one side there were masses of square rock which looked like they were
broken by human hands. Here, far above timber line, a variety of wild
flowers blossomed, while among the rocks lived some of the strangest
little animals, the whistling marmot, a fur animal about the size of an
overgrown cat, and the peka, which has the legs of a rabbit and the head
of a mountain rat; there were also minks, weasels, porcupines and
mountain rats.
At the summit was where the magnificence of the great panorama burst
upon our view. Northward, away down on the bluish haze of the horizon,
rose the Arapahoe peaks--Long and Grey’s Peak, with their white summits
glistening in the setting sun. Northwest, Mt. Massive and Mt. Sheridan
were outlined against the clear blue sky, while the green sward of the
famous South Park, a hundred miles distant, lay between. College Range,
Mt. Yale, Mt. Princeton, Mt. Ouray and Cavenaugh reared their rugged
heads far to the west, while green mountain ranges of lesser note lay
half way between them.
Far to the southwest, far as the eye could reach, faintly outlined
against the sky, rose the snowy peaks of the Sangre de Christo and
Sierra Blanco Mountains on the other side of the grand San Luis Valley.
Looking to the south, were the Spanish Peaks and range of Greenhorn
Mountains, and a little to the southeast rose the snow-capped Gloriettas
on the borders of New Mexico.
To the east, lay the mighty plains, stretching away to where the blue of
the sky blended in coppery tones with the billowy green.
There were dark spots here and there that were dense forests of pine.
The cloud banners hung above, in all the gorgeous colors of sunset in
crimson, purple and gold.
A dark shadow crept out upon the plain toward the east, like the finger
of a mighty giant. It moved rapidly along, covering the yellow sand
lines that mark the course of old river beds, and finally, this shadow
of Pike’s Peak was covered by the shadows of other mountains lower down,
until the plain was shrouded in the sable garb of eventide.
But westward, the gold and crimson of the sky lingered long above the
distant peak of Mt. Ouray. The purple haze grew denser, and the silence
of the hour was made more solemn by the mountains standing out in dark
silhouette as the shadows of the night grew deeper and denser.
At such a time as this, one feels as though he stood upon the boundary
of another world, while all about the wide white waste and hush of
space, eternity and the infinite were calling to other glories, too
great for the understanding of the human mind.
Here, in the very dome of the skies, in this clear air, the bright
worlds seem to hover over, while the vault is strewn with stars, like
isles of light in the misty sea above our heads. The purity of the
heavenly prospect awakens that eternal predisposition to melancholy,
which dwells in the depth of the soul, and soon the spectacle absorbs us
in a vague and indefinable reverie. It is then that thousands of
questions spring up in our mind, and a thousand points of interrogation
rise to our sight--the great enigma of creation.
The harvest moon shed her yellow light over the distant plain, and
gilded with a phosphorescent light the rocks and crags of the almost
bottomless chasm below. The rocks took on fantastic shapes, while
distant mountains rose in spectral form.
I sat throughout the night, watching the ever changing panorama, the
most wondrous ever spread out to the gaze of man.
The moon and stars were bright above, while far down below storm clouds
had formed where within their inky blackness the forked lightning played
like so many fiery serpents.
There were thunderous crashes in the wild rocky pit below, where huge
rocks were shivered by lightning bolts, while echo, echoing back the
thunders of heaven’s artillery, would seem as though a legion of
imprisoned Joshuas were reaching upward again for that sun which would
stand still no more over the plains of Agalon.
The shades of night grew deeper and then the blackness was driven back
from the east by a flush of grey, gradually changing to a deep scarlet
tinged with yellow and the sun burst above a dashing sea of clouds.
There were purple and crimson waves below rising and falling in mighty
billows. A shipless and shoreless ocean whose raging bosom claims no
living thing.
An hour more and this purple sea of clouds has drifted on forever from
the sight of human eyes.
The summer sun beamed once more upon the vast panorama. Far down upon
the green mesa lay Lake Moraine, glistening in the morning light like a
molten mass of silver.
Smoke was seen to rise from Denver and Pueblo, both fully sixty miles
away. Some smelters in Cripple Creek and Victor could be seen with the
naked eye, while the streets of Colorado Springs were but sandy marks
like a checkerboard upon the plain.
I descended the peak on foot amid the beauteous scenes of green mountain
defiles, where dashing waters sing eternal symphonies amid ferns and
flowers, and the song of birds gladden the heart in their sweet echoes
from rock to rock.
XXV.
WHERE NATURE IS AT HER BEST.
If one would view the wondrous surroundings of Manitou, in all their
grandeur, let him some bright morning stroll up the long yellow road
that winds its serpentine course through Williams Canon. A little brook
with waters cold and clear as crystal, dashes along its pebbly bed
beside the road, murmuring as it were, a song of regret at leaving its
enchanted home on its journey to the sea. The road is known as Temple
Drive, named so because many towering rocks look, at first glance, like
ruined temples of India or of Egypt along the Nile.
At times the road narrows to barely carriage room between great high
cliffs, and again abruptly brings the majestic panorama of the canon
into view. High above, among the mountain crags is the Cathedral of St.
Peter, like a massive ruin whose cornice, column and frescoed walls had
fallen with decay ages past. A little farther and the Amphitheatre
rises against the cliffs in hues of brown and yellow, with brighter
streaks of golden ochre here and there, which fairly gleam and glisten
in the morning sun. High above and in the background on either side are
hills of emerald green, studded with cedar and pine, and dotted with
flowers of gorgeous color and of form, found elsewhere only in Alpine
lands. There are towering rocks that rise a thousand feet above the
road, which resemble the ruins of a Moorish citadel. There are towers,
mosques and temples, with turrets and battlements, needing only the
white-robed figure of the Arab in turban to make one fancy himself
suddenly transported to that enchanting and mysterious land of Sultan
and slave. No sky of Tangiers was ever deeper, clearer or bluer, and no
air of Geneva was ever purer or sweeter.
The road makes a sharp turn and traverses backward nearly half a mile,
then turns again and runs in its original direction, climbing the
mountain side like a great yellow serpent resting its head a thousand
feet among the crags, where eagles build their nests; the white and red
painted building that marks the entrance to the Cave of the Winds, does
duty as the serpent’s head. From this dizzy point of sight, the great
mountain gorge with its grey and brown rocks, and the sloping foothills
of green that stretch away to where fair Manitou lies cradled in the
valley, form a wondrous panorama.
Eastward, down on the horizon, far as the eye can reach, stretch the
mighty plains, westward the higher range of the eternal Rockies, and
above all rises the snow-capped summit of Pike’s Peak, about whose
whitened crest float the fleecy clouds of the soft, still summer
morning.
At the entrance of the Cave of the Winds one follows the guide into the
dark pathway that leads into the subterranean chambers, where at some
remote period a wild mountain cataract has whirled and plunged its
maddening waters, in swirl and maelstrom into the black abyss of
the earth. One is so suddenly transported from the gladsome and
awe-inspiring scenes without, that the lamp and figure of the guide
become spectral, his voice sounds in hollow tones and is echoed back
from cavernous depths as though titanic monsters were repeating his
words.
Knowing the cause, one bursts into a laugh, then the monsters laugh,
too, long and loud, and still others take up the laugh, way down the
black corridors, and high above in domes, as though all the imps of
darkness were there to laugh at one in revenge for intrusion.
The guide flashes a magnesium light and the pilgrim beholds the wonders
of Curtain Hall, which nature has ornamented with strangely colored
stalactites glistening here and there on the cavern walls, and again
where they form a curtain of an intricate work and beauty as though
wrought by maiden hands, amid scenes of love and apple blossoms. Mutely
you follow the flaring lamp of the guide into the blackness of winding
passages and across bridges that span bottomless pits opening into the
very breast of the mountain, and when the magnesium light is again
flashed, one sees the arching dome of the great canopy hall, its
stalactite nymphs, Bed of Cauliflowers, Frescoed Ceiling, Lake Basin,
Grandmother’s Skillet, Bat’s Wing, Prairie Dog Village and Fairy Scene;
all presenting a picture weird and ghost-like in the moment of
stillness, and heightened by the demoniacal, fiendish voices that
repeat your every word.
On through other crooked subterranean passages where other demons mock
the sound of your footsteps, through what the guide calls Boston Avenue,
one enters Diamond Hall. The lofty ceiling is decorated its entire
length by graceful festoons and wreaths of coral and flowering
alabaster. The walls sparkle and scintillate with the rainbow shades,
thrown back from the myriad brilliants that stud these walls like
diamonds set by hand in some antique mosaic work.
In these regions of darkness you are led by the guide until the Hall of
Beauty is lit up to your astonished gaze. Crystal flowers of the most
delicate design and exquisite workmanship hang in festoons from every
nook and corner. Sparkling incrustations that rival the beauty of Arctic
frosts and glitter in the bright light are sparkling on every side. Most
wondrous of all there are a million stalactite figures in miniature that
appear to be in a pandemonium of outlandish contortions. Maybe, who
knows, but what the goblin spirits once lived here and worked out
curious things in translucent stone, further down the black passages of
earth and caught a glimpse of our ancestors in some of the great halls
of torture way down below, and so reproduced the scene as Jack Frost has
been wont to paint the leaves of summer on our frosted window panes.
The Magi of this dark abode, the guide in wide sombrero, black eyed and
wearing a mustache fierce as a bandit of the Corsican isle, though
harmless as a Kansas Populist, beckons on and leads the way. Here the
Bridal Chamber, and there writhing reptiles, dancing devils, monkeys,
beasts, birds in every form and riotous posture. Then as the weird
wilderness is shut out in semi-darkness, one is inclined to ask of him
with lamp and sombrero, “Mister, have I got ’em, or have you?”
The light flashes on Crystal Palace, where gems and jewels bedeck the
walls, where huge chrysanthemums or chestnut burrs stand out in bold
relief in fadeless crystal flowers moulded from tinted rock, and all
seem to mutely plead for recognition as we pass. These silent beauties
hidden away under the mountain slopes, where the rays of sun can never
reach, speak with the beauty of their creation, to the soul with as
great a love and power as the violet in the sequestered glens.
It is mysterious. It is strange. It is one of those unaccountable things
in nature which no man can explain that here in the very bowels of the
earth, human scenes have been reproduced and human passions portrayed.
Here perhaps centuries before man’s eyes gazed upon the scene, we find
in moulded stone, the head of a buffalo, the skeleton of a mastodon, the
drapery of a palace, the bride at the altar, the face of sorrow, the
Nymphs of Love, War and Poetry are depicted upon these stones.
Once more the light of day, the great chasm beneath, the turquoise skies
above, and mighty plains beyond, brings one to the realm of the outer
world.
The spectral figure of an hour ago is a pleasant faced young man, who
bids you follow the winding path that leads around the mountain side
some three hundred yards and which ends at the entrance to the Grand
Caverns.
Desiring to see all, you meekly follow another guide through a dark
labyrinth and find yourself in the mighty Rotunda of the Caverns. Here
loyal hands have raised monuments to Lee, Grant and McKinley. They are
built of fragments of stone cast by visitors to the memory of these
heroes. The Imp, the guide, motions on; you are next within a mighty
auditorium and as there comes upon you the awful silence and stillness
of the hour, you hear musical notes, swelling and cadencing louder and
louder until they break in thunderous tones within the cavernous depths,
“Nearer, Nearer, My God to Thee.” High above, mid the domes of the
cavern, the light shows the organist to be playing upon the stalactites
which Nature has attuned to the same chords as instruments made by human
hands. These stalactites are of crystal, and have the same resonant
sound as though they were of finely tempered glass. Up and down the
corridors of the cave, through winding passages and circling galleries
above, come echoes of “Nearer, My God to Thee,” in waves and billows of
sound, such as is only heard by artificial means in the Notre Dame of
Paris.
Round about somewhere, in one of the chambers, near the entrance, the
visitor is shown a human skeleton, as it was found at the time of the
discovery of the cave. It belonged perhaps to that race of men known as
the Cliff Dwellers, who once upon a time, when the world was new, lived,
loved and reared a race of men in this fair region of the west whom
Saxby, a western poet, touches with his magic pen, and beautifies the
tradition of them when he says,
“Dismantled towers and turrets broken,
Like grim war-worn braves who keep
A silent guard with grief unspoken
Watch o’er the graves, by the canon weep,
The nameless graves of a race forgotten
Whose deeds, whose words, whose fate are one
With the mist, long ages past, begotten of the sun.”
The sun is now casting his shadows toward the east. From this point of
sight we see the Midland trains creeping from tunnels like monster
creatures of the Azotic period crawling from their lair. There are green
valleys below, and there is also a long serpentine road leading to this
side of the mountain by which visitors again reach the pleasant shades
of Manitou. Silence, and even sadness, abound in the green-clad
mountains beyond. They speak in whispers to themselves and you can
understand them if you will. They tell you in sweet, soft voices of the
song of birds, the lullaby of mountain brooks, and by gentle winds that
sing a song of peace through cedar, fir and pine, that the love of
nature, is the love of nature’s God.
XXVI.
WHEN THE WEST WAS NEW.
Thirty years have passed since I first crossed the plains. The buffalo
and antelope have disappeared and in their stead herds of cattle and
sheep graze in countless thousands. Farms are tilled where raging fires
swept the mighty plains in ungoverned fury; cities and towns rear
their spires where once stood Indian tepees. The westward march of
civilization has stretched across the continent and redeemed the desert.
The soil has been made to yield its harvest and the eternal hills to
give up their buried treasure. For the men who made the trails by which
these things were done, life’s shadows are falling toward the east.
They braved the vicissitudes of the western wilderness as heroic as any
soldier faced the battlefield; and the trails over which the pioneers
slowly made their way across the desert wastes, were blazed with blood
and fire. Women, too, on the frontier, volumes might be written of her
sacrifices--Indians, poverty, years of patient toil, far from former
home and friends, the luxuries of organized society denied, all for the
purpose of earning a home and a competence for declining years.
It was my good fortune to become personally acquainted with many early
pioneers of the west and number them among my warmest friends, and as I
recall to mind some of their heroic deeds I feel that these chapters
would be incomplete without a personal mention of a few of them.
* * * * *
Captain Jack Crawford, the poet scout, is one of those noble characters
whose memory will live so long as records exist of the pioneers who
braved the vicissitudes of the frontier and made possible our Western
civilization of today. A man of broad mind, daring and brave and yet
with all the sweet tenderness of a child of nature, he became great by
achievements alone. Others have gained a temporary fame by dime novel
writers. Captain Jack, in comparison with others, stands out as a
diamond of the first water. He has helped to make more trails than any
scout unless it was Kit Carson. That was before the war. During that
struggle he was wounded three times in the service of his country. When
the war closed he was for many years chief of scouts under General
Custer. He laid out Leedville in the Black Hills in 1876, and was of
great service to the government in the settlement of the Indian troubles
which succeeded the Custer massacre.
[Illustration: Captain Jack Crawford (page 208).]
Captain Jack is one of the very few thrown together with the wild, rough
element of the frontier who maintained a strictly moral character. I
knew him in the “Hills” in 1876 and have known him ever since, and have
always found him to be the same genial, whole-souled, brave Captain
Jack.
* * * * *
John McCoach, a pioneer of the sixties, was a among a party near the
headwaters of Wind River, Wyoming, in August, 1866, who defeated a
thousand warriors with the first Henri rifles used on the plains. The
story is best told in Mr. McCoach’s own language.
“Our mule trains consisting of thirty-eight wagons and forty-two men,
left Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in April, 1866, for Virginia City,
Montana. We were all old soldiers and most of us had seen four years of
war and, inured as we were to dangers, we cared but little for the
hostile Indians of the plains.
“When we reached Fort Laramie, a big council of Indians was in progress,
Chiefs Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, American Horse and others of lesser note
were there to demand guns and ammunition from the government, saying
they needed them with which to hunt game. Officials of high rank from
Washington were there to listen to them and among the newspaper
correspondents was Henry M. Stanley, who had been sent out by the New
York Herald.
“After days of deliberation the Indians were refused the arms and they
broke camp in bad humor.
“Before allowing our party to proceed the commander of the fort had us
lined up for an inspection of our arms which were a miscellaneous
collection all the way from an old muzzle-loading rifle to a modern
musket. He told us we were too poorly armed to proceed, when the wagon
boss took him to some of the wagons and showed him 200 Henri rifles and
abundant ammunition which we were freighting to gun dealers in Virginia
City. He then allowed us to go.
“I was herding the mules one afternoon near the headwaters of Wind
River, when a party of Sioux Indians, led by Little Thunder, made a
dash, intending to stampede the animals. One of them carried a rawhide
bag containing some pebbles, which made a hideous noise. Despite their
efforts, the mules broke for our camp of circled wagons. I tried to
shoot the Indian with the rattle bag but missed. Then I dismounted and
the next shot I cut the quiver of arrows from his back when he gave a
long yell and throwing himself on the side of his pony, got away.
“When I reached camp the rifles had been distributed. We were called
from our slumbers the next morning at four o’clock and told to keep
quiet and hold our fire.
“With the first gray streak of dawn about one thousand warriors began to
encircle us, riding at full speed and like a great serpent, drawing the
coil closer about us with each revolution of the circle. Then the order
came and forty-two blazing rifles with eighteen shots to each one dealt
out death. Four years of war had taught the men the value of a steady
nerve and deliberate aim and before the astonished Indians could retreat
the plain was strewn with their dead and wounded.
“These Indians had been at the Fort Laramie council and had seen us
drawn up in line with our old assortment of guns for inspection and had
counted on us being easy prey. They were the first Henri rifles used on
the plains and caused the Indians to speak of us in whispers, as the
white men who could load a gun once and then shoot all day. That morning
we built our fires with arrows and cooked our breakfast. After that the
Indians avoided us as though we were devouring monsters.”
* * * * *
The experience of John McCoach’s party in surprising Little Thunder’s
braves with their Henri rifles, calls to mind a story often told in
Fort Laramie of how General W. S. Harney fooled these same Sioux Indians
under Little Thunder a few years previous to their attack on the McCoach
outfit. Jake Smith, a soldier with General Harney in the 60’s thus
relates the story:
“General Harney established his headquarters in Leavenworth, Kansas.
Little Thunder was at the head of the Sioux and sent word that he was
willing either to fight or shake hands with the white soldier. Harney
replied that if the Indian was without choice in the matter it might as
well be fight; besides, as he remembered his orders, he was to whip some
one. So Harney met Little Thunder and about a thousand war men on the
North Platte in Nebraska. He whipped them good and some of the Indians’
friends back East tried to make trouble for Harney because he had not
had a long preliminary confab with Little Thunder. That Sioux band was a
mild-mannered set long after Harney went back to Leavenworth.
“It was after this fight that Harney threw the Society for the
Protection of Western Savages into a particular frenzy. The wagon trail
for Oregon and California led from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Kearney,
Neb., then to Julesburg, in Colorado, from there to Fort Laramie,
through old South Pass to Badger and then to Salt Lake. The trip by ox
train took about one hundred days with good luck. I know of a party that
was on the road 300 days, delayed by Indians and then snowbound. That
wasn’t a pleasant winter for a boy of 16.
“Every now and then a band of Sioux would ride up to an ox train, kill
if they felt like it and always drive away the stock. Soldiers would be
sent out and have the pleasure of following the Indians’ trail until the
weather would make winter quarters necessary. Harney started from
Leavenworth after one band, taking about 400 cavalrymen, or dragoons.
The Indians loafed along ahead of him till they reached the mountains,
and then Harney turned back. It was the old story, the Sioux said, and
their scouts followed the soldiers until they were well into Kansas.
Then the Sioux knew the country was clear for new operations.
“Harney stopped on the Blue River in Northern Kansas near where
Marysville now stands. A wagon train reached there from Leavenworth and
Harney had all the freight unloaded--simply seized the train--then he
put 400 soldiers into those wagons and in two were mountain guns. The
great covers were pulled close and leaving a guard over the abandoned
freight and horses, Harney started on his journey as a bull-whacker. Not
a soldier or officer was permitted to put his head from under a cover in
the day time, and only at night a few got leave to stretch their legs.
All day they sat in those wagon beds, hot and dusty, playing cards,
fighting and chewing tobacco for pastime.
“There were twenty-six of those wagons and they trailed along as if they
were carrying dead freight; no faster nor slower than the ordinary
freighters, and making camp at the usual places, forming the usual
corral of wagons and herding stock at night. The train reached Fort
Kearny and slowly went across the South Platte to Julesburg. Occasional
Indian signs made Harney have hope.