THE MINING EXPEDITION
The place away out upon the rolling plain, at which the unlucky
hunting-camp of the Nez Perce band had been pitched when the locusts
visited them, was occupied again a few days after they left it. The
new-comers were not Indians of any tribe but genuine white men, with an
uncommonly good outfit for a small one. They were one of the hundreds of
mining and exploring expeditions which every year set out for one range
of mountains or another to try and find what there is in them. They are
all sure to find a good deal of hard work, privation and danger, and
some of them discover mines of gold and silver.
This expedition consisted of two very strongly built but not heavy
wagons, with canvas-covered tilts, and each drawn by four large mules.
What was in the wagons except the drivers could only be guessed at, but
riding at the side or ahead or behind them as they came towards the
camping-place were six men and a boy. There were several spare horses
and mules, and the whole affair looked as if it had cost a good deal of
money. It costs a great deal to bring up eight men and a boy so that
these may be fairly included, but there were wide variations in the
external garnishing of the riders and drivers.
They had all been guided to that spot, partly by the general aim of
their undertaking, partly by the trail they were following, and a good
deal by a tall old fellow with a Roman nose and a long, muddy yellow
beard, who rode in front upon a raw-boned, Roman-nosed sorrel mare, with
an uncommon allowance of tail. When they reached that camping-ground it
was not late in the afternoon, but it was not well to go on past a deep
pool of water, surrounded by willows and cottonwood-trees, however
little grass there was to be had in the neighborhood. They had found
water and grass getting scarcer and scarcer for two or three days, and
there was quite enough in the look of things to make men thoughtful.
They knew nothing about the Nez Perces and the grasshoppers and the
wicked old mule, but the tall man in front only looked around for one
moment before he exclaimed,
"I'd call it--Been some kind of Injins here lately. No game, I reckon,
or they'd ha' stayed."
"No kind of game'd stay long in such a burned-up country as this is,"
added a squarely made, gray-headed man who rode up alongside of him.
"We've nothing to do but to push on. We must get out of this or we'll
lose our whole outfit."
"Sure as shootin'! I move we just unhitch long enough for a feed and a
good drink, and lay in what water we can carry, and go on all night.
There's a good moon to travel by, and it'll be cooler work for the
critters."
"It's our best hold. Sile, don't you gallop that horse of yours one rod.
There's work enough before him. Save him up."
"All right, father. But isn't this the camp? He can rest now."
"No he can't, nor you either. It's an all-night job."
Sile was not gray-headed. He was very nearly red-headed. Still, he
looked enough like his father in several ways. He was broadly and
heavily built, strong and hearty, with something in his merry, freckled
face which seemed to indicate a very good opinion of himself. Boys of
fourteen, or thereabout, who can ride and shoot, and who have travelled
a little, are apt to get that kind of expression, and it never tells
lies about them.
Sile's horse was a roan, and looked like a fast one under a light weight
like his. Just large enough not to be called "ponyish," and with signs
of high spirit. The moment the youngster sprang from the saddle and
began to remove it it became manifest that there was a good
understanding between horse and boy. Any intelligent animal is inclined
to make a pet of its master if it has a fair chance.
"Now, Hip, there isn't any grass, but you can make believe. I'll bring a
nose-bag as soon as you've cooled off and have had a drink of water."
He was as good as his word, and there were oats in the nose-bag when he
brought it, and Hip shortly left it empty, but in less than two hours
from that time the two tilted wagons were once more moving steadily
onward towards the West and the mountains.
There had been a hearty supper cooked and eaten, and there was not a
human being in the party who seemed much the worse for fatigue. The
spare horses and mules had taken the places of the first lot in harness,
and it was plain that there was plenty of working power remaining, but
there was a sort of serious air about the whole matter. The sun set
after a while, and still, with occasional brief rests, the expedition
pushed forward. It was a point to be noted that it travelled about twice
as fast as the band of Nez Perces had been able to do after they had
lost their ponies. It was not hampered by any heavily burdened
foot-passengers. The moon arose, and now Sile was riding on in front
with the muddy-bearded veteran.
"Pine," said he, "s'pose we don't come to grass and water?"
"Most likely we will before mornin', or before noon anyhow. If we
don't, we must go on till we do."
"Kill all the mules?"
"They'll all die if we don't, sure's my name's Pine--Yellow Pine."
"They can't stand it--"
"They can stand anything but starvation. Did you ever try giving up
water?"
"No; did you?"
"Well, I did. I was glad to give up giving it up after a few days. It's
the queerest feeling you ever had."
"How'd it happen?"
"I don't feel like tellin' about it jest now. There's too good a chance
for tryin' it again to suit me."
"Is that so? Pine, do you know, I wish you'd tell me how they came to
call you Yellow Pine."
The fear of either thirst or hunger had plainly not yet fallen upon
Sile, or he would not have asked that question just then. It sounded so
much like fourteen years old and recklessness that the great, gaunt man
turned in his saddle and looked at him.
"I'd call it--Well, now, you're a customer. Some reckon it's my
complexion, and I am turned kind o' yaller, but it ain't. It's my own
name."
"How'd you get it, anyway?"
"How? Well, my father was just like me; he was a wise man. He named me
after his brother, my uncle Ogden, and after Colonel Yell, that was
killed in the Mexican war. So I'm Yell O. Pine, and nobody but you ever
cared how it kem so."
Sile was satisfied as to that one point, but there did not seem to be
anything else on that prairie about which he was satisfied, and at last
his companion remarked to him,
"Now look here, Sile Parks, you go back and tell the judge, if I've got
to answer questions for you all night, he'll hev to raise my wages. I'm
thirsty with it now, and there's no water to spare."
Sile was in no wise disconcerted, but rode back to the main body in
excellent spirits. It was the first real danger of any sort that the
expedition had encountered, and there was a keen excitement in it. He
had read of such things, and now he was in one without the least idea in
the world but what everything would come out all right, just as it does
in a novel. Before midnight he had asked every other human being around
him all the questions he could think of, and had dismounted four times
to examine the grass at the wayside and see if it were of any better
quality. Each time he was compelled to mount again and ride on to his
father, "Chips."
When bunch-grass gets to be so dry that it will crumble in the fingers
it ceases to be of any use except to carry a prairie-fire in a great
hurry. It will do that wonderfully, but it will not do to feed animals
on, and it was needful to have something better.
When a halt was called, at about twelve o'clock, and a rest of two hours
was decided on, the barrels of water in the wagons were drawn upon for
only a moderate ration all around, and the animals plainly testified
their eagerness for more. They were not at all distressed as yet, but
they would have been if they had done that amount of work under
sunshine. When the moment for again setting out arrived and the word was
given, Judge Parks inquired,
"Pine, where is Sile?"
"Where? I'd call it--There he is on his blanket, sound asleep. I'll
shake him up."
"Do, while I put the saddle on his horse. Guess he's tired a little."
A sharp shake of Sile's shoulder had to be followed by another, and then
a sleepy voice responded,
"Water? Why, Pine, there's a whole lake of it. Was you ever at sea?"
"Sea be hanged! Git up; it's time to travel."
"Ah, halloo! I'm ready. I dreamed we'd got there. Riding so much makes
me sleepy."
He was quickly in the saddle again, and they went forward; but there
were long faces among them at about breakfast-time that morning. They
were halted by some clumps of sickly willows, and Yellow Pine said,
mournfully,
"Yer's where the redskins made their next camp. They and their critters
trod the pool down to nothin' and let the sun in onto it, and it's as
dry as a bone. We're in for a hard time and no mistake."