on the south
bank of the river, having a comfortable, well-to-do air, which suggests
the quiet satisfaction of an honest burgher after a morning of toil. The
slavery billow of agitation rolled even thus far from beyond the border
of the state. Armed men rode over the beautiful prairies, some east,
some west--one band to transplant slavery from the tainted soil of
Missouri, another to pluck it up.
A small party of Free State men settled upon this beautiful prairie.
South flowed the Waukarusa, south and east the Shunganunga, and west and
north the Kaw or Kansas. Here thrived a bulbous root, much loved by the
red man, and here lazy Pottawatomies gathered in the fall to dig it. In
size and somewhat in shape, it resembled a goose egg, and had a hard,
reddish brown shell, and an interior like damaged dough. The Indian
gourmands ate it greedily and called it "Topeka." From the two or three
families of refugee Free State men the town grew up, and from the Indian
root it took its name. Its christening took place in the first cabin
erected, and it is reported that a now prominent banker of the town
stood sponsor, with his back against the door, refusing any egress until
the name of his choice was accepted. It is even affirmed that one
opposing city founder was pulled back by his coat-tail from an attempted
escape up the wide chimney.
[Illustration: "WAUKARUSA."]
[Illustration: "TOASTS HIS MOCCASINED FEET BY THE FIRE."]
The old Indian love of commemorating events by significant names is well
illustrated in Kansas. One example may be given here. Waukarusa once
opposed its swollen tide to an exploring band of red men. Now, from time
beyond ken, the noble savage has been illustrious for the ingenuity with
which he lays all disagreeable duties upon the shoulders of the patient
squaw. He may ride to their death, in free wild sport, the bison
multitudes; but their skins must be converted into marketable robes,
and the flesh into jerked meat, by the ugly and over-worked partner of
his bosom. While she pins the raw hide to earth, and bends patiently
over, fleshing it with horn hatchet for weary hours, the stronger
vessel, his abdominal recesses wadded with buffalo meat, toasts his
moccasined feet by the fire, fills his lungs with smoke from villainous
killikinick, and muses soothingly of white scalps and happy hunting
grounds.
Ox-like maiden, happy "big injun!" you both belong to an age and a
history well nigh past, and let us rejoice that it is so.
But to return to the band long since gathered into aboriginal dust whom
we left pausing on the banks of the Waukarusa. "Deep water, bad bottom!"
grunted the braves, and, nothing doubting it, one loving warrior pushed
his wife and her pony over the bank to test the matter. From the middle
of the tide the squaw called back, "Waukarusa" (thigh deep), and soon
had gained the opposite bank in safety. Then and there the creek
received its name, "Waukarusa."
We procured a remarkable sketch, in the well known Indian style of high
art, commemorative of this event. It has always struck us that the
savage order of drawing resembles very much that of the ancient
Egyptian--except in the matter of drawing at sight, with bow or rifle,
on the white man.
CHAPTER II.
A CHAPTER OF INTRODUCTIONS--PROFESSOR PALEOZOIC--TAMMANY
SACHEM--DOCTOR PYTHAGORAS--GENUINE MUGGS--COLON AND
SEMI-COLON--SHAMUS DOBEEN--TENACIOUS GRIPE--BUGS AND
PHILOSOPHY--HOW GRIPE BECAME A REPUBLICAN.
When permission was given me to draw upon the journal of our trip for
such material as I might desire, it was stipulated that the camp-names
should be adhered to. A company on the plains is no respecter of
persons, and titles which might have caused offense before starting were
received in good part, and worn gracefully thenceforward.
Our leader, Professor Paleozoic, ordinarily existed in a sort of
transition state between the primary and tertiary formations. He could
tell cheese from chalk under the microscope, and show that one was full
of the fossil and the other of the living evidences of animal life. A
worthy man, vastly more troubled with rocks on the brain than "rocks" in
the pocket.
Learning had once come near making him mad, but from this sad fate he
was happily saved by a somewhat Pickwickian blunder. While in Kansas,
some years since, he penetrated a remote portion of the wilderness,
where, as he was happy in believing, none but the native savage, or,
possibly, the primeval man, could ever have tarried long enough to leave
any sign behind. Imagine his astonishment and delight, therefore, when
from the tangled grass he drew an upright stone, with lines chiseled on
three sides and on the fourth a rude figure resembling more than any
thing else one of those odd fictions which geologists call restored
specimens. On a ledge near were huge depressions like foot-prints. They
were foot-prints of birds, no doubt, and quite as perfect as those found
in more favored localities, and from which whole skeletons had been
constructed by learned men.
Both specimens were forwarded to, and at the expense of, noted savans of
the East. Our professor called the pillar from the tangled grass an
altar raised by early races to the winds. The short lines, he suggested,
designated the different points of the compass, while the rude figure
was intended for Boreas. Our scientists toward the rising sun met the
boxes at the depot, paid charges, and careful draymen bore them to the
expectant museum.
One hour after, seven wise men might have been seen wending their way
sorrowfully homeward, with hands crossed meditatively under their
coat-tails, and pocket vacuums where lately were modern coins.
Government clearly had a case against our professor. Science decided
that he had removed a stone telling in surveyors' signs just what
section and township it was on. The figure which he had imagined a
heathen idea of Boreas was the fancy of some surveyor's idle moment--a
shocking sketch of an impossible buffalo. Whether the bird-tracks had a
common origin, or were hewn by the hatchets of the red man, is a point
still under discussion.
A worthy man, as before remarked, was the professor, full of knowledge,
genial in camp, and, having rubbed his eye-tooth on a section stone,
geological authority of the highest order. When the professor said a
particular rock belonged to the cretaceous formation, one might safely
conclude that no modern influences had been at work either on that rock
or in that vicinity. That question was settled.
Next came Tammany Sachem, our heavy weight and our mystery. Before
joining our party, he had been a New York alderman, noted for prowess in
annual aldermanic clam-bakes at Coney Island. He was wont to exhibit a
medal, the prize of such a tournament, on which several immense clams
were racing to the griddle, for the honor of being devoured by the city
fathers.
A green-ribbed hunting coat traversed his rotundity, which had the
generous swell of a puncheon. His face was reddish, and his nose like a
beacon-light against a sunset sky. When you thought him awake, he was
half asleep; when you thought him asleep, he was wide awake. A look of
extreme happiness always beamed on his face when misfortunes impended.
Per contra, successes made him suspicious and morose. New York aldermen
have always been a puzzle to the nation at large. Perhaps our friend's
facial contradictions, put on originally as one of the tricks of the
trade, had become chronic from long usage. We have since learned that
the sachems of Tammany laugh the loudest and joke the most freely when
under affliction.
[Illustration: THE PROFESSOR--A REMARKABLE STONE.]
[Illustration: TAMMANY SACHEM--PROSPECTIVE AND RETROSPECTIVE.]
When I was appointed editor, the Sachem volunteered as local
reporter. Many of the items he gathered are entered in our log-book in
rhyme, and to these pages some of them are transferred verbatim. In
wooing the muses, our alderman certainly acted out of character. The
ideal poet is thin instead of obese, and he is a reckless innovator who
lays claim to any measure of the divine afflatus without possessing
either a pale face, thin form, or a garret.
As to what drove a New York alderman to the society of buffaloes, we had
but one explanation, and that was Sachem's own. We knew that he disliked
women in every form, Sorosis and Anti-Sorosis, bitter and sweet alike.
According to his statement, made to us in good faith, and which I
chronicle in the same, Cupid had once essayed to drive a dart into
Sachem's heart, but, in doing so, the barb also struck and wounded his
liver. As his love increased, his health failed. His liver became
affected in the same ratio as his heart. This was touching our alderman
in a tender spot. Imagine a New York city father without digestion; what
a subject of scorn he would become to his constituency! Our alderman
fled from Cupid, clams, and his beloved Gotham, and sought health and
buffalo on the plains of Kansas. As he remarked to us pathetically: "A
good liver makes a good husband. Indigestion frightens connubial bliss
out of the window. Pills, my boy, pills is the quietus of love. If you
wish Cupid to leave, give him a dose of 'em. The liver, instead of the
heart, is at the bottom of half the suicides."
Doctor Pythagoras in years was fifty, and in stature short. His
favorite theory was "development," and this he carried to depths which
would have astonished Darwin himself. How humble he used to make us feel
by digging at the roots of the family tree until its uttermost fiber lay
between an oyster and a sponge! (Rumor charged him with waiting so long
for diseases to develop, that his patients developed into spirits.)
While he indorsed Darwin, however, he also admired Pythagoras. The
latter's doctrine of metempsychosis he Darwinized. In their
transmigration from one body to another, souls developed, taking a
higher order of being with each change, until finally fitted to enter
the land of spirits. The soul of a jack-of-all-trades was one which
developed slowly, and picked up a new craft with each new body. Like
Pythagoras, he remembered several previous bodies which his soul had
animated, among others that of the original Rarey, who existed in Egypt
some centuries before the modern usurper was born. If souls proved
entirely unworthy during the probationary or human period, they were
cast back into the brute creation to try it over again. To this class
belonged prize-fighters, Congressmen, and the like. With them the past
was a blank--an unsuccessful problem washed from the slate. The doctor
had a hobby that a vicious horse was only a vicious man entered into a
lower order of being. To demonstrate this he had traveled, and still
persisted in traveling, on eccentric horses, for the purpose of
reasoning with them. But his Egyptian lore had been lost in
transmission, and his falls, kicks, and bites became as many as the
moons which had passed over his head.
[Illustration: COLON AND SEMI-COLON.]
[Illustration: DAVID PYTHAGORAS, M. D.]
Genuine Muggs was an Englishman. The antipodes of Tammany Sachem, who
would not believe any thing, Muggs swallowed every thing. He had already
absorbed so much in this way that he knew all about the United States
before visiting it. Given half a chance, he would undoubtedly have told
the savage more about the latter's habits than the aborigine himself
knew. It was positively impossible for him to learn any thing. His round
British body was so full of indisputable facts that another one would
have burst it. In the Presidential alphabet, from Alpha Washington to
Omega Grant, he knew all of our rulers' tricks and trades, and
understood better the crooked ways of the White House than our own
talented Jenkins.
British phlegm incased his soul, and British leather his feet. From heel
to crown he was completely a Briton. His mutton-chop whiskers came just
so far, and the h's dropped in and out of his utterings in a perfectly
natural way. In the Briton's alphabet, Sachem used to remark, the _I_ is
so big that it is no wonder the _H_ is often crowded out.
Muggs was a fair representative of the average Englishman who has
traveled somewhat. The eye-teeth of these persons are generally cut with
a slash, and they are forever after sore-mouthed. For a maiden effort
they never suck knowledge gently in, but attempt a gulp which strangles.
The consequence of this hasty acquiring is a bloated condition. The
partly-traveled Briton seems, at first acquaintance, full and swollen
with knowledge; but should the student of learning apply the prick, the
result obtained will generally prove to be--gas.
Over our great country, some of the family of Muggs meet one at every
turn. Often they scurry along solitarily, but occasionally in groups. In
the former case they are unsocial to every body--in the latter to every
body except their own party. The bliss which comes from ignorance must
be of a thoroughly enjoyable nature, for the Muggses certainly do enjoy
themselves. They will pass through a country, remaining completely
uncommunicative and self-wrapped, and know less of it after six months'
traveling than an American in two. The professor says he has met them in
the lonely parks of the Rocky Mountains and in the fishing and hunting
solitudes of the Canadas. If they have been an unusually long time
without seeing a human being, they may possibly catch at an eye-glass
and fling themselves abruptly into a few remarks. But it is in a tone
which says, plainer than words, "No use in your going any further, man;
I have absorbed all the beauties and knowledge of this locality."
[Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION BUFFALO_
ONE OF THE MUGGSES.]
It is a rare treat to see a coach delivered of Muggs at a country inn.
"Hi, porter, look hout for my luggage, you know. Tell the publican some
chops, rare, and lively now, and a mug of hale, and, if I can 'ave it, a
room to myself." If the latter request is granted, and you are
inquisitive enough to take a peep, you may see Muggs sturdily surveying
himself in the glass, and giving certain satisfied pats to his cravat
and waistcoat, as if to satisfy them that they covered a Briton. Could
the mirror which reflects his face also reflect his thoughts, they
would read about as follows: "Muggs, you are a Briton, and this hotel
must be made aware of the fact. Whatever you do, be guilty of no
un-English act while in this outlandish land. Your skin is now full of
knowledge, and let not other travelers, like so many mosquitoes, suck it
from you. Your forefathers blessed their eyes and dropped their h's, and
so must you." And perhaps by this time, if the chops have arrived, he
dines in seclusion and, by so doing, loses a fund of information which
his fellow-travelers have obtained by common exchange.
Again on the way, Muggs nestles in a corner of the coach and acts
strictly on the defensive, indignantly withdrawing his square-toed,
thick-soled English shoes, should neighboring feet attempt to hobnob
with them. On a trip through Buffalo Land, however, it is difficult for
one of her Britannic Majesty's subjects to maintain the national
dignity. But this fact Genuine Muggs--our Muggs--evidently did not know.
Had he known it, he would never have gone with us in the world.
Another of our party rejoiced in the appellation of "Colon." He obtained
this title because his eccentric specialities of character several times
came very near putting if not a full stop, at least the next thing to
it, upon the particular page of history which our party was making.
Longitudinally, Mr. Colon was all of five feet eleven; in circumference,
perhaps a score or so of inches. He possessed a fair share of oddities,
and what is better an equally fair one of dollars. The hemispheres of
his philanthropic brain seemed equally pre-empted by philosophy and
bugs. Engaging in some immense work for the amelioration of mankind, he
would pursue it with ardor, dwell upon it with unction, and then
suddenly leave it, half finished, to capture a rare spider. Philosophy
and Entomology had constant combat for Colon, and victory tarried with
neither long enough for the seat of war to be cultivated and blossom
with any luxuriance. At the time he joined our party one of his grandest
charitable projects had lately died in a very early period of infancy,
entirely supplanted in his affections for the time being by the prospect
of a chase after Brazilian insects. During our journey it was no
uncommon thing for us to see his thin form all covered with bugs and
reptiles, which had crawled out of the collecting boxes carried in his
pockets. If this meets our friend's eye, let him bear no malice, but
reflect, in the language of his own invariable answer to our
remonstrances, "It can't be helped." Should the public parade of his
faults be disagreeable, he can suffer no more from them now than we did
in the past, and may perhaps call them into closer quarters for the
future.
Mr. Colon's son, of two years less than a score, we dubbed Semi-colon,
as being a smaller edition, or to be exact, precisely one-half of what
the senior Colon was. So perfect was the concord of the two that the
junior had fallen into a chronic and to us amusing habit of answering
"Ditto" to the senior's expressions of opinion. Divide the father's
conversation by two, add an assent to every thing, and the result,
socially considered, would be the son. It may readily be seen,
therefore, why the professor for short should call him, as he nearly
always did, "Semi."
Shamus Dobeen, our cook and body-servant, according to his own account,
was the child of an impoverished but noble Irish family. Indeed, we
doubt if any Irishman was ever promoted from shovel laborer to
body-servant without suddenly remembering that he was "descinded" from a
line of kings. At the time Shamus was added to the population of
Ireland, the patrimonial estate had dwindled down to a peat bog. As this
soon "petered out," Shamus went from the exhausted moor into the cold
world. He had been by turns expelled patriot, dirt disturber on new
railroads, gunner on a Confederate cruiser, and high private in a Union
regiment. The position of gunner he lost by touching off a piece before
the muzzle had been run out, in consequence of which part of the
vessel's side went off suddenly with the gun. Captured, he readily
became a Union soldier, and could, without doubt, have transformed
himself into a Cheyenne, or a Patagonian, had occasion for either ever
required.
While in Topeka, our party made the acquaintance of Tenacious Gripe, a
well-known Kansas politician, and who attached himself to us for the
trip. Every person in the State knew him, had known him in territorial
times, and would know him until either the State or he ceased to be.
Flung headlong from somewhere into Kansas during the "border ruffian"
period, he would probably have passed as rapidly out of it had he been
allowed to do so peaceably. But as the slavery party endeavored to push
him, he concluded to stick. At that particular time, he was a moderate
Democrat or conservative Republican, and consequently had no particular
principles. But the slavery party supposed he had, and to them
accordingly he became an object of suspicion. They assumed the
aggressive, and he at once resolved into a staunch Republican. Had the
latter first struck him, he would have been as staunch a Democrat. And
Gripe has never known how near he came to being the latter. The
Republicans had just decided to order him out of the state as a border
ruffian spy, when the Democrats took action and did so for his not being
one. Those were troublous times. He went to the front at once in the
antislavery ranks, and has stayed there ever since. Sore-headed men are
apt to become famous. There were those in our late war who were kicked
by adversity into the very arms of Fame.
Our friend had been in both the upper and lower houses of the State
Legislature, and had rolled Congressional logs, moreover, until he was
hardly happy without having his hands on one.
[Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION BUFFALO_
SHAMUS DOBEEN--HIS CARD.]
[Illustration: HON. T. GRIPE (BEATIFIED).]
CHAPTER III.
THE TOPEKA AUCTIONEER--MUGGS GETS A BARGAIN--CYNOCEPHALUS--INDIAN
SUMMER IN KANSAS--HUNTING PRAIRIE CHICKENS--OUR FIRST DAY'S SPORT.
We had three or four days to spend in Topeka, as it was there that we
were to purchase our outfit for the buffalo region. With the latter
purpose in view, we were wandering along Kansas Avenue the next morning,
when a horseman came furiously down the street, shouting, at the top of
his lungs, "Sell um as he wars har!" Semi hastily retreated behind Mr.
Colon, thinking it might be a Jayhawker, while the professor adjusted
his glasses.
Muggs said the individual reminded him of the famous charge at
Balaklava. Muggs had never seen Balaklava, but other Englishmen had,
which answered the same purpose.
The equestrian proved to be a well-known auctioneer of Topeka, who may
be discovered at almost any time tearing through the streets on some
spavined or bow-legged old cob, auctioneering it off as he goes. His
favorite expression is, "I'll sell um as he wars har." What particular
selling charm lies concealed in this announcement even Gripe could not
tell. Sachem thought that possibly he had been brought up at some
exposed frontier post, where, on account of Indian prejudices, wearing
hair is a rare luxury. To say there that a man was still able to comb
his own scalp-lock denoted an extraordinary state of physical
perfection. Expressions of praise for humans are often applied to
horses, and so, perhaps, the one in question. "I have heard," quoth our
alderman, in support of this assertion, "Fitz say of a belle, at a
charity ball, what a 'bootiful cweature;' and I have heard him, the day
after, in his stable, say the same thing of his horse."
That horse-auction was a sight worth seeing. The crowd collected most
thickly on the corner of Kansas Avenue and Sixth Street, and before it
the cob came to a stand. And it was a stand--as stiff and painful as
that of a retired veteran put on dress parade. The limbs would have had
full duty to perform in supporting the carcass alone, which had
evidently been in light marching order for years past. The additional
weight of the auctioneer must certainly have proved altogether too much,
had not the horse heard, for the first time, of the wonderful qualities
with which he was still endowed.
Seeing a whole corner, with gaping mouths, swallowing the statement that
he was only six years old, reduced by hard work, and could, after three
months grass, pull a ton of coal, he would have been a thankless horse
indeed, which could not strain a point, or all his points, for such a
rider.
[Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION_
"SPERIT, GENTLEMEN!"]
And so, when the spurs suddenly rattled against his ribs, the old skin
full of bones gave a snort of pain, which the auctioneer called "Sperit,
gentle_men_!" and away up the broad avenue he rolled, at a speed which
threatened to break the rider's neck, and his own legs as well. His
tail having been cut short in youth, and retrimmed in old age, the
outfit made but a sorry figure going up the street. The Professor said
it suggested the idea of some fossil vertabra, with a paint brush
attached to its end, running away with a geological student.
After the return and cries for more bids, Muggs must have winked at the
auctioneer--possibly, to slyly telegraph him the fact that in "Hengland"
they were up to such games. At least the auctioneer so declared, and
advancing the price one dollar in accordance therewith, finally knocked
the brute down to him. Then the British wrath bubbled and boiled. The
auctioneer was inexorable. Muggs _had_ winked, and that was an advanced
bid, according to commercial custom the land over. Articles were often
sold simply by the vibration of an eyelash, and not a word uttered.
The Professor remarked that in law winks would doubtless be accepted as
evidence. It was a recognized principle of the statutes that he who
winked at a matter acquiesced in it, and indeed such signals were often
more expressive than words. Sachem sustained this point, and added
further that he had known many a man's head broken on account of an
injudicious wink.
The crowd, with almost unanimous voice, pronounced the auctioneer right
and Muggs wrong.
"Me take the brute!" exclaimed the indignant Briton; "why he can 'ardly
stand up long enough to be knocked down. Except in France, he could be
put to no earthly use whatever. 'Is knees knock together in an ague
quartette, and 'is tail--look at it! It's hincapable of knocking a fly
off; looks more like flying off hitself!" Muggs further declared the
sale was an attempt on the owner's part to evade the health officer, who
would have been around, in a couple of days, to have the carcass
removed.
The auctioneer waxed belligerent, the crowd noisy, and Muggs, like a
true Englishman, secured peace at the price of British gold. The horse
was on his hands, having barely escaped being on the town, and an
enthusiastic crowd of urchins escorted the purchase to a livery stable.
Muggs christened the animal Cynocephalus, and soon afterward sold him to
Mr. Colon, who was of an economical turn, for the use of his son Semi.
"I have heard," said the thoughtful father, "that the buffalo grass of
the plains is very nourishing. All that the poor steed needs is care and
fat pastures. Semi can give him the former, and over the latter our
future journey lies. I have also learned that what is especially needed
in a hunting horse is steadiness, and this quality the animal certainly
possesses."
From some months' acquaintance with the purchase, we can say that
Cynocephalus was steady to a remarkable degree. We are firmly persuaded
that a heavy battery might have fired a salute over his back without
moving him, unless, possibly, the concussion knocked him down.
Our first hunting morning, the second day preceding our hegira westward,
came to us with a clear sky, the sun shedding a mellow warmth, and the
air full of those exhilarating qualities which our lungs afterward
drank in so freely on the plains. Indian summer, delightful anywhere, is
especially so in Kansas.
From the advance guard of the winter king not a single chilling zephyr
steals forward among the tarrying ones of summer. Soothing and gentle as
when laden with spicy fragrance south, they here shower the whole land
with sunbeams. Earth no longer seems a heavy, inert mass, but floats in
that smoky, fleecy atmosphere with which artists delight so much to wrap
their angels. It is as if the warmer, lighter clouds of sunny weather
were nestling close to earth, frightened from the skies, like a flock of
white swans, at the October howls of winter. But I never could agree
with those writers who call this season dreamy. If such it be, it is
surely a dream of motion. All nature appears quickened. The inhabitants
of the air have commenced their southern pilgrimage, and the oldest and
leading ganders may be heard croaking, day-time and night-time, to their
wedge-shaped flocks their narrative of summer experiences at the Arctic
circle, and their commands for the present journey.
Sachem, I find, has recorded as a discovery in natural history that
geese form their flocks in wedge shape that they may easier "make a
split" for the south when Nature, with her north pole, stirs up their
feeding and breeding-grounds in November gales, and changes their fields
of operation into fields of ice. Sachem was sadly addicted to slang
phrases.
All game, I may remark, is wilder at this season of the year than
earlier. If the earth is dreaming, its wild inhabitants certainly are
not. Men, too, have thrown off the summer lethargy, and shave their
neighbors as closely as ever. If any one thinks it a dreamy season of
the year, let him test the matter practically by being a day or two
behindhand with a payment.
In reply to a question, the professor told us that the smoky condition
of the atmosphere was probably caused by the exhalation of phosphorus
from decaying vegetation. Sachem remarked that out of twenty different
objects which he had submitted for examination, and as many questions
that he had asked, nine-tenths of the results contained phosphorus in
some shape. It was becoming monotonous and dangerous.
While the party thus mused and speculated, we had come out into the open
country, south-west of town, and were now approaching Webster's Mound, a
cone-shaped hill from which we afterward obtained some excellent views.
For the trip we had been supplied with two dogs, one a setter, belonging
to the private secretary of the Governor, and the other a pointer, the
property of a real estate dealer. The former was an ancient and
venerable animal. The rheumatism was seized of his backbone and held
high revel upon the juices which should have lubricated the joints. Even
his tail wagged with a jerk, inclining the body to whichever side it had
last swung. He was so full of rheumatism that whenever he scented a
chicken the pain evoked by the excitement caused him to howl with
anguish. The pointer, per contra, was hale and swift, but had lost one
eye; and a shot from the same charge which destroyed that organ,
rattled also on his left ear-drum, and that membrane no longer responded
to the shouts of the hunter. On one side he could see, and not hear--on
the other, hear, but not see. Nevertheless, with gestures for the left
view, and shouts on the right, fair work might still be obtained. Both
dogs rejoiced in the uncommon name of Rover, and both possessed that
most excellent of all points in such animals, a steady point.
If any of my readers are fond of field-sports, and have not yet shot
prairie-chickens over a dog, let them take their guns and hie to the
West, and taste for themselves of this rare sport. With the wide prairie
around him, keeping the bird in full view during its passage through the
air, one can choose his distance for firing and witness the full effect
of his shot. I think the brief instant when the flight of the bird is
checked and it drops head-foremost to earth, is the sweetest moment of
all to the hunter.
CHAPTER IV.
CHICKEN-SHOOTING CONTINUED--A SCIENTIFIC PARTY TAKE THE BIRDS ON
THE WING--EVILS OF FAST FIRING--AN OLD-FASHIONED "SLOW SHOT"--THE
HABITS OF THE PRAIRIE-CHICKEN--ITS PROSPECTIVE EXTINCTION--MODE OF
HUNTING IT--THE GOPHER SCALP LAW.
We had left the road and were now driving over the fine prairie skirting
Webster's Mound, the grass being about a foot high and affording
excellent cover. Taking advantage of its being matted so closely from
the early frosts, the old cocks hid under the thick tufts and called for
close work on the part of our dogs.
Back and forth across our path these intelligent animals ranged, the one
fifty yards or so to our right, the other as many to our left, crossing
and re-crossing, with open mouths drinking in eagerly the tainted
breeze. This latter was in our favor, and both dogs suddenly joined
company and worked up into it, with outstretched noses pointing to game
that was evidently close ahead.
The pointer crawled cautiously, like a tiger, his spotted belly sweeping
the earth, and his tail, which had been lashing rapidly an instant
before, gradually stiffening. He would open his mouth suddenly, drink in
a quick, deep draught of air, and, closing the jaws again, hold it until
obliged to take another respiration. He seemed as loath to let the
scent of the chicken pass from his nostrils as a hungry newsboy is to
quit the savory precincts of Delmonico's kitchen window. The setter's
old bones appeared to renew their youth under the excitement, and he was
as active as a retired war-horse suddenly plunged into battle.
Both dogs came simultaneously to a point--tails curved up and rigid,
each body motionless as if cut in marble and one forepaw lifted. No
wonder so many men are wild with a passion for hunting. Kind Providence
smiles upon the legitimate sport from conception to close, and gives us
a _pose_ to start with fascinating to any lover of the beautiful,
whether hunter or not. But one must not pause to moralize while dogs are
on the point, or he will have more philosophy than chickens.
All the party had got safely to ground and were behind the dogs, with
guns ready and eyes eagerly fastened on the thick grass which concealed
its treasure as completely as if it had been a thousand miles below its
roots, or on the opposite side of this mundane sphere in China. Not a
thing was visible within fifty yards of our noses save two dogs standing
motionless, with stiffened tails and eyes fixed on, and nozzles pointed
toward, a spot in the sea of brown, withered grass, not ten feet away.
The Professor took out his lens, Mr. Colon let down the hammers of his
gun and cocked them again, to be sure all was right, while Sachem wore a
puzzled expression as if undecided whether the attitude of the dogs
indicated any thing particular or not. The grass nodded and rustled in
the light wind, but not a blade moved to indicate the presence of any
living thing beneath it, while the dogs remained as if petrified.
The Professor said it was very remarkable, and wondered what had better
be done next. Mr. Colon thought that the dogs were tired, and we might
as well get into the wagon. Another suggested at random that we should
set the dogs on, and Muggs, who had probably heard the expression
somewhere, cried, "Hi, boys, on bloods!" At the words the dogs made a
few quick steps forward, and on the instant the grass seemed alive with
feathered forms, popping into air like bobs in shuttlecock. Such a
fluttering and flying I have never seen since, when a boy, I ventured
into a dove cote, and was knocked over by the rush of the alarmed
inmates. From under our very feet, almost brushing our faces, the
beautiful pinnated grouse of the prairies left their cover, and us also.
Every gun had gone off on the instant, and we doubt if one was raised an
inch higher than it happened to be when the covey started. The Professor
afterward extracted some stray shot from the legs of his boots, and the
setter, which was next to Muggs, gave a cry of pain for which there was
evidently other cause than rheumatism, as was demonstrated by his
retirement to the rear, from which he refused to budge until we all got
into the wagon, and to which he invariably retreated whenever we got
out.
[Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION BUFFALO. N. Y._
OUR FIRST BIRD-SHOOTING.]
From the midst of the birds which were soaring away, one was seen to
rise suddenly a few feet above his comrades, and then fall straight
as a plummet, and head first, to earth. It had caught some stray shot
from the bombardment--Muggs claimed from his gun, but this statement the
setter, could he have spoken, would certainly have disputed.
Semi-Colon brought in the game, which proved to be a fine male, with
whiskers and full plumage, which must have made sad havoc among the
hearts of the hens, when the old fellow was on annual dress parade in
the spring. At that season of the year the cocks seek some knoll of the
prairie, where the grass has been burnt or cut off, and strut up and
down with ruffled feathers, uttering meanwhile a booming sound, which
can be heard in a clear morning for miles. The flabby pink skin that at
other seasons hangs in loose folds on his neck is then distended like a
bagpipe, and he is a very different bird from the same individual in his
Quaker gray and respectable summer and fall habits.
Ensconced again in the wagon, our party moved forward, the dogs, as
before, examining the prairie. The professor was comparing the birds of
the present and the past ages, when Muggs suddenly blasted his eyes and
declared the beasts were at it again. And so they were, the setter
making a good stand at some game in the grass, and the other dog, a
short distance off, pointing his companion. During the remainder of the
day we found many large flocks of birds, and fired away until two or
three swelled noses testified how dirty our guns were.
"Fast shooting," said the professor, as we were on our way home, "is as
bad as that too slow. Although I am no sportsman from practice, I love
and have studied the principles of it. In my father's day the rule was,
when a bird rose, for a hunter to take out his snuff-box, take snuff,
replace the box, aim, and fire. You may find the advice yet in some
works. The shot then has distance in which to spread. With close
shooting they are all together, and you might as well fire a bullet.
When you have given the bird time, act quickly. The first sight is the
best. Again, the first moment of flight, with most birds, is very
irregular, as it is upward, instead of from you."
Dobeen begged leave to inform our "honors" that in Ireland, after a bird
rose, the rule was, instead of taking snuff, to take off the boots
before firing. The professor thought that such a habit related to
outrunning the gamekeeper, and was intended to procure distance for the
poacher rather than the bird.
Sachem stated that he had known a slow hunter once. He was a
revolutionary veteran, used a revolutionary musket, and believed in
revolutionary powder. He refused to do any thing different from what his
fathers did, and abhorred double-barreled shotguns and percussion-caps
as inventions of the devil. It was constantly, "General Washington did
this," and "Our army did that," and his old head shook sadly at the
innovations Young America was making. His ghost, with the revolutionary
musket on its shoulder, had since been known to chase hunters, with
breech-loaders, who were caught on his favorite ground after dark. "Old
1776" was great on wing-shooting, and could be seen at almost any time
hobbling over the moor, firing away at snipe and water-fowl. He was one
of those slow, deliberate cases, always taking snuff after the bird
rose. There would be a glitter of fluttering wings as the game shot into
air. Down would come the long musket, out would come the snuff-box, and
the old soldier would go through the present, make ready, take snuff,
take aim, and fire, all as coolly as if on parade. The old musket often
hung fire from five to ten seconds, and the premonitory flash could be
seen as the shaky flint clattered down on the pan. The veteran always
patiently covered the bird until the charge got out. The recoil was
tremendous, and the old man often went down before the bird; but such
positions, he asserted, were taken voluntarily, as ones of rest. Some
said that the gun had been known to kick him again after he was down.
Sachem's narration was here cut short by the dogs again pointing. This
was followed by the usual bombardment, which over, the bag showed the
magnificent aggregate of two chickens for the entire day's sport.
The prairie-chicken is now extinct in many of the Western States where
it was once well known. Usually, during the first few years of
settlement, it increases rapidly, and is often a nuisance to pioneer
farmers. Perhaps, when the latter first settle in a country, a few
covies may be seen; under the favorable influences of wheat and
corn-fields, the dozens increase to thousands and cover the land. But
with denser settlement come more guns, and, what is a far more
destructive agent, trained dogs also. Under the first order of things,
the farmer, with his musket, might kill enough for the home table. With
double-barreled gun and keen-scented pointer, the sportsman and
pot-hunter think nothing of fifty or sixty birds for a day's work. It
seems almost impossible, under such a combination, for a covey to escape
total annihilation.
We may suppose a couple of fair shots hunting over a dog in August, when
the chickens lie close, and the year's broods are in their most delicate
condition for the table. The pointer makes a stand before a fine covey
hidden in the thick grass before him. The ready guns ask no delay, and,
at the word, he flushes the chickens immediately under his nose. Each
hunter takes those which rise before him, or on his side, and if four or
less left cover at the first alarm, that number of gray-speckled forms
the next moment are down in the grass, not to leave it again. If more
rose, they are "marked," which means that their place of alighting is
carefully noted, and, as the chicken has but a short flight, this task
is easy. Meanwhile, the guns have been reloaded, the dog flushes others
of the hiding birds, and so the sport goes on. The birds that get away
are "marked down," and again found and flushed by the dog. Without this
useful animal the chickens would multiply, despite any number of
hunters. I have often seen covies go down in the grass but a few hundred
yards away, yet have tramped through the spot dozens of times without
raising a single bird. In twenty years this delicious game will probably
be as much a thing of the past as is the Dodo of the Isle de France. At
the period of our visit they were already gathering into their fall
flocks, which sometimes number a hundred or more. In these they remain
until St. Valentine recommends a separation. During the colder weather
of winter they seek the protection of the timber, and may be seen of
mornings on the trees and fences. They never roost there, however, but
pass the night hidden in the adjacent grass.
The prairie-chicken's admirers are numerous, other animals beside man
being willing to dine on its plump breast. We had an illustration of
this in our first day's shooting. Sometimes when we fired, the report
would attract to our vicinity wandering hawks, and we found that either
instinct or previous experience teaches these fierce hunters of the air
that in the vicinity of their fellow-hunter, man, wounded birds may be
found. One wounded chicken, which fell near us, was seized by a hawk
immediately.
As we passed one or two fields, indications of gophers appeared, their
small mounds of earth covering the ground. In some counties these
animals formerly destroyed crops to such an extent that the celebrated
"Gopher Act" was passed. This gave a bounty of two dollars for each
scalp, and under it many farms yielded more to the acre than ever before
or since. One of these animals which we secured resembled in size and
shape the Norway rat, and, in the softness and color of its coat, was
not unlike a mole. The oddest thing was its earth-pouches--two open
sacks, one on either side of its head, and capable of containing each a
tablespoonful or more. These the gopher employs, in his subterranean
researches, for the same purpose that his enemy, man, does a
wheelbarrow. Packing them with dirt, the little fellow trudges gayly to
the surface, and there cleverly dumps his load.
We reached town again, well pleased with our day's ride, and over our
evening pipes discussed the results. Muggs thought our shot were too
small. Sachem thought the birds were.
Colon was delighted with the new State, but believed that wing-shooting
was not his _forte_. He would be more apt to hit a bird on the wing if
he could only catch it roosting somewhere.
Gripe, at the other end of the room, was piling Republican doctrines
upon a bearded Democratic heathen from the Western border.
CHAPTER V.
A TRIAL BY JUDGE LYNCH--HUNG FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT--QUAIL
SHOOTING--HABITS OF THE BIRDS, AND MODE OF KILLING THEM--A RING OF
QUAILS--THE EFFECTS OF A SEVERE WINTER--THE SNOW GOOSE.
A short time after supper, Tenacious Gripe appeared with the mayor of
the city, who wished to make the acquaintance of the Professor. The two
august personages bowed to each other. It was the happiest moment in
their respective lives, they declared. An invitation was extended us to
delay our departure another day and try quail shooting. The citizens
said the birds were unusually abundant, the previous winter having been
mild and the summer long enough for two separate broods to be hatched,
and the brush and river banks were swarming with them. As we were about
to abandon the birds of the West and seek an acquaintance with its
beasts, we decided, after a brief consultation, to accept the invitation
and remain another day.
Among the persons present in the crowded office of the hotel, was a man
from the southwestern part of the state who had lately been interested
in a trial before the celebrated Judge Lynch. Sachem interviewed him,
and reports his statement of the occurrence in the log book, as
follows:
A stranger played me fur a fool,
An' threw the high, low, jack,
An' sold me the wuss piece of mule
That ever humped a back.
But that wer fair; I don't complain,
That I got beat in trade;
I don't sour on a fellow's gain,
When sich is honest made.
But wust wer this, he stole the mule,
An' I were bilked complete;
Such thieves, we hossmen makes a rule
To lift 'em from their feet.
We started arter that 'ere pup,
An' took the judge along,
For fear, with all our dander up,
We might do somethin' wrong.
We caught him under twenty miles,
An tried him under trees;
The judge he passed around the "smiles,"
As sort o' jury fees.
"Pris'ner," says judge, "now say your say,
An' make it short an' sweet,
An', while yer at it, kneel and pray,
For Death yer can not cheat.
No man shall hang, by this 'ere court,
Exceptin' on the square;
There's time fur speech, if so it's short,
But none to chew or swear."
[Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION. BUFFALO_
JUDGE LYNCH--HIS COURT.
JUDGE AND JURY. SHERIFF. ATTORNEY. LOAFER. CLERK. DEPUTY SHERIFF.]
An' then the thievin' rascal cursed,
An' threw his life away,
He said, "Just pony out your worst,
Your best would be foul play."
Then judge he frowned an awful frown,
An' snapped this sentence short,
"Jones, twitch the rope, an' write this down,
Hung for contempt of court!"
Sharp 8 next morning saw us on the road leading east of town, the two
dogs with us, and a young one additional, the property of a resident
sportsman. Our last acquisition joined us on the run, and kept on it all
day, going over the ground with the speed of a greyhound, his fine nose,
however, giving him better success than his reckless pace would have
indicated.
Three miles from town, or half way between it and Tecumseh, our party
left the wagon, with direction for it to follow the road, while we
scouted along on a parallel, following the river bank.
The Kaw stretched eastward, broad and shallow, with numerous sand bars,
and along its edges grew the scarlet sumach and some stunted bushes, and
between these and the corn a high, coarse bottom grass, with intervals
at every hundred yards or so apart of a shorter variety, like that on a
poor prairie. Among the bushes, there was no grass whatever, and yet the
birds seemed indifferently to frequent one spot equally with another.
In less than ten minutes after leaving the wagon, all the dogs were
pointing on a barren looking spot, thinly sprinkled with scrubby bushes
not larger than jimson-weeds. They were several yards apart, so that
each animal was clearly acting on his own responsibility.
If it puzzled us the day before to discover any signs of game under
their noses, it certainly did so now. There was apparently no place of
concealment for any object larger than a field-mouse. The bushes were
wide apart, and the soil between was a loose sand. Around the roots of
the scrubs, it is true, a few thin, wiry spears of grass struggled into
existence, but these covered a space not larger than a man's hand, and
it seemed preposterous to imagine that they could be capable of
affording cover. That three dogs were pointing straight at three bushes
was apparent, but we could see nothing in or about the latter calling
for such attention.
Shamus, who had accompanied us, wished to know if the twigs were witch
hazels, because, if so, three invisible old beldames might be taking a
nap under them, after a midnight ride. "But, then," said Dobeen, "the
dog's hairs don't stand on end as they always do in Ireland when they
see ghosts and witches." We believe that our worthy cook was really
disappointed in not discovering any stray broomsticks lying around.
These, he afterward informed us, could not be made invisible, though
their owners should take on airy shapes unrecognizable by mortal eyes.
Muggs had suggested urging the dogs in, but the party, wiser from
yesterday's experience, desired a ground shot, if it could be secured.
The Professor adjusted his lens, and decided to make a personal
inspection around the roots of the bush immediately in front of him.
Carefully the sage bent over the suspicious spot, and almost fell
backward as, with a whiz and a dart, half a dozen quails flew out,
brushing his very nose. Instantly every bush sent forth its fugitives. A
flash of feathered balls, and they were all gone. Such whizzing and
whirring! it was as if those scraggy bushes were _mitrailleuses_, in
quick succession discharging their loads.
Only one gun had gone off, but that so loudly that our ears rung for
several seconds. Mr. Colon had accidentally rammed at least two, perhaps
half a dozen, loads into one barrel, and the gun discharged with an aim
of its own, the butt very low down. Two birds fell dead. But alas for
our Nimrod! Colon stood with one hand on his stomach undecided whether
that organ remained or not. On this point, however, he was fully
re-assured at the supper-table that night, and in all our after
experience, we never knew that gun to have the least opportunity for
going off, except when at its owner's shoulder, and he perfectly ready
for it.
The two birds were now submitted to the party for inspection. They were
fine specimens of the American quail, more properly called by those
versed in quailology, the Bob White. This bird is very plentiful
throughout Kansas, and just before the shooting season commences, in
September, will even frequent the gardens and alight on the houses of
Topeka. They "lay close" before a dog, take flight into air with a
quick, whirring dart, and their shooting deservedly ranks high. They are
very rapid in their movements upon the ground, often running fifty or
seventy-five yards before hiding. When this takes place, so closely do
they huddle that it is seldom more than the upper bird that can be seen.
"Green hunters" sometimes pause, trying to discover the rest of the
covey before firing, and experience a great and sudden disgust when the
single bird which they have disdained suddenly develops into a dozen
flying ones.
We had an eventful days' sport, expending more ammunition than when
among the chickens, and with more satisfactory results, as we brought in
over two dozen birds. More than half of these were taken by Sachem at
one lucky discharge. He saw a covey in the grass, huddled together as
they generally are when not running. At these times they form a circle
about as large in diameter as the hoop of a nail keg, with tails to the
center and heads toward the outside. Fifteen quails would thus be a
circle of fifteen heads, and a pail, could it be dropped over the covey,
would cover them all. Not only is this an economy of warmth, there being
no outsiders half of whose bodies must get chilled, but there is no
blind side on which they can be approached, every portion of the circle
having its full quota of eyes. Let skunk or fox, or other roamer through
the grass, creep ever so stealthily, he will be seen and avoided by
flight. Sachem aiming at the midst of such a ring, broke it up as
effectually as Boutwell's discharge of bullion did that on Wall Street.
We have since found the frozen bodies of whole covies, which had gone to
roost in a circle and been buried under such a heavy fall of snow that
the birds could not force their way upward. Their habit is to remain in
imprisonment, apparently waiting for the snow to melt before even making
an effort for deliverance. Oftentimes it is then too late, a crust
having formed above. A severe winter will sometimes completely
exterminate the birds in certain localities.
During this first day of quail-shooting, we also saw for the first time
flocks of the snow-goose. The Professor counted fifty birds on one sand
bar. This variety, in its flight across the continent, apparently passes
through but a narrow belt of country, being found, to the best of my
knowledge, in but few of the states outside of Kansas.
Our return to the hotel was without accident, and our supper such as
hungry hunters might well enjoy. After it was disposed of, we gathered
around the ample stove in the hotel office, and lived over again the
events of the day.
CHAPTER VI.
OFF FOR BUFFALO LAND--THE NAVIGATION OF THE KAW--FORT RILEY--THE
CENTER-POST OF THE UNITED STATES--OUR PURCHASE OF HORSES--"LO" AS A
SAVAGE AND AS A CITIZEN--GRIPE UNFOLDS THE INDIAN QUESTION--A
BALLAD BY SACHEM, PRESENTING ANOTHER VIEW.
Next morning we said good-by to hospitable Topeka, and took up our
westward way over the Pacific Railroad. An ever-repeated succession of
valley and prairie stretched away on either hand. To the left the Kaw
came down with far swifter current than it has in its course below, from
its far-away source in Colorado. It might properly be called one of the
eaves or water-spouts of the great Rocky Mountain water-shed. With a
pitch of over five feet to the mile, its pace is here necessarily a
rapid one, and when at freshet height the stream is like a mill-race for
foam and fury.
At the junction of the Big Blue we found the old yet pretty town of
Manhattan. To this point, in early times, water transit was once
attempted. A boat of exceedingly light draught, one of those built to
run on a heavy dew, being procured, freight was advertised for, and the
navigation of the Kaw commenced. The one hundred miles or more to
Manhattan was accomplished principally by means of the capstan, the boat
being "warped" over the numberless shallows. This proved easier, of
course--a trifle easier--than if she had made the trip on macadamized
roads. If her stern had a comfortable depth of water it was seldom
indeed, except when her bow was in the air in the process of pulling the
boat over a sand bar. The scared catfish were obliged to retreat up
stream, or hug close under the banks, to avoid obstructing navigation,
and it is even hinted that more than one patriarch of the finny tribe
had to be pried out of the way to make room for his new rival to pass.
Once at Manhattan, the steamboat line was suspended for the season, its
captain and crew deciding they would rather walk back to the Missouri
River than drag the vessel there. Soon afterward, the steamer was burned
at her landing, and the Kaw has remained closed to commerce ever since.
About the same time, an enterprising Yankee advocated in the papers the
straightening of the river, and providing it with a series of locks,
making it a canal. As he had no money of his own with which to develop
his ideas into results, and could command nobody's else for that
purpose, the project failed in its very inception.
Fort Riley, four miles below Junction City, is claimed as the
geographical center of the United States, the exact spot being marked by
a post. What a rallying point that stick of wood will be for future
generations! When the corner-stone of the National Capitol shall there
be laid, the orator of the day can mount that post and exclaim, with
eloquent significance, elsewhere impossible, "No north, no south, no
east, no west!" and enthusiastic multitudes, there gathered from the
four quarters of the continent, will hail the words as the key-note of
the republic.
That spot of ground and that post are valuable. I hope a national
subscription will be started to buy it. It is the only place on our
continent which can ever be entirely free from local jealousies. There
would be no possible argument for ever removing the capital. The Kaw
could be converted into a magnificent canal, winding among picturesque
hills past the base of the Capitol; and then, in case of war, should any
hostile fleet ever ascend the rapid Missouri, it would be but necessary
for our legislators to grasp the canal locks, and let the water out, to
insure their perfect safety. Imagine the humiliation of a foreign naval
hero arriving with his iron-clads opposite a muddy ditch, and finding it
the only means of access to our capital!
A painful rumor has of late obtained circulation that a band of St.
Louis ku-klux, yclept capital movers, intend stealing the pole and
obliterating the hole. Let us hope, however, that it is without
foundation.
Before leaving Topeka, the party had purchased horses for the trip, and
consigned the precious load to a car, sending a note to General
Anderson, superintendent, asking that they might be promptly and
carefully forwarded to Hays City, our present objective point upon the
plains.
The professor, bringing previous experience into requisition, selected a
stout mustang--probably as tractable as those brutes ever become. He was
warranted by the seller never to tire, and he never did, keeping the
philosopher constantly on the alert to save neck and knees. It is the
simple truth that, in all our acquaintance with him, that mustang never
appeared in the least fatigued. After backing and shying all day, he
would spend the night in kicking and stealing from the other horses.
Mr. Colon, by rare good fortune, obtained a beautiful animal, formerly
known in Leavenworth as Iron Billy--a dark bay, with head and hair fine
as a pointer's, limbs cut sharp, and joints of elastic. After carrying
Mr. C. bravely for months, never tripping or failing, he was sold on our
return to the then Secretary of State, who still owns him. More than
once did Billy make his rider's arm ache from pulling at the curb, when
the other horses were all knocked up by the rough day's riding. It was
interesting to see him in pursuit of buffalo. He would often smell them
when they were hidden in ravines, and we wholly unaware of their
vicinity. Head and ears were erect in an instant, and, with nostrils
expanded, forward he went, keeping eagerly in front at a peculiar
prancing step which we called tiptoeing. Once in sight of the game, and
the rider became a person of quite secondary importance. Billy said, as
plainly as a horse could say any thing, "_I_ am going to manage this
thing; _you_ stick on." And manage it he did. Not many moments, at the
most, before he was at the quarters of the fleeing monsters, and nipping
them mischievously with his teeth. I could always imagine him giving a
downright horse-laugh, his big bright eyes sparkled so when the
frightened bison, at the touch, gave a switch of his tail and a swerve
of alarm, and plunged more wildly forward. If the rider wished to
shoot, he could do so; if not, content himself, as Mr. Colon usually
did, with clinging to the saddle, and uttering numberless expostulatory
but fruitless "whoa's."
Once on our trip Billy was loaned for the day to a gentleman who wished
to examine a prospective coal mine. When barely out of sight of camp,
Billy discovered a herd of buffalo, and, despite the vehement
remonstrances of his rider, straightway charged it. The mine-seeker was
no hunter, but a wise and thoroughly timid devotee of science in search
of coal measures. A few moments, and the poor, frightened gentleman
found himself in the midst of a surging mass of buffalo, his knees
brushing their hairy sides, and their black horns glittering close
around him, like an array of serried spears. He drew his knees into the
saddle, and there, clinging like a monkey, lost his hat, his map of the
mine, and his spectacles. He returned Billy as soon as he could get him
back to camp, with expressions of gratitude that he had been allowed to
escape with life, and never manifested the least desire to mount him
again.
Sachem's purchase was a horse which had run unaccountably to legs. He
was sixteen hands high, a trifle knock-kneed, and with a way of flinging
the limbs out when put to his speed which, though it seemed awkward
enough, yet got over the ground remarkably well. With the shambling gait
of a camel, he had also the good qualities of one, and did his owner
honest service.
Muggs bought a mule, partly because advised to do so by a plainsman, and
partly because the rest of us took horses. With true British obstinacy
he paid no attention to our expostulations, and the creature he obtained
was as obstinate as himself. Poor Muggs! A mule may be good property in
the hands of a plainsman, but was never intended to carry a Briton.
Semi-Colon had the auction purchase, and Dobeen selected a Mexican
donkey, one of the toughest little animals that ever pulled a bit. He
could excel a trained mule in the feat of dislodging his rider, and had
a remarkable penchant for running over persons who by chance might be
looking the other way. It seemed to be his constant study to take
unexpected positions, or, as Sachem phrased it, to "strike an attitude."
My mount was a stout-built old mare, recommended to me as a solid beast,
on the strength of which, and wishing to avoid experiments, I made
purchase at once. I found her solid indeed. When on the gallop her feet
came down with a shock which made my head vibrate, as if I had
accidentally taken two steps instead of one, in descending a staircase.
Could the good people of Topeka have gotten us to ride out of their town
upon our several animals, it would have given them a fair idea of a
_mardi gras_ cavalcade in New Orleans.
And so, our camp equipage and live stock following by freight, the
express rolled us forward toward the great plains. So far along our
route we had seen but few Indians, and those civilized specimens, such
as straggle occasionally through the streets of Topeka. The Indian
reservations in Kansas are at some distance apart, and their
inhabitants frequently exchange visits. The few whom we had seen
consisted of Osages, Kaws, Pottawatomies, and Sioux, all equally dirty,
but the last affecting clothes more than the others, and eschewing
paint. The members of this tribe, generally speaking, have good farms
and are worth a handsome average per head. At the time of our visit they
were expecting a half million dollars or so from Washington, and were
soon to become American citizens. One privilege of this citizenship
struck us as very peculiar. By the State law, as long as an Indian is
simply an Indian, he can buy no whisky, and is thus cruelly debarred
from the privilege of getting drunk, but once a voter, he can luxuriate
in corn-juice and the calaboose, as well as his white brother. What a
travesty upon American civilization and politics!
Muggs was prejudiced against the Osages, having been induced by one of
them to invest in a bow and arrows, "for the Hinglish Museum, you know."
On pulling for a trial shot, one end of the bow went further than the
arrow, and the cord, warranted to be buffalo sinew, proved to be an
oiled string.
Sachem declared that he had found Muggs returning the wreck to the
Indian with the following speech: "O-sage, little was your wisdom to
court thus the wrath of a Briton. Take with the two pieces this piece of
my mind. That your noble form may be removed soon to the 'appy 'unting
ground, where bow trades are not allowed, is the prayer of your patron,
Muggs."
[Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION. BUFFALO. N. Y._
UNNATURALIZED.]
[Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION. BUFFALO. N. Y._
NATURALIZED.]
Mr. Colon asked Tenacious Gripe to explain the condition of the
Native Americans in Kansas. The orator kindly consented and thereupon
discoursed as follows:
"The Indians of Kansas are divided into the wild and the tame. Both
alike cover their nakedness with bright handkerchiefs, old shirts,
military coats, and many-hued ribbons. The principal difference in point
of dress is in the method of procuring it. Among those tribes which are
at peace with the government, the white man robs the Indian; among the
wild tribes the conditions are reversed--the Indian robs the white man.
In the one case the contractors and agents carry off their half million
dollars or thereabouts; in the other the savage bears away a quantity of
old clothes and fresh scalps. As he finds it difficult to procure
sufficient of the white man's justice to satisfy the cravings of his
nature, he feeds it with what he can and whenever he can of revenge.
Wise men tell us, gentlemen, that revenge is sweet and justice a dry
morsel. All Indians beg when they get an opportunity. The tame ones, if
they find it fruitless, divert themselves by selling worthless pieces of
wood with strings attached, as bows. The wild ones, in a like
predicament, relieve their tedium by whacking away at our ribs with bows
that amount to something. The principles actuating both classes are
alike. It is simply the application which causes difficulty--in the one
case an appeal with bow and arrows to our pockets, in the other to our
bodies.
"All our wars with these people, gentlemen, are a result of their
political economy. They believe that the Great Spirit provided buffalo
and other game for his red children. When the white man drives these
away, they understand that he takes their place as a means of
sustenance, and as they have lived upon the one, so they intend to do
upon the other. If the buffalo attempts to evade his duty in the
premises, they kill him and take his meat; if the white man, they kill
him and take his hair."
Sachem produced a roll of dirty brown paper and said that he had studied
the Indian question and found two sides to it. One he could give us in a
nutshell, believing that the meat of the nut had often excited the
spirit of war.
Where waters sung above the sand,
And torrent forced its way,
Stretched out, disgusted with the land,
A bearded miner lay,
Prepared to strike, with willing hand,
Whatever lead would pay.
Echo of hoof on beaten ground
Rung on the desert air,
Ringing a tune of gladsome sound
To miner, watching there;
A paying lead, at last, he'd found--
The vein a "man of hair."
An instant more, and at the ford
A savage chief appeared;
The miner saw his goodly hoard,
And tore his own good beard.
(You'll always find an ox is gored
When sheep are to be sheared.)
[Illustration: Dog Town--The Happy Family at Home.]
[Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION_
"You've riled that Brook"--An old Fable modernized.]
And these the words the miner said:
"You've spoilt my drink, old fellow;
You've riled the brook, my brother red,
And, by your cheek so yellow,
To-night above your sandy bed
The prairie gale shall bellow.
"No relatives of mine are dead,
At least by Injun cunnin',
But many other hearts have bled,
And many eyes are runnin';
For blood and tears alike are shed,
When _you_ go out a gunnin'.
"Some slumbrin' peaceful, first they knew,
They heard your horrid din--
Women as well as men you slew,
You bloody son of sin;
I mourn 'em all, revenge 'em too,
Through Adam they were kin."
This having said, the miner smart,
Drew bead upon the red man:
They're fond of beads--it touched his heart,
And Lo, behold, a dead man;
Upon Life's stage he'd played his part,
A gory sort of head man!
Two packs of goods lay on the ground;
Quoth miner, "Lawful spoil!
My lucky star at last has found
As good as gold and oil;
I kinder felt that fate was bound
To bless my honest toil.
"Such heathen have no lawful heirs--
I'll be the Probate Judge,
For though they kinder go in pairs,
Their love is all a fudge;
I'll 'ministrate on what he wears,
And leave his squaw my grudge."
CHAPTER VII.
GRIPE'S VIEWS OF INDIAN CHARACTER--THE DELAWARES' THE ISHMAELITES
OF THE PLAINS--THE TERRITORY OF THE "LONG HORNS"--TEXANS AND THEIR
CHARACTERISTICS--MUSHROOM ROCK--A VALUABLE DISCOVERY--FOOTPRINTS IN
THE ROCK--THE PRIMEVAL PAUL AND VIRGINIA.
We noticed many fine rivers rolling from the northward into the Kaw,
which stream we found was known by that name only after receiving the
Republican, at Junction City. Above that point, under the name of the
Smoky Hill, it stretches far out across the plains, and into the eastern
portion of Colorado. Along its desolate banks we afterward saw the sun
rise and set upon many a weary and many a gorgeous day.
All the large tributaries of the Kansas river, consisting of the Big
Blue, Republican, Solomon, and Saline, came in on our right. Upon our
left, toward the South, only small creeks joined waters with the Kaw,
the pitch of the great "divides" there being towards the Arkansas and
its feeders, the Cottonwood and Neosho.
We had now fairly entered on the great Smoky Hill trail. Here Fremont
marked out his path towards the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific, and on
many of the high _buttes_ we discovered the pillars of stone which he
had set up as guides for emigrant trains, looking wonderfully like
sentinels standing guard over the valleys beneath. Indeed we did at
first take them for solitary herders, watching their cattle in some
choice pasture out of sight.
Most of our party had expected to find Indians in promiscuous abundance
over the entire State, and we were therefore surprised to see the
country, after passing St. Mary's Mission, entirely free of them. Muggs
asked Gripe if the American Indian was hostile to all nationalities
alike, or simply to those who robbed him of his hunting-grounds. The
orator replied as follows:
"Sir, the aborigine of the western plains cares not what color or flavor
the fruit possesses which hangs from his roof tree. The cue of the
Chinaman is equally as acceptable as hairs from the mane of the English
lion. A red lock is as welcome as a black one, and disputes as to
ownership usually result in a dead-lock. His abhorrence is a wig, which
he considers a contrivance of the devil to cheat honest Indian industry.
I would advise geologists on the plains to carry, along with their picks
for breaking stones, a bottle of patent hair restorative. It is handy to
have in one's pocket when his scalp is far on its way towards some
Cheyenne war-pole. The scalping process, gentlemen, is the way in which
savages levy and collect their poll-tax. Any person in search of
romantic wigwams can have his wig warmed very thoroughly on the Arkansas
or Texas borders. On the plains along the western border of Kansas,
however, geologists can find a rich and comparatively safe field for
exploration. It is doubtful if the savages ever wander there again.
"Of the Indian warrior on the plains we may well say, _requiescat in
pace_, and may his pace be rapid towards either civilization or the
happy hunting ground. History shows that his reaching the first has
generally given him quick transit to the second. The white man's country
has proved a spirit-land to Lo, whose noble soul seems to sink when the
scalping-knife gathers any other rust than that of blood, and whose
prophetic spirit takes flight at the prospect of exchanging boiled
puppies and dirt for the white brother's pork and beans. Very often,
however, it must be said, Lo's soul is gathered to his fathers by reason
of its tabernacle being smitten too sorely by corn lightning."
As Gripe paused, the Professor took up the subject in a somewhat
different strain:
"We have here in this State," remarked he, "a tribe which may well be
called the Indian Ishmael. Its hand is and ever has been, since history
took record of it, against its brethren, and its brethren's against it.
I refer to the pitiful remnant of the once great Delawares. From the
shores of the Atlantic they have steadily retreated before civilization,
marking their path westward by constant conflicts with other races of
red men. The nation in its eastern forests once numbered thousands of
warriors. Now, three hundred miserable survivors are hastening to
extinction by way of their Kansas reservation.
"A number of their best warriors have been employed as scouts by the
government, when administering well merited chastisement to other
murdering bands. The Delawares, I have often thought, are like
blood-hounds on the track of the savages of the plains. They take fierce
delight in scanning the ground for trails and the lines of the streams
for camps. There is something strangely unnatural in the wild eyes of
these Ishmaelites, as they lead the destroyers against their race, and
assist in blotting it from the face of the continent. Themselves so
nearly joined to the nations known only in history, it is like a
plague-stricken man pressing eagerly forward to carry the curse, before
he dies, to the remainder of his people."
The valleys of the Saline, Solomon, and Smoky Hill, as we passed them in
rapid succession, seemed very rich and were already thickly dotted with
houses. This is one of the best cattle regions of the state, and vast
herds of the long-horned Texan breed covered the prairies. We were
informed that they often graze throughout the entire winter. As early in
the spring as the grass starts sufficiently along the trail from Texas
to Kansas, the stock dealers of the former State commence moving their
immense herds over it. The cattle are driven slowly forward, feeding as
they come, and reach the vicinity of the Kansas railroads when the grass
is in good condition for their summer fattening. As many as five hundred
thousand head of these long horns have been brought into the State in a
single season. Some are sold on arrival and others kept until fall, when
the choicest beeves are shipped East for packing purposes, or into
Illinois for corn feeding. The latter is the case when they are
destined eventually for consumption in Eastern markets, grass-fed beef
lacking the solid fatness of the corn-fed, and suffering more by long
transportation.
This very important trade in cattle, when fully developed, will probably
be about equally divided between southern and central Kansas, each of
which possesses its peculiar advantages for the business. While the
valley of the Arkansas has longer grass, and more of it, the dealers in
the Kaw region claim that their "feed" is the most nutritious. My own
opinion, carefully formed, is that both sections are about equally good,
and that the whole of western Kansas, with Colorado, will yet become the
greatest stock-raising region of the world. The climate is peculiarly
favorable. Two seasons out of three, on an average, cattle and sheep can
graze during the winter, without any other cover than that of the
ravines and the timber along the creeks.
The herders who manage these large bodies of cattle are a distinctive
and peculiar class. We saw numbers of them scurrying along over the
country on their wild, lean mustangs, in appearance a species of
centaur, half horse, half man, with immense rattling spurs, tanned skin,
and dare-devil, almost ferocious faces. After an extensive acquaintance
with the genus Texan, and with all due allowance for the better portion
of it, I must say, as my deliberate judgment, that it embraces a larger
number of murderers and desperadoes than can be found elsewhere in any
civilized nation. A majority of these herders would think no more of
snuffing out a life than of snuffing out a candle. Texas, in her rude
solitude, formerly stretched protecting arms to the evil doers from
other states, and to her these classes flocked. She offered them not a
city but a whole empire of refuge.
Just beyond Brookville, two hundred miles from the eastern border of
Kansas, our road commenced ascending the Harker Bluffs, a series of
sandstone ridges bordering on the plains.
On our left, Mushroom Rock was pointed out to us, a huge table of stone
poised on a solitary pillar, and strangely resembling the plant from
which it is named. As the professor informed us, we were on the eastern
shore of a once vast inland ocean, the bed of which now forms the
plains. Sachem thought the rock might be a petrified toad-stool, on a
scale with the gigantic toads which hopped around in the mud of that age
of monsters. The professor thought it was fashioned by the waters, in
their eddyings and washings.
Subsequent examinations showed this entire region to be one of
remarkable interest to the geologist. A few miles east of Mushroom Rock,
near Bavaria, as we learned from the conductor, human foot-prints had
been discovered in the sandstone. The professor, who had long ascribed
to man an earlier existence upon earth than that given him by geology,
was greatly excited, and at his earnest request, when the down train was
met, we returned upon it to Bavaria.
[Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION_
MUSHROOM ROCK,
On Alum Creek, near Kansas Pacific R. R.--From a Photograph.]
[Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION_
INDIAN ROCK, on Smoky Hill River, Kansas--From a Photograph.]
That place we found to consist of two buildings, each serving the double
purpose of house and store, the track running between them. Two
sandstone blocks, each weighing several hundred pounds, lay in front of
one of the stores, and there, sure enough, impressed clearly and deeply
upon their surface were the tracks of human feet. They had been
discovered by a Mr. J. B. Hamilton on the adjacent bluffs.
There was something weird and startling in this voice from those
long-forgotten ages--ages no less remote than when the ridge we were
standing upon was a portion of a lake shore. The man who trod those
sands, the professor informed us, perished from the face of the earth
countless ages before the oldest mummy was laid away in the caves of
Egypt; and yet people looked at the shriveled Egyptian, and thought that
they were holding converse with one who lived close upon the time of the
oldest inhabitant. They wrested secrets from his tomb, and called them
very ancient. And now this dweller beside the great lakes had lifted his
feet out of the sand to kick the mummy from his pedestal of honor in the
museum, as but a being of yesterday, in comparison with himself.
This discovery was soon afterward extensively noticed in the newspapers,
and the specimens are now in the collection made by our party at Topeka.
It is but fair to say that a difference of opinion exists in regard to
these imprints. Many scientific men, among whom is Professor Cope,
affirm that they must be the work of Indians long ago, as the age of the
rock puts it beyond the era of man, while others attribute them to some
lower order of animal, with a foot resembling the human one. For my own
part, after careful examination, I accept our professor's theory, that
the imprints are those of human feet. The surface of the stone has been
decided by experts to be bent down, not chiseled out. Science not long
ago ridiculed the primitive man, which it now accepts. It is not
strange, therefore, that science should protest against its oldest
inhabitant stepping out from ages in which it had hitherto forbidden him
existence.
We also found on the rocks fine impressions of leaves, resembling those
of the magnolia, and gathered a bushel of petrified walnuts and
butternuts. There were no other indications whatever of trees, the whole
country, as far as we could see, being a desolate prairie.
"Gentlemen," said the professor, "as surely as you stand on the shore of
a great lake, which passed away in comparatively modern times, science
stands on the brink of important revelations. We have here the evidence
of the rocks that man existed on this earth when the vast level upon
which you are about to enter was covered by its mass of water. The waves
lapped against the Rocky Mountains on the west, and against the ridges
on which you are standing, upon the east. From previous explorations, I
can assure you that the buffalo now feed over a surface strewn with the
remains of those monsters which inhabited the waters of the primitive
world, and the grasses suck nutriment from the shells of centuries.
Geology has held that man did not exist during the time of the great
lakes. I assert that he did, gentlemen, and now an inhabitant of that
period steps forward to confirm my position. This man walked
barefooted, and yet the contour of one of the feet, so different in
shape from that of any wild people's of the present day, shows that it
had been confined by some stiff material, like our leather shoes. The
appearance of the big toe is especially confirmatory of this. I would
call your attention, gentlemen, to the block which contains companion
impressions of the right and left foot. The latter is deep, and well
defined, every toe being separate and perfect. The former is shallow,
and spread out, with bulged-up ridges of stone between each toe. These
are exactly the impressions your own feet would make, on such a shore
to-day, were the sand under the right one to be of such a yielding
nature that in moving you withdrew it quickly, and rested more heavily
on the other, the material under which was firmer. Your right track
would spread, the mud bulging up between the toes, and forcing them out
of position, and the material nearly regaining its level, with a
misshapen impression upon its surface.
"You will also perceive that the sand was already hardening into rock
when our ancient friends walked over it. I use the plural because, if I
may venture an opinion from this hasty examination, I should say the two
tracks were those of a female, the single one that of a man. From the
position of the blocks they were probably walking near each other at
that precise time when the new rock was soft enough to receive an
impression and hard enough to retain it. You will perceive that the
surface of the stone is bent down into the cavities, as that of a loaf
of half-raised bread would be should you press your hand into it."
Sachem thought that the couple might have been an ancient Paul and
Virginia telling their love on the shores of the old-time lake.
The Professor continued: "You notice close beside the two imprints an
oval, rather deep hole in the rock, precisely like that a boy often
makes by whirling on one heel in the sand."
Sachem again interrupted: "Perhaps the maiden went through the
fascinating evolution of revolving her body while her mind revolved the
'yes' or 'no' to her swain's question. It might be a refined way of
telling her lover that she was well 'heeled,' and asking if he was."
The Professor very gravely replied: "In those days the world had not run
to slang. If one of Noah's children had dared to address him with the
modern salutation of 'governor,' the venerable patriarch would have
flung his child overboard from the ark. Taking your view of the case,
Mr. Sachem, the whirl in the sand, which gave the lover his answer, is
telling us to-day that same old story. And the coquette of that remote
period caused the tell-tale walk upon the sand, which has proved the
greatest geological discovery of modern times. I believe that it will be
followed up and sustained by others equally as important, all tending to
date man's birth thousands of years anterior to the time geology has
hitherto assigned him an existence upon earth."