Over the Santa Fé Trail
1857
BY
W. B. NAPTON.
1905.
FRANKLIN HUDSON PUBLISHING CO.,
KANSAS CITY, MO.
CONTENTS
Page
I. Captain “Jim Crow” Chiles 3
II. In Camp, South of Westport 10
III. Buffalo 14
IV. Companions of Voyage 18
V. Pestiferous Indians 21
VI. At the Kiowa Camp 28
VII. To the Cimarron 33
VIII. My First Antelope 38
IX. A Kicking Gun and a Bucking Mule 46
X. A Gray Wolf 50
XI. Arrival at Las Vegas 54
XII. In Peril of Indians 62
XIII. Captain Chiles’ Chase 69
LEWIS & CLARK’S ROUTE RETRAVELED
Chapter I 73
Chapter II 84
Chapter III 93
ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
“Jim Crow” Chiles Laughed 7
The Mule Suddenly Bucked 24
Punched Him With the Point 26
Difficult to Get the Heavily Loaded Wagons Across 34
Their Drivers Were Unable to Restrain Them 40
“Skeesicks” Walked Up 44
He Plodded Along With the Lame Cattle 46
He Jumped and Kicked 48
The Officers Dragged Him Out 60
“Men, They Are Indians!” 66
Over the Santa Fé Trail, 1857.
I.
CAPTAIN “JIM CROW” CHILES.
When I was a lad of 12 years of age my father had a red-headed
overseer, good-natured, loquacious and fond of telling stories, the
kind that suited the understanding and tickled the fancy of a boy.
His stories were always related as being truthful accounts of actual
occurrences, although I suspected they were frequently creatures of his
own imagination. This overseer, a Westerner born and bred, had driven
an ox wagon in a train across the plains to New Mexico; had made two
trips across--in 1847 and 1848--one extending as far as Chihuahua, in
Old Mexico. His observation was keen, and his memory unexcelled, so
that, years afterwards, he could relate, in minute detail, the events
of every day’s travel, from the beginning to the end of the journey.
I was charmed with his accounts of the Indians and buffalo, wolves,
antelope and prairie dogs.
Reaching the age of 18 in 1857, with indifferent health, my father
acquiesced in my determination to cross the plains to New Mexico. The
doctor said the journey would benefit my health. Already an expert
with a gun or pistol, I had killed all kinds of game to be found in
Missouri, and had read Gordon Cumming’s book of his hunting exploits in
South Africa, so that I felt as if nothing less than killing big game,
like buffalo and elk, could gratify my sporting proclivities.
Colonel James Chiles of “Six Mile,” Jackson County, was a state
senator, and while at Jefferson City during the session of the
legislature, my father telling him of my desire to go out to Santa Fé,
the colonel sent me an invitation to come to his house by the middle
of April and go out with a train belonging to his son. So in the early
spring of 1857 I set out from my home in Saline County, well mounted
and equipped for the journey.
The spring was backward, and when I reached Colonel Chiles’s house in
the middle of April winter was still “lingering in the lap of spring.”
The grass was not good on the plains until the 10th of May. It was
arranged for me to go out with the train commanded by “Jim Crow,” a son
of Colonel Chiles.
“Jim Crow” was then about twenty-five, not over medium height, but
strong, athletic and wiry, and had a pretty well established reputation
as a fighter among the frontiersmen. He had killed a lawyer named
Moore, who lived at Leavenworth, in the Noland hotel at Independence.
After the Civil War he killed two other men at Independence, and he
himself was eventually killed in a fight with the Independence town
marshal. But I found “Jim Crow” a kind and considerate friend, jovial
and good natured generally, but subject to violent fits of anger, and
when angry, a very dangerous man. One night on the “trail,” while he
and I were riding some distance ahead of the train, amid the solitude
of the darkness and the vast plains, the conversation drifted into
a confidential vein. He recalled the killing of Moore, saying he
regretted it beyond measure; that the affair had haunted him day and
night; that he would willingly give up all that he owned or expected
to acquire to be relieved of the anguish and trouble and remorse the
act had caused him. But he was possessed of the kind of courage and
combativeness which never suggested the avoidance of a fight then or
afterward.
Kansas City was even then, in 1857, an aspiring town. For a month
or two in the spring the levee was covered with wagons and teams,
and sometimes four or five steamboats were at the wharf discharging
freight. General John W. Reid had recently bought forty acres, the
northwest corner of which is now the intersection of Broadway and
Twelfth street, for $2,000. The land was covered with timber, which he
cut into cord wood and sold to the steamboats for about enough to pay
for the land.
There were no streets, and only one road from the levee, leaving the
river front at Grand avenue, running obliquely across to Main street
and back again to Grand avenue, in McGee’s addition. Colonel Milton
McGee had taken down his fences and laid off his cornfields into lots.
The work cattle and wagons were collected and a camp established,
about the first of May, on the high, rolling prairie near the Santa
Fé trail, three miles southwest of Westport. The wagons were heavy,
cumbrous affairs with long deep beds, covered with sheets of heavy
cotton cloth, supported by bows. A man six feet high could stand erect
in one of them, and they were designed to hold a load of seven or eight
thousand pounds of merchandise each. Those in our train were made by
Hiram Young, a free negro at Independence, and they were considered
as good as any except those with iron axles. The freight consisted of
merchandise for the trade in New Mexico. Two of the wagons were loaded
with imported champagne for Colonel St. Vrain of Las Vegas and Mora.
There was a shortage of good ox drivers that spring and Captain “Jim
Crow” found it difficult to supply the number he needed. Twenty-five
dollars a month “and found” were the wages. One evening, while we were
lounging around the corral, waiting for supper, three men came up on
foot, inquiring for the captain of the train. They were good looking,
well dressed men, two of them wearing silk hats, but bearing no
resemblance to the ordinary ox driver. They said they were stranded and
looking for work. They proposed to Captain Chiles to hire to him for
drivers, while they disclaimed any knowledge of the calling.
[Illustration: “JIM CROW” CHILES LAUGHED.]
“Jim Crow” laughed, and after interrogating them as to their
antecedents, said he would hire them on probation. “I will take you
along,” he said, “and if I find you can learn to drive cattle before we
get to Council Grove, the last settlement on the road, then I’ll keep
you; otherwise not, and you must look out for yourselves.”
They were invited to supper and assigned to a mess. One of them was
named Whitcom. He hailed from Massachusetts and had never seen a yoke
of oxen in his life, but he was strong, sturdy and active, and before
we reached New Mexico he was rated the most dextrous driver in the
outfit. Moreover, his team looked better than any in the train when we
reached the end of our journey. Ten years ago Whitcom was living in
Cheyenne, and was one of the wealthiest cattle raisers in the state of
Wyoming.
Another of the three hailed from Cincinnati. He wore a threadbare
suit of broadcloth and a “plug” hat, and was tall, angular, awkward,
slip-shod and slouchy in appearance. He had been employed in his
father’s banking house in Cincinnati, and was accomplished in
penmanship and a good accountant; but he proved to be utterly unfit for
an ox driver. He could not hold his own among his rough companions, and
became the object of their jeers and derision. By unanimous consent he
was given the name of “Skeesicks,” and by this name he was known ever
afterwards.
The third of the trio proved to be a fairly good driver, and is now a
prosperous merchant in the state of Montana.
Among the drivers was a young Mexican, Juan, who had been in the employ
of the Chiles brothers for years. Through him we were enabled to
converse with the Kiowas and Comanches when we reached them. Many of
the Indians could speak or understand Spanish, but could not understand
a word of English. We had men among the teamsters from Tennessee,
Kentucky, Arkansas and Texas. They soon became known and answered to
the name of their own state. “Tennessee” and “Texas” prided themselves
on the size and weight of their whips, and the loudness of the noise
they could make in popping them.
Young Reece, from Missouri, went out with the train for his health.
He had consumption and hoped the journey over the plains would be of
benefit to him. He was very tall, being six feet four inches, of large
bone and frame, but thin as a huge skeleton, and had allowed his heavy
black hair to grow until it hung below his shoulders. He was well off
so far as property was concerned, and rode a splendid dapple gray
horse, muscular, tough and graceful, with handsome mane and tail, which
could fairly fly over the prairie.
II.
IN CAMP, SOUTH OF WESTPORT.
In the camp, three miles southwest of Westport, we were detained for a
fortnight or more, awaiting the arrival of our freight at Kansas City.
There were twenty-six wagon, five yoke of oxen to each, carrying about
seven thousand pounds of freight each. There were no tents, so we slept
on the ground, either under a wagon or, if we preferred it, the broad
canopy of heaven.
Captain “Jim Crow” commanded the company, with Rice as assistant
wagonmaster. There was one driver for each wagon, and a boy of 16, of
frontier origin and training, whose duty it was to drive the “cavayard”
or loose cattle, taken along in case any of the teams should get lame
or unfit for service. “Jim Crow,” immediately on his arrival at the
camp, gave the boy the nickname of “Little Breeches,” suggested by
his very tight-fitting trousers, and the name, abbreviated to “Little
Breech,” stuck to him.
While encamped below Westport I was fortunate in purchasing a first
rate “buffalo horse,” a California “lass horse,” that had been
brought across the plains the previous year. He proved his excellence
afterward, was very fast and would run up so close to a buffalo that I
could sometimes touch him with the pistol point.
Camped in our vicinity were several corrals of trains belonging to
Mexican merchants, who used mules instead of oxen, and had lately
come up from New Mexico. These Mexicans subsisted altogether on taos
(unbolted) flour, and dried buffalo meat, while our mess wagon was
filled with side bacon, flour, coffee, sugar, beans and pickles.
I soon got on fair terms of acquaintance with the master of one of
these Spanish trains. He was a successful buffalo hunter, but I was
surprised to find he used a spear for killing them, instead of a
pistol. When a buffalo was found at a distance from the road or camp he
would goad the animal, until so enraged, it would turn upon and follow
him, and in this manner he would get the game to a more convenient
place for butchering, before finally dispatching it.
There were no farms fenced up in sight of our camp at that time, but
the prairie was dotted with the houses of the “squatter sovereigns,”
who were “holding down” claims.
On the 10th day of June we yoked up and started on the long journey. At
the outset everybody about the train, from the captain to the cavayard
driver, was filled with good humor. The weather was perfect, the view
of the apparently boundless prairie exhilarating. The road having been
surveyed and established by the government before the country was at
all occupied, was almost as straight as an arrow toward the southwest.
The wagonmaster would arouse the men before daylight in the morning and
the cattle would be driven up to the corral, yoked up and hitched to
the wagons by the time the cooks could prepare breakfast, a cook being
assigned to each mess of six or eight men. Some of the oxen were not
well broken to the yoke, and it was a difficult task at the dim break
of day for a green man to select each steer that belonged to his team
in the corral, where the 250 were crowded together so that their sides
would almost touch.
Once on the road the drive was continued for from eight to twelve
miles, the stops being governed by the convenience of camping-places,
where grass and water could be found for the cattle. Familiarity with
the route was essential in the wagonmaster, who, riding some distance
ahead, would select the camping-place, and when the train came up
direct the formation of the corral. The cattle were immediately
unyoked and turned loose, herded by two of the teamsters. Often it was
necessary to drive the cattle a mile or more from the corral in order
to find sufficient grass, that near the road being kept short by the
incoming trains from Mexico and the outgoing trains ahead of us.
At Council Grove there was a considerable settlement of Indian traders.
There we found assembled a large band of Kaw Indians, who had just
reached there from a buffalo hunt on the Arkansas. The Kaws were
not classed as “wild” Indians, and I think had been assigned to a
reservation not far off, but when they got off on a hunt their native
savage inclinations made them about as dangerous as those roaming the
plains at will, and whose contact with the white man was much less
frequent.
Beyond the Diamond spring we met two men on horseback, who were hunting
cattle belonging to a train then corralled some distance ahead. The
cattle had been stampeded by Indians in the night and they had lost
fifty head. The train could not be moved without them. The men had been
in search of them for two days and thought they would be compelled to
offer a reward for them, that being found necessary sometimes, along
the border. The Indians and “squawmen”--white men married to, or living
with, Indian squaws--would stampede cattle at night, drive them off and
hold them until they ascertained that a reward had been offered for
them. Then they would visit the corral, learn with seeming regret of
the cause of the detention of the train, declare that they were well
acquainted with the surrounding country and could probably find them
and bring them in, offering to perform this service for so much a head.
After the bargain was struck the cattle would be delivered as soon as
they could be driven from the place of their secretion. It was not
infrequent for a band of Kaws to strike a wagon master in this way for
as much as from $100 to $500.
Here we learned that Colonel Albert Sidney Johnson, in command of
a considerable force, had moved out from Fort Scott against the
Cheyennes, who were on the warpath up on the Republican river, in the
western part of Kansas, but we missed seeing the command until months
later, on our homeward journey in September.
III.
BUFFALO.
As we were drawing near the buffalo range preparations were made
for a chase. The pistols were freshly loaded and butcher knives
sharpened. One morning about 9 o’clock, on Turkey creek, a branch
of the Cottonwood, we came in sight of buffalo, in a great mass,
stretching out over the prairie as far as the eye could reach, though
the topography of the country enabled us to see for several miles in
each direction. The prairie in front of us was gradually undulating,
but offered no great hindrance to fast riding. Reece and I were anxious
to try our skill, and Captain Chiles said he would go along to assist
in butchering and bringing up the meat; but, as he was riding a mule,
he could not be expected to take an active part in the chase. Reece was
mounted on his splendid iron gray and I on my trained buffalo horse,
each of us having a pair of Colt’s navy revolvers, of six chambers in
holsters.
We rode slowly until we got within three or four hundred yards of the
edge of the vast herd. Then they began to run and we followed, gaining
on them all the time. Pressing forward, at the full speed of my horse,
I discovered that the whole band just in front of me were old bulls. I
was so anxious to kill a buffalo that I began shooting at a very large
one, occasionally knocking tufts of hair off his coat, but apparently
having little other effect. However, after a lively run of perhaps
a mile or two he slackened his pace, and at last stopped still and,
turning about, faced me. I fired the one or two remaining charges of my
revolvers, at a distance of twenty or thirty yards, and thought he gave
evidence of being mortally wounded. After gazing steadily at me for a
few minutes he turned around and walked off. I followed, but presently
he resumed a gallop in the direction the main herd had gone, soon
disappearing from view over a ridge. So I had made a failure, and felt
a good deal put out, as well as worn out by the fatigue of fast riding.
Through a vista between the clouds of dust raised by the buffalo, I
got a glimpse of Reece. His horse proved to be very much afraid of the
buffalo and could not be urged close enough to afford shooting, with
any degree of certainty, with a pistol. Reece held his magnificent
horse with a rein of the bridle in either hand, his head fronting
towards the buffalo, but the frightened animal would turn to one side,
despite the best efforts of his master, fairly flying around in front
of the herd. That was Reece’s first and last attempt to kill a buffalo
on horseback.
I rode back towards the train, soon meeting Captain Chiles, who greeted
me with derisive laughter, but considerately expressed the hope that I
would have better success upon a second attempt. As we were all very
anxious to get some fresh meat, he suggested that I should lend him my
horse; that he would easily kill one with a double-barrel shotgun,
which he was carrying in front on his saddle. I readily agreed to
this, and mounting on my horse, he put off and promptly slew a fat,
well-grown calf that proved good eating for us who had lived on bacon
for many days.
That afternoon I turned my buffalo horse loose, permitting him to
follow, or be driven along with the cavayard, in order that he might
recuperate from the exhausting races of the forenoon. The following
morning he was as good as ever, and I resolved to try another chase.
Having received some pertinent instructions from Captain Chiles, as
to the modus operandi of killing buffalo on horseback at full speed,
I mounted and sallied forth with him, the weather being ideal and the
game abundant.
At the left of the road, in sight, thousands of buffalo were grazing in
a vast plain, lower than the ridge down which we were riding. Opened up
in our view was a scope of country to the southeast of us, a distance
of ten miles. This plain was covered with them, all heading towards the
northwest.
At the outset I was more fortunate than on the previous day, for when
I had gotten up close to them I found in front of me cows and calves,
young things of one or two years old. Singling out a fat young cow,
distinguished by her glossy coat of hair, I forced my horse right up
against her and brought her down at the second shot. I pulled rein,
stopping my horse as suddenly as was possible at the breakneck speed
at which he was going, and in another moment the herd had spread out,
and I was completely surrounded by the rushing mass of animals which my
attack had set in motion.
The air was so clouded with dust that I could hardly see more than
twenty yards from where I was standing, near the carcass of the cow
I had killed. There was danger of being run over by them, but they
separated as they approached, passing on either side of me, a few yards
distant. After a while the rushing crowd thinned, and up rode Captain
Chiles exclaiming: “Why don’t you kill another?”
Fifty yards from us they were rushing by, all in the same direction.
I again dashed into the midst of them, pressing my horse in pursuit
of another young cow. She shot ahead of everything, increasing her
speed so that I could hardly keep sight of her. While thus running at
full speed my horse struck a calf with his breast, knocking the calf
down flat, and almost throwing himself also. I pulled up as quickly as
possible, turned around and shot the prostrate calf before it could
get up. So I had two dead in, say twenty minutes. After this day’s
experience I had no trouble in killing all the buffalo we needed for
our own consumption. For a week or ten days they were hardly out of
sight. We found them as far west as Pawnee Rock. All told, I killed
about twenty on the journey out and back. A good steak, cut from the
loin of a buffalo cow, broiled on the coals with a thin slice of bacon
attached to it to improve its flavor, was “good eating,” and I soon
became an accomplished broiler.
IV.
COMPANIONS OF VOYAGE.
Before reaching Pawnee Rock we overtook a train of thirty wagons
belonging to the leading freighters of the West, Majors, Russell &
Waddell, with which we traveled to Fort Union, their freight being
consigned to that post. This train had thirty wagons, built, I
believe, in Philadelphia, with heavy iron axles and spindles, which
seemed superior to any others I had seen on the prairies. Hagan was
wagonmaster and Hines his assistant. The former was a sandy-haired man,
who rode a large bay mule, a drowsy animal with immense lop ears that
moved back and forth as he walked. This ungainly mule, I found out, in
a day or two afterwards, had his good points. He could run as fast and
get up as close to a buffalo as any horse in either outfit.
Notwithstanding Hagan’s generally uncouth appearance, he was a man of
sterling worth and a capital hand at killing buffalo. Subsequently we
joined in many chases, and I found him an agreeable companion. On the
rear end of each of the wagons in Hagan’s train there was pasted a set
of printed rules for the government of the employees in the service of
Majors, Russell & Waddell. Both liquor and profanity were absolutely
prohibited, but of the strict enforcement of the rules I cannot speak.
While riding in advance of the train, in company with Captain Chiles,
we saw our Mexican friend, whose acquaintance we had formed at
Westport, the master of his own train, galloping toward us, with a
buffalo cow following close behind his horse. As was his habit, he
had attacked the animal with his spear, stabbing her until she became
infuriated so that she turned on him and was following him; it occurred
to me she was pressing him a little too closely to be agreeable. We
rode rapidly toward him, and as we were drawing near the cow became so
exhausted by loss of blood that she stopped still, when Captain Chiles
rode up and gave her a broadside with his shotgun, which finished her.
Whenever they found buffalo in plenty the Mexicans would halt for
several days and kill enough to supply their trainmen. They preserved
the meat by cutting it into thin strips and hanging it on ropes about
the corral until it was dried by the sun. But thus cured, it had a
sour and disagreeable taste to me. The Mexicans would stew it with
quantities of red pepper and devour it with great relish.
As we approached the valley of the Little Arkansas, where the view of
the country was more extensive than any we had yet seen, there was no
limit to the herds of buffalo, the face of the earth being covered with
them. We camped at noon at the crossing of this stream. The buffalo
were crossing the creek above us, moving westward, in bands of from
twenty-five to a hundred or more. At the crossing they had a trail cut
down through the steep banks of the stream three or four feet in depth.
But I had had enough of buffalo chasing, except when we were in need
of fresh meat. It was too much like riding out into the pasture and
killing your own domestic cattle. I found antelope hunting much better
sport.
After Walnut creek, the next place of interest was Pawnee Rock near
which many battles between the traders and the Indians had taken place.
This bluff, facing the road on the right hand side, at a distance,
perhaps, of a hundred yards, was of brown sandstone about fifty feet
high, the bluff end of the ridge extending down to the river bottom.
I climbed up the almost perpendicular face of the elevation, where I
found many names cut in the soft stone--names of Santa Fé traders who
had traveled the trail, among them that of Colonel M. M. Marmaduke,
who crossed to Mexico as early as 1826, and was afterwards governor of
Missouri, and James H. Lucas, a prominent and wealthy citizen of St.
Louis.
We were not particularly apprehensive of Indian troubles, although we
knew the Cheyennes were turbulent. Elijah Chiles, a brother of our
captain, had been loading goods at Kansas City when we left--a train
of twenty-six wagons for the Kiowas and Comanches--and was doubtless a
few days’ drive behind us. But we kept on the lookout day and night;
the guard around the cattle was doubled, and each teamster had a gun of
some sort, which he kept strapped to the wagon bed, loaded and ready
for service.
V.
PESTIFEROUS INDIANS.
All the while we knew the Indians could wipe us out if they were
determined to do so. In both trains there were not above sixty men,
while there were, nearby, warriors by thousands.
A day’s journey beyond Pawnee Rock, we were visited by a hunting
party of fifteen or twenty young Kiowa bucks, the first real “wild”
Indians we had seen. They did not seem the least wild, however, but
uncomfortably “tame,” and disposed to get very familiar on short
acquaintance. They were evidently out on a lark, and disposed to make
us the objects of their amusement that afternoon.
They scattered up and down the length of both trains, talking and
laughing with the teamsters. Two of them took particular fancy to my
friend Reece, riding on either side of him, taking hold of his arms and
seeming to admire his long hair and the handsome horse he rode. Reece
was not at all afraid of them and permitted no undue interference with
his person or property.
Reece was no coward. While we were still in the dangerous region, he
would ride for miles ahead of the train, alone, dismount and lie down
to rest or sleep. When I said to him that he was incurring unnecessary
risk of being killed by the Indians, he remarked that if they did kill
him they could not rob him of much in this world.
Along where we were traveling at the time of the visit of the Kiowa
bucks, the river bottom was as smooth as a billiard table. Hagan’s
train was in the lead of ours a space of perhaps thirty yards
intervening. Hagan and I were riding abreast at the rear of his train,
when suddenly, two of the young bucks raised up a loud whoop and
started their horses at full speed. Taking a corner of their blankets
in each hand and holding them above their heads so that they made a
flapping sound in the air, they went sweeping along right against the
cattle, almost instantly creating a stampede, the cattle turning out of
the highway making the big wagons rattle as they went.
For an instant Hagan sat on his mule stock still, apparently
dumbfounded. In another moment he put spurs to his mule, intending to
head the fleeing cattle. But instead of running, the mule suddenly
“bucked,” throwing Hagan and his saddle also (the girth breaking) over
his head and landing him in the road, flat on his back. Hagan got up,
pulled himself together and rubbed the dust out of his eyes, but said
nothing, though gifted in the way of eloquent profanity.
No great harm resulted from the stampede. Some others of the party of
Indians ran ahead and stopped the cattle. There was no collision of
wagons and no damage, but the affair left an ugly feeling of resentment
among the teamsters toward the Indians. The Indians laughed and talked
about the affair among themselves. Any effort to punish them was
out of the question, the entire tribes of Kiowas and Comanches being
encamped within a day’s journey above us.
[Illustration: THE MULE SUDDENLY BUCKED.]
The Indians kept along with the train all of the afternoon. Observing
my horse and accoutrements, they inquired through Juan, the Spaniard,
if he was fleet and good for buffalo, and pressed me to go out with
them for buffalo the next day. I would gladly have seen the Indians
engaged in a buffalo chase, but declined the invitation, making such
excuses as I could without expressing any want of confidence as to
their good fellowship. My scalp was intact and I felt disposed to keep
it so.
The Kiowas begged Captain Chiles and Hagan to give them some flour and
sugar, but they refused, knowing that a donation would be necessary
later on, when we should meet the entire tribes of Kiowas and Comanches
encamped above us, awaiting the arrival of their agent and the train
load of goods for them.
Late in the evening, after we had corralled and the cooks were
preparing to get supper these Indians having ridden off in the
direction of the river, two of them reappeared. They returned to the
camp, each with a bundle of dry driftwood, picked up on the river bank,
which they threw down near the camp fire. This meant that they wanted
supper, and Captain Chiles gave directions for the preparation of food
for them. The Indians took supper with us, after which they departed,
evidently feeling better and good naturedly disposed toward us.
That night there was much discussion of the Indian problem, with which
we seemed now confronted. At noon the next day, as the cattle were
being driven into the corral, another party of young warriors made
their appearance at our camp, and came near involving us in a serious
conflict. The trouble was brought on by the impatient action of our
assistant wagonmaster, Rice. Four or five young fellows rode up into
the rear entrance of our corral and were sitting there on their horses
looking on at the yoking of the cattle. They partially blocked up the
opening and interfered with egress of the teams. Rice, coming up behind
them, without warning gave one of their horses a blow with a heavy
blacksnake whip. The horse sprang forward, nearly unseating the rider,
who, as soon as he could gather up the reins of his bridle, turned upon
Rice in a towering rage, jerked an arrow from its quiver and fixed it
in his bow. Forcing his horse right upon Rice, the Indian punched him
with the point of the arrow until he knocked his hat off his head. Rice
made no effort to resist the affront and threatened assault, but kept
backing out of the Indian’s reach.
I was standing near by and seized my pistol, thinking that a fight was
imminent. At the height of the excitement, Captain Chiles made his
appearance and commanded peace, in manner and language that the Indians
could understand, but it required some time and a deal of talk to get
them quieted. They denounced Rice’s conduct as an insult they were
bound to resent, and declared they would kill Rice sooner or later.
Captain Chiles, speaking through Juan, our Spaniard, told them that
if they commenced killing they would have to kill us all, for we were
bound to stand together when it came to that. After a long wrangle
the Indian said he would be satisfied if allowed to give Rice a sound
flogging with a whip, but Captain Chiles refused. Finally the Indians
seemed to recover their composure, to some extent, and rode off in the
direction of the main camp.
* * * * *
Somewhere thereabout, in the river bottoms, I saw the ruins of an old
adobe fort. “Old Fort Atkinson,” doubtless named for and established
and built by the command of Colonel Henry Atkinson of the regular army,
with whose military career I happened to be somewhat familiar. The
remains of the old fort excited my interest, but I do not recollect to
have seen the place mentioned by any of the numerous accounts that have
been written of the Santa Fé trail.
[Illustration: PUNCHED HIM WITH THE POINT.]
The fort was probably built in 1829. At that time a body of regular
troops was sent out on the trail as a protection to the traders.
Colonel Henry Atkinson was ordered west in 1818 and placed in command
of the Ninth Military department, then comprising the entire country
west of St. Louis, as well as Illinois and Wisconsin, with headquarters
at Fort Bellefontaine, near St. Louis. He was soon afterward advanced
in rank to brigadier general and held the command at Jefferson barracks
until his death in 1842. The military post at Council Bluffs, Ia., was
established by Colonel Atkinson in 1819, when he and his troops were
transported on the first steamboats ascending the Missouri river. He
served with distinction in the Black Hawk War, in command of the forces.
VI.
AT THE KIOWA CAMP.
The train had got under way the next morning when the lodges of the
Kiowas loomed up in sight of us. The camp seemed to extend over
territory a mile square. The Indians said the entire tribe was
assembled there--chiefs, warriors, squaws and papooses. Presently we
could see them moving towards us, hundreds of them, on horseback and on
foot, all sorts and sizes, men, women and children, coming to take a
view of the white man and his belongings as they passed.
Soon we could see also the lodges of the Comanches, appearing about
equal in number, and covering a like extent of country. The two camps
were a mile or more apart.
It had been agreed between the wagonmasters that we would not make the
usual noonday halt that day, but would drive by the Indian camps and
as far beyond as it was possible for the cattle to stand the travel. We
had anticipated a great throng of Indians, and here they came by the
hundreds!
Some of the “big men” among them had guns or pistols, but the greater
number, in fact almost every one, had a bow and quiver of arrows slung
over his shoulders, even the children who looked not over ten years
old. One chief wore a complete outfit of blue, with the insignia of
a captain of the United States army, and had a Colt’s revolver, but
nearly all of them were naked to the waist, with a breech-clout and a
sort of kilt of buckskin around the loins, hanging down nearly to the
knees. Some wore moccasins, while many were barefooted.
The little fellows, nude, save for a breech-clout, had little bows
about a foot long, with arrows of cactus thorn, with which they would
shoot grasshoppers and other insects, showing astonishing skill.
Numbers of the warriors carried spears, with long handles, glittering
in the sunlight as they rode along, giving the caravan the appearance
of a vast army of Crusaders on the march to the Holy Land.
Captain Chiles, endeavoring to shift the responsibility and escape the
annoyance of the Indians, pointed to Reece, on his fine horse, and
said: “There is the captain; talk to him. Ask him for what you want.”
But they could not be so easily deceived. It is said that you cannot
fool Indians in this particular; that they never fail to distinguish
the wagonmaster, and appear to select the chief of any crowd or caravan
intuitively.
As we were traveling along the Indians gave frequent exhibitions of
the speed of their horses, running races with each other, but at a
sufficient distance not to frighten or stampede our cattle. The younger
men kept up a continual chattering and laughing; horse racing seemed
their great amusement. The young fellows of the visit renewed their
invitation, urging me to join them in a buffalo chase, explaining that
the herds were not far off, and expressing a great desire to see a
trial of my buffalo horse in a chase with theirs. I again declined.
The train was continually moving and would not be stopped to suit my
convenience, and there were other reasons, not unreasonably discreet.
The head men of the tribes, addressing the wagonmasters, complained
that they were in great need of supplies, owing to the delay in the
arrival of their annuities, and asked a gift from the two trains. The
two wagonmasters, after some demurring, proposed to them that if they,
with all their people, would withdraw from, and cease to follow the
train, and desist from annoying us, after we had corralled, we would go
into camp and give them such supplies as we could spare.
To this proposition the chiefs agreed. One of the leaders began talking
in a loud voice to the multitude, gradually riding off from us, the
crowd following. Reaching a knoll which elevated him so that he could
overlook them, he dismounted and proceeded to make a speech. They
seemed a little slow about leaving, the multitude appearing to be not
altogether governed by the leaders, but nearly all finally withdrew
in the direction of their own camp. Driving on a few hundred yards
further, our corrals were formed and the cattle were driven off some
distance for water, while preparations were made for cooking dinner.
In a little while the chiefs, representing both tribes, made their
appearance at our corral, where the wagonmasters of both trains had met
to hold the diplomatic conference to determine how much of a gift of
supplies they were expecting from us.
The Indian chiefs dismounted from their horses, walked into the corral
and sat down on the ground, in the semi-circle, to the number of
perhaps a dozen and were soon joined by the wagonmasters, together with
our interpreter Juan.
Writing now, in the year 1901, solely from memory, forty-three years
since this scene occurred, I am unable to recollect all that was said,
or the names of any of the Indians who were present and took part in
this parley. No doubt San Tanta, that famous Kiowa chief, was among
them, but I took no notes whatever of this journey, and am forced
now to rely entirely on my memory. I recall that it was stated that
one of the most influential of the Comanche chiefs who was there was
an out-and-out Spaniard or Mexican, speaking the Indian language as
well as anybody, and was generally known and recognized as among the
meanest, most cruel and blood thirsty of the Comanche tribe. One of
the elder looking Indians produced a big pipe, filled it with tobacco,
lighted it, and after taking a few puffs himself passed it to the one
next to him. Thus the pipe was passed around to each one in the circle
until all had taken part in the smoke. The Indians were dignified,
discreet and cautious, as appeared to me during the conference, leaving
the impression that our troubles with them were about to terminate, and
this proved to be the fact.
At the close, and as a result of the council, a half-dozen sacks of
flour, half that many sacks of sugar, and a lot of sides of bacon were
brought forth from the mess wagons and stacked up on the ground, near
where the collection of dignitaries of the prairies were sitting,
smoking the pipe of peace and good fellowship.
I thought the Indians regarded the things we were giving them, as a
sort of tribute we were under obligations to pay for the privilege of
passing through their country unmolested.
Pack mules were brought up, the supplies were loaded on them and they
departed in the direction of the general camp, those engaged in the
conference soon following.
In the evening, before we broke camp, two young bucks came galloping
into the camp. Addressing Captain Chiles, they said that by instruction
of their chief they had come to return a pair of blankets that had
been stolen by one of the tribe. They threw down the blankets and the
captain called to the men at the mess wagon to give them a cup of sugar
each, saying that it was the first instance in his life when an Indian
had restored stolen property.
VII.
TO THE CIMARRON.
Escaping any further delay from Indians or from other causes, good
headway was made by the trains up the Arkansas until we reached the
“lower crossing.” It had been determined by the wagonmasters that we
would cross the river here, taking the Cimarron route. Although the
river was fordable, yet it was quite tedious and difficult to get the
heavily loaded wagons across the stream, the water being waist-deep and
the bottom uneven.
Neither an ox nor a mule will pull when he gets into water touching his
body. The mule, under such circumstances, always has a tendency to fall
down, and so get drowned, by becoming entangled in the harness. To meet
this emergency the ox teams were doubled, ten yoke being hitched to
each wagon, and were urged to do their duty by a half-dozen drivers on
each side, wading through the water beside them.
The greater part of one day was taken up in getting the wagons across,
but it was accomplished without serious loss. Everything being over,
we encamped at the foot of the hill on the opposite side, and rested
a day, in recognition of the Fourth of July. We fired some shots, and
Captain Chiles brought forth from his trunk some jars of gooseberries,
directing the cooks to make some pies, as an additional recognition
of the national holiday. The gooseberries were all right, but the pie
crust would have given an ostrich a case of indigestion.
The old Santa Fé trail, from the lower crossing of the Arkansas, ran
southwest to the Cimarron, across a stretch of country where there was
no water for a distance of nearly sixty miles, if my memory serves me
correctly. All the water casks were filled from the Arkansas river for
the use of the men, but of course there was no means of carrying water
for horse or ox.
The weather was warm and dry, and now we were about to enter upon the
“hornada,” the Spanish word for “dry stretch.” Intending to drive all
night, starting was postponed until near sundown. Two or three miles
from the Arkansas we apparently reached the general altitude of the
plains over which we trudged during the whole night, with nothing but
the rumbling of the wagons and the occasional shout of one of the
drivers to break the silence of the plain.
[Illustration: DIFFICULT TO GET THE HEAVILY LOADED WAGONS ACROSS.]
It was my first experience of traveling at night, on this journey.
Toward midnight I became so sleepy that I could hardly sit on my
horse, so dismounting, I walked and led him. Advancing to a point
near the head of the trains I ventured to lie down on the ground to
rest, as the trains were passing at least. Instantly my clothes were
perforated with cactus needles which pricked me severely, and waking
me thoroughly. In the darkness it was with great difficulty I could
get the needles out. Mounting my horse again I rode some distance in
advance of everybody, completely out of hearing of the trains, and
riding thus alone, with nothing visible but the stars, a feeling of
melancholy seized me, together with a sense of homesickness, with which
I had not hitherto been troubled. Each day’s travel was increasing the
distance between me, my home and my mother, to whom I was most dearly
attached; and here amid the solitude, darkness and perfect quietude of
the vast plains I began to reflect upon the dangers besetting me, and
the uncertainty of ever returning to my home or seeing my relatives
again.
The approach of morning and the rising of the sun soon dispelled these
forebodings of evil and revived my spirits. Old Sol, like a ball of
fire, emerged from the endless plain to the east of us, as from the
ocean, soon overwhelming us with a flood of light such as I had never
experienced before. During all that day’s march the heat was intense
and the sunlight almost blinding, the kind of weather that creates
the mirage of the plains. In the distance on either hand, fine lakes
of clear water were seen glistening in the sun, sometimes appearing
circular in shape, surrounded with the proper shores, the illusion
being apparently complete, so much so that several times during the
day I rode some distance seeking to ascertain if they were really lakes
or not. I found them receding as I approached, and was unable to get
any closer to them than when as a boy I set out to find the sack of
gold at the end of the rainbow.
About midday we passed a great pile of bleached bones of mules that had
been thrown up in a conical shaped heap by the passing trainmen, in
the course of the ten years they had been lying there. They were the
remains of 200 or 300 mules belonging to John S. Jones, a Missourian, a
citizen of Pettis county, whom I knew personally. In 1847, and for many
years afterward, Jones was engaged in freighting across the plains.
In ’47, having obtained a contract from the government to transport
freight for the troops at Santa Fé, he got a start late in the season,
and had only reached the crossing of the Arkansas when he was overtaken
by such deep snow and severely cold weather as to compel him to stop
and go into quasi-winter quarters. While there, protected by such
barracks for man and beast as could be hastily constructed, he received
orders from the commander of the troops in New Mexico that he must
hurry up with the supplies, orders of such urgency that they could not
be disregarded. He had a mule train of thirty wagons. Orders were given
to hitch up and start. The weather moderated the first day, but on the
second they encountered a heavy and cold rain freezing as it fell, and
were forced to go into corral. Intense cold followed and every one of
the mules froze to death, huddling in the corral, during the night.
Years afterwards, through the influence of Colonel Benton in the Senate
and John G. Miller of Missouri in the House of Representatives an
appropriation was made by Congress of $40,000 to pay Mr. Jones for the
loss of his mules.
In the forenoon of the second day from the Arkansas we reached Sand
creek, a tributary of the Cimarron, where we found a pool of stagnant
water, not enough for the oxen, but sufficient for the trainmen to make
coffee with, and there we camped. A few hours afterwards we struck the
valley of the Cimarron, and, after riding up the bed of the apparently
dry stream, we discovered a pool of clear water. The cattle were so
famished that they ran into it, hitched to the wagons, their drivers
being unable to restrain them, and it was with considerable difficulty
that the wagons were afterwards pulled out of the mud.
VIII.
MY FIRST ANTELOPE.
After reaching the Cimarron we began seeing herds of antelope in the
distance. At first I tried “flagging” them. I had been told that on
approaching within two or three hundred yards of them, concealed from
their view behind an intervening ridge, these animals were possessed
of such inordinate curiosity that they could be enticed to within
gunshot of the hunter by tying a handkerchief on the end of a stick and
elevating it in sight of the antelope, the hunter, of course, keeping
concealed. I made several efforts at this plan of exciting their
curiosity, and while some of them came toward me at first sight of the
flag, their curiosity seemed counterbalanced by caution or incredulity,
and in no instance could I get one to come near enough for a sure or
safe shot. I then tried a rifle, with which I was also unsuccessful,
not then being able to make a correct estimate of the distance between
me and the antelope, a troublesome task, only to be acquired by
experience and constant practice.
[Illustration: THEIR DRIVERS WERE UNABLE TO RESTRAIN THEM.]
The old trail ran along up the valley of the Cimarron several days’
drive. A singular stream was the Cimarron; for the most part of the bed
of the stream was sand, perfectly dry, but now and then, every mile or
two, we found a hole of clear good water, except that it was slightly
tinctured with alkali, a brackish, but not unpleasant taste. There were
three fairly good springs along the road near the Cimarron, designated
as the lower, middle and upper spring, and we camped near each of them
as we passed. As we traveled up the valley squads of antelope could be
seen viewing the train from the heights on either side of the valley.
Captain Chiles had along with him two shotguns, the smaller he had
been using on buffalo, the other, an unusually large, double barrel,
number 8 bore, very long in barrel and heavy, carrying easily twenty
buck shot in each barrel. Armed with that big gun I would ride in the
direction of the antelope, but at an angle indicating that I would
pass them. Usually when I had gotten within three or four hundred
yards of them they would quietly withdraw from view behind the ridge,
whereat, I would turn the course of my horse and gallop as fast as I
could, keeping the ridge between them and me until I had gotten within
a short distance of the point of their disappearance. Then dismounting,
I hastily followed them on foot. Often they would be found to have
moved not out of the range of that big gun, and with it I killed many
of them. That was the only plan of killing antelope by which I gained
success. During this part of the journey we saw many wolves, and of
many varieties, from the little coyote to the great gray wolf. They
were all very shy, however, and difficult to approach within gun shot.
On the Cimarron we were overtaken by the mail coach, one of the monthly
lines then operated by Waldo & Co. of Independence, Mo. The coach had
left Westport five days later than our train. The driver, guards and
passengers were all “loaded to the guards” (to use a steamboat phrase)
with guns and pistols.
While the train was under headway one morning Captain Chiles rode along
the length of the train inquiring for “Skeesicks,” but “Skeesicks”
did not answer, and no one could tell anything about him. The captain
ordered the train stopped and a search to be made of each wagon, but
the searchers failed to find any sign of “Skeesicks.” Further inquiry
developed the fact that he had started out as one of the guards at
midnight to protect the herd of cattle, they being off a mile or
more from the corral, where grass was found, and no one had seen him
since. Captain Chiles declared that he could not afford to stop for so
worthless a fellow as “Skeesicks,” and thereupon the orders were given
for the train to proceed.
Having traveled ten or twelve miles, a camp was located at the foot of
a mound which overlooked the road we had been traveling for nearly the
whole distance of the morning’s drive.
At dinner, the propriety of laying by for a day or two, or long
enough to make a proper search for our lost comrade, was discussed;
but the teamsters all realized that no captain of a ship at sea ever
wielded more absolute authority than Captain Chiles. He could brook
no opposition, and little criticism of his course or conduct. Any
disobedience of his orders he regarded as equal to mutiny and was
punished accordingly. About the entire camp a sullen silence prevailed.
Suddenly some one cried out that an object could be seen away down the
road that might be “Skeesicks,” but just then, no one could discern
whether a man or a horse or an Indian.
The entire party assembled outside the corral to watch the approaching
object, and after a while our lost “Skeesicks” walked up, covered with
dust and worn out with fatigue of constant walking for over twelve
hours, without food or water.
[Illustration: “SKEESICKS” WALKED UP.]
He was soon revived by a comforting dinner. He said he had been aroused
at midnight from a sound sleep to assume his turn as cattle guard, and
on his way from the corral to the herd, he had wandered apart from
his companion guard, soon becoming bewildered and completely lost. He
wandered about during the entire night, not knowing in what direction
he was going, and was all the while afraid to stop for fear of the
wolves that were howling around him continually. After daylight he
accidentally found the road, and although bewildered, he had sense
enough remaining to follow it to the west, whence he had overtaken us.
As the cattle were being yoked, Captain Chiles called up “Little
Breech” and directed him to get the large cow bell he had brought along
to put on the black steer that was in the habit of wandering from the
herd at night. The wagonmaster, with the bell in hand, walked up to
“Skeesicks,” who was sitting on a wagon tongue resting his weary legs,
and said, “‘Skeesicks,’ I am determined not to lose you again, and am
going to take no chances.” Then he buckled the strap attached to the
bell around “Skeesick’s” neck. Turning to “Little Breech” he gave him
particular orders to drive “Skeesicks” in the cavayard and in no event
to allow him to wander away again.
All that afternoon “Skeesicks” plodded along with the lame cattle in
the cavayard, at the rear of the train, the bell ringing at every
step. In the evening, after we had corralled, he went to Captain Chiles
and plaintively beseeched him to remove the bell. The captain gently
unbuckled the strap, but again charged “Little Breech” to keep his eye
on “Skeesicks” and not permit him to wander from the train.
[Illustration: HE PLODDED ALONG WITH THE LAME CATTLE.]
IX.
A KICKING GUN AND A BUCKING MULE.
Here for some days we were traversing a continuous level plain,
treeless and trackless, except for the road we traveled, covered with
buffalo grass, then turned a beautiful straw color by the sun and dry
weather, but still affording excellent pasturage. Not a tree had we
seen, none since we crossed the Arkansas.
We were slowly but regularly leaving behind us the monotonous plain,
to enter upon a region of great natural beauty and attractiveness. On
a beautiful morning after the train had been moving for a short time,
the Rabbit Ear mounds were seen, peering up in the distance, through
the hazy atmosphere. Yet we were a day’s journey from them. These twin
diminutive sentinels of the Rockies, stationed here to the left of our
road, could not have been more appropriately named, their resemblance
to the ears of a jack-rabbit being strikingly obvious.
A day or two after passing the Rabbit Ears we were fortunate in the
beauty and attractiveness of the location of our corral. Immediately
west of us the view was limited to a mile or two, shut off by the bluff
rim of a stretch of table-land, rising perhaps a hundred feet above our
level, the face of the elevation extending north and south, the road we
were traveling passing around the base of its southern extremity. About
midway of the rim of this plateau of table-land there was a small mound
of regular sugar-loaf shape, rising to perhaps the height of twenty
feet, on the top pinnacle of which stood a single buck antelope looking
at the train as it was starting out just at sunrise. There he stood
for some time stock still gazing at us. The morning was absolutely
glorious, the perfect weather of New Mexico. I determined to give this
solitary buck antelope a trial.
Procuring the big double-barreled shotgun belonging to Captain Chiles,
I mounted my horse, riding in almost the opposite direction to that
in which the train was moving. The buck held his position until I had
ridden nearly opposite him, my course, leaving him nearly half a mile
to the left, when he suddenly retired behind the mound. Immediately
turning my horse I galloped over the ascending ground until I got
within a hundred yards of the base of the mound, dismounted quickly,
walked rapidly up to it; then I crawled as quietly as possible nearly
to the top. Peeping around so as to get a view of the opposite side, I
beheld, forty yards from me, that fine buck, looking intently toward
me, with four or five of his companions lying down near him, so close
together that I could almost have covered them all with the big shotgun.
Holding the gun in the right hand--it was so heavy that I could
scarcely handle it--cocking both barrels, I pushed it out in front
of me, and just as I was in the act of placing the breech of the gun
against my shoulder, but before I had gotten it fairly in place, off it
went, both barrels simultaneously, sounding like a cannon, and kicking
me with such force as to turn me over and over, rolling me down nearly
to the foot of the mound. The gun struck my face, bruising it badly,
making my nose bleed profusely and stunning me, but not so badly but
that I noticed the bunch of fine antelope scampering off, frightened,
but untouched. My horse stood quietly where I had left him picketed.
Our real character, “Little Breeches,” antedated the poetical child of
the fancy of Colonel John Hay, introduced to the public some thirty
years ago. Whether this distinguished gentleman had any knowledge
of our cavayard driver, I do not know, but in truth the two “Little
Breeches” had similar characteristics, both “chawing tebacker” at an
early age, and our “Little Breeches” had the additional accomplishment
of swearing with emphasis, and articulation unexcelled or unequaled by
any of the older and more hardened “bull-whackers” of our train.
[Illustration: HE JUMPED AND KICKED.]
“Little Breech” rode a pony mule, a small animal of most perfect shape,
with activity to correspond. The noon day camp was breaking up, the
cattle were all yoked and hitched to the wagons. “Little Breech” had
mounted his mule, preparing to round up his cavayard. At the moment
the reins were lying loose on the mule’s neck, while “Little Breech”
had both hands employed in adjusting his belt. Impulse dictated so,
walking towards him unobserved, I picked up a stick, raised the mule’s
tail and gently placed the stick under it. The mule instantly clasped
it tight with his tail, commencing, before “Little Breech” could seize
the bridle reins, the worst spell of bucking I had witnessed on the
journey. He jumped and kicked and kicked and jumped for a hundred
yards, describing a semi-circle in his gyrations. I was alarmed,
fearing the boy’s neck would surely be broken. But failing to get
hold of the bridle reins, he clamped the horn of the Spanish saddle,
and, retaining his seat to the end, all the while swearing at me with
as great force as he could command, his volubility being very much
restricted by the prolonged bucking.
X.
A GRAY WOLF.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to find the derivation of some of
the Spanish or Mexican words and phrases then in use by the Santa Fé
traders. For instance, the word “cavayard,” I have used and spelled
as it was pronounced by these unlettered plainsmen and as applied by
them to the bunch of loose cattle and horses driven behind the train.
The pure Castilian has undoubtedly suffered many changes in New Mexico,
among the lower classes particularly. The Spanish words used by these
plainsmen had been both Mexicanized and then Missourianized until so
changed and corrupted as to be hardly recognizable at all. This word
“cavayard,” they declared, was of Spanish origin; if so it must have
been a corruption of “caballar”--pronounced “cavallyar,” meaning an
attendant on horses. The derivation of the word “hornada,” which we
found given to the dry stretch between the Arkansas and Cimarron is
equally obscure.
Among the teamsters was a Mexican, whose name I have forgotten. One
morning Captain Chiles got up earlier than usual, at break of day,
in fact, and, while waking up the men he discovered this Mexican
beating one of his oxen severely with bow of the ox yoke. This was a
gross violation of the rules, but when Captain Chiles censured him in
pretty strong language he talked back to him in a threatening manner.
Thereupon the captain, drawing one of the two navy pistols swinging
to a belt around his waist, holding it in one hand, and with a heavy
blacksnake whip in the other, advanced upon him and proceeded to give
him a severe flogging with the whip. The Mexican was held fast by the
threatening aspects of the navy pistol pointed at him all the while
until he had received a very severe flogging. The following night the
Mexican “skipped out,” and was never seen by us afterwards, but no
doubt made his way to the settlements of New Mexico, then not more than
200 miles distant.
Hunting game, other than buffalo, along the Santa Fé trail at that
date was, to one attached to a train and dependent upon its movements,
necessarily confined to a narrow scope of country on either side of the
road, within a mile or two. It was impossible to know at what moment
one might meet with Indians and be attacked by them. At that time
of the year the game was kept back from the highway by the frequent
passage of trains, while a few miles off from the road there was no
trouble to find antelope and white-tail deer. I was compelled to hunt
alone or not at all. My friend Reece had become too much worn out
by the travel and his continued ill health to take much interest in
hunting, while Captain Chiles was kept busy with his duties about the
train. But I was continually on the lookout for game; I rarely traveled
the road, but would ride a mile or so from it on one side or the other,
always carrying my holster pistols, and usually, in addition the big
shotgun belonging to Captain Chiles.
My buffalo horse seemed to have a very clear understanding of travel
over the plains, having, as before stated, the experience of a journey
from California to Missouri the previous year. He seemed to have an
instinctive idea of the locality of the train, even when it was
traveling, and often when riding him a mile or more from the road and
completely out of sight, when given the rein he would instantly change
his course in the proper direction to intercept the train.
Riding thus alone on one occasion, some distance ahead of the train,
I saw a large gray wolf galloping across my course, going towards the
road. I determined to give him a chase, and after him I went. The wolf
increased his speed, and, urging my horse to his best, we went flying
across the road 100 yards in front of the train and in full view of it.
As we flew by, the entire company of teamsters gave us an encouraging
whoop, but whether designed for me or the wolf I was not able to
determine. I had followed the big fellow closely for a mile, emptying
at him, if not in him, the entire twelve chambers of my revolvers. At
one time I got within twenty feet of him, but not having any ammunition
for reloading with me, nor time for recharging my pistols if I had, he
disappeared over the ridge and I saw nothing more of him.
Many days passed and many weary miles were traveled of which I have no
remembrance whatever and I am only attempting to relate such adventures
as were indelibly impressed upon my memory, the frosts of forty-three
winters having passed over my head since this journey was made. I
cannot recollect what I thought of the probability of those vast
plains ever being occupied or cultivated as homes for white people.
Whetstone creek, which the road crossed near the boundary of New
Mexico, was one of the localities of special interest to me. Back on my
father’s farm in Missouri I had often whetted my pocketknife on a stone
belonging to my old overseer friend who said he had obtained it on this
creek. But none of our trainmen were familiar with the route or the
locality, or could tell me where the whetstone quarry was to be found,
and I was disappointed in not being able to discover it after making a
diligent search for it. And now the spurs of the Raton mountains loomed
up in the distance ahead of us, a novel and interesting sight to many
of the company, some of whom had never seen any greater elevation than
the big hills of Western Missouri, and the drivers swore and cracked
their whips with renewed vigor and animation.
XI.
ARRIVAL AT LAS VEGAS.
Crossing the Ocata on the dry bed of it we were approaching Apache
hill, on the branch of the road leading to Fort Union, the ascent of
which was quite difficult to heavily loaded wagons. The hill was barely
visible in the distance and the hour nearly noon when we first came
in sight of it. It was quite hot under the noonday sun and we could
see the white sheets of a train of wagons descending the hill. Soon
afterwards Captain Chiles and I, riding ahead of our train, met the
wagonmaster of this train, a sandy-haired, red-faced fellow, sullen,
morose and non-communicative. He seemed inclined to pass us without
speaking, but Captain Chiles saluted him, and he halted for a few
moments. The man appeared to be sick, and as Captain Chiles afterwards
said he could scarcely “pull a word out of him with a log chain.”
The captain asked him, “How is the grass about the foot of Apache
hill?” when he answered, “Well, sir, it’s damned scase.”
Ten miles before reaching Fort Union we stopped at a ranch, where we
found an abundance of good milk and butter, kept in a well arranged
spring house, supplied with water by a cold and bold spring running out
of the foot of the mountain. The milk was kept in large open tin pans,
set in a ditch extending around the room, constructed so as to allow a
continual flow of cool water about the pans. The spring house was built
of adobe or sod bricks. This ranch supplied the fort with milk and
butter.
Fort Union had no appearance of a fortified place then; there was
nothing more than substantial and comfortable barracks, stores and
warehouses. But the place had a look of military precision, neatness
and cleanliness about it not seen elsewhere in New Mexico.
At this place our train was cut in twain; one-half of it, under the
command of Captain Chiles, went on to Mora, the other half was sent to
Las Vegas, in charge of the assistant wagonmaster, Rice. Reece and I
decided to accompany that part going to Las Vegas.
On the route to Las Vegas we found a large adobe ranch house,
probably a hundred feet square and sixteen feet high, the solid walls
being without openings on the outside, except two large doors. The
ventilation and light were secured through the openings inside the
hollow square. There was an extensive buckskin tailoring establishment
there, where they were manufacturing quantities of buckskin clothes of
various patterns, and I was surprised at the skill displayed in making
the garments. The clothes were made to fit with tailor-like precision
and exactness. Clothes of buckskin were generally worn at that time by
the inhabitants of New Mexico, by the natives especially.
As we drew near Las Vegas we noted that the “bottoms” of the little
creek running near the town were cultivated in corn, with occasional
patches of vegetables, the land uninclosed by fences, but flanked by
irrigating ditches supplying the necessary water, and the crops were
looking remarkably well, although the weather had been dry for some
weeks. We found it necessary to have a close watch kept on our cattle
while we were near these cultivated and unfenced fields. Las Vegas
was a compactly built little town of probably two or three hundred
inhabitants, the houses for the most part built of adobe bricks or
tufts of sod, with a corral in the rear. The herds of sheep, goats and
burros were driven in about sunset and fastened up for the night in
these corrals, from which they were driven out early in the morning
to graze during the day, under the constant eye of the herder, who
accompanied each band.
We remained one day only at Las Vegas. The wagons were unloaded, the
freight being delivered to the consignees, and we turned about and
started on our homeward journey.
While at Las Vegas Reece purchased three goats, thinking that their
milk would be beneficial to him. They furnished a bountiful supply of
milk, and very rich milk it was, too, though of a rather strong and
disagreeable taste and odor. He failed, however, to realize any great
benefit from its use, so far as I remember.
Our first noonday camp after we left Las Vegas was near a ranch, and as
we were resting under the shade of the wagons after dinner, the owner
of the ranch, a native New Mexican, visited us, with a good looking
shepherd dog following him. Reece expressed admiration for this dog,
which, the Mexican declared, was excellently well trained for herding,
easily controlled and a valuable animal in other respects. After
considerable negotiation, the Mexican agreed to sell the dog to Reece
for two plugs of tobacco. Reece procured a rope, and the Mexican tied
the dog to the rear axle of one of the freight wagons, soon afterward
taking his departure for his ranch a mile or more distant. Shortly the
dog became restless and made efforts to get loose.
The teamsters began to laugh at Reece about the uncertain character of
his newly acquired property, saying that the Mexican well knew that
he could not keep the dog, and that he would soon make his escape to
return home. Reece declared that he would prevent this at least and
went to a wagon and brought forth a gun. Standing the gun against the
wagon under which the dog was fastened, Reece resumed his efforts to
enjoy a noonday siesta under a neighboring wagon. He was aroused by one
of the drivers, who shouted to him that his dog was running off in the
direction of his home. The dog had gotten two or three hundred yards
away, ascending a ridge in a gallop when Reece jumped up, seized the
gun, leveled it at the dog and fired. To his surprise, no less than
ours, the dog fell dead.
We rejoined the other part of the train at a camp near Fort Union, and
here in this camp we remained for several days.
Captain Chiles was desirous of selling a part of the cattle, as the
whole were not needed to convey the empty wagons on the return journey,
and made frequent visits to the fort in his efforts to dispose of the
cattle. One evening he announced that he had made a sale of about
one-half of the cattle. The following morning a prosperous looking
gentleman of consequential air and mien rode up to our camp and
was introduced as the purchaser of our cattle. He was riding a fine
horse, with saddle and other equipment to correspond. Among his other
attractive features, I can recollect a large flask of brandy which he
carried lashed to the front of his saddle, the flask being protected
by a wicker jacket. Generous gentleman, as he proved, the first thing
he said after the usual salutation was an invitation to sample the
contents of this flask, and this invitation the common politeness of
the plains prevented us from declining. We found his brandy excellent,
and its effect produced a lasting remembrance of the personality of the
gentleman himself.
The cattle purchased by him were cut out and separated from the others.
The owner said he intended driving them to some point in New Mexico, a
considerable distance from there. On inquiring for some hands whom he
could employ to drive them to their destination, one or two were found
in the party who would accept the service offered, and then some one
suggested that a job of this sort would suit “Skeesicks,” who was still
hanging to the train.
“Skeesicks,” with apparent reluctance, accepted the service and wages
offered, and in a few moments afterwards left us forever. I could
not avoid feeling sorry for him, as he slowly passed from our view,
trudging along on foot behind the herd of cattle. We never heard of him
afterwards.
While at this camp a Mexican youth, about 16 years of age, came to the
train and asked permission to accompany us to the “States.” He was
a bright, active boy, able to understand and speak English in some
degree, appearing immensely pleased when Captain Chiles told him that
he might come along with us if he desired.
During the night some of the trainmen ascertained that he was a “peon,”
consequently having no right to leave the territory. When the train
started the next morning, at the suggestion of the men, he secreted
himself in one of the covered wagons. Before noon, however, two
horsemen were seen following us, coming on in a fast gallop. They were
officers of the law, armed with pistols and a writ for the arrest of
the boy. The trainmen pretended to be ignorant of his presence with
the train, but the officers said they knew he was with the train,
demanding of Captain Chiles that he stop the train so they might search
for him. In order to avoid being subjected to the charge of resisting
the officers, the captain ordered a halt. The officers soon discovered
the boy concealed beneath some bedding, dragged him out and put him
on one of their horses. The poor boy protested with all his might
against being taken back, crying all the while in a distressing manner,
arousing the feelings of the trainmen until they were about to declare
war on the officers, but Captain Chiles said it would not do to resist
the civil authorities. So the little fellow was carried back to his
condition of slavery or peonage as it was called by the officers.
[Illustration: THE OFFICERS DRAGGED HIM OUT.]
At noon that day our camp was near the base of a mound of broken rock,
perhaps a hundred feet high, rounded to a sharp pinnacle at its apex.
The mound supported hardly a bit of vegetation on its sides, which were
nearly inaccessible. The goats purchased by Reece had been driven along
in the cavayard, apparently reconciled to their new mode of life and
daily travel. That day, as the wagons were moving out of corral, Reece
missed his goats. I joined him in a search for them, riding about over
the plain, and we had about reached the conclusion that they had run
away. Just then as the wagons were moving from the corral one of the
teamsters shouted to Reece, “There are your goats!” pointing to the
summit of the steep mound of rock.
Sure enough, there were the three goats, standing in a row on the
topmost rock, looking at us with the utmost satisfaction and composure.
Nothing but a goat could either ascend or descend the declivity, so
Reece and I remained until they thought proper to come down. This they
did in the course of an hour, when we drove them on, overtaking the
train as it went into camp at nightfall.
XII.
IN PERIL OF INDIANS.
The return journey was for the most part uneventful, but with empty
wagons we could travel more rapidly.
On our reaching the crossing of the Arkansas we found there a company
of dragoons, and the officers informed us that they had been fighting
and chasing the Cheyennes all summer, having just halted there in
following one band of these Indians to the Arkansas river. They had
been forced to abandon their provision wagons some days before we saw
them, and were almost entirely out of food. The artillery had also been
left behind two or three days’ march down the Arkansas river. These
troops, a part of Colonel Sumner’s regiment, had had several brushes
with the Cheyennes, and captured a lot of horses from the Indians. The
soldiers, their horses and equipments, gave every evidence of having
undergone a severe campaign, and they came around our camp begging
for something to eat, tobacco and whisky, much as the Indians were in
the habit of doing. But our ability to relieve their wants was very
limited, having with us only supplies enough for our own party back to
the settlements.
The officers said that it would be hazardous for us to proceed further,
advising our captain to remain until the trains in our rear could get
up, until they had accumulated to at least one hundred wagons and men,
when we would be strong enough to resist any attack that we were likely
to be subjected to.
Acting on this advice, we remained in camp several days, until five
or six trains had arrived and camped in our immediate vicinity. The
journey was then resumed, our train taking the lead, all our weapons of
defense being put in as good order as possible. After the trains were
under way the wagonmasters of those behind us, to the number of ten or
a dozen, mounted on horses and mules, would ride ahead to join Captain
Chiles, Reece and myself, thus forming a lively and agreeable company
of companionable men.
As we were thus riding along down the level bottom of the Arkansas,
some distance in advance of the trains away to our right a mile
or more, out near the bank of the river, where we could see some
scattering cottonwood trees, we observed a smoke rising from a camp
fire. Some one of the party suggested that it was the smoke of the
camp of the artillery company, of which we had been told, so we rode
forward, giving little more attention to the smoke of the camp fire
that went curling upward among the cottonwood. When we had reached a
point about opposite the smoke there suddenly appeared in our view
a company of some fifty horsemen, riding pell-mell in a fast gallop
towards us. They were yet too far off to be distinctly seen or for us
to tell what manner of men they were. In another moment, Captain Chiles
exclaimed:
“Men, they are Indians! Soldiers don’t ride in that disorderly manner.
Form a line and get out your guns. We are in for it!”
Instantly all hands obeyed his command, forming a line, facing the
enemy, each of us drawing a pistol. The lead wagons of our train were
just barely visible, probably two miles from us. When the approaching
horsemen saw that we had formed a line of battle, they instantly drew
rein, slackening their speed to a walk, but kept steadily drawing
nearer us.
[Illustration: “MEN, THEY ARE INDIANS!”]
In a few minutes our anxiety was relieved when these horsemen came near
enough for us to see that they were white men, not Indians, and, after
all, they proved to be the company of artillery, mounted on some Indian
horses that had lately been captured from the Cheyennes. Under the
circumstances it was not at all strange that we had mistaken them for
hostile Indians.
The next morning after this the wagonmasters of these several trains
came forward as usual, and we set out to travel in advance of the
trains, hoping to find buffalo as we had again reached their accustomed
range.
I had the only real good buffalo horse in the company, but his speed
and strength we found considerably lessened and impaired by the long
journey. In discussing the prospects of finding buffalo, and of killing
one for a supply of fresh meat, which we were all very eager again to
get, Hines, an assistant wagonmaster of one of the trains, suggested to
me that I should use his pair of heavy Colt’s army revolvers, which,
he said, carried a heavier ball and were more effective in killing
buffalo than mine. Although I was somewhat doubtful, I exchanged with
him. We had ridden forward but a few miles when we descried a herd of
some twenty buffalo, in the distance. The understanding being that I
was to lead off in this chase, I put spurs to my horse, the others
following. There were several young cows in the band, one of which I
selected, and pressed my horse forwards. In a few moments we were going
at a furious rate of speed, and my prospect of success was good, but
just as I was leaning forward, with pistol in my right hand, in the act
of shooting the cow, the stirrup leather of my saddle suddenly broke,
almost precipitating me headlong to the ground, but I escaped falling
by catching around the horse’s neck with my left arm; the heavy pistol
fell to the ground. While I was preparing to mend the stirrup leather,
having dismounted for that purpose, the other men of the party rode up,
the buffalo, meanwhile, having run entirely out of sight.
When I had gotten the stirrup repaired, Captain Chiles, noticing that I
was a good deal shaken up and unnerved by the occurrence, said that I
would better let him have my horse and pistols, which I readily gave up
to him, knowing that there was no man on the plains who excelled him in
a buffalo chase or one more sure to provide fresh meat. So he mounted
my horse, and I got upon his mule, and we all started off in the
direction the buffalo had gone. We had by that time reached a section
of rolling country on the “cut-off” across the bend of the Arkansas,
lying in great ridges, with valleys intervening. As we got to the top
of one of these ridges Captain Chiles, who was in front, exclaimed:
“Look yonder at that band of elk!”
There they were, perhaps two hundred of them, grazing in a valley a
mile distant. I immediately claimed my horse, for I did not want to
miss the opportunity of killing an elk, but the captain merely laughed
at me and started down toward the elk in a gallop. The elk, seeing
him, were soon all in motion, running in a great mass, stirring up
a cloud of dust, soon passing from our view around the point of the
ridge on the farther side of the valley, Captain Chiles following them
closely, the horse at full speed. After they had gotten out of sight
of us we heard the report of his pistol, two or three times, and our
entire party followed in his wake until we had reached the point,
where we thought the firing had occurred. Finding neither Chiles nor
any dead or wounded elk the men all, except Reece and I, refused to go
further, and turned about towards the road. Reece, who was riding his
big gray horse, and I, on the mule, continued riding in the direction
we supposed Chiles had gone, until we had ridden perhaps four miles,
when I began to feel a little uneasy, expressing a disinclination to
go further, as I was riding a worn-out, leg-weary mule, with nothing
but a belt pistol in the way of arms, and being in the neighborhood of
hostile Indians. Reece said to me: “You remain here while I ride to
the top of that high mound yonder,” pointing to a hill a mile farther
on. “When I get there,” he said, “if then I can neither hear nor see
anything of Chiles or the elk I will return here for you.”
Reece rode away. I remained alone for an hour or more--the danger
of the situation made it appear much longer than it really was, no
doubt--and finally I saw Reece and Chiles coming, greatly to my
relief. They were in good spirits, and as they rode up Chiles said they
had killed the biggest elk that ever ran on the plains, giving me an
account of his capture in detail as we rode back.
XIII.
CAPTAIN CHILES’ CHASE.
When Reece had got to the top of the mound he saw Captain Chiles,
sitting on a horse, holding by a rope a huge bull elk. The elk stood in
the bottom of a deep, narrow ditch, ten feet deep, with banks almost
perpendicular, so steep that he was unable to get up them or out of
the ditch to assail his captor. Captain Chiles, when he first caught
up with the band of elk, had made an effort to kill one with the
pistols, but for some reason he could only get the pistols to fire two
of the charges, and with these two he only wounded a cow slightly, not
enough to stop her from running. He kept after the band, all the while
trying to get the revolver to fire, trying every chamber, but with no
success. After he had kept up the chase for two or three miles the
large bull elk, being very fat, got too tired to keep up with the band,
but trotted along behind, in fact, so far exhausted that Chiles could
keep up with him with his horse in a trot. The captain despaired of
being able to stop one with the pistols, and, finding a small lariat
I had brought from the Kiowas as we went out, on my saddle, used for
picketing my horse, resolved to try the plan of lassoing the big fellow.
Being an expert in rope throwing, he had little difficulty in preparing
the noose or getting a fastening around the top prong of one branch of
the elk’s great antlers. As soon as the elk found he was restrained by
the rope he turned about and charged on Captain Chiles with all the
power and fury he could command, and twice or thrice the captain was
forced to cut loose from him in order to escape his assaults. The rope
was long enough to drag on the ground some distance behind him, so that
the captain could recover hold of it without dismounting, reaching down
and picking it up as the bull trotted away from him. He kept on after
him for some distance, occasionally jerking him back, and worrying
him until he could hardly walk. Coming to the lower end of the ditch,
washed out to a depth of ten feet, at a point a few yards above, he
managed to guide the animal, bewildered as he was by the heat, together
with the violent and prolonged exercise, into it, leading or driving
him along up the ditch until he got him in between the high banks of it
to a place where the animal could not get at him however anxious he was
to do so.
When Reece arrived, as above related, he found Chiles sitting there on
the horse holding the end of the rope, but having nothing with which to
kill the animal, not even a pocket pistol. Reece had with him a belt
revolver, and, under the directions of Chiles, he carefully crawled to
the edge of the ditch to within a few feet of the elk’s head and killed
him with a couple of shots in the forehead.
The bull had not been wounded by Chiles, and no one but a veritable
daredevil as he was would have undertaken the job of lassoing an elk
under such circumstances as he did. But Chiles was a stranger to fear.
Chiles, Reece and I got to the camp about 2 o’clock, near six miles
from where the elk was killed. After dinner we went out with pack mules
and the necessary hatchets and butcher knives, and two of the drivers,
to butcher the elk. The animal was a splendid specimen of his kind,
supporting a magnificent pair of antlers, fully hardened and developed,
and was fatter than any other animal of the deer kind I have seen,
before or since. We butchered and brought to camp on the pack mules
every part of his carcass, including the antlers. The latter were
brought home to Jackson county. We feasted on the flesh of the fat elk
for several days, and my recollection is that I never tasted better
meat.
The remaining part of the journey was uneventful, the entire party
remaining with the train until we were within eighty miles of the state
line of Missouri. Then, in company with Captain Chiles, I started,
before daylight, to make a forced march to Westport. We rode forty
miles before we halted for breakfast, obtaining it at a settler’s
cabin in the vicinity of Black Jack, arriving in Westport late in the
evening, in the latter part of September, feeling very willing to rest
once more in a comfortable house and bed.
I saw my friend Reece about a year after he had returned to his home in
Missouri still making a fight for life, but during the second year he
struck his flag and made a final surrender.
At Westport the drivers were paid off and disbanded, but I was not
present to witness the separation of the company that had formed a
companionship, offensive and defensive, during this long and tiresome
journey across the plains. Doubtless nearly all of them, in the
vernacular of the Western mountains, have “crossed over the range.”
Lewis & Clark’s Route Retraveled.
The Upper Missouri in 1858.
BY
W. B. NAPTON.
CHAPTER I.
In 1858, under existing treaties with the western Indian tribes, the
national Government sent out to them annually large consignments of
merchandise. The superintendent of Indian affairs, whose office was in
St. Louis, chartered a steamboat to transport these annuities to all
the tribes in the country drained by the Missouri--beginning with the
Omahas and Winnebagoes in Nebraska and ending with the Blackfoot, at
the base of the Rocky Mountains, around the sources of the Missouri.
Nearly one-half of the cargo of this boat, however, consisted of the
trading merchandise of Frost, Todd & Company, a fur-trading concern,
whose headquarters were at St. Louis, and whose trading posts were
established along the Missouri from Yankton to Fort Benton. The whole
of the territory of the United States then north of Nebraska was
without any legal name or designation; at least there were no such
territories as Dakota or Montana shown on the maps. At that time, and
for many years before, a steamboat load of merchandise was sent up as
far as Fort Benton by the American Fur Company, having its headquarters
also in St. Louis, and controlled mainly by the Chouteaus, to replenish
the stocks of their trading posts along the river. The trade of these
companies was exclusively with the Indians, the exchange being for
buffalo robes, furs of the beaver, otter, mink, etc., used for making
clothes, gloves, etc.
Colonel Redfield, of New York, was the agent for the Indian tribes
along the river from the Omahas in Nebraska to Fort Union at the mouth
of the Yellowstone. Colonel Vaughn, of St. Joseph, Mo., was agent for
the Blackfoot tribe, and that year had special orders to take up to
his agency, on Sun River, forty miles above Fort Benton (now Montana),
farming implements, horses and oxen, and to make an effort to teach
the tribe the peaceful art of agriculture. These Blackfoot Indians,
however, regarded agriculture a good deal as it is defined by our
humorous friend, Josh Billings, who defined it as “an honest way of
making a d--md poor living.” The Indians fully sanctioned and concurred
in this definition. I had received at the hands of Colonel Vaughn the
appointment of attaché to his agency, pretty nearly a sinecure, but
affording transportation from St. Louis to Fort Benton and back, if I
choose to come back.
The boat was a medium-sized Missouri River packet, nearly new, with
side wheels and powerful engines. Steamboating on the Missouri had
then reached the highest stage of prosperity. A line of splendidly
furnished and equipped passenger boats ran from St. Louis to St.
Joseph, providing almost every comfort and luxury a traveler could
ask. The table was elegant and the cuisine excellent, the cabin and
state-rooms sumptuously furnished, and last but not least, there was
always a bar where any kind of liquor could be found by those who
preferred it to Missouri River water. There were good facilities
for card-playing either with or without money, and no restraint in
either case. There was usually a piano in the cabin, and frequently a
fair band of musicians among the waiters and cabin-boys. These great
passenger-boats ran all night, up and down the most treacherous and
changeable of all the navigable streams. To be a first-class pilot on
the Missouri River was equivalent to earning the highest wages paid
in the West at that time. The chief pilot of our boat, R. B--, was of
that class. Just before he took service on this boat he had forfeited
a contract for the season at $1,000 a month with the “Morning Star,” a
large passenger-packet, running from St. Louis to St. Joseph, from the
fact that he was on one of his periodical sprees when she was ready to
embark from St. Louis.
After the boat got under way, I spent a great deal of time in the
pilot-house with R. B--, who I found a man of fair education and
considerable culture, a devotee of Shakespeare, quoting or reciting
page after page of his “Tragedies” without interruption of his duties
at the helm of the boat, a position requiring great courage and steady
nerves. R. B-- knew every twist and turn of the channel of the Missouri
from St. Louis to St. Joseph, knew every bar where the river was either
cutting out its bed or filling it up, knew precisely the location of
every snag protruding above water, and of many that were invisible
except at a low stage of water--in short, knew at all times, night or
day, exactly the position of the boat and its bearings.
The passengers formed a motley congregation. The two Indian agents,
their clerks and attachés, the agents, trappers and voyageurs of the
fur companies, mostly Canadian Frenchmen intermixed with Indians; a
few, however, were native Americans, a young English sportsman, Lace,
and his traveling companion from Liverpool, going up to the mountains
to kill big game. A young gentleman, Mr. Holbrook from New England, who
had just graduated at Harvard and was traveling for health, Carl Wimar,
an artist of St. Louis whose object was to get pictures of the Indians,
and a young man of great genius and promise in his profession, a
captain, two pilots, two engineers, two cooks, cabin-boys, etc., twenty
regular deck hands and, in addition to these, about seventy-five stout
laboring men to cut wood to supply fuel for the boat’s furnaces after
we had gotten up above the settlements.
We commenced cutting wood soon after passing Omaha, although we found
occasional piles of wood already cut on the river bank above Sioux
City, Iowa.
There were no female passengers and the boat had been stripped of
carpets, mirrors, etc.
Colonel Redfield was a staid, straight-laced gentleman from the East,
while Colonel Vaughn was a jolly frolicsome fellow of sixty-five years,
who had been thoroughly enjoying western life among the Indians on the
upper Missouri for many years, and no matter how late at night the bar
was patronized, the following morning, when one would enquire as to the
state of his health, he would answer with inimitable gusto, “Erect on
my pasterns, bold and vigorous.”
The fur company men were nearly all Canadian Frenchmen, some of them
having a greater or less degree of Indian blood in their veins. These
people had come down from their trading posts, starting just as soon
as the ice broke up in the river, on keel or flat-boats, bringing
along some furs and peltries, and had reached St. Louis in time to
spend a week or two there. Having settled with the fur companies at
headquarters in the city, the remainder of their limited contact with
civilization would be spent in seeing the sights of the city.
These fur traders, trappers and voyageurs formed a class now extinct in
the United States, a remnant of them yet remaining perhaps in British
America. The boat made no landings except for fuel, until we reached
the reservations of the Omahas and Winnebagoes in Nebraska.
Not long after embarking from St. Louis, a game of poker was arranged
and started among these trappers and played on a good-sized round table
made especially for this purpose, such a one as every passenger-boat on
the Missouri River was then provided with. The game was kept going a
great part of the time, until we reached Fort Union at the mouth of the
Yellowstone, the players having then been thinned out by departure from
the boat at the different forts as we passed up. These men were all
friends or acquaintances of long standing, and while they played with
money, no one seemed to care particularly about his losses or winnings,
in other words, there were no real gamblers in the party, the stakes
being only such as they could loose without repining, or which is still
more difficult, such as they could gain without undue exultation.
The conversation between them was really more interesting than the
game. They could all speak English and French and a half-dozen Indian
tongues, making their conversation and dialect in the poker game
singularly interesting.
Pappineau was one of the poker players, and his station was Fort
Berthold. He was a good-natured, vivacious, volatile Canadian
Frenchman, a general favorite, but not possessing the required
level-headedness to play a good game of poker. His finances were
running low even before he left St. Louis, and in consequence of this,
he found it necessary every few days to withdraw from the game. His
presence and talk were highly appreciated by the other players, and on
these occasions it was quite in keeping with the existing state of good
fellowship among them to notice someone “stake” Pappineau with five
or ten dollars, without any embarrassing stipulations for its return,
in order that he might resume his place in the game. On reaching Fort
Berthold Pappineau took pride in bringing his squaw on board the boat,
presenting her to those among us who were strangers, and he had no
reason to be ashamed of her, as she was one of the best-looking and
neatest Indian women we saw on this journey.
Carl F. Wimar, the gifted St. Louis painter, was making his first trip
up the Missouri to get a look at the Indians. He was a tall, slim,
lithe man of thirty, a swarthy complexion resembling a Spaniard rather
than a German, quick, active and indefatigable in the prosecution of
his work. When we got to the Indians he was always on the alert for
the striking figures among them. On reaching the Indians the agent
would invite them to a council, held in the cabin of the boat. On
these occasions Wimar would make pencil sketches of the assembled
Indians, and he did this work with great rapidity and dexterity. He
was also equipped with a camera and ambrotype materials, and could
sometimes induce the Indians to let him get pictures of this sort,
but usually they were averse to being looked at through the camera.
On one occasion above Fort Pierre while the boat was tied up swinging
around against a bluff bank about the same height with the guards of
the boat, a great big Indian came creeping up through the willows,
squatting down on the bank within a few yards of the boat. He was most
ornately and elaborately dressed, completely covered from head to foot
with garments of dressed skins, profusely ornamented with garniture of
beads, fringe, etc., and, as we afterwards ascertained, was a famous
“medicine man.” On his head an immense bonnet ornamented with feathers,
beads, etc., with a leather strap forming a sort of tail to the bonnet,
strung with circular plates of silver, reaching down behind almost to
the ground when standing erect. Wimar began preparations for taking
his ambrotype, thinking he might get it unobserved, but as soon as he
began looking through the camera at him the Indian jumped up, evincing
immediately his opposition to the process, at once drawing an arrow
from his quiver, and by his hostile demonstrations and talk made Wimar
understand that he would not submit. Then Wimar undertook to show him
that he meant no harm whatever, exhibiting some pictures he had taken
of other Indians, but he seemed unable to understand him and soon
disappeared from view through the willow bushes lining the river bank.
Carl Frederick Wimar was born in Germany, but brought to this country
by his parents in infancy, and, at an early age, disclosed his artistic
temperament and talent. Returning to Germany, he studied under the
great painter Luetze, the painter of the celebrated picture at
Washington, of Washington crossing the Delaware, copies of which are
familiar to the public. Wimar afterwards painted the fresco pictures
in the dome of the rotunda of the St. Louis Court House. I saw him
paint a portrait of Captain Atkinson, a son of General Atkinson, as we
were ascending the river, in the cabin of the boat, which I thought
denoted marked artistic skill as well as being a faithful likeness of
the man. Poor Wimar died with consumption five years later at the age
of thirty-four, ending all hopes of his attaining the highest eminence
of fame as an artist, that I believe he must surely have reached had he
lived to mature age. He was naturally an amiable gentleman as well as
a great artist.
Along the Missouri above Omaha, the country is mostly prairie, with
extensive bottoms on one side or the other, beyond the bottoms rising
gradually as it recedes to the general altitude of perhaps a hundred
and fifty feet back a mile or two from the river, the absence of timber
and gently undulating topography affording a good panoramic view from
the deck of the boat as she battled upwards against the strong current.
Just below Sioux City, a small town at that time, our pilot pointed out
Floyd’s Bluff, an oval-shaped hill lying at right angles to the river,
its base washed by it, and into which the river seemed to be cutting
and undermining. On the summit of this bluff we could see a post and
a pile of loose stones, as we supposed placed there to mark the grave
of Sergeant Floyd, the first American soldier to lose his life in our
then newly-acquired Louisiana Purchase. Sergeant Floyd was one of the
soldiers accompanying Lewis and Clark’s exploring expedition, who died
and was buried on this bluff as they passed up in 1804, and here in
this solitary grave he had rested more than half a century. Even then,
in 1858, there was no house or settlement in sight, and I remember to
this day the melancholy impression in my youthful mind, from his dying
and being buried in the wilderness so far from friends and relatives.
A late Congress did justice to his memory, performing a graceful and
becoming act in authorizing the erection by the Secretary of War of a
monument at the grave of Sergeant Floyd, appropriating $5,000 for the
purpose.
When the Indians were reached, the boat being landed, the chiefs would
assemble in the main cabin and a council be held with their agent.
The agent would first address them, his speech being conveyed through
an interpreter connected with the agency. Following we would have
many speeches from the Indians, many of whom were great speakers, if
not orators, forcible and fluent, speaking without embarrassment.
While these discussions were in progress, the artist Wimar would
avail himself of the opportunity to make pencil sketches of the most
prominent among them.