“We’ll make one more try, boys,” spoke Lieutenant Frémont. “The day’s
fine, we’re in good shape with food and a night’s rest, and Basil and
I’ve noted a narrow draw off the left that looks like a trail to the
top of the divide. We’ve got all day before us, and can take things
easy.”
“Good!” approved Mr. Preuss; and “Bien! Good!” echoed the others,
nodding.
“I didn’t expect to do this, when I let Kit and the rest go back,” said
the lieutenant. “But we ought not to miss this chance. The boy here
must represent the Taos crowd.”
And Oliver determined that he would if he could.
Enough food for one more meal was saved, and covered over with rocks
so that birds would not eat it. Then upon the mules they set forth,
to climb that highest peak. They felt fresh, the mules seemed to feel
fresh; and through the long narrow draw, almost a little canyon, they
made steady way. This was the defile which the lieutenant and Basil
Lajeunesse had discovered. Sure enough, it led up and out to the very
divide itself. And here they were, at last, mules and all!
The mountain chain now rose above them like a huge granite wall,
well-nigh perpendicular, and breaking, two or three thousand feet above
their heads, into a line of saw-tooth peaks. They were enabled to ride
along until under the Snow Peak itself; upon a grassy bench above a
trio of mystic green lakes, they turned loose the faithful mules, and
proceeded to climb afoot.
“Take it easy,” ordered the lieutenant, as they panted in the thin air.
Each picking what he considered the easiest trail, they gradually
strung out. The lieutenant had left his rifle down near the mules, and
wore his pistols; but some of the men had no pistols and some refused
to lay aside their rifles anyway, for it was against mountain-man rules
ever to move from camp without rifle in hand. Oliver carried his Kit
Carson rifle; and as he toiled to keep up with Basil and Mr. Preuss,
just in front of him, glancing aside he saw that the lieutenant, off by
himself, was halting, to change his thick moccasins for a pair of thin
ones. Then the lieutenant continued, lightly and rapidly, up a steep
bare stretch which he had found.
“En avant, mes braves,” he panted, cheerily――which was French for
“Forward, my brave fellows.”
He sprang ahead for another of the many irregular ridges or wrinkles;
what an energetic, tireless man he was, thought Oliver; he was almost
the equal of Kit Carson――and he was only an army officer and was not a
trapper. Up to the top of the next rock ridge scrambled the lieutenant;
and abruptly his voice sounded, thin but commanding:
“Look out! Wait where you are! I think this is it!”
He was bracing himself cautiously, as if balanced; and he peered
around, examining the horizon. More cautiously he stepped back, and
down a few paces.
“Now, one at a time,” he called. “No more. And be careful.”
Mr. Preuss climbed, stood, and in turn backed down; Basil Lajeunesse
did the same; and did the same all, Oliver last. Oliver found himself
upon a comb of gray granite, only about three feet wide, wind-swept
of snow, sloping keenly and breaking, in another step, to an icy
precipice――as the eaves of a house break beyond the gutter-pipes. Five
hundred feet below, like the roof of a porch, for instance, lay a great
snow-field, which sloped off to another precipice; and after this a
snow-field which might be called the ground below the porch-eaves
spread abroad to a ridge (which might be a buried fence) a mile away.
“Come down,” ordered the lieutenant of Oliver; and as cautiously as
anybody Oliver backed off.
The lieutenant mounted again, and the instruments were passed up to
him. He took observations; then tying his flag to a ramrod he planted
it in a crevice of the rock cap. Backing off, he drew his pistol.
“Ready!” he called; there was quick cocking of pistols and rifles;
“fire!”
“Crack-crack! Spat! Crack!” Flat were the reports, cut short without
echo; but the Stars and Stripes here unfurled had been saluted.
Lieutenant Frémont and Mr. Preuss were busily figuring out what the
barometer and the thermometer records would tell them.
“Thirteen thousand, five hundred and seventy feet,” announced
Lieutenant Frémont. “Probably the highest peak of the Rockies――and
certainly the highest flag in the world,” and he removed his hat.
They removed theirs, for a moment.
“Ma foi! And the highest bee in the world!” ejaculated Auguste Janisse,
pointing to his knee.
A bumble-bee had lighted upon it!
“I declare!” exclaimed the lieutenant. “Who’d think to find a bee up
here in the ice――more than two miles high! Well, my little chap, you
deserve to live if you can, but this is the best I can do for you,
in the way of flowers;” and gently plucking the numbed insect from
Auguste’s knee he laid him among the dried botanical specimens between
the leaves of a field book.
IX
THE VOYAGING OF THE PLATTE
Several days had gone by since, on this noon of August 15, in this
year 1842, the Frémont little squad, toiling where never before had
stepped human foot――foot of Indian nor foot of even hardy trapper――at
last stood upon what they believed to be the highest point of the
Rocky Mountains. To-day we know that Frémont Peak, at the western
border of Wyoming, is not the highest point of the Rocky Mountains;
it is outranked by many another peak; but mere figures cannot always
measure human endeavor, and in boldly assailing and overcoming this the
highest, most kingly peak within their knowledge, there to plant their
flag, Lieutenant John C. Frémont and companions show as fine quality of
spirit as though the crest had been a thousand feet further. They did
their best, to the limit of opportunity.
To-day is August 23. The great South Pass from which still onward
stretched into “Oregon” the wagon-wheel track of the first American
emigrants has been re-crossed; and again at Independence Rock, Frémont
has paused to inscribe amidst the thickly written names a large
cross――token of westward pressing Christianity and civilization. This
cross he filled with softened India-rubber, to preserve the trace. From
the Rock he continued east on down the Sweetwater to its mouth. Here at
its juncture with the Platte he is about to launch, on the morrow, his
rubber boat.
This boat (which smelled very disagreeable――“wuss’n the tar springs at
head o’ Yellowstone,” complained William New) was twenty feet long and
five feet wide, when unfolded, and had air-tight compartments to be
blown up or inflated so that it should not sink if capsized. It already
had capsized, once, on the Kansas River, at the start of the expedition
from Missouri.
Now the lieutenant was determined to canoe down the Platte, through the
canyons, to see what the river looked like where it was hidden from the
trail. Kit Carson shook his head over the plan.
“You’d better not,” he said. “It’s too dangerous. Thar air nothing but
red canyons, one after another, cl’ar till the Platte gets out the
mountains, at our fust camp above Laramie. Canyons air full o’ falls
an’ rapids, an’ some o’ those rocks sticking up will punch a hole in
that rubber contraption, sure. Fitzpatrick tried the trip, by boat,
once, an’ lost all his pelts an’ ’most lost his life.”
“Chut!” smiled the lieutenant. “My orders are to survey the Platte, and
that seems the only way to do it. With this boat and good men to handle
the paddle I’ll start at day-break and meet you at Goat Island for
breakfast!”
So was it arranged that the main portion of the company should cut
across by the land trail, as before taken, for Goat Island where they
had left the Platte for the Sweetwater on their way out; and that the
lieutenant and his crew should go on down by water.
The Taos party, including Kit Carson also, had been disappointed
over not climbing the peak, and Oliver had felt elated; but none,
not even Oliver, was disappointed over being omitted from the boat
crew. For his crew Lieutenant Frémont selected Mr. Preuss the German;
Clément Lambert, Basil Lajeunesse, Honoré Ayot, Leonard Benoit, Joseph
Descoteaux, who were accustomed to paddling.
Camp was broken at dawn. The rubber boat, stretched and inflated, had
been packed with ten or twelve days’ provisions, principally dried
meat, and with the precious scientific instruments, and with enough
bedding.
“Thar’s a thirty-foot fall down a ways! Hear her roaring?” shouted
Trapper New, as the boat-crew launched forth. “Watch out for her!”
The lieutenant nodded and gayly waved his hand. His men paddled hard,
the Platte was broad and smooth for several miles, and with its load
the rubber canoe glided rapidly down.
The land party watched for only a minute. They must cut across for Goat
Island, so as to meet the voyagers there, at breakfast――although the
lieutenant had said that if he reached it first he would leave a note
before passing on. However, he did not reach it first!
It was only about twelve miles across from the mouth of the Sweetwater
to the Platte at Goat Island. Here on Goat Island was found the horse
that had been left there to recover; she now was sleek and seemed
strong upon her feet, and very glad to see the other horses and the
mules.
By breakfast time the lieutenant had not appeared; nor did he and his
squad appear by ten o’clock. Higher climbed the sun, marching from east
to west through the great blue dome, and Kit Carson and all began to
grow uneasy. Close watch was kept of the river, for any tokens of a
wreck; but nothing unusual drifted down upon the swollen tide which ran
turgid with the rains and melted snows.
“Something’s gone wrong with that rubber contraption,” declared Kit. “I
knew it would. I told ’em so.” And he fidgeted here and there. “We’d
better ride up the river, as far as we can, on both sides, an’ find
’em.”
So while a portion of the party remained to guard the camp, the others
divided into two squads to scout either side of the Platte. Kit led
a little squad up on the right, Oliver was told off to ride with Ike
Chamberlain’s squad, on the left.
The country along the left side of the river waxed more and more
difficult, with occasional cross canyons and frequent ridges of red
and of white sand-stone interrupting. Some of these ridges and buttes
were fantastic, looking like castles and spires and lighthouses. Oliver
enjoyed the ride, but the obstructions only vexed Ike and the others.
At a point whence a good view was given up the river for a quarter of a
mile they dismounted, and seated themselves, and lighted their pipes.
“Hyar’s far enough,” declared Ike. “We can catch ’em if they come
floating past. They haven’t any business down in thar anyhow.”
Oliver lingered a minute; but this sitting here was rather stupid.
“I’m going on,” he announced.
“Wall,” grunted Ike. “Twon’t do you any good. Yonder’s the Fiery
Narrows. If they air wrecked in thar you can’t get at ’em, an’ if they
ain’t wrecked in thar they’ll come out.”
Oliver rode along. He wanted to see those Fiery Narrows for himself.
The broken country forced him out and back from the river; and when
he came in again he judged, from the roaring sound, that he must be
at the Fiery Narrows. The river here swirled wildly through between
reddish walls a hundred and more yards high. Slipping from the saddle
and cautiously approaching the best and firmest spot, holding his horse
by the lines Oliver craned his neck to peep in. The sight almost made
him dizzy. Glancing about from side to side he thought that he espied a
trail. Down he clambered, rifle in hand.
The depths of the Fiery Narrows were a terrifying place for a landsman.
The Platte, coffee-color and heavy with sediment, fairly boiled
through, without beginning and without end; its current dashed in foam
against up-sticking rocks, and spun from projecting shoulders; surely
no boat of any kind could live in such an angered turmoil!
Suddenly Oliver witnessed an astonishing spectacle. As his eyes shifted
from the opposite shore (which rose not so sheer, although still steep
and high) to scan up-stream, they encountered a dark object speeding
down upon the current. It was the Frémont boat――the rubber boat! And
hurrah――the crew were aboard; all were safe!
One man was kneeling in the bows, with paddle, to turn the boat
quickly; the others were ranged, paddles in hands, along the sides; now
and then they dug hard with their blades, to keep the craft bows on
with the current or to dodge a rock; but they came gallantly, and as
they came, they appeared to be singing. How fast they sped! Maybe they
would make it.
Lieutenant Frémont was plainly visible; so was Mr. Preuss. Basil
Lajeunesse was the one in the bows. He was wet; they all were wet, as
if they had capsized, already. Of course something had happened to
them, for they were late.
Then, in an instant, something did happen. Just ahead of the boat was
a little fall, where the current plunged over a ledge. It seemed to
Oliver that the boat could leap this; he wondered if the crew saw it,
before them; but he could do nothing, by voice or gesture, to warn
them. He held his breath, watching. Out into the fall sprang the boat;
but it did not clear――it toppled head-first, and spilling crew and
baggage right and left it reappeared bottom-up!
As it came whirling down, helpless and inert, heads broke up around it.
Lieutenant Frémont bobbed to the surface; he rose to his shoulders, as
he swam, battling the current and looking for his men. Twice he was
shunted from a sharp rock; and now he gave up and struck out lustily
for the shore. He landed, and landed below him Mr. Preuss.
[Illustration: AS THE BOAT CAME WHIRLING DOWN, HELPLESS AND INERT,
HEADS BROKE UP AROUND IT]
Now the boat had lodged against the Oliver side of the canyon, where
a rock shoulder out-jutted. Basil Lajeunesse had clambered upon the
upturned bottom, which looked like a huge turtle shell, and reaching he
grabbed somebody by the hair. It was Joseph Descoteaux. Oliver heard
what they said; they were only a few yards above him, and the words
drifted along the canyon wall. He had picked up a smattering of French
at Taos, where Kit Carson and others spoke it as well as Spanish.
“Lâche pas,” gasped Joseph; “lâche pas, cher frère!” (“Loose not, loose
not, dear brother!”)
“Crains pas,” panted Basil, sturdily. “Je m’en vais mourir avant que
de te lâcher!” (“Fear not. I’ll die before I’ll let you go!”)
That was a brave answer.
Basil hauled Joseph upon the boat-bottom. In one hand Joseph clutched a
double-barrel gun, which was Lieutenant Frémont’s. And now, dripping,
out upon a narrow strip of sand bordering the current, below, and where
Oliver stood, crawled Clément Lambert, Leonard Benoit and Honoré Ayot,
so that all the crew were accounted for.
However, there was no time for exchange of sympathy. Down with a rush
came the wreckage――blankets and boxes and record-books and pieces of
clothing, and even the iron instruments; for so heavy was the water and
so rapid was the current that the instruments had not yet sunk.
“Quick!” bade Clément. “Vite! Arrêtez-les!”
And he began to wade and grasp. From across the stream the lieutenant
and Mr. Preuss, encouraging by gestures, also were rescuing the
property. With a plunge Oliver seized a long black box which he knew
contained the telescope, but the current almost overthrew him, and it
whisked the box from his fingers.
Only a few of the things could be stopped; at last the lieutenant, with
a gesture in sign-language, said that he and Mr. Preuss would continue
on down-river along their edge, which was the left bank of the river,
and that the others should continue on down by their edge which was the
right bank. But Basil Lajeunesse, the boat having been turned over
again, boldly embarked, with a paddle, and took to the current.
“Hello,” remarked Joseph Descoteaux to Oliver, now that there was time
for greeting. “You saw us, n’est-ce-pas? Ma foi, but I was drowned if
Basil had not held tight.”
“That Basil, he is a water-rat; he is a beaver,” pronounced Honoré
Ayot. “We nearly were wrecked above, too, when the boat stuck fast and
the water flowed right over us. After that we would have driven the
boat by a rope paid out from on shore; but Basil was jerked in like a
fish, and all you could see was his head like head of swimming beaver,
as he was carried on down. Before he had caught up with the boat he had
swum a half a mile.”
“Yes, that is what he said when the lieutenant hauled him aboard.
‘Ugh!’ said Basil. ‘Je crois bien que j’ai nagé un demi mile――I verily
believe that I have swum a half a mile!’”
They all continued along the water’s edge, in the canyon; clambering
and wading and looking for articles from the wreck. A few record books
were picked out; that was about the extent of the salvage. Across, the
lieutenant and Mr. Preuss were likewise seeking.
“I’ll go back and climb out and make for camp, to tell ’em you’re
coming,” proposed Oliver.
So he did. He found in camp his own squad, and Kit Carson’s squad,
arrived ahead of him, they having seen nothing from the rim. Fires
were built up, and more meat was cut, in readiness. Late in the
afternoon Basil and Clément, Ayot and Descoteaux toiled in, afoot, over
the pudding-stone ridge and down to the island. They had abandoned the
boat at a narrow place where it would not pass through, and Benoit had
left to join the lieutenant.
At sunset the lieutenant and Mr. Preuss and Benoit appeared, descending
from the same ridge; they had waded the river to cut across some bends.
And right glad were all the voyagers to have the hot fires and the
roasting meat awaiting them.
“Told you you couldn’t get through with that thar boat,” reminded Kit
Carson, mildly, to the lieutenant.
“Well,” responded Lieutenant Frémont, “we were under instruction to
survey the Platte, and I felt that we should obey them to the fullest
scope. We did our best.”
The lieutenant had only one moccasin, and his feet were prickly with
cactus spines; but the next morning he seemed to be well recovered.
Basil was sent up to the foot of the Narrows, to bring down the few
other articles that had been rescued and left there. They did not
amount to much. All the instruments but the sextant were lost. However,
the saving of the record books was good fortune, and the instruments
had performed their principal work.
Now Fort Laramie was near. The next day Cache Camp was reached, and the
carts and other property which had been left there in hiding a month
almost to a day were found undisturbed. With mules hitched to the carts
again the expedition might victoriously trundle on for Fort Laramie.
The Black Hills loomed nearer, on either hand; and with the Stars and
Stripes in the advance the cavalcade on August 31 emerged from that
little defile which afforded the first, as it had afforded the last,
glimpse of the post.
From the parapet of the post burst a puff of white smoke; and
following, echoed a dull “Boom!” The post must have seen the flag.
“Boom! Boom!” saluted the single brass cannon, as on marched the
cavalcade; presently smaller puffs of smoke welled out, from beside
the post walls; that was rifles. Two figures came galloping. They were
Henry and Randolph.
“You said forty days――you said that you’d be back in forty days,” they
proclaimed. “This is the forty-second. We’ve been watching for two
days. The Indians have been watching, too, and the minute you left the
mouth of the valley they saw you and recognized the flag. Hear the
cannon?”
“Crack! Crack! Whang!” answered the expedition’s rifles, to the welcome
by the fort; and the garrison rushed out, with glad tongue and friendly
hand.
X
FRÉMONT CALLS AGAIN
Thus into that post of Fort Laramie which they outward-bound had left
on July 21, now on August 31 they inward-bound rode again, triumphant.
Nothing in particular had occurred here; ’twas they who brought the
main news――of a South Pass surveyed and a highest peak christened and a
Platte River boldly penetrated.
“And all we did was to wind an old chronometer!” complained Randolph,
disgustedly. “But I suppose we had to.”
The day after the arrival at the fort the Taos men, including Kit
Carson and Lucien Maxwell, started for home, southward; the Frémont
party were to continue on, eastward, down the Platte, by the Oregon
Trail, for Missouri; but at the parting it was understood that the next
spring, after the lieutenant had made his report to the government,
he was coming out with another expedition to explore along the Oregon
Trail west of the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River, and that he
would want Kit Carson again.
Down to old Taos rode the Carson trappers, home bent; and home they
were, ere the middle of September. Taos was glad to see them and to
hear their tales.
Sol Silver and his party were still out, of course, to remain until
the fall fur hunt. There was the fall fur hunt for all, and the fall
buffalo hunt to supply Bent’s Fort with winter meat. Then might the
Carson men settle to a winter at Taos.
It proved to be a cold and snowy winter; but right in the midst of it,
or about Christmas time, arrived excitement: three strangers, ragged
and frost-bitten and weary, reduced almost to eating their buckskin
clothing. A squad of Taos trappers brought them in from camp in the
mountains.
One of the visitors was a half-breed guide from the trading post of
Fort Uncompahgre, across near to the Grand River. Another was a tall,
lean, roughly bearded man, with hair peculiarly marked in white and
brown, deeply-set dark-blue eyes and large mouth. This was Dr. Marcus
Whitman. The third was also a bearded man, broad-shouldered, light-blue
eyed, with high forehead and calm mien. This was Mr. A. L. Lovejoy.
Dr. Whitman was a missionary doctor; he had been at the Green River
trapper rendezvous in 1835, on his way west; and in 1836 he had
led a party of missionaries including his bride and another woman
(first white women to cross the Rockies, they) from the Missouri to
the mission settlements of Oregon. Mr. Lovejoy had been among those
American colonists who last spring, under Sub-Indian Agent Dr. White,
had made the wagon-wheel tracks seen by the Frémont company, up the
Platte and the Sweetwater, over the South Pass, and on.
Now upon desperate mid-winter journey across continent from coast to
coast was hurrying Dr. Whitman, with his brave companions, to appeal
for more Americans in Oregon where the British also claimed the
country. The little party had cut south, from Fort Uintah of present
northeastern Utah, down through the mountains of present central
Colorado, aiming for Santa Fé and for Taos, to evade the plains Indians
and the deep snows. But the latter they had not evaded, and they
nearly had perished miserably. Once they had swum, horses and all, an
ice-encrusted river. And they had been obliged to kill their faithful
dog and eat him.
Dr. Whitman and Mr. Lovejoy had left the mission headquarters on the
Columbia October 3; now it was the middle of December; after a couple
of weeks’ stay at Taos, to gain strength, they pushed on, for Bent’s
Fort and the Santa Fé trail to Missouri.
The next event at Taos was the marriage of Kit Carson, on February of
this new year 1843, to the Señorita Josefa Jaramillo, only sixteen,
much younger than he. An exceedingly handsome girl was the Señorita
Josefa, with clear creamy skin and great black eyes and dazzling teeth.
The occasion was celebrated by a series of feasts and dances which
lasted through several days and nights. At the close everybody was
worn out, so popular were Kit and his girlish bride.
In March Sol Silver took a party of trappers upon the regulation beaver
hunt. The other Carson men remained in Taos, waiting.
“Wall, boy,” remarked Kit, to Oliver, when the members of the Silver
party were being told off, “which would you rather do――go up among the
Blackfeet, with Sol, or out among the Chinooks, with Frémont?”
“Frémont, and you,” promptly answered Oliver; and Kit Carson laughed.
“You’re liable to find it the hard trail o’ the two,” he commented,
dryly.
The spring waxed and waned, and came no word from Lieutenant Frémont,
save the word that his report had been made to Congress, had spoken
well of the Indian Country and of the trail through it, and that there
was much talk of a big emigration, over the trail, this year, for
Oregon.