THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
The picturesque red-sandstone cliffs of Red Buttes and the
granite-ribbed range of the Sweetwater Mountains were left behind us.
Slowly our train climbed up the gentle grade to South Pass. But this
thoroughfare over the backbone of the continent proved to be a
disappointment, as it failed to present the striking characteristics of
a mountain pass. In one respect, at least, its top is not unlike the
North Pole, for it is admitted by Arctic explorers (Cook and Peary of
course, always excepted) that they find it impossible to locate the
Boreal end of the earth with exactness. Similarly the transient through
South Pass is unable to determine within several miles where his pathway
is actually at its highest point. An expansive though shallow depression
is found where the summit ought to be, both east and west of which, as
we follow the trail, lies a broad, level plateau, and it would be
impossible without an instrument to ascertain which side is the higher.
On both sides the approaches to the Pass are very easy grades, each
merging almost imperceptibly into the table land of the broad summit. To
the south, along this great divide, the surface rises step by step and
many miles further away in the distance it continues on in smoothly
rounded mountain billows. To the north the ascent is also gradual, until
twenty-five miles from the trail there rises the base of Atlantic Peak,
which is the great southern spur of the bold and rugged Wind River
Range. From the slopes of this range issue the remotest tributaries of
the Sweetwater River, the stream we had been following. We saw not even
a rivulet upon the highland known as South Pass, the flow of which would
mark the watershed. Finally we reached Pacific Spring, a diminutive
fountain whence a scanty flow of water, oozing from the mud, crept along
for a time slowly to the westward. We then knew that we had crossed the
great Continental Divide. Here we pitched our tent, and further down the
brook the other outfits camped. Although the altitude is but seventy-six
hundred feet, the ground froze at night. Some of the snow from the
recent storm, which was said to have lain fourteen inches in depth a few
days before, still remained on all the lands above the pass. The country
for miles around was bleak and destitute even of sage bush. From a small
cedar log which we had transported a long distance to meet such an
emergency, we chipped a few splinters to build our fire. Each member of
our party being provided with a soldier's overcoat, we wrapped ourselves
in those garments and were soon to be found standing, very close
together around the little blaze. A blue veil of smoke rose also from
similar fires at each of the other camps, bearing through the clear air
the sweet incense of burning cedar, which was quickly followed by the
appetizing fragrance of coffee and bacon.
We were to make a long drive on the following day, for we had learned
that after leaving the Pacific Spring no water would be found on our
course within a distance of twenty-eight miles. As a start was to be
made at three o'clock in the morning, the boys began early to pull out
their blankets and find a warm spot for the night. But where is the
man with soul so dead, so devoid of all appreciation of nature when she
is in one of her rarest moods, who would not wish to watch a remarkable
sunset? The sun was sinking behind the mountains of the Bear River Range
which, white with the recent snows and extending from north to south,
lay one hundred and fifty miles distant to the westward. Far, far away
to the south and extending from east to west, rose the white-topped
Uinta Range, which south of us seemed to merge into the high lands of
the great divide, crossed by the pass and extending westward until it
closed in with the western range, forming the base of an immense
triangle of mountains, the eastern side of which was the Continental
Divide, upon which we stood. Extending northward from our camp, this
dividing ridge rises gradually until it meets the foothills of what is
now known as Atlantic Peak, which is the southern buttress of the lofty
Wind River Range and is twenty-five miles away. Continuing northward,
beyond two high intervening summits, this range culminates in Fremont
Peak, the monarch of that range, and, as later surveys show, still one
hundred miles from our trail. The apex of this triangle of mountains
lies north of Fremont Peak, beyond which rise the grand Tetons, one of
the most imposing ranges in our country. From the Tetons I have also
seen these peaks of the Wind River Range. Within this visible area of
mountains lies the highest watershed of North America, whence, from an
area of fifty miles square, flow tributaries to the Atlantic, the
Pacific, the Gulf of California, and the Salt Lake basin.
[Illustration: FREMONT PEAK AND ISLAND LAKE ON THE WEST SLOPE OF THE
WIND RIVER RANGE]
The triangular disposition of the mountain ranges as they lay before us,
at this time outlined by their snow-capped summits, is not clearly shown
upon the maps, but of such a form was the impression made upon our
eyes. Away down below us and between the sides of that great triangle,
thus walled in by mountains, lay the broad basin into which converge the
upper tributaries of Green River, a stream which in turn breaking
through the Uinta Range rushes southward to join the Colorado, and
thence onward through its titanic canyons to the Gulf of California. And
now, while the western mountains were casting their far-reaching shadows
across this broad basin beneath us, the cold, snow-mantled sides of the
Wind River Range were dazzling and glittering in the level beams of the
setting sun. From our point of view and at that time they were seen at
their best. It was not like an Alpine scene, diversified by mountain
lakes, waterfalls, and picturesque chalets, but it had a suggestion of
wonderful breadth and vastness and afforded a range of vision rarely to
be seen, except when one looks upward to the stars; but the whole of
that landscape of mountains, and the deep, broad desert which they
enveloped, was bleak and desolate, with never sign of animal life nor
trace of vegetation visible. Though to us it was a new country,
everything appeared to be old, as if through countless ages it had
remained unchanged. With this impression stamped upon our minds, many
members of our party wrapped their blankets round them and slept under
the open sky.
It happened on that night, one or two nights after the full of the moon,
to be my duty to stand guard until midnight. Hence it fell to my lot to
watch a dazzling, winter-like sunset in midsummer, which, because of the
prevailing whiteness, imparted hardly a tint as the daylight faded,
except what was seen in the star-studded azure above. After a brief
period of declining light there was a wondrous change when the clear,
cold, and pearly moonlight broke over the eastern highlands and lighted
up the vast, white, frosty landscape, for the moon was now in her glory
and,
"Chaste as the icicle
That's curdled by the frost from purest snow,"
and thus in harmony with the earth upon which she shone, for the distant
landscape was spotless white, and the vast stretches of mountain ranges
which, along many hundreds of miles, pinnacled the distant horizon with
towers and minarets, were covered with crystals of frost and snow.
It was at the break of the coming day when our little outfit closely
followed by Mr. Warne's party rolled out in advance of the long train,
and by sunrise we were following the very gentle descent of the western
slope, across sandy and gravelly wastes, which were relieved here and
there by barren, flat-topped clay buttes, for the sun had done rapid
work with the snow in the lowlands. The night found us at Little Sandy,
an unruly stream six or eight yards wide, which was doing its best in an
unceasing endeavor to make the dreary desert interesting. According to
the old Mormon diaries, (to which reference has already been made) it
was near this ford, June 28, 1847, that Brigham Young and his party
first met Jim Bridger. Jim was a famous mountaineer and guide, an almost
constant wanderer through those wilds, and might be encountered at
almost any out of the way place in the Rockies. On summing up the meager
records in the diaries, and my personal interviews with some of those
first pioneers, it appears that Bridger, with two of his men, had come
over from his fort on their way toward the Pass and had struck this
Oregon trail, probably at Green River. Fortunately for the Saints they
met toward evening near this stream. Learning that the traveler was
Bridger, the Mormons prevailed upon him to camp with them over night,
because he, above all others, was the man they most desired then to
meet, because of his familiarity with the Salt Lake Valley, concerning
which the Saints had no definite knowledge.
To reach Salt Lake they must soon leave the well defined Oregon trail.
The remainder of their course was to be guided, if at all, by the narrow
trails of the trappers. It was up and down these tributaries of Green
River and into the wilds of Pierre's Hole and Jackson's Hole, between
which lie the majestic Tetons, that the fur traders and hunters found
the most profitable game in greatest abundance. From among the men
engaged in this pursuit was organized the Rocky Mountain Fur
Company--Jackson, Green, Biddle and others, whose names are still
familiar in St. Louis, being interested in the venture. In later years
LaBarge, Sarpy, Picott, Pratte, Cabanne and other St. Louis men entered
the business. Many of the men occupied in these operations were Creoles,
the name applied to French or Spanish people born in America.
In memory of David E. Jackson, the magnificent valley on the east slope
of the Tetons was named Jackson's Hole and the beautiful lake resting
within its bosom was named Jackson's Lake. Thus in those valleys were
scattered several hundred pioneers of another type than men who have
carried civilization into our now older territory, with possibly the
exception of the upper lake districts. Some of them were French
Canadians or half-breeds, trained in the service of the Hudson Bay
Company. A few were expert marksmen from Kentucky, and with them were
many hardy Missourians, with St. Louis men as leaders. In addition to
those turbulent and apparently heterogeneous groups of nomadic
pioneers, there appear to have been many independent trappers and
traders, who also were restrained by no ties and subject to no written
laws. Although these latter were pioneer explorers and accumulated great
wealth for the companies that employed them, they were not the men who
discovered and developed the resources of the great West. Though
confronted by many perils and hardships, they loved their vocation and
the wild and wandering life along the mountain streams. Their passion
for the hunt was well expressed in the lines:
"Give me the lure of the long, white trail,
With the wind blowing strong in my face as I go;
Give me the song of the wolf dog's wail
And the crunch of the moccasin in the snow."
Of this type was Jim Bridger, a hero and a chief among the mountaineers.
In the interview that night on the banks of the Little Sandy, surrounded
by the exiled leaders of the Mormon Church, he directed the Mormons
where they should leave the Oregon trail, and then follow chiefly along
trappers' paths, and through the mountain canyons to Salt Lake Valley.
Those narrow paths, as far as they should be used, would be simply for
guidance. Along and beyond these they must blaze and clear their own
roadway for wagons, and must ford many mountain streams.
"But tell us about the valley itself," asked Brigham Young, after the
mountaineer had outlined the most practicable route to reach it.
"Well, Mr. Young," replied Bridger, "I wouldn't go into that alkali
valley to raise crops. I'll give you one thousand dollars for the first
ear of corn you raise there." He then proceeded to describe the desert
which surrounded the saline waters of the lake, in which no life could
exist. The substance of this conversation was recited to me one
afternoon at Bridger's home. At the time it occurred the Mormons had not
learned that the Salt Lake country had been ceded by Mexico to the
United States.
This interview between Bridger and the Mormons and the subsequent
turning of the Saints from the old trail, as there recommended by
Bridger, brings us to the point where, leaving the scene of that
conference, a small detachment of our party were also soon to turn from
the same trail and follow in the tortuous mountain paths taken by the
first Mormon emigrants, as mapped out for them by Bridger. Dan and Noah
and also the Warne family and others who had been our traveling
companions across hundreds of miles of desert and on excursions up the
mountains, were to continue with the big train on the Oregon trail. The
information that this separation would be made at Green River crossing,
then but a few miles before us, came to us unexpectedly. We knew nothing
of those western trails except those which we had already traversed.
None of these paths were shown upon our maps. The recent days had been
gliding by, as days sometimes do when brightened by the mystic influence
of congenial companionship.
It is needless to state that the boys deeply regretted the necessity of
so soon parting from their old friends Dan and Noah, and from Mr. and
Mrs. Warne and their obliging driver, Bill Swope. In this list we should
not forget also to mention the daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Warne, who,
being bright, cultured, and refined, seemed like exotics in that barren
wilderness. One evening, when Miss Margaret Warne was sitting upon a
rude box while others completed the circle around a sage bush fire, and
her soft voice was being listened to with rapt attention, one of the
boys whispered to his neighbor and said, "That soap box is now a throne,
for that girl upon it is a queen." The young man who whispered the words
was dead in earnest. Old Deacon Cobb, who owned many horses and whose
observations concerning men and women were of course made from his own
peculiar standpoint, often remarked the daring, freedom, and grace with
which the girls mounted and rode their horses. Dan had said that they
were fine conversers and well informed on general topics. These
attractive, winsome girls were going into some part of Montana that was
unpeopled by civilized beings, where it seemed that their light and
influence would be wasted, as would the sparkle of a gem in the desert
sands. The boys lamented this sacrifice of personal worth. They thought
little, cared less, and in fact did not then know, as no one then knew,
of the hundreds of emigrants who were to follow later and settle around
the home of this family and receive from it that uplift which, in the
establishment of a new colony, one family may exert upon the moral and
social life of the community.
As already indicated, the boys were hardly ready to say good-bye to the
young ladies, but it was impossible for them to present some reason why
they also should see Montana.
It is difficult for the present day traveler to comprehend the peculiar
situations and emergencies that sometimes confronted the western
emigrant in the early days, when they were as effectually removed from
the restraints, conveniences, and conventionalities of civilized life as
if they had been transported to an uninhabited island. An example of
such a crisis, even more striking than that in which our young men
found themselves when nearing that fork of the roads, was related to me
by a member of a family who shared in a strange episode, which
culminated at the parting of the ways which we were soon to reach.
It was in the summer of 1849, when a wagon train of emigrants captained
by George Scofield, the head of the family last mentioned, was slowly
crawling over this same road on its long way to the newly discovered
gold fields near Sacramento. Among the emigrants who had been traveling
under the protection of the Scofield outfit were a few who were bound
for Oregon. With the travelers who were destined for California was a
young and vigorous farmer from one of the Middle States, whose name was
Pratt and who was accompanied by his wife and six young children, the
youngest being an infant and the oldest hardly ten years of age. Mr.
Pratt, like the majority of the pioneers, had embarked his all, when he
started to cast his fortune in what was then an almost unknown
territory. The long line of covered wagons crossed the Mississippi River
and rolled out over the plains. In a few weeks the stock of provisions
was practically exhausted. Many of the horses were run off by the
Indians, leaving a heavy burden upon the animals which were left. While
the men were toiling by day and watching against the savages by night,
the women also had their work to perform and their vigils to maintain,
for the children had their weary hours.
While traversing the desert, Mrs. Pratt became a helpless invalid, and
in spite of her husband's efforts she and the children were suffering
from neglect. With her parents, bound for Oregon and accompanying the
train, was Miss Huldah Thompson, a strong, kind-hearted, young woman,
who became deeply interested in the unhappy condition of Mrs. Pratt and
her children, and with the noble impulses of a Florence Nightingale, she
voluntarily served them to the limit of her strength.
Weeks passed by, and one blistering hot day, while the train was
dragging along beyond the stream, Little Sandy, Mrs. Pratt died. The
train was ordered to halt while men and women held a council near the
dusty, covered wagon in which lay the remains of the young mother.
Nothing could be done except what always had been done when one of such
a company dies, where there is no cemetery except the broad bosom of
Mother Earth and no person within reach fitted to conduct funeral rites.
Therefore, while the train stood still, as stop the engines of the ocean
steamer while the body of the dead is consigned to the sea, the
sympathetic emigrants circled around the hastily dug grave by the
roadside in the desert, while the body from which the spirit had taken
its flight hardly an hour before, was lowered into its solitary tomb.
Then again the line moved slowly on the long drive toward the ford of
the Big Sandy, before reaching which no water would be found, and there
they camped.
Huldah had been a stranger to the Pratt family until they were brought
together on this pilgrimage across the plains, and now the day after the
burial, the train was expected to reach the forks of the road at Green
River, and Huldah, with her parents and other friends, was to proceed on
the Oregon trail, while Mr. Pratt was to continue under the protection
of Scofield's train along the new Mormon trail. Pratt was heart-broken.
Huldah was sympathetic and helpful to the last moment.
A new light began to dawn upon Pratt, and a new emotion rose within
him. If anything was to be done in response to this newborn inspiration
it must be done quickly. During the hours of the only evening whose
shadows fell after the burial, and before the expected separation, Pratt
and Huldah were engaged in earnest converse. This brief courtship was
concluded by summoning the Thompson family and Mr. and Mrs. Scofield to
a midnight conference on the bank of the Big Sandy. The Thompsons
finally yielded to the inevitable, and the definite approval of all
members of the little party was given to the plans proposed. The morrow
was to be a day of unusual activity with the emigrants because of
transfers of loads and teams to be made on dividing the train, and hence
the night after the burial presented the last opportunity to solve the
delicate problem then before the little group which had convened. It
must be now and forever or never.
There being no officer of the law and no clergyman in all that broad
wilderness who was authorized to perform the marriage rites, Huldah
without further ado and in the presence of the witnesses there gathered
at midnight on the bank of Big Sandy River consented then and there to
become Mrs. Pratt. On the following day the train reached Green River,
where Mrs. Pratt bade adieu to her father and mother and proceeded with
her husband on a honeymoon trip toward California, with many months of
travel still before her, along a route where possibly not even a hut
would be seen after passing the new Mormon settlement near Great Salt
Lake, at which point it was hoped that supplies would be obtained.
Although other emigrants who continued with the Scofield train failed to
reach the Eldorado of the West, Pratt and his wife, Huldah, with their
family, made the trip with safety and became a part of the remarkable
civilization that characterized the early California settlements.
We also had camped at Big Sandy, a stream varying in volume, but now
about three feet in depth and easily forded. A dozen Confederate
soldiers, then loyally in the service of the United States Government,
were temporarily stationed there, to afford a nominal protection to the
few trains then passing that way. In the evening, Ben, who was fresh
from his army life, led the veterans to recitals of many of their recent
experiences on southern battle-fields. One more day of travel brought us
to Green River. The country traversed is a barren clay land,
inhospitable, and apparently sterile, presenting hardly a blade of grass
to relieve the monotony of the scenery. The young people who had saddle
horses, caring little then for scenery, rode leisurely in advance of the
train and planned somewhat for the future.
A rough looking old frontiersman had established a ferry at Green River,
which, in conjunction with trapping wolves, and selling whiskey and
other necessaries, enabled him to earn a livelihood. His tattered
garments and the exterior of his hut and its surroundings left us with
the impression that he was not enjoying great prosperity. His charges
for ferrying seemed to be somewhat excessive, but the stream being very
swift and the water at points being ten feet in depth, we concluded
negotiations for the portage and camped on the further shore of the
river.
As it is our purpose to describe some of the movements that led to the
development of the West, we must here and there secure glimpses of the
emigrants who undertook that work, even though it be through eyes other
than our own. I find in a diary written by a member of the Mormon
pioneer train, that when that party reached Green River, to which we
have just referred, the company was there met by one Samuel Brannan who,
with other Mormons, had sailed round Cape Horn to Yerba Buena (now San
Francisco) intending to establish a colony on San Joaquin River. Knowing
of the proposed emigration of the Saints, he started eastward with two
companions, hoping to meet Young and his party. The diary states that on
his course Brannan and his party passed a camping ground where nearly
fifty emigrants had perished from storm and famine, there being but one
survivor, a German, who had subsisted several weeks on human flesh.
We return now to our night near the banks of the Green River. As it was
my watch from midnight and we were to roll out at daybreak, I retired
early with a few words of farewell to those from whom we were to
separate, leaving others to enjoy the later hours, as parting friends
are apt to do. It may be stated now that some of the boys later made a
visit to Montana, but for a time this thread in our story is broken. It
was in the gray light of the morning that each member of our party was
roused to his respective service. The teams were rushed in while the
breakfast was being prepared, and at sunrise all were off for the still
further West. The main train turned to the right, and our party to the
left. After a mile or more of travel we halted upon a hilltop, before
descending out of sight, and from the distance we heard the last shouts
of good-bye from the other train, accompanied by waving of hats and
handkerchiefs, after which our now very small party moved on alone.
[Illustration: RED SANDSTONE CLIFFS, ON WIND RIVER]