at all discovered. Down they scrambled, amidst rock and snow; a pack
mule, slipping, rolled head over heels for 300 feet until stopped by
a ravine; the howitzer must be left midway of the steep trail, for
further effort; and night overtook them before they reached the bottom.
A real lake, with real grass, it was. By the lake were several dry
cedars, which fed fires to guide in the rearmost of the struggling
company. Finally all were safe, camp was pitched, supper was cooked,
the animals grazed contentedly. Above, were gloomy pines and snow and
chilling wind of winter; here below, were limpid water and tender grass
and mild breeze, if not of summer then at least of spring.
Travelling along the west shore of this Summer Lake in south central
Oregon (Klamath Marsh just to the west of it, and the ridge between),
the company rounded the southern end, and amidst much recent Indian
sign and a bleak country of marsh and sand and weeds and black volcanic
rock crossed eastward to another large lake. This is Lake Abert, named
by Lieutenant Frémont in honor of his colonel, J. J. Abert, Chief of
the Corps of Topographical Engineers, United States Army.
Dignified and worthy of the name appeared this lake, twenty miles in
length, and spread between black ridges; but as they drew near, a
shiver passed through the column, for the shores were drifted high.
“Look at the snow, captain!” cried Kit.
When they drew nearer still they found that they were barred from the
water itself by mud. A sickening odor filled the air, and the drifts of
snow turned out to be a disgusting, powdery white substance banked high
by evaporating water.
Thus deceptive proved this land into which they had been lured: a land
of fair lakes which changed to fetid pools; of streams which led on
until they ended only at the unwholesome lakes; of green grass sour and
salt-encrusted; and of bare black ridges which gave place only to more
bare and black ridges.
The Frémont and Carson company pushed on, the line straggling as the
weakening animals fell behind. Somewhere in this vicinity should be
Mary’s Lake; and beyond should be the Buenaventura, with rich grassy
bottom-lands and much fat game to cheer the heart of all.
Save for ducks, on the mud-engirded lakes, and rabbits in the
sage-brush, game here was none. Indian signs, as trails and as deserted
huts of brush, were many. The expedition must advance cautiously.
From Lake Abert they moved southward, past another lake from which they
were barred by mud, and Christmas Eve they camped at the south end of
yet another lake.
“’Tain’t much like Christmas Eve down in Washington or in old Missouri;
is it, Mistuh Frémont?” commented Jacob the colored youth.
“Oh, well, we’ll enjoy our Christmas all the more, next time, Jacob,”
answered the lieutenant.
“Water an’ grass air better than usual, anyhow,” vouchsafed Kit Carson.
“Might have a wuss camp.”
“’Xpect that’s our Christmas gift,” mused Jacob.
Around the camp fires they all proceeded to review the Christmas
celebrations such as they knew; and there was quite a variety: Kit and
Oliver could tell of the celebrations by the Mexicans in New Mexico,
the lieutenant and Jacob could tell of those in the South, Mr. Preuss
of those in Germany, the St. Louis French of those in St. Louis and
vicinity, the Canadian French of those in Canada, Thomas Fitzpatrick
recalled Christmas in trappers’ camp, Mr. Talbot that at his American
home, etc.
Oliver slept late, to be awakened by a great outburst of rifle and
carbine reports mingled with the “Bang!” of the howitzer. “Noël! Noël!”
cheered the French. “Merry Christmas!” joined in the lieutenant. All
wished each other the compliments of the season, and “Christmas Lake”
was the camp place called. An extra ration of sugar was doled out, as
Christmas feast. For this was Christmas Day, 1843, in the desert basin
of south central Oregon.
Southward led the trail, and still southward, for on the west the snowy
mountain range hedged close the course, and on the east the country was
ever desolate and repulsing. No Indians were seen until, December 28,
smokes were suddenly descried rising above the snowy sage-brush. On
at a gallop urged the party, and came so quickly to two huts, rudely
built, open at the top, that the sage fires were burning in them and
baskets and rabbit skins and grass were scattered about. Now several
almost naked Indians were visible, upon the near-by ridge, and others
were hastily climbing to them.
“Tabibo-bo! Tabibo-bo!” they shouted――or, in the Snake language:
“White! White!” And they tried to conceal themselves among the rocks.
For them galloped Kit Carson, fearless, holding up his hand as token of
parley. Just as fearless, Alexander Godey dashing out caught him, and
they continued together. They made a fine sight, these two gracefully
riding mountain-men――Godey with his floating locks as spectacular as
any Custer of the yellow locks, Kit Carson, not so handsome but more
steady, and both brave.
The Indian men ran as fleet as deer. Turning back, Kit Carson rode
right upon a woman, with two little children, hiding behind a sage
clump. She screamed shrilly with terror and shut tight her eyes. He
spoke to her in Snake tongue, and brought her to the lieutenant, at the
huts, where by presents and kind words she was calmed down.
The men would not come in, but from the women was it learned that they
were Shoshokies, or Poor-Snakes-Who-Walk: Root-Diggers of the Desert,
living upon roots and rabbits and dressing in scant rabbit-skins――a
wretched people, yet wishing to be let alone.
The first week of January, 1844, had been used entirely, and still
there were no signs of Mary’s Lake, nor of the Buenaventura River.
Since leaving the Dalles of the Columbia fifteen horses and mules had
fallen by the trail or had been stolen; the feet of the others were cut
and bruised; water and grass constantly disappointed; the trail was
blind; on the one hand were the mountains of the Sierra Nevada, on the
other hand was the interminable, desolate desert; pressing southward,
seeking the line of least resistance, marched the Frémont and Carson
men.
The company advanced cautiously, feeling a route. By fresh signs
Indians must be hovering about, watching, but none was seen. Then,
on the late afternoon of January tenth, the lieutenant and Kit came
hurrying into camp, with the news that they had been viewing a great
lake――a real deep-water lake, perhaps Mary’s Lake!
Like the waves of this reputed sparkling lake, swept through the camp
a wave of joy and of hope. The lake lay just beyond a little saddle
or pass which closed the end of the draw wherein had been pitched
the camp. The lieutenant and Kit had climbed a crest of the high
lake-shore, the better to survey; and there they had sat for some time,
feasting their eyes upon the dark-green water, white-capped and rolling.
“But Mary’s Lake is low and rushy, isn’t it?” queried Mr. Talbot. “At
least, so I understand, from conversation.”
“So I understand, too,” admitted the lieutenant.
“Wall,” drawled Kit; “we’ll see; but that big lake yonder doesn’t
look to me like the Mary’s is said to look. And when we come to the
Buenaventura we’ll know it by beaver cuttings in it. These basin
streams have no beaver, ’cept towards their heads in the mountains. But
the Pacific slope air full o’ beaver.”
“That’s right,” affirmed Thomas Fitzpatrick. “When we strike a stream
over here with beaver sign in it, it connects with the sea.”
In the morning the company moved forward at best pace――which was
delayed by the hobbling pack animals and the one ox who remained. Now
somebody――it was Baptiste Tabeau――struck up a paddle song; and Godey
and the lieutenant and Kit and Fitzpatrick and all joined in:
“Gai, gai, avançons nous!”
they sang.
“Gay, gay, advance we gay!”
And Oliver’s dog and Tlamath, the other Indian dog, barked wolfishly.
Up the slope of the pass they strove. On the top the snow was a foot
deep, but below, 2000 feet, filling a wide space between grim snowy
peaks lay indeed the lake――a mighty mass of dark-green, tossing and
tumbling. And one after another, as they saw, they cheered.
Camp was made at the foot of the pass, beside a little stream; as soon
as duties were performed, everybody hastened for the lake. Its shore
was rocky, cliff-skirted, mountain-guarded; and its strips of beach
were cut short by towering walls. The water was slightly tinged with
salt; and some of the granite boulders of the shore were coated with a
limy substance.
Indians had camped here before the white explorers; and following an
Indian trail, the next morning the company moved on, to the lake.
A furious snow-squall hid the waters, and drove the surf four and
five feet high upon the beaches. The trail, leading between surf and
rock-walls, in places was so narrow that the howitzer barely could pass.
Pyramid Lake did Lieutenant Frémont name this great water, because of
a curious rock, sharp-tipped, broad-based, like a pyramid, rising five
or six hundred feet, out in the midst of the water. And Pyramid Lake is
the place, to-day, on the western border of the State of Nevada. The
christening occurred January 14, 1844; and upon the rock-bound shore
was sacrificed the last of the cattle, driven clear from the mission
station at the Dalles of the Columbia.
Pyramid Lake certainly did not resemble any description of any Mary’s
Lake. An Indian clad in hare-skins as in a cloak was persuaded to
the camp; three or four more Indians were met on the trail along the
lake shore; and a chief invited the white men to his village, in a
cottonwood grove at the mouth of a river emptying into the lake. As the
company approached the village, the chief called in a loud voice, and
many Indians, with bows and arrows, appeared from hiding in the brush.
Here, at last, was a camp of plenty, for after the Frémont and Carson
company had taken a strong position in a grassy bottom of a bend of the
river, Alexander Godey uttered a loud shout, and pointed. An Indian was
coming, bearing a fish! And what a fish――pink, and broad, and more than
three feet long!
Eagerly the white men (and Jacob) gathered around the Indian. He had no
difficulty in trading his fish for a strip of scarlet cloth, and away
he trotted to bring another. Other Indians came hurrying, with fish to
trade; so that speedily the business was brisk. Never were fish taken
to a better market.
Mr. Preuss and the lieutenant pronounced them a salmon trout, probably
of flesh very savory and wholesome. Soon every man (not omitting
Oliver) had his fish, and was cooking it. Some tried roasting, some
broiling, some frying; the air was full of the rich fumes. Having
exhausted their supply, the Indians were running to the river, to spear
more.
Several of the Indians wore ornaments of brass buttons, as if from
the whites. However, as the village spoke a dialect of the Snake
tongue hard to understand, although Kit Carson and Godey and Thomas
Fitzpatrick did their best with the sign language, little information
was extracted. The next morning the march was resumed, up this Salmon
Trout River.
XVIII
FORCING THE SNOWY SIERRAS
No beaver cuttings were found upon any of the streams. High and
cold on the right continued the long tier of the Sierra Nevada
mountains――sometimes white and shining, sometimes dimmed by fresh
storm; blotched by snow, welted with bare ridges, brushy and bleak on
the left stretched for leagues unknown the desert of the Great Basin:
pent betwixt the two, southward through the mid-winter pushed the
wearied Frémont and Carson men. Around about, on every hand, welled
into the frosty air the signal smokes of unseen peoples.
Now on the third day, which was January 18, after leaving Pyramid Lake,
the lieutenant called a council, of Kit Carson, and Fitzpatrick the Bad
Hand, and the German Preuss, and Mr. Talbot the Washington young man,
Alexander Godey, Baptiste Bernier, and one or two others.
“I teenk,” said Baptiste Tabeau, “Meester the Lieutenant, he would try
to cross the mountains to other side, where all is warm. Kit Carson
say it very warm, with much grass an’ horse an’ deer over that side.
Ma foi――――” and Baptiste, who always was one of the jolliest of the
company, shrugged his shoulders, shiveringly. “I hope we go.”
“That snow look mighty deep, on those big mountains,” uttered Jacob
the colored youth. “But I guess we gwine to freeze to deff as easy as
we gwine to starve to deff. Marse Lieutenant an’ Mistuh Kit’ll get us
through, though.”
The council broke up; Thomas Fitzpatrick, hastening to look after the
animals, which were in his charge, made the announcement.
“We cross to the Valley of the Sacramento, boys,” he informed, passing
through.
At the news a cheer rang out. Kit Carson added to the enthusiasm, that
night, around the camp fires of cottonwood and sage.
“I war in the Valley o’ the Sacramento, summer o’ Twenty-nine, with
Ewing Young,” he related. “We’d crossed the desert from Touse. That war
my fust trapping trip, an’ it war fifteen year an’ more ago; since then
I’ve travelled pretty much over all the West, hunting the beaver, but
I tell you, boys, that thar country o’ the Californy coast beats all.
We entered from the south, an’ followed down the San Joachin, to the
Sacramento, an’ trapped that a ways; an’ the beaver an’ the otter an’
the wild hosses an’ the elk an’ the deer an’ the trees an’ the forage
war something wonderful. It snows on the mountains, we heard tell, but
down in the valleys it air green an’ spring-like all winter; a fat
country. Thar’s whar we’re heading, to-morrow.”
“Hooray!” they cheered, again. “No more bad water and salt grass and
starvation trail for us. Hooray!”
So the expedition turned west, for the towering white peaks not far.
While they were seeking for a pass (their eyes still eager to mark the
least trace of the Buenaventura), a strange figure came running down a
draw. While his legs worked steadily, he held up an arm as signal. He
was an old Indian, partially naked. He did not slacken until, out of
breath, he had seized with one hand the first hand that he could reach,
while with the other he extended a little skin bag, as an offering.
When he was done panting, and had been assured that he would not be
killed, he accepted presents for the bag of pine seeds; and after a
talk in sign language he was hired by scarlet cloth and beads and brass
to act as guide for two days. He stated that he knew of a good pass,
westward.
The pass was not a pass over the range; it was only a pass over the
first foot-hills. More Indians were induced by friendly signals to come
close. They immediately held out their little skin sacks of pine seeds.
In council with them the lieutenant asked for guides, again, over the
mountains to the country of the whites. But the Indians, squatting like
rabbits and murmuring together, refused. Their spokesman, standing,
pointed to the snow, and raised his palm to his chin, and then raised
it above his head, to show how deep was the snow. He signed that the
company should travel southward more, where there was another pass over
a lower range; and here, in one day’s journey, lived a people who would
guide through the pass of the great mountains themselves.
For bright cloth and goods the Indians agreed to supply a guide as far
as the people of the first pass. Supplied with pine seeds oily and
well-flavored and as large as small nuts, the company pressed southward
once more, among the snowy foot-hills of the eastern base of the giant
Sierras.
Mr. Preuss and party came toiling up the trail, from a secondary camp
where they had remained in charge of the baggage, and reported that
the howitzer was stuck fast. Even Samuel Neal, the blacksmith of the
expedition, admitted that the battered cannon was beyond rescue. Many
times had he repaired its carriage, during the months; it had been his
pet; but now he could do nothing for it. Sergeant Zindel concurred.
“Ach, a goot gun,” he grunted. “I would not leave it in battle; but
such snow and hills――――!”
Therefore, after its 3000 miles of service, from St. Louis of the State
of Missouri to the Salt Lake, and to the Columbia, and down into the
desert, here upon the upper West Walker River of the Nevada-California
border was left the brass howitzer.
Snow fell heavily, the cold increased; and all the shivering Indians,
except the young man guide, dropped away, to return to their village.
Frowning indeed appeared the stormy mountains, where awaited the first
pass, and the guide himself seemed ready to desert.
“Kit, you and Godey put him between you,” directed the lieutenant.
“Show him your rifles, so he’ll understand.”
And trudging afoot, like the majority of the company, to save the
horses, Kit Carson and Alexander Godey took each a side of the nervous
Indian and patted their rifle-stocks significantly. He rolled his
eyes in mute despair. The snowflakes had coated his dark skin, for he
sillily carried his blue and red cloth tightly rolled, in a wad, rather
than don it and perhaps soil it. Presently the lieutenant called:
“All right, Kit. Let him go. The trail looks plain.”
“Wall,” answered Kit; “mout as well. He says thar’s a hut near whar
he’ll stay till after the storm.” And with a single motion of his arm
he bade the guide be free――whereupon away scudded the glad youth, as
hard as he could run, for shelter.
As had been promised by the Indians behind, into the camp here at the
inner foot of the pass came other Indians. They thronged, mysteriously
as wild animals, to the fires; they were without fear, and were very
inquisitive. The lieutenant held again a council, to ask for a guide.
Kit Carson made the sign-talk for the company; for the Indians an old
man responded. The fires blazed brightly, illuminating the snow, and
the trees, and the Indians, squatting in a row upon logs or ground, and
the company lying about, rifles handy. It was a wild scene.
“Tell them,” instructed the lieutenant, to Kit, “that we have come from
very far, almost a twelve-months’ journey to the east, and that we wish
only to get across these mountains, into the country there of the other
whites.”
Thus Kit did. The old man answered more rapidly even than speech――for a
gesture conveyed a whole sentence.
“He says,” translated Kit, “that we can’t get over, now. Before snow
fell it war six sleeps across to t’other side, whar whites live; now
the snow air over our heads. He says we must follow this hyar river
down, an’ whar it empties into a lake thar air fish, an’ people, an’ no
snow, an’ we can stay thar till spring. Reckon he means that same lake
we war at――Pyramid Lake.”
“Tell him that we are strong and our horses are strong, and that we
will break a way through the snow. Tell him that we will give all this
cloth and those beads and other valuables, for a guide on across the
mountains to the country of the white people there.”
Kit did, evidently; gesturing as rapidly as had the Indian himself,
and pointing to the scarlet and blue cloth, and the beads, temptingly
outspread.
“Tah-ve! Tah-ve!” chorused all the Indians, shaking their heads. “Snow!
Snow!”
The old man plucked from the ground a bunch of dried grass; he
gesticulated, and grunted, and shut his eyes; and suddenly he left the
circle, in a great hurry.
“He says,” translated Kit, “that if we can break the snow, in three
days we’ll come to whar thar’s grass about six inches high. He’s been
that fur hunting elk; but beyond that his eyes air shut――he’s seen
nothing. Now he’s gone to get somebody who’s been further.”
Almost immediately the old man returned with a young man, and posting
him in the circle made a talk about him. Kit translated.
“Hyar’s a young man who’s been an’ seen the whites. The old man sw’ars
by the sky, an’ by the ground, that it air the truth. Mebbe we can get
this buck to be guide. I’ll try.”
“Melo, melo,” insisted the old man.
“Melo, melo,” nodded the young man.
And――――
“Melo, melo,” grunted all the squatting semi-circle.
“That must mean ‘friend,’” mused the lieutenant. “‘Melo’ for friend;
‘tah-ve’ for snow; we know two words, anyway.”
“Yes, he says he’ll go, if we give him enough,” announced Kit, after a
talk with the young man.
“Tell him we’ll give him blankets and scarlet cloth and beads and
moccasins and leggins, and more. He’ll be rich,” quoth the lieutenant.
The young man seemed satisfied; but to make certain of him the
lieutenant kept him and two others in the headquarters lodge, that
night――with Kit lying just within, across the doorway. And before they
all went to sleep, Kit and the lieutenant showed the three, by signs,
how from the rifles and carbines could speed a bullet and bore them
through and through.
[Illustration: KIT AND THE LIEUTENANT SHOWED THE THREE, BY SIGNS, HOW
FROM THE RIFLES AND CARBINES COULD SPEED A BULLET AND BORE THEM THROUGH
AND THROUGH]
All the night raged a snow-storm. In the morning the prospect was not
very inviting, but Lieutenant Frémont made a short address. Lean and
bronzed, hair and beard untrimmed, buckskin suit stained and patched,
he stood slender, erect, undaunted, his voice sounding with clear
emphasis.
“To-day, my men, we rest and make ready,” he said. “To-morrow we cross.
We might as well do it now, as at any time. It is our best chance.
To go back to the lake, among savages of whom we know naught, would
be folly; to go on southward, seeking some better passage, would be
folly. Here we are; there are the mountains; just on the other side is
the Valley of the Sacramento. It can’t be more than a hundred miles.
We’ve all heard Kit tell of the beautiful Valley of the Sacramento,
with its rich pastures and its fat game, where there is no winter.
Only that hundred miles away is summer, men. Think of it! Who would
stay here, on this side, in winter! My instruments tell me (and you
know they do not lie) that directly west from us, and less than one
hundred miles――in fact, about seventy――is the settlement of Captain
Sutter: that Swiss-American who went down into California from Oregon
in Thirty-nine, and has founded a post and a farm in the Valley of the
Sacramento. He’s a Missourian, too, and he’ll be glad to see us. Why,
I’ll wager that from the top of the divide, yonder, we can see into the
very valley. One strong effort, lads――one more strong effort, and we’ll
be in the midst of plenty. Will you follow the guide?”
“Hooray!” they cheered. “Hooray for the Sacramento and summer doings!”
“How about it, boy?” asked Kit, pausing as he passed Oliver. “Do you
wish you’d gone back to Touse with Ike?”
“No,” asserted Oliver, stoutly, as with stiffened fingers he stitched
at his ragged moccasin, to repair it.
“Thar’s the lieutenant. I reckon he wants you a minute,” continued Kit,
rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he surveyed Oliver.
Lieutenant Frémont beckoned. Oliver went over to him.
“Boy, we’re about out of meat, except for the animals which we need to
break the trail, and for a couple of rabbits; and we ought to be strong
to make a good start, in the morning. The men of your mess ask if they
may kill your dog, so that we can eat. He’s grown fat, I notice, while
the rest of us have been growing thin. What do you say?”
Oliver’s heart swelled into his throat, choking him.
“If――if you think best, sir,” he stammered. “But there’s that other
dog. Mine――mine sleeps with me. He’s――a――good――dog; an awful good dog.”
“I know it, Oliver,” replied Lieutenant Frémont. “I know just how you
feel. But he may be the means of saving our lives; he couldn’t die in
better cause, could he? That Tlamath dog is only a pup; we must save
him, to grow. Probably we’ll have to eat him later. But now――――” and
hesitating, the lieutenant with his piercing blue eyes examined Oliver
anxiously. “We wouldn’t ask it if it wasn’t necessary. It will be a
little sacrifice, on your part, for the general good.”
“Well――――” faltered Oliver, his voice so weak that he was ashamed of
it. “I remember――you and Kit told me I might have to eat dog; but I
won’t eat _him_. I won’t! The rest can.” And quickly turning away, for
fear that he was going to cry, he stumbled off among the trees.
Soon he heard a shot. That was it. Now his dog never again would nose
his hand, or chase rabbits, or snuggle upon his feet, at night.